The San Francisco Citizen

Well, it’s on SFGate so it must be true: “Thousands of demonstrators” gathered in front of San Francisco City Hall this morning to voice their beef with Prop 8. That’s a big improvement over coverage from the MSM from just a week ago.

Famous blogger Phil Bronstein now makes light of the erroneous estimate of 1000 souls from the Chronicle / SFGate / the Associated Press at last week’s march down Market Street. Apparently, being off by an order of magnitude or two on crowd estimates is par for the course in the mainstream media. (Be careful, else you’ll wind up on the “Gay Enemies List,” and you don’t want to be there.)

Count for yourself:

What’s interesting is that there appears to be no effort to figure out what went wrong with the 1000 person estimate. It was a mistake made by one person that didn’t get caught by the vaunted multi-layer vetting process that separates newspapers from the Internets. Oh well.  

Watch ABC News play it safe here:

One of the largest rallies was on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, considered ground zero in the battle for same sex marriage. Lesbian activist Carole Migden whipped the crowd up as she declared, “They hate us. Let’s just acknowledge it.” Then she pushed the crowd “to turn our rage into action.”

A partial speakers list:

Senator Carole Migden
Senator-Elect Mark Leno
Assembly Member-Elect Tom Ammiano
Amos Brown
Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis; Plaintiffs in the California marriage case
Mark Oliver and Clark Pingree; Representing “Mormons for Marriage”
Rev. Dr. Penny Nixon
Rev. Dr. Dorsey Blake

And speaking of SFGate, let’s take a look at a charming comment contained therein:

thechamp1 11/15/2008 12:27:51 PM FIRST COMMENT : EAT SH** AND DIE FAG*S

Oh well.  

Off the protesters went up Market Street.

To be continued…

A large crowd gathered at the steps of City Hall tonight to commiserate on the passing of Proposition 8.

See the people and read what Senator Carole Migden and Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin had to say here.

An ocean of people on Polk Street. Click to expand:

Time appears to be on the side of the No on 8 people. They’ll be plenty of court action and elections in the future…

Maybe it’s too early for backbiting?

The people in the crowd seemed to have a lot of energy for future fights, anyway.

Most of the vehicles were trucks of one sort or another, many of them were work vehicles, and most of the passengers appeared to be Latino. What was it?

It was an evanescent parade of honking vehicles surrounding San Francisco’s City Hall for a brief period yesterday.

Click to expand: 

Read all about it.

To start off, the somewhat cheesy ALL CAPS and the circled R registered trademark symbol come from the website of the “san francisco association of REALTORS®.”

There was a rally at the home office in the Civic Center / Hayes Valley neighborhood the other day. Hundreds of enthusiastic people showed up, including Ted Gullikson, Ross Mirkarimi and Robert Haaland. They were supporting the supervisorial campaigns of Eric Mar,  David Chiu, and John Avalos, while at the same time opposing the campaigns of Sue Lee, Joe Alioto Jr., and Ahsha Safai.

That’s the gist of it. More details here.

Click to expand

Learn more about this powerful trade guild here or forget all that and just drink the Flavor Aid® like you’re supposed to here.

Your choice.

These days in Congress, it’s

S 1315 
VS
HR 6897

Or in other words, what’s the best way to compensate Filipinos who served alongside American troops during World War II?

This was the scene yesterday in from of the Old Federal Building on Golden Gate:

Some people have given up on Senate Bill S1315, which would provide a pension to the veterans, but others still believe it can become law.

We’ll find out soon enough, it looks like.

It seems God told Dr. Owen Bias to become a street preacher in 1974. Since then, he’s been quite the fixture on our sidewalks.

Many are impressed with the:

“…wonderful display of typography on the sign. look at the perfect hand kerning on those big headlines. wow. very nice. I love the block font too. Check out that “Q” in Quit. amazing.”

Click to expand:

Look for him near the cable car turnaround at Market and Powell. Based upon what he says to passers by, it appears that the word “unlawful” is not the focus of his message.

Choose wisely.

This is the scene from yesterday at the University of California, Berkeley, where the final four Memorial Oak Grove treesitters made their final stand after two years of arboreal occupation.  

It’s Raul Colocho, 27; Armando Resendez, 20; Ernesto Trevino, 18; and Michael Schuck, 26, shown shortly before their arrests.

Click for a high-rez version:

A great shot via the photostream of ingridtaylar, also the below

Campus police Chief Victoria Harrison and Assistant Chief Mitch Celaya finally were able to talk these people down, with a little help from a crane and a scaffolding crew.  

You can see more of the action over at Zombietime and ProtestShooter and you can learn more about this whole affair at Save the Oaks.

Well, it’s the beginning of September, so it must be time for another 911 Truth March in Golden Gate Park.

Turnout was better than last year, based upon this 2007 report from Zombietime, that dude from Berkeley. (Of course, Zombietime.com started as a ”platform to expose the craziness that has emerged on the left side of the political spectrum since 9/11,” so don’t expect sweetness and nice at that site.)

Click to expand:

It’s hard to say just how this ridiculous conspiracy theory will hold up when compared with the tried-and-true JFK and Pearl Harbor conspiracy theories.  

Of course you are free to read the San Francisco Chronicle and then believe that “…there is simply no way 19 [people] with box cutters sent by some [person] could have pulled off the most perfectly orchestrated air attack of the century.”

Your choice.

With the California state budget stalemate dragging on for two months, helped along by those who signed the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” suicide pact, about 40 protesters showed up at the State Building in San Francisco’s Civic Center to object to any further cuts to education.

Rallies and protests regarding the budget are par for the course these days, but check out this sign from yesterday. Depicting Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ripping babies in half might be going too far, but this poster is simply arresting so give it points for that.   

Click to enlarge:

This was the scene yesterday in the Western Addition, where hundreds of protesters blocked traffic in front of the Chinese Consulate. Drivers on the Geary Expressway, already wary of dangerous all-electric supercars, should experience a similar gauntlet today.

And then the action heads over to the East Bay.

This was yesterday’s schedule from Team Tibet SF:

In San Francisco
11:30-12:00 PRESS CONFERENCE
12:00-1:30 Peace Rally, Concert at Union Square
March to City hall
2:00-2:30 Rally at City Hall
March to Chinese Consulate
3:30-4:30 Protest at Chinese Consulate
4:30-5:15 Walk back to Union Sqaure
5:15-7:00pm Break. Food and Beverages provided by SF TEAM TIBET
7:00-9:00pm Candle Light Vigil w/ Cultural Show at Union Square

Here is today’s

August 24

12:00-3:00pm Protest at the Chinese Consulate

Evening event at Finnish Brotherhood Church in Berkeley on University Ave and cross
street at Chestnut Ave.

Program: 6:00-10:00pm Dinner, Annual Report, Film, Short Presentation