Pepper spray, wailing police sirens, and the rumbling of overhead helicopters permeated the air earlier tonight in Loring Park as dozens of police officers descended on a group of bicyclists.

At around 7 p.m., police cars were trailing the large assembly of cyclists along La Salle Avenue. The group was taking part in Critical Mass--a monthly ride undertook by bike-enthusiasts the world over to "assert cyclists' right to the road"--when things turned ugly.

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We told you so. That's the message that Julian Loscalzo and a handful of compatriots wanted to impart at yesterday's official groundbreaking for the new Twins' ballpark. Loscalzo was the gadfly-in-chief behind the "Save the Met" campaign that vainly fought against the building of the Metrodome nearly three decades ago. Now that outdoor baseball is finally on track to return to the Twin Cities, Loscalzo was reveling in vindication.

Smoking one of his ubiquitous cigars on the back patio of Cuzzy's bar, a few blocks from the stadium site, Loscalzo notes that no less an authority than Sid Hartman once referred to his group of agitators as "geniuses." "Calling us geniuses was an insult," he says. "We proved him wrong."

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The last time we talked to the Dutchman, a local vets advocate rolling across America to Manhattan in his wheelchair, he was camped-out on the lawn outside a Wal-Mart in Madison, Wisconsin. Two months later, he's in Ontario, Canada, making his way down the side of Highway 3. "I'm on my third chair," says Robert William Van Vranken II, speaking over his cell phone as trucks roar by in the background. "I went from Minneapolis to Menomonie, Wisconsin, on a manual chair, then burnt out the electric motor on a power chair. But I have over 600 miles on this chair."

Rolling along non-interstate highways between Minnesota and New York with a bike trailer behind him, the Dutchman has made pretty good time (50 miles a day), while raising money for a new Spinal Cord Injury/Disorder Center at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, via his website, www.myspace.com/dutchmanrolling. (Instead of kicking him off their lawn, Wal-Mart made a donation.) His secret is to not push the electric motor. "I go an hour, then I gotta stop for about 25 minutes and let it cool down," he says.

The Dutchman has faced worse dangers than a burnt-out motor: While changing wires on his batteries in a bike path between Madison and Milwaukee, a snake got its teeth in him. "He bit my stump," says Vranken, who lost his lower left leg in a bus accident last year (had had been drinking, and fell under the vehicle). The swelling on the stump has gone down, so he doesn't think the snake was poisonous.

"Life goes on," he says. "My new hairspray is insect repellent."

We are soliciting entries for the first annual Senator Larry Craig limerick contest.
Feel free to write your own in the comments section.
Winner gets, um, I'm gonna take the high road and just say it'll be something tasteful.
Deadline: Labor Day.
OK, I'll go first:

There once was a leader named Larry
Unto to whom God spoke: "You must marry."
The pol said, "No way,
You must know I'm gay."
And God spoke: "I don't make no fairies."

Well what could the poor old boy do?
He wed a nice lady named Sue.
God spoke: "You've done well.
But if it should swell,
Don't blow a load whilst in the loo."

Senator Larry Craig appeared on Conan O'Brien last night to deny he was looking for gay nookie in a Minneapolis airport bathroom. Hilarity ensues.

Believe it or not, you can legally drive drunk in Minnesota if you're riding a bicycle, as long as you don't do something stupid, like plow directly into a police car--as a friend of a friend did recently, and was charged with careless driving under MN Statute 169.13. If you're steering 16 people on one giant human-powered vehicle, however, no one will insure you if you're also drinking alcohol. Which is why the new local, Netherlands-style cafe-on-wheels PedalPub (www.pedalpub.com) provides a (sober) driver to groups of up to 16 riders, who then power the cycle with their feet while seated at an open-air bar. "Bar" might be a slight misnomer: Riders can drink on the vehicle, but only while on private property, and with the property owner's permission. But for $150 per hour, PedalPub provides pub-crawl tours of Nordeast, Lake Calhoun, and other neighborhoods. The whole thing is more expensive than renting individual bikes, but cheaper than a limo or party bus, and healthier, too. The main thing riders should worry about: making it over that last hill.

Editor & Publisher is wondering why it took nearly three months for the media to pick up on the arrest of Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) for soliciting gay sex in a Minneapolis airport restroom.

"You would think in the 24-hour news cycle, something like this would slip through," Roll Call reporter John McArdle, who broke the story late Monday, is quoted as saying. "He wanted to keep it quiet, and he almost got away with it."

Meanwhile, over at MnSpeak, WCCO reporter Jason DeRusha offers four plausible answers.

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Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in June for soliciting sex in a Twin Cities airport men's room. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct earlier this month.

According to the arrest report, Craig was seated in a bathroom stall, brushed his leg against the leg of the guy in the stall next to his, and was arrested when it turned out his would-be paramour was an undercover cop. Craig had previously been accused of-and denied-engaging in sex with men in public bathrooms.

Al Franken has some choice for Sen. Norm Coleman in a recent YouTube video regarding Bush's Tuesday appearance in Eden Prairie. With the president in town to raise funds for Coleman, Franken wasted no time in firing away, posting his screed the same day.

Coleman is also facing pressure from his own party.

Freedom's Watch, a recently created war-mongering group headed by former White House strategist Brad Brakeman, has unleashed an ad campaign designed to pressure lawmakers to continue their support for the war. The ads conclude by insisting viewers call a toll-free number and urge their representatives to keep on keepin' on in Iraq. Liberal pussies and America-haters be damned!

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St. Paul City Council candidate Gerald Mischke is dropping out of the race. The political neophyte was attempting to oust Ward Three incumbent Pat Harris. In a statement issued today Mischke announced that he will no longer actively campaign for the post. He cited the unstable situation at the Star Tribune, where Mischke works as an ad designer, as a contributing factor in the decision.

"I knew that I was attempting a very difficult thing by running at this time," he says in the statement. "I would however like to stay involved in local progressive politics in some capacity."

Mischke will remain on the ballot in November.