marypickforded asks: My dad’s a car got stolen last night from the parking area under our apartments. He’s a photographer and it had his camera and other tools and papers in there. If you could please send this out/signal boost, I’d really appreciate it. He doesn’t know what to do. It’s a 2008 Toyota Solara Convertible and it may/may not (now) have the license plate MNDGSMZ. It’s around the Lafayette, CA area and the police have also been notified, so if you find it please call (925)284-5010. Thank you infinitely.
» SFB says: Sure, we’ll offer up a signal boost for you. (The phone number for the city’s police department is above; here’s their site.) She also notes that the vehicle is all black. If you happen to be in the region, be sure to keep an eye out! And good luck finding your dad’s vehicle! — Ernie @ SFB
» Nearly one million signatures in California: In a fairly unprecedented move, voters — not politicians — will get to decide on the issue of genetically-modified food. This has food producers, who previously could deal with politicians without too much issue, freaked out. The result? Lately, lobbying groups with such names as the “Coalition Against the Costly Food Labeling Proposition (CACFLP)” and the “California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA)” have been ratcheting up their fight against these bills — and some of the lobbyists behind them have worked for the tobacco industry. Hey lobbyists! If you need some help fighting this, we have an idea for another organization: “California Citizens Against Organizations With Unwieldy Scary Names To Convince You Not To Vote For This Bill We Don’t Like (CCAOWUSNTCYNTVFTBWDL).” You’re welcome, guys.
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» What happened: Police believe Cortez was shot and killed after his father, Mauro Cortez, was mistaken to be a member of a rival gang. The mix-up is attributed to a purple T-shirt he wore which read, “I own a Honda. Be nice to me.” As for the donation, Timothy Leiweke, the president of AEG (the firm that owns the Kings) noted: “During such an exciting time such as this we can’t lose sight of the importance and responsibility we all share in keeping our community safe.”
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Happy 75th anniversary Golden Gate Bridge!
Golden Gate Birthday.
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We got letters saying, ‘You guys are going to get what you deserve. You’re going to bring drug dealers, all this crime and lowlife in here.’Lucas Valley Estates Homeowners Association board member Carl Fricke • Discussing the anger over a decision by director George Lucas to turn some of his California land into low-income housing, not long after the director scuttled plans to build a digital studio there. The studio created frustration among homeowners — the prospect of low-income housing has instilled outright anger and uneasiness into the residents. “It’s inciting class warfare,” claimed one resident group head. Lucas, meanwhile, claims he was trying to do something good for the area. His community outreach spokesperson at Lucasfilm, Tom Forster, put it like this: “George, being the great guy that he is, doesn’t want to build more housing for rich people since Marin is loaded with them.” Boom.
“She turned around and I saw flames coming from her pocket,” said San Clemente, Calif. resident Rob Hiner, regarding his wife, Lyn. “I went to smack it and at the same time the house filled with smoke. Lyn screamed, ‘get it out,’ it was terrifying and confusing all at once.” It’s a story about how the rocks a woman’s daughters picked up from a nearby beach spontaneously combusted in her pockets, leading to second and third degree burns and forcing skin graft surgery. Early tests suggest that the rocks were covered in phosphorous, and may have ignited when exposed to oxygen. Crazy. (thanks David Putney; photo by Paul Rodriguez/Orange County Register)
» The Not So Golden State: Back in January of this year, California state officials were anticipating a $9.2 billion budget shortfall for 2012 — an enormous deficit, though considerably less than the $26 billion that faced Governor Jerry Brown when he took over in 2010. Brown announced,while revealing the startling new figure, that he’ll be placing an initiative on the November ballot to raise the sales tax by .25%, and add an income tax surcharge for wealthy Californians. If the initiative fails, expect deeper than anticipated spending cuts to follow.
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From bus-sized meteorite to quarter-sized chunks: Earlier this week, a meteor roughly the size of a minivan showed up around California and Nevada, creating a sonic boom and eventually breaking into chunks like the one held by Robert Ward, a meteorite hunter. Beyond the obvious novelty of a giant fireball in the sky, folks who know where to look managed to find awesome souvenirs like this one. Radical. (Photo by Rich Pedroncelli/AP)
That’s what a new antitrust case alleges: Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar find themselves facing a new antitrust lawsuit in California. The accusations come from five software engineers, who allege that the companies conspired to stifle pay and job mobility in an effort to cut costs. District Judge Lucy Koh rejected the companies’ request to dismiss the suit, saying,” The fact that all six identical bilateral agreements were reached in secrecy among seven defendants in a span of two years suggests that these agreements resulted from collusion, and not from coincidence.” source
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Watch: PCB gets a visual shout out on GMA’s Yahoo/Tumblr...
Wrote a thing.
Hat tip to this headline writer.
Congrats Tumblr!
Don’t screw this up Yahoo.
In 2007, I was...
I started tumblr when I was at one of the lowest points of...
He’s up for parole; 11 previous parole bids have failed: Manson, known for leading the cult-like Manson Family (responsible for the murder of actress Sharon Tate and numerous others in the late 1960s), has routinely gone up for parole, only to be rejected. Why’s that? Well, as one judge put it in 2007, he “continues to pose an unreasonable danger to others and may still bring harm to anyone he would come in contact with.” He has not taken any psychological tests since 2007, but as Manson is now 77 years old and over four decades away from the crimes that made him infamous, does he continue to pose a threat to society? source
A gunman has reportedly killed five people at Oikos University, a small Christian school, in California. He’s now in custody, according to police.
Image: KNTV
A screencap from the deadly shooting. Note inconsistency in numbers from previous post. Will keep an eye when more accurate numbers come out.
A gunman opened fire at a private Christian college in Oakland, California, on Monday, killing at least two people and wounding at least four, authorities said.
Oakland police said in a brief written statement that a possible suspect was in custody after the shootings at Oikos University.
“No imminent public safety threat appears to exist in immediate area,” police said.
Local television reports had shown police evacuating Oikos students and loading them into a SWAT vehicle as other armed officers took up positions around the school.
READ MORE: Gunman opens fire at Oakland college, fatalities reported
Scary incident; we’ll be keeping an eye out as details unfold.
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