Today is Facebook’s IPO day.  First Netcape, then Google, now Facebook.  Of course, there were other high-profile IPOs in the history of Silicon Valley, but this one is special… Everyone has something to say about the IPO.

• The New York Times looks at the “reticent rich” of Silicon Valley.  By the way, rich or not, if you buy a $20,000 bike and your name isn’t Andy Schleck, you are an idiot.
• The Merc is over-run with Facebook coverage…

Interestingly, the Daily Journal has a piece today titled:  County leads area in home sales hike.  Just wait until the Facebookies hit the market…

As a follow-up to the big cheating/suing scandal at Sequoia Union High School District (remember, the kid cheated, was kicked out of the IB program and his father sued)… Well, the kid can’t go back to the honors English program.  Oops.

In the Daily News, most of the week was focused on profiling candidates with no chance of winning the Supervisor’s race… Today is different.  Warren Slocum, your turn.

Is something happening with Facebook today?  We can’t tell… (For “our” coverage, head over the San Mateo side of the blog, sorry Palo Alto…)

And while the San Mateo County side of blog goes public today… Palo Alto takes a brunt of the bad news today.  Palo Alto is the former home of Facebook, but it is also the home of Hewlett Packard, where “huge job cuts” are rumored.  Ouch.  Don’t worry HP engineers, Facebook is hiring…

While technology is the big news today, something more past-time-y is also newsworthy today.  Bud Selig said something yesterday, but it didn’t amount to much.  One thing appears certain, Lew Wolff is hot-to-trot on downtown San Jose.

Remember the story earlier in the week about graves being moved from underneath Valley Med… Well, here’s a human interest story for you from Mike Rosenberg:

Ana Silva always told everyone her mother was buried in a cheap box at a pauper’s grave under a county hospital during the days when fruit-pickers settled in the Santa Clara Valley. Her family believed her, but no one else did — not the county, not the hospital. Silva died without giving her mother’s remains a proper Catholic burial.

To the blogs…

Rich Robinson is now the spokesperson for the labor movement, Sheriff Laurie Smith, no on Measure B, and high-speed rail and is using San Jose Inside as his sounding board.

Also on San Jose Inside, they (and Metro) endorse Rose Herrera, and Pierluigi Oliverio, Ash Kalra…

Protect San Jose (San Jose Police Officers’ Association) is having a scholarship dinner tonight.  The Daily Fetch will buy the ticket for Rose Herrera if she is interested in going…

Yesterday, there was a story about how the Water District may have put polluted junk in the reservoirs… Another water-related story today in Scott Herhold’s column, albeit “private” water.  San Jose Water Company wants to jack up your rates, but the California Public Utilities Commission has other ideas…

Speaking of public agency and large sums of money, Supervisor Liz Kniss wants the County to spend $8,000,000 for bike lanes to connect folks to the Palo Alto Baylands.

A morbid note from Mark Gomez at the Merc:  “Crews digging up coffins from forgotten cemetery on Valley Medical Center campus”  Yuck.

A big day at San Jose Unified today:  First, an assistant superintendent is leaving to greener (?) pastures to be the Superintendent at the East Side Union High School District… And second, the assistant (goateed) principal at Leland High was charged with “molesting underage girl”… in case that doesn’t make you made enough, he is on paid administrative leave.

Earlier in the week, San Jose Inside screamed about privacy at City Hall in San Jose.  Well, Palo Alto Unified is taking government secrecy one step further.  From the Palo Alto Weekly:

Stating that Palo Alto school board members may have violated California’s open-meeting law, the Palo Alto Weekly has asked the board to cease the practice of receiving weekly confidential memos from Superintendent Kevin Skelly.

That’s worse than your situation, right Dan?

If you send it, (or blog it) we’ll print it… That’s sort of our motto about campaign mail pieces, especially hit pieces.  Here are two that landed in folks’ mailboxes yesterday in San Jose District 10.  The first is against Johnny Khamis and proves the point that unions aren’t just focused on Rose Herrera.  From the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 21:

The second is from the Chamber of Commerce focused on knocking Brian O’Neill down a peg or two by highlighting his union ties…

Speaking of unions… Protect San Jose can’t resist.  Another Rose Herrera-related blog post… Complete with a typo.

We’ll end on a sad note, Dwight Bentel passed away.  He founded San Jose State’s journalism department and was 103.  According to those in the Fetch circle of friends, it was a life well-lived.

“Uh oh”… it’s a pretty good bet that those words will cross Redwood City Councilmember Rosanne Foust’s email box today because the Fair Political Practices Commission “will investigate two conflict-of-interest complaints against…Rosanne Foust for asking her council colleagues to place an advisory measure on the ballot to gauge voters’ interest in pursuing the now-stalled Saltworks project…”  Lawyer up!

Bonnie Eslinger has been very busy interviewing candidates for Supervisor with absolutely no chance of winning.  Today’s candidate with no chance:  Ernie Schmidt.

Earlier in the week, we learned that the Mosquito and Vector Control District didn’t necessarily want any more oversight (shocking)… Today we learn that Local Agency Formation Commission isn’t sold on less oversight.  Get ready to get bitten Mosquito and Vector Control District…

You may remember last year when a Menlo Park dad (and Stanford professor) was arrested for having a bunch of underage kids drinking at his house.  Well, he won’t face charges.  William Burnett is lucky he doesn’t live in San Jose… they just passed a “social host” ordinance this week.

As the campaign goes on, the Daily News’ focus on candidates goes on… to people you may not have even heard of:  Carlos Romero.  Sorry Carlos… But the Daily Journal has stopped profiling candidates and chose one:  Warren Slocum.  We anticipate Alex Tourk is busy getting the mail pieces with this endorsement out the door…

It is a big night for Atherton’s Interim Police Chief… he might lose the “Interim”… But if you think that is a slamdunk, you don’t know Atherton.  The most Atherton of Atherton stories ever is written today by Renee Batti in the Almanac.  Here’s a snippet:

Athertonians is also the name of a Yahoo email message group that hosts discussions among Atherton residents — a moderated group whose posters have become increasingly critical of certain City Council members and decisions.  The group, which has a blog at athertonians.blogspot.com, has come under the recent scrutiny of town officials, who say that the group’s name is causing too much confusion among Atherton residents.

Speaking of big nights for San Mateo County cities… San Carlos will give it one more try on Friday to figure out how to replace Andy Klein on the City Council.

The Mosquito and Vector Control District, you know – the same folks who hired 2 employees who embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars – don’t want to face any more scrutiny or oversight… Funny, neither does Jamie Dimon.

The Mercury News Editorial that Protect San Jose, Cindy Chavez, and Sheriff Laurie Smith have been hoping for… “Those sliming Herrera should be ashamed…” We’ll take a wild guess and say that Protect San Jose, Cindy Chavez, and Laurie Smith are not ashamed.  Right Protect?

Oh, and not to be left out the of the Editorial fun, Patricia Martinez-Roach gets a “mention”:

Perhaps the worst thing the “Vote No on Rose Herrera” attackers have done is put up Patricia Martinez Roach as the alternative. Martinez Roach is a micromanaging school board member and chronic candidate for office who would be a disaster on the council. She is, however, an unabashed union advocate — and that, apparently, is all that matters.

By the way, perhaps the Merc Editors didn’t read Rich Robinson’s “In Defense of Laurie Smith” on San Jose Inside… (Probably because Rich Robinson wrote it…)

If you are under the impression that the San Jose City Council doesn’t do a lot of work… they did everything they could to dispel that rumor yesterday:

The City Council curbed payday lenders… much to the dismay of Manny Diaz.

The City Council passed a “social host” ordinance… much to the dismay of crappy parents of teenagers everywhere…

The City Council passed “developer incentives” to get folks building downtown apartment buildings again… much to the dismay of Protect San Jose.

Oh, and San Jose Inside is none-too-pleased with San Jose City Hall’s secrecy about possible street closures… and not just because Inside likes open government.

If you are under the impression that the Santa Clara Valley Water District does too much… then this story is for you.  “Santa Clara Valley Water District under investigation for violating water pollution laws”… We guess there is a different Board (LeZotte, Gage) but same old Water District.

All the local political drama yesterday wasn’t in the race for State Senate, or Assembly, or Supervisor – but San Carlos.  Choosing the third Mayor in a year (Matt Grocott) was easy, deciding how to fill the Andy Klein-vacated seat was less so.  ”As of press deadline” no decision was made for a special election or fill the vacancy at the next, regularly scheduled election in 2013.

Memo Morantes gets the Daily News treatment today.  We’re getting closer and closer to election day, so read up everyone.

There won’t be an election day for San Bruno Park Elementary School District’s Superintendent, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t somewhat of a lightening rod these days.  A “no confidence” petition is circulating with his name on it.

In other really big local news… the Portola Valley Town Council may soon use microphones.  Welcome to the 1950s Portola Valley.

The dream of high-rises in downtown San Jose still remains.  Mayor Chuck Reed and Councilmember Sam Liccardo have a proposal to make it easier to get done.  San Jose Inside takes a look.

And we now know what the folks at Protect San Jose do when they aren’t focused on Rose Herrera… figure out how to use Photoshop.  Target #1 of the Photoshop era:  the aforementioned Sam Liccardo.

Yikes, here’s a creepy story:  Ray Haisell, a VTA supervisor, was found dead near Tracy.

Scott Herhold and Mitt Romney have at least one thing in common (aside from great hair)… but better Herhold confess/describe it to you than us.  (By the way, there are lots of folks who won’t be surprised that Scott Herhold was mean…)

If you send them, we post them… Today’s mailer is from the Chamber of Commerce against District 10 candidate Edesa Bitbadal.  The Chamber could use a lesson in hit-pieces from Protect San Jose and Cindy Chavez…

The most exciting (and sometimes downright funniest) race this June is for County Supervisor.  Bonnie Eslinger looks at Shelly Masur’s candidacy today…  We have to ask Masur, no billboards?

To San Bruno, where there will be a welcome back ceremony for survivors of the 2010 blast.

San Carlos may take the step to become a charter city and leave the old, dusty “general law city” governance style behind.  Call it the “legacy of Andy Klein”… or something like that.

Ending some of the revolving door chaos that has plagued Atherton, this week they are likely to take the “Interim” off of the Interim Police Chief’s title.

Finally, Amgen bike race today.  If you are going to be Coastside today, traffic will be all messed up, unless, of course, you are a world-class cyclist.

Good morning friends… Has everyone received their absentee ballot?  We have and we’ve voted, so stop the onslaught of campaign mail… pretty please?

Speaking of onslaught of campaign mail… Tracy Seipel looks in on a race for San Jose City Council District 10, aka the Race to Replace Pyle.  A motley crew to say the least… but Seipel, and others in the story, say the seat is critical to the Mayor’s “power base” on the City Council.

In other political news… San Jose Councilmember/disabled former Police Officer is still (amazingly) part of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association (aka Protect San Jose)… But the good, honest, open-to-criticism folks at the Police Officers’ Association would like to kick out one of their “own”… Constant is apparently no longer welcome in their union, but we knew that because of this:

In yet other political news… Scott Herhold looks into the public smearing taking place against incumbent, likely-to-win, Councilmember Rose Herrera.  He chronicles the bullying and intimidation that has become the preferred tactic of San Jose’s public employee unions.

Finally, there is a pretty good bet that you are having a better couple of weeks than Scott Thompson, the now former CEO of Yahoo!  Even Rose Herrera is having a better couple of weeks than Scott Thompson…