Posts by stephen walker
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Ben, i know what you mean about riding uphill. especially since my good bike got stolen and with my much crappier fitness level now i tend to be much less aggressive on the uphill climbs. footpath looks quite sensible quite often. mind you, these hills are nothing compared with Auckland. in Tokyo, if you want to cycle serious distances, it's all a matter of carefully picking and refining your route, imo. Auckland, on the other hand, is a nightmare for most routes, with some notable exceptions. even so, i reckon some roads in AK are more cyclable than others. i just refuse to cycle somewhere where i think i could be killed at any moment no matter how cautious i'm being. Like Khyber Pass, Symonds St, anywhere with too many big trucks and buses...
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holy shit, this is serious!
ENSURING LAWFUL INTERROGATIONS
well done, Mr. Obama.
Sec. 4. Prohibition of Certain Detention Facilities, and Red Cross Access to Detained Individuals.
(a) CIA Detention. The CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future.
(b) International Committee of the Red Cross Access to Detained Individuals. All departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall provide the International Committee of the Red Cross with notification of, and timely access to, any individual detained in any armed conflict in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States Government, consistent with Department of Defense regulations and policies.
even Kev has something nice to say. now that is serious.
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requiring legislation to be posted online for five days between passage and signing
means after passed by congress but before being signed into law by president. no?
a whole five days to examine the text of "non emergency" legislation before it's passed
not the way i read it...
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Ben, in Tokyo and environs, people use bikes to get around their local neighbourhood, between railway/subway station, home, shops, kindergarten, creche, friends houses, parks, etc. the terrain is essentially flat with a few exceptions. most people ride on the footpath. once again, technically illegal but there is more chance of getting stopped by a cop if you ride your bike on a busy arterial road than on a crowded footpath. i don't like riding on the footpath so i avoid it as much as possible. too much chance a pedestrian or another bike will just appear out of nowhere. crash. but if you do can out, most people ride quite slowly and there are only rarely serious injuries. one thing i always keep in mind when riding here is that most other people on bikes are morons and could do the dumbest thing at any time for no reason whatsoever. so you have to be very cautious and aware of potential dangers all the time. one interesting thing recently is that when i had my son on the back of my bike 8 or so years ago, he was just about the only one around wearing a helmet (i.e. less than 5%). now, maybe 50% of kids being carried have helmets. and the snazzy German child seat i bought was still quite rare. now they are everywhere. much better safety and comfort features than the cheap Japanese child seats.
most people only use their cars on the weekend here, so either walking or biking is the way to get around near home. also, when i started long-distance commuting on a bike twice a week in 2002, it was still a kind of "ignore him, he's a bit eccentric/mad" thing to do (just under 20km each way). now, it's seen as cool and there are heaps of books, mags, shops catering to the trend.
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a wee town called Pai
that town is a chillout mecca for heaps of Japanese friends. the older hippies and the budding young hippy-types rave about that place so much. never been there but have heard some stories...
btw, the little girl on the bike...that bike looks exactly like the bikes all the little girls ride around on in Japan. what a cute kid!
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i see dozens of mum-and-2-kids-on-a-bike everyday of the week in Tokyo. and occasionally dad-and-2-kids.
it's a normal way to get around.
otoh, adult carrying 2 kids on a bike is technically illegal but the cops never do anything about it because all the millions of families who rely on this practical form of transport would instigate a revolt. the city would become ungovernable. heh. -
Really? When did these pop up? At best, it should be phrased as 'the alleged ill effects..' (I do know a thing or two about the research literature, and the weaknesses of US-sourced 'effects' research)
i think some of the stuff steven is referring to might be from the Dunedin longitudinal study...
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oh yeah, i forgot.
it's all good!"Cherry-picking and distorting"
there's a crime worthy of some punishment.
raining on parades.
even worse crime.
hang 'em all. -
Big Party, Small Change: Baby, We Were Born to Run...the Empire
I understand there's a big party going on in Washington this week, where hundreds of thousands of people are gathering to celebrate Bob Gates' retention as Pentagon chief. I mean, that is what this shindig is all about, isn't it? Hope and.... continuity?
We've got Bush's man still driving the war machine, we've got Bush's generals still waging the "War on Terror" all over the world. We've got a president who is eager to spend his "political capital" on slashing "entitlements," because everyone must sacrifice, everybody's "going to have to have some skin in this game" -- everyone, that is, except for the president's Wall Street backers, who are about to receive yet another tranche of billions of taxpayer dollars in what they are now calling openly -- and rightly -- "opportunity funding." We've got a president honoring homophobic right-wing preachers who urge their followers to imitate the mindless zeal of Nazis and Bolsheviks in doing "whatever it takes" to establish Christianist dominion. We've got a president whose education chief believes in turning over the teaching of America's children to corporations -- and the military. We've even got a president who follows Dick Cheney's "good advice" on interrogating Terror War captives.
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mother<-->father relationship
is neither mutually exclusive with nor completely inseparable from
wife<-->husband relationship