Since the White House has been taking online petitions to the government, there have been many that are just plain weird. One of the most popular was the petition for the government to begin construction of a Death Star. It garnered 34,435 online signatures, and the official White House response has been posted, by Paul Shawcross, Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:
The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?
There's more, which you can read at the White House website. Link -via reddit
Comments (1)
Get off your high horse. Or I guess your penny farthing. Whatever.
ya know, sometimes its much safer to drive my car on the median, so, I shouldn't get a ticket for that!
34 RCNY § 4-12(p) Bicycles.
(1) Bicycle riders to use bicycle lanes. Whenever a usable path or lane for bicycles has been provided, bicycle riders shall use such path or lane only except under any of the following situations:
(i) When preparing for a turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway.
(ii) When reasonably necessary to avoid conditions (including but not limited to, fixed or moving objects, motor vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians, pushcarts, animals, surface hazards) that make it unsafe to continue within such bicycle path or lane.
He should be glad he has bike lanes at all. In this part of country the pompous bikers don't have any, they just decide to block traffic as they feel is their god given right.
Ok seriously, bike riders have the LEGAL right to an entire lane of traffic. And really what vehicle driver is in such a hurry and so tight-a-s-s-ed that they get angry at someone on 25 lbs of metal who might slow them down 5-10 seconds before they can pass? Really? Look, most McDonalds drive throughs are open 24 hours a day now, so don't worry, they will still have your big macs and diet sodas ready for you.
Nothing in the driving test I took said that pedestrians and cyclists are second class citizens; you're not supposed to go running them over. Yet, it seems that many drivers apparently took an entirely different test.
At least on the wonderfully well-kept and underused sidewalks here, I'm safe from those drivers who drift entirely too close to the bike lane.
And there are at least a few drivers out there who have the decency to give cyclists the right of way, even when they aren't required to do so.
Well- This guy is probably a 'mostly-obey-the-rules' bicyclist. But there are an awful lot of them around who ignore the law whenever they feel like it. I have been run down on the sidewalk (where else is a pedestrian supposed to walk?) by bikers; I've watched them dart between lanes of traffic to the front of a line of cars stopped at a light; I've watched them ignore the light altogether; they weave and swerve. I don't know. It's a good thing to be more environment conscious. But I've seen a lot of bicyclists who are endangering themselves and a whole lot of other people, too. I don't enjoy sharing the road (or the sidewalk) with them.
Shemp: "Ride in the bike lane! Get off and walk the bike around the obstacles. What's so hard to understand about it?"
So when there's an obstacle (say, a broken down car or some construction) in front of you, and a double-yellow line on the road, will you just stay there forever?
No, you won't, and you don't even have to. Just as the rider can leave the bike lane to avoid obstacles.
I also don't understand how he was pulled over, just turn around and ride away.