• Number of physicians in the US: 700,000.
• Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year: 120,000.
• Accidental deaths per physician: 0.171.
• Number of gun owners in the US: 80,000,000.
• Number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups) 1,500.
• Accidental deaths per gun owner: 0.0000188.
• Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

Not everyone has a gun, but everyone has at least one doctor.

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat.

We must ban doctors before this gets out of hand.

Remember guns don’t kill people, doctors do!

---

Now I’m not sure exactly how accurate the number above are (I haven’t verified them personally), but it’s an interesting use of statistics. I also remember seeing an article in Newsweek a few years ago with the stats for accidental drownings in bathtubs, which were an alarming 3 times greater than accidental handgun deaths. Of course there wasn’t a bill before congress to ban bathtubs that year, or the next. Go figure.

Of course the fun thing about statistics is that they can be twisted and edited to show anything that you want to with them. They are even more malable than scripture.

satan, you know where i lie

gently i go into that good night

all our lives get complicated

search for pleasures overrated

never armed our souls

for what the future would hold

when we were innocent

angels, lend me your might

forfeit all my lives to get just one right

all those colors long since faded

all our smiles all confiscated

never were we told

we’d be bought and sold

when we were innocent

this prayer is for me tonight

this far down that line and still ain’t got it right

and while confessions not yet stated

our next sin is contemplated

never did we know

what the future would hold

or that we’d be bought and sold

we were innocent

- Innocent, Fuel

Long time, no update. Usually that’s because life is going great, I’m out having a good time, and all is well with my world. Usually.

Things have been pretty busy in the last several weeks, with sister relocation programs, island beach trips, and finding new clubs to hang out at, but I wouldn’t exactly say life has been great. More like it’s there, tolerable, and not overly burdensome at the moment.

In Montana Max Motorcycle News (one of the things that actually makes me happy these days) the build a bike project has kicked into the next phase. Those who talk to me on a regular basis have been getting an earful of the planning stages for a while now, but at this point parts have actually been ordered. So let me talk about the bike for a bit (cause I’m writing this and I can – if you don’t like it, go read something else).

Montana Max Custom Bike Build #1

Frame: Santee 230 Softtail with 2″ backbone stretch and 4″ downtube stretch.

Engine: Harley Davidson 80 cubic inch (1340cc) Evolution w/ Silver and Polished finish

Trans: Harley Davidson 5 speed

Primary: Harley Davidson stock w/ chain inner primary

For those who don’t read specs well (and don’t really care) the answer to your question is in the next paragraph down. For the rest of ya, to expand on what’s happening above, I’m building a fat bike. The rear tire will be about 9 1/2″ wide at the sidewalls, the frame is both longer and taller than a stock Harley Softtail (although not raked out anything near Easy Rider dimensions – Peter Fonda can keep that damn thing to himself). The tanks are going to be wide, the seat will be wide, the forks will be wide – see a trend here yet? I’ve owned a lot of bikes (bout 8 so far) and one thing they have all lacked (especially the street bikes) is the feeling of a huge wide machine. My current Shadow 1100 is not too bad (it feels a hell of a lot bigger than my buddy’s Sportster) but I’ve always wanted a big wide bike. So that’s the primary goal of this project – big wide bike feel. The second goal is for it to be a comfortable ride for trips of 300+ miles per day (like my current Shadow). I’m keeping the engine and drive train pretty close to stock for three reasons – reliability, cost, and not looking for a drag bike on this one.

Bright, obnoxious tangerine orange with (purple|green|??) abstract swirls and geometric shapes is he current paint job plan. (That is the important thing to know according to one of my sisters. I’m not entirely sure what the paint design will finalize at, but the goal for it is to be loud, unique, and unmistakeable. I want to be sure that if someone asks if my bike is out front, I can say “Yeah, it’s the big orange thing.” and they will know exactly which bike I’m talking about.

I’ll be building a web area just for the bike project pretty soon (as well as putting the shorter summary updates on the main blog) with plenty of pictures. (I’m going to use this project as the excuse to finally get a digital camera.)