Category Archives: San Francisco Chronicle

Highway 68 Tour By A Hack Frisco Writer

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Awful whiny story. Calls El Camino Real “The 101” like some sort of LA type. And the pesticides that get into schools – well who builds schools next to a toxic vegetable field?

CA SR 68

I started my own journey at the head of 68, Asilomar State Beach and Conference Grounds, where rooms were running almost $300 a night. The highway took me first through Pacific Grove, a prosperous village (low unemployment, a median house price north of $700,000, little poverty). I had to turn right to stay on 68 near the gate to 17 Mile Drive, which takes you to world-renowned resorts.

Then I turned northeast, as 68 joined up with Highway 1 for 2 miles, before splitting again near Seaside, not far from where Tesla Motors plans to open a new sales center

On my own drive, I reached Salinas and followed Highway 68 past Salinas High and through downtown to where it ended at the 101.

In Salinas, there is resentment toward the other end of Highway 68. Some ask why Monterey environmentalists don’t fight as hard against pesticides that get into Salinas schools as they do against coastal development. Others complain that Monterey is a magnet for jobs, which relegates Salinas to serving as a place for people who can’t afford to live near their work on the peninsula.

Highway 68 Tour By A Hack Frisco Writer

Deer Are Losing Their Hair

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Baldness cures always seemed like a viable business in P.G.

Deer Baldness

 

Since 2009, researchers have collected hair and blood samples from more than 600 deer and elk with symptoms ranging from a scruffy-looking coat to almost complete baldness, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday.

So far, the hair loss has been linked to an invasive species of biting lice that normally feeds on fallow deer native to Europe and Asia. The deer respond by biting and scratching, which researchers believe could be leading to the hair loss, Greg Gerstenberg, a senior wildlife biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the Chronicle.

Deer Are Losing Their Hair

Medicinal Pot Not Affecting Mexican Drug Wars

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The bloody battles continue south of the borders.

Fifteen years after voters approved Proposition 215, permitting medicinal marijuana use, strong varieties like those produced in Northern California’s so-called Emerald Triangle dominate the market. Weaker Mexican pot, once the weed of choice for the 1950s Beat generation and the 1960s flower children, is less popular, according to drug policy experts and law enforcement officials.

But overall, sales of Mexican marijuana continue to earn that nation’s violent drug cartels as much as $2 billion a year.

Medicinal Pot Not Affecting Mexican Drug Wars

Got An Itch?

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Creepy.

An invasive snail recently discovered in San Francisco Bay has brought along its own unwelcome stowaway: a parasitic worm responsible for only the second known outbreak of “swimmer’s itch” along the Pacific Coast of the United States.

Swimmer’s itch, or cercarial dermatitis, normally crops up in freshwater. It is an immune system reaction caused when a certain type of parasite emerges from snail shells and attempts to burrow into a host’s skin. Usually, the parasite – a microscopic flatworm with a forked tail – bores into the legs and feet of birds, hitches a ride in the bloodstream and settles in the intestines to breed.

Got An Itch?

Algae Is Killing The Sea Otters

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Suprised Sea Otter

Maybe is was better when Round Up was used near the shore.

Microcystin, which is commonly referred to as blue-green algae, can cause liver damage when ingested. All 21 sea otters that tested positive for the bacteria died from liver failure, according to the study, which was completed with the help of experts from UC Santa Cruz and a variety of state and federal agencies.

It is believed the toxins flowed to the ocean off the coast of Monterey in rivers and creeks. Sea urchins and shellfish near the outflow filtered the water and the poison accumulated in their bodies, which were, in turn, eaten by otters.

Algae Is Killing The Sea Otters

“Art Theft” Is A Scam Says MCSO

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Animal Crackers

If this is some kind of publicity stunt, they are doing it all wrong..

Monterey County Sheriff’s Office said today that the Sept. 25 heist appears to be something else: a scam by one or both of the alleged victims, an aspiring lawyer who once sold puppies and a retired Harvard Medical School professor.

“This whole thing stinks,” said sheriff’s Cmdr. Mike Richards, after explaining at a news conference here that the men were the case’s only suspects. “We’re trying to determine what type of criminal enterprise they may be involved in.”

(SF Chronicle)
“Art Theft” Is A Scam Says MCSO

S.F. Police Rake In Parking Ticket Fees

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Catching parking scofflaws in San Francisco has become easier with the help of high-tech cameras that scan license plates in search of cars saddled with unpaid citations.

A city parking crew operating the new system can almost instantaneously find cars with at least five outstanding tickets. A two-person team roams city streets with two small cameras mounted atop their unmarked vehicle. The cameras can scan 250 or more plates an hour.

And when a match is made, the crew attaches a yellow metal boot to the front wheel, removing it only after the tickets are paid.

Parking Favaloro Truck

Aint that cool? Could get more $$ from the merchants that park all day in 2 hour spots.

SF Police Rake In Parking Ticket Fees