In the US, speeding is a strict liability offense; if you drive faster than the speed limit, you are liable, even if you acted with such reasonable care that you could not even be said to have acted negligently, much less recklessly, knowingly, or intentionally.

It's not a standard that gets used a lot, but it is also known in statutory rape and some copyright infringement.

Well, the discrepancy may be because the DreamChaser is intended to have only one on-board pilot; it's pretty small. "A pilot" suggests there might be more than one, but only one would walk away. "The pilot" suggests there would only be one, and he would walk away. I agree, though, that it should've first been made clear that the flight was unmanned.

And also, as even the man in the street knows, you can use the definite article for hypotheticals sometimes.

(Also, I think you meant "latter," not "later.")

They just need to realize that the charging stations can be installed at the State Liquor Stores, and I'm sure they'll come around.

They are on the Eastern Caribbean Fiber System, and the Global Caribbean Network, which is also a fiber submarine cable.

Well, treaties are weird under US law. It could be that, it could require the involvement of the entire Congress (especially if there is enabling legislation), or it might even be something that the President can do unilaterally. Of course, it's probably a political question, so there wouldn't be a bright line rule.

Well, various nations have had trade wars for a long time. Country A exports something to Country B, A gets upset when B uses import bans or tariffs to prop up its domestic industry or simply keep things out, and then A retaliates by limiting imports from B or worse. Eventually the two countries learn to do without, or they resolve their differences, hopefully peacefully, sometimes violently.

What we're seeing now is a system in which trade treaties are becoming massively multilateral, treaties are tangled up together for mutual support, and international bodies are set up to administer them. It's still possible to pursue national interests over international trade, and to engage in trade wars, but it's become a great deal harder by design.

I agree that we need to push for more national sovereignty, so that trade is managed by politically accountable, democratic institutions, rather than potentially dangerous IGOs, but it's probably worth remembering that we pushed as hard for this mess as anyone, and now we're getting a taste of our just desserts.

As for this particular situation of course, it might've happened the same way regardless. Copyrights are strictly national in nature. US copyrights are only good in the US, UK copyrights only in the UK, and so forth. Most works have many separate copyrights attached to them. Treaties between various countries mandate that when a work receives a copyright in one eligible country, all the others grant copyrights for that same work too. Antigua and Barbuda only grant copyrights to US-originating works out of this sort of reciprocity, and can cease to do so as they see fit, including as part of a trade war on unrelated matters, since this might give them some leverage.

No, it was 1.85:1, which is a common movie aspect ratio, just usually not used for big epics. (E.g. Avatar was 2.35:1 (except for IMAX), Iron Man was 2.35:1, Batman Begins was 2.35:1)

16:9 on the other hand is 1.77:1.

More efficient but not most efficient; electrified rail still beats it. But the difference in infrastructure costs means that the best solution is to use buses to move relatively small numbers of dispersed riders together to a rail station used by many more riders.

I remember back when everything was molten rock, as far as the eye could see.

No they aren't.

HDTV is shot at 16:9 because that's what the TVs are. But movies are usually wider, at 1.85:1 or 2.40:1.

16:9 was chosen because it was more or less a compromise between the common widescreen film ratios and the narrower 4:3 SDTV and 1.375:1 Academy ratios.

There's a good youtube video about this sort of thing here, and the wiki article on the 16:9 ratio is also handy.

Now it may well come to pass that movies will be shot in a native 16:9 ratio, but so far the trend is simply to make sure that all the action fits into that area when they crop the image for transfer to home video.

Of course, the moderate popularity of IMAX weirds things a bit. I remember seeing the Bluray release of The Dark Knight, parts of which were filmed for IMAX, which has a 1.44:1 ratio. The rest of the movie was in a more typical 2.40:1 ratio. Their solution was to present the conventionally filmed parts of the movie letterboxed, but to show the IMAX sections in 16:9, filling the frame of the TV, but still cropping the top and bottom of the original image.

Well, I'm sure your choice would be the bile, from the tone of your post.

Seriously, who wants regulation for its own sake? There's usually some other goal in mind, and regulations are seen as a means for achieving it.

(Also, buses are okay for feeder routes, and if you have to have any sort of automobile, an electric is often going to be the best option. But electrified rail is the best motorized transportation out there AFAIK)

I say, we let them go.

Wow, yes. I guess that will teach me to post when I'm tired.

Not precisely. The Democrats have moved very far left over recent decades, and are now functionally the same as 60s-70s Republicans. Obama's further right still. Plus in most instances, he's proven to be a terrible negotiator. He didn't even use single payer as a bargaining chip for something in the middle, much less as a dream program; he gave it away in exchange for nothing, right out of the gate. Assuming he ever wanted it.

What we got isn't single payer, so please don't act like it is.

I suspect he meant that there were three more after that, but yes, there was also the Armenian Genocide, and surely others too.