Every year, California fills out a bunch of forms, dots a lot of i's, and writes up some reports to send off to the EPA for permission to be granted a waiver from EPA rules to create their own carbon dioxide emission limits. This all started in the 70s when California pollution wasn't so groovy and was made more of a priority recently when the state decided to do something about Global Warming as the Federal Government was too busy thinking Global Warming was nothing but the blabberings of a bunch of tree-hugging hippies and wanted that cute little polar bear to die. Everytime the state had sent out the request, the state had been granted a waiver. But not this year-- our request just got ixnayed. ...

In a big press conference yesterday, city officials announced plans to have police officers start patrolling four projects in the Western Addition. Up until now, police weren't able to patrol those places due to issues concerning who had jurisdiction over them-- San Francisco or the Federal Government. The Federal Government had supported community policing in those areas, but the money dried up years ago. After looking through what Ross Mirkarimi called a "Khafka-esque" relationship between HUD and the SFPD, a solution was reached. ...

One good thing about being the area known as having the most-liberal, terrorist loving court system is that we get all the fun lawsuits happening here. Which would describe a lawsuit filed a couple of days ago against the Federal Government at the US District in San Francisco for slacking on a global warming report. ...

That eavesdropping case we've been following took another step to eventually seeing the light of as an appeals court has decided to review the decision by U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker that the lawsuit should move forward despite the whining of the Federal Government. The eavesdropping case, for those who don't remember, was brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against the Government and AT&T for reading things they shouldn't be reading. Of what, we don't know but its super serious and of utmost importance to the War on Terror. And porn. We're sure somewhere they're checking out porn. ...

It looks like the Federal Government is finally going to investigate certain fishy aspects of voting machines. And no, we're not talking Diebold. We're talking about Oakland's very own Sequoia Voting Machines. Why? Because one of their investors is a group of wealthy Venezuelan’s thought to have ties to Venezuelan crazy guy Hugo Chavez. Cause remember folks, throwing U.S. elections is for Americans and Americans only. Oh, and Republicans too. ...

Patricia Dunn, ex Chairwoman of H.P. is now officially having the worst week ever. Yesterday, it was her starting chemo for ovarian cancer and now today, she just got indicted by the California Attorney General. Dunn was charged with four felonies:

"using of false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility, unauthorized access to computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy to commit each of those crimes."

-A 51 year old Nuclear Power Plant engineer from Sacramento is in custody for sending a letter containing a powdery substance to a Country Club President Bush is scheduled to appear at today. Did Homer Simpson just threaten the President?...

Finally, the Board of Supervisors are getting behind something we can roundly support-- decriminalizing marijuana! Not that we've ever smoked dope before, of course. ...

Okay, here's an update on that lawsuit against AT&T and the Federal Government for illegally snooping on people's phone calls and e-mails. Basically, there are about seventeen similar lawsuits out there in the midst of the legal world and because they're all sort of similar-- whiny Al Queda supporters suing the telecoms and government for doing something unconstitutional, they've been mashed together into one big lawsuit sandwich. That sandwich will be heard in San Francisco's very own Federal Court by one U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker. The reasoning is because out of all the various suits out there, the AT&T one is the most advanced. Bully to the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation and how awesome would it be if they started their own University just so people could say they go to EFF U?) and the ACLU for being on the ball. ...

We were driving to work the other day and heard an oh-so-familiar voice on Live 105's Morning Show. Sure enough, it was Gavin, making his way to yet another morning radio show. That dude sure does get around. After talking about all the boring stuff like issues and homelessness and his new Project Connect, the conversation finally got around to the juicy stuff and he was asked about life as a single guy. Apparently, from what he said, it's hard to out there to be a Mayor in the dating world. He even jokingly said he should put up a profile on Match.com. Of course, it sounds like he might have been fronting, but you know how it is when Gavin gets all earnest and puppy-dog'ish-- how can you not take what he's saying at face value? ...

Am I the only one who found 2005 to be one of the fastest years on record? I can't even believe it's over - I remember it just starting. I didn't even get everything on my list done! Here's a more leisurely 2006! Politics - Voters rejecting the Governor was awesome but I'm still waiting for something, anything, to take down Bush. What the hell will it take?! Federal Government Department - We know......

By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court voted today to overturn a decision by a San Francisco federal appeals court that allowed the use of medicinal marijuana. The court ruled that in cases such as these, federal laws prevail over state laws and so the Feds can prosecute Californians for smoking marijuana for medicinal purposes. There goes having to worry about too many pot clubs in the city. Voting against the ruling were Chief Justice......

By a 2-1 margin, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Finance Committee Ok-a-lee-do-keed a proposal to give one million dollars out of the San Francisco General Fund for tsunami relief. The two supervisors voting to spend the money were Chris Daly (who proposed the idea) and Tom Ammiano. Voting no was Supervisor Sean Elsbernd. Next step is a full vote in front of the board and then approval by the Mayor. Says Daly: "A donation......