The Editor's Back Fence

Anyone who's worried about BP's seeming lock on a lot of space and people here in Berkeley had better read this :"...from my investigation, BP has figured out a very low-cost way to prepare for this task: BP lies. BP prevaricates, BP fabricates and BP obfuscates. That's because responding to a spill may be easy and simple, but not at all cheap. And BP is cheap. Deadly cheap." 

That's from an article Slick Operator: The BP I've Known Too Well by well-known muckraker Greg Palast on today's Truthout website. He links BP's involvement with the Valdez oil spill with the current mess they've made off the Lousiana coast. Those of us in Berkeley had better worry even more than we have already about their planned incursions into downtown Berkeley and the hills and canyons east of the UC Berkeley campus.  

By the way, one of BP's main men at UC Berkeley is now Secretary of Energy. Seems to me like that could be a problem too. 

And of course Richard Brenneman has been on BP's case for a long time... 

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Deer attacks Thousand Oaks woman --and her two dogs, of course. Deer and dogs don't mix. My environmental consultant says that if it is a male deer with antlers in the mating season, a completely unprovoked attack is possible though not likely. The best course of action is to shout and wave to scare the deer away--oh, and call off the dogs.  

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Is it now legal to tear down a dwelling before building plans for its replacement have been approved, as this squib in the Chronicle's business section on the ever-irritating McMansion planned for 2707 Rose claims? I thought the Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance barred that. But this particular applicant may be more equal than others similarly situated.