Pointman’s Page

It seems that in Oregon they will now send the swat team after you just because someone THINKS you might be CONTEMPLATING something illegal. It is a dangerous precedent and if it doesn’t frighten you then then I refer you to this.

“If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
– Samuel Adams

I guess you could say he didn’t see it coming….

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.”

–James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, 1792

It turns out that the only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.

– Cornered Cat’s Kathy Jackson

Looks like Indiana Dems are trying to sink HB 1065, the Emergency Powers and Parking Lots today. Why is anyone surprised? Democrats always scream “democracy! democracy!” until they don’t like the results…

A little history from the Great Communicator…

I initially passed over the article about the woman who’s Love Handles Stopped a bullet and saved her life until I saw a news program where she was talking about in on video, how she thought she ought to loose weight until this happened and now she’s not going to try to loose weight… At that point the only comment I had was, I wonder if she realized that if those “love handles” hadn’t been there the bullet may have missed her altogether? Hm…

I find it downright comical that one of the cities who’s economy is most damaged by illegal immigration would decide to go after unlicensed dogs rather than “undocumented” people. So what are they going to do with “unlicensed” dogs owned by “undocumented” people? Will they get a free visit to the vet, a free bag of dog chow and a new dog house?

First off its nice to see “scientists” and the media finally admitting there even is a lull in warming and that it started, not last year, but in 1998.. Since in 1979-80 they were still teaching kids about the coming Ice Age that means there was only 20 years of warming? Well, not really if you look at the data… but even giving them that 20 years what is 20 years? Insignificant….

“We’ve not put our finger precisely on what has changed,” Knight said. “(But) If you add all these things together … there’s nothing really there to challenge the idea that there’s going to be large warming in the 21st century.”

Emphasis mine… so to believe Mr. Knight, they don’t know why the weather isn’t cooperating with their models but that doesn’t mean the models are wrong…

They’ve pretty much thrown the entire basis of science out the window. But then when has this not been the case with what I’ll now label “Big Science”…. Any grade school kid can show you a 1/2 dozen major scientific discoveries by the lone man going against the establishment - the heretics if you will.

Yet another example of why McCain didn’t win is the Dietary Supplement Regulatory Bill. McCain, a RINO on a good day, also stands as a touchstone on who in politics, especially Republican politics, got the message in 2009. Sadly at the national level few of them have as demonstrated by their rallying around McCain in his bid to retain his Senate seat.

And bills such as this only serves as another example of a long line of examples illustrating that McCain and his ilk need to find a new line of work. Fortunately the voters seem to be realizing that.

Years ago I started recommending Avast anti-virus for non-business home users. Today Avast is still a good product which I still highly recommend. But an relative new kid on the block, or more accurately new product, has taken over my most recommended free anti-virus, Panda Security’s Cloud Antivirus….

Panda Security is by no means a “new kid” and I’ve been a reseller and devote since the late 90’s. But their new, free “Cloud” product is something new and while not revolutionary, at least evolutionary….

I especially recommend it on systems already strained for resources.

Reflecting on Bayh’s stepping aside I realized the whole point of doing it so last minute was to put the power of nominating his replacement directly with the party rather than allowing the people their choice in the primaries. At this late date there simply isn’t anyone who can muster the signatures to get onto the primary ballots - seeing as those signatures are due today.

Bayh made sure there is no possibility of a popular local whom they cannot control taking the seat. The state party will get to decide who to put up in November…

Thinking about that brought to mind Coat’s surprise announcement. Heck Coats hasn’t lived in Indiana since he turned his seat over to Evan Bayh. But now he wants it back. Or does he?

My suspicion is the RNC was afraid of gaining a seat but one they cannot control and most of the primary candidates are not ones who will kowtow to the RNC. The most notable of which is John Hostettler who openly opposed President Bush and his policies including voting against going into Iraq, No Child and many others.

There is a lot of talk of the “Tea Party” movement and I think that is partly what the RNC fears as much as the DNC. If the RNC had gotten the message with President Obama’s victory the tea party people would be supporting the Republican national party again. But the RNC didn’t get it and have stuck to that peculiar brand of populist “compassionate conservatism” which may have won President Bush 2 elections but could carry the party no further as middle America Republicans realized how distant that ideology truly is from the classic liberalism of libertarian minded Christian conservatives.

Dan Coats is here to keep Indiana in the RNC’s pocket….

U. S. Senator Evan Bayh plans to announce he will not seek a 3rd term in the U.S. Senate. A press conference is scheduled for 2 p.m. this afternoon in Indianapolis.

My money is that Senator Bayh realized he was toast… But it is unfortunate as by not running, and he’s not alone here, we can’t watch and cheer as he goes down in flames in November’s election.

Seems a good time to plug John Hostettler for Senate!

I am constantly amazed at what diverse interests exist on the internet…

Remember all that bitching and whining about how evil Bush was for tapping cell phone conversations of citizens who happen to call a terrorist? If the Administration gets their way you won’t have to be talking to a terrorist for them to track you. You just need a cell phone.

A am planning some spring trips and wondered what the temperature averages are for select destinations. I am a weather.com junkie but beyond “next month” the information I needed isnt’ there - or at least I cannot find it. Turning to Google I found Weatherbase which lets me find the normal mix of data (average, average high, average low, record high, record low, etc) by the month for major cities around the world.

I’d probably better take into account the 5 to 10 degrees below normal patten we’ve been seeing for the past year or two.

“[A] wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”

Thomas Jefferson

The 10″ windshield on my Tsakayu fairing is perfectly sized until I put on a helmet. Even with lowers on the forks and engine guards the buffeting feels like someone is playing the bongos on my head at interstate speeds.

After doing a lot of reading on the aerodynamics involved I grabbed a set of Freedom Wings and a new windshield from Clear View. I really like the look of the dark smoke 10″ windshield I have so I got the same height, dark smoke, but with the feature I went specifically to Clear View for, the recurved lip at the top. By all accounts this pushes air like a 2-3″ taller windshield and figured it a good place to start before going to the a full 15″ touring screen.

Sadly the shield is just sitting here in the box, I can’t even get it put on this weekend. But unwrapping the thing the workmanship is awesome. I can’t wait to try it out. Too bad that probably won’t be until sometime in March…

I’ve been shooting and carrying my Kimber with factory sights for 8 years now and it was time for a change. A change I’ve been telling myself I was going to get to for those same 8 years. Recently this was further spurred on by my desire to spend money with Trijicon. So I started shopping for a set of Trijicon KB01’s and surprisingly found many places out of stock including Trijicon.

Turning to eBay I found Todd offering the ones I wanted for a really great price and had the sights in hand in only 2 days.

Today I carefully drove those old irons are off and the Trijicon’s reside in their place. No small feat let me tell you, Kimber really fits those things tight! A few mags down range verified the new sights are properly aligned and certainly improve sight acquisition.

There may be some conservative votes happy to see Dan Coats come out of hiding in Virginia to take on Evan Bayh but I am not one of them. Its been many years so many have forgotten Dan Coats voted for the crime bill in 1994 otherwise known as the Assault Weapons Ban.

Dan Coats will not get my vote in the primaries, that will go to John Hostettler. I’m dubious Coats has enough name recognition to carry the primary this many years later. After all, he never really came back to Indiana after retiring from the Senate, choosing to live in Virginia.

Mr. Coats, respectfully, stay in Virginia.

About the only time I’m not found wearing boots is at work in the cooler months and at Church. So that my well over 10 year old Danner’s finally surrendered was no surprise. I’d been looking at different boots this past year anyway so what an opportunity to pick something different.

I started looking specifically at biker boots, from the high tech AlpineStar touring boots to the low tech River Road Trooper boots and realized something pretty quickly. The space age looking tour boots would look funny with dress pants and provide little traction on the trail. And the other end of the spectrum lacked the technology features I insist on, like gore-tex.

After almost of week of browsing and researching I bought another pair of Danner’s….

I’m not a big fan of ground hogs today…. Still, 3/21 is the official start of spring and as long as that’s on schedule I’ll survive… besides - I’m not done with my long list of winter bike projects.

Are apparently the new pit bull of NYC’s east end. I’ve seen a Beagle considerably more vicious than any dog I’ve ever seen. But she was probably just covering her embarrassment of having been bred to a Pug….

So the weatherman this morning says maybe a little accumulation of snow. After lunch the weatherman is saying we might get and inch by Tuesday morning.

After two hours on the road (the plow drivers must be listening to the same forecast) getting home in the snow I’m pulling into my driveway. There’s easily 2 inches of snow on the ground, and its drifting, and at that moment the weatherman on the radio says “less than 1 inch accumulation overnight”.

Saturday may not have been a terribly pretty day but it had one thing going for it, 50 degrees. As I have a laundry list of maintenance items to do before ridign season it seemed a good day to work on the head bearing. If the adjustment works I’m not taking the entire front end down - if it doesn’t then that’s exactly what’s going to happen including new progressive springs.

Due to technical difficulties it was 5pm before the procedure was completed. Without the Honda special socket I torqed it down with a monkey wrench and worked it around and tightened it down again until I felt confident it was smooth. Then backed it down little at a time until the tension was in the 5-7 pound range. After putting it all back together I headed out for 25-30 miles and could produce no deceleration wobble nor any wobble in the leans.

I’d still like to put in the progressive fork springs and may yet do that but for the moment should spring arrive early at least that particular task isn’t going to keep us off the road.

Next step, valve clearance check….