I took some photos last night and today and put them into an album.
They include:
Go check them out!
This is the kind of stuff that I love about San Francisco – Here is a street that is tunneled under another street. Also take note of the entrance ramp to the parking garage on the right. This is the intersection of Sutter St. and Stockton St. looking North up Stockton. Awesome.
I’m in San Francisco again for the 2007 RSA Security Conference.
I was last in San Francisco in 2005 for the LinuxWorld Conference. (See links.)
I got in yesterday. I flew into SFO and took the BART into downtown. I’m staying at the Grand Hyatt hotel just off Union Square – not far from where I stayed two years ago.
Man I love walking around in this part of San Francisco.
I’ll try and take bunches of pictures again, there is so much neat and funky architecture here.
BTW, Google Maps is the best. I made my hotel my saved location and then searched for ‘liquor store’. There was a great one only two blocks from the hotel! I wound up buying a bottle of Tobermory Single Malt Scotch (mainly because it was one of the cheapest) but it’s pretty damned good.
Then I searched for ‘sushi’ and found this little hole in the wall named Akiko’s Sushi Bar – all of four tables – but the sushi was good and not very spendy.
I’m not sure what I’m going to eat tonight – it’s SuperBowl Sunday, and I’m not sure I want to go to a bar. There was a good looking Asian place down the street. I might go there.
More later.
No, more like a Single Issue Non-Voter.
James Trumm raises a valid point. You should never vote for a candidate that is a creationist. Ever.
Why should being a creationist disqualify someone from being President? I’ve been thinking about this recently, what with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee now in the running. Like his compadre Sam Brownback (Christianist – KS), Huckabee believes that students should be exposed to both evolution and creationism in the public school classroom.
On the one hand, this seems to be the silliest issue possible. As Republican Representative Chris Shays (CT) puts it,
while Rome’s burning, we’re eating grapes. I mean, the thought that we would have a debate in the Senate about creationism and scientific evolution, and that we would focus on this issue blows me away.
But the debate is there not because of scientific uncertainty, and not even because of religion. The debate is ultimately about power.
—-
Science in general, and evolution in particular, are grounded in observable reality. Causing people to question that reality–or at least to give unreality equal time–is a first step to the destruction of thought and of resistance to tyranny.
I agree totally. Creationism is not just bad science, it’s trying to overthrow science.
No creationist will ever get my vote. No matter what their position is on any other subject.
Sad news. Political Commentator Molly Ivins has died.
Here is a wonderful tribute.
I’ve always loved her columns, now I’ll have to read her books.
From BoingBoing:
Vista launched this week, and it’s already broken. As with previous multi-year DRM development efforts, this one disintegrated like wet kleenex on contact with the general public.
The rest of the article is here.
The British seem to have gotten it right, as evidenced by this speech by Sir Ken Macdonald — the UK’s “director of public prosecutions”:
He said: “London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, ‘soldiers’. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a ‘war on terror’, just as there can be no such thing as a ‘war on drugs’.
“The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement.”Sir Ken, head of the Crown Prosecution Service, told members of the Criminal Bar Association it should be an article of faith that crimes of terrorism are dealt with by criminal justice and that a “culture of legislative restraint in the area of terrorist crime is central to the existence of an efficient and human rights compatible process”.
He said: “We wouldn’t get far in promoting a civilising culture of respect for rights amongst and between citizens if we set about undermining fair trials in the simple pursuit of greater numbers of inevitably less safe convictions. On the contrary, it is obvious that the process of winning convictions ought to be in keeping with a consensual rule of law and not detached from it. Otherwise we sacrifice fundamental values critical to the maintenance of the rule of law – upon which everything else depends.”
Hear hear.
Lots of commentary on this over on Bruce Schneier’s blog.
Astounding.
The San Francisco Chronicle:
Gonzales says the Constitution doesn’t guarantee habeas corpus
Attorney general’s remarks on citizens’ right astound the chair of Senate judiciary panel
One of the Bush administration’s most far-reaching assertions of government power was revealed quietly last week when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified that habeas corpus — the right to go to federal court and challenge one’s imprisonment — is not protected by the Constitution.
“The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas,” Gonzales told Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Jan. 17.
Gonzales acknowledged that the Constitution declares “habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless … in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” But he insisted that “there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.”
Man that Gonzales is as much a pig-fucker as Bush and the rest of them.
Our spice cupboard is a mess. It’s full of all sorts of different types of bottles. Jam jars, baby food jars, jars of all sizes.
Needless to say, it’s hard to find the spice you want, and they don’t fit into the cupboard very well.
I’m tired of it.
So I’m going to buy a bunch of jars, all alike, and label them and maybe even make some risers so you can see what’s in the back of the cupboard.
But where to buy the jars? LeeVally has a couple of options, but they are a little pricey.
So I did a Google search and found Specialty Bottle. As Bill and Ted say: “Excellent!”
I like these hexagonal ones.
Or maybe these plain ones.
And if I needed to send someone a message in a bottle, they would have me covered.
The prices are most excellent too. Now I just have to convince SWMBO.
I stumbled across Atheist in a mini van’s web site following a link from PZ Myers’ house.
I liked the story that was linked to and have been catching up on the back issues. I just ran across this list of recommended reading for young atheists.
I’ll have to get some of these for my kids.
