Muskrat v. Altcat: Trial Begins

       Well, Sports fans, get your popcorn and drinks and lets watch the game as it begins today in Oakland, California. Wait aaaaaaaaa minute. Games? Oakland? Hold on now. Something is wrong, very wrong, crazy wrong. Games?  Hmmmm.

       So, folks the Raiders left town a few years ago; you know the OAKLAND Raiders. Then, the OAKLAND A's-they, too, hit the road for Las Vegas(?) via Sacramento, CA. Oh, the Golden State Warriors had their start in OAKLAND, too, in a place called the Colosseum off I-80 near the OAkland Airport(that sorry excuse for an airport). The whole place is a sorry town beset by unsolvable social problems despite being on the fringe of Silicon Valley just south. A new Mayor, Barbara Lee has taken over City Hall and apparently, with her well -honed skills, she's managed to restore some civic pride. However, it will be a long, uphill road to change things there.

     When Arnold S. was the Republican hope in Sacramento, he had inherited a bridge project: the removal of the eastern half(earthquake damaged half) and the installation of the new replacement. People wanted to know: How Much, Arnold?  Hmmm. Seems like a reasonable question. The problem was - nobody in the Legislature where the money was to come from could offer a definite number: costs kept rising by the day. But, the question(s) wouldn't die. How Much? How much, Arnie. You were Terminator, tell us a terminal answer: How Much? Finally, $8 billions came out, a lot higher than projected and a lot higher than people wanted to pay, but it was too late; sunk costs dictated that the project would be finished. One can drive over this bridge today. Its nice.

     But, I digress. We're back in Oakland where the MAyor began his maritime career many moons ago, at the O.A. T.-the vast Oakland Army Terminal. Yes, the US Army used the area as a logistics center for the Pacific region. The SP trains stopped here, not across the Bay in SF. The container ships now stopped here, not across the Bay. The Key System of trains had a depot here(now gone and forgotten). SF knew it could not compete against all those logistic situations that favored Oakland. All those jobs: gone from SF.

     Then something happened in SF.  Bank of America went bankrupt(almost) and was taken over by some carpet baggers from the Deep South. Good bye finance/banking. Pacific Stock Exchange- adios, Amigo. BART came, here and Oakland, too.  Biotech came, but not here, not there. And then: technology arrived in full bloom. By the late 90's, the Dot Com business arrived in SF, not Oakland. It bombed everywhere, but the dot-commers liked what they saw in SF, not Oakland. A new player arrived and covered the western segment of the Bay Area. Oakland's well known problems precluded any chance of competing with SF for location of the 'new' tech industry.

     But now, we have sparks flying between two giants of tech; Sam Altman of AI fame and his nemesis,  the Musk Rat hisself: Elon Musk. They will face off in a much-watched trial in Oakland. The old city across the BAy will finally get some attention. Media types will trip over themselves has they converge on the old courthouse. Some will get a seat, others, no. Some will get mugged, some will lose their cars, some will leave in disgust as the trial unfolds. Watch it.