It looks like Fremont will not be a site for a new A’s stadium. Given that there territorial rights issues that remain as the largest obstacle for a South Bay A’s project, isn’t obvious that lew Wolff will likely begin to consider sites in Silicon Valley?
Lew has been very successful in the South Bay and it is filled with good venues given the infrastructure, transit issues, and fan base.
I believe that this area will be a location for Bay Area Sports, and we should be glad for that.
The article in the SF Chronicle says that aside from the territorial issue, consideration of San Jose would be contingent on completion of the BART extension.
5 – Where were you during the past 8 years when your Party and your President frittered away the surplus and plunged us into the greatest debt we have ever known? I guess it was OK then. So much for bipartisanship.
Most self-proclaimed “progressives” express an enthusiastic belief in Darwin and the theory of natural selection. They claim to understand how a lifeless and barren planet could not only spontaneously develop life but ultimately evolve millions of new species to create the immensely diverse natural world that now exists- all without Divine intervention.
The more inane prattling I hear from these people, the more I’m persuaded that they have no real grasp of the mechanisms by which evolution operates. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, though not understood by the Left, is still a convenient instrument that is held up to demonstrate their imagined superiority and sophistication, and as a weapon used to beat down their political enemies.
If liberals truly understood Darwin, they would see that Natural Selection not only applies to the natural world of plants and animals, but to any complex system, including human societies and economies.
It’s too bad that liberals always want to play God- to interfere in what otherwise would be a self-regulating process that would naturally create an economy that is strong and diverse- that is sustainable and infinitely adaptive.
If anyone has a blind spot when it comes to scientific truth, it is not the much reviled Christian fundamentalists. Rather, it is the political left which instinctively clings to its’ God, Government, out of a real fear of REAL change.
#7, I always believed that government was irresponsibly increasing spending. Bush’s biggest failure, in my opinion, was not reigning in profligate spending by an irresponsible congress (there’s a reason that the approval rating for congress was below Bush’s pathetic numbers). His failure to veto any bill in his first term was terribly disappointing.
In my mind, neither party has done us any favors recently (remember, the democrats took control of both houses in 2006). I remain a republican because independents don’t have much voice in our political system.
I agree! Let’s bring the Warriors to the Shark Tank! I know there’s been talk lately of the Sacramento Kings possibly finding their way to San Jose, but this probably won’t happen because…well…because of the Warriors. To this I say fine; the Warriors lease at Oracle Arena/Oakland sunsets in 2017. We either wait out the lease or break it before hand. NBA at HP Pavilion/downtown San Jose would be a smash hit! I can hear it now…“YOUR SAN JOSE WARRIORS!”
Speaking of hits: If our San Jose leadership gets it’s act together and formulates a win, win ballpark plan for Lew Wolff/MLB, the Giants territorial rights will be dealt with accordingly. A win, win for all party’s involved: A’s, Giants, MLB and, most importantly, downtown San Jose. I can hear it now…“YOUR SAN JOSE ATHLETICS!”
This is it for stimulus bill. Its passage is upon us. Of the things affecting us here (redundant with other news stories this week):
* High speed rail to Los Angeles
* Rollback of AMT Tax (affects many here)
* Potential rise in conforming loan limits
* First time buyer house credits (I doubt this will do a damned thing)
* Digitization of medical records
* Extension of broadband into underserved areas
I think this last couple may have a noticeable impact on Silicon Valley—eventually. We’ll see.
Once one of the bedrocks of the Knight-Ridder empire, Philadelphia Newspapers joins the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in bankruptcy court.
Non-Profit ownership is probably to only way to save the most endangered species in American business today – Daily Newspapers.
Why should anyone care if market forces are reaping the final slaughter of America’s once mighty journalistic outposts? Because a free society needs a free press. And a free press needs to be nurtured by more than twitter and blog-o-rant sights that have no checks and balances on what is said.
Generation Y has come of age in the era of the well informed idiots who know lots of trivia, and learn more tidbits really fast all the time, but don’t really know anything about public policy and how our society really works. Digital world meets politics means lots of money raised really fast and not really good policies fermented in a vast open source community building momentum towards greater acceptance.
The internet may be killing the daily newspaper, but it hardly replaces what we’re losing. The sense of community from news reported locally, both casually and in-depth is hard to recreate with blog sights like this, (which honestly remind me more of the micro-societies I found on BBS’s in the 80’s more than SJ in the 1930’s.)
The LA Times has been owned by a non-profit that shielded it from the kind of barbarian at the gates capitalism run amok that characterized American journalism in the 1990’s and this decade. We’ve seen mighty institutions laid low like the Wall Street Journal and the Knight-Ridder chain because market manipulators could leverage buyouts that made more money destroying institutions than building them (think raiding the pension funds and closing the factory.)
So while I have faith in human nature and believe in some of the power of technology, I also recognize the social and digital divide that exists in and is growing in our society. Being able to use the internet is not the same as being able to think critically and knowing what’s really credible and what’s not. If it was printed on paper and really wrong, libel laws allowed the rule of law to keep the journalists honest. Market manipulation, however, has been around a long time, and in journalism famously abused by monopolists who’s first move was to buy out and shut down competing papers to boost profits and consolidate the latent political power that comes from owner the public record papers that residents of a community read every day. Hearst didn’t build his castle by being a nice civic minded guy.
So its too much power for a few rich people, and we’ve seen that public ownership through public stock corporations doesn’t work either because of the inherit corruption in our business world (we’re corporations are simply vehicles for powerful people to hide behind when they’re doing the wrong things.)
So let’s suppose a lot of people don’t want to lose our daily paper and don’t like what its turning into with the greed mongers running it into the ground to eek a little more profit out of a dying medium.
Could we change the equation and have community building investments that save this medium of communication? Do grandpa and grandma have to lose this important vehicle for being a part of our community just because they don’t want to join the digital society that twitters and IM’s between cruising web sites that generally try to sell something?
If sports nuts were able to shell out $3-5000 not once but twice for personal seat licenses for Raiders games just to get the option to buy tickets for future games, why can’t we get enough subscribers together to buy the daily newspapers? Its not like the fans got editorial control of the team, so we could temper those worries with the paper.
And a publicly owned paper could generously use its space for public service ads (guides to services available to elderly, youth, poor and families from libraries to soup kitchens.) I wouldn’t trust or want government money, but in the non-profit sector I bet there’s some room for a new community service business that could operate on a non-profit basis (with a goal of perhaps 10% above expenses to allow growth and improvement of the operation.) Anything left over could be donated directly to the community with grants to other service providers. If revenues continue to shrink, just cuts expenses (page count? days of operation? go to contributors instead of staff reporters?)
This could turn out to be a really horrible idea, but at least its something to talk about. Maybe we could try it first in San Francisco with the Chronicle and if it turns out well, repeat here in San Jose (and if it doesn’t just walk away thinking how glad we are that we didn’t do THAT here in SJ.)
San Jose Council is greasing the skids by promoting the economic advantages of an MLB park in their backyard.
Why do independent sources not associated with a city council who is desirous of land development and “doing a deal” OR franchise owners themselves, CONSISTANTLY refute the notion that the community obtains ANY ECONOMIC benefit from a ballpark ????
The one important takeaway (and quote) if you have no more time to read all of the report is – “An ever-increasing body of literature overwhelmingly declares such investments to be ineffective at creating jobs or boosting local economies. . . “
and another critical summary – “The vast consensus of independent studies by economists (not those “economic impact” statements produced by proponents which amount to cheerleading documents) shows that sports teams and stadiums have no appreciable economy-wide positive economic impact.”
So wake up taxpayers – – – – – get your own facts before you vote to bring a ballpark to your neighborhood.
I question the argument that the Arena is strong evidence that we should support an MLB stadium.
Despite all the claims of success for HP Pavilion, it’s an undeniable fact that City services have declined overall since it was built. So the arena itself has been a success but the extra revenue has not benefitted the average resident of Undowntownland. I’d even go so far as to suggest that it’s been a distraction that has diverted the City’s attention from where it belongs.
It’s kind of a case of, “The operation was a complete success but the patient died.”
I like baseball enough that I’d be looking for excuses to support a stadium, but I just can’t buy the argument that what our City Government needs in order to succeed is more revenue. We need to rid ourselves of that idea.
#15, opinions are interesting, but results are more important. Apparently you have forgotten all the gnashing of teeth downtown when the NHL locked out their players for a season. Many of the restaurants and clubs downtown took a significant hit in business.
A stadium may not pay for itself, but it certainly has an impact on nearby businesses and residents…some favorable, some not so favorable.
#17 – “..opinions..” – well, when it comes to economic projections, opinions are all that we have. Now the question is – who’s opinion are you gonna accept – that of Lew and his professionals (there’s an unbiased group) – how about the wall street journal or the CATO insttituted – both of whom site independant data (which, I might add includes the impact of the MLB strik) and which concludes that the total impact to the community is negligible.
Pat Waite is correct – there IS an impact – it largely redistributes – largely FROM the local community – the largest economic advantages flow off to owners and players who do NOTHING for the local economy – or so the OPINIONS of those professionals who have nothing to gain in these investments have REPEATEDLY CONCLUDED.
It looks like Fremont will not be a site for a new A’s stadium. Given that there territorial rights issues that remain as the largest obstacle for a South Bay A’s project, isn’t obvious that lew Wolff will likely begin to consider sites in Silicon Valley?
Lew has been very successful in the South Bay and it is filled with good venues given the infrastructure, transit issues, and fan base.
I believe that this area will be a location for Bay Area Sports, and we should be glad for that.
The article in the SF Chronicle says that aside from the territorial issue, consideration of San Jose would be contingent on completion of the BART extension.
#4, Kenny, you forgot one.
* ginormous increase in national debt.
When will you all realize that Lew is for one thing and one thing only-Lew…
5 – Where were you during the past 8 years when your Party and your President frittered away the surplus and plunged us into the greatest debt we have ever known? I guess it was OK then. So much for bipartisanship.
Most self-proclaimed “progressives” express an enthusiastic belief in Darwin and the theory of natural selection. They claim to understand how a lifeless and barren planet could not only spontaneously develop life but ultimately evolve millions of new species to create the immensely diverse natural world that now exists- all without Divine intervention.
The more inane prattling I hear from these people, the more I’m persuaded that they have no real grasp of the mechanisms by which evolution operates. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, though not understood by the Left, is still a convenient instrument that is held up to demonstrate their imagined superiority and sophistication, and as a weapon used to beat down their political enemies.
If liberals truly understood Darwin, they would see that Natural Selection not only applies to the natural world of plants and animals, but to any complex system, including human societies and economies.
It’s too bad that liberals always want to play God- to interfere in what otherwise would be a self-regulating process that would naturally create an economy that is strong and diverse- that is sustainable and infinitely adaptive.
If anyone has a blind spot when it comes to scientific truth, it is not the much reviled Christian fundamentalists. Rather, it is the political left which instinctively clings to its’ God, Government, out of a real fear of REAL change.
#7, I always believed that government was irresponsibly increasing spending. Bush’s biggest failure, in my opinion, was not reigning in profligate spending by an irresponsible congress (there’s a reason that the approval rating for congress was below Bush’s pathetic numbers). His failure to veto any bill in his first term was terribly disappointing.
In my mind, neither party has done us any favors recently (remember, the democrats took control of both houses in 2006). I remain a republican because independents don’t have much voice in our political system.
p.s. he was your president, too.
#2 10 MHz,
I agree! Let’s bring the Warriors to the Shark Tank! I know there’s been talk lately of the Sacramento Kings possibly finding their way to San Jose, but this probably won’t happen because…well…because of the Warriors. To this I say fine; the Warriors lease at Oracle Arena/Oakland sunsets in 2017. We either wait out the lease or break it before hand. NBA at HP Pavilion/downtown San Jose would be a smash hit! I can hear it now…“YOUR SAN JOSE WARRIORS!”
Speaking of hits: If our San Jose leadership gets it’s act together and formulates a win, win ballpark plan for Lew Wolff/MLB, the Giants territorial rights will be dealt with accordingly. A win, win for all party’s involved: A’s, Giants, MLB and, most importantly, downtown San Jose. I can hear it now…“YOUR SAN JOSE ATHLETICS!”
LET’S DO IT SAN JOSE!
#3 sbay_sports,
My apologies: you’re the one who suggested the Warriors find their way to SJ; not #2.
bring warriors to san jose.
This is it for stimulus bill. Its passage is upon us. Of the things affecting us here (redundant with other news stories this week):
* High speed rail to Los Angeles
* Rollback of AMT Tax (affects many here)
* Potential rise in conforming loan limits
* First time buyer house credits (I doubt this will do a damned thing)
* Digitization of medical records
* Extension of broadband into underserved areas
I think this last couple may have a noticeable impact on Silicon Valley—eventually. We’ll see.
The owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
http://tinyurl.com/pichapter11
Once one of the bedrocks of the Knight-Ridder empire, Philadelphia Newspapers joins the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in bankruptcy court.
Beautiful:
http://www.bornagainamerican.org
Non-Profit ownership is probably to only way to save the most endangered species in American business today – Daily Newspapers.
Why should anyone care if market forces are reaping the final slaughter of America’s once mighty journalistic outposts? Because a free society needs a free press. And a free press needs to be nurtured by more than twitter and blog-o-rant sights that have no checks and balances on what is said.
Generation Y has come of age in the era of the well informed idiots who know lots of trivia, and learn more tidbits really fast all the time, but don’t really know anything about public policy and how our society really works. Digital world meets politics means lots of money raised really fast and not really good policies fermented in a vast open source community building momentum towards greater acceptance.
The internet may be killing the daily newspaper, but it hardly replaces what we’re losing. The sense of community from news reported locally, both casually and in-depth is hard to recreate with blog sights like this, (which honestly remind me more of the micro-societies I found on BBS’s in the 80’s more than SJ in the 1930’s.)
The LA Times has been owned by a non-profit that shielded it from the kind of barbarian at the gates capitalism run amok that characterized American journalism in the 1990’s and this decade. We’ve seen mighty institutions laid low like the Wall Street Journal and the Knight-Ridder chain because market manipulators could leverage buyouts that made more money destroying institutions than building them (think raiding the pension funds and closing the factory.)
So while I have faith in human nature and believe in some of the power of technology, I also recognize the social and digital divide that exists in and is growing in our society. Being able to use the internet is not the same as being able to think critically and knowing what’s really credible and what’s not. If it was printed on paper and really wrong, libel laws allowed the rule of law to keep the journalists honest. Market manipulation, however, has been around a long time, and in journalism famously abused by monopolists who’s first move was to buy out and shut down competing papers to boost profits and consolidate the latent political power that comes from owner the public record papers that residents of a community read every day. Hearst didn’t build his castle by being a nice civic minded guy.
So its too much power for a few rich people, and we’ve seen that public ownership through public stock corporations doesn’t work either because of the inherit corruption in our business world (we’re corporations are simply vehicles for powerful people to hide behind when they’re doing the wrong things.)
So let’s suppose a lot of people don’t want to lose our daily paper and don’t like what its turning into with the greed mongers running it into the ground to eek a little more profit out of a dying medium.
Could we change the equation and have community building investments that save this medium of communication? Do grandpa and grandma have to lose this important vehicle for being a part of our community just because they don’t want to join the digital society that twitters and IM’s between cruising web sites that generally try to sell something?
If sports nuts were able to shell out $3-5000 not once but twice for personal seat licenses for Raiders games just to get the option to buy tickets for future games, why can’t we get enough subscribers together to buy the daily newspapers? Its not like the fans got editorial control of the team, so we could temper those worries with the paper.
And a publicly owned paper could generously use its space for public service ads (guides to services available to elderly, youth, poor and families from libraries to soup kitchens.) I wouldn’t trust or want government money, but in the non-profit sector I bet there’s some room for a new community service business that could operate on a non-profit basis (with a goal of perhaps 10% above expenses to allow growth and improvement of the operation.) Anything left over could be donated directly to the community with grants to other service providers. If revenues continue to shrink, just cuts expenses (page count? days of operation? go to contributors instead of staff reporters?)
This could turn out to be a really horrible idea, but at least its something to talk about. Maybe we could try it first in San Francisco with the Chronicle and if it turns out well, repeat here in San Jose (and if it doesn’t just walk away thinking how glad we are that we didn’t do THAT here in SJ.)
San Jose Council is greasing the skids by promoting the economic advantages of an MLB park in their backyard.
Why do independent sources not associated with a city council who is desirous of land development and “doing a deal” OR franchise owners themselves, CONSISTANTLY refute the notion that the community obtains ANY ECONOMIC benefit from a ballpark ????
Here’s one source –
http://people.albion.edu/jhakes/pdfs/houses.pdf
The one important takeaway (and quote) if you have no more time to read all of the report is – “An ever-increasing body of literature overwhelmingly declares such investments to be ineffective at creating jobs or boosting local economies. . . “
Here’s another one to read –
http://marketpower.typepad.com/market_power/2006/06/stadium_economi.html
and another critical summary – “The vast consensus of independent studies by economists (not those “economic impact” statements produced by proponents which amount to cheerleading documents) shows that sports teams and stadiums have no appreciable economy-wide positive economic impact.”
So wake up taxpayers – – – – – get your own facts before you vote to bring a ballpark to your neighborhood.
I question the argument that the Arena is strong evidence that we should support an MLB stadium.
Despite all the claims of success for HP Pavilion, it’s an undeniable fact that City services have declined overall since it was built. So the arena itself has been a success but the extra revenue has not benefitted the average resident of Undowntownland. I’d even go so far as to suggest that it’s been a distraction that has diverted the City’s attention from where it belongs.
It’s kind of a case of, “The operation was a complete success but the patient died.”
I like baseball enough that I’d be looking for excuses to support a stadium, but I just can’t buy the argument that what our City Government needs in order to succeed is more revenue. We need to rid ourselves of that idea.
#15, opinions are interesting, but results are more important. Apparently you have forgotten all the gnashing of teeth downtown when the NHL locked out their players for a season. Many of the restaurants and clubs downtown took a significant hit in business.
A stadium may not pay for itself, but it certainly has an impact on nearby businesses and residents…some favorable, some not so favorable.
#17 – “..opinions..” – well, when it comes to economic projections, opinions are all that we have. Now the question is – who’s opinion are you gonna accept – that of Lew and his professionals (there’s an unbiased group) – how about the wall street journal or the CATO insttituted – both of whom site independant data (which, I might add includes the impact of the MLB strik) and which concludes that the total impact to the community is negligible.
Pat Waite is correct – there IS an impact – it largely redistributes – largely FROM the local community – the largest economic advantages flow off to owners and players who do NOTHING for the local economy – or so the OPINIONS of those professionals who have nothing to gain in these investments have REPEATEDLY CONCLUDED.