The Bay Area’s innovators and social entrepreneurs have been invited by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to contribute their ideas for furthering diplomacy and development using new technology. Clinton said the State Department is embracing technological advances pioneered in the Bay Area to aid communication across the globe.
Category: Government & Politics
Posted inBay Area, Environment, Government & Politics, Housing, Land use, Media, Parks & Open Space
Story in progress: Veteran smart growth group wary of rushing to judgment
The other day we had a chance to chat over the phone with Jeremy Madsen, executive director of Greenbelt Alliance. This much-respected nonprofit has been advocating smart growth and open spaces in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1958. In 2008 the outfit published Smart Infill, a 80-page report that recommends infill development — building on vacant lots and redeveloping blighted urban areas — as a way of accommodating the Bay Area’s growing population without paving the region’s farms and natural areas.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, LGBTQ+, Open Government
Ban on gays in military heading to key Senate vote
A recent ruling by a federal court in Southern California — that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding the right of gays to serve in the military — is unconstitutional. The move could pave the way to lifting the ban entirely. Now, nearly five months after the House of Representatives and the Senate Armed Services Committee voted in favor of repealing the ban on gays in the military, the Senate could be headed for a final vote.
Posted inEnvironment, Government & Politics, Health, News
Berkeley scientists’ next green energy alternative: stomach bug to biofuel
A team of local biotech researchers may have found a way to avoid using essential food crops for fuel by genetically modifying harmless strains of a bacteria most people associate with human food poisoning. The result is an extremely expensive fuel — hardly competitive with fossil fuels at $25 per gallon — but marks the beginning of a new look at green energy.
Posted inElections, Government & Politics, Media, News, Social Justice
Google and the question of ‘evil’: former allies question hometown company’s motives
Google, the Silicon Valley startup that quickly dominated the global search engine business, gained credibility early on with users by invoking its informal motto: “Don’t be evil.” But consumer groups last week turned the slogan against the company, saying the economics of the digital world have obscured its moral compass. Earlier last week, Google united with Verizon to bring before the Federal Communications Commission a list of proposals that consumer groups said seemed to water down the principle of network neutrality — the concept that all Internet traffic should be handled equally, regardless of who provides it or how much they can pay.
Posted inElections, Government & Politics, Law & Justice, LGBTQ+
Prop. 8 gay marriage ban overturned; ruling unlikely to be the last word
A federal judge Wednesday struck down California’s ban on gay marriage, but that decision is unlikely to be the last word. The case will eventually end up in the U.S. Supreme Court, legal analysts predicted. Proponents of 2008’s Proposition 8 are expected to appeal judge Vaughn R. Walker’s ruling that the measure was unconstitutional. The first step to the Supreme Court would be the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Posted inCommunity, Government & Politics
Ethnic minority voters finding their voices in multilingual polls
A new multilingual polls shows that ethnic minority voters are playing a major role in the race for governor and are also shaping the outcome of a ballot measure that would legalize marijuana. In the latest Field Poll, Democrat Jerry Brown polled at 44 percent, just one point ahead of Republican Meg Whitman, in the battle for governor. However, the poll shows that it is the state’s ethnic minority communities that are making it a close race, with 48 percent of white non-Hispanics opting for Whitman and 40 percent for Brown.
Posted inEconomy & Business, Government & Politics, Politics
Of course banks resist reform, MIT professor says
As the financial crisis drags on, Congress and the Obama administration are taking up regulatory reform of the banks at the center of the crisis. The San Francisco Public Press spoke with Simon Johnson, MIT professor of economics and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. Johnson, author of “13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown,” shared his views May 13 before the World Affairs Council.
Posted inEconomy & Business, Education, Government & Politics, Labor, News
University of California invests $53 million in two diploma mills owned by a regent
A year ago, Richard C. Blum, then the chairman of the Regents of the University of California, spoke at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference 2009, held at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. The corporate confab was hosted by Michael Milken, the “junk bond king” who went to prison in the aftermath of the savings and loan fiasco in the 1980s. Milken, who is barred from securities trading for life by federal regulators, has since recreated himself as a proponent of investing in for-profit educational corporations, an industry which regularly comes under government and media scrutiny in response to allegations of fraud made by dissatisfied students.
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Posted inEconomy & Business, Government & Politics, Health, Housing, Labor, Land use, News, Treasure Island
Homebuilder Lennar uses federal taxpayer funds to balance its books
In 2006, things were looking good for Lennar, America’s second-biggest homebuilder. That year, before the U.S. housing market’s epic collapse, the Miami-based giant pulled down $15.6 billion in revenues and closed sales on 29,568 homes. The ink was just drying on a massive and potentially lucrative deal to transform Treasure Island with new housing complexes, and the well-connected Lennar already had secured a deal to develop the Hunters Point Shipyard that the Navy was turning over to San Francisco.
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