Does Your City Require Bicycle Registration?

[sms]

Last Tuesday someone from our Bicycle-Pedestrian Commission approached
me about our City's law requiring bicycle registration. I didn't even
realize it was still on the books, but it is. How common is this?

She wants us to repeal that law, even though there's no way to actually
register a bicycle, and there is no enforcement.

I was also successful in saving our planned "Bicycle Boulevard." Even
those people that rail against bicycle infrastructure tend to like
bicycle boulevards which remove most stop signs and have traffic calming
to discourage a lot of vehicle traffic. The one in Palo Alto/Mountain
View is extremely popular. One council member didn't want to spend the
money, but he finally agreed to it.

In other bicycle-related news, the San Jose, the City Council approved
an 18 story apartment building. They will have an automatic car parking
system and intentionally won't provide enough parking for residents in
an effort to get occupants to use non-existent mass transit. And so
residents can go grocery shopping they'll have one (1) bicycle cargo
trailer that can be checked out.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Fri, 23 Jun 2017 17:45:04 -0700, sms <scharf...@geemail.com>
wrote:

>Last Tuesday someone from our Bicycle-Pedestrian Commission approached
>me about our City's law requiring bicycle registration. I didn't even
>realize it was still on the books, but it is. How common is this?
>
>She wants us to repeal that law, even though there's no way to actually
>register a bicycle, and there is no enforcement.

Not required in Santa Cruz CA but registration is voluntary. Fill out
the online form and you get a free sticker for your bicycle:
<http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/government/city-departments/police/permits-and-forms/bicycle-license-registration>
The main incentive is if your bicycle is stolen and later found, the
police will make it difficult to recover unless it's registered.

Confession: I've never bothered to get any of my bicycles registered.

--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

[Emanuel Berg]

sms wrote:

> Last Tuesday someone from our
> Bicycle-Pedestrian Commission approached me
> about our City's law requiring bicycle
> registration. I didn't even realize it was
> still on the books, but it is. How common
> is this?

Never heard of but then again I haven't heard
of everything. Here I suppose signing up for an
insurance is one way of registration but it is
not mandatory and the vast majority don't do it
even if it is possible (?) for the plebeian
bikes as well...

--
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

[jbeattie]

We have a lot of those apartment buildings with no parking and bad mass transit. The tenants park in nearby neighborhoods, taking the spaces of the residents, many of whom live in houses built around the turn of the century with no garages. They are also located in hipster areas with the cool restaurants, and for customers, its like trying to find parking in NYC.

When I was a kid, bike registration was common in the SCV. I remember the stamp-sized metalized stickers. There is a voluntary registry up here run by a third-party vendor but no required registration. Plans to tax, ear-tag, neuter, register, etc., bicycles and bicyclists come and go.

-- Jay Beattie.

[Sir Ridesalot]

In Toronto Canada you used to be able to regiaster your bicycle with the Toronto Police Department. I dfid that but when my bicycle was stolen the police could not find my bicycle registration in their data (before computers)and so I never bothered registering another bicycle with them.

Cheers

[Mark J.]

On 6/24/2017 6:35 AM, jbeattie wrote:
> On Friday, June 23, 2017 at 5:48:57 PM UTC-7, sms wrote:
>> Last Tuesday someone from our Bicycle-Pedestrian Commission approached
>> me about our City's law requiring bicycle registration. I didn't even
>> realize it was still on the books, but it is. How common is this?
>>
>> She wants us to repeal that law, even though there's no way to actually
>> register a bicycle, and there is no enforcement.
>>
>> I was also successful in saving our planned "Bicycle Boulevard." Even
>> those people that rail against bicycle infrastructure tend to like
>> bicycle boulevards which remove most stop signs and have traffic calming
>> to discourage a lot of vehicle traffic. The one in Palo Alto/Mountain
>> View is extremely popular. One council member didn't want to spend the
>> money, but he finally agreed to it.
>>
>> In other bicycle-related news, the San Jose, the City Council approved
>> an 18 story apartment building. They will have an automatic car parking
>> system and intentionally won't provide enough parking for residents in
>> an effort to get occupants to use non-existent mass transit. And so
>> residents can go grocery shopping they'll have one (1) bicycle cargo
>> trailer that can be checked out.
>
> We have a lot of those apartment buildings with no parking and bad mass transit.

Jay, I know it's an American (human?) birthright to complain about local
facilities, but surely the mass transit in Portland is vastly superior
to that in most Cal. cities? (I grew up in L.A. suburbs, so I have part
of a clue).

Mark J.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

The effects of "bicycle facilities" is that it gives the driver the idea that bicycles do not belong on the road and especially in his lane. In the last week I have had three cars aim straight for me one was going in the same direction as I was and he pulled into the bike lane came directly up to my rear wheel at speed and then veered around me and cut in directly in front of me. In the other two cases the people were going in the opposite direction actually crossed double yellow lines aimed directly for me until they realized that they were being observed by other traffic.

While bicycle facilities can save you from this sort of thing, no facilities are complete and you have to go out onto the street MOST of the time.

The only thing that works is enforcement of the law and that police forces of California have totally given up on anything other than directing traffic around high speed accidents on the freeway.

When someone does something like this they should be immediately arrested and their vehicle impounded and if they are found guilty of threatening others with a dangerous weapon they should lose their license for not less than 5 years.

But that won't happen and adding traffic facilities will only make the streets more dangerous.

[avag...@gmail.com]

JB's Regis is an antique civics lesson ?

Getting into a law database with engraving is AAA ...with organization off course

But enforcement costs mega taxes over puny revenue n contributes to baaaad attitudes

[jbeattie]

On Saturday, June 24, 2017 at 2:00:15 PM UTC-7, Mark J. wrote:

I can't compare because I don't know what it's like in LA. Portland may be vastly superior. I just don't know. I use MAX to the airport on rare occasions, and it's O.K. if you don't mind stopping every 50 feet. I can walk faster than streetcar downtown (I don't use it at all downtown since the elimination of fareless square). The people in those parking-less apartments on SE Belmont (for example) would have a straight shot downtown on a bus, but god forbid they work in Beaverton or Tigard or want to go skiing in the winter. God forbid if they have visitors or delivery persons. I think building without parking is idiotic.

BTW, I personally hate taking TriMet because I always get the seat next to the lunatic who just wet his pants, but that's just my bad luck.

-- Jay Beattie.

[avag...@gmail.com]

They're hunting Beattie.

[avag...@gmail.com]

Advanced gumming no cigar

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=urban+parking+problem&as_sdt=1%2C10&as_sdtp=&oq=

General seaching brings in cycling cures.

Portland suffers from extractive industry cigar coding ?

All places lived in here have excellent parking ...why else live there ?

[David Scheidt]

jbeattie <jbeat...@msn.com> wrote:

:BTW, I personally hate taking TriMet because I always get the seat next

:to the lunatic who just wet his pants, but that's just my bad luck.

You should hear what the people who sit next to you have to say...

--
sig 52

[ab.ch...@rogers.com]

The City of Ottawa used to require bicyclists to bear a licence plate, but
ended that in the early 1970s to promote cycling. When I moved onto an army
base in Western Manitoba, they required that residents register their bicycles
with the military police, and likely still do. I still have that plate on the
bulletin board in my office.
--
Andrew Chaplin

[Emanuel Berg]

> When I moved onto an army base in Western
> Manitoba, they required that residents
> register their bicycles with the military
> police, and likely still do. I still have
> that plate on the bulletin board in
> my office.

As it happened, I just now carried upstairs
a military bike! Only it is blue! Here is
a photo [1].

The brand is "Kronan" ("The Crown") which hints
at the military and monarchy rather than the
king of bikes.

The tires are huge, 28 x 1 1/2 according to the
reading but inflated on the outside with
a calipers it is more like 1 13/16 - this makes
me wonder, 1 1/2 does refer to the inflated
tire from above, not the outer or inner rim
width, right? I suppose it is just an
unreliable unit, even more so with inflation...

Inflate to 50 psi! Just like (?) the 42-622
which actually says 50-75 psi.

The bike is blue! I have seen versions of the
same bike in blue, red, and green - the most
common color. It is tempting to think of it as
the navy, the fire department, and the army.
But actually I think the navy had/have green
bikes as well.

These bikes were manufactured until the 80s.
Of those, this is a more recent edition,
I think.

It has a single speed Torpedo rear wheel.
The rims makes for a "v". I suppose this gives
additional strength, and distances the spoke
nipples from the tube. But because the rim side
is so short, a rim hand brake will be difficult
to mount. Actually when these bikes had hand
brakes it was drum brakes, with the lever
integrated just below the handle.

Other than that the chain guard is mounted not
from below but twice from the side (back and
forth) and once from above. This makes for
faster work as that downmost bolt is always the
most time consuming to do. Also it seems
more robust.

Yes! I've seen this with registration plates.
This one doesn't come with it tho.

[1] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/bike/military.jpg

[AMuzi]

Needs yellow accents:

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QKI-WoRcEng/TdIUdLrTVMI/AAAAAAAABC4/5VdqZv985CM/s320/Wallpapers+Flag+of+Sweden+Flag+Swedesh+Flag+Graphics+%25284%2529.jpeg

--
Andrew Muzi
<www.yellowjersey.org/>
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

[Emanuel Berg]

AMuzi wrote:

> Needs yellow accents:
>
> https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QKI-WoRcEng/TdIUdLrTVMI/AAAAAAAABC4/5VdqZv985CM/s320/Wallpapers+Flag+of+Sweden+Flag+Swedesh+Flag+Graphics+%25284%2529.jpeg

Ha ha - I've actually seen frames (Crescent
I think) with a small Swedish flag downmost on
the seat tube. This to communicate supposedly
better quality than the Asian frames. I never
put much stock in it. I suppose a crappy
European frame is about as crappy as a crappy
Asian frame. Emotionally and historically tho
I wouldn't mind a French Look bike...

[sms]

Tomorrow, San Jose is likely to approve massive development along
Stevens Creek Boulevard, a road with no mass transit, and no plans for
any--just some very slow buses. It's going to cause even more freeway
gridlock. True mass transit costs a lot of money, and developers are
certainly not going to pay for it.

Portland is actually pretty impressive in terms of transit. But this
idea of building new buildings with insufficient parking, with the idea
that that will result in people not owning cars is ludicrous. People
will find somewhere to park. And even doing permit parking in adjacent
neighborhoods is not a solution to prevent them from parking there,
they'll just to right to the edge of the permit parking area.

[Emanuel Berg]

After looking into this issue - actually I just ran
into it in a book - there was once in certain cities
*mandatory* to have a registration plate on your bike.
There wasn't any national policy so each city had its
own rules. In Stockholm it was mandatory until 1894.
The plate was most often black with with digits and
sometimes a letter to indicate the city.

In the same book I also read that there was once bike
factories in almost every city. Lund, which is
important because it houses a university, but other
than that isn't important at all and is surrounded by
several lager cities, in Lund there were
24 bike factories!

In Gothenburg, once super-industrialized, and also the
"Norwegian" part of Sweden with lots of boats and
trade with the UK (as opposed to the rest with
railways to trade with Germany etc.), in Gothenburg
there were 64 bike factories!

Unbelievable!

I knew de-industrialization is a fact but not that
once-industrialization was this "distributed"!
64 bike factories in a single city?!

It doesn't say if all those did the entire bike or if
one did the fork and so on.

[Doug Landau]

Very nice! But it is Tactical?
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/bik/6196530974.html

[Emanuel Berg]

Doug Landau <doug....@gmail.com> writes:

> Very nice! But it is Tactical?
> https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/bik/6196530974.html

That looks more like a 90s MTB or "ATB" with the bars
and all.

The Swedish police have bikes as well but they never
seem to use 'em.

They went to the Netherlands to get education and also
learn what bikes to use. I don't know exactly but
I don't think they look like that, more modest and
old-school.

[John B.]

On Wed, 28 Jun 2017 23:11:44 +0200, Emanuel Berg <moa...@zoho.com>
wrote:

>Doug Landau <doug....@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Very nice! But it is Tactical?
>> https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/bik/6196530974.html
>
>That looks more like a 90s MTB or "ATB" with the bars
>and all.
>
>The Swedish police have bikes as well but they never
>seem to use 'em.
>
>They went to the Netherlands to get education and also
>learn what bikes to use. I don't know exactly but
>I don't think they look like that, more modest and
>old-school.

The Swiss Military were procuring a "military bicycle" up to, at
least, 2o12 when they procured 4,100 units of the MO-12 and I also see
a news article dated 2-14 stating that the Swiss Army was
"Switzerland's defence department has ordered the reinstatement of the
bicycle infantry for the Swiss Army in a bid to improve fitness
standards among soldiers"
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Emanuel Berg]

John B. wrote:

> The Swiss Military were procuring a "military
> bicycle" up to, at least, 2o12 when they
> procured 4,100 units of the MO-12 and I also
> see a news article dated 2-14 stating that
> the Swiss Army was "Switzerland's defence
> department has ordered the reinstatement of
> the bicycle infantry for the Swiss Army in
> a bid to improve fitness standards among
> soldiers"

Switzerland? Do they even have an army?

[AMuzi]

On 6/28/2017 8:03 PM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> John B. wrote:
>
>> The Swiss Military were procuring a "military
>> bicycle" up to, at least, 2o12 when they
>> procured 4,100 units of the MO-12 and I also
>> see a news article dated 2-14 stating that
>> the Swiss Army was "Switzerland's defence
>> department has ordered the reinstatement of
>> the bicycle infantry for the Swiss Army in
>> a bid to improve fitness standards among
>> soldiers"
>
> Switzerland? Do they even have an army?
>

Yep. Undefeated too.

[John B.]

On Thu, 29 Jun 2017 03:03:20 +0200, Emanuel Berg <moa...@zoho.com>
wrote:

>John B. wrote:
>
>> The Swiss Military were procuring a "military
>> bicycle" up to, at least, 2o12 when they
>> procured 4,100 units of the MO-12 and I also
>> see a news article dated 2-14 stating that
>> the Swiss Army was "Switzerland's defence
>> department has ordered the reinstatement of
>> the bicycle infantry for the Swiss Army in
>> a bid to improve fitness standards among
>> soldiers"
>
>Switzerland? Do they even have an army?

On a per capita basis I suspect one of the largest in Europe.
" all able-bodied male citizens, are conscripted when they reach the
age of majority". About 18,000 new soldiers are enlisted annually.

"People determined unfit for service, where fitness is defined as
"satisfying physically, intellectually and mentally requirements for
military service or civil protection service and being capable of
accomplishing these services without harming oneself or others", are
exempted from service but pay an additional 3% of annual income tax
until the age of 30, unless they are affected by a disability.
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Emanuel Berg]

John B. wrote:

> On a per capita basis I suspect one of the
> largest in Europe. " all able-bodied male
> citizens, are conscripted when they reach the
> age of majority". About 18,000 new soldiers
> are enlisted annually.

Do they have any gear as well save for ice-axes
and the Swiss army knife?

[John B.]

On Thu, 29 Jun 2017 04:01:19 +0200, Emanuel Berg <moa...@zoho.com>
wrote:

>John B. wrote:
>
>> On a per capita basis I suspect one of the
>> largest in Europe. " all able-bodied male
>> citizens, are conscripted when they reach the
>> age of majority". About 18,000 new soldiers
>> are enlisted annually.
>
>Do they have any gear as well save for ice-axes
>and the Swiss army knife?

I don't know about the knife and axe but every Swiss man who has
successfully completed his army training is required to keep a rifle
at home. It is estimated that between 2.3 million and 4.5 million
military and private firearms are in circulation on Switzerland, a
country of about 8 million people.

Perhaps the knife and axe are redundant when one has fully automatic
rifle :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Emanuel Berg]

John B. <sloc...@gmail.com> writes:

> I don't know about the knife and axe but every Swiss
> man who has successfully completed his army training
> is required to keep a rifle at home. It is estimated
> that between 2.3 million and 4.5 million military
> and private firearms are in circulation on
> Switzerland, a country of about 8 million people.
>
> Perhaps the knife and axe are redundant when one has
> fully automatic rifle :-)

Ace: Sir, I don't understand. Who needs a knife in
a nuclear war? All you have to do is push
a button... sir?

(Zim yanks the knife out of the post.)

Zim: Put your hand on the post, private.

Ace: Sir? (Hesitates, but obeys.)

(Zim throws the knife, sticking Ace's hand the the post.)

Zim: Observe! The enemy cannot push a button
*if you disable his hand*.



OK, the Swiss have an army and they have rifles.

What I mean is, do they have a real, modern army with
tanks, fighters, helicopters, and big guns, trained to
do war?

Or is a symbolic, traditional national-pride thing,
like sumo wrestling or bull fighting?

[John B.]

On Thu, 29 Jun 2017 11:20:46 +0200, Emanuel Berg <moa...@zoho.com>
wrote:

The Swiss military seems to be made up of about 135,000 personnel on
active duty. They appear to have the following forces. Two Infantry
brigades; two mountain infantry brigades; two armored brigades and
additionally two large reserve brigades (Infantry Brigade 7 and
Mountain Brigade 10) exist.

A brigade is a major tactical military formation that is typically
composed of three to six battalions plus supporting elements

They also have an air force currently equipped with approximately 270
fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft.

--
Cheers,

John B.

[Emanuel Berg]

John B. wrote:

> The Swiss military seems to be made up of
> about 135,000 personnel on active duty.
> They appear to have the following forces.
> Two Infantry brigades; two mountain infantry
> brigades; two armored brigades and
> additionally two large reserve brigades
> (Infantry Brigade 7 and Mountain Brigade
> 10) exist.
>
> A brigade is a major tactical military
> formation that is typically composed of three
> to six battalions plus supporting elements
>
> They also have an air force currently
> equipped with approximately 270 fixed- and
> rotary-wing aircraft.

OK, case closed. Thank you :)

[AMuzi]

On 6/28/2017 9:01 PM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> John B. wrote:
>
>> On a per capita basis I suspect one of the
>> largest in Europe. " all able-bodied male
>> citizens, are conscripted when they reach the
>> age of majority". About 18,000 new soldiers
>> are enlisted annually.
>
> Do they have any gear as well save for ice-axes
> and the Swiss army knife?
>

You seem to be unfamiliar with The Confederation's culture:

http://modernfirearms.net/assault/switch/sig-510--stgw57-e.html

Swiss neutrality is not an intellectual exercise. In
military theory, Swiss are considered both formidable in
defense and also ungarrisonable.

[Emanuel Berg]

AMuzi <a...@yellowjersey.org> writes:

> You seem to be unfamiliar with The Confederation's
> culture:
>
> http://modernfirearms.net/assault/switch/sig-510--stgw57-e.html
>
> Swiss neutrality is not an intellectual exercise.
> In military theory, Swiss are considered both
> formidable in defense and also ungarrisonable.

There is no surprise as to their engineering and
industrial capabilities to do rifles and guns and all
sort of such things. Actually I expected that.
But a modern army and air force I assumed they didn't
hold because I never heard of Swiss military
maneuvers, or of any huge weapon systems like tanks
and fighters as you hear of from other countries, not
just the big producers like the UK, France, Russia and
so on but also countries like Poland or Gruzia getting
US fighters, Denmark sending a sub to Iraq and so on,
not to mention the Arab states getting all the top
notch gear from the US and Russia. Never heard of
Switzerland in any such setting. As for the
intellectual exercise I know because Sweden had an
incredibly strong and self-reliant force at the time
we were boasting the most about being neutral or
unaligned (which was a scam as we were in the US or at
least the anti-SSSR/Russia camp in all but words).
Now this is mostly gone tho. Finland kept theirs which
is why they have a much sounder view of Russia with
much less hysteria. But they are more basic. We have
our own subs and fighters! But it is an open question
which approach is better. As for Switzerland perhaps
it is not comparable to either.

[Emanuel Berg]

I found I list here:

http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing-europe.asp

"European Powers Ranked by Military Strength Ranking"

1 France
2 United Kingdom 1-2 old-school colonial powers
3 Germany
4 Italy 3-4 WW2 upstarts
5 Poland
6 Spain 1-6 all countries with huge populations
7 Greece 6-7 right wing dictatorships/military rule; 1-7 all NATO IINM
8 Sweden Sweden is 8? Must de due to technology
9 Ukraine Ukraine at 9 and huge country/population but got totally owned by Russia
10 Czech Republic advanced arms industry way back
11 Switzerland Switzerland at 11!
12 Netherlands skills beyond belief with everything they do
13 Romania lots of former SSSR and/or Eastern-bloc countries below
14 Belarus
15 Denmark
16 Finland Finland only at 16! Must be lack of technology because they are strong
17 Austria
18 Portugal compare Spain and Greece
19 Hungary
20 Belgium lots of tradition, EU arms trade hub
21 Bulgaria
22 Croatia
23 Slovakia
24 Serbia
25 Albania
26 Lithuania
27 Latvia
28 Estonia
29 Slovenia
30 Macedonia
31 Bosnia and Herzegovina

[Doug Landau]

Hmm, you might be right. Google swiss navy, what you get is this:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=swiss+navy

might make good chain lube

[Emanuel Berg]

Doug Landau <doug....@gmail.com> writes:

> Hmm, you might be right. Google swiss navy, what you
> get is this:
> https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=swiss+navy
>
> might make good chain lube

Ha ha, Google Swiss Navy :)

[Sepp Ruf]

AMuzi wrote:
> On 6/28/2017 9:01 PM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
>> John B. wrote:
>>
>>> On a per capita basis I suspect one of the
>>> largest in Europe. " all able-bodied male
>>> citizens, are conscripted when they reach the
>>> age of majority". About 18,000 new soldiers
>>> are enlisted annually.
>>
>> Do they have any gear as well save for ice-axes
>> and the Swiss army knife?

How about a nice cup of STFU?
<https://www.rt.com/news/249109-sweden-submarine-hunt-workboat/>
<https://www.rt.com/news/392009-eight-hoods-added-sweden-no-go-zone/>

Swiss Army surplus:
<https://vtarmynavy.com/swiss-army-air-raid-siren.html>
<https://vtarmynavy.com/swiss-military-sniper-net>
<https://vtarmynavy.com/swiss-s-i-g-gun-cleaning-kit>

Swedouche army surplus:
<https://www.raeer.com/images/full/24678i-Schwed-Kopfkissen-Po.jpg>
<https://www.raeer.com/images/full/74160i-Schwed-Doppelduschko.jpg>
<https://www.raeer.com/images/full/44330i-Schwed-Handwaschb%C3%BCrs.jpg>

> You seem to be unfamiliar with The Confederation's culture:

What else did you expect?

[John B.]

On Thu, 29 Jun 2017 06:51:59 -0500, AMuzi <a...@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

>On 6/28/2017 9:01 PM, Emanuel Berg wrote:
>> John B. wrote:
>>
>>> On a per capita basis I suspect one of the
>>> largest in Europe. " all able-bodied male
>>> citizens, are conscripted when they reach the
>>> age of majority". About 18,000 new soldiers
>>> are enlisted annually.
>>
>> Do they have any gear as well save for ice-axes
>> and the Swiss army knife?
>>
>
>You seem to be unfamiliar with The Confederation's culture:
>
>http://modernfirearms.net/assault/switch/sig-510--stgw57-e.html
>
>Swiss neutrality is not an intellectual exercise. In
>military theory, Swiss are considered both formidable in
>defense and also ungarrisonable.

I believe that there are 28 members of the E.U. Switzerland's military
capability exceeds all but eight of the members.
But more important, as the Germans determined, the country has
virtually no strategic value.
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Emanuel Berg]

Doug Landau wrote:

> Hmm, you might be right. Google swiss navy,
> what you get is this:
> https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=swiss+navy
>
> might make good chain lube

I took a look at that page again and it says

Land-locked nations are NOT penalized for
lack of a navy; naval powers ARE penalized
for lack of diversity in available assets.

It is actually tricky! In terms of traditional
decence I agree but if you envision a global
all-out war like they did in the
cold war period when the nuke subs are firing
at you it wont help you not having an ocean of
your own. However for the Swiss or any other
"land-locked" nation to develop and maintain
a navy in the sense other countries do - just
bizarre, so I have to agree with the rule as it
stands.

There is also another interesting rule:

Nuclear stockpiles are NOT taken into
account but recognized / suspected nuclear
powers receive a bonus.

For a while I wondered if that's why Ukraine
and Belarus scored comparatively high on the
list. But when I think about it I think they
handed over their nukes to Russia in the 90s.
Probably a lot of old-school but very good
"Made in the USSR" hardware there tho...

Speaking of Russia, here is the global list:

http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.asp

USA is number one, Russia 2, China 3. Sort of
the intuitive world order I suppose.

By the way there was recently an american
diplomat who told Putin America has the world's
most deadly nuclear arsenal. Putin then said he
thought it was a strange statement.
Like someone had *denied* that... (?)

Ha ha :)

Also, you can follow the link for each nation
to see a breakdown what they have. I didn't
find any reference to military bikes tho :)

[John B.]

On Sat, 01 Jul 2017 01:43:19 +0200, Emanuel Berg <moa...@zoho.com>
wrote:

But actually Switzerland does have a navy in the sense of having
"a flotilla of military patrol boats" for use on their lakes, some of
which lie across international borders, so one might say that the
Swiss have a navy which operates in international waters :-)

--
Cheers,

John B.

[Emanuel Berg]

John B. <sloc...@gmail.com> writes:

> But actually Switzerland does have a navy in the
> sense of having "a flotilla of military patrol
> boats" for use on their lakes, some of which lie
> across international borders, so one might say that
> the Swiss have a navy which operates in
> international waters :-)

And I love that! When you do the most of whatever
there is. You never know where it will take you, but
it is something positive, for sure. Simpleton whiners
will never understand that all intelligent activity is
valuable, be it "land-locked" or not!

Another example that comes to mind is a famous race
I just read about in a Lucky Luke comic, namely along
the Mississippi river between two passenger steam
ferries. It was in 1870, and the winning time between
New Orleans and St. Louis was 3 days, 18 hours, and
13 minutes. It says the record still stands for steam
ships :)

But I suppose there is a limit somewhere.
Like Denmark, I hope they weren't "penalized" for not
having mountaineering fighting units (not that I know
what equipment/training goes into that).
Their Himmelbjerget ("sky mountain") at 147 m or
482 feet - as they say, "if we had a mountain, it
would be high as well" :)

[John B.]

On Sat, 01 Jul 2017 02:55:32 +0200, Emanuel Berg <moa...@zoho.com>
wrote:

>John B. <sloc...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> But actually Switzerland does have a navy in the
>> sense of having "a flotilla of military patrol
>> boats" for use on their lakes, some of which lie
>> across international borders, so one might say that
>> the Swiss have a navy which operates in
>> international waters :-)
>
>And I love that! When you do the most of whatever
>there is. You never know where it will take you, but
>it is something positive, for sure. Simpleton whiners
>will never understand that all intelligent activity is
>valuable, be it "land-locked" or not!
>
>Another example that comes to mind is a famous race
>I just read about in a Lucky Luke comic, namely along
>the Mississippi river between two passenger steam
>ferries. It was in 1870, and the winning time between
>New Orleans and St. Louis was 3 days, 18 hours, and
>13 minutes. It says the record still stands for steam
>ships :)

The Robert E Lee's record still stands as the record for commercial
vessels.

In the late 1800's the Mississippi river was navigable approximately
from New Orleans to St. Louis and the race was very much an
advertising event.

--
Cheers,

John B.

[Emanuel Berg]

John B. <sloc...@gmail.com> writes:

> The Robert E Lee's record still stands as the record
> for commercial vessels.
>
> In the late 1800's the Mississippi river was
> navigable approximately from New Orleans to St.
> Louis and the race was very much an
> advertising event.

If you can get a copy of the comic, do it. It is a lot
of fun :) Probably even more for a "boat nut". Mine is
printed in Belgium in 1984. It doesn't say what the
title is for the English edition, but the French
language original title is "En Remontant Le
Mississipi".