Hmmm...

A co-worker once told me that fortunes in Chinese Fortune Cookies are more interesting if you add the words "in bed" at the end. Well, I got one today that I had second thoughts about.

"YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR WILL GET YOU THROUGH DIFFICULT TIMES".....in bed.

Hmmm....

Appalling

It is appalling and the Republicans responsible for "Barrack, the magic Negro" should be banished from politics for life and they should lose the next election by default. How low can you go? Just when you think that it is not possible, some jerks come along and prove us wrong. What is wrong with people in this country anyway? Sometimes I think that we need lese majeste laws.

MSNBC Noise

I wonder if anyone else out there finds Jim Cramer of MSNBC to be a loud obnoxious wind bag. As I write this my roommate has that channel on and this fool so infuriated me that I felt like throwing MY shoe at HIM (or at least the TV set). LOL

Well, more memories of my early life today but none so strong as I had yesterday. One weird dream though. My hair is not particularly long but in a dream last night a bat appeared out of nowhere and hit my head (something they would never do with their built in sonar) and then got entangled in my hair. The result was that I had to go to the ER to get him disentangled and to get a tetnus show because he bit me while I was trying to remove him. Honestly folks, I am not on drugs (of any type).

Memories

As a member of the Boston Street Railway Association I receive a bi-monthly magazine called Rollsign. It features articles and photos of transit in Boston and the surrounding areas. I always enjoy receiving this magazine however the July/August issue blew me away with a photo on the front cover of the Usher Building in West Medford, Massachesetts where I grew up. Looking at that photo and some others in this issue during the past few days has awakened many memories of my early childhood. Memories of my grammar school (Brooks Elementary), the church my parents took me too (First Congregational Church of West Medford), some of my pals of the time and some not (John, Leonard, Stephen, Eddie, Howard) and my favorite Bob Kelley who lived with his parents in Pennsylvania but spent the summer at his grandmother's house near our house on Monument Street. Speaking of time machines, wow, those photos have made me feel like I was in one. The re-awakened memories have been so strong that they caused me to have many dreams of that period last night.

I had been doing some on-line research during the past year regarding the area and now I want to return to Boston and walk those streets and photograph the area once again. I have not been there in at least ten years and now I am very curious to see what things look like now.

Cold day in ...

In this case it is San Francisco as winter (as we know it) has arrived with very chilly temperatures, rain, and some hail and even a dusting of light snow on the highest Bay Area peaks.

2009 for me however could be even colder as my retirement funds continue to hemorrhage in their value value and at the current rate will be worthless by the end of the year. While my Social Security will cover my rent (for now) and food, there would be virtually no money left over to pay my other bills. What to do? Declare bankruptcy? Actually, I don't know if that would even be possible. It is not that my bills are too high (at the moment) but it would become of case of my income dropping too low due to the financial meltdown on Wall Street. I would not really want to do that but I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. Even paying off credit card(s) would probably not help. I think I would have to terminate my Verizon cell phone account and my Comcast account in order to make ends meet. This new year could be a terrible year indeed.

Oh well, the year will get off to a good warm beginning as I will once again travel to Thailand for my winter vacation. The 80 degree weather there is something I look forward to very much.

Shoes

What was that shoe size Mr. President? And was that American size or European size?

22 days and counting...

...until my vacation trip to Thailand. I hope nothing happens and that things stay peaceful, at least for the next six weeks. There are still many political uncertainties in this country that seems to be coming apart at the seams.

Only 29 days...

...until vacation. I almost canceled this trip to Thailand due to protests and the main airport being closed but that has now been resolved and hopefully there will not be a repeat of that during the next couple of months.

I addressed my shrinking list of Christmas cards today (whoopee) and will post those tomorrow. Not sure what to do about Happy Hour tomorrow as my favorite neighborhood bar has had its liquor license suspended for x-number of days. I have no idea when that will end and it could not come at a worse time with the holidays coming up especially New Years Eve.

GO / NO GO

During the next few days I will be contacting Expedia regarding my flights to and from Thailand scheduled for January 2009. I purchased flight insurance this time around and a preliminary check with them a few months ago indicated that I could cancel and get a refund. I hope so. Altough the airport at Suvarnabhumi is now open, the political problems in the country are not over and I think it would be a waste of my time to travel there at this time. I have been there several times already so why go again when the political situation is so shaky.

My friend in Sakon Nakhon will be very disappointed but there is little I can do. Perhaps he should rally his countrymen to obey the law and abide by the outcome of elections, something some people have had a very difficult time doing during the past few years.

Oh well, looking on the bright side of things, if I do get a refund I can now buy an HD TV to go with my new Comcast DVR. Yippee...

Troubles in "Paradise"

My vacation plans have me going to Thailand on the 5th of January but recent developments have really soured me on going there. Right now I can't because the airport in Bangkok is closed due to the unlawful occupation of the airport by protesters. At this time there appears to be no solution to the on-going civil unrest so I am seriously considering canceling my plans. Luckily I had purchased flight insurance earlier in the year so hopefully I can get a refund on my ticket. My friends are going to be greatly disappointed but, as they say, "That is the way the cookie crumbles". Thailand needs to get its act together before I will ever consider going there again.

As for local happenings, I had a very nice Thanksgiving in Vallejo with my friend Richard and his sister and brother-in-law. Of course we ate too much. LOL So now it is back to a normal sized diet. This is going to be a boring week as Alice & Ralph have returned home in southern California and I just realized that I forgot to bring reading material with me. I am scheduled to go home on Thursday so it will be a long four days until then.

Evil from the Middle East continues

Al-Qaida needs to take the advice of a former U.S. president: "Aw shut up!"

Secretary of State

I feel that Hillary Clinton would be better for that post than John Kerry and might even go a ways towards soothing hurt feelings from the election campaign but in these days of thin skins, there could still be cat fighting. It would be nice if we could simply put aside our differences and move onto the job of running the country.

IN MEMORIAM

Princess Galyani Vadhana

Day early

OMG, Friday the 13th arrived a day early this month. (On Thursday.) Does this change the possible hazards of the day???

Interesting days ahead...

Now that the hoopla of the election is over we/they must get down to work. I just hope the Republicans don't make too many waves when a decision is not to their liking. Life is a two way street and we must work together on all these issues that face us in these perilous times. Right now we all await Obama's decisions for his cabinet posts. Most of the names I have heard mentioned as possibilities are unfamiliar to me but the one that is familiar to me is one that I do not agree with. That is, John Kerry for Secretary of State. I am a life long Democrat but to that possibility I say NO WAY. I would be hard pressed to find the "right" choice right now but I think Mitt Romney might be a good choice. Yes, I know he is a Republican but there is no reason Obama can't have one or two Republicans in his cabinet. After all, according to my friends in Massachusetts, Governor Romney was a liberal Republican until he aspired to higher office and then he moved to the right. If Mitt doesn't want it why not hold Condoleeza Rice on a little longer. I like her and I believe she has earned the respect of many people around the world.

Oh, this is frustrating. Why am I not familiar with names of Democratic contenders for post in the new administration?

A new beginning...

I slept well last night after a wonderful evening of rejoicing over the victory of Barack Obama as President of the United States. I never disliked John McCain. In fact, he is a very honorable man who has given much to his country and he delivered a very gracious concession speech last night. My problem with his candidacy was his age and less than perfect health and his choice of a running mate. Also, the record of the Republican party has not been good during the past eight years.

Barack Obama certainly has his work cut out for him. He has inherited a mess and will need the help of everyone to turn things around. I hope and pray that everyone will come together and do what is right for the country. Now we can move forward and hopefully repair our relations with other countries as we become part of the world once again.

Hallelujah...

Thank God for what has transpired tonight with the election of Barack Obama as President. This is one of the happiest days of my life.

Sarah Palin

If Sarah Parlin and her ilk don't like San Francisco then they should stay the hell away from this fine city. People like her are living a 1940s Saturday Evening Post Norman Rockwell cover story.

Vote No on Yes

Even if you don't, be sure to vote on Tuesday Nov. 4th.

Store Closings

First we lose CompUSA then the parent company of Circuit City buys The Good Guys and we lose that store. Now Circuit City is going to be closing a lot of stores around the country. Are we going to lose their San Francisco store? If so that will leave only Best Buy and I would then wonder how much longer they would last and/or who would step in to sell the same products? The choices are rapidly disappearing.

NO on 1A

From Alan C. Miller (TRAC - Train Riders Association of California)

Over the last few weeks an increasing number of people, knowing my background, have asked how to vote on Prop. 1A, the high-speed rail bond measure. California voters are gaining an increasing awareness that voting for a proposition on the ballot--and supporting the ideals purported to be behind that proposition--are two very different things.

I am in favor of high-speed rail in California. That said, I must vote AGAINST this bond measure.

As most of you know, I worked for a passenger rail advocacy group the past six years. As such, I followed the project closely and attended most all of the High-Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) board meetings held in Northern California. I have many reasons to be concerned. $80 million dollars has been spent on "planning", yet with all this money spent on consultant salaries, the route is still a broad, conceptual line. If the project is funded, there is a high probability that it will never be built. The official estimated cost for the project is $45 billion. Some industry insiders I have spoken with believe that it will easily cost $80-$100 billion.

High-speed rail should be as straight as possible, both for speed and energy consumption. Instead, the line veers in a 42-mile extra-long loop to hit open lands near Mojave to serve KB homes. The route takes Pacheco Pass to, among other reasons, serve a not-yet-built community on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley near Santa Nella. It veers 30 miles east from LA before going south because wealthy communities on the coastline don't want it going through their towns. Tiny Visalia even managed to get a study commissioned to bend the line east towards them so they could have a stop.

Think about energy for a moment. Just the extra 42 miles to go through Palmdale means every train, every day, forever, will go 42 extra miles. Think of the energy that will use. Is that green? Besides the other environmental problems associated with Pacheco Pass, it is a higher pass than Altamont Pass, thus taking more energy for every train, every day, to climb over the mountains. Is that green?

Pacheco Pass was chosen as the preferred route by HSRA and "spun" as more environmentally friendly, even though the route passes through a huge wildlife refuge and opens up huge tracts of land to housing outside present urbanized areas. To justify the decision, an HSRA board member with ties to San Jose insisted in a radio interview recently that the environmental problems with building Altamont Pass and a rail bridge at Dumbarton were "huge", while those involved with crossing Pacheco and Grassland Wetlands were "minor". Even the group charged to protect the refuge near Dumbarton said it preferred the Altamont route. Grassland, though you may never have heard of it, is on the Pacific Flyway and is the largest contiguous wetlands in the Western United States. Using Pacheco would bisect this most important bird sanctuary, not to mention cutting a new transportation corridor through Pacheco Pass where no railroad has ever been built.

Some environmental groups were satisfied by recent legislation that "banned" a station between Gilroy and Merced. That sounds great, except another law passed in 15-20 years could reverse the ban just as easily as the ban was created. Why would this happen? One of the largest greenfield developments, the Villages of Laguna San Luis, is proposed to be built around the banned station. Citizens of this future development will eventually demand a stop on the train running right through their community so they won't have to drive to work in the Bay Area. This station, by the way, is on the property of a bankrupt dairy farm owned by a state representative, whom the organization I used to work for found, through a public records request, had a $50,000 contract with the HSRA to "attend meetings". When asked for a public records disclosure of worked performed, they were told there was "no written product".

$950 million of the Prop. 1A money is supposedly for other rail and transit agencies that will someday connect with high-speed rail. Almost certainly that $950 million for conventional rail is fake, just like the money you voted for in Proposition 1B a couple of years ago was fake (in terms of being an increase in funding for rail transit). The legislature simply zeroed out the traditional funding source for transit, then backfilled the loss with 1B money. You the people voted for more rail money and got nothing, except a shell game in which you ending up paying for more bonds that are now paying down the state debt. With the state budget in shambles, it is highly likely the same thing will happen with the $950 million for conventional rail in Prop. 1A.

Ron Roberts, the president of the Southern California Association of Governments and chairman of the Metrolink Commuter Rail Service (a service which stands to gain tens of millions of dollars if 1A passes) said "The high-speed bond measure only allows $9.9 billion when the actual cost for the first phase from San Francisco to LA is closer to $40 billion. That does not cover phase two from LA to San Diego through Riverside County. Anyone south of LA will pay the price and never get the rail service if the bill is passed, and if the other $30 billion is not found, no one in California will ever ride on a high-speed train unless they go to a foreign country."

High speed rail doesn't currently exist in the US, thus making California the guinea pig of the Western Hemisphere. Every mile and every town is its own large construction project, with the potential to morph into its own version of Boston's "Big Dig", the grand-daddy of transit cost overruns. The HSRA is even using the same primary consultant that Boston did, which isn't necessarily a foreshadowing but doesn't exactly endear me with trust. As much as you may want to see high-speed rail built "at any cost", at some point the money simply won't be there.

I co-wrote an article on the high-speed rail routing in the Central Valley, published in a 2002 edition of the newsletter of the advocacy organization I worked for. The idea was that the express trains didn't pass through the Valley towns, which are served by very fast conventional trains, while the express trains run on a straight alignment outside of town, thus saving billions by not having to buy numerous individual private properties, expand overpasses, relocate railroads and utilities, build sound-walls, overhead structures and trenches. That's how it's done in Europe.

But the politicians in the San Joaquin Valley towns all want the big shiny trains stopping in their town, to put them on the map. It's like a 21st Century version of the spaghetti western film genre. "If our town gets the railroad, we'll grow like a weed, if it goes around us, all we'll see are tumbleweeds." However, when the citizens realize what 220mph trains, a four-track trench, land-takings and years of construction really mean, the townspeople will revolt. This project will be laden in lawsuits for years to come.

AB 3034 requires that the HSRA submit a financial-level business plan (set to the standards for any large public works venture) by October 1. They don't have one; and they won't have one before the election. Joe Vranich (whom I often disagree with--but not on this issue) testified recently in a hearing by Senator Alan Lowenthal regarding the lack of this business plan:

The Authority's projection of 117 million annual riders is so far from reality that I have to call it what it is—science fiction. The Authority's projection is far higher than what is found on high-speed rail systems around the world. The Authority anticipates an average load factor of nearly 85 percent. The Federal Railroad Administration's study for California placed the average at 51 percent. The TGV system in France—which I've been on and I love—claims a load factor of 71 percent. The Authority's projected load factor is nearly 20 percent higher than the very impressive French figure . . . The Authority projects intensities that are far above those achieved in Japan, France and the Boston–Washington Corridor.

Among the unreal estimates is that the trains will connect San Francisco with Los Angeles in 2 hours and 42 minutes. For that to occur, the trains would have to operate at an average speed of 197 mph, a feat that has yet to be accomplished anywhere in the world. That combined with routing problems means the trip is likely to take an hour longer.

High-speed rail holds great promise in certain sections of the country. But the work of the Authority is so deficient that if the current plan is implemented it has the potential of setting back the cause of high-speed rail throughout the United States. The Authority has not learned the lessons: What caused Texas high-speed rail to fail? What caused it to fail in Florida? What caused the prior project to fail between Los Angeles and San Diego? A common element in the failures were high ridership estimates, low cost estimates, disregard for local environmental impacts and the planners losing credibility. The California Authority is repeating all of the mistakes as if they have never read a single page of history.

It is time to dissolve the California High Speed Rail Authority. Give it no more funding than is required for terminating contracts, transferring data and duties to a more responsible agency, and conducting an orderly shutdown. High-speed rail in California may be salvageable—after all this poor work—but someone else must be in charge. If the Authority is unable to conduct studies that have credibility, then how will they ever effectively deliver a mega-construction project on time and within budget? (end Vranich quotes)

Only $8-9 billion of the (supposed) $45 billion will be covered by the bond, while none of the other money is secured. Where will the rest come from? There are vague ideas about federal dollars, such as a stimulus package that hasn't been written yet, or pots of cash – one such source mentioned is the CalPers retirement fund. Then there are all those private investors the HSRA keeps talking about that are waiting in line to risk a billion here and a billion there. The $650 million annual debt payment on the Prop. 1A bonds will equal half what California spends on ALL public transit annually. Think about THAT for a moment! Then realize that debt payment is only for the $10 billion bond, not on the full $45-$100 billion cost!

Unlike Prop. 1A which falls woefully short on project construction costs, the $2 billion from Proposition 116 from 1990 fully funded its rail projects, which are the intercity and commuter trains you see today. Lacking as they may be compared to European trains, they are among the most successful passenger trains in the nation. As if to add insult to injury, the Authority has twice in the last year "redirected" money from Prop. 116 for "planning", by having the money funneled from projects that would have built actual rail infrastructure on California's current routes. As someone who campaigned for Prop. 116, I take this as a personal slap in the face.

I know you WANT to vote for this. So do I, but knowing what I know I cannot. I'm asking you to trust my judgment on this one. In 15-20 years, if 1A passes, maybe we'll have funded pieces of some transit systems, some right-of-way acquisition, a lot of lawyers, politicians, consultants, planners – but not a railroad. And all this will delay for years many of the real rail projects we need because the legislature will say, "why bother, aren't we building high-speed rail?"

It breaks my heart to vote against the ideal of a project I believe in so strongly. Most everything I hear the proponents of this project say about high-speed rail is correct, but those truths are about a real, completed system, not Prop. 1A. Please join me in shedding a tear for California while voting NO on Prop. 1A.

--Alan C. Miller

-------------------------------

Personal note: I too have ridden the high speed TGV trains in France and they are wonderful but from day one I have been disturbed, among other things, by the routing for California High Speed Rail so I too, reluctantly will vote NO on 1A.

Election Day

Don't forget to Vote No on Prop. Yes.

Two buddies?

After watching Marion Jones on the Oprah show today I have concluded that she and Barry Bonds would make a great pair.

As for McCain now saying that Obama is not ready to be president - NOW, of course, because McCain wants to be president NOW while he is still ALIVE. In four years he may not be alive.

Lies, lies, lies

I just heard McCain say on TV that with Obama, Pelosi, and Reid you have a recipe for tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend. Ha! With McCain it would be spend, spend, spend with no way to pay for it other than possibly cutting Medicare and Social Security. The one thing that really needs to be cut if the war in Iraq. Now THAT would free up a lot of funds for greatly needed programs here at home.

Vacation Time

Yippee...only 73 days until my vacation but with the stock market continuing to plunge, I will have nothing to live on once I get home. What do I do?

Political buzzwords

McCain and his henchmen love to use buzzwords like socialists to scare people. The truth is that there is no such thing as a pure democracy anywhere. McCain's problem is that he wants any socialism to benefit big corporations and not the small guys.

By the numbers...

On a morning in which the song "One Night Only" is playing over and over in my mind, I also realize that there are only 18 days left until the election. Also, there are only 80 days left until my next vacation. Yippee on both accounts.

Joe, the Plumber

This is too much. Will the real Joe please stand up? LOL

Going to hell in a handbasket...

I guess we have to face it. The fat cats have got theirs but the common folk, if they ever had anyting are losing it very fast and will continue to do so until we rid the world of the greedy people who rule the world and all of its institutions.

Knock it Off

I am sick and tired of this and McCain and his followers have got to knock it off with their charges against Barack Obama in reference to a very casual encounter with a 70's radical.

Mergers

Investment tips for 2008 & 2009 With all the turmoil in the market today
and the collapse of Lehman Bros and Acquisition of Merrill Lynch by Bank
of this might be some good advice. For all of you with any money
left, be aware of the next expected mergers so that you can get in on
the ground floor and make some BIG bucks. Watch for these consolidations in
later this year:

1.) Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W R.
Grace Co. Will merge and become: Hale, Mary, Fuller, Grace.

2.) Polygram Records, Warner Bros., and Zesta Crackers join forces and
become: Poly, Warner, Cracker.

3.) 3M will merge with Goodyear and become: MMMGood.

4.) Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining will
Merge and become: ZipAudiDoDa .

5.) FedEx is expected to join its competitor, UPS, and become: FedUP.

6.) Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers will become: Fairwell
Honeychild.

7.) Grey Poupon and Docker Pants are expected to become: PouponPants.

8.) Knotts Berry Farm and the National Organization of Women will
become: Knott NOW!

9.)Victoria's Secret and Smith & Wesson will merge under the new
name: Titty Titty Bang Bang
And finally...

10.) Mother's Jams & Jellies and Smucker's Jams & Jellies will
unite to be: Mother Smucker's

Keating Five

Do we really want one of these people to become President of the United States?

Fat Cats

Oh great, we give billions to the fat cats on Wall Street in hopes that the economy will turn around but NO, the stock market continues its slide into oblivion. We should have left well enough alone. This is a worldwide problem now just as in 1929.

A tie vote?

Uh, oh, you don't suppose the Obama/McCain race could end up in a Tie Vote in the Electoral College this year? Apparently some people in Germany or at the Reuters News Agency thinks that might happen and that sure would be a mess which would make the debacle in Floriday in 1980 looks like a Sunday picnic in comparison.

I'm bushed

After a very late night out Saturday and spending four hours in the sun on my feet at the Castro Street Fair, I am very tired and should be able to sleep well tonight. Nothing exciting happened today as it was the same old routine but it was nice to be outdoors on a sunny fall afternoon. We won't have many more of those as rain is on the way again.

Big Brother is getting bigger

Whither thou goest oh sweet civil liberties? The FBI is taking over and you better watch out because of these new regulations.

"The new road map allows investigators to recruit informants, employ physical surveillance and conduct interviews in which agents disguise their identities in an effort to assess national security threats. FBI agents could pursue each of those steps without any single fact indicating a person has ties to a terrorist organization."

The above paragraph is quoted from a news article this morning regarding the expanded powers of the FBI. I wonder if this could cause as many problems as it solves. It actually sounds a little bit un-American to me.

Christmas Shopping

Yikes! Do you realize that three months from today is Christmas? Bah - Humbug!

McCain, Palin and the campaign

If McCain wants to take a few days off from the campaign he should do it to find a new VP canditate. Two that I would find very acceptable would be Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell. Why he picked a ditzy woman with no experience is beyond me. Even Laura Bush does not think she is qualified.

McCain retreats

Oh Great! With only slightly more than five weeks until the election, McCain wants to suspend the debates in order to return to Washington to work on the financial crisis. Well, John, I got news for you. The financial crisis in the making for the past eight years ain't gonna be resolved in five weeks so cut the crap and go ahead with the debates, unless of course, you are trying to hide from something. You and your henchmen are already trying to hide Ms. Palin from the press so what are YOU hiding from?

Vice-President Pain

IF she ever gets that far or the next step up and IF she ever has a meeting with Vladimir Putin, he will chew her up and spit her out in very tiny pieces.

Oh, then there is the other problem of that shaggy long haired dog that Hamid Karzai owns.

Sarah

Do you realize that if you remove the L from Palin that you get Pain which is what you would get if she were ever Vice-President, or worse, President?

Presidential Election

Why should Obama or anyone else have to win a particular state such as Florida to win an election. How about a system where all votes count, where the millions who vote for this or that candidate throughout the country will have an effect on the outcome. This archaic electoral college system needs to go.

Text Messaging

So now the experts find that text messaging can be dangerous. Well, duh...drinking & driving, texting & driving, eating & driving...seems like common sense would tell us not to do those things

iGoogle

Say, this iGoogle home page is neat. I have been playing around with all of the customizations tonight and find it as interesting if not more so than my personal page at Yahoo.

I am ticked off. I just lost five games of Mahjong in a row and none of them were even close.

Sarah Palin has got to go. She and her husband would be an embarrassment to this country and now we learn that she only obtained her passport last year. What kind of politician is she who has not been anywhere on this planet? I will never understand why McCain picked her. While I am not a supporter ot Mitt Romney he would have been a far better choice for the VP slot. It is scary to think that she might be a heartbeat away from the presidency and have to answer that red phone at 3 AM some day. :-(

With all the hullabaloo about a suicide barrier on the Bay Bridge I am wondering what officials are going to do about suicide by train on Cal Train and BART? These types stories have been popping up a lot lately whereas I have read nothing about anyone jumping from the bridge recently. I wonder why this is so?

I will never look at Les Miz the same way again after viewing this video...LOL
BTW, look for the McCain/Palin look alikes about halfway through this.

One of my favorite comments in the letters to the editor this morning:

"This is a memo to Sen. John McCain and Sarah Palin: Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez and Nelson Mandela were all "community organizers."

Can either of you ever summon the courage to walk a mile in their shoes - or sandals - for just one day?"

The more I read about Sarah Palin the more I am convinced that she would be a dangerous person to have a heartbeat away from the presidency, or at the very least, a very inept person who could still do a lot of harm to this country.

I wish the Republicans would lighten up and stop trying to blame the Democrats on the "lipstick on a pig" remark. The phrase has been around longer than the current political campaign. Even Sarah Palin used the phrase herself during the RNC. By the way, should Palin ever become vice-president or president and should she ever meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, I would like to see Ms. Merkel "bitch slap" Ms. Palin, in part because she (Palin) is such a bitch and in part because of Bush's unwanted neck massage a few years ago. Of course that wouldn't happen because Angela Merkel is too smart and dignified to do such a thing. Damn! It would be fun however.

As for a local San Francisco issue, why all the hullabaloo about a suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge"? The proposed design would simply add a safety netting below the railings and would not visually destroy the bridge. As for ways to commit suicide, well, as there have been quite a number of them in recent years on the Cal Train tracks south of San Francisco and even a few on the BART system. High places, however, such as the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower have barriers which make it difficult to jump without warning and are probably more intrusive visually than what is currently proposed for the bridge. This city seems to be full of more than its share of whiners and nimbys. Oh well, this is San Francisco and after 32 years here I am thinking it is time to move on.

It is amazing that the Republicans harped on Barack Obama's lack of experience for months but then pick someone with even less experience to be Vice-President, someone who might outlast McCain due to his advanced years. It is really a terrible thought to imagine this woman being a heartbeat away from the Oval Office and I quite agree with my hometown boy, Matt Damon, about this person.

By the way, as governor of Alaska, she tried to ban the following books from the public schools: Tom Sawyer, Huckelberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, all of Stephen King's books, as well as the Harry Potter books, and many more. Fortunately, she was unsuccessful. This woman is really frightening. She should stay in Alaska, hunting and fishing with her family, not screwing up the rest of the country and the world.

Of course, we know why McCain picked her - OIL. Alaska has a lot of oil, much of which cannot be drilled and/or pumped due to current regulations.

So Joe Lieberman thinkgs Obama is young and untested. Well so was John Kennedy. As for VP Governor Palin is even more untested and I really do not want her a "heartbeat away from the presidency". These Republicans are a bunch of fools who will say anything, do anything to destroy the other person and get themselves elected.

I wonder if the Republicans will forgive Gov. Palin and her daughter. They don't seem to be the type to forgive so easily. Many did not forgive Bill Clinton and HIS personal failings as a human being.

If the Republicans are worried about Hurricane Gustav, why don't they just nominate by aclamation and leave town ASAP? A long drown out convention is certainly not needed to get the job done.

Wow, I can't believe it. On Aug. 14th I sent in the requisite forms for a rebate on my new Verizon cell phone. I fully expected it to take four to six weeks to complete as it said on the form but surprises of surprises, today, Aug. 30th, my rebate check arrived in the mail. I have never received a rebate in that short a time. Were they just being extra efficient or did my rebate request arrive during a slow period?

This is interesting. McCain and the other Republicans have been complaining that Obama has little experience and is not qualified to be president but now he chooses a person with even less Federal experience. Palin has no experience in the Federal government and rather limited experience in Alaska as well. So this raises two questions in my mind. Was she selected because she is a woman and he hopes to get votes from disaffected Hillary supporters, or did he chose her because she is against abortion therefore appeasing the religious conservatives of his party? Oh, there may be one more thing. There is OIL in Alaska much of which is currently off limits to drilling. Could THAT be the reason for choosing her?

To me it is beyond belief that a bunch of spoiled brats, namely supporters of Hilary Clinton, would sabotage the 2008 presidential election by voting for John McCain. Haven't we had enough of Bush policies for the past eight years. Why vote for McBush and extend that another four years? We must put away our dfferences and work for the good of the country. People who get caught up in personalities are the stuff of military coups in other countries. Let's not go down that road here.

And speaking of "here", I am beginning to think we need to call out the National Guard to patrol the streets of San Francisco and Oakland as our police departments are stretched too thin and our courts don't prosecute to the fullest extent of the law and these dirt bags who are robbing restaurants and shooting people. Just this week there was a shooting incident in San Francisco near the Hastings College of Law which is just behind the Asian Art Museum in the Civic Center and that was in the daytime. Then a Muni passenger gets robbed on a Muni bus on Market Street in the daytime. The list is getting longer and longer as crime finds its way into neighborhoods which have not seen incidents like these. Would a shooting on the steps of City Hall spur our elected officials to get serious about crime? I have my doubts.

This has been a great day. After spending nearly a week with my friend in Vallejo I returned to San Francisco yesterday and was kept very busy this morning working on problems with the IRS, the USPS, and other entities. Surprise! Everything went well and I will get my refund soon and I picked my mail on vacation hold and all sorts of things went right this morning. Yippee....

Tomorrow morning I will go to the DMV to get my driver's license renewed. No driving test is involved but a written test is as well as having my photo taken plus my finger prints (thumb print I think). Hopefully that will go well also.

I received good news that Richard's blood test of last Friday revealed a decrease in the number of cancer cells. This is very good news although we do not know if this will continue this way or not. For the moment however the chemotherapy seems to be working.

There are some weird and sick people out there. Who, in their right mind, would paint a pigeon or any living creature?

I see that the local Democratic party is trying to put together what it calls "The Hope Slate" for citywide elections this fall. Ha! This is really "The Hopeless Slate". This group of ultra-liberals wants to decriminalize prostitution, get rid of JROTC from public schools, set up public power by taking over PG&E, and wants to reject Mayor Newsom's special court in the Tenderloin known at the "Community Justice Center". They are really hopeless and are why this city is in such a mess now. Then we have the stupid ranked choice in city elections which was foisted off on the public a few years ago. It is hard enough to choose one candidate for an office...choosing three in ranked order is impossible.

Meanwhile, over at NBC, we find the network inundating us with hour after hour of beach volleyball from a city which does not have beaches. How boring!

Oh well, at least we know who will NOT be Barack Obama's running mate this fall.

Way to go Mary-Kate! I always liked her and she and her twin were always so cute on Full House.

Our wonderful government at work once again. This story really pisses me off. Does the stupidity of this government know no bounds these days? I thought we were living in the USA, not the USSR.

It is so sad when we export our corrupt American society to other countries via video games.

"I'm starting to wonder how bad four years with no president would be". (Maxine)

In reference to the item below which really ticked me off, I have vented my concern in letters to Senators Feinstein and Boxer as well as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. I don't expect things to change but they need to know that there are some of use who are upset about these types of situations and hopefully this will start the ball rolling for change in the right direction.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING

This is the most disturbing news I have ever read concerning this country. This is a total and blatant invasion of privacy and I will be writing to my representative in congress about this violation of the Constitution. My pictures of friends or cities that I visit which I post on my website are none of this governments business - PERIOD.

I guess I have been lucky so far as they have only given me a yellow card and searched my luggage and looked at some of the pictures on my camera but if they ever seize anything and I am in the wrong mood, I COULD go ballistic over this violation of my constitutional rights. Who do these people think they are anyway?

Welcome to beautiful downtown Beijing...(cough cough sputter sputter)

If the Olympics are going to be played in conditions which resemble
the photo on the right, it is going to be a mess. I wouldn't be surprised
if some athletes dropped out or got ill under such conditions especially
those in track and field events.

Muppets and Beethoven

Saw "The Dark Knight" today and found it be the best Batman movie to date. It was thoroughly entertaining and seeing the IMAX version added to the excitement. I loved the entire cast. For some reason I had never thought of Batman as being evil but there seemed to be a touch of that in him this time around. The Joker (Heath Ledger) was terrific and very evil. There is one thing that bothered me however and this makes me wonder if I am clairvoyant or what. In the beginning of the movie there is an extended bank robbery scene and I saw that somewhere, sometime. The whole sequence of events inside the bank including having a bank manager pull out an assault rifle to shoot some of the robbers, the grenade inside the manager's mouth and the school bus crashing through the front wall of the bank to take the robbers and the cash away, was something I have seen previously. Were these scenes taken from another movie? They must have been otherwise how do I explain having seen such details priior to this movie being released? There were so many details and it was such a long sequence that I really doubt it but how else to explain this.

With news stories like this and on the increase, how can one NOT say we are headed for a depression? At least now we have the FDIC for regular accounts to bail out small account holders, otherwise we are headed in the same direction as we did 80 years ago.

Funny commercial from Thailand:

OMG, I feel awful...I forgot to make the falafel.

Recession? What recession? I went downtown today to the Westfield Shopping Center and other stores and I have not seen that many people there since Christmas. The only things missing were Christmas decorations and the Salvation Army people and their kettles.

I will never understand what tourists and others see in some guy banging on plastic and metal buckets on the sidewalk and making all sorts of noise but they sure gather round. Such noise...such foolishness! Don't they have anything better to do?

The weather today was again only partly (very partly) sunny with a good dose of wind. I wonder when the weather will improve here in SF?

My friend feels a bit stronger following his colon cancer surgery but is now having problems breathing so is on oxygen. It has been one thing after another for a number of months now. This is not good. He is scheduled to be discharged from the hospital on Monday but now I am not sure what will happen.

BTW, last Tuesday's post was not the last but this is a roller coaster ride in which I am not sure what will happen next.

This will be my last post on this page for awhile as I am sure no one wants to hear bad news, bad personal news about someone they do not know. Suffice it to say, my friend's surgery for colon cancer went well and they removed that part of the colon which was infected and blocked. The good news ended there however and now we are trying to figure out what to do next. It really boils down to quality of life issues for the remaining time and there are a lot of unanswered questions at the moment.

Here I am in my friend's house in Vallejo, California. Shortly I will be going to the hospital to visit with my friend before he goes into surgery for colon cancer.

Last night was rather creepy for me as it was the first time I had spent a night alone in this house and all sorts of natural noises had me freaked out at times so I had to get up to see if I could find the source. I never did so I eventually got to sleep. Then I woke up early this morning (5:30) and went over Scotty's, a convenient breakfast and lunch place near the house. Now I am just watching the clock as I write this. I plan to be at the hospital around 9:30 AM. Surgery is scheduled for 11:30 but they will probably move him into the OR area around 10:30 AM. Then it will be another hour or two for the actual procedure so this will be a boring day of waiting and just hoping the everything goes well and that there are no surprises along the way.

These are difficult days for me as my best friend is seriously ill. We think we know what is going on but are awaiting some official word from various doctors following a CAT Scan which was not good. He will see a specialist today and have another biopsy on Wednesday so right now all we can do is hope for the best. When someone leads a healthy lifestyle these things are very puzzling. If he smoked and drank it might be a little more understandable but there is nothing in his background to suggest environmental causes. I guess, as they say, it must be in the genes. This is so sad.

More reasons why the recent U.S. Supreme court decision on guns STINKS.

Our founding fathers had no idea of what lay ahead in the field of fire arms. The single shot muzzle loaders and small pistols were the only thing they knew. Had they been able to see our Uzi's and other assault weapons of today, they would never have written the constitution the way they did regarding the "right to bear arms". The recent decision by the Supreme Court is a very dangerous one. There are many weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the wrong people and our cities are now more unsafe than they have ever been. Shame shame on the high court for allowing assault rifles and other weapons of mass destruction into our society.

I think the high court should be sued, if possible, or should re-think this asinine decision and reverse themselves.

Although there probably was a wild, wild west in the early days of this country, it was probably never anything like we have today, west coast or east coast or heartland, or wherever. We are a country of very unstable persons and need to reign in this propensity for violence by any means possible.

Pocket Full of Notes

And yes, I have been collecting them.

Re: guns

Yes, the criminals will always have them until they are busted and put away a very long time. Others still on the loose will continue to have guns however but it is not our gun laws that are a problem. Since people kill people, whether it be with cars or knives or baseball bats, or whatever, we need to correct societal ills first. Unfortunately there is a large segment of our population who are beyond hope in my book. I would venture to bet that if the police were allowed to conduct random spot checks of certain types of young people wandering our streets, they would turn up a whole slew of weapons. They should start with those with baggy pants worn down around their knees.

Re: wet news

Some people complain about San Francisco's ban on plastic bags which will lead to their newspapers getting wet in rainy weather when delivered on their doorsteps. Well, I have a better idea. Buy a computer and read the Examiner or Chronicle on-line. It doesn't get wet no matter what the weather and you avoid the wrinkles so common in the Chronicle's newsprint.

Re: cyclists

Whoever the brain dead person was who, in an attempt to promote more bicycle use, proposed that people on bicycles should not obey the same laws as people who drive cars, you gotta be nuts. Traffic accidents in this very crowded city are already too numerous and allowing some people to sail right on through red lights after an all too brief stop, is asking for more trouble than we have already. One set of city streets - one set of traffic laws. Anything else is plain stupid.

Re: hackers, National Security, China, etc.

There is so much to decry here. One thing was the sale of American technology from IBM to China.
That was dumb-dumb-dumb. Cyber attackers have now been traced to mainland China and Chinese militants are now able to get into the e-mail of such people as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia. Then the U.S. can't even figure out how to shut down Osama bin Laden's propaganda network as his operatives were busy hardening security to the point that U.S. security can't penetrate it. Now that is dangerous and embarrassing.

Well, I have always felt that if the U.S. Government needed a good security team they should hire Israeli intelligence as the U.S. version can't cut the mustard.

Well, that is my rant for today. No wonder Herb Caen and other newspaper men like to drink so much. See ya next time around...

It is just as well that my optometrist of many years in Oakland retired. He was dragging his feet on prescribing new glasses due to a growing problem with cataracts but he said it was not yet time for surgery. Well my new doctor, only one block from my apartment, wasted no time this morning in making recommendations and telling me of my options. So next week I will have one or two more tests and then laser surgery will be scheduled after which time I should not even need eye glasses since both eyes are being done at the same time with lens implants. Yippee...

One of my favorite quotes from George Carlin:

"How come when it's us, it's 'an abortion,' but when it's a chicken, it's an omelet?"

While I will certainly vote NO on the proposed California constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, I am also concerned about the push for marriage in this country. My own personal feelings are, Why bother? It is something that straight people have made a mess of so I wonder if gay people will do better in the long run? Yes, there are some legal issues that need to be resolved but I don't think that marriage will be the best way to go. Some other people also feel the same way and you can read reactions from another country here. Personally, I don't want to get married. I would prefer just to have a significant other - period!

Suggestion to the Royal Family of Hawaii, mobilize residents and secede from the union first and then you can restore the monarchy. Wouldn't that be a hoot if they did?

Then in order to balance out a 49 state flag of stars, congress could admit Puerto Rico as the 50th State.

Don't you just love these huge multi-national corporations who hide behind layers and layers of web pages, none of which have the information you want. Or, if you send them an e-mail, the only thing you will receive quickly is an automated reply acknowledging receipt of your message. One such corporation is Dell Computer. I have been trying to get my Inspiron 1501 laptop fixed for over a week and either they don't call when they say they will, or the project is complete while I am on the phone with them and they tell me that they will send me an e-mail with step-by-step instructions for the clean re-install of Vista but the e-mail never comes. When I send them an e-mail about that message which never comes I am referred to some third party website with instructions for the clean install but the only problem is that it doesn't work so I have to send them another e-mail and I am still waiting for a reply to my question and my problem. I have decided that if I can ever afford another desktop computer and/or laptop, it will be a Mac just in an effort to try to get decent customer service. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give Dell a 2 and I think I might be generous there.

So for the moment I think Dell stinks.

It is too bad this kid could not stay in the USA. Instead he gets forcibly returned to Cuba and has now been brainwashed. So sad, so sad.

By the way, I expressed concern recently about the new and updated Das Rheingold at the San Francisco Opera. Well, I saw it on Saturday night and enjoyed it despite some of its silliness with one such thing being the plastic and aluminum patio furniture at Valhalla. There were others but at least the music was very well performed although the Mark Delavan and Jennifer Larmore were not quite up to the task.

The tail end of the 2007/2008 San Francisco Opera season is now underway with a new production of Das Rheingold, in an udated version no less, moving from Germany to the USA in the Gold Rush area. Yuck! Why do producers have to rape operas this way. Wagner wrote this and the other Ring operas based on Nordic and German mythology which has nothing to do with the gold miners of the 49er era, etc, etc. New sets and costumes are one thing but moving something to a time and place that the composers could not have imagined or at least not intended is an insult to the composer and to opera lovers everywhere. Shame...shame...shame on San Francisco Opera and Washington Opera for doing this.

Note: I have heard from one source anyway that it is not as bad as it looks. Hmm...I wonder what that means. Well, I still hold to the old adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and this sure as heck applies to any of Wagner's operas. Oh well, we will see on Saturday night.

Deja vu...again. After dealing with the clean install of Windows XP on my desktop a few weeks ago I now have to do the same thing with Vista on my laptop. Dell technical support has "determined" that the intermittent shutdowns are being caused by a problem in the operating system and not some piece of hardware. I don't know if I should believe that or not but I will go through with it and hope that this can prove them wrong and that they can send somebody here or take the machine back for inspection and repair. They won't send anyone out for a software problem however. The clean install is easy enough but even with backing up the essentials, things never really go back the way they were. That is, address books, favorites/bookmarks, Robo Form data, etc., etc. Oh well, at least there is not a whole lot of things on the small laptop compared to the desktop. It is just inconvenient to have to do this.

Whatever one's feelings are about gun ownership, this certainly proves that you don't need a gun to commit mass murder. It would seem to indicate however that societal pressures in Japan as well as most other places on this planet are on the increase.

I don't know what is the matter with the people at Dell Computer and their technical support line. I spent considerable time on-line with somebody in Bangalore or wherever on the 23rd of May. They updated the BIOS on my laptop and apparently tweaked a few other things but did nothing to correct the problem of its periodic shutdowns. I told them that the machine was running hot at times but that received no response from them. Anyway, following this on-line session with Agent Alvish I received an e-mail from Agent Gaurav thanking me for contacting Dell Technical Support and advising me to reply to his e-mail with the subject line remaining the same should I need further assistance. Well, I did this on the 29th of May because the machine was still shutting down (apparently after overheating which was an issue I raised the first time) and to date no one has replied to that e-mail. I will try the Dell forums but I do not have much hope and confidence that anything there will correct this problem especially since it again shut down last night. Once again that case felt hot to the touch and the fan seemed to be working overtime from moment I turned the machine on shut down. This morning I started the computer but the fan was once again working overtime but this time it would constantly change speed as exhibited by the variable whooshing sounds it made. Just one question now: Does anyone at Dell care? Perhaps they don't as this machine is still under warranty and they don't want to do anything until that warranty runs out in February 2009. Well, I am not going to let that happen.

Say, this new integration of Google (now iGoogle) and YouTube is very interesting and Google has made some much needed and very good improvements to their home page for those who desire to use it as that. Also, people looking for particular YouTube pages will now find it easier if they know the page's author and his or her handle or ID, whatever you want to call it..

This morning I went out to vote. I was the only one there at 9:30 AM. That is not good with some very important propositions on the ballot. I had to go if for no other reason that to vote no on 98.

Anyway, during the past two days I have been busy putting together a video on San Francisco Bay water transportation and here it is.

If these right wing idiots want to "protect marriage" why don't they simply outlaw divorce?

With all this bickering about presidential candidates and their qualifications or lack thereof, I am reminded of what someone said in another election campaign. "Sir, John Kennedy was a friend of mine and YOU are no John Kennedy".

Well, Dell's lack of technical help and customer service has left this machine in a precarious state as the problem of unexpected shutdowns which I reported to them several weeks ago has gone unresolved. I even replied to their e-mail about that session and have not received a reply to that. I suspect a hardware problem related to the motherboard but I do not have the expertise to diagnose or solve the problem. Also, the machine is still under warranty so it is up to them to fix it. What will it take to get the people at Dell to do something?

Those evil and vile military men in Myanmar/Burma have got to go by one means or another. If innocent people would not get hurt I would suggest and support that we bomb the hell out of them and rid the country and the world of that scourge and let the good people rule themselves especially since the spineless and gutless United Nations doesn't seem to want to do anything so others have got to take action. The situation only grows worse day by day for those left homeless by the cyclone and those friggin' military people don't give a rat's ass about anything except themselves.

I am having fun working with Photoshop Elements this past week. I have such a backlog of things to do but this program makes it so much easier especially with the cataloging of images and the ability to place them in (virtual) albums. This makes the actual file name rather superfluous as you only need to look up the subject matter or tag that you may have applied.

This photo was taken at Puget Sound in the State of Washington a number of years ago. It was a lucky shot in that I was at the right place at the right time.

Picture of the night...

Here is a sweet musical duo for you.

Grrr...

If Dell computers were as bad as their nearly non-existent customer service were, I would have thrown this laptop out the window by now. Since this machine is now out of warranty (Isn't that always the case?) I cannot get free support so I tried logging onto their support forum only to find out that my old user name and password was not recognized. Soooo....

I tried re-registering but after a few missteps on my part, I got to the final log on page only to be told that that user name and password already existed.

Grrr...

What does it take to find out why this desktop has suddenly taken to shutting down without warning? It is as if we had suffered a power failure only in this case the battery does not kick in either. How do I get to the Dell forums or a service person without jumping through hoops?

Doesn't anyone out there care????????

I'm disappointed that my personal favorite, David Archuleta, did not win on American Idol, but I expected David Cook to win. He is a rocker and that is what so many people want and what the record companies want. Archuleta, on the the other hand, is a sweet faced, sweet voiced kid, who was really out of his element in this regard and while he has talent, it is not as marketable as that of Cook. Hopefully he will find his niche in the musical world. Other non-winners have so why not him?

I love this story about the lost parrot who knew where he lived.

SAVE RENT CONTROL
NO ON 98
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If Democrats are fed up with the eight years of George Bush, how can some Clinton supporters say they won't vote for Obama and some Obama supporters say they won't vote for Clinton. That is a recipe for disaster and another four to eight years of the same old same old. Come on people. Put away your petty differences and unite behind whoever the Democratic nominee is. Stop your bickering now. Think of the country first...please.

So Senator McCain believes that the war in Iraq can be won by 2013??? Give me a break! It has been going on for nearly eight years and he wants to extend it another five years??????? For that reason alone this man does not belong in the White House. If we are still in Irag in 2013 there won't be any America for the troops to come home to.

DUMB DUMB DUMB SURVIVOR

And I thought it was dumb of James to NOT play either of his hidden immunity idols last season when he had the chance and got voted out as a result. Now Erik tops that by giving away his immunity necklace in hopes that one of the other untrustworthy survivors is going to give him a pass. With only one more tribal council before the end of the current series that had to be the stupidest thing I have ever witnessed. I wonder what the women will have to say amongst themselves on Sunday night and whose throat will they cut the next time?

Now I wonder how much ice cream this "ice cream man" gives away.

#&%@$#*@# Oh, woe is me. If it isn't one thing it is another. Now I need to have a tooth pulled and either an implant or a less expensive bridge but my dentist claims that the extraction and implant will cost me $6000 while the extraction and bridge will cost $3000. My dental benefits book indicates that the extraction and bridge are covered but payment to the dentist will be far far lower than that figure. Where did my dentist come up with such an outrageous figure in the first place. Grrrrrr........

What we need in the USA is unlocked GSM phones (and networks) not more locked CDMA phones that can't be used outside the country. I like my phone from Verizon but their network and this phone is CDMA technology and is a pile of junk outside the country. When is the USA going to get on the world standard?

Extinct? Not hardly! It is stories like this one from South America which makes me wonder if an extinct volcano in Nevada could come back to life after thousands if not millions of years.

Could this be a sign of the times? In the seventies (disco era) one of the very popular dance hits was "More, More, More..." whereas now a very popular dance hit is "One Night Only". Hmm...just wondering.

Herb Caen loved cute firm names and I am sure he would have liked this one. A plumbing company called "Happy Pipes". The slogan on their truck reads: "Are your pipes happy?" (My reply to no one in particular: I certainly hope so.)

It is a beautiful warm sunny day in San Francisco but it was marred by a denizen of the street who was standing near this apartment as I went to the grocery store. He was acting a little (?) crazy and tried to speak to me. I ignored him as I do all such people. When I came back from the grocery store he was standing across the street acting the same way. Suddenly I found him shouting something, I wasn't sure what, but then just as quickly he was at my door step shouting at me in a very belligerent tone, "Hey, I'm talking to you". He then proceeded to hit me up for money to eat. I told him no and good-bye but he would not accept that so finally I told him to "get out of here" in a loud voice. Then he said "you don't have to get angry". Ha...if he thought that was being angry, well, he aint' seen nothin' yet.

This is a prime example of why I have come to despise this city so much. I thought that Newsom was going to something about these aggressive panhandlers and why are they suddenly up here on Nob Hill??????????

It is disgusting and sometime I want to put my foot where the sun don't shine but then I might be accused of assault & battery and then I would have to be deloused in an effort to get the vermin off of me. Thanks to such people as Ronald Reagan and Chris Daly, these people are taking over the streets. We need a president who is not afraid to deal with these problems.

Oh, this is interesting.

Not too many years ago there was a swarm of minor earthquakes near or under Peavine Mountain. Reno sits on the southeastern flank of that mountain which is an extinct volvano. I had the chance to go to the top one time when I was a teenager and saw the remanants of the cone. Two sides have been worn down by the elements over the centuries but there is a bowl and it is full of volcanic rock (obsidian). From Reno, however, one only sees a peak, no cone, due to centuries of erosion. There were several other outcroppings of the same rock lower down the mountain but new housing developments have covered those areas. At the time seismologists at the U. of N.-Reno said there was nothing to this swarm of quakes. Hmm...now they don't seem to know what is going on. Is Peavine coming back to life? By the way, Mogul, which is mentioned in the news article is southwest of Reno but certainly close enough to have interconnected lava tubes to the mountain.

Is this another example of incompetent work by the SFPD which necessitates a visit by French police to solve a crime?

This story really pisses me off. It is bad enough that the Bush administration can't get along with the rest of the world but now they threaten economic sanctions against Thailand, supposedly a friend of the USA. Well they won't be much longer at this rate and how can American tourists explain that what Washington does, or how they do it, is not necessarily the way other people feel about things. Can't these Dodo birds in Washington ever do anything right. It is always threaten, threaten, threaten, attack, attack, attack. This really makes me sick.

Earthquakes in Illinois? Of course, they can happen most anywhere and in unlikely places too.

The saddest part of the the earthquakes in Illinois during the past few days is that some supersitious people are going to start saying we are in the "end times". That these are signs from God at that the end of the world is new". Well, HOGWASH. This is just dangerous place to live. Even Boston lies atop of a very dangerous fault which has been locked for years but which, when it snaps open, will devastate that city. Ironically that city relaxed some of its earthquakes standards on new building construction a few years ago because there had not been any earthquakes in a long time. How shortsighted can you get?

Is someone sending e-mail from your address? Are you protected from a botnet or zombie? How do you keep your computer safe on the Internet? Well, read on...

Ask Leo: If people are getting spam from me, does that mean I have a bot infection?

My favorite letter to the editor appears in today's SF Examiner. This is probably the best this week if not all month or all year and I will quote verbatim here.
----------
"The latest flap over Barack Obama's statement regarding "small-town bitterness" was a jaw-dropper for me. I was born in one of those small eastern Pennsylvania towns and spent the first 22 years of my life there.

First, let me state that he is 100% right.

The shocker for me was that this was obviously a "rookie mistake". Any savvy politician knows that you don't tell Americans the truth, you pander and tell them only what they want to hear. You don't get elected in this country by speaking the truth. Americans can't handle the truth."
----------
And ain't that the truth! This week's so-called debate was really pathetic as there was nothing of substance in the questions and answers. This only served to confuse people and make it easier for John McCain to be elected and as another letter writer pointed out today, "He (McCain) is a warrior, and a warrior needs a war to prove himself. That's not what we need as a president".

Stop the world I want to get off. Or, to make things really interesting, I would be willing to volunteer for the first manned flight to Mars.

Funny Japanese TV Show

FREE TIBET

It was a smart move by city officials to move the Olympic torch relay to another section of town. I know there are many people who don't agree but it was the only prudent choice given the volatility of protesters especially in this city where things can get out hand very quickly. Running the Olympic flame through many cities around the world should be terminated anyway as it really serves no purpose.

FREE TIBET

Are the protests against the Olympic torch in London and Paris an example of what could happen in San Francisco this week? Of course those cities are much larger than this little berg on the west coast of the USA however there are some militant groups in the area so one never knows.

And by the way, I believe that the IOC made a serious mistake in awarding the summer games to Beijing. They have a mess on their hands now but you ain't seen nothin' yet. Once in Beijing it will be even a bigger mess with air polution contributing to that mess.

See these shocking dresses on Russian stars from Pravda.

For a lighter moment there is this skit from The Golden Girls...

Here is a very powerful and moving speech, actually from a TV drama "Boston Legal", but even though this is a fictional summation to a fictional jury, these words should be heard by everyone who cares about this country and the direction it is headed.

Now I know that San Francisco and Berkeley are not the only two cities in California to pass crazy laws. Even Berkeley's attempt to drown rats in the sewer system sounds good, if it would work.

Software piracy is a problem and a controversial one when you consider the people who can't afford what we in the USA and other developed countries can afford but I agree with this article: Ask Leo: Why can't the poor just pirate software?

Glad to see that the (Rev.) Fred Phelps is getting his comeuppance as protesters picket his church for a change.

Then there were two letters to the editor of the Chronicle this morning with some commen sense advice. One involves those who ride bicycles. The letter writer said in part: "...I have some advice my mom used to say before I took off in those non-helmet days, "Watch out for pedestrians and cars. They have the right of way". To this day I take that advice and I haven't come close to getting hit.

Then a Vietnam war veteran wants to know why Sen. John McCain is a war hero. McCain was only doing his duty and got caught in the process. He survived and while in prison he was tortured and abused but he acted courageously and selflessly (as did the North Vietnamese during years of bombing) but that neither atones for his wrongdoing nor makes him a war hero.

To me the use of the word "hero" in recent years has been overused ad nauseam and I think this is a good case in point. Also, would he be considered a hero if he were not running for president? Would the other poor blokes who got caught up in Johnson's misadventures in southeast Asia also be called heros?

It is springtime and soon millions, oops, make that thousands (hundreds?) of baseball fans will pour into AT&T Park for the first season of the Bondless San Francisco Giants.

On other matters I don't know whether I should laugh, cry, or scream concerning this latest twist to airport security screening. I guess you could chalk it up to one of the signs of the times but it sure wasn't pleasant for the passenger involved.

A few questions...

Why do we press harder on a remote control when we
know the batteries are getting dead? 

Why do banks charge a fee on "insufficient funds" when
they know there is not enough money? 

Why does someone believe you when you say there are
four billion stars, but check when you say the paint
is wet? 

Why doesn't glue stick to the bottle? 

Why do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal
injection? 

Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard? 

Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but
ducks when you throw a revolver at him? 

Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets? 

Whose idea was it to put an "S" in the word "lisp"? 

If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?


Why is it that no matter what color bubble bath you
use the bubbles are always white? 

Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale? 

Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator
with hopes that something new to eat will have
materialized? 

Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times
with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it
up, examine it, then put it down to give the vacuum
one more chance? 

Why is it that no plastic bag will open from the end
on your first try? 

How do those dead bugs get into those enclosed light
fixtures? 

When we are in the supermarket and someone rams our
ankle with a shopping cart then apologizes for doing
so, why do we say, "It's all right?" Well, it isn't
all right, so why don't we say, "That hurt, you stupid
idiot?" 

Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something
that's falling off the table you always manage to
knock something else over? 

In winter why do we try to keep the house as warm as
it was in summer when we complained about the heat? 

How come you never hear father-in-law jokes?

...Just thought I would ask...

D. B. Cooper's parachute? If so, where's the money?

I must say that our presidential candidates have some interesting relatives. Who woulda thought?

Texas - 1, Bush - 0

This story helps make my day.

Wanda Sykes on Gay Marriage...

WARNING: R rated due to language.

What's this? Political dirty tricks against Senator Barack Obama? I wouldn't doubt it. Assassination would probably seem too crude to some so if there were a way to bring a black man down before he even gets to the White House, why not try to use it. So sad, so sad...
------------------------
But wait, we now learn that all three major presidential candidates have suffered a passport database violation. I wonder if there has been other hanky-panky going on in the State Department. I know for a fact that upon my last three returns from Thailand local Homeland Security officials have poured over what they were seeing on their computer and requested additional information from me. One even went so far to ask if this had ever happened before which it had. His quiet reply was that my name "is not that common" and the implication was that they had me mixed up with someone else. Then this year when the same extra screening occurred and I mentioned to the guy going through my suitcase, he said they had no notation of anything liked that happening. Now I am beginning to think that the U.S. Department of State is out of control.

The last of the "big 3" is now gone. Big three sci-fi writers that is. Arthur C. Clarke is now dead. He was preceded into that great space station in the sky by Robert Heinlein who died in 1988 and Isaac Asimov who died in 1992. As a teenager I read as many of their books as I could but I must confess that I never saw the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. So I will correct soon that by renting the DVD. Not sure why I passed that by. Was it the hokey use of the first few minutes of Richard Stauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra? Not sure really. Or, maybe I did see it just can't remember the details. That seems to happen a lot lately. "Old timer's disease" (aka: Alzheimer's Disease)?

From a blogger in southern California...

"Dozens of seniors, elected officials, mobile home tenants and tenants’ rights advocates will picket outside a statewide meeting of large, wealthy apartment owners......... Inside, apartment owners will be scheming to pass a statewide initiative to abolish rent control and jack up rents for hundreds of thousands of renters to make tens of millions of dollars for themselves.

Wealthy apartment and mobile home park owners are collecting signatures to put a measure on the June ‘08 ballot for their own financial gain. These landlords want the public to believe that the so-called California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act (CPOFPA) is about eminent domain, but the measure is really a dishonest attempt to abolish rent control and other laws that protect renters. The CPOFPA would eliminate rent control and gut renter protection laws, and strip protections for mobile home owners from forced condo conversions."

The long campaign for the presidency has really gotten on my nerves and unfortunately I now believe that the Democrats are going to end up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I wish it weren't so but it is seeming more likely to me the John McCain will be the next president. I wish it weren't so especially if he choses Mitt Romney as his running mate.

LIFE IN THE UNITED STATES
from headlines in this morning's SF Chronicle
on SFGate.com

Two killed, one hurt in Concord shooting
Man shot and wounded by Union City police
18 year old man is shot and killed in Oakland
Rohnert Park police shoot and kill a person
3 shot, 1 fatally, in Mission District attack

Every morning I read similar headlines. What next? IED's on the streets of Bay Area cities?

Oh well, at least there have not been any mass shootings on any college campuses or in any shopping malls this week, at least not yet.

Well, this story is either very scary or very funny depending upon whether it is true or not.

This is funny. (Be sure to read to the end.)

So now the Gavinator and various others are suddenly concerned about clean sheets, soap, and toilet paper at homeless shelters. Well let me tell you that if you were to suddenly house these people in the swankiest hotel in town that the place would be in total chaos and a complete and utter mess within a few weeks. Many of those people do not know how to take care of things and they don't care either.
I wonder how long we will continue to subsidize those who can physically work and how long we will fail to institutionalize the mentally ill, especially those who refuse to take medications already prescribed for them in an out-patient clinic. This is truly the city that does not know how.

In today SF Examiner I read a letter from someone who claims that Prop 98 will not retroactively eliminate all rent controls, that it will only be phased in as units becomes available. At this time this sounds like the writer of that letter must be part of the YES on 98 group. If that were true then passage of this proposition would make it even more difficult for me to retain my rent controlled apartment which I have occupied for 15 years as the pressure to evict would be even greater if it were known that the new occupant would not be living in a rent controlled apartment.

As it is now, when a tenant moves out the rent can go up to market rate for the next tenant but the next tenant would be living in a rent controlled apartment for the duration of his or her occupancy.

One thing I most vehemently disagree with is the proposal from Chris "Raging Bull" Daly who wants Lenmar and others to sell at least half of their new units in the Hunter Point and other developments for below cost. With whom did that idiot study economics? With Vladimir Lenin?