Last week the Chicago City Council overturned its ban delicious, smooth, and flavorful foie gras. Rejoice, liver lovers! See, the process of making foie gras involves geese-fattening, which, more or less, means one has to shove food down the birds' throats. And some view the process as a bit cruel. Anyway, a pro-ife SFGate reader writes o Michael Bauer to, well, basically tell him how righteous he and his girlfriend are. Also, he asked......

Michael Pollan: Come hear this foodie sensation talk about his latest book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, in which he suggests that you should not "eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food." (Impossible. Also, yes, Michael Leaverton, we DO need to know the exercise logs of the fowl we plan on eating.) Catch him tonight in conversation with restaurant critic, Hayes Street Grill chef/co-owner, and local food celeb......

Orange is the new black, apparently. During the off-season, the San Jose Sharks unveiled an updated logo, team colors, and new uniforms. The biggest change is the addition of orange to teal, black, and white, replacing silver as the highlight color. ...

The Sharks dispatched the Mustard Men in 5 games, which makes the series seem a lot less close than it was. 3 of the games were decided by one goal, with Game 1 in double overtime. Even Game 2, the Predators 5-2 win, was not decided until late in the 3rd period. Nashville's undisciplined play (they led all playoff teams with almost 30 minutes of penalties per game) was their undoing, even though the Sharks power play was more or less ineffective, and often frankly ugly to watch. But it was one more way to wear down the Nashville defenders, and keep their skill players on the bench. Patrick Marleau again scored some big goals, and Joe Thornton took the first step toward erasing his playoff-choker reputation with dominating play and 6 points in the series. Nashville wasn't the only team to distinguish itself with dirty play in this year's playoffs. The Calgary Flames managed to steal the spotlight by having their backup goalie come in to play lumberjack to the Detroit Red Wings Johan Franzen's, umm, old growth redwood late in Game 5 of their series (Franzen, fittingly, scored the series winner in Game 6). Then the Flames' Jarome Iginla and Daymond Langkow got in the act late in the game (cross-checking plus slashing and sucker-punching, respectively). Classy. Brad May of the Anaheim Ducks got a 3 game suspension for sucker-punching the back of Minnesota Wild defenseman Kim Johnsson (who is both emphatically not a pugilist, and happened to be Minnesota's best D man), which then caused a multi-player dust-up between the Ducks and Wild during the *pre-game skate* of Game 5 in their series. ...

Here's todays sports wrapup...

The Pond's horrible ice and Teemu Selanne's illegal stick helped the Sharks avoid being down a man in overtime against the Ducks last night. Selanne was called for unsportsmanlike conduct at the beginning of overtime, negating a Craig Rivet penalty that was carrying over from the end of regulation, and San Jose went on to win the shootout for a 3-2 victory. The Sharks came back to even the score after being down by 2 goals in the first period, and both teams helped their playoff positioning against the Dallas Stars. ...

Here's todays recap of last night's sports...

-Down, down, down go the Warriors ,who lost their fifth straight, losing 106-97 to the Knicks in New York. -Once again, the Sharks faced off against the Ducks and once again, the Ducks got the better of them. Same old story. This was the Ducks fifth win over the Sharks in seven games. -Jeff Garcia won't be dooming the final years of his life by signing with the Raiders as they fail to come to......

-Sharks finally come home after a long road trip to play the first team in their division and their arch-nemesis, the Ducks, and lose. Ann Killion says the Sharks aren't making it any easier on themselves. -Scott Ostler has a new "Knucklehead of the Day" bit on the Sports Columnist blog on SFGate. His latest two knuckleheads are Peter Magowan for positioning Brian Sabaen in just the right way to be thrown off the......

The Warriors' forward/Vice President Of Basketball Operations Chris Mullin is among the finalists for the NBA Hall Of Fame this year. Savor it, Warrior fans......

-It's official, Barry B. is now a Giant as he finally signed a contract. As for Barry's place in baseball, Monte Poole says baseball can go suck it....

There's a whole bunch of golf stuff out there which we are going to skip entirely as we hate golf. -Golden State was routed by the Minnesota Timberwolves 121-93. Boy, this road trip is going well, ain't it? And how's that trade working out for you these days? This all makes Golden State of Mind play "You Know You're In Trouble When..." Well, some good news is that Stephen Jackson had his trial date pushed......

-So much for getting into first place: the Sharks are thrashed by the Ducks, 7-4. -What the Cowboys decide to do about Norv Turner could affect the 49ers as much as the Cowboys. -Now that the football season is over, the Raiders are on the clock. Silver and Black Pride want Adrian Peterson. -Due to injuries, your new Warriors point guard is Sarunas Jasikevicius. -Yes, the Chron runs a story about Kenny G. in the......

-In the biggest game of the year, the Warriors stepped up and beat on the Indiana Pacers with ex-Pacer Stephen Jackson leading the way. What does it all mean? ...

-The Warriors lost to the Charlotte Bobcats last night, 98-90. You can't really get too upset about the game as the Warriors are on the longest road trip of the season and played a game in Philly the night before. Most teams in that situation would lose. Not so good is that they are 1-3 on this road trip. -Sharks beat up on the Blackhawks 4-2. They're still having problems with their power play (0-6)......

-The Warriors beat up on an Allen Iverson-less 76ers last night, 116-97 as Matt Barnes led the way with seven three-pointers and twenty-five points. Monta Ellis, meanwhile, isn't as injured as everyone thought he was. And the next run of seven games looks pretty good for the Warriors. ...

-We pick up today's "Morning After" column looking at the aftermath of the 49ers loss to the Cardinals on Sunday. The game knocked the 49ers out of the playoff hunt, probably as it should be as the game proved the Niners just aren't ready for playoff time yet (Niners Nation calls them the "Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda 49ers"). The loss has the team looking at next year even if there's still one game left in the season....

Sharks beat high-scoring Ducks, 4-3, with a tipped pass by Joe Thorton in the late, late third period. The victory snapped the Ducks five game winning streak and was only their fourth regulation loss of the season. Is their still room on the Sharks bandwagon?...

-Arnie meets Angelides for a debate and nothing really exciting happens. We wanted to watch it, really, but we watched Friday night's "Battlestar Galactica" instead....

Sampaist is on the scene in São Paulo beginning this week to become the only ist south of the Equator. Editor Leandro M. Pinto leads the paulistanos down there. You can protest someone at his office, sure, but when the whistle blows at the end of the day can you follow him home? D.C. has sports fans, apparently, and elephants aren't really cut out for zoos. There's this trick where you can read information from......

It's been so long since the Raiders had a chance to gloat, some thought they might have forgotten how. Well, no worries, they returned to their arrogant selves quickly enough after their 27-24 win over Carolina yesterday. "Not to knock the Panthers, but they're not really a good team," said cornerback Charles Woodson, displaying the self-effacing humility the Raiders are known for. They take a week off to prepare for redemption against the Chargers. Jerry......

Weekly wrapup of local football action....

Weekly football recap....