Sunday, February 25, 2024

Uncommitted delegates?

 In Washington state, in the current Presidential Primary, you can vote in the Democratic Primary for "uncommitted delegates".  Forty years of voting and this is the first time I have ever seen this.

Makes me wonder how much confidence the WSDP has in President Joe Biden.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Projects

 John Wilder mentioned that he was going to forego blogging this week in order to get a project done.

That made me think about starting and not finishing projects, a failing of mine.  Usually because halfway through I realize that I am either missing something or don't know how to do something and have to figure it out, which figuring will take more time than I have.

So here's yesterday's project as illustration:

Yesterday I decided to finally rebuild the front forks on my Harley.  It's about a three hour job but I had the day off.  I have new chrome fork sliders and covers, plus a new handlebar clamp that holds the bars better.  It's also time to change that fork oil as the spec on the Progressive monoshocks is about 50k.

  • Move the shop trailer over nearer to the garage.
  • Move the bike to the pavement behind the trailer (can't do front end on the lift)
  • Jack up the bike, remove brakes, wheel, fender, cowling, left fork.
  • Disassemble fork and discover that I am out of the correct size fork seal, which I thought I had lots of because I keep them in stock.  Instead I have 25 of the next size down which I won't use up if I work on bikes for another ten years.
  • Spend twenty minutes digging through the trailer to see if I might have a bag of overstock seals somewhere (spoiler alert: I don't)
  • Realize that the new (second hand but still in the box) fork slider covers I bought are clamp on covers, not replacement.  They look terrible so I wouldn't have bought them if I'd realized.
  • So now I have motorcycle with no forks or front wheel suspended on a floor jack in the street and it's going to rain.  Can't get parts because it's Monday and motorcycle shops are generally closed Monday around here, especially in the winter.
  • Put the fork back together without seal or oil and reinstall on bike.  Put the wheel back on.  Take the bike off the lift and run it into the garage.  Pack all the other parts in a bin, put the tools away, clean up the shop trailer, put the shop trailer back in its spot.
  • Now I have to drive three hours round trip to the nearest Harley shop, after working all day, to buy fork slider covers and seals (assuming they have the fork slider covers in stock, they'll definitely have the seals but that doesn't really help as I'd have to take it all back apart again when the covers came in) so that I can get the bike done this weekend as the next weekend I have a memorial ride to attend.
Update: Not only are they not in stock, but they are back ordered til the end of April.  Sigh.  I've ordered aftermarket and the likelihood is that they won't be as good quality.
  • Second sigh. This is why I don't start projects.  There wasn't a damn thing wrong with the bike.

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Those who cannot remember history...

 

AAUP Joins Labor Union Call for Ceasefire in Gaza

“We cannot bomb our way to peace,” the statement from the association of professors says.


Germany and Japan could not be reached for comment.

Thursday, January 25, 2024

Canadian authoritarianism

 https://www.cato.org/blog/canadian-court-trudeaus-use-emergency-powers-crush-protests-was-illegal


One judge.  Keep that in mind.  One judge.  This will probably be overturned by the higher court.  That is my prediction based on a fairly comprehensive knowledge of Canada and its politics.


I'd be pretty happy though if we could get a judge in Washington to agree that the emergency powers used by the state's governor to clamp down on freedom here for two and a half years.  That is not a typo.  September 2022 was when he relinquished control.  And our one party state government did nothing to try to rein him in. Why?  Because they were perfectly happy to have a totalitarian state, so long as it was run by one of their own.  


Might be worth pointing out that the Washington State Attorney General spent most of his taxpayer funded time between 2016 and 2020 suing the Republican Trump Administration.  Not once did he attempt to rein in his own governor.

Thursday, January 18, 2024

And why I still read Cato in spite of it all

 Fiscal reform reporting

https://www.cato.org/blog/34-trillion-debt-house-budget-committee-debates-fiscal-commission-act

Saturday, January 13, 2024

Running out of patience with libertarians

Cato, which I have been reading for years, now thinks that protecting shipping from pirates isn't a good idea.

https://www.cato.org/blog/us-military-role-red-sea-now-turning-offensive-bad-deal

Sometimes they do write good articles:

https://www.cato.org/blog/argentinas-javier-milei-slashing-big-government-we-can-do-same-america

On the Middle East: Their complete lack of recognition regarding just who was and wasn't effective (note that this article is about "Washington" and "United States" but completely fails to mention, for example, the Abraham Accords, plus dumps all over "Israel's war in Gaza" where they actually cite Hamas as evidence of all the bad things Israel is doing

 According to the Hamas‐​controlled Gaza health authorities

https://www.cato.org/commentary/us-middle-east-policy-has-failed

I've just about stopped paying attention to them given their strident opposition to any border controls and their lack of any recognition that President Trump may have done anything good in his four years, especially compared to what we've seen from the Biden Administration, but I think this is probably the end for me.  Unless, of course, I just keep the link on the sidebar to see what they are ranting about next.