> An eyewitness interviewed by Indy Week alleged that Durham council member DeDreana Freeman had attempted to strike Durham Mayor-pro tempore and council member Mark-Anthony Middleton during the shouting session, but instead struck O'Neal once and punched the head of fellow Durham council member Leonardo Williams twice before Williams subdued her. In the aftermath of these incidents, O'Neal announced that she would not seek re-election as Mayor and a state investigation was opened into the extortion allegation (Holsey-Hyman denies the alleged extortion attempt and a separate allegation that she ordered city employees to perform campaign work on her behalf).
Wtf. That alone is wild, open brawls in parliament are usually something associated with dysfunctional democracies. Attempting to censor that and invite the Streisand effect? That's new. If you decide to throw fists in politics, at least don't attempt to contradict the evidence. JFC.
The US House has a ceremonial mace that represents the legislature's authority. A few members have invoked mentions of it in heated debate, and it's been walked about the floor to maintain order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mace_of_the_United_States_Hous...
Fascinating. I'm German, we're largely peaceful as well - the most notable violence incident in parliament was all back in 1950, when MP Herbert Wehner beat up a vile Nazi apologist and threw him through a glass door [1].
Itself another aspect of the Founders' Roman Republic fetishism. The mace was inspired by the symbol of state authority, the fasces, composed of twigs that when bundled together were stronger than a single pole of similar girth. It was also a common architectural embellishment during the Deco era and is still on the wall of the US House behind the dais. The State of the Union cameras always zoom in exactly enough to keep them out of view, because the symbol became controversial around 1934 for some reason.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces
Another significant appearance of the mace is in academic settings. Even my community college had one. I only saw it in the display case in the library, but I am sure that it was lovingly carried in procession, or at least on display during commencement ceremonies.
Didn't know that, had a quick Google and stumbled over a ton of reports spanning many years - including a bunch of legislators throwing pig guts around [1].
It is said that during the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325), St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra became so angry with Arius the heresiarch that Nicholas punched him in the face. True or not, this certainly imparts some significance to the Sacred Council's condemnation of Arian propositions and their proclamation of the divinity, and eternal Godhood, of Christ.
Elementary school me was introduced to the physicality of Taiwanese parliamentary politics from the Cat in the Hat movie (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rtXccR1h_Ak).
It's an underrated movie tbh, especially given that Barbie got an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes
"OVERHEIGHT MUST TURN" is almost comical in it's dangerous ambiguity. My first parse is "if you were over height, you would have to turn", not "you, yes, you! Stop! Now!".
I'd take a bet that the person who choose that wording wanted the accidents to continue but also have plausible deniability because they did do "something".
That is exactly what it means though, they don't want everyone to stop just overheight vehicles. What do you want the sign to do? Encourage everyone to stop?
It has a sensor and only goes off for overheight vehicles. If you see it come up, you will hit the bridge if you continue straight, but it's worded too like a generic warning to all vehicles: which is the parse you have also apparently made.
Better wording would be "Overheight! Do not proceed under bridge!". If you have space: "you are overheight!" or "overheight vehicle detected!"
Add the number plate with an ANPR camera for bonus "this means you" (it also triggers a red light phase whenever it sees an over-height vehicle, so you will have time to read it). And yes, this is possible, I've seen supermarkets flash your number plate at you as you enter to warn you the parking times are being recorded.
I see what you mean, you're probably right that it would help, but honestly I just don't think the people hitting it are reading it in the first place. It doesn't light up until they're at the intersection, at which point they're either very focused on the light or the traffic, and definitely not looking way above even the yellow bar. Most people seem to be driving rentals, and in their case they're just not thinking about the size of their vehicle, and the rest have gone under a thousand bridges that look to the unfocused eye just as tall, so they're not worried about it at all. What they really need is probably just something that hangs at that height in front of it so you can hear it bang off of your car with minimal damage before you actually hit the bridge, and push the intersection further away from the bridge so there's more time to look at the signs.
They've put up extra height bars and they've added a blinking light using a sensor for warning overheight trucks (OVERHEIGHT MUST TURN) which shows to an extra long red light. I also believe they've lowered the road a little bit, but there's only so much they can do.
Yeah. I think that sign would be more effective if both lines were swapped: "Must Turn, Overheight" rather than Overheight Must Turn". It sounds like a generic warning, I bet these truck drivers don't think it's specifically about them.
The sign that warns driver does actually blink though, for this exact reason. I believe there's a separate electronic sign further up the road as well that flicks on when a vehicle triggers the sensor. Even without all that, an educated driver should just see the sign on the tunnel and determine their truck doesn't fit...
Funnily enough, blinking taillights are actually banned here because it's very difficult to guage distance and speed from a blinking tail light.
It always amazes me that truck rentals like we see in a few videos on that site are legal, like with a normal license. Every time I’ve rented one all I can think of “I can’t believe they trusted me with this thing that I drive once every few years at best”. I guess they don’t care, they have insurance but still.
Whenever I see someone else diving one of these I give them a very wide berth and assume they have no idea what they are doing since they normally don’t.
I once reserved a 20 footer, and at the last minute they called me and asked me if I would take a 26 footer instead. Man, I didn't know what I was getting into. That is a whole different beast than the standard 20 footer. Never again - what a pain in the ass that was - every aspect of it was a hassle. The whole time I was wondering how the hell it was legal for me to be driving that thing around.
26 footers are terrible. I’ll gladly tow a massive trailer and it’s much easier to position a trailer. In fact it’s easier with longer trailers over something like a jet ski trailer.
A roommate in college worked for Lowe’s installing appliances off a 26 footer. He crashed into things and cars once a month. After 9 times they said don’t get a 10th, luckily he changed jobs.
Same, I got the Big One when I was moving out of SF. Driving that monster around town (and parking right on lower Haight where my apartment was) is not something I would ever willingly do again.
is that the one with "grandma's attic"? I have never driven a truck with a (manual) transmission that was older than me until I drove one. I manage to parallel park it near the panhandle in a two-car space. I was proud (still am!)
> I guess they don’t care, they have insurance but still.
Of course they care; even big companies have to fight with their insurance companies and often don't get fully compensated.
As a general statement, the overwhelming majority of renters pay their money and return the truck without any issue. The rare accident is costly, but it's paid for mostly through rental fees rather than insurance.
I was once offered a job and asked, "Can you drive a truck?" Sure, no problem. I show up for the _cross-country_ drive and it's a 28' box truck with a manual transmission. Thankfully, I had driven a manual car before and there was a primary (I was the 2nd) driver to help me through the particulars of the box truck.
Thousands of miles back and forth across the country over 3 months, never a driving incident.
> Whenever I see someone else diving one of these I give them a very wide berth and assume they have no idea what they are doing since they normally don’t.
I think you over-estimate the skill of the drivers of sedans and SUVs and everything else. Most drivers are pretty awful, even in cars they drive every day.
See also: Hilariously outsized RV's that any person can hop behind the wheel of with no extra training or license requirements. I swear some are the size of Greyhound busses now.
It has dozens of warning signs, an overhead gantry with rubber paddles that hit a high vehicle's roof, flashing lights and still gets hit approximately once a month.
The road there is stuck. Raising the railway, which has been done once already, is very expensive. Lowering the road would require moving a sewer main, which is a fairly delicate and also expensive job. Both railway and sewer are very old and substantially pre-date the modern assumption that you can just drive trucks wherever you want as if that's some basic element of civilisation rather than a weird temporary glitch.
At some point it becomes cheaper to install a lift pump and a pressurized section for the sewage than to constantly have crashes to clean up and disrupt service.
> The WMF told Indy Week that they had not received the letter and that the letter that had been made public contained an incorrect postal address for the WMF's headquarters
I wonder if the lawyer did it on purpose. They've probably had enough dealing with an unreasonable client so they made a few "mistakes" to blow the case up so the city can get a new official and they won't have to deal with them any longer.
If you listen to the linked video of the official yelling obscenities and acting unprofessionally, imagine working for them. On one hand, they'll do what they are told, on the other, mistakes "just happen". And look at that, they are not seeking re-election any longer, sounds like a "win" for the attorney.
This was a good read, it was nice how they put the contested signature top right and prominent and also clearly reiterated the story the mayor tried to squash.
This is an interesting read of some of the politics around editing of Wikipedia, but the problem is much bigger. This show interviewing the founder dropped last night and covers many of the problems as well as some potential solutions to decentralize the knowledge and search capabilities such as encycloreader.org. https://rumble.com/v33wemb-wikipedia-co-founder-condemns-it-...
The topic after Durham was about RuWiki. Apparently the director of "Wikimedia Russia" was banned from making edits due to "Long-term abuse: creating a Wikipedia fork which includes stolen content from Commons as well".
I get that pushing a state-sponsored, censored clone of Wikipedia is bad for free information, but it seems out of scope of the real Wikipedia. Stealing information from Wikipedia is a bad thing, by itself?
TIL that Рейму Хакурей (Reimu Hakurei) is a bot that removes possible vandalism on Russian Wikipedia, and that its creator's page rains touhou powerups.
Actually, the Wikimedia Foundation was not involved. The Signpost is written by unpaid volunteers (like the rest of Wikipedia), not by Wikimedia Foundation staff.
It's like the apocryphal 13th floor in hotels, people should be born in either 1968 or 1970. Otherwise I might make a fool of myself by mocking their username.
In fairness, if I was born in 1969 I would be deeply torn between using it in every single username I had for the sake of comedy, or avoiding it precisely because people tend to make assumptions and actually being born then is never going to be anyone's first thought.
Wtf. That alone is wild, open brawls in parliament are usually something associated with dysfunctional democracies. Attempting to censor that and invite the Streisand effect? That's new. If you decide to throw fists in politics, at least don't attempt to contradict the evidence. JFC.