Sure, I realize that. Maybe I wasn’t clear or perhaps overly verbose in my previous post, but my point is that running stop signs and red lights is the mildest form of “illegal” (in most places but not all) and like you said, arguably could be said to improve cycling safety. I just thought it was a weird thing to focus on. There seemed to be no mention of either why running stop lights or stop signs can improve cycling safety, or the myriad other ways that cyclists frequently break the law and make things more dangerous for themselves. Maybe there was mention in the paper itself, I didn’t read it in detail, but the article didn’t mention it.

PS: I upvoted you, by the way. Not sure who downvoted you or why.

Let me start by saying that I fully believe in fuck cars and instead having bike lanes and public transportation everywhere.

I alternate between commuting to work by car and bicycle, and I tend to observe other cyclists when I’m driving. What I notice is that a lot of cyclists place themselves in extremely dangerous situations, considering that there are careless drivers on our roads. Running red lights and stop signs is the least of it (I haven’t had a need to run red lights, but run stop signs regularly). Most of what I have observed where I live (an urban area) is not cyclists breaking the law to protect themselves, but the opposite: sometimes breaking the law and sometimes obeying the law, both in a way that makes things more dangerous for themselves and for drivers.

Some examples I’ve seen (more frequently than running stop signs - I very rarely if ever have seen a bicyclist running a red light and would completely understand if they had to do it because of stoplight sensors not detecting them):

Breaking the law (sometimes a combination of several of these):

• Riding on the sidewalk (arguably improves their safety in some ways, and worsens it in others)
• Riding the wrong way, against traffic (worsens their safety)
• Riding the wrong way, against traffic, on the sidewalk (greatly worsens their safety - I almost ran into someone doing this once because I just did not expect someone coming from the wrong direction at high speed in a completely unexpected place when I was turning into a driveway/side street)
• Riding on crosswalks when pedestrian walking lights are on (worsens their safety)
• Riding wearing headphones (not sure if illegal - it is for drivers - but worsens their safety)
• Riding on busy streets not wearing a helmet (not sure if illegal, but worsens their safety)
• Riding on the street at night with no bike lights (worsens their safety)

Obeying the law:

• Riding in just about the busiest, fastest street possible, when there’s a much safer, parallel, designated “bicycle” street to ride a block away. While this is legal, it makes things more dangerous for themselves and for drivers when they have a perfectly reasonable alternative. I personally go out of my way (literally) to find the least busy streets for my commuting route.

So I guess I’m saying that I’m surprised by the results of this study. I only scanned the actual paper, but one thing that comes to mind is that perhaps some/many cyclists have a greater disconnect between what they think improves their safety vs. what would actually improve their safety?

Thanks for the additional info and explanation. That makes sense, but I realize now that I must have made a mistake. The NPR piece I was referencing was not the one you linked but another one that I had pulled up when I was trying to learn more about this: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/15/956842958/what-we-know-so-far-a-timeline-of-security-at-the-capitol-on-january-6

Going by that timeline and narrative, it doesn’t seem like Mayor Bowser asked for a large contingent of the NG until the attack was already under way. I now also understand better why she may have erred in that way, because of what had happened in the previous BLM protest.

Wow, that Flynn appointment timing definitely looks shady as hell. As for the Capitol cops, I wouldn’t be surprised if they put up token resistance. Cops in general seemed to be on Trump’s and his fans’ side, what with all the back the blue rhetoric and all that. So now after this discussion I’m definitely leaning more towards any possible conspiracy being all on the side of the people who wanted the insurrection to succeed, with some lucky help in the form of some people on the other side having acted with incompetence.

Thanks again.

I found another source explaining it from experience: https://www.grandin.com/humane/cap.bolt.tips.html

It seems that we may both be partially correct: If a penetrating bolt is used the animal is killed instantly. If a non-penetrating bolt is used, the animal sometimes revives. What we don’t know is how prevalent each approach is. Either way, re-reading your initial post that I responded to I realized that this debate doesn’t matter. Your point seems to have been that they don’t feel pain as they’re killed, and I concede that you’re correct. I missed that this was the point you were making, and that you were not mainly arguing whether the animals were killed instantly or not.

Edit: Just to add that I concede the point that they don’t feel pain only in a general sense. Looking at that last link, it seems that this procedure would have a lot of room for error and I’m sure that as a consequence a lot of cows suffer unintentionally.

What else would you need in order to believe that this was a planned assault on democracy, coordinated directly with the white house and designed to take advantage of a legitimate peaceful protest?

I know it was a planned assault on democracy. I never said otherwise. I also know who had fomented and planned the assault: the people in the White House and all their die-hard followers. None of that is in question. What I was unsure about was who had fucked up and allowed it to happen that day. I had never looked very closely at the details of the events of that day, but I read the NPR and Politico stories you sent. The picture that those paint to me is that a lot of people primarily responsible for securing this event fucked up leading up to it. With all that intelligence that shit was going to go down, the local authorities should have had their shit together, ready for it. They could have asked the National Guard to be in place ahead of time, but didn’t think it was necessary despite having access to the intelligence and were worried about what had happened previously with the BLM protests. If they’re having to call the National Guard after people start rushing the capitol, it’s way too late. From the time that the crowd reaches the security lines at the capitol until the time that the protester is shot trying to enter the House chamber is less than 1 hour 45 minutes. And it sounds like the call goes out to the NG after the crowd reached the capitol.

I didn’t realize or recall that Michael Flynn’s brother was one of the generals involved in the decision to send in the National Guard. WTF, he was probably in no hurry to send in the troops. However, I still argue that the people who were intent on securing the event should not have given anyone the opportunity of a delayed response that could have been obscured by the chaos. Aside from that, what are the chances that the situation could have potentially been even worse had the NG been involved? Can you imagine the endless whining from the MAGAs if more of them had been mowed down by the NG?

So I went a little further by reading parts of the actual regulations, i.e., the implementation and enforcement of the act, because I’m genuinely curious to learn about this. It seems that they’re defining stunning as basically destroying the brain of the animal before killing the body. For instance: “Unconsciousness is produced immediately by physical brain destruction and a combination of changes in intracranial pressure and acceleration concussion.” It seems like a distinction without a difference, since they’re essentially killing the animal by “stunning” it or making it “unconscious”.

Conspiracy fact. I watched on video as cops moved barricades to let rioters in, took selfies with rioters, then literally held the hands of rioters as they walked down the capitol stairs.

Thanks, but that’s not what I meant though. What that person described was that an unusually low, insufficient level of security had been established before the event, in comparison to any other run of the mill event that had taken place in that area in the past. The exact opposite should have been done, since everyone expected there to be trouble.

In terms of conspiracy theory, there are two possibilities I can think of: a) someone in power under-secured the event in the expectation that the riot would succeed and become a coup, or b) someone in power under-secured the event in the expectation that the riot would not succeed but would be enough of a spectacle that it could then be used against the people who were involved with facilitating and encouraging it. However, this all hinges on that observer’s evaluation being accurate that the event had indeed been unusually under-secured.

Thanks for the link. It says nothing about making them unconscious before slaughter. They’re just saying that the slaughter should be quick and not subject the animals to additional suffering beforehand:

No method of slaughtering or handling in connection with slaughtering shall be deemed to comply with the public policy of the United States unless it is humane. Either of the following two methods of slaughtering and handling are hereby found to be humane:

(a) in the case of cattle, calves, horses, mules, sheep, swine, and other livestock, all animals are rendered insensible to pain by a single blow or gunshot or an electrical, chemical or other means that is rapid and effective, before being shackled, hoisted, thrown, cast, or cut; or

(b) by slaughtering in accordance with the ritual requirements of the Jewish faith or any other religious faith that prescribes a method of slaughter whereby the animal suffers loss of consciousness by anemia of the brain caused by the simultaneous and instantaneous severance of the carotid arteries with a sharp instrument and handling in connection with such slaughtering.

In which country? I’ve never heard of this, at least in the US.

I’ve heard that there are some Mastodon apps that have their own algorithms, but unfortunately don’t remember any details. Perhaps that would be something to look into.

Yeah, about that… let’s talk about a conspiracy theory. I remember reading, I think on Twitter, either just before, or maybe it was a retweet after the fact, someone local to DC saying that the security that had been established around town (or maybe around the capitol specifically) that day in preparation for the demonstrations was weaker than they had ever seen for any run of the mill event there. This would seem very strange because word was very much out that something was going to go down that day, so one would have expected a much higher level of security to have been established. Although I didn’t look very closely into what happened that day and the days surrounding it, it still seems strange that I’ve never heard this discussed since I read it.

Ah, I see what you mean now. Yes, that sounds like it would probably be useful, but I hope that they are very careful with slowly adding features that change the network/social dynamics of the place.

Mastodon has an “Explore” section, that lists the most popular posts today. It also has subsections for trending news, hashtags, and “for you” which seems to be suggested accounts to follow.

Just read this book:

That’s fine and I applaud that aspect of their actions; however, they could instead at least do this on independent, 3rd-party communities, or help people with open-source technologies. Providing large amounts of free labor to HP in a place convenient to HP like this is undercutting HP tech support employees’ jobs, for example.

True. So I wonder how is it that some European countries that do this got around that obstacle. I guess that’s what happens when you have an equitable society in place?

From what I recall, the places that do this usually do it in the form of days of income. I’m not sure how they determine that if someone’s money comes from investments, etc.

I wonder if the problem may be specific to certain specific communities then. Or maybe just some weird browser glitch, but I think I tested for that. Thanks!

My list is pretty similar to yours, with major exceptions that I include all the giant multinational oil companies (i.e., BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell - I get gas from Arco). I also substitute Google in place of Apple. I avoid Amazon like the plague, unless there is absolutely nowhere else I can buy something. I also have all the US mega banks on my list. Kroger’s grocery stores. Probably a few more things I can’t think of right now.

It’s really remarkable. I’ve noticed what seems to be a similar dynamic on some official corporate tech support forums like Microsoft, HP, etc. I’ve seen people who spend a lot of time providing volunteer tech support (based on their reputation scores). I just don’t get the idea of volunteering for a for-profit corporation.