A photo of S.F. Mayor Newsom at UCSF children's hospital...

As we've been watching the World Cup, we just can't but help think just how much fun it would be to be there. After all, it's soccer, it's beer, it's Katenrauchwurst-- what else do you want out of life? But alas, we were too late to sign up for tickets and our friends who are going didn't take us. What to do...what to do... Hey, we just found out a way to go-- just give tons of money to Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez? He's taking some of his biggest fund raisers to Germany to watch the Finals. Total cost per person? $25,000. Airfare isn't included, but tickets, hotel reservations, and "welcoming gifts" are. We don't, however, think by "welcoming gifts" they mean "hookers"-- unless Duke Cunningham is involved. ...

With the economy getting better (we'll leave a discussion as to whether the economy is that good or not to others because we barely passed Macro Economics), it means more money for the state coffers. And with more money going to the state coffers, Herr Governator has more money to spend. So he made a decision as to what do to with it-- give it to the UC and CSU system so that schools don't have to raise fees this year. The schools were all set to raise fees by 8% for undergrads, 10% for grad students. ...

We caught The Aristocrats this weekend so we'd like to apologize before hand if this posting somehow takes a strange turn towards bestiality, necrophilia, or incest. -The off again/on-again resolution calling for redistricting of California legislative districts is now on again as the California Supreme Court ruled by a 4-2 vote to put the measure back on the ballot. The prevailing argument was that the changes between the version that first got approved and the......

We don't mean to ALARM you ... but it's possible that President Kennedy is in VERY GRAVE DANGER. Although similar recent efforts have mostly failed, our very own Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Leland Yee is pushing a bill -- AB 450 -- that would fine retailers $1,000 for selling M-rated video games to the under-17 set. Leland, himself a child psychologist, points to surprisingly convincing evidence that violent play can lead to violent behavior,......

You know, our busy urban lives are fraught with so many seemingly unsolvable troubles that it's nice to hear, now and then, that our leaders are tackling problems that don't actually exist. The nonexistant ones are so much easier to claim to have solved, after all. We're informed by the Richmond Review that the California Psychological Association has named its "Legislator of the Year 2004." The lucky winner is State Assembly Speaker pro Tem (whatever......