Stop this ‘Loud Pipes Save Lives’ Bullshit

I got invited to a BBQ the other day. 

Technically it was my wife’s do. 

So apart from the hosts I didn’t know another soul. 

One of the other couples arrived on their Harley so I started to make idle chatter with the bloke and the subject of mufflers arose.

I got to hear the argument ‘loud mufflers save lives’.  

The premise has a certain logic to it. 

But it’s simply wrong, not born-out in any independent study I could locate and ignores the fact bad drivers crash into other cars at the same rate as they crash into motorbikes.

Ignores physics: sound travels behind a bike not in front of it.  

How many accidents happen when a vehicle driving on an open highway drives up the arse of another one moving at speed?  

Then there’s the ‘herd of elephants in the room’ if you are in-fact a safety conscious motorcyclist?

 

Not an attention seeking one, driven by fashion and the desire to be a weekend rebel.    

Daytime running lights will make you more visible to other motorists.  

There are studies (Scandinavia, Denmark etc) that prove this.   

Similarly donning a hi-vis jacket as opposed to dark leathers will also increase visibility. 

So if you want to put loud pipes on your bike for safety reasons and not just exhibiting a form of attention deficit syndrome – then by rights it follows you will ride the roads in a fluro yellow vest or similar with headlights blazing day and night, eh?   

As we all know Harley Davidson owners see themselves as ‘real men’ and wouldn’t be seen dead in poofy fluro, nor adopting the effeminate habit of riding with lights on during the day.     

Yet these very same Harley owners are perfectly happy creating noise pollution under the guise of personal safety!  

Last but not least as a safety conscious motorcycle owner what about buying a motorbike that has the most favourable specs for handling, suspension and brakes etc?     

Get say a sports bike like a Ducati or Kawasaki which would ‘kill’ a heavy Harley in any performance, handling comparison.  

More importantly the likes of a Ducati, Yamaha, BMW make safer motorcycles better suited to N.Z roads.    

 

That’s probably why the owners of these motorbikes don’t see it as necessary to employ noisy exhausts.     

 

Mid-Life Motorcyclists Keeping New Zealand Funeral Directors Busy

I actually like motorcycles, prefer motorbike racing to car racing.  

I once owned a Honda C125 and CB350.      

Great machines.  

Then I had a ‘life changing event’ in my early twenties when I thought I was going to die on the CB350. 

But god (tongue firmly in cheek) intervened, prevented my premature demise, but from that day forward I was sworn-off motorbikes.   

On a good-day and the right road it’s hard to beat that ‘alive’ feeling you get on a motorbike.   

The fact still remains (Transport NZ Crash Facts 2012) you are 22 times more likely to be involved in a fatal or injury crash on a motor bike than in a car over the same distance.  

Take some time to count to 22.  

Sure some of the disproportionate risk hopping on a bike can be put down to other motorists crashing into innocent riders.  

The stats say approx. one third.  

Regardless of who is to blame that doesn’t diminish the relative danger riding a motorbike nor those stark stats.  

Bad drivers crash into other cars as well.  

What is apparent from the accident figures are the high number of number + 40 y.o’s involved in accidents.  

More than the entire age group 15 to 30 who, let’s not forget are notorious for their dangerous driving habits behind the wheel.    

In the two years 2011-12 just one Kiwi motorcyclist aged 15 to 20 died on our roads compared to 52 aged 40 and above.  

This difference is probably down to the type of bikes both demographics were adopting.   

Teens and twenties come off their scooters, low cc bikes during the week and the ‘mid-life crisis’ rider their 750 plus bikes over weekends.    

The difference between predominately low speed accidents in urban environments for junior versus high speed ones for ‘the old man’ blatting around the countryside.  

Regardless of engine size, demographics there’s no escaping a staggering 27 per cent of motorbike riders involved in accidents were either drunk or drugged!  

36 per cent of motorcyclist crashes involve a bike with a cc rating over 750cc. 

That’s way disproportionate to the numbers.  

When you ‘crunch’ these stats it’s obvious the mid-life weekend warriors Harley owner has a risk-factor versus driving a car the same distance well above that 22 times average.  

By my maths it’s 40 times or more, but it’s fair to say I failed school cert mathematics.      

Freedom comes at a price.  

One I’m not willing to pay.

 

 

Nothing says “I’m a loser” more than a neck tattoo

Over-all most people that get tattoos realise they cause offence to certain sectors of society. 

It is bleeding obvious to anyone with half a brain-cell tattoos are synonymous with criminal fraternities, mostly follow trends that render arguments “It’s an individual thing” baseless.   

Cutting to the chase: great leaders and inventors with coverable tattoos are few and far between.  

Most people who opt to get a tattoo are bright enough (room temperature?) to place it in a location on their body that can be hidden from public view as the situation dictates. 

Like say if you had a decent job, have to interact with customers who weren’t part of a sub culture and greater society.    

Following the thread that tattoos are symptomatic of outside trends e.g. some numbskull bass player from their fav band has one, invariably we expect to see sheeple follow what they perceive as fashionable or cool.  

So like day follows night, over just the last decade we now have people – not individuals – adorning themselves with neck tattoos as spotted on a music video, internet, mag etc.   

Until recently neck-tattoos were the defiant F.U badge of street gangs.  

Tragically we now see middle-class kids with them.  

These trend-seekers, attention deficit sufferers think they look cool or tough with their neck tattoos when to the rest of society it yells, via a large megaphone “I’m a loser.”   

Let me prove this brutal statement succinctly. 

Tell me one great person from the 7 billion on this planet that has a fucking neck tattoo?  

Taps fingers on the table await an answer he knows will never come.

 

 

Nelson Mandela’s legacy means 1 million S.A children now live with HIV/AIDS.

South Africa is riddled with AIDS.  

The term epidemic doesn’t do justice to the scale of HIV infection in South Africa. 

18% of the population is infected, a figure that isn’t falling.    

When apartheid ended and Nelson Mandela and his ANC Party gradually took power in 1990,  AIDS/HIV infection levels were at just 1%.  

When he ceased to be SA’s leader (1994-99) it was 10%. 

No one is prepared, even today; to destroy the image of ‘Saint Mandela’ by pointing-out 500 people died every day of a preventable disease with him ‘at the helm’.  

The first time Mandela even mentioned AIDS publically was in a 1997 speech, given not in Johannesburg - but Switzerland.  

Mandela left office in 1999 and became an AIDS campaigner, swooned over by sycophantic western media who failed to look at his motivations, nor his appalling record in stemming the disease when he was a power broker.    

On World AIDS Day in 2000, Mandela pronounced; "Be faithful to one partner and use a condom... Give a child love, laughter and peace, not AIDS." 

Mandela himself was a serial philander, hardly a poster-boy for chastity. 

One of his own sons, Makgatho, died of the disease – not that Mandela was ever really a real father to him, preferring to up-grade his women like cars. His last wife was 28 years his junior.     

To quote his daughter Dr Makaziwe Mandela “He was an absent dad.”  

It was his son’s death, not those of thousands of other fellow South Africans, that belatedly drove Mandela to tackle AIDS. 

But by then the disease was so endemic his efforts were futile.  

When he has the chance in Government to stem the spread of AIDS in its infancy: Mandela did all but nothing.   

Instead of giving the monstrous disease enveloping his country priority along with building hospitals, schools and roads etc the ‘peace and love’ new leader of a ‘New’ South Africa went out and spent billions on new jet fighters and tanks!  

Budget for up-grading South African military forces in 1998: 38 Billion South African Rand  

Budget for AIDS education: next to Zero.   

AIDS along with crime and poverty has blighted Mandela vision of a new South Africa. 

Mandela’s legacy means 1 million S.A children now live with HIV/AIDS.   

Most of them are black South Africans.     

 

 

Nelson Mandela was not a Great Guy

Brazen philander: His first wife Evelyn had to endure him coming home with the office secretary and them both retiring to their marital bedroom to do the business. Abandoned his first wife & four children to marry his mistress.    

Wife Beater: Evelyn Mandela went to the police after being threatened with an axe, but her complaint was withdrawn as the pressure went on her from his activist circles. Not a good look from a lawyer. Evelyn's claims of beatings continued to her dying breath.    

Terrible Father: His words not mine. One of his daughters Makaziwe Mandela wished her father could have been a father to her rather than ‘the country’.   

Terrorist: Attended a training camp in Ethiopia. Was behind bombings against government buildings, homes of government officials and public places like railway stations, banks for which he was convicted and imprisoned. Note: He pleaded guilty at his trial. Included in his death toll were innocent mothers and children.    

Communist: Sort aid from both Russia and China to fund the overthrow of not just the apartheid system but also democracy in South Africa. Was a member of South African Communist Party.  That's him (above) 'front and centre' at a Communist rally in 1990.  

Advocated Social Change via Violence: Founded the militant wing of ANC that rejected political change via peaceful means.   

AIDS: Twiddled his thumbs whilst in power when the number of AIDS/HIV cases went from 1 per cent to 10 per cent. It's now closer to 20. The 'rot set in' when he failed to address the burgeoning infection levels. Mandela only became an anti-AIDS campaigner after his own son died of the disease.  

Idolised Numerous Dictator Despots: Charles Taylor, Arafat, Castro, Charles Taylor, the list of despotic dictators Mugabe Mandela swooned over goes to double figures. He loved Muammar Gaddifi so much he insisted one of his grand-sons was named after him. Only a twisted mind would name their blood line after the orchestrator of the Lockerbie bombing.  

 

 

The Conservative Party in New Zealand is a Christian political front-group

There are six things that the LORD strongly dislikes, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.[Proverbs 6:16–19]

 

Opening on the front foot here, The Conservative Party are a bunch of religious zealots that haven’t bothered to read-up on the recent failed attempts by similar ‘morally based’ political parties in New Zealand, that have tanked. 

Future New Zealand, Christian Heritage, United New Zealand, United Future, Peoples Front of Judea (just taking the piss), Christian Democrats, Kiwi Party: all toast at the ballot boxes over the last two decades.    

The Conservatives membership base, like their candidate for the Christchurch East by-election (Bi election?) Leighton Baker largely comes from the ashes of these failed parties.  

So who is Leighton Baker, builder by day and moral crusader in his spare time? 

In cases like this Google is a true ‘blessing’.   

This is Mr Baker’s god-bothering rant/submission to Parliament against same-sex marriage.  

Here are Mr Baker’s predicable opinions on Stem Cell, Abortion and Contraception.  

That’s right Mr Baker was then with the Kiwi Party not so long ago.    

So Leighton Baker is a ‘template’ for what a Conservative Party Candidate should be. 

There is only one reason why the Conservative Party exists in the first place.  

His name is Colin Craig and he has a lot of money.   

The Conservatives are the vanity project and the public voice for millionaire Craig.  

Mr Craig believes in compulsory military training, looney chem trail conspiracy, doubling tax on alcohol and modelling his political career on Sarah Palin. 

Oh yeah silly of me to leave out Mr Yahweh from Mr Craig’s eclectic mix.   

 

Gods book says beating kids is fine: so it's okay by him.  

Craig clearly didn’t earn all his dosh by making stupid decisions.  

He knows to be tainted as a ‘Christian Party’ in New Zealand is the equivalent of endorsing Graham Capill as deputy leader.  

So let me spell this out clearly for the punters, just to piss them off: The Conservative Party in New Zealand is a Christian political front-group.  

So why not be brave, honest enough to say so Mr Craig?     

 

    

Which Countries still use the Imperial Unit System in 2013?

Answer: United States of America, Burma and Liberia  

Here's the reason why everyone else uses Metric.

Trivia: N.Z started the Metrication process in 1969 and it was officially completed at the end of 1976.