Although the National Transportation Safety Board has yet to release its report on the causes of last year's crash, today the pilot of the Cosco Busan, John Joseph Cota of Petaluma, was charged in federal court. The feds, it seems, found him in violation of two federal laws when he accidentally steered the container ship into the Bay Bridge on November 9 2007, which then released 53,000 gallons of oil into the bay. According......

Is there anyplace in San Francisco more charming than SOMA at night? No, there is not. And this President's Day, it'll be even charminger: construction and traffic reroutes on the Bay Bridge may cause a few heavy-flow days over the holiday weekend. If you're clever, you'll probably want to avoid SOMA in the late-night and early-morning hours. But then again, if you're clever, you probably already do. But it's not all blocked onramps and......

Is there something about the Macarthur Maze that makes it easily flammable? There's a one to two hour delay basically in all directions after another fire closed down the onramps to the westbound Bay Bridge. Sounds like today's fire broke out in the joints of the bridge, though, so it's not another truck careening out of control and slamming into a pole, at least. No injuries reported either, which we're also glad to hear. They......

What a pretty name for a barge, yes? Morning fog, it seems, has temporarily delayed the investigation into yesterday's Richmond-San Rafael Bridge fender bender. Last night, while being guided by tugboats, the Cascade smacked into the east piling of the western span of the bridge. This comes on the heels of the Cosco Busan oil spill, which happened after the container ship rammed into the Oakland Bay Bridge. Read more about yesterday's non-harrowing incident......

A salute to a stand up bridge ...

Huge Chunk of the Bay Bridge sitting on a beach in Half Moon Bay...

Let's hope no oil tankers crash into the Bay Bridge this week -- Gavin's out of town again, this time bundled up for snow as he campaigns for Hillary Clinton in Iowa. Not quite as temperate in the middle of the country right now as it was in his last two vacation spots this month -- guess Gavin still owes the Clintons for backing him in 2003 against non-Democrat Matt Gonzalez, huh? The Republicans......

Bon voyag-ee, Cosco Busan! And don't come back! The leaky Cosco Busan ship that contaminated our beautiful bay with oil is expected to get clearance to get the heck outta Frisco, setting sail at noon today to head back to South Korea. We kind of have this vision of the ship disconsolately listing off into the sunset, leaving a trail of oil behind it, like when Wile E. Coyote hits something and walks off screen......

Meet the Board of Pilot Commissioners For the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo and Suisun...

Due to the traffic backup caused by yesterday's fatal car crash on the Bay Bridge, it seems that a woman popped out a kid. According to the Examiner: As a result of the traffic jam, a woman pulled off the road to give birth a few hours after the accident. The mother-to-be was traveling toward San Francisco at 3:35 p.m. when she detoured into the toll plaza’s left administrative parking lot, Chase said. Wow.......

Update: all lanes are now open. It seems that "a box truck, from a business called 'Diet to Go'...drove directly into the back of the big rig," killing the box truck driver. Very sad. Sigh. According to SFGate, "three lanes of the upper deck of the Bay Bridge are blocked by a fatal accident, the California Highway Patrol says." Did you hear that? How awful. Just terrible. Three whole lanes of traffic have closed......

Just what's up with our least favorite oil spill dilemma, you ask? Let's find out: -- After 29 years of military service, Coast Guard Captain William Uberti will retire after the oil-spill SNAFU is over and done with. According to the Examiner, "Uberti was the region's sector commander when a container ship sideswiped the Bay Bridge in dense fog, dumping 58,000 gallons of thick bunker fuel into the bay." Uberti was soon replaced after......

Fun Fun Fun Fest 2007 Recap from Super!Alright! on Vimeo. Austinist attended a town hall meeting about proposed noise ordinances that could undermine the city's future as the Live Music Capital of the World, and lamented the possible loss of Texas's only feminist bookstore. Throughout the week, they interviewed a bunch of indie fashion designers and D-I-Y websites—Etsy, Ornamental Things, 31 Corn Lane, and Aorta Designs—for the upcoming Stitch Fashion Show. They also did......

Photo of one of the dead birds killed by our oil spill...

After yesterday's fog-induced Cosco Busan/Bay Bridge crash -- resulting in 58,000 gallons of fuel and 8,000 gallons of "heavy-duty bunker fuel oil" spilling into the Bay -- Baker Beach, Crissy Field, China Beach, Kirby Cove, and Fort Point beaches (or "beaches" to some of you purists out there) have been closed. Large blobby slicks as big as 50 yards long and 20 yards wide have been spotted off Tiburon and near Mill Valley's Bayfront......

-- Chicken John hosts the Loser's Ball. Which a lot progressives did. Lose, that is. [Politics Blog] -- Although Prop A might pass due to prog efforts. (See where horizontal pastels get you, Mr. Fisher?) [BeyondChron] -- Washington Packing Corporation's abandoned, graffitied tuna cannery. [WhatImSeeing] -- Bay Bridge fender bender spills "mysterious" oil into the Bay. [Oakland Tribune] -- Henry K. Lee live-blogs, as they say, on the Hans Reiser murder trial! [SFGate] --......

But, and we hate to admit it, they sure do look pretty together. (The image above has been set as our desktop background!) But as attractive as oil and water looks on rain-soaked driveways and in Carmel-y art pieces, it's not worth it when it's in our Bay. It tends to cause inexcusable damage. (Where, like, fish and mermaids and stuff totally die, you know.) Take, for example, this morning's container ship that rammed......

Egads! The west span of the Bay Bridge was struck this morning by a container ship, the Cosco Busan. According to the Chronicle, "Coast Guard officials said the incident was not serious enough to merit a bridge closure." Still, that looks like some serious damage. A witness on the ship claims that the Cosco struck the second tower west of Yerba Buena Island, and says the the extent of the damage isn't known. If......

Photos of the 2007 E-surance Icer Air event at the baseball park ...

As previously noted, one of the best weekend guides in the city is produced by Muni and sent out exclusively to the press. (The PresidiGo, meanwhile, extends that courtesy to its riders.) So, what's on Muni's radar this weekend? Some kinda Nike thing! The "Fiesta on the Hill," which sounds like the name of a children's television program! The Portola Festival, which has been celebrated since 1909 according to this hideous webpage! And also,......

Of course. We should have known better. Lights Out SF -- happening this Saturday from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. -- is of an energy conservation movement, not a low-lighting aesthetic one. To wit: On this night, we invite the entire city of San Francisco to install one compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) and turn off all non-essential lighting for one hour. No. No! We cannot condone the purchase and installation of these ugly......

-- Explanation for last night's brief Bay Bridge light outage. [Oakland Tribune] -- Need a home in the Mission? And you're a web ninja and/or hacker? And a bit of an arsonist? Well, then you're in luck! [CraigsList] -- Police are on the lookout for a former South Bay man, Christopher Melvin Holland, for a 1983 rape and murder. [SFGate] -- Oakland environmental group claims that iPhones contain reproductive toxins. And yet, we still......

The latest weekend murder in SF: At around noon on Saturday, a 66-year-old Asian man was shot to death after a road rage incident in Viz Valley. Witnesses say the man was arguing with three men in their late teens or early 20s after a fender bender right before the shots were fired. After shooting the man, at least one of the suspects then stole the man's car. The car was later recovered; the cops......

Photos of the 2007 San Francisco International Dragon Boat Festival...

-- RIP: Chronicle cartoonist Phil Frank dies. [Chron] -- Busted water pipe downtown = Bay Bridge entrance difficulties. [ABC 7] -- What a good idea! MUNI cop ride-alongs. (Oh, you know you also love to see fellow riders get busted for no transfer/pass.) [The Snitch] -- Google's crusade for international privacy. Yay, Google! [Examiner] -- Yusuf Bey sexual assault lawsuit settled. [Oakland Tribune] -- US online video popularity soars. [Macworld, via IDG] -- The Cinematic......

A big ol' sinkhole broke out today on First Street between Mission and Howard due to a water main rupture, resulting in the closure of a major artery out of SF and onto the Bay Bridge. Traffic around the area is backed up all sorts of bad. Sorry, dear East Bayers. But look on the bright side: you get to stay in the city of San Francisco that much longer. Yay, you! Anyway, due to......

Tomorrow BART celebrates 35 years of hauling your asses around. Revenue service began on 9/11 in 1972. Since then, according to BART Board President Lynette Sweet, BART has continued to "carry the Bay Area through good times and bad...[w]e were there to keep the economy moving when the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake knocked out the Bay Bridge, and most recently when the MacArthur Maze connector collapsed." But most important of all, BART has also......

[NSFW] -- Crank (prank?) calls to 911. [Chron] -- Wildfire still wild -- 7,000+ acres wild. [CBS5, San Jose Merc] -- Death, death, death, death... [Chron, Examiner] -- Fines to go up for carpool cheaters. Good. [Oakland Tribune] -- Scott Beale goes to this strange place called Fisherman’s Wharf and to San Francisco's only In-N-Out. Also: really, Snyder family? 524390645 Quizno's Subs just opened up on my block, so why can't you? [Laughing Squid]......

Was it just us, or did you also think, as soon as the Bay Bridge closed, that the only things you wanted to do over Labor Day Weekend were on the other side of the bay? Well, all those days are now nothing but a hazy memory, with the bridge reopening a full 11 hours earlier than planned (at around 6 p.m. last night) and traffic flowing relatively normally (i.e., jammed, but no more......

-- Benefit Show Honoring Erno "Tattoo" Szabady: Local rock bands Slowfinger, DickDusters, and the Walker Brothers get together to raise money for a burial "niche" for well-known, recently deceased tattoo artist, Szabady. Show starts at 8 p.m. at Peacock Lounge, 552 Haight Street (at Fillmore); $10-$15. -- Live-in Maid (Cama adentro): Norma Aleandro's dramatic role, about a "wealthy woman and her live-in housekeeper" dealing with the economic collapse in Argentina, finally arrives in the......