So what’s being going on here at Beer Can Hill HQ? Plenty, hence the relative inactivity on this internerd fridge magnet.
Firstly there was a WIN with the Bin the Bike Ban campaign last month, which requires monitoring and follow up. Then the peaceful re-education of several anti-cyclist facebook groups and their subsequent conversion to Bike Pride chapters. Although we shouldn’t really be surprised by the rank stupidity that people (using their real names) are capable of on a public forum.
There’s been so much activity that’s it’s difficult to put it all in context, from Roberts exceedingly kind offer of getting the plastic Igor eagles for Team Captain Bike (MS Summer Cycle), and media monitoring of even more rank stupidity in public, this time on the radio waves. Read the rest of this entry »
Are you sitting comfortably? Good, now lets begin.
Cue: Robert Gottliebsen style voice over.
Once upon a time there was a big, big business. They were most successful in selling their shiny widgets to the market. Or they thought they were. One year they did terribly well for themselves and sold approximately a massive 711, 836, 200 shiny widgets. They were feeling very chuffed with themselves.
But the next year something went terribly wrong. They sold only 499, 627, 500 shiny widgets. The bean counters hit panic stations. “Good gracious, what will we do? what will we do. One more year like this and we’ll all be rooned“, they yelled during internal meetings. In their panic, they schemed a grand scheme.
Why not undercut all our competitors, target their markets and attack, attack, attack! Yes, indeed, that would be a grand plan! And we will keep attacking until we win and sell even more shiny widgets!
Unfortunately some of them didn’t remember a vital lesson from business school. Bad business decisions that hurt the market will ultimately hurt everyone, including their big, big business. In the real world of business, such inept business practices call for a immediate change in management. But that stuff is for people with ethics and transparent decision making processes, not silly people who haven’t learnt anything from Ansett, OneTel, HIH, Enron, WorldCom or Global Crossing.
But this is all just a fairy tale, a cautionary, yet cryptic fable to scare the kiddies.
Defeat the Borg Collective with your step-through kiddies steel frame, complete with death ray drive train and advanced luxeon technology capable of piercing the hardest Selachian battle cruiser! Wish this went longer than 15 secs, even with the training wheels.
For your viewing pleasure: How to overtake more than 100 cars in 5 minutes.
Not entirely convinced about the afro skid lid, but the Brazilian scenery is gorgeous.
The second most wrong, bad link in the entire universe. I heard the very same lyrics when 6 years old. Now someones made them a visual reality.
The most wrong, bad link in the entire universe. NSFW! NSFW! That bloke in the suspensers and romantically posed with the Volvo had nothing on this.
Light’s finally gone green, time to commence laminating ….. oooo, before I forget, here’s a special little somethingguaranteed to have Tim Pallas & John Brumby breaking out in cold sweats and terrifying nightmares!
Hovis London Freewheel: The Day of the Bicycles!
London is buzzing today with the news that, for one remarkable day, many of the capital’s roads will be completely traffic-free and open only to cyclists.
On Sunday 23 September, London goes traffic-free
All Londoners – from mums on shoppers to old folks on rusty relics – will be coming from far and wide to ride down the city’s most famous roads, seeing sights like London Eye, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and Tower Bridge.
Yep, a fun ‘Day of the Bicycles’ for London (pop. 7.5m)
Here’s a variation on fan fiction: fan you tube. Warning: there’s obvious spoilers in there (if you want to look) , but for Aus. viewers, it’s further irrefutable proof that Russell T. Davies revival of Doctor Who is blindingly fugging brilliant. For example: Davies wrote the episode Gridlock, which included an entire culture trapped on the ‘motorway’ how English, women and cats getting married and having um, er, litters of kittens, a pair of married middle-aged lesbians, psychotropic drugs AND the Face of Boe. Whoah!
Not so subtle TdF link - if you’ve been up late you’d recognise the tune above as “The End Has a Start” by The Editors, as SBS used it in their equally blindingly fugging brilliant TdF wrap. NB: except for that nervous bit on Champs-Élysées where they lost the audio feed & the ancient memory of school girl french totally failed me.
You came on your own
That’s how you’ll leave
With hope in your hands
And air to breathe
This YouTube vid is only a relatively small example of what’s avaliable if you’re interested in learning more about how US authorities targeted activist groups in the 1960’s. WTF has this got to do with anything you say? Plenty. CointelPro may not officially exist anymore, but similar social processes have a tendency to thrive in social environments where there is a relative vacuum of informed discussion, unquestioning obedience to authority figures, flawed value systems and closed review processes.
For example, some corporate environments, NGO’s, community organisations can descend darkly into toxic work environments. Most of these organisations do operate within adequate guidelines, although some individuals, who could have the very best of intentions, can wind up horribly compromised, pressured by work commitments, bullying and peer groups into dysfunctional behaviours that would normally be subjected to valid criticism and disapproval.
There’s numerous analogies I could draw, just by observing recent issues in the Australian media. But on a macro level there’s more to examine. Put simply, if you’ve been privy to apparent exclusive insights about somebody or something that doesn’t sound right, why not discreetly turn the tables on whoever could be repeating distortions as fact? Bullshit conspiracies and rumour-mongering, via the use of media misreporting, reducing facts to the point of caricatures, shills and internet sock puppets can only gain acceptance where people are too lazy to utilise their critical facilities to sieve facts from manufactured fiction.
“The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.” - Winston Churchill
If you haven’t witnessed this 6min epic in the last 12 months you’ve probably been hiding in a deep dank hole. Wondrous stuff, huh? How many corny Spaghetti Western references can you spot? Actually I’m really starting to get into Muse, after all there nothing like a good bit of prog rock, highly wrought vocals, lyrics about conspiracies, space and Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to float your boat. who were casually mentioned in the previous post.
There’s a fantastic link between Muse and The Greatest Instrumental Ever Recorded. George Bellamy, the rhythm guitarist in The Tornados, is the father of Muse’s lead singer, Matthew Bellamy. The Tornados had a massive hit in 1962 with The Greatest Instrumental Ever Recorded. That tune being the mighty TELSTAR. And may I casually suggest, the younger Bellamy does sound just a itsy-bitsy bit like one Russell Mael.
A 36-page document called Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road contains 10 Commandments covering everything from road rage, respecting pedestrians, keeping a car in good shape and avoiding rude gestures while behind the wheel.
“Cars tend to bring out the ‘primitive’ side of human beings, thereby producing rather unpleasant results,” the document said.
Okayyy, must track down a copy and see if either the Madonna del Ghisallo or bicycle riders are granted a mention.
All ProTour cyclists will be asked to sign a declaration before the Tour de France saying they are not involved in doping and agreeing to pay a year’s salary on top of their two-year ban if found guilty of drug use.
BUT
Although the federation can’t force riders to sign, UCI is asking team managers to take that into consideration when deciding whether to enter riders in a race.
Actually that’s sounds as useful as tits on a canary when it comes to stamping out doping in the sport.
At about 11 p.m. Sunday, 36-year-old Girogos Vassiliades, of Emeryville, allegedly made an illegal right turn from Market Street onto the entrance of U.S. Highway 101, hitting and injuring a cyclist who was riding in the bicycle lane eastbound on Market, police reported.
San Francisco police Sgt. Steve Mannina said Vassiliades stopped on the onramp after the crash, but then began to drive off. A witness to the crash, who was standing outside Vassiliades’ 2005 Ford Focus when he tried to flee, grabbed the steering wheel to stop him, Mannina said.
As Vassiliades and the witness wrestled for the steering wheel, the Focus rolled up onto a car that was stopped in front of it and flipped onto its side, pinning the witness, Mannina said.
According to this news report, Mr Vassiliades has been booked for a felony hit-and-run. Pity there’s no legal equivalent to being also publically labelled a ignorant prick on top of a probable sentence. Maybe Public Nuisance would suffice?
So what’s being going on here at Beer Can Hill HQ? Plenty, hence the relative inactivity on this internerd fridge magnet.
1. Be naughty in cars: 
3. Be a ignorant prick: 
