Rascism In Calgary

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New Musings

Well it's been ages since I've updated this blog, and a lot has changed since then. The Conservative Party of Canada has won another minority government, convinced the Governor General to prorogue Parliament and has weathered the Liberal Party climbing (and then receding) in the polls under the new leadership of Michael Ignatieff. These have been interesting times for the politically inclined in Canada. Most people in my home province of Alberta seemed to think that the plot hatched by the Liberal Party to form a coalition government with the NDP and Bloc was an attempt to subvert democracy. This just showcased their own illiteracy when it comes to Canadian Politics.

Unlike the American system, where one votes for the leader and representative separately, in the Canadian system we literally only vote for the party, nothing else. The party with the most seats has their leader elected Prime Minister. By virtue of this logic, whoever can command the respect of the majority of the members of Parliament is the Prime Minister. Given the amount of bile that western voters were spewing over this current political debacle, you'd think they had no idea how this system works. Unfortunately for them the Conservatives always seem to do a terrible job of convincing the rest of Canada that they harbor no secret agenda.

I for one would have relished the chance to see the Conservative Party fall, however that seems less and less likely. I do not have the same visceral dislike for Stephen Harper I once did, but every time I feel like they've done the right thing, they take a massive step backwards in my books by allowing some idiot MP to leak something or voice an extremely stupid opinion. As well their policy of getting tougher on drug offenders sickens me. We already have a longitudinal study of how those policies fail in the form of U.S. criminal policy. The same could be said of Health Care, however there are Conservatives here that will always be clamoring for a more American style of governance. One can only hope they remain the minority.

Election 2008

The time has come for Canada to vote again, and to me it's never felt more like a choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. To me everything the Conservative Party of Canada has done over this last minority government has been the right political maneuver, but the wrong thing for Canada as a whole. They've constantly rattled their sabers over every bill that tried to pass the house of commons, bullying the leftist parties into compliance with the threat of a premature election, and now they've finally pulled the pin on that threat, right when they're in the best position in the polls.

I am a die hard liberal anarchist, I reject every form of arbitrary authority, every privilege of rank or station on principle, and I think that social mobility in this country is directly at odds with the machinations of the Conservative Party of Canada. This party is the self absorbed impulse of the baby boomer generation personified, the kind of people that went to university in the 1970s for what would amount to pennies on the dollar today, and then when they 'grew up' slashed taxes to the point that post secondary education in this country is getting to be prohibitively expensive for many Canadians. These are the people that want to get tough on crime even though crime is at it's lowest point in thirty years. These are the people that actually had the gall to bring an anti-gay marriage bill to the house of commons even though the issue is dead and buried for the vast majority of Canadians.

I get seriously worried about what the Conservative government will do when they gain a majority in this coming election. Their agenda is pure tripe as far as I'm concerned, I for one do not want to see a militarized Canada built to "defend Canada's interests around the globe" as Harper put it. That kind of talk smacks of the United States in the 70s in their dealing with South America, overthrowing democratically elected governments and replacing them with naked fascism in an attempt to protect America's interests.

Unfortunately for Canadians as a whole, Stéphane Dion and the Liberal party seem to have forgotten how to win an election. They're passively accepting the barbs hurled from the Conservative camp, and not striking back with anything on Harper worth remembering. I fear that Harper will introduce another round of tax breaks with the aim of making socialized medicine economically unfeasible without raising taxes, something any party would be loath to do given the general shortsightedness of the electorate.

We as Canadians are at a crossroads. The way we have always done things is fast becoming environmentally and economically unfeasible. We are not a pure consumerist culture like the United States, but the Conservative Party makes no secret of their love affair with the Republican Party. My MP, Rob Anders was actually a republican hatchet artist, and he routinely wins elections even though he refuses to attend debates and has been demoted to a party back bencher for his asinine musings (like calling Nelson Mandela a terrorist for one). We cannot continue to hack away at our social programs and expect to maintain our national identity.

Unfortunately, in a true democracy, you end up with the Government you deserve.

Roland Ashley Warawa - Scumbag

The gang violence in Calgary is getting out of control. All these two bit hoods acting like wannabe gangsters shooting at each other in public places is starting to take a toll on our fair city. Jose Ribamar Ribeiro Neto was minding his own business, leaving a restaurant downtown when he was shot in the face by this worthless puke as he took pot shots at who the hell ever, now the poor guy is blinded.

Say what you will about more established gangs like the Hells Angels, but at least they take care of business out in the boonies (with a few terrible exceptions, mostly from the Quebec Biker War that claimed 150 lives, i.e. Daniel Desrochers), and innocent people are usually left out of the mix.

The thing that bugs me the most about this whole thing is that Warawa has been incarcerated before on weapons and attempted murder charges! In 1997 he was sentenced to 10.5 years behind bars and prohibited from carrying a weapon until 2014. Apparently robbing a shopkeeper and trying to kill him with a .22 is grounds for a more lenient sentence than someone trafficing narcotics. What is wrong with our legal system that violent offenders get more lenient sentences than drug offenders? How does that make any goddamn sense!? The sad thing is Jose told his family (from northern Brazil) that he felt safe here, but today he has lost an eye, possibly two. As the Brazilian community rallies around this unfortunate victim, all we can wish is that the courts do not make another mistake with his viscous attacker, and simply throw away the key next time he gets thrown in the brig.

What an asshole.

CFL Losers - The Entire East Division

It seems like every year lately the East Division of the CFL is becoming more and more of a joke. A quick perusal of the standings makes this more and more evident. Three of the four teams there are below .500 and two of them are so far below there is no conceivable way for them to crawl back into it. It all starts with Casey Printers for the Hamilton Tiger Cats. A former MOP, he tried his luck in the NFL for the Kansas City Chiefs and was unceremoniously cut. There is nothing new about CFL players trying out for NFL teams, what could be disturbing is that unlike Jeff Garcia, Doug Flutie and Warren Moon, Casey Printers tried out for a terrible team, and didn't even manage to make it on as a backup. His CFL MOP season was tremendous, but given his recent performances in Hamilton and Kansas City, it leads me to believe that the onus for those campaigns was more on the rest of the team than Printers himself.

Look at the Lions, even now, dead last in the West (yet still above .500). They still have arguably the best receiving corps in the league, far and away the best defensive line in the league, a seriously good offensive line, etc. The message should have been sent around the league when Wally Buono started Dickensen instead of Printers in the Grey Cup.

The rest of the division has not fared too well this season either, Toronto is in shambles, Kerry Joseph has recently been benched for under performing. Winnipeg has randomly become an absolute mess, just a smidgen better than the lowly Ti-Cats. Recently Montreal ventured west only to get totally creamed by a hungry Stampeders team that was desperate for some separation in the West (they didn't manage to get it, the Tiger Cats played their best only to revert back to their old ways and lose to Edmonton).

The only thing buoying the Alouette's record this season has been a terrible division to feast on, otherwise they might have been below .500 as well. As terrible as the East is, every once in awhile they show flashes of brilliance. Winnipeg in particular this season has had some amazing 'almost won' games. Mental errors seem to have plagued the cellar dwellers more than anything else this season, o-linemen totally missing blocking assignments, receivers running routes that the quarterback did not anticipate or were not part of the play, etc. This season it looks probable that we will have two west teams in the Cup final, hopefully BC and Calgary.

Last Week's Ride - Highway 3

Last week I was fortunate enough to ride out on Highway 3 to the Okanagan and come back three days later. For those of you who don't know Highway 3 is the 'scenic route' to the coast from Calgary and southern Canada. The whole highway once you get off 22 coming down from Calgary and get onto the 3 is full of motorcyclists. Once you get deeper into BC it's easy to see why.

Twisties abound, and you'll often find yourself riding hard through a mountain pass only to be blown away by a breathtaking vista that showcases the natural beauty BC is famous for. My favourite leg of the highway is the one between Creston and Osoyoos, there is not a lot of developement along that trail, and it's where the curves in the road get real agressive. There's nothing like ripping through tight turns at a decent clip and being able to simply rip open the throttle and pass all the minivan imprisoned squares while you arduously climb a massive mountain in the middle of nowhere. Also, once I ended up in Osoyoos I hit up the highway to Keremeos and then hopped over to Penticton, it was a beautiful ride through those dry, almost desert hills.

Being that I was riding a sportster with the stock gas tank, with a grand total of 3.3 gallons of space, stops were frequent. I was itching to test out the advertised 60 MPG highway on this bike, unfortunately it wasn't quite that fuel effecient, however there were several mitigating factors. On the ride down to Crowsnest Pass early Sunday morning it was perhaps 3 degrees celsius out, tops. Regrettably this forced me to warm my hands up on the engine itself, seeing as I was doing a decent clip of 120 kph pretty much consistently. The wind chill was ferocious at this time of year, and until about 10 am I had to do this with regularity. This prevented me from keeping a constant speed and I drifted into Crowsnest Pass in bad need of gas.

That was the only hiccup though. This winter I'm definitely going to try and invest in some heated grips and perhaps saddlebags as the backpack started to wear on my shoulder pretty hard by the end of the first trip. I also got a few dirty looks from fellow HD riders because of my full face helmet. I own a bucket helmet, but I rarely take it outside of city limits, simply because I don't feel I have enough riding experience yet to take a bee (which has happened at highway speed) or worse yet a rock, to the face and maintain control of the bike. Plus all those dudes had windshields anyways.

It was a great ride, unfortunately I didn't have my camera on me at the time, but next time I will for sure. Highly reccomended for those itching to get out on the highway and like to ride.

Things I Love & Hate About: Harley Davidson

Let me start this post off with some salient facts about myself, I own a Harley Davidson XL883, and I could not be happier with it. Harley Davidson is one of the oldest and most respected of all motorcycle manufacturers, weathering recessions, depressions, poor manufacturing and strikes that laid low storied companies like Vincent, Norton, Indian and yes, even Triumph, which has roared back with a vengeance. Make no mistake, I love Harley Davidson. That said there are a few things that irk or downright piss me off about the motor company.

First off, one of the biggest things I love about Harley; they make sexy bikes. No other motorcycle manufacturer can even come close to the stripped down badness of a Harley. This is taken from the March 2008 copy of Cycleworld, where the new softail Rocker C was stacked up against Yamaha's Star Raider S:

"In terms of appearance, the Rocker is the runaway winner, a minimalist bike with so much custom "cool" that it's hard to believe it rolled off a major manufacturer's assembly line. The Motor Company is to be congratulated for having the stones to produce a bike that so closely emulates one-off customs yet still behaves like a real motorcycle. Plus, it's a Harley, a factor that offers a cachet no other brand can equal."

As far as ascetics go, very few bikes can come close a Harley. It should be noted that the Rocker got a seriously favorable review, but for reasons I will discuss later it lost the head to head match up. Harley Davidson has come a long way as far as quality is concerned as well. However it's not all roses. Japanese bike manufacturers still outclass Harley when it comes to a few key areas, especially brakes:

"But in terms of function, the Raider S excels in virtually every aspect-engine performance, handling, cornering, breaking, comfort, versatility. It's also some $3300 cheaper, giving it a huge edge in the more-for-less category. Simply put, it's just a better all-around motorcycle."

That is the unfortunate truth, I bolded the price differential because the displacement on the Yamaha was a massive 1900ccs while the Rocker uses the same 96ci (1584cc) engine that most Softails do. The price differential brings me to my next point, and I suppose this has to do with the cachet that is so intrinsic to the Harley experience.

When I walk into a Harley dealership, what do I see? Doctors and Dentists and professional types of all stripes. That in and of itself is not a bad thing, however when one looks at some statistics about the average Harley rider, it becomes somewhat annoying given their 'bad to the bone' marketing and attitude. Unfortunately there is still another beef a lot of bikers have with Harley: it can be somewhat of a fashion show. Too many people decked out head to toe in brand new orange gear that's never seen the highway.

I may make 'Things I Love & Hate About' a regular thing on this blog, but we'll see, this one turned into quite the long winded article. I am a new motorcyclist, and I fully realize my conception of Harley Davidson will change over time as I ride more, own different motorcycles and (hopefully) attend NAIT for a pre-employment Motorcycle Mechanic course next year, but for now that's how I see The Motor Company, lots to love, a few nagging things to hate.