Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Close to Home — What it’s like on the street where you live
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Ready to pay for the Raiders' Vegas stadium?
What you point out is just one of thousands of pieces of social engineering that are built into the current tax code, and which will still be built into any revised tax code. Get rid of this piece of subsidy, and we should do that, and there will still be many other such outrageous bits of special-interest giveaways that are left. I'm hearing that this tax revision is a major, sweeping change. A close look at the current tax code will reveal that the last time it was scrubbed and rewritten from scratch was in 1954. Everything that happened since then was amendments and revisions done on a piecemeal basis, and that includes TRA 86, the last "big" change. Since that time, the tax code has been used to favor certain uses of funds, to favor some types of investment and to discourage others, and to modify human behavior. I'd go so far as to say that the tax code has been subverted from a way to get necessary government revenue into a way to manage society through incentives (tax credits) and punishments (penalties) for actions that otherwise would seem normal. Would it be possible to get back to a tax code intended to pay the bills and stop meddling with the lives of taxpayers? Possible I think, but most unlikely.— December 5, 2017 5:25 p.m.
Great year for 7-Eleven beer-runners
After reading this narrative, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. This 7-11 store has at least one or two "beer runs" a day, and there can be as many as ten. Good grief! If the stuff were something that sold for a dollar or two, it would be one thing, but the clerk describes a typical grab as a $20 eighteen-pack of Modelo. My take is that if they lose that much of the stuff every day, they much find it very profitable to sell beer, and must sell a great deal of it. But, still, how can the store tolerate it? (And it does sound as if it is tolerated as part of doing business in that 'hood.) Over the years I witnessed beer grabs here in No County. One time it was teenagers for sure, but another time it was a pair of older guys. There was another one that I've mostly forgotten. The Stater Brothers on Sycamore Ave in Vista was one of those I saw get hit, and shortly afterward they put up a solid barricade of fixtures and displays that made it hard to just run straight for the door. For a 7-11 store to lose that much and not take drastic action is a puzzle. Locking the cases at all times is the logical first step. But then when someone wants beer the store needs to have enough staff to go back, get the beer, bring it to the cash register and wait for payment. Yeah, an honest customer would be inconvenienced, I suppose, and might prefer to buy elsewhere. But that would stop the rip offs. At least the thieves have good taste in beer; it isn't Keystone or some other such suds they go for. I can hope that they prefer the Negra Modelo, one of my favorite dark Mexican brews.— December 5, 2017 3:39 p.m.
Giant leak kills Manchester's grand-opening plans
Is it possible that the jobsite had insurance for this sort of catastrophe? Can you even insure for a loss like that? It does look as if it is jinxed.— December 4, 2017 3:45 p.m.
Huli huli beats teriyaki
Whoo! White rice and macaroni salad. Those Hawaiians really know how to pack the calories on a plate. No vegetables, just fowl and carbs. Sounds mouth-watering, really.— December 4, 2017 3:43 p.m.
Border protesters demand release of Sunshine
While I don't doubt that this arrest and detention were politically motivated--after all this is Mexico--there is more to the story. That fishing fleet in the Sea of Cortez is fishing it out and fast. Forty years ago, totuaba (also spelled totuava) was frequently available here in the fish markets of San Diego. Now it is in danger of extinction and fully protected. But due to some of the strange aspects of Asian "Oriental medicine", along with rhino horn and bear gall bladders, the totuaba bladder is highly prized. And so rogue fishermen poach them. Up until about two years ago there was corvina from the gulf available here. The season was fairly short, but the fish was good eating. Now if you buy corvina here it is much larger fish, costs substantially more, and comes from Ecuador. Why is there no local corvina? Fished out, maybe? When that oversize fishing fleet has vacuumed all the edible fish from the gulf, what happens? Do those communes move their boats elsewhere in Mexico? Don't bet on that. Life is tough for those folks, but it will get tougher soon if the fishing doesn't get better management.— December 4, 2017 1:39 p.m.
Mass layoff or furlough? Union, NASSCO differ
NASSCO has been treating its employees like dirt for about as long as I've lived here, and that's a looong time. Oh, the U-T used to print upbeat stories about it when it was booming and then would fall silent when business was down. The Reader had pieces about what it was like to actually work there, and it wasn't usually a petty picture. While some of that was just due to the nature of the work of shipbuilding and all the welding involved in that, much seemed avoidable if only the company wanted to spend a few bucks to improve working conditions.— December 4, 2017 11:38 a.m.
Qualcomm's takeover-thwarting strategy
It's actually worse than that. The Wall Streeters who put the mergers together get fat fees. Then when the merger is undone, they get paid fees again. It's a type of churning done on a massive scale.— December 4, 2017 11:29 a.m.
29 years in jail for failed attempt to kill O’side cop
Alex, he might want to do that, but the guards have ways of keeping those guys under control. They do it because they don't like cop killers or those who tried to kill cops. He'll get harsh treatment.— December 4, 2017 9:22 a.m.
Qualcomm's takeover-thwarting strategy
There is another aspect to this potential Broadcom takeover. The record of success of hostile acquisitions isn't good at all. Friendly takeovers are one thing, and can succeed. Hostile grabs tend to be disappointing. One old example of that was when ATT forced NCR into its fold for reasons that had to do with then-current technology, and not future efforts. Shortly thereafter ATT was struggling and eventually spun NCR off to its shareholders in a weakened state. The whole thing was reported in the financial press as a disaster. While NCR is still around, it lacks the dominance it once had. Broadcom will, as some Qualcomm fans fear, milk the operation for its cash flows and likely will curtail the research and development that has made Qualcomm what it is today. Another disaster in the making?— December 4, 2017 9:17 a.m.
Junior Theatre reformer sues city
I'll once again bring up the issue of having a functioning two-party system that can provide alternatives when political offices are to be filled. There was no reason, other than dysfunctional California politics, why the GOP candidate, whoever it might have been, could not have been a real challenger for that senate seat. The corruption of Peavey, Brown, Harris and the rest of the CPUC was in large part due to the lack of political accountability that came with one party dominance. Until that dominance is eroded or gone, get used to this sort of thing over and over.— December 3, 2017 3:56 p.m.