Sweden just witnessed its first suicide bombing just a few days ago. Luckily the damage was minimal, as was the loss of life. Of course an event like this have scared people and there’s a lot of debate going on — and of course it has fuelled the fire for ‘nationalistic’ (read: racist) party the Sweden Democrats and their ‘nationalistic’ (read: racist) members and supporters as well as other people opposed to immigration in Sweden.
A friend of mine posed some statistics on her Facebook profile, not sure where the numbers come from so I won’t vouch for their complete accuracy. Either way, these numbers show something else than what the racist, anti-islamist and immigration-unfriendly people want us to believe.
According to Europol’s statistics over terroristic acts from 2006 – 2009, Islamic groups account for 0.34% of incidents and Right Wing, Ethno-Nationalist and Separatist account for 90.17% of attacks.
That’s interesting! Sweden Democrats! There you have it, you are right wing — and therefore part of the group that are more of a threat to European society than islamist groups. More reading here.
Here’s something that you should not miss if you live in Melbourne. Flagz have just finished the second edition of the Defero video magazine — with sections filmed and edited by riders across Australia.
The CEO of the TUMULT Crew (Jesper Stern) decided to release the first Tumult DVD for public download. It’s a large file and my server here is apparently not the fastest, so just be patient. Do the right-click thing to download, otherwise it will open in the browser.
Here’s Jesper’s write-up about the release:
“From a time when bikes were heavier, most riders ran brakes and bunnyhop tailwhips were only for the best flatlanders, here’s our autumn video present for you.
This was basically the starting point for the TUMULT Crew and also a kick ass video.
Filmed in 2004 – 2006 including heavy clips from around the world; Stockholm, Copenhagen, Sydney, Brisbane, New York, Prague, Christchurch, Austin, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Malaga, Helsinki and L.A.
Full sections from: The Rahm Brothers, Patrik Swenson, Jens Lindberg, Jimmy Röstlund, Klas Löwbeer, Robert Källström, Jesper Stern, Joakim Olsson and a bunch of friends.
The most epic part about this video could be all the different spots from around the world, but to us it’s a reminder of many good memories.”
I’m a bit late on posting this one, but here are some more detailed shots of the EZ frame, Eduards Zunda signature, that will be released in early 2011. I’ve worked on this frame together with Simple and Ed for quite a while.
Being Ed’s signature frame, it has of course been tailored to his specifications as far as geometry and general appearance goes, and we’ve added some refinements over previous frames we’ve made.
The frame features removable brakemounts, integrated gussets in HT/DT/TT junction. The dropouts and chainstay/seatstay caps are made of one piece of steel which adds clearance for a hubguard on the inside of the dropouts as well as giving a nice look to it. CS & SS are tapered and the seattube tapers down to a smaller diameter where it meets the new Mid BB that we opted for instead of the Spanish BB that we have been running in the past.
The geometry is as follows:
Toptube | 20.6″, 20.9″ or 21.2″
Headtube | 75˚
Seattube | 70˚
Chainstay length | 13.6″ (345mm) center to center
BB height | 1.6″ over axle center/center line (approximately equates to 11.6″ depending on fork/headset/tyre setup.)
I think that most people who know me knows that I love music of many kinds. I like listening to music and I did actually use to play music in my teens (although I was never anywhere close to being a virtuoso by any means). With that said, I usually don’t delve that deep into the structure and composition of the music or philosophise about / analyse the meaning of the lyrics that much. I can fully appreciate that doing so may increase the whole experience for some, but it’s just something that I don’t do very often.
One of the music genres that I have been into, of varying degree, since my early teens is Death Metal. I know that it’s definitely a genre that is not for everyone. However, I do think it is sad that the whole genre (and variations thereof) is discounted by so many as being “just growling and mindless noise” and that the genre is solely based on “evil” and shock value. On the whole though, a significant number of artists in this genre of music are excellent musicians and lyricists. Many of them are probably even better musicians than some classically trained orchestra musicians. The lyrics, in many cases, are actually deep and full of meaning. It’s not just gore and killing, but of course I’m not denying that gore and violence is a very common topic in the genre.
I would probably be the worst music critic of all time, because I find it hard to put a finger on why I like and don’t like certain genres, songs or artists. I either like it, or I don’t — I almost never have a way of motivating the reason for my liking or disliking. As with most things, there are exceptions of course… which leads me to what prompted me to ramble on about this subject…
One Death Metal act that I have liked ever since I listened to them for the first time is the band Death (yup, for those not in the know — that is the name of the band). Sadly enough, these dudes are not around anymore, other than in the record collections of their fans, since the singer, guitarist and general backbone of the band passed away a few years back.
A song that perfectly highlights what I mean by death metal, as a genre, actually not being devoid from substance or meaning is the song ‘Spiritual Healing’ from the album of the same name. The lyrics rather perfectly pinpoints some of my feelings towards religion in general.
Always locking the doors to your mind Escaping the reality that surrounds you Using faith as an excuse to kill A sick way of life is now revealed
All the prayers in the world can’t help you now A killer, a taker of life is what you are
Speak no more lies It’s your turn to die
Preach the good word Speak no more, prepare to burn A justified torture? From this may others learn
The life you took, a holy death, a grave mistake No changing your mind, your life you should pay
Practice what you preach Your loved one is now deceased Knowledge is at our hands Never to understand
Spiritual Healing
Blinded by the twisted ways you live Kill for religion, will the lord forgive? Idiocy has stricken your mind A real life hell you will find
Brian is a ripper and he’s reppin’ Tempered Bikes in the US. I don’t know Brian, so I’ll just quote what Mat Lawton (creator and owner of Tempered) wrote in the team announcement:
Brian Histand has been silently reppin Tempered for a while now in the USA and after spending two weeks on the road with him driving to Vegas for Interbike I realized that this dude is legit as fuck, Can hold down them 4Lokos, Destroy the one hitters, Ride a bike like no other and be someone i could talk shit to for years to come.
Welcome to the crew homie, we’re all fuckin psyched to have you!
