Feline alarm clocks, and the Feed

I’m up early today because the cats were still eating when the last person that does the early morning thing left the house. Well after a while they got done eating (the cats) and decided that after a brief nap or reading the paper or whatever it was they did I had to get up to let them out about 2 hours later. This is about 2 hours earlier than my normal waking time, and our cats have become accustomed to how hard it is to wake me up. They don’t just sit on the pillow and yowl at the top of their lungs in my face, oh no, no, no. They reach out and slap me in the face with their paws, and if that doesn’t work after the first couple of tries they use their claws. Where Mrs. the Poet was during this noise I don’t know, as she wasn’t in the bed this morning. I think she may have been in the bathroom.

So here I am at the keyboard working the first of what will probably be several 16 fl. oz. “cups” of coffee, trying to pull coherent thoughts out of the cotton fluff around my mind at this time of day. I’m still filtering the Feed, and trying to make sense of what I find there.

Up first is a messy RAGBRAI this year as heat and cars take their toll on the participants. Two RAGBRAI Riders Hurt in Accident and UPDATE: 3 RAGBRAI bicyclists hurt also Third RAGBRAI rider injured another link UPDATED STORY: 2 hurt in RAGBRAI crash From what little I have been able to find out all 3 of these wrecks were hit-from-behind by a driver that “didn’t see” the cyclist, or in the first wreck two cyclists side by side (legal in IA). What gets me is there are signs warning drivers that there are going to be many cyclists on these roads and still they manage to “not see” cyclists. Hit-from-behind protocols to avoid, with getting the infrastructure right to prevent, with making “I didn’t see him” an admission of guilt instead of a get-out-of-jail-free card being among the first things to do. Looking at the pictures from the last link I can see reflectors on at least one if not both of the bikes.

A single-bike wreck in CA. Tulare woman injured in bike crash Mountain bike on the road, generally not a good idea because knobby tires do not have the same level of traction on pavement as road slicks. Also tire pressures that work off-road can cause wrecks on paved surfaces.

Another hit-from-behind wreck in AL. Bicyclist hospitalized after being hit by car Another driver uses the get-out-of-jail free card of “I didn’t see him”. Hit-from-behind protocols to avoid, and jail time for drivers that can’t see what’s on the road in front of them to prevent.

Apparently LEO in the Great White North are using the principle that if a cyclist could be given a ticket for any violation then any wreck is the cyclist’s fault in spite of any other circumstance. Cyclist injured, ticketed after collision with truck in Waterloo Never mind that the driver hit someone in a crosswalk proceeding with the light, cyclists aren’t supposed to be in crosswalks so it was the cyclist’s fault. Intersection wreck, use intersection protocols to avoid and get the infrastructure right to prevent.

And it was a light Feed today, so those were all the links that gave me fits.

Billed @$0.02, Opus

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