Cyclist Killed in Mission District This Morning

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An unidentified cyclist was killed early this morning when he/she collided with a garbage truck in the city's Mission District.

Police, who are still at the scene, didn't have too many details now, but said the incident happened at about 6:45 a.m. at the intersection of 16th street and Van Ness.

The cyclist died at the scene, said Officer Gordon Shyy.


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Pickup Truck Crashes Into House Then Leaves

Categories: Last Night

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screen-grab/CBS
No, that wasn't a parking spot
A San Francisco family had an unwelcome visitor come for dinner last night when a pickup truck crashed into their Outer Mission home, according to police.

Officer Gordon Shyy says police started getting a bunch of calls at about 7:41 p.m. regarding a car vs. home collision at Florentine and Morse streets. Witnesses told police that the silver pickup truck came out of nowhere, smashed into the home and fled the chaotic scene.

The house was severely damaged, Shyy said.

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Harry Dorfman, Lead Homicide Prosecutor in S.F., Named Superior Court Judge

Categories: Law & Order

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Dorfman's new tools.
Harry Dorfman, a prosecutor who has worked at the San Francisco District Attorney's Office for 28 years, is set to be a judge. Governor Jerry Brown appointed him on Tuesday to one of the open seats on the San Francisco Superior Court.

Dorfman, who successfully prosecuted the Edwin Ramos case, has been the managing attorney for the office's homicide unit since 2010.

He won't be the only freshman at the Hall of Justice. Rochelle East, chief deputy attorney general at the California Department of Justice, and Tracie Brown, an assistant U.S. attorney, were also appointed San Francisco Superior Court judges. The trio will replace retiring judges Judges Jerome Benson, Donna Little and Kevin McCarthy.

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"Travel Like a Local" Tips for San Francisco Tourists

Categories: Public Transit
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Joe Eskenazi
Eat oatmeal on the train when you "travel like a local"
A cheery publication aimed at visitors to our fair city encouraging them to "travel like a local" on public transit is a massive softball waiting to be belted over the fence and deep, deep into the bleachers. 

Jokes about remembering to avoid scattering detritus when rolling a joint on the bus or being sure to speak loudly enough for everyone to hear when engaging in a cell phone discussion about sexual activity and/or its resultant skin conditions are gimmes. 

But the American Public Transportation Association is free of guile in its San Francisco list (which you can read here). But that doesn't mean we have to be. 


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Academy of Arts Students Help Resolve S.F. Bike Parking Problem

Categories: bikes

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You see the problem?
If soon you find it a tad easier to find a place to park your bike around Yerba Buena, then you have the clever and artsy students of San Francisco to thank.

A team from San Francisco's Academy of Art University was selected from more than 35 international entries as the winner of a student competition to design a portable bicycle corral for the City's Yerba Buena neighborhood, according to the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District. The portable bicycle corral will "meet the growing demand for bike parking at cultural and special events in Yerba Buena, and encourage even more people to use sustainable alternatives of transportation."

So here are the details of the winning design titled "Pedalution:"

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Marc Tanzer Idenfitied as Man Whose Body Was Found Floating in the Bay

Categories: Local News

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Marc Tanzer's body was found floating in the San Francisco Bay
Medical authorities have finally identified the man whose body was discovered drifting in the Bay three weeks ago as 58-year-old Marc Tanzer.

Tanzer was a resident of Phoenix, Arizona, according to the San Francisco Medical Examiner's Office. They would not disclose how he died, but said he had been in the water for at least two weeks.

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Harvey Milk Day: "Pro-Family" Group Says Kids Need to Skip School Today and Plug Their Ears

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Savecalifornia.com
It's that time of the year when Save California, a "family values group" (aka anti-gay group) begs parents to keep their kids home from school today so as to not expose the children to anything related to Harvey Milk, the gay rights activist who was assassinated at City Hall in 1978.

Today would be his 83rd birthday, and to honor Milk, California public schools plan to teach students all about the contributions of the city's first openly gay supervisor. And that really freaks Save California out. The "pro-children" group has been running controversial radio ads, asking rhetorical questions like "why is a predator of teens being honored in schools?"

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Those "Pot-Fed Pigs" Aren't Getting High, But Possibly Healthier

Categories: Marijuana

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Is this pig high or are you?

The Washington state hog farmer whose pigs are fed marijuana trim has been all the rage on the Internet over the last few days.

And with good reason: the barnyard animals who had leaves, stems and roots -- the otherwise fit-for-nothing-but-compost leftovers after the selaeable buds are processed -- mixed into their feed grew heavier and had meat that was redder and more savory, according to reports. The "grass-fed" pork is a hit with consumers, who bought out all available stock at Seattle's Pike Place Market, Reuters reported.

Must be the drugs, right?

Nope. Raw cannabis doesn't get you high. And for a good reason: it doesn't contain THC. But many claim that what raw weed trimmings do contain are healthy for man -- so why not beast?

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Cameron Myers Murder: Cops Arrest Teen in Nevada

Categories: Homicide

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Teen arrested in stabbing death of Cameron Myers
A 15-year-old boy was arrested this week on suspicion of stabbing 20-year-old Cameron Myers to death in the city's Bayview neighborhood.

At about 1:40 a.m. on May 15, police were called to the intersection of Innes and Arelious Walker after neighbors heard a man screaming. When the cops arrived they found Myers, who had been stabbed multiple times in the back.

He was taken to San Francisco General Hospital where he later died.


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Center for Investigative Reporting Says Too Much Journalism Is Interfering With its Mission

Categories: Humor, Media

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The new CIR investigative team
March 22, San Francisco -- Center for Investigative Reporting Executive Director Robert Rosenthal announced today that the CIR will improve the quality of its journalism by doing way less of it.

Instead of running three organizations (the CIR, California Watch, and The Bay Citizen), Rosenthal said, the organization will save staff time and money by merging California Watch and The Bay Citizen into the CIR, changing three organizations that covered local, state, and national news into a single organization that uses the same resources to cover less local, state, and national news.

Providing less local and state coverage will reduce the total amount of local and state coverage, Rosenthal acknowledged. But, he said, by "reorganizing our internal creative decision-making and production process, and doing less journalism, we can position ourselves to be the highest-impact, most innovative reporting organization we can be. So it's a win-win, only less so."

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Oakland Crooks Totally Undeterred by Security Guards Hired to Protect News Reporters

Categories: Crime, Media, WTF?

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Meta reporting
You know crime has gotten out of control when thieves are not only victimizing news reporters, but also the security guards specifically hired to protect news reporters from would-be thieves.

Today another crew of journalists was burglarized during an interview in broad daylight, just a week after Oakland was named the nation's robbery capital, followed by a turnover of two police chiefs in two days.

According to the Chron, a KGO-TV news crew was interviewing the owner of Loakal, an art gallery and boutique at the corner of 2nd and Clay streets at Jack London Square, when unidentified crooks smashed the window of the news van and then made their way to the security guard's Chevrolet Cobalt parked across the street and broke into it.

See Also: Oakland Is Officially More Exciting Than S.F.

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Tumblr Denizens Get Melodramatic Over Yahoo! Purchase

Categories: Tech

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It has been amusing to watch some of the sillier, more melodramatic reactions to Yahoo's announcement that it will buy the blogging platform Tumblr. Given Yahoo's history of wrecking or abandoning services that it has purchased (GeoCities, Flickr), it's somewhat understandable that people would worry a bit that the troubled Internet giant will do the same to Tumblr. But some of the reactions are way out of proportion -- after all, the Internet is filled with places to post stuff. I mean, it's not like their town has been destroyed by a tornado.

And anyway, if the two-decade history of the Web has taught us anything, it's that online services never truly last. They rarely burn out -- more often, they fade away. They either do so their own (Digg) or diminish after being acquired company (LiveJournal, MySpace.) In some cases, they sucked all along, and people finally came around to realizing it (MySpace, Reddit in the near future).

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San Francisco Bay Area Will Host Super Bowl L in 2016

Categories: Sports

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The 49ers won the Super Bowl the last time the Bay hosted one.
The Bay Area will host Superbowl L in 2016. The decision, voted on by NFL team owners today, was not much of a surprise. The league has been eager to reward franchises that build new stadiums-- the 49ers, whose $1.2 billion Santa Clara stadium will open in 2014, follow in the recent footsteps of the Dallas Cowboys, the Indianapolis Colts, and the New York Giants/Jets. Perhaps just as important, San Francisco's competition for SBL, Miami, was effectively doomed when it failed to get stadium renovation funding passed through the Florida state legislature.

Local officials have already painted the gleaming picture: a Super Bowl village in downtown, shuttles transporting people to and from the Santa Clara complex, Wi-Fi provided by Google, green energy all round, and "cashless" concession stands equipped with Silicon Valley's latest products.

It will be the Bay's first Super Bowl since 1985, which was played in Stanford Stadium. The 49ers won that Super Bowl.

But this is not just any Super Bowl. This is Super Bowl 50. This is the Golden Super Bowl in the Golden State. This is the Super Bowl of Super Bowls.

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San Francisco Chronicle Stops Using Term "Illegal Immigrant"

Categories: Media

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Language frames discourse. Which is why liberals say "global warming" and "estate tax," and conservatives say "climate change" and "death tax." This sort of dichotomy has been most apparent in ongoing immigration debate, which has birthed a wide range of synonyms: "undocumented immigrant," "illegals," "illegal aliens," and, of course, the often default "illegal immigrant."

Last month, the Associated Press decided to stop using those loaded terms. Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll called the practice "a lazy device" that "ends up pigeonholing people or creating long descriptive titles where you use some main event in someone's life to become the modifier before their name."

This week, Poynter reported, the San Francisco Chronicle is following that lead. The paper's reporters will no longer refer to people using the term "illegal immigrant."

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Muni Plans to Keep "Israeli Apartheid" Ad Money After Surrendering "Jihad" Ad Funds

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Jim Herd
Cash money!
To date, Muni has opted to surrender $15,780 from four different runs of inflammatory ads demonizing Muslims. Now Supervisor Scott Wiener, working with the Jewish Community Relations Council has asked the transit agency to do the same with $5,030 it pocketed after accepting bus ads labeling Israel an apartheid state and featuring an image of a silhouetted Israeli soldier leveling a rifle at a child.

Wiener and five board colleagues yesterday sent a brief letter -- which you can read here -- to Muni director Ed Reiskin and the agency's board complaining of a double standard, and requesting the apartheid money be disgorged. Muni spokesman Paul Rose tells us, however, that "there is no plan for these funds to be transferred."

This brings up an interesting point: Muni does not have a quantifiable process to determine when to keep or surrender controversial ad money. The agency, Wiener says, "hasn't articulated a distinction" between the anti-Muslim and anti-Israel bus ads.

See Also
: Muni "Savages" "Jihad" Etc. Battling Mideast Bus Ads Fund Pending Study


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Supervisor Scott Wiener Wants Sports and Music Fans to Pay More to Help Muni

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This train is so old you'd think it was going to Woodstock
If you're still recovering from the fact you had to dip into your savings to see the Rolling Stones play in San Francisco earlier this month, well consider yourself lucky that you didn't have to shell out even more money for your ride to the show.

Supervisor Scott Wiener today is planning to ask his colleagues to consider a new plan to tack on extra fees for anyone who is buying a ticket to a sporting event, concert, or any other major event. Those extra fees would go toward Muni.

First step is to have the controller assess this transit surcharge, looking at a range of fees that would generate more money for Muni which badly needs the cash to replace the light-rail vehicles that are getting kinda dumpy.


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Facebook vs. Eminem: Pissed-Off Rapper Says Mark Zuckerberg Ripped Off His Beats

Categories: Celebrities, Tech

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don't you love it when billionaires get into it?
Eminem, the prolific and profane rapper, is suing fellow billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO whose idea of irreverence is adding tickers to your Facebook wall.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Eminem claims Facebook stole the beats, melody, etc. from his 2000 hit "Under the Influence." The Bay Area social media giant ran an ad for its new Facebook Home app on April 4, featuring a song with beats eerily similar to Eminem's dirty ditty about popping pills and sucking his dick.

Eminem wasn't the first one to think Zuckerberg was trying to tap his inner Slim Shady.

Here's Zuckerberg's Eminem-sounding ad:

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Beau Rasmussen, East Bay Man, Goes Missing After Bay to Breakers Race

Categories: Local News

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via KTVU
Beau Rasmussen right before the B2B race
Friends and family of 27-year-old Beau Rasmussen continued their search this morning for the Emeryville man who disappeared on Sunday after running the Bay to Breakers race.

His friends tell KTVU that they suspect he might have gone for a swim at Ocean Beach after the race since they found his clothes and identification on the shore. The strong rip tides made it a dangerous day for swimming, and lifeguards were busy rescuing seven swimmers from the water on Sunday.

See Also: Man at B2B House Party Falls From Rooftop, Dies

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Apple Saves Billions by Creatively Exploiting Loopholes of International Tax System

Categories: Business

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Think different, Apple tells the world. The Cupertino company, whose creations have defined our technological age, apparently applies the same innovative thinking to its tax evasion strategies.

Stuffing revenue in some low-tax, high-privacy bank in the Caribbean? 'Bout as forward-thinking as a Blackberry. Apple, as the New York Times reported today, uses nothing less than the iPhone 5 of tax havens, exploiting the loopholes of the international tax system in such a way that billions of dollars in profits have not been listed in any tax filing anywhere.

At the center of the operation is an Ireland-based subsidiary called Apple Operations International, which collected $30 billion in income between 2009 and 2012. Over the last five years, Apple Operations International has not filed a tax return in any country.

As USC law professor Edward Kleinbard told the Times, "There is a technical term economists like to use for behavior like this: Unbelievable chutzpah."

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Jaisingh Pawar Identified as Man Found Dead in Marina District Hotel

Categories: Local News

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San Francisco authorities have identified the man who mysteriously died at a Marina hotel last week as 45-year-old Jaisingh Pawar.

Police have yet to disclose how the man died, but believe his death is "suspicious."

Police were called to the Francisco Bay Inn Hotel on the 1500 block of Lombard Street at about 4:22 a.m. on May 16 on reports of an unconscious man.

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