Lost Motorcyclist

Kitchener's Big Winter DIg

2012-01-30T10:01:00.000-05:00

This winter, the lake in Victoria Park is being dug out for cleaning and reshaping.

http://www.therecord.com/videozone/661313

Mary Ann and I often walk downtown, and on the way we usually stop to look at the progress of this project, which is quite a spectacle.

Last year, Victoria park lake was the dirtiest I ever remember. It smelled bad and was covered with scum and muck. I have a picture of the Boathouse, a local blues hotspot, which has a deck right on the lake. When the lake is clean, this boosts Kitchener's appeal, even if you are not sitting on the deck enjoying beer, but just walking by. But when the lake looks like an open sewer, it makes the city look kind of pathetic.

In the picture, you can see the layer of scum last June, but you need to smell it to know what it is. The link above is to a video of the work being done, in the local newspaper website. Our newspaper is now known as "The Record" and apparently not the "Kitchener Waterloo Record".

Sunday the Fifteenth I am Still Not Near Port Dover

2012-01-15T16:50:00.000-05:00

I missed going to Port Dover for Friday 13th, and I'll admit it was just because of the weather. Up to Thursday the 12th, we had nice conditions for riding, but there was a snowstorm that night which left the roads slippery. But I was impressed at the turnout according to these websites:

http://chch.com/index.php/home/item/6678-snow-doesnt-ice-port-dovers-friday-the-13th

http://www.thespec.com/news/local/article/653869--mother-nature-doesn-t-deter-friday-the-13th-bikers

So I stayed home Friday. But today was a regular Sunday Tim Hortons board meeting, and a combination of circumstances got me out of the house and riding. The temperature warning was dire, with a low of -17c and a high of only -8c. On the other hand, I didn't have the car today, the roads were bare and dry, and it's too far to walk. Given that I was also a bit annoyed at missing Friday 13th, once again I needed the motorcycle.

I chose the Burgman 400, as I find it very easy to ride with heavy mitts and big boots. I fixed the glove compartment last time, so there should be no problem today. I never know how early to start getting ready, as it is a half hour drive, plus the amount of time it takes me to get myself and the scooter ready to ride. To be on the safe side, I started preparing ninety minutes early. First I went to the garage to roll out the scooter and let it warm up. It took one very long crank, then coughed to life briefly and died. A second crank got it running steadily. I left it to warm up while I went inside to collect all my gear.

The getup today was fairly simple, as I was only riding for half an hour before I would be warming up with a coffee and muffin. I wore the electric vest just in case, but never needed it. However at -10c, I always need something warm for the hands. I have a few choices, but one effective solution (if the temperature is freezing) is heavy duty leather mitts with a pull-out thermal liner. It has to get really cold for a very long time before my hands go numb. Next I used my Scorpion high visibility jacket, with both liners and the neck protector zipped up. With long johns, a sweater, and leather overalls I was comfortable enough even without plugging in the electric vest.

I have one more invention for the cold, it is a snorkel to breathe out of. I described this simple device about a month ago, but had never tested it in really cold weather. Today there were no steamed up glasses or visor.

So when I arrived a Timmy's all I had to do was take off my jacket, the helmet, and mitts, and go inside the coffee shop. There is some cold extremely effective gear that is no good for sitting in restaurants, one piece snowmobile suits, for example.

I was a little surprised that three different people on three different occasions at Timmy's spoke to me about riding the bike in the cold. Usually nobody says anything - but - it could be that because I was sitting alone for 45 minutes (I obviously got started way too early), or that I brought my helmet inside to keep it warm, or because Friday 13th was all over the radio, TV and newspapers. In any case, the cashier said I was very brave to go riding. The couple at the next table said "Cold enough for ya?" and we spoke about riding in the cold. Then a man came in with his wife and approached me to ask me about the scooter and tell me about a wonderful day of he spent riding a Vespa 125 with his wife on a Caribbean island with mountainous roads.

Tim's is in the middle of a huge cultural changeover right now, which may scar many tender Canadians psyches. They are eliminating the small coffee, renaming the medium to small, large to medium, extra large to large, and they have found a paper bailing bucket that will now be referred to as an "extra large". They also now sell a lasagna-like meal that I really like. So it was very pleasant warming up with some hot stuff in hand before the actual meeting started.

BY three PM, the sun was threatening to go down, so I figured it was time to leave, as I do not like driving with temperatures falling and the shadows getting longer.

Photo: Friday 13 Port Dover from the Toronto Sun, I was shocked that I know one of the people in this picture. No, thank God, it is not the nude guy. http://www.torontosun.com/2012/01/13/snow-fails-to-deter-friday-the-13th-revellers

Are Foreigners Trying to Block Canada's New Pipeline?

2012-01-13T14:18:00.001-05:00

There was a disturbing article in our local paper "The Record" about non-Canadians trying to block a new oil pipeline that the government wants to build.

The article is written by Kathryn Marshall of EthicalOil.org. In it she blasts "foreign" money being used to sway Canadian decision making about oil pipelines.

In her article, she quotes an anonymous environmental radical saying that they would accept money from Mars.

"An organizer from the foreign-backed, anti-pipeline group, Dogwood Initiative, recently declared: “If I got duffel bags of money delivered from Martians from outer space I would still take that money.”"

Obviously, this is a hypothetical situation, but if (some) environmentalists would accept money from Mars, then you would obviously take money from Al Quaida, the Taliban, Socialists sources, and other unCanadian and unwholesome people.

The main tactic of this article is to sidetrack the argument away from "Is this pipeline good for Canada" to "Foreigners are trying to block a pipeline that Canadians obviously want, and need, and a pipeline that would be good for them".

Should I play along with this debating tactic, or should I take the high ground and refuse to get into "where does the money come from" and "who is more Canadian, you or me?".

We have had many debates about the environment in the last 50 years. This pipeline is a sub-debate about global warming, and is also about pollution from oil spills and destruction of habitat. So it is another environment vs. profits debate. In the past, these debates ended up being the little guy (environmentalists) mounting a grass roots opposition to giant, wealthy multinational corporations. In those debates, the government often sided with the corporations in the early stages before public opinion became unstoppable.

So up till now, it was always big corporate money vs. private individuals sending in small donations. If it was just about money, no environmental cause would ever win. But now it seems things have turned around. Now the big money, according to Kathryn, is behind the environmentalists. And if Martians had money, that would also go to the environmentalists.

Now it's time to stop and think. A reality check in other words. If Martians existed, their support would not go to the environmentalists on Earth. And if anybody has a lot of money, it is not environmentalists, it is Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Suncor and the like.

Exxon Mobil's Market Capitalization is 412,016.05M (I normally cannot count that high, is that 412 billion dollars?)
BP's Market Cap is only 139,661.83M (And that is AFTER the money spent in the Gulf oil spill.)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/markets/stocks/summary/?q=XOM-N

"Dogwood Initiative" as a non-profit organization is not listed on the stock exchange. It is based in Victoria B.C., and apparently its most recent campaign was to put stickers on loonies to oppose oil tankers in British Columbia waters. If you want a ballpark estimate of their financial resources, I would think under $100,000. (Or as they say in the oil business 0.01M) That means Exxon alone has about four million times as much money as Dogwood Initiative. (if my guess is right).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogwood_Initiative

It looks to me like not much has changed in the environmental debates. It is still the local people pooling their puny resources against giant mega rich multinational corporations and their puppet governments (like Canada and the US governments for a start Yes Obama that means you.). Now if by chance some money should come to Dogwood Initiative from a "foreign" source like Greenpeace, let's remember that Greenpeace got its start in BC and became a worldwide organization later. And that fundamentally, it is still supported by small contributors around the world.

But even more important is that the global warming debate is a world wide concern, and it is natural that world wide support should be available for decisions that have a world wide impact.

I believe that by framing this debate as a purely Canadian internal matter, Kathryn Marshall is attempting to dismiss the global warming issue entirely.

I looked up the funding for "Ethicaloil.org", Kathryn's organization and found out that it does NOT accept foreign funding. (Greenpeace is specifically mentioned as a foreign source that they (or she) will not accept money from). She does accept donations from "individuals and companies, including those working to produce ethical oil". Kathryn does not list the companies producing "ethical oil" but Exxon and BP would probably be acceptable according to her own definition.

http://www.ethicaloil.org/about/

So, to summarize. Despite the conservatives and oil company propaganda to the contrary, the big foreign money is still 99.9% on their side. And no matter what Harper or bloggers like Kathryn say, some Canadians (including me) are still in favour of limiting corporate damage to planet Earth. Now let's get back to a sensible debate about things that matter before I start asking questions like "Is Kathryn a Canadian?".

Picture: Some random pipeline I got off the internet, I think our new pipeline is still on the drawing board.

The Book "Your Money or Your Life" is now Twenty Years Old

2012-01-04T14:46:00.000-05:00

"Twenty years after publication of "Your Money or Your Life" by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, it is featured as one of USA Weekend’s 5 Personal Finance Books for 2012 you can bank on."

I read the book "Your Money or Your Life" about twenty years ago when it first came out. It might have transformed my life, if it did not restate a lot of ideas that I already believed in or gave instructions on how to do things I was already doing. I figure there are really not that many different ways to get control of your financial affairs, so it makes sense that the book's basic methods were very similar to mine.

But there was one significant area that my ideas differed from the book. As I recall, the original edition of the book advised against using a computer to track your expenses. The authors seemed to think that using a computer would be a distraction, and instead they gave detailed instructions as to how to track finances with a manual paper system. But I had started developing my own system, which was very similar to theirs (remember there are only so many ways to accurately keep track of expenses) and I had converted my system over to a computer about six years before I read the book.

Now, twenty years later, one of the authors seems to have softened the anti-computer stance, saying a computer "may be useful" but

"A computer is not essential as both authors achieved Financial Independence without using computers."

In my opinion, people who enjoy using spreadsheets, or can write basic programs, or at least have a spouse who likes programming or using computers, will do better using a computer. I'm not the only one who likes writing programs that serve some good use - and achieving financial independence is one of the all-time best uses of a computer in my opinion.

The problem with using a computer to achieve financial independence, is that you must have a clear idea of what the computer can do and must do to help you, and the computer must not get in your way by either requiring you to do all the work, or making you do extra meaningless work, and in the end not providing the results you really need.

For example, if you check the Internet for home financial spreadsheet templates, you will find that most of them are "budget setting" spreadsheets. You input your monthly total expenses for each category, and the spreadsheet will compare the totals against pre-set budget limits, and highlight the ones you have gone over budget, and calculate what percent you have gone over budget. While this idea may actually appeal to you, I would point out that the computer leaves you to do all the hard work on your own: namely inputting the monthly totals per category of expense. The only benefit the computer provides is telling you how far over or under you are compared to your budget - which is basically a pointless exercise because (a) you set those budget items arbitrarily in the first place (b) you are wasting a lot of time doing something you don't need to do, and (c) provides no real extra insight in your financial affairs.

The remaining spreadsheet templates are of the "Checkbook balancing" variety, where you input all your bank transactions and checks, and the spreadsheet helps you see if any checks have not yet been cashed, or if any checks have been cashed that you didn't write. In this age of instant withdrawal debit cards, I don't see much use in writing checks let alone balancing them.

Here is what I see as the basic requirements of an expense tracking system. The computer must download your bank statements (or credit card accounts) into a series of similarly formatted worksheets. With today's technology. the computer must leave you the task of going through the transactions to identify a category you want each transaction to be included in. (forty years from now, the computer may have enough intelligence to do this for you, or at least to argue intelligently with you about which categories should be assigned, but this is not possible today). Then, once you have had a chance to adjust the data as it suits you, the computer can take care of the job of summarizing the whole thing on a final year-end summary. The final summary is best presented in a classical spreadsheet format: one column for each month, a row for each category. This is fundamentally what needs to happen in an expense tracking system, no more and no less. Any other functions would only be needed for for ease of setup, ease of making ongoing changes, tracking errors, backing things up etc.

In the nearly forty years of tracking expenses, I have progressed from adding things in my head, to electronic calculator, to using a computer and writing my own programs to handle these functions. My latest version consists of some spreadsheet templates in "LibreCalc" the free spreadsheet program in the free operating system of Ubuntu 11.10. And I have written three Libre-BASIC macros that I will put on the Internet as open source, in keeping with the spirit of Linux. Who knows, maybe one day someone will enhance these programs, make them even better, (for example by importing from banks other than CIBC or TD) and I can in turn benefit from their work.

The files are here:
http://www.microverse.on.ca/cd175/Readme.txt
http://www.microverse.on.ca/cd175/LoonieLogger_Sum.bas
http://www.microverse.on.ca/cd175/LoonieLogger_Import.bas
http://www.microverse.on.ca/cd175/LoonieLogger_Details.bas
http://www.microverse.on.ca/cd175/LoonieEmptyTestFile.ods

Here are some quotes from a quick summary of the book "Your Money or Your Life" from the official website

http://ymoyl.wordpress.com/summary-of-your-money-or-your-life/

"B: Keep track of every cent that comes into or out of your life.

So far we have established that money equals life energy, and we have learned to compute just how many hours of life energy we exchange for each dollar. Now we need to become conscious of the movement of that form of energy called money in every moment of our lives — we need to keep track of our income by keeping a Daily Money Log.

How:

Devise a record-keeping system that works for you (such as a pocket sized memo book). Record daily expenditures accurately. Record all income.

Step 3: Where Is It All Going? (The Monthly Tabulation)

Don’t worry. Relax. This program is not about budgeting. Budgets, like diets, don’t work. They don’t work because they deal with the symptoms and not the cause. The cause of fat is not really the calories in the food, its the desires in our mind.

Every month create a table of all income and all expenses within categories generated by your own unique spending pattern.

How:

Simple arithmetic. A computer home accounting program may be useful.

(A computer is not essential as both authors achieved Financial Independence without using computers.) "

A link to a review of this book as a life changing event
http://www.passionsaving.com/your-money-or-your-life.html

Picture: from this blog http://blog.icysedgwick.com/2011/07/friday-flash-your-money-or-your-life.html
"The highwayman in the image that accompanies this flash is the dashing David Marshall, tour guide with Alone in the Dark Entertainment. They're about to start running a new ghost walk around Washington in the north east of England"

Scooter Maintenance without the Zen

2012-01-02T18:29:00.000-05:00

This is a story of "The Lost Motorcyclist" repairing Mary Ann's 2005 Suzuki Burgman 400 scooter.

I took the Burgman out for a ride and noticed the big glove box didn't close any more. The striker (a loop of steel that the lid latches on to), was loose and simply retracted when the box lid was pushed closed. The striker has to be solidly mounted for the latch to work. I continued my ride holding the glove box door up with my knee, but obviously Mary Ann will not be too happy with that arrangement.

Today I removed the panel just over the box lid, called the "Front Panel". It also is removed when checking the coolant level, and so I tried to not get distracted by the fact that I didn't see any coolant in the overflow tank. To get this front panel off, there is a single screw clip inside the glove box, which you need to screw out a little bit, then pull out the plastic clip assembly that it is screwed into. (One of the typical wacky fasteners on the Burgman's plastic bodywork.) Luckily I didn't lose it when it flew out of my hand, because its $1.83 for clip (black) 09409-06322-5PK - according to online parts manual under meter panel http://www.suzukipartsnation.com

With this panel off, I was able to see what was wrong: the striker is screwed into a plastic post molded into the "Front Box". The plastic post had snapped off. Naturally, the "front Box" is one of the largest and most expensive plastic parts of the Burgman.

The latch mechanism on the box lid was sticky. The way it normally works is that by simply pushing the lid closed, the latch will retract when it hits the striker, and then clicks back into place to hold the lid closed. On this bike the latch does not retract easily, and the last time I was slamming the door shut, the force probably broke the striker bracket.

I removed the latch from the door, disassembled and lubricated it. The latch slides, and unless it is slathered with grease, it sticks. It was tricky to put back together, and one little steel ball didn't make it. But the latch still seems to work as well as it did before I took it apart.

Then, under the "front panel" I found a way to unscrew the broken bracket from the striker, and I found a much longer screw and drilled a hole completely through the base. I inserted the new longer screw and tightened it up and it seemed to hold the big plastic fairing, broken plastic stud, and striker together.

I bent and sawed up some plastic bits while getting all the Tupperware back together. (Tupperware is a motorcyclist term for plastic bodywork on motorcycles or scooters.) Finally I closed the lid, and still, the only way it would close was if I held the latch open until the lid was in place. I informed Mary Ann that the latch was fixed, but that she must remember to hold the latch while closing the lid. She answered "I'll never remember that." So as a compromise, when the lid does not close, I asked her to call me before trying to slam it harder.

Bigger Bikes Have Their Advantages Too

2011-12-30T13:05:00.001-05:00

With the arrival of the Gunbus motorcycle, you might wonder if we have now gone about as far as we can go with bigger and bigger bikes. "The Lost Motorcyclist" has the feeling that no, we have not. Because no matter what we say about small motorcycles, there are some real advantages to bigger bikes.

I have gone over the advantages of small motorcycles. Cycle Canada's latest issue was devoted to small motorcycles. Now is the time to get real about the advantages of bigger bikes.

The advantages of bigger bikes may fall into two groups. The imaginary advantages and the real advantages. Lets start with imaginary, just to clear the way. Big bikes attract chicks, carry more weight, are not affected by side winds, are safer, go faster, run over dogs without crashing, and are as cheap and as easy to handle as small bikes. I'm going to stop here, even though there are hundreds more BS reasons why big bikes are better than small. All those reasons are crap, and are only useful to convince your wife that you need a bigger (and newer) bike.

Now for the real reasons big bikes are better. They are harder to lift into the back of a pickup truck, and are therefore harder to steal. They can go farther on highways without needed maintenance. They have more crankshaft torque at low engine speeds, and because of that, are easier to start rolling using the clutch, and without a super low first gear. They are less twitchy on the road, so you can spend more time looking at scenery while the bike goes more or less straight. They often have higher top speeds, and can travel at high speeds more safely (mainly due to larger tires).

Although the Gunbus does manage to look good in pictures from some angles, I'm not sure if these reasons are quite enough to make me want to buy a Gunbus, with its 410 cubic inch (6728 cc I believe) motor. But I would be interested to see one riding down a street sometime during my life.

Can Higher Speeds Save You Gas?

2011-12-14T09:31:00.001-05:00

Getting better gas mileage at higher speeds goes against my intuitive understanding, which has been reinforced by many years of experience. Apparently some new research indicates that going faster can save you money at the pumps, that the optimum speed for fuel economy is over 100 kph.

I thought this might be similar to the campaign a few years ago to convince drivers that using a car air conditioner could save them gas. At that time, I looked into it and concluded that it was baseless.

In that blog the Lost Motorcyclist (me) said "Here is another debate pitting science and reason against vested interests and wishful thinking." I found this idea had already been written up in Wikipedia, with references. It was on an entry called "Fuel Economy in Automobiles", subheading "Speed and Fuel Economy Studies".

Quoted text

"The most recent study[16] indicates greater fuel efficiency at higher speeds than earlier studies; for example, some vehicles achieve better mileage at 65 mph (105 km/h) rather than at 45 mph (72 km/h),[16]"

I read the reference given "[16]" and found the graphs and charts started on page 27. The report itself referred to other reports, and so I went back to Wikipedia for another research tack.

Two graphs were also given in this Wikipedia section. Interestingly, each graph seemed to give a completely different result. One graph showing the fuel economy vs. speed of eight different cars, and in every case, fuel economy was better at lower speeds. The other graph was completely different, showing peaks of fuel economy for every vehicle in the range of 50 to 60 miles per hour. The source for this second graph has disappeared. The source for the first graph is available at

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/05/fuel_consumptio.html

There is a possible explanation for this difference in fuel economy vs speed. Years ago, I believe most scientists and researchers were working with cars that had standard transmissions, and were left in high gear during the test. A standard transmission's efficiency does not vary much with speed. However, it seems that now many tests are being conducted on automatic transmission cars, which brings up a whole new set of variables.

Automatic transmissions do not have constant efficiency at various speeds, and the type of automatic transmission with an oil fluid torque converter may indeed be more efficient at high speeds. A torque converter decouples the engine from the rear wheels, and all power is driven from a turbine which turns at engine speed, which spins the oil in a housing that in turn spins another propeller driving the rear wheels through a gearbox. That is why manual transmissions are more efficient than automatics with torque converters (i.e. 99% of automatics). I don't know for sure what the efficiency vs. speed of these torque converters would be but I do know that some cars have a device that bypasses the torque converter at a higher speed, to achieve similar efficiency to a manual transmission. That could be one factor leading to new results that cars get better gas mileage at higher speed.

But there is another major factor, and that is the gear selection. In the past it was simply assumed that the car would be run in high gear, and that it would not be shifted to a lower gear at lower speed, as this downshift would result in lesser fuel economy. I'm not so sure today that these cars are run in high gear only, in fact the multiple peaks seem to indicate downshifts taking place as the car slows down.

Here is a thread on the Ecomodders blog, debating this point.

In that forum is a link to another blog by "King of the Road" where he has all kinds of mathematical equations and test results from his own vehicles. The results seem to indicate maximum efficiency of 50 mph. But to me the most telling point is later when he answers a comment with

"Yes, those calculations are run based on numbers gathered on (nearly) level ground, with the transmission using whatever gear the engine map assigns in cruise."

Do people really think an automatic transmission shifting itself is not worth mentioning, even with detailed explanation of experimental methods?

My conclusion is that this story may indeed have some truth, but only if you are using an automatic transmission, and the automatic is doing certain things at arbitrary speeds - which to me seems to be unscientific, and yet it also appears acceptable to many people.

I drive a manual transmission, but a few months ago I was driving my mother's car (an automatic with torque converter). I forgot to pick up gas at the last station on the 401, and with the needle on empty, decided to drive the remaining 40 km. to her home on back roads at a very low 60 kph. I don't think her trasmission shifted down on me, as it is only a three speed (not the six speeds like some newer cars). I thought for sure at the time I was getting exceptionally good gas mileage, but in her 15 year old Chevy Cavalier I had no instant MPG display like many newer cars have. In the end, we did make it home without running dry.

Picture: Some ultra low speed driving from http://blog.coredump.ca/2009/06/03/photo-friday-high-speed/

Is Ubuntu Linux as User Friendly as Windows 7?

2011-11-16T09:26:00.000-05:00

Having spent the last four days upgrading computers, The Lost Motorcyclist (me) feels a need to express my opinions about this experience, and what it means for progress in the computer world.

Mary Ann's Windows computer, and my Linux computer were both gradually shutting down. It wasn't just one big thing, it was lots of little unrelated things. For example, Youtube started giving us angry messages that our computers needed to upgrade something. "HEY YOU: THIS IS NOT A SPAM MESSAGE.. GET YOUR FLASH UPGRADED NOW!!!" When I tried to upgrade, neither computer could complete the upgrade, so we muddled on, ignoring the rude messages. Also, Mary Ann's power button was sticking, my computer booted up without recognizing the hard drive, or the mouse, or the video card, all intermittently. Mary Ann repeatedly told me she thought there were viruses in her machine, but twice when I tried to track them down, it turned out to be user error. Other times, files became corrupted. The Internet searches slowed to a crawl.

Finally Mary Ann's Internet Explorer permanently stopped responding. We decided she needed a new computer, and it had to have Windows to run Eudora Mail, and MS Office to run some custom macros in her budget spreadsheet. I also needed another computer, but I could take her old computer and see if it worked like new again with an upgrade to the latest Linux Ubuntu.

So for less than $750, we could get a new desktop plus a $100 a year anti virus program and Office 2010. The new computer has a one terabyte drive. How is she going to use a one terabyte drive? The old computer had 80 gigabyte drive, and in six years was still half empty. If my math is right, this drive is more than ten times bigger. On the other hand, her CPU is fast enough to run full screen high resolution videos, which is better than the quarter screen videos on the last computer.

Next is my computer (actually her old computer). I went to load the latest copy of Ubuntu. Now despite the friendly references to "running alongside Windows", it is not easy to make Ubuntu run alongside Windows. If it runs alone, fine, the install works well. But if you should choose to run it alongside Windows, the next screen to come up asks you to repartition the machine, and gives no instructions on how to do it. If you do it wrong, as I did the first time, it destroys Windows and all the data on your hard disk, and takes 4 hours to do so. I guess it's part of the Linux culture, to screen out wannabees, newbies, and those who are not totally committed to Linux, while pretending to be as user-friendly as Windows.

But surprisingly, this new version of Linux Ubuntu (ver 11.10), is actually very user friendly. Let me explain what user friendliness is. You go into normal MacDonald's and order a big Mac, that is a user friendly experience. However, if they insist that you kill the cow yourself, that is not a user friendly experience. Old versions of Ubuntu and other variations of Linux were not user friendly. But this one is getting very close, and I think Microsoft should be worried.

First thing I noticed is that when I installed Ubuntu 11.10, everything worked! Youtube worked (I can't remember if I needed to download and install something - but if I did, it was easy), and I could run videos with the same video player that Mary Ann's computer uses (VLC). And if any additional software was needed, all I had to do was click on the button and boom it was there. For example, I installed VLC and Gimp (a watered down photoshop) without having to wade through pages of instructions, or going into command mode. Just click on the install button.

Then I downloaded and installed Kturtle, which is inspired by the Logo programming language of the eighties. I have used Logo extensively, first on a Coleco Adam computer, and later on an IBM clone. But it is revealing to look at the differences 25 years of progress have wrought. First, admittedly, the new version of Logo (called Kturtle) is free. I paid $250 for my PC version. Second, the size. Kturtle takes 10 MB of space to download, and 250 megabytes when installed. My PC Logo and Coleco Logo each could fit on a 5 inch floppy or less (Was that 350 Kilobytes?) So at least thirty times smaller just on the install file - never mind the 250 MB disk space. And how about the power? Both my 25 year old Logos could write data to disk, and came with a comprehensive manual and had enough power to create a home budget program. Coleco Logo also had self moving sprites (up to 12 I think) and collision, trackball and event detection, and could change the shape of the sprites (or turtles) on the fly, and had subscripted variables. I was able to write a paint program with it. By comparison Kturtle has almost no real power except for moving one turtle around a screen. To be fair, there may be a lot more power hidden there, as I have only glanced at the meagre reference manual. But it seems dedicated to the ages of 3-6 years old. And it does not write data to disk or have subscripted variables. And why on Earth would they change the commands? That's right, the most basic turtle commands. "Forward 5". Logo shortened that to FD 5. Kturtles shortens it to FW 5. Is that obfuscation or what? How about RIGHT TURN 90. Logo used RT 90. Kturtles uses TR 90. That sums up everything wrong with human interfaces. Is that what we want to teach our kids?

Speaking of common user interfaces, where did the menus go? This applies to all the applications on the computer. I understood that main menus were always at the top left corner of the window executing your program, and were visible all the time. Not any more. They go invisible unless you roll a mouse over them. Bad enough I guess, if you LEAVE THEM IN THE SAME PLACE!!! But now the (invisible) menus are all in the top left corner of the monitor screen. I couldn't find this valuable information on Google, (try googling "missing menus in Ubuntu 11.10) and finally found it on my own by sheer luck.

Anyway, Ubuntu 11.10 is catching up to Windows, and it's free and easily reinstallable by ordinary users. It has Word and Excel file compatibility also free. (but not macro compatibility - so my fault for writing Excel macros ten years ago that I still use). Ubuntu is nowhere near as virus prone as Windows. And it took me about as long to fiddle with Mary Ann's new Windows computer as it did to do the new Ubuntu install (if you subtract the wasted four hours of reformatting my disk). And that is after I paid the Future shop $120 to clean up all the commercial marketing crap that comes with the new Windows computer, and install an anti virus program.

Next time Mary Ann's computer needs replacing, I will find some alternate to those Microsoft Excel macros first. Then we can both use Linux Ubuntu.

Picture: from http://www.motifake.com

What Kind of Motorcycle Gear Would God Wear?

2011-11-14T13:52:00.001-05:00

One of my blogs receives a lot of hits from people who google "What kind of motorcycle does God ride?". So I decided to cash in on this success (not literally, as I have not monetized my blog), by doing a follow-up. This time, the question is "What Kind of Motorcycle Gear Would God Wear?" By the way, "The Lost Motorcyclist" is the original author of this blog, and all those other commercial websites you found on Google with the exact same article about God's motorcycle, are copying my blog without permission.

I think it would be best to start at the top, with the helmet. As they say, if you have a ten dollar head, get a ten dollar helmet. With God's head, it would be impossible to find a helmet to match the cost, which would be well into the trillions I expect. But given that it is impossible to damage God's brain in an accident, you could make do with a plastic beanie, and not even worry about the DOT approval - just make sure to put the sticker on in case God gets stopped by the police. Of course, He could get out of jail easily, but God doesn't want any hassles from the fuzz.

Next is the question of the jacket. Hi-vis textile? Black leather Hell's Angels type jacket? The answer is simple. God does not need high visibility reflective colours as His glowing halo is visible enough from miles away. Also, we know intuitively that God is not a wimp, and so He would wear a real hard core 1%er black leather jacket. Hard core motorcycle jackets have "Gun pockets", where God could conceal his piece. But many motorcycle jackets have wimpy gun pockets that can only conceal a small Glock. God's gun pocket should be big enough for an Uzzi. With another smaller pocket for a back-up Glock. Not that God needs the protection of a gun, but some people just listen better when a loaded gun is pointed at them.

To complete the outfit, God would need a rebel do-rag, alligator skin cowboy boots, fingerless gloves, t-shirt saying "My Dad created the universe and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt", and American made blue jeans. I'm not sure about the underwear, so I'm going to leave that part up to God.

ANSWERS TO MY LAST BLOG ABOUT GOD'S MOTORCYCLE. To keep it brief, I pictured God riding a Dodge Tomahawk V-10 motorcycle. To answer some objections, yes, God can easily pick up a 1,500 lb motorcycle if it drops. And even though the tank only holds 3 gallons (smallish American gallons), I guarantee God will not be the one to hold up your group ride because he needs gas - God's gas is renewable! And, finally, how many time must I repeat it? Yes, God is OK with me writing blogs about Him. God loves humour, that's why He told me the Canucks would win the Stanley Cup last year.

How To Put On Cold Weather Clothes for Motorcycling

2011-11-07T11:05:00.001-05:00

This is not about what to wear for cold weather, but how to put it on. How you perform the act of getting dressed can mean all the difference between a cold ride and a warm ride, even if you are wearing exactly the same gear in the same weather. It seems to me that although there is a lot of information about what to wear, nobody ever seems to talk about how to put it on.

According to the Lost Motorcyclist (me), the basic principle is this: that you must not get sweaty and start perspiring while getting dressed for cold weather. That's because moisture cools you off, and conducts heat through otherwise warm insulation. That moisture will stay trapped in place under heavy winter gear, and you will get cold much sooner than if you started completely dry.

It's not as easy as you think to avoid getting sweaty under your cold weather gear. Most people get dressed in a warm house, at a temperature much too high for their warm clothes. And some cold weather gear is difficult to get into, meaning it takes time and physical effort, both of which increase the perspiration and moisture inside your clothes.

The first, most basic thing is to not begin getting dressed immediately after a physical workout. Wait for your body to cool down first. And make sure all your normal clothing, that you will be wearing under the winter gear, is dry before you start.

Second thing is to take care of all preliminary tasks before you put on your cold gear. In my case, that would be taking the motorcycle out of the garage and getting it pointed in the right direction for a ride. I do that before I put on any cold weather gear.

Third is to actually put on most of the gear - probably overpants, boots, and sweaters. This must be done quickly and effortlessly. If your gear takes too much time and effort to put on, you should get better gear or practice your technique.

Fourth, put on the last of the cold weather clothing outdoors, where it is cold. That would probably be the helmet, outer jacket, neck warmer, and gloves. I also usually leave those items inside the warm house until I am ready to go.

If you have done it all right you can be on your motorcycle, heading out of the driveway feeling warm but not overheated, and you can ride for a long time before you start to feel cold. The actual time might range from half an hour to all day long.

How far you can go before getting cold is a combination of many things: the temperature outside, the type of gear you are wearing, the wind protection on your motorcycle, your own body's tolerance for cold, and your heating system (if you have one like electric or chemical heat sources.) But among of all of those factors, the most poorly understood, yet critical, is the art of actually getting all that gear on and getting out the driveway.

Here is a funny video from Columbia sportswear that illustrates one way to put on cold weather gear, and there is some truth to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKd3kTMDSIk

Vulcan 900 Brake Pads

2011-11-04T22:17:00.000-04:00

Motorcycle maintenance is more like a riddle than an art, according to "The Lost Motorcyclist".

For the first time since I bought a 1972 Honda scrambler six years ago, I was able to do some actual motorcycle maintenance in my garage. That's because I found a new home for the scrambler last week, and now there is enough space in the garage again for me to work on the remaining bikes.

Let's begin with what happened this morning. I rode my Vulcan 900 Classic over to Zdeno's, where they were able to install a new rear tire while I waited. During the install, I was informed that the brake pads were getting thin, and I asked them to replace the rear pads while they had the wheel off. While that was being done, I had time to reflect on all the years that I insisted on doing all the maintenance myself, and how this golden rule was being broken down step by step. This was another step, the first time I let someone else replace my brake pads (or shoes as we used to say in the sixties).

When I got home I suddenly realized that there were pads on the front of the bike too, and that they had never been inspected either, and they probably needed replacing even more than the rear pads. So I got on the bike again and drove across town in rush hour traffic to pick up a new pair of pads for the front. These, I would install myself.

I didn't have time to work on the bike until 8:00 PM. Normally I would not work on my bike in the driveway when it is dark out and 3c, but I remembered that I could now work in my "roomy" and well lit garage.

At first, everything went well. I removed the two caliper bolts as per the shop manual. Then I got stuck. The rim of the wheel prevented the caliper from coming off the rotor. I wasted no more than a minute fiddling with it, then came inside the house to jump on the internet and get some helpful advice from the Vulcan Forum. For some reason, I have never seen the internet so slooooow. I looked up post after post, and no one said anything about a difficulty removing the caliper. Finally I came to conclusion that (1) my bike was different from everyone else's (2) Or, it was so simple that no one else thought it worth mentioning.

I went back out to the garage and fiddled around until I realized that I needed to bend the fender a little (It's plastic, so that's OK) and my brake hose was a bit short because it was wrapped around my custom windshield bracket. Also the far side of the caliper was shorter than the side near to me, and the whole caliper was closer to coming off than I realized.

So, caliper is off, what next. "Remove clip pin" it says. I don't see a clip pin. Also, I don't know that a clip pin is supposed to look like. Is this some new 21st century technology? So I start working over the pad post with pliers, until I notice something moving in the crack between the pad and the bracket. Hey that must be the clip pin in there. I look in with a flashlight and some reading glasses, and there it is. Once you see something, it really is a lot easier to remove, and now I even remember what a clip pin looks like. I have seen many of them before.

When I bought these new brake pads, I was a bit worried because these are the first pads I have ever seen where the pair do not match. With the old pads, the only way you could mount them wrong would be to put the friction material pointing away from the disk instead of toward the disk (don't ask). With asymmetrical pads, there are many more ways (in theory, maybe four ways) to install them wrong. Anyway, lets continue with our look at the new brake pads. These pads have a very clever design feature, that you only need to remove one clip and shaft, to take out both the pads. Up till now, I have always had to remove two shafts (with their clips) per pair of pads. This new design is more complicated to think through. But it is simpler to build, and uses fewer moving parts, and is quicker to change the pads. I also noticed that the way the caliper is constructed, it is very unlikely to rust solid and stop working properly. That is the kind of progress that I like. Simpler and better ways to design things. Nothing much to brag about, because it is actually cheaper, but still an improvement because the performance stays 100% much longer and less maintenance is needed.

Tinkering With the Riding Gear: Helmets

2011-10-30T23:09:00.000-04:00

We often hear of tuning up a motorcycle, but rarely of tuning up the gear (i.e. clothing) for a motorcycle ride. Yesterday, "The Lost Motorcyclist" (me) decided to adjust his (my) gear. Recently I have bought a new helmet that needs a better attachment. And another problem, we are coming into some cold weather, when my face shield must be lifted frequently, but the pivot is sticky.

On my Vega half helmet, the D-rings keep jamming when I try to tighten the strap. I decided to forget about the D-rings and buy one of those add-on snap clips that make the helmet much easier to attach and undo the chin strap. So I went over to Zdeno and asked for the chin-snap thing, which the girls at the counter immediately recognized as a "quick release". So I got what they said, it was an "Echo Quick Release" for $12.00 plus tax. I've bought some of these before, but this looked like a new design - three pieces instead of the usual two (like Mary Ann's helmet). I tried to put it on my full face helmet outside in the parking lot. At the same time, I was trying to help another customer stuff his purchase into his saddlebags. When he saw me looking puzzled about my "quick release" he suggested I go back into the store and let the girls figure it out for me. I said "Not before I at least read the instructions." Later when I got home with my quick release working properly, I remembered I wanted to put it on my half helmet, but now I couldn't figure out how to get it off the first helmet. I checked the Internet. One guy had hacksawed his off when he realized it took longer to do and undo than regular D-rings. This didn't sound too good. Somebody else said that their wife used one, had an accident and the helmet came off. Even worse!

A web page by the Echo company explained (with pictures) how the get their quick release off a helmet. Their method worked fine. But now I was worried about all the consumer complaints I read about. I could tell right away that this helmet quick release was harder to snap on and off than all the other ones I have used. But that might be a good thing in case of an accident. However there was one other problem, and that was if you don't snap it properly, it can jam in an insecure position.

I tried snapping it off and on many times, and basically, the spring is a lot stiffer for the release clips than the other quick releases I have used. And yes, it is possible to get it crooked, but some practice could avoid that. Some people apparently do it up looking in a mirror, but really I don't think that is necessary. As a final test I asked Mary Ann to put it on and take it off. She looked at the quick release clip first then put the helmet on her head and snapped it correctly. Then she had a bit of trouble getting it off, she could not feel the release buttons at first, but only because they are different to hers. Then I tried the helmet myself with gloves on. It's quite hard to put on with gloves, but not impossible, and fairly easy to get off.

My final analysis: this quick release looks like it might be even safer in a crash than any previous quick releases I have used, despite the three piece design. Actually, the two steel pieces end up locked to each other, and the third plastic piece simply keeps the steel pieces aligned. It hooks up very positively, and will not release very easily by mistake. But the Echo is a bit harder to snap and unsnap than the others. Some people may not have the patience for this, I suppose.

I remembered the face shield was hard to lift on the full face helmet. In the summer this is not too much of a problem, but in the cold weather, I have to move the face shield up and down frequently - either to prevent fogging at a traffic light, or to keep my face warm at speed. It was getting so stiff, that when I lifted it up, it tried to move the entire helmet on my head. So I took off the shield and put some Vaseline (petroleum jelly) on the rubbing parts in the hinge. That seems to do the trick, it was very easy to open and close on my trip to Port Dover today - and it still holds its detent positions in between.

So it seems that with motorcycles themselves getting more and more maintenance free, I am going to have to get my jollies tinkering with the riding outfit instead. At least I can do that inside the house in the winter, where it's warm.

Picture: I took this on the other side of Port Dover harbor channel today.

Time to Reopen the Climategate Debate

2011-10-27T10:29:00.000-04:00

Most Americans now believe that global warming is a hoax. Not only that, but many also believe that science itself is unreliable, and believe that most scientists in any field of research will fudge figures in order to obtain research grants. Most of this ill-will came about because of the controversy around global warming, and specifically the stolen emails from climate researchers that seemed to indicate they were using underhanded methods to "fake" global warming. (A.K.A.Climategate).

Making things worse, science itself seems to still be locked in mortal combat with the religious fundamentalists about the theory of evolution, and the fundamentalists are lending their financial resources and publicity to the fight against real science. (I use the term real science because the fundamentalists' latest tactic is to claim to be an alternate, "honest" type of science where the Earth is only 6,000 years old)

It is really sad to see popular opinion turn against science. I can understand my sister, who is a fundamentalist Christian, thinking that science is evil. I have a harder time accepting that a friend I made in Africa with CUSO believes the same thing. Even harder to believe that old college friends, from the science program at university, also believe that global warming is a hoax. These are just the people I know personally who believe the Climategate scandal. I assume the public opinion polls are right, and that many more people believe the same way.

But apparently last week there was a bit of a breakthrough. An independent voice took another look at global warming data, to see if the Climategate scandal was true. A report came out by Richard Muller, who is a scientist who in the past was skeptical about global warming. Richard Muller obtained funding (some from oil companies, apparently), assembled a team, and embarked on a project to find out if the data from Climategate did indeed indicate warming or not.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/chilling-news-for-climate-sceptics-20111027-1mm5d.html

The above article indicates that his independent effort corroborates exactly what global warming scientists have been saying.

Does this mean the end of the controversy? Of course not. This report has been given almost zero air time, compared to the massive publicity that was given to the stolen emails. In fact it was given almost no air time even compared to the coverage of MacDonald's new McRib, according to Jon Stewart of the Daily Show (Oct 26, 2011). Also, Forbes Magazine ran an opinion piece by James Taylor "The Birth of a Straw Man" that basically said Richard Muller had not done any new research and that Global Warming was still a hoax.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/10/26/the-death-of-global-warming-skepticism-or-the-birth-of-straw-men/

The Forbes article, if you choose to read it, claims Richard Muller's research is a failure, because it does not turn up anything new, and because it does not answer the question of whether or not global warming is man-made. Well, of course not. It was intended to only look at climate data from weather stations - because that was issue of the Climategate controversy. It was a very comprehensive study to see if the data had indeed been fudged to get grants, as was claimed by the press. And it found the climate scientists not guilty. Too bad people like James Taylor are given so much space in influential magazines to air opinions that a fifth grader should be able to rebut.

Of course, Richard Muller's study is only a small part of the huge amount of research being done on Global Warming. True, it brings no new information to light, but it is an independent fact checking on the scientists who were accused of fudging their figures to obtain grants. They didn't. Now can we resume an intelligent conversation about Global Warming, or is it too late?

OK then, while we wait, how good is that new McRib burger?

Port Dover Chronicles: October 23, 2011

2011-10-23T22:56:00.001-04:00

I am slipping further and further into the "biker" image. It is hard not to notice that 99% if motorcyclists who visit Port Dover wear black leather jackets. I, on the other hand have a few textile jackets and an old brown leather bomber jacket. I will give you an idea how old my brown leather jacket is. When shopping for it, I had trouble finding a jacket that was not a copy of the red leather jacket worn by Michael Jackson on the "Thriller" video. I had a few other leather jackets of various colours, one was even older, but some of them developed mildew from storage, and Mary Ann gave them the old heave ho.

Most of my friends also ride with black leather jackets, while I often wear my fluorescent lime green textile jacket. The jacket is so bright I'm afraid to wear it into restaurants. It also makes me look fat. I appear to weigh nearly 400 pounds while wearing my 2XXL green jacket on the Kawasaki Vulcan. But I read that black leather jackets make you look thinner - another reason they are popular. Also, check out these pictures of Marlon Brando (a) wearing a black leather jacket and (b) not wearing a black leather jacket.

The Lost Motorcyclist (me) found a nice jacket on the Internet for $375 but I was reluctant to order it because I like to look and feel first. Then I realized the same retailer has a store in London, Ontario, where I know that they have hundreds of jackets to try. I found the exact same jacket in the store, but I found out that they have higher prices when you actually go into the store, as compared to what you get when ordering over the Internet. So I might have been better off going back home empty handed and ordering the same coat from the same store over the Internet. However, they allowed me to buy the coat in the store for the same price as the Internet (plus shipping, even though I did not need shipping). In the end the jacket cost more than I first thought, but I really prefer to buy what I can try on first. And I didn't feel bad about trying on something at the store then ordering cheaper online, because it was the same company doing both the online and the store business.

Today I got to try out the jacket on a ride to Port Dover. First I met up with Barry and Bob at Tim Horton's. Bob was riding his Suzuki Intruder 1400, with a Mustang seat. I am very curious about aftermarket seats so he allowed my to try his bike for a ride to another Tim Hortons. I was amazed at how smooth the ride was compared to my Vulcan! On normal roads the rear suspension seemed to float on air. But then we went over a few rougher roads and I could feel the suspension bottoming out a little. Bob said his shocks are old and probably lost all their oil, and that's why they're so soft. The Mustang seat on the other hand didn't feel any softer than my stock Kawasaki seat. On the Vulcan, it takes about 45 minutes usually for "numb butt" to begin. Maybe the Mustang could stay comfy longer, but my test was not long enough to tell. In the end, I did enjoy riding a different bike for a while, but it only made me appreciate the Vulcan more when we swapped back.

The jacket also worked out very well. The temperature was only about 15c, and the jacket kept me warm. I really like the high collar on the jacket, which helps protect my neck, and the zipper that goes all the way to the top. But the collar is also so stiff that it digs into my chin and may stretch my neck out if I wear it too long. That is a problem I have with a lot of jackets when I try to fasten up the neck, and I always find a solution in the end. I also found out that my jacket weighs seven pounds, which seems really heavy, but maybe that's also a sign of good protection. It also has armour in the elbows and shoulders, but I left those at home.

I was the only one to carry on to Port Dover, where I was lucky to get the last apple fritters of the season from "Apples", the place in Port Dover that sells real deep fried apple fritters. But by the time I was finished, the temperature was starting to drop, and I needed to head home without any further delay. By six o'clock, I arrived home and the sun was disappearing behind some clouds. At this time of year, you should not waste daylight.

Pictures: One of the Lost Motorcyclist with black leather jacket, riding my bike in a parking lot. Next two pictures of Marlon Brando, with and without black leather jacket. These were not photoshopped!

Since When is Lying a Conservative Value?

2011-10-23T10:57:00.000-04:00

For several years now I have wrestled with this interesting question. Who is telling the truth on TV and on the Internet? On one hand you have the Conservatives claiming to tell the truth. On the other you have the Liberals with exactly the same claim. In order to sort out the difference, I might have to fact-check every single statement made on TV or in the media. Even I, with my high speed Internet connection, and abundant free time, have been intimidated by this prospect. And as a result I have disengaged from some political debates that seem bogged down because of conflict source material. The fact is, most source material for political arguments does come from the media.

But now I think there is finally an issue that separates Conservative values from the Liberal values. This issue promises to put to rest the question about who is lying and who is telling the truth. It all comes down to one word: "Knowingly".

Last February, 2011, the CRTC applied to change a rule prohibiting the broadcasting of false and misleading information in Canada. According to their website the effective date of this rule change would be September 1, 2011. As of September 1, radio and TV stations are only prevented from "knowingly" broadcasting false and misleading information.

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2011/2011-14.htm

Is the addition of the word "knowingly" that big of a deal? Well, for one thing, a TV network would do well to fire any fact-checkers and researchers that they currently employ. The less they know, the less their legal liability. There is no CRTC regulation forcing broadcasters to hire fact checkers or researchers - I guess that was implied in the regulation preventing the broadcasting of false and misleading information. So my legal advice would be to fire the researchers and real reporters.

To illustrate the legal case, what is the difference between "Speed Limit of 100 kph" and "Speed Limit of 100 kph* (* knowingly)". When you are pulled over for speeding, the first question is "Did you know what speed you were going?" The answer, "No sir, I was not watching my speed" is not a good defence. Wouldn't it be fun if the law was only to punish people who admitted that they know what speed they were going? I would love to answer, "No sir, I don't have a clue! My speedometer is busted/covered with mud/my eyes don't focus that close/I was busy texting". The officer then is forced to reply "Oh, I am sorry, I didn't realize that you were unknowingly doing 235 kph back there. Sorry for the delay and have a nice day!"

Now who is pushing this small, but disturbing change to TV regulation? First I do not think it is the Liberals or the left wing. Fact one: This change is being made under a conservative government. Fact two, a new conservative TV station, Sun News, coincidentally began broadcasting right wing propaganda in the springtime of 2011. I am not aware of any left wing propaganda stations starting up lately. I realize that this is just circumstantial evidence, there is no publicly stated policy from the conservatives on lying. But the evidence is still very strong, and has the implication that the Conservatives are in favour of spreading untruths and misinformation.

From now on, what is the point of debating "Global Warming" based on media sources? What's the point of debating war, labour unrest, religion, free markets, or any of the other hundreds of political hot buttons? We will no longer be able to have a common point of reference in the media, a reference that we have counted on for years.

In a final note, I have not been able to find final confirmation on the Internet of this CRTC rule change. Last I heard, the left wing groups were still fighting it. All my sources are from January-February this year. But even if the "knowingly" modification is thwarted, it still is a clear indication of which side is more willing to spread false propaganda.

http://www.petitiononline.com/stopcrtc/petition.html

Picture: The Lost Motorcyclist photoshopped this speed limit sign to add the word "knowingly".

Fire Don Cherry, Ban Bare Knuckle Fighting

2011-10-19T09:20:00.001-04:00

With Spain considering a ban on bullfighting, is it time for Canada and the USA to ban ice hockey? (Because the NHL covers both countries)

Don Cherry had an outburst against people who are against fighting in hockey. This got me thinking. There is a movement in Canada that seems to be starting, to investigate the damage caused by fighting in hockey. Don Cherry, the commentator on CBC hockey games is one of the most unabashed promoters of fighting in hockey and he was visibly upset with the attitudes of some of the ex-players who had said something about fighting. Don Cherry called them "pukes and turncoats", as apparently these guys had been fighters themselves during their NHL careers.

Here is the situation. Bare knuckled boxing is against the law in Canada and the USA. But there is a demand for this type of brutality. Professional ice hockey has somehow developed a symbiotic relationship with bare knuckled fighting. We actually have two sports parasitically living on each other. Bare knuckled fighting uses "National Hockey League" ice hockey to gain legitimacy, as the fights take place during hockey games. Hockey uses bare knuckled fighting to attract "fans", and to make more money.

No other professional sport does this. This is what I believe. In the National Hockey League version of ice hockey, a certain number of players are recruited by each team to do the fighting. The coaches send the fighters out when they are ready for a session of bare knuckled boxing, and the hockey game is temporarily suspended while the fight is going on. These are not spontaneous fights between hockey players. These are planned fights between athletes hired for their fighting abilities (most of the time - occasionally some other player will be attacked.)

They say that "fighting is part of the game". It is not. I have seen plenty of games with no fights (e.g Olympic hockey). It's time for NHL hockey to ban fighting, it is a very easy thing to do. Just don't hire fighters, and give stiff penalties for fighting. And of course, fire Don Cherry, that loudmouth ignorant embarrassment. (I Googled "fire don cherry" and got 28,000 hits.) Hire a commentator who knows hockey. Let's get back to the sport of hockey, which is not a bad game without the fight fans screaming for blood.

Picture: I got it off this website. There is a video also, which I did not look at, but I assume proves my point, that the fights are a separate sport from hockey, and should be as illegal as bare knuckled boxing.
http://www.maniacworld.com/best-hockey-fight-ever.html

Glenn Fox, Trashing Green Energy Again

2011-10-18T14:08:00.000-04:00

It seems Glenn Fox is up to his tricks again. He has co-authored a report claiming that green energy is too expensive for Ontario. I saw this report mentioned on TV today.

I have written two other blogs in relation to Glenn Fox. One about a different University of Guelph's economics professor and his political one sidedness when it comes to Green Energy.

http://lostmotorcycles.blogspot.com/2011/03/university-of-guelph-economics.html

The next was about a lecture I attended by Glenn Fox titled "It's not easy being green"

http://lostmotorcycles.blogspot.com/2011/02/glenn-fox-phd-lectures-seniors-on.html

This previous blog attracted a few comments that were debated at length. And unlike the usual web comments section (for example the CTV article linked at the top of this blog), the debate on my blog was civil, and ranged from scientific to philosophical.

At the end of the debate I admitted that while I could give my opinion that lecture I attended was one-sided, I probably should not judge the rest of Glen Fox's life work as being equally biased against environmentalism and alternate energy.

Now Energy Minister Duguid of Ontario Government is saying that this new report is one-sided and flawed, and that one of the authors is known to be anti-alternate energy. I wonder if that biased person could be Glen Fox?

The Non-Iron Butt Tour

2011-10-15T11:16:00.000-04:00

It has been raining steady for a few days now, so I'm going to write about a crazy ride that I took long ago.

The Iron Butt rally is a long extreme endurance motorcycle ride, that first ran in 1984.

Since then, they have expanded their activities to many "self guided" rides. During these rides, the rider must complete a certain distance in a certain time, and document the result with gas receipts and witness signatures.

I have often read of the exploits of the Iron Butt riders, and I am quite amazed at the number of people willing to go on these runs. But I have never wanted to participate myself.

Except for the coincidental similarity, this trip has nothing to do with the Iron Butt association. I have no documentation to even prove I took this trip. It predates the first Iron Butt rally by one year.

In 1983, I bought my third motorcycle, a Honda Silver Wing GL500. I was 35 years old and living in Kitchener, Ontario. It was a hot August, and a plan formed in my mind to take my new motorcycle on a long solo trip to Baie Comeau Quebec, my home town, located about 800 miles away to the northeast. I packed my bike and left home at about 1:30 on Friday afternoon, Aug 11, planning to be back by Sunday night. This was already quite an ambitious schedule. It was my first ever long distance motorcycle trip on my own. I figured I could make more miles a day alone than with a passenger.

The journey started off quite normally on a hot sunny afternoon. I rode the ever so boring 401 heading east. I planned to stop and stay with my sister in Quebec City for the night, but I didn't phone ahead to let her know I was coming, that is something my passenger might have done, if she was coming along with me. Anyway, Quebec City is a good 11 hours from Kitchener, driving non-stop except for gas breaks and the occasional burger and coffee. I arrived there at about 11 PM, and it was a bit too late to drop in unannounced. But that was where the interesting road began, as I left the freeway and entered the mountains. I was psyched up to hit the mountains for the very first time on a bike over 250 cc, and unencumbered by the weight of a passenger. So I just kept going into the darkness.

By this time there was a bit of a chill in the air. I was getting further north and the sun had set. I had no windshield on this bike, and I had not thought of bringing my cold weather gear. As the night wore on, I stuffed some papers in the front of my jacket to help insulate me. Right now I forget where I got those papers - maybe free papers at some roadside tourist stop. By about 2:30 AM I had reached the ferry over the Saguenay River and I was cold. So I appreciated being able to warm up in the lounge and also grabbed a hot chocolate from a vending machine.

I was still wide awake and keen to ride on. I enjoyed watching the stars, and in fact there was a meteor shower going on that I could watch with fascination as I drove through the night.

Soon after I left the ferry, I saw the bus behind me. This would be the Quebec City- Baie Comeau bus, that I had taken as a passenger a few times. It stops in most towns to see if there is someone to pick up. And I knew that it was fast. I was going about 110 kph on the straights, and the bus kept catching up. But each time we reached a town, it had to drop back and look for passengers. I was driving as fast as I dared in the mountains in the dark, but gradually the lights of the bus gained on me between towns. It was a close race. Finally at about 5 AM, I was still ahead, but too cold to carry on. I was beginning to shake. So I stopped beside the road right near the Outardes river as the sun was coming into view. I started jogging to build up some body heat. Within less than two minutes, the bus roared by, leaving me in a wind vortex. Right behind the bus, looking like it was being towed, was a police car. I was glad he wasn't following me. The sight was intriguing enough that I got back on the bike and tried to follow to see what would happen, but I couldn't catch up.

Before long I had reached Baie Comeau and I wasn't really sure what to do next, because my plan didn't go that far ahead. I was hungry so I went to a restaurant for breakfast. Back then, there were no Tim Hortons or MacDonalds in Baie Comeau, so I went to a real restaurant and got a huge breakfast. I don't remember what I had, but I still remember it as one the best breakfasts ever.

Still without a plan I rode around town looking at the houses I used to live in. Then I decided that I had seen enough and I wanted to do more riding. So I turned around and headed back home. I knew I would need sleep at some point, and I would deal with it when I got tired. By about 8:30 AM it was starting to hit me, so I pulled off into a picnic area on a beach. There were some big flat rocks, so I laid down and immediately fell asleep. I woke up about an hour later with an itchy mosquito bite. I got back on the bike and started riding again, this time I was warm and actually felt rested.

Passing through Quebec City again, I stopped at a tourist information to find out how to get to my sister's house. I had not been there before, so I asked for instructions on how to get to "la rue Des Tours". The girl at the counter said there is no Rue Detours in Quebec city, perhaps I was mistaken and it was a "detour" sign? No, I insisted. And then I said it is located near "La Rue Larue". At this point the tourist information girl began to become suspicious that I was pulling her leg, "rue" being also the French word for "street"). I left without any instructions, and so continued on towards home without stopping. Later on, I found out that it was not "Rue LaRue", it was "Avenue Larue". Excuuuuuse me, and anyway, both those streets are in Beauport, not Quebec City, and so not on the Quebec City map, even though they are right next to each other.

Somehow I kept going through the rest of the day and well into the night again but in southern Ontario the night was warm - over 25c. My final pit stop was a 401 service centre just east of Toronto, about 200 km from home. While I was sitting drinking a coffee outside another motorcyclist came over to talk, and wanted to know where I was from. "Kitchener" I said, and he said "Man, you are far from home."

So I continued on and made it home just after midnight, for a total distance of 2650 km. There was no one home, so I just fell asleep until the alarm went off at 6:30 AM, I guess I forgot to turn it off for the weekend.

Picture: That's me (The Lost Motorcyclist) in 1983 pumping up the air shock on the rear of the Silver Wing. The picture is also on my Microverse website, along with a review of the bike.

http://www.microverse.on.ca/cd175/silverwingreview.htm

It Grows on You

2011-10-13T09:37:00.000-04:00

There is an expression about something that "grows on you", which means that it takes time to get to like something. This usually happens when I get a new motorcycle. At first I'm a bit uncomfortable with it, then with time I start to appreciate it.

The process of "growing on me" happens in many different ways. Most importantly is the appearance. Often I think new motorcycles are a bit strange looking. But with time, I sometimes see why they look the way they do. Or maybe I just get used to it. When I first got my Vulcan 900, I was a bit put off by all the fake chrome covering the bike. With time, I have removed or covered some of it. And now I realize the fake chrome is a very durable finish, in some cases better than real chrome. Also, as the bike gets older and dirtier, the chrome bits keep it looking almost new. So appreciation begins to take hold as "The Lost Motorcyclist" (me) understands better why the bike was finished that way.

At first I didn't like the look of the tires. Way too fat, I thought. But with time I found out that they lasted twice as long as the tires on my old BMW. All of a sudden they look good to me, and the BMW tires look too skinny. But I was remembering the Vulcan's handling was heavy compared to the precision of the BMW. So I decided maybe I should check the tire pressures, as heavy handling is sometimes caused by loss of air. Each tire was about 10 psi too low, and when I pumped them up, the handling returned to acceptable - although not quite like the BMW. So now the balloon tires are looking even better.

Other than appearance, reliability is an issue for me, and the longer the bike goes without needing repairs, the better I like it. Two days ago I was starting off on a trip down the 401 but when I got to the corner of the street, I saw a cloud of oil puffing out the front of the engine. I thought "great, now the engine has a hole in it." But no, I had added some oil and forgot to put the filler cap back on. It was not entirely my fault, I will explain why. On my previous bike, I forgot the filler cap once, and developed the habit of leaving the filler cap on the footpeg so I could never forget it again. I continued doing the same trick on the Vulcan, but the Vulcan has a strange system of checking the oil. You have to hold the bike upright (with no sidestand this is tricky) to check the oil level. While I was leaning the bike over, the cap slipped off the floorboard and I forgot about it until I saw oil coming out the engine. So I still don't like the method for checking oil level, but eventually I will remember to put the filler cap back on before riding away. When that happens, the bike can "grow on me" a little more. Until then I am a little put off by the oil level checking routine. But one big difference: the filler on the Vulcan is at the front of the engine, where at least I can see it the cloud of oil before I get past the end of the street. On the BMW I didn't notice the oil until the next exit on the 401.

When I first got the Vulcan, I thought the seat was too low. The salesman pointed out that I could always add an aftermarket seat pad if the seat was low, so later on I did do that. With some experimentation, I have found a seat pad that works for me. But with a "normal" height seat, adding a pad is a problem because you will not be able to reach the ground easily. Now I have an appreciation for low seats. And I also found out that if I take off the pad, in the rain or cold, I can duck down behind the windshield more easily. So two unexpected benefits of the low seat.

I'm wondering why the two mufflers are on the same side. I don't see any point to it, and it creates a problem for the passenger footpegs and saddlebags. Because of the twin stacked mufflers on one side, the saddlebag must be shallow, and the passenger footpegs are cramped. And yet almost all cruisers follow the same pattern (except for the touring models like the Nomad.)

When I first got my BMW I was a bit uncomfortable with the idea of having a BMW, which had the image at that time of a luxury vehicle for yuppies. Before long, I started to like having a BMW identifiable brand. When people asked my what kind of bike I had, there was a good answer. But since getting the Kawasaki Vulcan, the conversation goes like this: "Is that a ----------?" my answer: "No, it's a Kawasaki Vulcan". End of conversation. What I find amusing is the different questions I get. "Is that a BMW?" was the first one that almost made me laugh. Nobody ever asked my if my BMW was a BMW. But last week I got one that had me scratching my head. A little old lady came over to ask me "Is that a Volvo?" I said no, I was not aware that Volvo made motorcycles. She replied, "I thought it said Volvo on the back of your motorcycle." We took a look, and I said "No that's Vulcan". Looks like another senior will be heading for cataract surgery.

Picture: My bike at Port Stanley.

Port Dover Chronicles 10/10/11

2011-10-10T17:04:00.000-04:00

For all you people who think a warm day proves the Global Warming theory, or all those who think a cold day proves it is a gigantic hoax, I would like to explain why you are wrong.

Today I went down to Port Dover on my motorcycle and it was about 25c. This is at least 10 degrees C over the normal average high for this time of year (Oct 10). It is the Canadian thanksgiving weekend, and I cannot recall seeing people sunbathing and swimming on this weekend before.

But even this strangely warm day does not prove global warming, because it is still within the normal range of temperatures. In the winter we can have highs of -20c, and in the summer highs can be up to of +38c.

Global warming theory predicts a change in average temperature a hundred years from now of only about 2 degrees Celsius, which is so small that you could not "feel it" even if it were 100 years in the future and global warming (for the sake of argument) had come true.

And while I'm in the mood for an educational blog message - Canada's Thanksgiving comes a month earlier than the USA because we have an earlier harvest, not because we need a head start on our prayers to God. And Al Gore did not "invent" global warming, other scientists had proposed it long ago. There is a Youtube video with scientists from NOAA warning of global warming in 1984. The video could be mistaken for something produced this week, because it is still close to current scientific findings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSLS2A1nxHs

Picture 1: Me leaving home this afternoon, wearing my warm weather motorcycle gear. Only a t-shirt under the unlined leather jacket. Signs of the times include the tree turning yellow, the car with its winter tires already on, and the election sign still up on our front lawn.

Picture 2: These are the palm trees at Port Dover that need to be replanted every spring. I sometimes screw up pictures not realizing there is some background thing like a telephone pole ruining the picture. This time there was a dead branch in the foreground hanging down. But I decided to keep it in there because it looks like the tentacle of some space monster coming to get the girl who is sunbathing on the beach. There is an appropriate quote I hear all the time: "When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade". Assuming life also gives you sugar and water. And if life also gives you alcohol, make "Mike's Hard Lemonade", which I am drinking right now after that long hot ride.

A Historical Question about the Waterloo Region, Ontario

2011-10-02T14:19:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, "The Lost Motorcyclist" (me) had the opportunity to go on a historical walk around one of our local quaint villages, known as Blair, Ontario. Previously, my only knowledge of Blair was that it was a 50 kph s-bend with a few nice looking old buildings, and it was on the west side of the Grand River, opposite Cambridge. It also used to have a good bar for bikers, the Nicholson Tavern, which closed many years ago. But during the walk, I found out several things. Blair now has both a Krishna and a Hindu temple. (weird, but not really the subject of this story). And Blair was the first European settlement in Waterloo Region, with notably the first gravesite, cemetery and school. This discovery got me thinking, that today Waterloo region has three major cities: Waterloo, Kitchener, and Cambridge, all over 100,000 people. Blair is still practically a pioneer village, seeming to have hardly grown at all and the entire thing could almost be considered a living museum of the 1800's.

I decided to investigate on the Internet why Blair is so small, and why it has been overtaken in size by almost all the other settlements in Waterloo region. I suppose I could have asked the tour guide, but it's a complicated question, and it was kind of cold yesterday, and also a bit hard to hear the tour guide with all the traffic noise.

To follow the history, you need to know that community names have changed over the years. Kitchener used to be called Berlin until WW1. And when it was first settled, it was called Sand Hills. Cambridge city is made up of three previous towns of Galt, Hespeler, and Preston (of which Galt was the largest, and was originally called Shade's Mills). Blair was named Shingle Bridge, and Carlyle, before finally being named Blair.

So to begin with, Blair started off around 1809 as a Mennonite settlement for a few people coming up from the USA. Although it was the very first European settlement in Ontario that was not on the shore of the great lakes, its settlers had no grand vision of becoming anything more than a good place to live. The founders of Galt, about seven years later in 1816, had a big vision of bringing in many settlers from Scotland. They started with a very large tract of land, which they subdivided and then sold to settlers that they brought in from Scotland. They picked a site for a town to be the centre of all this activity, and in 1825 a post office was set up, which was called Galt. At the time the post office opened, Galt was the largest, and would remain the largest community in the Waterloo Area until about 1900. Blair would not get a post office for another 30 years after Galt's.

Then in about 1900, Galt was overtaken by Berlin in population and importance. The community of Sand Hills, which had taken the name Berlin in about 1833, had experienced an influx of immigrants from Germany between 1833 and 1900 that was big enough to overtake Galt. Why did so many Germans immigrate at that time, and why did they come to Berlin? The second question almost answers itself: Because it was named Berlin. But that's not the whole story. Most immigrants tend to go to the largest cities, but there was a problem with German immigrants going to Toronto that may have diverted the bulk of them to Berlin. In the 1800's Governor Simcoe attempted to get a large group of German immigrants to move to Markham, just north of Toronto. In this plan, he recruited William Berckzy whose biography is in the credits for this story. William Berczy brought in some Germans and began setting up the town of Markham, and extending Yonge Street from Toronto to Markham, but ran into some difficulties. I can't tell if it was because Torontonians were suspicious of Germans moving in so close, or just financial bad luck, but the deal fell through, and there was considerable ill will between Berczy and the establishment. Hence I assume Germans felt less welcome in Toronto than Berlin, Ontario. And the town of Waterloo, being next door to Berlin was equally welcoming to Germans. The name Waterloo, by the way, is not only named after the site of a great British victory over the French. We also sometimes forget that the Battle of Waterloo was a joint effort of Germans and British.

There were a lot of German immigrants to Canada because Germany is a very big country in Europe that did not really have it's own colonial destination for its people. So, many of the immigrants to Canada were Germans. Canada generally did not object to Germans because after all Queen Victoria was originally German. Also, many Germans had fought for England against the Americans in the revolution, so Germans were actually seen as being more loyal to Canada than Americans. (all that would change with the animosity of two world wars, but hopefully now is almost forgotten).

Picture: I found a picture postcard on the site below of one of the first power generating stations in the Waterloo area - it did not use electricity to transmit the power as we do today. We had a chance to walk around it yesterday in Blair on our historical tour.

Picture from: http://toughnut-street.blogspot.com/2010/07/blair-ontario-postcard.html

Historical material

William Berczy: http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=2261

German Immigration to Canada: http://www.whitepinepictures.com/seeds/i/9/history1.html

Blair history: http://www.cambridge.ca/city_clerk/city_archives/historical_information_evolution_of_blair

Galt history: http://www.cambridge.ca/city_clerk/city_archives/historical_information_evolution_of_galt

BMW K1100LT 1992 vs. BMW K1600GTL 2012

2011-09-30T17:40:00.000-04:00

Nineteen years ago, BMW brought out the K1100LT motorcycle with a laid-down, inline, four cylinder motor, with four valve heads. The bike had technical innovations such as anti-lock braking, anti-squat drive shaft, floating disk brakes, heated handgrips and electrically adjustable windshield. The motorcycle retailed for a very high $17,000 here in Canada. But that was the perfect bike for me at the time, so I got one. It took many years before any serious competition came along to at least share with the K1100LT a "state of the art" comparison. But nobody was doing better. I owned a '92 K1100LT for 15 years. Although I have not ridden the new K1600GT, a test drive would hardly be necessary to declare it a winner over the 1992 machine.

There have been some challengers since 1992, and this is only the opinion of "The Lost Motorcyclist" (me), but they were all either too heavy, or didn't really attempt the outdo the K1100LT except in horsepower. I don't really need a lot more than 100 horsepower in a bike, so that didn't impress me too much. I also don't need a lot more than 750 pounds of motorcycle. For the rest of the competition, it has been pretty much a toss up as the other makers tried to match BMW's features and performance.

Even BMW fell short of the mark, and they had three bikes that sort of replaced the discontinued K1100LT. First was the R1200RT, which was only a two cylinder and was not even liquid cooled. Next, the K1200GT, which was still a four cylinder bike and still did not have a counter balancer to get rid of vibrations - and that was my main beef with the 1992 K1100LT. And last but not least was the K1200LT whale at over 850 lbs.

But now the K1600GTL finally surpasses the K1100LT in every way. It has more power, although this is not a big issue with me. But it has an inline six cylinder motor, which I consider to be a significant step forward, and also eliminates the need for a counter balance shaft. It has on-the-fly adjustable suspension tuning, another unique and desirable feature. From there it has a slew of other features that may or may not be important, and would need to be examined one by one, and some are not even part of the standard package. But most important to me, to prevent disqualification, BMW has kept the weight down so the bike is manageable, and much lighter than a Gold Wing or the BMW K1200LT.

I have not put in an order for the BMW K1600GTL, because my priorities have changed over the years. This specialized and expensive bike appeals to a fairly demanding buyer. I might have been like that twenty years ago, but now I actually prefer a less expensive Japanese built bike. I don't need the adjustable windshield any more, or the long distance high speed capabilities, either on the freeway or in the mountains. A few years ago, I got a 2007 Kawasaki Vulcan 900 Classic LT, which has more than enough touring capacity for my current needs and should help keep me out of trouble with the law. The Kawasaki also has a local dealer, and anyway, has not been taken back to the dealer's shop for anything in four years. To be fair, I ignored one recall notice, got tires changed at an independent local shop, and I have also ignored a few maintenance items, and I don't worry that the fuel needle is stuck on zero. All those I probably would have taken to the dealer if I had a BMW. And probably a lot more, judging from comments on the BMW owners' forums.

It seems that the reviews coming in from motorcycle magazines (like Cycle World June 2011) are confirming that this is the new top bike of the touring/"sport touring" class. The only surprise for me is how long it took to get there. And that it was BMW who finally decided to produce a transverse inline six, not Honda or Kawasaki.

Picture: That's me going out for a winter (spring) ride many years ago on the K1100LT.

Squared Off Motorcycle Tires

2011-09-29T13:22:00.001-04:00

The Lost Motorcyclist has now put 37,000 km on the second rear tire of the Vulcan 900, and it's still going. This is a record for me, my typical longest wearing rear tire up to now has been about 18,000. I am surprised to find this tire doubling the usual life of a tire. It is a Metzeler Marathon ME880 180/70x15B, bias ply, tubeless, made in Brazil. It cost $200 for the tire, $60 installation, and $18.99 for a new inner tube.

Some owners get long wear from the tires by running them until they are bald or down to the cords. Well, I have done that in the past but still not exceeded much more than 20,000 km. These tires never did have a tread in the centre, so it's hard to tell how much wear there really is. The tread at the outside is still deep, and that's because most of the wear takes place in the centre of the tire (actually a little offset to the left). I can see they are slightly squared off, meaning that the centre part of the tread is flat.

This tire has lasted a long time because of several factors. First, it is an extremely wide tire, and so compared to skinny tires, it can put more rubber on the road. Not only is the contact patch bigger, but there is more actual rubber on the tread. Second, it is a fairly large diameter tire (15 inch rim plus the height of the sidewall), which also puts more rubber on the road, and keeps the number of revolutions down. Third, I would guess it had a hard rubber compound. I can feel that the tire occasionally slips on the road under acceleration going around a corner. Soft rubber would stick better, but not last as long.

I usually change the tire when the handling of the "squared off" cross section becomes too annoying. Squared off tires have a peculiar dynamic compared to new round section tires treads. The difference is in the location of the contact patch, which on a new, round section tire, is always in the center. With a squared off tire, when you lean to the right, the contact patch also moves to the right, and this makes the motorcycle feel funny - usually you have to apply counter steering pressure all the way through a curve. With a new tire, the motorcycle can corner almost without handlebar pressure. Another place that squared off tires feel funny is in a straight line when the road surface is uneven or slanted to the side. The contact patch will move back and forth depending on where the high point of the road is, and this makes the steering feel vague and forces you to grab the handlebars tighter.

There is no way I know of to correct a squared off tire. I suppose driving on twisty roads and scraping footpegs for 20,000 km might work, but around here there is about 0.01 km of curving road every 50.0 km of straight, so do the math. On these roads, the squaring off is only going to get worse. Need I say that shaving off the corners with a cheese grater is a very bad idea?

Some riders have given up on round profile tires altogether, and use car tires. This trend is called "going to the dark side" in a reference to either Star Wars or Dick Cheney, and the fact that car tires are not legal on motorcycles. There is a huge amount of information on this on the Internet. There are plenty of online debates, with entries often started with the words "You, sir, are an idiot!". There are also some videos of tires in action, some accounts of 160,000 km experience in using car tires with no trouble at all. I have never used a car tire on a motorcycle, but I do not have any fundamental objection to it one day. To me, it seems to be simply an extreme case of squared off motorcycle tire, but with plenty of tread in the middle contact area. Now that motorcycles are using these very wide motorcycle tires, the differences do not appear too great. I would worry however, about a speed wobble. Speed wobbles used to kill a lot of motorcyclists, but is seems the bikes (or tires) of today are not as prone to speed wobbles. Unfortunately, the wobbles happen suddenly and car tires have not been scientifically tested the way motorcycle tires have been.

In any case, the appeal of the car tire is mostly the cheapness and long wear. With the new motorcycle tires that seem to get extraordinarily long life, I do not really need the hassle of driving on an illegal car tire the next time I get safety checked on the way to Port Dover for Friday 13th.

Picture: That's my tire, this afternoon. 55,000 km on the Vulcan.

Bikers Guide to a Part of Toronto

2011-09-14T15:54:00.000-04:00

The weather was perfect for a motorcycle trip, and because "The Lost Motorcyclist" has not done a ride to Toronto for a long time, I decided to go down there with the main aim of finding an outdoor patio for lunch, with motorcycle parking right nearby. Ideally, this parking would be at the curb, because in Toronto curbside parking is free for motorcycles.

I decided to wear my half helmet, because it would be better riding in downtown Toronto. And even though it doesn't match the helmet, I wore my lime flourescent green visibility jacket.

It is actually a very short trip to Toronto from Kitchener, if you stick to the 401. But if you go backroads you can take all day. I arrived there about 12:30, after taking a few back-road short cuts along the way, but I arrived on the Gardiner Expressway, which is a raised freeway along the lakeshore coming in to Toronto. I have done this route many times before, but I have never seen so many new tall buildings. You almost can't see the usual skyline any more from the Gardiner.

My chosen exit was Yonge Street, likely the most well known of Toronto's busiest streets. By "busy" I mean with people walking, more than with cars. Streets are far more interesting where pedestrians outnumber cars about 50 to one.

I have never yet found an outdoor restaurant with parking in Toronto, so this time I decided to try something a little different. At Carlton Street (just after Dundas) I made a right turn off Yonge, then a left at Church. Church Street had just what I was looking for. It was not too busy, some motorcycles parked at the curb (leaving place for me to park beside them), and many outdoor patios on both sides of the street. I saw one motorcyclist leaving his parking spot, so I U-turned and backed into the spot next to him. Then I turned around and looked for the right outdoor patio. There were four right beside each other where I was parked, and I decided to take the one closest to me, which was "Just Thai". I would leave my jacket and helmet on the bike, and keep an eye on it from across the sidewalk.

http://www.dine.to/justthai

As I peered inside into the dark, I saw that this restaurant violated two of my most sacred rules for restaurants. One it had cloth napkins. Two, there were no customers. But just as I was removing my sunglasses, I noticed a smiling and friendly waitress, which convinced my I might as well stay and try it out. After all, I had the parking and the outside deck, which was a first.

I sat outside and ordered my meal, and started taking pictures of the streetscape. First I had to wait for two men who were greeting each other over enthusiastically to break it up, so I could take a picture without it looking too gay. Now if you happen to know that this stretch of Church Street is known as the "Gay Village", don't spoil it for the rest of the readers, and remember I've never been here before so I don't know either.

Well, to continue. I got a really nice meal, and a few individuals plus another couple drifted in after me (although I noticed it was all men, and no women). After the meal, I paid and went across the street to take a picture, and I did notice the bar across the street had a rainbow banner hanging in the window, I figured it was a decoration for the Gay Pride parade. And just as I put my camera away, a guy rode by on a purple scooter wearing a purple metallic cape which was billowing out behind. I thought "If that's how you are trying to not look too gay on your scooter, it's not working."

Picture: Just grabbed off the internet. I did not notice any street signs with rainbow colours, but it's more interesting than the pictures I took.

Independence Movements

2011-09-14T09:51:00.001-04:00

Independence is in the news again with Palestine's determination to ask the UN for their own country. Recently, a few new countries have gained independence, including East Timor and South Sudan. And many years ago, but in the British Empire, the present day USA fought for its independence and won, Haiti gained its independence from France, India and Ireland from Britain, and Northern Ireland from Ireland.

The fact is, all over the world there are groups seeking independence from their governments. In Canada, you have a movement in Quebec and maybe Alberta. In the USA, Texans, in Spain, the Basques, In Turkey, the Kurds.

Back in 1948, the Jews gained their independence from Palestine with an act of the United Nations. This was not officially called "independence" since most of the Jews (at that time) did not live in Palestine in the first place, but migrated to the new independent Jewish part of Palestine (called Israel) from other parts of the world.

In 1990, the black people of South Africa, while they did not gain independence, they did gain control of the country in a mostly peaceful takeover. This is one possible the result of an independence movement where the geographic area is not clearly known, and the subject population is an overwhelming majority anyway.

Palestine is now also seeking its independence, after having been conquered by Israel back in 1967.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/14/palestinians-pressure-united-nations-statehood

Why do some independence movements eventually succeed in one way or another, while others fizzle out or just simmer for decades or centuries?

I think one of the long standing simmering independence movements is that of the French in Canada, (now the province of Quebec) going on since the seventeen hundreds. That is an example of not gaining independence (so far anyway), as opposed to East Timor or South Sudan as an example of achieving independence.

The major impetus behind independence is basically the will of the people, and so it sort of comes down to how well the people who want independence are treated by the national government. But there are some other contributing factors.

1. The number of people has to be significant although I can't give a fixed minimum number. Obviously the more the better.
2. The geographic area should be fairly easy to identify.
3. The people who want independence have significant cultural, racial, religious, or linguistic differences to the majority in the country. And this results in some forms of mistreatment at the hands of the existing governing authorities.

Some of the symptoms to look for include violent suppression of a distinct ethnic group by the government using the full force of the military. Another sign of trouble brewing is any overt racial discrimination against the minority, especially disallowing the right to vote or representation in the government, or preventing the free movement of the target group within the country, or to leave or enter the country.

Finally, the resulting new country needs to have some chance of succeeding economically after independence. This generally means that the fight for independence should not destroy the country entirely, and the boundaries of the new country need to be reasonable - not entirely inside the old country, and not too fragmented.

If you take South Sudan, many signs of a struggle for independence were present. The government had a policy of bombing villages in the south to displace the natives. The Southern Sudanese were a difference race, language, and religion from the northern government. There was a fairly overwhelming will of the southern people to separate from the North. In addition, there was oil in the south, and after independence those oil revenues would theoretically stay in South Sudan to help the country become a viable entity.

On the other hand, in Canada and Quebec, the French speaking people are generally well accepted in the rest of the country. They have representation in the federal government. They also have representation in the armed forces and the police. And they have considerable independence already inside the federal system, where they are a province with their own local government. As a result the desire for independence has been reduced over the years to the point where its likely that under half the population of Quebec would support it.

On the other hand, Palestinians have had a rough time with their Israeli masters. They are denied travel permits, they can't vote in Israel's elections, can't import or export goods, can't fish in the ocean. Their homes are demolished and their land has been taken by the Israeli government. They have been bombed and invaded several times. They cannot serve in the military or even buy land most of the time. But until recently they have not been thinking of independence, they have been thinking of taking over Israel. Now it seems like an ever larger number of Palestinians have given up on this goal and would be satisfied with having their own country.

The final step, independence, usually results in a lot of violence and wanton destruction as the occupying forces leave. This happened in East Timor and South Sudan. By comparison, the British left America quite peacefully. But Israel has threatened retaliation in various forms if the Palestinians present a formal request for independence at the United Nations.

Picture: I photoshopped the flag to represent any country wanting independence, not just the USA.

Extremism for Dummies

2011-09-12T14:36:00.000-04:00

There are two definitions of extremism in common use. Because we seem to be getting more extremists than ever before, I want to come up with a useful definition.

The first meaning is "outside the norm of a given society", which is used in the Wikipedia entry on extremism. I don't think this definition is right any more. Maybe it used to be accurate, when you could assume that the norm of any society was moderation. But if the norm in a society becomes extremism, then is being outside the norm still extremism?

The second meaning is "Uncompromising". This, I think, is a more generally applicable definition. For one thing, it gives a universal standard of behaviour to judge extremism by. If someone or some government is willing to compromise, it is not extremist. According to this definition, it is possible to be a moderate minority within an extremist majority.

There are examples of extremism throughout history, using the second definition. The Spanish Inquisition would be extremist because they did not compromise with heretics. Instead of compromise, there was burning at the stake and torture. The Nazis were extremists, as shown by the Czech Peace Agreement. The British and French signed a compromise deal for peace, agreeing to give Czechoslovakia to the Nazis in return for peace without further land claims. Instead, the Nazis invaded Poland, which clearly established them as extremists. No real compromises could be made with the Nazis or Hitler, despite their willingness to talk of peace. Ultimately, this revelation of extremism made it impossible for Britain to surrender on good terms after the fall of France, even though Hitler pleaded that he meant them no harm, and would allow them to keep their sovereignty.

The Nazis went on to show themselves as extremists in many other ways, but were finally beaten by a coalition of moderates.

There are good examples of extremism today in certain religions. Extremist Moslems want to wipe Israel off the map, and the USA too, if they could. Extremist Jews want all Palestinian disputed territories for themselves, and want to deny independence to the Palestinians, and would resort to any means to accomplish that including killing. I suppose you could say Jesus was an extremist, but an extremist for peace. Now, extremist Christians want to bomb Iran, and kill doctors who perform abortions.

None of these religious groups is interested in any compromise. All would prefer the world to end than give up their demands - and that gives us yet another way to define extremism. If you would be willing to kill yourself and the rest of humanity rather than accept a compromise with another, you are an extremist.

Most people are not born extremists, but are sometimes driven to extremism by forces beyond their awareness. First, a very fearful life with a lot of uncertainty can make one predisposed to extremism. Certain powers like to promote fear and extreme views in order to benefit from the support of extremists.

If you were talking to an extremist, whether a friend or family member, or a total stranger, is there some way to know this is an extremist? You you use the definition of "outside the norm", you may not be able to ever tell. But if you use the definition of "uncompromising", it is easier to figure out if you are dealing with a moderate or an extremist. One clue is that an extremist will hardly ever admit their side can be wrong. But for the most reliable indicator of extremism, try proposing a compromise and see the reaction you get. An angry reply, a refusal to discuss further, or both, may be a clue you are talking to an extremist.

There is not much point in discussing things with extremists. While you may learn something of their point of view, you will simply become frustrated by their means of discussion. Instead of logically addressing an issue, you will find they present you with multiple arguments, usually handed on from other sources. If you question them about the issue on an obvious flaw of logic, they can quickly change the subject. Most of their opinions are designed not for truth seeking but for provoking anger and confrontational arguments.

Picture: from the Anti-Defamation League website discussing extremism.

http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/

The ADL was set up in 1913 to combat anti-Jewish extremism Their website names a lot of extremist people, organizations and movements. I could not find a mention of the Jewish Settler movement, although according to my definition, those people would also be extremists because they are not interested in compromise. On the other hand, maybe the mandate of the Anti Defamation League is only to attack non-Jewish extremism. Would that make the ADL itself an extremist organization?

This was the 1913 incident that gave the ADL its start (and re-started the Ku Klux Klan).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Frank

Terror Attacks for Dummies

2011-09-12T09:20:00.000-04:00

Just after 9/11, then Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, made some remarks about how the attack on the World Trade Center might have resulted from the increasing disparity between rich and poor. This comment has been discussed repeatedly on Canadian TV in the last few days. Conservatives have argued that this was a dumb comment, while Liberals and lefties see some truth to it. It is a fact that many terrorist attackers were not poverty stricken, but it is also a fact that inequality of wealth and power can lead to sneaky acts of revenge.

So what factors might have caused 9/11? I am going to reject the assertion that our present Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper states in this CBC interview.

MANSBRIDGE, (regarding Jean Chretien's statement): "Now, he got pretty criticized for those remarks."

HARPER: "And I think he deserved it."

MANSBRIDGE: "He did?"

HARPER: "Yeah. Absolutely. Nobody who was killed on 9/11 deserved it remotely. It was a terrible thing, has nothing to do with wealth versus poverty. It has to do with, in this case, a particular hateful ideology that has attacked people around the world, not just affluent societies like our own, but some pretty poor places."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/09/08/pol-harper-mansbridge-transcript.html

In the above CBC interview, it's obvious Stephen Harper is twisting things around. Chretien did not say the people who died deserved it. He meant that attacks like this, though random, would likely be made by people in poor countries against people in rich countries. I think that his meaning is obvious. Harper instead blames a hateful ideology, which I suppose I could assume he means Islam, not Christianity. Anyway, I am sure he does not blame Christianity, since he is a believer in Christianity himself. And finally, to make it clear Chretien is wrong, Stephen brings up the fact that attacks have taken place in poor countries, not just wealthy ones. To that I would say, from personal experience, that poor countries have many wealthy targets, either the wealthy people themselves or the police that protect them. Also, there are some violent attacks based on religion against holy places. Most of the violence against poor people has not come from Al Quaeda terrorists, but from fascist governments.

So if poverty is not the only reason for the attacks, what else might be?

There are several trends in the modern world that could be involved. Greater volumes of air travel bring millions of people to places they could only dream of before. Also, the population of the world is doubling. This increases the odds of an attack mathematically.

Weapons are getting cheaper. By that I mean that a hundred years ago, no poor person could have afforded to buy a machine gun, no poor country could have afforded an F16 or an atomic bomb. Today, relatively powerful weapons have trickled down to the point where Pakistan and India are nuclear powers. North Korea too. Even warlords in starving Somalia were able to take down Blackhawk helicopters, back in 1993.

Mass media is everywhere now, even the remotest village has a TV with a satellite dish, and now Al Jazeera to look at, not just Fox News or the BBC or the local Dictator's rantings. Lots of people are becoming radicalized by propaganda, or maybe by just plain news.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the hawks in the USA were looking for an enemy fight. This is before 9/11, and is pretty well documented. The Bush administration contained many people who were on record as supporting a massive military retaliation against any terrorist attack, when and if they could find the right one. Another case of "be careful what you wish for", because it might come true. I'm not saying that the Republicans and Neo-Cons invented 9-11, but neither were they properly motivated to prevent a terrorist attack.

I think any debate on reasons for the 9/11 attack should take these factors into account, and we should try to avoid any anti-religious sentiments as being narrow minded, because "hateful ideologies" exist everywhere all the time. It is when conditions are right that hateful ideologies grow, and it is those conditions we are looking for, not the ideologies themselves.

P.S. The title is taken from a book explaining computers in easy terms "DOS for Dummies", it is not a reflection on whether Stephen Harper is a dummy.

Bikers Guide to the Brampton Flying Club Open House

2011-09-11T23:25:00.000-04:00

Today "The Lost Motorcyclist" visited the Annual Brampton Air Show. Actually, calling it an Air Show might give the wrong impression, because it is different from the well known Air Shows that are staged at the bigger airports all over Canada and the rest of the world.

The first difference is that this is more like a flying museum. Or should I say, like an aircraft museum where the airplanes actually fly. The Brampton Air show is an annual open house event at the Brampton Flying Club. For $5 per person, you can wander through their extensive museum, and also look at airplanes that have flown in for the event from other flying clubs.

The result is an extensive array of World War 1 (and I saw one WW2) air planes. Some are parked on the ground, some are flying, landing and taking off. Some of the planes are scaled down replicas (some are 7/8 or some may 3/4). Most have upgraded engines for flying purposes, meaning a modern Lycoming engine - however many have more authentic looking radial engines. Again, these may be more modern versions, but I was not able to tell exactly what had been done to get these birds to actually fly.

Some of the other interesting points: For $40 you could fly in an open cockpit biplane. There is also an informal antique bike and car show, I saw several interesting bikes - particularly an old Brough Superior. There was a power boat on a trailer that was being fired up, and I didn't get a chance to find out what kind of engine it had, but from the look and sound of the exhaust I'm guessing it was either a rocket or a gas turbine. There was a very small twin engine airplane. Each engine was a one cylinder, two stroke engine. The whole plane looked like an overblown radio controlled model, except that I was told it had a human pilot in the cockpit.

I didn't see this, but I was told that at previous shows they had staged such events as a biplane bombing a vintage motorcycle/sidecar with sacks of flour, while riding/flying across a field. I would not be surprised if it was cancelled because of ever-tightening insurance restrictions on these airshows.

I visited the show on my motorcycle, with a few friends also on motorcycles. Afterwards we went for a motorcycle ride on the very scenic roads near the airfield, including the Forks of the Credit road. That road is only about 10 km, but it has the sharpest corner "The Lost Motorcyclist" has ever seen. I suppose somewhere on Earth, somebody may have figured out how to make a corner sharper than that, but I can't believe they would do it on a regular width paved road, while climbing a fairly steep hill.

Next we went by the Cheltenham Badlands, or "Clay Hills", which looks a lot like the badlands of South Dakota except much smaller.
http://www.ontariotrails.on.ca/trails-a-z/cheltenham-hills/

So that was the end of the motorcycle trip. Except that we still had to drive back to Kitchener. Normally I would just hop on the 401 after a tiring day and get home in the shortest amount of time, but Mary Ann wanted to avoid the boring freeway, so we took about twice as long and were really tired when we got home. But this time at least I didn't get caught in a downpour.

Picture: From the club's website. They apparently had rain that year. We had sunshine all day long, while thunderstorms produced hail and rain to the southwest.
http://www.bramptonflightcentre.com

Canada Fourth Most Uncool Country

2011-09-08T13:56:00.000-04:00

A long time ago, I wrote a blog about the coolest motorcycles.

In that ranking, Steve McQueen and his Triumph motorcycle tied with T.E. Lawrence on his Brough Superior as most cool.

Now there is a ranking of coolest countries by Badoo.com.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20110907/cool-countries-poll-110907/

In the rankings of countries, the USA came first. Canada did not make it into the top ten coolest countries, however it made it fourth on the list of uncoolest countries. The only countries uncooler than Canada were Poland, Turkey and Belgium.

This shocking result is a wake up call for all Canadians. We need to figure out how this happened, and do something to get ourselves onto the coolest list. Eventually, a Royal Commission can be set up to get to the bottom of this, but "The Lost Motorcyclist" (me) already has some ideas. The following numbers did not come from any official scientific survey, I just made them up. But they are a good starting point/ballpark approximation.

First comparing Canada to the USA

In clothing, toques (-63 cool points) vs. blue jeans (+93)

Next, in entertainment, Justin Beiber (-25) vs. Lady Gaga (+78)

In leadership, Stephen Harper (-100 cool points) vs. Barack Obama (+100).

We used to pretty good in beer, but today this is how it stands: Coors Light brewed in Canada (-70) vs. Coors light brewed in the USA (+70)

Major accomplishments of coolness? Vancouver Stanley Cup riot (-100) vs. 10th anniversary of 911 (+11)

Kick ass pastimes? Killing baby seals (-62) vs. Killing Osam Bin Laden (+20)

Economic activities? Dredging up tar sands (-37) vs. Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (-4)

Technology? Blackberry (+6) vs. iPad (+49)

So that's a summary of what we have to deal with before we get on the cool list. Let's stop thinking about the past, and start some long term strategic thinking.

Sometimes all you need is to put the right guy in the right position to turn a losing team into a winner. I would suggest, for a start, switching roles between Justin Beiber and Stephen Harper. In their present positions, both come out as uncool. But as our new Prime Minister, Justin Beiber would immediately score +100 cool points. And Stephen Harper (now known as Lord Gaga) could go toe-to-toe with Lady Gaga in the most unbelievably weird entertainers category.

Picture: Stephen Harper with his kittens. With this picture in the public domain, it's surprising we didn't knock off Belgium for the top uncoolest country on Earth.

Even More About Piston Rings

2011-09-06T13:35:00.001-04:00

One of the most vital components of the internal combustion engine is the piston ring. It's probably safe to say that without the invention of a long lasting, pressure tight piston ring, we would still be driving coal fired steam engines.

The Lost Motorcyclist has a previous blog about piston rings. http://lostmotorcycles.blogspot.com/2010/03/everything-you-need-to-know-about.html

The piston ring these days is an often ignored part, because the rings are so good that we never change them any more, and they rarely fail. But when you think about it, the only part of a car that cannot be engineered to last longer than a typical 15 year life span is the piston ring. It's likely that the piston ring is the weakest link in the chain of parts that contribute to the 15 year life span of the car. I would guess almost any other cart part could be engineered to last 20-25 years if we wanted to, but what's the point if the piston rings can't last as long.

When the piston rings fail, the car starts smoking, power drops off, it's hard to start and the engine loses oil rapidly. In other words, it's time to scrap the car. Although back in the nineteen thirties, this only meant it was time for new piston rings.

So what is a piston ring? First we must know what a piston is. The piston is a round part that moves up and down in the cylinder, and drives the crank that eventually turns the wheels. Hopefully I don't need to explain the piston any more than that. The piston is designed to fit tightly into the cylinder, so that when the gasoline burns above the piston, all the high pressure created by the burning gas is trapped and cannot escape between the wall of the cylinder and the piston.

Now the tricky part of the design of the internal combustion engine: It is impossible to design a piston tight enough in the cylinder to prevent loss of pressure when the engine is running. Why? Because the engine runs at widely different temperatures, and it is impossible to make the piston exactly match the shape of the cylinder at every temperature. If the piston fits tight at high temperature, it will be too loose at low temperatures, and if it is tight at low temperatures, then when it heats up it will stick tight in the cylinder and the engine will stop turning.

Long ago, engineers gave up on getting an exact match between the piston and the cylinder, and invented "piston rings".

The piston ring is a springy ring of steel with a small opening on one side. The piston ring can be designed to almost exactly match the size of the cylinder at every temperature, because it depends on the springiness of the ring to hold the ring tight in the cylinder. No matter what temperature the ring is, it will hold tight in the cylinder, and it will never get too tight because of the gap on one side. The only purpose of the piston ring is to fit tight in the cylinder.

So the piston by itself cannot seal the cylinder properly. But neither can a piston ring, because is is not solid. But if you find a way into lock the ring to the piston, the two can work as a unit to convert the pressure of the burning gas into downward movement, while at the same time preventing any pressure from escaping.

To make the piston work with the piston ring, a groove is cut all the way around the piston, and the ring is fit loosely into the groove. So when the piston is in the cylinder, the piston ring can spring out to press against the cylinder wall, while being held inside the groove on the piston.

Believe me, piston rings are refined even though they look very simple. The exact shape, the materials, the lubrication have all been refined over many years of expensive research by the anyone interested in internal combustion engines. And there is a lot of interest because of the money to be made.

I should mention a further refinement, that is not too difficult to understand. The pressure from the burning gas is actually routed behind the ring to help force the ring out even tighter against the cylinder wall.

What can go wrong with the rings? They can wear down, by rubbing on the cylinder walls. Remember at 3,000 rpm how many times the piston and rings move up and down the cylinder walls, pressed tight against the cylinder. The walls cannot be well lubricated because of the exposure to flames of burning gasses. And that's 3000 up/downs in just one minute. How many times would you do that in the life of a car? OK I just did it roughly for you, 360 million times that the piston would move top to bottom of the cylinder.

Even when not being driven at 3000 rpm, the rings can get stuck in the grooves, which means they can't spring out to press against the wall. This happens when too much oil is being burned in the cylinder, and it gets turned to gummy carbon in the piston groove, and eventually hardens to trap the piston ring.

"One Week" on DVD (Compared to "Easy Rider")

2011-09-04T11:01:00.001-04:00

I finally found the DVD movie "One Week" at the video store for as reasonable price ($6), so I'm going to go over that trans-Canada motorcycle trip again.

Unlike "Brokeback Mountain", "Land of the Lost", "Get Smart" and "World's Fastest Indian", this movie does not have men kissing each other. But on the other hand, being a Canadian movie, we can see the Jesus on a crucifix giving us the finger. Apparently Canadians like movies that are Godless but not too gay.

I ("The Lost Motorcyclist") also recently acquired an "Easy Rider" DVD, and I have made some comparisons between the 40+ year old American movie "Easy Rider" and the Canadian "One Week". You could call "One Week" an updated Easy Rider made for Canadians and apparently nobody else.

While Easy Rider features two American Harley Davidson motorcycles, One Week features a British Norton Commando. Makes sense because we don't have a Canadian motorcycle, but many of us think we are British. Easy Rider works the US flag into the paint jobs on the helmet and the gas tank, while the Norton remains plain black and so does the rider's helmet. The Canadian movie hero is a normal person, who blends into his surroundings, while the Easy Riders contrast starkly from the people they visit.

Both movies end in death and the destruction of the motorcycles, but in the Canadian movie is is natural or accidental, respectively. Both movies involve dope, although Easy Rider goes much further with the drugs which is natural, being America of the sixties. Should be easy to guess which movie has guns (Hint: country name starts with U and ends with SA). One Week had a lot of animals featured prominently in it: The dead dog, the dead skunk in the road, the live dog on the trail, and horses to ride.

Easy Rider's soundtrack is a compilation of popular hit parade songs, "One Week"'s is made up of obscure Canadian folk or pop.

Both movies were made on a very small budget, on location, using local people for background. The Budget for Easy Rider was $400,000 in 1968, and One Week was $2,000,000 in 2008. There is no doubt Easy Rider made more money. $60,000,000 vs. $500,000. That could be why most movies made in Canada blot out the country name. On the other hand, the One Week crew got a few two-four cases of free Steamwhistle beer in return for some very subtle product placement in the movie.

Both movies feature unrealistic bikes and gear, assuming they were supposedly used for the long haul. The Norton was probably much better for riding than the chopper Harleys, but not as good as most others in the year 2008, and it was not even suitably equipped with a windshield for the cold time of year this was filmed. In a nod to realism, twice during the movie the Norton was shown to be requiring mechanical attention. Although "bad gas" would not have been in the top 100 most likely causes for a Norton to break down.

Both movies end with a bit of a verdict on their country. Easy Rider with the puzzling "We blew it". One Week with the German tourist saying "You haff one of the most beautiful countries in the vorld".

The makers of One Week must have realized a profound truth about Canadian scenery. It looks better if you shoot it out of order. Shown in the order you come to it, Canadian scenery is fatiguing. But put a little Ontario, then a shot of Saskatchewan, then a bit more Ontario, and then some Alberta, and keep mixing it up, and it is quite exciting. In a similar way, I would probably also enjoy the Canadian climate more if every other month was warm.

A part of One Week I kept noticing, because it was so different from my own motorcycle trips was the constant cell phone usage to call home. When I went on long trips, I had no cell phone, and often no way to call home at all, and I never thought about it. Same with Easy Rider, mainly because it predates cell phones. One thing I assumed was a basic part of long rides was the feeling of getting away to a new place, but I wonder if that feeling goes away as you keep chatting with friends and family back home.

Of all the songs to feature in the movie, the strangest choice in my mind is "Un Canadien Errant", the sad tale of Canadians banished from their homeland, which was sung in the original French. Or maybe it is somewhat fitting for the sadness of the terminal illness in the main character.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_Canadien_errant

Port Dover Chronicles 3

2011-09-03T16:28:00.001-04:00

This morning, the weather forecast said there was a 40% chance of a thundershower this afternoon. With that information, I decided to go to Port Dover in the morning and return before the thunderstorm. However I wasted a little too much time on my trip, and got caught about 5 minutes before I reached home.

I had penty of warning that I was going to get wet. On the way to Port Dover, I got caught in a little shower caused by a farmer irrigating his field with a water cannon, but he missed an got me wet instead. It was OK, because although I was only wearing a t-shirt, with the 35c temperature and the sun, it was a welcome cool off, and dried almost immediately.

In Port Dover, the Lost Motorcyclist (me), heard a lady yelling to her friend that there was a severe weather warning, but that she didn't see any rain on the radar and so she didn't understand what they meant. Yes I know that's a lot to yell at a friend standing across the road, but some people just like yelling. Anyway I resisted the urge to explain to her that the two were perfectly compatible, and made a mental note to hurry up and get home, but not before stuffing an apple fritter and ice cream down. Once I finished my traditional stop at "Apples", I got on the bike for the ride home. It was still sunny and very hot, and I was wearing the t-shirt and half helmet and jeans.

By the time I was almost home, about 15 km to go, I decided to stop at the convenience store in Glen Morris and drink down a large size Gatorade. I had actually passed the turnoff, and made a u-turn to go back, on the theory that something interesting might happen there, and I could not afford to miss whatever it was.

The cafe/convenience store/gas station was empty except for a tired looking woman chipping ice out of a stand-up freezer. I grabbed my favourite puke-green coloured Gatorade and she came over to ask for three dollars. But she told me that it was warm, and if I wanted a cold one (of course I did!) to pick one of the other sickly colours. So I picked puke-yellow instead. Just then the owner walked in, and so did a thirsty bicyclist looking for a bottle of cold water. The water also cost three dollars, and the ensuing discussion (which eventually involved me) covered these topics: Why did the 1 litre of water cost three dollars when there was some convenience store somewhere that would sell the same thing for $1??? Why Gatorade was bad for my health. How much of the price of the bottle of water went to taxes for Premier McGuinty, and how was he destroying this country with those taxes. How much cheaper you could get cigarettes, gasoline, and yes, even water, on Indian reservations. The stated fact that the cyclist was half Indian, and had his Indian card which permitted him to buy cheap gas with no taxes at the reservation. He then left, and the owner of the store then confided in me that the main reason Canada is going to hell in a handbasket is that no one is willing to stand up and fight for our rights. At which point I tried to clarify which rights we need to fight for, the right to not pay taxes? After all if I am going to lay down my life in a suicide bombing attempt in order to save Canada, I needs to know precisly what the problem is.

The whole discussion plus big bottle of Gatorade didn't take more than 15 minutes, but my fate was sealed. As soon as I turned the bike toward Kitchener I saw heavy dark clouds ahead indicating rain. But it was still sunny and maybe more than 35c (95 deg. F, I think) so I didn't put on my jacket and rainsuit. But then out of the blue, no more than 6 km from home I got hit by a giant water drop. Then another, and I could see a wall of rain on the road up ahead. I pulled over to a parking lot and went to open the saddlebag to get my jacket out, OOPS wrong saddlebag! But before I could get to the other side, I got soaked completely through with cold water. I figured I might as well put on the jacket anyway for warmth.

By the time I got the bike started and ready to get back on the road, I could see nothing. Just then I could make out two orange lights flashing, apparently a car had simply stopped on the road and turned on its four way flashers because they couldn't see to drive any further. Great, I thought, and merged on to the road. Next I was looking for the traffic light at Manitou, but couldn't see it in the heavy rain, although I did pass another stopped car at the intersection also with it's four way flashers on. I figured the traffic lights must have stopped working because of the storm, but as I reached the intersection, I barely could make out the green light, so they must be still working. I went through, but the rain was still coming down in buckets, so I turned off at Huron Road and Homer Watson to stop under the overpass for shelter.

Although it was quite a relief to get out of the rain, I was soaked through and a little bit cold. But I had one more problem. Ever since my prostate operation on July 6th, I have had this almost unstoppable urge to pee when I hear a water tap turned on. Well apparently my brain thought it heard a water tap turned on, and with the 750 cc of Gatorade in me, I had to go. So I went back out into the rain to pee in the tall weeds. Then five minutes later, as soon as it began, the rain stopped and the sun began to shine. So I drove home kicking up a huge bow wave through the flooded areas on the street, and when I put my boots on the ground at a traffic light, I could see the water rushing over the toes and around my ankles.

Picture: Frame grab of the Exeter weather radar at the precise moment the rain hit me.

Motorcycle Humour, Funny or Not

2011-08-11T12:49:00.000-04:00

Mary Ann received an email joke today that she forwarded to "The Lost Motorcyclist" (me). I will put a link to the joke here, in case you want to read it first. This blog is actually about the discussion we had after I read the joke on the computer.

http://www.just-humor.com/motorbike.htm

I did laugh, I tried not to, I couldn't help it. She said "That's impossible, motorcycles can't start when they're in gear."

I said, "First, the reason most motorcycles will not start in gear is because they have a lockout switch to disable the starter unless you are in neutral and/or have the brakes applied. Motorcycles up to the early 1970's had no lockouts, the owner's manual simply told you not to start them in gear. Second of all it's not a true story anyway, it's a joke."

"Couldn't the guy smell the gasoline in the toilet before flicking a lighted cigarette in there?"

"Maybe he didn't have a sense of smell."

"Why would somebody clean a bike with gasoline?"

"Well is does dissolve the grease really well, but on the down side it tends to blow up unexpectedly."

"How do you know how well it dissolves grease? You would never be so stupid as to clean your bike with gasoline, would you?"

"No, never! Well, not recently."

"And what about using gasoline in the house?"

"Of course not."

Social Unrest Made Simple

2011-08-11T09:09:00.000-04:00

Social problems are in the news lately: riots in England and the stock market volatility, along with unemployment which feeds into both these stories.

One slant I have been hearing on TV is that the riots are caused by "Liberals". Let me follow up on the logic behind blaming the liberals. I have to start with a bit of a background history lesson, because unfortunately people tend to rewrite history to suit themselves, which often results in distortions of epic proportions.

Before I begin with this educational blog, I want to make my own opinion clear. Even though I have liberal tendencies, I am as disgusted by the riots in England as any conservative would be, and would like to see ringleaders punished. But on with the lesson.

Liberals, also known as the left, are properly associated with "the people" or the rabble, if you prefer. Conservatives, sitting on the right, are correctly associated with the upper classes, the rich, the nobility, and by extension the police and military that keep the rich in power.

The unfortunate consequence of not learning history is that it is easy for people to confuse "Liberals" with out-of touch wealthy elites when it suits them, and it is easy for Conservatives to imagine that they represent the needs of the hard working poor and middle class, when they actually only represent the needs of the rich.

So hopefully that confusion is cleared up, and we can begin to make sense of our problems today. I can start by saying our problems today are basically the same as the problems of all societies throughout history. There are rich people who want to keep their power and money. There are poor people who need to eat and stuff. When the rich get too greedy, the poor starve more than usual, and rise up in mindless, destructive, revolts and anarchy. This has been documented since the time of the Roman Empire at least, going through some famous examples more recently, like the French Revolution of the late 1700's.

So generally speaking, any massive amount of rioting would be directly (and correctly) attributed to the Liberals, or the Left. But the indirect original cause may be the Conservatives, representing the rich and powerful who set up conditions where the poor are unemployed, maybe starving, or without freedom or human rights.

Now are the rioters in England really starving, or are they just hooligans out for a bit of fun burning down the city and killing people? Is rioting really the fault of liberal do-gooders who are always letting people out of jail, and refuse to allow the police to use deadly force to control the crowds?

Or is rioting caused by the police shooting people at random in poor neighborhoods, against the advice of liberal do-gooders?

Another question is how are the conservatives doing economically compared to the middle class and the poor? Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war twenty years ago, the rich have been getting richer and the rest have been losing their jobs and their homes. Two years ago, the entire global financial structure almost melted down due to scams run by the very rich against ordinary citizens. Then the wealthy banks were bailed out by the governments of the world, meaning even more taxpayer money squandered in propping up the rich. The final chapter in this financial story has not been written yet, but within a year, the banks were back to paying out multi-million dollar bonuses to their top employees, and successfully fighting legislation that was intended to eliminate their scams and pyramid schemes.

Meanwhile, for middle class people, layoffs continue as governments are forced to tighten their belts. Why are the governments poor? According to Liberals, it would be three reasons. Reason one: refusing to make the rich pay their fair share of the tax burden. Reason two: giving huge payouts to the rich supposedly to avoid economic catastrophe. Reason three: Fighting multi trillion dollar wars in oil producing countries so that the oil companies can get rich.

According to conservatives, the reasons governments are poor. Reason one: welfare cheats. Reason two: welfare in general. Reason three: Any government operation (other than police or military) is a complete waste of money and should be eliminated. Reason four: Poor people are lazy and undisciplined, and so contribute nothing to the good of society. Reason five: Rich people do not have enough money to create the jobs that people need, because they are being unfairly taxed out of their minds. This leads to unemployment, and hence to lower government revenues because unemployed poor people don't pay taxes. (I know that was a long convoluted one, but it is also well known as "trickle down economics".)

So the conclusion is that riots are generally caused by liberals, who do not allow harsh methods to be used by police. But the root causes tend to be with the economic conditions that are under the control of conservatives. Obviously, both are to blame.

The Truth About Standard and Poor's and the AAA Rating

2011-08-08T06:27:00.000-04:00

What is the real problem with the US economy and the downgraded US debt rating?

We are being told that a highly trusted debt rating agency has judged the US government to be not as good a risk as it used to be. The reason given is that the US government can't get its spending under control, and that the politicians are always getting deadlocked.

Standard and Poor's is the credit rating agency that made the downgrade.

To me there are a great many red flags indicating this is all pure BS.

To the Lost Motorcyclist, the biggest problem is that the markets started to slide before the news was announced. This indicates a leak, where some well connected people had advanced notice of S&P's earth shattering decision. Many people could have profited illegally from advanced knowledge this downgrade, and thus the downgrade itself is suspect.

Next, was the decision even justified? Two other equally respected debt ratings agencies made no change to the AAA rating. The White House pointed out a two trillion dollar accounting error in the S&P numbers, which should at least lead to some recalculations.

Why did S&P not point to the real reason why you might downgrade the US government? In my mind, that would be the government's unwillingness to eliminate tax breaks granted in a time of surplus. My understanding of government debt is that it is highly rated because of the government's ability to raise taxes to pay off debts, not because their expenses are low. That's why a rich country like Canada has a higher rating than a poor country like Sierra Leone. If we used S&P logic, Sierra Leone, with almost no government expenses, would be rated AAA while Canada with huge expenses would be B-. No, it does not work according to expenses, credit depends on the ability to raise money through taxation - that's where Canada gets a AAA credit rating and Sierra Leone does not. And that's why any reasonable person may doubt the US ability to repay debts, because the US is apparently unable to raise taxes on the richest citizens. However, in their recent decision, S&P did not clearly highlight this weakness of the US economy.

And why would we be trusting the ratings agencies anyway? Almost ten years ago, there was a market crash caused by an auditing firm that could not be trusted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen

S&P itself was partly responsible for the market crash of 2008, by failing to downgrade the profitable mortgage backed securities.

So the truth is that an unreliable company, S&P, has destabilized the world economy with a questionable decision about US debt. And furthermore, probably leaked the decision to some well placed people ahead of time, resulting in huge profits for them at the expense of ordinary investors. Finally, even the reason for the downgrade was a thinly disguised and politically motivated right wing statement rather than a discussion of the real social, political and economic reasons for the weakness of US credit.

In my opinion, the greatest disappointment is that one more trusted institution in our world economy has become dysfunctional. Not the US government (although there is a real worry there), it is one of the well respected debt ratings agencies.

Actually, Harper's Resemblance to George W Bush is More Disappointing

2011-08-03T20:41:00.000-04:00

Recently Stephen Harper, Canada's Prime Minister expressed his disappointment over opposition leader Nycole Turmel's one time membership in the "Bloc Quebecois" political party. Apparently Conservatives think the Bloc is a party of traitors to Canada.

Here is a news article from the Toronto Star on this subject

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1034040--harper-says-turmel-s-sovereigntist-ties-are-disappointing

“It’s most disappointing, it’s disappointing for me,” the Prime Minister said in French at a press conference Wednesday. He said other Canadians will also be disappointed by the revelations about Turmel’s political affiliations.

“I think Canadians expect that any political party that wants to govern the country be unequivocally committed to this country,” Harper told reporters as he switched to English. “I think that’s the minimum Canadians expect.”

Actually Stephen is right and wrong at the same time. Yes, as a Canadian I expect politicians to be committed to this country. But my disappointment is not with the Bloc Quebecois, or any of their members. It is with Harper and his Conservatives for turning Canada from a well respected country to a disgraceful imitation of the worst America has to offer. Even Harper's denunciation of Nycole Turmel for being a "Card carrying" --(fill in the blank)-- has creepy overtones of Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist witch hunts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy

Harper has turned Canada from a leader in human rights to an abuser. He has turned the Canadian military from peacekeepers to invaders. He has turned over vast areas of Canada's wilderness to American Oil company's tar sands destruction. The real traitor to Canada is not the Bloc Quebecois, it is the greedy gun-toting US-style conservatives who care nothing about social justice, the environment, peace, democracy or Canadian traditions.

So Stephen, if you can read this, I am one Canadian who is not disappointed in the leader of the opposition. I am disappointed in you. The sooner you are voted out, the better it will be for the Canada that I knew and liked.

Not that it really matters to Stephen or Senator McCarthy I guess, but Nycole Turmel does not actually support separatism.

Is Anders Behring Breivik Really Insane?

2011-07-26T20:31:00.000-04:00

Is Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian shooter, really insane, as many people have said? I think there is a very fine line between insanity and right wing ideological militarism. But the line is clearly crossed when you start pulling the trigger and killing innocent unarmed people, whether they are Muslim or Christian. That's what separates Anders from a right wing militarist like Mark Stein, for example. Mark Stein will write about killing (or is it "culling") people, while Anders Breivik goes out and does it. One is sane and paid big bucks to write in MacLean's Magazine, the other is insane and goes to jail.

However, Anders sincerely believed that the killing needed to be done. According to his manifesto, it was to stop the liberals in Europe from letting the Muslims take over. Furthermore, he believed that he needed to kill a lot of people in order to have his message be effective. I saw on the news that Anders was a bit disappointed when the number of kills reported by the press started to decrease. (It turned out that the police had double counted some bodies in the original carnage scene.)

So I have devised a thought experiment, kind of unorthodox, to see how insane Anders really is. Here is what you do. Ask Anders how many children he needed to kill to make his message known. Let's say his answer is 90 kills. Tell him that he only managed to kill 85, but that in the interest of supporting his cause of Norwegian Independence, you will give him a chance to kill 5 more to make sure everybody gets his message. Then give him back his gun, secretly loaded with blanks, and take him up to a room with five children tied to posts and give him the opportunity to shoot them. Would he try to shoot them or would he admit that killing more people is not going to help his cause?

Norwegian Terror and the Death Penalty

2011-07-24T09:06:00.000-04:00

I don't have time to look up all the relevant information, because I'm not supposed to sit for very long, but I want to express an opinion on the Norwegian killer.

This morning on TV I heard the statement made that Norway had a 21 year maximum sentence, and that the alleged killer (see, correct use of the word alleged) would be out by the time he is 53. This was not an opinion from an interview, but it was part of the written script for the newscast. Apparently, even though my doctor says I should limit my sitting down time, I still do more research than a professional editor for a TV news program.

The truth is that Norwegian law has qualifications about people who are a public danger, so it's unlikely he will ever be released.

But more interesting is the implication that American justice is better then Norwegian. After the analogous Oklahoma bombing, Timothy McVeigh was executed. But that did not satisfy the survivors who felt that one execution was simply not enough to give them closure. They managed to execute another random person who had nothing to do with the bombing, just to send a message to the bad guys.

The other execution came about because the Oklahoma survivors went to Washington to pass a new law to put an end to delaying tactics being exploited by death row inmates. Once this law passed, and the first death row inmate was executed under the speedier provisions, they were satisfied that justice was really done.

The Subliminal Message of Get Smart

2011-07-17T10:16:00.000-04:00

The Get Smart movie, starring Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway and Alan Arkin, was released in 2008. Although it is just a comedy, there is a hidden liberal and anti-torture message in the movie. Before reading any further, this is not a movie review, it is an analysis of the hidden meaning of the movie and will contain spoilers.

At no time during the movie was torture used or mentioned by anyone, yet the plot of the movie is the classical torture argument. Terrorists have set an atomic bomb to go off in Los Angeles, and you have limited time to figure out where it is. Is it right to torture people to find out where the bomb is? And a secondary consideration: will torture work to save the city? So, except for the fact that the movie at no time mentions or uses torture, otherwise it is the classic scenario used in the pro-torture argument.

The hidden message of the movie is that torture does not work and is not necessary. The person who knows where the bomb is set to go off is a giant hulk, seemingly immune to any kind of physical pain. But Agent Maxwell Smart is able to befriend this giant terrorist, and find out that his marriage relationship is causing him psychological pain. In the end, before the bomb blows up, the giant sends a coded message to Max to warn him where the bomb is, and so the threat is averted.

Making torture even less likely to work in this case, the CONTROL bosses (i.e. the good guys) think Maxwell Smart is a double agent for the enemy, and therefore Max himself is the most likely candidate to be tortured, should they decide to do it. But because Max knew nothing about the bomb, torture would have been pretty much wasted on him, while the city blows up anyway. This possibility is something never mentioned in the pro-torture argument, where it is always assumed that you are "interrogating" the correct person. Instead, Max escapes custody, finds the bomb and defuses it. Obviously, if Max had actually been tortured, the city would have blown up.

A running theme through the movie is the CONTROL director (played by Alan Arkin) having less then cordial discussions with the Vice President (I assumed to be Dick Cheney) about how intelligence is supposed to be gathered. The CONTROL boss thinks the best intelligence comes from people with hunches, while the VP wants satellite data. Again, apparently no mention is made about torture, but everyone knows Dick likes torture, although he tries to not use the "T" word. Ironically, the title of the film, "Get Smart" could also be understood as a request aimed at people (like Dick Cheney) who think torture is the only way to go for intelligence gathering.

I'm not sure how popular this movie was, but I did find it in the 2 for 1 bin at my local used DVD store. So I'm not sure that many people "got" the hidden message. But even without the hidden message, I think it was worth more than the three buck I paid for it. I had a few laughs (actually laughing is not good because I'm recovering from an operation), and the next time through I had even more laughs because there are alternate joke scenes, some of which are even funnier than the original movie. For example, Agent 99 is going to chase the bad guys at height on a Vespa scooter, and Max is supposed to jump on the passenger seat, but instead says "wait a second I have to get some helmets and reflective vests". That made me laugh more than the original joke.

The Heartwarming Story of the Wal-Mart Greeter

2011-07-16T09:08:00.000-04:00

Forwarded email, the true gift that keeps on giving: Here is the latest one I received and it is almost enough to make me see Walmart in a new light.

WAL-MART SENIOR GREETER

You just have to appreciate this one. Young people forget that we old people had a career before we retired......

Charley, a new retiree-greeter at Wal-Mart, just couldn't seem to get to work on time.

Every day he was 5, 10, 15 minutes late. But he was a good worker, really tidy, clean-shaven, sharp-minded and a real credit to the company and obviously demonstrating their "Older Person Friendly" policies.

One day the boss called him into the office for a talk.

"Charley, I have to tell you, I like your work ethic, you do a bang-up job when you finally get here; but your being late so often is quite bothersome."

"Yes, I know boss, and I am working on it."

"Well good, you are a team player. That's what I like to hear.”

“Yes sir, I understand your concern and I’ll try harder.”

Seeming puzzled, the manager went on to comment, “It's odd though your coming in late. I know you're retired from the Armed Forces. What did they say to you there if you showed up in the morning so late and so often?"

The old man looked down at the floor, then smiled.

He chuckled quietly, then said with a grin, "They usually saluted and said, ‘Good morning, Admiral, can I get your coffee, sir?"

Now for the reaction of the Lost Motorcyclist to this wonderful story:
I have to admire the luck of the Walmart people, to have such a heartwarming story to tell as this. Imagine: A well respected, retired admiral who thinks so highly of Walmart that he will spend his retirement years promoting their store for minimum wage, while being scolded by his much younger bosses. So cute.

I guess it's possible that a retired Admiral could find nothing better to do with their time than greet Walmart shoppers, or that financial circumstances could force him to keep working until his health fails. Especially in the USA, where older people can be bankrupted by health care issues, and may be forced to work on into their seventies. (Although in the USA this does not usually happen to military retirees, who have the Veterans hospitals to care for them.)

I personally might prefer to see an older person have enough financial security to stay active by working for voluntary organizations that promote international justice, or protect the environment, or make the world a better place in some way. Instead of being forced to work at minimum wage for Walmart whose main goal seems to be to drive local stores out of business, by selling slightly cheaper Chinese made goods.

But to get back to reality, I actually used to avoid shopping at Walmart for many reasons, one of them was that I didn't like being greeted at the door by those poor old people. But with this nice story, maybe my whole slightly negative outlook on Walmart will change.

Picture: I wonder who took the trouble to dig up the pics to go with this heartwarming story? Isn't it amazing how different someone can look out of uniform. Or should I say in a different uniform with even more medals.

A Motorcycle Trip in 1977 to See Star Wars

2011-07-12T19:15:00.001-04:00

A few days ago, I was kind of bored. My doctor says I can't ride my motorcycle for another three weeks, so I went out and bought the "Star Wars Trilogy" on DVD. Watching the first Star Wars movie brings back memories of a motorcycle trip I made in 1977.

I was reading my dad's copy of the May 30 1977 issue of Time magazine shortly after it arrived in the mail, and I badly wanted to see the new movie called "Star Wars" featured in this issue. The only problem was, the closest English speaking movie theatre that I knew of was in Montreal, 700 km away. So I waited until my summer vacation.

http://fantasticflashbacks.blogspot.com/2009/06/1977-time-star-wars-article.html

On Wednesday, June 29, I had just finished grading the Literature and Composition exams (I was a high school teacher). My wife and I were going to see the movie by riding to Montreal and back in three days on my Yamaha 250. My motorcycle was 5 years old, but it was ready for the trip with a new blue paint job, new Koni shocks, and new fairing. It had rolled up 38,500 miles (62,000 km) since I bought it, mainly driving out west a couple of times. We loaded it down with our tent and sleeping bags again and started out for Montreal and a movie. And come to think of it, I don't remember checking to see that the movie was still actually playing.

"The Lost Motorcyclist's" first mechanical problem came later in the morning, when the right baffle ejected itself from the muffler. I found it laying in the road about a hundred metres back, but could not find the missing bolt. So I used the cotter pin from the front axle nut to hold the baffle in.

Weather was the big story of the day. We had sunshine, fog, warm and cold air, rain and lots of wind. We finally found a campsite 35 km from Montreal and set up our tent for the night.

Early the next morning, we drove to the Longueil Metro parking lot, parked the bike, and took the subway to downtown, where the big movie theatres were located. We found out that Star Wars was playing at a theatre at the Hotel Bonaventure, starting a little after 12 o'clock noon. So we killed some time shopping at English book stores, which was another reason to travel to Montreal. At the first showing, not all the seats were full, but there was a huge line-up when we got out. We immediately started back to the motorcycle, planning to get as far from Montreal as possible that afternoon, as rain was in the forecast. We made it all the way to St Jean Port Jolie before we had to stop and set up our tent for the night.

Next morning, we made it to Rimouski by 10 AM, where we found out the ferry was leaving at 11 AM. Because the ferry terminal was still 100 km further, it seemed that without a hyperspace jump, we would need to maintain a 100 kph average through traffic to get there. I was actually 2 minutes ahead of schedule with only 40 km to go, when we came up behind a police car moving at the speed limit. This mind boggling delay continued for 20 km until the cruiser pulled off the road and I was free to maintain my forward momentum again. I reached the ramp to the ferry at the stroke of 11, ran in to buy the tickets, and drove on to the ferry.

Every motorcycle trip I made, I did some innovating. Looking back on this trip, I find it hard to believe that this was the first motorcycle trip where I used ear plugs. Now I can't ride without them. It was also my first trip carrying something that became another essential item: a credit card!

In those days we didn't have DVDs or even VCRs. Watching that movie again today on DVD, I can still remember why it was worth the 700 km drive to Montreal.

Harley's Old "Live By It" Ad Was Also Pretty Bad

2011-07-12T15:49:00.000-04:00

After my blog on the new Harley Davidson "No Cages" advertisement, I just happened to be browsing a few older Harley Ads on Youtube, and came across this one "Live By It"

http://frodon333.skyrock.com/2910984783-Harley-Davidson-Live-By-It.html

Harley Davidson - Live By It

1 We believe in going our own way no matter which way the rest of the world is going.
2 We believe in bucking the system that is built to smash individuals like bugs on a windshield.
3 Some of us believe in the man upstairs, all of us believe in sticking it to the man down here.
4 We believe in the sky and we don't believe in the sun roof.
5 We believe in freedom.
6 We believe in dust, tumble weeds, buffalo, mountain ranges and riding off into the sunset.
7 We believe in saddle bags and we believe that cowboys had it right.
8 We believe in refusing to knuckle under to anyone.
9 We believe in wearing black because it doesn't show any dirt or weakness.
10 We believe the world is going soft and we're not going along with it.
11 We believe in motorcycle rallys that last a week.
12 We believe in roadside attractions, gas station hot dogs and finding out whats over the next hill.
13 We believe in rumbling engines, pistons the size of garbage cans, fuel tanks designed in 1936, freight train sized head lights, chrome and custom paint.
14 We believe in flames and skulls.
15 We believe life is what you make it and we make it one hell of a ride.
16 We believe the machine you sit on can tell the world exactly where you stand.
17 We don't care what everyone else believes.
18 Amen.

So it seems to me this new "no cages" ad is actually an improvement over the older "Live By it Ad", which because of it's self important tone is great anti-Harley joke material and is probably embarrassing to most Harley owners. Anyway, here is what I see wrong with this ad, line by line. But especially line 16.

1. Nothing wrong with the first line, probably should have stopped the ad here, but noooooo.
2. This line would be great if it was still 1968. But it isn't, and people who believe this usually didn't buy Harleys anyway. Most Harley customers today consider themselves patriots, not system buckers. Keep up with your customer base!
3. This line about the "man upstairs" is the only line that wimps out from "We believe" to "Some of us believe". The "Stickin it to the man" comment is another 60's misfire, for the same reason as the previous line.
4. Fact: Many Harley riders own pickup trucks, and so "not believing in sunroofs" seems to imply more about the how they order their four wheel vehicles than it does about their choice of a two-wheel lifestyle.
5. This might as well be "We believe in Apple Pie" except that apple pie was a Canadian invention.
6. "Buffalo"? Ever tried to ride a motorcycle in a buffalo herd?
7. "Cowboys had it right"? Weren't they the ones who killed off the buffalo? (see line 6)
9. Wearing black has proven to be more dangerous on the road. But I agree, it does not show dirt. Not black dirt, anyway. However, believing that any other colour shows weakness? Come on.
10. "The world going soft", could refer to the disappearance of kick starters. But Harley went soft along with almost every other motorcycle at least thirty years ago.
11. This is just funny. We like rallies that last a week, apparently we don't believe in rallies that last 6 days or 8 days, though.

I won't go after every line, but I must comment on how line 16 conflicts with the theme of the ad.

16. "The machine you sit on can tell the world exactly where you stand" is the worst line of the ad, why? Because it cancels out the main idea of the ad. To me, "Live by it" means "how you live" is supposed to tell the world where you stand, not the stuff you buy.

I guess it's not surprising that Harley dumped their old ad agency. Even though the "no cages" ad was not that great, the "Live by it" was really embarrassing. Message to the Harley Davidson Motor Company: "Next time you decide to run an ad, prescreen it with "The Lost Motorcyclist". First consultation will be free.

What Can We Learn From Monty Hall?

2011-07-12T09:16:00.001-04:00

There is game show called "Let's Make a Deal". Although this show has no pretensions of intellectualism, it has created a logical puzzle that fools nearly everybody. I heard about this puzzle on TV a few days ago, where a university professor presented the problem, and gave the correct answer, but he did not have time to explain fully. I was sure he was wrong, and continued to try to figure it out most of the night. By the morning, I was even more convinced he was wrong, so I decided to look it up on Wikipedia. You can find it in this entry "The Monty Hall Problem."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

This entry goes through several different mathematical proofs, only a few of which I understood. And now I realize I was wrong. I had thought it didn't matter, but when Monty offers to let you change to a different door, you should always take the offer.

But why do well educated, mathematically trained humans almost always get fooled by this problem, when apparently even a pigeon can typically figure it out with time? In my opinion, the deceptive part is that Monty Hall is consciously trying to help you, while every normal human instinct would be to fear that he is trying to beat you.

Here is the problem. You have three doors. One door has a car, the other doors have gag gifts. First you are asked to choose a door, and you can win what is behind the door you choose. Monty then opens a door with a gag gift, and offers you the choice of switching to the remaining (still closed) door. Should you switch or not?

Most people (including mathematical wizzes and "The Lost Motorcyclist") instinctively figure that the odds of winning the car are exactly the same, whether you switch or not. Au contraire, your odds of winning are 66% if you switch, and 33% if you don't switch.

This is all explained, with several different proofs in the wikipedia entry. If you wish to figure it out for yourself, take a few days before continuing to look at the answer.

Now are you sure it doesn't matter whether you switch or not? This is an explanation of why you should switch in my own words. You have a 33% chance of winning when you pick your door, but that leaves Monty with a 66% chance of getting the car behind one of his two doors. Then Monty gets a chance to look behind the other two doors, and he eliminates the gag gift. Then he offers you the chance to switch with his best door, even though it contains a car 2/3 of the time. That's why you should take it.

What I think we should learn from Monty Hall is that strangers are not always out to win. In some extremely rare situations, they want you to win. But it's probably pretty rare, so most of the time you'd still be better off being suspicious of "generous offers". And that includes leasing a car vs. buying, in case you don't win the car on "Let's Make a Deal".

Harley Davidson's NO CAGES Ad Campaign for Dummies

2011-07-10T23:50:00.000-04:00

Harley Davidson has released an advertising campaign with the slogan "No Cages".

The problem is, that "cages" had a meaning to true motorcyclists and bikers alike, and the ad does not use that meaning. Here it is from the motorcycle dictionary:

http://www.totalmotorcycle.com/dictionary/C.htm

"Cage - A car, truck, or van. The sworn enemy of motorcyclists, more commonly known as automobiles. The name stems from being all cooped up inside a closed shell, with no contact with the outside air."

"Cager - A person driving a car, truck, or van. Cage operator, or driver."

A motorcycle is not a "cage", also neither is a bicycle, or a person walking or jogging for that matter.

In this ad, the word "Cage" has been usurped to mean any restriction on your freedom of consumer choice. And while the ad does put a "cage" around car drivers, it also places a cage around people who are simply walking or jogging.

Any true motorcyclist would understand quickly the original meaning of the biker term "cage", and so would take this ad to be a blunder by an ad agency that does not really understand motorcycling. It often happens, with ad agencies that are filled with people who do not ride motorcycles, instead riding cars, SUV's and pickup trucks. So it would be a natural mistake.

The slogan "No Cages" could be insulting to many people I see parking their four wheeled vehicles at the Harley dealer. Also, to Harley owners who regularly use their pickup trucks to carry their Harley Davidsons. Because obviously, they are using cages, and the slogan clearly says "NO cages" as if to discriminate against them.

Harley Davidson is actually already linked to "cages", as they have a marketing relationship with Ford Motor Company to produce a "Harley Davidson" (TM) branded version of their F150 pickup truck. I don't know if this campaign will make Ford happy with the relationship.

http://jalopnik.com/5147724/2010-ford-harley+davidson-f+150-hog-lovers-rejoice

Maybe the No Cages campaign was to neutralize the word "cage" before Harley Davidson's truck loving ways backfire on their hardcore image. So while I often see "Harley Davidson" stickers on the pickup trucks of wannabe Harley owners (or actual owners), please let's not have any "No Cages" bumper stickers on these same trucks.

Speed or Distance can be Dangerous

2011-07-08T11:35:00.000-04:00

Everybody knows that speed is dangerous when driving. Of course, some people will speed anyway. I guess they make a mental trade off, where the benefit of speed equals the added risk of crashing. Probably everybody from speedsters to slowpokes make this decision at some point, and comes to their own particular compromise between safety and speed.

There is another factor similar to speed, which is probably less feared but also works the same way. It is distance. The further you go before resting up, the more danger of something going wrong. Of course, anybody can have a crash at any time, even pulling out of your own driveway, but I am convinced that putting on high mileage in one day can be an additional risk.

Here is a story that illustrates the situation. A person sets out to do an Iron Butt "Butt Burner 1000" which is a documented 1000 mile ride, which can be done on your own, in one day. All you need to do is send documented proof to the Iron Butt Association, and you get a certificate saying that you accomplished this mission. A 1000 mile ride is not easy to do, and so according to my theory, you should be extra careful. Especially of the last 500 miles. In this case, the person crashed at mile 997.

http://www.k1600forum.com/forum/bmw-k1600-general-discussions/1383-bike-totaled.html

As the rider states, no accident can be considered all on its own. It is usually a series of decisions or failures. He then concludes

"The cavalier attitude I had to the whole trip was the root of the accident. I'd done it multiple times, so why not just wing it?"

Contributing factors, as I count them:
1. Rain prevented stopping to check route and mileage
2. Not knowing that the trip odometer would reset to zero at 621 km.
3. New bike, unfamiliar road (maybe that should count as two factors?)
4. No tank bag to display route map
5. Lightning storm knocked out power
6. RR crossing sign was down (maybe due to a previous accident)
7. RR crossing surrounded by 10 ft. of metal plate
8. RR crossing on a curve
10. Going around this curve with the surface invisible under a pool of water
11. Going around this curve in the dark.

So as I understand it, he was going to follow a known route to rack up 1000 miles, got confused by the odometer into thinking he was 21 miles short of 1000 miles, then without stopping to recalculate, took a detour to add more miles, then late in the 1000 mile long day, in the dark, on a little used unfamiliar road, after heavy rains, hit an unmarked curve that could not be taken at 40 mph because of the metal plate under the water.

I agree with the riders' assessment. Just because you have done 1000 miles in one day several times before, does not mean that you can do it again without the same amount of caution. Just like doing 250 km/hr several times before safely does not mean that the next time you can assume it will turn out OK, because each situation is different.

The one advantage I can see to riding farther instead of faster, is that the crashes tend to not be as harmful at slow speeds.

I have never participated in this kind of event, even though I sometimes have gone long distances in one day. I belong to the school of "riding to get somewhere" rather than the school of "riding to roll up the odometer", although, in some cases, the difference is so very slight.

Ticky Tacky Motorcycles All Look Just the Same

2011-07-03T12:02:00.000-04:00

The word of the day is ticky tacky. "The Lost Motorcyclist" came to this word by a fairly obscure route. First there was this so-called "Toyota Prius ad" on youtube: "You bought a Prius???"

So actually this is not an ad, as I found out later, but from a TV show called "Weeds", which I had never seen, about a widowed suburban mom who is forced to turn to a life of drug dealing in order to avoid simplifying her lavish lifestyle. The theme song of this TV show is "Little Boxes", a 1962 folk song by Malvina Reynolds, making a social commentary about suburban sprawl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVyVp0qMpOk&feature=fvst

The song refers to suburban houses as "little boxes made of ticky tacky, and they all look just the same."

Now that I am caught up again with pop culture, I am going to relate this back to motorcycling, where one of the great debates is about "ticky tacky motorcycles" looking all the same.

When Japanese motorcycle first came on the market in large numbers, it was about the same time the song "Little Boxes" was first written. And the general idea could also be applied to the cheaply mass produced Hondas, Yamahas, Kawasakis and Suzukis. Especially compared to the more expensive, more hand crafted bikes in limited quantities such as British, American, and Italian bikes. The BMW's, Triumphs, Harleys and Benellis were said to have more character than the Japanese machines.

The traditional motorcycles had a firm grip on the market, but it quickly began to slip for two reasons. First, the Japanese bikes attracted new customers to the market because they were easier to use and cleaner (as well as cheaper). So Honda and Yamaha did not have to win over the hard core bikers to stay profitable. Then finally the experienced motorcyclists caved in as the Japanese bikes established themselves with new dealers and new riders who fearlessly traveled the country without needing to overhaul their bike every few days.

Although by reputation, the Japanese bikes were "ticky tacky" (shoddy materials and construction), the truth was they were actually made of very good quality materials. Eventually all motorcycle makers had to copy Japanese design and manufacturing methods or go out of business.

But today the debate still rages on. The true building material for motorcycles is seen to be iron, chrome, steel, rubber and leather. Plastic, aluminum, and vinyl are more "ticky tacky". You can see the difference right away in my mass produced Kawasaki Vulcan, which has chrome-looking plastic all over the engine. Also plastic fenders, seat base and other odds and ends. But it is about half the price of an equivalent machine with more character.

Let's face it, mass produced items are always going to come up a bit short on "je ne sais quoi", whether they are houses, or motorcycles. But the fact is, not all mass produced items are made of ticky tacky. Or, maybe ticky tacky can sometimes be more reliable and work better than old fashioned materials.

Picture. This motorcycle may have been considered a cheap mass produced item in 1958, but today is a rare and exotic classic. The 1958 Honda Benley C90 from this Honda website:

Zen saying: Wait 1000 years and see how it looks.

Scooters to the Rescue

2011-07-01T10:08:00.001-04:00

Over the years I have had motorcycle rides of all kinds. I mean commuting, long distance touring, group rides, winter rides, rain rides, shopping errands. But yesterday I went for a memorable ride that was different from any other ride "The Lost Motorcyclist" (TM) has ever taken.

I used Mary Ann's Burgman 400 scooter. Usually I have several means of getting around: walk, bicycle, scooter, Honda 175 or Vulcan 900 motorcycle, or by car. Yesterday I needed to get around in the city and the only transportation that could work was the scooter.

The situation that eliminated every other means of transportation was complicated. The Toyota Matrix was in the shop all day for a recall on the ECU, so I could not use the car. The previous day, I needed to have a catheter installed, so I could not walk or bicycle easily. A motorcycle was no good because the foot controls were too complicated for use with a catheter. That left the scooter as my only choice.

The reason I needed to go out was also complicated. Earlier in the morning, I managed to drive my car to the Toyota garage and return on the shuttle, but then I noticed the catheter bag had sprung a leak, so I had to get a new one before the car was ready. I called around and found a place in Kitchener with replacement catheter bags for $10. It was better than checking in to the hospital emergency room again to get another exact same model bag with the leaky, and poorly designed valve. But now I needed transportation to get to the medical supply store without a car, and that's where the scooter came to the rescue.

It was a sunny, hot day, and frankly I was not terribly concerned about having an accident at that point. So I grabbed my new half helmet and headed out the door with no other motorcycle gear. The way I was dressed happened to include sandals, but I didn't notice that until later. The absolutely only motorcycle gear I was wearing was the helmet, and somehow it didn't concern me at all. I easily got to the address of 702 King St. West. As anyone familiar with our city will know, the "west" is the most important part of the address. Because amazingly, to newcomers, we also have a 702 King street east, north and south. Upon arriving and parking my scooter at 702 King St. W, I was informed that the medical supply store had moved to another location also in downtown Kitchener. This urban environment is where scooters are so great. They can go as fast or faster than the traffic, turn on a dime, fit in anywhere, park on the sidewalks if you don't care about consequences. So I left 702 King West, but had to make a left turn onto a busy 4 lane road with all the traffic stopped at a stop light, but the scooter can fit in anywhere there is 3 foot gap between stopped cars.

In the end, I got my new $10 catheter bag, much better than the free "Medline" bag I got from the hospital (Which by the way retails for $1.35 according to the internet) . Within an hour, the shuttle picked me up and whisked me out to Heffner Toyota where I picked up my car with new brakes, new Engine Control Unit, and rebalanced tires. Now I'm planning to get some rest until I see my doctor on Monday. No more scooting around with catheter bags, even though the weather is still perfect.

Today a new film is opening called "Larry Crowne", starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. This movie features scooters prominently and furthermore, shows the scooters in a positive light. I'd like to see it, but I think I'll see the doctor first.

The one down side of the scooter is that was was a bit painful over all the bumpy city roads, and I really need to take it easy now for a few days to recover from my scooter ride.

Picture: Kitten in a bag by Keith Kimberlin, because I like this picture better than a catheter bag, but if you really need to see a catheter bag, just google it.

I Try Out a Half Helmet

2011-06-28T22:01:00.000-04:00

A few years ago I switched from sport touring bikes to a cruiser (The Vulcan 900 Classic). And ever since then I have continued wearing full face helmets and other typical sport bike gear, like my fluorescent green Scorpion motorcycle jacket.

But two days ago, "The Lost Motorcyclist" (Me) slipped a little further into the "Wild Hogs" image, with my purchase of a half helmet. To recap the issues In case you are not aware, many sport riders and touring riders insist that full face helmets are safer than 3/4 or half helmets. But many "bad ass" cruiser types insist on the freedom to ride with the wind in their hair, and if they are required, will wear the helmet that is lightest, cheapest, and with the most exposure. There are exceptions, but usually half helmets go with cruisers, and sport riders use full face helmets.

So now I have a half helmet and a cruiser motorcycle. And I have worn it a few times already, on my Honda CD175 with no windshield, and on the Vulcan with the windshield. I have been out on the freeway, and in cross winds. But so far only in very nice weather, and if there was even a hint of rain I had a full face helmet strapped to the sissy bar just in case.

The half helmet is a Vega XTS black leather finish with orange flames stitched on with white thread. I know those are the Harley colours, and it clashes with my green jacket. So I wore it with my old black Joe Rocket jacket, which I use for hot weather anyway. I found it for a really good deal (half price) at Zdeno Cycles in Kitchener, and it looks like a good quality helmet.

I am not endorsing the safety of half helmets vs. full face, but you can be injured with either type, so always pay attention when riding. What are the differences between full face and half helmet, other than safety, which I am trying to not test for myself.

The half helmet is lighter, but the centre of gravity is really high compared to the full face. You feel it only when moving your head back and forth. I assume the smaller helmet is easier on my neck and back. Actually it is hard for me to feel any difference in weight while riding.

I can see the instruments way down on the gas tank, where cruisers typically have them. without bending my head forward. My full face helmet has a wide enough opening that side vision is just as good as the half helmet.

The wind blast does not affect this helmet, but I did ride with a half helmet a few years ago when I rented a Harley in Florida, and that helmet was so bad it almost lifted off my head. So either this helmet is well designed for wind blast, or my windshield is what makes the difference. Actually, a windshield is probably almost necessary with a half helmet on the freeway.

I can hear a little bit better with the half helmet. For example, I can now hear a humming sound when I lean the bike over for a corner that I couldn't hear before. Also, I heard a big clang during a gear change, but that was from a Harley going the other direction. I'm not sure if I would have heard that with my full face helmet. Another thing, I can take out and put in my earplugs without removing this helmet.

Along with earplugs, I'm also wearing two pairs of glasses. One prescription lens, and an extra-large wrap around pair of polarized sunglasses over them for more eye protection. I found the sunglasses did shake a bit loose in high winds, but it was fairly easy to push them back in place. The prescription glasses didn't come loose. This problem does not really exist with my full face, as I have a flip down sun visor. However with the full face, the prescription glasses arms are pressed into my ears, and this can become a bit irritating after a few hours. This irritation around the ears does not happen with my half helmet.

What else is nice about this half helmet? Well, my face does not look all squished up, so it helps me to not look too old in pictures. With the half helmet, it is possible to smile at people, and I think people are more likely to talk to me when I have it on. For example, I was at my first fill-up and a nice lady in the next car said hello to me. I think it was hello - I still had the earplugs in, but I always assume the best. And if I go inside, I always take off the full face because it's too intimidating and I can't talk or hear with it. I can do just about anything with a half helmet on, like drink a coffee, pay for gas, or just walk around .

I was worried that my ears would get sunburned, but that didn't happen, or my nose either. Maybe I was just lucky. But I was out for four hours of riding today, including Tim Horton's. (Yes I include sitting in a Tim Hortons in my riding time because the chairs are just as uncomfortable as the bike).
I find that my nose itches while riding in hot weather. With the half helmet, it seems to itch less and anyway it's really easy to scratch when there's no face shield.
The half helmet is cooler and more comfortable than the full face in town on hot days, and I don't need to open the visor at stops.
Picture: The Vega Leather Half Helmet. The peak in this picture (I think that's what the sun shade is called) is very small, but I happened to have a bigger one at home. So I switched to the longer one, in case I needed to ride into the sun. With my bike's windshield I didn't get any lifting on the bigger peak, if that was the reason Vega supplied the small one.

Vancouver Canux Lose, Prove God Exists

2011-06-17T12:23:00.001-04:00

At last the suspense is over. November 2010, in a conversation with God, I asked for a sign that I was truly speaking to God, and not voices in my head. The sign I was given was this: God told me the Vancouver Canucks would win the Stanley Cup in 2011.

So for the last 8 months I have been waiting to see whether I was actually talking to God or not, and finally it's proven.

The Canucks lost the Stanley Cup. After thinking it over, I figure this outcome actually proves God exists. Why? you ask?

God's main rule is to never reveal Himself to us, for then it would be too easy to believe in God. So theoretically, God would be forced to tell me the wrong answer in order to test my faith. And that's exactly what happened!

Secondly, God would not predict Vancouver's victory, then eliminate them in the first round, as that has no dramatic effect. Instead, God would lead the Vancouver Canucks tantalizingly close to the Stanley Cup, and then send them down in defeat at the last opportunity, and combine that with a fair amount of humiliation and violence. Then he would turn loose the forces of Satan on downtown Vancouver to completely demoralize the Canuck fans. That also happened.

Thirdly, God would resurrect the Canucks a few days later and let them have another chance to win the cup next year, and that also is happening.

So the Bruins winning the cup has fulfilled the prophesies, and proves that God exists.

Unless, of course, that by proving God exists, He has violated his own rule of never proving that He exists.

Picture: Same "Talk to God" phone booth as in the original blog, but now this time there is no queue. Good now that leaves more of His time for me.

About Taking Dives in Ice Hockey

2011-06-11T16:11:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading an interesting hockey commentary by someone who thinks Vancouver Canuck Maxim St Pierre was playing at being hurt in order to draw a penalty.

http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2011/06/10/what-do-you-think-of-maxim-lapierres-act/

It was referred to as "an act", as "embellishment". Basically taking a dive, pretending to be hurt in order to make the Boston Bruins' player look bad.

Of course this sort of stuff goes on all the time in sports. But at least the Vancouver team didn't send out for stretcher and send Maxim away in an ambulance, then announce to the crowd that "he can move his extremities", and then hide him away for two games, and then bring him out like the resurrection of the saviour when the next game was over.

I think Vancouver deserves some credit for using restraint in their play acting.

So now I want to ask the question "What do you think of Nathan Horton's injury?" Of course I am referring to game three, where Nathan Horton of the Bruins ran head first into Aaron Rome of the Canucks, not even looking where he was going. Then after a near riot by the Boston fans (of course this took place in Boston), Aaron Rome was suspended for four games for getting in the way of a Bruins player. Meanwhile, police had to be called out to protect Vancouver fans who had flown to Boston to attend the game. Quite a sad commentary that we seem to be hyping up the injuries to influence the judges and inspire the players.

Otherwise, I have quite enjoyed the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs, and in the games I have witnessed there has been very little fighting.

A side note to the Nathan Horton injury, apparently Don Cherry has been campaigning for quite a while to eliminate these new hard shell shoulder pads, which as he said, will result in head injury, even if the contact is accidental.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8199899160558527727#

Whose fault is Nathan's concussion, really? The player who didn't look where he was going, or the player he ran in to, or the NHL management for allowing shoulder pads to be weaponized? And give me a break with the whining from rabid Boston fans that Vancouver players embellish their injuries.

A related previous post below, the US press whining about the Canadian Womens' hockey team at the winter olympics. No, the Canadian girls didn't hurt any of their precious US players, they simply celebrated all wrong (according to the US sensitivities) after the game. The whining continues.

http://lostmotorcycles.blogspot.com/2010/02/canadian-women-win-hockey-gold.html

Lake Erie Shore, Port Stanley to Port Bruce

2011-06-06T13:18:00.001-04:00

On Sunday I started from Dutton by motorcycle at 3 PM, stopped at Port Stanley then Port Bruce, and headed home through Aylmer and the 401.

In rainy weather I rarely think of cleaning my windshield, but with sunshine, bug spatters become unsightly. I remember reading an old tip about leaving a wet towel on the windshield to soak the bugs guts off, but it has never worked for me. Also, scratching the guts off with fingernails can leave scratches on the windshield. Here is a free tip from "The Lost Motorcyclist Blog": (I cannot guarantee that it will work for all types of windshields, and all kinds of brushes) I used my Mother's kitchen dish scrubbing brush to clean off the Vulcan's windshield, using a lot of scrubbing and soap and water. Finally, with the windshield almost perfectly clean, and yet not scratched by the brush, I waxed it with Armor All car wax. You may reduce the risk of scratches by trying it on a small patch lower down on the windshield first.

I started riding with a clean windshield, the temperature about 25c and in sunshine. Port Stanley was crowded with cars on the roads and people on the beach, and parking was tight close to the beach. Near the turning circle beside Lackey's, I couldn't find a free parking spot, then ended up in some loose sand that nearly could have dumped the bike. Once the bike was safely parked in the big free parking area, I walked around taking pictures, and looking at bikes and cars. One low rider car was scraping the bottom over any bumps in the road. When I finished taking in the sights, I fought my way to Dexter Line through all the traffic.

Dexter Line is the road to Port Bruce, and with little traffic I was having a good time zipping along. But just before getting to Port Bruce, I passed a car, then as I was beginning to think about slowing down to my normal cruising speed, I spotted a police car parked in the middle of the curve on the road with its lights on. Despite my unclear conscience, I turned onto Martyn Line just before the police car. Martyn line is narrow, and unpaved, and has several ninety degree corners for no apparent reason. This new route includes some hills and curves, and comes out on Rush Creek road, which is mostly paved, with an iron single lane bridge. Rush Creek Road comes out on the opposite side of the bridge from Dexter Line in Port Bruce, and so I got my bearings again. One of these days I have got to get a GPS, even if I just use it for all the detours and blocked roads due to accidents and construction!

Port Bruce had a completely different atmosphere from Port Stanley. I often see Mennonites bringing their children to the play area near the beach. Most of the people on the beach were fishing, not sunbathing or playing beach volleyball or swimming. Near the lake, the beach is made of pebbles, not sand. There are several cafe's and ice cream places, with outdoor patios (or indoor service) to sit and have something to eat or drink. There are two public toilets, but the one I went to, which is usually clean, was all plugged up and fairly gross that day.

I had just killed 2 hours, and it was already 5 PM by the time I left Port Bruce. Usually it takes me about 90 minutes to go from Dutton to Kitchener. I decided to head up through Aylmer to the 401 and home. My next stop was at the Ingersoll exit on Culloden Road, where there is a Petro Canada, a Tim Horton's and an A&W drive through. I decided to go to the A&W just for old times sake. Some things have changed. It's now a "Drive Thru" not a "Drive In". In the old days, you were expected to eat while parked, and waitresses brought you a tray that they hung on your roll-down window. Today you speak to a microphone, your food is tossed in through the window, and you screech off, munching on your papa burger as you avoid pedestrains and other cars while driving with your knee and using a cell phone to tell your wife you'll be home soon (or never, depending on your luck).

While the "Drive In" is now a thing of the past, I did hear some oldies playing on the PA when I took off my helmet. The first guy to come out of the restaurant section looked like he could have starred in "Grease". And when I asked for root beer, they served it in a big frosty mug. Wow! Seemed almost like old times. I also notice the menu has now expanded to Grandma and Grandpa items, while in the old days it only went from Teen burgers to Papa burgers.

First picture: Me leaving Dutton with clean windshield
Second: Port Stanley Sunday crowd. Sailing ship in background is on a mural.
Both pictures taken with new camera, not sure if the red motorcycle colour is exactly right.

The Nikon Coolpix S8100 and a History of my Cameras

2011-06-03T08:55:00.000-04:00

I got my first camera in 1969, the same year as my first motorcycle. It was a Canon SLR. As usual, I was a little behind the technology curve, as my model had already been obsoleted by the next, which featured a light meter that you could read through the viewfinder. On my camera, I had to look away from the viewfinder to read the built in light meter on the top of the camera body.

I thought that snapping pictures from a moving motorcycle would be a good idea, drive and shoot at the same time. My first picture, which I still have, features a small Volkswagen pulling on to the road directly in front of me. After that close call, I decided to never again shoot and drive.

I still have my ancient Canon SLR, and hundreds of slides and an old fashioned slide projector. Then twenty years ago, I decided to buy a small point-and-shoot film camera because it was easier to take on motorcycle trips. Ten years ago, I made the transition to a digital point-and-shoot camera. The digital camera's major failings were slowness between shots, and short battery life. It also did not reproduce the candy colours of my Honda CD175's very well either.

In about 2005, after missing way too many pictures because of the time delay, I upgraded to a newer and better digital camera, a Canon Sureshot S410. A Lithium Ion battery had not only a much longer time between charges, but it recharged in 4 hours, instead of 12 for the previous camera. This made it more practical for motel room outlets. The Canon also took much less time between shots, and the colours were improved, especially candy red.

But in the last few months, I noticed that my (now old) Canon seemed to be brain damaged. I assumed it started when I took a picture of my blindingly visible new lime green fluorescent jacket. But that might be just a coincidence. Anyway, its' performance is now unsatisfactory. Although I hate shopping for stuff, I decided instead of repairing it, I would look to see how far technology had moved ahead in the last five years.

I was able to buy a Nikon Coolpix S1800 camera for less money than I paid for the Canon Sureshot S410, with quite a bit better performance. It is actually very difficult recognizing the difference between a good camera and a cheap one today. The options, specs, and features are endless. In the old days, you could tell a good camera from a bad very quickly: bigger lens aperture, more adjustments, faster shutter speed etc. Today, these features seem to mean very little. At least half the picture quality in a film camera comes from the choice of the film itself. With a digital camera the "film" is actually digital sensors, and they are built in and irreplaceable, and they are a big part of the specification and cost. You can make up for a smaller lens with better quality digital sensors.

So what makes my new camera better than the old? The most quoted specification is megapixels, and the new one is 12 MPx compared to 4Mpx on the old camera. But that's not the only change. The camera "boots up" in less than a second, and takes less time between pictures. It has an optical zoom of 10x, while the old one had 3x. The viewing screen on the back is bigger, and bright enough to see in daylight. It can take high definition video with stereo sound (the old one took grainy videos with mono sound.)

One of the more obvious features is the 10x optical zoom, which is basically a telephoto lens in a camera no bigger than a cigarette box. Not only that, but the camera has a variety of vibration reducing features to make it possible to get good hand-held pictures at long range (without using a tripod).

It also takes amazing (to me) pictures indoors with no flash. But I was shocked when I tried to take a picture of my cat, as the book case and carpet were in sharp focus, but the cat had disappeared! What happened was the camera took a very long shutter opening, which permitted the moving cat to blur away to nothing. The reason the bookcase was still in sharp focus was that the camera was using its processing power to cancel out the blurring of the fixed objects. With my old fashioned camera, a long shutter opening always meant the background got blurred.

Memory cards are replaceable, and so do not become obsolete as fast as built in features. My most recent Canon memory card was a whopping 500 Mb. But technology will obsolete even the replaceable cards. The newer SD memory cards are smaller, and I bought one for $20 with 4x as much memory as the CF card (which I paid $40 for).

The height and width of the two cameras is almost the same, the weight is the same. The new one is about .7 cm. longer. Technology also removes some features. The new camera has lost the optical viewfinder, much like motorcycles lost their kickstart levers. Now all aiming must be done in the LCD screen.

I have not really scratched the surface of all the computerized features of the camera. But already I can see it is far better than the Sureshot, which could not expose a picture properly if a person was sitting in front of a bright window. When I took a similar picture of Mary Ann with the Nikon, a flashing box appeared on the viewfinder framing her face, the camera automatically set the focus and the brightness to that target. The outdoor view in the background was overexposed, but that's what I would have done manually. It just took a lot less time for the camera to do it automatically.

Nikon did not stop there with face recognition. The camera can recognize faces in profile or head on, from what I saw. It can frame multiple faces at the same time. It has a blink recognition feature, but I'm not sure what that feature actually does. Maybe it tells you to keep your eyes open, then retakes the picture? And now for the funniest feature of all (I think). I'm not too good with the automatic 10 second timer, so I was quite impressed that this camera has the option of waiting for someone to smile instead of going off blindly at 10 seconds.

I cannot imagine what more I would ever want from a camera, but I probably should take another look five years from now.

Picture 1: My back yard, and please no comments about unmentionables hanging on the line to dry. That's how the pioneers used to do it before the invention of driers. Incidentally, this picture resolution was reduced by me for uploading.

Picture 2: Taken from the same spot, but using the full 10x zoom. It's the socks from picture 1, I did not reduce resolution in this picture. (click to enlarge)

What Are Christians Doing About the Environment?

2011-05-27T20:49:00.000-04:00

One thing I do not understand at all is that true Christians are not doing anything to save the environment. Jesus told us to love our neighbours, and the poor, even our enemies. I guess He forgot to tell us to also love our great great great grandchildren.

Jesus told us that the rich would find it hard to go to heaven. So you would think that He would like it if we could cut back on our luxurious greed driven lifestyles. But instead we continue to waste resources, which in turn destroys our environment.

It's about time the Christians whether Roman Catholic, or born-again fundamentalists or anything else, to make up their minds, and choose - either conspicuous consumption or moral leadership.

Canadians Need to Know: Who Will Be Funding their Political Parties?

2011-05-26T08:56:00.000-04:00

The Conservative government of Canada has announced it will drop all government funding to political parties, in an effort to save money. Opponents of this move can no longer block it because the Conservatives now have a majority government.

Funding of political parties was originally introduced to prevent the big money interests from dominating the political system of Canada as it has in the USA. In the USA, where there is no vote-based taxpayer funding, apparently 90% of representatives time is taken up with fundraising, and 100% of their political support is given to repay top political donors. Canada has (for a short time anyway) a system of subsidizing parties based on their popular vote, and limiting donations outside the subsidy. In theory this system put more emphasis on doing the will of the voters, and less on doing the will of the wealthy political contributors and religious fanatics.

It is believed the Conservatives will be the only party to benefit benefit from defunding, because they can raise the most money outside the subsidy. But we still have a limit on outside donors, although I wonder how long this will last, as I saw one political columnist in the Ottawa Citizen already calling for the abolition of these limits, claiming that abolishing these limits will not favour the Conservatives or hurt the opposition.

As we see the Canadian Government cave in to outside funding pressure, I am hoping that we will also see an increase in reporting on where the funding comes from. In the case of the Liberals, I have no idea where it all came from. For the NDP, it was probably a lot of labour union support. I personally gave money to the Green Party, however I did not expected anything in return (and got nothing either).

I suspect that the Conservative funding is coming from a combination of organized religion (especially the pro-life churches and Born Again Christians) and oil companies. These fundamentalist churches have already organized themselves into such a blatantly political force in the USA that no president can get elected without declaring he is for God. So far this religious faction has had to stay under cover in Canada, especially with Stephen Harper promising to not get involved in the abortion issue. But the fundamentalists are still giving money to the Conservatives in hope that as soon as the Conservatives take their seats as a majority government, they will begin to enact laws against abortion. There has already been a bitterly contested demonstration in Ottawa where I saw one the pro-Lifer in a TV interview boasting that they now had a majority of seats in parliament.

The oil companies seem to be the main financial support for the Conservatives. The Conservatives are based in Alberta, the oil province, where most of the oil companies have head offices. Also, Harper has already followed the oil company line on global warming and pollution controls.

The entire Conservative party is a mirror image of the Republican party in the USA. They are based in Alberta, which is the Canadian province most similar to Texas. The only thing missing is the old Southern slave states (the old Confederacy), for which happily there is no real parallel in Canada. But there is a parallel in the oil industry and in religion, in fact it is the Canadian branches of the same American oil companies and American religions that will be contributing most to the Canadian Conservative party. And ironically, or cynically, the Conservatives accused the Liberals of running a closeted American (Ignatieff) as their leader.

So as we cut the taxpayer funding to political parties, let's at least find out for sure where the other funding is coming from, if that is at all possible any more.

Teaching Patriotic History

2011-05-23T14:29:00.000-04:00

Why do Americans not learn about other countries in school? OK Maybe I need to back up, because many Americans do not even realize that other countries have their own histories, nor do they understand what American history has to do with the histories of other countries, such as Canada for example.

Now this is going to seem a bit rambling, because I want to discuss why some maps should show neighbouring countries or states and some do not, and really don't need to. Then I will get back to why it is often necessary to study some of the history of neighbouring countries to understand your own history.

I am often amazed looking at US TV station weather maps, where the weather is shown on a map of the USA, but on the other side of the US borders, no weather is shown. Remember the stations we get here are from Detroit, Erie and Buffalo, all places either on the border or across the water from Canada. You would think they should be concerned about what the weather is only 40 km away. In my opinion, weather maps should not stop at any borders.

Road maps are the opposite, but for a good reason. If you are producing a road map of one state, you do not need to put all the roads in neighbouring states. This makes sense, because you are expected to buy the road map of any state you are travelling to, if you want to see all the roads up-to-date. Another situation I remember, I was in Mexico talking to some travelling motorcyclists from Texas about the best way to get into California from Ensenada, Mexico. I suggested Tecate as a border crossing that was easier than Tijuana, especially since they were heading home to Texas from there. They looked at their Mexican road map and said Tecate was no good because there were no roads leading from the border checkpoint into the USA. I told them that yes indeedy there were roads in California, and if they wanted to see the roads on the California side they should get a California road map. It is quite normal for any country or state to produce road maps that cover their own roads, but not all the roads in bordering states. When travelling in Ontario, for example, the 401 says "Windsor 250 km". It does not say "Detroit 252 km". That does not mean Detroit does not exist, nor does it mean Windsor is more important a city than Detroit. You are just expected to know that Windsor is the border city near Detroit and get a Michigan map to continue your journey. They do the opposite with road signs on the US side of the border.

Now back to history. What could Americans possibly learn about their own history by learning about the history of Canada? First they would learn that Canada has repelled several US invasions, especially if you count some of the fighting that went on before the USA got its independence from Britain. The second thing that you could learn is that many English speaking Canadians are descendants of refugees from the US war of Independence. At one time, just after the war of independence, the number of American refugees in Canada was so great that they became a majority of English speaking Canadians.

Here is the next question. Why do Americans not want to know about this part of Canadian history, which actually seems to be an integral part of their own history? Well, apparently some Americans did want to teach this part of American history. The part where Americans who were loyal to the British were forced out of the country after Independence. But other Americans decided that this part of their history should be buried, covered up, for the sake of national pride.

After WW1. Charles Grant Miller, a writer for Hearst Newspapers, (forerunner of Fox News), started a campaign to rid America of unpatriotic history books. In particular a book called "An American History" by David Saville Muzzey. The Muzzey book had its flaws, for example a quote from it about native Americans reads "a stolid stupidity that no white man could match". But that's not what caused the hoopla. It was the part of the book that suggested some Americans, before the war of independence, considered themselves as Englishmen, and supported the King's government. That was the part that was treasonous to America.

(Ref "History on Trial", Nash Crabtree and Dunn, p. 25-28.)

Further reference online
ebooksread.com

But once you remove the reference to loyal English-Americans from US history, how do you explain Canadian history? And how can you explain the American defeat in the war of 1812, in the attempted conquest of Canada? You can't, so you just better ignore that invasion altogether. And how do you explain that Canada started fighting Germany before the USA did? You can't, so you ignore the war before 1941. How do you ignore the part played by France in the US War of Independence? You can't so you just belittle the French generally to make yourself feel strong and brave. That's why teaching "patriotic" history requires large doses of ignorance.

World Peace in a Nutshell

2011-05-21T10:58:00.000-04:00

Recently Obama made a very courageous statement (for an American President) that Palestinians had a right to their pre-1967 borders, with some land swapping to be negotiated with Israel. Once again, the domestic right wing criticism of Obama's statement highlights that Obama is more in tune with international community than he is with the political factions inside the USA. And I mean that in a positive way about Obama, as many political factions in the USA tend to be somewhat warmongering.

I recently viewed a blog by someone who put into words this warmongering character I mentioned. A warmonger is someone who believes that war is justified and inevitable, and more particularly, whoever is stronger has the right to take land from anyone who is weaker.

Here is the link to this blog, and the argument presented on the Israeli border issue.

http://paulmbrown.blogspot.com/2011/05/wealthy-man-on-welfare-and-israeli.html

What is interesting to me is the complete disconnect between Paul Brown's view of world peace, and all the work that has been done in the last hundred years to avoid another world war. I am going to assume Paul Brown is just putting into words what a lot of other right wing Americans are feeling. (And right wing Canadians too - lets not forget my family and friends!)

So as a public service, I will post here the shortest possible condensed version of world history over at least the last 100 years, which explains partly why we have the United Nations and may help to explain why we have not had a third world war (even though it has been pretty close at times).

From the beginning of recorded history, and probably all through human evolution, groups of men have tried to acquire territory or resources by aggression or warfare. But as the world gets ever more crowded, and as the weapons of war become ever more deadly, we have reached (or are reaching) a point in human evolution where war must be regulated, or contained, or damped down. Otherwise, the entire habitable world could be destroyed.

The realization that mankind needed world peace actually grew long before the atomic bomb was discovered. Even by 1899, many people realized that human weaponry would soon become so powerful that entire civilizations could be wiped out by flying machines dropping massive bombs.

Attempts to regulate wars were made before World War 1, then with even more urgency after World War 1 actually happened, and proved more devastating than even the peaceniks predicted. ("The War to End All Wars"). But even then, the efforts were not enough, WW2 took place, leading to more efforts toward world peace.

After the horrors of World War 2, it seemed that the number one problem leading to war was that of countries trying to invade each other for territory or resources. So the United Nations was set up, with the participation of almost every country on Earth, with the main goal of avoiding another world war. It was decided that as a basic principle, that the UN should recognize and document international boundaries, and that no country had the right to invade another across those international boundaries, without the consent of the United Nations. The United Nations had a voting process and a charter that determined how this consent should be achieved.

No matter how flawed this process might be, it was our best hope for world peace, and for many years the principle of not invading neighbours without the permission of the UN was more or less followed. But this required the leadership of the most influential democracies after WW2, namely the USA, France, Germany, Japan, and Great Britain. The USSR and China were influential, but not being democracies, it was expected that they would also be natural warmongers.

Lately, it seems that this system is breaking down, and not because of rogue warmongering dictatorships like Nazi Germany or Stalin's USSR, but because of "democracies" like the United States of America, Britain, and Israel. Until now it was believed by many that a democracy was inherently peaceful. It was thought that most educated, democratic people would not vote for offensive wars. Now, however, that principle has been challenged by Israel (occupying and carving up the U.N. sanctioned territory of Palestine) and the USA and Britain, which invaded Iraq under false or mistaken (depending on who you believe) pretenses, without the approval of the U.N. Although to be fair, the USA and the UK (and a few other countries including Australia did claim they had the approval of the U.N., while Canada, France, Germany, Russia, China and most other countries said they did not have that approval.

So where does world peace stand today? Are we back to the world where the strongest invade and occupy the weakest and steal their land and resources, or are we still trying to find a framework where all countries can live in peace?

That is the essence of Obama's statement on Israel's boundaries.

Buying a Vintage Motorcycle

2011-05-21T08:15:00.001-04:00

I often get emails asking about the value of old Honda CD175s. It is a difficult question to answer, so I will begin with how I much I paid (and why) for my first restoration project honda CD175 in 2001.

In 2001 I was at the Paris (Ontario) Vintage motorcycle show. I had never tried to restore an old motorcycle up to that time, but I was thinking that since I had retired a few years ago, and was looking for something interesting to do, that an old motorcycle might be fun to restore and ride. While I was walking around to displays of old bikes, I met a friend who had a few old bikes she was working on, and she said one of them was a Honda 175. I immediately knew what kind of bike I was looking for, because my first bike was a Honda 175. I could already see myself riding around on a bike exactly like my first one that I had sold in 1972.

Honda had made many different 175 models. Mine, which I bought in Africa, was an "international" specification CD175 K3 model with the solo seat configuration. The first place I looked was eBay, and coincidentally, on the first day I looked, I saw the exact model I wanted, in running condition. Although it was red, (not blue like my first bike), it looked exactly the same otherwise, and according to the blurb, it had been shipped to Canada many years ago from Kenya. Since then I have never seen another bike like it on eBay or anywhere else. It was fate.

I don't want to turn this into an eBay rant, but I had no experience with eBay auctions, and I wanted this particular bike real bad. You may already realize that this was not going to result in a low price for me, and it didn't. But I wasn't a complete fool. So I set my maximum price at $2000, which was about double what most other Honda 175's of that time were selling for, although I noticed one earlier 175 auction had apparently resulted in a sale price of over $3000. But that alleged $3000 bike was in amazingly good condition. I put in my maximum bid early, believing eBay's story that this would be kept secret from other buyers. Having no experience at eBay, I knew nothing about "sniping", and "shill bidders". As the closing time drew near, another bidder pushed the auction price up to my maximum bid, bidding in small increments, and stopping when my limit was reached. So I did a little more research and discovered how to "snipe" this type of bidder at an auction, which is the only way to win against this type of incremental bidding. I had to go a little over my maximum limit, but I got the bike for $2050. I was prepared to pay up to $2500, but I think in retrospect, it was probably worth about half of that in an open auction. I picked up the bike in person, and paid cash after a test drive and verifying that the seller had advertised the bike honestly.

Now here is an email I received recently, and my answer to explain the price of an old Honda similar to my CD175, remembering that it is not a highly sought after classic like the Vincent or Brough Superior.

> Hello my name is Chelsea and I have a cousin that has a 1963 Honda Benly
> 161cc motorcycle. We are having a very hard time trying to find the value of this
> bike. Is there any way you can help me with this? Thanks for your time.

Response from "The Lost Motorcyclist":

Your problem is typical, it is indeed very difficult to find the price of an old Japanese motorcycle.

What you are selling is not really a motor vehicle, it is too old to be simply another motorcycle to learn how to ride on, and to ride back and forth to school. Instead, think of it as rare collectors item. Something that has mainly historical or nostalgic value.

Prices of collector items can vary tremendously, based partly on their condition. This is what I would want to know, if I was interested in buying it. Is it complete? If it is missing parts, which parts? Some parts hard to find, some are they easy to replace.
Is it running? If not, is it because the engine is frozen? As a buyer, I am also interested in your location: what country are you in? What city are you near?

The top price can be asked for a motorcycle being sold by the original owner (or their family), which has always been stored indoors, has never been disassembled or repainted or crashed. And has the original bill of sale, owners manual and and tool kit.

Lowest price would be for boxes of rusty broken parts of unknown origin.

Prices are more often determined by the buyers, not the condition of the bike or the price of the seller. When buyers are scarce, the price will be low. If there is more than one interested buyer, the price will be as high as the buyers are willing to go. And it is absolutely impossible to say why a buyer may want it. Some buyers may want it even though
they do not understand what they are buying. Other buyers might be very knowledgeable collectors.

eBay is a great place to sell something that you do not know the value of. Also, you can look for similar items on eBay to get an idea of what yours may be worth. Here is an auction for a 1964 Honda Dream.

Also, pictures of the bike really help the buyer decide if they want it.

Picture: The closing eBay auction price of the Honda 160 mentioned above. (bike not sold)

Port Dover Chronicles: Friday 13th, May 2011

2011-05-13T17:12:00.000-04:00

Friday May 13, 2011. My second trip to Port Dover in 2011 fell on a Friday 13th, with perfect weather. Even the threat of rain showers later in the day might have scared some people off and reduced congestion a little.

We assembled a group of five bikes and riders. The only new machine on this trip was a 250 Ninja, and in my opinion it's nice to see the 250 class well represented.

Since I ended up being the ride leader that last few times, I prepared for the trip by looking at Google maps. I decided to use some strategy in order to not get tangled up in the traffic and road blocks. My strategy was to find the least likely way in to Port Dover, and that would be from the south. But because Lake Erie was to the south, I just went as far south as I could before moving in toward Dover in a classic one-sided pincer formation.

Once again we were stopped by a police contingent for a safety check, at the same place as last year. This time they were not checking documents, just horn, brakes, and lights. So we didn't have to get off the bikes. They completed the five checks in about a minute, with one officer per bike. Mine however was the slowest. The rest of the gang thought it was because I was asking the female police officer for her phone number. I should have pretended I did, if only to enhance my legendary status. But actually it was because I couldn't figure out how to turn on the headlights.

Taking a circuitous, yet speedy route, we arrived at the exact same parking lot as last year, locked up the bikes and headed off to get some apple fritters and see the bikes and the bikers. In the crowd, we spotted the naked guy again, although truth be told, he is not really naked. But still a lot more than you really want to see. Also there were some nice looking bikes. One new addition this year was the bikini bike wash. You would think with twenty thousand bikes, somebody would want a bike wash, but apparently not. First, most of the bikes were clean already, and she would only get water spots on the chrome. And the for rest of the bikes (like mine) that were too dirty to care about water spots, well they were parked too far away and inaccessible. How about next year a bikini shoe shine? I could go for that.

One other new thing was seeing some people taking their pictures sitting on the police motorcycles. Looks to me like the Police are really going overboard to try to be nice. Maybe I should have asked for the female police officers number, and a hug too, just for passing the test.

We got our apple fritters and coffee ** and were sitting by the dock when I decided to take a picture of the group. I was ready to take just the other four guys, but Matti suggested I could use the timer function to get myself into the picture. There was a convenient flat bollard right on the edge of the dock for me to perch my camera on. But I was unfamiliar with the timer button. So after a mad dash to pose, the first picture failed. A second attempt also resulted in failure. But then one of the girls from the Royal Distributing booth behind us took pity and came over to snap a few pics for us, with all five members of the group.

Then, as usual, we got split up going back to the bikes, then miraculously found each other again, and made it home in a group before getting hit with any rain or hail.

Picture 1: Thanks to Royal Distributing girl, finally a successful picture, except I forgot my camera's colour metering chip is screwed up.

Picture 2: I decided that the trailer without wheels deserves a pic. This was NOT photoshopped.

** The link to the Apple fritter website is not a paid advertisement, and I have no commercial connection. It is merely a public service to anyone who likes motorcycles and real apple fritters.

Ignorance in the Aftermath of the Federal Election

2011-05-13T14:57:00.000-04:00

The Canadian Federal election of May, 2011 almost wiped out two of Canada's political parties, the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois. I still do not understand what all the factors were in the outcome of the election, but this is an answer to some false impressions that have been left in the aftermath.

There are a number of people, outside Quebec who seem to feel that the Bloc Quebecois are a bunch of traitors and should be executed. I do not agree with that sentiment, which I feel is profoundly anti-democratic. Let's remind ourselves that the most important characteristic of a democracy is always the peaceful handing over of power after elections. Calling your opponents traitors is a characteristic of dictatorships, and it worries me to see so many people voicing this comment in the Internet and even on TV. As in any country in the world, there is obviously a racist and fascist undercurrent in Canada that needs to be minimized (and I don't mean by killing as a first resort, but by education)

There have also been a number of comments that Quebec is no more a distinct society than Alberta, or BC, or any other province. That's kind of like saying that Israel is no more a distinct middle Eastern country than Jordan, or Lebanon or Syria. Of course all those countries are distinct, just as all provinces are distinct. But some are more distinct than others, due to religion, history, size, language, or political leanings. These things are what makes Quebec distinct: Language, historical priority, and, until now, the tendency to support peace and leftist social programs. And with all that in one of the largest provinces of Canada, it is hard to ignore.

Which province is most likely to actually separate from Canada? I would take a closer look at Alberta. Alberta has great oil reserves, and many of the residents of Alberta seem to feel that all the wealth from that oil should not be shared with Canada. This has been a point of contention for some time already, and as long as an Alberta-based government is in power over all of Canada, I guess they are happy. But what will happen when and if the Conservatives are ever defeated by an Eastern political party (or coalition of parties - which the Conservatives say is illegal). The Albertans seem to have a lot in common with Americans already, including religion, war and free market beliefs.

Here are some of the comments from the CTV website
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Politics/20110511/bloc-quebecois-leader-search-110511/

Overtaxed
Off you go then Mr. Duceppe! You and your former MPs are welcome to leave Canada anytime you like and no longer be citizens. Oh, and don't forget to return your $150K a year guaranteed pension paid for by Canada's tax payers at the door when you leave.

This is echoing a popular American sentiment about liberals. "America love it or leave it", has become "Canada love it or leave it". The reason we don't often use American rhetoric in Canada is that it does not apply to our situation, where the history of Canada is trying to keep all the provinces together, including Quebec. The USA does not really have an analogous situation with two languages.

Laurie
Whatever happened to the crime of treason? Do we even understand the concept anymore? Why did we have federal MP's that were bent on division of Canada for so many years? How could Canadians let that happen? This is the time to make a law that prevents separatists from obtaining federal positions in parliament.

Actually, I agree with Laurie in a way, except that I don't think even she understands what treason is. Go ahead and draft a law that prevents people who are bent on dividing Canada from holding federal positions in Parliament. If you bother to go through with that exercise, you will probably begin to see why we don't have that law.

Here is "The Modified Red Dawn Scenario", for those who write "anti-separatist" laws, to help them avoid creating a problem for future generations of Canadians.

Lets say that 40 million people from the Soviet Union immigrate to Canada, and make Russian the language of every province except Alberta. At that time, there may be a lot of separatist sentiment in Alberta. If Alberta continues to elect English speaking members of Parliament, many of those members also may have expressed separatist views. Do you want your Anti-Separatist to law to exclude them from the Canadian House of Commons? Are they really traitors?

If you feel that the Russian scenario is too far fetched, feel free to substitute any language/religion/ethnic/immigrant group of your choosing.

Still think it is outrageously impossible? Review Canadian history, and you will see it already has happened once, possibly twice.

History Is Controversial: Get Used to It

2011-05-06T12:20:00.000-04:00

I have started reading "History on Trial" by Nash, Crabtree, and Dunn. It's about the controversy in the USA concerning the history curriculum. And I must confess I don't understand people who think they can teach history without controversy.

I have a personal experience that shows how controversial the teaching of history can be. Back in 2002, Mary Ann and I were touring out in the American West by motorcycle, and I wanted to visit the site of the Battle of Little Big Horn, where Custer's force was massacred by Indians. There was a National Historic Park, and historical interpretation centre there, and we dropped in to get the "story" (i.e. the interpretation of the events.) I was very surprised to see how balanced the interpretation was, giving the Indian's side of the story very sympathetically. I had expected a one sided condemnation of the Indians. But after about twenty minutes, I started looking around more and more, and came to realize we were not at the "Official" interpretive centre, we had been lured to an alternate interpretive centre set up by the Indians on their own land, which was kind of dressed up and signposted to look like the National Park Centre. Unfortunately, the National Park was closed by the time we got there, so I never got the other side of the story.

But one more thing I noticed, driving down the interstate highway, was a pickup truck flying the flag of the Seventh Cavalry, the very regiment that was massacred. I wish I knew why people were still flying those flags, but never had a chance to talk to the pickup truck driver.

So that is one anecdote of my impressions of American history. I have more, but they will wait till another day.

I have spent three years myself teaching Canadian history, and I enjoyed it more than teaching math, which was more my specialty. History is more fun than math because it is controversial, and as a teacher you have the opportunity to help students question what they are being taught. We had the text book, which was the curriculum, and it was the basis for all the "correct answers" on the exams. But instead of simply memorizing all the facts, I preferred to treat the facts as simply one side of the story in most cases, and we spent more time discussing than we did memorizing. The result, I thought, was that many of the students had more fun and actually remembered better.

I see two sides to the teaching of History. One side is the curriculum, the "correct version" that must be taught. The other part is learning to interpret, question, and see other points of view, which are optional and depend to a large degree on the teacher and the students themselves. And this second part is much less subject to control by the authorities. Although, I can well imagine teaching in some schools where the parents may find out that someone has questioned something that they hold sacred, and may complain to the principal. But in my three years of teaching Canadian history, no parent ever complained to me that I was forcing their children to think for themselves.

One of the reasons that history curriculum starts people fighting, is that some teachers and parents think that history must be taught without questioning. That means your curriculum has to be right from the start, then the students simply memorize everything and they get 100% if they know the material perfectly. That puts a lot more importance on the curriculum development than on the quality of the teachers. And the fact is, the curriculum will never be "right".

I don't really know that much about how Americans teach history, but this is the impression I have had over the years, from watching American TV and movies, reading American books, talking to Americans about their history. They memorize all the presidents, in the correct order. They focus on the positive, and their history is full of white American heroes. They tend to ignore world history (e.g Canada), and anything that could be called a "downer" or anything that may undermine the impression that Americans are not the smartest, bravest, most decent people on Earth.

Why is Canadian History not taught from such an extremely chauvinistic, one-sided point of view, like a mythical fable with very little questioning or interpretation? I can think of a few reasons. For one, Canada has two historical viewpoints that are taught in the classroom - the French and the English. (Although not usually in the same school system). And now, for all I know there may be more. Second, we have no reason to think that Canadians are a "special" people chosen by God, to lead the world. Third, we tend to not believe in the absolute truth of the Bible as much, meaning we are more accustomed to questioning the printed word.

Picture: That's Custer's Seventh Cavalry flag in case you are ever out West and see it flying from a pickup truck.

Looking at a Propaganda Cartoon

2011-05-03T09:12:00.000-04:00

Cartoons have been used throughout history to spread propaganda. They are an excellent propaganda tool because they can be understood in many different languages, they are simple, take little time to absorb, are easily retained in memory. The written words can often be picked apart by astute readers, but many people looking at cartoons may not have the visual skills necessary to see what is wrong with it.

I am presenting an example of a propaganda cartoon here from this website:

http://www.cagle.com/news/OsamabinLadenDead/main.asp

Daryl Cagle's website, "The Political Cartoonist Index", has many current political cartoons arranged according to subject. Some are conservative, some liberal left wing. This particular cartoon, by Brian Fairrington, is intended to give the impression that George Bush and the Republicans have done 95% of the work in killing Osama Bin Laden. To many observers, this message will stick easily in their minds far better than the bullet stuck in Osama's.

I have taken the next step, which is questioning the over simplification of this bit of right wing propaganda, and I have put my corrected version below it. Of course, both cartoons are an oversimplification of the actual operation.

From what I can see, most Americans feel that all America deserves the credit for this operation. But if we must say who is especially responsible for getting revenge on Bin Laden, who was it?

I have seen a lot of comments from apparently normal right wingers saying it was the troops who were 100% responsible for killing Bin Laden. These same people claim that Obama was no more than a brain dead puppet whose lips were being manipulated into mouthing "OKEY DOKEY" by his white military handlers. I disagree with their opinion. In fact if they were right, democracy itself would be in big trouble.

A more realistic view is that many people had a part to play according to their assigned roles. Somebody had to make the helicopters, the guns and the bullets. Somebody had to sift through a million false leads on Bin Laden's whereabouts. Somebody had to decide which lead to follow up on. Somebody had to ride the helicopter with a gun, get off and aim and pull the trigger. Somebody had to drag the body aboard. I don't know who had to do all those things, and some people risked their lives. But there was also the one person who had to give the go-ahead to use American Forces to penetrate the territory of an ally without notification. And that same person will have to deal with the retaliation not only from Al Quaeda, but from Pakistan. Instead of a retaliatory strike, Pakistan could deny America access to the only road bringing supplies to the troops in Afghanistan (That includes Canadian troops too!).

The guy who pulled the trigger risked his life, just as many other people are risking their lives all the time, including civilians (and including Obama in case you forget!).

Obama, (luckily or by design, you decide) has taken a peaceful position that is far more acceptable to the international community than G W Bush's bullying torturing aggressiveness. So it will be far easier for Obama to smooth the ruffled feathers from this intrusion into Pakistan than it would have been for Bush. How about giving credit for that, you war hawks?

Look, it's this simple. Jimmy Carter gave approval to an operation against Iran that failed (remember that?), and he is still getting the blame for it to this day. Obama gave the order, and will deal with the fallout from this operation, not the military. He should get as much
credit for doing it right as the blame he would have taken for an epic failure. Is that fair?

Picture: The second cartoon is my photoshopped "correction" of the first to show the opposite point of view.

Killing Bin Laden Catches Republicans Off Guard

2011-05-02T16:32:00.000-04:00

This morning I woke up to the news that Osama Bin Laden had been killed by a US special forces team. As this is a stroke of luck of epic proportions for Barack Obama, I was wondering what the unlucky Republicans would come up with to counterattack. Maybe they would make it look like Obama tried to block the military strike?

First I heard Donald Rumsfelt on NBC this morning. He seemed to think that he himself (Rummy) was the one who actually set up the situation that caught Bin Laden. He claimed it was all about intelligence, having good information. And why do they have this good information? Because of the prisoners being held at Guantamo Bay, which he initiated and Obama opposes.

I thought Rummy's opinion was amusing, if not downright sidesplitting. How can prisoners in Guantanamo provide minute by minute info on Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts, ten years after being taken captive? LOLIG (stands for LOL I GUESS).

But I was really waiting for Rush Limbaugh, the guy who usually sets the party line for the conservative right wingers. And Rush's response truly floored me. He gave all the credit to Obama for thinking of sending special forces instead of carpet bombing. Now the worry is that Rush may have been saying this sarcastically, of course. Especially when he said "Thank God for Obama" (how can you thank God for the Antichrist?) But anyway, a lot of people are going to be scratching their heads over his response for some time to come. Was he on drugs? Is Limbaugh's message a hoax? When is Rush going to get back to shi*t*ng on Obama as usual?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/05/rush-limbaugh-on-bin-ladens-death-thank-god-for-president-obama.html

Who Do You Vote For In Canada?

2011-04-28T09:11:00.000-04:00

With the opposition to Stephen Harper split between four parties, this election may finally give him the majority he needs to carry out his most unpopular policies. His agenda has been delayed by years of Liberal rule followed by a frustrating Conservative minority rule.

Ignatieff, the leader of the Liberals, made a serious error early in the election stating that he would not join a coalition against Harper.

In a surprise turn of events, the Liberals have slipped to third place in the pre-election polls. The NDP, led by Jack Layton are running second.

Canada is a country where it is quite easy for one strongly united party to rule the country even when most of the people vote against it, as we do not have a "top-two" runoff system. Whoever scores highest in the first round ballot wins, as there is no other ballot. As a result, many Canadians waste their first vote on parties that are not even in the running, and are not given a second chance.

If you would like to Stop Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, there is a way to make sure your vote counts, even without reforming this voting system. Simply cast your only vote for one of the top two candidates instead of the candidate of your choice. This is known as "Strategic Voting".

How do you do that, when you don't really know who the top two candidates are? Well, you may be surprised to know that polling organizations have the advanced numbers on how people say they will vote, riding by riding, and the information is available on the internet. Click on the link below, enter your postal code, and you will see the latest poll numbers on your riding.

This is the website link: http://www.avaaz.org/en/canada_elections/?vl

CKXT's New Format as SUN NEWS, is All Right Wing

2011-04-23T19:13:00.000-04:00

There is no way this is not going to be a rant, as one of my TV channels, CKXT, has been reformatted as a Fox style 24 hour right wing news channel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CKXT-TV (Quote from Wikipedia)

"The simulcast began at the same time Sun News itself launched, at 4:30pm ET on April 18, 2011.

That said, it is not presently clear if this simulcast will be maintained on a long-term basis. Unlike specialty channels, CKXT cannot presently avail of subscription fees. If the new news channel proves popular, with subscription revenue, Quebecor might have an incentive to move to a specialty service-only model. Conversely, if fee-for-carriage were implemented this could change; further, CKXT can solicit local advertising in Toronto, which national specialty channels generally cannot do."

I subscribe to Rogers basic cable in Kitchener, which includes about 36 channels including CPAC and French channels, a right wing Christian 24/7 channel, and a shopping channel. As a customer, I resent losing one more of the entertainment channels in favour of a biased right wing so-called news channel.

I called the Rogers toll free number and received sympathy, and the information that other people had been calling to ask about the change, and that the CKXT format changed on April 18, 2011 (while I was away from home).

I'm not going to criticize the CKXT content right now, except for one thing. This morning, I heard a news host (Possibly Theo Caldwell) comment that "liberals think we conservatives are so stupid we can't spell CBC." That comment itself is stupider than not being able to spell CBC.

My options right now are

call Rogers to see if I can get either a discount or another channel to replace CKXT
drop my cable and go for a satellite dish
drop my cable and use rabbit ears.
keep on paying the same price and remove channel 15 from my remote channel surfer.

At least CKXT is not getting subscription money from the Basic cable, but it's still annoying to keep paying the same for one less watchable channel.

The Most Common Motorcycle-Car Accident

2011-04-17T09:29:00.000-04:00

The most common motorcycle accidents do not involve other vehicles. But of the accidents involving another vehicle, the car turning left into an oncoming motorcycle is the most common.

Recently, Ted Laturnus, writer for the Globe and Mail was struck just in this manner. Ted is not a novice motorcyclist, and had written about this type of accident a few years before it happened to him.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/new-cars/motorcycles/the-day-a-careless-driver-hit-my-motorcycle/article1984074/page2/

http://www.beginnerbikers.org/archive/index.php/t-20462.html?s=21c089bbff0d13407febb25777f1c993

If we want to reduce this type of accident what can we do about it? Many approaches have been suggested.

Stiffer penalties for car drivers. Motorcyclists wear bright colours, leave headlights lights on. Public awareness campaigns. Advising motorcyclists to drive as though nobody can see you. Some motorcyclists have the idea that loud exhaust pipes will overcome the "blindness" of car drivers.

In my opinion the key to ever solving a problem like this is to understand what causes it, and I'm not sure anyone has correctly identified the cause of this problem yet. I am not convinced it is simply carelessness, or selective blindness. What if this is not because the car driver did not see the motorcycle, but that it is because the car drivers' brain has not process the information coming from the eye fast enough. Think of it this way. The human brain can process "normal" visual inputs (I'm talking about seeing other cars as being "normal") very quickly, but abnormal inputs (Motorcycles) require a bit of extra thought - which delays the reaction time a half second or so. I have no scientific data on the amount of delay (if there is a delay), but it should be easy for scientists to rig up experiments to measure it. If there is a delay of even half a second, it can be the difference between life and death.

If this hypothesis proves correct, there may be ways to solve the problem. But in the meantime, here is what I think could help.

- Brighter colours on the motorcyclist will help the car driver spot them sooner, and hence give a little extra time for the brain to kick into gear. This has already been suggested.

- If the motorcyclist travels at a lower speed, this will also give a little extra mental processing time to the car driver. I am sure travelling over the speed limit makes it worse!

- Driving on the right side of the lane while passing an oncoming car may give a bit more time. (This tactic has been proven statistically, but I don't remember where I read about it.)

- When I'm worried about someone turning left in front of me, I weave the bike a little to make myself more obvious earlier.

- Sticking to divided limited access highways obviously is safer than travelling busy side streets, because it eliminates the possibility of this type of accident altogether. This is not really a "solution", but it acknowledges that we cannot solve the problem by threatening car drivers with stiff penalties.

I personally don't think the loud pipes count for anything, the car driver does not usually hear the exhaust, or pay any attention to it, or even knows where it comes from if it is heard.

Banning cell phone use would help, as this practice is making a bad situation worse, by slowing even further the reaction times.

Modern Russian Propaganda Includes Biker Gangs

2011-04-16T10:00:00.000-04:00

I'm noticing Russian propaganda now features a biker gang (kind of a Russian Hell's Angels) called the "Night Wolves". The best I can figure is the club is about 21 years old and has about 5 thousand members. There are chapters as far away as Serbia, I don't know where else they are.

Although nobody gives a lot of thought to Russian propaganda any more, the Russians are still active propagandists. There is a Russian news network in English, that hammers away at the U.S. every chance it gets. I watched a couple of their videos from last year, and found them quite well done. They focus tearing down the very thing that America is most proud of, the rich lifestyle.

http://rt.com/usa/news/american-dream-economy-unemployment/

http://rt.com/usa/news/usa-economy-wall-street-sex/?utm_source=2leep&utm_medium=2leep&utm_campaign=2leep

Here is a Night Wolves biker-related feature: Putin meets with Serbian members of the motorcycle gang "Night Wolves"

http://rt.com/news/features/putin-balkan-friends-football/

It seems to me that the Russian message, while it is polished and well focused, is not really making any impact. The Russians are yesterday's news. There is far more world wide interest in the conflict between Muslims and the US.

Picture: Putin on a Harley from this Russian Blog.

http://02varvara.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/putin-arrived-at-biker-rally-in-sevastopol-on-a-harley-trike-ease-on-down-the-road-vladimir-vladimirovich/

If you understand Russian, take a look at the Wikipedia entry for Night Wolves and tell me what its about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Trident13/NightWolves

How We Would Have Been Better Off Without Slavery

2011-04-14T15:51:00.001-04:00

This is the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, where slavery was officially abolished. This month is the 50th anniversary of Sierra Leone's independence.

But the effects of the slave trade across the Atlantic to America will continue to be felt long after this year, both in America and in Africa, and to some extent all over the world.

The Lost Motorcyclist has already seen a southern American on TV denying that the civil war was about slavery. Apparently, their argument goes, that very few Southerners actually owned slaves, therefore the war was not about slavery. So, what was it about? "Defending our country from invasion".

It saddens me to think that some people believe this, and worse yet that TV stations will run it on news programs.

Of course the civil war was about slavery, and it was not just the slave owners who were guilty. The vast majority of the white people in the south supported racist slavery. They had jobs supervising slaves, chasing after runaway slaves. And they voluntarily committed racial atrocities for no pay at all. For example, if any union soldiers surrendered, the black soldiers were killed, while the white soldiers were kept for later prisoner exchange. It could even be that some of the slave owners could have been kinder than many of the general southern population.

Slavery does not corrupt only the slave owners. It corrupts the people who benefit materially from slavery, it corrupts people who believe that slavery is just, it corrupts religion that uses the Bible to argue for slavery. And along with corrupt religion and unjust laws, the morals of an entire people become corrupt.

Even today, you can look at the morality and cultural values of the old slave states, and see that it is lower than the morality of places that did not rely too heavily on slavery. To see the lingering effects of slavery, one needs to look at the current culture of the southern USA, starting with their descent into primitive superstitious religion, in this case the religion is masquerading as born-again Christianity. Look at their distrust of science and education, their destructive attitude toward the environment, toward war, toward anyone but white people, toward guns. Look at their love of money and consumerism. Their hatred of other countries (including large parts of the rest of the USA). But they do love Israel, I suspect it is because Israel is the last modern officially racist state. Finally, their firm belief that they are the only real Americans and everyone else should get out.

Yes, I'm talking about the modern right wing fundamentalist, Republican voting conservatives. These warped ideas fuelled by Nazi style propaganda and lies do not spring naturally from a free civilized society. They are born of fear and terror. Fear of the terror they unleashed with the institution of slavery. Fear of what may become of them. Sadness at how they have ruined their country by importing slaves, but at the same time anger that they needed to have their asses kicked before they were forced to give up slavery forever.

But just the way slavery has corrupted American society, it has also had devastating effects on Africa. Although the Africans have been able to make up for the loss of population by birth rates, the African culture has also been perverted. We really do not know much about African history, or what actually went on there during the slave trade. We imagine that it was simply a matter of white people getting off a boat and chasing black people, and bringing them back to the boat in chains. It was not that simple.

The Europeans needed to first destroy African society in order to make the slave trade work on the large scale they needed. On the very simplest level, ancient Africa was made up of many tribes and social groupings. The Europeans devised a scheme of franchising certain tribes as their slave trade partners. The selected tribes were provided with guns. The tribes that were not selected were not allowed to have guns. That is all you need in your basic recipe for destroying a civilization, and destroying it for generations to come. It was so thoroughly destroyed, that even today for many to believe that there is something basically flawed about black people.

So we have a very sad situation for the USA, which might have been a better country without slavery and the civil war. More freedom, less violence, better relations with other countries, and better treatment of the native Americans. I'm not saying it would be perfect, just better than it turned out to be.

And the same could have been true for Africa without the slave trade. More democracy, more education, less corruption, more sustainable jobs. Again, I'm not saying it would be just like Europe (and I am also not saying our modern civilization is necessarily the best model), but much better than it has turned out, especially in places like Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and Congo.

For a quick look at how slavery affected Africa:

http://www.shunpiking.com/bhs2007/200-BHS-EM-impactof.htm

Picture: Gallows built for war criminals after the US civil war. There were only two war criminals executed, must have been a very civil war compared to most. Anyway the alleged war crime was for the death by starvation of thousands of Union prisoners at Andersonville prison camp, which came about after the prisoner exchanges were halted, which came about because the south refused to treat black and white Union soldiers the same. Namely, the southern policy of killing the black prisoners of war, a war crime which came about because of slavery.

http://old-photos.blogspot.com/2008/02/execution-in-washington-dc.html

Is Driving in a Car Like Watching TV?

2011-04-14T09:52:00.000-04:00

Robert Pirsig, in his book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", tried to explain why motorcycling was more exciting than driving in a car.

"You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.

On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on, it's right there, so blurred you can't focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it anytime, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness."

Now that I'm getting out to ride for the first few times this year, I'm starting to wonder if I might also be "in a compartment" while riding my motorcycle. While I don't have any doors between me and the outside, I do have a full face helmet to frame my view, and an armoured motorcycle jacket. I have never before had such a heavy, stiff outfit to wear. I have the face shield down, and the inner sun shield also down, and I am wearing earplugs, and the jacket with five armoured sections has the two front zippers done up, and a neck protector stuck on. It's starting to feel like I have traded away a lot of freedom just to eliminate the windshield and doors on the car that Pirsig says makes everything look like TV.

I have improved my motorcycle gear over the years. As my motorcycle gear gets better, and has more features, it also gets heavier and stiffer until I can hardly walk in it. Getting into the motorcycle gear is also quite a strenuous exercise, both mentally and physically. I have to make sure I don't pull a muscle in my back as I pull on my motorcycle boots, and I have to get dressed fairly quickly or I will get overheated before I can get out of the driveway. If I forget one thing (earplugs) I have to back up and try again. Even if I forget that my keys are in my jeans pockets, I have a lot of undressing and redressing to do to get at them.

I cannot help comparing this to how "The Lost Motorcyclist" (me) started out, as I have an identical motorcycle to my first one in the garage right next to the 650 lb. Vulcan 900. Now let me try to remember, what did I do before getting on my Honda 175 for a "short" ride forty years ago? Nope I can't think of anything for a short ride. For a medium ride I would put on sunglasses. For long ride I would wear a helmet, long pants and shoes. You don't need to tell me how stupid that was, I know by now that I was lucky to live through it. I once got hit with a big, hard, bug in the eye. I was almost bitten on the ankle by poisonous snake, and I was actually bitten by a dog that could have had rabies (but didn't). I skidded and fell once wearing shorts and flip-flops. I got hit by many rocks, soaked with rain and also mud, covered with dust, sunburned, and left with a ringing in my ears. Which I hardly noticed compared to my fingers numb from vibration and rear end pounded by over a hundred miles of crappy roads.

But all that discomfort is far behind me now as I waddle out to the bike wearing 70 lbs. of armoured gear, and ride around almost as comfortable as if I was in my car. I can look down as the road whizzes by just below my floorboards and my heavy boots, although it is a bit difficult to bend my neck far enough to see that. In fact it's a bit of a chore even to look down and see the speedometer, because of the helmet chin bar and the stiff jacket collar.

So last night, I was out for a ride in the car, and thinking how nice it was to be dressed in ordinary comfortable clothing, and to be able to turn up the heater and listen to Pearl Jam playing "Last Kiss" on the radio (until I remembered it was all about a fatal car crash.)

When I reached my destination, I thought I might just get out and go for a little walk to enjoy the sights. I got out of the car, locked the door, took two steps and turned around and got back in. I almost forgot! It's cold out there, and I forgot to bring my winter jacket and toque. One thing you never forget on a motorcycle is how cold or hot it is outside, because no matter how you dress for it, while you are riding, you are still outdoors.

Picture: Robert Pirsig and his son Chris posing on his bike. I suppose they wore helmets on their trip, although I don't see any in the picture, but they do look comfortably dressed for walking around the picnic area.

http://www.univie.ac.at/Anglistik/easyrider/data/zen_and_the_art_of_motorcycle_ma.htm

Canadian Election, Leaders' Debate

2011-04-13T07:31:00.000-04:00

Canada is having a federal election, and last night "The Lost Motorcyclist" watched the leaders debate. Not because I really wanted to, but because it bumped my favourite TV show.

Canada currently has five federal political parties. I do not use the word "national" parties because one party, "The Bloc Quebecois" is intent on breaking up Canada, so it is a Federal party but not a National one.

Another party "The Green Party" has no members in parliament, never has had a member in parliament. Their leader was excluded from the debate for this reason. But there is no rule about this in Canadian politics, it is a decision traditionally made by TV executives depending on what they think will make the most interesting TV show.

We had the debate in English last night, and soon we will have the same debate (sort of) in French. Last night, only Gilles Duceppe, the Bloc leader, had any trouble with English. It's not because of his French accent, either. He has no trace of a French accent when he speaks English. He seems to have made up an accent of his own. Let me give you an example. The word "Panama" came up in the debate (no idea why and it better not be because we are bombing them). In French it is pronounced "panna - MAW". In English is it pronounced "PAN - uh-muh). Gilles pronounces it "pa - NAME - aw".

Let's try another one, "Ghetto". Even easier, it is the same word in French and English, and pronounced just about the same way "ge -to". You can verify that yourself by listening to it in French on this web page (click the triangle button). Gilles pronounces it "GETE- to".

http://www.forvo.com/word/ghettos/

The only conclusion I can come to is that Gilles Duceppe's English Language coach is a Conservative party supporter.

Now for the substance of the debate. The most effective technique used was contradiction. Your opponent says something and you say "That's not true, the very opposite is true."

For example: Layton (NDP leader) says to Harper (Conservative, and incumbent Prime Minister) "You are bad because you cut funding to xxxxx program.". Harper responds "That is not true, we have tripled funding to xxxxx program." Layton: "Why did you cut the funding?" etc.

My time was not totally wasted watching the debate, there were a few good barbs. Jack Layton: (paraphrased) "Why build more prisons? Criminals seem happy enough in the Senate". Reference to Harper appointing senators with a criminal past.

Heavily Loaded Scooter Saves Money on Gas

2011-04-12T09:33:00.000-04:00

By The Lost Motorcyclist April 2011

On Sunday, we had the first high temperature of the year, 22c. On the same day we had the highest gas prices of the last two years at $1.28 per litre.

We were going to visit my mother that day, and with the weather and the gas prices, Mary Ann had the idea of taking her Suzuki Burgman. It would also be her first time driving the scooter in 2011, and at those gas prices, the Burgman could save us about seven dollars on the 300 km. round trip compared to the Toyota Matrix.

At 9:30 A.M., there was rain falling a few kilometers to the north of us, and it was only 8c. Also, we wanted to arrive back home at 9:30 P.M. which is after dark, and I usually avoid riding in the dark in April because of the freezing. But the detailed (hour by hour) weather report said it would still be above 15c at 9:30 P.M.

As I was packing our rain gear under the Burgman's seat, I could see raindrops hitting the driveway bricks. I told Mary Ann that we should get going, and according to the radar weather, we should try to drive south as far as we could to get out of the path of the rain. We didn't actually make it out of the city before it started raining enough to get our face shields wet. The road was still dry, but behind us the sky was dark, and we saw at least one lightning strike. It didn't help when Mary Ann made the wrong turn on one of our poorly marked roundabouts and we headed back north into the city. But then we got that sorted out, and soon after the skies brightened, and the rain stopped. We just made it out of Kitchener before a storm struck and covered the ground in hail. (we found out later).

We stopped for our first fill up of gas that was only $1.24 per litre at a truck stop near the 401 at Woodstock. Once we were on the 401, the Burgman matched the speed of the big trucks, and we made it all the way to Dutton by noon.

The afternoon in Dutton was sunny, and it did get up to 22c, so it was actually almost too hot. We started the return trip just before 8 P.M. It felt a bit strange, putting all that warm heavy motorcycle clothing on, with the temperature still at 22c. Mary Ann headed right back down the 401 to the same Woodstock gas station and we filled up a second time with the "bargain" gas. Then we decided to take some back roads in the dark, and arrived home at about 9:30.

That was about the most comfortable I have ever felt as a passenger on the scooter. With my bladder stone removed, now I don't feel any pain on the bumps. Every year Mary Ann is better at balancing the scooter, and I am also learning how I can minimize the effect of my weight when we come to a stop.

I still worry about the small rear tire, so every time we go on the freeway together, I make sure the rear pressure is 40 psi. Actually I suppose I should also check even with a big tire like the Vulcan's, but it never seems to need any adjustment.

The three pictures are: Mary Ann and the Burgman (in Dutton), the first fill up (Woodstock, daytime), and the last fill up (exact same place on the way back, night time) She is filling up the bike while sitting on it, because the filler cap is right between her feet.

I found a video by a guy who drove his Burgman 400 from Texas to Seattle and back, and I'm posting a link here. Mar 14, 2010 — 5,938.5 mile trip to west coast from Texas in Sept 2009. 95.64 gallons (US) = 62 mpg (US). The video is mostly a slide show of still pictures, but well done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTLwMwMwQGE

Port Dover Chronicles 1.2011

2011-04-09T23:24:00.000-04:00

Today was my first motorcycle trip to Port Dover of the year 2011. It was a sunny day, at about 13c was almost too warm for my usual gear, so I removed the throat protector collar from my jacket.

There was one major difference from 2010 "en route", a new Tim Horton's is open, Rest Acres road on the south edge of Paris. We started the trip at the Rest Acres Tim Horton's. I ordered my lunch as usual, but there were no trays to put it on. I was just going to ask for one, when the woman behind me asked for one first. The cashier pulled out a tray and put it on the counter for her. Then I asked for one, and she had to walk to the other side of the store to find another one. Most Tim Horton's have a place to stack trays right at the front of the counter. I just can't figure out, with over 3000 Tim Hortons built by now that they still can't seem to get each new one right. It's not like they are built by people who have never seen a Tim Hortons before! Ooops looks like I'm ranting. That often happens when my blood donut levels get too low, like right now.

I was so distracted by the tray incident that when I left Tim Hortons, I forgot to roll up the rim of my decaf to see if I won a new Toyota Venza.

While Barry was leading we got lost on the way to Port Dover. With the number of times I have driven to Port Dover (over 30 times last year), I thought that would be impossible. Even though my blog name is "The Lost Motorcyclist", I don't really get lost that much. But we ended up on a road I had never seen before heading south, between the old highway 24 and Cockshutt Road. It was paved and narrow, and actually had two curves and a bridge on it. So getting lost was actually the best part of the trip, as we had no urgent deadline for getting to Port Dover.

Then Barry had to stop for gas, and complained about the price. I told he shouldn't have to worry because his 150cc Kymco Scooter only takes about 2 liters per thousand kilometers. But Barry insisted the thing needs ultra high test gas, which was $1.41 per liter in Waterford, compared to about $1.27 for regular, which is the type my Vulcan 900 takes. So I guess for Barry that works out to about an extra 15 cents a year. Meanwhile the Venza I just lost was probably worth about $30,000, but do you hear me complaining?

The parking lot at Tim Hortons in Port Dover, and at the abandoned restaurant next door were both full of bikes. Mostly Harleys, but we did talk to one guy on a Suzuki GSXR750, who had a "Suzuki Sucks" sticker on the front fender. I asked him to explain this curious sticker, and he said he was supporting a friend of his who bought a Suzuki Hayabusa that was a lemon and the dealer didn't refund his purchase price. So the friend made up a batch of these stickers and passed them out to anyone who would put it on their bike for him. I guess that'll teach the Suzuki dealer to mess around with a guy that owns a custom sticker business.

Picture: At Tim Hortons' on Rest Acres Road. The colours are a bit off because I think the bright green on my newly cleaned jacket must have maxed out the colour balancing meter in the camera. I'll have to start taking pictures in the shade.

Cycle Canada: Getting Past the Porn

2011-04-08T20:24:00.001-04:00

I just received my Cycle Canada for May 2011 today, handed to me by a very suspicious Mary Ann. The cover boldly proclaimed "The Italian Bike Porn Issue". She had already gone through it and was unable to find the porn, I tried to explain to her that the meaning of the word porn has now been expanded to include non-sexual stuff which you would like to sound more exciting. Mary Ann, a farm girl, is unaccustomed to city slicker ways of twisting words, and remains doubtful.

I like reading motorcycle magazines, and I have been reading Cycle Canada for forty years. In fact this year, it is publishing it's fortieth anniversary editions. Under the new editorship of Neil Graham, Cycle Canada seems to once again have regained its top form.

In this issue, I found many interesting bits of reading, which I won't bother getting into. But one letter to the editor got me thinking. I have often complained of the bad drivers in Canada, especially southern Ontario, where I have lived for the last 30 years. This letter was from Asif Ikram, who recently moved to Oakville Ontario, from the UK, and is commenting on incompetent drivers and unsafe cars on the road, and wraps it up with "I'm sure a trained chimp could get a licence here."

To that I would say, the worst I have ever seen here was a dog driving a minivan. No I don't know what kind of dog, I only had a brief look as he (or she, I don't want to be sexist) went by at about 100 kph. But I'm betting the dog has neither a licence nor insurance. Which brings up another point, that Asif may not be aware of. I think I read somewhere that the police estimate 30,000 drivers in Toronto do not have a driving licence. It happens all the time here, friends of mine tell me they know people who do this. So the issue is not about giving driving licences to trained chimps, it is getting the unlicenced trained chimps off the road. And because these chimps look so much like humans, it's hard to do. Besides, what's the difference if people are driving and reading magazines or texting on the cell phones anyway? I would prefer the chimp, if the training included not reading or texting while driving.

Of course accidents will happen in Canada, but they also happen in the UK, in fact everywhere. It seems to me that every time you go to a new place you have to get used to subtle differences in driving style. At first these differences may seem like incompetence, but gradually you realize it is a different culture. Even between Quebec and Ontario you find differences in driving style. In Quebec it's more aggressive and faster. In Ontario it's more about multi-tasking while driving and hogging the fast lane. You just have to get used to these differences as you drive from one place to another.

I have not spent a huge amount of time in England, a total of probably less than six months over the last 50 years. But during those six months I was involved in two accidents and one near miss where an oncoming driver forced me to go onto a lawn to avoid being hit head on. (very freaky for a guy who is not used to driving on the left, but I was on the correct side of the road for England.) In the two actual accidents, I was a passenger in a friend's car, and a passenger in a bus. I have only been involved in one accident in Canada. Someone making an illegal u-turn wrecked my car, and another unreported incident was slight touch on my back bumper at a stop sign . So just by my personal experience, you would not be able to prove Canada had worse drivers. But for sure, in the UK on a freeway, I never saw drivers hogging the fast lane like they do in Ontario.

The second point was about rusty cars and cars that should not be on the road because of mechanical issues. Remember, we have salt here, we are more used to rust than Brits are. Asif also commented that in the UK, they have safety inspections "so rigorous that three year old cars routinely fail", well I for one would vote against that kind of inspection in Canada. Who in their right mind (other than a safety inspector with a nice steady paycheck) would want that? Or, maybe a more interesting question, what kind of cars do they sell in the UK?

Finally, yes, there is one place where the competence of British drivers is clearly demonstrated. Recently we had the "Toyota Scare", where Toyotas were accelerating into fatal accidents, and the drivers claimed it was the car's fault**. Now that the investigation has been completed, it seems conclusive that it was all driver error. But this happened only on our side of the pond, although Toyotas were also sold in the UK. Maybe Asif does have a point about our incompetence.

** It may sound contradictory that a driver in a fatal accident says it is the car's fault, but in the most famous case, the driver phoned 911 to complain about the car's acceleration seconds before the fatal crash.

Picture: Marc Yskamp lets Cheeta the Chimp check out his classic Ford Mustang.

"None So Blind as Will Not See" Does Not Apply to Everyone Equally

2011-04-08T09:56:00.000-04:00

There is an old adage "There are none so blind as will not see". Recently this quote was used in a response to one of my blogs, citing Jonathan Swift as the source. The saying refers to a person who refuses to see the truth, who is "blinded" by something. The "blinding" could be as a result of many things, for example: education, parental values, patriotism, habit, stubbornness, fear, or hate.

Another commenter responded that even if this adage applies to a given controversy, it is impossible to know which side is the one that "will not see". I wanted to investigate whether there is indeed a pure symmetry in the statement of who "will not see", or if there are some characteristics that would lean the "will not see" to one side or the other.

Swift's quote was used as cliche in polite society. The idea appeared in the Bible, too, where you were told to remove the plank from your own eye before you tried to remove a splinter from another person's eye.

When I looked up the quote by Jonathan Swift, I found it in "Polite Conversation". Jonathan Swift in his typical ironic style, explains in the introduction that he is writing a book that captures all the witty repartee (and apparently cliches too) of "Polite Society".

http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/jonathan-swift/polite-conversation--in-three-dialogues-hci/page-8-polite-conversation--in-three-dialogues-hci.shtml

Dialogue III 174

.....

Lady Answ. They say, she's quite a
Stranger to all his Gallantries.

Lady Smart. Not at all ; but, you
know, there's none so blind as they that
won't see.

Miss. O Madam, I am told, she
watches him, as a Cat would watch a
Mouse.

.....

An upper class lady "would not see" that her husband was fooling around, even though everybody else knew about it. I guess we could generalize that as anyone in a very comfortable lifestyle, who will tend to ignore warning signs of serious problems they don't know how to deal with.

How can we apply this quote to the global warming debate? We are fond of our lavish lifestyles, with cars, SUV's, big houses, plentiful cheap energy all around. We would prefer to not think about what damage our lavish lifestyle is doing to the environment. We would prefer to not think that our need for resources causes wars even as it creates pollution and waste. So we turn a blind eye to the bad side, and continue consuming more and more, ignoring anyone who tries to warn us, or tell us anything that might burst our bubble.

So if we look at the environmental controversy, it is not actually symmetrical. Both sides would prefer in their hearts to believe the same thing, that pollution, global warming, overpopulation etc. will never cause a problem. The one "uncomfortable" side of the controversy is to believe that something is going on that we must take difficult steps to prevent.

So in this controversy, I believe we can all agree that one side of the argument is the preferred side, the other side is the uncomfortable side. One side is the one we desperately want to believe, the other side, if we believe it, can make us unhappy, and may force us to do something about it.

Global warming deniers fall into two camps. One is to believe that there is no global warming, that this is all cooked up figures by rogue scientists to try and get grants, or to impose a socialist government. The other view is that yes, the earth is warming, but this is a natural process, and there is nothing we can do about it anyway.

With the two denial camps I have referred to, "There is no warming" vs. "Warming is natural", it is amazing to me that most people I know believe both arguments simultaneously, which strikes me as illogical. But I guess they're really saying "Hey nobody really knows anything for sure, so I can believe both at the same time"

Although there are warning signs, deniers would prefer to either ignore them, or blame everything bad on socialists or environmentalists, or just Al Gore. We would ignore warnings rather than than scale back our God given lifestyle to any degree. We would rather deplete our oil supply than begin developing renewable technologies that may prolong our civilization. Instead of exercising caution, we write articles about how caution is overrated.

Like the upper class lady with a cheating husband, even when we really do see disasters happening, we often "do not see them" and carry on as usual. Two recent examples, the 2008 economic crisis and the BP oil spill, the multi million dollar bonuses paid to bank executives who nearly wrecked the world's economy, and more recently multi million dollar bonuses paid to oil executives involved in the spill. Apparently there is no disaster big enough to force comfortable people into a reality check.

I believe that the expression "None so blind as will not see" is appropriate for global warming deniers. It does not prove that global warming exists of course, merely that the deniers are the ones who really should ask themselves if they are on the side of truth, or if they have succumbed to the common human failing of refusing to see anything which is a threat to their comfortable lifestyle.

Picture: Blind driver off the Internet. Motorcyclists always say the car drivers are blind and are out to get you.

Tigers and Pigs Living Together Does Not Disprove Darwin

2011-04-06T18:16:00.001-04:00

This is a public service for creationists, who want to give up the story of Adam and Eve as literal truth, but have a lot of trouble understanding evolution, because of all the misconceptions they have been fed.

For Born Again Christians who would like to become more integrated in mainstream western society, here is an explanation of why tiger cubs in a zoo being fed by a mother pig does not disprove evolution.

http://creation.com/tigers-and-pigs-together

One of the supporting stories of the Born Again Christian creation story is that before the fall of Adam and Eve, none of the animals ate each other. Every creature was in harmony.

"The Bible teaches that the original diet of both humans and animals was vegetarian (Genesis 1:29–30). Thus there was no death of humans or vertebrate animals, which the Hebrew Bible calls nephesh chayyāh (נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה). Plants and invertebrates are not described that way, so are not ‘living creatures’ in the same biblical sense. It was only the Fall of Adam that brought death and suffering into the world (Genesis 3:19, Romans 8:20–22) when God cursed the whole creation."

http://creation.com/skeptics-challenge-a-god-of-love-created-a-killer-jellyfish

Darwin proposed his theory of evolution, which stated that animals had evolved their size, shape and most other characteristics, in order to better survive. In other words, every characteristic of an animal was in some way to help either get food, to avoid being food, or to reproduce efficiently. Most animals have very little that is not needed for survival. Almost everything is fine tuned for hunting or defence. This would tend to support the idea of evolution, rather than creation as a vegetarian creature.

However, there are cases in nature where animals help each other, or do not try to kill each other. And that has been taken as proof that before Adam and Eve wrecked everything, God actually intended for all these newly created animals to live together in vegetarian peace and harmony.

So let's take an example of a mother lion, not killing and eating all her young. If the theory of evolution says that the strong must eat the weak, then the lion mother, being strong, would normally eat the weaker lion cubs. But that's not really what the theory of evolution says.

Darwin did not say that the strong must kill the weak. He said that the species would evolve according to which animals' young survived best. By the way, survival of the strongest was not Darwin's idea either, it is a simple observation that did not take a giant intellect to figure out.

A second example, two wolves help each other to hunt and kill a caribou, instead of one wolf trying to kill and eat the other wolf. Again, any wolves that have a stronger instinct to kill and eat each other than to join forces against a Caribou, will not survive very long. The big wolf, eating the smaller wolf, gets a meal but then may starve to death. So both wolves die, probably before even having any young. But two wolves teaming up will be able to hunt Caribou more successfully for the rest of their lives. So therefore wolves with an instinct to hunt together will survive better, and so will their young.

Now that the basics are understood, it should not be too hard to figure out that inter species cooperation sometimes can happen too, based on exactly the same principles. There are so many different cases, I could not explain them all, but anyone should be able to, once their creationist misunderstandings of "Darwinism" are cleared up.

quote: http://creation.com/skeptics-challenge-a-god-of-love-created-a-killer-jellyfish

"From this biblical framework, Christians can present a logical answer to any scoffer’s challenge. Any specific case is likely to fall into these general categories of explanation:2

(a) Those things that are now used as DAS (defence-attack structures) may not have been designed for this purpose, and had a different function before the Fall. They reached their present function by degeneration, e.g. mutations.

(b) The design information for DAS was already present before the Fall, perhaps in latent or masked form. God foreknew the Fall, so it’s likely that He preprogrammed creatures for the information needed to survive in a fallen world."

From the previous quote I would simply ignore point (a), once you know that (b) is "God foreknew the fall", and so built in all these defence and survival systems. To me, the explanation of God planning ahead for the fall is opening another door to a convincing case that God was not really too serious about the Garden of Eden. Apparently His anger at Adam and Eve, and His "cursing all creation" was not much more than acting with mock anger about something he knew would happen and had actually planned for.

So that's one more problem cleared up for Christians tired of arguing against scientists, and looking to be more integrated in modern society.

Picture: A tiger not eating a pig. From here: http://www.savincent.com/today/2004/07/20040726.html