Notoriously contrarian Internet publication Slate has a new solution to the growing backlash between local tech companies and the local citizens who seem to have a problem with them. Using last week's anti-eviction protests and the Google bus at the center of it all as a jumping off point, opinionator Matthew Yglesias suggests local tech titans just pack it all up and head to Ohio, where plentiful resources will solve everyone's headaches.

To wit:

The Bay Area is sick and tired of the antics of entitled techies, and the nouveaux riches want a place where they’ll be appreciated. It’s time for federal authorities to step in and move the show someplace else. Cleveland, say.

After all, every big city has its share of obnoxious protesters and obnoxious overclassers. What makes the tensions in the Bay Area especially extreme is the fearsome competition over scarce resources—specifically housing and office space.

San Francisco isn't dense enough to support the influx of new residents and city officials don't seem interested in adding density, Yglesias argues. So, instead of benefitting everyone, the boom only results in obscene rents and private busses in Muni stops. Although smaller companies have tried to jumpstart tech hubs in cities like Las Vegas and New York, nothing will really take hold unless Google, Apple, Facebook and Twitter all ship themselves off to the Buckeye state. (Also considered in Yglesias' argument: Buffalo and Pittsburgh, neither of which has a major airport, and Detroit, which according to the author is "a bit cliché at this point.")

Anyhow, don't expect Slate's (and no doubt some San Franciscans') dream of a Silicon Cleveland to ever be realized: Apple's futuristic campus is already going to be the pride of Cupertino, no matter what non-tech industry folks think about it. Twitter is happy with it's downtown tax breaks (and possibly considering more space). Facebook is gearing up to build its own corporate exurbs. And Google still has their eye on Mission Bay. Those shuttle buses have already started rolling.

[Slate]

We went to see Walk Hard yesterday and we actually saw some homeless guy with a backpack walk into the movie, go to the very back of the theater, and sit himself down. Good to see all that money he was given went to a good cause.

49ers 21 Bucs 19- Woohooo! Two games in a row! Shaun Hill! Shaun Hill! Shaun Hill! Screw Alex Smith! Lest we get ahead of ourselves, we should point out that it was obvious that the Bucs main goal in the game was to not get anyone injured so Hill basically played a team mainly consisting of backups and starters who were half-assing it. We should also point out that the Niners won a bunch of games last year at the end of the season, raising everyone's hopes, only to have another season go quickly go down the drain. It's obvious that the team hasn't quit and Mike Nolan has definitely saved his job, but nobody should read that much into this. Next week should be a much bigger test as the Niners go into the Dawg Pound to play a very good Cleveland team that needs a victory to make the playoffs.

Jaguars 49 Raiders 11- Remember what we said about how the Raiders were spoilers one week, than lousy the next? Well, they weren’t just lousy yesterday; they were the very definition of suck-ass, getting blown out by the Jaguars. The big story, though, was the eventual playing of JaMarcus. He wasn't very good, however, throwing for three interceptions and only 83 yards, but the Jags, who are probably the third best team in the NFL, were so geeked up we don't even think the benighted Kenny Stabler would have done much. Also remember what we said about the NFL allowing TV stations to switch away if the local team is in a blowout? If one team is so ahead that it’s starting its backup QB somewhere in the third period, viewers should be allowed another choice of games to watch.

Warriors 125 Grizzlies 117- Jesus, who puts together these NBA schedules? The Warriors played at home on Friday, then went on to Detroit Sunday night and then played Memphis last night. This despite the fact we're pretty sure Detroit is nowhere near Memphis (geography has never been our strong suit). And it gets even crazier-- the Warriors have a day off and then they'll head to Minnesota (which we think is closer to Detroit than Memphis), then New Jersey (which is a little bit farther from Detroit but still not as far as Memphis), and finally Cleveland (which is, we think, in between New Jersey and Detroit). Was the schedule maker sniffing glue when they come up with all this? Anyways, the Warriors train kept-a' rolling with a win against Memphis and snapped a three-game road losing streak.

-Okay, now onto the Haren trade, the one in which Billy Beane sent Danny Haren to the DBacks, thus screwing over both Bay Area teams at the same time. Beane's thinking is that the team is nowhere near to winning and it's better to reload and rebuild than stick with what is clearly not working just for sticking's sake. That's probably a wise decision, especially considering the Angels are further separating themselves from the pack. The trade, actually, is getting some measure of rave reviews.

Truth is that that part of the reason for the deal was because Beane's magic touch hasn’t been quite so magical lately. Beane's moves have been more bad than worse and the farm system ain't what it used to be (maybe they're just not doing enough steroids?) Even worse, one could argue that recent A's teams have been rather bland and non-descript and nobody likes that.

All we can say is that It's going to be a long, slow boring summer next year. And the year after that. And the year after that....

Gothamist learned about the craziest urban nightmare come true: A huge python found in the bathroom pipes. It was also a nightmare for some Yankees fans, as manger Joe Torre declined to come back and manage the Bronx Bombers. At least the city's attempt to give some direction to subway riders was interesting, pranksters went shirtless at the Fifth Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch and the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendars came out. And just in time for Halloween, the Chocolate Jesus is back.

By the time you read this, Bostonist will either be elated or will have had its heart broken by the Cleveland Indians during the ALCS. The Red Sox has taken Bostonist on a tummy-turning roller-coaster ride. At one point, they thought Cleveland was messing with its head when the Indians hired Josh Beckett's old girlfriend to sing the National Anthem. In non-Sox-related news, Bostonist found out what an Iron Butt is and mourned the imminent closure of one of the city's finest theaters. And an astronaut is planning on taking a little bit of the Boston Symphony Orchestra with her when she flies.

SFist interviewed New Yorker scribe Alex Ross, saw Archbishop George Niederauer apologize to the Catholic Church for giving communion to the anti-Catholic Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and had a time-honored NYC vs. SF debate. SFist also questioned the practice of "tipping" cable car drivers. The eco-y Lights Out SF ended up a dim success. Oh, and therapeutic sound healers? Are interesting. And bizarre. Just listen for yourself.

Poor Cal-- so close yet so far. Our theory about what happened is that the idea of Cal having the #1 ranked team in the country was so crazy that even in this year (decade, actually) of sports craziness, the God of Sports deemed that just too crazy and set the upset in motion. Of course, we're also looking at the Rockies in the World Series, so whadda we know?

Okay, before the Raiders recap, here's a rant...if you've been following the baseball playoffs, especially the American League, it's been nothing but Yankees..Yankees...Yankees. When they lost to the Indians, the story wasn't "Cleveland beats the Yankees" but "Yankees lose to Cleveland." Then you'd watch ESPN and you'd have twenty minutes on the Yankees and at the most a few minutes on the Indians. Hell, if you watched ESPN after the Yankees were eliminated, you'd have difficulty knowing just who they lost too. Next time we turn ESPN on, we're half expecting a story to go "and this just in, the Yankees are still not in the playoffs." And now that it's Cleveland/Boston, it's the same thing all over again. After Game 2, the story wasn't Cleveland winning, it was Boston losing and why, as if the Sox were so destined to win and the fact they didn't was somehow they're doing, not the fact that the Indians are a pretty damn good baseball team. And even when watching the games, you barely know who the Sox are playing because not even the announcers on Fox acknowledge anything other than Boston.

And now...

Chargers 28 Raiders 14- The Raiders, it appears, had the misfortune of playing the Chargers not at the beginning of the season, but halfway through the season when a team many people consider Superbowl contenders finally got out of their stupor and realized that they're Superbowl contenders. Or, at least realized that their bread & butter is basically to do nothing than handoff to LaDanian Tomlinson, a cat who just kills the Raiders and did so to the tune of 198 yards (seriously, everytime we looked up, he was busting some twenty yard run). Something which would obviously be known by the Chargers coach, Marvelous Norv Turner, who used to see LT2 do it to him. As for the Raiders, they didn't play very well at all (Daunte was sacked 6 times) but it's hard to know whether they really are that good or whether they just got caught by one pissed-off Chargers team.

Serialized gem / siren song Tales of the City drew many folks to SF. Well, it brought us here, anyway. And the character of Mary Ann Singleton acted as a temporary stand-in until many of us arrived. To wit:

Mary Ann Singleton was twenty-five years old when she saw San Francisco for the first time. She came to the city alone for an eight-day vacation. On the fifth night, she drank three Irish coffees at the Buena Vista, realized that her Mood Ring was blue and decided to phone her mother in Cleveland.

(This Cleveland place is somewhere in So Cal, right?)

Laura Linney brought Singleton to life with brilliance and wide-eyed, no-so plain Jane beauty in the '90s PBS and Showtime mini-series Tales of the City. Next week she will help celebrate Tales' 31 years along with a local literary lineup of such talented key tappers as Amy Tan, Andrew Sean Greer, Michelle Tea, K.M. Soehnlein, Susie Bright, and...Father Guido Sarducci . Litquake will fete the anniversary of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City with a reading by Laura Linney and the aforementioned. You hear that? That's (almost) Oscar-gold talent, folks. Drink it in. (Also, someone named Eve Batey will host one of the pub crawls. Get blackout drunk at her crawl, and win a prize!)

We caught part of the big goings-ons last night at the ole ballyard and we have to say that it all looked a little underwhelming. It was kind of blah, flat-like, with none of the same vibe that one felt when Barry was chasing some sort of record. But then again, we switched away fairly quickly to catch "the Bionic Woman" (Starbuck!) so what do we know?

Anyways, we'd like to thank the Bay Area baseball representatives for taking part in some exciting pennant races and being so accommodating to the teams they played. The A's went to Cleveland and let them pour champagne all over themselves when they beat the A's to clinch. Then they rolled into the Fens and got rolled, letting the Sox not only clinch a playoff spot but added not one whit of drama to the Red Sox/Yanks race. This whole thing could have been rather dramatic, with Boston blowing one of the biggest leads in pennant race history and thus sinking an entire region into an angst not seen since Meg White woke up one morning to hear that somebody posted a sex tape online with someone who looked like her, but instead, the Sox beat the A's twice. So much for that fun.

Then there's the Giants. They could have could have driven the final stake into the Friar’s (baseball's most boringly good team-- sorry Basketball Chris) and thus pave the way for SFist's Official Favorite Playoff Contender, the Phils, to get in, but they choked that away. First there was that horrible, horrible three run home run they gave up in the ninth (dooming poor, poor Matt Cain yet again) two nights ago and then the shellacking they got last night.

Thanks for playing

Ahhh, crap. During this week’s practice, 49er OLB Manny Lawson tore an ACL and will be out for the 2007 season.

This is a mighty blow to the nascent Niner defense, who had been counting on the former first-round pick to lend his lanky 6’5” frame and sprinter’s speed to the linebacking corps this year.

After two weeks of nail-bitin' wins over flawed NFC West opponents, the 49ers go to The Steel City to face the cultural might of the Steelers.

* San Francisco vs. Pittsburgh
Sunday, September 23, 2007. 10:00 AM, PST.
Week 03
The Battle Of Reality

Despite the recent coaching change, when it’s the Steelers, you know what kind of American football you’re going to get: power along both lines, an aggressive 3-4 defense matched with an offense built on power-running.

Now this is a team. It’s not the rebooted Cards or the formless Rams, PIT is a veteran, battle-tested organization. And for the first time in 2007, the 49ers will see what a real NFL franchise looks like.

* Photo of Kevan Barlow breaking away from Steeler defenders via SFGate.com

Next up on your American Football Spectacular: The Oakland Raiders host the wacktacular feast-or-famine Cleveland Browns, and the season’s first Bay Area TV blackout.

It's time for American Football Spectacular's capsule reviews of the 2007 NFL Draft. Adventure, excitement,! All hard information was culled from NFL.com's pretty excellent draft tracker site. Proceed.

* Selection # / Team (trade info) / Player / Position / Height / Weight / School

* 01 / Oakland / Russell, JaMarcus / QB / 6-6 / 263 / Louisiana State: Sorry, JaMarcus; the Raiders only picked up one offensive lineman in the draft. So, uh, now you've got that guy and Jeremy Newberry to add to last year's offensive line unit. Start buying pain medication in bulk now, my friend, 'cause you will be sacked a lot this coming season. On the bright side for Oakland, have you seen how well the Golden State Warriors are doing?

* 02 / Detroit / Johnson, Calvin / WR / 6-4 / 237 / Georgia Tech: The founder of K Records and a key member of the Northwestern indie rock scene, it will be intriguing to see how well Johnson excels within Detroit offensive coordinator Mad Mike Martz's multi-receiver pass patterns. (Har, har.) Now seriously, either Calvin Johnson has the talent to be a success wherever they go, but Detroit's legacy of leadership futility makes it specifically difficult to succeed there. Fire Millen!

* 03 / Cleveland / Thomas, Joe / OT / 6-6 / 313 / Wisconsin: Went fishin' with his Dad for draft day rather than dealing with the New York City draft spectacle. Smart guy.

* 04 / Tampa Bay / Adams, Gaines / DE / 6-5 / 260 / Clemson: The Bucs coveted WR Calvin Johnson, but'll settle for a new defensive edge-rusher to succeed the aging pass-rushing DE Simeon Rice.

* 05 / Arizona / Brown, Levi / OT / 6-4 / 328 / Penn State: Must protect pretty QB Leinart. So, they got this guy.

* 06 / Washington / Landry, LaRon / FS / 6-2 / 205 / Louisiana State: Sure must suck to be a Washington fan. After wasting a bunch of money on free agent safety Adam Archuleta last season, Washington spends its first-rounder on another safety.

* 07 / Minnesota / Peterson, Adrian / RB / 6-2 / 218 / Oklahoma: A speedy power-back with a history of injuries, this guy is the new Priest Holmes. What that means is this caveat: sure he's great; but how long will he last?

* 08 / Atlanta (from Houston) / Anderson, Jamaal / DE / 6-6 / 279 / Arkansas: The Falcons have been trying to buy or draft a pass rush for the past couple years. Maybe this'll do'er.

* 09 / Miami / Ginn Jr., Ted / WR / 6-0 / 180 / Ohio State: Surprise! On her couch in Chicago, Jessica shouted at her television in disbelief. We don't blame her. The Dolphins needneedneedNEEED a quarterback above all else! Yet instead of picking up ND's uber-touted QB Brady Quinn, Miami picks up a speedster receiver coming off a debilitating leg injury. Who-the-wha-now? Hmph. Extremely high-risk, with poor odds of good results. This pick will determine how the the history of the 2007 NFL Draft is remembered.

* 12 / Buffalo / Lynch, Marshawn / RB / 5-11 / 217 / California: Cal's own Marshawn goes to Buffalo to replace Willis McGahee at running back, and appreciate the musical canon of Ani DiFranco.

* 13 / St. Louis / Carriker, Adam / DE / 6-6 / 292 / Nebraska: A big, meaty defensive end from Nebraska, Carriker's name is a lot more fun if you imagine Homestar Runner saying it out loud. Try!

Photo of Patrick Willis via sf49ers.com

All the rest from round one after the jump.

iously, how can this be so? The Raiders -- owners of the worst record in the NFL last season at 2-14 -- have been saddled with the most difficult schedule in 2007? Huh-whaah?!

Aye, 'tis true. Along with AFS correspondent DJ Burrito's beloved Buffalo Bills, the 2007 Raiders are calendared to face franchises that had a combined winning percent of .539 in 2006.

Let's explain how this came to be. Here is how NFL schedules are generated since the 2002 season's re-alignment. Steady now:

* Home and away against its three division opponents (6 games).
* The four teams from another division within its conference on a rotating three-year cycle (4 games).
* The four teams from a division in the other conference on a rotating four-year cycle (4 games).
* Two intraconference games based on the previous year's standings (2 games). These games will match a first-place team against the first-place teams in the two same-conference divisions the team is not scheduled to play that season. The second-place, third-place, and fourth-place teams in a conference will be matched in the same way each year.

Awrioght-then. First off, the other three teams in the AFC West division (SD, KC, DEN) are either good or better-than-good. San Diego had the best record in the NFL last season at 14-2. Both Denver and AFS correspondent Kyle's Kansas City Chiefs each went 9-7.

The two divisions that the Raiders draw in 2007 are the AFC South (IND, JAC, TEN, HOU) and the "Black And Blue" NFC North (CHI, GB, MIN, DET). There are some particularly powerful teams in there. Da Bearsss had the best record in the NFC with Lovie's keen Cover Two D. SFist Eve's Indianapolis Colts rode their precision one-back offensive scheme all the way to Super Bowl XLI.

Though the AFC South's Titans and Jaguars both finished at .500 in 2006, both squads fall squarely under the label of fiery teams that no one wants to see on their slate in 2007: the Jags because of their punishing style of play in all aspects of the game, and the Titans for the undefendable QB Vince "he-just-wins-games" Young.

The two intraconference last-place teams are the still-unformed Cleveland Browns, and the underperforming Miami Dolphins -- both of which could beat the Raiders. In fact the Browns did beat the Raiders in 2006.

Yeah, this Raider season ain't shaping up to be a whole lot of fun. But we're not going to sugar-coat it for you. And we're not even to the draft yet. Damn you, NFL, damn you.

Just as we did with the 49ers, after the jump we have analysis, forecasting, and a simplified text version of the Raiders' 2007 schedule suitable for wallet or wall. Just copy, paste, print, and grouse.

* Photo of Al Davis surrounded by sword-wielding squirrels via blog.nbx.com. No, we have no idea. Yes, we had to use it.