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The staff at the Billie DeFrank Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center in San Jose weren’t exactly happy when they learned just before Election Day that “Yes on Proposition 8” ads were appearing on their Web site.

The source turned out to be a Google program called AdSense, which allows non-profit agencies to get a cut of the revenue when viewers click-through ads on the agency’s sites. The program lets advertisers choose keywords to target their ads— and in this case, the automated program may have failed to distinguish between groups that favor gay marriage and those who oppose it.

The DeFrank Webmaster was able to quickly block the Yes on 8 ads, said Aejaie Sellers, executive director of the center. But the incident left some wondering if the Yes on 8 campaign had selected keywords that would lead to their ads being posted on gay-friendly Web sites, just as a coordinated attack shut down the No on Proposition 8 site Oct. 30.

Whether the source was a confused algorithm or a campaign dirty trick, Sellers said, “I think it’s a good lesson to learn that going forward things like this are going to happen. Organizations need to be ready for this.”

Asked about the wayward ads, a spokeswoman for the Mountain View tech titan said: “Google allows ads that advocate for a particular political position regardless of the views that they represent. We currently allow ads advocating both for and against Proposition 8.”

Prop. 8, banning gay marriage in California, passed by about 500,000 votes on Tuesday.

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More than a year after the San Jose City Council voted to require weekly online posting of calendars for council members, their chiefs of staff and top appointees, many are still routinely unavailable or out of date.

Those calendars are supposed to be updated by noon each Monday and to include the names, titles and affiliations of people the officials had scheduled to meet with. There’s also supposed to be a general statement about subjects to be discussed, according to a policy the council adopted unanimously in August 2007.

The Mercury News in January reported that several calendars were out of date or lacking in required detail, problems city officials attributed then to a combination of technical glitches, user error and lack of clarity about the requirements.

But routine checks in recent weeks indicated problems still persist. In late October, calendars for two council members and six chiefs of staff were more than two weeks out of date, while a glitch blocked access to Mayor Chuck Reed’s calendar page. Last week, a technical glitch blocked access to Councilman Sam Liccardo’s calendar page, and the calendars of six council chiefs-of-staff were more than two weeks outdated.

It was unclear, however, whether the problems stemmed from software problems, user error or just plain laziness. For example, Anthony Drummond, chief of staff to Councilman Forrest Williams, said that when he called up his calendar page in his office, it was current through Oct. 29, even though IA and others could find no online entries for him past September.

City spokesman Tom Manheim said “there could be some problems we have to look into.”

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If anyone should feel vindicated by the alcohol content in Gov. Arnold’s Schwarzenegger’s latest budget proposal, it’s Assemblyman Jim Beall, D-San Jose.

Beall earlier this year suggested fixing the state’s budget mess by boosting a tax on something many Californians believe should be un-taxable — beer. He proposed a levy of 2-cents to 17-cents per 12 ounce container of brew to help defray the costs of alcohol-related law enforcement. (An idea IA imagines San Jose cops would appreciate.)

Well, the alcohol industry fought Beall’s proposal, which then stumbled in the Legislature. But seven months later, Conan the Republican proposed his own tax: 5-cents on every alcoholic drink.

Beall can’t wait to see how the booze makers are going to react to the governor’s proposal.

“They used to consider me their No. 1 enemy,” Beall said. “Now they might consider the governor their No. 1 enemy.”

The King of Beers is up for the challenge. In an e-mail to IA, Anheuser-Busch Inc. stated that drinkers “don’t deserve to be singled out to pay higher taxes to offset the state budget deficit or fund additional programs, however worthy they may be.”

Bet a lot of Californians would drink to that.

Internal Affairs is compiled by Mercury News staff. This week’s items were written by Denis C. Theriault, Mike Swift, John Woolfolk and Edwin Garcia. Send tips to internalaffairs@mercurynews.com, or call (408) 271-3638.