By:
Dan K. Thomasson
12/20/11 12:16 AM
The Army kid who seemingly was responsible for one of the worst national security breaches in U.S. history is, to quote the poet Kris Kristofferson, “a walking contradiction,” who isn’t quite sure who or what he is.
Read More
On April 11, 2000, the Giants opened their new ballpark. Even before it opened, it was heralded as “the miracle on Third Street.” But there’s another miracle on Third Street, just a few blocks north of AT&T Park, that’s celebrating its 30th anniversary this month. It’s called the Moscone Center.
On Dec. 2, 1981, the Moscone Center opened to great fanfare. A few days later on Dec. 6, it welcomed its first convention group — the American Academy of Dermatologists.
Read More
California’s public schools received a rare bit of good news Tuesday when Gov. Jerry Brown largely exempted them from automatic reductions in state aid, citing improvements in the economy.However, Brown’s declaration that the economy is getting better and he doesn’t have to squeeze all automatic spending-cut “triggers” also lessened the air of crisis and therefore complicated Brown’s efforts to persuade voters to raise taxes next year.
Read More
Jerry Brown made a rare gubernatorial appearance this month before a joint legislative committee that was delving — with obvious reluctance — into whether California’s public employee pension benefits should be overhauled.While seeking his second stint as governor last year, Brown had pledged pension reform and has since offered a 12-point overhaul that attempts to strike a middle ground between the defenders of the status quo and the radical changes that outside groups want.
Read More
Demography, it’s been said, is destiny — a society’s age cohorts, genders, ethnicities, income distributions, home ownership, education levels and other characteristics determine its place in the larger scheme of things.While California’s demographics are always changing, we are now experiencing one of our periodic, destiny-changing evolutions:- Our population growth has slowed markedly, from about 2½ percent a year during the 1980s to scarcely 1 percent today.
Read More
Gov. Jerry Brown has formally proposed a $7-billion-a-year increase in sales and income taxes to close the state’s chronic budget deficit.
Whether it will be the only tax increase on the November ballot is uncertain. Several others are in the works, and if they reach the ballot as well, voter confusion could doom all. But assuming that Brown’s stands alone, how would the campaign shape up?
Read More
By:
Ed Reiskin
12/08/11 11:33 PM
I want to thank The San Francisco Examiner editorial page for the consistent attention it’s paying to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.
Read More
By:
Marc Intermaggio
12/07/11 10:00 PM
Ranked-choice voting is rank. This exotic electoral experiment utterly failed to fulfill the most fundamental purpose of a democracy — majority rule. The effort to prevent costly runoffs produced the unintended consequence of disenfranchising tens of thousands of local voters — and discouraging even more from participating in the complex process. A very small number of San Franciscans ended up electing our municipal officials and deciding important measures in November’s election.
Read More
California’s population increased by 10 percent between 2000 and 2010 but the number of Californians living in poverty grew more than three times as fast, a new U.S. Census Bureau report reveals.
Read More
By:
George Landrith
12/02/11 12:25 AM
‘Net neutrality,” which supporters say will keep the Internet free, is actually a plan making it more expensive for many of us. One of the biggest drivers of Net neutrality has been Google, the Internet behemoth. Its goal is to keep its own operational costs lower by trying to make Internet usage more costly for others.
Read More
URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds?page=18&%24Version=1&%24Path=%2F&quicktabs_6=1&quicktabs_4=0
