Last week, the city's budget analyst released an eye-catching report claiming that San Francisco would lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars should it see fit to host the America's Cup regatta on the terms currently before the city.
The mayor's office dropped into a defensive crouch, and predicted a second paper from the budget analyst, due out this week, would paint a rosier portrait of the city as the worldwide yachting Mecca.
Well, that's not going to happen. Since the Budget and Finance Committee failed to calendar the item, the report's expected completion date has been pushed back to Dec. 1 or Dec. 2. But lead author Fred Brousseau told SF Weekly there wouldn't be a "dramatic swing" in the numbers from the earlier report: A projected $42 million shortfall in hosting the event, and some $86 million in foregone revenue via giving away prime waterfront land to yachting billionaire Larry Ellison.
Americans are growing so sedentary, apparently running like hell has become suspicious behavior. Is candy to blame?
If so, worlds collided a shade after midnight yesterday morning. At Mission and Whipple, in the city's extreme southwest, cops noticed a trio of people running through a parking lot for no apparent reason. The group dropped something on the ground -- it turned out to be candy.
Nearby, a candy machine was busted. Candy of the same sort that was hurled on the ground. QED.
Those who watched and participated in last night's oft-surreal crafting of the process that will be used to nominate the next mayor will likely suffer from flashbacks. Reporters, supervisors, and the poor, poor clerk of the board will freeze up, half-masticated turkey will fall from their lips, and Thanksgiving guests will be serenaded with the following actual quote from yesterday's proceedings: "You can vote for the amendment to amend or you can go with the motion that amends the motion to amend."
So, what will all the grueling, procedural back-and-forth -- which Supervisor Chris Daly referred to as a "clusterfuck," even though he had a leading role in the process -- amount to? Our City Hall sources claim either "nothing" -- or a spirited transfer of power of the sort this city hasn't ever seen.
Update 12/3: TSA slaps us on the wrist about using this picture. This is an old image. The newer ones look more like Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Among the elements of paranoia and righteousness emanating from those opting out of TSA scans today, U.C. San Francisco radiology specialists say the fear of radiation should not be included. These are experts, folks, and their message is: You're not going to get cancer from these machines.
In fact, the radiation scientists told SF Weekly that the warnings about the scanners in a letter written by top U.C. San Francisco scientists earlier this year were plain "wrong," and written by people who "are totally unrelated to radiation," in the words of Professor Ronald Arenson. Robert Gould, a physicist in the UCSF radiology department and member of the Radiation Safety Committee in the university's Office of Research, contends that the amount of background radiation a person is exposed to in a normal day is the equivalent of 85 screenings in a TSA scanner.
For more than a century, the California Supreme Court has interpreted antitrust law as protecting consumers from high prices, not protecting the profits of entrenched market leaders who fear competition. The Supreme Court's refusal yesterday to follow Justice Joyce Kennard's wishes and hear this appeal turns a century of pro-consumer California antitrust law on its ear.
No one disputes that, on identical facts, this case would have been dismissed in summary judgment in federal court, where nearly all California antitrust cases are litigated.
The only advertiser who testified in this trial testified on behalf of SF Weekly. There was no evidence -- none -- to dispute that Bay Area advertisers, large and small, benefited from the Weekly's lower prices. There was no evidence that the Weekly ever charged a dime less than a glutted market was willing to pay for advertising. And there is no dispute that by employing professional journalists with health and other employee benefits, instead of freelancers and student interns, the Weekly was punished under the below-cost sales statute.
While authorities seek a big rig involved in a hit-and-run traffic accident that left a man dead in Albany, a trucking expert contacted by SF Weekly said it's doubtful the trucker doesn't realize he struck another vehicle.
Witnesses watched a weaving white Toyota Corolla collide with the truck's trailer at around 9 a.m. this morning on I-80. The truck -- pulling a trailer described as either "rusty" or "rust-colored" -- did not stop and has not yet been tracked down. A California Highway Patrol spokesman said the trucker may not realize he was even involved in a collision.
Truckdriving expert Lew Grill, however, called "bullshit" on that -- literally. Grill has been driving a big rig for 42 years and served as an expert witness for more than 500 cases. He said it would be inconceivable for the driver not to know what happened.
Say what you will about Steve Cooley, but the man can do math. The Republican candidate for attorney general would have had to beat Kamala Harris by insane margins among uncounted ballots in Harris-leaning counties. Not going to happen -- and, today, he threw in the towel.
Cooley had claimed victory on election night. It wasn't exactly a Dewey Defeats Truman moment -- but it was, obviously, ill-advised.
Harris' ascent to statewide office sets off yet another round of San Francisco political musical chairs.
Is Google today's incarnation of Alan Freed, the 1950s R&B disc jockey accused of taking payments to play certain songs? TechCrunch cites anonymous sources suggesting something like that.
Donald Rumsfeld confused a lot of people when he rambled on about "known knowns," "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns." But, flipping on the morning news and watching, in quick succession, a trio of stories featuring man-on-the-street interviews with Bay Area commuters explaining how they managed to survive 40 degree morning weather -- it all begins to make sense.
For Bay Area residents, the fact that it gets kinda cold in the winter is hovering somewhere between a "known unknown" or "unknown unknown." For any city dweller who has ever received the icy glare from a resident of the Midwest or East Coast when complaining about not-quite-freezing Novembers ("Yeah, you've got it tough there in the Bay Area!"), it's a known unknown. The weather's mild here. We know that. It's one of the reasons we choose to live here.
But the fact that cold -- real cold -- is ubiquitous elsewhere seems to be a total unknown for our microphone-wielding morning news reporters -- or at least their assignment editors.
Earlier this month, Oakland Mayor-elect Jean Quan confirmed to SF Weekly that she isn't wearing the same purple suit everywhere. Rather, she has three or four purple suits. "Plum purple is my color," she told us.
Today, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Quan has another pastime to go along with wearing purple about town: Not paying parking tickets. Quan's Toyota Prius -- not purple but silver, by the way -- was booted earlier this week. She had more than $1,000 in unpaid tickets. Yes, you could get several purple suits for that.
Quan refused to talk to the Chron about the matter. On the contrary, when SF Weekly broke the story that San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi had his car booted last year, he was able to joke about the situation.
