Mayor Susan Golding loves to hate Scott Barnett. Not that Barnett, the 37-year-old executive director of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, hasn't backed some of the mayor's biggest pet projects. Last year, Barnett even …

With midday temperatures declining into the 80s this month and next, the vast spaces of the Anza-Borrego Desert are again becoming attractive places to explore. For the following hike up Palo Verde Canyon in the …

'Build it and they will come," the proverb tells us. Today, however, disciples of the precept have little use for its noble motivational message; they prefer instead its promise of material reward. Build a mall, …

City councilman Juan Vargas is pulling out the stops in his effort to get elected to the state assembly seat now held by soon-to-be-termed-out Denise Ducheny. To raise funds for the effort, Vargas is putting …

Matmail: Q#1: Who decided that having two horns (example, a devil) was a Bad Thing, but having only one horn (example, a unicorn) was an okay Good Thing? and Q#2: What happened to all the …

Matt: Is there a metric unit of time? -- Matty, San Diego Yesish. That's new elf shorthand for "the answer to your basic question is yes, but as usual nobody could leave well enough alone, …

Dear Matthew Alice: Some time ago, I read with interest a story about a condemned prisoner in Washington state (I believe) who was forbidden from eating potato chips on death row because it was discovered …

I had no love for pigeons. I had unhappy associations from childhood, and I shared the popular perception of them as rats with wings. On the Great Chain of Being, birds are rather low; they …