serpent_sky: The most offensive part of the article was this:
"Runners at the 9K race in Central Park had to put all their belongings in clear plastic bags. Trash bins were removed from the route, and there were fewer porta-potties."

Not that I am shocked. I was saying on Monday "wait and see how many freedoms we lose and how many asinine precautions we'll now have to follow for "safety" after this."

I'd think everyone would realize that by now, but there are people who really don't see how bad it is getting. From the whole scene in Watertown, MA on Friday to having to use clear plastic bags at a farking marathon?  None of this is acceptable.

serpent_sky: skullkrusher: "Runners are being encouraged not to bring bags to the City Parks Foundation Run for the Parks, but people who do will be asked to put all their belongings in a clear, plastic bag provided by race officials. The NYRR cautions runners that any unattended bags will be confiscated. "

New York RoadRunners == Gestapo KGB Romanian Secret Police

I didn't say they were, but it's asinnine and just further erosions of freedoms. Soon, clear bags will be expected and required.  Pat downs. All of that crap.

I've said for years I fear the day I simply can't leave the house anymore :/

kvinesknows: skullkrusher: serpent_sky: skullkrusher: "Runners are being encouraged not to bring bags to the City Parks Foundation Run for the Parks, but people who do will be asked to put all their belongings in a clear, plastic bag provided by race officials. The NYRR cautions runners that any unattended bags will be confiscated. "

New York RoadRunners == Gestapo KGB Romanian Secret Police

I didn't say they were, but it's asinnine and just further erosions of freedoms. Soon, clear bags will be expected and required.  Pat downs. All of that crap.

I've said for years I fear the day I simply can't leave the house anymore :/

you're making it sound like it is a huge violation of civil rights. Event organizers asked participants not to bring bags and provided clear ones to help protect the safety of participants if they did. I'm not terribly worried about this.

well if you are okay with everyone having clear bags for this.  what about only clear bags all the time? no shopping bags, no purses, no brief cases, no gym bags...

thats okay right?

kvinesknows: skullkrusher: kvinesknows: skullkrusher: serpent_sky: skullkrusher: "Runners are being encouraged not to bring bags to the City Parks Foundation Run for the Parks, but people who do will be asked to put all their belongings in a clear, plastic bag provided by race officials. The NYRR cautions runners that any unattended bags will be confiscated. "

New York RoadRunners == Gestapo KGB Romanian Secret Police

I didn't say they were, but it's asinnine and just further erosions of freedoms. Soon, clear bags will be expected and required.  Pat downs. All of that crap.

I've said for years I fear the day I simply can't leave the house anymore :/

you're making it sound like it is a huge violation of civil rights. Event organizers asked participants not to bring bags and provided clear ones to help protect the safety of participants if they did. I'm not terribly worried about this.

well if you are okay with everyone having clear bags for this.  what about only clear bags all the time? no shopping bags, no purses, no brief cases, no gym bags...

thats okay right?

no. Of course, the crucial detail you're missing is that this was a regulation that the private group organizing the race put on runners participating in an event at a specified time and engaged in a specific activity. Not walking to work.

I can't talk on my cellphone during a movie. I find this restriction agreeable because it isn't everywhere I go no matter what I am doing.

a private race in a public place.

theresnothinglft: The real question to be asked here:  Why does your route to NJ pass through Central Park when you're biking?  Why bike to NJ anyway?

kvinesknows: skullkrusher: kvinesknows: skullkrusher: kvinesknows: skullkrusher: serpent_sky: skullkrusher: "Runners are being encouraged not to bring bags to the City Parks Foundation Run for the Parks, but people who do will be asked to put all their belongings in a clear, plastic bag provided by race officials. The NYRR cautions runners that any unattended bags will be confiscated. "

New York RoadRunners == Gestapo KGB Romanian Secret Police

I didn't say they were, but it's asinnine and just further erosions of freedoms. Soon, clear bags will be expected and required.  Pat downs. All of that crap.

I've said for years I fear the day I simply can't leave the house anymore :/

you're making it sound like it is a huge violation of civil rights. Event organizers asked participants not to bring bags and provided clear ones to help protect the safety of participants if they did. I'm not terribly worried about this.

well if you are okay with everyone having clear bags for this.  what about only clear bags all the time? no shopping bags, no purses, no brief cases, no gym bags...

thats okay right?

no. Of course, the crucial detail you're missing is that this was a regulation that the private group organizing the race put on runners participating in an event at a specified time and engaged in a specific activity. Not walking to work.

I can't talk on my cellphone during a movie. I find this restriction agreeable because it isn't everywhere I go no matter what I am doing.

a private race in a public place.

where participants are required to have a clear bag to participate. Do you see how this is very much unlike requiring people to carry clear bags at all times and how I could not be disturbed by one while finding the other unacceptable?

first drop in the bucket.

Fast Thick Pants: skullkrusher: He might've been riding to the GWB. AFAIK, the only Hudson crossing you can take a bike over. You're not riding a bike through a tunnel

The New York Kayak Polo club plays in Jersey City, NJ. He was probably biking from his house in Harlem to the midtown PATH station.

StrangeQ: A fool who bicycled past a Central Park running race with a timer in his backpack caused a bomb scare yesterday

Oh, a fool huh? Just gonna lead off with that with no preliminary information? Why not, that seems like some crack objective journalism.

cops spotted a box with several wires

Oh gods no...a box...with wires! I hope I never get pulled over while I have my center console open...
[imageshack.us image 850x634]
Holy shiat! It's....actually just an LED driver for some floor and console lights in a project box.

The One True TheDavid: DirtyDeadGhostofEbenezerCooke: The One True TheDavid:

And when the Gestapo etc. did get busy they concentrated on Jews, leaving ordinary Germans pretty much alone.

Is this a troll or a bigot?

From the Wikipedia article on the Gestapo, with references in the footnotes:

Contrary to popular belief, the Gestapo was not the all-pervasive, omnipotent agency in German society.[32] In Germany proper, many towns and cities had fewer than 50 official Gestapo personnel. For example, in 1939 Stettin and Frankfurt am Main only had a total of 41 Gestapo men combined.[32] In Düsseldorf, the local Gestapo office of only 281 men were responsible for the entire Lower Rhine region, which comprised 4 million people.[33] "V-men", as undercover Gestapo agents were known, were used to infiltrate Social Democratic and Communist opposition groups, but this was more the exception, not the rule.[34] The Gestapo office in Saarbrücken had 50 full-term informers in 1939.[34] The District Office in Nuremberg, which had the responsibility for all of northern Bavaria, employed a total of 80-100 full-term informers between 1943 and 1945.[34] The vast majority of Gestapo informers were not full-term informers working undercover, but were rather ordinary citizens who for whatever reason chose to denounce those they knew to the Gestapo.[35]
NB: I didn't pick this up from Wikipedia but from actual books written by actual historians and from articles on JSTOR, but the above-cited article is good enough to reinforce my point.

Oh, and I have another point: when you suggest someone is a troll or a bigot, it helps to know more about the subject than you'd get from watching "Hogan's Heroes." Otherwise you're likely to wind up like you just did, publicly exposed as a knee-jerking idiot.

By the way, the German regime that was a more developed police state was the East German GDR, swiss-cheesed by the Stasi. Even they relied more on recruiting snitches than on, oh, making people carry clear plastic bags an ...