Sunday, March 30, 2008


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.



Wednesday, March 26, 2008

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...

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

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.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Wanda Sykes on Gay Marriage...

WARNING: R rated due to language.


Friday, March 21, 2008

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...
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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.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

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)?

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

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."

Monday, March 17, 2008

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.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

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

Friday, March 14, 2008

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

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

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?


Sunday, March 09, 2008

Mayor Gavin Newsom for Governor????? Frankly, I think he would look better on the cover of GQ magazine than in the governor's office.

And by the way, while the government continues to tinker with Daylight Savings Time (starting it earlier) and states keep moving presidential primaries earlier and earlier and stores start the Christmas shopping season earlier and earlier each year, why the hell don't we just treat every day the same. Make everyday a holiday (you pick one of your favorites), never take down the related decorations. Just imagine, Christmas 365 days a year. Wow! St. Patrick's Day every day. Hmmm..

Friday, March 07, 2008

What is it about the people who enter City Hall to work in one capacity or another? First we have the Board of Supervisors rejecting a design that will cost over one million dollars, an outragious and obscene price but then we have Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier complaining that their rejection of the plan is a slap in the face of disabled people. Now we have Mayor Newsom urging businesses to sue the Board of Supervisors for their rejection of the plan. What a bunch of idiots! Why do they need $500 hammers to do such a simple job. Then we have those people who will whine that it is an historic structure and you must protect its appearance. This attitude is part of the problem and these people will never have solutions for what ails this city. Why is there so little common sense with people in City Hal and with their supporters? Sure, you can project the appearance of things inside City Hall but you don't need to spend a million dollars on a simple ramp to do that.

Oh, but forgot, that ramp is going to made of pure gold.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

In March 1958 Mayor George Christopher was quoted as saying "City employees have no business living outside San Francisco. In the case of policemen, he said, they must be available around the clock for emergency duty. But the question of residence for the city's other 18,000 employees goes deeper than that, he said. "We're becoming a city where people work, not where they live. We can't sustain this city on people who lunch here." The mayor also said a city employee's loyalty would be split if he were to live in another city.

Well, I certainly agree with that and feel that such laws should still be in effect in one form or another. This is a city, not of working people, but of visiting people, and that needs to change. We need people living here, paying taxes here and not taking the money and running off to some other city to spend it.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

A-ha...there may be no water on the surface of Mars after all. But what about the polar ice caps?