90+% and the fact that Crimeans are not fighting suggests that that is quite unanimous. And people in Iraq were fighting with US, weren't they?

And since when unambitious vote of DELEGATES is equal to unanimous opinion of people in those states?

My main point is that those sanctions are just hypocrisy. "Yes, we've done that. But you are not allowed to!" type of stance.

I guess that just shows difference between intention and implementation :).

Well, I guess if Crimean people ask Russians to leave you would have a fair point. As of now they've asked them to stay - it's their choice.

Typo: "my same applies on elections help in Iraq while under US invasion." needs to be "but same applies on elections held in Iraq while under US invasion."

And couple of more things about Crimea that everybody seem to be conveniently forgetting.

Russia didn't just 'annexed' it. There was a referendum and citizens of Crimea voted to join Russia. There may be different points of view on legitimacy of that vote - my same applies on elections help in Iraq while under US invasion.

And secondly - I do not really see Crimeans fighting against Russian invasion. No attacks on Russian solders, no IEDs on the roads. At least not yet. But still - compare that to Iraq. How many civilians were lost in Iraq war? How many US soldiers?

Russian approach seems more humane, I'd say :).

Well. I hardly can imagine free elections with a gun pointed to ones head (figuratively speaking). Not to mention that US propaganda machine was running at full steam there. There is no way those elections were not influenced by US. They very much were. So US got what US wanted (oil, I presume) and left, fair enough.

Now in Ukraine: there was an elected government that was overthrown by armed riots. ELECTED president fled to Russia and asked Putin for protection - this is his official position. And US comes in and helps those armed rioters who stared whole thing on the first place. Notice: those rioters were not elected. They are just convenient for US to mess with Russia.

Disclaimer: I'm Russian myself, although I currently live on North America.

But in my view Russian actions in Crimea are no better or worse then US actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam or many other numerous places were US soldier had set his foot, many times uninvited. It's true that US didn't annex those territories - but that's just it didn't make much sense to officially annex them. Imagine 'state of Iraq' as a part of US - this just would not have worked. Mainly for cultural and language reasons. If people in Iraq spoke English Iraq would have been US state by now. And people in Crimea speak Russian and are actually ethnic Russians in their majority.

Note: I do not say that Putin is good. My point is that Putin is no more evil than any US president. And that's just how world works - larger countries control smaller countries, in one way or another. And nobody is free.

And all that hysteria how Putin is new Hitler is just good job in US propaganda. As well how 'Putin brings freedom to oppressed Crimeans' is a Russian propaganda.

This is very much a matter of opinion. US had left when people in Iraq had elected government US wanted. Does this make Iraq a sovereign country? I think not. Iraq is pretty much controlled by US. As well as all NATO countries, especially east European ones. BTW, did anybody invited US into Iraq? Afghanistan? Vietnam? So yeah, look at yourself first and mind your own business - and your business has nothing to do with east Europe. US has much more imperial ambitions than any other country.

IMHO this is insane. Copyrighting color, form or shape - this is totally insane. And this event and also Apple vs Samsung event shows it.

One should not be able to copyright form or color. One can already copyright name and logo - this is enough. If company wants people to recognize their products - the can put their name/logo in a prominent place and then sue everybody who puts same name/logo without licence. But saying that only them can make yellow multimeters and rectangular phones - this is simply insane.

I must say I do not associate myself with any political party and do not even live in US.

But anyway, since you mentioned DOT, I'd assume you are in US. And as a matter of fact there is a standard 'Yellow change intervals' in US: http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/signtech/signdel/trafficmanual-current.htm , chapter 9, section 9-04.5. It didn't take me too long to find that.

So, this effectively means that either US authorities on some levels were engaging in awfully dangerous and illegal activities by shortening yellow light time or that shortening is purely perceptual. I'm not sure which one it is :).

But RLCs have really nothing to do with any of this. If some authority can go against the law and make yellow light shorter than required - that is the problem unrelated to RLCs. It's like banning bullet proof vests after some policeman suffocates his wife in it.

RLCs act as a deterrent for some drivers to run red lights, and as such they can save lives, and so they should be used, not banned.

I'm not exactly sure the shortcomings of the law that you have described are actually shortcomings, for the following reasons:

1) Yes, van with older tires should keep larger distance - this is lawful and ethical thing to do. Just because it's a van, heavy vehicle , with, well, older tires. Thus it has longer stopping distance. The fact that drivers of such vehicles (or any vehicle for that matter) usually do not want to realise.

2) I'm not sure which country you live in, but I have a feeling that in any country getting insurance payments is hard enough that you would be willing to search for a buyer for your vehicle instead. And that's not to mention that you may be injured in such collision, more than you think, especially if you goal is to 'total' the vehicle. So, no person in their right mind would attempt this.

3) Probably most importantly. If you hit the brakes and someone hits you from behind - yes, they were following to closely. This is by the definition. And following to closely (and hitting someone as the result) is against the law. You might have done something ethically wrong by hitting the brakes for no reason and there is no law to punish you - that is true. But the other side did something ethically wrong and unlawful - and got punished. That is what law was intended to do.

    So I guess my point is that yes, law is not perfect. And yes, you can quickly change lanes and brake in front of somebody not giving them opportunity to get back far enough. But I would argue that current law is the best that we can get with currently deployed technology.

    Is better law possible? Probably, with onboard recorders, dash cameras and stuff, mandated by the law - better law would be possible. But I can only imagine the amount of whining about 'privacy' from people why think that are entitled to drive +20-30km/h over the speed limit.

    All in all - current law is probably the best possible in current situation. Which means that we, as a society should do our best to obey it. And not to blame the guy who was stopping for red light/squirrel/kitten or child on the road.

Your brakes may one day save some kid's life by the cost of rear end of your car. And you won't have to pay for it!
I'm not sure what exactly is wrong with ethics here, from your point of view.

Yes, humans in general are crappy in measuring times and distances. But that's what we have got. People should acknowledge this and drive safely according to human abilities and road conditions. But instead people risk, get injured, die themselves and kill other people - that is where ethics is damned.

Unfortunately I do not know the details about research around longer yellow times, specifically I do not know for how long it was conducted. I would guess that this measure might have positive effect on short/medium term, but in the long term people just accommodate it. And those who run red light would just account for it and push it to the limits again.

Unfortunately there are only two things that stop people from doing stupid things:
1) money. i.e. fines
2) pain, injury

In case of running red light latter induces pain on innocent people, so the real option left is money, i.e. fines.

Yes, there is a percentage of people who run red light occidentally once on their lives, because they are humans, not machines. But there's large part who does this routinely and on purpose - and for those longer yellow, delayed green or whatever measure wont work. Fine, license suspension, double insurance premiums might safe lives of others with the help or RLCs.

It is rather funny how people blame everything and everyone for accidents but not themselves. Yes, of course, RLC are to blame for collisions, not drivers who speed and follow too close! Drive according to rules and RLC won't cause any trouble. Moreover, it seems to me that accidents caused by RLC would be minor comparing to accidents caused by running red light. During this type of collision everybody is already braking, speeds are lower. Rear end collision in most cases hits the front of the car which is design to absorb this hit, also car in front slides forward and in most cases there are only one or two occupants in the front of the car, so they are not hit by car in the back. But if you look into commissions caused by running red light the story is different. Car running red light is actually accelerating in a hope to 'make it' - the speeds are higher. One of the vehicles is being hit in the side causing much more damage. So yeah, RLCs are a moneygrab. Just like any other type of law enforcement. And prisons are legitimate form of slavery. Anarchy - the way to go, right.

TFA doesn't tell the whole truth. You cannot get Gnome 2 Look and Feel with Gnome 3. You just cannot. You cannot have workplaces in a grid, you cannot move and place your applets way you want, you cannot even have sensible task bar - one that is from applets doesn't even have context menus on buttons to allow one to move application to different workplace. It's like you spend couple of days tuning Gnome 3 and still get 'something' that is very far from what you've already had in Gnome 2 for many years. But that's only for starters. Then one can remember that with Gnome 2 often comes compiz with lot's of features and lots of eye candy. And that all begs a question - what exactly the purpose of the Gnome rewrite? It seems like their main goal was to copy all bad features from macos. And it was would have been perfectly fine if they didn't so badly break Gnome 2 with all their library changes. It's like one of the most popular DEs just seized to exist overnight. You upgrade you Ubuntu/Fedora/etc and... your desktop is no more. And you were so much used to it. I'm not against innovation in any way... But would it be better to perform experiments in the labs, not in schools/factories? Ubuntu with their Unity is much better in that sense - they did not take your choice away. But Gnome 3 did - and that's main problem.