During yesterday's Time magazine breakfast forum in Denver -- a panel discussion 7x7-ishly titled "Hot Shots Breakfast" -- our DA Kamala Harris was a featured guest. On a question regarding public safety, here's what she had to say. "It's not about rehabilitation. It's about public safety...[w]hat Democrats have to do is understand that Republicans have it right" in framing the debate on public safety. While we appreciate Harris' "blunt" take on crime, we hope......

In more pink slip sadness today, San Jose Mercury News (owned by Denver-based MediaNews Group) eliminated 50 jobs. Fifteen newsroom employees and 19 employees from "other parts of the paper" were let go today. Citing a loss of advertising revenue because to the evil Internet, this most recent workforce slashing represents "a cut of about 5 percent" of the over Merc staff. On the flip side, two editors received promotions: Barbara J. Marshman, associate......

Photograph of memorial outside Heath Ledger's NYC apartment Gothamist learned that actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his SoHo apartment, cause of death unknown so far (but apparently the masseuse who found him called Mary-Kate Olsen before 911).Bostonist considered sending a link about the Super Bowl, but damn! The New Kids are reuniting!Although Sylvester Stallone is a native of New York City, his Rocky character lets many Philadelphians consider him a native son......

Here's todays sports news...

Congratulations, Oakland (29th), Fremont (32nd), and San Francisco (34th) -- you made it on the top 50 drunkest cities in the U.S. list. At least, according to the December issue of the body dysmorphia-inducing rag Men's Health Magazine. The rankings are based on alcohol-related liver deaths, "binge drinking data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," FBI-culled drunk driving arrest numbers, death-related auto accidents that involved booze, and "grades given to cities......

This past Thursday while we were en route from Denver to SFO, we were thoroughly enjoying the in-flight movie when screams suddenly broke out from the rear kitchen. Since we happened to be sitting in the very last row of the plane, we were especially caught off guard by the commotion and were forced to break focus from No Reservations (which was actually quite charming) to see what was going on. Not three feet from......

After staunching out the Arizona Cardinals last week, the Niners head to St. Louis to try to get ahead at the expense of the reeling Rams and claw ahead in the NFC West race....

There are no less than three fantastic music festivals all taking place over the weekend of September 14-16. What gives? And how do we choose? Since we live in the bay area, perhaps our decision has been made for us: we're heading to the inaugural Treasure Island Music Festival presented by the fine folks at Noise Pop and Another Planet. The two day festival features 14 bands each day on two stages with mostly hip......

The Denver Biz Times is reporting that Denver-based MediaNews Group -- the owner of the Alameda Newspaper Group (which includes the Oakland Tribune) and the Contra Costa Times, will be reducing staff in its NoCal operations....

Airport news! This morning, SFO crews found a dead body lodged in the wheel well of the nose of a United plane coming in from Shanghai. It might have been a stowaway. A woman was arraigned in Denver yesterday, after getting arrested on Monday for beating her kids on a Frontier Air flight that took off from SFO. Witnesses report that she seemed intoxicated on the flight, was yelling and hitting the kids, and......

Improbably, almost impossibly, the Golden State Warriors' dream season continues tonight with game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal matchup with the Utah Jazz. The Warriors are into the semis by virtue of their historic six-game stunner over the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks; the Jazz eeked out a game 7 road win over the Houston Rockets.

The Jazz are the fourth seed in the Western Conference, but in our minds, its the Dubs that enter this series as the favorites. The Jazz are undoubtedly mentally and physically drained after their game 7 thriller on Saturday, while the Warriors are riding a wave of emotion that shows no sign of dissipating.

Now that the National Football League's 2007 schedule has been released, let the carpin' in Oakland begin....

Here's a list of things to do tonight...

Over the last 12 years, nobody has really accused the Warriors of having their act together. They've burned through a litany of coaches, a couple of really bad GMs, and more than one first round draft choice with nothing to show for them but more new coaches, front office suits, and first round draft choices.

Another hallmark of the modern-day Warriors' mean mean stride has been their fast starts, awful middles, and decent finishes. Even in their worst years, the Warriors managed to finish the season on an uptick, perpetually giving false hope for the next season – even if that hope was just a Lottery pick.

This year had all the looks of more of the same, but a funny thing happened on the way to the cellar: the bottom fell out of the middle of the Western Conference.

If you remember, two years ago Gavin announced some program to fight litter in the streets by calling on residents to mobilize and clean the streets. Somewhere Gavin envisioned hordes of fresh-faced San Franciscans picking up random potato chip bags, coffee containers, and hypodermic needles while frolicking down Polk Street arm-in-arm singing John Denver songs. Well, as anybody could tell just by wandering the streets, the streets are still dirty as hell. So today, Gavin introduced a new campaign to stop littering. This time, the campaign will be mainly educational as that appears to be the problem. We don't understand why people wouldn't think littering is bad, but we were kids in the early '70's and had a bunch of long-haired hippie teachers tell us that littering is bad, mmmmkay, in between the playing of Judy Collins' songs. Just walking to our car this morning, we saw a bag of chips lying on the street and it occured to us that as there was a garbage can a few feet away, why didn't somebody just dump it into the garbage can since the idea behind garbage can is that's where you put garbage. ...

Warriors, baby, we need to talk. With Monday night's double kiss off -- a demoralizing loss to the Nuggets in Denver and the news that Baron Davis is going under the knife -- our relationship in on the rocks. Again. Sigh.

As such, we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma. Should we shoulder the slings and arrows of the last month and give you one last chance to make it up to us with a playoff berth, or should we go ahead and change the locks on this season?

Happy New Year everyone! What We Did On Our Christmas Vacation After having our plans to fly to Denver thwarted by a sinister snowstorm, we headed straight to Texas. We spent most of the time in Houston with our family and managed to type out our top 10 albums of '06 while our nephews watched "Pirates of the Carribbean" for the nth time. One night was spent in Austin with one of our favorite people......

The past two seasons for the 49ers have ended in quixotic wins off of big Joe Nedney's left foot. Yet the 2006 season-ending upset over the Denver Broncos meant so much more the Niners: it revealed a team that believes in themselves. And believes in their coach's plan for the future....

In the 49ers' final game of the 2006 regular season, the team will have something more important on their mind than football. * San Francisco vs. Denver Sunday, December 31, 2006. 1:00 PM, PST. Week 17 The Battle Of Remembering #72 Last time the Niners were in Denver was Week 2 of the 2005 preseason. At the end of the game, 49er offensive lineman Thomas Herrion collapsed in the visitor's locker room after running......

-Cal just runs crazy over Texas A&M and beats them 45-10 as Marhshawn Lynch led the way with 111 yards and two TDs. Ray Ratto is impressed. But can Cal bring Lynch back? ...

What? This isn't Thursday? OK, all this holiday brouhaha has made us a day late from our usual posting schedule but we just know you'll forgive us. To make it up to you, we want to share a brand new video from Trainwreck Riders. According to our buddy Nat, last week the band hit the streets with a super 8 camera and a bag full of costumes that they dug up from their basements. They......

During the pregame of Thursday's MIN/GB game, NFL.com's Adam Schefter reported that the Raiders will let Head Coach Art Shell go after the end of the season. No source was named to have given this statement....

Oh, who cares about news when the title of the NEXT HARRY POTTER BOOK HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED. OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! WE'RE SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All right, enough of that. ...

Ding-ding! NBA fans, lehhhhhhhhht's get ready to ruuuuuummmmm-bbbbllllllllllllle -- again.

Saturday night in Madison Square Garden, the most famous boxing arena in the world, the NY Knicks and Denver Nuggets set upon each other in the squared rectangle for what snarky bloggers and snide sportswriters have billed as the Throwdown in Showtown.

Memo to David Stern: Start the playoffs right now, baby, the Warriors are ready to make a run!

What is it with this team? Just when Warrior nation was about to write them off as the latest version of Chris Cohan's spectacularly unsuccessful basketball product, they up and beat two of the best teams in the league in consecutive games.

Somewhere in between leaving San Francisco and being coaxed into not leaving San Francisco, and then definitely leaving San Francisco, and then who knows what, the 49ers beat the Lions, 19-13 in Detroit. ...

Let the PR horns boldly announce it from the highest rafters: The second Don Nelson era is off to a flying start.

Special bold-name bands edition. Like it? Hate it? Tell us in the comments. Hailing from our beloved city of Austin, TX, What Made Milwaukee Famous has all the right ingredients for no-need-to-actually-listen-to-them indie cred: a hip home town, a nonsensical phrase for a name, indie stalwart Barsuk as their record label, opening gigs for Arcade Fire and an appearance on "Austin City Limits" (ultra-rare for a then-unsigned band). But we do think you need to......

We were getting ready to write yet another post about the media using Craigslist as a scapegoat for the evil Internet while blatantly ignoring all the good it serves. So we began the arduous task of looking at newspaper articles till our eyes started to glaze over, each article looking eerily and eerily similar to the previous one... "Bad Stuff happens on Craigslist," Blah, Blah, Blah, "Fair Housing," Blah Blah Blah ..."Flesh Bazaar," Blah......

SFist interviews Michael Taylor from the Court and Spark...