San Francisco is leading the way for questionable cell phone regulations that will cause a cost and a headache for retailers around the city. The first ever cell phone radiation law recently took effect, and now the city is being sued on First Amendment grounds. The trade group behind the lawsuit represents cell phone manufacturers and service providers fed up with a requirement to display warnings about radiation coming from the phones and hand out fact sheets regarding exposure risks. The main problem? The medical risks associated with cell phone …
City leaders in San Francisco have launched an attack on local pregnancy care centers, alleging that they engage in false advertising by leading women to believe they provide abortions at their clinics. City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Supervisor Malia Cohen introduced legislation last week that would make it illegal for pregnancy care centers to advertise without a conspicuous explanation that they do not perform abortions. Herrera called the centers “right-wing” and “politically motivated,” pointing to one in particular called First Resort, a facility that offers counseling on all available legal …
When faced with losing one of the most brilliant companies in the country, Twitter, even San Francisco can have a moment of revelation regarding tax policy. Burdened with heavy California taxation—and San Francisco’s on top of that—Twitter presented a letter to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors giving them an option: either exempt Twitter from the city payroll tax for six years or watch the tweeting company walk. The board decided in favor of Twitter’s proposal, and Twitter signed its new lease last Friday.
San Francisco’s environmentally friendly low-flush toilets are doing what they’re supposed to do: save water. The toilets reduced the city’s annual water use by 20 million gallons, but they have had the unintended consequence of causing sewage problems. The San Francisco Chronicle reports: Skimping on toilet water has resulted in more sludge backing up inside the sewer pipes, said Tyrone Jue, spokesman for the city Public Utilities Commission. That has created a rotten-egg stench near AT&T Park and elsewhere, especially during the dry summer months. The city has already spent …
This week in a federal district courtroom in San Francisco, the trial that could alter the future of the institution of marriage came to an end. The closing arguments featured prominent national attorneys seeking to answer 39 final questions framed by the presiding judge, Vaughn Walker. At issue is the contention of plaintiffs that Prop 8, a voter-approved constitutional amendment that was adopted in November 2008, violates the U.S. constitution. The National Organization for Marriage, whose California entity was one of the prime proponents of Prop 8, alongside the organization …
Addressing The Question of Global Warming, physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson recently wrote in The New York Review of Books: There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. … Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. As if trying to prove Dyson’s point, the Associated Press reported last week: First, …
In 2009, environmentalists were sure global warming was the reason California’s Bay Area fog was increasing. Now they’re saying global warming is making the fog go away—indicating that the science may not be as “settled” as some seem to think. Gateway Pundit noted that in 2009, The San Francisco Chronicle claimed that “The Bay Area just had its foggiest May in 50 years. And thanks to global warming, it’s about to get even foggier.” Yet, in 2010, The Telegraph has asserted that “the sight of Golden Gate Bridge towering above …
On Tuesday of this week, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom announced that according to a study by the city’s Department of the Environment, San Francisco had cut greenhouse gas emissions by 8 percent between 2000 and 2005. Which sounds impressive until you begin to look at what is really happening in San Francisco. The USA Today has a front page story out today reporting that: “Among large counties, San Francisco lost the highest percentage of whites with that group dropping 17% from 2000 to 2007.” But if you look at …
On June 22, Tony Bologna and his four sons were driving home to San Francisco from a family picnic in Fairfield. When Bologna inadvertently blocked an intersection with his Honda Civic, he tried to reverse his car so that a gray-blue Chrysler could get by. When Bologna did not move his Civic fast enough for Edwin Ramos, the driver of the Chrysler and illegal immigrant from El Salvador, Ramos opened fire, killing Tony, his eldest son Michael, and his youngest son Matthew. The city of San Francisco could have prevented …
Today’s David Brooks column details where the left’s campaign cash is coming from including “Goldman Sachs geniuses” “employees of the University of California” and “professionals, like lawyers and media types.” Brooks explains: “Over the past several years, the highly educated coastal rich have been engaged in a little culture war with the inland corporate rich. This is a war over values, leadership styles and social networks.” And what type of policies do the left’s “values” and “leadership styles” produce? Look no further than San Francisco where city officials have refused …
