Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 November 4

= November 4 =

Which US metro area's white people are the most diverse?
(I guess this question's kind of like "who's the shortest NBA player"). If it's unfit for the reference desk due to fuzziness then I'll pick the arbitrary proxies "most countries 'about half' the commonest or more" (say 45+% the most common descent) or "most countries over 5%". Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 06:30, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not clear what you mean by "diverse". Irish vs. Norwegian, for example? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:42, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I found Scranton-Wilkes Barre, PA who's white people are over 21.59% Irish, 19.7% Polish, 19.23% Italian, 19.04% German, 6.67% English, 4.97% Welsh, 4.39% American etc. (over cause this is out of the general population and clicking the links shows higher numbers for the same census meaning the 9.27% who didn't tell were counted as a group of their own). The top 4 countries of origin are within about a power of 2 of each other (this would be impossible in an undiverse area like Fond-du-Lac, Wisconsin where c.70% of white people are German by first ancestry). And 6 or 7 countries are 5%+ out of a maximum possible 20. Can anyone beat that? It's white people might be diverse because it's one of the closest metro areas to Ellis Island but inland enough to be in Appalachia and the German Belt. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:52, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * It's hard to get good information, since many white Americans list their national "ethnicity" as "American". Indeed, as you can see at American ethnicity, there are at least 4 U.S. states where "American" is the most common ethnicity by self-identity.  This discusses the issue as well, and notes the top ethnicites for Americans.  -- Jayron 32 13:11, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * So I'll consider American an ethnicity just like English, Italian etc. to make the question answerable. The Census also separates French Canadian Americans from French Americans but I'll call both French and I'll call both Scottish and Scots-Irish Scottish even though not every Ulster Scot was Scottish. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:52, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * As a "French Canadian American" myself whose first documented ancestors moved to North America before the United States existed, that's probably not a great plan. French and French Canadian are as distinct as Spanish and Mexican are... -- Jayron 32 03:37, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I did not know that. Very well, the Census knows more than me then. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:38, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

They told me when I worked in Queens that it was the most ethnically-diverse county in the U.S., but according to this article from The Atlantic (with cool map!) that Queens is only third, after 2 census areas in the Aleutians. Catrionak (talk) 21:05, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I think I've heard that before about Queens. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:38, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Self-determination in part of an occupied territory
Ugh, as much as I understand the need to semiprotect the refdesk it makes me feel like I'm missing out on potential answers. So If you have a view on this question but no auto-confirmed account, please do post your reply on the talk page, and ask for it to be posted here.

I don't think this is an entirely hypothetical question. Israel annexed East Jerusalem under the Jerusalem Law. The U.N. responded with United Nations Security Council Resolution 478.

Now here's the question: Let's assume Israel held a referendum amongst the residents of East Jerusalem alone. Let's assume a majority of them voted to remain part of Israel, rather than join Palestine (not at all fanciful, by the way!). Would Israel then be allowed to annex the area, claiming that doing so was in accordance with the democratically expressed wishes of the residents, and thus respected their right to self-determination?

Of course, the tough question here would be defining who is a legitimate "resident of East Jerusalem". But assuming that this question could be resolved, could this be legal? The West Bank has no competing Sovereign power - it's simply (according to the U.N. at least) subject to Self-determination of its residents. My understanding is that if Israel were to hold a free and fair referendum throughout the West Bank on the West Bank becoming part of Israel, and the residents voted "yes", Israel could annex the West Bank legally. Of course, this is unlikely to happen, not so much because the Palestinians would vote no (bizarre as it may sound to some, I could see them possibly accepting the deal), but because doing such a thing would mean enfranchising the West Bank's Palestinian residents (giving them citizenship and the right to vote), frustrating Israel's goals of remaining "both Jewish and democratic". But in theory, it would be legal, as it respects self-determination. So if the residents of part of the territory (in this case, East Jerusalem) vote to join Israel, may the area be legally annexed? Has this question ever been explored?

It should be noted that at one point Israel actively encouraged Arab residents of East Jerusalem to exercise their right to take up Israeli citizenship, with the view that doing so would strengthen Israel's claims to the area. Not sure what the policy is now.

I note that the Serbs of Croatia tried something similar (declaring Serbian majority areas not part of the newly independent Croatia) without success upon Croatia's independence, and in Bosnia, with some success. But I have no idea if either case reflected International law, as opposed to status quo acceptable of the outcome of gruesome battles. Eliyohub (talk) 08:01, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Recognition of referendums seems to be very much done on a case-by-case basis - see United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. Palestine is not technically eligible to be declared a Non-Self-Governing Territory, since the UN declarations that created the list only named a few European/former-British countries as colonizing powers, but there is certainly precedent for the UN declaring a sovereignty referendum illegitimate because it was organized by an occupying power (eg. the Crimean status referendum, 2014) or because the majority of the population were settlers (Gibraltar sovereignty referendum, 1967). I don't think there's a single law that would definitely make the referendum legal or illegal - rather the interpretation of any law would depend on the votes of the Security Council (which would deadlock) and the General Assembly (which would likely lean more towards Palestine than Israel). Smurrayinchester 09:44, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Just saying, Crimea is a bad example, as it was part of another sovereign state, which the West Bank is not. Self-determination is a much murkier concept when it comes to tearing territory off existing states. My understanding is that U.N. resolutions regarding the Palestinians clearly and explicitly refer to their right to self-determination. So wouldn't this clearly infer a right to join Israel, if the democratic process expressing that choice was acknowledged as free and fair, and settlers were excuded from the vote? Anyway, my question is more about whether the West Bank has some sort of right to "territorial integrity" per se, or can this self-determination be decided by the residents area by area? In South Sudan, I believe they did allow individual districts along the border to decide which country they wanted to be part of. Could the same apply in the West Bank? Eliyohub (talk) 11:02, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The problem in general with binding referenda like this is tyranny of the majority, the notion that one group of people is allowed to violate the civil and human rights of a different group of people that share a territory with them merely because they have a numerical advantage. Oppression enshrined in a vote is still oppression, and it doesn't become right because it was agreed to by more people than those that opposed it.  -- Jayron 32 11:39, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Whilst "tyranny of the majority" is a problem in democracies, I rather fail to see how it applies to this specific case any more than any democratic initiative. "Tyranny of the majority" usually occurs where the majority and the minority are distinct groups e.g. different tribes, or white Americans' at times shameful treatment of blacks, even after blacks got voting rights. Here, I think all Palestinians are "in the same boat" regarding their practical situation vis a vis Israel. I don't see any civil or human rights being violated any more than the situation where a majority of Scots decided to stick with the UK. Did those who wanted out have their civil and human rights violated? And if yes, in all fairness, what approach should the UK have taken? Kicked out Scotland, against the wishes of the majority of Scots? As I said, if Israel were to annex the West Bank with the majority consent of its residents, it would need to give ALL residents full Israeli citizenship and voting rights, end military law and have all justice administered under its civilian justice system, and treat the residents as equal citizens, so where's the oppression? Are Northern Irish Republicans who opposed the good Friday agreement also victims of oppression? Where does your reasoning end?


 * The California referendum system HAS produced some politically popular but crooked (from a human rights perspective) laws. But how does that apply to this particular proposition? Besides, I'd like no to stray TOO far from the question as to whether the self-determination can be applied part by part, giving residents of East Jerusalem a separate choice. Eliyohub (talk) 13:58, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Binding referenda do not guarantee tyranny of the majority. But it allows it.  You seem to be implying that "tyranny of the majority" does not exist as a concept because there are sometimes votes where no one gets oppressed.  I'm not sure I follow you.  Clearly, one can have a just society, where votes do not produce human rights violations.  But that doesn't mean that every society that votes is always just.  -- Jayron 32 17:34, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * OP, not sure whether you are aware of this, but (according to the current state of international law) self determination is a right enjoyed by a "people". The line between what is a "people" and what is not is not clear, but to be general about it to be a "people" the population in question needs to be the population of a "country" that is capable of being recognised as such in international law. There are some cases where an argument could be made clearly one way rather than another, for example Taiwan, which is clearly functioning as if it were a country in most respects, and there are many borderline case where arguments could be made both ways, but I think to argue that the residents of half a city satisfies the definition of a "people" would be quite a stretch.
 * There is a separate question of who is there to "allow" or "disallow" such a move by Israel, but if the question is asked against the framework of established international law, then no it probably would not be "allowed". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:28, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure where you get the notion that Self-determination requires a sovereign country or equivalent (that is either an internationally recognized one, or one that operates as such, like Taiwan). Self-determination states, with reference, (bold mine): " Present international law does not recognize ethnic and other minorities as separate peoples, with the notable exception of cases in which such groups are systematically disenfranchised by the government of the state they live in."  If a people group is "disenfranchised by the government of the state they live in", either de jure (through laws specifically banning them from full participation), or de facto (such as laws which, through selective enforcement, act to disenfranchise them even if the wording of said laws appears neutral, or through the governments systematic refusal to enforce laws designed to protect such people groups) then those people are being denied their representation and thus have the rights to self-determination violated.  -- Jayron 32 19:01, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Jayron32, you put far too much stock in random words in a Wikipedia article. Like in several previous instances, the important distinction is between the accepted, mainstream, orthodox discourse, and other competing theories. I appreciate that, unfortunately, without a degree of familiarity with the subject it's not always easy to distinguish between the two relying on Wikipedia. But the inhabitants of half a city are not going to be a "people" under any widely accepted interpretation of international law as it stands, no matter how oppressed they are. If that article implies that they would be, then it's either pushing some very minority view or it's badly phrased. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:09, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that my job here is not to provide my opinion on the matter, only to provide references to other people looking to do their research. I was merely providing information from the Wikipedia article.  I have no opinion on the matter.  If it is important for you to be correct, you can be, because being "correct" (beyond providing sources) is not a goal of mine.  If the you have sources that disagree with what I have provided, feel free to give those.  -- Jayron 32 17:25, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Indian reservations in the United States, maybe? 50.0.136.56 (talk) 02:34, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The answer of the OP's question is almost certainly not, nobody would recognize the annexation as legal- for roughly the same reason that people, states and organizations would be OK with a referendum that voted to make the whole of the occupied territories join Israel. First, Background:  Israel did not follow its earlier practice of now generally-recognized annexations in the "annexation" of East Jerusalem - so it isn't exactly annexed. The strongest purely legal basis for Israel's sovereignty over its territory is General Assembly Resolution 181. After the 1948 war, Israel imposed citizenship on all the residents, including those in the 'annexed' territories between the armistice lines and the UN proposals, which was about half of the proposed Arab state, the West Bank & Gaza being the other half.  Over time, these lines have become the basically recognized borders of Israel.


 * The votes of the other Palestinians, in the WB & G and almost certainly refugees beyond would have to be considered for an annexation of East Jerusalem to be viewed as legal, not just those of the East Jerusalemites. These would almost certainly not be forthcoming. As, PalaceGuard008 notes, the self-determination and sovereignty, even over a part of a territory, is usually understood to apply to the whole group, not a part, not even the part who lives there. It would be seen as dividing up a country by force and obtaining assent under duress. If Israel tried to do such a thing, Egypt & Jordan would surely consider it a violation of the treaties with Israel. Israel hasn't proposed this - and it has excellent international lawyers - and IMHO judges very well how to craft its diplomatic and legal positions, judges what will be countenanced by the rest of the world. The wisdom of these positions is of course another matter.John Z (talk) 05:02, 5 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Even accepting your logic that chopping off East Jerusalem would not be legal, putting aside the issue of the refugees (who may or may not have voting rights), I fail to see how a referendum amongst all the Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza on joining Israel would violate self determination, as you seem to be implying in the first sentence of your answer, assuming the referendum could be assured to be free and fair. Israeli settlers would obviously need to be excluded from the vote, as per the Gibraltar precedent. As a practical matter, the barrier to such a move is not the Palestinians, but Israel. If Israel were to undertake such a referendum, any smart Palestinian would vote "yes". The resulting state would have an Arab majority, or nearly so, effectively allowing Israel as a Jewish state to be abolished without a shot being fired. Hence Israel would never consider such a move. "Bi-national state" proposals are not new, but it would be Israel who opposes them, not so much the Palestinians. Also, I understand your point about "dividing up a country by force", but I'm puzzled about your reference to "obtaining assent under duress". I don't think Israeli Arabs, including residents of East Jerusalem, feel any duress in Israeli elections. Israel is not Zimbabwe, where neighborhoods which vote for the wrong candidate or option get bulldozed (at least not based on their vote - demolitions over actual or supposed "illegal construction" or "terrorist activity by a family member" are another matter). The Israeli judiciary has, in fact, been remarkably deferential to claims brought by Arabs, including Palestinians, against the Israeli government. Eliyohub (talk) 08:12, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Statement in the Vedas about people living a hundred years
Is the statement in the Vedas that "Man lives a hundred years and has a hundred powers" the truth about how long people lived during that time? Ebaillargeon82 (talk) 09:03, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

No, the whole thing about man living a hundred years back then was merely wishful thinking. The hundred powers thing gives it away. "Man lives a hundred years and has a hundred powers" was something Hindus recited if they wanted long life. If man lived a hundred years back then, there would be no reason for Hindus to wish to live for "a hundred autumns". The statement in the Bible that "The days of our years are threescore and ten.", on the other hand, was not wishful thinking, but was a fact, and THAT was how long people lived since the beginning of time. VRtrooper (talk) 09:16, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Life expectancy has more details. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:40, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * See allegory, Parallelism, etc. -- Jayron 32 11:37, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Note that while the average lifespan has gone up dramatically over the centuries, the maximum life span has not. Since some people do live past 100 now, some would have then, too, but far fewer than do now. StuRat (talk) 16:43, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think the Vedas was trying to state a fact like the Bible was with its "threescore and ten", but rather making a wish. 130.65.109.81 (talk) 23:23, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

North Korea and subsidies from China, Russia
Would it be fair to say that the United States (and her allies in the region, Japan, S.Korea etc) are agitated that Russia and China are delivering economic subsidies to North Korea through cheap energy and food prices? Is there any evidence of how this annoys the U.S government? --Lostus-Poii (talk) 12:21, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * The U.S. supplied two light water reactors, funded by KEDO, to North Korea. Sleigh (talk) 12:57, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has an article titled North Korea–United States relations which is fairly extensive. This article has some information on the U.S. stance towards the China-N. Korean relationship as well.  -- Jayron 32 13:02, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * The problem with cutting off all subsidies to NK is they might then decide they have nothing to lose and attack SK, possibly with nukes. StuRat (talk) 16:45, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * That may or may not be an actual problem - citation please, suggesting the possibility of North Korea reacting this way? One of the real problems, from what I gather, is that evil though the North Korean regime may be, not many are keen to see it collapse, as what lies beyond the collapse is one gigantic gaping void of starving (and cult-style brainwashed) masses. If the regime DID collapse, feeding those people would require a huge percentage of the world's entire food aid budget. The nearest precedent is the reunification of Germany, and West Germany paid a heavy economic price. Or the chaos of the collapse of the Soviet Union - see the results in modern-day Central Asia (strongmen still rule mostly), or the perpetual chaos in Ukraine, or replacement dictatorship in Belarus, or a poor Russia, ruled by a combination of dictaorship, organized crime, and oligarchs, with more abortions than births. The reunification of the Korean Peninsula, and rehabilitation of the void north of the border, would cost South Korea and any contributing allies literally trillions. And China would fiercely oppose such a thing happening (if necessary, by force of arms) unless it could feel assured that the reunified country would fall sufficiently under its sphere of influence so as to allow them to prevent any potentially hostile power, such as the Americans, setting up camp there. China has been invaded many times throughout its history via the Korean Peninsula, so to them, this fear is very real, however impractical or impossible any invasion of China may seem at the present time. Intents and capabilities can change (sometimes quite quickly, such as the rapid rearmament and launch of mass invasions by Germany under Hitler, when the country had been a powerless wreck a mere two decades or so earlier), but geographic realities remain unbudgeable. I daresay Russia feels similar fears over Ukraine moving out of Russia's orbit. Today, nobody wants to invade Russia, and nobody can invade Russia. But a Ukraine under a hostile power puts the Russian core potentially under direct threat, should intents or capabilities change. Eliyohub (talk) 08:33, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Different meaning for Extended School Year
In my school district, ESY had a completely different meaning than presented in the article. It wasn't for special needs students, but was a way to accommodate more students than the facilities or staff could handle normally. The students were divided evenly into 4 tracks, and only 3 of the 4 were in class on any one day, extending into the summer to give all tracks the required number of days. So, do we have an article on this concept ? StuRat (talk) 16:26, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * That's called 4-track Year Round School. (see this example calendar) It is different from extended school year because the idea behind year round school is just distributing the days differently than a traditional school calendar.  In the U.S., a standard school year is 36 weeks (180 days).  Traditional school calendars in the U.S. typically have these 36 weeks distributed over a 40- or 41-week period, with the remaining 11-12 weeks as "Summer vacation".  The type of 4-track year-round school you are describing breaks those 36 weeks up into four 9-week blocks of time, and then staggers the 4 tracks so they are 3-weeks offset from each other, so that EVERY student follows a schedule of "9 weeks on/3 weeks off" in 4 increments through the year (the remaining 4 weeks of the year are usually 1 week at Christmas and 1 week in mid summer everyone has off, as well as about 10 days littered throughout the year as regular holidays).  Extended School Year, as usually unders[[tood in most U.S. jurisdictions, refers to going LONGER than the standard 180 day year (say 200 or 220 days or longer) so that students have extra instructional time to learn more.  ESY can be provided to students on any calendar.  In summation:
 * Traditional school calendar = 180 days, with a short-ish (1 week or less) break at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and early Spring, and then a 12ish week summer vacation.
 * Year-round school = 180 days on a regular pattern of shorter sessions and shorter breaks (commonly four 9-week quarters and four 3-week breaks, but there are also schools on a trimester system of three 12-week quarters and 3 4-week breaks). Year-round school can be "single track" (one set of students in a school following the same track) or "multi-track" (students with staggered schedules so the school building is used every day of the year)
 * Extended school year = Students with documented special needs (in the U.S. this means they have a Individualized Education Program or IEP) that designates that the student gets extra time to learn the material, and so are in school for longer than the standard 180 days, sometimes 200 or 220 or even more.
 * Hope that helps. -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 17:19, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks. I added dabs in each article to the other. StuRat (talk) 15:25, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

In the US, when do presidential candidates stop campaigning?
I know the US has not such a thing like election silence. But is there some self-imposed stop on a campaign? Or do candidates campaign until the last poll (is that Hawaii?) closes? --Llaanngg (talk) 19:16, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * In practice they keep going until they think it can't make any difference, which can be til the polls close in the western US if there are contested states there (Oregon etc). Hawaii solidly votes Democratic in presidential elections so there's not likely to be much presidential campaigning there.  Here in California we're deluged with campaigning for lower offices right now, but there's not much Presidential campaigning for the same reason (see swing state).  In 2000, a lot of what could be called campaigning continued after election day, as the Florida election recount became a political contest in its own right, and went on for more than a month past the election. 50.0.136.56 (talk) 02:55, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

==Does the 2002 version of the Uniform Parentage Act allow sperm donors to personally be the ones who inseminate women while giving up all of their parental rights and parental responsibilities afterwards?==

Does the 2002 version of the Uniform Parentage Act allow sperm donors to personally be the ones who inseminate women (for instance, having a sperm donor masturbate in a cup and then personally using, say, a turkey baster (or whatever) to artificially inseminate a woman (with her consent, obviously)) while giving up all of their parental rights and all of their parental responsibilities to any children who are conceived as a result of this artificial insemination? Futurist110 (talk) 22:03, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * They could market a line of specialty baster/inseminators, but they should get away from the turkey associations, and dispense with having to ejaculate tawdrily into a cup. One device should cover the entire dubious episode.  Maybe "Masturbaster" would do nicely.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:56, 4 November 2016 (UTC)


 * For the record, this appears to refer to Uniform Parentage Act. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 23:02, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

I feel I can make some points on this which are not legal advice.

1. Rights and responsibilities are by definition only an issue if at least one side seeks to exercise or enforce them. There is obviously no obligation on a parent to sue for custody, visitation, or child support. Plenty of parents would have the right to sue for one or more of these things, but for various reasons, choose not to. So selecting your mate carefully with a clear understanding of expectations would be a start as a smart move. But it offers no legal guarantees. There's one guy who was featured in a magazine as having over 100 kids, all naturally conceived, and not one of their mothers has yet sued him for child support. They would clearly have the right to do so, but there's clear understandings about things reached between them before he has sex with them with the intention of them getting pregnant. These understandings almost certainly have no binding legal effect, but in practice, they've worked, and the women he's knocked up have respected them. (This bit is clearly not legal advice, just practical advice and common sense observations).

2. If the mother is on welfare, however, do note that if the child has a legal father, welfare to the mom may be docked in consideration of the child support she would be entitled to if he was paying. (This can be complex, particularly if she refuses to say who the dad is, and calculations if she does name the dad and he admits paternity or is declared the putative father by the courts (i.e. he disputes paternity, and the court rules against him, such as based on DNA evidence), as to how much of her welfare payment is docked). The government doesn't want to pay what it sees as being the dad's job to pay. Of course, this doesn't mean she has to actually chase that child support, if she's willing and able to survive without the child support. And for those moms or potential moms not on welfare, this is obviously not an issue. And obviously, if you're legally deemed a sperm donor not a dad, this doesn't matter either, and you have zero obligation to pay child support.

3. If you want to donate sperm, it need not be to an anonymous recipient to be legally classified as a "donation" and treated accordingly. But it may very well need to be done by a doctor in a clinic, not at home by yourselves (don't want to give an absolute answer, as it would be legal advice). You can go to a doctor or clinic legally authorized to perform artificial insemination under state law with the recipient woman of your agreement (i.e. you and her reach an agreement to be donor and recipient, and trot off to the clinic together). The law as to paternity almost certainly does not change just because the donor and recipient are known to each other. A donor is still a donor. If they're deemed to be in a "de facto relationship" (or married), it may be a different story, as assisted reproduction performed on a "couple" may see the man viewed differently. (again, I can't give an absolute answer, due to legal advice prohibitions, and also that I don't know. If you deem this second or third paragraph to be legal advice, please keep the hat off the first paragraph). Eliyohub (talk) 08:41, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Do you have a reference for any of that? This is, after all, the reference desk, and our job is to provide leads for research, not merely tell people what we think the answers to their questions are... -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 19:08, 7 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I remember a book with the title "bioethics and the law", I think, which specifically mentioned a turkey-baster case. The guy ended up paying child support if I recall correctly.  Oh, these two get at it:   Just as when people are put in jail for killing their pets themselves, we find that the licensed and expensive professionals doing artificial insemination are, first and foremost, a priesthood with special powers granted by law, not by any ordinary technical competence. Wnt (talk) 00:32, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Think of it this way: If you were going to buy a used car, would you buy it from someone on Craig's List? Or would you go to a licensed used car dealer? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:31, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, in some states you might at least be allowed to do so without penalty, though some seem to go to great lengths to make sure that car dealers are protected from competition. Wnt (talk) 13:36, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

"Bearable arms"
In Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016), the Supreme Court reiterated its earlier rulings that "the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding"

Can we define what "bearable arms" includes in: "to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding"? Ottowolff (talk) 22:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Does the Court itself address this question? Presumably the meaning of "all instruments that constitute bearable arms" is "all kinds of items that can be borne as weapons", with the meaning of "bear" being trickier to pin down.  The SCOTUS being fond of including multipart tests (try searching for "three-pronged test"; most of what you'll get is related to SCOTUS case law), this opinion may well have create a test to determine the meaning of "bear" in this context.  Nyttend (talk) 23:39, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * They can't mean literally any bearable arm. Regular civilians aren't allowed to purchase hand grenades, submachine guns, shoulder-fired missiles, etc. and I don't think that has changed. 50.0.136.56 (talk) 02:48, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
 * See Firearm case law in the United States for our summary article and Caetano v. Massachusetts for the case the OP mentions. The leading case on the meaning of "bear" is Muscarello v. United States, where Justice Ginsberg defined it to mean "wear, bear, or carry... upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose... of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person."  This opinion was favourably cited by the majority of the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller. Tevildo (talk) 09:37, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Muriel Perry OBE
I would be interested to learn more about Muriel Perry OBE, the mother of Sally Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster. The Telegraph obituary of Sally's sister, the biographer Diana Petre, says that Muriel was "a brave and admired nurse in two World Wars who was awarded eight medals and an OBE". Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 22:52, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * This is a photo of her from 1917, and there are other various references (here, for example), referring to her role as quartermaster of the Free Buffet for the armed forces at Victoria Station during the Great War. This photo from the Imperial War Museum collection shows a field kitchen that she took to the Italian front in 1917, but it's not clear from the caption whether the lady standing on the step is Muriel Perry or Jean McKersie. Tevildo (talk) 23:21, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, a good start. It says it's Jean McKersie on the step for the last pic. DuncanHill (talk) 23:28, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Tiny amount of stuff in, and I think probably a lot in , and maybe . --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:43, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Count Alexander Münster, Maresfield Park, ADC to the Kaiser
An exhibition in Lewes of photographs by Edward Reeves (the oldest photographic studio in the world) and related material from the First World War has inspired me to try to find out more about Count Alexander Münster, who lived at Maresfield Park in Sussex before the war. I am particularly interested in his war service and what happened to him after the war. I am also interested in what happened to his wife, Lady Muriel Henrietta Constance (née Hay), Princess Münster of Derneburg (1863-1927), daughter of the 12th Earl of Kinnoull. There is some information about him on the Weald website and on the Maresfield parish website. Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 23:00, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Not much use, but we do have an article on her father, as a start. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 23:06, 4 November 2016 (UTC) (Addendum: I made this comment at a point when the OP had not linked to the 12th earl. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 12:50, 5 November 2016 (UTC))
 * There is a German article on his father: de:Georg Herbert zu Münster. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 16:58, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
 * FWIW: Muriel (Hay) zu Münster was readmitted to British nationality 1923, and died in Berlin 1 January 1927. THey had at least two children, sons, Friedrich George Konstantin Hervey Ernst Alexander zu Münster (20 June 1891-7 January 1942), and Paul William Alexander zu Münster 27 November 1898 Maresfield, England- 24 January 1968 Bampton, England. The latter has descendants born in England as recently as 2006. His elder son, who married a Fugger von Babenhausen, was wounded, recuperated for about a year and a half, and then sent to the Eastern Front. For some interesting photos and some chatty information, see here.- Nunh-huh 20:40, 5 November 2016 (UTC)