Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 October 13

= October 13 =

Question on "Fire Department"
The paragraph that I will post on this e-mail is verbatim and I was trying to find out what agency of the Government is for the Fire Department: The paragraph posted here is rather blatantly obvious but there is no reference to any Government Agency. If the funds provided for the Fire Department are municipal, and if the Federal Government is responsible for funding the Fire Department through the State Legislature, what branch or department of the Federal Government is responsible for the Fire Department? Surely it's not the Olive Branch.

Here is the paragraph taken from Wikipedia ("Fire Department"): A fire department's jurisdiction is organized by the governmental body that controls the department, although there are private fire services as well. This comes from a municipality, county, prefecture, state, province, or nation type of government. The most common type of government control is at the municipality level. The jurisdiction size and organisation would be set up by a department or the government in charge of these duties. This deals with the placement of fire stations, equipment, and personnel within the area of control. Fire departments periodically survey their jurisdiction areas and use the data for redeploying proper coverage. This data comes from travel time, range from station, and/or a population survey. This brings equal service to the entire community and gives the department efficient places to launch operations.

Thanks for any clarification on this issue that the reference desk may provide me with. "Es31fish2fish (talk) 14:53, 13 October 2016 (UTC)"


 * Why would the Federal (US) government have any jurisdiction over the fire departments of local cities? Do they also have jurisdiction over the sanitation departments? 🔯 Sir Joseph 🍸 (talk) 15:09, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, the FG is pretty relevant in getting them out of the sh*t, so I'd say so! ;) Muffled Pocketed  15:50, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * —Tamfang (talk) 20:32, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * As far as I know, there's no federal-level agency in the United States responsible for fire departments, though FEMA may step in to assist local fire departments in emergency situations. The U.S. Fire Administration is a division of FEMA that, among other things, offers grants to fire departments that apply for funding, but USFA doesn't appear to have any direct control over local departments and serves more in an advisory capacity. It's also not necessarily true that funding for fire departments comes from the federal government through the state, as local governments (cities, towns, and counties) may raise the money themselves via local taxes or donations (especially in the case of volunteer fire departments). Of course, everything I've said is only true in the United States and I can't speak for the situation in other countries. clpo13(talk) 17:00, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Fire department is written generally, it does not only apply to USA. In the USA, an example of a federally controlled fire department would be the agencies controlled by the national park service. Here they say "Currently 22 NPS sites maintain 49 fire stations, which are equipped with 68 apparatus (including 3 fire boats), and are staffed and supported by approximately 200–250 employees and partners." Many of those employees are employees of the federal government of the USA. Another example would be the interagency "Hotshot crews", and that page lists specific govt employee statuses.
 * But when most USians think of "the fire department", they think of things like the San Francisco Fire department . They are run and managed by the city, but municpal departments will often get special grants and funding support from higher level government initiatives. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:03, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * In many U.S. states, Fire Departments are not organs of municipal governments, but rather are considered special purpose districts which are directly responsible only to the state. They may have names which imply connections to a local municipality, but such a name is merely a geographic convenience.  Many special-pupose districts are deliberately coterminous with a specific municipality, but are not organs of municipal governments.  -- Jayron 32 18:49, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Such districts typically have a committee of directors elected by the residents, so they're not "directly responsible only to the state". —Tamfang (talk) 20:32, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The OP's question begins with If the funds provided for the Fire Department are municipal, and if the Federal Government is responsible for funding the Fire Department through the State Legislature— It isn't, so we need not consider the rest of that sentence. Municipal funds come from taxes collected by the city. —Tamfang (talk) 20:32, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Maybe bonds too which might be logical during a recessional low interest period like the turn of the decade. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:51, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Importance of Texas
To the GOP. If it never voted republican again, could they still win an election without it? All things being equal, and they don't gain anything in its place. Muffled Pocketed  15:03, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Sure, why not? In relatively modern times, the Republicans Reagan, Nixon, and George H. W. Bush all won elections by sufficiently large margins that if Texas had voted against them it wouldn't have mattered to the outcome.  Texas's 38 electoral votes are important to the Republicans, but no single state is definitive.  The last few elections have been relatively close, and so the loss of Texas might be determinative in that case, but historically we've also had elections that were total blow-outs, and there is no reason that can't happen in the future.  Also, it is very unlikely that the GOP just loses Texas.  By the time Texas is voting against them, it is likely that many other things have changed on the electoral map.  It is easy to forget that the voting blocs and coalitions of today are not permanent.  From 1872 to 1968, Texas sided with the Democrats in all but 3 presidential elections.  Dragons flight (talk) 15:19, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * As you can see at Swing state and Red states and blue states, you could work this out pretty easily. Just calculate the number of electoral college votes for all of the solid blue states; then add Texas to it.  If that number is over 270, then if we permanently colored Texas blue, it would be highly unlikely for a Republican to win again.  If the number is under 270, the Republicans could still take the White House by capturing enough of the "swing states".  -- Jayron 32 15:24, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes that's the kind of thing I was wondering: if there were sufficient states with far less votes to outweigh the likes of Texas. I also wondered about California as vice versa ;) ...and as for doing it myself... American politics = higher mathematics to the RoW :)  Cheers  for the info. Muffled  Pocketed  15:48, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * In the 1984 election, Reagan picked up every state against Walter Mondale except for Minnesota, and Washington D.C.. That means Democratic strongholds such as California, New York, Massachusetts, and Washington state fell Reagan's way, which would be considered a bipartisan referendum. No candidate in U.S. history has ever achieved electoral success along the level that Reagan has. So conversely, as outlined above, if Texas fell for the Republicans, that usually means the candidate likely has no fundamental support in any of the other significant GOP stronghold states either, and we'd be looking at something similar to what Reagan achieved in 1984.--WaltCip (talk) 16:21, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Interesting, - I thought Nixon had the greatest win in 197X? Muffled Pocketed  16:31, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * My mistake, let me clarify by quoting the article - "Reagan's 525 electoral votes (out of 538) is the highest total ever received by a presidential candidate."--WaltCip (talk) 16:37, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, in the 1972 election, McGovern won in DC and Massachusetts (giving him 17 votes as against Mondale's 13), and one elector voted for John Hospers, so Nixon's total was only 520 as against Reagan's 525. Tevildo (talk) 18:25, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * California was often considered a swing state until the '90s. Remember that both Nixon and Reagan had California as their home state, and Reagan served two terms as Governor. Bush won California in 1988. Many commentators credit California Proposition 187 with sparking a backlash against the Republican Party among Hispanics and Latinos in the state, helping shift the state to the Democrats. --47.138.165.200 (talk) 18:34, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * CNN has an interactive electoral map here, where you can turn states different colours and it computes the electoral outcome. You can use that to game out various scenarios yourself. If we use that to turn TX blue, for the Republican candidate to win, he would have to take just about all of the "tipping point" states (as shown in Fivethirtyeight's map with black outlines). Fivethirtyeight's map also shows the changes either candidate has in each state (as calculated by their own model, which aggregates polling and other data). Right now (it changes several times per day) that gives Mrs. Clinton a 14.5% chance of winning TX, which is higher than Mr. Trump's chance in each of CO, MN, WI, MI, PN, and VA. Fivethirtyeight's little snakey infographic (about half way down the page) shows how relatively exposed TX is when compared to the Democrats' bulwarks of  MI, NY, and especially CA. Texas' voting pattern is a lot more complex than its simply being a "red state"  and its is in a state of demographic flux - so the possibility of TX being in play, perhaps in 8 years, is not the psephological nebbishness it probably is today. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 17:18, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Texas has, even in the fairly recent past, had Democratic tendencies (just as California has had Republican ones).  Ann Richards was a fairly leftist Democrat, and managed to win the Governorship in 1991, which admittedly was just before the Contract with America revolution where the Republicans developed a rather successful strategy that is the source of today's polarized politics.  For at least the previous 100 years before, party politics was not strongly ideological as both parties were "Big Tent" parties that had confusing mixes of granular political groups.  Both parties had a wide mix of right- and left- leaning politics for most of the 20th century, but Dick Armey's 1990s strategy resulted in the modern "Red State-Blue State" divide.  So called "Conservative Democrats" of the former Solid South have largely jumped to the Republican party (the few hangers-on were known as the Blue Dog Coalition, but have basically petered out as a political force), while the so-called "Liberal Republicans" have also bailed, mostly joining the third-party Libertarians (see Bill Weld, Gary Johnson, Ron Paul).  There was a time when the parties could tolerate wildly opposing political views within the same, now the parties have become tribal and ideological.  The point on Texas being not necessarily "solidly red" is a good one.  Throughout the south, largely due to the migration patterns of the last 20 years, many more former rightist strongholds are now "in play". -- Jayron 32 18:43, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Note that, aside from the current problems with the Trump candidacy, the Republican Party has a long-term problem with demographics:


 * 1) Their primary base of support has been old, rich, white men. One demonstration of this is how, while the Democratic Party has advanced a young black man (Obama) and a woman (Hillary) as their nominees for President for the last 3 election cycles, the Republican Party continues to choose rich, older, white men exclusively (although Hillary is almost as old as Trump).


 * 2) Ethnic minorities are increasing in the US, in particular blacks and Hispanics. There are some ways to keep their votes from counting, like voter suppression laws and Gerrymandering (not directly important in Presidential elections, but can set up a Republican legislature that can ensure the voter suppression laws are in place).  However, those are just about maxed-out already, and the Gerrymandering might well be undone if Democrats elected on the anti-Trump wave are still in office during the next redistricting, following the 2020 census.  As for the voter suppression laws, they seem to have about hit the limit there, too, as the courts are now striking down further attempts to keep minorities from voting.  So, while these efforts have made a difference, ultimately a rising minority population will mean minorities have more influence on elections.


 * 3) Older, more Republican voters, are dying off of old age. This means the Republicans have to win new, younger voters to replace them.


 * 4) Regarding the wealth issue, Republicans may well be a victim of their own success, since by lowering tax rates on the rich and decreasing benefits to the rest, in the past, it's been proven that Trickle-down economics doesn't work to "lift all boats" (Bush senior called it "voodoo economics"), and they have reduced the number of middle-class voters, who were their support base: (although some blame goes to free trade with nations like China, which was also supported by Democrats).


 * So, considering all these demographic problems, the Republicans winning an election now without winning Texas may be just about impossible. StuRat (talk) 17:03, 14 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Some additional references to back up what StuRat has provided already: Here is a good article on the demographics of the Republican party, from the Pew Research Center. Here is another from FiveThirtyEight.com.  Hopefully, that will provide some context for what he's talking about.  -- Jayron 32</b> 17:12, 14 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I've provided refs from CNBC and Wikipedia. You don't consider them to be useful sources ? StuRat (talk) 17:16, 14 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Why, yes you did. I have amended my comments and apologize for misrepresenting you.  I am sorry.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 00:21, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Consider United States presidential election, 1976, the last time a Democrat won Texas. If all states had swung anywhere from 1.69% to 3.16% more Republican then Gerald Ford would have defeated Jimmy Carter without winning Texas. That was 40 years ago but as others have noted, things change and can change again. There is also the possibility that no candidate gets an absolute majority in the electoral college, for example because an independent or third party candidate wins Texas and maybe other states. Per the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the House of Representatives will then elect the president from the top-3, with one vote per state delegation. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:40, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Medical equipment
Are the "Hartman 'Gnat' forceps" listed in Hemostat the same thing as Hartmann alligator forceps? If so, they're not a haemostat. If not - do they exist? Nothing obvious on the first couple of Google pages. Tevildo (talk) 19:17, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Maybe they meant mosquito and not gnat? -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 19:19, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I didn't find that (and it's not a misprint for "Halsted mosquito", the same site sells those forceps as a distinct item here). However, "gnat forceps" is still proving elusive - all I can find are instructions for the use of forceps in the preparation of dry flies. Perhaps removing the "Gnat" from our article will be sufficient. Tevildo (talk) 19:44, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * A google search only brought up stuff that might well have originated from Wikipedia. There are no results from a Google Books search. Gnats are quite a bit smaller than mosquitoes, so I thought it might have a smaller type of forceps, but it seems not. Alansplodge (talk) 20:19, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This report seems to indicate they exist, but that may have pulled said list from Wikipedia. Wouldn't be the first time.  The telling sign they don't exist is that no one is selling them.  Honestly, if it were a thing worth mentioning, someone would take some money from you for them.  Since no one sells them, we can probably drop them off the list.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 20:24, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Done, and thanks for the help. If anyone's interested, "Rankin forceps" are named after Fred Rankin, and "Mixter forceps" after Samuel Mixter. Tevildo (talk) 20:51, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for this possibly offensive sexual question but
All other things being equal would someone circumcised have more sensation if his glans was wider than the shaft? And possibly also with a scoop-like, lip-like corona glandis and wide coronal sulcus? Or would those "enhancements" desensitize quicker than the shaft until there's no advantage cause they stick out and take the brunt of the pleasuring forces? (especially masturbation cause people often do that at higher rpm then they could ever have sex at) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:25, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * You may be surprised to hear this, but there is an incredible variety of serious research conducted on the penis, including thousands of papers published on sensitivity (e.g. ). A few minutes in google scholar got me to this article, which discusses altering the shape of the glans, and has some comments on sensitivity. It's closely related to your question, but does not specifically address it. If you look at the refs contained, forward citations, and punch a few other of your keywords in to google scholar, I think you'll get some pretty good information. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:11, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I didn't know penile science went into such detail! Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:33, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Apparently it's very important to some people. —Tamfang (talk) 17:33, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Why wouldn't science deal with it in great detail? After all this is the object of study of andrology and urology.Llaanngg (talk) 18:15, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Not shocking sure but I didn't know the number of penile sensitivity papers is thousands.
 * I am very seldom surprised when the number of papers on any topic is in the thousands, let alone one of so much interest to people. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:05, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't search Google Scholar cause I usually get paywalls. I guess I should do it more often. Why are the cited by counts in regular Google search results so low though? I see decades old papers cited in recent papers. About how obscure before there's usually <1,000 papers? Heavy metal? Bat sleep? Fern taste? Sagittarian Milky Way  22:34, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * User:Sagittarian Milky Way: Number of citations is a classic heavy-tailed distribution. The vast majority of science papers hardly get a cite or two. A few of the rockstars get thousands of citations. This is the expected result of a network grown by rich get richer/ preferential attachment process. It's also highly field dependent: getting to 10 cites is far easier in fields with bigger markets. Bibliometrics is the general topic that includes citation structure in the scientific literature, and citation patterns themselves are also the topic of much inquiry: e.g.  . SemanticMantis (talk) 17:17, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
 * That makes sense. Often scientific papers are on the first page when the topic's too obscure for much else to exist. So 10 cites of a medicine paper easy, Cappadocian archaeology hard? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:55, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yep, that's about the shape of it. Same also applies to an author's total cite count. E.g. I have far more cites than my friend B, but our fields are very different in size, so who knows if my X cites is any more impressive than her X/4? If her field is 1/10 the size, then maybe she's doing better than me. But it's also very hard to define, let alone estimate, this "size of field" concept. Oh well. Very interesting stuff, but now a bit off-topic and on a stale thread too. Feel free to ask a new question if you're interested other aspects of modern science publication or bibliometrics. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:32, 18 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Imagine the grant request: "We propose to first bring men to a standardized state of erection and sexual appetite through the following method: First they will masturbate until they have a completely dry ejaculation using whatever pornography they need to do so. Sex toys, dolls, and lubricants will be provided. They will then be monitored or placed in chastity belts for 1 month to make it likely that all have regained their sexual appetite and ensure they do not masturbate anything. We propose that during the month they'll be kept them from contact with significant others, exes and (as far as practicable) all stimuli of the gender(s) they're attracted to or of fetishes admitted in pre-screeching or documented in humans. This is to make the results less affected by the random variables of recentness of the last sexy memory and imagination ability. Then they will lie still in a sensory deprivation chamber for 10 minutes to minimize random brain stimuli-related variables such as whether they'll use recent memories of unadmitted or impracticably removed fetish stimuli (i.e. furniture) for stronger masturbation stimuli, and the effects of suffering and aborting the study in extroverts caused by too protracted sensory deprivation. A masturbating machine/erection strength measurer will then silently come out of the ceiling and grip their penis in as standardized a method as possible and bring them to their pre-measured maximum tumescence level with a slow, standardized motion profile and grip strength. The machine will then switch to a motion and grip profile resembling average sexual intercourse and the time from maximum erection to ejaculation measured. These times will be correlated with penile shapes after normalizing for age, testosterone level, sexual appetite and as many other variables as we can think of." Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:11, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Someone should include in a List of masturbation techniques (a red link that can grow to a stub) "Writing answer to one's own question at Ref. Desk." AllBestFaith (talk) 20:35, 16 October 2016 (UTC)