The Vegas Plaque Diary by Arnold Snyder of ToplessVegas.com As a professional gambler in addition to strip club afficionado, I’ve seen many cons up close and in person and heard about many more from the people who pulled them. I know Las Vegas casino blackjack dealers who dealt seconds and professional poker players who rigged elaborate camera systems for reading the hole cards of their opponents. I even had a professional grifter try to involve me in investment fraud and a major telemarketing scam before he was put away for it.  That scam was so big even Forbes wrote about it. But I have never seen a con as enormous and successful as the one the powers that be are putting over on us with the Kung Flu Big Con.

Las Vegas Evictions

♦ A friend and business associate was just kicked out of his digs at The Downtowner motel, a former dive (now semi-dive) a couple of blocks south of the Container Park downtown.  Never mind that he was a long-term resident, paying by the week, like many thousands of other seasonal and gig workers in Las Vegas.  The governor ordered all Nevada motels closed, so he is now homeless and en route to Arizona to seek shelter.

Vegas Job Losses

♦ Most of my neighbors work in the Vegas tourist industry somehow, many of them small business owners.  The couple down the block that does hiking and biking tours of Red Rock Canyon?  Shut down for the duration.  The guy across the street who owns the little restaurant in the canyon? Had to lay off all his employees and is now reduced to selling brownies to locals through the door.  The family that rents  mountain bikes to tourists?  No tourists, so why open?  The blackjack dealer who lives two doors down?  Casino closed, laid off. ♦ A Las Vegas friend who does online marketing has overnight lost 100% of his clients after the best January in his business’s history.  Even if the shutdown ends in 30 days, he estimates 50% of his clients will never return because they will either have gone under by then or be unable to afford advertising as they struggle to climb out of a period of fixed expenses with no revenue. Meanwhile, data show that even in states with no shutdown 50% of small business revenue is already gone.

Empty Stores and Food Prices Soaring

♦ I had to go to five grocery stores in Las Vegas yesterday to put together enough ingredients to feed my household for two days.  At store after store, shelves were bare. The prices of many foods had doubled or more since last week just as tens or hundreds of thousands got laid off here.  Last week I got chicken legs for 79 cents a pound. Yesterday I had to pay $4.99.

Long-Term Destruction of the Vegas Economy

♦ Mayor Caroline Goodman of Las Vegas has informed the public that she told Governor Sisolak his 30-day Kung Flu closure of the casinos and all non-essential businesses will “destroy the economy of Nevada for years to come.”  She urged him to reconsider and end the shutdown in a week to 10 days. But this morning, all he is talking about is getting bailout money for the casinos.  The Las Vegas casinos have always hated smaller businesses like the Vegas strip clubs and firing ranges and nature tour outfits that draw tourists out of their establishments.  This crisis is made to order for them.

And for What?  Did You Know You Are Expected to Get the Virus Anyway?

♦ There is no way to extinguish the virus completely, so who decides when it’s safe to end the shutdown or when we have to shut down the economy again? Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin just said he expects the lockdowns to remain in effect for 10-12 weeks, into early June.  But individual state lockdowns may last longer.  Governor Cuomo is warning New Yorkers that the state may be in shutdown for 4 to 9 months.  [Pro tip:  He and other Democrat governors, mayors and county commissioners have every intention of keeping the shutdowns in place as long as possible going into the election.] And the Imperial College climate change “scientist” behind both the Green New Deal and the virus model that prompted the shutdown frenzy says countries may have to stay in lockdown for 18 months!  (In case you doubt what’s behind the Imperial College virus model, here they are openly planning to use coronavirus to advance their socialist climate change agenda.) If there’s always a possibility of the virus or its mutations coming back (and there is), we will always be under the threat of another shutdown. How many times can we do this?  Are you aware that, despite the shutdowns, you are expected to get WuFlu anyway?

Not Even Close to as Deadly as You’ve Been Told

If you followed in real time the daily infections and deaths from any flu season, any year, it would look scary.  (The CDC says deaths from regular flu in the U.S. this year already number 23,000.)  But Kung Flu is well within the norm.  The real death rate of Kung Flu is likely 0.125%, or well within the range of a typical flu year, and the death rate of the elderly is not unusual for flu death rates among the elderly, according to Stanford doctor, medical professor and epidemiologist John Ioannides. The Diamond Princess data confirm, and suggest the virus isn’t as contagious as feared, even among the vulnerable.  The growth rate of the virus is not exponential, despite media claims, according to these Duke University professors.  One of the reasons it’s less contagious than feared, according to those professors, is because people move everyday through the same social network, seeing the same people over and over.  They don’t venture out of their network to deliberately infect others. Another reason, says this Nobel laureate, is because most people are naturally immune. Oh, and the data show that the virus does not spread from asymptomatic individuals (another urban myth that has terrorized both citizens and governments and is still circulating virally).  That’s why South Korea and Japan were successful in halting the spread of the illness by aggressive quarantine of only the symptomatic. That means that Imperial College virus model overstated a key method of transmission by 50x.  This is the study behind every single sensational media headline. Read the entire report here: https://toplessvegasonline.com/vegas-plague-diary/?fbclid=IwAR0uzwUy81BpIerJl8Wf8d-rondJCBRFtkYuixOYGwbdbS-2RIx5aFgEAxo The President just said that the death rate might be as low as .07 percent. I’m hoping he will set us free by Monday. By the way, this report came from J.J. Solari. Couldn’t be a better source…–Bandit

by Elena Gorgan from https://www.autoevolution.com

One of the main complaints lodged against the Harley-Davidson LiveWire is the short range offered on a single charge, of just 140 miles. That doesn’t mean it’s not made for touring, though.

Swiss rider Michel von Tell has just set a new world record for the longest tour in under 24 hours for an electric motorcycle, covering over 1,000 miles on a LiveWire. The bad news is that the record won’t be recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, as von Tell did not have Guinness officials present.

Electroauto-news reports (via Electrek) that von Tell started in Zurich, Switzerland and covered four countries and a total of 1,723 km (1,070 miles) on the LiveWire, in 23 hours and 48 minutes. He reached Stuttgart, Germany and then traveled to Singen, before heading to Ruggell, Lichtenstein, the final stop on his journey.

He used Level 3 DC Fast Charge for charging stops, which considerably cut down stop times. Level 1 on the LiveWire uses a regular wall outlet and takes an entire night for a full charge. Level 3 guarantees a faster charge: a nearly full battery in 40 minutes or so. According to the media outlet, von Tell would stop for charging on Level 3 for an average of 25 minutes whenever he needed to.

The previous 24-hour record for an electric motorcycle was set in 2018 on a Zero S fitted with optional Charge Tank and using a team of riders, on a test track. Von Tell traveled in traffic, on the highway and was all alone.

While he couldn’t afford the Guinness fee, which would have ensured officials were on hand to confirm the record, and didn’t have a method to do the electronic self-recording required for Guinness confirmation, von Tell did provide signed witness accounts as confirmation. This makes his LiveWire 24-hour tour the unofficial record holder for the longest on an electric motorcycle to date.

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com

Sidecars have been trusted sidekicks for motorcycles since times immemorial. According to records, they date back to the late 1890s, when supposedly a French army officer came up with the ancestor of the sidecar we know today.

Technically, the need for a sidecar on a motorcycle is a valid one. After all, there are so many people and things you can carry on a two-wheeler, and having extra space is at times essential. This is why, for instance, sidecars were so successful during the years of the second world war.

Yet overall, sidecars are not often seen or used on the streets. That’s probably because people do not buy motorcycles as family vehicles, and they don’t usually go out on one with the wife and kids tagging along.

One of the world’s biggest motorcycle makers, Harley-Davidson, offered way back sidecars as a factory option. Production of such devices was shut down in 2011, making a Harley with sidecar attached a rarer sight still.

The motorcycle we have in the gallery above is a Road King Classic equipped with such a hardware, a combination so rare it deserves to sell for big bucks at auction. At it will try to do that during a RM Sotheby’s event in Indiana in May.

Equipped with an 88 cubic inch V-twin engine and a five speed transmission, the bike sports a sidecar with matching fenders and complete with tonneau and windscreen. Saddlebags and passenger backrest, as well as an optional leather storage pouch are included in the package.

What’s more important is the fact that the bike, despite its age, has been ridden for just 800 miles since new. Despite this, and its rarity, the bike will go under the hammer as part of the Elkhart Collection with no reserve, meaning it will go to the highest bidder regardless of price.

by Elena Gorgan from https://www.autoevolution.com/

Throughout its 117-year history, Harley-Davidson often turned to merchandising to boost sales, expand its reach and draw in new segments of the public. Some novelty items were hits and misses, while others fared decently – but not a single one was as successful as the Harley-Davidson Beer.

We’ve already discussed some of the most surprising items Harley sold that you (probably) didn’t know about, and mentioned beer as well. Indeed, one of the most iconic motorcycle makers in the world once sold beers by the four- or six-pack as an official product. In fact, it did so for many years, between 1984 and 2000, and then again in 2018, as a limited-edition for the 5-year anniversary known as the Ride Home.

The association between bikes and beer isn’t surprising. After all, it’s a known fact that bikers prefer beer over wine or even hard liquor, and a can of beer seems more at home in the hand of a biker than anywhere else. As for how Harley itself came up with the idea of stamping the HD name on it, it turns out it went beyond the desire to make some extra cash.

Sure, when it was first launched in 1984, at the Daytona Bike Week, it was a novelty item meant to draw on the Harley name for a boost in profit. The cans were made to resemble oil cans, painted in the colors of a chopper (silver and black), but the beer inside was of the generic type. It was a pure marketing move: take a bland, generic beverage and repackage it in order to sell it as a novelty for more money.

By 1987, though, Harley bosses had understood that, even if their beer would sell either way, it would sell even better if it was a quality product. That’s when the Harley-Davidson Heavy Beer was officially born – and introduced at the same Daytona Bike Week event. Made in partnership with Pabst Brewing Co. and packaged inside a can in silver and orange, with the writing “Daytona 1987,” it was a standalone product that spoke of Harley’s commitment to delivering excellence to the riders.

It also spoke of the company’s desire to take merchandising one step further, by delivering something rival companies couldn’t. Or, as Clyde Fessler, Harley-Davidson marketing executive at the time, explained to the Orlando Sentinel upon launch: when your biggest property is your name, you make sure you don’t put it to shame.

“It’s the best beer brewed in Wisconsin,” Fessler boasted, saying the Heavy Beer was thought of as “anti-light beer.”

“The strongest thing we have is our name,” he continued. “To middle America, Harley Davidson is what the Jaguar name is to the yuppies. We sell 30,000 bikes a year, but 2.5 million T-shirts. We wanted to do something the Japanese couldn’t do. Could you see yourself drinking ‘Suzuki beer?’”

Harley continued making limited-edition beer until 2000, for each Daytona Bike Week edition and other HD-sponsored events. As with other novelty items, cans sold out faster than hot cakes, but sellers would often tell the media that they hardly ever saw buyers drink it. To this day, a can of Harley-Davidson beer is a collectible, whether empty or still unopened.

In 2018, for the 5-year anniversary known as the Ride Home or HarleyMania, Harley-Davidson brought back its beer from the dead. This time, it was a one hundred percent homemade product, in the sense that Harley partnered with 3 breweries from hometown Milwaukee to deliver the same taste bikers had come to love in Heavy Beer.

Good City Brewing, Third Space Brewing, and Milwaukee Brewing Co. used all-Wisconsin malts in creating the beer, which was described as “super balanced and drinkable.” It was made widely available at the event, at $7.99 to $8.99 a four-pack. Like with every other edition of the Harley Beer, demand was so high they had to ask buyers to cut back on orders.

The Orlando Sentinel described the 1987 Daytona beer upon launch as having “a thick head, full aroma and a heavy, European-style body” with a “rich [taste]: a slight malt sweetness at first, a strong taste of hops and a sharp, almost bitter finish.” You can still find unopened cans from that year and later on on eBay and beer-dedicated websites, though drinking them after all these years is probably not a good idea.

by Pradeep Shah from https://www.financialexpress.com

The upcoming BMW R18 will draw power from a 1,800cc, boxer-twin engine that is the biggest motor ever produced by BMW for any of its mass production motorcycles.

BMW R18 is all set for its global debut on the 3rd of April. Ahead of the official unveiling, the full-sized cruiser has been snapped completely undisguised, image courtesy MCN. Starting off with the front, the upcoming BMW R18 cruiser will get a rounded headlamp with chrome bezel. The rounded rear view mirrors are also chrome plated and so are the brake and clutch levers. The R18 gets a large windscreen up front that not only will serve the purpose but gels well with the overall design language. The motorcycle also gets soft-box panniers with buckles and the turn indicators have quite an interesting shape too. The pictures also reveal the instrument cluster of the cruiser, which will be a single piece analogue unit with a small digital readout.

Speaking of powertrain, the upcoming BMW R18 will draw power from a 1,800cc, boxer-twin engine that will be good for developing respective power and torque outputs of 91hp and 158Nm. This is the biggest engine ever produced by BMW for any of its mass production motorcycles. The bike is expected to get multiple riding modes along with a traction control system and cruise control as well. Braking will be taken care of with the help of dual discs up front along with a single disc at the rear. A dual-channel ABS (Anti-Lock Braking System) will be offered as standard equipment.

Apart from a cruiser, BMW will also be coming up with an R18 touring model that will get a more fancy equipment list and loads of other features. The upcoming BMW R18 will rub shoulders against the likes of the cruisers from Indian Motorcycle and Harley-Davidson. Expect India launch to take place by the end of this year or early 2021.

At Indian Motorcycle, we are about the ride, but more than anything we are about family. Both the family you are born into and the one you find outside. For us, this family includes you. Across the country, our family — customers, dealers, employees and communities — are experiencing challenges during the unfolding COVID-19 situation. We recognize these challenges bring uncertainty for all and we want you to know that we are still working diligently to support and serve our family. We are in continuous collaboration with our dealer network across the globe, sharing updates and best practices. Many of our dealers remain open and continue to serve customers but it’s likely best to check our Dealer Locator resource or call ahead to confirm their hours before visiting as things may change quickly. Should you have questions you need answered, aside from your local dealer, our Customer Support team is available to provide support. Contact us at 1 (877) 204-3697 or via email. Self-help is also available at IndianMotorcycle.com/self-help. We understand the potential financial and economic impact and are working closely with our financing partners who support our customers. Sheffield Financial, Synchrony, Performance Finance, TD & US Bank are committed to providing customer support to current loan holders. Current loan holders should reach out to their lender directly for options available specifically to them. Customers can contact their lender(s) through the customer service numbers below:

Performance Finance (US Lender): 855-432-7720 TD (Canadian Lender): 866-694-4392 US Bank (Polaris Visa Card): 877-828-4726

We know many of you are using this time to get your bike ready to ride. For parts and accessories, our online or mobile shopping is still available through indianmotorcycle.com. Small businesses, like our Indian Motorcycle dealers, are vital to our country and their local community’s economy and we are taking steps to support them during these unprecedented times and encourage you to do the same as you are able.

We have taken several precautionary measures to protect the safety of our employees including: Directing all employees able to do so to work from home and implementing additional social distancing measures at our facilities. Restricted travel for employees to reduce the potential spread of the virus. Implementing additional visitor guidelines, augmented cleaning procedures, and provided additional sanitizing stations at our facilities.

Additionally, today we made the announcement that we are suspending production operations at our Spirit Lake, Iowa and Osceola, Wisconsin plants for one week. This is a temporary shut-down and is one of the many actions we are taking to combat the impact of COVID-19 on our business. Impacted employees unable to work from home will be eligible to receive COVID paid leave, which provides U.S. employees with 100% of their pay for up to 10 days due to illness, quarantine or shutdown. We encourage you to continue to practice the personal hygiene guidelines and social distancing while also reminding you that riding is a great way to escape during these troubled times. We are here to serve you and are dedicated to supporting our entire Indian Motorcycle family. May you hold that sense of family close during this time. And, as always, we will ride this out together. Thank you for being an Indian Motorcycle customer. Mike Dougherty, President, Motorcycles

For over 4.4 years Ray C. Wheeler built this bike to run on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Up until recently is was a state-of-the-art turbo-charged monster, but he never got the chance to make a pass.

Ray has health issues and is looking for a younger group to take over his dream and make it a record reality.

It’s been neglected and needs some care, but it’s 99 percent complete and ready for the right team to take the reins into the record books. It’s already won awards and was tuned by the masters. Give Ray a call and make his and your dreams come true. But remember one thing. His lucky number is 4, 44 or 444. Make sure to mention that.

Ray C. Wheeler: 1-831-594-7783

–Bandit

Jurisdictions around the world last week began reducing the use of speed cameras in light of the pandemic.

 

Motorists around the world are calling on local governments to suspend the use of automated ticketing machines as the public deals with the coronavirus outbreak. Providence, Rhode Island, responded by shutting down its “school zone” photo radar program while the schools themselves are closed during the pandemic. By contrast, officials in New York City, New York, have rejected the call to shut down the school cameras while no schools are in session. Similarly, Newburgh Heights, Ohio, has been stationing police officers on the overpass of Interstate 77 to dish out fully automated $150 tickets to unsuspecting motorists passing by below.

A few jurisdictions around the world have begun to respond to the call to reduce camera usage. West Flanders, Belgium, has drastically reduced the use of speed cameras at the request of the chief prosecutor. In Oristano, Italy, local police announced on March 16 that the use of speed cameras was suspended until further notice. In Leon, Spain, mobile speed camera use is likewise suspended, while fixed photo radar installations and red light cameras will continue to generate automated citations.

In France, jurisdictions have dramatically reduced the number of mobile speed camera traps, according to the experts at radars-auto.com. Road traffic has dwindled because of the quarantine measures, but most of the fixed speed cameras are operating as they did before the pandemic. In Thionville, vigilantes cut down and torched a turret-style, pole-mounted speed camera on March 15. The day before, in Silly-en-Gouffern, the speed camera on the RD926 was blinded with a coat of red spraypaint.

–TheNewsPaper.com

–from the National Motorist Association

By Katie Delong, FoxNews6

LONDON, Ky. — A gas station in London, Kentucky on Thursday, March 19 became the first in the nation to sell a gallon of gas for 99 cents.

GasBuddy officials confirmed via a cashier and GasBuddy users the BP gas station lowered its price to 99 cents per gallon as of about 6:30 a.m. Thursday.

GasBuddy had been anticipating this price could pop up in the Great Lakes states a week or so prior.

“Absolutely amazing to see how quickly prices have fallen, and the return of something few Americans have seen since the early 2000s,” said Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy. “We’re in uncharted waters due to demand plummeting in light of the coronavirus situation, and yesterday, oil prices fell to their lowest level since 2002 in a sign of the deep distress our economy is facing.”

According to GasBuddy, the cheapest gas in Wisconsin Thursday was being sold at Costco at Grange and Moorland Road in New Berlin — at $1.45 per gallon.

–from the NMA

National Motorists Association

RESCHEDULED DATES FOR MARCH, APRIL AND MAY TOUR STOPS 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (March 23, 2020) – Tanya Tucker and CMT today announced rescheduled tour dates for the Spring leg of the 2020 “CMT Next Women of Country: Bring My Flowers Now Tour” to later in the year. The news was announced this morning by Tanya via Instagram. Purchased tour tickets will be honored at all rescheduled dates. For more information, please visit TanyaTucker.com and CMT.com.

Previously announced tour openers from CMT’s Next Women of Country members Erin Enderlin (2017), Hailey Whitters (2020) and Walker County (2020) will still appear with Tanya at various tour stops.

“Our top priority is the safety of our artists, crews and guests which is why we’re rescheduling the spring leg of the 2020 tour,” shared Leslie Fram, Senior Vice President, Music & Talent. “This move is being made out of an abundance of caution and concern regarding the spread of the COVID-19 virus. We’re continuing to defer to health officials and the CDC for guidance.”

2020 “CMT Next Women of Country Tour” Rescheduled Dates:
Aug 5 – House of Blues – Cleveland, Ohio **
Aug 7 – The Wilbur Theatre – Boston, Mass. **
Aug 9 – Hart Theatre at The Egg – Albany, Ny. **
Aug 11 – Danforth Music Hall – Toronto, ON **
Aug 18 – Roxian Theatre – Pittsburgh, Pa. **
Aug 20 – Royal Oak Music Theatre – Royal Oak, Mich. **
Aug 23 – Jefferson Center – Roanoke, Va. **
Aug 27 – The Kessler Theater – Dallas, Texas ^^
Aug 30 – The Heights Theater – Houston, Texas  ^^
Sept 18 – Cherokee Casino – Roland, Okla.
Sept 19 – Sugar Creek Casino Event Center – Hinton, Okla.
Sept 25 – Harrah’s Cherokee Event Center – Cherokee, N.C.
Oct 12 – Knuckleheads – Kansas City, Mo. %
Oct 14 – Entertainment Center for the Arts, University of Colorado – Colorado Springs, Colo. %
Oct 15 – Bluebird Theater – Denver, Colo. %
Oct 20 – State Theatre For The Arts – Red Bluff, Calif.%
Oct 21 – The Fremont Theater – San Luis Obispo, Calif. %
Oct 22 – Pappy & Harriet’s – Pioneertown, Calif.
Oct 25 – The Fox Theatre – Bakersfield, Calif.
** Walker County
^^ Erin Enderlin
% Hailey Whitters

For real-time updates, please visit TanyaTucker.com and CMT.com.  Follow Tanya on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and use #CMTNextWomen to join the conversation