That reasoning fails on two points.

• The government is frequently not logical. For example, many people naively assumed that although there were anti-pot laws, the state would never expend the resources to attack a little 'ol nobody like themselves. Thus, they concluded they were safe. Some people who had that attitude are now growing grey behind walls.
• Sometimes the motivation to attack somebody are the financial concerns of particular people in the government working under tangled rules. Because of the way funding laws are arranged, particular people in the government may get money if they prey on a particular nobody. So there really isn't a valid reason to target that someone. They just happen to be in the cross-hairs, and someone is getting paid to pull the trigger.

You don't have to be truly important or truly threatening for the state to persecute you. Indeed, if we could rely on the state always being correct in whom they attack, we wouldn't need individual rights.

By American standards, 8 months is a very light sentence. Lots of people spend that much time just awaiting trial, while they are technically innocent by law. My wife, for example, just finished 40 calendar months (lost all good time for tobacco smoking) for possession of a tiny quantity of crack (which I don't do, btw). I could go on with examples that are even worse, but I wanted to show something near to me to demonstrate prevalence.

The big filter (I don't like the term "great filter" but I'll include it to make search easier) is the point at which software programs itself (I don't like the term "singularity") - and so on. This point will soon arrive for our civilization, and it has already passed for the civilizations we are looking for. SETI is futile.

We must admit something is wrong after the current statistical failure to find detectable electromagnetic radiation (DEMR) from others. The best suggested answer is that civilizations hit the big filter at a point before having centuries of producing DEMR. So what comes early in DEMR production? Software intelligence. Right now, it's not a species killer, but tomorrow, when it can evolve itself, it will write our epitaph.

Regarding the article, it won't work. Civilizations will reach the big filter before they reach other planets.

There's no need to take offense at a legitimate correction. We all do ignorant things. It is how you recover that demonstrates your character.

Your rhetorical question ("How many...anyway?") indirectly stated you believed only a few people bike in the snow.

I didn't object to your anecdote, but if you re-read your post, you can see forming your opinion on that basis was your failing. With your newly-learned knowledge about the subject, you should realize your sample was inadequate to form a generalization.

I never claimed to have done a search; however, having had personal experience with the activity, seeing it, and having seen numerous articles, threads, vids, and pics of it, I felt confident that if you had made a search prior to your posting, you would have seen results that would have compelled you to write something different. Therefore, you didn't search.

There's no need for me to refine my use of "lots" to an definite statistic.

You're Incorrect, misread, borderline ridiculous and you must not ride a bike either.

I ride both an e-bike an a human-powered bike, and yes, I, personally, ride in the right *part* of the lane, but my policy is by no means universal, many people, particularly other e-bike riders, don't agree, and it certainly is not mandated by the law. Also, your interpretation of "Meaning on or to the right of the white solid lane marker" is something no one beyond you believes. Finally, in real life, if you ride a bike (even for just an hour in this town, Kansas City) keeping to the right part of the lane, and you go slower than traffic, many people will come dangerously close - certainly closer than 3 feet. Then, if you ride long enough (say, a few months), you'll have a side-swipe story to tell.

People in cars think because they are in bigger vehicle they have more *right* to be there. Many even believe a bike has no right. I see it as a basic inferiority complex. Someone with this complex gets an opportunity to bully, and they do - to feel more superior about themselves. It happens more frequently in less-civilized parts of the world. In Boulder, Colorado, the motor traffic is generally polite to bikes. In the blighted dirty cities, you get just the opposite. This is a well discussed subject. Every bike forum addresses it from time to time.

Very. In contrast to the UK, I don't know, though.

Enforcement is about money - not road safety.

You certainly didn't search on that one before you posted. Lots of people bike in the snow, particularly in Europe but in the US as well.

To those cagers who blame cyclists for ignoring laws, I point out in Kansas, a motor vehicle is supposed to give a bike 3 feet of clearance. They don't, and the law is never enforced.

Now, to address your post: The reason bikes should have more latitude than cars or trucks is that bikes, considering their smaller mass and lower power, are much less likely to cause injury to another road user. Bikes can safely ignore many traffic laws meant for cars and trucks.

This is an already worn subject, you know.

Agreed. It's amazing how people mindlessly parrot the government slant.
Pretty much if the government states something, the opposite is true. The "corrections" department does not correct people; it punishes them. The "defense" department is for offense. The Division of Family Services breaks up families. The Patriot Act is unpatriotic. The ones who "serve and protect" really take your money and your freedom. Etc.

Whatever the "claimed" goals of government are, its real actions are the things that count, and nowadays, in terms of something resulting from NSA intrusions, an American is more likely to be harmed by her or his own government than harmed by a "terrorist attack". The NSA has not been very successful in citing successes in its protecting of Americans.

If you could guarantee the goals of the NSA were always noble, then I would favor granting them far-reaching authority. But, in reality, the government, and elements of the government such as the NSA in particular, are often not noble; thus, *government authority must be limited*. This is a concept enshrined in The Constitution, and it's also a concept widely accepted by people everywhere the modem civilized world.

It would be nice if a law suit were possible. But when I was researching this subject, I couldn't uncover one successful suit against a state CPS (If we ignore gripes by employees and contractors. I mean an action by a parent against CPS for wrongly taking the parent's kid). CPS (or more specifically, a particular state CPS agency) can not be legally accused of having insufficient justification for taking a kid. I'll try to explain.

In criminal law, in order for the state to remove a defendant's freedom, the state must show that she or he broke a law, something defined by statute. The statute will have conditions which must be met For example, in order for the state to convict someone for trespassing, the perpetrator must have knowingly been on the property, and he/she must have disobeyed a sign, barrier (like a fence), or a personally-communicated no-trespassing order from the property owner or his/her agent. The law has a definition, and someone can look it up for their jurisdiction.

In family court law, in a CPS action, legally, the state isn't accusing the kid or his parents of wrongdoing. The state is claiming that the kid is "at risk" of something happening to the kid, and, legally, although the kid may go to kiddy-jail, the action is not about the kid's freedom. The action is legally for the kid's benefit. The Guardian ad Litem, one of the attorneys working to lock-up the kid, is legally the kid's attorney. --- I'm getting too far from my point.

There is no pre-defined list of behaviors that merit taking a kid away from his/her family. There is no clear definition of "neglect" or "abuse" in respect to a kid-removing action. Many states have a criminal statute of child abuse, but that's something different. A parent doesn't need to be charged with anything to lose his or her baby.

Incorrect. (And let's assume your details are all accurate.) CPSs of any state don't have a bit of care about if there is "a danger" for the kid or not. That's just propaganda for public consumption. It's simply about money.

However, there are certain groups of people who are immune from getting their kids snatched. These are groups that may cause repercussions to their racket: Lawyers; Judges; Police; Other members of the legal system; CPS employees and contractors, including foster contractors; Famous people; Religious leaders of some decent rank; Noted civil rights people; American Indians (this is a special statutory group); People with political connections; and Rich people.

Your person "who used to work for them" was, I'm guessing, a foster contractor. This places him/her in an immune category, but certainly not a safe one considering statistically a kid is many times more likely to get hurt of killed in foster custody as opposed to the custody of the natural parents.

I'm not sure what you are saying. Sure, kids in foster custody are on Medicaid, and that means that medical care is more or less paid for if someone seeks it. But what is your point?

"Munchausen by proxy" is a favorite of child protective service (CPS) workers. It's typically used by the state as a high-flown word to make their kidnapping sound legitimate.

As you pointed out, it usually doesn't withstand logic.