(SF Chron) It was supposed to be a birthday night out for the kids in San Francisco, but instead turned into a Critical Mass horror show -- complete with a pummeled car, a smashed rear window and little children screaming in terror.
The spontaneous Critical Mass bike rides, in which thousands of free-spirited cyclists roam the city, have been a fixture on the last Friday night of the month since the early 1990s. But even bike-weary cops, who have seen their share of traffic disturbances and minor skirmishes, weren't prepared for what happened during the latest exercise of pedal power.
#1
Now lets imagine the owner of the car having a gun and the legal right to protect the kids in the car. The outcome would have been muuuch different.
#2
The cops are stupid the answer is simple.
Have one of the electric or cable or phone company lay a cable (like say an electric wire) across the road and anchored at one end with orange cones all about. When the bikers come ... winch (tighten) the cable. Just another case of careless drivers not paying attention to a construction scene.
Book the ones that crash for failing to slow down in a construction zone.
Ah. We now have a term to describe cycle-riding terrorists.
Have one of the electric or cable or phone company lay a cable (like say an electric wire) across the road and anchored at one end with orange cones all about. When the bikers come ... winch (tighten) the cable.
Piano wire. Neck height.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/04/2007 17:31 Comments ||
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#6
Arrest or fine them all for adding more CO2 to the atmosphere due to increased respiration while biking!
Posted by: Jim ||
04/04/2007 17:53 Comments ||
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#7
The problem with a gun in the car is lack of ammunition. This was clearly demonstrated in South Central LA during the riots when the Korean shop owners ran out of ammunition and had to abandon their stores to be looted. She might have got the first 6 but the rest of the SF bike riders would have killed her and her children.
#8
I was a San Francisco bicycle messenger for five years - and owned an SF messenger service for 15 years - so you could say that I am an expert on this particular subject. Bottom line: the Critical Mass people are drunk, stoned, and filled with a peculiar type of mob-mentality self-righteousness most Americans would have a hard time understanding.
The Critical Mass people are VICTIMS, you understand, striking back against the sort of evil, middle class people who ride in mini-vans. This is Pelosi-style thinking here, people, get with it!
#10
Clearly the solution is for Gubmint to raise private taxation, espec on the rich/wealthy, in order to keep law enforcement perennially permanently under-funded, under-manned and under-equipped. D ***ng it, "WASHINGTON ISN'T GIVING ENOUGH" - HOW CAN WE SOLVE SERIOUS SOCIETAL PROBS IFF THE POLICE GET WHAT THEY NEED!
#11
I don't know how many of you folks have been in a riot or a situation on the verge of a riot, but it can get ugly and scarey toot sweet. You could take a few out, and the rest might run, or they could run after you and literally tear you apart. Mobs are bad news. Does not matter if you are innocent or guilty. Bad place to be. Especially kids.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/04/2007 23:53 Comments ||
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The U.S. Justice Department paid $160,000 to the owners of a Milford Township horse farm to replace a barn the FBI removed last summer in a fruitless search for the remains of former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, records released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act show.
The FBI paid another $65,000 to excavators, anthropologists and other contractors involved in the two-week search, the records released to The Detroit News show.
The $225,000 price tag for the search does not include salary or travel costs for what the FBI said at the time was 40 to 50 agents involved in the dig.
The search at the Hidden Dreams Farm brought a horde of media, curiosity-seekers and souvenir hawkers to nearby Milford last May. The cost is controversial because Hoffa disappeared nearly 32 years ago, on July 30, 1975, and it is unlikely anyone could still be successfully prosecuted for his apparent murder.
(CNN) -- A woman was shot to death at CNN Center in Atlanta Tuesday in what Atlanta police called a "domestic situation." The victim, identified as Clara Riddles, 22, of College Park, was an employee of the Omni Hotel at the CNN Center complex, according to an investigator with the Fulton County Medical Examiners Office. Riddles, who witnesses said appeared to be pregnant, was shot and the gunman was then shot by Capt. Odell Adams, who joined Turner Security in 1996, according to a Turner spokesperson. Preliminary reports indicate the man was shot in the face, a law enforcement source said on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
The man and Riddles were taken to Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital Tuesday. The shooter was undergoing surgery and was in "severely critical condition," the hospital said. Grady spokeswoman Denise Simpson said the family of the dead woman arrived at the hospital. "They were having a tough time accepting the news of her death," Simpson said.
A witness saw a man dragging a woman by her hair one level above where the shooting occurred. The suspect told him to get out of the way. The witness went to get a guard, and then saw the suspect apparently take the woman downstairs. The witness heard gunshots less than a minute later.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/04/2007 00:00 ||
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A MAN has been charged with breaking German animal protection laws after he was caught on camera having sex with sheep. The sheep's owner became suspicious last year and installed video surveillance equipment which filmed the 44-year-old in the act, police in the western region of Suedhessen said.
He admitted sodomising the animals and had no explanation for his actions, spokeswoman Christine Klein said.
The man, who is a Turkish national and lives in the town of Gross Gerau, faces a jail sentence of up to three years or a fine.
Posted by: John Frum ||
04/04/2007 17:12 Comments ||
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#3
But it is sovereign French territory.
Like he said, third-world.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/04/2007 17:38 Comments ||
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#4
ROTFL
Posted by: John Frum ||
04/04/2007 19:46 Comments ||
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#5
Sniff, sniff, and to think it only took 20 yarns for the volcano to blow - D ***nged birthday asteroids, not even a Subway Cold Cut hoagie combo to offer for escaping the wrath of the Nuremburg Global Enviro War Crimes trials. Guess Nuremburg will have no choice but to consider the 'roids as working in criminal anti-Earth GW collusion wid the outlaw radicalist Sun.
CAIRO - The population of Egypt, the most populous Arab country, has grown 2.0 percent a year for the past 10 years, hitting 72.6 million at the time of the 2006 census, the governments statistics agency said on Tuesday. The growth rate is only slightly down on 2.1 percent during the previous decade which ended in 1996, suggesting diminishing returns from the governments family planning campaigns. In the period from 1976 to 1986 growth was 2.8 percent a year.
Lots of young men, no opportunities, and smooth-talking recruiters talking about the glories of jihad ...
Emigration helped to hold down the rate of population growth at home. At the time of the census, 3.9 million desparate Egyptians were living abroad, 79 percent up on 2.2 million in 1996.
The government statistics office said that the percentage of illiterates among Egyptians aged 10 or over had fallen to 29.3 percent, from 39.4 percent in 1996.
Doing a great job there, Hosni. But they can all recite the Qu'ran.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/04/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Almost all living down river from the Aswan dam...
#6
I haven't been there for about 15 years. Cairo was crowded as hell then and a real dump. The Nile Hilton was nice (other than lots of vacationing Saudis not living up to their muzzie codes of conduct) and so was the Museum of Antiquities. I wouldn't go back.
#7
Mr. Wife preferred the Mena House to the Hilton in 1986 or -7, remoteman, and said the same thing about the Saudis. He learnt the hard way (alternating dysentary and food poisoning) never to eat the meat there.
A Pakistani man was beheaded on Tuesday for stabbing to death a Saudi national after an argument, the Saudi Interior Ministry said. It identified the Pakistani man as Khalid bin Mahmoud bin Abdel-Ghafour and his victim as Wasfi bin Said bin Abdullah al-Marhoun. It did not say when the killing took place or say what the two men had argued about.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/04/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
I am pretty confident there has never been a legal beheading in the United States.
If there were any in early colonial times, I am not aware of them, but maybe some Rantburg historian can provide some hard data.
BERLIN - German police said on Tuesday they had arrested nine Iraqis suspected of helping to run a human trafficking ring. Police believe the suspects, arrested in southern Bavaria and the northern state of Lower Saxony, have smuggled some 100 Iraqis into Germany and onto Sweden and Denmark in the last four weeks.
There are indications that those arrested organised the transportation of people who were smuggled in inhuman conditions, police from the Bavarian town of Schwandorf said in a statement. Despite these criminal circumstances, the ring cashed in up to 10,000 euros ($13,360) for the people smuggled from northern Iraq to Sweden, the statement said.
The suspects are Iraqis, mainly of Kurdish origin, who had sought asylum in Germany, said the police, noting that the organisations connections stretched to the Czech Republic, Italy, Greece, Sweden and Syria.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/04/2007 00:00 ||
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Today's bit of meaningless symbolism...
Germanys Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm, which will host the G8 summit in June, has revoked the honorary citizenship it awarded to Adolf Hitler in 1932. The local council voted late on Monday to formally strip the Nazi dictators name from the roll of honorary citizens even though it felt the honour had lapsed when Hitler, a regular summer guest, killed himself. Weve taken this formal step now before the G8 meeting because it was causing such a stir even though in our view the honorary citizenship lapsed with his death, Gerhard Kukla, head of the towns administration, told Reuters. Hitler spent several summer holidays in Germanys oldest Baltic resort, 250 km (150 miles) north of Berlin.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/04/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Wel-l-l, does STALIN, whose pogroms various Euro-journals now argue may had killed btwn 50-80 Milyuhn Soviet citizens before WW2, before BARBAROSSA + GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR, and SEVERAL TIMES THAT OF HITLER, get to keep his honors???
#2
Of course; he didn't do anything so bad. Hey, like my Pulitzer? Pretty, isn't it?
Posted by: Walter Duranty ||
04/04/2007 8:00 Comments ||
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#3
"The local council voted late on Monday to formally strip the Nazi dictators name from the roll of honorary citizens...
Gerhard Kukla, head of the towns administration, told Reuters."
Fran and Ollie had no comment
Posted by: Larry Everett ||
04/04/2007 15:27 Comments ||
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Toba Tek Singh police have charged six Christians with blasphemy under Sections 295 A, C, 452, 148 and 149 of the Pakistan Penal Code for allegedly disrupting an Eid Miladun Nabi procession and passing derogatory remarks against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), but this was done in violation of the law, as an inquiry was not held into the matter by an SP-level official, Daily Times learnt on Tuesday.
A first information report was lodged against the six Christians on April 1 on a complaint by Abdul Ghafaar. The complaint alleged in the FIR that after disrupting an Eid Miladun Nabi procession, the Christians passed derogatory remarks against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and then broke into his house. According to a Criminal Procedure Code amendment incorporated to prevent the misuse of the blasphemy law, a blasphemy case cannot be lodged under Section 295C until an official of rank SP investigates the incident, but the FIR has not been lodged in accordance with the procedure.
Sources told Daily Times that there were rumours that the matter was a mere quarrel between children, but the complainant had exploited the situation. Toba Tek Singh DSP (Headquarters) Akhtar Saeed Randhawa told Daily Times that an investigation had not been launched yet. He admitted that the SP should have looked into the incident before police lodging the FIR, but the SP was not available, and he himself was working as the acting SP (investigation).
Posted by: Fred ||
04/04/2007 00:00 ||
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Karbalaa - At least 22 shepherds have been kidnapped by unidentified gunmen wearing military uniforms in northern Karbalaa, according to an Iraqi police source. Witnesses said the attackers took the hostages to Fallujah, 70 kilometres west of Baghdad. Karbalaa province, situated 100 kilometres south of Baghdad, is mostly populated by Shiites.
US filmmaker Joel Silver, who produced all of "The Matrix" films, said Tuesday he is planning a remake of the 1976 Oscar-winning science fiction classic "Logan's Run."
"I love the original material but I think that version is a bit silly," he told reporters in Barcelona where he was promoting his latest film "The Reaping" starring Academy Award-winner Hilary Swank.
Based on a 1967 novel by the same name, "Logan's Run" chronicles a future society which imposes a mandatory death sentence for all those turning 30 in order to avoid overpopulation and the depletion of natural resources.
The film won an Academy Award for its visual effects and was nominated for two other Oscars...
#2
It was a fantastic concept book to film back in 76. If I recall it was filmed in a Texas shopping mall. Would be interesting to see how it could be done now a days.
On an up note. The 1976 film didn't have any Muslims in it.
Computer: Last day... Capricorn 15's... Year of the city... 2274... Carousel begins
#3
I was 15 at the time and I remember having developing a crush on the female cast member Jenny Agutter Jenny.
She was easy on the eyes as at the time when I was a teenager.
. Movie Background
I though Michael York and Peter Ustinov was great.
The special effects worked at the time, but nothing compared to what can be done today with CGI.
Later on when the series came out, I watched it as religiously as Space 1999 which came out at the around the same time. I was a nice break from the after school homework.
#4
You know, output matters, too. Maybe they should wait until age 45 or 50, when earnings peak. And the 30-year-olds have learned how not to soil their diapers.
#6
I know how to spice it up - USA has national health care and everyone over 65 must be sacrificed for the greater good - oh, wait, that was a ST:TNG ep w/ David Ogden S.....
#7
I think Larry Nivens Fallen Angels would make a better film (than the book).
A Hollywood version of "Fallen Angels" would hack the book to pieces. The villains would only be the religious conservatives; the feminists, ecologists, et. al. would be excluded. The SCA would be excluded -- those people celebrate violence! And the world's only private ballistic missile would be gone.
And, finally, the spacers would be replaced by ecologists trying to reverse the Ice and the SF fans would be replaced by the local vegan collective.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/04/2007 17:36 Comments ||
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#8
Oh, and a couple of other books I hope are never subjected to Hollywood:
o Footfall
o Lucifer's Hammer
o Starship Troopers
o any of the War Against the Posleen books
o Anything of David Drake's
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/04/2007 17:38 Comments ||
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#17
"MATRIX films" > Will the female lead continue to be in love wid a dead Man??? Does Radical Islam realize that its 12th Imam will not rise until GABRIEL'S SWORD cuts the earth into sections, turning earth from planet into planetoid struggling to try to prove to God its worthy of becoming a full planet again.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The FBI paid another $65,000 to excavators, anthropologists and other contractors involved in the two-week search, the records released to The Detroit News show.
Karbalaa - At least 22 shepherds have been kidnapped by unidentified gunmen wearing military uniforms in northern Karbalaa, according to an Iraqi police source. Witnesses said the attackers took the hostages to Fallujah, 70 kilometres west of Baghdad. Karbalaa province, situated 100 kilometres south of Baghdad, is mostly populated by Shiites. 
