Solyndra, the Fremont solar manufacturer on whom the Obama Administration – and taxpayers – lost a $535 million gamble as part of the economic stimulus package, has left at least one positive legacy: a work of architectural art.

Oakland-based Rael San Fratello Architects, established in 2002 by partners Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, used glass tubes from the bankrupt and defunct Solyndra to create the “SOL Grotto,” described as “a space of solitude and close to nature where one is presented with a mediated experience of water, coolness and light” in the University of California Botanical Garden in Berkeley.

“The SOL Grotto also explores Solyndra’s role as a company Sh*t Out of Luck,” the website says. “1,368 of the 24 million high tech glass tubes destined to be destroyed as a casualty of their bankruptcy, are used in the installation.”

The project is part of the exhibit “Natural Discourse,” a collaborative project between the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley and a multi-disciplinary group of artists, writers, architects and researchers who have been invited to spend time in the Garden’s extraordinary collection of plants, engage with the horticulturists and develop new work.

“The tube’s original role as a light concentrating element is extended to transmit cool air into the space via the Venturi effect, to amplify sounds from the adjacent waterfall via the vibrations of the tubes cantilevering over the creek, and to create distorted views of the garden,” the site says. “The glass tubes are illuminated electric-blue naturally from the direct and ambient light that is conducted through the glass causing each tube to change in intensity throughout the day.”

“Collectively, the tubes take on the form of a cave wall or a waterfall, evoking Plato’s Allegory of the Cave where shadows, light and sounds call reality into question. The view through the rods is simultaneously kaleidoscopic and mesmeric and has become home to several insects found in the garden. The sound of a waterfall is present inside The SOL Grotto and the combination of sound, light, views and coolness filtering through the cracks in the flooring creates a highly sensorial space.”

Naturally, Republican lawmakers, conservative bloggers and Fox News are all over it.

Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting today that Seagate Technology, maker of hard drives and storage devices, has reached an agreement to buy Solyndra’s former manufacturing plant and headquarters building on Kato Road along I-880 in Fremont.

Rep. Jerry McNerney on Wednesday said there’s nothing to a Stockton Record story questioning whether he actually now lives in Stockton, where he re-registered to vote and cast a ballot for June’s primary, or if he still lives at his longtime home in Pleasanton.

“I am living in Stockton,” McNerney said, calling from his Washington, D.C. office. “The transition has been more difficult than I expected, has taken longer than I expected … but I’ll be home (from Washington) in August and I’ll be there the whole month.”

Pressed on where he spends most of his nights while in the Golden State, McNerney replied, “when I’m in California, I’m spending a significant amount of time in Stockton, I haven’t counted the nights.” Asked about his legal residence, he replied, “Legally, it’s absolutely Stockton – I’m registered to vote there, I’m paying bills there, I’m sleeping there – it’s absolutely my legal address.”

The Democrat is seeking a fourth term in the newly drawn 9th Congressional District, which doesn’t include Pleasanton; however, a candidate isn’t required to live in the House district in which he or she runs, only in the same state. The question is whether McNerney ran afoul of the state Election Code by registering and voting in Stockton.

One of the key code sections seems to be:

2026. The domicile of a Member of the Legislature or a Representative in the Congress of the United States shall be conclusively presumed to be at the residence address indicated on that person’s currently filed affidavit of registration.

On its face, it sounds like this means that wherever a lawmaker is currently registered is his or her domicile, which would put McNerney in the clear. But the campaign of Ricky Gill, McNerney’s Republican challenger, today provided a 2011 California Court of Appeal decision that might indicate otherwise.

Lots more, after the jump…
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Former aides and advisers to Gray Davis are planning a 70th birthday celebration and roast in the former governor’s honor for Nov. 14 at the California History Museum in Sacramento.

Organized by Lynn Schenk, Garry South and Dan Zingale, the event will be MCed by former California Democratic Party chairman Art Torres.

A roast. Of Gray Davis. The mind fairly reels with possibilities.

To commemorate the governor’s tenure, they should brown out the lights several times during the party. Or make it a casino night, so you have to pay to play. Or have a dance contest, in which people will be judged solely on their ability to do the robot.

In related news, the remake of “Total Recall” opens this Friday.

(C’mon, readers, help me out here with your own ideas.)

Motorcade left Oakland’s Scottish Rite temple at 4:56 p.m. PT en route to Piedmont home of attorney/activist Quinn Delaney and real estate developer Wayne Jordan (the latter, among POTUS’ foremost bundlers) for a dinner with about 60 supporters who paid $35,800 per person.

Supporters lined Madison Street, cheering and taking photos; no protest signs in sight. Motorcade went via I-880 to I-980 to Highway 24 to Highway 13. Again, lots of supporters lining the surface streets in Piedmont, although one woman held aloft a handmade “Elect Romney” sign.

POTUS arrived at Piedmont event at 5:11 p.m. PT. He stopped to do a small rope-line – about 15 people, mostly kids – at the intersection of Mountain Avenue and Bellevue Avenue. “Keep up the good work,” someone shouted as he walked away up the block toward the Delaney/Jordan residence. As press was being escorted around the back, we saw former state controller and major Obama supporter Steve Westly juggling lemons, entertaining a boy waiting down by the swimming pool.

Press is now holding in a basement room; will be escorted upstairs later to hear POTUS’ remarks.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Guardian sued the FBI in federal court today to find out whether and to what extent agents have investigated or watched members of the Occupy movement.

Filed under the auspices of the Freedom of Information Act, the lawsuit says the ACLU and the Guardian filed a public information request in March that the FBI promised to fast-track – and then never provided a response.

The lawsuit says the FBI has a long history of surveilling constitutionally protected political and religious activity, and says the FBI already acknowledged that “potentially responsive documents may exist” related to requests for records about Occupy San Francisco and Occupy Wall Street.

“There is great urgency in shedding light on the extent of the FBI’s role in surveilling Occupy activists, and in particular, on whether the FBI has complied with local and national norms in monitoring those engaged in First Amendment activity,” the lawsuit says.

In a web posting announcing the lawsuit, ACLU staff attorney Linda Lye said that although “the right of protest goes to the heart of our democracy, and the FBI exists to keep us safe, the FBI has a perverse history of interpreting its mission to mean that it can spy on political activists including Martin Luther King Jr.”

California’s newly implemented ban on producing or selling foie gras is being challenged in a lawsuit filed Tuesday by a Canadian trade group, a New York company that’s the nation’s largest foie gras producer, and a company that owns two Southern California restaurants.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, claims the ban that took effect Sunday violates the U.S. Constitution’s due process clause because penalizes innocent conduct; violates the Commerce Clause because it excessively burdens interstate commerce without any legitimate local interest; and interferes with the federal government’s power to negotiate with foreign countries – like it has with Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement for its duck products to be freely sold into the entire U.S. market.

If the law remains in place, the lawsuit says, “California will become the only place in the world where the sale of, for example, foie gras – and every other product that is ‘the result of’ ducks raised for their livers, including duck breast, duck fat and even duck feathers – would be banned within its borders.”

As a result, the law “destroys both the retail and the wholesale markets for the sale of duck products in California and places a substantial burden on interstate and foreign commerce,” the complaint says. “It does this without advancing any local interest (let alone a legitimate one) of protecting the citizens of California – or even of protecting any California duck.”

The plaintiffs want the court to issue a preliminary injunction so restaurants can keep serving foie gras until the lawsuit is settled. Right on, says Golden Gate Restaurant Association executive director Rob Black, whose group supports the lawsuit.

“The ban is riddled with ambiguities that prevent chefs, restaurateurs, and foie gras producers from understanding what is legal and how to comply,” Black said in a news release. “Instead of keeping foie gras sales in California, the law pushes sellers of foie gras to bordering states where cottage industries will now be set up to get around the ban.”

It’s hard to paint former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz of San Francisco as a drug-loving, latter-day hippie with no regard for the law.

Shultz and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, along with 18 other international luminaries, are part of a commission that’s calling for radical changes to the war on drugs in order to stem the tide of new HIV infections.

The report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy comes in advance of the International AIDS Conference, the world’s largest gathering of HIV/AIDS experts, which is being held next month in the U.S. for the first time in 22 years.

The global drug war drives the HIV pandemic among people who use drugs and their sexual partners, the report notes: An estimated 33 million people worldwide are living with HIV, and injection drug use accounts for one-third of new HIV infections outside of sub-Saharan Africa.

The report describes the failure of drug law enforcement policies in reducing global drug supply; for example, the worldwide supply of illicit opiates such as heroin has increased by more than 380 percent in recent decades.

Instead, the commission concludes, nations should be scaling up proven ways of reducing HIV infection such as sterile syringe distribution, safer injecting facilities, and prescription heroin programs. “Failure to take these steps is criminal,” the report states.

Nations that treat addiction as a health issue are winning the fight against HIV, the report notes: In Australia and European countries such as Portugal and Switzerland, newly diagnosed HIV infections have been nearly eliminated among people who use drugs, just as vertical transmission of HIV has been eliminated in countries where broad access to prevention of mother-to-child transmission of the virus is available.

But nations including the U.S., China, Russia and Thailand have ignored scientific evidence and resisted the implementation of evidence-based HIV prevention programs, with devastating consequences, the report says. For example, about one in 100 Russian adults is now infected with HIV; here in the United States, Congress recently reinstated a longstanding ban on the use of federal funds for syringe exchange programs, meaning more users are likely to share needles and spread disease.

The report says the costly and wasteful drug war as it’s being fought today drives drug users underground, away from HIV testing and HIV prevention services and into high-risk environments.

The commission is urging national governments to halt the practice of arresting and imprisoning people who use drugs but do no harm to others, and to measure their drug policy success by indicators such as reduced transmission rates for HIV and other infectious diseases, fewer overdose deaths, reduced drug market violence, fewer individuals incarcerated and lowered rates of problematic substance use.

In addition to Shultz and Volcker, the commission also includes the former presidents of Mexico, Poland, Colombia, Brazil, Chile and Switzerland; the former prime minister of Greece; Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson; various former United Nations officials; and others.

The San Francisco City Attorney’s office, pursuing Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi’s removal from office in an ongoing administrative misconduct hearing, today released a video in which Mirkarimi’s wife shows a neighbor a bruise that resulted from their New Year’s Eve argument.

Mirkarimi was quick to condemn the video’s public release. “The release of the video utterly violates my wife’s rights and serves no public good. It is the politics of destruction at its worst, and those who advocated its release should be ashamed.”

His wife, former Venezuelan telenovela star Eliana Lopez, said likewise:

“I am sad and hurt by the elected officials of the city of San Francisco: Mayor Lee, City Attorney Herrera, District Attorney Gascon and Judge Wong. They each have contributed to the release of the video against my wishes and allowed it to go viral. Because of their actions the images on that video will exist forever for anyone to see – including my son Theo, now and forever. My grandchildren will see the video, as well as my great grandchildren. I believe what Judge Wong, the District Attorney, the City Attorney and Mayor Lee have done to me is far worse than anything they accuse Ross of doing. I hope they realize after reflection that what they have done is irreparable and perpetually damaging to me and my family.”

Herrera told NBC Bay Area he had “no position” on the release of the video, but California law did not allow him to withhold it. The couple’s lawyers failed to convince the city’s Ethics Commission to keep it under wraps.

Among the guests at the Atherton fundraiser: Jan Brandt, vice chair emeritus of AOL; Dennis Troper, Google product management director; Tim Westergren, Pandora Media founder; and Susan Wojcicki, Google senior vice president.

Press was escorted into large outdoor tent at 7:55 p.m. POTUS and Doug Goldman entered at 7:58 p.m. Goldman said the property has been in his family since 1906, and he and his wife tried to welcome POTUS with Hawaiian decoration theme: floral arrangements, tablecloths, potted palms, hurricane lanterns, leis.

Goldman said the Recovery Act was a “brilliant” move, “saving more than 1 million jobs.” “It worked so well, some of your opponents are trying to take credit for it,” he said. Goldman also credited POTUS for ending Iraq war, killing OBL and voicing support for same-sex marriage, the latter of which drew the loudest cheers and applause from the audience.

POTUS began talking at 8:03 p.m., thanking the Goldmans for their hospitality: “They have had my back from the get-go, at a time when not many people knew who I was.”

He thanked David Crosby and Graham Nash (Stephen Stills is NOT in attendance): “It’s not every day you get Rock and Roll Hall of Famers strumming the guitar for you.” And he thanked actor Don Cheadle for his presence and support, but promised not to talk about their recent basketball game. Cheadle responded: “Thank you.”

“We’ve gone through three and a half of the toughest years in our lifetime,” the president said, with so many millions of jobs lost. “And we’ve still got a long way to go. In California and across the country there are still a lot of people who are hurting” from joblessness, risk of losing their homes, unaffordable education. “Our work is not done. The good news is, we’re beginning to steer that ship in the right direction.”

President Obama said he’s proud of his administration’s educational reforms, and said the nation must continue to make scientific advancements in order to remain globally competitive. “America continues to have the best workers and the best businesses in the world – we just have to get organized, and we’re starting to do that.”

The Affordable Care act has begun making health care more affordable and accessible; fuel economy standards for cars have been doubled; clean energy production has been doubled; and foreign oil imports are at a 15-year low, he said. The Iraq war is over and Afghanistan is ending, while the U.S. is regaining international respect.

“We continue to be the agenda setters,” he said, shaping international rules and norms on issues from terrorism to climate change to poverty. “People are paying attention, people are listening, and people are hungry for our leadership.”

But he needs another term to seal the deal, he said.

“This is a country full of decent people who believe in America and are generous and kind and tolerant,” the president said.

He talked about being at a high school graduation earlier this week in Joplin, Mo., which was ravaged by a tornado last year, and meeting a senior who lost both his parents, spent five weeks in physical rehab and had to care for his sister yet still is graduating and going on to college. “That captures who we are and what we’re about” as a nation, he said, leaving him “more determined than I was in 2008” to carry on.

Press was ushered out at 8:14 p.m., as he started a question and answer session with the audience. Press is now (8:35 p.m.) in vans, waiting for departure to Redwood City.

Politico has the scoop today on an angry letter that former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson sent to the California Alliance for Retired Americans after that group protested outside his appearance at Oakland’s Paramount Theater in March.

Simpson and Erskine Bowles – who served former President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff – were speaking together in Oakland because they had co-chaired President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. The alliance, along with some unions and other groups, rallied to protest the commission’s final recommendations, which included raising Social Security’s early retirement age to 64 and the standard retirement age to 69; reducing benefits for the more affluent half of retirees; and raising the payroll tax that funds the program.

Simpson apparently was miffed about a flyer the protesters handed out, and sent them a letter.

You use the faces of young people, who are the ones who are going to get gutted while you continue to push out your blather and drivel. My suggestion to you — an honest one — read the damn report. The Moment of Truth — 67 pages, and then tell me if we’re not doing the right thing with Social Security. What a wretched group of seniors you must be to use the faces of the very people that we are trying to save, while the “greedy geezers” like you use them as a tool and a front for your nefarious bunch of crap. You must feel some sense of shame for shoveling out this bulls**t.

California Labor Federation spokesman Steve Smith said today that Simpson “made no meaningful attempt to address the concerns of current and future retirees that his commission’s proposal would weaken Social Security and place benefits at risk.”

“Instead, Simpson chose to lower the level of discourse to insults that border on abusive language. This sort of response doesn’t move the debate on Social Security forward,” Smith said. “If anything, it’s a slap in the face to millions of workers who have legitimate concerns about how out of touch longtime DC insiders like Simpson are when it comes to protecting a program that’s essential to nearly every American.”