Free Republic

Early risers Saturday will see a total eclipse of the moon low in the western sky, and if the Bay Area's clear weather persists, the sight should be spectacular. "The full moon should appear even larger than normal when the eclipse is total because it will be so low in the sky that Earth's atmosphere will magnify it into a blood-red monster," said astronomer Andrew Fraknoi of Foothill College in Los Alto Hills. The partial eclipse will begin at 4:45 a.m. and will become total at 6:05 a.m., Fraknoi said. Totality will last until 6:57 a.m.

Come Dec. 1, you can still buy the Happy Meal. But it doesn’t come with a toy. For that, you’ll have to pay an extra 10 cents. Huh. That hardly seems to have solved the problem (though adults and children purchasing unhealthy food can at least take solace that the 10 cents is going to Ronald McDonald House charities). But it actually gets worse from here. Thanks to Supervisor Eric Mar’s much-ballyhooed new law, parents browbeaten into supplementing their preteens’ Happy Meal toy collections are now mandated to buy the Happy Meals. Today and tomorrow mark the last days that...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Most Americans spent Thanksgiving snug inside homes with families and football. Others used the holiday to give thanks alongside strangers at outdoor Occupy encampments, serving turkey or donating their time in solidarity with the anti-Wall Street movement that has gripped a nation consumed by economic despair. In San Francisco, 400 occupiers at a plaza in the financial district were served traditional Thanksgiving fixings sent by the renowned Glide Memorial Church to volunteers and supporters of the movement fighting social and economic inequality. "We are thankful that we are, first and foremost, in a country where we...

A winery owner, a tech executive and venture capitalists are among the Texas governor's local backersWant to meet Rick Perry? The Republican governor from Texas will be at the Four Seasons in East Palo Alto for a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser on Friday during his first trip to the Bay Area since declaring his candidacy for president. Perry's campaign says the GOP candidate has no public appearances scheduled for the region. He has a packed schedule, with three fundraisers on Thursday (in San Diego, Orange County and Los Angeles) and three more on Friday (in Bakersfield, Fresno and East Palo Alto). But...

The San Francisco Giants won the 2010 World Series thanks to great pitching performances from Tim Lincecum(notes), Matt Cain(notes) and Brian Wilson(notes). And they got timely offensive contributions from the likes of rookie Buster Posey(notes), Aubrey Huff(notes) and Juan Uribe(notes). You remember those guys. How could anyone forget? And what about Robin O'Connor, a payroll department manager? There's no way the Giants get past the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS without her.

The amorphous hacker group known as Anonymous made good Sunday on its threat to strike BART, breaching an agency website and releasing customers' personal information in retaliation for BART's decision to cut cellular phone service to prevent an antipolice protest in San Francisco. The hack attack sent BART scrambling to protect its websites, and it infuriated some riders whose information was leaked. It came as the hackers also called for a 5 p.m. protest today at BART's Civic Center Station, where a police officer fatally shot a knife-wielding man on July 3. BART, which ignited a debate about technology and...

By now, you’ve no-doubt heard that residents in San Francisco want to vote on banning circumcision for male children. As if that was not controversial enough - now the state is getting involved. That’s right… Assembly Bill 768 - would apply to any city or county government. Its being introduced in response to a San Francisco ballot measure. AB 768 is designed to derail the San Francisco measure - if its approved by voters. "To enact an outright ban on an expression of personal, medical and religious freedom is an affront to all who value liberty," said Assemblyman Mike Gatto,...

<p>California has become the first state in the nation to require public schools to add lessons about gay history to social studies classes, after Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed the landmark bill on Thursday.</p> <p>The Democratic-majority Legislature passed the bill last week on a largely party-line vote.</p>

You have to wonder very seriously if these people are insane. The San Diego-based group that is laboring to get circumcision banned in San Francisco has perpetrated a comic book. In it, a superhero named Foreskin Man saves a baby boy from being circumcised by the evil Monster Mohel, a vicious-looking Orthodox Jewish rabbi who could have been drawn by an acolyte of Joseph Goebbels. Indeed, Foreskin Man has a distinctly Hitlerian “Aryan” look to him. It’s crystal clear from the dialogue that the perpetrator of this literary opus intends to depict the Judaic religious view of circumcision as evil...

As you may have heard by now, San Francisco will be voting this November on whether or not to ban circumcision in the city. Defenders of the measure say it’s all about “human rights” and “protecting babies” from unnecessary procedures. But critics suspected there was something vaguely anti-Semitic about the whole proposal, since among Jews (and Muslims, as well) circumcising male babies is a religious duty, not just a mistaken medical procedure. Ban proponents insisted their proposal had nothing to do with Jews — really, it’s all about the rights of children. Well, any doubt that they were lying have...

Last week I posted on a clearly antisemitic piece of legislation in San Francisco and Santa Monica banning the Jewish religious tradition of circumcision. Judenrein in Sunny Southern California: Banning Male Circumcision. America, this is getting very, very ugly. Male circumcision is significantly healthier with or without the important religious significance. The Islamic practice of female genital mutilation (cutting off the clitoris) is sick misogyny. To equate the two is officially legislating Jew-hatred. Any doubt this was motivated by hatred and racism? Zombie over at PJM: Proof that S.F.’s circumcision ban is anti-Semitic As you may have heard by now,...

Recently, enough signatures were gathered in San Francisco to place a ban on circumcision on this November's ballot. Today, the blogosphere is buzzing with an online comic book by one of the initiatives most prominent supporters called "Foreskin Man". The titled super hero is tasked with saving infant boys from the barbarism of circumcision. J.E. Dyer of HOT AIR has it correct: "It’s crystal clear from the dialogue that the perpetrator of this literary opus intends to depict the Judaic religious view of circumcision as evil and repulsive.  The “comic” hauls out every theme of Jew hatred in the arsenal. Note...

I posted brief thoughts on this issue on Friday on Facebook. For the benefit of the non-Facebookers and for the sake of having a more permanent record of my When the San Francisco ban on circumcision was first proposed months ago I wrote two posts defending one’s right to circumcise their son. One was from a legal perspective: Is a Ban on Circumcision Constitutional? Probably Not and the other from a moral perspective: Circumcision Follow Up (or why circumcision is not barbaric for Orthodox Jews). Since that time, I have had several conversations in the comments on my blog as...

An organizer behind a growing campaign to outlaw circumcision for infant boys now has created a comic book specifically targeting that Jewish practice, and critics say he's gone too far by using Nazi images and stereotypes. "This comic is modern anti-Semitism at its best. It is one story to fight against circumcision, and another to portray Jews in a false anti-Semitic stereotype. The Jewish depictions look like they came right out of Nazi Germany propaganda in the 1930s and 1940s," wrote Hailey Dilman in a commentary at Digital Journal.

On TV tonight, Glenn talked about Foreskin Man, a blonde, muscular super hero who fights evil-looking Jewish mohel! There’s nothing anti-semitic about that, right?

A ballot measure to ban circumcision in San Francisco has taken a strange twist with the publication, by the measure’s sponsors, of a comic book in which an anti-circumcision superhero -– blond, buff and handsome -– battles evil Jewish characters who recall the stereotypical images of classic anti-Semitism. "Foreskin Man" was written and created by Matthew Hess, one of the leaders behind the initiative to ban circumcision, the ritual cutting of foreskin on a baby's penis that, in the Jewish religion, is considered central to the covenant between the Jewish people and God. Opponents consider it painful and barbaric, akin...

Radical secularists, for whom Judaism is a target of choice, wish to portray religion as so barbarous that it excises any pleasure in sex, reducing copulation to a cold and sterile act. Talkbacks (11) The growing number of anti-Semitic caricatures associated with the attempt to ban circumcision in San Francisco is disturbing. These include the highly inflammatory “Foreskin Man” comic, depicting a superhero saving innocent boys from evil circumcisers, which The Jerusalem Post reports was produced by Matthew Hess, “one of the central backers of the anti-circumcision measures.” Indeed, the attempt to ban circumcision in San Francisco smacks of a...

San Francisco's anti-circumcision measure will be decided by voters in November, but the literature for the movement aims to sway them with some disturbing images -- including dark, evil-looking rabbis and a blonde superhero saving babies from their clutches.The measure, supported by self-described "intactivists," would make circumcision performed on anyone under 18 a misdemeanor, even if it is done for religious purposes. It would be punishable by a $1000 fine, or up to a year in jail.But that's not the half of it: check out the eye-opening "Foreskin Man,'' the comic book for this anti-circumcision movement that uses images critics...

California must put an immediate halt to work on its cap and trade program until it completes a review of alternative approaches to reducing climate change, a state judge said Friday. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith ruled in March that the California Air Resources Board failed to conduct such a review but left open the question of whether the agency could conduct rule-making, environmental studies or do any other work while the legal issues were being resolved. The state said at the time that it would appeal. On Friday, Goldsmith enjoined the ARB from "engaging in any cap...

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution in March 2006 that attacked the Catholic Church’s opposition to the adoption of children by homosexuals. It reacted to Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith head Cardinal William Levada’s instruction that Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco stop placing children with same-sex couples. It deemed the Church’s teaching on homosexuality to be “insulting to all San Franciscans,” “hateful,” “insulting and callous,” “defamatory” and “insensitive and ignorant.”