Free Republic

Attorney: Marines involved in alleged attack on Yale singers Jaxon Van Derbeken, -- As many as three U.S. Marines were involved in the alleged New Year's attack on the Baker's Dozen singing group, an attorney for two singers is claiming in a letter that asks for the head of the Marine Corps' help in the investigation. The case - which sparked outrage on both coasts - began with a dispute at a Richmond District party and ended with members of the singing group telling police they were kicked and beaten. In a Feb. 9 letter to Lt. General Robert R....

The Norwegian government has decided to send more soldiers to Afghanistan, dispatching another 150 special forces to Kabul. The decision marks a new defeat for the Socialist Left Party (SV), which is part of Norway's center-left coalition government. The special forces will be in addition to the roughly 530 Norwegian soldiers and officers already in Afghanistan. The government previously has rejected calls for more troops from both NATO and key NATO members such as the US. Now it's changed its mind, clearly after intense negotiations among its three center-left parties that strive to maintain a united front. Political observers claim...

Allen Falkner likes to tickle his students with thoughts of trauma. "Somebody's skin is going to tear tomorrow," he said. "Hopefully." Falkner, the "Father of Modern Suspension," had gathered 15 students in the back of a San Jose tattoo parlor for a four-day class titled the Art of Human Suspension. The curriculum attracted a lawyer from San Diego, an IT guy from Silicon Valley, two journalists from Mexico City, a state employee from Nebraska and a truck driver from Pennsylvania. For $600 a pop, students were taught how to hang a human body from steel fish hooks, the kind...

San Francisco is aiming to become one of nation's first large cities to require that new, privately developed buildings meet rigorous standards of environmental friendliness. The decision to pursue such standards, which will need Board of Supervisors approval, follows similar actions taken in Boston and Washington. Smaller cities have also adopted such mandatory rules, including several in the Bay Area. It is part of a nationwide "green building'' revolution that experts say is prompted by government incentives and mandates, growing consumer demand and fears of global warming. "It's a virtual tsunami of green buildings,'' said Charles Lockwood, a real estate...

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's re-election campaign manager resigned Wednesday after confronting the mayor about an affair Newsom had with his wife while she worked in the mayor's office, City Hall sources said. Alex Tourk, 39, who served as Newsom's deputy chief of staff before becoming his campaign manager in September, confronted the mayor after his wife, Ruby Rippey-Tourk, told him of the affair as part of a rehabilitation program she had been undergoing for substance abuse, said the sources, who had direct knowledge of Wednesday's meeting. Rippey-Tourk, 34, was the mayor's appointments secretary from the start of his administration...

SAN FRANCISCO The construction is everywhere in San Francisco, as one high-rise after another has been approved by the city, and about to be built. Chronicle Writer Marshall Kilduff has covered the city since growth was a dirty word. "20 years ago, 30 years ago when you had these high-rise fights, you had a much more homogenous town. Little neighborhoods, people who remembered things, landmarks were always under the gun," Kilduff recalled. CBS 5 asked if the skyscrapers would have been approved 20 years ago. "Never," Kilduff said. "We had 5, 6 ballot fights. Not (each of them) won. But...

The guy who wrote it is a pinko, but you might like to take the test anyway. :)

SAN FRANCISCO - Their hair, once a symbol of youthful rebellion, is mostly gray. Bodies that writhed with wild abandon when a guru invited them to "Turn on ... tune in ... drop out" now sport stiff knees and age spots. "How many of you are on acid right now?" rock critic Joel Selvin asked an audience of former hippies who turned out this past week to mark the 40th anniversary of the Human Be-in, the counterculture event that unofficially launched the Summer of Love. "How many of you are on antacid right now?" In many ways, the '60s as...

If you ever wondered why so many career criminals come to San Francisco to ply their trade, the answer was brought home with stunning clarity this week. It’s safer for them to be here — and more dangerous for you. That was the bottom line in a presentation made to the Police Commission this week in which the Police Department’s chief of investigations outlined the gaping hole in the criminal justice system, which allows serious felons routinely to get stay-out-of-prison passes in San Francisco. That will partially explain why nearly 30 percent of all felony crimes in San Francisco are...

Jan. 10 - KGO - There are new complaints that the San Francisco Police Department is mishandling the New Year's Eve attack on a Yale University singing group. Several of the young men went to the hospital with serious injuries. The I-Team first broke this story Monday. There are questions about how police handled the case that night and how they're handling it today. This is blowing up into a national controversy about how San Francisco treated the best and brightest from Yale, Video from YouTube shows the Yale a capella group, The Baker's Dozen, on the Los Angeles leg...

For many San Franciscans, the best day is always yesterday, when houses were cheaper, the skies were bluer, and the city was a better place to live. "There's an old saying," says James Chappell, head of an urban think tank. "San Francisco was perfect the day I moved here." Those with long memories talk about the glorious 1915 World's Fair, or the day in 1937 when the Golden Gate Bridge opened, or the '60s and '70s, years of the Summer of Love, long hair, free love, the birth of a rock scene and a gay mecca. "It was a nonesuch...

3,000 people attempt to get by without buying new things - For Shawn Rosenmoss, the deal-breaker was a drill bit. John Perry's worst temptation was a plumber's snake for his clogged drain. Sarah Pelmas and Matt Eddy succumbed to the siren song of new white paint. But aside from the occasional hardware crises, the Compact -- an ever-growing group who have vowed not to buy anything new except food, medicine and underwear -- is going strong on its first anniversary. The Compact originated in December 2005 at a San Francisco dinner party, where guests decided to take recycling one step...

SAN FRANCISCO - An effort to clean up some of the city's seedier neighborhoods and rid the streets of junkies, hookers and runaways has run headlong into San Francisco's free-to-be-who-you-are ethos. Nearly four decades after the Summer of Love, residents and merchants frustrated with what they regard as blight are turning to the city for help or taking revitalization into their own hands. But other residents of the Tenderloin district and Haight-Ashbury contend a crackdown would rob their neighborhoods of their identity and violate everything San Francisco stands for. Joey Cain, a board member of the Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood Council, complained...

SAN FRANCISCO -- City officials in San Francisco have ordered the immediate removal of cookie-scented strips from bus shelters -- one day after they went in as part of a marketing campaign to promote milk. The demand was made to CBS Outdoor, the company that holds the advertising contract for the city's bus shelters, late Monday night. The company was asked by the Municipal Transportation Agency, which runs the city's public transit system and has jurisdiction over the bus shelters, to remove the scented strips today, said Steve Shinn, a vice president of the company. The move came amid public...

well, go figure. our club is in trouble with the school for stepping on the flags of Hezbollah and Hamas. The student governing board, who will try us, has passed a resolution condemning our actions... fair? Our Webpage -- we will try to post pics asap. the event: The Eventanother article: http://xpress.sfsu.edu/archives/news/007465.html ------------------------------------ ASI Passes Resolution Against Flag Stomping Organization says College Republicans were in the wrong by Jason Shuffler, staff writer November 28, 2006 08:48 PM Preceding an ongoing investigation into SF State College Republican behavior, the Associated Students board unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the student group for...

My comment, "Apparently it's still okay to burn an American flag on campus, but you can be charged with hate speech for walking on a Hezbollah or Hamas terrorist flag." Organization says (San Francisco State University) College Republicans were in the wrong Preceding an ongoing investigation into SF State College Republican behavior, the Associated Students board unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the student group for purposely stomping on flags containing the Arabic symbol for God. “Associated Students, Inc. deems the College Republicans’ actions as contrary to university values and feel they should be held accountable by the university for their...

Navy rejects San Francisco for warship commissioning ceremony By: Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO -- The U.S. Navy has rejected plans to commission its newest and most powerful warship in San Francisco because of concerns that the city doesn't support the military. Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter vetoed plans this week for a commissioning ceremony for the Makin Island in San Francisco, said retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. J. Michael Myatt, chairman of the citizens' commissioning committee. Instead, San Diego will host the ceremony in which the crew formally takes charge of the ship, Myatt said. Navy leaders were...

Navy rejects San Francisco for warship commissioning ceremony - Saturday, December 2, 2006 (12-02) 12:37 PST San Francisco (AP) -- The U.S. Navy has rejected plans to commission its newest and most powerful warship in San Francisco because of concerns that the city doesn't support the military. Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter vetoed plans this week for a commissioning ceremony for the Makin Island in San Francisco, said retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. J. Michael Myatt, chairman of the citizens' commissioning committee. Instead, San Diego will host the ceremony in which the crew formally takes charge of the...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2006 -- Iraqi special forces soldiers and police nabbed terror-cell leaders and members in raids in Baghdad over the last two days, U.S. officials reported. In addition, coalition forces killed 11 insurgents in Ramadi. Coalition forces have killed 11 insurgents in three related incidents in Ramadi. In an incident today near Haswah, three insurgents were observed emplacing an improvised explosive device. They were engaged with small-arms fire and a main-tank-gun round. Two insurgents were killed. In a raid yesterday in the same area, special Iraqi police forces with coalition advisors captured six insurgents believed to be...

Washington -- Republican charges of a San Francisco "homosexual agenda'' and allegations that a liberal "San Francisco majority'' in Congress would endanger the nation have emerged as themes in the final two weeks of the Nov. 7 midterm election campaign. The latest salvos are variations on a constant GOP refrain this year, tied to the prospect that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a "San Francisco liberal,'' would become speaker if Democrats make at least a 15-seat gain in the midterm elections. "You know, they use me all over the country, my radical homosexual agenda,'' said Pelosi, in San Francisco Friday...