Alas, it has arrived. Today is the deadline for the Chronicle buyout. If the ailing publication can't get rid of 150 jobs by 5 p.m., the paper will start layoffs next month. A slew of noted journalists (surprisingly?) opted for the buyout. SFist's favorite book sniffer and City Bright, Frances Dinkelspiel, has the official word on just who on the editorial staff took management's buyout offer of up to one year's pay, plus health insurance.

Joel Selvin (music)
Carl Hall (science reporter)
Tom Meyer (editorial cartoonist)
Zachary Coile (Washington D.C. bureau reporter)
Nancy Gay (sports)
Jesse Hamlin, Edward Guthmann, and Heidi Benson (culture writers)
Sabin Russell (science)
Alison Biggar, (editor, Chronicle Magazine)
Sylvia Rubin (fashion)
Bernadette Tansey (biotech reporter)

We don't usually read the Op Ed pages of the Chronicle, because it's always either rehashed columnists from other papers or something like "give birth control pills to deer in Point Reyes" -- but can you believe it? The Chron actually got someone local to write about a local issue today -- if we're going to build out the MUNI underground, why not actually build it out and have a subway that runs to Fisherman's Wharf?

None of this will come as a news flash to anyone who actually lives here (Newsflash! The 30 Stockton is crowded!), and it's sort of depressing that the state of public transportation is so bad here that we're only just now, in 2008, possibly contemplating building a subway that hooks up to one of the city's most popular tourism areas.

In addition, the editorial, written by a public policy person at SPUR, is a little light on how we'd pay for this extension, or whether or not the moneyed residents in the tony Pac HeightsRussian Hill/Telegraph Hill area would actually agree to allow their streets to be hacked up for years to put a subway in (which is what we had always assumed had killed off any previous discussion of this idea in the past), but hey, we're just glad to see an actual opinion on the op-ed page that we're interested in learning more about!

An unidentified person was shot and killed on the 1600 block of Russell in Berkeley last night, brining the city's murder tally to three. (The much larger city of San Francisco, BTW, is at 14.) The Chron goes on to report:

The slaying comes a little more than a week after Brandon Terrell Jones, 29, of Berkeley was shot and killed on the 1500 block of Harmon Street, about seven blocks away. No arrests have been made in Jones' Feb. 24 slaying.

Info about the victim's age, race, and gender or any arrests have yet to be released.

Matier & Ross were all over this nugget of news today: bronze plaques will be placed in locations where the city's homeless have died. The "memorials" will be placed in Chris Daly and Ross Mirkarimi's districts, which include the Tenderloin, Civic Center, Haight-Ashbury and Western Addition. Each will be 2 feet by 2 feet "human-shaped plaques" and "[inscribed] with details of the deceased's lives and the circumstances of their deaths," according to the Chron. Let's just hope they don't look like the mockup the Gate created above.

Matier & Ross also couldn't help but get some digs in at both Mirkarimi and Daly, whose districts will be displaying the sidewalk plaques.

... However, it doesn't seem many of the supes bothered to read the resolution before voting "yes."

Mirkarimi, for example, was listed as co-sponsor - but he knew little about the project when we contacted him after the vote, and he referred us to Daly's office.

Great. Not only are we getting odd plaques about homeless people dying on our streets, but our supes barely read the proposal before approval. Perhaps it's a good idea to put up these plaques, but do they have to be "human-shaped"? It takes away from the seriousness of the plaque and makes the whole project seem like some viral Truth campaign or the like.

On Thursday, Juan Zuluaga, 26, was arrested at the SF Zoo following a run-in with a rhinoceros. It seems, according to the Chron, that Zuluaga was busted for throwing acorns at Mashaki, a black rhino:

Police said they were summoned to the zoo at 3:30 p.m. Thursday after a patron reported to officials that Zuluaga was picking acorns off a branch and tossing them at the black rhino, a male named Mashaki. Zuluaga was with another man, who was not cited.

Jesus Christ. Someone explain to us the thought process behind going to the zoo to actively annoying aggressive animals. You know, animals that could kill you? Sure, we used to burn tons of ants with lighter fluid and a Bic as a kid -- who didn't? -- but this stupefies us. The animals at the zoo don't need your shit, people. Back off.

Anyway, according to SF Zoo spokesperson Lora LaMarca, "[h]e tried whistling at (the animal), then grabbed a branch and took acorns off it," which he then tossed at the animal. Zuluaga was cited and then released following the incident.

Today a federal judge told the prosecutors to "re-craft its perjury case against Barry Bonds." The judge on the Bonds case, Susan Illston, claims that they "improperly lumped multiple alleged offenses into each of four counts of its indictment of the former Giants star." Whoops. Illston slammed the Bonds indictment, which was handed up last November, as "duplicitous." According to the Chron:

By law, the government can only accuse a person of one crime per count of an indictment. But the judge said that in Bonds' perjury case, the slugger was being accused of telling as many as five different lies under oath in each count of the indictment.

She said the government could correct the flaws by rewriting the indictment or filing a new one.

To recap: former baseball great, Barry Bonds, in case you've been living under a rock or only watch womens figure skating to get your sports fix, is charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and lying under oath after denying that he used illegal from care of BACLO. The prosecutors have until March 21 to get it together.

Happy birthday, Leap Day babies! Since it's leap day, there's the obligatory quadriennial articles about how people born today are 75% younger than the rest of us, and the Chron is no exception. The bissextile among us include Dinah Shore, Ja Rule (holla!), Antonio Sabato Jr., and... San Francisco fire chief Joanne Hayes-White!

In the article, Peter Hartlaub calls Ms. Hayes-White to wish her a happy birthday and ask her what being a Leap Day baby is like.

"I remember growing up as a little girl, my mom would draw a '29' on the calendar in February," said Hayes-White, sounding relieved to talk about something other than that dude who (allegedly) smeared tomatoes and torched a mattress in the historic fire chief's residence the day before we talked. "I didn't understand. 'It's my big day. Why does it get skipped?' "

Perhaps in our over-cellular phone'd society, we overlooked the importance of having a way for people to reach us. Google recognized the need for the homeless to have some connection to loved ones and plan to do something about it. According to the Chron:

Internet giant Google announced on Wednesday a plan to partner with all the homeless shelters in San Francisco and offer free phone numbers and voice mail accounts to homeless individuals, giving people the ability to distribute their own phone numbers and retrieve voice mail messages left for them whenever and from wherever they choose.

The plan is to help those who are homeless get back on their feet by giving potential employers and family a way to reach them and get their life on track. Hopefully, this'll be a way to get them started.

Photo by Ohad*.

We'll 'fess up. We haven't been to the Cow Palace since the 2005 Tattoo Expo. With that said, we're a bit torn with how to feel about the possibility of the Cow Palace being demolished. With such historical events as the Beatles playing there and John F. Kennedy speaking to the masses about starting the Peace Corp, on that hand alone, we'd hate to see this place go.

The other hand, however, has to admit that the Cow Palace is an eyesore. The proposal on the table is to allow Daly City to purchase the property and bulldoze to bits redevelop the Cow Palace's 68 acres. According to the Chron, the plan is to "build a grocery store, bank, housing and other projects that will benefit people in the underserved areas - including San Francisco's Visitacion Valley - that border the Cow Palace."

We're all for creating some business for the Visitacion Valley area and helping create a better neighborhood and environment near the Cow Palace. And while we're not die-hard historical site preservationists, we have a soft spot for the Beatles, too. The Chron article has some good arguments for/against the venue that's worth reading over to help confuse you more make up your mind.

Tonight will be a public forum at the Bayshore Community Center at 450 Martin St. in Daly City. If you feel very strongly about the issue, attend and see what has to be said about the proposal. (And let us know how it goes, will ya?)

Making that splitting headache even worse, Farber was also formally presented with the paperwork for the second restraining order that Rahaim filed against him after Rahaim discovered the fire. (Farber violated the first restraining order when he tried to call Rahaim from jail.) Knox says it is an "accurate assessment" to describe this situation as a lovers' quarrel, and that Farber was having a hard time adjusting to life in a new city, having followed Rahaim from Seattle for Rahaim's new job.

In an attempt to keep the issues about our city and not just entertainingly-lurid soap opera blog fodder, the Chron also rushed out a piece about the city planning situation in SF (i.e., who wants more condos?). Also, the damages report show that the antique furniture that Farber toppled over is all okay, but the house will need about $30,000 of new carpeting and paint to repair the smoke damage. Guess that tomato stuff washes right off, huh?

Hundreds of people whose homes and yards were sprayed in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties from September to December have filed reports that said the pesticide seems to have caused coughing, wheezing, muscle aches and headaches, among other symptoms. One Monterey family reported that a child had a first-time asthma attack.

While reading the article, we imagined that the spray will hit the air around early morning hours to minimize exposure, but the spray time mentioned was 8 p.m in Monterey. Looks like no one will be dining al fresco when the weather gets nicer.

Update: Looks like Sentaor Migden is getting in on the fight and trying to keep pesticides from being sprayed on the masses.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Oh good. Valentine's Day is just around the corner. And if the thought of next Thursday's approaching fillet mignon-for-two-free evening doesn't make you want to slice open an artery followed by nap-time in the bathtub, then how about not making Nob Hill Gazette's annual Lucky 13th Annual Eligible's List? (Yes, yes, you and your hipster S.O. are too cool to celebrate a Hallmark holiday, clearly, but what a privileged thing to decide not to do. Wow, that was bitter. Anyway.)

Actually, the list is an amusing read. (As is the Gazette itself ever since Catherine Bigelow came on board.) Although we lack the character and savings account numbers for multiple commas to follow our name, unlike the lucky souls on the list, here are a few noteworthy lonely hearts:

XX chromosome carriers:

Beth Spotswood; Chron blogger; nonprofit development director; recovering from Mayor Gavin's engagement; on 142 Throckmorton Theatre board

Nyla Anne Patzner; warm & witty, plays polo, champagne blonde, long, long legs; on Wender Weis Foundation board

Janelle Wang; sweet & intelligent co-host of ABC7's The View from the Bay; dedicated to family, friends, career & committed to cancer awareness [We hear she's actually "very funny" and "totally smart," at least according to a homosexual acquaintance who appeared on her the show.]

Helen Jackson Spiegel; chanteuse extraordinaire; passion for beautiful music, elegant chapeaux & tropical fish

Kamala Harris; glamorous D.A. with a passion for compassion [Is she a confirmed bachelorette? Curious.]