1996 Recto-Cranial Inversion Award Winner

HLDL's Annual RCI Award and the WINNER for 1996 IS . . .

Richard
("I brought the need for leg protectors on Harley-Davidson
motorcycles to the attention of the insurance industry")
Lester

To hear Lester tell it, the story of his involvement with the "leg-off" litigation currently being waged against Harley-Davidson Motor Company by AIM attorneys under Lester's charge, for clients undoubtedly recruited through his connections with NCOM, falls somewhere between "Ooops" and "I don't have anything to do with it!" Through his actions, Lester has proven himself to be nothing more than a money-grubbing weasel who is more than ready and willing to sell out the entire biking community, and our interests, for the bucks!! Lester's denial of responsibility makes us believe he thinks we're all fools . . .

"Nobody ever went broke
underestimating the taste or intelligence
of the American people."
H. L. Mencken

Sorta makes you wonder . . . why is the putz on the right smiling?

Must be the money? (With Lester, everything's for the money!)

The runners up are:

Mike Shiffrel: aka: "New York Myke" (his spelling); aka: "New York Mouth"; aka: "Big Chief Running-Off-At-The-Mouth" -- the selection committee has determined that Shiffrel is brain damanged and therefore is simply not capable of acting with calculated intent, stupid or otherwise. Because the award requires a deliberate effort to do, say or in some other way act out of malicious intent or greed through obvious means; Shiffrel's disability served to disqualify him from contention, at least for this year (he might try to invoke the Americans With Disabilities Act). All the people who voted for Shiffrel for this award are welcome to appeal the decision, but the appeal will have to based on a plea for Shiffrel's clear-headedness (you know, like being in touch with what his mouth is saying), which, from the input we received, is not likely to be sufficient to climb over the overwhelming evidence of his disability. (He still thinks he's the Executive Director for ABATE of California.) Sorry.
Mike Osborne: Yeah, we know . . . there are a lot of people who really did think Osborne should have been the top choice, but he received nowhere near as many votes as Lester (although he came within just a few of beating out Shiffrel). We think Osborne's real disadvantage is his lack of name recognition. Although he may be convinced that his fame is renoun; again he's grossly misjudged the facts.
L. Louis ("Skip") Raring: The attorney who "won" the injunction in the Federal Courts in the matter of Easyriders v. CHP took a fair share of votes, even though we tried to make it clear that his coerhersing Red to wear a helmet happened this year, in 1997, and so would not qualify for 1996. The argument was that Raring did, in 1996, make it clear to no one but Steve Bianco that he couldn't have done it without him. Skip lost his opportunity to win in the Federal forum because he chose to disassociate from HLDL, the virtual source of the perspective he argued in Federal Court AND of much of the documentation Raring used to convince the court there was a problem. Again, the people who voted that direction do have a point, but Raring's just not well enough known to compete with Lester . . . yet.
Less than honorable mention (dragging up the rear) were such notables as of course, California Assemblyman Dick Floyd (the guy who introduced the helmet law legislation in California); Dr. Ricardo Martinez, NHTSA's Administrator (and his dog Fredrico Pena, Secretary of Transportaion) for blowing off the heads of kids with the air bag standard; all the regulars and the CHP -- Hannigan, Helmick, Nivens, and the rest for their ongoing dumb shit; Judge James Ware of the Federal District Court who thought it would be a good idea to throw out the case of HLDL v. CHP on the basis that he determined that "the helmet was obviously too small"; and of course the Justices of the Ninth Cirucuit Court of Appeals for their failure to discover the unconstitutional nature of California's helmet law (we blame Raring, but that's another story).
Take heart, all you losers and runners up; 1997 is another year, and already we have nominations for Raring and Osborne . . . Raring as discussed, and of course Osborne for taking the first opportunity to take the proposed "repeal bill" of the helmet law in California and convert it back to the same old compromise bill -- at least this time for riders under 18 rather than 21 (what a weak-livered idiot).
That should cover things for another year. Keep your nominations coming!!
HLDL