Score of good reasons Not to buy a home in-San Jose- Silcon Valley, California

1-Ground water pollution,,,Santa Clara County and San Jose are in Silicon Valley which has the greatest concentration of Superfund sites in the entire USA, including Love Canal and Three Mile Island. Like any naught infantile industry, the computer industry started here in what Was a very high quality of life area,,,and then fouled their nests ,,,and walked away from their serious toxic waste leavings. Originally they used more toxic chemicals and bad decision decided to bury these tanks underground, which then leaked into the ground water. It would be ethical and responsible of the pc-computer industry to gather together and pay to clean up this huge mess, instead of acting like spoiled brat children that demand tax breaks and leave their messes all over the house for some else to clean up!

2-Air pollution,,,Since the South Bay Area is rimmed by low mountains like the Los Angeles area, we nowadays -2007- have smog so bad it is a green layer on top of a brown layer, besides the newsreaders telling us to stay inside. Local people seem to be too busy working and just don't give a damn.

3-Historic pollution,,,There are Spanish, Almaden neighborhood 'quicksilver' mercury mines in Silicon Valley that have been leaking into San Francisco Bay since the 1700s and no one seems to want to do anything about it. That includes our cardboard-like ineffective new Governor, the Terminator-Governator who is chained to a totally incompetent state highway department, Caltrans, full of $Billion cost overrun civil servants who should all be fired and have their pensions stripped; A Terminator-Governator defeated by puny civil servants, red ink, and potholes,what a sorry sad movie that is.

4-Incompetent,Deaf and Ineffective government,,,San Jose's last mayor,Gonzales of Sunnyvale politics, belongs in jail for his bid rigging and general incompetence. How the local political machine thought he even had a cardboard prop chance like Gavin 'prettyboy' Newsom of surviving the status quo long enough for one term is amazing. The new current mayor, Mr. Reed ,promises a huge turn to honest government with a start on a Sunshine Commission, but San Jose and California have not seen much political sunshine in so long because of the corporate-political 'fog' it is going to be an enormous task. The state is gerrymandered to the limit and you can not get rid of some of the old rust like Lantos because neither party will put up a range of good candidates for the PUBLIC to choose from!!

5-Bad community design,,,A long string on San Jose and Silicon Valley mayor seem to have sold their souls and the area to suburban housing tract developers, so that getting around as most of us do by car is very very difficult. For instance, major highways 85 and 87 were on the county map for 30 years as "proposed routes" and much needed with all the yuppies and geeks and stock millionaires driving fast , but were not built. And when built , the State of California-Caltrans accepted a defective highway 87 that warped like a roller coaster, and had to be rebuilt and widened from a totally inadequate 2x2 new ,21st century ,7 million people in the Bay Areas 9 counties so almost as crowded as LA, too narrow freeway. There is not one LA super wide freeway in the entire Bay Area. Talk about lousy, lack of foresight planning!! Even on major streets and cross town boulevards, the Traffic Department says that all the traffic lights are suppose to be, should already be,should have been for years and decades timed,,,but they are too busy or incompetent to do it just yet,,,what with how valuable our time, gasoline, and sitting in traffic for hours smog-generating health is. Highway 101 south of town was Designed with a huge bottleneck to slow traffic in and out of southern Coyote Valley, and the stupid bottleneck has only recently been removed , at the cost of incompetent State Legislature millions $$$$$. Silicon Valley is no pre-designed Pleasanton.

6-Poor Police performance,,,In the 1960s and 1970s the SJPD cops in their cruisers were allowed to sleep their night shifts away on the safer west side of the Santa Clara Valley, in clusters of cruisers hidden behind schools-which i personally witnessed-while most of the crime was newspapered to be on the poorer east side of the Valley. But i can remember the west side, Willow Glen burglar who repeatedly broke into peoples upper income homes to just make loud noises and stand in the master bedrooms while the couple cringed for their lives hiding under the sheets, and then this burglar would leave. This went on ,,,for years!!! If you call the SJPD for say carpenters drag racing down an upscale expensive neighborhood ,,,every day after work on a remodel,,,you might think the local pd would come out,,,but no, the cruisercops are too busy somewhere, doing something, and making some of the highest pay in the state for doing a terrible job of community policing. Or say the local high school kids decide to tp/toilet paper a city sidewalk, city owned beautiful tree every year, will the local pd talk to these budding jd s and put a stop to it, no. You can get better service from a mall guard.

7-Redevelopment Agency corruption to totally rebuild downtown San Jose after the city allowed "Valley Fair" shopping mall to be constructed on the western outskirts and draining all the business out of the downtown area, taken over by various Mexican eastside gangs, and now trying to entice shoppers and visitors back with free parking on nights and weekends,,,was another huge bad idea. Nowadays this shopping mall is the number one grossing mall in the state, more than any in LA or Orange County. People do not still feel safe because there is not a cop walking every block downtown at night--see the above "poor police performance". Women have been raped, downtown, at night , on the city streets. And the city and the SJPD cops still don't get it.

8-Secret, backroom giveaway deals to local corporations costing us $$$ millions and billions in lost tax revenue and fees,etc. Some would say that Silicon Valley must do this to entice good companies to come and stay, but after so many have poisoned our wells like Fairchild and IBM, do we really still think this corporate morally corrupt scheme still works for the benefit of anyone but these careless multinational nation-homeless businesses?! If a business does not want to be American, then they may not be our friend, but our enemy.

9-Joke of a city council,,,Like most politicians-representatives in California and the USA, San Jose's in Silicon Valley can not be bothered with your complaint call or inquiry. PS=this city does not work. period.

10-local newspaper,,,I will give the San Jose Mercury News credit for only recently trying to be a great investigative, honest,for the people newspaper instead of the corp and govt shallow he said/she said trashcan liner material that is the bulk of most newspapers.

11-Local Schools,,,San Jose State College was, besides the old canneries for the fruit trees of old Santa Clara Valley, the mainstay of the community. Unfortunately, through poor-terrible administration by the State , it was allowed to become more mediocre while changing its name to 'san jose state university' when it is functionally no better than a second tier state college to the UC system-also mismanaged by slow expansion. SJSC was always a commuter school , in downtown, so it easily lost its identity. What with the foolishness of the greeks frats and soros,keeping files of tests, and way too many drunken orgies causing their decline to almost barely visible level,,,and the repeated poor leadership of college president after college president after college president, especially with the long line of corrupt and incompetent mayors not helping matters generally much, the college is a local joke. They just gutted the famous Industrial Arts department , where shop teachers learned their skills for decades under master craftsmen, and gave it too the famous Engineering Department, as if !! we need more geeks that can not even use hand tools, let alone machinery. Ask any major local corporation,even the computer kind, and they will tell you most EE grads are tool klutzes and the Governator needs to restore public education in the State of California to a much higher level , if he can, tho doubtful. Our public schools are rated near the bottom on spending per pupil, tho the public school administrators are stealing golden salaries just fine tyvm,,,and the overall quality of our high school public education graduation crop is a joke compared to the rest of the USA and the civilized world. Stanford's computer was tapped and the newspapers revealed that most students were (parentals) buying just "A"s and "B"s, tho the university does not seem to be too ashamed about this, they just don't want to talk about grades anymore, with anyone,,,especially the press. And UCB /Bezerkley ,like San Jose State, does not seem to be able to be good neighbors and good friends to the city it is downtown inside. Santa Clara University has become famous for ,,,ready for this,,,burning couches in the streets, by the students. Such incompetent State level public school leadership, for decades!! Both Chico State and CalPoly in SLO lost their parent week celebrations because of inadequate policing,,,so sad. The new Merced UC campus is mired in frivolous swampshrimp lawsuits and should have been finished 20 years ago. Willow Glen High School is over run with rude and misbehaving, mostly latino, underachieving and bussed-in students.

12-Worst roads in the USA, for YEARS,,,If California was an independent country, we would be one of the 15 richest countries in the entire world !, yet the state budget is secretly lack-of-political sunshine mismanaged year after year, after decade. The Terminator-Governator in a campaign pledge promised we californians a state audit,,,but we have learned to accept much less from a Hollywood movie star-action figure,,,so much much less. We use to just joke about how awful the state DMV/dept of motor vehicles was. Now it is also the state CalTrans/highway department, for their bungling of the Bay Bridge 1989 repair when it was built on wood in the water and mud back in 1936 and the wood had rotted away,,,to their bungling of the new bridge design and build process from a reasonable 1 billion $ cost est. to the current afraid-to-ask-negligence-over 7 billion $ and years late estimate,,,California has become a joke of mismanagement by the Gov. and Legis. after their repeated lies that deregulating energy would mean the cost of natural gas and electricity would go down, when it shot up 4xs, and they made an Enron ripping us off movie about it. There were 15 other stupid states lined up to deregulate, so we were not the only state ship of fools and fooled !! So our city roads and highways and freeways are just covered with potholes and big hard hitting cracks, and some rate our roads the worst or among the very worst in the entire USA. I just paid several hundred dollars in wheel alignment car charges because the all the roads, but in the richest neighborhoods like Hillsborough, are so poorly maintained. Maybe that is why the Governator drives so many suvs-Hummers.

13-Housing prices, own or rent, that will make you laugh or cry, guaranteed,,,What with all these obvious, plain as day problems, you might think you could get a bargain on housing in Sillycone Valley, but you would be so wrong. Low income housing looks like a barrio or ghetto. And anything remotely livable costs you an arm and a leg, ala get off the boat in SF rip off merchant pricing in the 'gold rush',sucker rush of Sam Brannan and manifest destiny. I live in a steal of a 2 bdrm rental, with parking safely off street, and a 3rd floor view,,,but rents on the peninsula in my area go normally for $2k/mo for such an old building. Check CraigsList to be truly shocked. My folks built a custom, not tract home in desirable Willow Glen-Lincoln Glen neighborhood(since LG shopping street heart/center is near d-e-a-d,,,) in 1853 for less than $20k. Ranch style one level ,2 car attached garage, 3bdrm, 2bath. Big lot. Now expanded ,twice, to 5bdrm, 2 bath. And it could sell, 1953 old pipes and old wires and old paint as is ,,,for,,,are you sitting down?,,,over $700k. The wires on the original electric stove top--remember "all electric" ads for homes-what a joke--are sooo scary.

14-horrible State Bond rating,,,who really cares how badly our state is mis-run.

15-lots and lots of 'homeless' people wandering around and getting into trouble,,,It is not just generous SF that use to give away cash of $300-400/mo to anyone claiming at the city window to be homeless. There use to be a mental health hospital , called Agnews, for the thousands of mentally ill in Silicon Valley. But during Governor Reagan's term, the state mental hospital of Agnews was closed and now the land has been sold off to Sum Microsustems or somebody, when it was a good place to keep the mentally ill off the streets and from getting into criminal behavior ,drugs,littering our sidewalks, etc. That was a huge bad idea, Governor Reagan. Sonoma mental hospital, huge, in the north bay was also closed.

16- call "911" and see if you can wait for 1,5 or 30 minutes,,,On the highway i see lots of accidents, some just fender-benders, some with blood, and it is amazing to me that CHP hangs up on you in SoCal if you call an accident in and it sometimes takes 5-10-15-30 minutes in NorCal to get through to a polite CHP dispatcher, to HELP THEM get info on a recent accident and get out there to help the accident victims.

17-Water rates are sky high,,,My folks in San Jose pay from $50-75/month, as 2 residents with one or two kids visiting. Ridiculous !! Of course, the corporate farmers get 60-70% of the states fresh drinking water right off the top, before the what 30 million people and cities, at a giveaway rate subsidy of less than $20 a acre foot. Only in California, right !! And the water is sooo hard, you are going to get hard water white spots all over that new BMW. You would think someone would develop a product to apply to new glass to protect it for years from such ugly and hard to see through white hard water spots. And most of the county is on an antiquated=cheap many old ground well system, so the Water Company is making huge profits, but the quality of the "hard 24 gpg" ,toxic (see #1 above) water is not to be trusted or preferred. The County does not work either,,,and wants fiasco of incompetence and failure at only 60-70 mph B.A.R.T. into downtown SJ, for "whatever!" the cost. (Caltrain is such a far superior system going up the peninsula, that BART would be a total waste of Billion$ of past collected tax dollars.)

18-horrible Clay soil,,,it may have been fine for building adobes by the Spanish that have lasted hundreds of years, but try gardening in this sticky muck !! Yes, it was fine for all the old orchards of plums, walnuts, apricots and cherries, but i personally have spent $1000s over the years on cubic yards of mushroom compost,gypsum, redwood shredded bark compost, manure, both steer and chicken composted, planting mix , Schultz Profile Clay Soil Conditioner grit, and now alfalfa pellets that really temporarily increase the worm population, and since 1953 to 2007 the clay soil still looks and hoe /shovel works the same,,,sticky. Where all those thousands of cubic yards of garden soil amendments went over the many years, i have no idea, and neither does anyone else it seems.

19-Jobs,,,It use to be that every parents dream was for their son or daughter to get an EE degree and work for a computer company, make a good salary, buy a big house, and raise a family ala the old american dream. Maybe those days are gone ,since alot of Silicon Valley companies have moved out and there are other Sillycone Valley-clones in Utah, N. Carolina, etc. Maybe some companies like Apple still pay a true living wage with great benefits. And some companies like Google just vest shares so besides the fab salary and benes ,even the janitor is a multimillionaire. But for most of us , we feel betrayed with low pay and few benefits, maybe just horrible -will misdiagnose to avoid a operation cost under covered insurance-crappy Kaiser. The State of Califonia-ok, go ahead and laugh-does not widely and generally for all workers enforce the overtime laws and the work place safety laws, that is the ones they have not Grey Davis style sleazy stolen off the books with a back room commission. Raw sewage in dumped across employee parking lots, yes more than one location, and Cal OSHA tries and does look the other way ,as it runs downs storm drains into San Francisco Bay. That is why there was so little public shock and uproar over the recent container ship 58,000 gallon thick tanker oil spill , because most people don't care enough to vote for politicians who do care and do take care of the California environment. We are quickly becoming an area of the spoiled with special tax breaks rich bastards, declining to nothing middle class, and the others, the working poor who are abused by the rich and the powerful.

20-The future prospects,,,If the big bad fraud of a ass-grabbing Terminator-Governator will not raise taxes on those making over $1 million/year,,, even $10,000,000/year,,, or even $50,000,000/year,,,year after year!?,,, of such extreme affluence, then i think California is lost. We truly will become just like Mexico, rich selfish and happy vs the poor, with the ground poisoned by MTBE,etc. from a bad trade treaty like NAFTA, GATT, and WTOs with our better neighbor to the north ,Canada. Ripped off and ruined, oh so quickly.

Why do Travel Agents want to become Dinosaurs?

Today i saw a respected California travel agency agent about a trip,Hawaii condo and car, i had booked myself months ago and just needed a flight. "Why don't you cancel the condo and car and go for a package?",,,I got exactly where and what i wanted. "Well, at a month and a day before Dec 16 departure, you will be lucky to find anything for less than $800-900 for the rt flight!",,,please just look. "Ok, on Apollo ,see, there is only,,,yes, $900,,,oh, there is $800,,,that is probably the best you will do,,,oh, there is $700,,,now you can't expect any lower price this late than that!,,,ok, i have found you a $600 rt flight on United in less than 5 minutes for our $35 fee, and you certainly won't find anything lower,,,do you want me to book that,,,you really should."

Apollo is a mediocre search engine for travel-flight prices. The travel agent did not check even one airline website, when most people have heard that they have the best deals a lot of times. What about Aloha or Hawaiian Airlines or ATA or even United's own site after finding their fare on Apollo? How lazy can you be ??

Back in the 80s i was a travel agent for a subsidiary of Santana's Suntrips and went to a ripoff travel school in San Jose and also two community college campuses to learn Sabre and Apollo for little pay, no benefits, and much talked of but never went 'fam trips' , as a part time job to working as a hotel front desk manager at a successful Silicon Valley business hotel ,for low pay and no benefits. So i know alittle about the biz, just selling Hawaii vacations. And in this day and age, for a "professional" to not even check the major travel websites and airline websites is either playing to only the UberRich or just plain foolish. Most Americans want a bargain ,even if they are "late!" at a month and a day out.

A good friend has a 'bargain hunter' travel agent in Oxford, England on a stipend to CONSTANTLY look for the ski trip package bargains in France and Italy that he has requested. Every few weeks she calls and says " I found this great deal, a real bargain ! Are you interested in going ,,,(say) skiing next month in Italy?"

Why do we have so many lazy, over-priced, fast buck,get rich quick travel businesses ,,,and travel agents who think we are all just fat cat corporate travel suckers willing to pay any price ?! The dollar in your hand or your bank is worth less and less every day,,,and most travel agents think they are working just for one side of the fence, the fat cats.

I made the Apollo- United $600 reservation, but immediately went home and found on Aloha Airlines web page a lower price or $577 and then on Hawaiian Airlines website of only $469, without the $35 fee,,,and a savings of more than 20 PER CENT !! If i could do this as a pc amateur, certainly any self respecting Travel Agent could,,,or professionally should. Not all of us in the Bay Area are computer geeks and we expect more from Travel Agents, if they want to flourish.

the NRA has stopped the "Free Hunter" program, so do they give a damn at all about us blue collar hunters?

I recently--Nov 2007--phoned the Hunter Relations Department of the NRA and they LAUGHED,,, when i asked if the rich and well funded NRA could organize at cost or just above cost hunts , say for pheasants in South Dakota, for its members. They want our money, but other than fight legislative battles with fat cat lobbyists, what are they good for beyond the basic Right to Bear Arms,,,for the average member?? Hunting in on the decline and besides self protection and target shooting it is a main reason why i own a rifle and a shotgun. Seems awfully short sighted of the NRA to do so little to promote hunting and the people who treasure the wilderness, national forests, fields and out of doors in pursuit of legal game like pheasants, quail, ducks and geese,deer, etc. For most of us, commercial outfitters are too expensive and as out of state businesses, too untrustworthy and unreliable. So hunting is in a steady rapid decline,,,then what, NRA?

Kaiser P. medical insurer says "thrive",,,then why so little about helping our Immune System??!

If crappy Kaiser was even half-serious about patients that "thrive", they would be telling us all the ways we could help our Immune Systems and all the ways we should not be hurting our precious Immune Systems. But they are not.

The Yosemite National Park landslide on main access Highway 140 Fiasco

If NPS and the current concessionaire, Delaware North, can not effect a quick and effective cure , you can bet that if MCA of Los Angeles still had the park contract the road landslide would have already been fixed. I am not saying MCA was a good concessionaire in its short history in Yosemite National Park, just that what NPS and the Feds now say is impossible to quickly fix/repair with a original roadway shed is just a lack of will. If you doubt that MCA in its day had the raw clout, i can prove by giving one example.
In the 1970s and 1980s ,MCA of Los Angeles was so powerful that it ran YNP in fact. What MCA wanted, MCA got. It was just that capitalist -greed-religion simple. Raft rental at Camp Curry and the raft shuttle that made large profits? MCA easily got it , with its corporate size or Congress connections.
Does Delaware North get to do raft rental and raft shuttle? No, even tho many employees say it is a mafia invested or controlled company. Should a mafia company be in a national park? As long as the President keeps waving the "patriotic" flag and shouting "Iraq" to all the American patriotic fools that can not think past "weapons of mass destruction" and "ties to Al Queda" and ignore the obvious.
Another example is that MCA in its day was allowed to be so abusively powerful that it fully exercised an exclusive bus transportation contract inside YNP to the detriment of visitors from all over the world. Bus loads would show up at the 4 park entrances, then had to phone in a request for a bus to transport its passengers from the bus yard at Yosemite Village, and wait until one arrived in an hour ,or two, or longer. Bus guests were not allowed to make reservations so that an MCA buses would be waiting at the one of 4 park gates, but rather MCA made all these mass transit ,environmentally wiser guests wait ,,,and wait,,,and wait.
That is how powerful , for the worse, a large corporation like MCA was inside our Yosemite National Park for years, with Congress and the National Park Service looking the other way. And that is how NPS has no clout or will or true grit to fix such major problems in our national parks, such as Yosemite and the two year old ,long know and ignored rockslide on Highway 140 and the Merced River.

Mr. Robert Steel's of Treasury remarks today are pollyann-ish/disingenuous,,,

US Rep. Barney Franks committee hearing today questioned Mr. Robert Steel of the Treasury Department, who said that banks do not try to get people into foreclosure situations. Capitalist coldhearted reality unlikely, as for example Bank of America rewards its loan officers/staff for getting people to unwisely sign on for multiple loans, whether or not these people can really afford them. I have seen these reward trips in San Francisco at Christmas time, with the loan officers most successful at increased debt of individuals staying in luxury hotels and eating luxury meals , paid for as reward, by Bank of America.

DO NOT,,,switch to Microsoft's "Windows Live",,as it is full of BUGS !!

Remember, Microsoft has little or no customer service for free,,,therefore, it is October 2007 and way too early to switch to MSN Windows Live email , what with all the many major problems in it:

1. Can not print more than the first page of an email.

2. Click on an email, and another one from a different day
pops up !!

3. There is no permanent option to go back to the old,
more reliable email program...and you can not email
MSN ,the beast, to get normal free customer service
help.

4. There are other problems,,,such as white lines every inch or so THROUGH THE BLACK TEXT YOU TYPE,,, i am just too tired of Microsoft and their crappy products without lifetime free customer service to continue tonight,,,

Mr. Greenspan's bitter legacy : A.R.M.s/adjustable rate morgages, sold by smart rich bankers debt-greedy against dumber,less powerful unwise Americans

Can anyone imagine that someone as smart as Mr. Greenspan could not see the near-term and long term future peril of the folly of ARMs/adjustable rate mortgages sold to ambitious unwise working poor fools?

The banks certainly are smart and powerful and personal debt/foreclosure/repossession driven enough to have foreseen this and as the power player in this business contract, must bear the full cost of such overly ambitious greed. No federal bailout is warranted tho the Federal Reserve certainly looked the other way and allowed this major stupidity and huge threat to our weaken national economy. Another nation lesson to learn.

Governor Arnold and 911: Why do we have to wait 3-15 minutes for someone to answer?!

Try calling 911 the next time you see a highway car accident. No one will answer for usually a few minutes,,,to many minutes. Then they will politely take the information, unless it is SoCal and then they will just hang up, even if someone is bleeding to death on one of the many overcrowded 6x6 and 7x7 freeways down there.

Governor Arnold is responsible as the head of state government for this. Ok, so he won't raise taxes on the elite super-uber-rich making more than a Million $/year. But he should be fixing this. This is basic public safety.

To save a few bucks, why risk your loved ones life?!

There are several limo and bus companies that demand all or most drivers be available 24/7/365. And then ,because they are employees, order them to violate the federal DOT hour of work safety law hours, since the driver is the only one liable for the $700-900 fine by CHP,,,which by the way suggests a way to falsify your DOT logbook with 'standby time' as 'off duty time' when you are still on the clock. It is a national disgrace and probably nationwide.

Beware of "Boston Coach" limo ,as a subsidiary of Fidelity Investment Company, seems to offer high pay in exchange for working too many ,possibly unsafe hours without at least 8 hours sleep at home. How important is your loved one , versus a couple bucks ?? Why does "Virgin Limo" say they pay competitive region and industry wages and then pay so very little??

Beware of "Destination Systems" who has made millions demanding 'unrestricted hours' from its bus drivers for years without regular days off or vacation time,,, retired in luxury after such putting-the-public-in risky business,,, and is now getting back into such risky business.

There are many more, hiding out there,,,Do we really want to lower all our standards to Mexico's or China's ??!

Consumers, if you love someone, you should ask more questions of who they ride with, limo or bus company, so that they will return safe and sound home to you. You would think.

Here in the 'wild west', California has lots of false front companies,,,

"California Parlor Car Tours" in SF currently in 2007 does not have any buses or drivers, yet is selling on the web like it did, after a bad accident outside Yosemite last year on 120west. Very sad for such a once-famous company.

"Tower Tours" sold its bus operation out of SF to a Seattle-based company, "(some thing)-Western", yet is still using the old name, even tho the rich South Korean former owner is just doing hotel desk bookings. The gay new construction?-millionaire owner has the Tauck Tours contract, but seems to hire others companies rejects, like the latest one with a huge anti-social hair-trigger temper.

Grey Line , Coach USA, San Francisco Sightseeing,,,that company,,, has yet invented another name to market/hide behind, besides the old Franciscan,,,it may be "Coach America",,,Why so many names for the same mediocre-standard, money-grubbing , usually dented dusty dirty and late ,smoking driver huge bus company?

Consumers must ALWAYS ask,,,do you actually have a bus and a driver ,,,and do the tour ? What is your insurance and safety record? Do you guarantee ,in writing to me, that your drivers follow the letter and spirit of the federal DOT law on hours and state laws , so that ALL YOUR DRIVERS are guaranteed at least 9 hour off each 24 hours of work availability,,,,so that they AND WE,,,will be safe and not victims of the frenquent fall-asleep-at-the-wheel USA national syndrome?? Do you pay competitive wages to all your employees ,such as overtime and full benefits, or just non-competitive wages like $10/hr period??

Or are you just one of sooo many brokers and bookies ,passing yourself off as the actual operator, just to get a slice of the money, and then resell the ignorant client to ,,,any farmed out or subbed out second or third rate outfit??

AARP sells MEDIOCRITY, not the Superior products to the aged it should

Back about ten years ago ,when i turned 50, i immediately joined AARP, thinking it would be of some to great benefit. First i tried the hotel discounts and found them no better than AAA. Second, i went to my retirement plan specialist and asked him to evaluate the retirement savings plans and annuities offered through AARP, and i was shocked to hear that as an expert in the field for many years he found them all to be "mediocre at best" !! Why not 'Superior' ????

They should be offering our older citizens the best, not the average. So recently i tried their car insurance offered through the Hartford, and for the first time ever i feel i was low balled to get me to call the Hartford Insurance Company and then fraudulently told that "the quote had to be adjusted as usual" and higher !! Classic 'bait and switch' fraud.
Now some old folks might just roll over and take that higher ,too high, price. But i complained to AARP and was basically told that they don't care about such insurance quote abuse and non-competitive pricing to the USA seniors.

Shocking , i know. Don't accept mediocrity from AARP, or anyone else !! Demand better service and prices from such powerful and supposed friends of the aged. The California Insurance Commissioner is taking too long to seem interested.

Fire Fatso Firemen,,,and Smoking Sheriffs !!

Sept. 2007,,,I was driving in San Francisco yesterday, and saw a "morbidly obese" fireman in uniform !! How can we keep ,or why, such super-unfit public safety employees ?! Also saw a S.F. policeman smoking inside his patrol car, obviously on duty. Who is going to pay for his lung cancer and certain self-destructive illnesses down the line, but we abandoned taxpayers of the mid-low working income ??!!
They should all be fired, if it is so necessary to be fit to be hired as a policeman or fireman, then it should be the same high standard throughout their career, however short. There are lots of young fit men and women willing, ready and able to take their places. To he-ll with their unions on this public safety crisis issue. No excuses, ala the popular tv show "rescue me".

Sears recommend a plumbiing company in Califonia, but the hot water heater plumbers also STOLE the hot water copper pipe loop!!!

My folks are in their 80s and often victims of tradesmen. But to buy a hot water heater every 10-15 years from Sears and then have the Sears provided plumbing company install the hot water heater,,,and STEAL the copper pipe of the subfloor hot water loop that had reliably provided hot water on demand in less than 5 seconds that now takes almost 3 minutes,,,is scandalous ,especially when Sears keeps telling us 'we don't want to hear about it anymore' !!!

BEWARE of Sears , in California and especially Silicon Valley !!

Shame on San Francisco's hotel consierges !!

Many people on vacation, in a trusting mood, will be unfairly taken advantage of by many San Francisco concierges who secretly take a 30-40 % commission on every tour booking, and lord knows what else, as a stupid judge just ruled this secret behavior "legal". It may be "legal" to take more than one deserves, but to do it secretly, is totally dishonest and unprofessional. Concierges should now show a label as to who they are beholding to, either "salaried hotel employee" with obedience to the hotels standards if any, or "salaried and commission" or "commission to 40%" based advice, so that no one will be deceived any longer as to where the San Francisco concierges loyalty does lie, usually with the dirty under-the-table dollar, like lost child Las Vegas. Shame on the Mayor, Gavin Newsom, as well for his mismanagement of a tourism economy city. How difficult is it to get relief drivers to the ends of the cable car lines so our guest do not wait the usual 1-3 hours while the solo cable car driver is on a very very long break ?

Macys.com has lousy customer service !!

I ordered several items by pc at macys.com and was told they were all in stock and would be shipped within 5-7 workdays. The shipments were late and one item in on unknown date back order, when i was told over the phone that the product was "available to ship".

Beware of this big successful stores terrible performance on the web at customer service !! Macy's, you should be doing sooo much better at taking care of your customers.

USAToday newspaper prints BAD medical advice

Recently USAToday newspaper did an article on how to treat common native plant Poison Ivy-Oak-Sumac in the USA. They did this last year. Unfortunately, their source for medical advice is obviously incompetent,,,and thus you should view everything medical in this newspaper as highly suspect. They recommended treating the oily plant contact rash that lasts for a very painful, 24-7, two to three weeks with "alcohol and water" !! Totally incompetent advice in 2007 !!

"Tecnu" brand liquid soap is the only soap that will wash this painfully irritating oil off human or dog skin within the first 24 hours, that i am aware of. It has been available for about 10 years over the counter. Yet USAToday will let thousands and thousands of Americans and our visitor guests suffer with this unnecessary rash, especially if you get it on private,delicate or sensitive skin, every year because they for 2 years will not print up-to-date medical information on this subject, nor return phone calls on a correction to this bogus article. "Alcohol and water",,,what stupid irresponsible careless and thoughtless medical advice !!

Google is doing a TERRIBLE job of running Blogger !!

Now there is little or no way to contact Blogger, with calls for help or to report problems. This is wrong, and should not be allowed ,if there were ANY standard of customer service in the computer industry. Look how rich Google and Microsoft are ,,,and how Terrible/non-existent their "customer service" is !!

Talk about Robber Barons at the turn of the century.

For instance, i did not want nor need the new Google home page for Blogger or the new Google sign-in for Blogger. Blogger worked just fine. But they were force down my pc throat. Now when i try to switch between my own email addresses, Google offers it, but does not allow it !! Shame, shame , shame on you , Google !!

Professional mechanics and radio stars, "Click & Clack" say it is 'ok' to use Regular instead of "Premium Gas Only"

Good news,,,!!!
The famous radio personalities and mechanics "Click and Clack" last month, April 2007, say it is 'OK' for most cars other than Ferraris, Maseratis,etc. super high tech,,,to use Regular Gas, with the manufacturers like Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Acura, Lexus, Infinity, and the second rate American mfgs, instead of the dash label of "Premium Gas Only" !! Thank you Tappet Brothers !!!!!

Now in the May -June issue, AAA says according to Jim Fennig a crew chief for NASCAR and AAA President Paula F. Downey, that if your car dash label says "Use Regular Gas" ,you don't have to use Premium Gas at $.20-.60 cents more. Gee, thanks for that big tip, AAA. Yikes, do they think we are all sheep for slaughter ?!

AIG,,,huge insurance-investment company but LOUSY service!!

I have had an IRA at AIG- Valic for years,,,and am amazed that they do not have a mailed out or online printable contribution form. Also , they do not tell you if you have over-contributed for the year ,,,and thus face IRS $$ penalties. Ouch. But they also do not bother in the least to tell you what you can contribute and if you have contributed enough for that tax year. Excuse me, but THAT is Lousy service!! Maybe they think all of us IRA and TSA investors are captive past, and thus ,,,captive present and future contribution investors only to AIG ! There must be many investment companies that appreciate and take better care of their 'showing the money' customers !!

Why is it that men in the USA mostly do not wash their hands after using an expensive restaurant's toilet?!?!!!!

As a limo driver, i go to many fancy bars and nightclubs and restaurants in San Francisco and Los Angeles and Vegas,,,so why is it, especially at the most expensive restaurants where people are eating very very expensive food, but also at bars and night clubs, that when i go inside to use the fancy toilets, men's, the men MOSTLY DO NOT WASH THEIR HANDS !!

This is sooo disgusting, and yet sooo common in these fortunate United States of America.

And who is leading the charge to get people to take care of their personal health and everyone elses ? NO ONE.

Certainly not the Elementary public school teachers, with the too stupid President's 'no child left behind' nonsense--just ask any real teacher--they are too busy to teach character or even the common sense idea that we all should be washing our hands several times a day.

Such a rich and successful country, even tho it is going down the drain fast with all these falling and failing to the lowest common denominator disgusting trade treaties like NAFTA and WTO and GATT, that trump our own city,county, state and federal laws and even the Constitution and Bill of Rights--but that is another rant--we americans can not even get this simple sign of civility right.

Maybe Mrs. Bush can teach us this. Lord knows, her husband will be reviled for centuries in the history books, little that he cares.

With such a poor attitude for decades, San Francisco does NOT deserve 'tourism is our #1 biz' !!

For decades, and many dolittle/donothing to make it better Mayors, like Gavin Newsom and Sacramento-tainted Willie Brown, San Francisco obviously does not appreciate its enviable easy economy of massive inflows of tourists. How and why do i say this? Listen to the actual tourists complain ,for decades, about the most basic things, like not enough clean public toilets,,,and the terribly rude long wait you have to endure at the end of the 'world famous cable car' lines while the Muni employees take these inordinately long breaks--and should be relieved by other Muni drivers so that the public does not have to stand in the sun for up to 3 hours--stupid, lazy, corrupt , incompetent systems in SF.

I can not tell you how many people i have talked to over the decades ,especially at the Hyde Street-Aquatic Park-Ghiradelli Square northshore end of the line, by the Maritime Ship Museum and the west end of Fisherman's Wharf,,,who are screaming mad at the city for such a slight and rude unwelcoming of having a limited number of cable cars come in loaded to the end of the line, the passengers disembark, and then the operators don't let anyone on for 45 minutes !!, while they take another break ,and read the paper ,,,or eat a between meal snack,,,or smoke a cigarette on city payroll time to make more health insurance costs for the stupid city that allows even its cops to smoke ON THE JOB. That is sooo Neanderthal , but typical SF.

So hot air windbag Mayor Willie Brown made the big mistake of paying way too much for the new 35 French self-cleaning toilets. SF needs many many more all over its tourist locations, like Golden Gate Park.

And when are they ever going to have walking beat cops on foot on every other block of the drug-dealing, homeless person littered Tenderloin ?

And when is SF going to finally get the much talked about free Wi-Fi ,,,after 20-50 other major cities ??

The company the city hired to do its guest information does a lousy job. Conventions spend millions per week.
And people still stand in lines , for DAYS, to go to that dumb federal prison, Alcatraz.

SF needs a 'visitor's bill or rights', saying we appreciate you and your $$$$$ easy money Millions, and we ban huge 30-40% of ticket price, fee scamming concierges,,,dirty dusty tourist bus seats and dirty public buses,,,i've seen a dead rat on the floor of a tourist restaurant kitchen so the SF Health Dept is a huge joke,,, and do all that we should do to earn your business. This IS the 'Wild West', still, and so don't expect SF to treat it major customers-business ,the tourists,,,you and me,,, very well in the near future.

Oh, and don't forget the distant in next county by 30 minutes, ugly, expensive, dirty and poor attitude about it too, confusing to get around, with new glass international terminal that in summer with poor ventilation feels like a sweaty hot house for tropical plants, the city's SFO airport!

So very few amenities ,compared to other USA airports or international airports. Rude cops ,rude staff ,,,more of the same 'bad attitude' from San Francisco !!

Governors and State Legislature for decades ignored State Prison medical and other problems !!

In the Tuesday 24 April 2007 San Jose Mercury News newspaper there is a long article about the 0.5 $M /year court appointed administrator,,,maybe for 10 years !!,,,because our state legislators have neglected to do their jobs for so long.

According to the article, the state lost a class action lawsuit, conditions were that bad,,,and in 2005 the judge scolded the state for its incompetence and neglect resulting in many deaths , and thus instead of the Governor, Arnold S., and the State Legislature doing their jobs, now we California taxpayers have to pay a court appointed administrator and several others way too much.

The article also brought up the point that the General Services Agency is totally incompetent with a culture of low/no standard work performance !! How incompetent and $ wasteful does our state government have to get before Californians raise their voices and demand more responsible and efficient use of our tax dollars ?!

We have the worst roads, for years , in the USA. We have some of the worst public schools in the USA. We have the worst state bond rating with the bottom 3 states, in the USA. And after the terribly stupid attempt in 1996 by the same state legislature and Gov. Grey Davis to 'deregulate' energy in California, resulting in the state going very deep into the red by being ripped off by Enron, Arthur Andersen, and major banks like Citi, Merrel Lynch,etc.,,,we are so deep in Debt. Plus the incompetent state highway agency, CalTrans and their 6x -7x cost overrun on the SF Bay Bridge ,that instead of a billion, will probably cost us 7+$Billion. Another state agency that should be fired, en mass.

How to get quality medical care for all Americans soon?

Make all elected officials take one of the worst medical insurers in the USA , Kaiser, and nothing paid under the table extra. That should do it. By summer no less.

How can the Catholic Church continue to protect its thieving and child-molesting Priests ??

Back in the 1990s,and maybe he is still alive and still doing it, there was a Catholic Priest in Monterey who was visiting dying parish faithful and getting them to sign over their houses to him, deceptively, when he told them the houses were going to the Catholic Church. How can the Catholic Church continue such horrendously unethical and immoral abuses ?

James P. Fox, the San Mateo County District Attorney, needs to be replaced ASAP !!

Call the San Mateo District Attorney's office,,,and you will only get an answering machine. So he doesn't care about the little people of San Mateo county ? Is he even at work??

Write to Mr. James P. Fox about a crime in San Mateo County ,,,twice,,,and you will get no response. Maybe he has ethically and professionally already retired, tho taking a huge paycheck and fat pension promise ? A super-rich San Mateo County family recently sold the SFO Airporter-Compass Transportation large bus company and before they did they were dumping their bus toilets across the employee parking lot for months into the storm drain to S.F. Bay. Sounds very illegal and very much a public health risk, right? Did our District Attorney throw the legal book at these super-rich law violaters ? No. Gee, why, is he soft on rich criminals or just soft on criminals in our living space San Mateo County?

And when you write Mr. James P. Fox, our should be vigilant San Mateo County District Attorney, about a cabal of a wacko MD and hospital administration staff at Burlingame's Mills-Peninsula Hospital who might be Right-to-Life freaks that are trying to sterilize patients who ever had an abortion when they are there for another surgery,,,does Mr. Fox do anything, like reply and investigate? Does not seem so. The Medical Board of California has seen the clear evidence and naturally decided to protect the MD in question ,versus protect the public.

Since the police and the District Attorney ,and even the Medical Board of California, will not protect us , maybe it is time to elect someone who will. Next time. Before it is public health menace too late for you too.

Costco,,,is using a misleading name on food !!

April 2007,,,I was in the local huge Costco the other day and noticed some new frozen salmon called 'keta' so i asked the store manager what kind of salmon it was, wild or fresh, atlantic or pacific, one of the 5 pacific varieties,,,

He said he did not know. I asked a chef at an expensive seafood restaurant in Silicon Valley and he did not know. I asked a fish monger at Safeway and he did not know. So i went to the Columbia Encyclopedia and it says it is more commonly called "Chum" or "Dog" pacific salmon!! No wonder Costco does not call it by its more common name !!

Atlantic salmon is genus 'Salmo'. Pacific salmon is genus 'Oncorhynchus'. Of the 5 north Pacific salmon varieties, King/Chinook/Quinnat is the "most important commercially" at an average weight of 20lbs ,,,up to about 100lbs. If you spend all that money flying to Alaska to catch one ,as a non-resident they may allow you to only catch 2 fish/season,,,so that fish is limited. Forget about it.

Then there is the one i think tastes the best, especially from the mouth of the Copper River, and that is the Red/Sockeye/Blueback, n. pacific salmon with very dark color ,good fish oil fatty taste, and last time i was in Alaska fishing you could catch 6 or 8 a day so guess there are alot of these.

Next is the Pink/Humpback n. pacific salmon with very pale pink meat and tastes horrid, especially if you paid all that money like i did to fly to Alaska and catch them fresh.
Had to feed them all to the cat.

The fifth variety of n. pacific salmon after Chum/Dog/Keta,,,and King/Chinook/Quinnat,,,and Red/Sockeye/Blueback,,,and Pink/Humpback,,,
is the Silver/Coho n. pacific salmon and it is a terrific surface fighting fish at the mouth of its spawning rivers !! And tastes delicious too , especially when you can spend all that money to fly far to Alaska and catch ,what , 6 per day. A great sport fish !!

When i go to a fish market or restaurant nowadays and ask 'is this wild or farmed salmon?', they always answer 'wild'. So how big from zero is the fine for lying about food and salmon ??

KQED, the premier Bay Area pbs station , might have sold out its public interest and citizen's contributors interest,,,to CHEVRON !!

If you go to www.permaculture.com, you may read that KQED produced a documentary on making alcohol for gasoline, but then buried/killed it in 1983 when big buck contributor and no friend of the public interest Chevron objected. So what if pbs stations are better than most commercial stations. If this pbs station violated our public trust so basically and maybe allowed us to be the suckers for two Gulf wars. Instead , we could be driving lots of sugar-based alcohol engine cars, vegetable oil that is cleaner than petroleum diesel oil turbo charged engine cars, and lots electric cars that the feds pulled off the market for no good reason.

"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 ?

new model German Setra motor coach/bus, S 417, is JUNK !!

My boss bought/leased several S417 new German buses, Setra 56 passenger, $400,000 buses. They are new models and have been falling apart every day and every week for a year !! These are new buses, 2005's , by boat from Germany to North Carolina, and then by train / your driver.
Last week the roof above the driver's seat began leaking in a rainstorm. Axles have gone out. Headlight lens covers have cracked and big windshields have easily rock chipped and cracked in normal city/highway paved road traffic. It takes at least a minute for the bus computer to check systems and let you restart the bus. The Blaupunkt cd radio and dvd player are already malfunctioning: the PA system and radio/dvd system have such different volume thresholds that when you switch from one to the other you accidentally blow your passengers ears out !!
So if you are dumb enough to buy/lease a bus of poor/new model questionable quality such as the Setra, even tho Mercedes Benz just bought it, because of favorable lease rates, expect said Setra bus to be constantly broken and constantly in the shop. The bus is gutless, it can not even keep 65 or 55 on the small hills of hwy 101. The cable-link snow chains take longer to put on and don't clear the wheel wells without damaging the lower cowling attachment. The a/c and heater are sooo weak compare to the old model. It can not even make enough air for the door and kneeling, let alone the brakes and the next morning push button door opening. And do not expect good-excellent service on parts availability and service from Setra, a German company. I recommend you stay with Canadian bus co. ,Prevost.

HOW TO SIMPLY AVOID AIRLINE BAGGAGE OVER-CHARGES,,,

I RECENTLY FLEW TO HAWAII ON VACATION. AND I WAS DEFINITELY READY FOR A VACATION !! But before leaving the house, i weighed myself and my checked bag on the bathroom scale, subtracting my weight ,so i would know i was under the new standard of 50# versus the old generous 70#.
At the airline counter, i saw something you may not be ready for that may cost you an additional $50 or more !! With these garden-variety idiots working the TSA and saving us all from a terrorist's fingernail clipper attack, thank you missing village idiot President Bush, your checked baggage is taken from you at the beginning of the line and you are not allowed to touch it afterwards, for instance, if it is just a pound over and you want to remove a jacket to temporarily wear and put in the overhead compartment !! In front of me, i saw vacationer after vacationer charged an additional $50, in the name of national security natch, and there was no recourse or anything these once happy to be going on a vacation people could do.
Well, here is the solution: go to Cabela's or other outdoor furnisher like Gander Mountain and order a digital small fish scale to 50#, such as the Cabela order # NT-01-8215 ,,,for only $ 19. 99 and pack it with you ,so at the departure end or return end ,you can weigh you checked bag and if it is 55# you can take something out in the comfort and privacy of your condo or hotel room, versus worrying about the final weigh-in at the tense airline counter. You know the AIRLINES are making a KILLING PROFITING from this added security hocus pocus harrassment by high school dropouts with the social skills of SF 3rd Street felons !! And then the airlines are skimming all that profit, like the oil companies, into the executives pockets, versus the shareholder's dividends and employee-workers paychecks,,,and then they want us to federally bail them out with "loans" unrepaid with interest signifigant,,,american business is sooo sleazy,,,
Caveat emptor and buyer beware out there,,,!!,,,you have few/no friends when traveling out of state or to a foreign country,,,

"Bug Bytes Computer Services ",,,not recommended

Recently, we had this San Jose service check our pc and were told that in turning off all the switches ,before, the computer had completed its sooo slooow Microsoft shutdown process,,,we had damaged the hard drive and would need to buy another one. We are non-tech professionals, teachers and such, so we did. Then i talked to 2 software engineers with ee degrees and several computer stores, like CompUSA and CircuitCity, and they all said that was impossible. There is sooo much demand for techs to fix pcs that i do not understand the need to pad a bill,,, or overcharge,,, or charge $220 just to come to your house and drop in / load a disc by Geek Squad,,,or charge $30 to show up at your house and $50 per hour,,,when there is sooo much work out there at just a more fair $30-50/hr.

Andrews Electronics,,,the "biggest",,,and maybe the Rudest

If you need a new remote or electronics part, do not make the mistake i did today and get a rude woman at Andrews Electronics in Santa Clarita, Ca. !! Phone Pacific Coast Parts instead at 800-338-6342,,,unless you like rude customer service.

DOWNSPOUTS,,,What a Flawed design !!

Are your downspouts constantly getting clogged with leaves and flowers / Do you have neighbors that have cut down all the tree in the front yard, including the city owned ones in the parking strip, just because he hates paying some handyman to clean his teflon gutters every month it seems in fall and winter ? This is nonsense !! Let us just decide that even screened and teflon coated rain gutters and downspouts DO NOT WORK,,,AND LET US JUST DO AWAY WITH DOWNSPOUTS !! Try disconnecting the downspout and see how little clogging of the gutters you get,,,There are so many traditional yet nonfunctional and even planned obsolescent fixtures in modern houses that need to be re-examined, like tubs with built-in plungers or stopper devices, that are constantly getting clogged with hair !! What a nuisance,,,just get a clean pipe exit...and use a rubber stopper.

Attorney General of California, Why are you always so Useless?!!?

1 jan 2006,,,and the winds are blowing like crazy this winter !! It has been years since i remember such heavy rains followed by such high winds followed by so many trees being uprooted by the wet ground and high winds of maybe 40 -50mph !! My folks, retired for decades on one state teacher's pension, had their back fence of 52 years blown down. Mom immediately looked up their home owners insurance agent's phone number, but before she could call , a neighbor real estate agent warned her and dad NOT to file a legal and legitimate and righteous claim against their home owners insurance that they have paid for years, because the insurance companies are allowed by our Cal. State Attorney General, the lazy bum, to blacklist anyone who files even a small claim against their homeowners insurance for legitimate reasons ,and jack up the rates and not renew their home owners insurance and thus make it impossible via blacklisting for these retired senior citizens to ever get home owners insurance again !!! WAKE UP ,CALIFORNIA POPULACE AND ELECTORATE, AND KICK THIS LAZY BUM OF A STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL AWAKE AND ACTIVE LIKE THE NEW YORK STATE OFFICER, OR KICK HIM OUT OF OFFICE,,,LIKE WE DID THAT LAST SORRY EXCUSE FOR A GOVERNOR, GRAY DAVIS, WHO LIED BOLDFACE WITH THE STATE LEGISTATURE TO US ABOUT HOW DEREGULATING ENERGY AND ELECTRICITY IN CALIFORNIA WOULD ALLOW THE MARKET TO DRASTICALLY DROP THE PRICE,,,,SUCH A FOLLY, AND NOW WE ARE IN RED-INK FOR DECADES AS AN ENTIRE STATE BECAUSE OF THIS !!

BEWARE of ,,,quakingaspenoutfitters.com,,,you hunters!!!!!

My dad and i hunted with dave mapes' "Quaking Aspen Outfitters" in 1998, and i filed a formal complaint of gross fraud and cheating hunters from any chance of getting a shot at an elk/anti-guiding in 1999. The State of Colorado Office of Outfitters Registration, AGREED, said they could "only put a letter in dave's file", so we were cheated out of $$$ thousands and a fair chance at many possible shots at legal elk: by guides telling us we could not shoot at legal bulls, by dave telling us on the last minute drive in that only he would choose who was fit enough and had paid enough guides over years of guided hunting experience to be allowed to be given a chance to take a shot at a legal elk, by the guides leaving my dad in a meadow/park almost all day and alone on a stand hunt contrary to dave's brochure and verbal contract that one guide per two hunters or less on all hunts was the rule,by his guides leading me on wild goose chases by horse and foot to waste time in the wrong area while the two youngest and fittest and most paid guide experienced hunters were taken the first day to the National Forest property "hole" to both easily get antlered male elk and then have the whole camp focus on getting them out by the next day, and by dave's guides repeatedly telling me that i could not take a legal shot at a legal bull within 100 yards !! And not one, not one, of the reference list past hunters was honest enough to warn me off this bad apple, bum of a guide,,, BEWARE BEWARE BEWARE, THIS IS HUGE AND COMMON OUT-OF-STATE FRAUD THAT YOU CAN NOT WIN AT IN YOUR HOME STATE SMALL CLAIMS OR CIVIL COURTS, SO JUST STAY AWAY !!
Also beware of "ray billings,outfitter,jackson hole,wyoming" who has a fraudulent and nasty habit of getting you cow tags for your requested antlered elk hunt,,,and providing incompetent guides, like the one busted for child pornography ,,,during the hunt week,,,online computer,,,by the FBI !! Where do Colorado and Wyoming find all these LOSERS ?!
Do NOT NOT NOT expect any help or professional expertise from either the Colorado Outfitter associations,state or private, NOR the Wyoming Outfitter associations,state or private,,, as they allow these bad apple guides to profit-by-theft for years and thus ruin all Colorado and Wyoming outfitters reputations and that of the states of Colorado and Wyoming and their fish and game departments !!!!!
Also BEWARE of "Wilderness Unlimited" a California-base western states hunt club that charges large initiation and large membership fees, and then allows ,for instance, the oregon rancher next door to helicopter herd the elk from the ranch you have also paid trespass fees for onto a ranch that the Madras,Or. chamber of commerce charges $3000/person access onto !!, after illegal helicopter herding of game animal elk !!!!! Also, the club asks property owners for their "worst, lest game rich section of property" for the same lease fee they could have had the most game rich corner for, a clear violation of best interest trust of the membership !!!!!!
When and how are we all in the United States going to clean up this massive abuse in out of state fraud and in state fraud in commercialized hunting ?????

"Tanglefoot" insect barrier for gardening:a consumer's opinion

Acouple years ago, we were having lots of trouble with ants climbing our front yard birch trees, so i went to the local garden center, and OSH recommended "Tanglefoot" super-sticky tube goop as a barrier to keep the ants out of the birch trees with annual apids. We applied per directions and watched as the ants just walked over stuck bodies of ants until they had re-established a path up all the trees ! Then we had to get this sticky "Tanglefoot" off the birch trees,,,!!! What a mess and pain in the neck !!! Beware, and do not buy this product for this problem and nuisance of ineffective result !!!
Now we have gone 2 years spraying twice with a mild pesticide like malathion and have had little problem with aphids and ants turning our birch tree's leaves black. Cheers,,,also, try alfalfa pellets from your local feed store at $8 for about 50 pound sack on all your roses and flower beds and fruit trees, to add organic matter cheaply to the soil and make lots of worms and their beneficial castings ! Works great !

The best Southwest Alaska charter boat company:"Yakutat Charter Boat Co.",,,a consumer's opinion

After years and years of trying different guides and different charter boat companies, i would like to recommend the hardest working and most honest (and sober) Mark Sappington and his "Yakutat Charter Boat Company". Alaska is the hideout of so many drunks and incompetents , that it is a shock to find someone who does not just want to Alaska-overcharge you for wetting your line with the common saying," let just stay and make it (you, Sucker!!) pay". If anyone can find and get rank amateurs,year after year, to hook and land legal and large halibut,in the 75#-200# range...not 30# "chickens" that so many try to pawn off as a worthwhile ,long distance ,expensive once in a lifetime or per year vacation experience. And usually in less than 120 feet of water ,maybe 80ft, not the 200-300 ft of distant-cranking-up of Kenai. Plus, you can fly the awful--expect your luggage in Alaska airspace to be misdelivered,or stolen,no shit-- Alaska Airlines into Yakutat directly without a floatplane, from the south or north and Copper River and Anchorage. And if you are lucky enough to hit the silver salmon, you will have a blast, just outside the harbor, light longrod topwater fishing these fighters--forget the kings at only 2 per year for non-residents--or go for the reds/sockeye that taste so good and can be caught in the near Situk River with chartreuse yarn on a red or plain legal hookup on the lip,not side. If you have never been, or have been a dozen times, try Mark Sappington in small quiet but still outrageously expensive Alaska and Yakutat. We liked Leonard's Landing at the harbor for accomodations, but there are some better and some worse if you care to look.

"Video Only" electronics,tvs,store review,,,a consumer's opinion

I went into "Video Only" in San Mateo County to buy my last tv, after checking GoodGuys and Circuit City,,,beware,,,they sold me a big screen tv ,telling me it was "HDTV ready", when i got it home and read all the paper to discover it was NOT ,,,"HDTV ready",,,also ,the set i got was defective with constant bars across the screen,,,and they gave me a hard time returning it right away,,,so beware,,,caveat emptor,,,and shop somewhere else maybe,,,

"BEST BUYS",,, a consumer's opinion,Nov.2005

Now that we have lost GoodGuys ,bought by CompUSA,,,and there is still mediocre Curcuit City,,,where does one go for electronics? Certainly not Fry's,with disinterested salesmen who will not give you any info without an easy commission,,,so what about "Best Buys"?
I went into one of their stores yesterday,looking for a new medium size refrigerator. It is a very busy store, usually with a near full parking lot. And i noticed they had over 20 different refrigerators, which i was surprised but glad to see. Had done my homework,and read the Consumer Reports article for 2005 on refrigerators,and since i am an adult and not a midget, i fully agreed that my old top freezer model had been a real pain in the back, bending over every time i wanted to get into the more often used lower ,refrigerator part. OK, so look for a bottom freezer model,like my friends just got in san jose at Western. And it was also recommended i look for lower cost of operation in an "energy star" certificate. And i wanted a 16-20 cu.ft. size model, preferrably by the "best brand for reliability, Whirlpool".
The salesman had massive acne. Don't they have medical for Clearacil or Oxy10 or Proactiv ??? I asked to see some bottom freezer models with "energy star", Whirlpool, and 16-20 cu.ft. size,,,and he could only find one midprice bottom-freezer model, and not a Whirlpool! Only one ?? He kept showing me larger sizes and more expensive models without "energy star". Then he asked why i would want a bottom freezer versus a top freezer, and i told him i was not interested in stooping over every time i opened the refrigerator door as an average-to-tall height adult. He kept on showing me all their side-by-sides, that i was not interested in in the least. Finally after looking on the web , as he suggested ,for more models in their inventory that would fit my desired criteria,,, and finding none,,,i left.
OK. What did we learn? He told me they do not carry Whirlpool. OK, so they do not have the "Best" brand. And most of the floor display was side-by-sides, then lots of painintheback top-freezer model refrigerators, then just a couple or one bottom-freezer type refrigerator, the configuration that Consumer Reports says is best for most of us. And the prices were much higher than Costco or IKEA, where i had seen Whirlpool models under $500 for a 17.5 cu.ft. with installation and under $400 at IDEA in East Palo Alto,,,but they are both top-freezer models, unfortunately.
And "Best Buys" did not have the best model, the bottom-freezer style,but lots of top-freezer refrigerators, to choose from. And they did not care much about annual energy cost ,since they did not have most or all their refrigerators with the "energy star" rating. I was in Best Buys when they first opened and was very disappointed with their toaster selection and prices, certainly not the "best". And i had been i once looking at CD prices, but was not impressed.
Avoid "Best Buys" if you are looking for the best brands and best versions at the best prices. I'm going to checkout Sears today. Good shopping!

San Mateo County residents...BEWARE,,,as the elected county officials care less for your public health and safety!!

I was working in South San Francisco, in San Mateo County, for SFOAirporter bus company, and complained to the county board of supervisors and the County Manager and the Environmental Health Department that this company was dumping raw bus toilet sewage across it's parking lot and into a storm drain to the SF Bay. And we lowly employees were forced to walk through feces and toilet paper for weeks. The official San Mateo County Environmental Health Department response was that they could not come out to look at it until after work and they could not get the overtime approved,so that no matter how many times i phoned and pleaded, they said they could not come out to verify or act on this pollution. All the cities of San Mateo County, from the poorest to the richest of "Atherton" and "Palo Alto" and "Hillsborough" are affected by this general county-wide disregard for pubic health so that one superrich family can get richer.
There is no excuse for their derilection of duty to all San Mateo County residents !! It took weeks,and near fatal illness, before the obscure storm drain- county people came out and verified it, but covered up for the company again by not taking pictures to fully document this general public health fiasco !! There is so much excessive wealth in this and SF county and yet there is this stupid dumb indefensible behavior by our elected county officals that puts all of us,all of us, at risk. A super expensive zip code will offer you little protection from any future public communicable disease. Please urge your elected officials to be more responsible. And let's replace the officials who persist in putting one small companies gross gross profit over all our basic human health and environmental health. Thank you.

Burlingame,Ca. residents...BEWARE,,,your city elected officials are aftaid of the word "renter" !!

As a long time Burlingame resident , i find it perplexing and terribly dishonest that the mayor and city council of Burlingame are lying to all the citizens and misrepresenting the basic facts. Burlingame ,like SF, is mostly a ,,,renter city,,,most households are renters,,,and more importantly during this ,again, election cycle, most eligible and registered voters are,,,here is that dirty word again, "renters". So why is it that almost all the current candidate literature avoids like the plaque mentioning that word/fact "renters", but rather "businesses and residents"?????
When you ask the past mayors of the last 10-20 years to do something for the renters , like free city-wide parking on the metered or unmetered streets since there is not nearly enough parking, you get a polite "thank you" but no action. Or when you ask for a standard to old apartments so that over 20 units do not have to share a single washer and dryer, you only get a polite "thank you" and no representation !! We Burlingame renters are being taken to the cleaners, by elected politicians we vote for but who refuse to say how poor and mansion-less we are or to even care about us after we-the renters,the majority, elect them !! It is high time we dump the old polite mayor and all the old council who refuse to represent us,even if we were the minority, and who are afraid to use the word "renter" in their campaign brochures. How many "businesses" are actually non-residents and non-voters,especially the apartment building owner variety, but also the Broadway/Burlingame Avenue type the mayor and council seem to only want to fraternize with ??? Why have so many past mayor and council members continued to perpetrate this gigantic fraud on us , that "residents" are homeowners and have children in the public schools,,,and "businesses" are actually resident owners and voters that deserve all the attention. Talk about a Civic Rights abuse of the highest order!! We renters are just like "niggers" to all the past Burlingame elected officials,as if the Civil Rights Movement never happened, and the landed rich of our Founding Fathers are ,even now in the 21st Century,the only ones worthy of the mayor's and council's attention and vote gather politics. This is such a shame on Burlingame and such an abuse of the American Dream. Obviously, we are NOT "all created equal". The Declaration of Independence was just a lie?