The San Francisco Citizen

Things were a little hateful around the area of 606 Sanchez Street in San Francisco a few days back when people could see a large, fuchsia “F*CK MORMONS” banner from all around. While some caution against starting a holy war, others aren’t as circumspect.

The whole affair is still the talk of the town.

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via Daniel R (MisterDarcy)’s photostream

But lo, the offending message got taken down lickedy-split post-haste, even on a quasi holiday. Here’s the same scene from this afternoon: 

See? The houseboat house is now message-free. Credit for getting the sign down might go to Michael Thomas, a blogfather who seems to have a lot of pull in the area.

[UPDATE: Joe Vazquez burns the shoe leather and basically confirms the above here, but he also garners a flurry of quotes from the engineer in question.]

On to new bidness, the next big rally. They’re calling it the Million Gay March, or something. It should be under sunny skies, regardless.

No on Prop 8 Rally
When: November 15, 2008 - Saturday, 10:30 a.m.
Where: City Hall, San Francisco
What: Protest against Prop 8

So you’re doing a good deed in the Mission District of San Francisco, and then when you come back to your very-well-made, made-in-China ride, you see that somebody has taped a handbill to your bike. Then you see it says:

“HELICOPTERS COULD SOON BE FLYING OVER OR NEAR YOUR HOME AT ALL HOURS OF BOTH DAY AND NIGHT!”

And then you think, wow, somebody has finally bought off all those NOT IN MY BACK YARD Nimby people who were standing in the way of Progress, and San Francisco will no longer have the only Level One Trauma Center in the country to lack a helipad or access to a heliport.

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But then you read on and see that the handbill is from the Nimby’s themselves. Disappointed. They think a helipad is a bad idea for them.

Read on to see the fruits of the labors of the Stop the Helipad people:

“A head-on collision on the Golden Gate Bridge in Maythrew the evening commute into chaos and drew immediate cries for new safety measures. Lost in the flurry of traffic reports and debate about possible barriers, however, was the aftermath of the crash for the most seriously hurt victim. Dr. Grace M. Dammann had to be transported by helicopter about 25 miles to John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek because San Francisco General Hospital lacks a helipad for its acclaimed Level 1 Trauma Center.”

Mmmm. According to an American College of Surgeons Consultation Survey of San Francisco General Hospital’s Trauma Program:

“The lack of a helipad and helicopter service is a major deficiency in providing optimal trauma care for San Francisco General Hospital and San Francisco. It is difficult to understand why a city the size of San Francisco does not have any medical air transport. The congested roads and bridges with the surrounding water make helicopter service an essential medical support service.”

Will the YES HELIPAD people win this one?

Eventually…

You can tell by the number of people waiting at the corner of Fillmore and McAllister during one recent morning that it’s been a while since an inbound #5 Fulton has come down the street.

The futility comes from the fact that the next bus that comes will be full, because if these people here have been waiting for a long time so has everybody else upstream. One option would be to use your two good legs (which most of of the people shown certainly have) and hoof it downstream towards Gough or Van Ness, where a significant number of people get off, leaving you with room to get on no matter how full the bus is.

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Some people just crane their necks and stare up the street as a coping strategy. That technique will work as well, but it takes a while sometimes.

Oh well.

(Things will only get busier around here when the Western Addition Obama Phone Bank (they prefer it if you B.Y.O.C. Bring Your Own Cellie) gets cooking at the West Bay Conference Center on 1290 Fillmore near Eddy.)

According to the airlines, via that lapdog of the Air Transport Association of America known as Stop Oil Speculation Now, there is a:

…force at work that, like gravity, is invisible yet powerful. This force is rampant speculation. Every time you buy products such as food or gas, you are impacted by unregulated, secretive and often foreign commodities futures markets. Speculators in these markets are increasingly buying and selling commodities such as oil even though they have no intention of using the product.

First of all, who wrote this copy? Bob Shrum? Second of all, Hillary Clinton didn’t intend to use all that sugar and eat those cows when she speculated in the commodities markets and nobody complained about that, right? Speculation is now supposed to be a bad thing?

Our corporate overlords are worried:

Could there be a more likely explanation for high prices for avgas? CBS News offers a few. Is it possible Bill O’Reilly might be wrong? Or, maybe all this talk of speculation being the cause of high fuel prices is just a Nixonian Fallacy.

Check it out and decide for yourself. Maybe you’ll agree that both you and the airlines are being victimized by those invisible, powerful, secretive, foreign forces.

The airlines have to come up with something to explain all those fees and surcharges, right?

I shift the blame
To the worm in the bottle
I shift the blame
To anyone standing before me