The Garlic: San Francisco

Showing posts with label San Francisco. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

I Know Why The Sea Lions Have Disappeared

There is a story sweeping across the media today on this incredible mystery, out in San Francisco, this headline greeting me upon firing up the computer this morning;

San Francisco’s sea lion horde evacuates its Pier 39 home

OMG!

Is it Climate Change, reaching down it's mighty fist, snatching up the slithery, yelping Sea Lions?

A new "Zodiac Killer" targeting the sea mammals?

Hardly.

From Daniel Stone, at Newsweek;

At San Francisco’s famed Pier 39, tourists are treated to a perfectly fascinating scene of California Sea Lions sunning themselves on floating wooden platforms, yelping ferociously and diving over one another. But not anymore, according to an AP story published yesterday that highlights a strange exodus of virtually all sea lions from the area. The Washington Post gave the story top billing on its website, as did the LA Times and over 400 other news sources. The Huffington Post was the most sensational, accentuating the alarming (and misleading) headline: San Francisco’s Famous Sea Lions Have VANISHED.

[snip]

Sea lion visitation to Pier 39 fluctuates with the season. Numbers during the summer – at one point as high as 1,700 – usually drop to about 60 to 100 in the winter months of December and January due to weather and food accessibility in the Bay. This year has been a little more extreme, but it hasn’t hit zero. About a dozen sea lions have stuck around to entertain Embarcadero tourists. And the numbers that did stick around when the weather got cold in November were slightly higher than normal this time of year.

And, more, from Alexis Madrigal, over on Wired;

The sea lions’ disappearance is as strange as their initial colonization of the pier about 20 years ago, in late 1989. They just started showing up one day and as their numbers increased, their traditional hang out, Seal Rocks, became less populated. There are all sorts of theories about why the pier became a favorite haul-out spot for the sea lions, but no one knows for sure why the animals’ behavior changed.

Stoudt averred that the officials at the Marine Mammal Center weren’t worried about the animals’ disappearance from their standard location. The sea lions are migratory animals, after all, and it’s natural for them to move around.

So, even though no one has found them, “there really isn’t a reason to be looking for them,” Stoudt said.

Just an enormously slow news day, in which an otherwise non-news-story would be totally overlooked, and dismissed, gets top billing with racing, forest-fire speed.

The Sea Lions' migratory habits, and follow-the-food-instincts not withstanding, there is a rather simple reason they all up, and left.

They had to be getting the message late, but someone, or something, hipped them that they were hanging out at one of the culturally foulest, crudest, greediest tourist traps in all the lands, Pier 39.

It is a rank armpit of a place.

And, that they built an "observation deck" to exploit the Sea Lions, to suck in more hapless tourists, well, it's poetic justice that the Sea Lions gave them a proverbial "Up Yours!" and got out of there.

Way to go Sea Lions, way to go ...

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Barry Crimmins Alert: Strap Nancy Pelosi To A Table and Ship Her Out! ... Vote Cindy Sheehan!

It's been one of our most fervent wishes the past two-years, that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is plagued by nightmares.

A Tim-Burton-on-acid-meets-Disney-type nightmare, of being trapped in a store.

A table store.

Big, thick butcher block's man the exits, forcing the Bush Grindhouse enabler to travel the maze-like aisles, small end-tables nipping at her ankles, all the other tables stamping their legs, chanting "No Nancy, put it on the table ... No, Nancy, put it on the table ... No Nancy, put it on the table ..."

Well, the good folks of "Baghdad by the Bay" (a favorite moniker often used by the late, San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Herb Caen, long before the invasion and occupation), San Francisco, has that opportunity next month, to bring that closer to a reality.

And Barry Crimmins, today, gives it a push, with a resounding, call-to-arms endorsement of her challenger - Cindy Sheehan.

A snip for you;

Icing the Republican Casket

Wouldn't it be fantastic if the Dem who gets handed walking papers was the one who, speaking from a position of high authority, promised that any chance of impeaching the criminally barbarous Bush was "off the table" immediately after 2006 Congressional elections that were all about public disdain for Bush? From there that person went on stand down as our liberties were being assailed at home and as our addiction to foreign wars continued apace abroad. Then this millionaire helped spearhead a gargantuan bailout of people already awash in more cash than any of us could ever imagine. No question about it, it would be tremendous if she found herself out on a street full of Republicans on the morning of Nov 5.

Not only should Cindy Sheehan win but she really could if an influx of progressive support infuses her campaign right now. So get off your diverse buts San Francisco and get to work for Cindy Sheehan. And lefties around the country, it's time to cough up whatever you can for Cindy Sheehan. Imagine if on election night (voter suppression and ballot-rigging permitting) the Republicans get trounced from coast to coast and then the last big story of the evening is Cindy Sheehan's upset win over Nancy Pelosi.

Imagine how great November 4 will be (voter suppression and ballot-rigging permitting) if we seriously repudiate the R's and then knock off the Vichy Dem who so compromised the electoral gains of 2006 by replacing her with the legendary woman who wiped the smirk off W's face?

Strongly recommend you jump over to Barry's site and read "Icing the Republican Casket"

Then, jump of over to Cindy Sheehan's site, and do whatever you can to help her dump Pelosi

Bonus "Vichy Dem" Pelosi Riffs

Garlictorial - We’ll Need That Table

Hey, Hoyer (and Pelosi) ... Politico ... Suck On This!

Damn You, Nancy OffTheTable and Stagnant Hoyer!

Garlictorial: The Blank Check Club

The Night of the Jackal ... And A New Garlic Song - The Congress Sleeps Tonight

Friday, July 18, 2008

Hmmm ... Will The Bush Pioneers Be Raising Money For This, Too?

It seems, if the 110th Congress isn't going to do it, the citizens of San Francisco are.

That being, they are planning on flushing our Court-Appointed President (H/T Barry Crimmins) down the toilet.

George W. Bush Sewage Plant plan is on ballot

San Francisco voters will be asked to decide whether to name a city sewage plant in honor of President Bush, after a satiric measure qualified for the November ballot Thursday.

The measure, if passed, would rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. McConnell said the intent is to remember the Bush administration and what the group sees as the president's mistakes, including the war in Iraq.

This is cool!

Perhaps, it may take a generation, or two, but little children will learn, when the graduate from potty training, to "Bush" the toilet, when they are finished.

I wonder if The Commander Guy's buddy, Stephen Payne, will be trying to raise money for this?

After all, a significant percentage of people refer to the bathroom as "the library" ...

Bonus "Bushing" Links

The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco

Skippy, the bush kangaroo: what? no public toilets were available?

Wonkette: George W. Bush Sewage Treatment Plant One Step Closer To American Reality

Emptywheel: Does Ray Hunt Do This Kind of Fund-Raising, Too?

Kagro X: Bush "Pioneer" and WH Advance man caught soliciting bribes on tape