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Kadie's Journal
Deja vu for ex-Gov. Davis as budget drama unfolds Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, July 2, 2009 (07-02) 18:56 PDT Sacramento -- The last time California issued IOUs, Gray Davis was the state controller who made the controversial call. It was 1992 and such a drastic step hadn't been taken since the Great Depression. Two years later, Davis was elected lieutenant governor and in 1998, governor. In 2003, a year after winning re-election, he was ousted in a recall campaign by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who promised voters he would fix the state's broken finances. At the time, he criticized the budget Davis had signed as having "more special effects than 'Terminator III.' " So, what does Davis, 66, have to say about the current state of affairs in Sacramento? The former governor told The Chronicle he is "thrilled" not to be in Sacramento as state leaders try to break a stalemate over California's finances. "I've seen this movie before," Davis said. snip... Q: Do you think the 2003 recall of you as governor has played any part in getting the state to this point? A: (Long pause). Every governor is faced with an economic challenge if they serve long enough. ... It's hard for me to know what role the recall played. Clearly, the fiscal management of the state was an issue in the campaign, but I stand by what I did. We reduced taxes overall and created jobs. (Schwarzenegger) faces a much more severe economic crisis than I did. Nobody seems to understand that the economy is like the tide. When you're in high tide no one thinks low tide is coming. Sometimes a crisis requires people to rethink how we got in this mess. That's a healthy process. more... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...
Myanmar fossil may shed light on evolution By MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer Michael Casey, Ap Environmental Writer – 1 hr 27 mins ago BANGKOK, Thailand – Fossils recently discovered in Myanmar could prove that the common ancestors of humans, monkeys and apes evolved from primates in Asia, rather than Africa, researchers contend in a study released Wednesday. However, other scientists said that the finding, while significant, won't end the debate over the origin of anthropoids — the primate grouping that includes ancient species as well as modern humans. The pieces of 38 million-year-old jawbones and teeth found near Bagan in central Myanmar in 2005 show typical characteristics of primates, said Dr. Chris Beard, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and a member of the team that found the fossils. "When we found it, we knew we had a new type of primate and basically what kind of primate it was," Beard said in a telephone interview from Pittsburgh. "It turns out that jaws and teeth are very diagnostic. ... They are almost like fingerprints for fossils like this." The findings were published in the Proceedings of The Royal Society B, a London-based peer-reviewed journal. more... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_sci_myanmar_...  This image, provided by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, is an artist's conception what they call a life reconstruction of Ganlea megacanina by Mark A. Klingler. Fossils recently discovered in Myanmar could prove that the common ancestors of humans, monkeys and apes evolved from primates in Asia, rather than Africa, researchers contend in a study released Wednesday,July 1. 2009. Fossils - which the scientists dubbed Ganlea megacanina - came from 10 to 15 individuals of a new species that belonged to an extinct family of Asian anthropoid primates known as Amphipithecidae. (AP Photo/Carnegie Museum of Natural History/Mark A. Klingler)
Medical pot users, growers can sue over raids Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, July 2, 2009 Medical marijuana patients and growers can sue police for illegally raiding their property and destroying their plants, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday. The 2-1 decision by the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento was the first in the state to allow a patient or grower to sue claiming that their rights to cultivate and use medical marijuana have been violated. Those rights are protected by state law but banned by federal law. Officials in Butte County, where the case arose, argued that patients and suppliers can invoke the medical marijuana law only as a defense to criminal charges, not to sue for damages. The court's dissenting justice said no one is entitled to compensation for the destruction of a drug banned under federal law. But the court's majority said a marijuana patient or member of a collective has the same right as anyone else to sue officers who violate the constitutional ban on illegal searches and seizures. more... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...
Liver device helps man survive until transplant Victoria Colliver, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, July 1, 2009 (07-01) 18:50 PDT -- Eddie Lopez, a 50-year-old San Francisco man with cirrhosis, went into liver failure in March, arrived at California Pacific Medical Center in a coma and was put on life support. Lopez was too sick to qualify for a liver transplant, even if a donated organ became available, making his odds of survival limited at best. The odds could have been worse, but the San Francisco hospital he was in happened to be one of only seven institutions nationwide testing a new device designed to take over the functions of the body's liver for a few hours or several days - long enough to give the patient a chance to stabilize. For decades, researchers have struggled to create an artificial liver that would mimic both the liver's ability to filter toxins as well as create vital chemicals necessary to live. Unlike people with kidney dysfunction, who can rely on a dialysis machine to keep them alive, patients in acute liver failure have fewer options because of the organ's complex nature. The latest device to be tested is called the ELAD, for extracorporeal liver assist device. It is considered the first to have human liver cells, which are contained in cartridges that the patient's blood passes through to provide the liver's crucial tasks. A once-promising device that used pig liver cells failed to receive Food and Drug Administration approval. more... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...
Confirmed: God is slightly gay Just ask the animals. As soon as they stop having all that homosexual sex By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist Wednesday, July 1, 2009 I am sitting here right now smiling just a little, fondly recalling that famously controversial children's book, the one about the gay penguins. Remember? That positively adorable pair of them, at the Central Park Zoo, who had adopted an abandoned egg and then hatched it themselves and were raising the chick together as a couple, even though the chick was clearly not theirs -- though of course how penguins can actually tell whose kid is whose is still a question. Never mind that now. The best part: the story was absolutely true. The book, "And Tango Makes Three," was beautiful and sweet and touching in all the right ways -- except, of course, for the fact that it was also totally evil. For indeed, the penguins in question, named Roy and Silo, were both males. This meant they were clearly in some sort of ungodly, aberrant homosexual relationship, mocking natural laws and defying God's will that all creatures only cohabitate with the opposite sex and buy microfiber sofas from Pottery Barn and eat their meals in silent resentment and never have sex. Worst of all, the book depicted this relationship, this "family," as perfectly OK, as no big deal, as even (shudder) normal. After all, Roy and Silo didn't seem to give much of a damn. Tango sure seemed happy, what with not being left for dead and all. As of this writing, the Central Park Zoo has yet to be swallowed into a gaping maw of sinful doom. Unless you count those parents. I am right now amused at this because it turns out Roy and Silo were not really so much of an anomaly at all. Nor were they some sort of unholy freakshow, an immoral mistake in the eyes of a wrathful hetero God. Far from it. Turns out they were, in fact, far more the norm than many humans, even to this day, want to let on. more... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...
S.F. asks federal judge to toss Prop. 8 Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, June 19, 2009 (06-19) 15:10 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco has asked a federal judge to overturn California's ban on same-sex marriage, allying the city with a lawsuit that could reach the U.S. Supreme Court. In papers filed Thursday night in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, City Attorney Dennis Herrera's office argued that Proposition 8 was motivated by hatred of gays and lesbians and violates their constitutional right to be free of discrimination. Although sponsors of the November ballot measure said they were trying to promote traditional marriage and protect children, "excluding same-sex couples from marriage does nothing to advance those goals," Chief Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart said in the 49-page brief. Prop. 8's "real aim (was) harming gays and lesbians and expressing moral disapproval of them," Stewart said. In arguing to throw out Prop. 8, Stewart cited the Supreme Court's 1996 ruling that struck down Colorado's ban on state and local gay-rights measures and said a law motivated by hostility toward gays and lesbians is unconstitutional. more... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...
World hunger reaches the 1 billion people mark By ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press Writer Friday, June 19, 2009 (06-19) 08:13 PDT ROME, Italy (AP) -- More than a billion people — a sixth of the world's population — are now hungry, a historic high due largely to the global economic crisis and stubbornly high food prices, a U.N. agency said Friday. Compared with last year, there are 100 million more people who are hungry, meaning they consume fewer than 1,800 calories a day, the Food and Agriculture Organization said. Almost all the world's undernourished live in developing countries, where food prices have fallen more slowly than in the richer nations, the report said. Poor countries need more aid and agricultural investment to cope, it said. "The silent hunger crisis, affecting one-sixth of all of humanity, poses a serious risk for world peace and security," said the agency's Director-General Jacques Diouf. more... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...
Judge tosses laws restricting recruiters Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, June 18, 2009 (06-18) 18:44 PDT -- Without fanfare, a federal judge in Oakland today threw out voter-approved laws in two upper Northern California cities barring military recruiters from contacting minors. U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong ruled that laws passed in Arcata and Eureka in November were unconstitutional and invalid. The finding was not unexpected by proponents of the laws, which passed with 73 percent of the vote in Arcata and 57 percent in Eureka. The federal government quickly sued to overturn the laws, which have been stayed ever since. But Dave Meserve, the former Arcata councilman behind the laws, said he was disappointed that the judge ruled without hearing arguments on the case. Armstrong ruled on filed pleadings after a hearing scheduled this month was canceled. "She doesn't respond to any of our arguments in any way," he said. "The order reads like a restatement of the government's case." more... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...
Schwarzenegger's testicle sculpture a flop By JULIET WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer Thursday, June 18, 2009 (06-18) 16:50 PDT Sacramento, CA (AP) -- It was a gift no girlie man would give. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said legislative leaders are going to need fortitude to solve California's $24.3 billion budget shortfall with deep cuts to cherished programs. To help with that, the Republican governor sent Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg a metal sculpture of bull testicles, intended as a gag gift. Steinberg, a Sacramento Democrat, was not amused and returned the football-sized gift with a terse note about the seriousness of the ongoing negotiations. The account was given by sources within the Capitol who were familiar with the situation. They said they were not authorized to speak on the record because it was considered a private matter between the governor and the Senate leader. more... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...
Jury rules against Minn. woman in download case By STEVE KARNOWSKI, Associated Press Writer Thursday, June 18, 2009 (06-18) 15:34 PDT MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A replay of the nation's only file-sharing case to go to trial has ended with the same result, finding a Minnesota woman to have violated music copyrights and ordering her to pay hefty damages to the recording industry. A federal jury ruled Thursday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs, and awarded recording companies $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song. Thomas-Rasset's second trial actually turned out worse for her. When a different federal jury heard her case in 2007, it hit Thomas-Rasset with a $222,000 judgment. The new trial was ordered after the judge in the case decided he had erred in giving jury instructions. Thomas-Rasset sat glumly with her chin in hand as she heard the jury's finding of willful infringement, which increased the potential penalty. She raised her eyebrows in surprise when the jury's penalty of $80,000 per song was read. more... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...
 This detail of an image provided Thursday, June 18, 2009 by Chicago's Abraham Lincoln Book Shop Inc. shows part of an Aug. 1863 glass plate negative of President Abraham Lincoln at a portrait studio in Washington, D.C. The photo shows a house fly on Lincoln's trouser leg just left and below his right knee. It proves that President Barack Obama, who swatted and killed a fly during an interview Tuesday, isn't the only president to have had an encounter with a fly. (AP Photo/Abraham Lincoln Book Shop Inc.) Like Obama, Lincoln had run-in with a fly By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer Don Babwin, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 25 mins ago CHICAGO – President Obama launched his campaign from Abraham Lincoln's hometown, used his Bible to be sworn in and quotes Lincoln at the drop of a stovepipe hat. Now it seems the two share something else: an encounter with a fly. Daniel Weinberg, the owner of the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in Chicago, has a photograph of Lincoln with a house fly on him. Weinberg doesn't know if the fly survived the encounter or if it suffered the same fate as the one that had the audacity to land on Obama during a television interview Tuesday and found itself on the business end of a presidential hand. But Weinberg joked that Lincoln likely let the fly live, something that would have pleased the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which announced it was sending Obama a contraption that traps but does not kill bugs. "He was the great pardoner," pointed out Weinberg. more... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_odd_presiden...  This image provided Thursday, June 18, 2009 by Chicago's Abraham Lincoln Book Shop Inc. shows an image made from an Aug. 1863 glass plate negative of President Abraham Lincoln at a portrait studio in Washington, D.C. The photo shows Lincoln with a house fly on his trouser leg just left and below his right knee. The photo proves that President Barack Obama, who swatted and killed a fly during an interview Tuesday, isn't the only president to have had an encounter with a fly. (AP Photo/Abraham Lincoln Book Shop Inc.) 
Judge to review Cheney interview in CIA leak case By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer Nedra Pickler, Associated Press Writer – 19 mins ago WASHINGTON – A federal judge said Thursday that he wants to look at notes from the FBI's interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney during the investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA operative. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan's decision to review the documents followed arguments by Obama administration lawyers that sounded much like the reasons the Bush administration provided for keeping Cheney's interview from the public. Justice Department lawyers told the judge that future presidents and vice presidents may not cooperate with criminal investigations if they know what they say could become available to their political opponents and late-night comics who would ridicule them. "If we become a fact-finder for political enemies, they aren't going to cooperate," Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Smith said during a 90-minute hearing. "I don't want a future vice president to say, `I'm not going to cooperate with you because I don't want to be fodder for 'The Daily Show.'" Sullivan said the Justice Department must give him more precise reasons for keeping the information confidential than they had in previous court filings.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_cheney_cia_l...
Schwarzenegger gets rough reception in Fresno By Tracie Cone Associated Press Posted: 06/18/2009 03:09:48 PM PDT snip... Cynthia Sterling, president of the Fresno City Council, stood up from the theater's front row and told the governor she is worried that the state will take gas tax revenue from local governments and not pay it back. "We hope you will stand behind us. But if not, we will go down and you will go down with us," she said to scattered applause from an audience that appeared somewhat stunned by her challenge to the governor. Schwarzenegger appeared slightly taken aback, then said: "I totally get it, I totally understand." He went on to say that "this is the kind of stuff I hear all day." He was referring to earlier remarks when he said he gets a steady parade of visitors to his Capitol office complaining about how looming cuts would affect their programs. Taking local gas tax money is just one way Schwarzenegger has proposed balancing California's budget. He also has proposed taking $1.9 billion in other local taxes, which the state would have to repay over three years. A plan promoted by majority Democrats does not include that proposal. more... http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_126... Schwarzenegger Gets Rough Reception In Fresno Governor Hears Frustration From Agriculture Supporters POSTED: 1:43 pm PDT June 18, 2009 UPDATED: 4:06 pm PDT June 18, 2009 FRESNO, Calif. -- Normally friendly Fresno was a little less so for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Republican governor came to the conservative-leaning Central Valley on Thursday to talk about the state's budget crisis and found himself on the defensive. He was greeted by labor protesters and local officials angry over potential budget cuts and farming interests upset over what they perceive as his inaction in solving water problems. Schwarzenegger delivered a scripted speech designed to convince 500 invited guests and local officials that everyone must share the pain of spending cuts. During a question-and-answer session afterward, he faced a flood of frustration and catcalls from agriculture supporters. http://www.kcra.com/politics/19792900/deta...
Detainee says he lied to CIA in harsh interrogations Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, told the U.S. military that he made up stories, documents show. The news could intensify the debate over interrogations. By Julian E. Barnes and Greg Miller 5:43 PM PDT, June 15, 2009 Reporting from Washington -- Accused Sept. 11 organizer Khalid Shaikh Mohammed told U.S. military officials that he gave false information to the CIA even after undergoing punishing bouts of interrogation, according to documents made public Monday. His claim will probably intensify the debate over the George W. Bush administration's use of harsh techniques to gain information from terrorism suspects. Mohammed made the assertion during hearings held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the militant leader was transferred in 2006 after being held at secret CIA sites since his capture in 2003. "I make up stories," Mohammed said, describing in broken English an interrogation probably administered by the CIA that concerned the location of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. "Where is he? I don't know. Then he torture me," Mohammed said. "Then I said, 'Yes, he is in this area.' " more... http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...
A single photo that says so much. A man holds up a placard during a rally in support of defeated presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi in Tehran June 15, 2009
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