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Top Stories: July 28, 2010

Reed Reconsiders Timing of Ballpark Vote; Yeager Takes on Schwarzenegger; Goodbye to the Big Blue Cube

by Danny Wool on Jul 28, 2010
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Future of Electric Vehicles Unveiled at Convention Center
Want to see the future of electric vehicles? Head down to the San Jose Convention Center. The all-electric plug in cars of the future will be on display there this week, including some of the most anticipated models of the coming year.

Chief among these will be the Chevy Volt, GM’s foray into the electric car market. The new, hybrid model will sell for $41,000, but with tax credits and such, the cost for consumers will go down to $33,500.
Also on display will be the Nissan Leaf, which will sell for about $20,000 after all the tax credits. The car, which will be available by year’s end, goes 100 miles per charge, while the Volt gets 340 miles, thanks to a gas-powered generator included in the vehicle.

Analysts suggest that this event could be a tipping point for electric vehicles. While people have long talked about the viability of electric cars, this is the first time that the average consumer will have a chance to see them as something tangible and real, not the stuff of science fiction. While there are still kinks to be worked out, like a dearth of charging stations, with affordable prices these cars could soon become a feature on our roads and highways. Zero emissions may yet be feasible. The future starts today.
Read More at ABC 7.


One Less Ballpark to Vote for This November?
If Mayor Chuck Reed gets what he wants, voters will have one less thing to worry about when they go to the ballot box this November. After a full day of meetings with MLB President Bob DuPuy, Reed has concluded that it would be best not to put the Downtown Ballpark Measure on the ballot until the MLB’s special committee makes a final decision whether to allow the Oakland A’s to move to San Jose.

DuPuy would rather that the city would hold a separate vote if and when the committee approves the ballpark. When questioned about the cost of such a vote, he reportedly told Reed that the MLB would help pay for it. According to some reports, DuPuy’s offer also implied that a decision would be made by the end of the year. If so, the special vote would be held in March.

It still remains to be seen whether City Council agrees with the Mayor’s position or DuPuy’s promises. They must decide whether to include the initiative on the ballot no later than their August 3 meeting, just six days away.
Read More at KCBS.
Read More at KLIV.


Ken Yeager Takes on Schwarzenegger over Budget
With no one willing to make concessions on pension and tax reform to pull California out of its budget deficit, lame duck Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been threatening that he will not sign a state budget before he leaves office. Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager is appalled, calling it, “one of the worst ideas I have ever heard of.”

Yeager, who recently closed the county’s own budget gap, points out that it is the County that implements state services. As such it is expected to pay for them and receive reimbursements from the state. Without a budget, officials may be laying out money that the county doesn’t have to pay for programs that could be cut by many hundreds of millions of dollars.

If the Governor really delays the budget, the county could be spending money before it learns whether the programs have been cut or not. In effect, the county would be paying money it does not have for programs that are unfunded.
And so the showdown continues …
Read More at KLIV.


Local Man Responsible for San Quentin Killing
There is something distinctly ominous about Frank Souza that would make most people want to avoid him in the street. Perhaps it is the glare in his eyes that belies his friendly smile. More likely it is the White Power tattoo that reaches across his forehead. The good news is that the San Jose native is now behind bars for the 2007 murder of a homeless man, John Riggins, in Willow Glen and the theft of Riggins’s bike. In January Souza began serving 60 years to life for the crime in San Quentin prison.

On Monday, prison officials learned firsthand that Souza is still dangerous. He stabbed fellow inmate Edward John Schaeffer, 44, to death, using a makeshift knife made out of a piece of metal taken from a prison bunk. Schaeffer had recently arrived in San Quentin after killing a child and crippling her father in a DUI. It was Schaeffer’s sixth DUI offense.

Souza is a repeat offender, who will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. As such, there is very little that can be done to augment his sentence.
Read More at NBC Bay Area.


Goodbye to the Big Blue Cube
Onizuka Air Force Base is a conspiracy theorist’s dream. Located in Sunnyvale, on the northern edge of Silicon Valley, it is one of the most highly guarded bases in the country. Everything is on a need-to-know basis, and workers only go where they are told. It also doesn’t meet the traditional expectations of an Air Force base. There are no runways or jets. All there is to be seen there is a big blue, windowless hangar, six stories tall, known locally as the Big Blue Cube. And so, the rumors abound.

The site, it is whispered, houses everything from foreign spies to alien spacecraft. To quote the popular television commercial, “That is not The Event.”

The Event will begin at 9am today when the Big Blue Cube—and Onizuka Air Force Base—will be shut down once and for all. Most of the facility’s activities will be transferred to Vandenberg Air Force Base, along with 168 civilian jobs and 10 military positions.
So what was the Big Blue Cube? According to Popular Science, it was once an intelligence installation that tracked information from spy satellites circling the Earth. The cameras it monitored were sensitive enough to track “grapefruit sized objects,” even under conditions of darkness or thick cloud cover. More importantly, it could detect missile launchings and weapons buildups around the world. Most recently, the site was used to “plan and conduct specialized communications for a wide spectrum of Department of Defense, allied, civil and commercial space systems.” As such it offered support to every space shuttle mission from the 1981 test flights until today. Since the space shuttle program is scheduled to launch its final mission in 2011, the glory days of the Big Blue Cube are over. As of today, it will no longer be used.
Read More at NBC Bay Area.



by Danny Wool on Jul 28, 2010
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