Da Hawg Frog Blog

It does seem like you read about more and more murder and mayhem on the highway these days. Every time a motorcycle is involved you will invariably read a remark about the rider wearing helmet, or not. Personally I believe let the rider decide. If the accident is in the parking lot might at low speed then the helmet might help. But on the Interstate at 70 or 80 miles an hour it isn’t going to do much good. Upper body trauma is the major cause of death on the highway.

Here in Florida we’ve experienced a surge in motorcycle sales and accidents. Duh, more bikes on the road, more bikes in accidents. That makes sense to me. Especially when you consider all the inattentive people driving their cages while talking on the cell phone and eating an Egg McMuffin as they tune their radios.

People who have motorcycle accidents in Florida are six times more likely to die than automobile drivers.

The number of registered motorcyclists statewide was 582,740 in 2006, compared with 339,488 in 2002.

The number of fatalities also is rising steadily.

In 2002, 274 people died in motorcycle crashes; by 2006, the number was 521, according to the most recent statistics from the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. (Source: St Petersburg Times)

The media is trying to say that the dramatic increase in motorcyclist is because of the rising gas prices. But then if you look at their own statistics you see that there is a flaw in their reasoning. The increase in motorcycle ownership began before the gas crisis. But, then I believe there is some truth in it also. I know myself that I have several neighbors who bought motorscooters over the past year because they do get in excess of 100 MPG.

“You can come here and pay $3,600 for a new bike,” Bott said. “And you don’t have to have insurance in the state of Florida to ride a motorcycle.”

Along with the no helmet law, Florida is one of few states where insurance is not required to register a motorcycle. That changes when a rider is charged after a crash with injuries. The rider is financially responsible for bodily injuries and property damages to others.

Now I’m one of those live and let give guys. But I think that anyone who rides a motorcycle and doesn’t have insurance is a moron. After all, what if you are riding a $20,000 bike instead of a “$3,600″ bike. To take a chance on these roads with the crazy cagers we have without insurance is just plain stupid.

It interesting to note that most of these fatal accidents are among those younger riders new to the road and motorcycling. It is a shame that so many of them end up as hood ornaments before they have the opportunity to fully appreciate the riding life. They just start out on machines that are too fast and too powerful for novice riders.

I usually get a few hundred spams everyday on the email addresses I use. Gmail catches about 150 a day. The past couple days I’ve noticed a remarkable lack of spam in my inboxes. What a pleasure!

Apparently there has been a massive internet failure in Europe and Asia. It looks like these are the primary locations for most of the spam I get. Probably you too. Everyday I get messages about growing a bigger dick. Or all kinds of wonderful drugs I can get cheap for problems I don’t really have. The ones I really miss are all the Nigerians trying to give me money. It looks like we’re getting a few days respite from these dirtbags. Enjoy it while you can!

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — High-technology services across large tracts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa were crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope.

Hi-tech Dubai has been hit hard by an Internet outage apparently caused by a cut undersea cable.

Industry experts are blaming damage to two undersea cables but it is not known what caused the damage.

Reports say that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain Pakistan and India, are all experiencing severe problems.

This is also why we haven’t been getting all those phone calls from India. The ones where everyone is either George or Debbie and they speak English like they were from Mars or Uranus. The sub-continent of India is hard hit and they are desperately trying to reroute their gibberish to a Pacific cable.

There were concerns in India that an Internet slowdown could affect trading patterns at the country’s two major exchanges, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in Delhi and the SENSEX exchange in Bombay.

Rajesh Chharia, president of India’s Internet Service Providers’ Association, explained that some firms were trying to reroute via Pacific cables and that companies serving the eastern US and the UK were worst affected, AP added.

Besides the Internet, the outage caused major disruption to television and phone services, creating chaos for the UAE’s public and private sectors.

The Du internal memo called the situation in Dubai “critical” and stated that the cable’s operators did not know when services would be restored. (Source: CNN)

What a shame. Maybe this will keep our gas prices the same for a few more days. Of course they’ll gouge us to pay for the damages as soon as they get back online. Might as well enjoy it while we can. As soon as they get everything back online the spammers will be back with a vengeance and the eastern markets will again trash the dollar.