I’ve always ridden camber boards and last month rode about 5 days on my trusty 2008 Rome Slash (a wide version of the Agent, a mid flex all mountain/freestyle board), before it started not holding a backside edge due to sidewall damage sustained (and subsequently bodged with epoxy) when I tried a 25ft cliff huck.

My backup board was a Sierra Reverse Crew, which is a relatively stiff and aggressive V rocker board, with reverse camber, based on a Burton Custom flying V.

Having never ridden reverse camber before, I had a few touch and go moments on the 1st run, on a fairly flat traverse from the lift, as I got used to the slightly different edge characteristics (which were only really evident on that 1st run)

After a few days on the board, for the most part, there was minimal difference in overall performance… there was plenty of edge hold on offer in most situations, plenty of pop for ollies, turning and carving was responsive and precise and though I’d read all the bumpf about butters and presses being way easier with reverse camber, I struggled to notice much in the way of difference, though it may be because the board was a bit stiffer than the Rome.

There was a couple of areas where I did notice a difference though; 1st up, the board seemed better at on piste ‘surfy’ turns where you’re goofing around with your weight back and by the same general mechanics, at keeping the nose up in deep powder and saving a bit of leg burn. All told, it wasn’t nearly as much of a difference as I’d have imagined, but I struggle to pinpoint any disadvantages over similar traditional camber boards I’ve ridden.

Truth be told, as it was coming to the end of the season, for the most part, the snow wasn’t the best, so perhaps not the conditions to give a thorough evaluation, but suffice to say I was pretty impressed, because relatively speaking, the board cost peanuts.

Apologies if that doesn’t really help you nail down a decision, but it might help you see beyond all the marketing hype.

I’d stick my tongue out…

So all those deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria etc and the corresponding increase in global arms sales are a keen indicator of peace in our time eh?

I’m sold, best get some shares in BAE to help the bombs for freedom effort.

Maybe we should nuke the ice caps to get them to play fair

One time I was walking on a university campus in Costa Rica after dark and some guy tried to steal my watch with the threat of a knife… I just spat in his face and calmly walked away. Seemed to do the job, because I kept that watch for the best part of a year after, until I lost it diving off Panama.

Never saw the knife, so I assume he was bluffing.

Surely though, the more weapons any one particular nation has, the more tensions escalate and the more weapons are required globally to counter the threat…

In order to improve that scenario and reduce the chances of mutual annihilation, surely the 1st step is a steady process of disarmament, ideally by the world’s most dominant nations, that others may follow suit.

Then of course we have to consider the environmental impact, which could be another cause of mutual annihilation…

I think Canada has a relatively small army compared to America and its size due to America having a huge army that keeps it safe.

This is partly true, but…

1. Canada is still required, by virtue of its NATO membership and its close friendship with the US to maintain a certain level of funding and defence procurement.

2. Canada is conscious of the need to defend the Arctic, lest it be used as a highway for hostile countries (read: Russia). This was at least one of the arguments given for Canada’s purchase and deployment of an entire fleet of new frigates, and submarines.

3. Canada’s forces are small in number, but very effectively-deployed, and able to expand fairly rapidly if necessary.

4. Canada has always been able to meet her commitments globally, including significant contributions to a number of peacekeeping missions, and the war in Afghanistan.

Canadian and UK armed forces share the same commander in chief…

So Saudi Arabia is a potential hostility ?

On that note, this makes for interesting reading…

The attack on Yemen is not “Saudi-led” but merely Saudi-fronted. Britain and the United States are concealed behind what Lord Curzon once called an ‘Arab facade’. Philip Hammond claimed Britain aren’t directly involved in the Yemen campaign but hinted they could be in the future. He instead states that Britain will support the assault on Yemen “in every practical way short of engaging in combat”. [9] Below is a catalogue of British involvement, based on reporting so far:

It’s quite a long list, here’s the link if you want to know more
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What about all the tax havens? Our head of state is a world leader in offshore dealings…

Is there a way of extracting it and selling it to dragsters (and dentists)?

doesn’t do anything good in the engine

Faster, torquier and more economic seems like it’s not tooooo bad.

Maybe it’s the revenge of the dinosaurs, because we’re burning their squashed up remains.

However there is always extra air in the cylinder, and as air is made of nitrogen and oxygen when you get it really hot the nitrogen reacts with the oxygen to produce a range of nitrous oxides known as NOx.

Damn, wouldn’t you know it, a sensible response just as I decide to enter the troll’s lair…

I’m not trolling here, but could that mean that some of the increased efficiency comes from the NOx being of the same form that is used in dragsters (and dentists)

Well, you could of course argue that the oil families who run the world and use their wealth and influence to entrap prominent paedophiles to do their bidding show that both petrol and paedophiles are intrinsically linked.

I mean, look at Royal Dutch Shell; after all, it was George Bush’s Granddad who laundered the proceeds of WW2 via the Dutch Monarchy… then there’s the whole Dutroux thing… I could go on.

That said, when I’ve tuned my diesel cars (albeit with mechanical fuel pumps), they generally tend to be both faster and more economic… the economy bit is of course one in the eye for our overlords, who just want to sell us as much shit as possible, so they can squabble over who has most continents and plundered bling.

Ah, but that’s just for shock value…

Pneumatic tyres

So better fuel economy, yet with increased emissions; surely if you’re burning significantly less fuel, combustion is more efficient?

Blimey, is this thread still chugging along?

Suppose I better contribute to stop you mucky bunch from turning it into a sticky mess of perversion.

True, sitting here it’s all useless supposition

Therein lies the problem… all the MPs, the Media Editors, the Army Generals, the Prime Ministers, the Presidents etc are acting on remote intelligence provided to them from afar, in a world of propaganda, corporate influence and a weapons industry with a massive interest in keeping conflict going.

Unless there’s a paradigm shift and everyone groups together and addresses the root cause of conflict for profit, the same cycle will repeat and escalate, sewing hatred deeper into the fabric of society and giving rise to more and more incidents which put civilian populations the world over in peril.

I’ve answered it…

Jhj: you say you’re not an expert and that you don’t know if the conclusion in that tweet is reasonable. But you’ve already retweeted it?

I haven’t retweeted it, but I posted the image here to see what folks thoughts were…

Well impressed by your ability to ask reasonable and probing questions:

As above, who is Justin Raimondo?
Is that photo of victims of the chemical attack? Do the rescuers have gloves that they could use? Are gloves necessary? Does sarin hang around or evaporate away and pose less of a threat after a few hours?

Like I say, I’m no expert on Chemical Weapons, however, I can tell you that Justin Raimondo is an editor at Antiwar.com

I don’t know, btw, but if you’d gone to the effort of faking a chemical attack you think you’d try to look the part.

My thoughts exactly, though this is also an entirely reasonable perspective:

What do you expect them to do, leave the children to die whilst they pop over to the local glove shop, perhaps catch a latte on the way over ?

The problem arises in that almost all modern wars have been started under false pretences, so to avoid a recurring cycle of bullshit, massive civilian casualties and long term escalation of conflict which only serves to create a more dangerous environment for us all, whilst profiting a small minority of individuals who have sufficient economic and political sway to turn the media in their favour, we all need to start asking more questions.

So what happened to the chemical weapons ISIS seized in Iraq?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10910868/Iraq-crisis-Obama-may-launch-air-strikes-without-Congress-amid-calls-for-Maliki-to-go-live.html

Were they the same ones supplied by the UK and US?

I’d like to think the world’s security forces would have spotted a giveaway as obvious as that, so I’m guessing it’s inconclusive.

That’s the tricky part of the duality we live in… on the one hand, you have PR firms with fabricated stories coaching people to have maximum emotional impact as in the Kuwaiti Nariyah testimony, or of course the Weapons of mass destruction report… so time and again, they’ve been duped too, or complicit.

It’s a dirty game, there’s no doubt

No expert in these matters, is this a reasonable conclusion re use of gloves?

Get my bones stripped clean by some ants with big ole mandibles, then get my skeleton set up in a coin operated automatron… when a coin is inserted, I’ll cackle some crazy catchphrases from beyond the grave and every now and again let out a well amplified fart.

That’s a fair point… between that and investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia which was just getting to revealing the sharp end of the wedge, it’s all very handy. Russia ties negated, political crisis averted, Deep State lives to fight another day

There again, where do we go from here:

Take out Assad, ISIS get stronger, military intervention and ground troops become necessary…

Doubtless someone will profit, whatever the outcome

Well, it wouldn’t be the 1st time:

Not forgetting the tax-payer funded propaganda machine:

The British government is waging information warfare in Syria by funding media operations for some rebel fighting groups, in the foreign front of what David Cameron has called “the propaganda war” against Islamic State.

The campaign aims to boost the reputation of what the government calls the “moderate armed opposition”, a complex and shifting alliance of armed factions.

Deciding which factions to support is risky for the government because many groups have become increasingly extremist as the five-year civil war grinds on.

Contractors hired by the Foreign Office but overseen by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) produce videos, photos, military reports, radio broadcasts, print products and social media posts branded with the logos of fighting groups, and effectively run a press office for opposition fighters.

Materials are circulated in the Arabic broadcast media and posted online with no indication of British government involvement.

Or the chemical weapons Saddam did have, supplied by the UK and US:

Iraq crisis: Isis jihadists ‘seize Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons stockpile’

Pff, is but a drop in the ocean:

Global arms trade reaches highest point since cold war era

Still, I’m sure Rex Tillerson’s oil interests will be getting good value for money for the $95,000,000ish those missiles cost.

A massive distraction which brings the media into line, stopping them from attacking Trump and researching his links to Russia, bringing about a public breakdown in relations between Trump and Putin.

All very convenient.

Still, probably a good time to invest in the arms trade…

Funny thing is, the matters Ken Livingstone raised regarding collaboration between Nazis and Zionists also tie in to Saudi Arabia…

Adolf Eichmann credited Leopold von Mildenstein’s role as “the specialist for the Jewish affairs” as being the breakthrough in his career; Eichmann went on to become one of the key architects of the Holocaust.

John Loftus, an extremely meticulous and knowledgeable Nazi Hunter has stated that Adolf Eichmann had a meeting with Harry St John Philby (British Spy and Father of Kim Philby, who among other things has been linked to the Kincora scandal) in the mid 1930s

Aside from being a member of the British intelligence services, St John Philby was a key adviser to Ibn Saud, wahhabist and founder of the Saudi Monarchy…

Good detective work 😉

That whole CIA thing bugs me though, especially with Allen Dulles’ role in ensuring continued funding of the Nazis throughout WW2 via his asset, President of the Bank of International Settlements, Thomas McKittrick

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/bank-of-england/10213988/Never-mind-the-Czech-gold-the-Nazis-stole….html

Thomas McKittrick, an American banker, was president of the BIS. When the United States entered the war in December 1941, McKittrick’s position, the history notes, “became difficult”. But McKittrick managed to keep the bank in business, thanks in part to his friend Allen Dulles, the US spymaster based in Berne. McKittrick was an asset of Dulles, known as Codename 644, and frequently passed him information that he had garnered from Emil Puhl, who was a frequent visitor to Basel and often met McKittrick.

Declassified documents in the American intelligence archives reveal an even more disturbing story. Under an intelligence operation known as the “Harvard Plan”, McKittrick was in contact with Nazi industrialists, working towards what the US documents, dated February 1945, describe as a “close cooperation between the Allied and German business world”.

Thus while Allied soldiers were fighting through Europe, McKittrick was cutting deals to keep the Germany economy strong. This was happening with what the US documents describe as “the full assistance” of the State Department.

Bear in mind Dulles went on to become head of the CIA…

Got a retweet from David Baddiel today…

always quite liked him on the Mary Whitehouse experience and Skinner and Baddiel, but he went down in my estimations a bit:

Of course, the limited amount of characters on twitter can sometimes rob you of empathy and context, but even so:

(Disturbing though it may be, it’s worth questioning):

Why did Leopold von Mildenstein, one of key Nazis involved in collaboration with Zionists avoid prosecution due to work with the CIA? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_von_Mildenstein

(bit in brackets is the bit that wouldn’t fit in the tweet.)

I’ll let you guess what 3 words he used…

Silly me, Depleted Uranium isn’t a grey area, it’s perfectly legal and acceptable…

An explanation of why the Ministry of Defence (MOD) believe the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions is lawful, why they reject claims that the use of DU munitions presents severe health and environmental risks and why we oppose calls to ban these munitions.

I’ll spare you images of the birth defects caused by depleted uranium…

What about grey areas like depleted uranium munitions… rumour has it that along with nuclear weapons programs, that a large part of why we’re tied into nuclear power, despite the horrors of 3 mile island, Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Also, if chemical weapons are so bad, why does our Her Majesty’s government have a history of supplying them to questionable regimes and aiding their production… Saddam being a prime example.

It’s almost as if we’re paying taxes so Her Majesty’s Government can lie to us and sell as many weapons as possible, whilst reaping the rewards of global conflict, with no concern for people or the planet…

Government contractors effectively run a press office for opposition fighters but communications conceal UK’s role

The British government is waging information warfare in Syria by funding media operations for some rebel fighting groups, in the foreign front of what David Cameron has called “the propaganda war” against Islamic State.

The campaign aims to boost the reputation of what the government calls the “moderate armed opposition”, a complex and shifting alliance of armed factions.

Deciding which factions to support is risky for the government because many groups have become increasingly extremist as the five-year civil war grinds on.

Contractors hired by the Foreign Office but overseen by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) produce videos, photos, military reports, radio broadcasts, print products and social media posts branded with the logos of fighting groups, and effectively run a press office for opposition fighters.

Materials are circulated in the Arabic broadcast media and posted online with no indication of British government involvement.

Despite all the dicks, trolls, self affirming cliques, haters, and fake news, I reckon someone could figure out a way to use twitter to help change the world for the better…

Of course, they’d still have to contend with all the dicks, trolls, self affirming cliques, haters and fake news and all the jealousy, deception and vitriol that brings to mind Satan’s arsehole but with the right mindset, all of that could be overcome for the greater good.

There in lies one of the biggest problems, soldiers don’t start wars, politicians do

Modern war is increasingly becoming a form of contract killing for corporate interests.

That’s not to say the soldiers are heartless mercenaries, purely concerned with making a buck (that’s what private military contractors are for); quite the opposite; from what I’ve seen, the majority of people in the forces are conscientious people, with a will to do good; however, the problem is, all too often they’re misled.

Of course, as scud mentions, there’s all sorts of different people in the forces, but the fact remains, regardless of who’s dishing out the bullets and taking enemy fire, far above it all, the same small circle of people plan and promote wars for their profit, with strategies and aims very different to those publicized in the media and throughout the ranks.

Thing is though, in this instance, the criminals who hire the hit men and patsies who’ll give their all for Queen and country never get punished.

Perhaps we all live in a bit of a dream…

So you know how it was John McCain who brought about the investigations into Trump’s Russia ties?

Small world, just as Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort is balls deep in Russian muck:

Paul Manafort’s Russia connections

The plot to sell America’s foreign policy for foreign oil and steal an election in the bargain began at the Mayflower Hotel.

Manafort’s business partner Rick Davis is also similarly entrenched:

The thing is, Manafort’s business partner, Rick Davis, was John McCain’s campaign manager during his presidential bid
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Could go further with Oleg Deripaska, Nathan Rothschild and prominent UK politicians and how that also ties to McCain, but I’ll leave that to you for now.