"San Jose State University" may change name back to "CSU San Jose",,,so what?

I went to SJSC in the 60s, so i paid my dues and this is my opinion. Change it back to "san jose state college" as it is not academically equal to a University, no matter how hard they try to bluff it. Yes, there are some outstanding teachers/professors,,,like Eakins who was in History and the Bio 1 teacher in 1966=could have taught at Haaavaaard!!,,,but there are some terrible ones, like the only one Genetics prof. who got away with saying 'i will fail you if you are an A student if i don't think you are a good rep. of sjsc,science,and genetics' and this is the one prof and the one class you must have for a hard science(vs teacher's soft science track) BS degree.

But the main problem is in Administration and the lack of talent and determination , from the Chancellor/President all the way up to the Governor. The old 'tower list' was so revealing,,,
First, the Admin. makes the profs waste their time with unnecessary admin. meetings when they should be teaching, not doing Admin's job. Stupid. Look what Admin. did with the former Industrial Arts Department? Gutted it and gave the space to geeky Engineering, so that we have even More Engineering grads who can't use a screw driver or operate a hammer safely. Plus the state killed most practical useful 'vocational' high school electives like woodshop metalshop autoshop. Soo mexico third-world anti-progess. Stupid. Second, they can't even run this commuter school, like drop-kick this pompous genetic sole professor !! And keep the Greeks from stealing every test, having weekly orgies and rapes, and generally behaving like rich cute spoiled children. Area crime is a major worry because of the inadequate sjpd. Duh. You send sjsc a check for over $25000 and they do not even acknowledge it and thank you for it!! So you call after a few months to see if it was lost in the mail, and they say,"oh, it's probably here somewhere,,,". Incompetents.

Third, the past Governor, governor moonbeam jerry brown, now on vacay as our typical donothingforthepublic benchwarming state attorney general, said that any state 'university=college' could require a 2 year returning VietNam veteran with an honorable discharge and almost 4 years of college, to completely re-do all the GE/general education requirements if he tried to transfer to Sac State, supposedly in the same system. Therefore, admit it, California, you have too low a standard with gross evidence to continue the fraud of calling your second tier public education, under the University of Ca. campuses,,,'university',,,and should revert to something more honest ,like 'college' or even 'normal school' would be more appropriate. Or maybe 'miasma',,,

Do NOT buy ANY "Palm Treo" pda-cellphone,,,!!

I recently bought a new cellphone-pda at a Palm store, the Palm Treo 650 'Anniversary Edition'. But you can not turn the incoming call volume up enough. And the Palm store clerks say 'that's all'. Why did they not tell me about this huge quality deficiency with Palm Treos ? And this is the 'Anniversary Edition' of what,,, Terrible Quality ??

Emailed the company,and got some AOL-type go-play-with-this-useless-operation response,,,TWICE,,,!!
Recommend you stay away ,completely, from any Palm product.
(march 2007)

Now ,,,Palm says i have to pay for some after market patch to fix their known problem of too low of listening volume !!

Checked with a friend and he says he 'never would get a Palm' ,,,

News Flash, 12 march '07, Schultz is stopping the factory of its fantastic clay soil buster amendment,,,buy it fast ,,,!!!

Dear fellow gardeners, with poor eyesight,,,

I was sorry to hear from SummerWinds Nurseries that Schultz was shutting down the factory for it great clay soil buster product, Profile Clay Soil Conditioner . Very sad news, as i feel not enough supposed or posing 'experts' have tried this product for it to be removed from the market. My guess is that most supposed soil experts are getting kickbacks from the usual waste of time and money amendment manufacturers of gypsum, peat moss, various manures, various composts, etc etc. The torn bags are going for half price of about $11 and i think the full price of $22 for 40# is almost fair, since this seems to be the last we will see of this great gardening product. I checked the Schultz website and it is 'down for repairs'. Happy gardening !!

Ca.'s new Attorney General staff says he is just going to fight for the departments of the State of California,,,not the citizens,,,BUMMER.

Why do California voters elect ,one after another,,,after another,,,State Attorney Generals who would rather sit out their terms as benchwarmers that be courageous and ethical and responsible ,such as Mr. Spitzer of New York fame and now Governor of that state by doing what needs to be done,,,instead of just waiting for that FAT pension ????? Such a waste of talent and opportunity,,,and such an insult to the voters of California,,,AGAIN. So many losers in a row,,,

"Victory in Iraq" and what it means to Republicans,,,

What does "victory in Iraq" mean ?? They caught and jailed and fumbled the hanging of Sadam. What else ,,,? More inadequate flak jackets without sides so our soldiers are vulnerable,,, to Blep-Republicans ? More vehicles without adequate bomb-proof floors so that more or our soldiers can be maimed ? My guess is that it means the war will end after President Bush is out of office, because Iraq will go to he-ll in a hurry,,,and he rode his presidency on this war ,from his daddy,,,and does not want to get stuck with its inevitable outcome.
It should end before this summer 2007 and definitely before the fall elections. Expect the Blep-Republicans to blame the Democrats and anybody else for the turmoil that will be Iraq when our troops leave. They are sooo irresponsible. 12 years of failed policies both domestically and internationally are certainly enough !!
Now lets hold the Demos feet to the fire to do better.

Cheap advice for seniors who need to clean their outside house windows,,,!!

A dear friend and neighbor alerted me to a great product by Windex called W. outdoor widow and surface concentrated cleaner. You just screw the spray bottle onto a garden hose !! Forget about hiring the flaky tradesmen,,,It is sooo easy,,,I do recommend you first close all windows, especially the second floor ones, then go around the house with a good spray nozzle on to wet the glass first,,,,Then come back to the start window and hand screw on the spray bottle of Windex and spray on the concentrate lightly,,,let it set for a few seconds like maybe 15-20 seconds, and then turn the dial on top to the rinse position and you will be quite amazed at how well this stuff works,,,especially if you are a senior and trying to keep you house without paying an arm and a leg to every lousy tradesman that says he will do a good job,,,It's a S.C. Johnson product so you don't have to worry like with Dow or some other less careful--teflon pfoa/bad chemical-- company. A little hard to find in the stores , but a very good product ,i thinnk.

Travel luxury bargain !!,,,Compare famous Lindblatt vs Adventuresmith's Inside Passage ,,,steal of a deal ,,,!!

Lindblatt is very famous,,,and expensive for such high quality,,,i checked today ,5 march 2007, and the 12 day from near Seattle up the Inside Passage is per person double from $6890-8560,,, or $10330 for a single cabin. They take 62 guests in 31 outside cabins on their( 2) small ship(s), and it does not say how old these ships are or any pertinent ships log history. You can ask. Very reputable company that my folks have used.

AdventureSmith's yacht the Catalyst II is 19 days from near Seattle to Juneau all up and around the Inside Passage for less than about $6400. And that is with a private single cabin! On about a 12 cabin small yacht that use to be the official research vessel for the Univ. of Wa. Am sooo looking forward to this first cruise up the Inside !! AdventureSmithExplorations ,that was featured in a recent National Geographic magazine article on a similar NW trip, phone number is 800.728.2875 and ask for Todd. Please tell him 'dg' sent you , and i may get a beer out of this,,,
Happy trails !

NEWS FLASH, 5 March 2007,,,Trader Joe's is silently doing away with those great medium and large canvas bags !! STOCK UP BEFORE THEY ARE ALL ,,,GONE

Trader Joe's, is getting in red plastic,,,yuck !!,,,replacement bags besides their usual big brown paper sacks you can double up ,,,so i recommend you buy a bunch of the $2.99 canvas bags--always turn inside out to check the lousy seams before purchase-- before silly management does away with them ,,,for bad !!

News mag. says "Clinton vs Obama",,,is this the BEST the Democrats can do in 2007 ??!!

Mrs. Clinton has a troubled past history of ethical/character dilemmas, and we Democrats and Americans and Independents better start talking about her weaknesses right now, unless this is all a pony show and we are preparing to roll over and lose again. Whitewater, and your husband , the Governor/President and all his illicit and overt affairs/adulteries. Doesn't that raise questions about how strong an ethical and honest leader Mrs. Hillary Clinton might be as President of the United States of America ?

And Mr. Obama is by all reports said to be an upstanding and outstanding black man and elected representative. That is great, but don't we want to hear more about what makes his possible Presidency different from the rest of the Democrats. Not that any Democrat might be more honest and more interested in balancing the federal budget than any Republican we have seen or heard too much of in years.

On the one hand we have someone who has lived through hell in the muck and mire of American national politics , and may have made too many compromises to be considered of high enough character to be qualified--not that the current p.o.t.u.s. is honorable enough to fully reveal his chicken hawk military record--to be our national leader in these most difficult times. And on the other hand we have a man of outstanding character, who is selling himself as the Black candidate, the exceptional outstanding Black candidate, but forgive me if i do not know of his great plans that are so much better than the rest that he , as fine a gentleman as he may be, should lead all of these selfish divisive racist and disinterested United States when we face the greatest threats in our history from worldwide terrorism,,, a loss of national rule of law to Nafta,Gatt, Wto trade treaties and disloyal multinational corporations that are currently plotting with the World Bank to privitize all the fresh water in the world ,,,so you can die of thirst or pay through the nose for what should be basic civil right to clean drinking water,,,and 12 long hard years of an unbalanced budget by Republicans that 'say' they are fiscal conservatives but spend tax dollars worse than Reagan and are only cheap in spending their own personal and corporate millions instead of their fair share of taxes with fraudulent 'lilo' tax shelters, offhshore tax havens , and now secret state shell tax corporations, besides the usual 'legal' two sets of books and 'legal' insider trading.

I often get asked 'how is Arnold doing?' from visitors to California and i usually try to be honest and say 'he is certainly not allowing the selfish rich bastards that make up the majority of the Republican Party to be taxed at anywhere near their rightful share'. To be honest, he promised we Californians an audit to see where the corrupt state legislature spent the trillions, but that probably will never happen from this 'conan'-actor-Governor. When will the Democrats again say that they are the party of the working poor and even the crippled weak unworking poor, and the declining middle cash/class--tho most Republicans are excellent living breathing examples of how more money means less class--instead of sucking up to the lobbyist as easily as the crass and shallow Republicans ? In the end performance, will there be so little difference between any Democratic candidate or any overly apologetic Republican candidate that all we may wish for is a terrible --remember the well poisoning gasoline additive from Canada?--trade deal and a balance surplus budget, with sex scandal,,,ala Bill ?

SAVE THE CD !! by melding with a DVD flip side,,,asap

This is a no-brainer , but the CD sales are declining , and yet only a few recording artists are combining CD-DVDs on the 2 sides of the disc. I love being able to listen in the car to the same disc I can take home and watch the other side on the tv. Why are those masters of the audio universe down in LA so shortsighted and dumb to allow the CD sales to slump this far ??! Isn't the watching of videos what made MTV such a huge success in its early years ? And wouldn't it be great to see all those live shows you might have missed --probably film footage rotting in some stupid corner of an LA conglomerate--like all the concerts of Peter Frampton and Cream and the local Doobie Brothers,,,there is sooo much depth to this market of saved concert footage for the DVD side, that i'll bet a new small house in a good neighborhood and a new Prius,,,that the stupid Record Industry could sell all the DVDs it could make, plus on the flip side the reissuing of millions of CD titles !! This is a MONSTER gold mine,, but , yeah, right, the LA based music industry is too short sighted, stupid and selfish to think out of the rut. Bummer.

The biggest scam in the American linousine &charter bus industries : subing/farming out ,w/o telling client !!

After working in the limousine and charter bus industries for over 20 years, i would like to warn the general public that most companies get away with a terrible fraud: you hire them, say a white limo, but do NOT write "white limo",license #abc 124 , on the credit card slip for company Z. YOU MUST GET IT IN WRITTING.

Quite often, behind your back so to speak ,since the Z company never intends to tell you, the Z company subcontracts the job out to another limo company X,,, that YOU DID NOT CHOOSE, or sends you the wrong color and size limo.

Imagine,,, it is your only daughter's wedding, and she has even taken the time and trouble to go to the limo/charter bus company and is offered/"sold" to pick out the "limo you want". She does this ,say a white "12 pack" that will comfortably only seat 8-9 adults, not 12. On the day of the wedding, the driver sees a "white 12 pack" on the invoice, but is told by the owner/manager to take a BLACK, 10 PACK ,,,instead. You may think this is impossible ,unthinkable, only a rarity,,,but this happens all the time and is very commom,even with v.i.p.s like football stars and music celebrities.

The chauffeur arrives and the bride is instantly in tears, the mother of the bride is usually also in tears, and the father is sooo mad, he is looking for a gun, understandably. I usually helped them immediately find a replacement limo of the proper size and color, and at full DOUBLE COST. They always are stuck paying for the wrong size and color limo they did not order !!

In the charter bus "business", I have had execs arrive at the airport and here i am in a bus from a different company than the one the client hired, usually more dirty, older, and much less well maintained, meaning cheaper. The order taking bus company,Y , such as Coach USA-Greyline, probably the biggest bus company in the usa, who get away with this all ,,,the ,,,time, say ,ahem, that they had a last minute "scheduling problem" ,,,and ,ahem, needed to have to flexiblility to, ahem, hire someone,PU, else. When in truth, they never, NEVER, intended to do the charter, just skim a percentage and hire a , usually, lesser cheaper company than the one you selected. Yes, all our elected politicans have been allowing this practice to go on for years. And the American media is not too interested either. This stinks ,i know, but is a very common American business practice, called "sub-ing" or "farming out" without telling the client, until they see the different limo/bus at the very last second.

BEWARE, OUT THERE,,,FRIENDS.

GOOD NEWS !!,,,Feb 2007,,,JVC make a TERRIFIC "HD" high def. car stereo cd-radio !!!!!

I have been through 4 car stereos in my 2000 Acura, including the stock one in a year without any respected car stereo mfg name on it,,,and an expensive Blaupunkt that also was junked in less than a year,,,and an expensive Sony, that in the first month was scratching my cds !!! and the Sony 800# phone rep said "we have a big problem with Sony new car stereos scratching cds" but we are not giving you you money back.

So i talked to a computer-stereo geek with a ee degree and he advised i try HD for FREE before satellite radio with its monthly CHARGES,,,I went to Amazon.com and found some Socal outlet,like SurfAudio, and a GREAT PRICE of only $140 that included Surround Sound 5, i believe. I had the car stereo professionally installed for $75 down the blvd at Circuit City ,,,and it is BY FAR,,,THE BEST SOUNDING AND USEABLE STEREO OF THE BUNCH: acura, blaupunkt, and shoddy Sony.
I have not tried or even heard satellite radio yet, even going in various car stereo showrooms,,,but i have no monthly fees ,,,and with the better than average speakers i put in after the first lousy acura car stereo died, the unit lets me select just HD stations for STATIC FREE LISTENING,,,or all stations.
Thank you , thank you , thank you JVC for making such a great product, i have been using for about 3 months now !!!

Tremendous need,,,for a car glass and shower glass sealer,,,against hard water mineral deposits

I purchased a new Acura and did not pretreat the car outside window glass surfaces with a product like "outdoor" Rain-X,,,and now my car windows, all, including the rear view mirrors , are permanently damaged by hard water mineral deposits from the garden hose. When brand new, i paid about $500 for "Perma-Plate", but quickly all the car windows were ruined by hard water mineral deposits.

I have tried S.C.Johnson's recommended vinegar
Windex, and it did not take these hard water mineral deposits from the garden hose in silicon valley off.

I tried warm vinegar and it did little good ,even with repeated treatments.

I took the expensive ,supposed upscale Honda Acura to an expensive car detailer and had the windshield buffed by hand machine, and there is little improvement at terrific expense.

If you have a brand new car,,,or brand new home inside glass shower enclosure, i recommend you use something like "outdoor" Rain-X ,,,to prevent hard mineral tap water deposits from getting hold and ruining your views,,,you must apply it often/monthly,until something better is invented,,,I am told i need to buy new auto glass all around !! Ridiculous.

San Jose, the near total FAILURE OF IT'S CITY GOVT,,,and the Nov.7 ELECTION

The city of San Jose Transportation Department told me months ago that several of the major streets of town, like Meridian Avenue, that i use most often,are "suppose to be timed" instead of stopping at every signal wasting valuable time and expensive gasoline. They could not say when they would reprogram the lights, so i phoned the mayor's office and left a message to please catch-up with old business and get these major street lights reprogrammed and timed. No answer. A very small job.
Cindy Chavez, the vice mayor, wants to be mayor, but can not even fix a little problem like this in San Jose's long long long list of old business that need small fixes, like tell the dam lazy city Transportation Department to get off its permanent coffee break and do a good job !! I say Ms. Chavez may have Bill "the liar" Clinton advertising for her,,,and the local Silicon Valley political power machine that has not apologized for saddling us with such a terrible mayor, Gonzales, that probably should be locked up in jail for years and years,,,but certainly there must be a more competent candidate out there for mayor of this messed up city that i often still live in than the go -along- to- get -along Ms. Chavez. We should expect and demand much better civil service ,for all that it is COSTING all of us , in money ,opportunity, and the loss of respect if you are asked "do you live in ,,,(san jose) ? Soo embarassing.

SF is a tourism-based city, but its airport,SFO, is mostly an UGLY CONCRETE MAZE !!

USAToday, the newspaper, is doing articles in a series on good things happening at various airports,,,but nothing to rave about about SFO !! Very little public art, the new International Terminal is not air-conditioned glass hothouse, and you are most likely to get lost ,walking /driving, in and around SFO,,,and the press stays shut-up about it !! Go figure. SF and its lousy ugly uninhabitable SFO airport.

California's recent utterly useless ATTORNEY GENERALS

Why do we citizens elect such do-nothing primary law officers, then watch all this fantasy tv cop and crime shows and a real gem of an Attorney General all the way across the USA in New York state ?

Do we not care at all about REAL CRIME in Ca. ?

Are we too mentally sedated by tv to care about ,,,all the remaining Sicilian Mafia,,,and the Russian Mafia that some in the know say is taking over the SF limo biz scene,,,and all the Japanese and Chinese-Asian Gangs,,,?????,,,The small and large corporate polluters that endanger our own and our childrens very health and survival every day,,,??,,,The under-reported constant white collar crime that robs us all of the high cost of government protection,,,?

Amazon.com's selected SHORTCOMINGS

Why does Amazon.com ,,,(1) ,,,not tell you next to the book title whether it is FICTION,,,or NON-FICTION,,,?

(2),,,Why does such a big successful company , like Amazon.com, not tell you right at the top of the item description WHO THE SELLER IS,,, and
is it NEW,,,or USED,,,??

(3),,,Why does such a huge corporation not notify the buyer,,,WHEN THE
PURCHASE IS SHIPPED,,,???

4 Nov 2006, Ca. State Rep. GENE MULLIN=vote NO

i am very disappointed with my local S.F. Bay Area state rep Assemblyman, Gene Mullin, regardless of his political party, in this overthrow the idiot Republicans election.
First, i contacted his office years ago because a very rich owner of a charter bus company was dumping his bus toilets across his employee parking lot and into the storm drain, puting all employees for weeks at huge health risk. Assemblyman Mullin did nothing. It took repeated calls to the storm drain county department to get it stopped , when San Mateo County government and its administrator and board and health department would do nothing,,,i was told there was"no overtime allowed to come out at night and see the toilet illegal dumping". This was at SFO Airporter-Compass Transportation Bus Companies lot in SSF.
Next, some time later , i contacted Assemblyman Mullins office to complain that my new boss, Mercury Tours, was requiring that all employees check out their charter buses off the clock on their own time. This had/has been going on for years. Assemblyman Mullin said he would "send a brochure on an employer convention" to the labor law violating owner.
Lastly, i contacted Assemblyman Mullin from another charter bus company and asked why one bus company owner said it was the law to pay overtime but he was not going to because the state of Ca. did not usually enforce it ,,,and yet the next charter bus company said they did not owe any driver overtime and we could work over 125 hours per week when the DOT federal maximum is 70 hours per week. Assemblyman Mullin said he was not interested in finding out whether this blue collar worker was legally due overtime pay.
Business "as usual" has got to stop, and i recommend you do not continue Assemblyman Mullin leaching off the citizens and taxpayers in his too long political career.

MBNA credit card bank has been bought by BofA,,,BEWARE !!!

MBNA was,past tense ,highly rated by the Wall Street Journal, and i was a very satisfied Master Card customer. But now bad reputation BANK OF AMERICA has bought MBNA !! You should get out , QUICK , like i did, before all the accounting funny business BofA is infamous for eats your savings alive,,,with 2 statements/bills a month instead of one with the old reliable and reasonable MBNA, and continuing revolving LATE FEES because the mail takes a few days and you are charged again and again and again on the same balance even tho you pay it off IN FULL, and FINANCE CHARGES that the old reasonable MBNA would take off your account if you asked, but the new greedy-to-the-max BofA probably will not.
Here is just one of probably many examples of how ruthless BANK OF AMERICA has been in the recent past. A couple years ago ,before they sold out of their main San Francisco high rise office, i drove their BofA Loan Office Awards Dinner bus in S.F. I was shocked to hear loan officers just behind my seat BOASTING and BRAGGING about how they had driven this family into auto REPOSSESSION, and this couple into HOME FORECLOSURE on their house with multiple loans the family practically and theoretically could never afford, and this family into BANKRUPTCY, and on and on,,,!!! And BofA was giving them AWARDS for this plus the trip junket ?!! Isn't there laws against predatory lending,,,obviously BofA does not feel it is American or has to obey our nation's laws. BEWARE, BEWARE, BEWARE !!!

American businesses are dumping their Pension responsibilities ,,,on US, THE U.S. GOVT !!,,,AND THIS IS O.K. !!??????

Why are we allowing American corporations to ignore their promises and responsiblities to their employees by dumping their pensions on a willing Republican-controlled White House and Congress that seem to feel that working poor but not the current rich can pay for it in the future ?
Where is all the social commentary about how destructive this will be to the American middle cash/class ? Do we always have to drop our standards to the lowest possible level of our trading partners, like Mexico-corrupt and not getting any better with NAFTA and WTO-or China-still Communist and do any of you remember the VietNam anti-communist draft that ruined millions of lives ?? President Bush ,like his dad and "Ray-gun", are spending us into the national and international POOR HOUSE,,, and no one seems to give a damn. Most Republicans just want that short -term short -sighted my less-tax personal profit boost at the nation's expense. And that is OK with the USA ?