The temperature outside on the night of Dec. 30, 1987, was 45 and dropping. Cold for most anyone, but perilous for a newborn baby girl wrapped in a towel and stuffed in a brown paper bag like trash.
She probably wasn’t meant to be found alive.
When Steve Gibbons, a California Highway Patrol officer, pulled off Interstate 280 to stop and stretch his legs, she was just hours old. Her temperature had plummeted to a dangerous 90 degrees. If she had been there much longer, she would have died near the intersection of Cañada and Edgewood roads in Redwood City.
But Gibbons heard the baby’s cry.
Category: Current Events
Eyes in the West Are on Federal Land Sale
Its mild climate, stunning scenery and proximity to several national parks have helped make Washington County one of the five fastest-growing counties in the nation. But like many rural Western counties, it has little room to expand: 87% of its land is owned by the federal government.
Now, Utah’s congressional delegation has a plan to remedy the problem, one that is being closely watched by nearly a dozen Western counties with similar growing pains. The plan is also being scrutinized by conservationists who warn that it would set a dangerous precedent, making thousands of acres of public land available for private development as well as offering a windfall for local agencies and special deals for politically influential officials and property owners.
Great Weekend for the Isthmus Jazz Festival
and a perfect location on the Memorial Union Terrace.
Race for the Cure Photos
Memorial Day Weekend
Is There an End Game Plan?
“During the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, much was made of the fact that 2.4 million new jobs had been created that year. Omitted was the fact that close to 800,000 of those jobs went to Hispanics who had been here less than a year.”
We live in a world of obfuscation.
Yes, there are problems presented to our nation each and every day, but no real answers are provided and every interested party is blaming the other for what is wrong at the moment.
So, instead of offering another in-depth news story on Britney Spears’ latest pregnancy or Michael Jackson’s Bahrain hideaway, it might be more valuable to focus on the many issues that have not been resolved, the kind that impact and worry the average American.
Whistle-Blower’s Evidence, Uncut
Former AT&T technician Mark Klein is the key witness in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s class-action lawsuit against the telecommunications company, which alleges that AT&T cooperated in an illegal National Security Agency domestic surveillance program.
In a public statement Klein issued last month, he described the NSA’s visit to an AT&T office. In an older, less-public statement recently acquired by Wired News, Klein goes into additional details of his discovery of an alleged surveillance operation in an AT&T building in San Francisco.
Klein supports his claim by attaching excerpts of three internal company documents: a Dec. 10, 2002, manual titled “Study Group 3, LGX/Splitter Wiring, San Francisco,” a Jan. 13, 2003, document titled “SIMS, Splitter Cut-In and Test Procedure” and a second “Cut-In and Test Procedure” dated Jan. 24, 2003.
Fitchburg Fireworks
More Fitchburg Days photos here.
Madison Common Council Paid Sick Leave Summary
Kristian Knutsen summarizes last night’s vote (filed at 3:22a.m.):
In what might be its most highly anticipated meeting of 2006, the Madison Common Council will be hearing testimony, deliberating, and voting upon the proposed ordinance to require employers in the City of Madison to provide mandatory sick leave for their employees.
The coalition that organized the proposal held a rally on the steps of the City-County Building immediately preceding the meeting, in large part to attract public registrants to speak in favor of the proposal at the meeting. Following four hours of public testimony and one hour of debate among the alders, it fails with a vote of 9 ayes and 10 nos.
NSA and the Greek mobile phone tapping scandal
Let me ask you first of all, there has been a lot of discussion here in Greece about this lawful interception software, explain to me what it is, and whether the US put pressure on worldwide companies to install that after 9/11 especially?
JB: Well the software is basically used to attach to commercial communication facilities, like the AT&T in the US, or whatever commercial company it is, and anything that goes over these communication facilities gets picked up, whether it is e-mail, or telephone calls and divert it to the US Government, whoever attached the equipment.
— Is it your understanding that most of the hardware companies around the world, that provide mobile telephone companies with equipment, had this installed at some point?
JB: Well in the US there was a lot of requiring that US companies do it, but around the world I think there was pressure by the US for a lot of the friendly countries to the US, allied countries to do as much as they can in terms of domestic eavesdropping and this type of equipment is most useful for that.