Bashing Gavin's plans to pay for his staff members (and lobbyists) from the MTA budget isn't just something us local folks can do. It's something everyone can do! Like a U.S. Senator. A Republican Senator. From Oklahoma. Wha?...

Here's a roundup of today's news...

While the Castro has that fabulous organ, the Red Vic (1727 Haight St at Cole) wins the prize for best popcorn, a very important aspect of our movie-going experience. Tonight the Red Vic screens the D.A. Pennebaker documentary, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, a cinema verité cult classic depicting David Bowie getting ready for and playing one of the last Ziggy-era concerts, featuring glam rock guitarist extraordinaire, Mick Ronson (who grew up Mormon).......

Worst. Holiday. Ever. For. Eritreans Near and Far. We’re not joking about the sadness and confusion this Turkey Day crime has wreaked. The shell-shocked East African Eritrean Bay Area community, numbering 10,000 to 12,000 strong according to many reports, is still reeling from the Thanksgiving Day killings that left 3 members of the same family dead in an Oakland apartment shoot out. "This is the worst ightmare for Eritreans,"Yikaalo Gebreselassie of Alameda told the Chron, who said he was a friend of the victims. "We've never had this kind of experience before, and now we have three people dead." ...

We're launching a new sporadic political column, following Fiona Ma and Janet Reilly's battle for the 12th Assembly District. If anyone's got a better name for this column, post it in the comments! Anyone who's played one-on-one against Mayor Newsom's gotta have some game! Look at the fire in Fiona's eyes in this picture! Bring! It! On! After a fairly moribund start (for our purposes, "moribund" means "not too terribly hilarious in that car-wreck kind of way that we like") to the SF West-siiiiiide State Assembly race between Fiona Ma and Tori Spelling Janet Reilly (wife of the famously-aggressive political strategist Clint Reilly), where the candidates have agreed on almost everything except school exit exams and the death penalty (Fiona is against the first and for the second, Reilly is the opposite), things heated up today with the first use of the word "Nixonian." Yes! According to Ma, Reilly's people faked her name on IRS filings and have been falsely telling everyone that she was the treasurer in the 2002 campaign for Mike Rounds, the anti-abortion South Dakota governor. Ma is pro-choice. The Examiner did some research and found out that the Reilly campaign has been emailing Mark Leno and NARAL about it. Reilly's people (through Eric Jaye, Newsom's old campaign guy) now say they didn't fake anything, don't know if it's correct or not, and are now trying to find out from the IRS why Fiona's name is listed on those forms. Why would Fiona Ma be working on a campaign in South Dakota, anyways? We can barely get her to work on campaigns in San Francisco! ...

As many legal observers expected, Gov. Schwarzenegger denied Stanley "Tookie" Williams's request for clemency, ">stating that (.pdf) there was strong evidence supporting the jury's guilty verdict, and that he doesn't really believe that Tookie has really reformed (various Nobel Prize nominations notwithstanding) because Tookie has never apologized for the killings for which he was imprisoned, and has never explicitly apologized for the murders committed in the name of the Crips. (Also, Tookie still supports George Jackson, who the governor says shows that Tookie continues to advocate for "violence and lawlessness."). Williams's attorney will file a renewed petition for clemency this afternoon, and can still appeal to the US Supreme Court. Meanwhile, his supporters are planning a 8 p.m. rally outside San Quentin. There's also a "walk for abolition," which started at 7 a.m. today at the Palace of the Legion of Honor and will end at San Quentin at 6. They should be around St. Paul's Church in San Rafael right about now if you want to meet up with 'em. We can't find any info on any pro-death penalty rallies but presumably, they'll be happening around the same time and at the same place as the anti- ones. ...

SFist Jon forwards along the following news item: The art and antiques store Phantom*SF at 18th and Castro's in a tough spot about the coffee-table sculpture the owner's displayed in the window, of a well-muscled, well-hung man. The store owner has been told to cover the statue completely or face pornography charges -- which is a problem because the owner has hung the price tag on the tip of the.... well, you know. Apparently some neighborhood families don't want their kids seeing that sort of thing (though it's unclear what the store owner will do about the David statue he has in the same window as well). The owner, Bevan Dufty, the cops, and the DAs are all unsure about what to do next. Dufty suggests "dialogue" (always the last refuge of the wicked!). A big rig filled with fish overturned around 3 a.m., closing down southbound 880. Since 880's always such an easy and uncongested commute, we're sure this has had no impact on the morning commute. From Death Row records to an actual death row -- Snoop Dogg's going to be protesting for the clemency of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. Williams, who founded the Crips gang, was convicted of killing four people in 1979, and is scheduled to be executed at San Quentin on Dec. 13. No governor has granted clemency for the death penalty since it was reinstated in California in 1978. ...

Clemency has been denied in the pending excution of death-row inmate Donald Beardslee, and the first execution in California since January of 2002 should go on as scheduled tonight at 12:01am. The Governor's official statement [PDF] (which did not include the above quote from Commando, although we have a feeling someone will make a tasteless "Hasta La Vista, Baby" joke before the night is over) reads in part: The Board of Prison Terms unanimously recommended......

Did you hear sirens last night? There was a high speed chase starting from Turk and Gough in San Francisco around 12:15 a.m. that went for 30 minutes, reached speeds of up to 90 mph, went over the Bay Bridge, and ended up with the suspects being captured in downtown Oakland (at 16th and Jefferson). No reports on injuries or property damage yet. The Bay Area's scheduled for its first death penalty execution in three years, of a man convicted of murder in San Mateo County in 1981. Donald Beardslee will be only the 11th person executed in California since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978, and the first person executed from a San Mateo County case. Beardslee is scheduled for lethal injection at a minute after midnight tonight (Wed. morning), but his petitions for clemency based on his brain damage are currently pending before the Supreme Court and Schwarzenegger. And Israeli and Palestinian protestors clashed in Berkeley over the display of an Israeli bus destroyed by a suicide bomber. It was mostly verbal altercations across Berkeley's MLK Park, but two men were charged with misdemeanor battery after getting in a brief fistfight when the pro-Palestinian group tried to parade in the park. ...

We were going to be all like, "we're sooooo above the whole Scott Peterson trial when there's a civil war in the Sudan," but okay, we'll confess, we were frantically hitting the refresh button on our sfgate.com window from 1:30 until about 1:50 p.m. today too. So yes, the Scott Peterson jury trial is over, after about six and a half months of testimony and argument, and the jury's recommended that the judge sentence Peterson to death. Chalk up another loss to Mark Geragos. (Has this guy actually won anything yet?) San Mateo County has only requested the death penalty in five cases over the last decade, including Mr. Peterson's, and this is the first time they've ever imposed it. The judge will either endorse the jury's recommendation or overrule it for a sentence of life without parole at the final sentencing hearing, scheduled for February 25. Picture of Peterson and Geragos at the reading of the verdict off courttv.com; picture of throngs of people outside the Redwood City courthouse off cnn.com...

Okay, so SFist isn't always as impartial as we'd like to be. We're bloggers - our prejudices are bound to shine through from time to time (well, okay, always). With all this talk of the red states and theocracy, good, Kerry-voting Christians all over the country are having to defend themselves and their faith from being pigeonholed into the Ralph Reed and Billy Graham camp. But the PICO National Network, a multifaith organization from Oakland,......