I second that motion!

That's the legislative check and balance to the court. If a congress can be bribed to make an amendment to the constitution that specifies that money, resources, or commodities cannot be equated to speech, then the verdict of the Supreme Court is nullified by the voices that represent the will of the people. The real trick is getting a congress in office that would agree on passing the amendment.

When my weekend leisure trips can easily run 400-1000+ miles one way, stopping for 2-8 hrs every 180-195 miles to charge up instead of 5-15 minutes every 165-180 miles is unacceptable.

Them's the breaks. When shit like this starts sending quakes through the portfolios of the general population *MAYBE* it'll be enough to wake up the collective to say "Hey! What the Fuck?!" and break apart some of this complacency iceberg we have going on.

Actually, unless you are dealing with someone who's over-the-top ignorant, even the die-hard Harley fans will acknowledge other cycle brands. At worst this just leads into sub-classing of the Motorcycle / Biker group. If I showed up to a 1% rally (not bloody likely in the first place) on my Venture, I can expect that it would probably wind up vandalized, but so long as I showed proper "respect" to the members of the head MC, no harm would necessarily come to me personally.

There's also the other bit. It doesn't matter the style or brand you're loyal to or what you say about riders of other brands/styles, if you're riding an open 2 or 3 wheeler, be it scoot, bike, or trike, you're part of the biggest club on the road. You'll be acknowledged by other riders on the road and it's courtesy to acknowledge other riders in kind. If you come onto a road behind a squad of bikes, regardless of your ride, members of the squad will signal of road hazards to you as they see them; and you're free to part ways at any point and you're likely to be waved off in a measure of good wishes.

With motorcycles acceptable lighting really depends on the state. In Georgia I can run any color under the sun except for blue; and even white, amber, or red must be tied with head lamps, signal indicators, or brakes respectively. In some of Georgia's counties, I can even get away with blue so long as they don't flash, and in other counties headlight modulation can be iffy. There are other states that say that you can't run any lights. There's also a few states where they don't even allow bikes with mounted extra lights to even pass through (I can't remember if this was Mississippi or Tennessee). Doesn't matter if they're actually wired in or not.

In Georgia, the primary reason for the lighting restrictions is that State Government takes impersonating a police officer extremely seriously, thus they banned anything that could possibly be construed as emergency vehicle lighting.

Get Mesh Armor with padding for the summer. It's just as protective and a lot cooler since it lets the air pass through almost as well as if you weren't wearing it.

The simple vernacular that bikers use. Despite what gov't regulations designate as a Motorcycle vs. Car, bikers will call a vehicle based on certain characteristics. To give you an eye opening look into our world:

Scooter / Scoot: Two wheeled vehicle denoted by having an open space in front of the seat where the driver's legs can move freely. Controlled by handle bars. Exposed to elements.

Motorcycle / Bike: Two wheeled vehicle that the driver would have to straddle and feet are fixed on either pegs or runners without much freedom of movement. Controlled by handle bars. Exposed to elements.

Trike: Three wheeled vehicle that typically must be straddled in a similar fashion to bikes. Controlled by handle bars. Exposed to elements.

Cage: Four or more wheeled vehicle with an open floorboard in front of the seat. Controlled by steering wheel. Shielded from elements, often temperature controlled.

Semi: 18 wheeled vehicle (Four wheels per weight bearing axle, plus two directional wheels) with similar seating to a cage. Controlled by steering wheel. Shielded from elements and temperature controlled. Give a wide berth lest you want to be road pizza.

This Thing: 2 wheeled cage that thinks it wants to be a bike but with the amenities of a car. Controlled by steering wheel. Protected from the elements. If you show up to a 1%'er (Biker Gang) rally in one of these, expect vandalism/bodily harm. If you show up to a non-1% rally in one of these, expect to be laughed at and made the butt of jokes for the duration of the rally, whether or not you stay there.

When performing risk management, if there is any hint of doubt in the security of a system then the system must be assumed to be insecure and compromised until such time it can be proven that the system is fully secure in all use cases (a near impossibility in itself). This means that if there's a rumor of a leak in a mission critical system, regardless of evidence or lack there of, a responsible organization should immediately sandbox the system and test it for holes and apply countermeasures if any holes are verified in the sandbox.

Note that countermeasures could be anything that extends from software patches to hardware firewall to complete system decommission and redesign.

Actually, Copp had this figured out for quite a while. Being slashdot and all, I understand the general inability to RTFA, so here's the pertinent part about this guy's history:

Copps has been a longtime pro-consumer advocate. He was the lone member of the five-person FCC to vote against the merger of Comcast and NBC, and since the 2010 net neutrality rule was vacated in February he has been urging the FCC to reclassify broadband ISPs as a common carrier service. He has also advocated against continued media consolidation and big telecom mergers.

The general gist of the rest of the article goes on to say how the rest of the suits were congratulating themselves on a job well done with the Telecom Act in '96 and generally celebrating the current state and where they see themselves going... until Copp takes the stand and gives everyone a verbal bitchslap:

He led off by agreeing with the several executive speakers that true competition is the way of the future, and the best way to serve consumers. “But we haven’t given competition the chance it needs,” he continued, before referring to how poorly U.S. broadband compares on the global stage. “We have fallen so far short that we should be ashamed of ourselves. We should be leading, and we’re not. We need to get serious about broadband, we need to get serious about competition, we need to get serious about our country.”

What I take from this is that this guy is a single life jacket trying to defend us in a sea of self-serving destruction bound sharks. Good luck to us all.