What would seemingly be an issue of capitalism and supply and demand in any other city, or any other neighborhood in San Francisco, has instead morphed into another battle between merchants and the homeless in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood:

The McDonald’s at the corner of Haight and Stanyan streets eliminated its Dollar Menu about a month ago, making the items on it too expensive for the people who spend the better part of their day on the sidewalk in front.

Street people who for years have depended on the McDonald’s to eat say it’s become a de facto sit/lie ordinance. But the franchise owner says she’s just trying to make a little extra money.

It’s a fight over 50 cents, plus tax.

You used to be able to get a 390-calorie McDouble for 99 cents, said Nicholas Newhart, a 29-year-old with a Confederate flag tattooed on the back of his head. Without the Dollar Menu it now costs $1.49.

While that price increase may seem trivial, for Newhart and his colleagues it can mean the difference between eating and going hungry. Many homeless think taking away the Dollar Menu is the restaurant management’s ploy to get them to go somewhere else. Management locks the bathroom door and frequently calls the cops. On top of that, Mayor Gavin Newsom and several Haight Street merchants are pushing a November ballot measure that would ban sitting or lying on public sidewalks.

The menu change seems like the logical next step, the homeless say.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth, says Natalie Gonzales, the franchise owner.

“The speculation as to why I no longer offer menu items for $1 in this location is absolutely false,” she said in a statement vetted by the McDonald’s corporate office. “This was a business decision based on a number of contributing factors. And while these items are no longer available at $1, they are still available at what I believe to be a good, everyday value.”

Franchise owners frequently change the prices of certain menu items in response to customer demand, the Consumer Price Index and other factors, Julie Wenger, marketing director for McDonald’s Pacific-Sierra Region, said in a statement.

Still, people like Newhart, who moved from Tennessee to the streets of San Francisco five years ago, say they are often hungrier than usual.

“Yeah man, it … sucks,” he said Thursday while sitting foodless on the McDonald’s patio with a half dozen hungry friends. “I eat less. I have to get more money. If I don’t have a dollar and I want food, I just end up going to a trash can.”

When the cops roll through, as San Francisco police Officer John Andrews did Thursday, and tell Newhart and company that they can’t sit on McDonald’s patio unless they buy something, they have no choice but to move on. They could buy a 99-cent hamburger, but they say they would rather save the money for another more filling – but more expensive – item.

Fes Taylor is a young veteran in the Hip-Hop game, having been part of the Shaolin Soliders way back in the day with King Just up to now, when he is still a very current, relevant Rap artist as well as a blog favorite. Last year his debut album was released on Chambermusik Records, as presented by Wu-Tang Clan member Inspectah Deck. “I am Not a Rapper” is his street album and according to Fes, his most personal statement ever, wherein he presents his new crew the Staten All-Stars. Producers include Chad Beats, Shawneci, Blastah Beatz among others.

The 28 year-old suffered severe burns after attacking the arachnid with an aerosol can at his home in Clacton in Essex.
The man was summoned by his wife to deal with a spider she had seen scuttling behind the lavatory on Bank Holiday Monday. Not being able to reach it, the man decided to kill it by spraying it with the can.

However he was unable to see whether it was dead because the bulb in the bathroom light had blown. At this point he turned to a cigarette lighter to illuminate the room, but in the process ignited the gas fumes and caused an explosion.
The blast was so strong it blew the man off his feet and lifted the loft door off its hinges.
He suffered flash burns to his head, legs and torso and was rushed by ambulance to hospital after dousing himself in cold water.
A spokesman for Essex Fire Service said: “It appears the wife had spotted the creepy crawly in the bathroom and asked her husband to capture it.
“He sprayed it first with an aerosol where it was lurking behind the toilet bowl and when that didn’t appear to work, he lit up his lighter to spread some light on the situation as the bathroom bulb had blown.
“There was an almighty explosion which blew the man back into his hallway and lifted the hatch on the loft.
“He did exactly the right thing by jumping into the shower and cooling his burns with cold water while his wife raised the alarm.”
Firefighters administered emergency first aid at the scene while waiting for ambulance teams to arrive.
A spokesman added: “We’re not entirely sure whether the spider got away or not but there was no sign of it at the scene.”
Ambulance crews treated the man for burns to his arms, legs and face and breathing difficulties and he was taken to the Colchester General Hospital, in Essex, where he was given pain relief and discharged in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
In June last year Simon Elsey, 40, from Rotherham, suffered severe burns after a can of hairspray exploded at his home. The canister had been left on top of a children’s fireguard in front of a lit fire in the sitting room. The blast was so powerful it blew out two window panes and the can was found embedded in the ceiling. Mr Elsey had been asleep in the sitting room at the time and firefighters said he was lucky not to be engulfed in flames.

Production on what was to be the final day of on-location shooting for Michael Bay’s Transformers 3 in Chicago was halted after an extra was critically injured during shooting in Hammond, Indiana.

24-year old Gabriella Cedillo from Chicago was driving in a Nissan during filming with a cable broke and crashed through her windshield. She was hit in the head and taken to Loyola Medical Center per My Fox Chicago.

“The vehicle was being towed by another vehicle,” explained extra Blaine Baker to ABC Chicago. “The cable between the two vehicles broke. It whipped around and sliced through the woman’s car and sliced through her skull, apparently.”

HAVANA (AP) — Fidel Castro says al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is a bought-and-paid-for CIA agent who always popped up when former president George W. Bush needed to scare the world, arguing that documents recently posted on the Internet prove it.
“Any time Bush would stir up fear and make a big speech, bin Laden would appear threatening people with a story about what he was going to do,” Castro told state media during a meeting with a Lithuanian-born writer known for advancing conspiracy theories about world domination. “Bush never lacked for bin Laden’s support. He was a subordinate.”

Castro said documents posted on WikiLeaks.org — a website that recently released thousands of pages of classified documents from the Afghan war — “effectively proved he was a CIA agent.” He did not elaborate.

The comments, published in the Communist Party daily Granma on Friday, were the latest in a series of provocative statements by the 84-year-old revolutionary, who has emerged from seclusion to warn that the planet is on the brink of nuclear war.

Castro even predicted the global conflict would mean cancellation of the final rounds of the World Cup last month in South Africa. He later apologized for jumping the gun. Last week, he began highlighting the work of Daniel Estulin, who wrote a trilogy of books highlighting the Bilderberg Club, whose prominent members meet once a year behind closed doors.

The secretive nature of the meetings and prominence of some members — including former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, senior U.S. and European officials, and major international business and media executives — have led some to speculate that it operates as a kind of global government, controlling not only international politics and economics, but even culture.

During the meeting, Estulin told Castro that the real voice of bin Laden was last heard in late 2001, not long after the Sept. 11 attacks. He said the person heard making warnings about terror attacks after that was a “bad actor.”

Castro stepped down due to ill health in 2006 — first temporarily, then permanently — and handed power over to his younger brother Raul. He has remained head of the Cuban Communist party but stayed out of view for four years after falling sick before returning to the spotlight in July.

Castro did take exception with one of Estulin’s major theses: that the human race must move to another habitable planet or face extinction.

Castro said it would be better to fix things on Earth then abandon the planet altogether.

“Humanity ought to take care of itself if it wants to live thousands more years,” Castro told the writer.

Source USATODAY

According to sources, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department put out a “possible suicide attempt” APB just before 5 PM PT yesterday. A helicopter and squad cars went on the hunt for the rapper/producer’s Escalade.

Here’s what we’re told happened … Timbaland was on the phone earlier in the day with his brother-in-law … deeply upset about something. We’re told one of the things that was eating at him was a theft at his Malibu residence a day before. Someone had stolen a crazy expensive Jacob & Co. watch — valued at $2 million — and Timbaland suspected it might have been someone he trusted.

Timbaland left his home yesterday and began driving. Family members couldn’t locate him, became extremely worried and called the Sheriff’s Department.

We’re told the helicopter located the Escalade, ground crews pulled Timbaland over and began talking to him. At some point they put Timbaland in a patrol car and took him to his residence, where they continued speaking with him and family members.

Deputies called for paramedics to come and evaluate Timbaland. After the evaluation, paramedics determined Timbaland was not a threat to himself and left.

We’re told the Sheriff’s Department is investigating the theft of Timbaland’s jewelry and they have possible suspects.

Timbaland’s rep could not be reached for comment.

UPDATE: Timbaland just called into Ryan Seacrest’s radio show, and confirmed someone stole something from him and that he was upset about it … but says there was definitely no suicide attempt.

Timbaland said he simply took a drive to clear his head, when someone got a little too worried about him and called the cops.

SOURCE TMZ

A 27-year-old Dallas County mother was arrested on Monday, accused of leaving her young son alone in a hot car. The child survived, but things could have been much worse. Topping out at 107 degrees, Monday was the hottest day of the year.

The car was sitting in the parking lot of the Texas Workforce Commission building, located off of Stemmons Freeway. The windows were cracked, police said, but the engine was turned off. An observant parking lot security guard noticed the 2-year-old child and immediately called 911 for help.

According to authorities, the child had been inside of the hot car for about five or seven minutes. At the time of the incident, about 3:00 p.m. Monday, the temperature in Dallas was 105 degrees.

The mother has been identified as Gloria Arellano. She has been charged with child endangerment.

BEIJING (AFP) – Thousands of vehicles were bogged down Monday in a more than 100-kilometre (62-mile) traffic jam leading to Beijing that has lasted nine days and highlights China’s growing road congestion woes.
The Beijing-Tibet expressway slowed to a crawl on August 14 due to a spike in traffic by cargo-bearing heavy trucks heading to the capital, and compounded by road maintenance work that began five days later, the Global Times said.
The state-run newspaper said the jam between Beijing and Jining city had given birth to a mini-economy with local merchants capitalising on the stranded drivers’ predicament by selling them water and food at inflated prices.
That stretch of highway linking Beijing with the northern province of Hebei and the Inner Mongolia region has become increasingly prone to massive jams as the capital of more than 20 million people sucks in huge shipments of goods.
Traffic slowed to a snail’s pace in June and July for nearly a month, according to earlier press reports.
The latest clog has been worsened by the road improvement project, made necessary by highway damage caused by a steady increase in cargo traffic, the Global Times said.
China has embarked in recent years on a huge expansion of its national road system but soaring traffic periodically overwhelms the grid.
The congestion was expected to last into mid-September as the road project will not be finished until then, the newspaper said.
The roadway is a major artery for the supply of produce, coal and other goods to Beijing.

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EA has been criticized recently for making the Taliban one of the teams in the multiplayer component of its upcoming installment of the Medal of Honor franchise. Playing as members of the terrorist group that has attacked the United States and various other countries around the world rubs some players the wrong way, and it seems like everyone has an opinion about the decision. But what do our actual fighting men and women think about it?

A recent interview by GamrFeed answers that very question. Joseph Jackmovich spoke with a total of nine men and women serving in various branches of the military, including the Army, Navy, and National Guard. Topics discussed during the interview include their feelings on whether playing as the Taliban is disrespectful to soldiers, how military shooters affect the public’s perception of war, and how they feel about the way video games represent war.

The soldiers’ responses vary greatly: Some feel video games can help educate the public about what soldiers experience during war, while others feel they can “cheapen the impact of war,” and be disrespectful to the casualties of both sides of the conflict. If you’ve ever had mixed feelings about military shooters yourself, or if you’re just interested in what our veterans have to say, I highly suggest you check the interview out for yourself.