According to a statement posted today, a gorilla has escaped from the San Francisco Zoo and officials have not yet located the animal. Here's video purporting to document the gorilla moving around the outside of the zoo.

>

*Closely observe the site linked above. Someone's on a mission.

Eric Alterman has a detailed assessment of the tie that binds newspapers and blogs in this week’s New Yorker. The Nation-blogger, prof and journo, known for his books on the media, democracy, and Bruce Springsteen, takes us back to the 1920's, the great days of Walter Lippman and John Dewey’s battle over how engaged the public really can be in democracy. As Alterman writes, “Lippman identified a fundamental gap between what we naturally expect from democracy and what we know to be true about people.” He called the average American a “deaf spectator in the back row” and essentially said that politics and society was, for the most part, too complex for the plain folk and that the newspapers that dared wade into its nuance would never get it right. We’re only good at reporting “the score of a game or a transatlantic flight, or the death of a monarch.”

Touche.

So Home Depot has pulled out of its plans to build a giant store on Bayshore Boulevard. I hope Gavin Newsom, Sophie Maxwell, Aaron Peskin and all the others who supported this terrible deal are paying attention and get the point: You do business with big national chains and you’re more than likely to get screwed.

It’s the same thing that happened with the mayor’s wi-fi proposal: City officials got all excited about a promise from a big private-sector operator that cares nothing for San Francisco – and when the dollars didn’t add up, the vendor bailed.

In both cases, the deal was bad for the city. Home Depot would have hurt small businesses, brought horrible traffic to nearby neighborhoods and done little for the local economy.

And the whole thing stunk of sleaze: Former mayor Willie Brown began pushing the deal after his political consultant, Jack Davis, was hired by the company to lobby him.

But the supervisors went along with it, by a 6-5 vote (with Peskin casting the swing vote for the chain) – and now the city is back to the drawing board. If the supes had rejected Home Depot, we could be well underway toward creating a community-based alternative for the site.

That’s what Sup. Tom Ammiano wants to start working on now. “We need to get a collaborative effort going to find the proper use for that site,” he told me.

Meanwhile, Newsom is calling Home Depot to make one last push. He wants to company to put its plans on hold, instead of abandoning them. In other words, he’s asking that the site be left empty for as long as Home Depot wants.

Talk about a stupid idea.

Just an FYI for those of you who follow PG&E as rabidly as we try to. Their head honcho will be speaking to the moneyed masses of investors tomorrow. Tune in to the web cast at 10:10 tomorrow morning:

http://www.pgecorp.com/investors/investor_info/presentations/index.shtml

By David Carini

The New Deal turned 75 yesterday, March 31st. About 150 people turned out to the Koret Auditorium in the main SF library to mark the occasion and to listen to a six-person panel discuss the series of landmark government initiatives. Supervisors Chris Daly and Ross Mirkarimi, two authors and two union organizers called for a return to the core principles of social justice and fair treatment that led to such things as minimum wage laws and the formation of social security.

“They did it in the 30’s, we can do it now,” Harvey Smith, adviser to the Living New Deal Project, told the audience. Smith was upset over the potential privatization of the Cow Palace, and joked that the city may sell of chunks of Golden Gate Park soon.

Sup Daly’s main concern was affordable housing and making sure the city represents ordinary people instead of big downtown businesses. “We don’t have enough resources to fund what we need, like schools and hospitals because we give corporations too many tax loopholes,” Daly said.

The panel urged the audience to organize their communities in fighting the privatization of San Francisco, which they said would make this city a haven for the elite. “The New Deal wasn’t just a gift from Congress, workers had to fight for it. If change is going to happen, it will be from the bottom up,” labor activist Karega Hart said.

"If there is not alarm, if there is not protest, that too would be news, that would be San Francisco complicit," said Sup. Chris Daly today.

Daly's words came as he and Sups Tom Ammiano, Bevan Dufty, Jake McGoldrick, Sophie Maxwell, Ross Mirkarimi, Aaron Peskin and Geraldo Sandoval passed a resolution that condemns China's human rights record and directs San Francisco to accept the Beijing Olympic torch, with "alarm and protest," when it arrives April 9.

The 8-3 vote was met with applause and whoops of "Free Tibet" and came on the heels of Daly's eloquent speech in which he highlighted China's ongoing violations of human rights, its brutal pre-Olympic crackdown that left 140 dead in Tibet, its persecution of the Falun Gong, its suppression of democracy, as illustrated by students facing down the tanks in Tiennemen Square, and its support of genocide in Darfur and dictatorship in Burma.

"The torch is coming to our City. With it comes China's record and the attention of the press. The eyes of the world will be watching San Francisco," Daly said.

"Our mayor and the President of the United States share the notion that the Olympics and politics somehow need to be compartmentalized, that we should deal with them separately, but t that's impossible with an event on this scale and this magnified ," said Daly, as he referenced the Olympic Games of 1936, 1968, 1980 and 1984--all heavily loaded occasions

"Our history and politics are intertwined with the Olympics," said Daly, who also referenced the "land use politics" that dogged the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Voting against Daly's resolution were Newsom allies, Sups. Michela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu and Sean Elsbernd.
A second resolution to welcome the Olympic torch, the Human Rights Torch and the Tibetan Freedom Torch failed.

Mayor Gavin Newsom immediately sought to undermine the importance of Daly's resolution, telling the Chronicle that "it's only a statement and not a law," as the Mayor's Office tried to upstage Daly's victory by releasing details of the torch's route.

But Daly remained the hero of the hour, swarmed by a crowd of paparazzi as he left the Board's Chambers.

Acknowledging that his resolution is "highly symbolic," Daly gave the credit to US Speaker Nancy Pelosi for bringing the world's attention to China's human rights' abuses, and expressed his hope that the Board's vote, coupled with Pelosi's actions and statements, andother protests along the way, "can lead to greater change."

The April 9 torch relay start 1 p.m with an opening ceremony at McCovey Cove. The torch will then travel along 3rd Street from McCovey Cove to the Embarcadero and past Fisherman's Wharf to Jefferson Street.
From Jefferson, the torch will turn left on Hyde Street and travel a short distance to Beach Street, then to Polk Street near Aquatic Park.
The torch will head up Polk to Bay Street, then back to the Embarcadero and the Ferry Building at Justin Herman Plaza, where an area is designated for protesters.Protesters will also be allowed in Union Square, Portsmouth Square, Civic Center and Washington Square.

But city officials also say that groups won't need a permit and and that they are expecting more protesters along the torch's relay route than in the designated "free speech" areas.

Despite the clear need for a 24-hour drop-in center for homeless people to get off the streets and out of the elements, Buster’s Place was still put on the bloody budget block and closed its doors yesterday at 5 p.m.

For weeks, staff at Buster’s have been counseling the 150 to 200 people they see everyday on different places to go. 150 Otis is the city’s stated stand-in for Buster’s, run at half the cost and only open to half the population – the male half. Women are being told to go to Oshun, but resources at that 24-hour drop-in are already stretched thin.

Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, was on the scene last night. She reports: “At least 20 people were filed out the door. Four of them were in wheelchairs. Many were elderly. Not one that I talked to had anywhere to go. There was no one from the city, not one person – not the homeless czar, not the Homeless Outreach Team, not the Department of Public Health – to assist them. Many filed over to 150 Otis to try their chances at a bed for the night in the CHANGES system, but the shelter had not opened yet.

“One woman I talked to was in a wheelchair and looked to be in her early 90's. She was rolling slowly away, and said she had somewhere to go. When I asked her where, she clearly had no idea and was very confused. She had nowhere to go, and I did not see her in line at 150 Otis, where being female, they would not have given her a number to hold her place in line anyway.”

Yesterday, after a bruising month and a potentially devastating weekend in which she failed to win the nomination of the California Democratic Party, incumbent State Senator Carole Migden finally saw something go her way - at least for now. Judge Edmund Brennan of the Eastern District Court for California in Sacramento ruled that she should be allowed access to over $600,000 in funds the state's campaign finance watchdog had barred her from spending.

Last month, Midgen sued the Fair Political Practices Commission to gain access to the cash. The FPPC had declared it, and a reported $400,000 more that the Senator had already spent (in possible violation of state law) "surplus." California's surplus funds law places strict conditions on how and when politicians can transfer funds between various accounts. Migden responded by hauling the regulators to federal court and attempting to overturn the law on First Amendment grounds - citing a landmark Supreme Court ruling which equates political money with free speech.

Judge Brennan's ruling yesterday was not an outright victory for Migden. The judge did not officially weigh in on the law's constitutionality. He simply stated that, until the lawsuit can proceed in earnest, she should be allowed to tap into the accounts. But Roman Porter, spokesperson for the FPPC, told us it might not be as easy to get to the money as one would think. The cash, he told us, has been shifted around so much by Migden's campaigns, no one is quite sure how to get it into her current accounts.

"Right now we're still trying to figure out how that can legally happen ... we've never been in a circumstance like this before."

But in the end, provided that regulators and Migden's campaign can figure out a way to move the money into her coffers, the lawsuit itself might just be an afterthought. No matter how things eventually turn out, Judge Brennan's ruling yesterday does one critical thing for the embattled incumbent - it literally buys her more time in the race.

Calls placed to the judge's courtroom deputy, who handles his calendar, were not immediately returned, but many observers expect the legal process to drag on for weeks, even months. The primary election is on June 3rd. By the time anything gets settled for real, the race is likely to be over and Migden no doubt will have spent most, if not all, of the money in question.

As Tim Redmond blogged yesterday, Home Depot has notified the city that it will not be opening a store on Bayshore Blvd. – ten years after the land entitlement process began. Guardian intern Michael Leonard spoke with several people involved in the process:

Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, whose District 10 would have hosted the outlet expressed regret at the giant retailer’s decision, “People were certainly looking forward to the jobs and the convenience…and the sales tax dollars," Maxwell said. "Now, it's back to the drawing board."

Not everyone in Maxwell's district, however, or the city at large, was eager to have a mammoth chain store located in a vital neighborhood.

"Actually, there was not a lot of community support. There were people with money who tried to override real community voice," Marie Harrison, a community organizer for GreenAction, told the Guardian.

According to Harrison, community opposition centered around two factors: the extra traffic and resulting pollution in the already industrialized area; small, local businesses being forced to close by a large, national chain.

It remains unknown what will become of the land plot. Mayor Newsom has requested that Home Depot hold off on pulling out of the deal. Maxwell stated that the some in the community had suggested a Target store or a movie complex during talks in past years.

As for Home Depot, the behemoth home improvement firm says it is not giving up on San Francisco. Spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher told us, “We want to reiterate our thanks to the many customers, city officials, and partners that expressed support of us…We hope to be part of the community someday."

Harrison had some words of advice for Gallagher and other company officials should the firm opt to show up in town again. Noting that their proposed job numbers constantly fluctuated and that the estimated economic benefits of the proposed location never added up, she stated, "Don't make promises that you can't keep."

An update to my earlier post on Migden's court win yesterday:

I just got off the line with a source at the Eastern District courthouse. He told me the soonest Migden's case could be heard would be 6 weeks from now. That would be mid-May, only 2-3 weeks from the election. Any sooner than that, he said, would be "extremely unlikely." He wouldn't go on the record with a guess as to when it would be litigated, but from what I gathered, it could be as far down the road as three months from now.

In other words, Migden's going to have money in the bank for the foreseeable future. That means everyone hoping she would drop out to assure the District 3 seat stays in San Francisco hands shouldn't hold their breath; it looks like it's going to be a three horse race for the duration.

Score one for Migden and her lawyers - and also for Joe Nation, who will probably benefit almost as much as Migden herself from the decision handed down yesterday ...

Chevron may have to pay as much as $16 billion in damages for polluting parts of Ecuador, according to a report released today as part of a 15-year lawsuit against the San Ramon-based petroleum company. The report estimated $7 billion as the lower pricetag, for clean-up, soil remediation, and compensation to locals for health care costs and ecosystem loss.

For years, residents of Lago Agrio, Ecuador have contended that oil extraction and refining activities by Texaco (now owned by Chevron) were poisoning groundwater, food supplies, and people. Pablo Fajardo, a native of the small village, put himself through law school to take the role as lead litigator on the case. Last year, he and other Lago Agrians visited San Francisco to appeal to Chevron's board members to do the right think, clean up their act, and make reparations.

Justicia Now, a film about Fajardo and the environmental crisis, produced by Oakland-based MoFilms, will be screening at the Roxie on April 17.

According to the press release, "by contrast, the total damages Exxon has paid in the Valdez disaster, the largest oil spill in U.S. history, is roughly $3 billion (an additional $2.5 billion is still under litigation). The plaintiffs in Ecuador have long asserted that the Chevron-created disaster in Ecuador, in terms of the amount of crude dumped, is 30 times larger than the Valdez spill."

Yikes. And just yesterday Chevron officials were making excuses for their record profits at a Congressional hearing. Oh, times are tough.

Al Gore is spending $300 million on ads to tell us some more about climate change and what we can do. It's called "we." Doesn't that sound like fun?

Actually, does anyone else find this a little insulting and/or disturbing? Who hasn't gotten the message? Wasn't An Inconvenient Truth a big, giant ad for how fucked we are?

We get it! Why spend three years and $300 million to tell us some more about global warming? The mainstream media appears to have stopped calling the climate change nay-sayers. Global warming is now an acceptable dinner party topic, not something your partner rants at you for ranting about in public. It's even transcended traditional party lines, but Al Gore's group, Alliance for Climate Protection, is still pulling together a huge chunk of change to inundate us with advertising.

Three hundred million bucks could buy solar panels for 3,000 buildings the size of the Guardian's, or 15,000 average homes. For $300 million Al Gore could identify the 13,200 longest commuters in the country and buy them all Honda Civic hybrids. He could set up a microloan-style fund for lower and middle-income people who really want to change their ways but just can't afford it. They could apply for financing for solar panels, better insulation for their homes, new cars, more efficient water heaters, whatever it is they've identified in their lives that they could change if they could just friggin' afford it.

The Washington Post runs down more details of the program, which seems aimed at riling the masses and asking them to harass their elected officials. According to the Post: "This climate crisis is so interwoven with habits and patterns that are so entrenched, the elected officials in both parties are going to be timid about enacting the bold changes that are needed until there is a change in the public's sense of urgency in addressing this crisis," Gore said. "I've tried everything else I know to try. The way to solve this crisis is to change the way the public thinks about it."

BTW, for anyone who can't wait for the ads, or hasn't seen the movie it's screening at the San Francisco Public Library as part of their Environmental Film Festival.

The deets:

Thursday, April 24, Noon
An Inconvenient Truth (2006, 96 min.)
Koret Auditorium, Lower Level
Main Library, 100 Larkin Street (at Grove)

All films are shown with captions when possible to assist our deaf
and hard of hearing.
All programs at the Library are free.

We like to check the San Francisco SPCA's Web site from time to time, because, well, we really, really like kittehs. We'd posted more images of cats looking for homes on the blog, but we're afraid our colleagues might ridicule us for liking kittehs so much. Well screw them. We've long embraced the politics of kittehs, and if you've ever reported on animal welfare and animal rights, you know there's no shortage of politics surrounding kittehs.

Anyway, someone at the SPCA has a sense of humor. The shelter's site won't let us save the image of Tatiana the cat for some reason, so you'll have to go here to actually see her.

Meet the other Tatiana:
TATIANA - ID#A066862
I am a spayed female, brown tabby Domestic Shorthair.
The shelter staff think I am about 10 years old.
I weigh approximately 4 kgs (8 lbs).
I have been at the shelter since Mar 15, 2008.

Shelter Staff made the following comments about this animal:
"Tatiana is a tabby but a tender tiger at heart. This shy and delicate little girl will need some extra time getting to know you and your home. She will benefit from a patient adopter willing to spend the time necessary to make her comfortable in her new surroundings."

You don’t hear as much about El Salvador these days as you once did in the Bay Area, but the Coalition in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador is still very active, and the issues in thyat impoverished country, run by the right-wing equivalent of a dictator, are very real.

And now CISPES is furious that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is, according to Salvadoran press reports, planning to meet with Salvadoran president Antonio Saca. “Newsom is set to declare April 4 as the Day of Antonio Saca,” a CISPES statement says. This “has outraged the Salvadoran community of the Bay Area and allies because of ongoing human rights violations and state repression in El Salvador.“

I can’t get the mayor’s press office to confirm this, despite two emails and a phone call. In fact, I was told that only Nathan Ballard, the chief of the press office, could talk about this, and although I asked for a response by Thursday night, and emailed him directly as well, I have heard nothing. So possibly the Salvadoran press is wrong -- and possibly Newsom doesn't want to get a lot of press on the visit.

But CISPES is mobilizing to send a message that President Saca is not welcome in San Francisco and that the City should not honor him, and the group plans a press conference and demonstration Friday at 12 noon outside City Hall.

If Newsom is indeed meeting with Saca, it will put him in league with Dianne Feinstein, who used to love to meet with dictators. In the course of just one year, she hosted Ferdinand Marcos, Jose Napoleon Duarte and Muhammed Zia Ul-Haq.

At the time I called it her “third-world dictators hat trick.”

Newsom ought to know better.

Mayor Gavin Newsom wants to be known as the Green Mayor. But he could go down in history as the mayor who secretly diverted public money from large municipally owned solar installations to subsidize privately owned solar panels.

Since January, Newsom has tried to kick start two questionably financed solar programs.

The first plan involved raiding $50 million from a seismic safety loan fund. That idea got shelved in the New Year, when the Board of Supervisors asked why these funds couldn’t be used to seismically retrofit affordable housing units, rather than subsidize private solar installations?

The second plan is involved diverting $3 million from the Mayor’s Energy Conservation Account, which was set up in 2001 to increase energy efficiency and reduce cost of energy use.

Since then, $39 million has been allocated to MECA with $10 million allocated in the current fiscal year, 2007-2008.
These monies come from the General Fund and are under the purview of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

Deputy Controller Monique Zmuda says so far all projects funded by MECA have benefited city facilities and PUC facilities.

“These funds have not been used to my knowledge to subsidize or loan funds to privately owned energy conservation projects,” Zmuda told the Guardian.

MECA funded projects include solar panels at Moscone, the replacement of refrigerators at the San Francisco Housing Authority, solar projects at MUNI, a new heating system at the central plant of San Francisco General Hospital, Solar projects at San Francisco Airport, a Solar project at North Point, and Port Energy Efficiency.

But under the Mayor’s Solar Energy Incentive Program, these public monies would be used to help subsidize the installation of solar panels on privately owned buildings and homes.The program places a $10,000 cap on the subsidizing of solar on private property.

I went to Bolivia partly for political and journalistic reasons. President Evo Morales seemed to me an exciting and romantic figure, a source of great hope for Bolivia and the rest of South America.

He came to power as part of a progressive trend that has swept the continent in recent years, fueled by a popular backlash against the imperialism and neoliberal economic policies of the United States, a country that has arrogantly and inappropriately been meddling in Latin American affairs since the Monroe Doctrine.

How is Mayor Gavin Newsom going to maneuver his way through the controversial Beijing Olympic Torch relay in San Francisco on Wednesday?

Before he read the political writing on the wall, (or listened to the protesters that gathered beneath his window at City Hall each day to chant “Mayor Newsom don’t accept China’s Bloody Torch,) Newsom tried to get Sup. Carmen Chu, his most recent appointee on the Board, to squash Sup. Chris Daly’s recommendation that San Francisco’s top official (Newsom, presumably) accept the torch “with alarm and protest.”

When that attempt backfired--and the Mayor’s Office saw Sup. Chris Daly, not Newsom, swarmed by cameras, the Mayor realized which way the political winds were blowing—and decided to met with some Tibetans.

At that point, US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (Newsom’s aunt by marriage) had already been speaking out against China’s human rights abuses and thoroughly pissed off the Chinese authorities by visiting the Dalai Lama.

And now London has protested, Paris has snuffed the torch, protesters are scaling the Golden Gate Bridge, and Hillary Clinton, who Newsom is stomping for, is calling for Bush to boycott the opening of the Beijing games.

“These events underscore why I believe the Bush administration has been wrong to downplay human rights in its policy towards China,” Clinton said.

So, will Newsom accept the torch "with alarm and protest," after all? Or hand the job off to a surrogate and head out on vacation? Either way, sounds like Newsom is gonna need a whole lot of extra hair gel to wiggle his way through this one.

Employees working for the city and county of San Francisco have squandered $375,000 in salaried work hours over the last 12 months reading San Francisco Chronicle columnists Matier & Ross, time that could have been spent finding cheaper ways to provide a police presence at political demonstrations and repaint parking garages located at far-flung BART stations, according to a new report by Controller Ed Harrington.

"Our analysis shows that City Hall staffers spent precious work time reading about how wasteful they are when they could have been figuring out how to make the board's chambers ADA compliant for less money or more quickly dispatch frivolous and costly lawsuits against the city," Harrington said.

The report shows that overpaid City Hall staffers in particular devoted seemingly endless salaried hours reading about how they and their colleagues have burdened San Francisco's already bloated $338 million budget deficit and how Jerry Brown's recent office redo in Sacramento cost a whole lot of taxpayer money.

"Dude, I'm totally expensive," said one City Hall insider after reading about how much it cost for him to have a big title but few actual tasks. "And holy shit, did Don Perata's new taxpayer-subsidized car really cost that much? No wonder we're laying off teachers."

...only this time, he'll be carrying a torch.

"A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make an indelible statement for human rights" -- naked!

"We are inviting you and your nude friends to join us," says the invite, sent to us by former mayoral candidate George Davis, who points out that the "original Olympic Athletes participated nude."

He also points out that the original Olympic athletes covered themselves with olive oil, and that he "will bring Baby Oil for those who wish the look."

For more information about what to wear, where to meet, etc, read on:
"Meet: :12:30 pm sharp, near the front of Tacqueria Pancho Villa, Pier 1, the Embarcadero (waterfront side), the next building north of the Ferry Building. Look for torch(es) labeled "Human Rights"

"After the Official Run passes (estimate 1:10 pm), we will jog/walk fast to Bay/Embarcadero. When the Official Torch Run returns from the Marina District, we will follow the Official Run to the closing ceremony at Justin Herman Plaza. I estimate the total distance at a little over one mile."

Optional: Make a faux-torch, or two, labeled "Human Rights." If you don't have one, don't worry. I am happy to relay a torch to you. Note: Don't bother with a real flame because of Fire Marshall and permit issues.

George Davis - the "naked yoga guy" - coordinator of torch run (415) 722-2968

There were only 20 people, including myself, watching Stop-Loss when it opened in Oakland on Friday night. Two of those people were my family members.

Most of us were in, or close to, tears, by the end of the movie, which refers to a provision in all military service contracts that says a service member’s duty can be involuntarily extended, won’t be a box office hit.

Much like A Mighty Heart>, Rendition and In the Valley of Elah, films dealing with the nitty gritty of war aren’t popular with the movie-going public.

But if people can’t bear to spend 120 minutes looking at realities of war, how do they expect to bring troops home?

Sup. Jake McGoldrick just had an epiphany: install solar panels on affordable, low-income housing projects, citywide.

That way the City can green San Francisco, create local jobs and business opportunities—and eventually reduce to zero the utility bills of low-income folks.

McGoldrick’s moment of clarity came in face of increasing pressure from local solar businesses and work creation programs to support Mayor Gavin Newsom’s recently announced Solar Energy Incentive Program.

McGoldrick says he supports going green and hiring locally, but he balked at the lack of public discussion about the mayor's program, which uses tax payer dollars to subsidize solar installation on private property.

Pitched as a pilot project, Newsom's solar energy incentive program proposes to allocate $3 million between now and the end of June, and $3-5 million in subsequent fiscal years. That adds up to more than $50 million by 2018.

McGoldrick believes these monies would be better used subsidizing installations on public housing and non-profit-owned, low-income projects.

Supporters of Newsom's proposed Solar Incentive program argue that could better leverage a portion of the SFPUC’s Mayor’s Energy Conservation Account, and get more out of Hetch Hetchy dollars spent in energy efficiency and solar.

But as McGoldrick observes, the Mayor's current plan fails to address public ownership concerns.

‘That’s why I’m going to try and give these MECA funds to affordable housing projects,” McGoldrick said.. “That way, people get jobs, solar companies come here, the city goes green--and we do power purchase agreements.”

San Francisco only has a 30 percent home ownership rate. But since a portion of that percentage are absentee landlords, the City could only target an ever smaller fraction of the city's roof tops for solar installation, under theMayor's current Solar Energy Incentive Program.

‘Tenants can’t jump in and spend $25,000 to replace their roof, and you can’t have the question of jobs be the tail wagging the dog," McGoldrick said.

The SF Public Utilities Commission and the Board of Supervisors will soon be hearing details of a new contract to build two fossil fuel-burning power plants in the city. JPower, an Illinois-based subsidiary of the national power company of Japan, backed out of a deal to build a plant for the city when, back in October, the Board and PUC urged city staffers to pursue a city-owned operation instead.

Now a company called ICC is negotiating a deal with the city to build and run the plant, but according to PUC staff, the city would own the facility outright. The previous deal would have given JPower control of the facilities to run for profit, eventually turning ownership over to the city after 30 years. The ICC contract includes upgrading the four turbines, constructing the plants, and negotiating the land transactions, and power purchase and interconnection agreements.

The “peaker” power plant, which includes three natural gas combustion turbines generating 150 megawatts of power for “peak” needs, will be sited in the Bayview/Potrero neighborhood. A fourth turbine will be in southern San Francisco, as emergency reserve power for the airport.

The California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) has said San Francisco needs an on-demand “firm” power source for optimal grid reliability, but many have questioned the viability of that claim now that the Transbay Cable will be funneling more wattage our way and Community Choice Aggregation is coming online, a plan that would cut our electricity needs and replace much of them with renewables. The Brightline Defense Project, representing the A. Philip Randolph Institute and residents of Bayview who have been overwhelmed with power plant pollution for decades, have sued the city to stop the plant.

At last Friday’s LAFCO hearing, PUC staffer Barbara Hale offered a brief update on the contract and said it would be heard by the PUC on Tuesday and if accepted, sent on to the Board for ultimate approval. Despite a more publicly-owned and controlled plan for the plants, Supes. Ross Mirkarimi and Chris Daly are still questioning whether the city really needs then at all. “I’m just not sold on the fact that we need the peakers,” said Mirkarimi.

Daly asked about the status of closing the notoriously noxious Mirant power plant, which has been the hook for the peakers – ISO has said they’d pull the “reliability must-run” agreement that keeps Mirant open if they could count on power coming into the grid from the peakers. Back when JPower was still in the picture, Mayor Gavin Newsom negotiated a sweet deal with Mirant, which agreed to shutter in exchange for special favors from the Planning Department when they settle on a new use for the land.

Daly, citing the deal, said, “Very clearly the goal posts have been moved on the issue of Mirant.” He urged the city to move them again when it comes to the peakers, by coming together to oppose them and tell Cal-ISO we don’t want them. “I think what Sacramento is taking advantage of is we’re not together…I’m sick of getting bullied around by Sacramento bureaucrats….If we really want to wean ourselves off the dirty fossil fuel plants it’s going to take the spending of some political will.”

Mirkarimi asked Hale, if the peakers didn’t exist, what would shut Mirant. Hale said Cal-ISO only sees dispatchable, on-demand power as adequate. Intermittent renewable resources like wind and solar (though ISO may be changing their tune on solar) don’t count. “There are renewable resources that do, like geothermal.” She said the PUC was currently studying the possibility of deep-well geothermal for San Francisco.

I heard Adam Werbach, the onetime boy wonder of the Sierra Club, on Forum this morning, talking about how wonderful it is that Wal-Mart is starting to use special trucks that rely on batteries when they idle to save diesel fuel.

And I have to say: He made me want to puke. I wanted to jump into the radio and slap some sense into him and say:

Adam, Adam: Wal-Mart is the very definition of an unsustainable business. This is company that imports cheap shit made with near-slave labor in countries where there are no laws against putting 12-year-olds in factories, ships it to a few distribution points in the U.S. and then trucks it all over to shopping malls with giant parking lots where everyone drives. Wal-Mart cuts costs so aggressively that its employees go on public assistance, and in the process drives locally owned, independent businesses into bankruptcy.

Wal-Mart represents a fundamentally flawed economic model that is as much to blame for the problems in the American economy as the subprime mortgage meltdown. Money is sucked out of communities to profit one of the richest families in the world as main-street businesses, which might actually serve pedestrians and shoppers who take transit, businesses that keep money in the community and create and preserve decent jobs and wealth for middle-class people, are killed off.

I know Werbach thinks that moving the world’s largest retailer toward better practices is worth the effort.

But you can’t make Wal-Mart anything but an environmental train wreck and an economic disaster, and to even try gives credibility to a truly awful corporation with a horrible business model.

But I guess that’s what happens when you sell your sustainability consulting company to an ad agency.

Another crazy day in the presidential election.
Another crazy Obama video.

Thank you, former presidential candidate and former senator from North Carolina John Edwards for a great letter called "Broken Soldiers, and a Broken System" in the New York Times today.

In it, Edwards notes that the frequently reported number of the wounded in action (29,320 in March 1) does not include everyone who's been hurt.

"The complete number of nonfatal casualties in Iraq is 60,645. Most assume the wounded number includes all, but it does not. It leaves out another 8,273 injured and 23,052 who became ill and required medical air transport from the war zone," writes Edwards, who contends that this under reporting explains why "both the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs are unprepared to care for the service members who have been hurt in the Iraq war."

Noting that 154,000 war vets already sleep on grates and under bridges every night, Edwards observes, "we have tens of thousands set to come hom, and we aren't prepared. Every day we should honor the more than 4,000 lives lost: every suicide, bullet or serious accident."
"And every day we should honor those who have been hurt. That number is 60,645 and rising.

You have to wonder what Beijing and the International Olympic Committee were thinking.

A country with real human rights problems, involving not only the horrors in Darfur but the immensely popular, mediagenic Dalai Lama and Tibet, hosts the Olympics. The torch goes through several countries where political protests are common and there's a large population ready to scream about China's repressive regime. Then it stops in San Francisco, where there's a large Chinese population and an equally large population of political activists ....

What, you didn't think there'd be protests?

Now the IOC is actually talking about scrapping the rest of the torch tour, which would be silly. There will still be protests around the Olympics -- and there should be.

If China wants the PR boost of hosting the Olympics, it will have to deal with the fact that the news media will also focus on human rights and other issues Bejing would rather ignore. The Olympics are too much of a spectacle these days; there will be too many reporters looking for stories, and protesters around the world ready to offer them.

The protests have been immensely successful so far. They've done exactly what they're designed to do: Focus press attention on China, Tibet and Darfur. Nobody needs to disrupt the Olympic torch in San Francisco; in fact, it's great that the torch is here. The torch brings media, and the more the better. Mayor Newsom needs to make public the final route in plenty of time for the activists to show up; the protesters need to be peaceful -- and visible, and loud.

I love this. It's the best tradition of this city.

Ed Note: I was on my way from a press conference at the federal building at around 1:30 today when I saw the anti-Torch demonstrators, at least a couple hundred of them, surge out of Civic Center Plaza, across the street, and up the steps of City Hall. It was a pretty dramatic moment, with all their brightly colored flags whipping in the stiff wind and their chants echoing against the marble facade.

Guardian Intern Emma Lierley had a lot more stamina than I did. She followed the proceedings all day and filed the following report. - JB Powell

With the Beijing Olympic torch set to be received Wednesday, pro-Tibetan protestors ran their own torch through the streets of San Francisco Tuesday. The rally was held in multiple locations, including the UN Plaza, the steps of City Hall, and the section of Geary Street that boarders the Chinese Consulate. Hundreds of participants loudly denounced the “genocide torch” and called for a free Tibet.

The protest began Tuesday morning in the UN Plaza, as Tibetan flags snapped in the wind and a group of monks from the Gyuto Vajrayana Center in San Jose chanted a blessing over the crowd. The Buddhist monk Thupten Donyo, manager of the Gyuto Vajrayana Center, was very excited about the day’s events, and told the Guardian that never before had Tibet been given such a chance to speak to the world.

“We lost our country fifty years ago,” he said, “and we are struggling to keep our culture alive.”

By Michael Leonard

Archbishop Desmond Tutu offered his sincerest thanks and gratitude on Tuesday night to the audience in Grace Cathedral as he closed a moving acceptance speech, upon receiving the OUTSPOKEN Award from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (ILGHRC).

All pics by Michael Leonard

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Tutu, 76, was grateful not only for the award, he said, but also the continuous support and allegiance that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and intersex persons offer to oppressed communities around the globe. “Thank you for making the world a better place,” he said.

The theme of the evening was "A Celebration of Courage." Tutu is most definitely a living example of fearlessness, given his noted stand against apartheid in his native South Africa, as well as his outspoken support of female, as well as gay and lesbian, ordination in the Episcopal Church, a topic that has threatened a schism in that denomination. His fight against homophobia and sexual exclusivity in religion earned him the honors on this particular occasion.

“How sad, how tragic, that the Church be so concerned with this issue when God’s children all the world over are suffering,” Tutu said. “I ask for your forgiveness for the way the Church has ostracized you.”

Tutu summed up his activist persona in a statement consistent with the humorous and humble manner with which he charmed and captivated the large crowd throughout his 20-minute speech.

“I wish many times that I would or could’ve shut up. But, I could just as well try not to breath… I cannot be but as God made me.”

Okay, so maybe that's actually the phrase Rush Limbaugh uses to describe LGBT rights. But when the folks in law enforcement, mostly a conservative bunch, start demanding special treatment, shouldn't conservative pundits hit the ceiling then, too? Of course not. That would alienate a significant portion of their listening audience.

We've already written in the past about police in the state of California winning special protections against publicly disclosing their personnel records. But why should their salaries be kept secret also? And their badge numbers? And, the Contra Costa Times explains in that last link, their identities?

Being a cop is tough, yeah. Just read the thousands of pages of evidence filed in Superior Court for Dennis Herrera's gang injunctions. They read like an episode of The Wire. (Seriously, we're surprised more reporters aren't pouring over those records. There's a whole lot in there about local criminal activity you haven't seen in the news, and this is the only time you'll have public access to so many details of what the SFPD's Gang Task Force is up to.)

But why should salaries be kept secret, particularly when the police union's new contract has played such a significant role in this year's local budget deficit? All those stories from Matier & Ross about how much it costs to provide a police presence at political demonstrations would just be ruined if the police had their way. The CoCo Times and the LA Times have already been through this battle with the state Supreme Court.

Is the police lobby really that strong in Sacramento?

First the route for the Beijing Olympic Torch relay was changed, following a brief opening ceremony.
Then, the closing ceremony was shifted to an undisclosed location.

These last minute changes left all the thousands of people who came to support, protest or simply witness the torch's historic relay thwarted.

And they meant that China has got some relatively upbeat television footage to show back home, featuring an unencumbered torch being run through the protest-free streets of San Francisco! Talk about a far cry from reality.

"Disgraceful and shameful" said Board of Supervisor President Aaron Peskin of the City's switch and bait.

'I have every reason to believe this was a well developed plan by Gavin Newsom and his chief of police in conjunction with the government of China and the US State Department," Peskin continued. "It was designed to please the government of China and give them the TV footage they want to portray to their people. The bottom line is that Newsom has deceitfully and repeatedly misled the public. Frankly, these are the tactics that the Chinese government uses on its people. It's a move straight from the Richard Nixon playbook."

Asked if there was evidence to support the City's decision to redirect the torch relay and relocate the closing ceremony, Peskin said he'd seen and heard none.

"I went down the route at 11 am, the supporters and protesters were all peaceful. This was a large decoy operation. Only Newsom played the people of San Francisco for fools. I don't care if you were a supporter or an opponent of the torch, people brought their children, families and friends to San Francisco for a once in a lifetime experience. This was the biggest charade perpetuated by any mayor in anyone's memory and possibly in the history of this town. The only difference between Newsom and President Hu Jintao is none. Both manipulate, are deceitful and do not run transparent governments."

The torch, which was variously concealed in a waterfront warehouse, shipped to Van Ness with a Quackers bus in tow, and diverted through the Marina to elude protesters, was taken to SFO for a surprise closing ceremony--presumably so it could be shipped out of SF as fast as possible, away from the whiskey and fandangos--and all those people, inconveniently protesting uncomfortable stuff like China's abysmal track record of human rights abuses and its support of dictatorship in Burma and genocide in Darfur.

Congressmember Sam Farr (D-Carmel) wants to know how and when the Light Brown Apple Moth was blacklisted--and whether it's possible to declassify it.

“If we don’t even know why the moth is listed as a dangerous pest, it’s impossible to determine how far we must go to control it or whether the current emergency eradication tactics are justified," said Farr today, after he asked
USDA Under Secretary Knight to explain how and when the moth was originally “blacklisted” and whether a pest with that label has ever been recategorized. Secretary Knight promised to provide answers.

“It’s vital that we get to the bottom of these questions," Farr said.

LBAM aerial spraying is set to begin in June on the Central Coast of California, and in August in the Bay Area.

Video journalists Rhyen Coombs and Lisa Pickoff-White report from yesterday's Olympic torch rally and protest on participants' disappointment at the flame's last minute route change:

(For pics of the protest, click here. For a video slideshow of Tuesday's Tibet vigil, click here.)

Here's Guardian reporter Emma Lierley's take on yesterday's events:

The great torch chase

The running of the Olympic torch yesterday left many hundreds of people pissed because, well, they never saw it. If you were like me, however, and came equipped with a bicycle and the wherewithal to chase the damned thing all over the city, then it became a rousing, and rather difficult, game of hide-and-go-seek.

For the majority of the crowd, that was not an option. In the hours leading up to the planned torch run, the scene along the Embarcadero was entirely peaceful. At noon, Pier 48 held rows of Chinese men and women practicing the drum rhythms that would play to honor the torch as it came past. Chinese flags fluttered in the Bay breeze, children ran and laughed, and the crowd was held back from the torch route by three layers of fencing.

Down the line, protesting blocks formed, and pro-Tibetan protesters stopped a bus at Bryant and Embarcadero around 12:30 PM. Roughly twenty people laid down in front of a charter bus, covered themselves with Tibetan flags, and covered the front of the bus with “Save Tibet” stickers. A line of four police officers guarded the bus, but once again, it was a family affair, and little kids ran around calling for a free Tibet along with the adults.

Chinese flags mingled with Tibetan flags, and each group of supporters or protestors tried to over-shout the other one, but the scene was relatively tame. The rest of Embarcadero was lined with similar crowds, some holding Chinese flags, some holding pro-Tibet signs, and some just eating their lunch, waiting for the event to start.

Back at the corner of 3rd and Embarcadero around 1:30, and I heard the angriest words of the day coming from an exasperated elderly woman who was militantly holding her spot on the corner, facing the 3rd street Bridge.

“Hey, asshole, you need to keep moving. Some of us have been here for two hours,” she said to those who tried to stop in front of her, potentially blocking her view.

State Senator Carole Migden (D-San Francisco/North Bay) released the following statement in response to the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) study that was unable to find a link between aerial spraying for the Light Brown Apple Moth and 650 reports of adverse health affects after last fall’s spraying in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties:

“OEHHA says that it was unable to confirm a link between spraying and adverse health effects because most health complaints did not contain enough information to determine the cause of symptoms. Clearly, people should refrain from assuming that this means that no link exists. What residents must understand is that the spraying plan for the Bay Area will be much longer in duration than last fall’s and that no long-term studies have been done on the health affects of the spray that will be used—a spray that encapsulates the pesticide in tiny plastic spheres that people will inhale. How can that possibly be good for us?”

By Emma Lierley

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, Chief of Police Heather Fong addressed the city’s decision to change the Olympic Torch route, claiming that it was a spontaneous decision and that there was no pre-planned contingency.

Fong said that SFPD officers had been monitoring the situation along The Embarcadero since 8am Wednesday morning and as more and more people showed up, and as “groups of opposing views started verbally confronting each other” the higher-ups began contemplating a change in route.

Stating that an incident at Bryant and Embarcadero around 12:30, in which a charter bus “moving certain [Olympic] items” was stopped by “a very large group” of protestors, influenced the decision to change to route. According to Fong, a false report came through that the bus had run over protestors, which was a major factor to change the route.

“I saw the crowd, I saw the bus, and at that point we started to move away from the Embarcadero,” Fong said.

However, this reporter observed that from 12:30 until 1pm, there were no more than twenty peaceful protestors who had laid themselves in front of the bus and covered themselves with Tibetan flags, with only a line of four cops protecting it. By 1:20, all protestors around the bus were gone.

Fong also said that large groups of people along The Embarcadero who were unwilling to move when told by police influenced the decision to change the route as well.

Despite reports that demonstrations along the planned route were by and large peaceful, Fong stated that it was “very clear there was no way to safely go down Embarcadero.”

She estimated that roughly 500 to 600 SFPD officers were called out, together with 350 officers from other departments around the Bay area, and representatives from federal agencies as well.

There were five arrests made yesterday, all settled in citations, and no injuries.

Rebecca Kaplan, who is one of my favorite politicians, is running for Oakland City Council -- and she has a great idea how to solve one of the city's most pressing problems.

See, Oakland can't hire enough cops. That means a voter-approved community-policing plan, which requires foot patrols in all the districts, is way behind schedule; there just aren't enough officers to walk the beats. The OPD has more than a hundred job openings, and not enough applicants. And among those who apply, a lot don't make it through the police academy.

So the city of Oakland is spending a lot of money on recruiting (including billboards near the Bay Bridge, which Kaplan, an AC Transit board member, thinks is nuts: "I know the demographics of the people crossing that bridge, and trust me, none of them are going to apply to be Oakland cops.")

One of the things the city has learned is that ex-military people tend to do better in the academy -- they already have the physical fitness and disciplinary training. So the city is sending fliers to military bases around the country. "Which is not terribly effective," Kaplan told us in an interview today. "The thing is, with stop-loss, nobody's really gettiing OUT of the military right now."

But there's a perfect applicant pool that the city is ignoring.

"There are 5,000 people who have been kicked out of the military because they're gay or lesbian," she said. "They have a dishonorable discharge, so they may have trouble getting work. But a lot of them are totally qualified to be Oakland cops.

"The OPD pays about four times as much as the military, the Bay Area is a great place for gays and lesbians, and if you've been policing Baghdad, moving to Oakland is going to look pretty attractive."

The names of those 5,000 people are accessible, if the city wanted to do a little work to round them up (Ron Dellums, former chair of the House Armed Services Committee, could probably handle it with one phone call).

But that might not even be necessary: "If the Oakland mayor and police chief held a press conference and said, hey, Uncle Sam doesn't want you but Oakland does, I suspect the word would get out."

Somebody ought to put this woman on the City Council.

So Gavin Newsom's torch episode -- which disappointed almost everyone and pissed off a lot of us -- cost the city $600,000 plus. That's at a time when we're laying off city staff by the hundreds and closing critical services.

Six figures to give China a video postcard. Nicely done, Mr. Mayor.

Tiny moth, giant flap, aerial spraying of female pheromones begins soon.
"Everyone agrees, public should “rely on sound science” and shut the door on false information.”

So states a recent California Department of Food and Agriculture press release, as the state seeks to allay public outcry in face of an impending deadline to begin aerial spray for the Light Brown Apple Moth.

The press release quotes California Association of Professional Scientists President Patty Valez saying that, “The report released by the joint health departments revealed that there is no link between the Light Brown Apple Moth spraying program and reported symptoms. In fact, it underscores the importance of a sound scientific evaluation in what has turned into a controversial but important aerial spraying program.”

The press release quotes Monterey Farm Bureau President Jason Smith saying, “IIf unchecked, the moth would damage native plants and would undermine our efforts to reduce pesticide use and improve water quality. It would raise international trade restrictions, erecting barriers to our farm exports and further weakening our rural economy."

The release even draws on today’s Chronicle, which observes that “the state study noted most of the reports – even those requiring medical attention – were consistent with rates of common respiratory problems.”
But the release doesn’t report the reaction of Assemblymember John Laird, (D-Santa Cruz) whose district was sprayed last fall.

Maybe that's because of Laird's scathing response to the LBAM health affects report issued by the state Office of Environment Health Hazard Assessment, the Department of Pesticide Regulation and the Department of Public Health this week.

“I’m disappointed that what should have been a very serious scientific effort started long ago, became an exercise where just 10 percent of the reported cases were analyzed and the findings have been used effectively as spin for the CDFA,” Laird observed.

The CDFA did not mention that the California Organic Farmers no longer supports the spraying.

“To say that there is no information to indicate a link between the spraying and health affects is not the same as saying there is no link between spraying and health affects. The state did not reach out to a single doctor for the report. At a minimum, the reports associated with doctors should have been retrieved and given full analysis, including speaking with the reporting physicians."

We don't want to drag all this us vs. them stuff up again -- especially since, like, we won -- but something uncanny has occurred. Village Voice Media honcho/bully Mike Lacey has been in some mighty hot water since he chose to use the "n-word" in a speech to a roomful of journalists on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination. (Watch the video!).

Perhaps worst of all, he was trying to be cool.

That immediately put us in mind of a similar gaffe by former Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott, one which lead to her eventual downfall. So, like the Internet-savvy alt.weekly we are, we dialed up the Intertubez -- and look!

MUG SHOT

MARGE SCHOTT

Like we said, uncanny.

By David Carini

Opponents of the state’s plan to spray pesticides against the light brown apple moth gathered at City Hall today to support legislation introduced by Supervisor Mirkarimi. Mirkarimi’s bill urges the city attorney to find a legal method to stop the aerial spraying before it commences over San Francisco airspace on August 1.

“The spraying shouldn’t present more harm than good. Some of the chemicals used are in the list of known substances to cause cancer in California,” Mirkarimi said at the press conference.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture’s pesticide program is currently underway throughout the state. Monterey and Santa Cruz counties were sprayed in November of last year. “Lots of my neighbors are complaining about skin rashes and coughs,” Santa Cruz resident Paulina Borsook told the crowd.

In spite of 643 reported cases of illness related to the Monterey Peninsula sprayings last fall, the state has yet to disclose the exact chemical compound of the pesticide.

Bobby Bogan, spokesman for Seniors Organizing Seniors, pointed out that over 60 percent of the elderly in the city have respiratory problems, but seniors weren’t his only concern. “We don’t grow apples in San Francisco, we grow children,” he said.

The Board of Supervisors will vote on the resolution tomorrow, April 15.

I thought this debate was pretty much over, but the Public Editor at the NY Times is all agitated now about the "line between analysis and opinion" in newspapers. Gee: A business or legal reporter with many years experience in the field dares to give an informed opinon about what's really going on. That seems like elemental journalism to me.

I think Clark Hoyt missed the larger, and more interesting debate, which is particularly relevant at a time when blogs are becoming a major source of information for people.

It's not about opinion or analysis; it's about reporting.

Some opinion writers (Maureeen Dowd comes to mind at the Times) never ever seem to pick up the phone and call anyone; they just read what others have written and opine. That's fine, I suppose, but I've always thought the best columnists were the ones who actually do some legwork, who get out and report on events and then tell us what they think. At the Times, Bob Herbert does that. William Safire, who was often wrong, did it, too -- I remember years ago reading a piece he'd written about NY Governor Mario Cuomo and Saddam Hussein; instead of whining about the guv, he picked up a telephone and called him. Thanks to the Times index, I ran the 1992 column down. Check it out; here's a conservative Times columnist and a liberal New York governor arguing about how to handle what become the first Gulf War. Far more interesting reading than a lot of the tumbsucking that goes on in op-ed columns these days.

So if the business and legal reporters, who are actually interviewing sources and calling people and running down stories want to add their opinions, the world is better for it.

The bloggers who actually make phone calls, interview people, call someone before they comment about him or her are still rare. But that will change as this new form of journalism emerges.

I've found that my biased, slated, non-objective reporting is always better if I call the other side and argue for a while. Makes me smarter. Makes the story better. Demanding that your columnists call the subjects of their vitriole before they let loose seems to me a lot more important than worrying about who's sneaking an opinion into a story.

Yuck. Ecuadorian oil pit. All cleaned up, you say? Photo courtesy of Amazon Watch

As if publicly disputing the credibility of the Goldman Prize weren’t enough, Chevron has gone into serious corporate spin cycle, taking out a full page ad in today’s Chron and penning a guest editorial claiming they’re not to blame for 18 billion gallons of toxic waste dumped in unlined pits in the Amazon rainforest. The repeated cry of Charles A. James, Chevron’s vp and general counsel: It’s not us, it’s the government. Chevron, the parent company of Texaco, which began pumping Ecuadorian oil back in 1964, says noone cared about the environment back then, they’ve cleaned up their mess anyway, and anything left over is the fault of Ecuador’s national oil company, PetroEcuador.

Lawyer Pablo Fajardo and activist Luis Yanza, two natives of Lago Agrio, Ecuador – a small village in the heart of the spoils -- were just awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, what our congresswoman Nancy Pelosi called “on par with the Nobel Peace Prize.” Fajardo put himself through law school to take the lead in a suit against Chevron, claiming the company’s responsible for destroying soil, water, and natural resources. Lago Agrians suffer significantly elevated incidences of cancer, disease, and death.

Chevron, which ignored Fajardo at last year’s board meeting, now has Sam Singer handling spin. Singer’s other recent clients: the SF Zoo, post-tiger attack, and Don Fisher’s Presidio art museum. They also have William Haynes on the case. Why does that name sound so familiar? Yes, a la Kevin Ryan, we have another Bush Administration fall guy washing ashore in the Bay Area.

Reading through Chevron’s website on the lawsuit and taking in the pretty green pictures, it seems like there isn’t a thing wrong with this Amazonian rainforest. Everything’s been cleaned up, and if the indigenous people who live there are getting sick, it’s because they shit where they eat.

But MoFilms, an Oakland-based documentary company, shot footage of the region that shows someone has been wrecking environmental hell down there. Their film, Justicia Now, is screening this Thursday at the Roxie, 8 pm, 3117 16th St. San Francisco. The filmmakers will be on hand to answer questions about the issue and the movie, which they also distribute for free on their website.

A. Not if you keep looking at porn.

Yesterday’s, er, news that men (sex, sex, sex, money, money, sports) take greater risks after viewing porn, got me wondering what will happen to the stock market when the feds start spraying female moth pheromones.

Will the market go soft? Will everyone, drag queens included, start dressing as giant female moths?

Will my cat start puking? And is Fodor really warning folks to stay the f*** away ?
(These latter two questions are raised in a somewhat erratic piece at the Huffington Post)

But don’t worry, Mommy, Arnie says the spray is safe.
Seriously folks, to reassure us all, the California Department of Food and Agriculture sent this transcript of the Governor speaking from Salinas.

"Hello-Today, Governor Schwarzenegger was in Salinas to continue statewide discussions on budget reform.
After his event, the local ABC station asked him about LBAM spraying. The transcript is below. Thought you may find it interesting.

ABC: Will you comment on LBAM spraying?

Governor: It’s important we do everything we can because it can destroy our agriculture products and harm our environment. Other countries can cut off our agriculture trade. Public safety is my number one priority and there is nothing that shows this program is unsafe.

ABC: Senator Migden is proposing legislation to prevent spraying before an EIR is done. Do u have a position?

Governor: We have done all the studies in the world and nothing says it is unsafe. We wouldn't spray if it were unsafe.

ABC: You would look these people in the eye and tell them it is safe?

Governor: This is safe. The spraying is safe and there is nothing that says otherwise.

Meanwhile, folks who remain unconvinced that the spraying is safe are being urged...to catch a bus to Sacramento tomorrow, April 16.
Read on for details:

By Paula Connelly

A highly effective birth control shot, made specifically for men, has been developed in Australia! It has been proven to be as effective as a vasectomy but without long-term effects. Unfortunately, pharmaceutical companies are not funding efforts to make this revolutionary mode of contraception available to the public. They don't think men will buy it, even though it has demonstrated a fraction of the side effects associated with the female birth control pill. Unsurprising considering that politics, pricing and culture have been limiting access to contraceptives in the U.S. for years, resulting in inflated teenage and unwanted pregnancy rates, according to the Male Contraception Information Project. It is insulting to all the women who have suffered the insane mood swings, nausea, weight gain, diminished sex drive, increased risk of heart attack and breast cancer to hear men being quoted in the media saying, '"I would rather rely on a solution that doesn’t involving medicating myself and the problems women have had with hormone therapy doesn’t make me anxious to want to sign on to taking a hormone-type therapy,” says Hardin, 40, who is single and a college administrator.'

But this is just what's being reported.

The reality is that plenty of men will use this option, and this trend would only increase over time as male birth control methods broke through the negative, emasculating stigma. I personally know many men who would love to try a non-barrier male birth control option and I know even more women poised to convince their partners to try it. Hell, I'll even support the 'girl's secretly trying to get pregnant' argument if that gets more guys thinking outside the (ahem) box.

Just when you think there couldn't be more to be said on the moths, a new flurry of arguments crops up.

Two competing pieces out today, both using science to support the pro and cons of aerial spraying for the Light Brown Apple Moth.

In a piece called "Moths and Misinformation", A.G. Kawamura, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, addresses misinformation about the CDFA's aerial spraying program for the Light Brown Apple Moth.

These include claims that the pheromone products are untested, that we are all going to be guinea pigs, that the treatments caused a red tide, poisoned the water, and even killed waterfowl.

And then there are what Kawamura characterizes as, "misleading and inaccurate references to describe a pheromone, including hormone, carcinogen, mutagen, endocrine disruptor and other scary-sounding descriptions."

“I urge the public to seek out scientific studies and historical data," Kawamura states.

Meanwhile, Dr. Dennis Knepp and Dr. Jeff Haferman, two Monterey area scientists, claim to have unearthed serious errors in an analysis of the particle size of the Suterra pesticide spray being used to combat LBAM.

We can see how small the moths are, but just how big are the particles in the aerial pheromone spray?

Well, Knepp and Haferman recently reviewed particle-size data from Suterra and provided by CDFA. They claim to have found that the CDFA made serious errors in their review of the Suterra data.

“The CDFA states in their analysis that only 1.2% of the particles in the Checkmate spray were smaller than 10 microns, which is a critical size for inhalation to deep within the lungs.

“They based their computations on particle volume, not number of particles, which is simply incorrect,” Haferman stated. Knepp explained that when the analysis is corrected “we find the average particle size to be about 17 microns with significant numbers of much smaller particles.”

“Our analysis shows that the small particle sizes from the Checkmate spray can cause significant health issues, and the CDFA needs to seriously reexamine their findings” said Knepp.
Knepp has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers in the areas of Geophysics and Electrical Engineering. Haferman has a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, and has published over a dozen papers in the fields of Meteorology and Engineering, and also sits on the Monterey City Council.

Our editorial this week calls on the two candidates for state Senate, Carole Migden and Mark Leno, to speak out against the Newsom budget cuts. I haven't heard from Leno, but I got the following message from Migden this morning:

"I completely agree with your take that Mayor Newsom's budget cuts are cruel and will take from those who have little or nothing to give. I have stood and spoken out with SEIU 1021 at two protests this year against these cuts to vital social services. Moreover I have stood with the California Nurses Association as we try to save St. Lukes and enforce staff to patient ratios. What is most vexing about the Mayor's move to cut $18 million in healthcare for the City's poorest residents, is that there seems to be no willingness to reach out and ask more from those who live in this CIty and can afford to pitch in extra. There is no question that the City and the State is in dire economic straits. Yet San Francisco also has a population of incredibly wealthy individuals (including our Mayor) and we must explore all options and pull in extra resources to make the City whole. Cutting is the quick and frankly the easier option; hard work and leadership is what is required to save vital services.

-State Senator Carole Migden"

So, go Carole. Mark?

Got an interesting letter from writer Paul Loeb today. It's an open missive to Hillary Clinton outlining why she should remember that John McCain is the real enemy, not Barack Obama. It includes a little snipped I had somehow missed: A new book on McCain reports that he once lashed out at his wife during a campaign event and called her a "cunt."

What a swell guy. CHeck it out:

The Assembly Agriculture Committee passed two pieces of legislation today authored by Assemblymember John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) and related to the Light Brown Apple Moth controversy.

“We need to back up and walk through each outstanding issue in a science-based, clear way using neutral third party experts," said Laird, who has been dealing with the LBAM furor since last summer, and has one of the best website's in terms of tracking the progression of arguments and lawsuits related to the moth.

So, just what will Laird's legislation do?

ACR 117, an Assembly Concurrent Resolution, calls on the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the Department of Pesticide Regulation, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and other relevant state departments to address unresolved health, scientific and efficacy issues surrounding the CDFA’s Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM )eradication plans.

The resolution passed 5-3, and next heads to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

"It is the responsibility of our government to demonstrate its LBAM actions are necessary and do not compromise human or environmental health,” said Mr. Laird. “It isn’t the responsibility of the people to demonstrate the reverse.”

AB 2763, the Invasive Pest Planning Act of 2008 – would require the CDFA to create a list of invasive animals, plants, and insects that have a reasonable likelihood of entering California for which an eradication program might be appropriate.

For each invasive on the list, the department would prepare a written assessment on the most appropriate method of eradication. If pesticides were to be used, the assessment would have to discuss application methods, the chemistry of the pesticide and its inert ingredients, impacts on public health and the environment. If a pest was found, the department would have to notify various local agencies, hold public hearings, and comply with other requirements. The bill passed by a vote of 8-0 and next heads to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

“The California Food & Agriculture’s Light Brown Apple Moth program has led to more contacts with my office than any single issue during my time in Sacramento,” said Laird. “Clearly, the state was not adequately prepared for LBAM. This bill aims to put in place a pest planning process that prevents the kind of public fear and confusion we’ve experienced with LBAM.”

Whether any of these efforts will succeed in derailing the feds' trade agreement-driven plan to spray for the moth this summer in Santa Cruz, Monterey and the BAy Area counties remains to be seen.

Bill Maxfield

Director of Communications

Assemblymember John Laird

831-596-0910 Mobile

831-425-1503 Santa Cruz

916-319-2027 Sacramento

“Public confidence is at issue,” said Assemblymember Laird, who has been living through the ongoing LBAM spraying nightmare since last summer, when the feds announced they were spraying Laiird's hometown, “We need to back up and walk through each outstanding issue in a science-based, clear way using neutral third party experts.”

ACR 117, an Assembly Concurrent Resolution that calls on the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), the Department of Pesticide Regulation, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and other relevant state departments to address unresolved health, scientific and efficacy issues surrounding the CDFA’s Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM )eradication plans. The resolution passed by a vote of 5-3 and next heads to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

“As stated in the resolution, it is the responsibility of our government to demonstrate its LBAM actions are necessary and do not compromise human or environmental health,” said Mr. Laird. “It isn’t the responsibility of the people to demonstrate the reverse.”

AB 2763, the Invasive Pest Planning Act of 2008 – would require the CDFA to create a list of invasive animals, plants, and insects that have a reasonable likelihood of entering California for which an eradication program might be appropriate. For each invasive on the list, the department would prepare a written assessment on the most appropriate method of eradication. If pesticides were to be used, the assessment would have to discuss application methods, the chemistry of the pesticide and its inert ingredients, impacts on public health and the environment. If a pest was found, the department would have to notify various local agencies, hold public hearings, and comply with other requirements. The bill passed by a vote of 8-0 and next heads to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

“The California Food & Agriculture’s Light Brown Apple Moth program has led to more contacts with my office than any single issue during my time in Sacramento,” said Mr. Laird. “Clearly, the state was not adequately prepared for LBAM. This bill aims to put in place a pest planning process that prevents the kind of public fear and confusion we’ve experienced with LBAM.”

For more information on the Light Brown Apple Moth issue—including key documents, correspondence, news and other information, visit Assemblymember Laird’s LBAM resource page: http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/members/a27/moth.htm

###

Bill Maxfield

Director of Communications

Assemblymember John Laird

831-596-0910 Mobile

831-425-1503 Santa Cruz

916-319-2027 Sacramento

And congratulations go out to San Joaquin Valley Power Authority, which has reached a settlement agreement with PG&E over how the utility company has been behaving itself with regards to Community Choice Aggregation (CCA.) Best part: PG&E has to pay.

I’m giving a nod to the Associated Press here, which described SJVPA as a “public electricity cooperative,” because that’s essentially what a CCA is – a group of cities and counties getting together to buy or build their own power, and then run it through the grid that’s already established. Many CCAs say they can bring us cheaper, greener power. According to Tim Rosenfeld, who's working on Marin's CCA, "Public power can simply do things cheaper than investor-owned utilities." For example, he says, the cost of financing a new power plant is about 5.5 percent for a municipality issuing a bond, and it's more like 12 percent for a private company. "Apples to apples, building the same power plant we have a huge cost advantage," said Rosenfeld.

As one might imagine, PG&E has some issues with CCAs because it means losing customers, and they’ve been lobbying hard against them throughout their service territory. They were so effective in San Joaquin that Fresno and Tulare backed out of the deal, meaning the SJVPA had less customers.

As we reported last year, SJVPA filed a complaint with the California Public Utilities Commission, which had already decided that it was a conflict of interest for utilities to expound on the pros and cons of CCAs, and if they were going to bitch about it they better do it with their shareholders’ piggy banks. SJVPA had evidence to the contrary and now they’ve settled with PG&E. The terms: PG&E agrees to make sure their investors pay for the marketing and lobbying and that said lobbying will be “truthful and non-misleading” – which makes my job more boring. Best part: they’re also paying up to $450K of SJVPA’s litigation fees.

The other interesting aspect of this is PG&E admits they changed horses midstream.

Assemblymember Mark Leno, who is challenging state Sen. Carole Migden in the June primary, responded this afternoon to our editorial on Newsom's budget cuts.

Migden responded earlier today.

Here's Leno's statement:

Dear Bay Guardian Editors,

You are absolutely right to assert that the Federal Government has turned its back on urban America and the Governor’s repeal of the Vehicle License Fee (VLF) has left our City in extremely challenged fiscal health. I agree with you, Tim, that new revenue is needed for the City. Current state law gives local government few options.

For that reason I have and am presently authoring legislation to bring more local control to our revenue streams, so that we can guarantee that San Francisco’s budget is not balanced on the backs of those who can least afford it.

In 2005, I authored AB 799, co-sponsored by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, SF Labor Council, Board of Supervisors and the Mayor, which would have allowed San Francisco voters to restore their own VLF which would have brought approximately 70 million new dollars to San Francisco. Unfortunately the Governor vetoed the bill.

I brought the bill back in 2007 as AB 1590. Unfortunately, it got held up in the Senate. I am working with all four co-sponsors to shake it loose this year.

Back in 2003, when cities and counties were faced with huge cuts, I authored AB 1690 to bring more revenue to the local level. The measure would have allowed voters to decide to levy a local income tax, which could have eased our way and pre-empted painful cuts to our local budget. That measure, though passed through the Assembly, was also held up in the Senate.

The Mayor and Board of Supervisors have a great challenge on their hands. The fiscal crisis we face is nothing short of tragic. I will continue to use my voice to argue that the cuts considered must be equitable, and those with the least should suffer the least.

I continue to argue that we have a revenue problem, not a spending problem. To forestall mean spirited cuts, we need to be as creative as possible to create new revenue streams. Otherwise, we will be continually faced with Sophie’s Choices.

Sincerely,
Mark Leno

And thanks to Mark for sending that, and for pushing for state legislation that would give cities more ways to raise revenue. I have always been impressed by his willingness to do that and his creative approaches.

I will note, for the record, that Leno declined to say anything critical of Gavin Newsom and his budget decisions.

This morning I attended the grand opening ceremony of the pretty incredible-looking Hotel Essex, an 84-unit rehab completed by Community Housing Partnership and Mercy Housing that now houses 84 formerly homeless people in their own apartments (complete with kitchenettes!), with on-site counselling, recovery, and job-training services available. (Full disclosure: My bf works for CHP and helped put this all together.)

The Essex was rehabbed with $22+ million dollars of city, state, and federal grants and loans -- $1.1 million of which was federal, and very grudgingly contributed by an eviscerated HUD at the behest of Nancy Pelosi, who apparently can actually get some things done. Good for her!

This is the first homeless housing project completed under Mayor Gavin Newsom's administration (stuff takes time, folks) and naturally Newsie was there himself to make some remarks. I must say, despite his odious record on homelessness, Gavin was actually quite gracious to all involved and even acknowledged that he had been on the wrong side of many of the disagreements he'd with the progenitors of the project. But, of course, he's charming like that.

And then came a very weird moment. With cautious enunciation and in the wake the whole Obama-elitism-San Francisco-oh my! panic, Newsom, a supposedly staunch Hillary supporter, said:

"We're turning this problem around -- or, as Barack Obama says: We're turning the page, bringing real change -- on homelessness."

Hmm. Quoting Obama, really? Right now? Either this was a very misguided attempt to pull a Hillary and tar Obama with any reference to scandal possible -- keeping the smear ball in play, as it were -- or perhaps Mr. Newsom knows something we don't about the way the superdelegate winds are blowing, and is waving around a little penance. Either way, many confused looks were shot across the room.

Back to the actual issue at hand: Darryl, one of the Essex's residents, who unfortunately spoke last, well after Newsom had slipped out the back, was the most eloquent speaker, talking about how the Essex was giving him and others a chance at real community and about the power of a little faith and empowerment to help change lives.

C.W. Nevius was not present.

After an epic five-week trip to Bolivia and Peru, I'm back manning the news desk here at the Guardian and trying to catch up on what's happening. And it seems the biggest things that have changed in my absence are my perspective and energy levels.
The Republicans in Sacramento and Mayor Gavin Newsom here in San Francisco are continuing to push draconian cuts to government services rather than having the courage to challenge the mindless "no new taxes" mantra and have the wealthy pay their fair share. And neither the Democrats in Sacramento or Washington D.C., nor the Board of Supervisors here, seem to be doing much to challenge this race to the bottom. It's not that they don't understand. In the last two days, we've had Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and Assembly member Loni Hancock in for endorsement interviews, and they powerfully sound the message that something needs to change and they're willing to work for it. But with the labor unions distracted by infighting, Democratic politicians battling one another (such as Carole Migden and Mark Leno, who we have the unfortunate task of deciding between for our endorsements that come out April 30), the mainstream media both smaller and more trivial, and many other factors stacked against our species finally getting wise to the problems we face, it looks like an uphill battle.
Does all this make me want to flee back to South America? No, it makes me want to renew the fight for truth and justice. How about you?

Okay, as afar as I can tell this is NOT a real interview, but an Australian TV skit. Still, it's a really, really funny commentary on an oil spill.

In January of 2007, we brought you the story of a Silicone Valley company called Mercury Interactive, which was trying to bar media access to a detailed civil court complaint filed by shareholders against the company.

Mercury Interactive for months has been waste deep in the stock options backdating scandal, defined in the simplest terms possible as a version of card counting in which corporate executives can maximize their personal compensation by finding a date on the calender at which their stock was valued the lowest. That way, they can both buy the stock from the company at a fire sale price and then sell it when the company's performing well, which results in a huge windfall profit. Another comparison might be knowing winning lottery numbers in advance.

Details of the scheme allegedly perpetrated by Mercury Interactive execs appeared in the civil complaint and it named names, so defense attorneys tried to keep them sealed off from the press. But local and national news outlets -- including the Chronicle, a San Francisco legal newspaper and other business news services -- sued to open them up. The Wall Street Journal ended up getting a hold of the documents before the drama could really play out in court.

A year-and-a-half later, Mercury Interactive CFO Sharlene Abrams has been indicted by federal prosecutors for tax evasion and aiding in the preparation of false tax returns. She's looking at 11 years in prison and $750,000 in fines if proved guilty. It's the first case in Northern California where someone's been charged with criminal tax violations from the backdating scandal. Hewlett-Packard bought Mercury in July 2006. More details after the jump.

As we celebrate Earth Day in this era of all things green, it's worth contemplating whether our enviro-guilt has gotten the better of our skepticism and critical thinking. Is "Green=Good" our sole metric these days, making us susceptible to self-serving spin from our politicians and corporations? After all, our Governator seems to have gone from bad to good simply by donning verdant armor and signing a landmark global warming measure that he long fought and watered down.
Closer to home, PG&E's has been trying to greenwash away our knowledge of their penchant for polluting technologies and political corruption, a quest that our lazy but ambitious and ever image conscious Mayor Gavin Newsom has sporadically tried to piggyback on (ie tidal power, sponsored conferences, and solar everything). When Newsom tried to beef up the city solar commitment by robbing a seismic upgrade fund for renters and then the city's own bank for building municipal solar panels, it was understandable that the Board of Supervisors balked.
But in today's Chron, SPUR policy wonk Egon Terplan and righteous activist Van Jones whack the move and decry city plans for more fossil fuel generation. It's not a bad point, although it is an oversimplistic one, like too many of our either-or green political debates these days. Indeed, we seem to lose the ability to see shades of gray when we talk green, and we too often forget that money is the other form of green in the equation.
As we've reported, San Francisco's solar problems are complicated, just like our power generation problems (see our story in tomorrow's paper for a more nuanced look at the peaker plant issue). To solve the problems, we need honest leaders speaking candidly to us and each other, rather than all the spin, self-interest, and political gamesmanship that has sullied San Francisco's political dialogue in recent years.
Green can be good, or it can be the equivalent of snake oil or the IPO for a overhyped tech company that will never make any money. As an excellent recent cover story in Harper's Magazine noted, the green economy could be the next great bubble after the housing and dot-com crashes, something that desperate capitalists and their political partners are eagerly trying to make so.
Maybe that will be a good thing, but let's learn our lessons from the last couple bubbles and don't simply assume that the green label is some kind of stamp of public interest approval.

Happy Earth Day everyone! Here's a little present for you to print out and hang on your fridge.

GOOD Magazine put together a very handy guide to the big bad corporations that have co-opted the natural food companies you know and love. It's sad, folks. Some, like the Odwalla-Coca Cola connection aren't breaking news, but man, I didn't know Dagoba was in bed with Hershey.

My Earth Day resolution: buy local, local, local.

You might remember local political cog Annemarie Conroy from such films as The Career Hack and How to Get Inexplicably Bigger Job Titles in San Francisco Without Real Credentials. After disappearing for a while, she's back. Joe Russoniello, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, just announced that Conroy is his new "law enforcement coordinator."

Her primary responsibilities will be to "maximize the use of federal resources to meet crime abatement objectives," be a "chief liaison to local law enforcement officials" and direct the district's "Project Safe Neighborhood and Weed and Seed programs." Despite the confusing title, that last program there involves taking on drug activity and gangs with the feds, which she’s no doubt suited to do.

Some of you might recall the trajectory of Conroy's career. Dan Noyes at ABC 7 pointed out in 2005 that when Newsom appointed her to head San Francisco’s Office of Emergency Services, she had no experience in disaster management, but she did have political connections, just like Michael Brown, head of FEMA when Katrina struck. A retired Navy admiral who held the job before Conroy went public and declared that Newsom should remove her for being ill-prepared, and behind the scenes, the fire department wasn’t happy about her post either. She finally resigned in January of 2007.

Photo by Peter Grigsby, Office of Governor Schwarzenegger.
After meeting with Sen. Carole Migden and other elected officials and activists concerned about the health implications of plans for aerial spraying designed to eradicate the crop-threatening light brown apple moth, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today delayed the spraying pending additional testing.
“I am very gratified that the Governor listened to my concerns about the safety and efficacy of aerial spraying and agreed to postpone the spray until additional tests are completed,” Migden said in a prepared statement.
After a series of toxicology tests on the spray, which includes a moth pheromone designed to disrupt mating patterns, the spraying has been delayed until at least Aug. 17. Despite the delay, the governor still seems to indicate that the spraying is inevitable, saying in a prepared statement, "I am confident that the additional tests will reassure Californians that we are taking the safest, most progressive approach to ridding our state of this very real threat to our agriculture, environment and economy."
Others in the Migden delegate included Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento -- and the likely next Senate president), Marin County Supervisor Judy Arnold, the Sierra Club's Bill Magavern and Paul Schramski, State Director of Pesticide Watch.
But it is Migden that could enjoy the biggest political bump from the delay of the controversial spraying until after her June primary challenge from Mark Leno, hoping that her campaign finance and other problems might be overshadowed by the reminder that she still has the juice to get into the Governor's Office and deliver the goods.

They say money talks. So what does Lennar's latest campaign expenditures tell you?

One day after our latest article about Lennar’s plans to takeover the Bayview came out, the developer’s most recent campaign filings show that between March 18 and April 19, Lennar Homes spent another million dollars to influence the Battle for the Bayview.

To date, this an out-of-state developer has spent a total of $2.23 million to defeat Prop. F (which requires that 50 percent of Lennar’s proposed 10,000 new units of housing be truly affordable to people living in the Bayview)supporting instead an initiative that would allow it to build at least 75 percent of these new units as luxury condos.

San Franciscans don’t easily let go of good or noble ideas, which is why we’ve long supported the impeachment of war criminals George W. Bush and Dick Cheney – and long been frustrated at the stubborn refusal of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to do anything to hold this administration responsible for its treasonous misdeeds.
It’s been more than three years since I and the Guardian laid out our strong “Case for Impeachment,” and more than a year since Brad Newsham and hundreds of his local cohorts launched the simple but effective Beach Impeach project, the fifth installment of which takes place at 10 a.m. this Saturday at Ocean Beach.
But whether we’re penning thoughtful articles, marching in the streets, collectively aligning our bodies to spell the word “IMPEACH!” or starting political campaigns, the message is the same: we are sickened by the possibility that Bush and Cheney will finish their terms and head off into retirement without ever being held accountable for illegally and deceitfully leading us into an immoral and unjustifiable war, among their many abuses of power.
And that frustration has now fallen hard on Pelosi. I don’t realistically share the hopes of the Shirley Golub for Congress campaign that they might defeat Pelosi in the June primary election, but I’m sure she’ll pick up lots of protest votes. Same thing this November when high-profile anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan takes her independent run at Pelosi.
Let’s face it, this Democrat-led Congress has been a big disappointment. And it’s not because, as they’re fundraising pleas would have you believe, that their majority isn’t large enough (although that might help a bit). It’s because Pelosi and company are too afraid or too invested in the system to really challenge the powerful on behalf of the people.
But at least we can send our signal to the world while kicking it on the beach and pray they understand that we’re not all complicit in this dying empire’s crimes.

Newsom and me at a past Bike to Work Day.
While other U.S. cities pedal forward with smart policies to encouraging bicycling -- the cheapest, easiest and greenest of the transportation options besides walking -- San Francisco continues to lag as we move toward annual Bike to Work Day on May 15. Part of that is the court injunction against new bike projects, but even more of it is a simple failure of political will by Mayor Gavin Newsom and other civic leaders.
We saw another example of that cowardice in this morning's Chron when Newsom and some supervisors promised to fight new parking fine increases even if it meant scaling back needed improvements to Muni. Meanwhile, Newsom years ago announced plans to offer easy bicycle rentals at many bus stops, yet it is Washington DC that actually went ahead and did it, following the lead of Paris and other world-class cities. Newsom has a bunch of high-paid environmental advisers, and his web page announcements are always chock full of green promises, so why does San Francisco have such a hard time with such a basic goal of encouraging more bicycling in this 7x7 city?

Finally, the mainstream media is starting to do the math. As the Examiner reports today, Clinton would have to win something like 80 percent of the delegates after North Carolina and Indiana to go to the convention ahead of Barack Obama. It's over -- and all that Bill and Hillary are doing is damaging the Democratic Party's prospects in November by trashing the almost certain nominee.

This is nothing new to the blogosphere -- Paul Hogarth explained it nicely way back in March.

I'm not among the Hillary bashers who just can't stand her; I think she'd be a fine president. But she has adopted her husband's win-at-all-costs, scorched-earth attitude and I'm starting to think that she would rather see John McCain in the White House than Barack Obama. Because that's where her behavior is leading. She needs to drop out.

Petraeus: "The big green weenie that we are giving to the troopers after politely asking them to bend over with 'stop-loss' and 'involuntary extension' is about this big. And it's called the fifteenth month deployment."
(From the blog of Sgt. Adam Kokesh)

Here's a good idea: Cancel all leaves, vacation and family visits by member of Congress until the troops come home from Iraq. If the military can put "stop loss"orders on the troops, Congres ought to be able to abide by the same rules.

The stop-loss Congress group will bring Adam Kokesh, a former Marine Corps sergeant who is now active against the war.

Details on his appearance follow after the jump

I'm sorry to see Barack Obama's campaign in so much trouble over the latest comments of Rev. Wright, but you have to admit: This is a great argument for the separation of church and state.

Religious figures say all kinds of strange things -- and frankly, while I (obviously) don't agree with Wright that AIDS is a government plot, it's pretty well established that the Reagan administration's failure to respond to the epidemic in the crucial early years was, if not a government plot to kill anyone, certainly a government plot not to save the lives of gay men.

But here's the question: Why so much media attention on Obama's religious albatross -- and so little on John McCain's? McCain, lest we forget, is pals with Paston John Hagee, who believes, among other things, that the Catholic Church is a "great whore," that "all Muslims have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews," that God wants us to bomb Iran -- and that God damns the United States because of gays, Catholics and Muslims.

Me, I'd rather have a guy who rails against the U.S. for racism and imperialism than a guy who says God hates gays. But then, I don't go to church.

And you wonder why Phil Bronstein, whose blog is quite pathetic, even pays attention to her. But Phil is always down with the swells, and now he is promoting Dede's plan to repeal district elections.

Let me remind you, Phil, since you haven't been covering City Hall in a long time, that the district-elected supervisors are far, far better, despite their occasional foibles, than any previous board in the 25 years I've been watching.

There's a good reason for this: District candidates can run without big money from the powers that be and the Dede WIlsey's of the world. So you get candidates with real grassroots constituencies, not just hacks who are pawns of the power structure.

The city’s proposal to build two fossil-fuel burning “peaking” power plants on our precious peninsula (one in Portrero/Bayview, the other at the airport) has become a hot topic.

On one side we have Supervisors Michela Alioto-Pier, Chris Daly, and Ross Mirkarimi, allied with PG&E and a host of environmental groups and activists like the Sierra Club, GreenAction, SPUR, and Van Jones, who think building any fossil fuel plants – even if they burn the cleanest fuel available – is a bad idea.

On the other, we have Mayor Gavin Newsom, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, and Supervisors Aaron Peskin and Sophie Maxwell, who believe this is a necessary handshake with the Devil – in order to close down the older, reportedly more polluting Mirant Portrero power plant, the peakers must replace it. (See the $2 million handshake here.) Public power advocates also tend to favor this position as the peakers will be owned by the city and considered a crucial player in energy independence from our local utility monopoly. This is why PG&E, disguised as the CloseIt Coalition, hates the idea.

We can see Mirant’s stack from our Guardian offices, and though we love public power, we hate the idea of replacing one fossil fuel plant with another – particularly if the $250 million for the project could be used to build more city-owned renewable generation for our Community Choice Aggregation power co-op. Last week we ran an editorial suggesting the city explore floating the peakers on a barge, but overall, to build or not to build is the tricky part of this issue. We’ve been watching the back and forth with interest. Follow the jump to read some leading locals weighing in, as well as more data from our research. Feel free to add your own comments, information, and critiques.

Ha! I love this. Somebody over at Venables Bell, PG&E's big greenwashing firm, isn't paying attention at all. What a gaffe. And last year the corporation paid them $5,678,182 from a $6,855,643 ad budget. Five million bucks and you run ads in the Bay Guardian? Whoops. I hope we're charging top dollar.

We took the State Senate District 3 endorsement seriously, and agonized over it for weeks. What do you think -- did we get it right?

Image from sfist.com

I and other bicyclists and pedestrians have long been urging the city to do something about the dangerous intersection of Fell and Masonic, and that pressure yesterday yielded a small but significant victory.
City attorneys persuaded Judge Peter Busch to make an exception in his injunction against bicycle projects so that the city can create a dedicated left turn lane and traffic signal phase for cars, which now cut across the pedestrians and bicyclists in a way that often leads to life-threatening collisions.
Kudos to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and City Attorney's Office for taking this seriously enough to head back to court over it, and another big raspberry to anti-bike blogger Rob Anderson (the guy responsible for the injunction) for forcing the city to jump through so many legal hoops just to make some common sense improvements to promote safe bicycling.
The project must still go through the city approval process -- where Anderson will likely to be speaking against it and threatening to sue again -- but it appears to be a done deal that will be built by early summer.

May Day is the most peculiar of the American non-holiday holidays. Throughout Europe, South America, and much of the world, it is known as International Workers Day, a day celebrating labor solidarity that marks the 1886 Haymarket massacre in Chicago. Ironically, it never really caught on in the U.S., with our fears of all things even a bit Red.
But this being San Francisco, there's still a strong contingent of lefties and other labor supporters that will be marking May Day tomorrow with marches and events covering a variety of related causes. Starting at 10:30 a.m., dock workers and anti-war activists will gather at the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union Hall at Mason and Beach streets, from which they'll hold a march in support of the ILWU decision to take the day off in protest of the Iraq War, thus slowing down the war machine just a bit. The march ends at Justin Herman Plaza for a noon rally.
Then at 2 p.m., supporters of immigrant rights will gather in Dolores Park and march to Civic Center for a 5 p.m. rally. And that evening at 7:30, the feisty Young Workers United will throw a May Day party at Balazo Gallery, 2183 Mission at 18th.
So, comrades, join the festivities and have a happy May Day.

Up until now, net metering has been a sort of mythical to me. I understand how it works – you put up solar panels or wind generators and the utility company rebates you for the power you make – to an extent. You can’t be paid for any extra power you generate. I get that, but I’d never actually seen what it looks like.

Then I checked my mail today and found a letter [PDF] from JB Neilands, a retired UC Berkeley biochemist and past writer for the Guardian who broke the original story about the Raker Act scandal. Six years ago Neilands put solar panels on his Berkeley home, and now PG&E sends him a summary of all the excess power he’s generating for them – that they don’t pay him for. He could have made $122.86 off his panels last year. That’s not a lot, but it certainly would have helped pay back some of the cost of purchasing the panels. Plus it gives you a good feeling about what you’re doing, and that can go a long way.

Instead, how crummy it must feel to get a letter from PG&E detailing the money the AREN’T reimbursing you. As Neilands points out in another letter [PDF]to Assemblymember Lloyd Levine, ten states surveyed by Home Power magazine (gotta be a member to read) found that California is the only one that doesn’t pay people for the extra power they generate.

This is ridiculous. California legislators need to rise above the lobbying of overly powerful utility companies and change this law. This is a disincentive to put up more panels than you need. Energy misers with huge roofs could be selling renewable power into the grid for the rest of us to use, but they’re not going to buy more panels than they need unless the cost can be recouped.

Assemblymember Jared Huffman has introduced legislation to fix this, but it appears PG&E has already gotten to him.

Mark Leno called today to thank us for endorsing him. I reminded him that this was a leap of faith for us, and that I'd gotten a lot of shit from some of my best political friends over the endorsement, and I told him that (a) he better not ever do anything boneheaded like endorsing Michael Yaki again, and (b) he needs to start now trying to repair the rifts that this race has caused. He promised me that was a top priority.

And then after I got off the phone I got an idea, which -- like just about everything I've said to Leno -- is worth putting out in public.

Mark: Why not start the process now by annoucing that you'll support Debra Walker for District 6 supervisor in 2010?

She's running. She told me that last week. She's going to be the consensus progressive candidate to succeed Chris Daly. She's a queer community leader, a leader in the arts community, an experienced political activist and city commissioner ... she's pretty much perfect for the job.

And she's a supporter of Carole Migden.

That's the sort of bold move it's going to take to prove that you're serious about bringing people together. And it's a no-brainer, since Walker is such an extraordinary person and exceptional candidate. Nothing to lose here, Mark, and everything to gain. I have her phone number if you need it.

PS: Update: I've apparently been wrong in one of my criticisms -- Leno says he never endorsed Michael Yaki. Sorry about the error.