San Francisco = Soviet Russia?

Is San Francisco turning into Soviet Russia?

From INN:

Jewish groups in San Francisco have banded together to fight off the possible inclusion of a law on an upcoming ballot that, if passed, would ban male circumcision from taking place in the city. The ballot effort is being organized by a person named Lloyd Schofield, who says he currently has about half of the 7,000-some signatures he needs to include the provision on the ballot. Calling circumcision a “violation of human rights,” Schofield has said in several interviews that circumcision is “essentially a form of culturally accepted genital mutilation.”

Jewish efforts are working to prevent the inclusion of the law on the ballot, said San Francisco Anti-Defamation League director Daniel Sandman. “This is hurtful and offensive to people in the community who consider this a coveted ritual,” he said. Attorneys for the ADL said that they were examining the possibility that the law could violate the First Amendment right to Freedom of Religion. If the ban is approved, anyone caught circumcising infants or minors could face a $1,000 fine and up to a year in prison.

While the cornerstone of Jewish peoplehood for the past four millenia is being brought into question, locals are more sympathetic than ever to the rights of fish and other wildlife in the San Francisco bay:

From Yahoo:

A publicity stunt intended to advertise upcoming shooter Homefront ended up backfiring this week when 10,000 red balloons, released by publisher THQ into the San Francisco skies, wound up in the waters of the Bay itself, angering local environmentalists.

Scheduled for release on March 15, Homefront takes place in 2027, and sees a belligerent and heavily armed North Korean army invades the mainland of the United States. The balloons were released in a mock protest against the game's fictional North Korean regime, and coincided with this week's Game Developers Conference taking place in downtown San Francisco.

But what goes up, must come down -- and thanks to San Francisco's notoriously dreary weather, it didn't take long for the thousands of balloons, weighed down by windy, rainy conditions, to wind up touching down in the Bay. Pictures of balloon-covered waters flooded the Internet, and local residents took to Facebook to express their outrage.

The balloons carried the name of retailer Gamestop, but in a statement the retailer denied responsibility, saying it had no prior knowledge of the stunt and pointing the finger at publisher THQ instead.

And THQ? In a statement, the publisher's vice-president of corporate communications, Julia MacMedan assured concerned San Franciscans that the balloons wouldn't be troubling them for long.

"The balloons that were released are completely biodegradable," she told Cnet. "They start the process of biodegrading as soon as they're blown up with the helium. There should not be any environmental concerns." Regardless, the publisher has hired a clean-up crew to deal with the mess.

Local environmentalists weren't impressed, pointing out that, biodegradable or not, the latex balloons could still pose a threat to wildlife while they undergo the decomposition process -- and Cnet further observes the culprits could face prosecution under anti-littering laws.