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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Graffiti Philosophy

Graffiti Philosophy

 
 
Jan 15, 2012
This is a video illustrating the political/social commentary of public graffiti.
It starts out juxtaposing Bush with Obama -- essentially one just took the kleptocratic baton from the other without missing a beat. Then it touches on the downtrodden and disenfranchised. It then moves into the mass media propaganda machine, then mindless consumerism, our oil addiction, empire's oil-centric/exploitive foreign policy, the corporate driven military industrial complex, the environmental consequences of fossil fuels, and then the evolution (fate) of man.

The soundtrack that accompanies the video is claimed to be an unreleased song by NIN entitled "It All Fades".

Thanks to Abby Martin for posting my video at her important website:
http://www.mediaroots.org/
Essay on the video : http://www.mediaroots.org/political-art-graffiti-philosophy.php
 

AUSTRALIA - SA to bolster anti-bikie laws within weeks(+video)

OFF THE WIRE
 abc.net.au
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-30/one-wounded-one-dead-in-sa-bikie-shooting/3801316

South Australian Attorney-General John Rau says tough new anti-association legislation to target bikie gangs will be introduced to State Parliament within weeks.
Mr Rau says the fatal shooting of gang member Giovanni Focarelli and the wounding of his father Vincenzo on Sunday night again show why tough legislation is needed.
There was a successful High Court challenge against current laws and Mr Rau says it has taken some time to draft another bill, but it is now ready.
"We need to be very careful about the exact provisions that we put into the Parliament because we don't want to be going down the High Court track again," he said.
"I'm confident that whatever we put into the Parliament will be ultimately litigated by the people that it affects because they've got resources to do so and it's in their interest to do so.
"What we need to ensure is that it doesn't fail the High Court test."
Mr Rau concedes planned legal changes probably would not have prevented Sunday night's fatal shooting at Dry Creek, in the northern suburbs.
"I don't think anybody can say that a rogue individual who is prepared to operate outside the law for reasons that we still don't entirely understand can be prevented in advance by any legislation," he said.
The minister says the Government will legislate to give police more powers to monitor bikie groups and seize their weapons and assets.

Bullet in skull

Vincenzo Focarelli remains in the Royal Adelaide Hospital under police watch, as he recovers from four gunshot wounds. He is to have further surgery on his injuries and has one of the bullets lodged in his skull.
He is refusing to give police any information about the slaying of his 22-year-old son Giovanni.
South Australian Police Commissioner Mal Hyde says the number of motorcycle gang members is falling and many are already facing charges.
"When you look at the three groups that are really high profile at the moment - the Comancheros, the Finks and also the Hells Angels - combined there's about 122 members of those groups and 63 are facing charges, so over 50 per cent," he said.
Mr Hyde is keen that courts impose tougher sentences on cases of bikie violence.
But SA's Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Pallaras disagrees with that view.
"You have to look at it case by case and if it really is a real stand-out poor decision then we have the option of entering an appeal or seeking leave to appeal against a decision and getting it increased but, I must say, I don't know that that is the real problem," he said.
Mr Pallaras says the SA Government should outlaw and disband motorcycle gangs and Mr Rau says the Government has taken that view on board.
"He raised a number of issues which included, from memory, an issue about the actual making illegal of an organisation and membership of an organisation and in principle many of ideas, I think, have merit," Mr Rau said.
"The practicalities of how we actually implement them are things that we have been looking at."

South Australian bikie laws

In May 2008, South Australia passed what then-premier Mike Rann proclaimed as 'the world's toughest anti-bikie laws', with the introduction of the Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Act 2008. The Act came into effect on September 4 2008.
Mr Rann cited the following as highlights of the Act:
  • Gang members who engage in acts of violence that threaten and intimidate the public will be guilty of serious offences and will find it harder to get bail;
  • Police will be able to prohibit members of a bikie gang from attending a place, event or area where this would pose a serious threat to the public;
  • The old law of consorting will be replaced with a new law of criminal association that prohibits telephone calls as well as meetings in the flesh;
  • Stalking a person with the intention of intimidating a victim, witness, court official, police officer or public servant will become a serious offence;
  • It will be easier for police to secure orders to dismantle fortifications protecting gang clubrooms;
  • New offences of violent disorder (maximum penalty of 2 years' jail); riot (7 years, 10 years where aggravated); affray (3 years, 5 years where aggravated) and stalking of public officials by outlaw motorcycle gang (OMCG) members (7 years).
  • The Attorney-General may declare an organisation an outlaw organisation if satisfied that members of the organisation associate for the purpose of organising, planning, facilitating, supporting or engaging in serious criminal activity and the organisation represents a risk to public safety and order.
  • The Attorney-General is not required to provide any grounds or reasons for a declaration or decision, nor is criminal intelligence information provided by the Commissioner of Police to be disclosed.

Information sourced from the Australian Institute of Criminology

Vincenzo Focarelli remains in the Royal Adelaide Hospital under police watch, as he recovers from four gunshot wounds. He is to have further surgery on his injuries and has one of the bullets lodged in his skull.
He is refusing to give police any information about the slaying of his 22-year-old son Giovanni.
South Australian Police Commissioner Mal Hyde says the number of motorcycle gang members is falling and many are already facing charges.
"When you look at the three groups that are really high profile at the moment - the Comancheros, the Finks and also the Hells Angels - combined there's about 122 members of those groups and 63 are facing charges, so over 50 per cent," he said.
Mr Hyde is keen that courts impose tougher sentences on cases of bikie violence.
But SA's Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Pallaras disagrees with that view.
"You have to look at it case by case and if it really is a real stand-out poor decision then we have the option of entering an appeal or seeking leave to appeal against a decision and getting it increased but, I must say, I don't know that that is the real problem," he said.
Mr Pallaras says the SA Government should outlaw and disband motorcycle gangs and Mr Rau says the Government has taken that view on board.
"He raised a number of issues which included, from memory, an issue about the actual making illegal of an organisation and membership of an organisation and in principle many of ideas, I think, have merit," Mr Rau said.
"The practicalities of how we actually implement them are things that we have been looking at."

Another try

Family First MP Dennis Hood says his party tried without success back in 2008 to prevent SA courts from giving suspended sentences for an offender's second serious offence.
Mr Hood plans to reintroduce the legislation in light of the comments from the Police Commissioner on current sentencing.

"If the Government looks at the bill and says it's not really what we want we want to amend it here and there I'm very open to that and I'd look forward to those discussions so we can come up with something that really works," he said.

Law Society president Ralph Bonig is upset Mr Hyde is blaming lenient court sentences for rising bikie violence.
"This is not the first time the Police Commissioner has criticised sentences imposed by our courts. This is nothing more than a populist attack on an easy target, which the statistics show is unjustified," he said.

CANADA - Jeffrey Lynds death investigation continues...

OFF THE WIRE
CBC News
Hells Angels enforcer was awaiting trial on murder charges....

Police continue to investigate the death of Jeffrey Albert Lynds, once the highest-ranking Hells Angel in Nova Scotia, in a prison cell last week.
CBC News has confirmed that Lynds was found dead Friday in a prison in the Montreal area. An autopsy is scheduled for Monday.
Police continue to investigate the death of Jeffrey Albert Lynds, once the highest-ranking Hells Angel in Nova Scotia, in a prison cell last week.
CBC News has confirmed that Lynds was found dead Friday in a prison in the Montreal area. An autopsy is scheduled for Monday.
Lynds was a member of the Halifax chapter of the Hells Angels and later joined the biker gang's elite Nomad enforcement group. He was facing two counts of first-degree murder when he died.
Lynds was accused of killing a hit man and a bystander outside a McDonald's restaurant in Montreal in January 2009. He was arrested in Truro, N.S., in May 2010.
Lynds was also connected to several murder cases in Nova Scotia.
According to documents filed in court in 2010, police believe that Lynds killed Randy Mersereau, who disappeared in October 1999 during a biker gang war.
Lynds co-operated with police following his arrest and became a key figure in several ongoing cases.
A spokesperson for Nova Scotia's public prosecution service said they don't believe Lynds' death will affect those cases, but they are assessing the situation.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2012/01/30/ns-jeffrey-lynds-hells-angels.html

USA - Healing soldiers, one dog at a time.. Kudos to Mr Stovroff for starting this program, and a BIG THANK YOU to Mr. Stovroff for his service to our country. Our vets deserve nothing but the best. The unconditional love that a dog gives is one of the most precious gifts in the world...


OFF THE WIRE
By Mary Murray
NBC News
Boca Raton, Fla.

Joseph Jones, Jr., a Vietnam War veteran, spends some quality time with guide dog Bruce, at the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center in Florida.

Irwin Stovroff is a true American hero – not only for what he did 70 years ago, but for what he accomplishes today.
During World War II, the 20-year-old airman was on his 35th bombing mission when the enemy shot down his B-24 Liberator over German-occupied France.
In Stovroff's home a photo hanging on the wall shows the exact moment his plane nosedived to the ground, billowing smoke. In the picture, taken by an airman flying in another bomber, tiny white dots depict the 10 crewmen who parachuted to the ground.
He remembers being scared and "cursing Hitler all the way down."
Landing right behind enemy lines, Stovroff and his crew were immediately captured by German forces. "This was one time I really did not think I was going to make it," he said.
He believes quick thinking helped save him. Stovroff said he threw away the dog tags that identified him as Jewish, and spent the next year in a Nazi POW camp before being freed by Russian forces. Upon returning to the U.S., Stovroff earned the Air Medal, the Purple Heart, and eventually, the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Knowing first-hand the horrors of war, the 89-year-old is now on a new mission -- helping wounded soldiers.
Tune in Monday, Jan. 30, for Chelsea Clinton's report on Vets Helping Heroes, tonight on NBC “Nightly News."

After learning that the federal government has no program to match injured soldiers with service dogs, Stovroff started a charity in 2007 called Vets Helping Heroes. Since then, he’s raised $3 million to supply vets with seeing-eye and therapy dogs.  
"I really recognize what a dog can mean, what a dog can do for somebody," he told NBC’s “Nightly News.” "The dog is a true lifesaver."
The highly trained service dog, Stovroff said, can give the wounded warrior "mobility, independence and a companionship that he can't get from any other way."
Lt. Col. Kathy Champion served with distinction for 27 years and commanded a special combat unit in Iraq. After, returning home, she went blind from a mysterious virus she contracted in Iraq that attacked her spinal cord. At first, Champion shut herself off from family and friends.
"I became a hermit in my own house," she said. "I quit school. I quit my job. I quit being social. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I stopped answering phone calls from my son and daughter. I didn't tell anybody what was wrong. I didn't want anyone to know I wasn't the soldier I had been."
Concerned friends forced her out of her shell and she applied for a service dog from Southeastern Guide Dogs, one of the country's leading training facilities.  
Stovroff’s charity donated thousands of dollars to sponsor the dog, and Champion spent 26 days living and training with "Angel" at the facility's Florida campus. She described it as a "life-changing" event.
These cute puppies are in training and will eventually become service dogs for disabled veterans. NBC's Chelsea Clinton has the story on NBC "Nightly News with Brian Williams."

"She has granted me back the life that I felt was taken from me," the army veteran said about her yellow Labrador retriever.
Last year, Champion and Angel hiked the Grand Canyon. "She has taught me to trust," Champion said.
Stovroff also raised the funds to give retired Master Sgt. Mark Gwathmey a lifeline named "Larry."
After three tours of combat duty in Iraq, Gwathmey was constantly exposed to mortar fire and Improvised Explosive Devices that left the soldier with serious medical problems, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a brain injury and severe seizures.  Some days the seizures lasted up to eight hours.

"There were times he couldn't walk, couldn't talk. He didn't know who he was, who I was," his wife, Carolyn Gwathmey, recalled.
Life, she said, was so "dark and miserable" she feared her husband would take his own life. "As much love and support his family gave him, it wasn't enough," she said.
Larry not only gave her husband back his life, she said, but also saved his life.
"Larry gave him whatever humans couldn't," Carolyn said.
It’s much more than companionship. Larry can sense when Gwathmey will have a seizure, even hours before it happens, and the dog alerts the family and stands guard over Gwathmey, Carolyn said.
"If Mark tries to stand up, Larry gently forces him back on to the bed," she said.
This degree of training, however, does not come cheap. Costs to train a Southeastern Guide Dog can run as high as $70,000.
Dr. Michael Silverman from the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center argues that the value of a service dogs is priceless. He's speaking in particular about one loveable black lab named Bruce who roams the hospital halls and visits with World War II and Vietnam War veterans.
Even so, Bruce possesses a very special quality, so Stovroff sponsored him for another service career: Bruce is a hugger, all 62 pounds of him. He likes to lay his head on a patient's bed or on the patient's legs if the person is in a wheelchair. Bruce is also trained to give a proper hug, gently placing his paws on a patient's shoulders. At the moment, he's also learning how to give his paw for a more traditional handshake.
"Bruce has a calming effect with his unconditional, non-judgmental love. Patients become less agitated when Bruce is around. They look forward to his visits. He adds to the spirit of the day.  He especially helps our vets who are a little afraid to interact with other people," Dr. Silverman said.
The use of therapy dogs to help soldiers heal both the visible and invisible wounds of war is not a new technique, he added. "The American Red Cross, after World War II, used pets in convalescent homes, to help our troops.  So, this relationship goes back many, many years and it's a win-win."
Stovroff says every returning soldier in need of a service dog should be provided with one. And while he lobbies for federal funding for canine therapy, he's continuing to make a difference in the lives of more than 80 newly-wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan. He calls his program "The Gift of Life."
"America needs to do more for the troops," Stovroff said. "It's our turn to fight for them."

AUSTRALIA - Editorial: Words are not enough to subdue bikies..

valdman cartoon 31-01

OFF THE WIRE
 adelaidenow.com.au

"WE will continue to work to ensure these people are eradicated from our community."
Those are the words of Premier Jay Weatherill yesterday as he tried to give South Australians assurances that the latest outbreak of bikie violence in this state will not be tolerated.
Strong, fighting, words indeed. But they seem to be just the same rhetoric that was spouted a decade ago by his predecessor Mike Rann when it became evident that the growth of outlaw motorcycle gangs in this state, indeed across the nation, was becoming a significant law and order problem.
What has occurred since war was declared on these gangs is that the Government has been unable to live up to its rhetoric despite the best efforts of the SA Police.
To the public at large, it appears these bikie gangs go largely unhindered, thumbing their collective noses at the law - safe in the knowledge that their code of silence, the equivalent of the Mafia's Omerta, will prevent any successful prosecution of their lawless activities.
Despite threats of bulldozing bikie fortresses, crackdowns on bikie runs and attempts to gather intelligence on their activities, these gangs operate independently of the law. They have demonstrated almost with unmitigated arrogance that they have no intention of abiding by the law.
Even fathers whose sons have been shot refuse to co-operate with the police. The fear of reprisals is ever present.
The police are doing their best with the resources available to them within the law. However, the recent spate of violence - including a shooting in a crowded restaurant - should be making the alarm bells ring even louder than before.
This escalation can only lead the public to wonder just how long it will be before what are, in essence, disputes between gang members or between gangs, result in some poor, unfortunate civilians being caught in the crossfire.
There seems to be no easy answer to combating these gangs. Even the full force of the FBI in the United States has failed to make a dent in their activities over there.
In South Australia, we cannot continue to countenance the growing threat to public safety posed by these people. Governments of all political persuasions appear to be fully committed to combating the threats being posed to law and order but the strategy is fragmented by state boundaries.
Harsher penalties at a state level have not made the inroads expected. Perhaps the time has come for the Commonwealth to step in and come up with a national strategy which is going to drive these gangs out of business.
It is worth remembering that one of the world's most infamous of criminals - Al Capone - was brought to heel not on criminal charges but for tax evasion.

AUSTRALIA - Police want Bandidos member Ricky Steven Chapman, 22, banned from Surfers Paradise after two violent nightclub incidents in three weeks...

OFF THE WIRE
POLICE are trying to ban a bikie from Surfers Paradise after two violent nightclub incidents in three weeks. Bandidos outlaw motorcycle gxxg member Ricky Steven Chapman, 22, faced Southport Magistrates Court today charged with behaving in a disorderly manner in licensed premises, public nuisance and breaching Supreme Court bail.
The charges stem from alleged incidents in Surfers Paradise on January 21.
Court documents allege a drunken Chapman was with Bandidos associates at the Bourbon Bar in Orchid Ave about 2am when he began pushing patrons around "in an aggressive manner".
Bouncers warned him to stop but he was evicted after he "manhandled" patrons.
Later that morning, he allegedly confronted the off-duty bouncer who had evicted him and abused and threatened him.
Police allege Chapman and other Bandidos also forced their way into Blush nightclub on December 30 last year seeking out a rival Rebels bikie gxxg member after an earlier incident at strip club Hollywood Showgirls.
Police say Chapman has used "intimidation and threats of violence" against bouncers and should be banned from Surfers to maintain public order and safety.
The case was adjourned until March 16.
Police agreed to bail but only on condition Chapman not go into central Surfers Paradise except to report to police.
He was already on Supreme Court bail over serious drug charges.
Chapman lived in Surfers Paradise but outside the party precinct police want him banned from.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/police-want-bandidos-member-ricky-steven-chapman-22-banned-from-surfers-paradise-after-two-violent-nightclub-incidents-in-three-weeks/story-e6freoof-1226257177268

Netherlands - Dutch government gets tough with 'outlaw bikers'...


OFF THE WIRE

The Dutch government has announced its plans to put an end to the criminal activities of motorbike clubs. So-called ‘outlaw bikers’ are allegedly involved in trafficking drugs and weapons, intimidation and attempted murders. But the lawyer of one of the two largest biker clubs in the Netherlands is astonished by the allegations.Justice and Security Minister Ivo Opstelten warns that Hells Angels and members of the Moluccan biker club Satudarah should not think they are invincible. In recent years there have been more than 40 criminal investigations into the Hells Angels and Satudarah. But so far, this has been to little or no avail, as cases are seldom prosecuted, partly because the authorities fail to communicate with each other.
That's a thing of the past from now on, says Minister Opstelten :
“All mayors, the Public Prosecutor's Office, the fraud squad and other government agencies have joined forces to fight evil on the same level. It's an integrated approach. This is what we do with outlaw bikers in our country. This way we will prevent them from continuing their evil practices.”
The tougher approach should make it more difficult for the clubs to hold meetings and build a club house. Mr Opstelten: “We will not tolerate no go areas where people can ignore national rules and values.” Priority will also be given to confiscating the proceeds of crime.
Tough language
Erik Thomas, lawyer for Satudarah, is horrified by what he calls the minister’s tough language. He thinks the minister should take more care with his accusations:
“Lots of accusations have been voiced. Honestly I have to say, I was astonished when I heard the minister say: 'We have to tackle the evil'. The language is out of proportion; the term ‘outlaw bikers’ was used. If I look at my clients from the last 22 years, I don't recognise the image that the justice minister is trying to portray. As if Satudarah, and probably also the Hells Angels, have an octopus-like influence on the Netherlands."
The law-abiding versus the underworld
And indeed, the minister does think that the motorcycle clubs are extending their tentacles still further. With the new offensive, he wants to prevent them having an ever-increasing grip on society:
"There should be no occurences of intimidation, there should be no intertwining of crime with the law-abiding world. The government should ensure that that sort of thing does not occur. The government will show its face here and will prevent these things happening."
http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/dutch-government-gets-tough-outlaw-bikers

US - The Caging of America...


Six million people are under correctional supervision in the U.S.

OFF THE WIRE
by
The Caging of America,
Why do we lock up so many people?

Six million people are under correctional supervision in the U.S.—more than were in Stalin’s gulags. Photograph by Steve Liss.

 A prison is a trap for catching time. Good reporting appears often about the inner life of the American prison, but the catch is that American prison life is mostly undramatic—the reported stories fail to grab us, because, for the most part, nothing happens. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich is all you need to know about Ivan Denisovich, because the idea that anyone could live for a minute in such circumstances seems impossible; one day in the life of an American prison means much less, because the force of it is that one day typically stretches out for decades. It isn’t the horror of the time at hand but the unimaginable sameness of the time ahead that makes prisons unendurable for their inmates. The inmates on death row in Texas are called men in “timeless time,” because they alone aren’t serving time: they aren’t waiting out five years or a decade or a lifetime. The basic reality of American prisons is not that of the lock and key but that of the lock and clock.
That’s why no one who has been inside a prison, if only for a day, can ever forget the feeling. Time stops. A note of attenuated panic, of watchful paranoia—anxiety and boredom and fear mixed into a kind of enveloping fog, covering the guards as much as the guarded. “Sometimes I think this whole world is one big prison yard, / Some of us are prisoners, some of us are guards,” Dylan sings, and while it isn’t strictly true—just ask the prisoners—it contains a truth: the guards are doing time, too. As a smart man once wrote after being locked up, the thing about jail is that there are bars on the windows and they won’t let you out. This simple truth governs all the others. What prisoners try to convey to the free is how the presence of time as something being done to you, instead of something you do things with, alters the mind at every moment. For American prisoners, huge numbers of whom are serving sentences much longer than those given for similar crimes anywhere else in the civilized world—Texas alone has sentenced more than four hundred teen-agers to life imprisonment—time becomes in every sense this thing you serve.
For most privileged, professional people, the experience of confinement is a mere brush, encountered after a kid’s arrest, say. For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.
The accelerating rate of incarceration over the past few decades is just as startling as the number of people jailed: in 1980, there were about two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred and thirty-one. No other country even approaches that. In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education. Ours is, bottom to top, a “carceral state,” in the flat verdict of Conrad Black, the former conservative press lord and newly minted reformer, who right now finds himself imprisoned in Florida, thereby adding a new twist to an old joke: A conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged; a liberal is a conservative who’s been indicted; and a passionate prison reformer is a conservative who’s in one.
The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life. Every day, at least fifty thousand men—a full house at Yankee Stadium—wake in solitary confinement, often in “supermax” prisons or prison wings, in which men are locked in small cells, where they see no one, cannot freely read and write, and are allowed out just once a day for an hour’s solo “exercise.” (Lock yourself in your bathroom and then imagine you have to stay there for the next ten years, and you will have some sense of the experience.) Prison rape is so endemic—more than seventy thousand prisoners are raped each year—that it is routinely held out as a threat, part of the punishment to be expected. The subject is standard fodder for comedy, and an uncoöperative suspect being threatened with rape in prison is now represented, every night on television, as an ordinary and rather lovable bit of policing. The normalization of prison rape—like eighteenth-century japery about watching men struggle as they die on the gallows—will surely strike our descendants as chillingly sadistic, incomprehensible on the part of people who thought themselves civilized. Though we avoid looking directly at prisons, they seep obliquely into our fashions and manners. Wealthy white teen-agers in baggy jeans and laceless shoes and multiple tattoos show, unconsciously, the reality of incarceration that acts as a hidden foundation for the country.

TO READ THE REST OF THE STORY, FOLLOW THE LINK,
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/01/30/120130crat_atlarge_gopnik#ixzz1ktmkMSbL

AUSTRALIA - Police say anti-bikie laws are our best weapon....

OFF THE WIRE
THE Crime Gangs Task Force and the State Government's controversial anti-bikie laws are still the best weapons available to police, Commissioner Mal Hyde said yesterday.
He said barring orders, public-safety orders, as well as higher penalties for drug trafficking and firearm offences had still worked to the point where more than 100 of 274 bikie members were facing charges.
"Before the legislation was brought in there was about 250 members of the various clubs. That dropped down to just under 200," Mr Hyde said.
"If you look at the Finks motorcycle group in particular, there are currently 52 members to our knowledge and 30 of them are facing charges and nine of them are in prison.
"When you look at the three groups that are really the high profile at the moment - the Comancheros, the Finks and also the Hells Angels, combined there's about 122 members of those groups and 63 are facing charges."
But Mr Hyde said "patchy" court sentences were hindering police efforts to lock bikies away.
In recent years:
FINKS member Dylan Jessen was fined $2000 in January over a brawl.
THE Supreme Court increased jail terms for three Finks members over a 2009 assault.
REBELS bikies Jamie Richard Mills and Giovanni Licastro were jailed in November 2010 for shooting at a Waymouth St nightclub in October 2009.
SENIOR Finks member William John Davis was jailed for 6½ years in June 2010 for hiding rifles and ammunition in his home's walls.
FORMER Hells Angel George Petropoulos received a suspended jail term in 2008 for theft and extortion.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/police-say-anti-bikie-laws-are-our-best-weapon/story-e6frea6u-1226257754672

AUSTRALIA - OMCG member and associate charged with driving offences - Strike Force Raptor

OFF THE WIRE
An alleged member of the Comanchero Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (OMCG) and an alleged associate of the same group have been detected by Strike Force Raptor officers for driving offences.
Officers from the Gangs Squad’s Strike Force Raptor were patrolling the Milperra area, in Sydney's south-west, on Friday 27 January 2012 when they stopped a motorcycle about 10.15pm.
The rider, an alleged member of the Comanchero OMCG, was subjected to a roadside breath test, returning a positive result.
He was placed under arrest and taken to Bankstown Police Station where he returned a breath analysis of 0.106.
The 51-year-old Marrickville man’s licence was suspended and he was issued a court attendance notice for the offence of drive with middle-range PCA to face Bankstown Local Court on 7 March 2012.
About 10.40pm, officers stopped a car at Milperra, with a check of the driver’s licence revealing he was suspended from driving.
As a result, the 20-year-old Fairfield East man, who is alleged to be an associate of the Comanchero OMCG, was issued a court attendance notice for the offence of drive whilst suspended. He is due to face Blacktown Local Court on 21 March 2012
http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/latest_releases?sq_content_src=%2BdXJsPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmViaXoucG9saWNlLm5zdy5nb3YuYXUlMkZtZWRpYSUyRjIxMjgwLmh0bWwmYWxsPTE%3D

Police swarm dealership after tension rises between biker clubs..

OFF THE WIRE
Reading Eagle
Police officers from across Berks County swarmed to Classic Harley-Davidson in Bern Township on Sunday to stop an argument between two motorcycle gangs from escalating into a 100-person brawl, investigators said.
Initial reports indicated that a fight was starting inside the dealership at 983 James Drive, possibly involving baseball bats.
But the two groups backed off before the argument turned physical, police said. Officers were called about 12:15 p.m., and the bikers cleared out by 1 p.m., authorities said.
No one was charged or injured.
The area around the dealership was teeming with state troopers and police from all over the county. The bikers stood in groups as officers walked around, some with shotguns drawn.
A manager at Classic Harley-Davidson declined to comment.
Bern police gave this account:
Officers were called for reports of a fight starting between the two gangs, which totaled about 100 riders. The dispute did not turn into a fight. Police were not sure what the disagreement was about or how it started.
A total of about 30 to 40 police officers and state troopers responded.
Police declined to identify the gangs. However, several bikers were wearing jackets emblazoned with "Wheels of Soul," a Philadelphia-based gang.
http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=362301

Contact Liam Migdail-Smith: 610-371-5022 or lsmith@readingeagle.com.

Actually yes, ignorance of the law is an excuse...

OFF THE WIRE
 COMMENT,
This is one of the few articles I can actually agree with. The amount of laws passed in a legislative session are ridiculous. However, there are hundreds of laws repealed as well, but if you don’t actually follow the session you will never hear about it. Thank you for a welcome break from Man Child and Boy Blunders endeavors to antagonize police. It is a like a welcome commercial break. The problems start at the top, because lobbyist run this country, and as a result votes mean nothing.
There are countless laws. Literally.

Maybe not in the mathematical sense – it is technically possible to count the laws in existence, but based on a colloquial and general use of the term “countless” it is not really feasible for someone to count every law. Just this year, 40,000 laws were passed and are set to go into effect. On the other hand, we rarely hear news about laws being repealed.
At this rate, if it is a monumental task to even count the laws, certainly, one can never know all the laws. And then – even if one knows generally of many laws, it is further impossible to understand the laws with requisite detail so as to ensure compliance.
Yet, people are told over and over by police, prosecutors, and the justice system that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.”
To all the police, prosecutors, asshole judges, and other groveling subjects who insist on the “rule of law” –  actually, yes, ignorance is an excuse. Perhaps one would be viewed as disingenuous when claiming he or she did not know murder, theft, or rape was against the law. However, when 40,000 laws are passed each year, each with possibly hundreds of pages of details, it is a perfectly legitimate excuse to claim one is ignorant of said laws.
This is especially the case because most laws do not prevent murder, theft, or rape, which of course are the most obvious and justified prohibitions. Personal violations and property violations – that’s 2 laws. Total. It’s reasonable to throw in a few more for different degrees of personal violations (e.g. 2nd degree murder, voluntary and/or involuntary manslaughter, assault and battery), and different types of theft or property violations (e.g. fraud, embezzlement, petty theft, larceny, robbery, trespassing). That might get us to 15, and for the most part, that’s the bulk of the law that is reasonable or necessary. So where did the other 40,000 per year come from?
They are almost all useless or repetitive. They come from lobbyists, power-hungry politicians who want to appear to be “doing something” and from idiots who do not understand the meaning of statistical significance. One freak tragedy happens, and suddenly the relatives of the victim are lobbying, protesting, and demanding their local sleazeball politician to “do something” about any act, behavior, or substance remotely related to the tragedy, despite the fact that those acts, behaviors or substances are completely safe and hurt no one 99.99 percent of the time. I can almost guarantee you that if someone happened to run out of their house, slip on a banana peel, smash their face into a fence and die, that a committee of concerned citizens and responsive politicians will form to demand the death penalty upon people who litter banana peels, or to throw people in jail for running out of their houses.
If you visit this fun website by a couple of lawbreakers blogging their criminal activity, you will learn that it is illegal to peel an orange in a hotel in Los Angeles. It is illegal to fish while wearing pajamas in Chicago, IL. Playing an instrument with the intention of luring someone into a store is illegal in Indian Wells, CA. It is illegal in Globe, AZ to play cards with an Indian. Drinking a beer from a bucket is illegal in St. Louis, MO. Sleeping on a refrigerator is illegal in Pittsburgh.
I haven not personally verified the existence of these laws, but I can tell you with fair certainty about a multitude of other absurd laws that do exist. For instance, Alabama only legalized interracial marriage in 2000. Altruistic war veteran Antonio Buehler learned recently that spitting on a police officer is a third degree felony in Texas. When he observed an officer abusing a woman, he stopped to take pictures, and was attacked by police and arrested. Videos taken do not show him spitting police, but nevertheless, police accused him of doing so and charged him with harassment of a public official, a third degree felony (as a side note, spitting on a regular person would not nearly rise to a felony, because regular people aren’t gods, like the police are).
In yet another display of legal absurdity, a marine biologist faces 20 years in prison for violating an obscure federal environmental law. Nancy Black was in her research boat when killer whales attacked and killed a gray whale calf. Blubber floated to the surface, and the killer whales were getting ready to feed. Ms. Black threaded ropes through some blubber and lowered a camera under water. She has been indicted by a federal grand jury for violating the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act (more here).
In many cities, it is de facto illegal to feed the homeless. And of course, in most states in America, due to the rise of the “Resisting Arrest” charge, people literally can be arrested for doing absolutely nothing.
Above all, the most important element to note is that “ignorance of the law is no excuse” only applies to the peons of America. It does not apply to prosecutors, judges, police, or other powerful people.  Police have qualified immunity for various actions they take on the job. Prosecutors have even greater immunity. The Supreme Court held in Imbler v. Pachtman that absolute immunity of public prosecutors is “based on the policy of protecting the judicial process.” Thus, prosecutors face no recourse for even the most malicious of actions – knowingly using falsified evidence.
The Supreme Court is currently considering the issue of whether there is a Constitutional right to “not be framed.” (Yes, the system is that evil – they actually have to debate whether there is a “right not to be framed”). Judges also have absolute civil immunity, so if the Supreme Court decides there is no Constitutional right “not to be framed” they will not be held accountable, and all anyone can do about it is cry. (Read more about all these immunities here).
Next time you hear anyone talk about “the rule of law” or “ignorance of the law is no excuse” it’s worth pondering what exactly that means. In the context of America, it inevitably means oppression and arbitrary results from a system that operates off an extensive, random mire of nonsensical dictates decreed by tyrants.

U.S. - The Caging of America....

OFF THE WIRE
The Caging of America
A prison is a trap for catching time. Good reporting appears often about the inner life of the American prison, but the catch is that American prison life is mostly undramatic—the reported stories fail to grab us, because, for the most part, nothing happens. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich is all you need to know about Ivan Denisovich, because the idea that anyone could live for a minute in such circumstances seems impossible; one day in the life of an American prison means much less, because the force of it is that one day typically stretches out for decades. It isn’t the horror of the time at hand but the unimaginable sameness of the time ahead that makes prisons unendurable for their inmates. The inmates on death row in Texas are called men in “timeless time,” because they alone aren’t serving time: they aren’t waiting out five years or a decade or a lifetime. The basic reality of American prisons is not that of the lock and key but that of the lock and clock.

That’s why no one who has been inside a prison, if only for a day, can ever forget the feeling. Time stops. A note of attenuated panic, of watchful paranoia—anxiety and boredom and fear mixed into a kind of enveloping fog, covering the guards as much as the guarded. “Sometimes I think this whole world is one big prison yard, / Some of us are prisoners, some of us are guards,” Dylan sings, and while it isn’t strictly true—just ask the prisoners—it contains a truth: the guards are doing time, too. As a smart man once wrote after being locked up, the thing about jail is that there are bars on the windows and they won’t let you out. This simple truth governs all the others. What prisoners try to convey to the free is how the presence of time as something being done to you, instead of something you do things with, alters the mind at every moment. For American prisoners, huge numbers of whom are serving sentences much longer than those given for similar crimes anywhere else in the civilized world—Texas alone has sentenced more than four hundred teen-agers to life imprisonment—time becomes in every sense this thing you serve.

For most privileged, professional people, the experience of confinement is a mere brush, encountered after a kid’s arrest, say. For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.

The accelerating rate of incarceration over the past few decades is just as startling as the number of people jailed: in 1980, there were about two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred and thirty-one. No other country even approaches that. In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education. Ours is, bottom to top, a “carceral state,” in the flat verdict of Conrad Black, the former conservative press lord and newly minted reformer, who right now finds himself imprisoned in Florida, thereby adding a new twist to an old joke: A conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged; a liberal is a conservative who’s been indicted; and a passionate prison reformer is a conservative who’s in one.

The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life. Every day, at least fifty thousand men—a full house at Yankee Stadium—wake in solitary confinement, often in “supermax” prisons or prison wings, in which men are locked in small cells, where they see no one, cannot freely read and write, and are allowed out just once a day for an hour’s solo “exercise.” (Lock yourself in your bathroom and then imagine you have to stay there for the next ten years, and you will have some sense of the experience.) Prison rape is so endemic—more than seventy thousand prisoners are raped each year—that it is routinely held out as a threat, part of the punishment to be expected. The subject is standard fodder for comedy, and an uncoöperative suspect being threatened with rape in prison is now represented, every night on television, as an ordinary and rather lovable bit of policing. The normalization of prison rape—like eighteenth-century japery about watching men struggle as they die on the gallows—will surely strike our descendants as chillingly sadistic, incomprehensible on the part of people who thought themselves civilized. Though we avoid looking directly at prisons, they seep obliquely into our fashions and manners. Wealthy white teen-agers in baggy jeans and laceless shoes and multiple tattoos show, unconsciously, the reality of incarceration that acts as a hidden foundation for the country.


ILLINOIS - “HB0930 is a "No Profiling" bill to stop motorcycle only check points.

OFF THE WIRE

HB0930 is a "No Profiling" bill to stop motorcycle only check points. It is a Shell Bill, no real content, and has a short description of Criminal Law Tech to be amended to include the no profiling at a later date”
Bob Myers
State Legislative Coordinator
ABATE of Illinois, Inc.
 
BOB MYERS
LEGISLATIVE COORDINATOR
ABATE OF ILLINOIS
# 618-885-5769
Cell# 618-917-4919

http://www.mendotareporter.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&story_id=6101&page=77 Kleckner honored by ABATE of Illinois

 Posted: Tuesday, Jan 24th, 2012 BY: Staff

Dan Kleckner, left, accepts the Rich Neb Award from Mike Myers, state coordinator of ABATE of Illinois, Inc., at the state seminar on Jan. 21. (Photo contributed)


ABATE Starved Rock Chapter member, Dan Kleckner, received the “Rich Neb Award” on Jan. 21 at the 2012 ABATE of Illinois, Inc. state seminar. This award is ABATE of Illinois’ highest honor for outstanding contributions to motorcycling.
Requirements for the Rich Neb Award are sacrifice, success, sincerity, continuity and organization. These qualities are measured by a person’s character, contribution to motorcyclists’ rights, commitment to motorcycling, ability to work with others and length of service. This award is not given annually but by merit, and it is not given posthumously.
The mission of ABATE of Illinois is to preserve the universal right to a safe, unrestricted motorcycling environment, and to propose and advocate actions that can be taken by elected officials to protect and conserve the natural resources of the state of Illinois, and ensure through professional management that sustainable use, recreational opportunities and enjoyment of these resources is available for this and future generations.

http://www.thejournal-news.net/articles/2012/01/30/opinion/letters/letter02.txt
Sharing Information On Cycles And Red Lights


Dear Editor:
I am a high school senior and American citizen who will be of age to vote in March. I wish to encourage everyone to register and exercise that right to vote.
I also want to speak to the public about a new law that came into effect this January.
People say, "did you hear about that law allowing bikers to run red lights?"
I want to clear up what this law is, why it was created, and how it affects everyone. I also want to share information and thank ABATE (A Brotherhood Aimed Toward Education) of Illinois for their political efforts.
This new law does not allow motorcycles to run red lights. It allows a motorcycle to proceed through a light that has not changed to green after sitting 120 seconds and it is safe to proceed. Have you sat in traffic and wondered why that motorcycle waited and eventually ran a red light? Some motorcycles do not trigger traffic signals. To maintain the flow of traffic this law is important.

The work of ABATE also affects the public through education. If you are a driver or passenger in a car or motorcycle, you could be sharing the road with someone who completed a motorcycle awareness program. In these high school presentations students are educated about looking out for motorcycles, realizing blind spots, texting, other driving distractions and topics that help to make new drivers safer. This program is accomplished through volunteer time from ABATE members.
ABATE is the organization that has helped to keep Illinois one of the three remaining states that are totally helmet free. The members believe wearing a helmet should be a choice. I believe citizens are losing basic rights. Motorcycle rights organizations along with other groups are protecting basic rights.
Farmers with four wheelers should look at the rights ABATE has protected and educate yourselves on how legislation has tried to put limits on riding on your own property. How many farmers know there has been legislation proposed to regulate dust? Would you like more information to show support or become involved in ABATE? Please visit www.abate-il.org.
Reed Best
Shelbyville





Monday, January 30, 2012

Nude Nuns with Big Guns (Blu-ray)


OFF THE WIRE

I've been walking around with this Blu-ray disc for, like, four days now, and I still crack up every time I look at that artwork. Great tagline. Even better title. In the running for Cover of the Year. Uh, too bad about the movie, though.

In this grueling economy, even the Catholic Church has gotta start thinking about alternative revenue streams if they want to keep the lights on. This one church on the outskirts of the desert has come up with a pretty clever scheme: cocaine. They've got the perfect cover. All those nuns they've got make for a pretty ideal workforce. They even have all the right connections courtesy of the Los Muertos biker gang. 'sjust that Sister Sarah
(Asun Ortega) decides she wants to wet her beak a little (I guess? this point's not really made clear). Holding out on the Los Muertos gets most of her sisters slaughtered, and Sarah herself gets passed around by the gang as a doped-up cum dumpster. Turns out a


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lotta guys will pay a lotta money to fuck a nun. Doesn't last for too long, though. Sister Sarah gets some new marching orders directly from the big man Himself, and she strikes down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempted to poison and destroy her sisters. In other words...? Nude nuns with big guns!

Nude Nuns with Big Guns has its heart in the right place...or as right a place as a gloriously sleazy flick with a title like that can have it, I guess. In the first few minutes alone, you get a shameless ripoff of the Planet Terror theme from
Grindhouse, a roomful of nuns wearing habits and nothin' else cutting up coke, and stylized freeze-frame cards straight outta The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The idea of a broad who's pumped full of heroin and forced into prostitution is right out of the Thriller: A Cruel Picture playbook, all the way down to her gun-toting revenge. That's not even getting to the bad-ass biker gang, the Taxi Driver-inspired climax, or the fact that the flick's incapable of going more than a couple of minutes without a nude scene or a rape. Seriously, I can't think of the last movie I've seen outside of Cinemax After Dark with this much nudity, and not that I'm even a little bit into rape or anything, but I think Nude Nuns with Big Guns is some kind of record holder there too. I mean, most vintage exploitation flicks might have a cacklingly brilliant title and really great poster art, but there'd be maybe six or seven minutes of good stuff surrounded by seventy-something minutes of complete boredom. Nude Nuns with Big Guns doesn't just deliver just about everything you'd expect out of that title; it never stops delivering, so you're lookin' at an hour and a half straight of sex, drugs, and big-ass guns.

...and yet I'm sitting here scowling right now. See, the problem is that Nude Nuns with Big Guns is a title in search of a movie. It doesn't feel like anyone on either side of the camera is really having any fun, and even with all the tits and gunplay that get heaped on, it just feels

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so...workmanlike. The best sight gags -- a half-battalion of more-or-less nude nuns cutting drugs a la American Gangster; Sarah lugging around a Tommy gun -- bookend the movie. There are only a couple of real rampages. Otherwise, someone will just pull out a pistol, and there'll be a tiny digital bullet hole that someone painted on a PC in his bedroom. I was hoping for something a lot more demented and splattery, and instead I got cigarette burns. Nude Nuns with Big Guns doesn't give me much of a reason to give a shit about Sister Sarah. All vengeance; no character and no charisma or anything. The badniks are mostly routine, including head honcho Chavo (David Castro). Only Xango Henry as über-ripped Los Muertos right-hand-man Kickstand makes much of an impression. There's not much of a sense of style...just whatever they're sloppily trying to ape from more worthwhile movies, and the overreliance on digital zooms in particular gets really old, really quickly. It kind of reeks of I-torrented-Final-Cut-Pro-and-kind-of-know-how-to-work-a-camera-so-let's-make-a-movie! I mean, there's low-budget, there's even-lower-budget, and then there's this. Even with all the nudity and lesbianism and stuff, Nude Nuns with Big Guns gets to be kinda tedious, especially the sheer what-the-fuck volume of long, long rape scenes.

Maybe right about now you're thinking that I'm completely missing the point. It's called Nude Nuns with Big Guns, after all. Who gives a shit about craftsmanship or characterization or what-the-fuck-ever in a movie paying homage to the 42nd St. crowd? Are there nekkid nuns packing heat: yes or no? I waltzed into Nude Nuns with Big Guns expecting something deliriously over-the-top like last year's super-brilliant Hobo with a Shotgun, and instead I wound up with something a lot closer to...he types with a shudder...Hell Ride. The whole thing is kind of joyless and repetitive. It plays like a cover band that can barely string together a couple of power chords, and yet they hit the studio and record a screeching medley of a bunch of their favorite songs anyway. Wow, so I kind of ran that into the ground. A sense of humor every once in a while pokes its heads out of the ground but dives back in to make room for more rape. Despite all the shit that's going on, the pacing winds up feeling choppy and wildly uneven anyway. There might be a twenty or thirty minute short here, but it really shouldn't have been dragged out to an hour and a half. I guess I'm just about done here, so I'll sum it up with this. Nude Nuns with Big Guns: amazing title; borderline-unwatchable movie.
Video

I don't really go for that distractingly digital look that Nude Nuns with Big Guns opts for, but on the strictly technical end of things or whatever, this Blu-ray disc does pretty well for itself. The image is consistently crisp and clear and all that. The palette alternates between heavily stylized and blandly sunbaked, and it comes through about as well as it can. Despite an anemic-and-then-some bitrate -- its AVC encode and lossless audio don't even break the 15 gig mark -- I couldn't spot any hiccups in the compression. I did spot a couple instances of posterization, such as when Sister Bleedin'-Like-a-Stuck-Pig Sarah starts wobbling in and out of consciousness, but that's not really worth griping about. Totally okay for what it is.
Audio

Nude Nuns with Big Guns is packing a 16-bit, 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, and it's...yeah, kind of a mess. For one, the volume's really low, especially compared to the stuff that blares over the main menu. The
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recording of the dialogue is really sloppy, sometimes getting completely drowned out, sometimes coming across as distant and hollow, and other times seeming kinda harsh and edgy. None of the sound effects pack much of a wallop...just really flat, as if it's just whatever happened to be captured on the set with little in the way of post-production sweetening. Neither the surrounds nor the subwoofer make their presence known all that much. A couple notches above pumping this through the tinny little speakers built into your TV, I guess, but not much more than that.
No dubs or alternate mixes this time around. Subtitles are limited to English (SDH) and Spanish.

AUSTRALIA - Bounty on renegade Comanchero Focarelli(+video)

OFF THE WIRE
There is a bounty on the head of Vincenzo Focarelli and whoever kills him will become the next leader of the Comancheros' South Australia chapter, according to a media report. Underworld sources say the bikie has been posing as boss of the outlaw motorcycle gang's state chapter but in fact was kicked out of the gang for siphoning off drug profits, Adelaide Now reports. Focarelli survived a f... MORE

CHECK THIS OUT!! AZ'S BEING SUED BY OBAMA!!

OFF THE WIRE
Check this out! Our own president is suing Arizona and siding with foreign governments against the US!
The president of the United States is suing Arizona!!
http://www.youtube.com/embed/tsH8xvjTAlo CHECK THIS OUT!

AUSTRALIA - First direct arrests in Sydney shootings..

OFF THE WIRE
 smh.com.au
Police have charged the first people over more than a dozen shootings that have plagued Sydney in a month and frightened witnesses not to come forward.
Police were called to Denman Avenue, Wiley Park, in Sydney's southwest, about 3.20am (AEDT) on Sunday after reports of an argument in the street.
Witnesses said a shouting match in the street drew a verbal response from a neighbour before a single gunshot struck rang out.
Police say the people in the street then entered a vehicle that sped away.
"My information is that we actually had reports of people fighting in the street followed by the sound of a firearm," Assistant Commissioner Frank Mennilli told reporters in Sydney on Sunday.
Officers recovered a shell casing in the street but police would not confirm the bullet struck a residence.
A short time later officers on patrol intercepted a Nissan Pulsar on the M5 motorway near Bankstown, and arrested a young man and woman after allegedly discovering a loaded 9mm Glock 27 pistol in the vehicle.
The 25-year-old man was charged with reckless discharge of a firearm in a public place and illegally possessing a firearm.
Police charged the 23-year-old woman with concealing a serious offence and being an accessory after the fact.
Both were refused bail and ordered to appear at Burwood Local Court on Monday.
"We believe we have the firearm and the offender who was responsible," Mr Mennilli said.
The man was well known to police but detectives have not linked the incident to the more than 12 shootings in January.
Police also have charged a 21-year-old man over a shooting on Thursday, when an 18-year-old man arrived at Auburn Hospital with a gunshot wound to his back.
At the time the victim refused to speak to police.
Police arrested the older man on Sunday afternoon and charged him with shooting with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and over three outstanding warrants.
He was refused bail and will appear in Burwood Local Court on Monday.
Police have also arrested a 40-year-old woman after a young man was shot twice in the leg outside his family's home at Guildford.
She was charged with two counts of possessing and supplying drugs and had her car confiscated for forensic examination.
Police launched Operation Spartan in mid-January, when nine shootings took place in eight days.
Before Sunday, a wall of silence by witnesses and victims has prevented police from making any direct arrests into the shootings.
Operation Spartan has therefore targeted more than 150 people police believe may be linked to the shootings.
Search warrants and other police activity have led to 70 people being arrested, 200 charges being laid and more than 12 firearms being seized.
"They will resort to violence, they'll resort to use a firearm whether it be domestic related, criminal activity or drug related," Mr Mennilli said.
Opposition Leader John Robertson reiterated his call for more police resources to be dedicated to quell the violence, tougher laws to deal with organised criminal gangs and cash rewards for information.

Canada - SPEARFISH, SD - Spearfish Police Prep For Hells Angels Convention..

OFF THE WIRE
Derek Olson
 keloland.com
Every summer the Hells Angels hold "USA Run," which is the group's national convention. This year's run could happen in Spearfish. And, spearfish police are already preparing.
A week and a half before this year's motorcycle rally, members of the group will converge 20 miles west in Spearfish.
"We're expecting between 500 and 600 club members," Spearfish Police Chief Pat Rotert said.
From July 25 to 29, the Hells Angels will hold their annual convention in the northern hills town. Police there are wasting no time in making sure that they're ready.
"We're meeting regularly with our law enforcement resources, our own agency, Lawrence County Sheriff's Department, Division of Criminal Investigations and several federal agencies to put things in place to where we're the most prepared to deal with whatever issues might come up come the time in July when they are here," Rotert said.
"The Hells Angels are nothing new to this area, it's nothing new to the rally or to the Black Hills or Spearfish," Spearfish Police Lt. Boyd Dean said.
"Police here in Spearfish say that they've encountered members of the Hells Angels before and that they haven't posed any major problems for the area. Still, they plan on taking extra steps to keep the community safe," Standup.
"We'll have two-man cars at that time, plus we'll have assistance from the South Dakota Highway Patrol, local sheriff's departments, DCI and the federal agencies also," Dean said.
Because even though the Angels call themselves a motorcycle club, police here have no question as to what they really are, a gang.
"Clubs like the Hells Angels refer to themselves as the one-percenters for a reason, because they feel they are part of that one-percent that is truly an outlaw biker gang. They embrace that. They admit it. They wear it on their vests," Rotert said.
Regardless, the hope here is that all goes well and that there are no issues.
"If we have no issues during it and we were prepared for larger issues, that would be great," Rotert said.
Police are also talking with other communities where the Hells Angels have held their convention in prior years, to see what worked there and what didn't.
VIDEO

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AUSTRALIA - Focarelli silent on SA bikie shooting..

OFF THE WIRE
 smh.com.au
Liza Kappelle
AAP
The leader of the Comancheros outlaw bikie gang is refusing to co-operate with police after surviving another attempt on his life, a shooting that also killed his son.
Vincenzo Focarelli is in hospital with gunshot wounds and refusing to tell police who shot him and killed his 22-year-old son, Giovanni, on Sunday night at Dry Creek, in Adelaide's northwest.
It was the fourth attempt on Vincenzo Focarelli's life.
He was shot in the leg in December and was also the target of a failed bomb attack by two men linked to the Hells Angels who both died when the device exploded early.
He reportedly taunted his rivals on Facebook a day after surviving the third attempt on his life - including boasting that he had nine lives.
He can be seen dancing in a YouTube clip that appears to be promoting life in the Comancheros gang in Adelaide.
Detective Superintendent Grant Moyle says police will do everything they can to prevent retaliation.
"I would suggest it was a very planned, targeted attempt on his life," he told reporters in an overnight press conference.
"It is a concern to us that retribution might take place, but we will do what we can to talk sense into these people.
"He has declined to provide us any information that might assist us in identifying the offender.
"That is a difficulty we face in these particular cases.
"The people that do know information are often reluctant to assist the investigation."
South Australian Police Minister Jennifer Rankine is being briefed on the shooting by Police Commissioner Mal Hyde.
She says police are doing their best to deal with the scourge of outlaw gangs and SA has very tough anti-bikie laws.
"Hundreds of them have been arrested and charged. Hundreds of their associates have been arrested and charged," she told ABC Radio.
"The frustration is these people have absolutely no regard for the law or, it would appear, for their safety or the safety of the community."
Police are doorknocking an area near Flame Avenue in Dry Creek where they believe the Focarellis were shot.
Vince Focarelli, who is believed to have been wounded up to four times, apparently bundled his son into a car and drove it towards the city, waving a police car down in suburban Prospect.
Giovanni was dead by the time an ambulance crew arrived.
The 22-year-old had also been attacked before and had refused to co-operate with police investigating his attempted murder.
Part of Prospect Rd was cordoned off overnight while police examined the Focarellis' car.
About half an hour after the shooting a group of people arrived and had to be restrained by police from entering the crime scene.
News Ltd said one woman had to be tackled by three officers.

AUSTRALIA - Chopper tells Troy, 'have my kidney'...

OFF THE WIRE
Linda Parri
 perthnow.com.au

Chopper Read



GANGLAND identity Mark "Chopper" Read has come out in support of notorious biker Troy Mercanti, saying he deserves to go on the donor list for a new kidney and would even give him his own kidney.
Following a rampage through suburban Duncraig last week, Mercanti came close to death on Wednesday due to kidney failure caused by years of alcohol, drug and steroid abuse
"I'd give him one of my kidneys, but I've got cirrhosis of the liver and I've got hepatitis C," Read said. "He can have my kidney if he wants it, but he wouldn't have long to live."
Read said Mercanti deserved a new kidney.
"Has hasn't killed anybody," he said. "If there's a spare kidney around and he's the right blood group then why shouldn't he get it?"
Despite needing a new liver himself, Read has refused to go on the donor list.
"I don't want to go and sit next to seven and 10-year-old kids," said the father of two.
"But I'm not gonna tell someone they can't go on the fing donor list. It was my decision not to go on the donor list, but it's not his."
Read said everyone should have a choice."They gave that heroin girl a new liver and she used heroin and died," Read said, referring to Perth drug addict Claire Murray.
"Everyone's entitled to go on the fing donor list. Everyone. The fact that I'm not on it is my fing decision."
Read, who is reported to have only a year to live, said he did not know his life expectancy.
"Fed if I f---ing know. I couldn't give a sht anyway. I'm 57 years old I've got cirrhosis of the liver and I've got hepatitis C," he said.
"I don't know when I'm gonna fucking drop. I don't even bother thinking about it.
"But if Mercanti wants to live another day why shouldn't he?"
Read said he would be visiting Perth, early this year, to fulfil public-speaking engagements.

AUSTRALIA - Comanchero member Giovanni Focarelli shot dead as club president father Vince survives fourth attempt, to kill him.....



prospect rd shooting

OFF THE WIRE
Thomas Conlin, Derek Pedley
 dailytelegraph.com.au

Giovanni Focarelli was found dead in this Ford Falcon sedan on Prospect Rd, Prospect. Picture: Bianca De Marchi Source: AdelaideNow


Giovanni Focarelli, right, with father Vince outside the Adelaide Magistrates Court on January 12 this year. Source: The Advertiser

Vince and Giovanni Focarelli  scene of the shooting on Prospect Rd

Anguished friends and family at the scene of the shooting on Prospect Rd. Picture: Bianca De Marchi Source: The Advertiser
COMANCHERO bikie gang member Giovanni Focarelli has been shot dead and his father, club president Vince, has survived a fourth attempt on his life.
Police at the scene confirmed that Giovanni's body was in the back seat of a car on Prospect Rd, just outside Prospect Village Shopping Centre in Adelaide.
An SA ambulance spokeswoman said that a man with multiple gunshot wounds had been taken to Royal Adelaide Hospital.
She said he was in stable condition and walking when ambulance crews arrived at the scene.
Police confirmed the man was Vince Focarelli who has been the target of previous three assassination attempts.
Ten police vehicles sealed off Prospect Rd within minutes of the first reports about 9pm.
A blue sedan with West Australian registration plates was parked on Prospect Rd outside the shopping centre and Giovanni's body was inside. The cars headlights and hazard lights were on.
A group of people who arrived at the scene at 9.35pm had to be restrained by police from entering the crime scene. One woman had to be tackled by three officers.
Minutes earlier, paramedics had gathered around the rear of the vehicle and they were believed to be checking a body for signs of life.
There were reports that an ambulance had earlier rushed a person to hospital.
Last month Giovanni was by his father's side as Vince fronted court to face charges relating to a brawl at a Plympton hotel.
Giovanni was stabbed in the stomach and chest outside his father's Hindley Street tattoo parlour Ink Central on May 22, 2010.
Vince, who survived a gunman's ambush on December 15 at Munno Para and whose alleged associates engaged in a gunfight at a North Adelaide cafe, broke his silence to counter rumours that the Comanchero Motorcycle Club is plagued by infighting.
In a statement signed by him and released by him earlier this month, he called for privacy.
"Mr Focarelli denies there is any disharmony or in-house fighting within the Comancheros Motorcycle Club," the statement said.