Most if not all adverse decisions of environmental directives will no doubt be appealed, but, they are being appealed into a hostile Supreme Court. One of the options available is not to appeal it until there is a change in administration in DC and laws once again side with environmental protections. To take adverse decisions to the Supreme Court could cause changes in the 'nation' adversely.
The option of impeachment of hostile court judges in California needs to be explored while it is clear the Governor is appointing people that are turning against the best interests of citizens and favoring exploitation of natural resources and concerns of California citizens.
The Navy isn't even involved in 'the war' in Iraq and yet the Navy will demand to do unnecessary testing just to satisfy a sadistic Commander and Chief. I haven't noticed any subs in Baghdad, have you?Fugitive fundraiser turns himself in
Henry K. Lee,John Wildermuth, Chronicle Staff Writers
Friday, August 31, 2007
REDWOOD CITY - Fugitive fundraiser Norman Hsu, the deep-pocketed Democrat who handed out more than $250,000 to Sen. Hillary Clinton and other party candidates and causes in the past few years, turned himself in today in San Mateo County on a 15-year-old warrant for grand theft.
Hsu surrendered at San Mateo County Superior Court in Redwood City on a $2 million warrant, said Steve Wagstaffe, chief deputy district attorney. Hsu and his attorneys coordinated the surrender with prosecutors from state Attorney General Jerry Brown's office, Wagstaffe said.
"We got a call yesterday afternoon and were asked to provide a courtroom for the hearing," Wagstaffe said.
Judge James Ellis ordered Hsu into custody and set a court hearing for Wednesday, when his attorney will seek to have Hsu's bail reduced. Ellis declined to lower Hsu's $2 million bail during a brief hearing this morning.
Hsu, 56, faced the possibility of up to three years behind bars after pleading no contest in 1992 to scamming investors in a pyramid scheme. But he didn't show up for his sentencing, records show.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/31/BADURT6B8.DTL
Bush Outlines Aid for Mortgage Holders
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
Friday, August 31, 2007
(08-31) 12:28 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --
President Bush outlined ways the federal government can help troubled borrowers keep their homes Friday in an effort to address rising foreclosures fueled by the mortgage crisis.
The administration's first attempt at dealing with a wave of defaults is not aimed at bailing out lenders, however.
"It's not the government's job to bail out speculators or those who made the decision to buy a home they knew they could never afford," Bush said in the Rose Garden. "Yet there are many American homeowners who could get through this difficult time with a little flexibility from their lenders or a little help from their government."
The U.S. economy enjoyed a strong revival in the spring but since then has been threatened by the worst housing slump in 16 years and a widening credit crisis that has sent financial markets on a roller coaster ride.
The president insisted that the economy was strong and could weather turbulence in the markets.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/08/31/national/w084857D78.DTL&tsp=1
Founder of Peet's Coffee dies at 87
Chronicle Staff Report
Friday, August 31, 2007
(08-31) 10:57 PDT BERKELEY - Alfred Peet, who founded Peet's Coffee & Tea and opened its first store 41 years ago in Berkeley, died Wednesday at his home in Ashland, Ore., the company said today. He was 87.
Mr. Peet opened the coffee roaster's first store in 1966, followed by outlets in Menlo Park (1971), Piedmont Avenue in Oakland (1978) and another Berkeley store across from the Claremont Hotel in 1980. He retired in 1983.
Mr. Peet was born in Alkmaar, Holland. He cleaned machinery and did other odd jobs at his father's coffee roastery in Alkmaar before World War II.
After the war, Mr. Peet became an apprentice at Lipton's Tea in London, then moved to Indonesia to work in the tea business there.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/31/BA3RRT78V.DTL&tsp=1
Safety of nation trumps endangered whales, appeals court says
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, August 31, 2007
08-31) 11:45 PDT SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court allowed the Navy today to resume using underwater sonar blasts in anti-submarine warfare tests off the Channel Islands in Southern California, saying the nation's military needs outweigh the safety of endangered whales.
In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco suspended an April 6 injunction by a federal judge in Los Angeles that ordered the Navy to halt the sonar experiments during training exercises scheduled through 2009.
In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper said the underwater sound waves could harm nearly 30 species of marine mammals, including five species of endangered whales.
The Navy had earlier been allowed to conduct sonar tests in the area while taking steps to protect the whales, such as posting lookouts and reducing sound levels when whales were present. Navy officials have not proposed those measures this time.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/31/BAEVRT7DT.DTL
Weekend of truth arrives - Bay Bridge closing for viaduct project
Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, August 31, 2007
At 8 p.m., the long-awaited, much publicized closure of the Bay Bridge begins. And for the next 81 hours or so - for the first time since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake - the connection between the East Bay and San Francisco will be severed completely.
For the past six months, transportation officials have warned residents of the Bay Area, the Central Valley and Southern California of the closure, spending nearly $1 million on Web sites, flyers, radio ads and pre-movie commercials. Caltrans has subsidized mass transit, paying for BART to offer limited overnight service and for the ferry systems to operate additional boats.
Two big questions will be answered beginning tonight:
-- Was the public paying attention? Or will folks still hop into their cars and clog the approaches to the Golden Gate, Richmond-San Rafael and San Mateo bridges, causing regional gridlock?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/31/MNI3RSDR7.DTL
Tree-sitters lose court round - Cal can keep them fenced in
Carolyn Jones,Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writers
Friday, August 31, 2007
UC Berkeley does not have to tear down a fence it erected around tree-sitters protesting plans to cut down an oak grove outside Memorial Stadium, an Alameda County judge ruled in advance of Saturday's nationally televised Cal football game.
Siding with attorneys for the university, Judge Barbara Miller of Alameda County Superior Court said late Thursday that the fence was a safety measure and did not constitute development at the site.
The tree-sitters had been marooned for hours without food or water until UC police allowed supporters to give them supplies beginning Wednesday evening.
Earlier that day, the university erected the barrier around part of an oak grove near the stadium, where tree-sitters have perched since December to protest UC's plans to cut down the trees to make way for a $125 million sports training center.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/31/BADURT6IV.DTL
Peter Hartlaub/Pop Culture: Apologists leave much to be desired
Peter Hartlaub
Friday, August 31, 2007
Say what you want about Americans, we're awesome at pretty much everything.
We're great at making chili, parallel parking and every sport in the world that isn't boring (basketball, football, ultimate fighting, etc.). We may have lost our touch at making cars, but we've made huge strides in the field of competitive eating. Pretty much the only things we don't completely rule at are foreign policy and the doubles luge at the Winter Olympics.
And, I'm sorry to say, apologizing.
This week's Michael Vick dog-fighting admission and Idaho Sen. Larry Craig airport-potty nooky accusations were followed by two more high-profile apologies, adding to a year filled with atrocious mea culpas. In the past 12 months, we've seen apologies by several major sports stars, cast members of "Seinfeld" and "Grey's Anatomy," and three big-city California mayors, including San Francisco's Gavin Newsom - with more apologies from Newsom's girlfriend.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/31/DDDTRRK8M.DTL
Politics blunted breast-feeding push
Congressman looking into claims of interference
Marc Kaufman,Christopher Lee, Washington Post
Friday, August 31, 2007
(08-31) 04:00 PDT Washington - --
In an attempt to raise the nation's historically low rate of breast-feeding, federal health officials commissioned an attention-grabbing advertising campaign a few years ago to convince mothers that their babies faced real health risks if they did not breast-feed. It featured striking photos of insulin syringes and asthma inhalers topped with rubber nipples.
Plans to run these blunt ads infuriated the politically powerful infant-formula industry, which hired a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a former top regulatory official to lobby the Health and Human Services Department. Not long afterward, department political appointees toned down the campaign.
The ads ran instead with friendlier images of dandelions and cherry-topped ice cream scoops, to dramatize how breast-feeding could help avert respiratory problems and obesity. In a February 2004 letter, the lobbyists told then-agency Secretary Tommy Thompson they were "grateful" for his staff's intervention to stop health officials from "scaring expectant mothers into breast-feeding," and asked for help in scaling back more of the ads.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/31/MN7LRSTG2.DTL
Young idealist represents a generation's angst about homeownership
By Carol Lloyd, Special to SF Gate
Friday, August 31, 2007
When a press release found its way into my inbox from a frustrated young woman who was threatening to sue the real estate industry "for the sake of her generation" if she couldn't get a mortgage, I was intrigued. Despite the dubious premise of her threats, Caroline Houck, an upstart developer of utopian communities, nonetheless represents feelings about real estate, its professionals and the sense of the younger landless generation being cheated by the landed Boomers that were not new to me.
Describing herself as "hopping mad" about business as usual in the industry, Houck said she's ready to take her case to court.
"I'm a statistic," Houck told me when reached in her home in Sonoma County. "When you have unstable living environments, you have fundamental stress -- that causes you to not be able to be effective in the world. All these future-thinking young people are spending all their time on housing and I don't think the older generation has any idea what we're experiencing."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/08/31/carollloyd.DTL
THE bondage FILE
http://www.sfgate.com/n/bondage/
Not To Mention The Stigma Of Being 'It'
Colo. School Bans Tag on Its Playground
Thursday, August 30, 2007
(08-30) 22:32 PDT Colorado Springs, Colo. (AP) --
An elementary school has banned tag on its playground after some children complained they were harassed or chased against their will.
"It causes a lot of conflict on the playground," said Cindy Fesgen, assistant principal of the Discovery Canyon Campus school.
Running games are still allowed as long as students don't chase each other, she said.
Fesgen said two parents complained to her about the ban but most parents and children didn't object.
In 2005, two elementary schools in the nearby Falcon School District did away with tag and similar games in favor of alternatives with less physical contact. School officials said the move encouraged more students to play games and helped reduce playground squabbles.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/08/30/national/a030807D30.DTL&type=bondage
BROADMOOR
Bees swarm school; teacher in hospital
John Cote
Friday, August 31, 2007
A swarm of bees attacked elementary school students and a teacher who tried to help during recess Thursday in the Peninsula enclave of Broadmoor, stinging the teacher so many times he was hospitalized, police said.
Eleven students were stung at Garden Village Elementary School. All were treated by paramedics at the scene and then were either picked up by parents or went back to class, police Cpl. Steve Rettinger said.
The teacher, identified only as a 36-year-old man, was taken by ambulance to Seton Medical Center in Daly City. He is expected to recover, Rettinger said.
It's unclear what prompted the insects' fury.
"The kids all said that they were playing on the playground and they just started getting stung," Rettinger said. "The kids denied disturbing any hive or anything like that, and no hive was seen."
The exact number of wounds the teacher received was unknown.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/31/BAUMRSTHB.DTL
Caregivers allegedly stole for drug money
John Cote
Friday, August 31, 2007
A couple hired to care for a bedridden 80-year-old Daly City woman stole her checks and rang up thousands of dollars on her credit cards to feed the man's drug habit, San Mateo County prosecutors said Thursday.
Rodelio Flores, 38, and his wife, Marichu Flores, 35, were arrested Monday after Rodelio Flores tried to pass a bad check at a bank, authorities said. That check was from a separate victim, prosecutors said.
Police, called after a teller noticed the check had been altered, found that Rodelio Flores had the 80-year-old woman's credit cards and mail with him, Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said. Marichu Flores was in the couple's car nearby, waiting for her husband.
The two allegedly charged thousands of dollars on items such as clothes and small appliances that they then sold on the street, using the money to maintain Rodelio Flores' methamphetamine habit, Wagstaffe said. The couple were in custody Thursday, with bail set $85,000 each.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/31/BAGPERT356.DTL
State Supreme Court ruling in golfing case a caution for duffers
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, August 31, 2007
The California Supreme Court inscribed into law Thursday something any weekend golfer knows - that hooks and slices are part of the game, and that anyone who stands in range of an errant shot is taking a chance of being hit.
Applying a principle that was first established in a 1992 case about touch football, the court ruled 6-1 that golfers, like athletes in contact sports, accept the normal risks of the game and can't sue for injuries caused by another player's mere carelessness or negligence.
But the justices also said a golfer who knows that someone is in the danger zone but doesn't look down the fairway before teeing up might be reckless, not merely negligent, and thus subject to a damages suit by the victim.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/31/BA90RSOPT.DTL
Burning Blog: High Noon in the Temple
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=3&entry_id=19910
6 Firefighters Die in Croatia
By SNJEZANA VUKIC, Associated Press Writer
Friday, August 31, 2007
(08-31) 12:33 PDT ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) --
The prime minister promised an investigation Friday into Croatia's worst firefighting disaster, in which six men were killed and seven badly injured when they were trapped battling a fierce forest blaze.
The group — including volunteers aged 17 and 18 — was encircled by flames Thursday when the wind suddenly changed direction while they were fighting a fire on Kornat island, national firefighting chief Mladen Jurin said.
Police said eight men had been detained on suspicion of arson. The state-run news agency HINA said the eight were seasonal construction and tourism workers. They were allegedly filmed setting the fire by a German tourist.
The fire was brought under control early Friday.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/08/31/international/i123309D79.DTL&tsp=1
Spears Premieres `Gimme More' Single
By ERIN CARLSON, Associated Press Writer
Friday, August 31, 2007
(08-31) 11:59 PDT New York (AP) --
It seems like forever since Britney Spears had six-pack abs and a hit song on the charts. But the fallen pop princess — tarnished by a tumultuous divorce, late-night partying and erratic behavior — is trying to get her music career back on track.
For real this time.
Her new single, "Gimme More," debuted Thursday night on the Web site of New York City pop station Z100, and a new album is due for release Nov. 13 by Jive Records, the label's representative, Wendy Washington, told The Associated Press on Friday.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/08/31/entertainment/e115916D91.DTL&tsp=1&type=entertainment
Google Begins Hosting News on Its Site
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer
Friday, August 31, 2007
(08-31) 12:57 PDT SAN FRANCISCO, (AP) --
Internet search leader Google Inc. on Friday began hosting material produced by The Associated Press and three other news services on its own Web site instead of only sending readers to other destinations.
The change affects hundreds of stories and photographs distributed each day by the AP, Agence France-Presse, The Press Association in the United Kingdom and The Canadian Press. It could diminish Internet traffic to newspaper and broadcast companies' Web sites where those stories and photos are also found — a development that could reduce those companies' revenue from online advertising.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/08/31/financial/f104822D74.DTL&tsp=1
An old ally in AIDS fight
Friday, August 31, 2007
DRUG THERAPY, education and prevention are mainstays in the fight against AIDS. But researchers have come up with another idea to stem infection: male circumcision.
In developed countries, the operation is a commonplace option given to parents with infant sons. In Africa, however, the removal of the penis foreskin isn't widespread. Health researchers have noted a important factor: the thin layer of uncut skin is highly vulnerable to the AIDS virus, and removing it could sharply drop infection.
Studies have taken years to establish the point, but now the world's biggest AIDS prevention program run by the United States will begin paying for the operations, mostly in sub-Sahara Africa where 60 percent of the world's 40 million infected people live.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/08/31/EDEQRND7T.DTL
America, The Sexy Fascist State
Surveillance cameras are booming. The question is, do they make your butt look big?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, August 24, 2007
Mark Morford will be on vacation the week of 8/27/07
I like to picture it, if I have to picture it at all, as some sort of giant, low-lit converted warehouse, loosely staffed with a haphazard gaggle of scraggy, perpetually hung-over former frat guys and ex-cops and disgruntled former bank tellers all staring numbly at banks of 10-year-old black-and-white Dell monitors set about in a scattershot array of worn gray cubicles, all smelling of stale coffee and overloaded electrical outlets and tiny lost dreams.
They are wary, these government workers, these data miners. They are jaded, burned out, sighing heavily. After all, they know it's all some big in-joke, this supposedly ominous government surveillance thing, all the cameras and the wiretapping and the Internet scouring. I mean, isn't it?
http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/
Rookie cop who shot himself to death at party was intoxicated
John Coté, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, August 31, 2007
(08-30) 17:14 PDT SAN MATEO - A San Francisco rookie police officer who shot himself to death during a late-night gathering at his San Mateo apartment was legally drunk, toxicology tests show.
Officer James Gustafson Jr., 23, had a blood alcohol level of 0.09 percent - slightly above the 0.08 limit for legally driving a car - when he shot himself Aug. 11, San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault said today.
Gustafson shot himself in the neck at 1:40 a.m. during a gathering of as many as 15 people, as he was showing a woman how police are taught to prevent someone from using a gun against them, authorities said.
There's no way to know whether Gustafson was too drunk to know what he was doing, the coroner said.
"Somebody's blood alcohol level and their ability to function correctly can vary from individual to individual," Foucrault said. "It's subjective."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/31/BA78RSJKI.DTL
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