12 posts tagged “news”

Reference: SF Supervisor Ed Jew's home and offices have been raided by the FBI.

Today's SFist blurb caught my eye for this sentence: "[Fellow SF Supervisor] Aaron Peskin told the I-Team that the FBI was searching Jew's City Hall office for "$100 bills with specific serial numbers listed." That does not sound good at all."

Indeed, it doesn't sound at all good for Supervisor Jew, however, there's absolutely no mention in the current version of the story that Peskin told anyone anything. Instead, "sources" are reported to have told KGO I-Team reporter Dan Noyes about the $100 bill issue.

Unfortunately for Noyes and KGO, Google pulled from the first version of the story for its search results:

Sources-say

BBC discovers Web 2.0, thinks there might be something to it. Let's welcome them to 2005.

Time Warner Cable will "allow" its subscribers to use Fon's WiFi sharing routers. How, exactly, the company would have prevented such activity from happening without their official permission wasn't covered. Of course, it's all about the money and this deal gives TWC half the revenues Fon would get from reselling your connection. This sounds like the start of a PR disaster.

Stop and drop: Woman gives birth in an alley behind downtown San Francisco's Nordstrom, immediately ditches the kid. Police say Mom was easy to find; her blood-soaked attire was a dead giveaway.

Santa Barbara News-Press owner Wendy McCaw is pursuing a $25 million lawsuit against one of its former editors, Jerry Roberts. Coincidentally, that paper also ran an unsigned piece on Sunday alleging it found child porn on a work computer once used by Roberts. Hilarity may ensue. Some background reading on what's happening in Sta. Barbara.

Sperm caused a bomb scare at Seattle's Greyhound station.

Shock gasp and horror, Sylvia Browne is a fraud:

February 27, 2003
Psychic's clues lead to new searches, but no luck
By LEROY SIGMAN\Daily Journal Staff Writer

RICHWOODS -- A segment in which the parents of missing 11-year-old Shawn Hornbeck talked with psychic Sylvia Browne aired Wednesday on the Montel Williams television show, but the information provided has not helped in finding the boy.

Browne told Pam and Craig Akers their son "is no longer with us" but she had the impression his body was in a wooded area about 20 miles southwest of Richwoods. She said it would be near two large, jagged boulders that seem out of place in that area.

[...]

Browne told the Akers that it was her vision that Shawn was taken by a "dark-skinned man, he wasn't black -- more like hispanic." She said he had long, black hair that he wore in dreadlocks and was "really tall."

The man in Browne's vision was driving an older model blue sedan, a car with fins like in the late 1950's and early 1960's Chevrolets. She said the man picked Shawn up.

January 13, 2007
Shawn Hornbeck found alive; Missing more than four years
By: Heartland News

According to the Franklin County (Missouri) sheriff, both 15-year-old Shawn Hornbeck from Richwoods, Missouri and 13-year-old Ben Ownby have been found alive.

The Franklin County Prosecutor's Office has charged 41-year old Michael J. Devlin with one count of kidnapping in the first degree.  He is currently being held on a $1-million bond.

Hornbeck disappeared four years ago while riding his bike near his home near Richwoods Missouri. The last time anyone saw him he was riding his bike to a friend's house on October 6th, 2002.

Yeah, I know. TV psychic lies, film at eleven. Why do I even post about it?

Because it's one thing to wave your hands over a crystal ball and tell someone true love is just around the corner, or even make some non-specific New Age-type noises about how your dearly departed will always be with you in spirit. But exploiting and compounding the grief and anguish of two people searching for their child is just sick and disgusting. I hope there are repercussions for Sylvia Browne and Montel Williams.

The Seattle Times: The party's over at Kirkland mortgage company chronicles the decline of Merit Financial.

When I got here in 2004 and things didn't work out with NWSource, Merit was all hot and heavy for me to come to work for them. I went out there a couple of times but the vibe was too dotcom for me. It seemed really important for them to play up how much fun the job and the company would be and no one would really answer my questions of "but what is it that you want me to DO for you?"

But aside from that, I didn't want to go back to the sort of thing I did at E-LOAN and I really didn't want a daily commute to Kirkland.

I'm glad I turned them down. Looks like they were sleazy from the start.

OMG STORM 2K6 2 WATCH continues. After two years in Seattle, I see the forecast model as such: For every unit of excitability exhibited by local forecasters, decrease probability of storm living up to its forecast by the same amount. That said, as of 12:48PM on Sunday the KOMO radar loop contains some angry-looking primary colors.

Battle Royale! Outside of Jillian's Nightclub on Westlake this morning, involving 20 civilians, nearly a dozen patrol cars and sending at least one police officer to Harborview. Tasers were used by the police, cell phones were brandished by the drunks. At least we can assume the brawlers were well-dressed.

Right on target: Exactly what I think the angry parents of Rainier Beach High School are, in accusing the Seattle School District of deliberately hiding away a plan to create an exclusive "school within a school" technology academy while continuing to ignore and underfund the school's existing one. Optionally, you can call the parents unreasonable for not accepting the board's plea that they simply "made a mistake in excluding the community from early discussions." Rather odd that the board would attempt to hide such good news from "the community."

The gods. The deities of choice we should all be thanking that Elton John waited until after our US elections to come out with a precious gem of a quote about organized religion that's sure to create a worldwide sensation.

Once upon a time there were two powerful daily newspapers in San Francisco: The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Examiner. The deYoung family owned the Chronicle and the Hearst family owned the Examiner, and an acrimonious, decades-long rivalry ensused.

Hearst now owns the Chronicle and the Examiner is now some weak-sauce free daily that no one pays any attention to.

How did that happen?

Favorite quote: "That [deYoung] family is really a steamy 'Falcon Crest' story. Somebody has to be interested in it as a movie."

For my Seattleite neighbors, it's stories like this that make me question just how seriously we should take the possibility that Hearst-owned Seattle P-I will fade away if it doesn't win its JOA dispute with The Seattle Times. Hearst doesn't walk away from growing markets.

What's next? Who knows, but a judge has ruled that the Seattle Parks & Recreation decision to chop down 20 of the trees in Occidental Park without doing an environmental impact study first. A slap on the hand, or perhaps a stern finger-waggling, is sure to follow.

OMG STORM 2K6 II: On the way for Sunday dinner, "bringing with it powerful gusts that will likely topple power lines and uproot trees."

Wishful thinking: By limiting the number of lanes on the new 520 bridge over the lake (whenever that gets built), activists say it will limit how many cars enter the city. Just like decades of resisting mass transit and road infrastructure upgrades limited western Washington's growth, gotcha.

A sandwich: What a judge determined a burrito isn't, in response to cafe chain Panera's lawsuit seeking to ban Qdoba from a Massachusetts shopping mall. Panera has a contract preventing the mall from leasing space to another sandwich shop. Amusing quotes from the ruling included.

Associated Press: Naked man arrested for concealed weapon

He told the police he had a tool in his rectum.

I'll bet he did. I'll just bet.