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Trumps middle of the night rant attacking and threatening Bruce Springsteen for speaking up against him is a good reason for another song remake by the Boss. "Not born in the USA", it could be about Trumps wives.

It must be time to start up a "pothole repair" business, as a highly profitable side-hustle, Jerry. "Mr Pothole" here on the Left Coast charges like a wounded bull, and makes substantial profits. https://www.mrpothole.com.au/

A very expensive one, that's for sure. The fact that the price of gold has currently soared to exotic heights is pretty indicative of how low the value of our currencies has become, thanks to political mismanagement and squandering.

The problem for the USA is that the oil on their own lands is not suitable for modern vehicles.

Wouldn't you like to still be in the game with gold at $5000/oz? What sort of ounce is that?

I've discovered the economic growth area of Russia. It's.... Media ! "Kremlin spent 1.9 billion USD on propaganda last year, the budget exceeded by a quarter" Since any allegation is false unless there is a cite... https://www.debunk.org/kremlin-spent-1-9-billion-usd-on-propaganda-last-year-the-budget-exceeded-by-a-quarter

Apparently only 250 tickets have been sold in the whole of Australia. Quote of the day comes from Justin Smith on Sunrise this morning - I'd rather French kiss a cheese grater than watch that movie.

If you are "mindfull" it's best to stop riding. It's a dangerous condition. I also think "mindempty" is dangerous.

There's the problem. You need faster potholes.

There was a lot of union activity in (about) 1980. I recall some unpleasant police interventions in the news then, and later. The details have dropped through my memory cracks

well, here is the vid of the road where the potholes are. There are a few of them: Nice to get on the bike again.

I don't remember the ruling in Joh's day, but the authority to order three or more people to move on came in with the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act in the year 1997 under the Borbage National-Liberal Coalition government if my memory is correct. The act had a follow up version in the year 2000 under Peter Beattie, so it might have been in that later version, I'd have to check. Original post edited.

Sounds good, a Aero themed bike sounds cool. A Ejector seat is a great gag, when racing a sidecar it certainly felt like you would be ejected if not hanging on for life as the monkey. A good anvil is valuable, the cheap Chinese cast ones suck and crack easily.

Thanks Litespeed, that's good info. Luckily the advantage of rat bike builds in the context of guards and panels is that the more imperfect it is, the better it is. Rust, oxidisation and generally worn patina is the order of the day. The main thing I don't have is a proper fair dinkum, original old anvil. It's hard to get a good second hand one under $1,500 to $2,000 these days, crazy prices. I've just got the usual stand-ins for smaller anvil work, eg: railway track and a piece of UB for flat work. One thing I do have is a lot of old aeroplane parts, so I might be able to find a few handy bits and pieces there. For the sidecar seat, there's the option of an old cast steel plow seat like the bike will have, or a Martin Baker, or an Antonov 2 seat. The issue with the aircraft seats is that they might be too wide for the copper boiler ; I'll have to measure them up.

Sweet Mad Willie the beast. A friend did the bikes from the latest Mad Max movie, he is a chair specialist.

I had a english wheel, great machine but not needed to do guards or any other part to a good quality. A basic stump ground into a dish and some basic hammers will do lots. A leather bag of sand or lead is also useful. A guard can be done on a old curved steam pipe or cast large diameter curved water pipe etc. just grind smooth and hammer away. If you have a angle grinder you can modify almost anything to shape metal on, custom hammers are easy. YouTube can basically teach you everything you need. It does not require big bucks and lots of tooling. Given you intend on building a sidecar, you obviously have tools, skills and lots of possible shaping tools hiding as scrape.

Melania's new blockbuster documentary: MELANIA (on the phone): "Hi Mr. President. Congratulations!" TRUMP: "Did you watch it?" MELANIA: "I did not. Ya, I will see it on the news" Funniest line ever and they actually put it in the official trailer for the film. So embarrassing any serious editor would have left it on the cutting room floor, but it tells you all you need to know about the pair of them. Actually, maybe it was editing genius.

It has its bonuses. Funnily enough, I had this conversation with my wife a couple of months back, without using the "mindful" term which I hate. https://theconversation.com/finding-stillness-in-motion-how-riding-a-motorcycle-can-teach-us-mindfulness-272396

Yeah - I did build a lot on the question.. I could have let it go to the keeper as it is an innocuous comment at the end of the day. But these "simple" questions often (and I am not saying in this case) belie or at least allude to a deeper agenda. But, the other problem is, society is becoming ever more polarised because of transgressions passed that have no bearing on the people of today (except we are bound to learn from them and improve society). As a result, we aree seeing an increase in civil violence. None of us were directly involved with the taking of Australia from Aboriginals, and I sympathise with the concept of Invasion day, but rather than using it as a weapon to integrate better, it is being used as a weapon to divide the populations and now you have attempted or hoax bombs being thrown into the demonstations. While there has always been a hard core of Nazis since WWII, sadly, even in Australia, they are managing to attract more and more who were not Nazi sympathisers or hard core, and they are probably no more than disenfranchised with the way things are going, and possibly being sick of labelled eveything from a mysoginist to racial vilifier or some such stuff. Over here, division of society is being sewn from the slave trade over a hundred years ago, ironically when there were no slaves in the UK. Yes, the UK participated in it and yes, they profited from it, but the apologists are now calling for all sorts of stuff and no one is saying it was actually the UK (or England) that ended African slavery!" So, nowm you are getting more people fed up being labelled something they are not because of previous generations' transgressions, and resentment as well as moving the support base to the dodgier part of town (e.g. the more white supremacist part of town). You try speaking to many younger white males these days. Many are feeling they are victimised because they are protrayed as representing many of them don't represent.

I've put some thought into sourcing an old BMW engine to use as they would be ideal. As far as the other aspects, it's good advice and I appreciate it but it's outside the original intentions. The idea is to build a bike, not modify an existing one, and by being a non registered bike not for the road, it gives me the freedom to do whatever I want without having to worry about legalities and compliance and basically bending to the rules of others. If the bike got a bit lonely at home I could always load it on the trailer and cart it off to one of the local custom bike and rod days. Road riding is not so much fun around here these days with all the traffic; it's now mainly just an exercise in staying alive.

A bathtub would make a great steampunk sidecar! 😄 Oh, wait! - the Americans have beaten you! 😄

Back in the early 70's I had a 741 Indian. I also had a Dusting sidecar I intended to put on it but sold them both before that happened. Sold the Indian for $50 and the sidecar for $30. Not one of my wiser decisions.

It would be good to have an English wheel, but I've never used one. A bit of skill involved with them I think.