By Sarah Phelan

George W. Bush clearly enjoys fireworks.
With a huge uproar going on over his July 2 decision to spare former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby a 30-month prison sentence, Bush is now stoking the flames by saying he won’t rule out a pardon.
Boom! Boom-boom-boom! Kapow, kapow, pow!

I can see G.W., kicking back at the ranch this Fourth of July, and laughing at all the bloggers like me who will spend today sounding off over his decision to let Scooter scoot away, instead of doing what folks outta do on July 3: stock up on Catherine wheels and bottle rockets.
"I made a judgment, a considered judgment, that I believe was the right decision to make in this case," Bush told CNN as he left the Walter Reed Medical Center.

Was he enjoying the mental image of more leftists exploding, as it hit them that he, GW, had the nerve to talk about letting Scooter go scott free, even as he was finishing up visiting wounded vets of the war in Iraq. Kaboom, Kabul!
Or maybe the irony was lost on him.

So, will there be no justice in this whacked out, fireworking world?

Valerie Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson told CNN today that Bush's decision puts the president himself under suspicion of a cover-up in the case.

"I think there is a very real suspicion now that the president himself is an accessory to obstruction of justice in this matter,” said Wilson, whose wife worked in the CIA’s counter-proliferation division, before Bush, Cheney, Scooter, Wolfowitz et al decided that invading Iraq would make for really great fireworks.

I guess Bush et al are banking that, come next Fourth of July, we’ll all have forgotten who Scooter, Robert Novak, Richard Armitrage and Karl Rove are. Funny how some darn big explosions can distract from the truth.

By Tim Redmond

So the developers and some businesses want to build more parking in San Francisco. We've seen this game before; in the past, the supervisors have been able to shoot it down, but now it may go before the voters. Here's the part of the argument that infuriates me:

Supporters claim the initiative, sponsored by the San Francisco Council of District Merchants Associations, prepares The City for an expected influx of vehicles during the next five years.

Why is there an "expected influx of vehicles?"

Why is the city constantly looking for ways to plan for more cars?

Why isn't it official city planning policy that the number of cars in San Francisco will decrease over the next five years?

This is the great lie of urban planning (as practiced by developers and their advocates): First you "project" more cars (or more jobs, or more population or whatever). Then you automatically have a case to build -- more garages, more parking lots, more condos, more highrise office towers -- for your "projected" demand. And, of course, once you bild million-dollar condos, they fill up (perhaps with globe-trotting wealthy people looking for pieds-a-terre, but whatever), thus fulfilling the "projections," and once you make room for more cars, you'll get more cars in a city that already has too many.

These "projections" are a bogus, self-fulfilling prophecy. Let's project a city we really want, and plan for that one.

By Steven T. Jones
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest hypocritical move to undermine California's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions shouldn't surprise anyone. He has always been a political opportunist who seized the environmentalist label last year simply to score political points. The LA Times did the definitive piece on the ruse a couple months back, which closes with Arnold's own secretly recorded admission about the fraud. Most recently, The Economist magazine analyzed how unlikely California is to meet its lofty goals for addressing climate change. But that's the idea, right? Politicians set ambitious goals that make them look good today, with deadlines set for well after they're out of office.
The only surprise here is that anyone is surprised. Then again, the Chronicle did endorse the guy last year (facilitating a deceptive and rapid rehabilitation of his once tattered image), so maybe they're feeling a little foolish in retrospect.

By Sarah Phelan

City Attorney Dennis Herrera issued a statement at about 7 PM tonight, concerning Sup. Jew's reply brief
to the Attorney General's in Quo Warranto Action--and Herrera sounded none too pleased.

Maybe it was because Jew's attorneys filed the beleagured supervisor's reply brief just moments before the close of business today, (when most of the City had already left early in preparation for July 4.) Or maybe Herrera was incensed by Jew's attorneys, who are arguing that City Attorney Dennis Herrera's quo warranto petition, which seeks permission to sue for Jew's removal from elective office, should be denied.

In a nutshell, Jew's attorneys say that the City Attorney's civil case should be stayed pending the adjudication of criminal charges against the District Four supervisor, which means, until the feds are done with him.

All of which got City Attorney Dennis Herrera issuing the following statement, which should be read while drinking beer, watching the fireworks and reminiscing on your favorite Ed Jew story:

"The citizens of San Francisco have a right to legitimate representation in their democracy that clearly outweighs the right of one politician to remain in office in violation of the law. The evidence is overwhelming that Supervisor Jew failed to meet the basic residency requirements to seek or continue to hold his office. It would be a terrible injustice if the legitimacy of our Board of Supervisors were to remain in doubt for the duration of a criminal process, which could take years."

Herrera's response brief is due to Attorney General Jerry Brown by July 13, 2007. Thirteen, Huh? That should be interesting. In the meantime, to review all the materials the City Attorney' has collected as part of this investigation check out www.sfgov.org/cityattorney/ .

By G.W. Schulz

So, people want to hate Josh Wolf for being what they perceive as a lawless anarchist. But he's just so damn polite. He defies virtually every useless assumption about the actual history of anarchism (still little-known among many Americans).

Wolf is like the consummate Boy Scout, but with badges that feature political slogans and old crustcore bands instead. My mom would love this guy's manners -- the way he politely addresses everyone he communicates with and doesn't seem to really have a hostile bone in his body.

And now he's running for mayor. Jeez, Wolf's already spent half the year in prison, and now he has to run against The Douchebag, because no one else wants to do it? (I have good reason for nicknaming Gavin "The Douchebag" -- he's always reminded me of the elitist bad guy from Better Off Dead who stole John Cusack's girlfriend.) Good luck, Joshua. At least someone's going to make The Douchbag work for it. Jello Biafra couldn't even claim a prison stint when he ran for mayor back in 1979.

The Gentleman*
vs.
The Douchebag

Challenge to be reffed by Jello

"There's always room for Jello"

*Photo from www.joshwolf.net

By Steven T. Jones
Josh Wolf -- the San Francisco blogger and videographer who spent months in prison for refusing to turn over to the cops raw footage of a protest where an officer was injured -- has announced his candidacy for mayor, promising tor bring a host of fresh, relevant issues in the race. He's calling for the city to sever many of its ties to the federal government, implement a community-based policing plan, bring more transparency into government (which he'll start on the campaign by wearing a mounted streaming video camera, ala Justin.tv), making Muni free and bicycle path ubiquitous, facilitating more parties in the neighborhoods, and creating a public works program to give jobs to the poor. It's a pretty bold and progressive agenda that will ideally spark good discussions. Maybe Newsom will even rip off a few of Wolf's idea, as he is wont to do. But the real value of this candidacy seems to be to highlight the need for police reform and accountability, something that doesn't seem to interest Newsom in the least.

By Steven T. Jones
Years in development and 600 pages thick, the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan Draft Environmental Impact Report is a policy wonk's wet dream, but perhaps a tad inaccessible for most people. That's too bad because this is the plan that could determine whether there will still be jobs and homes for the working class 20 years from now, or whether policymakers will let the free market continue to gentrify the city. The plan (available here along with important info on upcoming hearing and a series of workshops that start on Monday) looks at three development options, ranging from maximum conversion of industrial lands to housing to maximum preservation of job-producing properties. Either way, the plan will almost double the housing entitlements in the city and create a potential developer feeding frenzy that could have irreversible results. But the plan also calls for proactive policies for creating more affordable housing, exacting more public benefits from development projects, and creating development models that take public health into consideration, all firsts for the city's area plans. So check it out, get involved, and keep reading the Guardian for updates.

By Steven T. Jones
Leave it to the poets to find just the right few words, which is what punk legend, performance artist, and former mayoral candidate Jello Biafra did in today's Chronicle. In an article on how Chicken John is running for mayor, Biafra distilled down the perfect pair of descriptors for Mayor Gavin Newsom: mean and shallow.
There's much I could say to elaborate on why that's so insightful, but for now, I think it's better to just let Jello's words gel. Or maybe to use his complete quote: "I think what (Chicken John) wants is an impact. The more he uses his sense of humor to lampoon how mean and shallow Newsom is, the more people will be inspired to vote for him."

By G.W. Schulz

> Homicides are up 20 percent this year over the same time last year, and much of it cannot be blamed on gang violence, according to the Chron, which suggests, like it or not, that City Attorney Dennis Herrera's gang injunctions can go only so far. It's hardly July, but we'll put good money on any bet that the mayor won't be cheerfully taking credit for the city's homicide rate next January. As usual, we should make clear that this conversation still doesn't take into account nonfatal shooting injuries. San Francisco General does a remarkable job saving people who've been shot, meaning the homicide rate is not really a reliable indicator by itself of how well the city's doing on street-level violence.

By Tim Redmond

It hasn't gotten much press, but talk about harsh: China just executed the head of its food and drug agency for approving unsafe medicine. And over here, we can't even seem to put Scooter Libby in jail ....

By Tim Redmond

I'm impressed that Dr. Richard Carmona actually came out and said what everyone in Wsshington knew was going on -- that even doctors couldn't provide accurate and true information to the pubilc if it interfered with the Bush Administration's political agenda. The details are pretty stunning:

Carmona said he also ran afoul of politics on teen pregnancy prevention. Although the administration emphasizes abstinence from sexual relations, Carmona said he believed a variety of approaches was needed, including contraception for teens who are sexually active.

The administration "did not want to hear the science … but wanted to preach abstinence, which I felt was scientifically incorrect," Carmona testified.

On the issue of stem cell research, Carmona said he found much of the discussion within the government "devoid of science."

When will it end?

By Tim Redmond

Calitics has this interesting report on a state bill (backed by both political parties) that could eviscertate loical campaign-finance laws.

By Tim Redmond

State Sen. Carole Migden just called me to answer the question I've been posing to her for a couple of weeks: Who paid for all those pro-Migden billboards?

Migden says it wasn't a secret donor; as far as she knows, Clear Channel, which owns the billboards, donated them, through the efforts of Michael Colbruno, a local Clear Channel exec who is a former Migden aide and remains close to the senator.

"My campaign paid for the printing," she said. "The money for the boards came from some sort of internal fund available to Clear Channel to pay for these things when there are boards that aren't sold. It's all perfectly legal."

That isn't exactly what Colbruno had told me, which was that this was entirely independent of the Migden campaign.

Migden agreed that the ads were "helpful to me," but she also insisted that they were aimed in part at promoting her anti-war efforts, which will include a February state ballot measure calling for an end to the war.

Bottom line, though, these are billboards that promote Migden's campaign, and if we hadn't made a fuss about this, nobody would ever have known that they were, in effect, a gift from Clear Channel, one of the nation's biggest (and some would say, most evil) media conglomerates.

By Tim Redmond

Update on the :campaign-finance bill I mentioned a few days ago

This thing is pretty bad, and it's winging its way through Sacramento with very little opposition. The bill number is AB 1430; it's sponsored by Assemblymember Martin Garrick, a San Diego Republican who is mad that the San Diego Ethics Commission cracked down on unlimited GOP donations to local candidates.

The bill would limit the ability of local governments to control spending by political parties. Here's an analysis by San Francisco Ethics Commission Director John St. Croix.

But the Democratic Party likes it, too, so the bill sailed through the state Assembly 77-0, and is headed for the floor of the state Senate. California Common Cause is against it, as is the League of Women Voters. The Ethics Commission has asked the San Francisco supervisors to oppose it, but nothing has happened yet.

The only member of the state Senate to come out against the bill is Carole Migden, who opposed it in committe and told us she will vote against it on the floor.

This one needs some attention, fast.

By Sarah Phelan

In what could be the most ironic moment of the Ed Jew saga so far, Jew's attorney Steven Gruel is accusing the City Attorney's response to a recent public records disclosure request of being "woefully incomplete."

This from the attorney of the "D4" Supervisor, who still hasn't been able to prove that he actually lives in the district that he is supposed to be representing at City Hall.

Gruel's ironic accusation followed Jew's July 11 request that the City Attorney's office immediately disclose all communications regarding the investigation of Jew''s "official Residence or any allegations of his 'official misconduct.'"

When Deputy City Attorney Chad Jacobs invoked an extension--citing the 'voluminous nature" of Gruel's request, plus the fact that other docs might be covered by "attorney work product privilege" --Gruel accused City Attorney Dennis Herrera of "skirting" the public records act request.

This from the attorney who applied for and got an extension from the City Attorney on behalf of his client not once but three times, but still failed to provide complete materials or make his client available for an interview--a request that doesn't seem that hard given that Jew's office is just around the corner from Herrera's.

By G.W. Schulz

San Francisco’s New College of California has a culture of administrative "sloppiness and arbitrariness" in addition to flawed academic curricula, according to a report released this month by an accrediting outfit based in Alameda and obtained by the Guardian.

The accrediting commission for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges concluded following a special investigation that among other things New College fails to properly maintain student files and questions persist about how well the school handles and awards scholarships and financial aid to students under federal rules and regulations.

The group’s investigation began after it received six detailed letters alleging “various improprieties” and violations of its fundamental accreditation standards such as problems related to the fair and equitable treatment of students and the college’s ability to maintain operational integrity through sound business practices.

New College has long teetered on the brink of financial disaster, and according to the report, nothing's changed and the school has failed even to make improvements since 2002 when the commission concluded that New College did not have stable revenues or effective financial controls. In fact, the commission learned that New College’s money woes had “materially worsened in the last year” since it bought two properties “without necessary analysis and planning.”

As a result of the investigation, New College has been placed on probation and will now be “subject to special scrutiny and any new site or degree program is subject to review through WASC’s substantive change process.”

(Graphic from Calitics)

By Tim Redmond

Lawyers hired by the state Senate campaign of Assembly member Mark Leno have concluded that those big, colorful billboards promoting Carole Migden all over town are in fact an illegal campaign contribution from Clear Channel Corp. That was based in part on my blog of a few days ago, quoting Migden as saying that Clear Channel paid for the billboards but that her campaign had paid for the printing.

Check out the memo here.

Well, the plot thickens: I just talked to Richie Ross, Migden's campaign manager, who says the senator was wrong: The Migden campaign never paid for printing anything related to the billboards. The boards, he insisted, were and are an independent issue-advocacy expenditure on the part of Clear Channel.

Well: My understanding is that independent means no co-ordination with the campaign in question, and it appears there was at least some connection here. Ross says he knew the billboards were going to go up, and that he talked to Colbruno prior to the launch. "I called him and said, 'Michael, walk me through the law [on independent expenditures and issue-advocacy ads].' He explained it, and I said okay."

Ross acknowledged that the billboards use the images and graphics from Migden's web site, but insisted that the material "was all publicly available."

No question: The graphics on the boards and on Migden's website are almost identical.

Now: I'm not a techie by any stretch, but I do have some modest experience in print and web media, and I can say that I think it would be pretty hard to download a four-inch graphic from a website and blow it up to the size of a giant billboard without some nasty issues of resolution. If I were going to print the big ol' plastic sheets that got glued to these billboards, I would have sought an original, high-res copy of the graphics, which could only have come from the Migden campaign.

But at this point, we don't know what really happened, since there is no written disclosure anywhere. And that's not good.

By Tim Redmond

Back in the early 1980s, San Francisco's Public Media Center did a campaign against PG&E's Diablo Canyon nuclear plant with a slogan that read:

"A nuclear plant on an earthquake fault? PG&E is making the mistake of our lives."

You see, Diablo's built right smack atop the active Hosgri Fault.

PG&E has always insisted that there's no problem, that the plant is perfectly safe, that even a severe quake wouldn't cause any problems.

I'm sure the folks at Tokyo Electric Power said the same thing.

Except that their nuke just spilled some radioactive shit into the ocean, had to be shut down and is sparking calls for better nuclear safety. In fact, Japan, which has invested heavily in nukes, is starting to have some second thoughts.

I wonder what all the pro-nukers will be saying after the inevitable big quake hits San Luis Obispo and Diablo becomes a massive safety hazard. Maybe they'll realize they made the mistake of our lives.

By Tim Redmond

I just came across this wonderful report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance called "Localizing the Internet: Five ways Public Ownership Solves the Local Broadband Problem." The folks at the Institute, which does great work, argue (as we have) that broadband is essential municipal infrastructure. They also say locally owned broadband is good for the economy. All the supervisors should read this before they vote to give it all away to Earthlink.

By Sarah Phelan

Red is for children: a color coded map shows where most kids (the red patches) now live in the City,

For all the crowing about the passage of Newsom's budget (we’ll get to that soon), the progressive majority remains in the driving seat when it comes to setting priorities and making decisions at City Hall.

Consider two key votes that the progressives won at yesterday’s Board of Supervisors’ meeting.

First, Sups. Aaron Peskin, Chris Daly, Tom Ammiano, Jake McGoldrick, Ross Mirkarimi and Geraldo Sandoval voted for a charter amendment that will require the mayor to show up for monthly policy discussions at the Board. Their vote gives San Francisco residents the opportunity to clarify whether they really want to require that a monthly mayoral appearance be mandatory for anyone and everyone who holds the Mayor’s job.

In case you thought you’d already voted for this requirement last fall, the answer is, yes and no.

In 2006, 56.36 percent of San Francisco voters approved Measure I. But this was only a policy statement that asked, but did not demand, that the Mayor attend. And shortly after Prop. I passed, and with the progressives on the Board driving the policy on all the important issues of the day, like more foot patrol, more access to health care and a ban on plastic bag, Newsom sidestepped the will of the people, by declaring that he’d hold townhall meetings, instead.

Lest you are thinking, well, couldn’t the Board simply show up to these town halls and discuss policy there, the answer is, No, actually, they can’t. At least not without being guilty of massive violations of the Brown Act.

By Sarah Phelan

Contrary to appearances, Ed Jew is not the supervisor for Chinatown/Burlingame.

Another missive from Ed Jew's attorney, Steven F. Gruel.
This time following his July 16 arraignment in San Francisco Superior court on the District Attorney's charges. And this time insisting that, contrary to City Attorney Dennis Herrera's "speculation and argument that the criminal proceedings will be protracted, Supervisor Jew did NOT waive his rights to a speedy trial."

Hey, with Gruel anticipating a trial before mid-October, maybe Jew will inspire a whole new category of Halloween costumes. Like a cardboard cutout of Jew standing outside his D4 house.

By Sarah Phelan

...mayoral candidate Grasshopper Alec Kaplan, that's who!

Grasshopper pictured, playing guitar atop his taxi cab, which is wheelchair accessible, just in case you're wondering.

Just when you think things couldn’t get worse for beleaguered “District 4” supervisor Ed Jew, someone goes and unscrews the numbers from his house at 2450 28th Avenue.

That screwdriver-wielding someone is mayoral candidate and taxi driver Grasshopper Alec Kaplan, who told us he removed the numbers at 6:30 AM, July 23, “after ringing the doorbell on three separate occasions at the house where Jew doesn’t live.”

“I wanted to talk to Jew about whether he’d let me live in the house,” said Kaplan, explaining that he's homeless and asked three longtime neighbors of 2450 28th Avenue if they’d seen Jew.

“None of them ever had, except for one who said, he’d only seen him once in the last few weeks,” says Kaplan, who sleeps in his taxi, which is painted purple with green grasshoppers, and is running for mayor, so he, "can have a place to live.”

Noting that in addition to a house in the Sunset District, Jew also has a taxi medallion, Kaplan asks “Do you know anyone who has ever been transported in Ed Jew’s cab?” As it happens, the medallion in question belongs to Ed Jew's family, and the Taxi Commission is already reviewing the matter of medallion ownership, in general, rather than yet another Jew-centric investigation.

By Tim Redmond

Lots of talk about who the new SF Redevelopment Agency chief will be after Marcia Rosen announced (in terse terms) her resignation, which sounds awfully suspect. (Whenever you hear "resigned to pursue new opportunities" think: Canned for political reasons.)

One persistent rumor is that Mayor Newsom wants an African American to head Redevelopment, at a time when the agency is under fire in Bayview- Hunters Point. Some folks on the Wall suggest Sophie Maxwell, but please: Running an agency isn't her thing.

We shall see.

By Tim Redmond

Oh, it's so easy to make fun of Chris Daly. You can even make fun of his beard.

Or you can watch his much-derided speech at the Board of Supervisors, and recognize that: 1. He's not a crazed nut; his points are cogent, well argued and entirely credible, and; 2. He's right.

Daly is right: We should spend more money on affordable housing than on new roads. We should delay hiring more cops so we can save public health nurses. (Actually, we should raise taxes hire both cops and nurses, but that's not in the cards right now.) The fact it, the mayor's budget priorities are all screwed up.

Yes, budgets are always a compromise, and this district-elected board has done better, consistently, than any at-large board at keeping the mayor's budgets relatively humane. I agree that Daly does himself no favors -- and more than that, I fear that he does some harm to the cause of district elections. He says he cares nothing about his own political career, that he's not a politician (which is one of the most charming and wonderful things about him), but he's also part of a movement, and district elections is absolutely, utterly critical to the future of progressive politics in this city, and his fits of temper make the whole board look bad, and that helps the mayor's candidates for supervisor and the people who would like to get rid of district elections altogether.

I think Daly needs to stop giving his enemies so much ammunition. There's a lot more at stake here than one budget or one person's future.

Still, I keep watching that speech, and I keep saying:

Shit, on the issues, the guy is right.

By Tim Redmond

So many interesting and odd things going on in the world of alternative media. Yesterday’s news: Creative Loafing, a small chain with four papers in Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Charlotte and Sarasota, just bought one of the granddaddies of the alternative weekly world, the Chicago Reader, along with the Reader’s Washington City Paper.

The fascinating element: Village Voice Media, the chain formerly known as New Times, has had something of a standing bid in for the Reader for years now, and that’s never gone anywhere. I know the folks in Phoenix are going a bit crazy today; that would have been a prime addition to the 17-member VVM empire, and it got away.

I don’t know why yet, but a couple of ideas occur to me – and one is that, with the losses mounting in San Francisco and Cleveland, and the prospect of big damages in the Guardian’s lawsuit, VVM simply didn’t have or couldn’t come up with the cash. And it would have been a bunch of cash, probably at least $25 million.

It’s also possible that the Reader owners just didn’t want to sell to the jerks at VVM.

Speaking of those jerks, a few interesting tidbits out of San Francisco: The web editor at the SF Weekly (part of the VVM chain) quit last week in a huff, in part, he wrote, because he didn’t like it when the bosses in Phoenix kept telling him to write nasty stuff about the Guardian.

And this is always interesting, from the anonymous crew at altweekly death watch.

By Tim Redmond

Sup. Aaron Peskin has a new version of his Muni reform measure, and it includes an excellent provision to limit new parking downtown. This has Don Fisher's allies all atwitter -- and I hear Gutless Gavin is going to abandon his support for the measure, showing again that he's nothing more than an errand boy for downtown.

By Tim Redmond

Just in case anyone out there is still wondering about the basic economics of the oil industry: When you raise the price of gas, the oil companies make more money. This has been true forever, and it's true today.

Gee, why would all these refineries be off line at the same time? Why would supplies be so tight? Is it because of those rotten environmentalists -- or do high gas prices and limited supplies actually make good business sense for Chevron?

By Sarah Phelan

Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier represents the well-heeled Marina district

The story in today’s Chron--about the police officer who says the Board’s foot patrol plan prevented him from responding to robberies in the Marina--didn’t mention that Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier arranged for the meeting to be held at the St. Francis Yacht Club.

By Tim Redmond

Earthlink, which is negotiating a contract to provide WiFi to San Francisco, may be in the process of bailing out of the deal – and whatever the mayor’s office or anyone else may say, it has little to do with the supervisors demanding more benefits.

Earthlink’s CEO announced yesterday that the company is changing its strategy on municipal wi-fi, and now wants cities to promise to buy a certain amount of service before the company puts up its system.

According to Muni Wireless magazine:

EarthLink President and CEO Rolla P. Huff today identified “a lot of inherent goodness” in the municipal wireless market but acknowledged his company’s current approach to that market is not working. To insure a return on investment, he wants “municipal government to step up and become a meaningful anchor tenant on completion of a build.”

The system Earthlink and its partner, Google, are talking about building for San Francisco will have no “anchor tenant.” The city isn’t planning to buy a certain bulk amount of wi-fi use; basic, slow service would be free to people who can get the wi-fi signal, and faster premium service would be available for a fee.

“They had discussed with us at some point the idea [of the city as an anchor tenant] and we explained that San Francisco is not at this point in a position to be interested in that service,” Sup. Aaron Peskin, who has been involved in the talks with Earthlink, told us.

So if what San Francisco has in mind isn’t what Earthlink wants to sell, is the deal dead?

Ron Vinson, the head of the city’s Dept of Telecommunication and Information Services, told that he has no reason to believe Earthlink is pulling out and “we look forward to closing a deal with them.”

But it’s looking shaky right now – and if the project goes kaput, look for Mayor Newsom to try to blame the supervisors for wanting to get the city a better deal.

By Tim Redmond

The February presidential primary ballot may have not one but a series of initiatives that deal with tribal gambling, reports Calitics. A couple of tribes that want more slot machines are pushing the compacts they've negotiated with the guv. Labor, mostly UNITE-HERE, and Bay Meadows, which sees the casinos as a threat to horse racing money, are on the other side. Lots and lots of money could be tossed around. So the ballot could have a presidential primary, the question of legislative term limits, and a well-financed fight over Indian gambling. Anything else on the ballot may get blown away in all the wind.

By Tim Redmond

The supervisors will vote Tuesday on whether to allow high-end condos and (another!) Walgreens in the Mission at 3400 Cesar Chavez. Leftinsf has a good summary of the issue. I live in the area, and I can tell you: the last thing we need are more condos for the rich and another damn Walgreens.

This is insanity; The site, like so many in the Eastern Neighborhoods, ought to be preserved for community-based affordable housing. There aren't many places left to build housing of any sort, and every time you turn one of them over to the get-rich-quick speculators and developers, you lose a site for housing that would allow working people and families to stay in the city.

Sup. Tom Ammiano wants affordable housing on the site, and typically the supes defer to the district representative on these sorts of things. But this time, both Jake McGoldrick and Bevan Dufty may be leaning toward the developers.

It's true that there isn't, at the moment, a community alternative with the funding to move forward. But if the private developers take this site over, there never will be. It's worth delaying the process to give affordable housing a chance.

By Tim Redmond

This is a fascinating tale, from Fog City Journal. It sounds like the Redevelopment Agency (officially, anyway) wants to call this all a misunderstanding, but I can see it becoming a much bigger problem if Newsom succeeds in privatizing more city parks.

By Tim Redmond

The Post Office has gotten into the Ed Jew story, and this looks very bad

By Tim Redmond

Last night, KTVU devoted 14 minutes at the top of the hour to the death of Bill Walsh. The Mercury News did a special eight-page section on him.

Okay, the guy was brilliant. I've been watching him since the 1970s, when poor Greg Cook threw out his arm trying to run a Walsh offense as a Cincinatti Bengals rookie. Walsh was one of the best coaches in NFL history, built one of he best teams in NFL history, recruited and trained the best quarterback in NFL history ... but come on: he was a football coach.

There was other news this week, no?

By Tim Redmond

So it looks as if there won't be much of a mayor's race this fall after all. I know that Matt Gonzalez took a hard look at it; he met with a good campaign consultant, talked to possible supporters and donors, took a poll ... and decided that he wasn't going to win.

Gonzalez didn't want to run a symbolic campaign. He didn't want to do what Tom Ammiano did in 1999 -- galvanize the left, build a movement, and fall short of dethroning a powerful incumbent. Gonzalez felt like he did that once, and if he was going to enter the race, he wanted to know there was a real chance of victory.

But Gonzalez has been out of politics for a couple of years, and has dropped a bit off the political radar. His "maybe-I-will-maybe-I-won't" game over the past six months has demoralized a lot of possible supporters. And he couldn't come up with a plan to crack Gavin Newsom's teflon: The early numbers had him losing, 60-20.

It's too bad. I still think that if Gonzalez had started early, say back in January, we might have had a real race. I understand his frustration: No matter how badly Newsom screws up -- Muni's a mess, the murder rate is soaring, he slept with a staffer who was married to his good friend -- the mayor remains almost impossibly popular.

That, I think, could change with a real candidate challenging him -- but it won't be Matt Gonzalez. So it's time to start thinking about the Board of Supervisors in 2008.

By Steven T. Jones
PG&E just put out a press release patting themselves on the back for placing sixth on the San Francisco Business Times' annual list of the top 70 corporate donors to charity, thanks to the $14.7 million in donations the company made last year, it's biggest year ever. And this year, they pledge to increase that to $18.3 million, just as the city is getting ready to start competing for customers directly with them.
Wow, we certainly are blessed to have such a benevolent corporation in our midst, right? As the press release quoted a top company official as saying, "As a company passionate about meeting the needs of the diverse communities we serve, corporate philanthropy and community service are natural extensions of who we are."
But there's probably a better way of looking at these donations and what they say about who PG&E is. After all, this is your money that they're giving away, coming from customers paying some of the higher rates in the country. And much of that "charitable" giving is meant to buy friends and allies to defend against both public power initiatives and the efforts of city officials to hold this malevolent company responsible for its many misdeeds.
So even though its your money, the company takes credit (on signs, press releases, newspapers ads, etc.) for giving it away and reaps the rewards (from goodwill and influence peddling to tax deductions) that keep you and elected officials under its thumb. And it hits record amounts for giving just as the pressure is increasing to create more public interest and environmentally sustainable ways of generating megawatts. That doesn't sound like very charitable behavior to me.

By Sarah Phelan

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have managed to uncover 237 motivations for why people have sex, including, “I was bored,” “I wanted to feel closer to God,” “I wanted to get a promotion,” “The person was a good dancer,” “It seemed like good exercise,” “I wanted to break up a rival’s relationship,” “I wanted to have a baby” and “I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease.”

Other reasons cited in the U Of T press release, include, ”I wanted the person to feel good about himself/herself,” “It’s exciting,” “I was curious about sex,” “I wanted to have a baby,” “I wanted to be popular,” “I wanted to say ‘thank you’,” “I wanted the attention,” “My partner kept insisting.” and “I wanted to keep my partner from straying.”

For a full list of motivations, you'll have to read the August issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior.

By Steven T. Jones
Frankly, I'm not terribly disappointed to hear that Matt Gonzalez isn't running for mayor. Having basically bowed out of public life after losing the last mayor's race, I just didn't see how he was a good rallying point for the progressive movement, let alone a real threat to win.
But I was a bit irked to read Gavin Newsom's campaign manager Eric Jaye's comment to the Chronicle: "They're in total collapse," Jaye said of the city's progressives. "They had all year to organize themselves ... as they get weaker, we get stronger."
Really? A strong mayor might stand up to the Police Officers Association to demand reform or accountability, or to the downtown forces that are suing to kill the city's new health plan and going to the ballot to undo neighborhood-based parking policies developed over the last three decades, or showing leadership (rather than a petulant "take it or leave it" attitude) in fixing his flawed wifi proposal, or doing something to create more affordable housing rather than just kowtowing to the developers of million-dollar condos, or doing his job and initiating official misconduct proceedings against Sup. Ed Jew. Instead, Camp Newsom seems to believe that they get stronger by taking weak stands and thus preserving political capital.
Apparently, it's a strategy that has been effective enough to stay popular and clear the field of competitors. But as long as we keep buying our ink by the barrel, the Guardian will keep countering the self-serving spin of our ineffective by photogenic celebrity mayor.

By Tim Redmond

The Examiner's having fun with front-page headlines today ("Better sit down for this -- Muni removes benches"), but my fave is the interview with the co-chair of the Marijuana Offenses Oversight Committee. I've known Michael Goldstein, fomrer Harvey Milk Club president, for years, and I don't think he ever expected to be called the city's "Top Pot Cop."

By Tim Redmond

The New York Times reports today that the Senate energy bill contains huge government subsidies for new nuclear power plants. This is no joke, folks: As we've been reporting in the Guardian, these folks are back. And they still lie.

by Amanda Witherell

photo of Diablo Canyon nuke plants courtesy of PG&E's Jim Zimmerlin

Sigh. Just when you're starting to think something productive might occur in the legislature, enter the monkey wrench. A recently released study outlines exactly how we could be planning for an energy future free of nuclear and coal. If only our leaders would quit pandering to industry and adopt such a plan, but instead it looks like the nuclear industry has quietly tucked a provision into the new energy bill that would provide billions of dollars of loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants.

by Amanda Witherell

Awesome enviro news website Grist is gauging the greenness of the presidential candidates through a series of interviews. So far none of them are perfect, but we’ll see what Dennis Kucinich has to say when he gets in front of their mike.

Also, one of our readers, Molly Johnson, sent some quotes from the candidates (from the YouTube debate, me thinks) on whether or not we need more nuclear power plants…tsk, tsk, Obama…

Read their atomic words after the jump…