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No. That's not going to happen.

Obama et al. waited till three days after the election to obviate two thirds of all western tar sands and shale. The US has been and will remain completely hostile to all such development.

Energy poverty. You voted for it.

HTC aren't nowhere near as big as Apple, but with a revenue around 9 Billion USD, I doubt a few millions for lawyers is a game changer.

Your base are assumptions are way, way off. From SFGate:

Compare those accomplishments with recent investments by Apple and Google, and you'll be disappointed. Collectively, the two have spent an estimated $400 million on litigation expenses fighting the so-called "smartphone wars," a worldwide spate of patent suits that so far has done little more than enrich lawyers and reduce consumer choice in the mobile device market.

Shockingly, both companies spent far more in the last two years simply purchasing patents - new ammunition for the patent war effort - than they invested in research and design.

They spend more on patent wars then they do on research.

That wasn't done with tithing money. It was money raised from the members of the church specifically for that purpose. In fact, I don't think it would even be legal for tithing (tax-deductible charitable donations) to be used to fight a political battle. In any case, I know that requests for donations were made, to support that battle, and that it was made clear to the members that such donations would not be tax deductible.

It does seem that there is more to the story. Apparently the $20 million was raised, as you said, via a specificly created non-charitable organization. However, it seems that the current tax code permits up to 20% of a religious organization's spending to be used on non-candidate politicing such as citizen initiatives regarding "moral questsions." So, given the vast amounts of money they do collect, they probably could have laundered $20M just fine.

Citation for both points: SFGate - Tax-exempt benefit disputed in Prop. 8 campaign

This is a common problem: emergency and safety systems are completely pointless 99% of the time... until you have an emergency, at which point they're indispensable.

San Francisco still has thousands hardwired call boxes for the fire department on every other street corner, it's a fall back in case an earthquake takes out other forms of communication.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Why-S-F-still-counts-on-street-fire-alarm-boxes-3081293.php

Just because you are ignorant of the evidence doesn't mean there wasn't any. Try reading Henry Lee's live blog of the trial.

Turned out, the dogs were responding to very subtle cues from their handlers, rather than their own senses. Which renders them completely inappropriate for law-enforcement use.

Please Mod -1000: Utter Bullshit.

Dogs are the absolute best tool we have for the job. There's a reason we use dogs to hunt animals, guard animals, property, and people, track fugitives, search for survivors, bodies, drugs, and explosives, detect cancer or seizures, lead the blind, etc. They have incredible senses and are very intelligent.

Please link to proof of your "literally unacceptable percentage of false positives" for properly trained canines and handlers.

Seems to me that she wasn't saying anything about properly trained handler and dog teams, but about the likelihood that so many trainers have biases that lead to false positives that dogs cannot be relied upon. She said "the dogs were responding to very subtle cues from their handlers." I don't see anything in that post about well trained dogs paired with unbiased trainers. It is very well documented that handler bias frequently leads to false positives. For example, this article notes that sniffer dogs got it wrong four out of five times in 14,102 searches. This articleclaims that over a three year period only 44 percent of alerts by dogs led to the discovery of drugs or paraphernalia. A UC Davis study found that if handlers expected their dogs to find drugs they consistently found drugs, even when there weren't any. A little bit of searching will turn up plenty of other examples. In some cases defenders of using dogs claim that the high rate of false positives is due to drug residue being left in a vehicle or on a person. That the mere presence of someone carrying a substance the dog was trained to detect, like marijuana, in a vehicle hours earlier could result in a false positive. Medical marijuana is legal in 17 states and the District of Columbia. Which means that just transporting someone to legally obtain some marijuana for a medical condition could result in being searched and detained.

I think the fact that he confessed to killing her and then proceeded to lead police to her body is a pretty good indication of his guilt: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Reiser-confesses-to-strangling-estranged-wife-3197731.php

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Zynga-s-Downfall-Exposes-The-Biggest-Threat-To-3939452.php

Zynga's not doing so well either. Facebook is a joke in the context of TFA, just like you stated. Their bones will be buried with MySpace soon enough. I should coin GAAM (google, apple, amazon, microsoft), because it's likely they'll be dominating tech sales for some time to come.

Does anyone really give a shit what this particular group has to say?

Your elected representatives, who look to outfits like this guidance in turning file sharing in to a crime akin to detonating nail bombs on crowded busses.

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Debate-over-Internet-piracy-legislation-heats-up-2576620.php

Just google "political activist no fly list" and you'll find several. Just look at this: http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/No-fly-blacklist-snares-political-activists-2791720.php http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/10/1073245/-Occupy-activist-filmmaker-put-on-no-fly-list

It was Akio Toyoda himself was involved with the transaction.

As for who else knew of this deal, I'd suggest you look at the various newspaper articles that discussed the investment by Toyota into Tesla.

In fact the Governator himself was at the ground breaking with Mr. Toyoda and Elon Musk, as can be seen in the photo with this article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37358614/ns/business-us_business/t/tesla-toyota-give-jolt-nummi-plant/#.UFVoi1GaVRQ

I can't help it if you've been living under a rock, and neither could the GP poster.

And then there's the MTC in the San Francisco Bay Area (funded through sales tax and bridge tolls among other sources) that purchased an entire building in downtown San Francisco and is renovating it to become offices for $170M. It's not clear why they couldn't stay in Oakland where office space is much cheaper than downtown San Francisco. Well, it is clear -- they have unlimited funding since residents are forced to fund them, if they need more money they can just raise tolls and/or taxes.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_21418357/mtcs-san-francisco-office-building-purchase-bridge-tolls
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/MTC-project-may-cost-Bay-Area-drivers-more-3822760.php

When confronted with the fact that their purchase may not have been cost effective, the MTC rep said:

a San Mateo County supervisor who chairs the commission, insisted that the agency's goal was never to make money - or even necessarily to break even.
"We're not looking at it as investment per se," Tissier said. "We look at it as moving into your own home."

That's the problem with government agencies - what incentive do they have to spend money wisely?

Anonymous claims to be a bunch people with like aims and no leadership. So this may be just some person who happened to get hold of the info and published it claiming to be Anonymous or Anti-sec or whomever. The claim that the data came from the FBI is unsupported - proof would be some additional data from the same system such as logs, etc. which have not been produced.

My personal guess is that the most likely source is some social networking site and the guy is saying it's the FBI as some sort of disinformation. It's possible but unlikely that both Apple and the FBI are outright lying about the source. There are all sorts of other possibilities.

I wonder who it is who claims to have Mitt's tax returns. The extortion attempt is out of character for the usual gang of kiddies.

Report of Romney tax records on the loose

Yes, its amazing just how many bloggers are running away from their predictions:

It's all but said and done that Oracle is going to have some kind of pay day. During a court hearing last July, Judge Alsup admitted that Google is definitely going to pay up "probably in the millions, maybe in the billions" at some point.

Rachel King April 16, 2012.

SF Gate, on the other hand pretty much predicted this outcome just 9 days later on April 25, 2012:

The remarkable thing is that, when the dust settles, five of the seven patents Oracle claimed that Google violated will likely be overturned because Google forced the patent office to take a second look. ...
If only two of Oracle's patents hold up on review, that means the patent office got it right less than 30 percent of the time, an average we have every reason to believe is representative of the entire sector's patents. In fact, software patent holders lose nearly 90 percent of the time in litigation, Stanford law Professor Mark Lemley found in a research paper published last year.

The courts would do best if they just struck down software patents again, as they have done three times in the past.

Even the output from software should not be patentable (slide to unlock).

John Madden's fear of flying has translated in having his coach bus with all the comforts. Satellite internet is one of them:
http://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/John-Madden-s-first-class-coach-Voice-of-2770534.php

More info here.

It doesn't matter anyway, they won't let you through security with the warhead you'd need to make that kind of speed worthwhile.

Actually, they will. They'll just poke and prod it a bit uncomfortably before letting you through.

Here's a similar tale of toilet trouble
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Low-flow-toilets-cause-a-stink-in-SF-2457645.php

As of February, there are only four. My comment wasn't meant to be taken literally. :-)

I can tell you where the next Silicon Vally is, and you folks down there in promoting Phoenix won't want to hear it:
San Francisco.

Not only are people not wanting to move out of California, they are moving to the only place even more expensive than Silicon Vally, which is good old San Francisco.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/San-Francisco-office-sales-booming-3750956.php

The reason is because the talent is here, and the talent WANTS to come here. Young 20-somethings who are generally creative and technology-oriented don't want to move to Phoenix because 1) It's too hot and 2) It's too conservative.

Sorry SV wannabees...San Francisco is the place to be.

Gee, I thought the talent was going to China, where good jobs and seed money is available. You can still retain American citizenship. Benefit-- you learn a second (or third) language and appreciate a different society and its values.

FYI, judge Lucy Koh is not a Korean-American

She is a Chinese-American

Get your facts right, please

Obama picks Korean American for federal bench

President Obama has nominated Lucy Koh, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge, to the federal bench in San Jose. If confirmed, she would be the nation's second Korean American federal judge.

She is the daughter of Korean immigrants. Her mother escaped North Korea after the 1945 division of Korea by walking south for two weeks while suffering from yellow fever, and her father fought against the Communists in the Korean War, then opposed a military dictatorship in South Korea and immigrated to the United States, according to the Asian American Justice Center, a civil rights group.

I'm talking about the resale rights. The right to resell copyrighted media, such as used books, CDs, and computer games, is well established in law. Modern DRM circumvents that right, since it prevents the user from transferring their used games to someone else. It's also anti-competitive, since it prevents legitimate competition (the used games stores).

That's what modern DRM is really about. It's inefficient against piracy, and it's not there just to fuck with the consumer, it's there to prevent competition from used games. Game producers have tried to sue used games stores, claiming they violate copyright just by buying and selling used games. They want a cut every time a used game is being sold. They claim they lose money for every game that's resold and how used games will kill single-player games,

Personally, I think the industry is biting itself in the ass. People sell their old games to get money to buy new ones, and the knowledge that you can sell your used game, makes it easier to shell out $40 for a new one.

I can tell you where the next Silicon Vally is, and you folks down there in promoting Phoenix won't want to hear it:
San Francisco.

Not only are people not wanting to move out of California, they are moving to the only place even more expensive than Silicon Vally, which is good old San Francisco.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/San-Francisco-office-sales-booming-3750956.php

The reason is because the talent is here, and the talent WANTS to come here. Young 20-somethings who are generally creative and technology-oriented don't want to move to Phoenix because 1) It's too hot and 2) It's too conservative.

Sorry SV wannabees...San Francisco is the place to be.

"So people would have the same reaction to any firearm manufacture right?" ..well, check this shit out.
cop allowed to sue Glock.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Judge-allows-paralyzed-dad-to-sue-Glock-3732408.php ...by a Los Angeles policeman who was paralyzed from the waist down when his 3-year-old son shot him with his service pistol. ....Enrique Chavez claimed in his lawsuit that the Glock 21 lacked adequate safeguards against an accidental discharge because it had a light trigger pull and did not have a grip safety
ok - this is true. Glocks do not have a traditional safety that needs to be released before the trigger moves.
and put his son, Collin, in the back seat of his pickup truck to drop the boy off at his grandfather's house...
sounds tragic, right? wait -
Chavez had removed the child's car seat from the truck and had forgotten that he had left his Glock, which he always kept loaded, beneath the front seat, the court said. ...now Glock has to defend themselves against this moron.

go back to the beginning.. "son shot him with his service pistol."

SERVICE PISTOL. there's a reason LAPD picked Glock as their standard issue.. it's BECAUSE of the lack of traditional safeties and the light trigger pull.

he should sue LAPD for trusting him to carry a gun.

Ask Irv Gordon how his Volvo P1800 with almost 3 million miles runs...
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Correction-Volvo-Million-Miler-story-3692250.php

Aaron Z

Last word!

In seriousness, there are many people that feel that "this was coming", or "it was going to happen eventually", and discounts the costs involved, since it has been done in many other developed nations with varying levels of success, generally positive.

But, our particular situation is unique. The US carries much more than our fair share of medical research and investment, and it comes out in our costs. Medicine is many, many times more expensive here than anywhere else, and our system encourages it...there is so much profit to be made, that investors will nod to controversial or even small quality-of-life items, and very talented individuals will opt for medicine as a career choice. And what comes to the top is the very best, because everything must be thoroughly vetted by the FDA, and the medical community in general. The that is why people are screaming bloody murder, because something will have to collapse...either the best-of-the-best research institutions and physicians...or the businessman. So you have our current situation...physicians feeling the pain and looking at bailing out, and 72% of businesses have been forced to limit hiring.

It is what it is.

This article gives you an idea of where we are at. Reading the numbers that Europe contributes can give you an idea where we are going.

Your progressive radio host of choice may be dismissing this, but there is a little more to the business side of the story than mere Republican posturing.

You don't live in NYC, but don't feel left out! Copy-cat policies are on their way to a city near you!

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/SF-mayor-considering-police-stop-and-frisk-policy-3669799.php

khipu laid out plenty of facts and 2 minutes crawling the net would confirm everything he says.

How much data do you need? If you need everything referencing, here's about 5 minutes worth:

Healthcare cop-out:

Cut a secret deal to kill the public option, while campaigning on its behalf
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/ny-times-reporter-confirm_b_500999.html

Cut a deal to exempt abortion services from health care reform
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/21/deal-struck-on-abortion-clears-path-for-health-care-passage/

Pushed for a 5 year prison term for Charles Lynch, the operator of a medical marijuana dispensary, legal under California law
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/21/BA1V175SB9.DTL

Granted waivers for 30 companies, including McDonald's, exempting them from health care reform
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2010-10-07-healthlaw07_ST_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Warmonger:

Sent 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8389778.stm

Successfully protected Bush officials from prosecution for torture
http://washingtonindependent.com/33985/in-torture-cases-obama-toes-bush-line

Proposed a three year freeze on domestic spending, exempting cuts from the Pentagon and Homeland Security
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/26/obama-allies-struggle-to_n_436996.html

Argued that the widespread use of Predator drones is a justifiable form of self-defense
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/drone-attacks-legit-self-defense-says-administration-lawyer/

Revived "Prompt Global Strike" weapons system, considered too controversial by Bush Administration
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/obama-revives-rumsfeld-era-missile-scheme/

Backed off on his promise to close the prison at Guantanamo
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/us/politics/26gitmo.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Extended the Patriot Act without making any reforms
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0301/Obama-signs-Patriot-Act-extension-without-reforms

Cronyism:

Violated his own ban on lobbyists working for the administration
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/240/tougher-rules-against-revolving-door-for-lobbyists/

Sided with utility companies in lawsuit to stop greenhouse gas emissions
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/08/26/obama-stance-on-climate-suit-stuns-allies/

Gave permits to BP and other oil companies, exempting them from environmental protection laws
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/us/14agency.html

Appointed Lawrence Summers as his top economic advise

Given that traffic congestion is a shortage of available road space for the number of motorists who want to use it at a particular time, the solution is obvious to anyone with an ounce of economic sense: stop setting the price below the going rate determined by supply and demand. Get rid of the government-imposed price ceilings on freeway travel, and suddenly the traffic jams will start to clear up.

Ideally, the price should rise and fall throughout the day to keep demand constant and prevent overcharging anyone.

Meanwhile, in the real world, most people have to get to and from work at pretty set times determined by their employer. There is no "free market" or "supply and demand" although the right wingers will, of course, say that you can always leave your job, start up your own consultancy business and so on.

Public roads should be for everyone to access equally. If you're really that rich that you can't face using the same roads as the plebs, buy a fucking helicopter, (but take care not to have too many lessons).

In the UK we don't have toll roads yet, but unfortunately I can see them coming, as this country's Tory government strives to copy the US.

Given that traffic congestion is a shortage of available road space for the number of motorists who want to use it at a particular time, the solution is obvious to anyone with an ounce of economic sense: stop setting the price below the going rate determined by supply and demand. Get rid of the government-imposed price ceilings on freeway travel, and suddenly the traffic jams will start to clear up.

Ideally, the price should rise and fall throughout the day to keep demand constant and prevent overcharging anyone.

There are a lot of ways to disprove evolution. In fact, there are so many ways of disproving evolution that I think the most compelling evidence FOR evolution is the lack of evidence against it. - You could find DNA that doesn't make sense, like a whole new unique sequence in a species that's supposed to be related to some other species that lack this sequence. That would disprove evolution. But no, all DNA that we've found makes sense. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK3O6KYPmEw&feature=related

Compare the computer code in an iPhone 1 with an iPhone 2 with an iPhone 3 with an iPhone 4. What if you compared the code in in iPhone with the code in an iPad? You would most certainly see a high commonality of code. Would you argue that the progression of that code is the result of natural selection acting on random mutation? Or would you recognize that the designers of the iPhone/iPad chose to take existing code and use it in another design.

Yes, common "code" could indicate a common designer, but you're missing my point. My point is that there is no DNA anywhere that doesn't make sense from an evolutionary perspective.

Homology of body plans and DNA are explained equally by common ancestor and common designer, the homology itself cannot tell you which one is correct. You need a mechanism that can be tested. We can observe scientists in a lab designing new species of organisms, mainly plants and single-celled organisms right now, but attempts to replicate natural selection acting on random mutation have failed to demonstrate anything more than variation within a species, the Lenski E. coli long-term evolution experiment being the most famous example.

Which is, of course, due to lack of time. I don't really get this change-within-species argument. According to the theory of evolution, there's no difference between a change that preserves interfertility and one that doesn't. If you think there is some mechanism that somehow prevents evolution from going "too far" and gradually forming another species, then you have the burden of proof. Why would that rule exist? How would it work?

I did not see it mentioned in the video, correct me if I am wrong, but mice and humans share a 60-85% DNA commonality. (Depends on your definition and who you cite.) http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/OF-MICE-AND-MEN-Striking-similarities-at-the-2748350.php

Wonderful example of yet another case where evolution provides the best explanation. What does it have to do with anything?

- If you find ONE animal of the wrong type in the wrong geological layer, evolution is wrong. This brings vast opportunities to creationists - they only have to find one to disprove the entire theory of eveolution! But no, ALL fossils ever found are found in exactly the layer where you'd expect them.

Explain the Cambrian Explosion via Darwinian mechanisms. Darwin himself recognized it was a legitimate and serious objection to his theory since his mechanism could only progress gradually and the Cambrian Explosion happened far too quickly. Virtually all the major body plans show up at once with no transitional forms. His explanation was that the fossil record was incomplete, 150 years later and the problem has only gotten worse. To get an idea of what happened in the Cambrian explosion, imagine yourself on one goal line of a Football field. That line represents the first fossil, a microscopic, single-celled organism. Now start marching down the field. You pass the twenty-yard line, the forty-yard line, midfield, and continue steadily toward the other goal line. You come to the sixteen-yard line on the far end of the field, and now you see the appearance of some sponge

There are a lot of ways to disprove evolution. In fact, there are so many ways of disproving evolution that I think the most compelling evidence FOR evolution is the lack of evidence against it.

- You could find DNA that doesn't make sense, like a whole new unique sequence in a species that's supposed to be related to some other species that lack this sequence. That would disprove evolution. But no, all DNA that we've found makes sense. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK3O6KYPmEw&feature=related

Compare the computer code in an iPhone 1 with an iPhone 2 with an iPhone 3 with an iPhone 4. What if you compared the code in in iPhone with the code in an iPad? You would most certainly see a high commonality of code. Would you argue that the progression of that code is the result of natural selection acting on random mutation? Or would you recognize that the designers of the iPhone/iPad chose to take existing code and use it in another design.

Homology of body plans and DNA are explained equally by common ancestor and common designer, the homology itself cannot tell you which one is correct. You need a mechanism that can be tested. We can observe scientists in a lab designing new species of organisms, mainly plants and single-celled organisms right now, but attempts to replicate natural selection acting on random mutation have failed to demonstrate anything more than variation within a species, the Lenski E. coli long-term evolution experiment being the most famous example.

I did not see it mentioned in the video, correct me if I am wrong, but mice and humans share a 60-85% DNA commonality. (Depends on your definition and who you cite.)

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/OF-MICE-AND-MEN-Striking-similarities-at-the-2748350.php

- If you find ONE animal of the wrong type in the wrong geological layer, evolution is wrong. This brings vast opportunities to creationists - they only have to find one to disprove the entire theory of eveolution! But no, ALL fossils ever found are found in exactly the layer where you'd expect them.

Explain the Cambrian Explosion via Darwinian mechanisms. Darwin himself recognized it was a legitimate and serious objection to his theory since his mechanism could only progress gradually and the Cambrian Explosion happened far too quickly. Virtually all the major body plans show up at once with no transitional forms. His explanation was that the fossil record was incomplete, 150 years later and the problem has only gotten worse.

To get an idea of what happened in the Cambrian explosion, imagine yourself on one goal line of a Football field. That line represents the first fossil, a microscopic, single-celled organism. Now start marching down the field. You pass the twenty-yard line, the forty-yard line, midfield, and continue steadily toward the other goal line. You come to the sixteen-yard line on the far end of the field, and now you see the appearance of some sponges and maybe some jellyfish and worms. Then -boom!- in the space of a single stride, 8 inches actually, at least twenty and as many as thirty-five of the world's forty phyla suddenly appear fully formed, without any of the ancestors required by Darwinism.

My Atheist friend simply admits that he doesn't have an definite explanation, but clings to the punctuated equilibrium theory, even though that theory is fraught with problems.

- You could find some body function of an animal or plant that could not have arisen by means of evolution - much as I hate the term irreducible complexity, they sort of would have a point if only they could show a decent example. Which of course they cannot - eyes, ears and so on can plausibly and logically be constructed by gradual improvements.

and people getting shot, another thing that may happen is this.

When your a corporate CEO billionaire and need to lay off people in order to buy your own friggin hawaiian island and then come back and bitch and whine that you can't find "talented people" something is fishy.

Unfortunately, I have to watch on my computer to be able to provide that feedback. I generally only watch Hulu on my living room television. The only time my feedback ever changed the ads I received was when I wrote to them over the eHarmony ads I was receiving. I complained about the ads because I didn't want to see ads from a company with an anti-gay history(1,2,3). I will say, however, after I wrote, they responded promptly saying they would forward the complaint to marketing and I never saw the ads again. As far as clicking "No" on "Is this ad relevant to you?" I've watched a few shows on my computer with the specific intent on clicking "No" for the Charter Communications ads. At one point around half the ads I saw were for a cable company that doesn't even do business where I live.

(1) http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1627585,00.html
(2) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/26/BAGB1BNUE5.DTL
(3) http://mashable.com/2010/01/28/eharmony-lawsuit/

SFGate started using it a few weeks ago, and I absolutely hate it! It pops up and obscures content, loads flash, and all around just sucks.

Maybe its the lack of exercise they get instead of what they eat/drink...

State's schools found skimping on PE classes
Less than 20 minutes a day at majority of districts reviewed

Everyone in SF gets to have their say over new building developments (witness the nastiness over 8 Washington http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/18/BAHR1M13A6.DTL), so virtually nothing gets built, which acts to ensure housing prices stay sky high.

Rather than complain about Yuppies, why not support the construction of more housing units, so that supply meets demand and prices come down? And don't give me any crap about low income housing versus market rate units. If you build enough market rate units to meet the massive pent-up demand, then housing will become more affordable for everyone.

When Full House being filmed, Alamo square (upon which lie the painted ladies the fictional location) was nearly a war zone. Just 13 years ago the San Francisco Chronicle had a front page story about 6 murders in a year only a block away due to the drug trade. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1999/08/14/MN46914.DTL

how many other more serious crimes got ignored?

Good question, this is Berkeley...

If this were a real concern, beachfront property prices would be falling.

Probably not, remember the beach DOES break off even now, houses fall into the ocean, like this, and people are still lining up to build another house on the edge of the cliff when it happens. Beaches are dangerous for more reasons than just sea-level rise.

Don't forget geological effects. Continental drift can be as much as 50mm a year. Then you have places like this, where the annual change is measured in feet, not millimeters.

When it comes to coastal issues, a 3.5 inch sea rise in 50 years is relatively small.

...like the BART police recently did in preparation for a protest. You could try and use a wifi hotspot and relay the signal to a landline, but I'd be surprised if LEO agencies didn't start jamming wifi as well.

All in the name of fighting terrahrists, of course....

Maybe they both plagiarized this article. Or maybe articles like these are just older than any of us and multiple people can write their own without plagiarizing anyone.

There are lots of other lifestyle-damaging injuries in American football. Ask Jim Otto -- he's had his knees replaced not once, but twice, not to mention dozens of other surgeries, arthritis, infections, an amputation, etc.

If you are an investigative reporter, I suggest that an interesting topic for your research would be to pick a particular team, say, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, and track down all the players. How are they doing -- physically? As well as their peers in other professions? As well as they expected, when they were younger?

Bubble goes pop.

Facebook's ad business isn't very (or so some claim) because of the way they target ads (like TV ads) so expect a lot fo change (again) in Facebook's policies.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/05/02/businessinsiderfacebooks-lousy-ad-b.DTL

Your Facebook ID becomes the way you pay for everything online and offline. Long-term, one of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's goals seems to be for your Facebook ID to be your ID everywhere. Given smartphone adoption, you can imagine this happening online and off. If that were to happen, the easiest way for Facebook to make money would be to facilitate offline and online transactions. Potential: PayPal, part of eBay, has an enterprise value close to $20 billion or so. Visa has a market cap of $100 billion.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-lousy-ad-business-is-making-its-ipo-is-looking-hairier-by-the-minute--heres-why-it-doesnt-matter-2012-5#ixzz1tkK42pqr

The source for the royalties was a SFGATE piece. It seemed reasonable, but like me they very well could be pulling numbers out of their behind :)

I think that once you get to a 1:10 return rate on your money, you might as well just let the government directly subsidize or give tax breaks for commissioning an artist to make a public domain work. Government is horribly inefficient, but that number's just atrocious, and the product that they put out stays out of the public domain for 90 years.

Long overdue, this technology has proven to reduce phone theft in places like Australia. Getting mugged for your phone is rapidly becoming very common in the US. There is a switch in every GSM system database designed for precisely this purpose. Its in the GSM specs. All these carriers are running the same call connection software. (Most of them are too clueless to have developed their own).

Why not turn it on WITHIN carriers in 45 days flat, and between carriers within 90 days? Some say there is money to be made by selling you a new phone, and the carriers were unwilling to forego that revenue stream. The thief (or the people who buy from the thieves) have to sign up for service, but they won't be buying any new phone with that service. Many also suggest that a good portion of the non-contract market is using stolen phones.

But turning this on is not hard. Carriers have been dragging their feet on this for decades.

The tinfoil hat in me expects the carriers to turn this into another way to make money, if not by charging a fee, then by using it as an excuse to not accept phones purchased elsewhere, or by insistin you bring your phone in for them to record the IMEI, and charging a fee to record it.

Because 4 months later, they might get punished for it.

Scared yet? You should be.

Why? The Chinese apparatchiks perform to high standards.

And don't forget, where the Chinese fall short, they can usually find someone to help close the gap.