What is the world coming to these days?

Just read a story in the newspaper and was shocked: two homemade bombs have detonated at a Woodman's Grocery and a Walmart in Rockford IL within the past 2 days. I've shopped in the recent past at both of those stores. The story said it was just like the bombs those terrorists tried to set off in NYC.

GoodLord, it's not even safe to buy groceries anymore.............

first i'd check what paper it was reported to. you have to be careful what sources you believe now....case i point the poor woman who lost her job because somebody posted only part of her speech on the net and FOX news ran with it. IF they had only watched and aired the entire speech they would have KNOWN she wasn't racist.

did the bombs actually blow up?

Oh, it was on the local tv news too and all the newspapers here. It's no hoax. Two homemade bombs using 2 liter bottles, bleach, and other stuff. They exploded but thankfully nobody got hurt. Today's morning paper has a short article that they arrested the two guys caught on film with the stuff. Seems we do have some homegrown terrorists here too in the Heartland. They are both only 18 and local boys: one from Rockford, the other from Caledonia. We've also had multiple armed bank robberies in the past week here.

One of my mom's neighbors saw a strange looking bottle at our local Walmart only 3 miles from here, hidden among the bread. She alerted two different employees (the first one just shrugged it off, the second took it seriously). No explosion or bomb that I've heard so far from that so this one might be false alarm, but considering the events of the past few days better safe than sorry.

www.rrstar.com/news/yourtown/rockford/x38427812/In-todays-paper-2-teens-sought0in-MacGyver-bomb-incidentswww.rrstar.com/news/yourtown/rockford/x38427812/In-todays-paper-2-teens-sought0in-MacGyver-bomb-incidents

The most recent bank robbery had the robber caught, the previous two robbers with 3 robberies so far to their credit are still at large here.

Did anyone hear about the bank robber who came in dressed as Darth Vader?

fiffur wrote:The most recent bank robbery had the robber caught, the previous two robbers with 3 robberies so far to their credit are still at large here.

Did anyone hear about the bank robber who came in dressed as Darth Vader?

Yes. He was on the front page of the Daily News.

he was on some of the news shows too. i didn't see it ...i wonder if he did the voice and all.
the guy who was robbing banks carrying flowers or a plant to 'deliver'.

I've read about that guy, he got caught with flowers still in hand. Our two bank robbers are still at large, and another bank in Rockford got robbed yesterday.

Guess some folks are getting very desperate around here with the unemployment running out, social services being cut left and right, and no jobs in sight.

That is terrifying Fif, I don't know what is happening. I worry about
the homegrown stuff more than the forgien "threat"

Yeah, the whole community is still kinda in shock over those two guys making those homemade bombs. They really intended to hurt people with them. Homegrown terrorists definitely scare me. At least foreign ones you might spot more easily in a store.

And these guys chose a place where women and children would be, only place worse would be a school.

Yes, I heard about "Darth Vader"...that one still makes me chuckle. Unemployment insurance running out is a disaster, but having it this long is a blessing, so I will not complain. The good thing about being jobless so long is that I've eliminated parts of my life that were utterly unimportant.

That said, I do have an irrelivant "beef" to complain about. It seems that the American Recovery and Reimvestment Act, often referred to as "the stimulus" has funded an ashtray in Flint, MI. Really, it is a nice river trail. Unfortunately, the hospital that is ajacent to the path has just made its campus smoke-free. While that is wonderful, unfortunately several employees are chucking their ciggie butts on the trail and some I've even seen them attempt to chuck lit ones down the hill into the river. The construction on the trail isn't even finished. WHAT gives smokers the right to litter like that?!! Its DISGUSTING!!

Thanks for reading my rant

I second that emotion Arni. I hate smokers who think the entire world is their personal ashtray! Personally I think they should have to eat the butt of it. Wouldn't that be a great incentive to quit? My mom wants to put them all on the moon............

We had two businesses and a bank robbed yesterday, in broad daylight. The robbers are getting bolder and bolder. They're still at large as I type this.

Three robberies !!

did they ever find out why those kids planted the bombs?
Just goes to show not all terrorists are muslim, nor do thewy lurk in cities. can't help thinking about the bombing in Oklahoma City, here

GOOD LORD, FIF!!! That's scary
I know things are bad but that's downright frightening.
As to the smokers, while he have one or two here.
Well you know, I'm not the Wicked Witch of the Lair
for nothing.

Those two kids aren't saying why they planted those bombs. They took the 5th.

Robbers still at large as I type this. NO real leads either. Folks are getting robbed in restaurants, grocery stores, and gas stations, as well as the banks. Not just the clerks either, everybody in the place is getting robbed. One older woman had her arm broken trying to hang onto her purse as a robber rode by on a bicycle.............

Makes me leary of everybody I don't know that I see on the street here. And this lil village is considered very safe compared to the rest of the area.

I'm kinda used to all this robbery stuff living in NYC, although supposedly we are much safer than we used to be, but crime on the subways is increasing again, which is why I don't like to travel alone in the late evenings. although it is happening any time of the day. now.
My friend used to be a manager at a bank in NYC (Brooklyn) before she retired. They were ordered to just give the robber what they wanted. One time she was even locked in the vault.

That's frightening. LK. The neighborhood I'm in has experienced
car break ins. Along with home break ins. One of the members left
her door unlocked and someone came just about cleaned her out.
The even more frightening part about was her son was home upstairs
in bed.

there are more desperaTe people out there then ever. of course there always have been people doing this,its just that people are getting desperate and will risk things they wouldn't have before.
one of the things that scares me about leaving this aRea is that is the safest place i've lived since i left the farm. the sheriff lives only a few blocks away so this is a really safe part of town. (things do happen in town and i do see things that others might not (like the little tiny plastic ziploc 'crack rock' bags beside the sidewalk as i walk home or the empty beer cans around the wooded area between the middle school and elementary school) its not that scarey around here.

every store i've ever worked at has told us not to chase a shoplifter or someone who might come in with a rifle to steal from the registers to just let them have it. nothing is worth your live.

did anyone see the clip on the news of the two teens (or maybe early 20 somethings?)in TX who used two toddlers to steal from a store? (I want to say it was either Walmart or Target). they used a stroller and put backpaCks on the kids. they sat one of the kids on top of some of the stuff they stole. the oddest thing is....everywhere i've ever worked they've always said to watch people with strollers cuz that's just what they do.
but nobody seems to be trained to watch that stuff anymore...no matter where they might work! stores are probably afraid they might offend someone and get sued.

I saw that newstory Jeane. One kid was caught on tape telling her mom "I don't want to steal this!" Poor kids, what an example their parents are setting for them..............

We had another bank robbery here, about 15 miles away. Broad daylight, middle of the afternoon no less. And more than a few armed robbery home breakins while the owners were in bed. One guy is in the hospital after being severely beaten by a robber in his own bedroom. Those guys are also at large yet.

My mom taught me something to help me fight off somebody who wants to mess with me on the way home: stick your keys between your fingers, one between each, and make a fist. That way you can do some real damage punching them so you can get away. (and the cuts make the guy easier to identify when the police catch him) And I heard a can of wasp spray works really well too, you don't have to get close, it shoots very accurately, and will temporarily blind a person. If you only get them in the face the fumes alone will choke them long enough so you can get away.

I didn't hear about the two teens. There was a case of a mother here in
Southlake(surburb) where a mother was using her children to steal from
upscale children's stores. She was caught on tape also but I never heard
anymore after that.

I know the key idea, make sure when you clip them to drag them across
their eyes. The wasp spray is a good idea, cheaper than pepper spray or
mace. Also it doesn't have a wide dispersal area so less chance of coming
back in your face.

oh man...was the woman having her kids go on play dates and steal from the other kids?

as for the bug spray....even cheaper and easier to carry is one of those little cans of body spray from places like kmart,walmart,target,cheap drug stores etc...they're 99cents here (so maybe cheaper elsewhere). anything areosal you can spray in somebody's eyes will give you time to get away.
but the best thing?
never carry anything you can't live without and always carry your important stuff on your body. those things i learned from a magician friend in TX who also taught self defense for women.

Ah, but wasp spray burns the eyes more and can shoot a lot farther, so you can keep the guy at least 10 ft or more away from you. It also shoots very accurately from the can and is perfectly legal, unlike pepper spray which is illegal to carry in some states (like mine). Plus, you can use it on wasps if you must.

Body spray you have to let the guy get pretty close to use it effectively.

We've had a few more restaurants and pizza guys robbed in the past few days................

That's scary about the pizza delivery along with the restuarants While a lot of
the pizza companies will not talk about it, they have policies of where they will not
go in certain neighborhoods and apartment complexes. You know I don't think you can
really blame this all on the economy. You really can't.

if somebody is close enough to mug me i figure its going to be only a few feet to spray him with. more than a few feet and i could make a run for it!

I feel really bad for the pizza delivery guys these days. They make so little money to start with and wear out their own personal cars and pay higher insurance. They never have more than $20 on them at any given time while working, and they get beaten or even shot for that lil amount when they get robbed. Some of them have been asked to deliver a pizza to an address only to find it's an empty lot, or the folks at that address never ordered one (the bad guys call it in and wait in ambush). Worse yet is some of the pizza places won't let them refuse to deliver to a certain bad neighborhood or they'd lose their job. At least they haven't been making the delivery guy make up the lost cash out of their paychecks---yet.

One guy I graduated high school with is a pizza delivery guy supporting his elderly mom. He also works another job, but they won't give him full time so he has to keep the pizza job. I know his mom worries and he's such a nice guy.