Free Republic

LIVERMORE – It didn't take a nuclear physicist to realize changes were needed after a $40,000 ceramic mural was unveiled outside the city's new library and everyone could see the misspelled names of Einstein, Shakespeare, Vincent Van Gogh, Michelangelo and seven other historical figures. "Our library director is very frustrated that she has this lovely new library and it has all these misspellings in front," said city Councilwoman Lorraine Dietrich, one of three council members who voted Monday to authorize paying another $6,000, plus expenses, to fly the artist up from Miami to fix the errors.

SISKIYOU COUNTY - An investigation into the shooting death of a couple at a Sonoma County beach has caused detectives in Humboldt County, Del Norte County and Scottsdale, Ariz., to take a second look at unsolved murder cases in their areas to see if there is a connection, including a case from Siskiyou County. SNIP The Del Norte County Sheriff's Department has also contacted Sonoma County about an unsolved homicide that occurred in Lake Oswego, Ore., in 1988. In that case, Douglas and Rosina Anderson were shot while camping in a redwood grove southeast of Crescent City. As in the...

SANTA ROSA, Calif. - A 21-year-old Wisconsin man is being sought for questioning in the mysterious murders of two camp counselors on a remote Sonoma County beach, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported Tuesday. Sonoma County detectives sent out a statewide alert Monday seeking Nicholas Edward Scarseth, of Chippewa Falls, Wis. SNIP He is a 6-foot-5, 185-pound white man with thick brown dreadlocks, his mother told the newspaper.

Please help me. I live in the devil's quadrant, the SF Bay Area, and you would think this wouldn't happen here because it's the suburbs, and yet somehow, a neighbor has gotten ahold of a rooster that starts crowing at 5 am, and continues to crow at infrequent intervals. I haven't had any REM sleep in days. Imagine Susan Estrich's voice, or Hillary's, shreiking every minute or so out your window while you run to the other room for refuge. Is there any way I can make the rooster shut up without having to turn my neighbor into Animal Control?...

Federal prosecutors have unsealed an indictment charging multimillionaire San Francisco financier Robert F. White with traveling to Thailand and Mexico to molest and exploit children. The grand jury indictment, reported by The Chronicle in April, accuses the 68-year-old White of conspiring to violate the so-called child sex tourism law. That law prohibits traveling from the United States to other countries to have sex with minors, even if the sexual activity is legal where it took place. He also is charged with conspiring to produce child pornography.

<p>May 19 (Bloomberg) -- An index of U.S. mortgage applications fell 12 percent last week as home purchases slowed for the first time in more than a month and loan refinancing dropped to the lowest level since early January.</p> <p>The Mortgage Bankers Association said its gauge of loan demand fell to 654.1 from 742.2. It was the second-straight decline in the index and came as 30-year mortgage rates exceeded 6 percent for a fourth consecutive week.</p>

BAY AREA (KRON) -- A fire near a Salinas industrial park has burned six acres and continues to spread, Monterey County officials reported Wednesday night. Emergency services spokesman Harry Robins said the incident commander on the Abbott Street scene south of Salinas described the blaze as "six acres of cardboard box fire." It started in and is being fueled by packing materials for lettuce and other agricultural products, Robins explained. [exerpted]

Augusta (AP) -- Police are searching for a pregnant woman who may have been kidnapped during a burglary at her mother's house. Twenty-nine-year-old Tamara Dunstan was last seen last night at her mother's Augusta home. Her vehicle was still at the house and her keys were inside the home when police arrived, authorities said. Richmond County Sheriff's Major Ken Autry said Dunstan may have arrived at the house during the burglary. Autry said evidence of foul play had been found. Dunstan's family has offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to her return and the arrest of those responsible. Police...

The San Francisco Bay area, long the must-go destination for speculators and visionaries of every ilk, is losing people. Meanwhile, greater Los Angeles is absorbing nearly 300,000 more people each year. But it is the counties in and around the Central Valley that continue to see the steadiest population surge, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. [blah, blah, blah]

<p>Canadian authorities hope someone in Northern California can tell them the identity of two brothers discovered living in the woods near a British Columbia town last summer, surviving on handouts, refusing to identify their parents, and saying only that their family came from the Bay Area and their grandparents still live here.</p>

Other facts on Claremont McKenna teacher asked before filing case CLAREMONT -- The District Attorney's Office has asked the police to provide more information about a Claremont McKenna professor, whom police said vandalized her own car and reported it as a hate crime, before a case can be filed. Claremont police will provide the additional information to the district attorney sometime during the next week, said police Lt. Stan Van Horn. "We do not have a suspect in custody so there is time to have a thorough and complete investigation by the Police Department and a thorough investigation of the...

<p>A professor who claimed she was targeted in a hate crime that stirred student protests at the Claremont colleges is suspected of staging the vandalism herself, police said Wednesday.</p> <p>Kerri F. Dunn's car was vandalized and covered with racist, anti-Semitic and sexist epithets on March 9, leading faculty to cancel classes and students to stage rallies the following day.</p>

<p>About 2,000 students and faculty at the Claremont colleges chanted "ignorance has got to go" Wednesday as they converged in a display of anger after a professor's car was spray-painted with racial slurs, the latest in a rash of hate incidents in this tranquil college community.</p>

<p>Jobs are more likely to be shipped overseas from Silicon Valley than any other region in the nation, placing the Bay Area's economic engine directly in the path of the global freight train known as offshoring.</p> <p>Specifically, 1 in 6 jobs in Silicon Valley are at risk of being sent abroad, compared with only 1 in 10 positions nationwide, according to researchers at UC Berkeley. The economists estimate that 1 in 7 San Francisco jobs could be exported.</p>

SAN FRANCISCO -- According to meteorologists, the most powerful winter storm of the season is forecast to bring heavy rain and high winds to northern and central California, beginning early Wednesday morning and continuing through Thursday evening. At its most intense period, the storm is expected to carry winds gusting between 50 - 70 mph for six to eight hours. The sustained winds are expected to impact all of PG&E's service area - which stretches from Bakersfield to near the Oregon border. This storm is also expected to deliver between 1 and 3 inches of precipitation, depending on the area....

CROCKETT - Workers renovating a house on First Avenue on Tuesday morning found two skulls while they were digging in the garage, police said. The Contra Costa Coroner's Office determined the skulls were human. Crime lab technicians are excavating the area looking for any other bones, said Contra Costa Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee. The discovery was made at 10 a.m. in the 900 block of First Avenue, Lee said. "At this point we have more questions than answers," he said. "We don't know who these people are, how long they've been there or whether they are linked to any crime...

The 80s music seems pretty upbeat (I got a CD for Christmas and have been listening to it today.) Is it because Reagan/Bush were in the White House so everybody felt OK to have fun? You know, something like, the parents are handling the troubles of the world so I can have a good time. The 90s era (Clinton/Gore) seems to have inspired not much at all in the way of music. (I.e., the parents are troubled so I have to watch and wait.) I'm sure I'll get hosed for this broad, sweeping statement. What do you all think? If...

San Francisco Bay Area Housing Crash Continues The value of a single-family house in the San Francisco Bay Area continues to fall quickly. By the time it is over, I expect the typical price of a Bay Area house to fall by half. A house you could have sold for $600,000 last year is worth only $500,000 this year, and will fetch only $300,000 in a few more years. Here is a graph of asking prices in San Francisco, each dot being a recorded price. According to the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors, the change from Jan-Jun 2002 to the...

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Maps/SF_Bay.html

Rob Reiner, who directed "The American President" and Martin Sheen, who portrays the president on "West Wing" stump for Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean at Morningside College Tuesday. (Staff photo by Jerry Mennenga) Drawn by his penchant for direct talk and opposition to the war in Iraq, actor Martin Sheen and film director Rob Reiner stumped in Sioux City on behalf of Howard Dean. Speaking to about 350 people at Morningside College, the two lambasted Bush administration policies and said Dean was the best choice for Democrats to retake the White House come November. Tough language abounded and both said...