"Static and squat," declares John King on the new residential tower, Soma Grand. And it only gets worse, beautifully so. [SFGate]Have a sumptuous yet refreshing woodchuck, raccoon, or squirrel recipe? Send it to Endless Summer and you could win a "guest blogging post." [Endless Simmer]Fashion on the 5-Fulton dazzles. [Nature abhors a vacuum]President George W. Bush is coming to the Bay Area tomorrow to make a cameo appearance in Milk, or something like that. [Oakland......

Due to a gasoline tanker truck accident -- which resulted in an eco-unfriendly dousing of over "26 gallons" (?) of gasoline, or so said CBS 5's Judge Judy breaking-news interruption -- all northbound and southbound lanes on Highway 101 in Redwood City are closed. That? Blows. It seems that a 26,000 gallon gasoline tanker big rig overturned just north of Maple Street near Woodside. According to ABC 7, a "Coast Guard crew is heading......

The first of what will soon be many Cosco Busan reports...

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......

According to the Coast Guard, "a barge has hit the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge" around 6 p.m. this evening. Yikes! The barge, reportedly carrying 63,000 barrels of heavy black oil, hit the east piling of the west span. So far there are no reports of any injuries or leakage. Ah, a light day. Anyway, according to ABC 7, this isn't the first time that a barge has smacked the bridge in question. It seems that......

In a Spearsian like maneuver, looking to trump both the recent storm and the Dhaliwal brothers, oil spill made a comeback this morning. It seems that a crane fell off of a san Francisco pier a little before 10 a.m. this morning, spilling "an unknown amount" of oil into the Bay. According to the Gate, "[t]he crane was on a sliding rail system at a dry dock at Pier 70 when it suddenly tilted......

The Busan headed out this morning. ...

The Busan is free to leave....

Vote early, vote often...

Guess when the Busan leaves S.F. Bay!...

Although ABC 7's Cheryl Jennings -- who we find kicky and whimsical -- told us that a cleaning solvent spilled into the bay this morning, we're getting conflicting reports as to whether or not the spill actually hit precious, precious SF waters. See, after a blaze at an Oakland warehouse today, it was originally reported that "an unknown amount of chemical -- possibly isopropyl alcohol -- may have spilled into a drainage system that......

Huge waves hit Ocean Beach....

Like the bad ass she is, occasional San Francisco resident and current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has written to the "Homeland Security Department's inspector general requesting an investigation of preparation for and response to last month's oil spill in San Francisco Bay," according to CBS 5. In a wordy missive to Inspector General Skinner, she fired off over a dozen issues she wants taken care of right-quick. A couple of points she needs to......

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......

Audet & Partners, LLP filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of commercial fishers and crab-based (?) businesses in San Francisco on November 20. Today on their site they claim the following, "Breaking News: Cosco Busan Vessel Arrested." Which? Okay then. We have yet to see footage of the vessel getting cuffed by the fuzz with its shirt off, and we can't imagine it heard its Miranda rights being read, but seeing as how......

The sands of Marin and San Mateo have officially reopened to the public. (We recommend hitting the beach in the fall. There's something luxurious about walking on the beach, bundled up in winter clothing.) What's more, 50 wild birds have been cleaned up and released at Pillar Point Yacht Harbor at Half Moon Bay. But what's worse, "the spill has cost the U.S. government $1.4 million, money spent on operations by the Coast Guard,......

After screwing up mandated drug tests and failing to report the severity of the oil spill in a timely fashion, as of this morning Coast Guard Captain William Uberti is out. And an experienced specialist in oil SNAFUs, Capt. Paul Gugg, is in. According to the Chronicle, Gugg, 49, has "has crafted spill regulations and response plans in Washington, D.C., and helped design emergency tactics after the catastrophic 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska."......

-- Awesomeness: GG Park road to close on Saturdays! Yay! Mind the bison! [Examiner] -- Narcs! Mandated by federal law, the Coast Guard failed to drug test the Cosco Busan crew within 32 hours. [SFGate] -- Still need your crab fix? Try this handy map. [Gridskipper] -- Ka-blamo! Bomb scare temporarily halts eBay. [ValleyWag] -- Saving rent control. [Beyond Chron] -- Ship's radar, it now seems, was working juuust fine. [Oakland Tribune]......

So...ugh. Birds died, gastronomic seasons were delayed. What's more, it hasn't even been a week, and already some of your favorite local and national politicos are personalizing the spill, more than ready to point old, spotty white fingers elsewhere. (RIP, acts of God.) How very helpful. Except not really. Anyway, oil-spill points of interest that happened over the weekend: -- ^&*#%^&*#!: Crab season delayed. -- "Something went terribly wrong," obvious'd Senator Barbara Boxer (Can......

Well spun, Dianne. Looking to use the oil spill to get some much needed face time -- perfect for balancing out other less savory images of the Senator -- Dianne Feinstein flew to San Francisco yesterday to put her foot down about the Bay Area's "disturbing lack of readiness" to the oil spill. "It's pretty clear cities around the bay should have been brought in faster than they were," she said, according to the......

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......

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......

Photo of a Coast Guard rescue near the Golden Gate Bridge that is all too routine....

Photo of a sightseeing helicopter buzzing the Golden Gate Bridge...

Here's todays news...

East Bay diner SFist Julie goes pirate! Okay, it's really NOT a soup kitchen, but if you have a boat docked in Oakland’s Embarcadero Cove Marina (down the highway from Jack London Square and across from Alameda's Coast Guard Island), have a pot belly and a brush mustache, and a propensity for telling jokes like: “What kind of fish likes to sing? A tune-y fish!” -- and bursting into laughter at your own brilliance,......

In your Non-Gavin news.... -About 500 people walked around the city counting Homeless people last night. -Mirkarimi doesn't want any more liquor stores to open up in Lower Haight. -Caltrans to send transportation bond money to rural areas and less money our way. -Boy who was first thought of as a suspect, then a victim of recent shootings at the Hayward BART station, now under arrest for assault and gun charges. -Berkeley is about to......

The Coast Guard is stepping up the search for a local computer scientist who has been missing at sea since Sunday. The man, Jim Gray, set off for the Farallon Islands and was supposed to return on Sunday. When he didn't, his wife called in the Coast Guard to let them know. They have not been able to find him yet....

Let's take a look back at a week that raised this Zen koan: if Kevin Federline got into a wrestling ring with a wrestler, who would you root for?...

The big news yesterday, which hit our feed reader right before our wifi crapped out, was Google CEO Eric Schmidt driving down the 101 to Cupertino to join Apple's Board of Directors. Considering some of the trouble Apple's been in lately -- suppliers suing newspapers over reports of overworked employees in China, a less-than-stellar environmental record, stock option backdating scandals -- could this be a way for Google to outsource all the evil they're supposedly......