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I suppose it was going to come to this. The owners of the now-closed Tarantino’s (opened 1946) and Fisherman’s Grotto (opened 1935) on Fisherman’s Wharf have filed suit against San Francisco, alleging that the City and Port of SF neglected its responsibilities to foment tourism by creating an attractive environment for the tourist industry to thrive. That, therefore, forced those restaurants out of business.
Complaint is 144 pages long.
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Two of the big issues contributing to the collapse of our culture are the decimation of our education system and the erosion of our society’s connection to a spiritual identity. You ask how a community could vote the way Portland residents have, and ultimately the value systems have eroded because we have failed to model them and younger generations have not embraced them.
My mom has a very definite take on precisely when the decimation of the education occurred. It was when “Welcome Back Kotter” aired . It made it acceptable to both backtalk teachers and not treat school seriously.
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How could it get that bad? Serious question. What voter in their right minds thinks that defunding police and decriminalizing crime and drugs would have anything but a horrific effect on quality of life in a metro (or any other) area?
Washington Post article on the fentanyl epidemic. You don’t need to read it, it’s exactly what you think it is. It’s awful, it’s getting worse, no end in sight.
807 overdose deaths in SF in 2023, up from 647 overdose deaths in 2022, a 24.7% increase. And so it goes…
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My elder son has an Econ degree from Princeton. He is not complimentary re: Dr. Krugman.
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Krugman is not only an unprincipled hack, he reverses himself regularly depending up on his audience — witness his reversal on the impact of undocumented workers on wages.
I know he’s a hack. I was being ironical, and for the umpteenth time I need to remind myself that irony is best communicated in person, preferably over drinks…
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Pre-COVID, there were 203 retailers operating in and around Union Square. As of May, 2023, only 107 were left. And they continue to leave.
Here’s the updated list with an additional 33 major companies closing their Union Square/Market street locations in the last 12 months. New additions in bold. Of note is the 172-year old Shreve & Company departing downtown San Francisco:
24-Hour FitnessAbercrombie & FitchAdidasAldoAlexander McQueenAmazon GoAmerican Eagle OutfittersAnthropologieArcteryxAT&TAthletaBanana RepublicBank of America (brand on 1 Market Street)Bloom Room, TheBrooks BrothersCB2CinemarkCoco RepublicContainer Store, TheCrate & BarrelDisney StoreDSW/Designer Shoe WarehouseExpressFirst Republic BankGap, TheGoorin BrothersGreen Arcade BookstoreH&MHilton Union SquareHollisterHuntingtonJ. CrewJeffrey’s ToysKPMG – Leaving their $400 million name buildingLa CocinaLego StoresLucky BrandL’OccitaneMacy’sMadewellMarmotMarshall’sMephistoNordstrom – Closing all San Francisco stores, not just Union SquareNorth FaceOld NavyOffice DepotOmegaParc 55Ray BanRealReal, TheSaks Off FifthScotch & SodaSephoraShreve & Company JewelersStarbuck’s (Two closings)Ted BakerT-MobileUnigloWalgreen’s (closed five SF stores in late 2021)Westfield MallWilliams SonomaYotelZara-
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The LEGO store has announced its closure. There are three other LEGO stores left in the SFBA, in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Pleasanton.
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Just read that the top 1% has over $20 trillion in assets and the bottom 50% has $0.4 trillion collectively.
As much as I’d like to see a wealth tax replace income taxes, I just don’t see the filthy rich allowing it to happen.
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CA population up 0.17% in 2023, first year of growth since 2019. State is still 1.2% smaller than it was in 2019 and lost a representative in the House in 2020 (as did NY, IL, PA, OH, MI and WV). TX gained two and FL, NC, CO, OR and MT each gained one. California will likely lose one in 2030 as well.
Top three reasons: drop in international migration linked to pandemic travel restrictions, deaths from COVID and people leaving for states with more affordable housing.
California exodus left a gaping population hole. Can the Golden State bounce back? (msn.com)
Lots of people still want to move out thanks to substandard housing. LA county is still down by 340k people and SF, Santa Clara and San Diego counties each have about 40k people fewer than in 2019.
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Survey by New York Times, Siena College and the Philadelphia Enquirer shows that Trump is ahead of Biden in five of the key six battleground states, including Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Biden only leads in Wisconsin. Biden won all six states in 2020.
Trump and Biden are tied among young voters (18-29) and Hispanic voters. Both groups gave Biden more than 60% of their votes.
Trump Leads in 5 Key States, as Young and Nonwhite Voters Express Discontent With Biden
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12 years ago, I attended Northwestern for marketing management training, and on the last day, the famous marketing prof told us that the first university to figure out education via the internet would lap the field…but that he didn’t expect it to happen for at least 15 years because universities were so invested in the interpersonal experiential part of their brand. He also stated that he expected the “breakthrough” university to come from outside the top 10 or even the top 20. Wouldn’t you take classes that were much less expensive from, say, Duke professors?
The exclusivity of the top 10 schools is worth the money. Both of my sons have had opportunities and are currently in jobs that they absolutely would not have had, had they not attended Princeton.
If they ever figure out how to certify test results, it may spell the death knell for many of the traditional universities. Maybe not the top 50, but 1/3rd of the next 2,000…
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University of Toronto, analyzing cell phone data, has found that visits to downtown San Jose (+28.2%) and downtown Oakland (+20.6%) have skyrocketed, while visits to downtown SF have (-21.6%) plummeted:
Downtown San Jose visit activity soars, Oakland jumps, San Francisco nosedives
Downtown Recovery | School of Cities
LA and San Diego are also up by 20%+.
And as of April, 2025, Google is leaving downtown San Francisco, as has KPMG. Well done and congratulations, lefty San Francisco Progressives. Your long-term pursuit of elimination of all private enterprise and its related income continues to be very successful:
Google to leave prominent SF waterfront office tower (msn.com)
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British Columbia is making public drug use illegal again.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/ar-BB1lZ7kD
At least they’re headed in the right direction.
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force into slavery (e.g., 1.5 million Europeans and Americans were enslaved in Islamic North Africa between 1530 and 1780. Cervantes was briefly a Muslim slave),
Didn’t remember/realize the history, especially during the early US. . . .
If you haven’t heard of Janissaries, it makes for interesting reading. Janissaries were the elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman Empire’s troops. They were the first modern standing army and possibly the first infantry force to be equipped with firearms (reign of Murad II). The corps was established in 1363 and dismantled in 1826.
It was formed out of child levy enslavement, chiefly Christian Albanians, Bulgarians, Croats, Greeks, Romanians, Serbs and Ukrainians and (by the 16th century), Turks. They were subject to forced circumcision, conversion to Islam and conscripted into the Janissary corps. They were the elite fighting force of the Ottoman empire.
The European militaries, over time, caught up to and surpassed the Janissaries in terms of sophistication and military hardware, leading to the Janissary revolt of 1826. At the time, there were 135,000 Janissaries and they threatened to undermine the empire. They mutinied when Mahmud II formed a new army. Thousands were killed or exiled.
Interesting reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auspicious_Incident
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This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by
