Thirty Reasons Why I Don't Ride A Harley

1. I’m not a good enough mechanic.
2. My ego does not require it.
3. Lean angle? What lean angle?
4. Over-priced, over-weight, underpowered, expensive antiques.
5. All show, no go.
6. I really don’t care to ride in parades.
7. I like to ride, not polish chrome and talk about riding.
8. It weighs how much???
9. I don’t own a pick-up truck to haul it around (required).
10. I don’t care what you say, it sounds like a gas powered Maytag washer!
11. Brakes? What brakes?
12. Yeah, it sounds fast…
13. They don’t sell body armor in Harley boutiques (see Item 14).
14. You have to dress the part.
15. If you drop it, you’ll need a crane.
16. I’m not old enough for a Barco-Lounger on wheels.
17. It just doesn’t feel right with my feet in front of my ass!
18. We won’t even talk about steering effort.
19. Popeye couldn’t pull in that clutch!
20. 80 hp, maybe, - 700 lbs., sure.
21. Riding a Harley is like making love to a fridged woman: You will probably get to where you want to be, but a more enthusiastic ride would have been a hell of a lot more fun!
22. Harleys are beautiful to look at and wonderful to listen to, so they are doing what they do best when on their kick-stands at idle throttle.
23. I don’t join clubs (required, it seems, for ownership).
24. To many lawyers own Harleys (see Item 25).
25. For the most part, the bad-assed outlaw biker mystique is bullshit (see Item 26).
26. The real outlaw rider is the 18 year-old squid - passing the gaggle of Harleys at 130 mph - on one wheel. (This tends to really piss off the Harley gaggle.)
27. You can’t wear a real and proper helmet if you own a Harley (see Items 13, 14 and 28).
28. Most Harley riders have never been down hard, so they think fingerless gloves, chaps and a vest constitute protective gear.
29. I have been down hard. And I don’t want a 700-plus pound bike down with me.
30. For the price of a Harley, you could almost own a Ducati!!

The Trouble With The "Tenther" Talkers

New Age states rights advocates have been beating this dead horse for some time now. No matter how much they may insist or how much they may wish, the Tenth Amendment does not carry their argument at law as shown by  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ableman_v._Booth, along with several other decisions related to the same point that can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Supreme_Court_cases,_volume_62.
 
I understand, but do not sympathize, with the current desire of the Libertarians to return to 18th century governance - it appears so romantic and so simplistic to us now - but that ain't going to happen. The nation has, in to many ways - socially, politically and technologically - moved way beyond what any of the Founding Fathers could have possibly conceived, given the limited world view available to them at the time of the original writings. This is why they wisely allowed for the evolution of these documents through both amendment and the recognition of settled case law.
 
As I have said before, war is the ultimate exercise of both title and authority, and much, if not all, of the legally moot arguments put forth by the current proponents of the Tenth Amendment exception for the states was settled in 1865. (The states lost)