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Afghanistan's illusions of legitimacy

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - Oct. 20 (Opinion) - It goes without saying that a legitimate government would follow the rules of the constitution. And it's in America's interest to have the most legitimate Afghan government possible: Otherwise, for what are we fighting? Unfortunately, holding a runoff election may not be the best way to provide Afghanistan with a functional government. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/20/EDIM1A7PF0.DTL#ixzz0UUI6PvVi

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Analysts size up health bill in final stretch

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Carolyn Lochhead - Oct. 12 (News Analysis) - Democrats' health care reform legislation, which has moved fitfully through Congress, will reach two milestones this week. The Senate Finance Committee is likely to pass its bill on Tuesday while the Congressional Budget Office reviews House legislation with three variations on a government-run insurance plan. "We are coming around the curve," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, using a horse-racing analogy. Democrats are aided by a growing chorus of GOP voices from outside Washington urging action. They include former Republican Senate majority leaders Bill Frist, Bob Dole and Howard Baker and former President George W. Bush's Medicare and Medicaid chief Matthew Scully, who said "the world would be a better place" if the Finance Committee bill passes. Getting less attention are concerns by independent analysts about what any of the five bills to change the $2.6 trillion heath care system might actually achieve.

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PG&E partnering on 'Smart Grid'

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Chuck Reed,Chris Johns - Oct. 05 (Opinion) - many utilities are competing for these funds [the $4.5 billion in funding set aside for ...grid projects in the american recoery and reinvestment act] but only a few have a winning combination of strong technology, community partners and a project that pushes the frontiers of current practice.

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Hellman to invest $5 million in journalism nonprofit

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By James Temple - Sep. 25 (News Analysis) - San Francisco financier Warren Hellman will invest $5 million to develop a nonprofit journalism venture that will provide regional news coverage online and feed stories to media partners including KQED and possibly the New York Times. The goal of the organization, which is expected to begin next year and create "more than dozens" of positions, is to ensure thorough coverage of local politics, social issues, education and other topics as the traditional media industry shrivels. "We've lost a lot," said Hellman, who specifically bemoaned dwindling reporting on subjects like the San Francisco Ballet, local business openings and vetting of political candidates. "We're going to be meeting an unmet need."

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Satellite shows 'ominous' polar melting

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By David Perlman - Sep. 24 (News Report) - A NASA satellite has revealed more accurately than ever that polar ice in Antarctica and Greenland is melting from glaciers and ice sheets far faster than scientists had previously thought, a discovery that one UC Berkeley climate expert calls "ominous and distressing."

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The crash, 1 year later

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - Sep. 13 (Editorial) - the financial industry has been remarkably successful in its battle against increased regulation, and the phenomenon of banks being "too big to fail" has gotten worse, not better. If another financial panic were to hit right now, this country would be no better situated to cope than it was in September 2008. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/13/ED7O19FKM2.DTL#ixzz0QyunpeXh

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Obama accepts lawmaker's apology for 'lie' remark

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Laurie Kellman - Sep. 10 (News Report) - The bill's exact language: "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully in the United States." But Wilson is far from alone in thinking that the prohibition in the House bill doesn't go far enough. For him and other Republicans, the problem is not what's in the bill, it's what the bill leaves out — namely a provision to enforce the no-illegals rule.

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The life lessons of Burning Man

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Mark Morford - Aug. 28 (Opinion) - As I've been lured back to the sweltering, dusty sexed-up madness that is Burning Man again this year -- my sixth time -- by a gaggle of delicious friends, I am hereby reminded of a few hundred truths, half-truths, outright lies and astonishing epiphanies offered up by the world-famous, Christian-feared, beautifully debauched, sensory overloaded, impossible-to-describe art-survivalist-camping-rave megaspectacle now underway in the remote Nevada desert.

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Doing away with dams

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - Aug. 16 (Editorial) - Dams aren't the infrastructure darlings they once were. Since 1999, 430 dams have come down, according to the American Rivers environmental group. The reasons are largely economic: Maintenance is high as the concrete walls age. Also, power needs can be supplied by other sources. The decline of migrating salmon and steelhead are also a factor. These problems don't mean all dams are doomed or new ones will never be built. Dam defenders note that hydropower is produced without emissions. And flood control and growing water needs remain issues that are suited for the water-controlling structures.

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US Battling CIA Rendition Case in 3 Courts | CommonDreams.org

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Bob Egelko - Aug. 09 (News Report) - The Obama administration is fighting on multiple fronts - in courts in San Francisco, Washington and London - to keep an official veil of secrecy over the treatment of a former prisoner who says he was tortured at Guantanamo Bay.

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10 amazing truths you already suspected

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Mark Morford - Aug. 07 (Opinion) - 1) Let's start with, say, tanning beds. Turns out they cause cancer like a mofo. I mean, as bad as arsenic. As mustard gas. Smoking. Chimney sweeping. The Jonas Brothers. I mean, obviously. Like you didn't already know. Like you thought it was all healthy fun and games to strip yourself naked and lay on a bed of giant blue light bulbs and have ultraviolet rays blasted into every inch of your skin for hours per week and think, yeah, this can't be all bad, can it?

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Republicans, Democrats at odds in Sotomayor debate

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Julie Hirschfeld Davis - Aug. 03 (News Report) - Senate Republicans are lining up to criticize Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as unfit for the bench while Democrats offer effusive praise of the judge whose confirmation this week as the first Hispanic justice is all but assured. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/08/03/national/w142850D75.DTL&feed=rss.news#ixzz0NJwQf3VJ

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Pelosi to fight for health care bill during recess

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Carolyn Lochhead - Aug. 02 (News Report) - She swallowed pork chops on a stick to woo red-state Democrats for her majority, then faced an open rebellion among the Blue Dog conservatives she helped elect. No sooner were they appeased than liberals threatened to bolt. Pelosi achieved a tentative and unstable truce, missing President Obama's deadline of passing a health care bill out of the House by the August recess, but averting a meltdown.

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Sands Hid Fate of Gulf War Pilot Missing Since 1991

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By All Authors - Aug. 02 (News) - Mystery Surrounding Speicher’s Whereabouts Had Sparked Rumors, Conspiracy Theories

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Obama's crappy patio furniture

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Peter Hartlaub - Aug. 01 (Opinion) - I can't believe the president doesn't have better patio furniture.

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California could have $15 billion shortfalls

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Richard Procter - Jul. 31 (News Report) - The plan signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week to balance the state's budget could leave California facing shortfalls in future years of more than $15 billion, according to an analysis released Thursday by a major Wall Street credit rating firm.

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U.S. citizens wrongly detained, deported by ICE

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Tyche Hendricks - Jul. 27 (News Report) - The son of a decorated Vietnam veteran, Hector Veloz is a U.S. citizen, but in 2007 immigration officials mistook him for an illegal immigrant and locked him in an Arizona prison for 13 months

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Obama Goes to Bat for Bush Wiretap Program

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Bob Egelko - Jul. 15 (News Report) - President Obama is adamant about maintaining the secrecy of a wiretapping program authorized by George W. Bush, an administration lawyer told a federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday.

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Democrats open push to overhaul health care

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - Jul. 14 (News Report) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats opened an all-fronts charge Tuesday to pass a $1.5 trillion, 10-year health care overhaul by August, unveiling legislation that would tax the wealthy to pay for universal coverage, create a public insurance plan... ...

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Crops, ponds destroyed in quest for food safety

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau - Jul. 13 (News Report) - Dick Peixoto planted hedges of fennel and flowering cilantro around his organic vegetable fields in the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville to harbor beneficial insects, an alternative to pesticides. He has since ripped out such plants in the name of food safety,...

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Impatience builds over slow-moving stimulus

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Carolyn Lochhead - Jul. 12 (News Analysis) - The record-breaking $787 billion fiscal stimulus package that Congress passed in February is not breaking records on the job front. In California, with 11.5 percent unemployment, it has done little more than prevent layoffs of state workers. In response, Democrats who sold the stimulus as a way to cap the national unemployment rate at 8 percent are scrambling to explain why hundreds of thousands of jobs disappear each month. And House Republicans, who voted unanimously against the stimulus, have again ridiculed funding to save San Francisco Bay's salt marsh harvest mouse as an example of waste by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, although the mouse lives outside her San Francisco district.

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Special alloy sleeves urged to block hackers?

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Todd Lewan - Jul. 11 (News Report) - Separately, a system called STAR, that adapts deep-space communications technologies to read passive tags from distances greater than 600 feet, was announced last year by a Los Angeles startup called Mojix, Inc. It uses "smart antennas" and "digital beam forming" to process signals in four dimensions — time, space, frequency and polarization. Mojix, founded by a former NASA scientist, promotes the technology for supply chain management and asset tracking

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Clinton asks North Korea to release journalists

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Joe Garofoli - Jul. 10 (News Report) - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asked North Korea's government Friday to grant amnesty to two journalists from San Francisco's Current TV imprisoned there, a move analysts say may open the diplomatic door for the journalists' release.

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New ad says pot smokers "happy to be taxed'' -- can they help with CA's budget crunch?

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Carla Marinucci - Jul. 09 (News Report) - So could legalized pot keep California from closing parks and cutting school funding in the state's current budget crunch? Folks at the Marijuana Policy Project say yes -- and they've launched a statewide ad campaign today to reach Gov.Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers in California as they wrestle this week over the yawning $26 billion-plus deficit.

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Crap Detection 101

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Howard Rheingold - Jul. 07 (Special Report) - The answer to almost any question is available within seconds, courtesy of the invention that has altered how we discover knowledge - the search engine. Materializing answers from the air turns out to be the easy part - the part a machine can do. The real difficulty kicks in when you click down into your search results. At that point, it's up to you to sort the accurate bits from the misinfo, disinfo, spam, scams, urban legends, and hoaxes. "Crap detection," as Hemingway called it half a century ago, is more important than ever before, now that the automation of crapcasting has generated its own word: "spamming." Unless a great many people learn the basics of online crap detection and begin applying their critical faculties en masse and very soon, I fear for the future of the Internet as a useful source of credible news, medical advice, financial information, educational resources, scholarly and scientific research. Some critics argue that a tsunami of hogwash has already rendered the Web useless. I disagree. We are indeed inundated by online noise pollution, but the problem is soluble. The good stuff is out there if you know how to find and verify it. Basic information literacy, widely distributed, is the best protection for the knowledge commons: A sufficient portion of critical consumers among the online population can become a strong defense against the noise-death of the Internet.

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