Despite being the most populous state — and one of the most diverse — California's opinion doesn't matter a lick when it comes to picking this year's Republican Presidential candidate. But nonetheless there's a primary happening on June 5, and the city of San Francisco wants you to "Be a Voter." (Some researchers, you see, have found that the phrase "Be a Voter" is more statistically encouraging than the more direct command of "Vote!") more ›

Last fall we alerted you to a documentary in the works about the history of San Francisco as a pioneering capital of porn cinema. That documentary short, Smut Capital of America, by filmmaker Michael Stabile, has since had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, and will be part of Frameline this month, screening on June 19 at one of the very same theaters mentioned in the film, the Victoria. more ›

The Mayor of Newton, Massachusetts, has kind of a fuzzy grasp on San Francisco history. During an appearance on a local political quiz show, he was asked to name the mayor who was killed on the same night as Harvey Milk. Mayor Setti Warren fumbled, "Dianne Feinstein." more ›

This morning outside Dianne Feinstein's office in downtown San Francisco, Codepink activists and war veterans "[urged] their senator to speak out against torture being inflicted daily on Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, who is suspected of leaking Wikileaks documents detailing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan." more ›

The protest to keep 20-year-old Steve Li in the country on Friday was outside Barbara Boxer's SF offices, but it was Senator Dianne Feinstein who stepped in Sunday to ask immigration officials to delay Li's deportation. "I have asked ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to halt the deportation proceedings while I consider introducing a private bill that will allow Mr. Li to remain in the United States on a temporary basis," Feinstein said in a statement. She is a supporter of the Dream Act, which Congress has yet to vote on, which would allow foreign students in Li's position to remain in the country, and she says it would be unjust to deport him before that was voted on. more ›

An 80-person entourage including Newsom, former mayors Willie Brown and Frank Jordan, Nancy Pelosi, Di Fi, and BART board of directors president James Fang, begins a tour of China today in celebration of San Francisco's 30-year-long sister-city relations with Shanghai. more ›

Possibly suffering from senioritis, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger confused Sen. Barbara Boxer with Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Oops. more ›

In order to preserve a million acres of wildlife, Senator Dianne Feinstein proposed a law that would block solar panel development in the Mojave desert. more ›

Now that Gavin Newsom has dropped out of the governor's race (welcome back to work, Gavin!), rumors are swirling that Senator Dianne Feinstein might take a stab as the new "it" Democratic candidate. Or not. Who's to say for sure. This speculation pops up all the time with DiFi. more ›

Call it what you will, but hometown gal Nancy Pelosi's push to get the President's health care initiative through Congress before their August recess appears to be failing, and among those stalling it is another hometown gal, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who still doesn't know how we're going to pay for any of this shit. Her actual words relate more to creating new health care entitlements that the country's budget can't afford. To wit: "Entitlements are well over 50 percent of every dollar the federal government spends this year and are going straight up. If you add more entitlements, it's a problem." We would agree that a feasible plan for covering the costs of this plan should be laid out, but President Obama promises it won't add to the deficit. DiFi calls bullshit. Who to believe? more ›

During opening remarks by Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Judge Sonia Sotomayor this morning, an anti-abortion protester stood up, shouted something about genocide and the unborn, and was promptly dragged out of the room. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who's presiding over the hearing and therefore in charge of the gavel, was having none of it. The man's name is Robert James, and he's been charged with unlawful conduct and disruption of Congress. No word on whether the God Hates Fags-famed Phelpses -- who never met an event that they couldn't relate back to homosexuality and God's wrath -- have shown up. more ›

Harvey Milk-era diva, former San Francisco Mayor, and Presidio Terrace resident Sen. Dianne Feinstein will become chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, making her the first dame to the first dame to chair the committee in its 32-year history. In a statement released, DiFi said that her goals will be "working with the Obama administration to end the practice of coercive interrogations and creating a uniform standard for interrogations throughout the U.S. government, granting the Red Cross access to detainees and closing the Guantánamo Bay detention facility within one year." (Huh?) This also clears up any rumors that she would run for governor of California, which allows Mayor Gavin Newsom to focus most of his attention on making the move to Sacramento. more ›

Offices in Capitol Hill received a manila envelope with a letter claiming responsibility for today's bombing of a landmark military recruiting station in Times Square, NYC. Our parent site, Gothamist, tells us that "WNBC reports that the letters, which arrived today, included a photo of the Army recruiting center 'before it was bombed and...the words 'We did it.'" Which group is claiming responsibility, exactly, remains to be known. more ›

Undergoing a procedure to erase 30 years from its face, the Castro neighborhood is going retro, circa 1978, for the filming of Gus Van Sant's Harvey Milk biopic, Milk, which starts shooting this week. Already the Castro Theatre, right, and boutique shop Given, formerly Milk's camera store / campaign headquarters, are being renovated to get that '70s vibe. Rumor has it that Castro Street between 18th and 19th streets (i.e., the staphicenter) will be closed on Thursday. We'll update with more info as it comes in. more ›

As of noon today, the District 4 seat formerly occupied by Ed Jew is now empty, and the Sunset has no representation on the Board of Supervisors. Quick, everyone, now's the time to put a toxic waste dump on 26th and Wawona! (We just like saying the word "Wawona" is all.) more ›

“I was shocked,” said Board of Supervisors Prez Aaron Peskin after being asked about Gavin Newsom's whereabouts this past weekend. Same here. Word is that Gavin was in Hawaii this past weekend, kicking in the sand and surf. Has senioritis kicked in already, Mayor? Not that you could've mopped up the oil singlehandedly, but still, you should have been here. We're a sensitive lot, us SF babies. more ›

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... more ›

Local movie star, sometimes activist, and Tosca regular Sean Penn will play gay for pay in the long-incubated version of Randy Shilts' 1982 "The Mayor of Castro Street". (An amazing book for those of you who have yet to read it.) He'll play murdered San Francisco Supervisor and gay rights activist Harvey Milk, who was shot and killed along with Mayor George Moscone by Supervisor Dan White. Perma-boy Matt Damon gets to play the... more ›

Offside! Penalty -- three months. Any talk of the Niners moving from San Francisco down to Santa Clara is before the snap (did we get our convoluted football metaphor right? SFist Jon's out on vacation this week so we can't check), now that the City of Santa Clara's experienced yet more delays in completing the required feasibility study about how they're going to raise their $160 million share for the stadium. more ›

. Meredith ventures back to the Mission to try that place that opened in the old KFC (she had the lobster). Minnie Driver uses the word love 54 times on her album. And former SFist Violet Blue guests in the Savage Love. more ›

A public memorial is all set to honor Bill Walsh. It'll be held at Candlestick at 11 AM on August 10th and among the speakers will be Joe Montana and Eddie De Bartolo. A private ceremony will be held on August 9th at the Stanford Memorial Church. Speakers there will not only include Montana and DeBartolo, but NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Dianne Feinstein. Rumored to attend are Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Secretary of State George Shultz who were friends of the Genius. Current owners of the 49ers, John and Denise York have also asked that the Governor declare a Bill Walsh Day. more ›

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Total number of people pictured in this week's Swells society column: 65. more ›

On Fark.com they have this thing where if anyone in the House or Senate introduces a silly little bill, the person who writes the headline will always say "with nothing else going on Senator Blah Blah Blah introduced a bill to blah blah blah." Chuckles all around. So what does this have to do with anything? Well, with all the other stuff going on, you know, like the war, Senator Dianne Feinstein yesterday introduced legislation into the Senate giving the NFL a limited anti-trust exemption and so making it so that no team could move without first getting permission from the NFL first. And if you were to guess that this was all in an attempt to keep you know who from moving to you know where, you would be correct. more ›

While most of the 2006 elections are over, there's still a bit of a contention coming from, where else, Florida. In the Sarasota congressional race, a recount was held and 18,000 under votes were discovered. That meant those people voted for everything else but not for congress. This drew alarm bells from people because the percentage of under votes was higher than anywhere else. And, you'd have to figure that the one race people would vote on would be for congress instead of the school board or bond measures or a Sarasota style Question Time. Voters also complained that the machines garbled everything up and they never got a chance to vote. more ›

. Boooo!). It's actually a pretty decent article about the future of the Chron online, the criminal lack of mentioning of Eve notwithstanding. Book section. Meredith Brody tries out Top Chef entrees around town. SFist Ced is outraged that she would review a TGI Friday's when there's no TGI Friday's in the City. Wasn't there a TGI Friday's in Fisherman's Wharf? What happened to that one? The (((folkYEAH!))) festival in Big Sur. Doc's Clock, everyone's second-choice hipster bar. And Dan Savage ate too much pot pumpkin cake. more ›

Total number of people pictured in this week's Swells society column: 59. more ›

--Sofia Milos is back in town. more ›

Old skool's hot again, as the Quaker Oats folks who own Rice-A-Roni have decided to bring back the cable car and the "San Francisco treat" tagline in its ad campaigns. And what about that infernally-catchy song? "We haven't brought back the jingle, but we're talking about it,'' Rice-a-Roni's marketing director Monica Young told the Chron. more ›

Our own Dianne Feinstein continues to put her own stamp on Congress' annual "Seersucker Thursday" tribute to Southern style. Not since the last "Jeans Day" at their local Catholic High School has this country seen such a gang of folks giddy about a short-term change in dress expectations, and DiFi keeps the fun rolling with her gift of seersucker suits to her female colleagues in the senate. more ›