Juno

That decision means that only men are drafted, so my brother has a higher likelihood of being drafted because your sister is exempted. That has an effect on me that I would disagree with.

And you're suggesting that all women should be stuck with the decision of the majority of women, and that all men should be stuck with the decision of the majority of men. You're still making a distinction between men and women without really justifying why you're making that distinction, rather than any other (political persuasion seems like it would be more relevant).

What your chart shows is that there are a good proportion of men who do not support war, and a good proportion of women who do. So, the people who support a war should fight it. Why should the men who don't support a war be made to fight it, but the women who do support it aren't made to?

Come on, you can do better than that. It's a genuine question - men so often feel like they need to protect women without really considering whether the women actually want that protection (I imagine plenty of women do, but it's certainly not all of us).

That sounds like your own squeamishness rather than a rational basis. Horrible things happen to people in war all the time - the fact is that they may not be the same horrible things for men and women but if you're going to force people into a situation where they could be killed or have legs blown off, I don't see why another horrible thing also possible happening to a subset of people is really relevant. Likewise your second point - I'd feel "wrong" about forcing anyone to join a military, male or female, but if the situation requires it, why do you feel more "wrong" about women?

I'm really intrigued by this discussion, as a woman that constantly struggles with the perception that people have of women needing to be treated differently (the number of times people have apologised, specifically to me as the only woman in the room, for swearing, even though I will swear in front of the same people with a similar frequency, drives me round the bend). Raider, why do you think women should have a different responsibility from men in this arena?

I agree. My husband is pathologically averse to telling me what something's about. If he suggests a film, and I ask what it's about, he'll tell me who directed it, who's in it, etc., before he gets anywhere near any actual useful information. If he puts something on at home and I ask what it is, he'll pretty much refuse to tell me, so like Ten oz I'll go and do something else. I hate starting to watch something having no idea what it is or what it's supposed to be about.

That's as may be, but that doesn't mean it tells you what causes ASD. My autistic husband wears sunglasses more than a non-autistic person (and did so long before his autism diagnosis) because he's very sensitive to bright light, that doesn't mean wearing sunglasses caused his autism.

Yes, in the sense that we aren’t as reliant on it for TV - satellite is at least as common and I think has been around for longer. I don’t know about their respective use for telephony though as I don’t think I’ve ever lived anywhere with cable!

A fair point on the mobile coverage aspect - as an example I had a look at Madison, WI, as a reasonably similar size city as Derby in the UK - you don't have to go much more than 5 miles from the centre to find black spots that look pretty similar to where I live. On the cable coverage though, there's quite a difference. According to this speech from the UK comms regulator from last year, 80% of UK households are still reliant on copper networks for their broadband, whereas in the US that's more like a third of households. I can see why, on that basis, more of the US population would be willing to give up the copper-based landline.

Yeah, it looks like where I am is just a black hole as far as mobile coverage is concerned, so I won't be getting rid of my landline any time soon. My point was that this isn't really an exception in a country like the UK, but actually pretty common for anyone who doesn't actually live in a city (and sometimes for those who do). I suppose the other point is that we don't have as wide-ranging a cable network like the US does, so for a lot of people if they want TV beyond what's available through their aerial then they need to keep a landline to run the fibre service down.

Unfortunately even on the "All carriers" version of the map my street is showing as "weak signal"

It may not be the rule but it's certainly a reasonably broad exception. I live in a village in the UK that is only 5 miles from the centre of a city, but I can't reliable hold a conversation on my mobile phone in my own house. It's still a pretty common issue in the UK (and I've even had trouble with signal in central London). Netflix for example would almost definitely be out of the question. At least in the UK, mobile phone tech is not good enough for us all to ditch our landlines just yet.

B and D, on the basis that

The numbers here lend themselves to a more straightforward analysis than using logarithms though. The target amount can be reached by halving the amount a certain number of times (I'm guessing the more complex logarithm analysis isn't expected given the simplicity of the numbers).

Mike, is this what you were watching? https://www.channel4.com/news/pentagon-admits-secret-ufo-investigations Because I've just watched it a couple of times, and as far as I can tell the only "disclosure" in the whole story is that the Pentagon, for the period 2007 to 2012, had a division which was investigating UFOs. An interesting story from a political point of view, perhaps, but nothing more (particularly when, as the piece points out, the UK government has never hid the fact that they ran their own such investigations). No actual revelations of what might have been found during such investigations (and given that the division was disbanded five years ago, it seems unlikely they found much of interest). The rest of the four minute piece is background and filler. Unless you were watching a different story?

So do you only receive an honours degree if you do that extra year? I think here honours is the standard degree.

I don't know what that is and I wonder if it's American-specific, we don't have them in the UK as far as I'm aware. What I mean is, for my degree content I had to choose 8 subjects, and although most of those were taught subjects, one of the options was a 10,000 word dissertation, on a subject of my choosing (which then meant one less exam). I think they called it a library dissertation, i.e. you weren't expected to carry out research (that was a separate option). EDIT in fact it was indeed called a library dissertation - scroll down to the bottom of the table here:- https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses-listing/psychology-experimental?wssl=1

Don't forget that you can also have dissertations at undergraduate level too, I did one as part of my BA.

I agree that there's unlikely to be a "reasonable" reason, but that's not the question. A "reason" doesn't have to be "reasonable", it just has to be the "why".

Well, the point of the OP was that he was "demanding" the shooter's reasons. Apart from DrP's suggestion that it was an attempt to save future lives by forcing the debate on gun control forward, what are the other possibilities?

Regardless of the conclusion, one picture doesn't show anything except a one-off occurrence. Look at what happened in the UK over the winter of 1962/63 where the sea froze for a mile out from the shore:- Minnis Bay on the south coast of England in 1963 - https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiag72Wg9fWAhXGIMAKHWl_CTMQjBwIBA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.birchingtonheritage.org.uk%2FMinnis%20from%201940%2Fice63.jpg&psig=AOvVaw3HFvMpmIBxhTK33t-JlmOR&ust=1507208453530588 Minnis Bay today - https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiqsfSng9fWAhUBAcAKHVGwDKIQjBwIBA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thebeachguide.co.uk%2Fpublic%2Fgeophotos%2F1471487.jpg&psig=AOvVaw2hpiHbfe_oxhPgbkmqpOyj&ust=1507208476399119

Hey, if it can occur to us both in the space of 24 hours, I'm sure a fool with plenty of time on their hands could come up with it by themselves.

That possibility had occurred to me as well.

At the risk of prolonging the off-topic discussion... the figures I've found this morning indicate that around 63,000 children a year are victims of sexual abuse in the US (https://www.rainn.org/statistics/children-and-teens). Even if you assume that not all of those constitute rape, it's in the right ballpark to be comparable with the UK.