I've posted new photos and video from the past two weeks at
http://fastfreds.com/trips/greenriverdogdays/
If you make it to Hendersonville's Bike Night stop by to say hi.
~FF
READER LETTERS
1) Grassroots in Action: Keep Writing Those Letters
PLACES TO RIDE AND BEAT THE HEAT
2) Motorcycle museum looks on cops on wheels
3) Bike Night Benefit in Historic Downtown Hendersonville, NC August 16th
SOUTH CAROLINA POLITICS AND BIKER ISSUES
4) S.C. lawmakers held few recorded votes
5) Health care premiums rising for SC public workers who smoke
6) Myrtle Beach Slamming the Door on Visitors
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READER LETTERS
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1) Grassroots in Action: Keep Writing Those Letters
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Hey FF, thanks for sharing the info with the rest of us, as a new subscriber I wanted to share with everyone that your Ezine is making a difference. I just wanted you to know that after reading your article about Rep. Edge's helmet law proposal I put the fingers to the keyboard and sent off an e-mail to Rep. Murrell Smith from Sumter District 67. Here are the words that I received back from him:
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"Thanks for the email. I will not support that bill. I do not think that government has a duty to protect us from ourselves and I am tired of the heavy hand of government in Columbia trying to regulate our lives. I will adamantly oppose this bill. Thanks for bringing it to my attention and please feel free to contact me if there are any other questions Thanks, Murrell"
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He also gave me his out of session e-mail address, I just wanted to let all the bros and gals out there know that not everyone in SC is against us and wanted to share the good name of some in Columbia that are willing to look out for us.
Thank you again for sharing with the rest of us!
Mike "Slacker" Colvin
FF NOTE: You can find your representative's contact information at
http://www.scstatehouse.net/cgi-bin/zipcodesearch.exe
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PLACES TO RIDE AND BEAT THE HEAT
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2) Motorcycle museum looks on cops on wheels
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http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880801007
Motorcycle museum looks on cops on wheels
Paul Clark
The Wheels Through Time American Transportation Museum will open its final exhibit in North Carolina with a history of motorcycle police in America.
The museum, which houses a collection of rare and historic American motorcycles and unique automobiles, will open the 60-day exhibit “Motorcops: A 100 Year Love Affair Between Police and the Motorcycle” on Sept. 26. Two months later it closes its doors in North Carolina.
Featured in the main gallery of the museum’s 38,000-square-foot facility, “Motorcops” will tell the story of the long-lasting relationship between law enforcement and the motorcycle. Beginning in 1908, police forces across the country began using motorcycles to protect and serve.
“Motorcops” will present machines, memorabilia, artwork, and stories from the past century. Several rare machines from the early to mid 1900s will be displayed, including a 1937 Harley-Davidson California Highway Patrol motorcycle, a 1942 Harley-Davidson Civil Patrol EL Knucklehead , and a restored 1954 50th Anniversary Harley-Davidson Police Servicar.
All law enforcement officials will receive complimentary admission to the museum during the run of the exhibit and family members will be admitted at half-price. The museum is at 62 Vintage Lane in Maggie Valley. For more, visit www.WheelsThroughTime.com
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3) Bike Night Benefit in Historic Downtown Hendersonville, NC August 16th
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Bike Night Benefit
Coming to Historic Downtown Hendersonville, NC
Hendersonville, NC
Historic Downtown Hendersonville will be hosting the first of a three event series on Saturday, July 26th, August 16, and September, 27, 2008 from 6-9pm rain or shine. All are invited to Hendersonville, on Hwy 64 just off I-26, to enjoy an evening of fun that will begin at 6pm. The street will be blocked off for bike parking. The activities will include music by Consciously Sedated, bike games and The Carolinas' Full throttle Magazine staff will award The Best Bike Award to one lucky rider. There will be food and beer available from participating merchants and local business are encouraged to remain open for browsing or shopping. There will also be hundreds of raffle prizes donated by area merchants, so make it a point to ride to Historic Downtown Hendersonville for these events.
The events are part of a fundraising effort for the Kid's Alliance Skate Park. The goal is to raise $68,000 for a new skate plaza for Hendersonville youth at Patton Park. The Hendersonville Kid’s Alliance to Skate, organized in the spring of 2006 by five local teens, sought the guidance & support of city leaders and businesses to realize their goal of a street skating plaza for the youth of the area.
The Kids Alliance is only $68,000 from their goal of $350,000. The final 12,000 square foot park design has been approved by the City of Hendersonville and is currently under bid for construction later this year. The Skate Plaza will be located in Patton Park on Asheville Highway.
Please join us by making a tax-deductible donation. Donations are accepted at any Mountain First Bank location; the Community Foundation of Henderson County
Kids Alliance Skate Plaza Fund
P.O. Box 1108
Hendersonville, NC 28793
and at www.skatehendersonville.com. For more information, please visit the website or call (828) 697-6224.
Skateboarding is illegal in the town of Hendersonville and continues to pose an issue for the safety of our youth, the downtown area, and our merchants.
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SOUTH CAROLINA POLITICS AND BIKER ISSUES
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4) S.C. lawmakers held few recorded votes
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http://www.thestate.com/politics/story/483533.html
S.C. lawmakers held few recorded votes
South Carolina lawmakers held recorded votes on less than a tenth of the bills that passed the General Assembly, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the South Carolina Policy Council.
During the most recent session, the House held a recorded vote on 8 percent of bills that passed the body, while the Senate held recorded votes on just 1 percent of approved bills.
Recorded votes, the report said, are crucial to holding public officials accountable.
The report did not analyze the number of roll-call votes during amendments to bills. In many cases, a debate over an amendment can take hours, and approving or rejecting an amendment is the equivalent of a yes or no vote on the bill.
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5) Health care premiums rising for SC public workers who smoke
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http://www.thestate.com/breaking/story/489808.html
Health care premiums rising for SC public workers who smoke
By SEANNA ADCOX - Associated Press Writer
COLUMBIA, S.C. --
Tens of thousands of South Carolina public employees and their family members who smoke or chew tobacco will pay an additional $25 a month for their state health insurance starting in 2010.
With a 3-2 vote Thursday, state budget officials made South Carolina the eighth state nationwide to charge state employees more if they or their spouses light up.
Gov. Mark Sanford called it a "small but meaningful step" toward making people responsible for endangering their own health.
"It's a case of recognizing cost," he said. He added, "People ought to have complete freedom on how they treat their body," but said nonsmokers shouldn't have to pay for their co-workers' bad health care decisions.
Last year, tobacco-related illnesses cost South Carolina taxpayers $75 million, accounting for 7 percent of $1.1 billion paid out for public employees' health care, according to the state's budget board.
The $25 surcharge won't take effect until Jan. 1, 2010. The state's health plan operates on a calendar year, and a majority of the five-member Budget and Control Board said it would be too hard to implement the increase by January 2009 or in midyear.
Although Sanford proposed the increase, he voted "no" because he wanted it to start sooner.
"I always find it baffling how slowly the bureaucratic wheels turn," he said.
Under an honor system, nonsmokers must fill out an affidavit to pay the lower rate. Penalties for lying on the forms are not yet determined. In Alabama, for example, employees caught lying must pay all monthly surcharges dating back to when they falsely filled out the form. It's often their co-workers who alert officials.
An estimated 58,600 South Carolina employees - or 24 percent of all those working in state and local governments and schools - will be paying more.
The state health plan covers state workers, educators in public schools and colleges and county and municipal employees who choose to participate.
Including family members, the state's health care plan covers more than 400,000 South Carolinians, according to the budget board.
Sanford said he hopes the hike encourages people to stop smoking but he realizes it probably won't.
"Nothing's going to persuade people to quit smoking unless they want to," said human resources specialist Katie Brasington, while standing outside the state Education Department on a smoke break. A smoker for 30-plus years, she said she agreed with the increase.
"Smokers do cost insurance companies a whole lot more money," she said. "If you do something that causes poor health, you should have to pay."
But her smoking co-workers were incensed by the idea and called it discrimination.
"That's insane. They've already taken enough away from me as a smoker," said Jackie Nichols, a smoker for 40 years, as she headed to the designated smoking spot. "I'm punishing myself if I choose to smoke. How dare them! That's infringing on my rights."
Others called it unfair, since smoking isn't the only bad habit that increases health care costs.
Recognizing that, the governor said he's open to additional surcharges, such as for obesity. But he also wants to add incentives for people to make healthy choices.
"If you choose to eat better and exercise, you ought to be rewarded," Sanford said.
South Carolina has a history as a tobacco-friendly state, with the nation's lowest cigarette tax of 7 cents per pack, unchanged for three decades. Though far less tobacco is planted here than during its heyday, South Carolina still ranks fourth nationwide in harvested tobacco acres, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
But the skyrocketing cost of health insurance has prompted more states, particularly in the South, to add a tobacco surcharge. Since West Virginia did it in 2000, Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas and South Dakota have followed. Surcharges range from $15 to $40 monthly.
About 25 percent of Alabama's public work force pays an extra $24 a month. It hasn't proved to be a deterrent, with the number of smokers on the payroll remaining steady since the policy started in 2005, said Gary Matthews, chief operating officer of the Alabama State Employees' Insurance Board.
"It's not a whole lot, but it helps defer some of the cost," he said. "It's $3 million we wouldn't have had otherwise to help pay claims."
Private companies charging smokers more include PepsiCo Inc., which recently hiked its tobacco-use surcharge from $100 to $600 annually in an effort to encourage more people to quit. The dramatic increase seems to be working, with a nearly 13-fold increase in the number of employees entering a smoking cessation program this year, said spokesman David Dececco.
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6) Myrtle Beach Slamming the Door on Visitors
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http://myrtlebeachinsider.blogspot.com/2008/08/myrtle-beach-slamming-door-on-visitors.html
Myrtle Beach Slamming the Door on Visitors
Beach Town Considering Drawbridges as a Crazy Bunch of Local Whackos Hang Out the “No Visitors” Signs
First it was North Myrtle Beach airheads running off the Spring Breakers in the early 1990’s.
Next it was the thousands of hair dressers, that flocked to Myrtle Beach in late May every year being treated like a migration of hookers by locals, before finally saying, “Forget about you Myrtle Beach!”
Then it was those wild ’n crazy Shriners, who were the next to fall victim to the “vacationer go home” trailer park mentality that has so disgustingly permeated the tourist town known far and wide as the Redneck Riviera, and subsequently left for the more hospitable and open-minded resort town of Virginia Beach, never to return.
Well loyal reader, now the “anything for a vote” pinheads on the Myrtle Beach City Council and the corn pone hicks on Horry County Council are again groveling at the feet of a small but viciously vocal crowd of pea-brained nutcases who are now hell-bent on running off the vacationing motorcyclists that bring zillions of much needed dollars to the Myrtle Beach area each May.
The “Ban the Bikers” klan of kooks, in homage to their deceased whacko zealot hero, Jerry Falwell, are all scurrying around town dressed in their silly little lime-green t-shirts, that make them all look like a bunch of portly, blue-haired Dipsy’s, (Dipsy, “The Dipstick,” was considered by Falwell and his minions to be the “gayest” of all the Teletubbies), emblazoned with sophomoric drivel like, “Stop the May-hem.”
Last week, while the "Ban the Bikers" dimwits and the empty-headed suck-ups on Myrtle Beach, Surfside Beach and North Myrtle Beach City Councils, along with the rocket scientists on Horry County Council were holding an anti-biker session, and whining about being inconvenienced and bemoaning the noise, their unanimous Presidential pick, John McCain was, at the very same time, at the Harley-Davidson Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, telling 50,000 Harley aficionados that he preferred the roar of 50,000 Harley's over the cheers of a couple hundred thousand Berliners, and that the sound of 50,000 roaring Harley's was, “The sound of freedom!” (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRD4xseju44).
McCain even talked about entering his surgically enhanced Barbie doll wife, Cindy McCain, in the bikers’ x-rated Miss Buffalo Chip contest (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4X6XqNeF1o).
Besides being really stupid, this obvious stupidity is really scary, because some of these Dunes Club based scalawags are so far out in left field that sometimes their utterances can make, Joseph Goebbels, sound like Mr. Rogers. It’s amazing to us that these reprobates are actually allowed outside without their protective helmets, much less allowed to play with sharp objects.
Add to all this anti-tourism insanity South Carolina’s rampant and widely publicized homophobia, and the local yokel politicos are now considering erecting medieval-like drawbridges over Myrtle Beach’s man-made moat, known as the Intracoastal Waterway, to prevent any of “those kind of people” from entering the Myrtle Beach area.
The Myrtle Beach Insider crew just learned that Myrtle Beach Mayor, John Rhodes, and the nutzo ringleader of the "Ban the Bikers" circus, Tom Rice-A-Cronie, just returned from a secret fact-finding mission to Germany, where they and their wacko delegation of fellow isolationists, met with former East German Soviet border guards to gather first-hand information on how to construct “visitor-proof” barriers, watch towers and guard houses; how to profile “those kind of vacationers;” how to train jack-booted crossing guards and vicious attack poodles and to begin recruiting Gestapo-like cretans to man their new Myrtle Beach Visitor Barricades at the new drawbridges.
The Myrtle Beach Insider crew hired a team of preschoolers to conduct a survey of members of the Myrtle Beach, Surfside Beach and North Myrtle Beach City Councils, along with the Horry County Council about their new “No Visitors” policy. We chose preschoolers to conduct the study because their intelligence level came the closest to mirroring those of the anti-biker Council members and their rabid, bug-eyed supporters.
The results of the survey was best summed up by Mayor Rhodes when, after he finished soliciting everyone within a 100-yard radius about more funds for his personal taxpayer “honey pot,” the infamous Beach Ball Classic, said, “Sure Myrtle Beach is in a recession, in fact, we’re actually in a depression, but we’re politicians so we don’t give a rat's patootie about business, we only care about votes. Hell, we’d all sell our first born for a few votes, and if that means killing the Myrtle Beach tourist industry in the process then that’s just tough toenail pal, so deal wid it Bro!”
“It’s silly to go on pretending that under the skin we are all brothers. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors, liars, hypocrites, poltroons.” Henry Miller
Ah, and so the insanity continues on the Redneck Riviera!
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