Three weeks and $8-$9m later, the repairs appear to be complete as the ship moved from P70 to P35 today for final work before it heads off on its next cruise.

Congrats to the folks at BAE Systems for finishing the huge project.

After sunrise. A single truck on the bridge. Traffic is only allowed between San Francisco and Treasure Island/Yerba Buena: the 108, a few cars, repair vehicles, an occasional truck. That’s it until the repairs on the broken crossbeam and tie rods are finished, examined, inspected, okay’d, and the bridge re-opens.

Traffic elsewhere is a scramble. BART and the ferries are packed.

Barney Frank Confronts Woman At Town Hall Comparing Obama To Hitler

Last week Maddow and Pat Buchanan got into a brouhaha over Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court and affirmative action, which Maddow supports but Buchanan does not.

Here is a snippet where Maddow corrects some of the “facts” presented by Buchanan during the debate.

The original debate is here:

… so I wrote another letter to the editor at the Chronicle (previous letter was 09/2007):

The Presidio was never the right place for the Fishers’ Contemporary Art Museum for reasons both practical and historical, reasons soundly argued by neighbors, historians, park enthusiasts, and environmentalists.

Look what the ballpark and UCSF@Mission Bay have done for the surrounding areas!. The Fishers have the opportunity to do wonders for the central waterfront and the city if they build their museum there. Say you will, Mr. Fisher!

Update: Letter in today’s Chron.

I really don’t get it. All this uproar over whether Schmidt (with or without Palin and McCain’s approval) searched through staff e-mails to find out who was leaking information to the press about Palin’s diva behavior during the lead-up to last November’s election..

If you use a company server to send your e-mails, your e-mails are not private. The company owns the servers and can noddle through your e-mails to their heart’s content. And that’s not counting what anyone in the IT department with admin passwords can do.

A recent survey spilled the beans about what folks in the IT Department do out of boredom, curiosity, or maybe something less benign.

It should not surprise you that IT admins read your e-mails. Yes, they check logs to see what sort of Web surfing employees do. Turns out, yes, they check HR’s folders to see what everyone’s making and sometimes they leave taking data with them as they head out the door. There is no privacy on company computers.

Get over it, as Scott McNealy famously said ten years ago.

Interesting article. You must register w/ NYTimes.com to read.

[snippet]

Like Mrs. Nichols, many people start blogs with lofty aspirations — to build an audience and leave their day job, to land a book deal, or simply to share their genius with the world. Getting started is easy, since all it takes to maintain a blog is a little time and inspiration. So why do blogs have a higher failure rate than restaurants?

Judging from conversations with retired bloggers, many of the orphans were cast aside by people who had assumed that once they started blogging, the world would beat a path to their digital door.

To Protect an Ancient City, China Moves to Raze It – NYTimes.com

Saying it fears earthquake damage, the government plans to demolish and rebuild 85 percent of Kashgar’s Old City.

Discussion continues on SJ Rozan’s Facebook as to whether this urban renewal in Kashgar has anything to do with earthquakes or perhaps something to do with the Chinese central government’s take on the local Uighur Muslim population.

No, it couldn’t be anything like that. Why look at this signage at Kashgar’s Idkha Mosque, the largest mosque in China:

All of it shows fully that Chinese government always pays special attentions to the another and historical cultures of the ethnic groups, and that all ethnic groups warmly welcome Part’s (sic) religious policy. It also shows that different ethnic groups have set up a close relationship of equality, unity and helps to each other, and freedom of beliefs is protected. All ethnic groups live friendly together here. They cooperate to build a beautiful homeland, support heartily the unity of different ethnic groups and the unity of our country, and oppose the ethnic separatism and illegal religious activities.

Cheyney (Laughing Planet) weighs in … Well worth the read.

A few of my photos of Kashgar Old City (October 2006 trip through Xinjiang province and over the Karakoram highway into the Hunza Valley in Pakistan)

This is the stairway up to the second floor living quarters in this building.

A wood carver’s stash.

Rug shop.

Hardware store.

Did the Chinese government ask if these folks wanted their homes razed? “For their own good” Why does that remind me of Tibet?

Man who forged autographs in books (for resale) pleads guilty.

THE LAST WORD – Anna Quindlen (18 May 2009 issue of Newsweek)

This page, this place, is an invaluable opportunity to shed some light. But if I had any lingering doubts about giving it up after almost nine years, they were quelled by those binders on my desk, full of exemplary work by reporters young enough to be my children. Flipping through their pages, reading such essential and beautifully rendered accounts of life in America and around the world, I felt certain of the future of the news business in some form or another. But between the lines I read another message, delivered without rancor or contempt, the same one I once heard from my own son: It’s our turn. Step aside. And now I will.

Boy, am I feeling like a dinosaur.