I dunno. China is a "market socialist" system -- which is a contradiction in terms. If China is socialist, then for practical purposes Norway and Sweden have to be even *more* socialist because they have a comprehensive public welfare system which China lacks. And those Nordic countries are rated quite high on global measures of political and personal freedom, and very low on corruption. In general they outperform the US on most of those measures, although the US is better on measures of business deregulation.

It makes no sense to claim Chinese courts have a lot of power, although it may seem that way â" itâ(TM)s supposed to seem that way. One of the foundational principles of Chinese jurisprudence is party supremacy. Every judge is supervised by a PLC â" party legal committee â" which oversees budgets, discipline and assignments in the judiciary. They consult with the judges in sensitive trials to ensure a politically acceptable outcome.

So it would be more accurate to characterize the courts as an instrument of party power rather than an independent power center.

From time to time Chinese court decisions become politically inconvenient, either through the supervisors in the PLC missing something or through changing circumstances. In those cases there is no formal process for the party to make the courts revisit the decision. Instead the normal procedure is for the inconvenient decision to quietly disappear from the legal databases, as if it never happened. When there is party supremacy, the party can simply rewrite judicial history to its current needs.

An independent judiciary seems like such a minor point; and frankly it is often an impediment to common sense. But without an independent judiciary you canâ(TM)t have rule of law, just rule by law.

Hereâ(TM)s the problem with that scenario: court rulings donâ(TM)t mean much in a state ruled by one party. China has plenty of progressive looking laws that donâ(TM)t get enforced if it is inconvenient to the party. There are emission standards for trucks and cars that should help with their pollution problems, but there are no enforcement mechanisms and officials have no interest in creating any if it would interfere with their economic targets or their private interests.

China is a country of strict rules and lax enforcement, which suits authoritarian rulers very well. It means laws are flouted routinely by virtually everyone, which gives the party leverage. Displease the party, and they have plenty of material to punish you, under color of enforcing laws. It sounds so benign, at least theyâ(TM)re enforcing the law part of the time, right? Wrong. Laws selectively enforced donâ(TM)t serve any public purpose; theyâ(TM)re just instruments of personal power.

Americans often donâ(TM)t seem to understand the difference between rule of law and rule *by* law. Itâ(TM)s ironic because the American Revolution and constitution were historically important in establishing the practicality of rule of law, in which political leaders were not only expected to obey the laws themselves, but had a duty to enforce the law impartially regardless of their personal opinions or interests.

Rule *by* law isnâ(TM)t a Chinese innovation, it was the operating principle for every government before 1789. A government that rules *by* law is only as good as the men wielding power, and since power corrupts, itâ(TM)s never very good for long.

Or maybe (if it exists) it's just an iPad and this analyst is wrong.

Who cares? A 2 point drop is meaningless. And the median score went UP, from 744 to 745 (also meaningless). Trying to read anything into these small movements is futile.

If I watch you drown and do nothing, even though I'm a capable swimmer standing next to a bunch of flotation devices, and all of this is caught on camera, your family could probably sue me for causing your death even though I'm not a lifeguard and do not own the pool.

The equivalent here is suing the camera manufacturer, as if the camera should have done something when it saw the drowning.

I'm unaware of legislation making AI chatbots mandatory reporters.

Silicon Valley tech people not finishing college is more Fire in the Valley era than anything more recent. Gates and Allen, Jobs, and Wozniak all dropped out. Ballmer was the only major connection made at college for any of them, so far as I know. Page, Brin, Bezos, Randolph, and Hastings all finished college, some with graduate degrees. Zuckerberg dropped out, but his going to college was central to his business model.

The BLS jobs data is from the CES (Current Employment Survey). This is a survey of firms, not of the public. That's what Trump was complaining about. Whatever is wrong with that survey seems to be very new -- it used to be revisions were fairly evenly distributed, but since 2023 the revisions have been very biased downward. It seems unlikely this has anything to do with public survey fatigure.

The unemployment numbers come from a public survey (Current Population Survey), but those are different from the jobs numbers.

"Chat" is generic. So is "AI". The logos are deceptive, but OpenAI has no claim on "chat", "chatbot"or "AI chatbot", and no one should expect that those terms mean "ChatGPT"

Presumably you could grow barley in arsenic-free soil. This is probably prohibitively expensive, but it's the kind of thing slashdotters would insist on.

ALPA just wants the airlines to be the only thing in the air. They don't like general aviation and are always pushing (often successfully) for further restrictions on it. They've claimed that to be allowed to fly a model airplane you should have as much training as a 737 pilot. If they ran out of things to do they'd probably pick a fight with the Audubon Society. They should be ignored.

Correct, but PEX pipes do contain and leach MTBE (the controversial octane enhancer that used to be used in gasoline), ETBE (its slightly larger cousin), toluene, phthalate esters, and other chemicals. Of course, sticking with copper isn't 100% safe either because copper pipe leach copper, at least until they're well-coated with a layer of minerals (assuming hard non-acidic water; if your water is soft and acidic the plumbing leaches copper continuously and you get holes in the pipes)

Pick your poison.

Class 1 and 2 e-bikes limit assist to 20 mph, not 15. You can ride them faster than that, but you have to provide the power. 20 mph is well above what most recreational cyclists can maintain on a flat course, so if these classes arenâ(TM)t fast enough to be safe, neither is a regular bike. The performance is well within what is possible for a fit cyclist for short times , so their performance envelope is suitable for sharing bike and mixed use infrastructure like rail trails.

Class 3 bikes can assist riders to 28 mph. This is elite rider territory. There is no regulatory requirement ti equip the bike to handle those speeds safely, eg hydraulic brakes with adequate size rotors. E-bikes in this class are far more likely to pose injury risks to others. I think it makes a lot of sense to treat them as mopeds, requiring a drivers license for example.

Would treating them as mopeds be so bad?

What weâ(TM)re looking at is exactly what happened when gasoline cars started to become popular and created problems with deaths, injuries, and property damage. The answer to managing those problems and providing accountability was to make the vehicles display registration plates, require licensing of drivers, and enforcing minimum safety standards on cars. Iâ(TM)m not necessarily suggesting all these things should be done to e-bikes, but I donâ(TM)t see why they shouldnâ(TM)t be on the table.

I am a lifelong cyclist , over fifty years now, and in general I welcome e-bikes getting more people into light two wheel vehicles. But I see serious danger to both e-bike riders and the people around them. There are regulatory classes which limit the performance envelope of the vehicle, but class 3, allowing assist up to 28 mph, is far too powerful for a novice cyclist. Only the most athletic cyclists, like professional tour racers, can sustain speeds like that, but they have advanced bike handling skills and theyâ(TM)re doing it on bikes that weigh 1/5 of what complete novice novice e-bike riders are on. Plus the pros are on the best bikes money can buy. If you pay $1500 for an e-bike, youâ(TM)re getting about $1200 of battery and motor bolted onto $300 of bike.

Whatâ(TM)s worse, many e-bikes which have e-bike class stickers can be configured to ignore class performance restrictions, and you can have someone with no bike handling skills riding what in effect is an electric motorcycle with terrible brakes.

E-bike classification notwithstanding, thereâ(TM)s a continuum from electrified bicycles with performance roughly what is achievable by a casi recreational rider on one end, running all the way up to electric motorcycles. If there were only such a thing as a class 1 e-bike thereâ(TM)d be little need to build a regulatory system with registration and operator licensing. But you canâ(TM)t tell by glancing at a two wheel electric vehicle exactly where on the bike to motorcycle spectrum it falls; that depends on the motor specification and software settings. So as these things become more popular, I donâ(TM)t see any alternative to having a registration and inspection system for all of them, with regulatory categories and restrictions based on the weight and hardware performance limitations of the vehicle. Otherwise youâ(TM)ll have more of the worst case weâ(TM)re already seeing: preteen kids riding what are essentially electric motorcycles that weigh as much as they do because the parents think those things are âoebikesâ and therefore appropriate toys.