Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 February 25

= February 25 =

Anglosphere laws
Are there any legal ramifications in Anglosphere nations for minor social derelictions such as gently pushing a random stranger on the street, calling a police officer ugly extremely unattractive, calling a disapproving co-worker or roommate sexy, blowing kisses at random pedestrians on the street, farting loudly in a crowded elevator, relentlessly flicking the ear of one's disapproving sibling, yelling in the ear of one's frightened parent, cruelly never giving your offspring any pocketmoney or means to pay for educational necessities etc. From my research, the aforementioned situations fall under a grey area that is not covered under the law. Am I correct? Hawaan12 (talk) 07:02, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Calling a police officer ugly would be an insult (even if it is true). Some people campaigned to ditch Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, which makes it illegal to use “threatening, abusive or insulting” words, but I am not sure if that ever happened. Not giving your kid means to pay for educational necessities is probably child abuse. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 08:22, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Those are all quite different situations. The latter ones in your list are almost certainly illegal, the earlier ones (from randomly assaulting strangers down to farting) you may get away with, depending on the seriousness of the consequences and whether the police or prosecuting authorities have a motivation to make an example of you.
 * Pushing a random stranger on the street is battery and/or assault, a tort, but the amount of damages you are likely to recover will depend on whether you were merely slightly inconvenienced, or fell to the ground and cracked your head.
 * Calling a policeman offensive names can be an offence, but there is case law at least in some states of Australia that the police are expected to be quite resilient.
 * "Calling a disapproving co-worker or roommate sexy" could be sexual harassment, depending on how often you do it.
 * "Blowing kisses at random pedestrians" on the street is likely to be okay, unless you do it so much or so often as to make it offensive, a public nuisance or obstruction to traffic.
 * "Farting loudly in a crowded elevator" is, I think, generally okay, again depending on the degree and possibly whether it is deliberate.
 * "Relentlessly flicking the ear of one's disapproving sibling" is definitely battery and probably assault and you probably will not get away with the defence that it is a reasonably expected amount of force. It might be child abuse as well, depending on the ages of the parties concerned.
 * "Yelling in the ear of one's frightened parent" is probably assault, and if you are their carer, there will be graver ramificiations. Some countries also have emotional abuse laws.
 * "Cruelly never giving your offspring any pocketmoney or means to pay for educational necessities" may be some sort of child neglect, which is usually a crime. Not --165.225.80.99 (talk) 12:33, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Educational necessities is quite a high bar. Many things you might think of as "necessary" might not be.  HYPOTHETICALLY: Would you have to provide writing paper - when there is free toilet paper at the school to write on - or if you provide an old newspaper and tell the kid to write in the margins?  Clearly it's undesirable for a child to have to do that - but is it really necessary to provide paper?  In practice, I think schools generally provide most of the absolute necessities.  But if something is truly necessary - and the school doesn't provide it - then the parent would surely be required to provide it on grounds that denying a child an education is illegal...right? SteveBaker (talk) 15:28, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I read "necessities" as things which the child absolutely needs to get an education at all - e.g. text books, if it's the sort of country where you have to buy your own textbooks. Pocket money on the other hand is probably okay to withhold - I would think parents are entitled to structure their child's personal economy as they wish, and it is not necessary to have pocket money for a child to be properly provided for. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 18:38, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * They always wanted my parents to buy that weak glue that comes in lipstick-style containers that I forgot what it's called, regular glue, art paper, binders, writing instruments (probably).. Some of those things were only used for arts and crafts. I don't know what the school would've done if a parent refused to buy that weak glue that comes in lipstick-style containers that I forgot what it's called. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:53, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Glue stick? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 19:02, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes. How'd you remember what the heck those were called? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:18, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Glue sticks are in the school supplies section of many a grocery store. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:15, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I always pass the school supply sections without attention nor eyeglasses (I think of it as one of the desert sections — like the cat litter, cake mix and vegetable aisles). I've also forgotten that some humans have gone school shopping recently. Silly me. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:10, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I haven't bought or used glue sticks in a very long time but I still knew what they were called. Have you actually used or purchased glue or cat litter recently? You seemed to remember what they're called. Nil Einne (talk) 08:00, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Twice in the same paragraph he mentioned "glue" and "stick". I think he's just pullin' your lariat. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:05, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, on an ENGVAR issue, in the UK a "glue stick" is the thing you put into a glue gun. The adhesive delivery mechanism described is called a "Pritt stick". In my young day, we used a rather less viscous and therefore much more amusing substance called Gloy Gum... Tevildo (talk) 21:31, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
 * An online search of UK stationery stores for "glue sticks" turn up only glue sticks, not inserts for glue guns. Is that jargon specific to trades that work with glue guns? Pritt products themselves are labelled "glue sticks". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:02, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Pushing someone without their consent probably qualifies as assault and/or battery in most jurisdictions. Now, it's unlikely the state will choose to prosecute anyone for doing only that. We have to consider selective enforcement in any discussion of how the legal system works in practice. Some of the other things you mentioned, such as yelling in a person's ear, might incur torts such as emotional distress, which the wronged party could sue for. These are not crimes, but you asked about "legal ramifications". Also, many jurisdictions have "catchall" offenses such as disturbing the peace (see also ASBO in the UK). If law enforcement tells you to stop something in public (like your example of blowing kisses at people), and you persist, you can find yourself getting charged with one or more of them. People have long realized you can't write laws that deal with every single thing society might possibly want to prevent or discourage; this is part of the reasoning behind the common law system granting relatively broad latitude to the judiciary. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 12:38, 25 February 2016 (UTC)


 * In English law we could call it disruptive behaviour, affray, causing a nuisance, anti-social behaviour... (I'm reminded here of a banned user Bowei Huang by the way...) --TammyMoet (talk) 11:35, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Hmm, New South Wales in Australia has offensive behaviour and various public nuisance offences      . Also affray (our article mentions) but I'm presuming that's not what reminded you. No ASBO there. See also  although largely approaching things from a different area. Nil Einne (talk) 13:20, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

What do you call a species that has members of the species that produce food for other members of the species?
In many nonhuman species, food is discovered at a random location by sight, scent or hearing. Sometimes, food has to be caught and killed; other times, food can be retrieved from the ground in the form of dead animal or plant. Now, what do you call an instance in which food is grown and then distributed to other members of the species in exchange for metal coins or non-edible materials that symbolize the worth of a particular food? In this case, food is not received directly, but indirectly, before it gets to the eater. How do you describe this sort of phenomenon? 140.254.77.168 (talk) 19:08, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * What you are describing is called a medium of exchange or a store of value. I don't know of non-human species that do that, but perhaps there are.  -- Jayron 32 19:13, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I did find one example here of capuchin monkeys who were trained to use money to buy food (and they worked out how to use money to buy sex as well), but I don't know that this is a natural behavior that has ever been observed in the wild. -- Jayron 32 19:15, 25 February 2016 (UTC)


 * You may want to look at division of labour (general term) and eusociality for animal behaviour.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:01, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

American immigrants in Canada?
As far as I know, working in the United States at a business company requires a work Visa, which may involve the luck of the draw literally. And there is a limit as to how many people can be drawn. What about Canada? If an American citizen finds a job in Canada and immigrates there, would the same thing apply? In other words, is it easier to become a Canadian or American? 140.254.70.25 (talk) 22:09, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Articles like Temporary foreign worker program in Canada, Temporary residency in Canada, Immigration to Canada will likely lead you to find the answers to your questions, if not directly, then by following links from those articles. -- Jayron 32 01:49, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
 * AFAIK the only real "luck of the draw" for US migration is Diversity Immigrant Visa which only represents ~5% of total legal migrants to the US per year Immigration to the United States . Of course some would suggest all aspects of qualification like educational level and job, language etc may involve some degree of "luck of the draw", but that obviously applies to everything everywhere. Also the Diversity Immigrant Visa is for a United States Permanent Resident Card. While this allows you to work, a distinction is normally made in most countries between a visa which qualifies you for permanent residence and a work visa (or work permit). The former as the name implies generally allows you to live in the country permanent generally even if you're not working, provided you're able to support yourself and don't do something to lose it. The later generally being temporary or requiring renewal. And often requiring you to work to have any hope of continually renewing it, or at least the renewal may be denied for reasons mostly unrelated to your conduct. It may also have other restrictions like only allowing you to work in a certain industry or a certain company.  The boundaries and variance from country to country can be complicated, still there's a reason Permanent residency and work visa are different articles. Getting a work visa and working legally in the country is often one way you may eventually gain permanent residence, but it also often isn't the only one. (As the diversity immigrant visa shows.)  In other words, if you think getting a work visa in the US largely involves luck of the draw, you probably don't really understand how things work in the US. So there's no point comparing to other countries. You probably want to read more about the situation in the US first.  Nil Einne (talk) 13:46, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Oregon militant inspired questions
Remember how someone sent them a 55 gallon drum of sexual lubricant? (I hope that was crowdfunding, that's a quarter ton of liquid!)

1. Why do 55 gallon drums of sexual lubricant exist?

2. Why are oil barrels 42 gallons but the default drum is 55? Is there some inherent property of petroleum that makes smaller containers preferable? (back when oil used literal barrels). Petroleum (especially light crude) is rather light.

3. Who the hell delivers to a (building) hostage situation? Does the deliveryman have to not be able to be fired for refusing and sign a form absolving their employer of liability for anything that might happen to them like being taken hostage, shot by a mentally ill militant etc.? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:40, 25 February 2016 (UTC)


 * A1 - to enable a manufacturer of sexual lubricant to distribute it in quantity to a downstream company which will decant it into smaller branded containers. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:39, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
 * A2 - at least in part, see Barrel_(unit) and Barrel_(unit). 55 of your rather dodgy gallons is a mainly USAian thing. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:44, 26 February 2016 (UTC)


 * As noted in Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, the occupiers and their friends to some extent came-and-went from their little fortress, as the police had initially decided to maintain a low-key approach to the situation. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:55, 26 February 2016 (UTC)


 * The lube was sent by Max Temkin who invented the notoriously non-politically-correct Cards Against Humanity game. It cost him $1,175 to purchase and ship it to them.  Evidently, someone had already sent them a pile of sex toys - and he felt that they might want some lube to go with them!  I'm looking forward to seeing new Cards against humanity cards with "55 gallons of lube" - and another with "Sending ____ to the Oregon militia".  If you know the game - that's a very logical thing to do - so I could easily believe he justified it as a business expense. SteveBaker (talk) 15:15, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
 * A not-too-expensive joke and a political comment at the same time. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:01, 26 February 2016 (UTC)


 * National_Guard_Armory_%26_Arsenal_(San_Francisco).jpg A1 above is reasonable, there's also the invisible hand and supply and demand which have led us to a world where there are indeed customers for that sort of product in that sort of volume.
 * As an example, note that Peter_Acworth has bought the San Francisco Armory to host production of pornography. That place is huge, and there is lots and lots of pornography being produced there. I don't care to look up stats for that at the moment but the point is not all use of large drums of lubricant is wholesale and repackaging.  SemanticMantis (talk) 17:53, 26 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I was hoping it wasn't something like that. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:00, 26 February 2016 (UTC)


 * There is actually a big difference between a drum, which is just a container of a particular shape, and a barrel which is a recognised unit of volume (and rarely an actual physical container. Drums are used to transport lots of different liquids - and the standardised size is just to make handling them easier. If you try to get a barrel of oil, you will be offered a drum, containing about 55 US gallons (though the exact international size is 200 litres). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.150.174.93 (talk) 19:19, 26 February 2016 (UTC)


 * When the most wholesale way was actual containers instead of pipes from well to tanker they used actual barrel-shaped barrels. This was a long time ago. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:02, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Not long ago, just far away. Diesel fuel is still offloaded in 55-gallon drums to the outlying islands of Tuvalu to run their electrical plants. Rmhermen (talk) 22:17, 26 February 2016 (UTC)