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Abate of Florida State Meeting
Respect
the person who has seen the Dark side of motorcycling and
lived.
LA
gangbanger photos
Areola
How
to be a good Democrat
Michael
Moron
Buffalo
Field Campaign
Ben
Stein
"The
difference between the almost right word and the right word
is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the
lightning-bug and the lightning." - Mark Twain
The opposite of a
correct statement is a false statement.
The opposite of a profound truth may well be another
profound truth.
Niels Bohr (1885-1962), physicist
"Beware the man
of one book."
Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274), Theologian,
philosopher
Life is not a
journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely
in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly
proclaiming:
WOW - What a Ride!"
"Consciously or
unconsciously we all strive to make the kind of a world we
like."
Oliver Wendell Holmes
"We Lakota have
a close relationship to the buffalo. He is our brother. You
can't understand about nature, about the feeling we have
toward it, unless you understand how close we were to the
buffalo. That animal was almost like a part of ourselves,
part of our souls." Lame Deer, Lakota
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KC & Steve Mallady (Nature Coast delegates) were in a serious motorcycle accident this morning.
(11-11-06)
KC did not make it. Steve is hospitalized with a punctured lung.
Please keep them in your thoughts. |
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Canadians Flocking to Nudist Resorts in U.S. in Record Numbers
Vacationers have many choices of where to travel. In a recent survey, Canadians are rediscovering the United States like never before. One of the best nudist resorts in America is a beneficiary of this trend.
Palm Springs, CA, November 17, 2006 --(PR.COM)-- Canadians have always been fondly
called snowbirds by Americans. Just like the geese that fly south for the winter, Canadians have
always loved to travel south for their winter holiday. But, this year, Canadians have been traveling to the U.S. like never before. And in all seasons.
According to a recent survey in co-operation with the Canadian Tourism Commission, in 1999, 29% of adult Canadians visited the U.S. So far in 2006, 35.5% of all adult Canadians have vacationed in the U.S. That is over a
22% increase in Canadian tourism and the year isn't even over. And American nudist resorts have been a recipient.
Why the great interest? According to the survey, Canadians take their travel decisions very seriously. They view deciding where to vacation to be just as important as what make of automobile to buy or how much to spend on a house. They are just like other vacationers and are getting tired of the same old chain hotel vacation experiences.
They are deciding to try something new and exciting and romantic and clothing optional resorts are perfect.
According to the survey, feeling safe was the most important concern this year when choosing a destination. As Tom Mulhall, past President of the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce and owner with his wife of The Terra Cotta Inn Clothing Optional Resort and Spa http://sunnyfun.com located in sunny Palm Springs recounts, "our guests from Canada are wonderful. They really appreciate the warm sunny weather here. We have the best weather in the whole U.S. for nude sunbathing. Canadians can't wait to get here, take off their clothes and bask in the warm sun.
Since we were originally built as a celebrity resort, people feel very safe and secure here."
Tom continues, "Our guests from Canada love America. They have always told us that the U.S. is their "adopted"
11th province. And California is considered the fourth Canadian territory. Palm Springs is warm heartedly called the capital of the 'Southwest territories.' And we of course love our Canadian guests as much as our America guests."
Nudist resorts have felt the shift in the vacation pattern of Canadians. The most popular nudist resort with Canadians is The Terra Cotta Inn Clothing Optional Resort in Palm Springs. Canadians have flocked there from the beginning when they opened 12 years ago. Being the first nude resort in America to have a toll free number for Canadians, they have always catered to their friends from the north.
And the Canadian press loves The Terra Cotta Inn. To name a few, they have been featured in The Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, CTV, and more.
Tom Mulhall comments, "we have always had many Canadian guests. They normally came just in the fall, winter, and spring time. This year, they are coming year round. There are some days where 25-40% of the guests at our hotel are from Canada. Guests told us that even though they normally vacationed in Canada in the summer, this year they decided to go Palm Springs. Being the sunniest city in North America, they knew they wouldn't be rained out here."
Terra Cotta is not like the nudist colonies of yore. Instead, it rivals the finest regular boutique resorts around. It is luxurious and affordable. What makes them so unique is they average over a 75% repeat guest rate which is one of the highest in the travel industry. They are a fun vacation resort catering to couples from around the world. First timers love the Terra Cotta Inn so much, they immediately decide to become repeat guests. Because the Terra Cotta Inn experience is so different compared to typical nude resorts, it is called the most mainstream clothing optional resort in America and is perfect for couples trying nude sunbathing for the first time.
Finally, with Westjet flying into Palm Springs, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, it has never been easier and cheaper for Canadians to visit the southwest.
So, if you are Canadian or American and are looking for a new, fun travel experience, give the Terra Cotta Inn Clothing Optional Resort and Spa a call at 1-800-786-6938. You will be glad that you did!
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By Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: November 14, 2006 12:45 PM PST
For parents of teens, three-letter acronyms like PAW, MOS and CD9 might be more disturbing than the old four-letter words.
Call it a sign of the times. Most teens are like a duck to water when it comes to instant messaging and mobile text messaging, where acronyms and slang can be used to keep outsiders guessing. But for parents who likely aren't as comfortable with IM slang: PAW means "parents are watching"; MOS is "mom over shoulder"; and CD9 means "Code 9" for when parents are around. Research shows that one in four kids use such lingo daily to warn their chat friends of prying eyes.
Despite the secrecy, Internet-savvy parents have more and more tools to decipher the code, causing a kind of chat-and-mouse game. Befuddled by lingo seen through monitoring software or over their kids'
shoulder--like "wu" for what's up, or "plox" for please--parents are turning to sites like NoSlang.com, Teenangels.org and Teenchatdecoder.com for their acronym dictionaries--much to teens' chagrin.
"A lot of teens get mad that I'm cluing parents into their little warnings."
--Ryan Jones, who runs NoSlang.com "I get praise from parents and hatred from teenagers," said Ryan Jones, a
25-year-old engineer from Detroit who runs NoSlang.com in his spare time. He recently updated the site with thousands of new acronyms and downloadable plug-ins for Firefox and Internet Explorer.
In some ways, the shorthand is used for more than keeping parents in the dark. Watch a teen online and you'll understand: the average teen juggles between three and five chat sessions at any one time, researchers say. That socializing often coincides with online research, homework or listening to music. And on the cell phone, the character limit of text messages (160 characters) demands brevity.
"They're finding ways of making shortcuts and (creating) a sense of conversation," said Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist at Pew American and Internet Life.
Of course, acronyms are not teen-only territory. Programmers and gamers, among others, have long had their own specialized lingo. And anyone who's familiar with IM and e-mail knows terms like OMG, LOL and
WTF.
Now that sites like Teenchatdecoder.com boast almost 6,000 acronyms that parents can look up online, kids have had to adapt their terms to avoid detection. Jones said he's seeing kids use CD8 or "Code 8" instead of "Code 9"
to warn of parents around, for example.
Indeed, teen trends change fast, and that makes it harder for parents to keep pace. According to a Pew study, 52 percent of teens prefer to communicate with friends via landline, versus 24 percent who prefer instant messaging and 12 percent who like to talk via cell phone best. For quick conversations, however, teens prefer IM or text messaging.
Parry Aftab, the founder of the Web site Teenangels.org, a program to train teens on online safety, said parents who are using monitoring software to check on their kids often have no idea what their kids are saying and a translator can help. In addition to the parent-warning acronyms, experts say parents should watch out for short codes including MIRL, for "meet in real life"; E or X, for the drug Ecstasy; and NIFOC, for "naked in front of the computer." |
The president of the Vancouver chapter of the Hells Angels has lost his bid to have key sections of Canada's 2001 anti-gang law declared unconstitutional.
Rick Ciarniello, 61, argued that the legislation violated his rights under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In a first decision of its kind, an Ontario judge had ruled last year that the Hells Angels is a criminal organization across Canada, based on the federal law.
In his affidavit filed in B.C. Supreme Court, Ciarniello claimed people in B.C. snubbed him because of that judgment.
He claimed he was shunned at supermarkets and restaurants because of his association with the Hells Angels — and that he was treated with fear, loathing and avoidance.
Ciarniello also complained that he was more regularly stopped by police and had his luggage searched by customs officers at Vancouver International Airport last year.
Continue Article But in a judgment released Tuesday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice William Ehrcke ruled he couldn't grant Ciarniello's application because it would undermine the Ontario decision.
No link established between law and snubs Mark Levitz, who represented the B.C. government in the court case, said Ciarniello was unable to link his treatment by the community to the anti-gang law.
"The things that he alleged in his petition, such as being harassed by customs officers or being snubbed at Safeway and restaurants, these weren't things which he could establish in any way were impacted by the criminal organization legislation."
The Hells Angels are appealing the Ontario judgment that their club is a criminal organization.
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Wheelie Big Trouble L&I shutters a bar reputed to be biker-gang hangout.
by Brendan McGarvey and Gabriele Valentine Published: November 15, 2006 Last Friday night, a city Department of Licenses and Inspections van and a police cruiser pulled up in front of Whiskey Dix Saloon in Northern Liberties and, after L&I inspectors interviewed the bar manager, investigators closed the bar for allegedly operating without a current liquor license and for being a public nuisance.
An L&I source says they tried to get in and out as fast as possible so they wouldn't have a run-in with members of the Pagans motorcycle gang who they expected to soon show up for their weekly meeting.
Law-enforcement sources and bar insiders claim local leaders of the Pagan Nation held meetings on Thursday or Friday evenings for more than a year and that many Pagans and associates had taken to using the North Seventh Street watering hole as their unofficial clubhouse.
Despite those claims, bar owner Bill McKeever maintains they were a problem a year and a half ago but no longer come to the bar in droves. "You might see one or two," says McKeever, adding that he's since fired a manager who allowed them to set up shop inside.
Still, according to one eyewitness, the meetings are ongoing, and seem to be organized and carried out with military precision. "First, a Pagan called Chewy would show up on his bike," the source says. "He was the scout.
He'd come into Whiskey Dix and check it out. Then, three other Pagans would show up, all wearing their colors.
They would be on cell phones. One would talk to the bouncer, a guy called Machine who the Pagans are trying to recruit, to see if anything unusual was going on."
Then, Chewy would make his "all clear" telephone call and within minutes, 10 to 15 Pagans would arrive. The president of the local chapter would arrive in his Cadillac Escalade with a very large bodyguard in tow, and head upstairs to the mezzanine to meet with Pagans including a club enforcer who always carried a cane with a sword concealed inside it. Pagan business allegedly included conversations about a possible war against the rival Outlaw biker gang, meth trafficking and illegal gambling operations.
They closed the Whiskey Dix for allegedly being a public nuisance. Over time, some Pagans noticed suspicious vans outside and saw men taking video and photographs of patrons, particularly the bikers and their hangers-on.
They quickly realized that local organized-crime investigators and the Pennsylvania State Police had the bar under occasional surveillance, but that didn't stop them from allegedly misbehaving inside. (McKeever says he never saw cops taking photos.)
Sources say one Pagan broke a bar manager's nose several years ago, and last summer two Pagans, one wielding a hammer, savagely beat a patron known as "the Ice Cream Man," because he mistakenly wore a Hells Angels T-shirt.
Just two weeks ago, on Toys For Tots Sunday — the day bikers collect toys for local children's hospitals — more than 100 bikers and bar patrons crowded the sidewalk and street outside the bar, drinking, brawling and stopping traffic to race motorcycles, sometimes pulling wheelies or burning so much rubber the block was covered in smoke. Among the celebrants: Pagans wearing their colors and members of the Northeast Riders, a reputed Pagan "feeder club." (McKeever says the fight had nothing to do with the Pagans and points out that he only gets a crowd like that once a year after the run.)
According to witnesses, Whiskey Dix served booze to the crowd the entire afternoon even though, according to State Liquor Control Board records, the bar's liquor license had expired on Halloween, five days earlier.
As of presstime, according to the Liquor Control Board's administrative law judge's office, the bar's owners still had not responded to the citation. McKeever says he's sent a renewal application and expects to reopen the bar soon.
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Dennis Wagner The Arizona Republic Nov. 13, 2006 12:00 AM It was Abe Lincoln who said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
Now, the Arizona Attorney General's Office and the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club are testing that theory in a bidding war for the bikers' clubhouse in Phoenix.
State prosecutors, who obtained a half interest in the property under forfeiture laws, are competing with the outlaw club's Cave Creek Charter to buy the house through a court-ordered auction.
Sonny Barger, a co-founder of the Hells Angels and member of the Cave Creek outfit (which is really in Phoenix), said the whole thing seems crazy: "Somebody in the state wants to say they threw us out of the clubhouse, even if they've got to buy it to prove it. Where do they get the money to do that?"
Andrea Esquer, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Terry Goddard, said state lawyers would not comment on why they are trying to acquire the house, where the purchase money would come from or what the plans are for the building.
In the beginning The tale begins in 1996, with the purchase of vacant land at 1121 W. Ironwood Drive in the city's Sunnyslope area.
The buyers were Daniel "Hoover" Seybert, then club president, and Bob Eberhardt, who was vice president. Using money and manpower from their biker brothers, the men built an 1,800-square-foot structure that they completed in
1999. It has been used since then for twice-weekly Hells Angels gatherings, known as "church meetings."
Eberhardt said the clubhouse includes some special features: reinforced-steel door and window frames, surveillance cameras and a 40-foot-long bar.
In March 2003, Seybert was gunned down outside a Phoenix tavern by an unknown assailant, leaving his heirs as co-owners of the clubhouse with Eberhardt, owner of a concrete company. He ascended to the Hells Angels presidency.
Two years ago, law enforcement agents raided Hells Angels clubs statewide, including the house on Ironwood, as part of a huge federal sting known as Operation Black Biscuit.
Unproven accusations The prosecution's case, once touted as a landmark success, collapsed this year. Most defendants went free or pleaded guilty to minor charges. Racketeering allegations were dropped. No one from the Cave Creek Charter was convicted. An associate who was guarding the house during the raid and got shot by police sued the government.
The case is pending.
Meanwhile, state attorneys had filed seizure papers alleging that the clubhouse was acquired with criminal racketeering funds. Eberhardt contested that claim in Maricopa County Superior Court and beat the government.
"They accused us of a lot of things they couldn't prove," he said.
However, because Hoover's heirs did not fight the confiscation, the state became half-owner of the property.
"I don't know how they could do that to Hoover. He was dead," Barger said.
The result: a house divided. Eberhardt said the Hells Angels never stopped using the place or paid attention to a state notice banning guns and alcohol from the premises.
To resolve the situation, a special commissioner was assigned to determine the building's fair-market value, which turned out to be $150,000. The house was put up for auction, with plans for Eberhardt and Arizona to split the proceeds. Two bids were submitted, each for $150,000. One came from Eberhardt, the other from Goddard's office.
In court on Wednesday, Judge Kristin Hoffman gave the contestants seven days before a new round of bidding.
It is unclear whether the state will make a new offer and, if so, why. If the state were to prevail, the attorney general most likely would then auction off the house, a standard practice with homes obtained by forfeiture.
Eberhardt has upped his bid to $160,000.
If the government wins, Eberhardt said, Arizona will be paying money to the Hells Angels. If that happens and the group loses its house? Eberhardt said he has a couple of options: He owns a house across the street suitable to become the new headquarters. Or he could take his proceeds and buy another place elsewhere in Phoenix: "I'd like to get in an even nicer area with even more expensive homes," Eberhardt said.
Wilma Fenby, 74, who has lived across Ironwood Drive for the past 29 years, said the Hells Angels have been good neighbors. "The only time I go outside after dark is if they're over there," Fenby said. "I'm more scared of the dopers. Since the bikers moved here, they don't come around anymore."
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