I'm going to keep this one short.  All I'm going to say is this:  The SF City government is this year spending more money to prevent a Halloween celebration from occurring than it ever has to protect people at an endorsed celebration.  I don't plan to participate in the main celebration, but I haven't heard any great indication that San Franciscans as a whole don't plan to.  I hear in one ear that we have a problem with what is believed to be gang violence, maybe initiations, from other cities, and clearly, as I saw this evening, the answer to that problem is to harass everyone in downtown.  I don't entirely understand, for instance, how stopping someone for a burned out taillight prevents shootings from happening.

Anyway, happy Halloween!