San Francisco News: Public Defender Jeff Adachi To Be Sworn In Wednesday

(Catching up on blogging while waiting for a Fresno to Vegas flight to CES and after my first trip from SFO on a prop jet!)

San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi will be sworn in to his third term as public defender on Wednesday at 8:15 AM, according to a press release.

Mr. Adachi will be "made official," if you will, by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Don Mitchell. Jeff has served the City and County of San Francisco since 2001.

The ceremony will be held at the Third Floor Conference Room, San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, 555 Seventh Street, San Francisco, Ca.

Remember, that's at 8:15 AM, not PM.

Congratulations, Jeff!

Bill Erwin from 'Seinfeld' Dies

The Los Angeles Times reports that Bill Erwin, actor from 'Seinfeld,' 'Growing Pains,' 'Who's the Boss?,' 'The Twilight Zone' and 'Golden Girls,' died last Wednesday; however the news was not made public until today, January 4, 2011.

Erwin died from age-related causes in his home in Studio, California.

He will be remembered for his many roles as an actor as well as his Emmy nomination in 1993 for his role on 'Seinfeld' playing a grumpy old man named Sid Fields.

Erwin was 96 when he died.

Chevron Ecuador: NY Times Buries Case Bias

Lawyer Steve Donziger and other plaintiff's who filed the so-called environmental damage lawsuit against Chevron appear to have help from some in the print media. According to Julia A. Seymour of the Business and Media Institute, the New York Times joined Crude movie director Joe Berlinger in his effort to be excused from giving over 500 hours of outtakes from the film to Chevron lawyers.

In an article on the Chevron Ecuador issue, the NY Times John Schwartz and Dave Itzkoff wrote "Floyd Abrams, an expert in First Amendment law who wrote a brief fighting the demand for the outtakes by Chevron on behalf of journalism organizations, including The New York Times, said that regardless of how revealing the clips were, the court's broad order was mistaken."

That sentence appears in a paragraph 24 levels down in the article. Buried.

And, as Seymour points out, and has been noted here, the tapes were more than revealing. The tapes were damaging to Steve Donziger's case, and effectively call his motives into question, as well as revealing the case itself to be a fraud.

The main stream American media has not looked into the strength of the evidence Donziger has presented (none), or the efforts Ecuador has made to nationalize its oil production, kicking out American firms from Ecuador in the process.

Stay tuned.

2011 New Years Resolutions - Have Sex, Gain I.Q. Points, Lose Weight

At the Balboa Cafe in San Francisco's Marina District on New Year's Eve, a number of patrons shared their new year's resolutions. Some of them interesting and serious.

Others.

Well, there was this one couple where the guy wanted me to record his resolution on video: to have sex with "this girl" before he returned to New York. Her New Year's Resolution? To gain I.Q. points.

In fact, that segment was so funny, I created a separate video from it:



Finally, at the Brickyard, Ashley shares her New Year's best wishes and a kiss for everyone. Hey, she grabbed the camcorder from me and went for it.

Not bad:

Pixar's Kim Donovan Finds, Returns Zennie's Flip Video Camcorder

I lost my Flip Video Camcorder over the weekend, and a person emailed me to report they found it. The person who did so was Kim Donovan, who just happens to manage Pixar's exhibits around the World. (Pixar is the producer of excellent movies like Toy Story 3, and the Toy Story movie series.)

Oh. Yes, her work does includes the exhibit at The Oakland Museum, and you'd better hurry up and see it because this Saturday's it's last day there!

But this is a huge thank you to Kim, who not only found it and called me, but cleaned it up as I'd dropped it out of my jacket pocket, and put new batteries in it. Pixar certainly knows how to pick the right people to represent it.

Oh, and I gave her a good bottle of wine and my SF Giants 2010 NLCS Hat. I figured it would be worth something now and down the road!

Thanks Kim!!

Well, off to CES.  Follow me at Twitter.com.

Orange Bowl: Stanford Destroys Virginia Tech 40 To 12, Ends Fluke Season

Stanford Legend and friend Michael Dotterer sent a text one hour before tonight's Orange Bowl game, reading "GO CARDINAL," so I gave him a call. Dotterer, one of only 24 decorated two sport athletes in Stanford's Hall of Fame, asked me to predict the score of the game. "40 to 10, Cardinal," was my response.

Stanford won 40 to 12, under a 4-touchdown performance by Quarterback Andrew Luck.

As I write this, Stanford Coach Jim Harbaugh's accepting the Orange Bowl trophy. "Hairball," as some Cal Old Blues call him, deserves it. Also, really, and all kidding aside, let's tip our hats to the Stanford Athletics program, which, in an age when athletes as often wind up in a police report as that do on a stats sheet, have produced a number of true student-athletes, who've performed amazingly of late.

Stanford's Women's Basketball Team halts UCONN's 90-game win streak last week. Stanford Football goes 12 wins and 1 loss and wins the Orange Bowl, just four years after a 1 and 11 season, a coach named Buddy Teavens, and constant Big Game losses to Cal.

Jim Harbaugh, for all of his quirks and fits, turned around the Stanford Cardinal Football program.

Harbaugh Should Stay Put

Yes, Harbaugh's talked about as an NFL head coaching candidate, as well as a replacement for Michigan Head Coach Rich Rodriquez. But Jim Harbaugh should keep his tail on the farm.

And here's why.

For all of his success this year, the question I have is if he can get Stanford to 12 and 1, why not stick around and aim directly for a BCS National Championship? In other words, right now, this Stanford Football season was a fluke.

Yep. A fluke.

No one, not even Stanford, expected this kind of performance from The Cardinal. It seemed Stanford was blowing opponents out almost every week, and for the most part those margins of victory were unexpected. That element of shock at how good Stanford Football was remained to the Big Game, until the most lopsided win in Big Game history 48 to 14 made even Cal fans like myself realize this Cardinal squad was something special.

But look, the year before the Cardinal was 8 and 4, and Cal walked into Stanford Stadium, and walked out with a major Big Game win. So, it was a good year for Stanford, but not a great year like this one.

But can they sustain it? To me, this will be the fluke season (there's that word again), unless Jim Harbaugh sets his mind to 2011 on the farm.

If Jim's as good a coach as he thinks he is, he'll come back and coach another year, setting his sights on a BCS National Championship for the Stanford Cardinal.

Stay tuned.

Oakland Inauguration: Mayor Jean Quan Gives Epic Speech

Oakland, CA - I will have the video up later today, but Oakland Mayor Jean Quan gave an epic 20 minute speech, calling for a renewed sprit of volunterism, and a "children-first" policy focus. It was a speech that was better delivered than I expected and with a compassion and care that will come to mark Quan's term as Mayor of Oakland.

More later.