After a federal judge blocked "a key provision of a new city program providing basic health care to uninsured residents, City Attorney Dennis Herrera is scheduled to petition the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today for an emergency stay pending appeal to help SF maintain the "Healthy San Francisco" program. The program, which would help uninsured San Franciscans receive health care, was scheduled to begin on January 2, 2008. According to CBS 5: U.S.......

Jerry Brown, our recenty elected State Attorney General and St. Ignatius College Prep alum, isn't afraid to take the Bush Administration to task for its weak stand on fuel efficency for SUVs, minivans and pickups. He's seeking more than the paltry one-mile-ish increase, to 23.5 miles per gallon from the current 22.2 miles by 2010. He called the change "absurd." Damn right. He posits that a standard of 10 miles-15 miles better would suit us far better. ...

That eavesdropping case we've been following took another step to eventually seeing the light of as an appeals court has decided to review the decision by U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker that the lawsuit should move forward despite the whining of the Federal Government. The eavesdropping case, for those who don't remember, was brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against the Government and AT&T for reading things they shouldn't be reading. Of what, we don't know but its super serious and of utmost importance to the War on Terror. And porn. We're sure somewhere they're checking out porn. ...

-SF Board of Supervisors Committee approves plan for more foot patrols in troubled areas. -Daly and Newsom go at it again over anti-violence measures. ...

We were psyched yesterday because we though a decision would be reached about Chronicle Reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams and their refusal to name who leaked to them the Grand Jury testimony in the BALCO case. We even had a posting all ready to go the moment the judge threw them in jail. Everyone seemed to be pumped in anticipation for it as reporters held a protest and sports writers everywhere weighed in. So what happened? Pretty much nothing. Late Thursday afternoon, a judge basically said that they might go to prison if they lose an appeal. In other words, he told them "this time, I'm really, really serious about sending you to jail and if you don't, I really, really, really might have to do something...." ...

The 'Gate is reporting that Josh has been granted bail by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, to wit:In a brief order, two judges of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Wolf was entitled to bail because the government had not shown his appeal of a judge's contempt-of-court ruling was frivolous or intended solely to delay the proceedings...The court said another panel would rule on Wolf's appeal of the contempt order while he......

On Friday, the conservative’s favorite court, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, issued what could be a landmark ruling for freedom of speech. The ruling basically states that a school cannot punish a student from exercising their freedom of speech by holding up signs that go against school policy. The sign that sparked this very important ruling: Bong Hits 4 Jesus. Thus the reason you now get to see such wonderful headlines such as "Court Rules "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" Is Protected Speech. As Yakov Smirnov would say, "what a country." ...

Susan Mernit points to a kerfuffle in the world of Podcasting -- Adam Curry caught anonymously editing the Podcasting entry on Wikipedia; Curry responds, says he was struggling with the Wiki editing format. Speaking of Adam Curry (who's also been accused of cybersquatting in the past), Joi Ito explains the business of "parked domain monetization" and why you can't get the domain name you really want. And in a nice segue piece, Jessie Johnson......

-The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that an East Contra Costa County school can teach Islam by having the students pretend to be Muslim for three weeks. As part of a history course at Excelsior School for seventh graders, a teacher had students role-play being Muslim to help learn Islam. So the kids adopted Muslim names, read religious poetry, gave up something to simulate Ramadan, and stoned girls for not wearing burkas......

-Conservatives throughout the country are frothingly furious about a ruling by San Francisco’s very own 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal for saying that parents don't have the right to be the sole provider of information about sex. That's what MTV is for. The suit was brought by parents who were outraged that a school in Palmdale California gave first, third, and fifth graders a survey about sex. The questions asked kids whether they found themselves doing things like touching their "private parts" too much or whether they didn't trust people because they thought they were looking for sex or whether they thought too much about sex and dear God, is that what first-graders are really thinking about these days? When were that young, the only thing we were obsessed with was "The Six Million Dollar Man." In response, Republicans have been talking about splitting up the 9th District which, of course, is being fought by Democrats. The 9th has always been a source of anger to conservatives for the kind of rulings that make people say "only in California." Like this ruling. Or the one about taking "God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance. ...

Medical marijuana finds its way back to the Supreme Court. Man, you just can't kill that weed!...

In a victory for the Beastie Boys, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today declined to review an earlier decision which upheld a lower-court dismissal of a case brought by James Newton which asked that the Beasties pay licensing fees on both the recording and the underlying composition for a sample of his 1978 "Choir," which was used on Hello Nasty track Pass the Mic. The Beasties had already paid licensing fees for the......