That’s fair but the amount of interest in this crewed mission vs. prior uncrewed and robotic moon missions shows that many people find manned missions more compelling.
It’s interesting to compare to Apollo 8 (circumlunar Apollo mission). That mission culminated a year that saw escalation of the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
It was a telegram, not a letter. As also immortalised at the end of the 1968 episode of ‘From The Earth To The Moon’, attributed there to an apparently fictitious person.
I’ve fantasized about carrying a bullhorn on my bike and just calling people out: “hey you in the Tesla, put your phone down!” Sadly the enforcement of the hands free law where I live is nonexistent. What’s surprising to me about this article is that the police will actually act on this guy’s tips and evidence.
It does vary wildly across the UK. I've had success with reporting in Avon&Somerset, but other areas have the police creating excuses for the drivers and finding any reason to blame the cyclist.
my repeated fantasies are a blind person with a reinforced version of their stick, using that stick to great effect to damage cars that are parked on the sidewalk. like, when they bump into a car they take the stick an beat the car for all that its worth creating as much damage as possible.
the other fantasy is carrying a bazooka and shooting anyone speeding. optionally the weapon is futuristic and able to just vaporize the car while leaving passengers unharmed. they just suddenly find themselves sitting on the street looking dumbfounded.
I used to (idly) consider play-doh with thermite in it on the hood of the car double parked in the bike lane. But then I moved to NYC where nothing would be possible without a little double parking happening.
Traffic fines go to the central government, not local areas or police forces. On the one hand it takes away incentives to game the system (e.g designing suddenly speed limit reductions on otherwise fast roads), but it also means that enforcement is lacking as it becomes a cost for local governments and police forces
Traffic enforcement is minimal. As a cyclist, I can choose any busy city road and go past lots of drivers using their phones whilst stuck in traffic.
Close passes are not something the police look for (excepting a couple of specific operations where they had a cycling officer) so bikecams are the only way to get the police to take any action and that is usually just to send a warning letter.
The enforcement is patchy. There are loads of cameras and they pick up some things like speeding or driving in bus lanes but not others live those you mention. I drive and cycle and driving in central London is an odd experience these days that seems almost stationary - wait at lights for a minute, roll a few yards at 15 mph, wait again.
Most actual cycle deaths seem to be people crushed by lorries when turning at junctions which seems more an engineering issue - the drivers can't see etc. than bad driving.
The onus is on a driver making a manoeuvre to ensure that it is safe to do so, and turning left shouldn't just be performed blindly if the driver has restricted view around their vehicle. However, there's a lot of poorly designed junctions as well.
I believe that one way to improve the problem of left-turns is to have traffic lights that enable cyclists to go first, or allowing cyclists to treat red lights as "give way" signs or turn-left-on-red.
There's also the question of whether we should allow vehicles to use public roads if they have known "blind spots" that drivers are not able to resolve by moving their heads.
Personally, I'd like to see a far more serious attitude to road/traffic safety. When there's a fatal collision, the junction/road should be closed to motor traffic until the junction can be made safe (e.g. adding a separate cycle lane or amending the traffic lights). However, motornormativity suggests that it'll never happen.
I'm not sure with the trucks. My guess is requiring cameras that provide a view of the problem areas might be the thing, possibly with some AI that detects cyclists and the like. I think a lot have warning signs on now for cyclists. Personally I never stop anywhere near them and treat the red lights as kind of give ways.
I'm not sure the highway code rules are that appropriate for places like central London. I tend to treat the whole place like a pedestrianised area - not worrying too much about road signs but giving way to pedestrians.
Not sure about warranty, but a few years ago my mother's 80s(?) era Delta faucet started leaking. I sent a blurry photo to Delta's service team and a few days later had a link to a replacement part and an old manual scanned as a PDF. For a 40 year old product!
Ultimately we replaced the whole faucet and fixture, but that single reply probably made me a customer for life.
If you’re interested in more context for this, the book The Blue Machine by physical oceanographer Helen Czerski. There’s a great discussion of this and other ocean issues.
Zonian: my father was born to an American family but outside the Canal Zone (Panama City). I asked my Dad whether they considered themselves Americans or Panamanians growing up. He said his parents (my grandparents) considered themselves Panamanians and that they strongly supported handing over the canal during the treaty negotiations. What was the feeling like among the “Zonians”?
We just had a family reunion of sorts in Panama and needless to say the relatives that still live there (all over the political spectrum) were not enthused by the new U.S. posture.
I was a kid when the Treaty was ratified in the Senate and when the Treaty was first implemented on October 1, 1979. As a kid it was a sad day for us. We all thought that Panama would be incapable of running the canal properly. The railroad quickly went into disrepair when Panama took over so there was some valid reasons for believing this.
In our own way we protested things. We wore shirts that said, “To Jimmy from the Canal Zone” with Gummy flipping the bird. We wrote some graffiti with slogans like “CZ Forever” and “Kiss My American Ass”. The transition was peaceful though and no violence was carried out. It took 21 years for the Treaty to be fully implemented. I came to the United States for college and stayed here in the U.S. ever since.
When I went back to Panama some years ago I could see that Panama made great progress compared to when the U.S. was there. One rabiblanco I talked to put it this way, “When you Americans left we had to grow up.” I could first hand see that we ended up stunting the political and economic progress of Panama.
The Treaty was the right thing to do. I hated it as a kid to lose my hometown and start being patrolled by the Guadia Nacional (PDF) but as an adult I see it differently.
What about the constitutional directive that the President shall ensure that the laws are faithfully executed? Congress has prescribed how agencies may issue regulations and interpretations through statutes shouldn’t these statutes control?
Article II Section 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America
It doesn't say "some of the executive power", nor does Article I mention anything about being able to create new executive powers vested in other entities. So if the president is the only one who has been vested with the executive power, how can a functionary of the executive promulgate a regulation that disagrees with the president? Ultimately the House can impeach and the Senate convict, possibly disqualifying them from federal office.
Right, but what is “executive power”? It is the power to put laws into effect—to execute them. And Congress writes those laws. Article 2 Section 1 does not confer power beyond what the laws provide.
And “vested” does not mean exclusive. Many U.S. laws grant executive power, including the power to promulgate regulations, to persons in the executive branch other than the president. For example, the Communications Act of 1934 creates the FCC and gives the commission the power to “perform any and all acts, make such rules and regulations, and issue such orders, not inconsistent with this chapter, as may be necessary in the execution of its functions.”[1]
There is no authority in the statute for the President to override these determinations made by the Commission.
The enumerated powers in article 2 along with the implied powers that are necessary to carry out the constitutional responsibilities of the president make up the executive power.
> Article 2 Section 1 does not confer power beyond what the laws provide.
It does not confer power beyond what is enumerated and implied within article 2 which vests those powers into a single president. Laws are subordinate to the constitution and have no way of limiting, modifying, or expanding it unless the amendment process is used.
> And “vested” does not mean exclusive.
Can there be two commander in chiefs?
> Many U.S. laws grant executive power, including the power to promulgate regulations, to persons in the executive branch other than the president.
How are they granting executive power? I see nothing in article 1 to suggest they have such a power. Congress was given explicit powers to create lower courts though, "To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court". It seems odd that the framers would forget to mention that congress can also vest executive power into entities of their own creation.
> There is no authority in the statute for the President to override these determinations made by the Commission.
So according to you argument congress can create an enabling act wherein they vest all executive power into the newly created agency head and require the president to nominate a specific person by a specific date and the president would be obliged to execute that law?
The pricing makes sense for the better brands as they have to basically make a nice wine, and then take additional steps to remove the alcohol. At least that’s what they do for the better alcohol-free Rieslings. See https://thezeroproof.com/products/buy-eins-zwei-zero-rieslin...
This is wonderful. The loving dedication to getting the details right reminds me of the engineer hobbyist that built a functional scale model of a Ferrari 312PB race car as shown on this classic Top Gear episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeUMDY01uUA
The reality is created by policy. The AMA zealously protects MDs and (Medicare-funded) fellowships as a cartel exempt from antitrust laws. Any they fight PAs and NPs tooth and nail.
