His career in ruins and facing charges and a state investigation, John Cota, the pilot of the freighter Cosco Busan that struck the Bay Bridge on Nov. 7, will retire rather than try to retain his pilot’s license.

The collision spilled 53,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil and fouled the shoreline around the bay and up and down the coast.

Cota had a 1999 DUI conviction, was taking sleep medication, and misread a nautical chart though he had been a ship pilot for 27 years.

Flickr photo by Anna L. Conti

While most people were enjoying a pint at the parade or getting dressed for the Brides of March, hundreds of members of the group Anonymous descended upon the Church of Scientology headquarters in San Francisco to protest what they feel is a cult that has been given religious and tax exempt status. They also believe the CoS has committed many crimes including extortion and murder just to name a few. The protest loosely coincides with the birthday of church founder and science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard which was on March 13th. The protest was very orderly and while multiple attempts were made to give brochures and pamphlets to the Scientologists entering and exiting by the side door, none took the material as long as I was there. It was by far the best protest I’ve been to in a very long time for the entertainment factor alone. I mean how often do you get to see Cthulu in a party hat?

Since some people couldn’t make it out I’m including a list of further reading materials I received from some of the protestors.

www.enturbulation.org
www.xenu.net
www.xenu-directory.net
www.whyaretheydead.net
www.youfoundthecard.com
Operation Freakout
Operation Snow White
Fair Game Policy
Lisa McPherson
Scientology and Me

I swear to whatever deity I need to though if I never hear Rick Astley again it will be too soon…

Click here for more photos of the protest

A selection from today’s Missed Connections on Craigslist. Sounds like someone loves WordPress!

Pavlov says! - w4m (hayes valley)

Hey Science guy,

I’ve not even been gone a month, but now every iota concerning the field of science reminds me of you. I’m not sure if I actually think that, or you have so brilliantly conditioned the ones who are fortunate enough to see you into thinking that way.

Either way, it was bad enough I liked you from the moment I saw you. Somehow I got a new job and even hearing the fact I’ll be working with WordPress somehow gives me a Pavlovian, female version of a stiffy.

If you ever figure me out and you want to let me know that you have. Maybe we could have a secret code, before we both get ready to explode… if you want me to love you, just tell me to “WordPress”…

Oh…I’m a nerd; I think I hide it well. But hey, you’re more of one than I am and that’s why you’re so cute and wonderful.

Till I see you again.

Thanks to Google, I caught a travel dispatch from Austin visitors to San Francisco over New Year’s. Their visit included the major storm of Jan. 4, which they handled with aplomb:

Winds of 70 mph came on our first full day in San Francisco proper. Feeling adventurous, we braved the storm and walked a mile-plus from our hotel to the Exploratorium — an enormous collection of thought-provoking hands-on science exhibits — to spend our day out of the rain.

Yes, they walked all the way to the Exploratorium during the worst weather in several years so they could “spend a day out of the rain.” There’s more.
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Writer Annalee Newitz is a veteran of Other Magazine, the blogs Table of Malcontents and Underwire on wired.com, the co-editor of the anthology She’s Such a Geek, and the editor in chief of a new blog about science fiction and the future, io9.com. On Saturday, I sat down with her at Bean There Cafe on Waller and Steiner Streets to talk about the future and her projects.

When we think about the future, we imagine it’s the future because there are changes in certain realms. What are the realms you look for changes in so you can say “Wow, that’s gonna be the future”?

Of course, we’re limited by the fact that we are living in the present, so you have to look at stuff in the present that suggests an alternate path. It suggests a pathway forward — maybe it suggests a pathway backward — but hopefully if you’re looking toward a better future, you look to stuff that might improve the world, make things easier for more people. And when I say easier I don’t mean make it easier for you to file tax forms, or do ten hours of work in eight hours even if the work is boring; by easier I mean actually having a better quality of life, a life that is easier to endure.

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Stephen Johnson, the Bush ally who is his head of the EPA, like his Commander in Chief, is apparently no fan of science or California. The boys like playing Santa though, and the EPA holiday gift to the nation’s most populous state is a denial of a waiver allowing California (and some 16 other states that have asked ) to implement their own greenhouse gas limits. The precedence for California to set it’s own environmental policies goes back 30 years, and the state has been granted waivers over 40 times previously, and never been denied. Until now.

Automakers must have jumped with joy at the denial, having sued to prevent state’s from taking action some 4 times. Earlier this year, after years of dodging responsibility, the EPA was told by a Supreme Court ruling, that despite the agency’s insistence otherwise, they actually do have a mandate to regulate greenhouse gasses.

Maybe they misplaced that memo, or perhaps they are too busy reclassifying wetlands as potential parking lots.

When U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii of Fresno ruled in early December that California has the right to regulate tail pipe emissions of greenhouse gases, it further set in play a potential legal battle of California vs the EPA. Even Republican guv Schwarzenegger sees light through the cigar smoke tunnel and has backed the idea of suing the US government to get some more sensible regulations in place.

Word filters out that the EPA’s own staffers advised Johnson against his auto industry friendly position, yet Johnson, his pal Big Dick Cheney and Detroit bigwigs really call the shots. Now, Bay Area politician Barbara Boxer & So Cal’s Henry Waxman are whining for hearings and have demanded Johnson not destroy any of his documents regarding the decision in his year end house cleaning.

links, fumes and more hot gassy air after the jump…

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Lots of chitter chatter going on about the “pizza ban.” I find that title somewhat confusing. Friend emailed me really quick about it the other day and I was like, “what?” because I had heard of it as the “late hours on Broadway ban.”

The dealio: some restaurants are allowed to stay open past midnight to get the late bar crowd, namely, pizza joints on Broadway. Having been one of the revelers, I can say, it’s great to get some pizza in your stomach while you’re plastered. It means a more sober walk home, less partying, and a nice night of sleep. The other side is that Broadway Corridor is a mess of teenagers (not much older than, at least) every Friday and Saturday night, and trying to get them safely home has been a trial. Closing things down earlier- which was experimented a few weeks ago- meant less crime was commited. Less “clustering,” until 3-4am, and less neighborhood activity.

Before you have an opinion about this, don’t just dust off your memories, actually visit Broadway and Columbus at midnight on a Friday or Saturday.
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Just 24 hours after a troubled 3rd year law student at UC Hastings threatened a suicide leap off the school’s landmark tower, a high ranking diplomat from a “Rogue State”, made a brave appearance in the same potentially contentious academic environment. While not as visually dramatic as the hysterical student with her cellphone in hand being talked down by police negotiators from her 21st floor perch, the ground floor speech by the Syrian Ambassador (and fellow blogger) Imad Moustapha dealt with matters of a far more grave consequence than a student’s bizarrely botched love life.

Mustapha, made an eloquent spokesman for a nation that most Americans can’t fathom, find on a map, and perhaps hear only about when a Fox News correspondent mentions it’s candidacy for the Bush administration’s “Axis of Evil”. Just steps from the plaza named after the United Nations he spoke of some of the inner machinations of that body that left his countrymen a bit more than puzzled.

He spoke of a need for better relations between our two countries, and that the smaller Syria would prefer less bullying & bluster from the current administration. Unlike the reception that awaited Iran’s President Ahmadinejad at Columbia in New York, Imad Moustapaha found a far more colloquial reception at the state’s oldest law school.

He claimed he turned down speaking at the local Commonwealth Club in favor of appearing before law students, as a deference to his life before international diplomacy took him away from his job teaching computer science in Damascus.

Fluent in four languages, co-author of the UN-sponsored “Human Development Report in the Arab World”, Moustapha holds a Phd he earned in the UK, and was Dean of IT at the University of Damascus before accepting his Ambassadorship in 2004. Equally parts charming, witty and defensive of Syria’s political positions, the Ambassador relayed tales of his transistion from simple academic life driven by science to life on the diplomatic frontlines, and his small country’s larger perspective on world events and relationships. He brought to San Francisco his perspectives from 4000 year old Damascus, the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city, and he referred to Cairo and Baghdad as baby cities , since they are only some 1000 years old.

Moustapha, standing under a rotating slide show of his country’s treasures and sites, gave brief introductory statements, but spent most of his hour with the students engaged in Q&A. Unfortunately, not that many questions came down the pipe because some of these were “big” questions, not easily answered in short soundbites when involving complex and sometimes confrontational geo-political issues.

More after the jump…

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While mayoral candidate Grasshopper Kaplan runs around town getting arrested everywhere from Ed Jew’s driveway to back at the Hall of Justice, and generally specializes in creating a nuisance, he’s not the only mayoral candidate who’s discovered they are not welcome wherever they may wish to move about.

It recently became apparent to Hunters Point activist Dr. Ahimsa Sumchai that she too is not on the “A” list, noticeable especially if one steps out of line against the local Democratic Politburo. While her candidacy and convictions are certainly sincere, (clip of last month’s announcement at City Hall below the jump), one has to wonder about her possible naivety.

Sumchai rallying against the Mayor’s redevelopment partners Lennar in a recent SF Bayview newspaper pic

The longtime Health and Environmental Science Editor of the award winning SF Bayview Newspaper was shocked that she was refused admittance to a press conference/photo op Nancy Pelosi was having at the Bayview Child Health Center with Supervisor Sophie Maxwell this week. Do you think Grasshopper Kaplan or even Chris Daly would have been welcomed?

Sumchai seems surprised by the rejection of a Democratic Party machine that in addition to criminal “fundraisers” & dubious “consultants”, includes numerous nepotism ridden relatives of elected representatives. She perhaps has no idea why they would somehow find her an undesirable at one of their incestuous affairs?

Sumchai has long campaigned against Lennar Corp.’s redevelopment of Hunters Point , and is she totally clueless that Lennar’s president of acquisitions was Pelosi’s nephew? Does she not know that when she’s railing against the quality of the local “environment” this might piss off our local “Commission on the Environment” President who just happens to be Paul Pelosi, Jr., Nancy’s Pelosi’s son and Gavin Newsom’s cousin?

The Lennar “land grab” at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is highly inconvenienced by attention getting activists like Sumchai, and why would she expect red carpet treatment at one of their dog & pony shows featuring the pretty darn powerful pork barrelling princess Ms. Pelosi ?(Uh, who do ya think is one of the prime architects of federal land giveaways and previously arranged for The Presidio to be privatized ?).

You can meet and discuss that sort of stuff with Dr. Sumchai at 3rd & Palou this Saturday from 10 am - 12 noon where she’ll be doing a live community radio broadcast and get her account of being barred from a Pelosi Press conference after the jump…
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While perusing locally made websites, one cannot help but stop and be sucked in by the homemade security cam style footage posted at the blog that basically documents what living at 34 6th St at The Seneca Hotel, under the auspices of the “non-profit” landlord Tenderloin Housing Clinic is like.

Let more You Tubing & ranting begin after the jump…
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