To get into the Chinese Market, the news has reported "tech transfer" or tech theft, "information transfer" or stealing trade secrets", substandard factories in China and Asia making inferior and flawed products from too tight dress socks sold at Costco or corroded new Apple laptops that Apple will not take back on day1 unless you bought the Apple warranty. And the "monetary manipulation" lowering their currency has created a Communist Dictator monster threatening neighbors and invading Tibet, helping to destroy the American middle cash/class majority of the 50s and 60s.

Japan is threatened and so this area has become another powder keg like Russia and Israel.
Talk about a "bull in the china shop"!

Hope Wall St is happy.

The "market" certainly didn't sort out the awful Sprint from the very good T-Mobile!!

It's Amazing to me that some USA Mother's do Not want to be their Child's "confidante"! It's like Not reporting a neighbor's Child Abuse. Shocking!, but it happens.

I was sitting at the bar local sushi restaurant next to what family of about 5. The young teenage boy sitting next to me and I said "hello" and chatted.

I offered to show him how to use chopsticks.
We ordered different sushi so we talked about that.

Then I told him what I thought was important at his age, that he pick a motto, like my "be prepared" from Boy Scouts or "honesty and kindness" or "stronger smarter kinder" like Sesame Street. Two of my high school friends became multi-millionaires with the motto "be prepared". Also good manners and good penmanship!

I told him I really hated as a teenager constantly being asked by relatives and strangers "what are you going to be when you grow up?" Constantly.
I told him that I thought I wanted to work as a scuba diver for Jacques Cousteau or maybe a park ranger in Yosemite but that I really didn't know until after 4 years of college.
I told him I had made a lot of money and had a lot of fun being a tour bus driver in California and also a limo driver to the super rich and movie stars so it worked out okay eventually.

The other thing I tried to help him with was bullying which was a huge problem back in the 50s and 60s. My dad said to just live with it.
So I told him my mother was my confidante and I could talk to her about anything from mean kids at school to girls to homework to feeling awkward socially and not being able to dance.

At the end of the meal I guess he told his mom all this and she was offended that a stranger would be so honest and caring about her son in casual conversation.
They were regulars at this sushi restaurant, but they have not come back.

So I apologize to the mother, for being honest and caring.
They say "it takes a community".
I guess I am extremely lucky to have had such a wonderful Mother.

You may have heard the News talk about pedestrian deaths in San Francisco and how drivers are to blame. Not true! Blame the red light walking and running pedestrians and the lack of police on the street downtown!

Everybody in town knows this.

But nobody wants to talk about it or do anything about it!, like ticketing pedestrians that walk on a red light or start walking in a crosswalk on a red hand signal. I just saw a woman at Embarcadero4 walk across the crosswalk on a yellow light, way too late, impeding right turning traffic!

Remember that tourism is by far and away the number one business of San Francisco.
And the sfpd are usually rarely seen  on sidewalks downtown.
The sfpd has been very ineffectual at stopping the recent rash of bicycle theft to public sidewalk bicycle chop shops, nor the rash of car window smashing day and night all over town!
Shootings have commonly happened on Mason Street just west of Union Square in the Tenderloin neighborhood.

What is needed is a massive increase it daytime downtown patrols by DPT and MTA, educating pedestrians at crosswalks.
And as is necessary, ticketing dangerous selfish risky pedestrian lawbreakers, even if from foreign countries or Marin.

Gavin Newsom moved from Lt.Gov. to Governor. It's been over 6months. I expected more talk and much more action.

#1, start clearing the "fuel load" all across the State and use the National Guard.
Don't wait for the end of "fire season" next Winter. Ban gum trees.

#2, Ban the diet use of Antibiotics in California animal feed, so it has at least some positive effect on human health.

#3, ban fracking. Make the oil industry clean up.

#4, promote hydrogen fuel cell cars and expensive electricity here for expensive , flammable , still experimental electric cars in a big State with 400miles from SF to LA.

#5, ban cigarette filters.

#6, outlaw non-recyclable plastic. Require the industry to collect sort and safely recycle all California plastic.

#7, privatize the DMV and Caltrans that wasted $6B on the new flawed Oakland Bay Bridge.

#8, ban Roundup that never should have been sold. Start a new strict control on toxic farm chemicals.

#9, Help Public School teachers by allowing them to move their salaries and senority anywhere in the State. Ban gold handshakes and wasteful gold

Lots of Nations and cultures are comfortable with a high level of Crime and Violence: Mexico Iran Nigeria etc

Education is Not Highly Valued by Most there...

Wrote the California ATTORNEY GENERAL to get help with SJWater and Soquel Water long history of gross OVERCHARGING. He wrote, 'i work for the State Agencies, Not the Public.'. Ouch!

HiSo the only getting worse DMV?  Yep.

And the incompetent CALTRANS that totally wasted $6B on the new but broken Oakland Bay Bridge,,,and can't/won't pick up the shoulder highway litter weekly,,,or remove the many highway side dead trees,,,or contracts with a repaving company about 2 years ago that redid 101 between SF and SJ but didn't use enough tar so the new roadway crumbled in the first rain, that month?
Yep.

And the inept PUC that allowed PG&E to "deferred maintenance" on $M and $B and maybe $Ts of gas and electric infrastructure, causing electricity rates to climb and making electric cars and "all-electric houses" a bad and super expensive choice.
Yep, those bums too!

Yikes!!

Franciscan Winery, Napa, Manager chewed me out Twice for directing my tour bus passengers from SF to the bathrooms Before the paid tour!!

My bus boss told me to keep going there.
So eventually I quit that SF tour bus company!
Hornblower Bus to Chariot bus to a tiny limo company and I am still offended and bothered by this arrogant abusive Franciscan Winery manager!

See the winery is now "closed".
Wonder why...

I was told I couldn't have a pocketknife in a federal building in San Mateo, Ca.

In 1969, the Nixon Presidency "Birthday Lottery" I was told I was going from college to an Army Physical then Drafted into the awful ground war in far far foreign Vietnam.

For 2 years i was told to shoot and kill "gooks" and be shot at risking Death, for what.

I came back a Veteran, a social outcast , with few job opportunities, so worked at the USPO for only $4.22/hr until the Post Office imploded.

The VA hospital was abusive, horrible...

I sold clothing for $6/hr...
I was barely getting by in the 70s and 80s, unable to afford a wife or family...
Watching illegal immigrants bring all their children.

And after being Yanked out of college by that creep Nixon, shot at and killed some in some miserable country I never want to see again, I am told I can not carry a small pocket knife in San Mateo as a ... War Veteran.

And no fingernail clippers on a commercial airplane!
As an American War Veteran!
Crazy...

So Proud of and for the AMERICA WOMEN'S FUTBOL SOCCER TEAM!!

SO PROUD THEY BEAT STRONG FRANCE TEAM IN FRANCE AND HUGE STADIUM!!
GO USA WOMEN!!

PG&E's electric infrastructure liability? Notice how silent most people are about how huge this total figure will be? Not millions and not billions as the governor suggests, but trillions!

Just wait and see.

The World's First,,, Hydrogen Fuel Cell Powered Ferry Boat is being built! in the BayArea!! 5 on order!!

Electric car power has too much Hype!!

California electricity is way too expensive, and only becoming much more Expensive, because of incompetent PUC state agency and irresponsible neglecting PG&E power company with major infrastructure backlog ,,, and caused fire Debt.

Electric car batteries in Teslas have caught fire too often. Too hard to extinguish by FDs.
And are too heavy for personal car transport!!
And Electronic batteries are too slow to charge and the charging stations are too expensive for most houses and most apartment buildings to install.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Power is The Answer, California!!

Yippee!
This ferry may be on the Bay by Sept-Oct!!

The Oakland "Ghost Ship" warehouse-apt bldg fire is so unjust with the rich owner not charged! The city police and fire Dept knew, so they are complicit too!

Thus current law and current law enforcement in California is unfair and unjust!

Only one experience with a PICKPOCKET Professional ,very slick, 2 elderly well dressed couples off a cruise ship!

I was driving a SF city tour and picked up at the new cruiseship pier.
These 2 old but very well dressed couples get on and sit in the front right seats.
My daypack was in their overhead shelf area, in my sight, if I looked over my right shoulder...

But somehow, while driving and looking forward at the road,,,
They unzipped my daypack and got my wallet out!
How!??
At the next walk stop I got out of the Driver's seat and checked my daypack.
The wallet was outside, on the shelf!!
How did they do that in front of all these passengers!?

All the cash and credit cards were still there. Phew!
So I hung my daypack on the hook on the wall behind my bus Driver's seat.
And I did not say anything.
These 2 old couples were Pros!

Blacklisting, from McCarthy Red-Scare Hollywood past, must be "legal" cuz it still goes on in this 2010s USA!

Shocked?
Or "campaign contributions" Reps and Senators not surprised?

The USA needs a NATIONWIDE TREE PLANTING PROGRAM along all public highways, local native trees, a small step against Global Warming.

So inertia why not!?

BART is "unsat" in every way, so why do we all, Politicians Media Public, settle for relatively such an Expensive, 70mph Slow, Mismanaged system far inferior to any other?

Such denial of the obvious!

Samsung Galaxy Tab A with AT&T is,,,Way too Slow to "boot" start and open main screen, plugged into a power cord or by battery.

Stalls at the battery %...
Stalls at the brand name...
(at work)

TOO SLOW, Samsung!!

I just don't understand how Alaska can be voted "Best Domestic Airline" when I've had so many problems!

Dad and i and another pair or two went to Alaska to fish yearly. The flight to Seattle was ok, nothing special. Remember as a kid riding in the back of the station wagon? Like that.

But leaving Seattle on an old dirty half seats, half cargo smaller commercial jet was the beginning of the adventure!
In Anchorage we had to wait a couple hours for a flight back down to Yakutat, the famous Situk River and super Capt. Mark.
Once the gate agent woman was so rude as to tell us to "just sit!"

One time my duffel was sent way out to the Aleutian islands for 3 days;To me, no accident, just pure hostility. My raingear, dop kit, and clean clothes...no excuse!
Another time most of our checked 70# boxes of halibut, silver salmon and red sockeye salmon was checked baggage "lost" by Alaska Airlines; We finally were retail price fully reimbursed, and the fish we bought lasted us a year almost as planned, it just wasn't the fish we spent $1000s to catch and swat mosquitos almost as big as...

On one trip I expected to see Brown bears across the 20-40ft wide Situk River, so i called Alaska to ask if I could bring $35 big can of pepper spray and holster.
"Sure you can, as long as you declare it and put it in your checked bag. No problem. We do it all the time."
Just to be sure I called back twice and got the same story from Alaska reservation clerks.
At the airport I told the guy at the front check-in counter.
By the time I walked to the gate, "it was confiscated" the gate agent told me!
What!?

Not enough?
I caught a last minute flight to Hawaii to be with someone, and Alaska wasn't my first second or third preference.
Sure enough, the long narrow plane was a boring decor of white walls and blue seats.
And the Flight Attendants mostly hid in the back kitchen for the 5hr daytime flight.

Southwest crews are almost always in a better, more fun mood; I've only been on 1 uncleaned plane flight.
One carrier has tropical decor partitions ,,, and Navy blue seats.
JetBlue use to have leather biz seats for Everyone and happy crews.
United may have to change it's name after dragging an MD off a plane for his overbooked seat.
The old guy on the Alaska plane tail is Not that interesting.

So what am I missing???

One huge secret problem with the EU has always been the right to immigrate. More French move to England than English rich retirees move to France?

Then problem comes when 1000s of Eastern Europeans move into your town and don't want to Assimilate! They make their own less attractive neighborhood. Some bring gang crime, like moving from Mexico to the USA with millions and millions of Latin gangsters now. LA, Fresno, etc.

Fewer local shoppers means fewer local shops. Kind of like the big box stores and huge malls destroying town's tiny downtown thriving businesses, like novel Valley Fair and downtown San Jose, Redev. Agency costly criminal mess, and still SJ is struggling after city govt moved out and back, and crime peaked. Beside pampering BigBiz to detriment of resident citizens and their neighborhoods, SJ is still a mess. Sanctuary City anyone? East San Hosed.

Western Europe, like SF, depends on tourism.
If you fly to Italy or Austria, France or Sweden, do you want to meet locals or unhappy unassimilated 1000s of uncivilized bad habit possibly unprincipled or criminal Eastern Europeans?

Western European country cultures are so different and still not ready for EU no borders.
That's why since the 1960s the EC or now EU has had trouble talking about this aspect of the human not biz huge social experiment.