Opinion

Chances are you didn’t know that the Berkeley City Council was planning to abandon Old City Hall and move in with the Berkeley Unified School District for council meetings when BUSD finishes remodeling the old West Campus site to house its new administrative headquarters. I certainly didn’t, and a quick poll of six knowledgeable citizens encountered at the Farmer’s Market yesterday (the type often called activists) suggests that a lot of other people don’t know either. I even called a councilmember to check, and he seemed surprised too. -more-

Clarification; No Justification for Tax Breaks to Oil and Gas Companies; Library Letter; A Book of Memories; Assassination of bin Laden; A "Precise" Attack near Islamabad -more-

The state and federal budget crises are bringing deep cuts to government-sponsored public assistance. Many of California’s most needy, including a disproportionate number of children, are facing profound reductions in aid. CalWORKs, which provides day care assistance to working families with minor children, faces the largest cuts in 25 years. And day care for 11- and 12-year old kids of working parents stands to be slashed entirely.

Wrenching as they are, many feel these cuts are justified. Anecdotal stories often circulate about purported welfare cheats squandering the public’s money in casinos, at strip clubs, and on drugs. For example, Sacramento-based CalWatchDog recently accused day care recipients of “sponging” off of the state. A self-described conservative blogger called all welfare recipients “lazy good-for-nothing moochers” who take “extravagant vacations in Hawaii.” Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, wants CalWORKs parents to be tested for drugs. If the parents fail, then the kids would be cut off.

Chorus: it’s the song, it’s the song

the song of the wealthy man!

always right, never wrong!

try to be just like me if you can!

it’s the song of the wealthy man! -more-

The Berkeley Library Management, has spent over two years falsely presenting South Branch Library as a disintegrating "cinder block" building. Actually nothing is further from the truth. It is a reinforced concrete, post and beam structure, which has been seismically tested. The alternating glass and concrete block infill are not the structure. The false presentation of the concrete block as the menace of disintegrating "cinder block" was deployed to rule out renovation.

Now that Wikileaks has revealed the lies of the US Government re: Guantanamo prisoners and other events, the commercial newspapers that pretend/assert they are telling the truth, we know are lying. Fiction films tell more truths then half-truth documentaries. The truth has to be a lie or else it is not believed. Lies imitating truths are better than truths. It is thereby essential to lie in order to establish the truth. -more-

Right after 9-11 the Taliban offered to turn over Bin Laden to the US for a trial. -more-