According to CNET News, Poway resident Mark David Menacher has sued tech giant Apple's chief executive Tim Cook in small-claims court and threatens to take his case to a higher court. Menacher claims Apple's iOS …
October 20, 2013
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Stories by Don Bauder (RIP)
Poway man sues Apple
Take a spin in David Copley's former yacht
Pssst! Wanna ride in the late David Copley's yacht, once christened Happy Days? It will only cost you $250,000 a week. The yacht has been refurbished ("refitted," in yachting circles) and has been put out …
October 18, 2013
City attorney Goldsmith boasted how he worked on Filner ouster for 8 months
San Diegans have a misconception that progressives Marco Gonzalez, Cory Briggs, and Donna Frye launched the movement to oust Mayor Filner for his treatment of women. Right after the negotiations that led to Filner's decision …
October 18, 2013
Cancer research gets little from NFL's "pink" affiliation
The National Football League (NFL) is covered with pink these days — on the cheerleaders, on the players, on the refs. It's supposedly for cancer research. But ESPN's Darren Rovell figured that only 8 percent …
October 17, 2013
City Journal scoffed at convention center expansions
By and large, political and economic conservatives pushed the San Diego Convention Center expansion plans through. They didn't read, or ignored, an article that appeared in City Journal in winter of last year. The magazine …
October 17, 2013
Alliant University's San Diego campus could be sold
Students at the Scripps Ranch campus of Alliant International University (formerly United States Internatiional University) are worried that the school may go the for-profit route and their degrees will lose value sharply. "God forbid that …
October 16, 2013
Ask Greece about economic gains from Olympics
Such balderdash that the expansion of the San Diego Convention Center or a new Chargers stadium would result in huge revenues from the hosting of Final Four tournaments, Super Bowls, or the Olympics. Poppycock!
October 9, 2013
San Diego overlords and unions — who can stop them?
Construction-related unions, which are persuasive among Democrats, sleep with corporate welfare mendicants, who are Republicans. Result: the construction of unnecessary and wasteful structures.
October 2, 2013
Sex scandals that preceded Bob Filner
Watergate wasn't a sex scandal, but it ignited decades of them as media learned where the money was.
September 11, 2013
Papa Doug Manchester picks Siberian bride-to-be
Geniya Derzhavina came to San Diego from Siberia, and will marry one of city's richest men.
August 21, 2013
San Diego builds into convention center glut
The convention center industry knows there is a huge glut of space. Why don't San Diego expansion boosters mention it?
August 14, 2013
Wells Fargo sells credit card terminal to Oceanside swap meet seller
A Vista resident who can't read English says he's victimized by a bank's fine print.
July 31, 2013
Papa Doug Manchester in Hollywood
It appears that Papa Doug got mini-cameo roles as a reward for investing in films.
July 17, 2013
He gets a year for rigging campus election
Matthew Weaver, former Cal State San Marcos student, was sentenced to a year in prison today (July 15) for stealing identities and passwords of more than 700 fellow students so he could win the campus …
July 15, 2013
SDG&E, Edison, PG&E battle rooftop solar
Utilities such as San Diego Gas & Electric are trying to frustrate rooftop solar. But despite all the utilities' clout and big bucks, rooftop solar will prevail some day.
July 3, 2013
Will Civic San Diego help truly needy?
Civic San Diego, champion of corporate welfare as Centre City, now claims it supports affordable housing and the homeless.
June 19, 2013
Rancho Santa Fe broker gets caught in FBI sting
Rancho Santa Fe consultant David Bahr pleaded guilty today to criminal charges to commit securities fraud by pumping up a penny stock named "iTrackr." According to the U.S. Attorney's office, Bahr spoke in late November …
June 18, 2013
Golf deep in the hole — San Diego no exception
Golf courses got overbuilt in anticipation of baby boomer retirements. But do boomers have patience for golf? Golfing is on the decline in San Diego. What to do with all that land?
June 5, 2013
The job-stealing scam — Texas is the biggest con
Today's civil war — states bribing companies to move — is a negative sum game for the nation.
May 22, 2013
Chancellor University tried to recruit homeless
Michael Clifford boasts that his for-profit college investments are winners, but woes suggest otherwise.
May 8, 2013
San Diego Gas & Electric rates are nation's highest
According to the Jacksonville Electric Authority, San Diegans pay the highest electricity rates in the U.S. There are examples that point to the fact that UCAN doesn’t do the best job at lobbying the California Public Utilities Commission to give residents a break; in fact, their relationship could be called “cozy.”
April 24, 2013
San Diego firms Apricus, Innovus tackle male and female sex problems
In December, a small local biotech named Apricus Biosciences decided to put substantially all its eggs in one basket: male and female sexual disorders. But in tackling male erectile dysfunction, Apricus faces stiff competition from …
April 10, 2013
Escondido: The ruling white minority
Escondido's white minority rules, but Latinos want fair representation.
April 3, 2013
Pala Indians don't get Warner Springs Ranch
Bankruptcy Court Judge Louise Adler has awarded ailing Warner Springs Ranch to the low bidder, denying it to the Pala Indians, but an unusual twist suggests to some skeptics that the tribe will eventually get …
March 15, 2013
Bubbles: Greenspan, Bernanke could have learned something in San Diego
Some kind of unhappy result of this madcap money printing by the Federal Reserve is inevitable: wait for the next disastrous economic bubble to burst.
March 13, 2013
The unmaking and making of Roger Hedgecock
Former disgraced San Diego mayor Roger Hedgecock makes a big slug of money from a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization in Arlington, Virginia, the American Studies Center.
March 6, 2013
San Diegans in their 20s don't make enough for rent
Youth is too beautiful to be wasted on the young. That may have been true in the 19th Century, but in 21st-century San Diego — and elsewhere — being youthful is no longer so beautiful, …
February 27, 2013
San Diego hotels: labor in revolt
Paying extremely low wages to hotel workers boosts profits of out-of-town owners and deprives San Diego of spending power.
February 20, 2013
San Diego's convention center expansion would build into a glut
Can common sense and the legal system keep a bubble from inflating further? And maybe prevent a traumatic bursting? San Diego could be the canary in the coal mine on these critical questions. The subject …
February 13, 2013
San Diego, haven for pyramids
San Diego is a haven for multilevel marketing scams, which are often pyramid schemes.
February 6, 2013
Borrego: Casa del Zorro coming back
An extremely reliable source says that at midnight tonight (Jan. 31), a press release will go out announcing that escrow has closed on the purchase of Borrego Springs's Borrego Ranch Resort & Spa (formerly La …
January 31, 2013
TV and video games may intensify violence
Are Hollywood, football, and the media to blame for America’s penchant for violence?
January 30, 2013
Elizabeth and Thomas Coldicutt used Mary Pickford fandom to bilk investors
A century ago, in the age of silent films, Mary Pickford was celebrated as “America’s Sweetheart.” Among the films she starred in were Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Pollyanna, and Little Lord Fauntleroy. In the tony …
January 23, 2013
San Diego’s Qualcomm is the fifth-largest user of H-1B talent
American engineers, scientists, and mathematicians can convincingly show that they are not in short supply, as corporations claim. But increasingly, politicians are siding with big business, which wants the government to loosen restrictions on the …
January 9, 2013
Does new UCAN board want reform?
UCAN, the San Diego–based Utility Consumers’ Action Network, burdened by scandal and misuse of funds, should shut down, some say. Some say otherwise.
January 2, 2013
Economy for 2013: San Diego worse than state, nation?
Are you tired of sluggish economic growth? Well, you could live in Europe, which is in a recession, or Japan, which has been struggling since 1989. Local economists look for slow growth in the United …
December 26, 2012
ResMed: Please refuse to play the subsidy game
Sleep-apnia device-maker ResMed threatens to leave San Diego because CEO says it’s too hard to run a business in California. Valid gripe or jobs blackmail for taxpayer funds?
December 19, 2012
Should Jack-in-the-Box stay in Mexican foods?
Gulp. An American icon, fast food, has a bellyache. In October, once-invincible McDonald’s reported that monthly sales in United States units open for a year (called same-store sales) declined for the first time since 2003. …
December 12, 2012
You will get hoodwinked on San Diego stadium costs
On August 17 of last year, San Diego Chargers flack Mark Fabiani told a KPBS audience that local taxpayers would have to pick up most of the tab for a new stadium so the team …
December 5, 2012
San Diego big business and the city whistle past the greenhouse-gas graveyard
The data are in: climate change is real, and greenhouse gas emissions are greatly to blame. Global warming does not necessarily cause destructive disasters but definitely intensifies them. The East Coast seems more vulnerable than …
November 28, 2012
Hispanic vote calls shots in San Diego
Does San Diego’s great awakening include Republicans?
November 20, 2012
Fewer people than ever are reading newspapers; electronic media are not making up the difference.
Increasingly, American newspapers are trying to deliver the news electronically: online and by smartphone, tablet, Twitter, e-reader, you name it. But newspapers — particularly large metro dailies — are still having a rough time. Profits …
November 7, 2012
Lou Schooler and John Schooler's dubious schemes
San Diegans wanting to entrust their money to glib securities peddlers can go to school on the Schoolers — Lou and John Schooler. Lou owns Western Financial Planning Corporation, which has been charged with running …
October 31, 2012
Why SPAWAR and North Island fell for bribes
In an old New Yorker cartoon, a judge on a high bench peers down imperiously at a disheveled, scraggly-faced defendant. Intones the judge, “Crime doesn’t pay at your level.” For decades, that mindset has epitomized …
October 24, 2012
UCAN: Misspelled Accounts Add Up
UCAN director Michael Shames neutered the consumer watchdog organization by skimming over $400,000 in “intervenor fees,” among other dubious tactics.
October 17, 2012
U-T and Port: Bring in the Clowns
U-T San Diego Publisher Doug Manchester pushes for a Tenth Avenue terminal football stadium. But the numbers suggest San Diego would be trading good-paying jobs with low-paying service jobs.
October 10, 2012
San Diego, one of the five richest cities in the U.S. Wow. Details?
Brains and bucks go together. Cities with the highest percentage of adults with a bachelor’s degree or more tend to enjoy higher household incomes. Look no further than San Diego. On September 20, the American …
October 3, 2012
Mary Hoffman takes on CPUC
The state’s major utilities — San Diego Gas & Electric, Pacific Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison — realize that renewable energy represents the future. So, in defiance of federal law, these big utilities …
September 26, 2012
Chargers Stadium, Affordable or Not
San Diego can hardly afford to plop $750 million or more into a subsidized football stadium for the Chargers. But increasingly, even opponents fear it may be inevitable. Former councilmember Bruce Henderson, a longtime battler …
September 12, 2012
More San Diego Convention Center Lies
San Diego Convention Center expansion boosters knowingly cooked the books to fool the public and justify the project.
September 5, 2012