Thieves Steal 2.7 Ton Church Bell

The Missing St. Mary's Bell

You KNOW things are bad in America when folks are stealing entire bridges…

And now the Church bell.

Thieves in San Francisco recently “walked away” with a 2.7 ton copper bell that once sat in the Cathedral – but had been replaced by an electronic chime.

Anybody checked recently to see if the Statue of Liberty is still there?

Seems that the only crooks in America aren’t just the ones in Congress, the Banks and on Wall Street.

St. Mary’s Cathedral bell stolen in S.F.

SAN FRANCISCO – The bell at St. Mary’s Cathedral rang through the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. It survived when an arsonist torched the old cathedral in 1962. And although it was replaced with an electronic chime in the 1970s, for decades it stood strong on a wooden platform outside the rebuilt church.

But sometime in the last month, metal thieves made off with the 122-year-old, 2.7-ton bell.

“It is a very historic and valuable item, it is a memory of the Catholic Church in San Francisco,” said George Wesolek, communications director for the Archdiocese of San Francisco. “It is kind of an ignoble end for the bell if they succeed.”

Nobody realized the bell was missing until Sunday morning. A parishioner mentioned that it wasn’t where it was supposed to be, a secluded outside corner of the cathedral on Geary Boulevard and Gough Street. Then everyone realized that they couldn’t remember seeing the bell for the last month.

Police assume the bell was taken more recently, but can’t be sure.

“Nobody can swear on a Bible and say the last time they saw the bell,” said police Inspector Brian Danker.

Heavy equipment

The bell, which at 5,300 pounds and 5 feet across is bigger than the Liberty Bell, must have been lifted by a crane and carted away by more than an average truck, Danker said. No security cameras are pointed at the area.

In 1889, the bell was commissioned to hang in the original St. Mary’s Cathedral at Van Ness Avenue and O’Farrell Street. A steam train hauled it across the country from a Baltimore bell foundry.

It hung in the church until 1962, when an arsonist destroyed the old cathedral. The bell was hoisted out of the crumbled tower and moved to a secluded corner of the cathedral’s new grounds, near the corner of Gough Street and Geary Boulevard.

And there it sat on wooden blocks for 40 years as part of an exhibit on San Francisco history.

The bell is made of a mix of 80 percent copper and 20 percent tin, records show. If melted down, the bell is worth roughly $75,000. It originally cost the church $17,000, Wesolek said…(more)

 

Herman Cain 999 Plan…Stolen from SIM City Game? SimAmerica…Indeed.

How stupid are conservatives, again?

It’s pretty damn bad when your “signature” proposal to cure what ails the country…

Is stolen from a Video Game!

What next? The Army dressed up in Marvel Comics Superhero costumes?

Screen Shot of a Sim City Game

Herman Cain 999 Plan: Did It Come From SimCity?

In Herman Cain’s America, the tax code would be very, very simple: The corporate income tax rate would be 9 percent, the personal income tax rate would be 9 percent and the national sales tax rate would be 9 percent.

But there’s already a 999 plan out there, in a land called SimCity.

Long before Cain was running for president and getting attention for his 999 plan, the residents of SimCity 4 — which was released in 2003 — were living under a system where the default tax rate was 9 percent for commercial taxes, 9 percent for industrial taxes and 9 percent for residential taxes. (That is, of course, if you didn’t use the cheat codes to get unlimited money and avoid taxes altogether.)

There has been all sorts of speculation about where Cain came up with the idea for his catchy plan — Unnamed economic advisers? A clever marketing promotion pulled from the pizza industry? — but beyond a few hardcore gamers in the comments sections of blogs, few have looked to SimCity, the land where there’s a “God mode.”

Kip Katsarelis, a senior producer for Maxis, the company that created the SimCity series, was excited that politicians may be looking to video games for ideas.

“We encourage politicians to continue to look to innovative games like SimCity for inspiration for social and economic change,” said Katsarelis. “While we at Maxis and Electronic Arts do not endorse any political candidates or their platforms, it’s interesting to see GOP candidate Herman Cain propose a simplified tax system like one we designed for the video game SimCity 4.”

Adopting such a simple tax structure, Katsarelis said, would allow fantasy political leaders to focus their energy on infrastructure and national security. “Our game design team thought that an easy to understand taxation system would allow players to focus on building their cities and have fun thwarting giant lizard attacks, rather than be buried by overly complex financial systems.”

When asked about similarities between Cain’s plan and SimCity’s default tax rates, Cain campaign spokesman JD Gordon replied, “Well, we all like 9-9-9.”

Rich Lowrie, the Ohio Wells Fargo employee who is the brains behind Cain’s plan, did not return a request for comment regarding whether he is a fan of SimCity and looked to the game for inspiration.

One other thing of note about Mr. Cain today… Appears he’s sewn up the bigot vote! Although it’s unclear if that alone is enough to win the whole South anymore.

Haley Barbour Predicts Herman Cain Would ‘Sweep The South’ Against Obama

Thieves Steal an Entire Bridge!

There are a fair number of old abandoned railroad bridges around the country in some fairly out of the way areas…

But stealing an entire bridge?

This one gets an “A” for Audacity!

Nice Bridge Photo of a Common Railroad Bridge Type. Could not find a Photo of the Missing Bridge.

How Does an Entire Bridge Go Missing?

Police in North Beaver Township, Pennsylvania are scratching their heads right now. Why? A 50-foot long, 20-foot wide steel bridge just disappeared. How? Apparently, some very bold criminals just up and stole it.

Stealing a bridge, as you’d imagine, is a pretty complicated crime. This isn’t some 90s era magic trick people. The local police suspect that the bridge robbers worked at this for over a month. They presumably used a blow torch to cut the corrugated steel and then somehow moved the pieces—steel beams and such— to sell for scrap metal. That couldn’t have been easy as each foot was estimated to weigh hundreds of pounds. But why oh why would you even bother stealing a bridge? Because the scrap metal is estimated to be $100,000. Oh.

But even knowing how it happened, I’m still left wondering, how does this happen!? It’s a crime that’s so far out there that no one really knows what from how and who from why. In fact, police say the bridge went missing some time between September 27th and October 5th. That’s a pretty long range for something that big to go missing, right?

And who in the right mind would look at a bridge and go hey, I think I can take that down. How do they transport it? Who are they selling it to? And how come no one noticed earlier? (this has a more reasonable answer, it’s deep in the woods and the bridge is an old railroad bridge). Will they re-build the bridge? Were the robbers really there for a month? Are they going to steal another one? Is this going to set off a bridge stealing bonanza? Hey, I’d actually like that. Life would be more exciting if more bridges got stolen. Robbing bridges is the new black.