This is a total scam.
As if Frisco couldn’t drive out residents any faster. *Eye-roll.*
At Fox Business, "San Francisco considering congestion tax on high-earning drivers: The San Francisco County Transportation Authority is studying the prospect of congestion fees."
It's Rafael Mangual, of the Manhattan Institute, for Prager University:
It's been a big day, again, with work and family stuff, so blogging has been light.
But I did see the story earlier this morning, on "CBS This Morning," when at that time the San Francisco lady's "GoFundMe" hadn't yet reached $600,000.
Now the Guardian's reporting it's getting up to $800,000, and I won't be surprised if it passes a cool million over the weekend. (And I hope that helps the woman with all her medical bills, and what not, and perhaps she'll be able to "spread the wealth" to some of her neighbors, who many, no doubt, could use a hand, as this pandemic hurts everybody, even generally hard-working Asian families living up that way).
(ADDED: Of course the Guardian had to get in the obligatory, "Anti-Asian rhetoric, fueled by Donald Trump and the far right’s insistence on using offensive, stigmatizing language to describe the coronavirus, has helped provoke violence," blah, blah.)
In any case, and good for them, but some of lady's younger Asian-American neighbors are forming "citizens' patrols" to, frankly, stand guard and protect their communities from these kinds of attacks; and remember, most of these attacks are not from "white crackers," but black "hoodlums" whose culture is already anti-social, and committing crime for these idiots is just another day "on the job."
At KPIX News 5 San Francisco:
Now this is some story!
And it's interesting, because, if you think about it, it doesn't follow the script regarding recent attacks on Asian-Americans in San Francisco (so far, it's been mostly black urban hoodlums). I mean, here's some young white dude, who hates Asians, and let's say, he comes from outside the city to mount his attack? Where'd he come from? Who taught him this clearly racist and violent attitude? Because you know, while Gavin Newsom's overplaying his hand on all the "white supremacists" sponsoring the recall, it's not like we don't have any in this state.
I mean, you have the "State of Jefferson" secession movement, and those folks, probably many of them, are no doubt "white crackers." They live in the northeast part of the state, in some of the most remote counties, including Tehama County (just south of Redding), Modoc County (at literally the most northeast corner of the state), and Yuba Country (which abuts, on the east side, State Highway 99, which following it up north, about 100 miles or so, connects back over to Interstate 5 at Red Bluff).
So, yeah, it's just a hypothesis, but still --- who is this guy and where'd he come from?
So, that brings us back to the 75-five-year old Asian lady. She was carrying a stick, and though she suffered a horrible black eye, she gave as good as it gets. Now, what should really happen is San Francisco should expedite concealed-carry permits for local Asian-Americans who want to get armed, and frankly, the city should subsidize firearms training, to put their money where it counts (but not where it "is," sadly, because S.F. District Attorney, Chesa Boudin, is a "red-diaper baby," and he'll resist anything that conflicts with the Soros-leftist's "criminals are really vicitims" stupidity, which is one of the massive drivers of residents right the hell out of this dumphole of a state).
In any case, three cheers for this woman. I hope she sets an example and emboldens other S.F. Asians (especially those of the Chinese-American community) to do the same.
Via KPIX News 5 San Francisco:
Following-up from yesterday, "Neighbors Stand Guard as Gangs of 'Youth Thugs' Racially Harass and Threaten Chinese Immigrant Family."
Here's my local CBS/KCAL affiliate with an on-the-ground report:
And here's more, from KPIX CBS News San Francisco, the supposed "tolerant" leftist enclave, apparently full of racist haters, and thus, it's almost the entire "Left Coast" of California that's not too keen and friendly to our Asian-American sisters and brothers. It makes me sick. WATCH: "Bay Area Group Mounting Foot Patrols to Protect Asians After Rash of Attacks."
Let's just all be nice to one another. This state has enough problems as it is, especially with our loser "French Laundry" Governor, Gavin Newsom. *Eye-roll.*
Well, I meant to blog this story a couple of weeks ago, but no matter, because it just keeps getting worse.
Check out this interview with Gabriela López, of the San Francisco Board of Education, who's been in charge of the board's decision-making for the local school name changes (the "cancelling) at schools named after President Lincoln and Senator Feinstein, among others. *SMH.*
Here.
Yeah, and it's bad all over this once-Golden State.
At NYT, "They Can’t Leave the Bay Area Fast Enough":
SAN FRANCISCO — The Bay Area struck a hard bargain with its tech workers. Rent was astronomical. Taxes were high. Your neighbors didn’t like you. If you lived in San Francisco, you might have commuted an hour south to your job at Apple or Google or Facebook. Or if your office was in the city, maybe it was in a neighborhood with too much street crime, open drug use and $5 coffees. But it was worth it. Living in the epicenter of a boom that was changing the world was what mattered. The city gave its workers a choice of interesting jobs and a chance at the brass ring. That is, until the pandemic. Remote work offered a chance at residing for a few months in towns where life felt easier. Tech workers and their bosses realized they might not need all the perks and after-work schmooze events. But maybe they needed elbow room and a yard for the new puppy. A place to put the Peloton. A top public school. They fled. They fled to tropical beach towns. They fled to more affordable places like Georgia. They fled to states without income taxes like Texas and Florida. That’s where the story of the Bay Area’s latest tech era is ending for a growing crowd of tech workers and their companies. They have suddenly movable jobs and money in the bank — money that will go plenty further somewhere else. But where? The No. 1 pick for people leaving San Francisco is Austin, Texas, with other winners including Seattle, New York and Chicago, according to moveBuddha, a site that compiles data on moving. Some cities have even set up recruiting programs to lure them to new homes. Miami’s mayor has even been inviting tech people to move there in his Twitter posts. I talked to more than two dozen tech executives and workers who have left San Francisco for other parts of the country over the last year, like a young entrepreneur who moved home to Georgia and another who has created a community in Puerto Rico. Here are some of their stories...
RTWT.
Following-up, "The Canceling: America's Growing Political Crisis."
At LAT, "Cancel Abraham Lincoln? San Francisco grapples with the president’s legacy":
The statue sat like a red stain on the lawn in front of San Francisco City Hall. Abraham Lincoln’s chiseled face was covered in paint, his etched name highlighted in the bloody color at the base of the monument. As San Francisco, like many parts of the country, grapples with how best to memorialize historic figures, the statue of the 16th president sat red-faced — literally — in front of the government building the day after Christmas. City workers cleaned the sculpted artwork on Monday, said San Francisco County sheriff’s director of communications Nancy Hayden Crowley. “The damage to the statue was superficial,” Crowley wrote in an email. “President Lincoln has been restored.” But questions about a San Francisco-sized blot on Lincoln’s legacy remain. Some social media users opined that the vandalism intentionally coincided with the 158th anniversary of the Dec. 26, 1862, hanging of 38 Native Americans on the president’s watch. According to the Associated Press, a U.S. military commission sentenced 303 Sioux fighters to execution, following the 1862 Dakota War, also known as the Sioux Uprising. Lincoln reportedly reviewed each case and decided there was evidence to convict 38 of them. The sentences of the remaining 265 were commuted. Regina Brave, an elder in the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said the event’s history had been handed down among her people for generations. Living in South Dakota as an activist, the 79-year-old said she once supported the idea of tearing down Mt. Rushmore. But ultimately she concluded that monuments ought to remain intact, saying they are a useful way to remember bygone leaders — and their faults, including Lincoln’s. “Hey, he’s dead,” Brave said. “But it’s worth remembering. That’s part of our history — to remember these events...
Well, at least somebody on the left has some common sense, but Ms. Regina really is brave!
Still more.
Driving across Arizona, it’s hard not to notice a surge in California license plates. The reason for this is becoming more apparent every day. California is a failed state.Still more.
After nearly a decade of one-party rule, the once-Golden State is tarnished, possibly beyond repair. Listing all the problems facing our neighbors across the Colorado River would require several books, so I’ll only highlight a few.
The fifth-largest economy in the world and home to many of the greatest technology companies on Earth can’t keep the lights on. The state’s three largest utilities turned off power to more than 410,000 homes and businesses on Friday, Aug. 21, then again to half as many Saturday, Aug. 22.
Gov. Gavin Newsom sprung to action on Monday by announcing more blackouts. "We failed to predict and plan these shortages,” the governor said. “And that's simply unacceptable."
But accept it he did, noting that the state’s near-religious promotion of solar and wind power left a gap in the reliability of its power grid. You don’t say.
Wildly unpredictable events, like August being hot, never occurred to Newsom last October when he signed six more bills to kill off his state’s fossil fuel industry. Shutting down one of California’s two nuclear plants certainly didn’t help. Perhaps their plan to close the second one in 2024 will have different results.
So have those to stop homelessness
Documentary filmmaker Christopher Rufo’s latest work reveals the tragic failure of the city’s homeless policies. In “Chaos by the Bay,” he shows the results of well-meaning progressive efforts, from decriminalizing homelessness to plying addicts with free drug paraphernalia, alcohol and cannabis. For the most part, rampant mental illness has been left untreated...
For the last three decades, San Francisco has conducted a real-life experiment in what happens when a society stops enforcing bourgeois norms of behavior—in the name of compassion toward the homeless. The results have been the opposite. https://t.co/QOREy5oiAV via @HMDatMI— City Journal (@CityJournal) October 7, 2019
The stories that the homeless tell about their lives reveal that something far more complex than a housing shortage is at work. The tales veer from one confused and improbable situation to the next, against a backdrop of drug use, petty crime, and chaotic child-rearing. Behind this chaos lies the dissolution of those traditional social structures that once gave individuals across the economic spectrum the ability to withstand setbacks and lead sober, self-disciplined lives: marriage, parents who know how to parent, and conventional life scripts that create purpose and meaning. There are few policy levers to change this crisis of meaning in American culture. What is certain is that the ongoing crusade to normalize drug use, along with the absence of any public encouragement of temperance, will further handicap this unmoored population.RTWT.
San Francisco Homeless Project: One awful experience on one unremarkable city block represents the hellscape that has infuriated many San Francisco residents. via @HKnightSFhttps://t.co/TqePGmJ8KN— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) June 24, 2018
Some of the city’s biggest names — from San Francisco Travel to the Chamber of Commerce to the Hotel Council — have loudly protested the disastrous conditions on San Francisco’s sidewalks in recent months, and regularly get meetings with City Hall politicians, but the voices of everyday residents aren’t always heard.RTWT.
The ones just trying to raise kids, work and, well, live. The ones with so little power, they can’t get their supervisors to respond to their requests for help. The ones with the misery literally on their front doorsteps.
Those are the people who live on Isis Street, which should be everything that’s good about San Francisco. Funky flats. A group of progressive neighbors, many of whom are artists, writers and other creative types. A walkable neighborhood where you can get to Rainbow Grocery and a host of bars and restaurants in a flash. There are about 30 units of housing on the block, and six kids younger than 5 are growing up there...
If you are a MAGA or a 2A enthusiast, I legitimately do not care about your life/well-being or the lives/well-being of your family. I don't care if you can't defend yourselves against intruders or whatever. I just don't care if you live or die.
— 🏳️🌈Jenny "Lazangia" Trout (@Jenny_Trout) April 3, 2018
So the San Bruno YouTube HQ shooter was Female, foreign, a Vegan animal activist, off the rails mentally ill, didn't use an AR-15, and shot up a building in the strictest gun control state in America....how fast do you think the mainstream media is going to bury this? pic.twitter.com/oHnkSiolGv— Mindy Robinson (@iheartmindy) April 4, 2018
The website is a catalog of a woman's passion for animal rights and her anger at YouTube.Still more.
She complains of "close-minded" YouTube employees suppressing her page views and stifling her content. She gripes about a lack of revenue.
"Youtube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views!" she wrote on the site, which includes videos promoting veganism and photos of a woman in an array of outfits, including long gowns and a camouflage unitard. She speaks in Persian and Turkish.
"There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to!!!!!"
It's the website investigators are looking at as they try to piece together the motive of a woman — identified as Nasim Najafi Aghdam, 39 — who stormed onto YouTube's sprawling San Bruno, Calif., campus with a 9-millimeter handgun and opened fire in a courtyard during lunchtime, wounding three people before turning the gun on herself.
The eruption of gun violence Tuesday in Silicon Valley hit a nation still reeling from recent mass shootings and gripped by a tense gun control debate.
"This is a terrible day in the United States, when once again we have a multiple-casualty situation," said Dr. Andre Campbell, a trauma surgeon at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, which is treating victims.
The shooting left a 36-year-old man in critical condition, a 32-year-old woman with serious injuries and a 27-year-old woman in fair condition. A fourth person suffered an ankle injury while fleeing.
In a tweet, President Trump thanked law enforcement and first responders, and said: "Our thoughts and prayers are with everybody involved."
Law enforcement sources told The Times they initially believed the shooting was a domestic incident, but San Bruno police said late Tuesday there's "no evidence" the shooter knew the victims or targeted specific people. Investigators are now focusing on the alleged shooter's grudge against YouTube.
The YouTube account tied to the website was shut down "due to multiple or severe violations" of the company's policies against spam, deceptive practices and misleading content. But it's unclear exactly when.
The website investigators are probing, titled "Nasime Sabz," translates in Persian to, "Nasim the green." YouTube videos created by an account of the same name can no longer be viewed, but the site also features videos from other sources criticizing YouTube's policies, as well as clips promoting animal rights and veganism. Instagram and Facebook accounts listed on the website were deactivated Tuesday.
Aghdam was quoted in the Los Angeles Times in 2009, speaking at an animal rights protest outside Camp Pendleton.
"For me animal rights equals human rights," said Aghdam, who at the time worked as a construction company office manager. "Just because they can't talk doesn't mean we should take advantage of them."
About two weeks ago, Aghdam vented to her family that YouTube stopped compensating her for her videos, her father told the Bay Area News Group.
Ismail Aghdam said that the family had called police to report his daughter missing Monday because she hadn't answered her phone for two days. He said he had told police she might be going to YouTube because she "hated" the company.
Police in Mountain View, Calif., say they spotted a woman who went by the name Nasim Aghdam asleep in a car in a city parking lot early Tuesday morning and notified her family.
The first reports of a shooting came in to San Mateo County dispatchers before 1 p.m.
Zach Vorhies, a senior software engineer, was sitting at his desk on YouTube's campus when he heard the fire alarm blaring.
He grabbed his electric skateboard and hurried toward an exit. Outside, he heard yelling. On a patio where tech workers often grab lunch, he saw a man lying motionless on his back, blood staining his shirt. As he stared, a police officer with an assault rifle popped through a nearby gate.
Vorhies skateboarded away.
He was one of hundreds of YouTube employees whose workday was thrown into chaos as panic spread across the technology hub south of San Francisco.
"I thought, 'This is a mass casualty event,'" said Vorhies, 37. "I was terrified."
Some employees in a meeting heard rumbling and thought there had been an earthquake. It seemed serious, not just a standard emergency drill. As they moved toward an exit, they heard that someone had a gun.
"I looked down and saw blood drips on the floor and stairs," Todd Sherman, a product manager for YouTube tweeted. After peeking around for threats, he headed down the stairs and out the front of the building.
Police in tactical vests, helmets and rifles swarmed the campus soon after, coming upon a chaotic scene as workers ran from the area. Television footage showed people filing away with their hands up...
Kate Upton accuses Guess co-founder Paul Marciano of sexual misconduct https://t.co/9FUHwXaGrf
— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 1, 2018
Kate Upton Accuses Guess Founder Paul Marciano of Sexual Harassment. https://t.co/wEVM0PlQDQ pic.twitter.com/6NUW1xS6r3
— THE FASHION LAW (@TheFashionLaw) February 1, 2018
Kate Upton Wants to Tell Full Story of Accusing Guess Jeans' Paul Marciano of Sexual Abuse https://t.co/w7CZ2QF1Vt
— TMZ (@TMZ) February 1, 2018
Black students in San Francisco would be better off almost anywhere else in California https://t.co/107akUpBJ1— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) January 2, 2018
Black students in San Francisco would be better off almost anywhere else in California.It's criminal. Really. Progressives are criminal. Their policies are criminal. I have to shake my head: Ironically, Marx's idea of "false consciousness" explains how generations of disadvantage minority groups have been brainwashed to believe that leftist-Democrat institutions and leaders are protecting and promoting their best interests. Mind-boggling. Man.
Many attend segregated schools and the majority of black, Latino and Pacific Islander students did not reach grade-level standards on the state's recent tests in math or English tests.
A local NAACP leader called for declaring a "state of emergency" for black student achievement, a problem the city's school board acknowledged. "The problem cannot be reduced to one sickness or one cure," said Rev. Amos C. Brown, San Francisco's NAACP branch president. "Black students have been underachievers. They're living in toxic situations. It's amazing they've done as well as they have done, but it's criminal that sophisticated children in progressive San Francisco are performing at these levels."
But is the solution to fix what's broken, or to start schools anew? Answering that question has unveiled a heated political debate in Northern California.
The district's strategy targets changing instruction, hiring, school culture and instilling the belief that all kids can learn. Vincent Matthews, San Francisco Unified School District's superintendent since May, is expected to present a detailed strategy for improvement early in the new year. An opposing plan from a controversial nonprofit called Innovate Public Schools calls for starting new schools — traditional public or charter — from scratch.
For decades, San Franciscans have called attention to the achievement gap. Following an NAACP lawsuit regarding discrimination, the city entered into a 1983 consent decree mandating desegregation. Since then, the district has changed its school assignment rules.
More recently, a group of organizers from Innovate, which has brought some charter schools to the San Francisco Bay Area and receives money from the Walton Family Foundation, has been convening parents and calling renewed attention to the problem.
In September, Innovate released a report sounding the alarm on San Francisco's achievement gap — and called for the city to establish new schools as a remedy. Innovate's organizers and parents held a news conference outside City Hall and organized a parent meeting with Matthews.
On the most recent round of tests, 87% of San Francisco Unified's black students performed below standards in math, as did 79% of Latino students and 78% of Pacific Islanders. Ninety-six percent of districts in California that serve black students had better reading scores for low-income black students than San Francisco did, Innovate found. Many minority students attend schools that are highly racially concentrated in neighborhoods such as Bayview-Hunters Point, with high rates of staff turnover and relatively inexperienced teachers.
These factors, according to a recent district report, produce "a form of academic segregation that can be especially hard to overcome."
And after decades of gentrification and displacement by tech workers, black families are moving out: In the 1998-99 school year, black students comprised 16% of SFUSD's students, compared with just under 7% last school year.
Some parents were shocked when they saw these statistics — individually, they knew there were issues, but they didn't realize their problems added up to a larger whole. The poor educational outcomes stand in stark contrast to the reputation the city has built for itself as the country's center of technological innovation.
"It's been broken for a long time," said Geraldine Anderson, a mother of three who saw local schools cut back on hours from one child to the next. "I see IT companies coming to San Francisco and so much money coming in for the city, but our kids won't be able to live here or participate."
Innovate has found advocates in parents struggling to find adequate schooling...
