Hey,
I’m still getting the hang of this blog business. It’s sort of exciting. I can deliver the news 24 hours a day, if I don’t go nuts in the process. This is turning into a very interesting year. Bikernet is rapidly changing for the better. We are coming to a crossroads in our effort to start a motorcycle council within the big Hot Rod organization called SEMA. Next, we will start to change the Bikernet Home Page. Hang on, 2010 is going to be a wild ride from lots of perspectives. Let’s hit the news, then I’ll fill you in on our editorial plans for next week.
BIKERNET UNIVERSITY ENGLISH CLASS WORD OF THE WEEKEND SPONSORED BY NASH–appellation ap-uh-LAY-shun, noun:
1. The word by which a particular person or thing is called and known; name; title; designation.
2. The act of naming.
For as long as Olympia can remember, her mother has been referred to, within her hearing and without, as an invalid — an appellation that does not seem to distress her mother and indeed appears to be one she herself cultivates.
— Anita Shreve, Fortune’s Rocks
A communist or a revolutionary, for example, would likely readily accept and admit that he is in fact a communist or a revolutionary. Indeed, many would doubtless take particular pride in claiming either of those appellations for themselves.
— Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism
I feel honored by yet undeserving of the appellation “novelist.” I am merely a craftsperson, a cabinetmaker of texts and occasionally, I hope, a witness to our times.
— Francine Du Plessix Gray, “I Write for Revenge Against Reality”, New York Times, September 12, 1982
Appellation comes from Latin appellatio, from appellare, “to name.”
BIKERNET TRAFFIC REPORT– Your traffic is up by 25% over the last 3 months. You?ve also moved from 90,000 to around 65,000 in the US rankings!
–Joe Jorgenson
Vice President, Operations
– Robin Technologies, Inc.
www.robintek.com
A REPORT FROM THE BIKERNET VALENTINES DAY COMMITTEE– Last night, my girlfriend and I were sitting in the living room and I said to her, “I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug.”
She got up, unplugged the computer, and threw out my beer…
She is such an asshole.
–Bruce Snyder
OAKLAND GANG RULES MAY CHANGE– Some Oakland gang members could face up to six months in jail or fines as high as $1,000 if they publicly interact, wear gang colors or drink alcohol, among other prohibitions, after a new court order goes into effect in the city in the coming weeks.
Oakland City Attorney John Russo plans to file a civil injunction, limited to an as yet undisclosed “safety zone,” against members of a specific gang later this month, according to his office. Similar injunctions have been used in southern California since the 1980s and were adopted in San Francisco beginning in 2007.
Details about which gang the order will target, or what area will become off limits for those gang members, will not be available until Russo files the injunction in Alameda County Superior Court later this month, said Alex Katz, spokesman for the city attorney’s office. Safety zones can range from four blocks long to 10 miles wide. San Francisco’s broadest designated swath ranges over 60 blocks.
Supporters of such measures say they make neighborhoods safer by cracking down on gangs and crime. Opponents say injunctions criminalize daily activities, lead to racial profiling and give police too much power.
“A gang injunction is not going to solve the gang problem in Oakland. But it’s a tool that has worked in other cities,” Katz said. “We’re trying to protect our community from a very small percentage of people who are terrorizing it.”
Katz said his office met last week with the American Civil Liberties Union to discuss ways to craft the order, which will be “narrowly tailored and very much based on evidence and on due process.”
The office has been developing the injunction for months, determining who to target and researching what has worked in other cities, including San Francisco and Long Beach, former home of Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts.
Though every injunction is different, there are some common restrictions: no association with other gang members; no using gang signs or wearing gang colors or clothes; no possession of drugs or alcohol; no possession of weapons; no graffiti; and no intimidation or harassment. Violations must take place in public view within the designated safety zone. Defying any of these prohibitions would place the violator in contempt of court, a criminal misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.
Oakland has struggled with violence, and has the state’s highest homicide rate for cities with populations larger than 100,000. In 2008, there were 115 murders. There were more than 3,000 robberies, more than 4,000 assaults and 338 rapes reported that year, the most recent for which data are available. But how many of those crimes were gang related is unknown. It’s hard to tell exactly how big a problem gangs are in Oakland because reliable statistics about gang membership don’t exist. The department has no clear way to track whether most crimes are gang related. Even the definition of the term is hazy; in California, any three or more people who conspire to commit a crime are considered a gang.
The department is developing a way to track gang membership as part of its General Plan, said officer Jeff Thomason, police spokesman. At this point, rough estimates are the only recourse.
About 425,000 people lived in Oakland as of January 2009, according to the state Department of Finance. Of those, more than 5,000 may be gang members, estimated Oakland Police officer Eric Milina, who has spent the last four years as a gang officer. But what exactly is a gang?
“You have the traditional Hispanic ones, like the Border Brothers. The Sure?os and the Norte?os. They’re kind of territorial. Then you have the drug dealing gangs, who are also territorial. They have a certain area where they make their money and they defend that with violence. There are motorcycle clubs, like the Hells Angels and the East Bay Dragons. And then you have robbery-type gangs, people who get together and just rob people randomly,” Milina said.
Generally speaking, he said, the drug-dealing gangs and the Hispanic gangs, which started as prison gangs in the 1960s, try to keep a lower profile and limit violence to other gang members because “they don’t want police focusing all their attention on them.”
Robbery gangs, on the other hand, tend to operate more haphazardly.
“For the robbers, the victim could be anybody,” he said. “They don’t even think twice. They’re the ones who are the biggest threat to regular civilians in general.”
When making arrests, or while on patrol, officers look at people’s locations, associates and clothing or tattoos to get a sense of whether they’re in a gang. During arrests, Milina said, suspects often admit membership when asked. And certainly, when getting locked up, many reveal their ties so they’re not placed with rival gang members.
Milina said the injunction could help in areas where gang members mill about the streets, hanging out on certain corners.
Gang affiliation is sometimes based on “loose criteria.” The authors quoted a San Jose police officer who said someone could be labeled a gang member “if he or she were seen on just one occasion wearing? a blue jean jacket, cut-off sweat pants, any clothing associated with the Los Angeles Raiders, or white, blue, gray, black, khaki, or any other ‘neutral’ colored item.”
The authors did cite one analysis of 14 injunctions that found a 5 to 10 percent reduction in assaults, and mentioned other research showing an injunction in San Bernardino had reduced gang member visibility, intimidation and fear of confrontations and crime. Overall, however, the report’s tone is grim.
The American Civil Liberties Union worked with San Francisco’s city attorney to make sure there was an opt-out provision to allow people to appeal their inclusion under the injunction. The city also agreed to require the court to give notice to those added and to come to court to prove they were gang members. Steele said she thought the organization also got the curfew changed to be less restrictive.
“These injunctions are so sweeping and broad, they allow for and almost invite racial profiling,” Steele said. “It gives police freedom to target whoever they want in a certain community. You want to be creating an environment in which people have options, and decide the gang is not what they want to do.”
–from Rogue
GET THIS, Muslims warned not to go through airport body scanners because they violate Islamic rules on nudity– Islamic scholars have forbidden Muslim travellers from passing through full body scans at airports because they violate religious rules on nudity.
The Fiqh Council of North America issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, yesterday warning Muslims not to go through the scanners.
?It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women,? read the order.
?Islam highly emphasises haya (modesty) and considers it part of faith. The Quran has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts,? it added.
The ban is the latest privacy blow to the controversial x-ray machines now in place at Heathrow, Manchester and many airports around the world.
In the U.S., there are now forty scanners in nineteen airports and could be as many as 450 by the end of the year.
They were implemented as part of a global security crackdown ordered after the thwarted Christmas Day bombing when Nigerian former London university student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab smuggled explosives onto a US-bound plane hidden in his underpants.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews
By David Gardner
–from Rogue
DAVENPORT ANTIQUE MEET–At the end of every summer for the past decade or so my bro Cal and I ride to Davenport Iowa to The Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds. The event is the Antique Motorcycle Club of America Chief Blackhawk Chapter Fall Swap Meet.
There are hundreds of old bikes for sale and on display. Also Friday night features dirt track racing on vintage bikes.
I usually take my life savings with me just in case someone wants to sell an old bike for 50 bucks or so. I always end up spending the cash on beer and a pork chop on a stick.
Last year was the biggest event I have seen yet with the grounds filled with old bikes and parts. See ya there!
–Ghost
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY, GODDAMNIT, SPONSORED BY DANNI ASHE– THESE ARE ENTRIES TO A NEWSPAPER COMPETITION ASKING FOR A TWO-LINE RHYME WITH THE MOST ROMANTIC FIRST LINE, AND THE LEAST ROMANTIC SECOND LINE:
1. My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife: Marrying you has screwed up my life.
2. I see your face when I am dreaming. That’s why I always wake up screaming.
3. Kind, intelligent, loving and hot; This describes everything you are not.
4. Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss, But I only slept with you ’cause I was pissed.
5. I thought that I could love no other — that is until I met your brother.
6. Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you. But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl’s empty and so is your head.
7. I want to feel your sweet embrace; But don’t take that paper bag off your face.
8. I love your smile, your face, and your eyes, Damn, I’m good at telling lies!
9. My love, you take my breath away. What have you stepped in to smell this way?
10. My feelings for you no words can tell, Except for maybe ‘Go to hell.’
11. What inspired this amorous rhyme? Two parts vodka, one part lime
–from Mike Nitzschke
FLORIDA POLICE WARNING– More and more complaints are being made that cops have been stopping people in Florida for Bogus Charges. If you have been riding a motorcycle for any period of time you most likely have been stopped for the taillight that was not working, But when you are stopped it is. The cops usual answer is you must have a loose wire. “Now can I see your license, registration, proof of insurance,” Says the cop.
–Rogue
We?re not privy to all sides of the issue, but it?s troubling, indeed, to see a respected 21-year, Melbourne police officer facing multiple charges of racial profiling and falsifying reports.
While details are not yet known, it is reminiscent of my past experiences with Miami-Dade Police Department, which suggests there is more to the story. If allegations are true, shared blame may lie elsewhere, not just with the officer.
In December 1979, a phalanx of Dade County officers pursued a speeding motorcyclist during a harrowing eight-minute chase. When Arthur McDuffie finally surrendered, a half-dozen adrenalin-pumped cops lost control and clubbed the man to death as he lay defenseless on the pavement. Cops then vandalized the parked motorcycle to make it look like an accident and filed false reports.
As homicide captain, I arrested the five officers charged with the crime. Six months later, when the cops were acquitted, the Liberty City race riots exploded, leaving death and mayhem in its wake. Bad cops, to be sure. But ? as Paul Harvey would say ? there?s the rest of the story.
Several of those experienced cops had been red flagged as problem officers with a long history of citizen complaints. When investigations of those complaints could not be sustained ? often because supporting witnesses were fellow cops ? officers were exonerated and returned to work.
The officers were only part of the problem. The other culprit was the politically powerful police union, which saw its role as protecting cops against department harassment and unsustained complaints. The unions routinely go to bat for their membership in nearly all such matters, unless evidence of gross malfeasance or misconduct is provable.
With contractual guarantees, abusive cops had stayed on the job in Miami-Dade against the will of the chief. By ensuring obviously bad cops were protected, the union did a disservice to the community and to all other good, honest cops everywhere.
Anyone with common sense would have known those officers were a tinderbox ready to blow. Their history had established a clear pattern of abuse, even if the complaints were not legally provable. According to reports, Melbourne Officer Frank Carter has been the subject of almost two dozen complaints during his career. It begs the question: Why was he still on patrol?
I was a cop 30 years in Dade County, 13 in the field. Number of complaints: Zero. Such experience suggests it was not necessarily the choice of Melbourne Police Chief Don Carey who, incidentally, was a fellow captain at Miami-Dade during the McDuffie fiasco. The chief must follow the rules set forth via collective bargaining agreements, and unless abuse charges can be proven, he has no choice but to continue employing a cop with a history of unsustained complaints. While unions are a valuable asset to public service employees everywhere, they should think twice before blindly representing police officers who show a clear pattern of abusing their power. If the allegations against Carter are true, we might also look elsewhere to attach responsibility.
Frank is an author and retired Miami police detective who lives in Melbourne. Visit his Web site at www.marshallfrank.com –Rogue
Harvard Hometown Plans Coercive Taxes, Veganism to Stop Climate ‘Emergency’– Congestion pricing to reduce car travel. Elimination of curbside parking. A carbon tax “of some kind,” not to mention taxes on plastic and paper bags. Advocating vegetarianism and veganism, complete with “Meatless or Vegan Mondays.” Those are just some of the proposals put forth by the Cambridge Climate Congress, an entity created in May 2009 to respond to the “climate emergency” plaguing the Massachusetts city.
Going green will not be optional in Cambridge, Mass., if the Cambridge Climate Congress has its way. It will be mandatory.
There will be congestion pricing to reduce car travel. Curbside parking will be eliminated. There will be a carbon tax “of some kind,” not to mention taxes on plastic and paper bags. And the Massachusetts city, home of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will advocate vegetarianism and veganism, complete with “Meatless or Vegan Mondays.”
Those are just some of the proposals put forth by the Congress, which was created in May 2009 to respond to the “climate emergency” plaguing Cambridge. Once the Congress settles on its recommendations, they will submitted to the City Council.
“This emergency is created by the growth of local greenhouse gas emissions despite the urgent warnings of climate scientists that substantial reductions are needed in order to reduce the risk of disastrous changes to our climate,” the Climate Congress reported in proposals issued on Jan. 23. “This proposal is made in the belief that an effective local response is, if anything, made more urgent by so far inadequate global agreements and federal policies for emissions reductions. It is made in the belief that our City should lead by example.”
While the group’s proposals remain a work in a progress, some experts say the potential measures it advocates are “heavy-handed” and incongruous. But others say the city just might be onto something, particularly if the taxes associated with the plan are used to make buildings and transportation more efficient.
Dr. Ken Green, a resident scholar on environment and energy at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington-based think tank, said he found an “overall redundancy” in the proposals, specifically regarding a carbon-based tax coupled with congestion pricing, increased parking meter rates and parking tickets.
“That’s just a revenue-raiser for the city,” said Green. “There’s an overall incoherence of having a carbon tax and three or four indirect taxes.”
To best reduce emissions in the near-term, Green suggested a revenue-neutral carbon tax, meaning that little — if any — of the funds raised would be retained by municipal government. The vast majority under such a plan would be returned to the public.
“It creates an incentive to become more energy efficient to either avoid the tax or keep as much of any rebate as possible,” Green said. “But if they do the [carbon] tax, they should get rid of almost all of the other things. If the point is to put a price on carbon, pick one price, make it transparent and then get rid of the other regulations, which end up overpricing carbon. So if you had your carbon tax, you don’t need your congestion pricing because people are already paying the tax in their gasoline.”
Green also said the proposal to ban the production and distribution of plastic bags and bottled water in city limits is as “heavy-handed as government can get” and questioned Cambridge’s proposal to institute disincentives for the purchase of non-regional food.
“Trying to grow something out of season in a greenhouse locally may produce more greenhouse gas emissions than having the same food shipped in from a place where it grows naturally,” he said. “Studies do not come down uniformly on the side that local is better.”
But Richard Rood, a professor of atmospheric, oceanic, and space sciences at the University of Michigan, praised Cambridge’s proposal to create a “temperate zone” program, in which building are neither heated nor cooled during the fall and spring.
“That is a place where you might make a difference,” said Rood, who writes a blog for Weather Underground
He also praised the city’s proposal to advocate vegetarianism and veganism.
“From a climate point of view, eating less meat would have a climate impact,” said Rood, citing increased deforestation, methane production, fertilizer use and greenhouse gases associated with maintaining that land. “Eating less meat is for the environment in many ways.
Regarding the possibility of a carbon tax, Rood, who supports such a move on a national level, said the impact on a city level would be “fairly small.” The real positive effect, he said, would be if the plan caught on in other cities if successful.
It still remains to be seen, however, how these proposals will be received by Cambridge residents. Cambridge City Councilor Sam Seidel, who spoke to FoxNews.com after riding his bicycle to his office, said that remains the key unanswered question.
Seidel said the Climate Congress will next meet on March 6, at which point the next steps regarding the 20-page proposal will be decided. Any success in slashing greenhouse gas emissions will hinge on individual efforts, he said.
“It’s my own view that while governmental action is going to be an important part of any successes we’re going to have, individual citizens are also going to have to take individual ownership and responsibility for their own actions,” he said. “It’s only by working together that we’re going to see the necessary reductions that climate scientists have been calling for.”
Asked if the proposal amounted to a series of taxes, Seidel said, “The goal of truly, accurately evaluating the cost of our decisions is an important part of greenhouse gas emissions reductions, it’s really pointing out to people what their choices imply.” http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/12/cambridge-plans-taxes-veganism-climate-change/
THE WIZARD GIVES BACK– WIZARDS Products is a proud supporter of Guide Dogs of America. During the company?s Guide Dogs Bike Wash? promotion, WIZARDS pledged donate $1 to the Guide Dogs of America organization for every 22 oz bottle of WIZARDS Bike Wash purchased. While at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas in November WIZARDS owner, John Schlumpberger, was honored to present a check in the amount of $2,000 to Steve Cohan, Outreach Director for Guide Dogs of America.
Throughout the past year WIZARDS Products was also the official detailing product for the Guide Dogs of America Custom Harley Bagger built by Donnie Smith, which was recently given away to one lucky raffle ticket purchaser.
Guide Dogs of America is dedicated to its mission to provide guide dogs and instruction of their use, free of charge, to blind and visually impaired men and women from the United States and Canada so that they may continue to pursue their goals.
To find more information on this worthwhile organization please follow the link on our website at www.WizardsProducts.com.
Second Amendment March In Washington Scheduled For April– There will be a Second Amendment March in Washington, D.C., on April 19, 2010, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Attendees will gather on the northeast corner of the Washington Monument grounds at 10:00 a.m., and the entire event will take place there (due to logistics, the event will be more of a ?rally? than an actual march).
The event is sponsored and coordinated by the organization ?Second Amendment March,? whose stated mission is, ?to galvanize the courage and resolve of Americans; to petition our elected officials against establishing anti-gun legislation; and to remind America that the Second Amendment is necessary to maintain our right to self defense.?
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY, GODDAMNIT–Make a woman smile today. Make all her dreams come true. I’m fortunate to have a woman at my side, who supports all the bullshit I throw at her. That’s especially important at this time of my life. We’ve been together 10 years as of next month, a major record for me.
We are actually shooting her bike, built by the Lucky Devil in Houston Texas, today. The feature will appear in American Iron in the near future, and you’ll see teaser shots right here on Bikernet. Hopefully, that makes her dreams come true.
Next week we will bring you another ride story by Kevin Thomas, the doctor of cabin fever. I’ll wrap up a brief Aeromach tech on their new adjustable risers. I reached out to Harley-Davidson about installing a set of their new blacked out highbars on my King. I feel it’s time to give the old 2003 King the once over.
I will also bring you Ross’s bike feature and another Bonneville report this week. I’m sure there’s a handful of surprises on the horizon. I need a ride to Arizona to check out the location for our Too Broke for Sturgis Run.
Ride Forever,
–Bandit
