We are no longer the beacon

What? The FDA hasn't jumped right on this, letting the EU take the lead?

But wait, maybe this is yet another example of the "liberal press" trying to make our administration look bad ?

New York Times:
European Union regulators on Thursday ordered rigorous testing of imports containing at least 15 percent milk powder after concluding that food containing tainted milk powder from China may well be circulating in Europe and putting children at risk.

Theaters and Gas Stations

Whoa, this is too weird. First theaters, and now gas stations both make more money at candy sales than their actual "product?" And the big guys are putting on the squeeze.

click to read full story:
At many stations, it's the convenience store that makes money. Gas is seen as a loss leader, something a station sells to attract people who might buy higher-profit-margin items like coffee and sandwiches.

Bike to Mill Valley

Rode my bicycle to Mill Valley today, and took the ferry from Sausalito home. Here's a nice camera phone pic of Mount Tamalpais, framed by the Highway 101 bridge over Richardson Bay.

Chemical / Pharmaceutical...

Isn't it ironic that on one hand, the world is awash in chemicals incidentally released into the environment -- pesticides, flame retardents from your bed sheets, estrogens from birth control pills affecting marine life... and on the other hand, people are dying a more rapid death from lack of life-saving pharmaceuticals?
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Although the work of MSF and other groups that started in Seattle has helped to dramatically decrease the prices of AIDS and other essential medicines, the global system of drug research and development remains fundamentally flawed. Between 1975 and 2004, 1,556 new chemical entities were marketed globally. Only 20 of these – a mere 1.3 per cent – were for tropical diseases and tuberculosis, which account for 12 percent of the total disease burden. This 1 percent ratio has been steady over the last three decades.
Doctors Without Borders

Money bags

In some circles, it's not considered polite to ask what you do "for a living." Wouldn't want to insult anyone, eh?

S.F. man with tales of woe is convicted of bilking parents

AT&T shell for scam artists?

How long does it take to get your bill from AT&T corrected? Well, I guess I was lucky, it only took two months. sound clip

Others have not been so lucky.

I think Steven Colbert sums up the company fairly well in this clip. By the way, I couldn't find that clip at Comedy Central -- not sure where the copy came from.

But the truth behind AT&T may be even more convoluted than Colbert reports. I posit that AT&T is now a virtual corporation, a loose confederation of Dilbert cubicles, independent contractors, and consultants, each division of which has its own profit motives and interior hierarchies, none of which is entirely understood by anyone inside or outside of "the company" including its headquarters, stock holders, the government, and last of all anyone who is a customer.

In fact, some of these branches of "the company" could be entirely criminal enterprises, using the monniker "AT&T" as a front for their various fraudulent activities. Would anyone even know? Further evidence:

AT&T agrees to repay fees charged to people who say they weren't even customers

AT&T fined more than $300,000 for overcharging on prison calls

Ohio Phone Users Are Warned about AT&T Over-Billing Error

AT&T Busted For Fine Print Trickery

Government & Regulation

There are those who think the free market can take care of everything. Poison milk? Word will get out and people will stop buying it. Yes, but not before quite a few babies die or are injured.

For those who think big government is bad, and all this regulation is killing industry, you only have to look to China to see what things were like before the FDA. Look to China to see what covering up scandal and silencing critics does to the national psyche. Oh sure, their economy is booming, and U.S. capitalists complain that they can't compete because of regulation in the U.S., having to pay minimum wage, and all sorts of nuisance factors that have created our standard of living. But really -- does the U.S. want to revert to what it was like before the FDA ?

link to article on poison milk

Inconvenient Murder

Oh by the way, could you send someone to get this dead body outta here? It's starting to smell.
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A tip today led San Francisco police to a body, wrapped in plastic and dumped into a trash can in the basement of a Tenderloin building.

Authorities are investigating the death as a homicide, said police spokesman Sgt. Neville Gittens. He did not release any information about the victim's identity.

Gittens said someone called authorities a little before noon to "let police know" about the body. The person is not a suspect, he said. (SF Chronicle)

Dear Apple Computer

Dear Apple Computer...

OK, I made my first Apple purchase, as you might guess, an iPod. Yes, I'm running Windows/Intel desktop. So first iTunes screwed up my music folders. I spent days sorting it all out within your software, but then I couldn't back it up without losing all the extras your software added (like playlists, and play count).

Then came the problems synchronizing with the desktop. I thought maybe your new version of iTunes might fix that, but what did it do? It lost half of my album art, and didn't fix the sync problem.

I'm sure you want to blame all this on Microsoft, but what kind of bastards did you hire to write this software? Maybe they were Microsoft minions hellbent on destroying your most popular product. Whoever wrote the software, they've convinced me that both Apple and Microsoft are now both greedy inhuman corporations whose goal is to enslave and drain the pocketbooks of their users. Sorry, I prefer companies whose goal is to create quality products that serve the customer.

The iPod is nice, but the software sucks, and the entire experience of my first Apple product has convinced me not to buy any more.

Presidio - Officer's Row

Took a bike ride on Kobbe Ave "Kobbe is much better traveled at the speed of a bicycle than a car. On this terrace you’ll find the most handsome collection of residences in the Presidio: Officers’ Row."

Berkeley goes bust

Once upon a time, UC Berkeley was one of the hotbeds of the counter-cultural revolution. While the town itself retains some of that reputation, the university itself seems to embrace the Reagan revolution -- and is hell-bent on destroying any remaining mother nature that stands in the way. For a new athletic center:
"Among the trees felled was a 200-year-old coast live oak, dubbed by protesters as "Grandma," which was apparently the oldest oak on the main campus, according to local historians."
SFGATE link

SF to Rodeo Beach on Bike

Rode bike to Rodeo Beach (Fort Cronkhite). Click on images for larger views. Starting and ending point are at the lower right of the map, and elevation graph tracks accordingly.I joined tracks that were disconnected by going through a tunnel. I think the red zone on the outbound, the signal was blocked by a hill coming out of the tunnel, which didn't happen on the return. Of course, it could just be that I made an error joining tracks, but this looks about right. Outbound, uphill in the tunnel is a bit freaky, since you can't keep up with cars, and before the end, you have cars coming at you in close quarters (but there is a bike lane).