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Yeah - same engine in all of them. I think they're mostly the same bike, too.

Isn't that the old one? Different motor I think.

I meant these ones - the 701 series.

https://www.husqvarna-motorcycles.com/en-us/models/supermoto/701-supermoto-2024.html

I had an older Husqvarna 510TE (made in the MV Agusta factory in Italy) before they were sold to BMW (before they were sold to Pierer Group)....It was actually pretty reliable, though a lot of tingly vibes. Apparently the supermoto versions had a balancer shaft. They got a re-release not long back badged as SWM. Great bikes apparently.

If you have the bunce, the ktm / Husqvarna 690 based Supermotos are bonkers and reliable. I’d get banned in a hot minute on one.

Plantain a seed for future generations?

Fertile ground for it.

This is how we get huge organisations....to the 0.2% of our actual fucking brains which is plastic now!

Chapeau! Delightfully put.

Yeah - under sprung and under damped. They're often progressive springs too, which I hate.
Even without the emulators, straight rate springs for your weight and 15w oil is normally a really good upgrade.

10W sounds a bit light maybe for old damper rod forks - if you can be bothered, fitting cartridge emulators is not a hard job and makes for a much better fork experience. If it feels lower, the springs might be a bit saggy - are they very soft?

I'm kind of with Lynx on this one, if you saw the accident, tell them about it. I wouldn't comment on the speed - it's conjecture, even if you did glance down at the speedo when he passed. I agree, it should be a learning experience for the rider, but it still seems pretty clearly the car driver's fault. In my experience, the Met seem to have an institutional prejudice against motorbikes and bikes when it comes to accidents, although maybe things have changed since I left!

Bit more progress on the Triumph…I’ve still many little jobs to do, which I’ve been putting off in favour of floss. It does go well now, despite the rotten flat spot from the TT pipes.

Don't hate on the brown seat - it was free!

Doh! Managed to bore one of the holes too big on one of the clamps for my fork brace. So annoying. Think I’ll start again as I’ve a better order of operations now.

Ha - not sure about that! There's an extremely high bar to amend the constitution - 2/3s in the House and the Senate or a constitutional convention. It really doesn't happen very often, which I think is probably why organisations on the right, have concentrated on exerting control of the judiciary as much as they have. The idea being not to amend the constitution but to keep control of the interpretation thereof (originalists vs living constitutionalists.)

Say if he goes the recess appointment route and they rule 5-4 against, with Roberts and Kavanaugh or Coney-Barrett siding with the 3, he could in theory, appoint more judges until he got the decision he wanted.

Elie Mystal writes compellingly on this - there are constitutional restraints on removing justices, but few on adding them. The dems have been too timid to try it , but I imagine the Republicans might not. Similarly, a possible rescinding of the Filibuster (though Majority Leader elect, Thune, says he won't.)

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/reform-supreme-court/

Quite amazingly, there's not been a rejection of a cabinet appointee since 1989 and a very small number before that in total. There are many more recent withdrawals, which I think is probably going to be the case here, just as it was in his first administration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsuccessful_nominations_to_the_Cabinet_of_the_United_States

Senators can only be expelled by a 2/3rds vote (not happening) and there's no mechanism for a recall. The supreme court cannot scrap the confirmation process, as it's part of article 2 of the Constitution. The president does have powers to appoint officers when the Senate is in recess, so in theory, a simple majority of republican Senators could vote to recess and the President could appoint who he liked. That said, the supreme court ruled against Obama doing this back in 2014 when he tried the same for some relatively minor roles, so there's precedent that they'd have to overturn to change their minds this time. Not a dead cert, though certainly possible.

I think you're right that this is at least in part a fishing expedition for what he can do with the Senate.

I'm a bit surprised by Hegseth and Gaetz, largely because they hadn't been trailed much, even at the crackpot end of the Spectrum. RFK Jr was a literal shoe-in, given the well publicized conversations with Trump during the campaign, which led to his withdrawal from the race and subsequent endorsement.

Can't say I expected any better though. Still waiting on Kash Patel as FBI director and something for Michael Flynn....

Here's a bit more RFK, in his own words....

https://www.meidasplus.com/p/viruses-are-our-friend-10-off-the?r=9qw74&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true

If you run a company or charity, do you not have executive responsibility?

Honestly putting RFK jr in charge of HHS is like putting one of those guys that crushes watermelons in a hydraulic press in his shed, in charge of the Large Hadron Collider.

Here's what he's been up to in his current position of 'executive responsibility'

https://apnews.com/article/how-rfk-jr-built-anti-vaccine-juggernaut-amid-covid-4997be1bcf591fe8b7f1f90d16c9321e

You seem to be someone that doesn't value expertise very much.

We need to understand from Kennedy exactly what his position is on vaccines and a bunch of other things.

Whatever it is though, I'm still more concerned about WW3 kicking off, Palestinian genocide and apparent lack of a credible alternative economic strategy.

How about when he suggested that Covid was 'ethnically targeted' to spare Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews? Or when he continued to promote the totally debunked effectiveness of Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine, over a safe and effective vaccine? Just the sort of guy you'd want in charge during the next global pandemic, eh?

Thoroughly unserious.

This might be helpful, though I'm really not convinced you're not trolling with some of these comments.

https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/fact-checking-presidential-candidate-robert-f-kennedy-jr-on-vaccines-autism-and-covid-19/

Interesting article on political involvement / engagement of young men (20-29.)

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/11/11/how-trump-won-the-podcast-bros-00188518

Awesome - get some pics up!

I've never ridden the RVF but spent quite a bit of time on the NC30 in my youth. Thrash that puppy and get used to hanging off like a gibbon! They're not very heavy but the weight is quite front biased, so need a bit of muscling to turn.

On the swing to Trump among Latinos

TLDR, Trump appealed to them on inflation and immigration, and they felt the Democrats offered them nothing.

The only argument Democrats seem to have left for these voters is that Trump is a racist. >But not a single person I spoke to seemed concerned about that.

'Felt' and 'seem' (to have left) are doing a lot of heavy lifting. Here's an outline of the competing candidates views on the major domestic issues. Plenty of feedback that when these were presented to voters, with the parties removed, they back the democrat ideas. It's not a messaging failure, they just didn't penetrate the media bubble. (below lifted from CBS)

-Harris says she'd provide bigger tax benefits for families but would offset the costs by raising corporate taxes, while Trump has said he'd extend the tax cuts enacted in 2017.
-Under Harris' tax plan, according to an analysis by the Penn Wharton Budget Model, 95% of Americans would see lower taxes, and higher earners would pay more taxes. The top 0.1% — whose annual average income exceeds $14 million — would pay about $167,000 more in taxes.
-Harris wants to eliminate federal taxes on tips, which Trump first proposed.
-She also says she wants to provide a financial cushion for small businesses with a tenfold increase in the startup expense deduction — lifting it from $5,000 to $50,000. New businesses wouldn't need to claim the deduction in their first year, when many take losses and would not be able to use it. Instead, they'd be able to wait until they're profitable and use the deduction at that time. Businesses would also be able to take part of the deduction in one year and save the rest for future years.

Child tax credit

-After Trump's running mate JD Vance pitched boosting the child tax credit to $5,000, up from the current top tax break of $2,000, Harris one-upped Vance's number, suggesting a child tax credit of $6,000, although this would be for the parents of newborns.
Harris also suggests a return to the pandemic-era expansion of the child tax credit, up to $3,600 for young children. She hasn't released income eligibility thresholds, but it's likely that it would phase out for those at higher income levels.

• Earlier this year, Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would have increased the child tax credit.
  
  

Housing shortage

-Harris says she'd address the nation's housing shortage with several initiatives. She promises to build 3 million affordable new homes and rentals by the end of her first term, offering tax breaks to builders who construct homes for first-time home buyers. She's also proposing a $40 billion fund to help local governments find solutions to the low housing stock. And she wants to provide Americans who have paid their rent on time for two years with up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance, with more support for first-generation homeowners.

Inflation

-Inflation has cooled nearly to pre-pandemic levels, but prices have risen nearly 21% since the beginning of the pandemic. A recent survey found two-thirds of middle-income families said they're falling behind their cost of living
-Harris is trying to address the effects of inflation on lower- and middle-class Americans, an approach used by the Biden administration. She blames price gouging by food suppliers and grocery chains for high prices at the store and pledges to take on corporations with the first federal law against price gouging. Economists have expressed doubts about the efficacy of such a law because they say that the reasons for food inflation are complex.
-She also wants to lower prescription drug costs, which has been a focus for the Biden administration. Last month, the White House announced Medicare reached agreements with drug manufacturers for lower prices for 10 drugs that treat a range of ailments, from heart failure and blood clots to diabetes, resulting in savings for patients of 38% to 79%, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It was Harris who cast the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which granted Medicare the drug negotiating authority.

Immigration

-Harris has not yet issued an immigration policy platform. At campaign events, Harris has mostly brought up the bipartisan border security deal that collapsed in Congress earlier this year after Trump urged GOP lawmakers to reject it. Harris has promised to revive the bill and accused Trump of scuttling it for political reasons.
-The legislation would have enacted permanent restrictions on asylum, given the president the power to quickly deport migrants when border crossings soar and boosted the ranks of border agents, deportation officers, immigration judges and asylum adjudicators. It would also have expanded legal immigration, allocating 50,000 new immigrant visas annually for five years.
-While the bipartisan border deal did not include a legalization program for undocumented immigrants — a longtime Democratic priority in immigration negotiations — Harris has expressed support for an "earned" path to citizenship for this population on the campaign trail.
-Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Harris' campaign manager, signaled to CBS News that Harris would likely continue a June order by Mr. Biden that has severely curtailed access to the U.S. asylum system. It's a move officials credit for a four-year-low in illegal border crossings.
Harris' campaign has tried to distance her from the more liberal immigration positions she espoused when she was a presidential candidate in 2020. Those prior positions included an openness to decriminalizing the act of crossing the border without authorization and overhauling Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Abortion

-Harris and Trump have opposing views on abortion access, an issue that could be a crucial motivator for voters in November.

-Both Trump and Harris have highlighted the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, and the role that the three justices appointed by Trump played in that landmark decision, albeit for different reasons: Trump has touted his nomination of three of the five justices who voted to overturn Roe, while Harris has criticized her opponent for specifically selecting justices who would dismantle the constitutional right to abortion. Since the high court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, nearly one-third of states have near-total bans on the procedure in place, while access to abortion is severely restricted in a handful of others.
-Harris has made abortion rights a focal point of her campaign and lambasted "Trump abortion bans" on the trail.
-In her speech at the Democratic National Convention accepting the party's presidential nominee, the vice president pledged to sign into law legislation that restores the federal right to abortion — if such a bill is passed by Congress.

IVF

-Access to in vitro fertilization services became a campaign issue after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in February that frozen embryos created during the IVF process could be considered children. The decision threatened the availability of IVF services in Alabama and thrust access to fertility treatments into the national conversation, including among the presidential candidates.

-Harris has repeatedly said she supports the right of women to make their own decisions about their bodies and family-planning, and told the crowd at the DNC that since Roe's reversal, she has heard stories of couples who have had their IVF treatments cut off.
The vice president said in a video shared to social media that Trump "is literally the architect of this entire crisis," and said the Alabama ruling is a "direct result" of the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe.

Climate

-Harris has not outlined her climate policy yet, but she is expected to continue to pursue the goals of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which funded energy and climate projects aimed at reducing carbon emissions by 40% by 2030.

-As vice president, Harris advocates moving the country toward a "clean energy economy" while not completely backing away from oil and gas, which is a major industry in battleground states like Pennsylvania. The Keystone State is one of the top natural gas producers in the country.
-In an interview with CNN, Harris said that as president, she wouldn't ban fracking — a technique for extracting natural gas from shale — a departure from a statement she made in 2019 that she'd support a fracking ban. Citing the creation of 300,000 clean energy jobs during the Biden administration, she told CNN that her experience as vice president shows "we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking."
-A Harris campaign spokesperson said 300,000 clean energy jobs were created under the Biden-Harris administration in both 2021 and 2022.
-The Democratic Party platform says it will increase protections against drilling and mining in the Arctic, although U.S. oil production has hit record highs during Mr. Biden's presidency. -Mr. Biden approved almost 50% more gas and oil leases during his time in office than Trump did during his first three years in office.
-Trump has vowed to undo what he calls Biden's "electric vehicle mandate" on Day One in office. A spokesperson for Harris' campaign told Axios Harris doesn't support an electric vehicle mandate. The Biden administration has not issued a mandate, but it has introduced incentives to encourage Americans to buy EVs and set a target that half of all new vehicle sales be zero emissions by 2030.

Guns

• President Biden in 2022 signed the most significant update to gun safety law in almost three decades in the wake of mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and New York. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act augmented background checks for gun buyers under 21, provided billions for mental health services and closed the so-called "boyfriend loophole" to prevent convicted domestic abusers from purchasing a firearm for five years. It also clarified the definition of gun dealers — 26 GOP-led states are suing to block this provision. The measure also creates penalties for straw purchases and gun trafficking. In 2023, Mr. Biden announced the creation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, to be overseen by Harris.
  
• Before she became the nominee, Harris visited Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the site of the 2018 mass shooting that left 17 dead, where she called on states to pass "red flag" laws, which allow courts to seize guns from those deemed to be a threat to themselves or others. Twenty-one states have enacted red flag laws, but many do not enforce them. She also announced federal funding and resources aimed at providing training and technical assistance to help states with their red flag programs. In 2024, the Justice Department announced the creation of the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center, dedicated to training and technical assistance to support states and localities in implementing their red flag programs.
  At her speech at the Democratic National Convention, Harris only made passing reference to gun violence. "In this election, many other fundamental freedoms are at stake," she said. "The freedom to live safe from gun violence in our schools, communities and places of worship."
  
  

Education

-As a senator, Harris backed a bill that would have provided tuition-free college for most families.
-The Democratic Party's platform also calls for free college tuition for all. This is not an idea Harris has been discussing on the campaign trail.

I know bugger all about trials but four stroke enduro and mx bikes definitely seem to find grip easier than two strokes. It's not the torque, so much as the gap between the power pulses. They're a lot easier to ride if you're feeling lazy. I still love the two stroke hit though, and the ability to break traction so easily.

It was your previous post: Wsj is pravda, nyt is pravda, etc.

Nope - that's what I said in response.

I've a lot of criticism about how mainstream media (or perhaps we should start calling it fact-based media) covered this election. Specifically, reporting on the economy, the constant sane-washing of Trump coverage, the acquiescing in advance by the LA Times and the Washington Post pulling their Harris endorsements, the fact that Trump's own COS describing him as a 'fascist' that 'praised Hitler' barely made the front pages of the NYT, except as part of larger articles framed as partisan attacks by the opposition...I could go on ad-tedium.

For all that, there's still no comparison between the probity, reliability and balance between any of those three papers and the shite vomited up on X and laundered through the entirety of the right wing ecosphere mentioned above.

Actually I said

Mainstream media has told some whoppers over the years but it's hardly Pravda

To which you replied,

I disagree with that, I think mainstream media owned by oligarchs like murdoch is horrifically propagandised and new media actually opens things up a bit. Sure there are risks, but I think that, rather from coming to a bad place from a good one, we are coming to a bad place from a horrendous one.

As far as voting in the US goes, most Trump voters get their news from Cable and Social Media, most young men in particular from a combination of X, Youtube and Reddit. How would you rate that content for balanced reporting, fact checking etc vs traditional media?

My point was, while you can find flaws in western mainstream media, they tend to be self correcting, albeit sometimes over a longer time line than is ideal. At the other end of the spectrum, is Pravda (or any autocratically controlled state media,) where ALL reporting is spun in service of the government and glaring events are airbrushed from history, without recourse.

I tend to think that a media environment with people like Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg as effective Nomenklaturas, is inherently corrupted. That Michael Tomasky article is really worth a read, as he says:

"It wasn’t the economy. It wasn’t inflation, or anything else. It was how people perceive those things, which points to one overpowering answer.... right-wing media. Today, the right-wing media—Fox News (and the entire News Corp.), Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, iHeart Media (formerly Clear Channel), the Bott Radio Network (Christian radio), Elon Musk’s X, the huge podcasts like Joe Rogan’s, and much more—sets the news agenda in this country. And they fed their audiences a diet of slanted and distorted information that made it possible for Trump to win."