I am so glad I decided not to live in Oakland (the area around Jack London Square is quite trendy) and moved out to one of the outlying cities. I'm shocked but not surprised that Mayor Quan is still in office. If she had any honor and dignity, she would have resigned over the weekend. While I don't hold her responsible for the actions taken by the "protestors", I do hold her and her entire staff accountable for letting it get this far by coddling them in the beginning and empowering them through those actions. Now its gotten out of control and you have an unruly mob against an unprepared and mismanaged police force. Its only going to get worse. Glad most of them can't drive

Except that this isn't a First Amendment issue for two reasons:
1.) If this is considered private property, part of the bundle of rights that a property owner has is to limit what activity occurs on their land. This includes "gatherings" such as this.
2.) If we want to stretch this to a broad definition of "public property", this is still a legal and valid action because the Supreme Court allows content-neutral restrictions, i.e. the government can set time and place restrictions. Which by the way will come back to bite the various local governments that allow these "protestors" to violate existing rules and ordinances.

I also enjoy your inference that because they didn't allow them to use the site as a prop, that they must not agree with them. Way to project there. It could be that they agree, but don't want to sully or associate with this particular group.

So good effort trying to tie these vagrants to the civil rights movement, but your argument is invalid.

wow, can't believe its been 20 years. I have always loved Matthew Sweet, the way he hit that perfect double with Girlfriend followed by Altered Beast. It was the Girlfriend video that caught me. As I was just getting into anime and that video was hit me square between the eyes.

Glad to see he still has the love and passion for his music. Hope he goes back out on the road one more time so I can catch him live.

How great you mention that CD too! A compilation of Alt Rock artists of all stripes doing renditions of 60's,70's,80's cartoon themes. Besides Sweet's Scooby Doo, another favorite is the Ramones version of the Spider-Man theme.

And FYI, Sweet also did the theme for the most recent Scooby Doo series, which I highly recommend. An interesting twist to all the "monsters" they keep finding.

Two more movies to think about would be Citizen Kane and Dogma. Kane if you recall was extremely controversial and Hearst used all his power to try and destroy that film. And if you recall with Dogma, the openings were protested by various Catholic groups believing that the film was portraying Catholicism and Christianity in a negative light. However, I thought it generated some good discussion on what religion really means and asking whether you really adopted the teachings and meanings or got caught up in worshiping the rituals and not the ideals.

My favorite part of this story is that this not an issue of non-Union vs Union or right to work. This union is made because the owners chose a different union to use. So these are union jobs, but because the "right" union wasn't chosen, they decided to commit felonies.

Unions continue to self destruct via their actions, but we must take control of the narrative. Show the people that they are not protecting rights, but out-dated and exclusive privileges that almost no other worker get. If we can do those two things they won't have a chance because they can't change who they are.

A couple of items. Like most, I understand that it is not what he said, but the apparent double standard going on at ESPN and that this double-standard gives of the appearance of wanting to protect its access to the President and the White House.

However, in the USA Today story, there is a link to ESPN's social media policy. It is dated as of August 2011 and has a file name of v2, meaning it is version 2 or a revision from the previous policy. To be fair to Mayne, Schefter, et al (as much as that might pain me) we need to compare if their tweets violated the previous version of the social media policy.

The August policy may be in reaction to what Mayne and Schefter have been spewing. The telling thing will be to watch their tweets and other ESPN personalities moving forward. If they continue to post tweets criticizing Palin, Republicans, etc. then we have conclusive proof that ESPN has a double-standard that leans to the left.

What I find disappointing is that the main sports blogs/sites that love to tweak ESPN, Awful Announcing, Deadspin, The Big Lead, Sports by Brooks, etc. have been 100% silent on the issue. Sadly, I am not surprised.

Lastly, how is Craig James still employed at ESPN? The negative publicity he brought with the Leach/Texas Tech situation is appalling. He actually brought in a PR firm to push his story and get a coach fired. And yet he is still at the network doing college football? Not to mention his alleged involvement in the disappearance of 5 ladies of the night during his time at SMU. To paraphrase Hugh Hewitt's view of John McCain: Craig James is a lousy analyst, horrible Republican, and a terrible human being. Please Texas, do not let this man become the Republican candidate for Senate.

What I love is the fact that this shouldn't be a big story, but it is becoming one precisely because of the actions taking by the MSM and administration. I'm not surprised that Biden referred to his opposition as terrorists in a personal moment, letting the passion and rhetoric carry him away to say something idiotic.

If he issues a mea culpa and apologizes for getting caught up in the moment, it dies, MSM can ignore it and we move on. Instead the denials and refusal to acknowledge, coverup if you will, has kept the story alive and will only grow now that Politico feels the need to defend itself.

Instead, because the left and liberals have created this labyrinth of rules that one must follow they constantly get themselves tangled in situations like this. Since they believe that ends justify means, they continue to ignore and rationalize away their behavior as the cost of acquiring power.

Unfortunately, 8-12 months from now we will look back on this thinking, "remember when liberals used to only say we were just terrorists." I shudder to think of the slurs and falsities that will hurled at us in this election cycle.

This is beyond offensive. Obviously, no one has shown Ms. Garofalo Herman Cain's book that he wrote 5+ years ago that shows the same ideas and beliefs that he has now. I had the opportunity to hear him speak then and his story was one of hope, achievement, and love for this country and the opportunities it afforded him despite growing up poor. He is truely an amazing self-made man whose accomplishments make Obama wilt in comparison.

For her to float these ridiculous ideas, even as a joke (which it might be since she is incredibly unfunny) is beyond the bounds of decency and respect. Alas, this is what the loudest liberals are like today and sadly this is what the campaign is going to look like.

I hope Herman can stay in the race as long as possible and spread his story and his message to as many people as possible. If one person is inspired to be like Herman, then I will call that a winning campaign, whether or not he wins.

And don't forget he wrote "Wag the Dog", one of the best, smartest satires on politics and media manipulation in the last 20 years. Every time it is on I have to stop and watch. And every time I see a political stunt, I think of that movie.

I think he will weather it just fine. He seems to be made of sterner stuff than his detractors. I only hope that it gives him inspiration to write a great critical piece exposing/satirizing progressives and liberals. In fact, I would love to see him write a story based around Wisconsin. How great that would be.