It's the Fourth of July! Streamers! Bunting! Brass bands! And in San Francisco.... the opening of the hotly-anticipated SF Mime Troupe production in Dolores Park! The acidly-political theater group (note: not actually mimes, though it would actually be hilarious if one year they did do an entire production in mime) is putting on free performances of "Making a Killing" every weekend at local parks throughout the area until October. This year's play is about......

--They took away the hazmat license of the company whose truck blew up the Macarthur Maze. We can't really disagree with that. --Oh no! Puddles the hippo has died. He leaves his bereaved partner, Cuddles, and 16 children. --There's a lot of geek conventions in town this weekend. --And speaking of which, check out this Star Wars post office in Marin. --Two-alarm fire in the Richmond this afternoon. --The Gap's still having problems. --Condoleeza Rice......

--They are going to reopen the Macarthur Maze by Memorial Day weekend! That construction company totally deserves their $5 million bonus. --We know why Chris Daly interrupted Newsom's meeting with the Venezuelan ambassador! To tell Gavin there's another Daly on the way! Congratulations, Chris and Sarah! --Someone died at Bay to Breakers. --The city may try to move Halloween to behind AT&T Park. --They're going to try and get Wi-Fi on BART. --Condoleeza Rice is......

Nothing like senate confirmation hearings to get the partisan juices flowing. Kos reports that Senator Barbara Boxer would speak her mind [link via 1115] as part of Dr. Condoleeza Rice's confirmation as Secretary of State. Dr. Rice, former Provost at Stanford, and Boxer, the only Senator to request an investigation into voter disenfranchisement in Ohio, are two of Washington's most powerful women. While SFist would rather have seen this settled in a steel-cage match, the......