-- 177 Townsend's promise of public art delivered, raised. [Curbed SF] -- Grace Cathedral almost burned down last night via an infamous Burner. [CBS5] -- Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner: thin, pretty. [BeyondChron] -- Gavin Newsom's address. [SFGov -- ETA for video of the speech...?] -- Fog City Notes on NextBus. Also: the handsome South Asian chef speaks! [FCN] -- Gap Inc.'s rigorous employment program for youths. [SFGate] -- "Fog City Journal, without h., is getting......

-- Are you ready for the genius that is Peaches Christ and her Midnight Mass cult-film series? [Bay Area Reporter] -- Television -- glorious, warm, loving television! -- on BART cars? Hmm. [Inside Bay Area, Oakland Tribune] -- Matt Stroud takes a brief, much-needed break from his Rocky-like boxing bootcamp training. [The Snitch] -- Affordable housing advocates get pinched by the fuzz. Remember, purveyors of justice: don't drop the soap! [Fog City Journal] --......

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again: the civilly-disobedient affordable housing gang finally either climbed over or clipped open that fence at the corner of Cesar Chavez and Mission yesterday morning, bust in on the lot, and set up tents. Tents! Man, we'd love to have a tent across the street from the Palace Steak House. Twelve people were arrested as a group of about 80 protestors chanted anti-high end housing slogans. Fog......

Officer Andrew Cohen made headlines in recent years for the videos he produced spoofing the SFPD. The videos were intended to be a humorous sendoff to former police captain Rick Bruce and poke fun at the officers at his station. They were also intended to be internal -- but they got out, and things got out of hand. We wanted to take this opportunity with Cohen to ask about more than the "VideoGate" scandal, rather than just rehashing what most of us already know. We sought the 12-year-vet's opinion on the state of policing in the city, his perspective on local politics and political figures, and what comes next for him....

--Hey! Did you ever do coke with Gavin? [Fog City Journal.] --Chris Daly explains himself. [SFGov.org.] --What's fun doing for Pride Weekend? [SFPartyParty, Bay Area Reporter, SF Weekly's All Shook Down.] --They busted JT Leroy. [Chron, via the AP.] --No more bottled water for the City and County of SF. [CBS 5.] --That local kid who tried to blow up the UC Riverside graduation? It was so he wouldn't have to tell his mom......

--Spot (at least) four problems with this picture! [zippy_monster on Flickr, from the SFist Flickr stream.] --Fight at the Metreon! [Chron Culture Blog] --Pat Murphy claims to feel bad about his nemesis Chris Daly getting deposed as chair of the Board of Supes Budget and Finance Committee. [SF Sentinel] --Chris Daly takes his reassignment like a man. [Fog City Journal] --Hey! Our Ed Jew coverage goes national! Thanks for the referral, reader DM! [TPMMuckraker.com]......

Guess Lumpy's not doing it after all -- Pat Murphy, the guy who came up with the catch phrase "Do It, Lumpy" to goad local progressive ringleader and District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly into running for mayor in the first place, has posted a press release from Camp Daly. Contrary to Chris's prior bold statements that he'd jump in the race if no one else did, Daly now says: Family is the most important......

And the hits keep on coming! Now the Chron's reporting that Ed Jew's been told he has five (5) days to prove that he lives in San Francisco, through tax records or a driver's license or cable bills or utility bills or any other similar documentation. Fog City Journal has copies (.pdf) of the documents sent by the City Attorney's office if you want to see. As you've probably all heard, either Ed Jew......

Esther Hwang picked a bad day for a press conference -- normally, the media would be all over the former Willie Brown secretary turned cheesecake model turned San Francisco Law School student discussing the $1 million lawsuit she's filed against the SFPD for alleged brutality against her outside a North Beach bar -- but with everyone distracted by Ed Jew's flight from the law, Carole Migden's cancer-related bad driving, and in a city that now......

--It's too darn hot. (SFist expresses no opinion about whether to pitch the woo with your baby tonight.) --Who's got the crappiest computer repair services in the area? CompUSA and Fry's. --SFist Elaine's column launches in Fog City Journal! [NSFW] --Inside the Google kitchen (where they only cook local). --Beth Spotswood admires Gavin Newsom's golf pants. --A Contra Costa Times reporter competing at the fried asparagus eating contest in Stockton. Here's the video. --and......

Ah, the Aliotos -- they run this town! Patriarch Joseph Alioto was the mayor of San Francisco from 1968-1976, in office not only during the building of the Transamerica Pyramid but also through the Zodiac murders -- while daughter Angela Alioto is a former Board of Supervisors president (and chicken-suit renter), while granddaughter Michela Alioto-Pier is a current Board of Supes member (and Hottest Supervisor emerita -- hm, maybe it's time for us to do......

Gavin Newsom was all raspy voice and bulletproof hair at last night at Cesar Chavez Elementary in the Mission. Despite somebody's command to "Go back to Nob Hill!" Gavin asserted "I'm not going away." He's used that phrase a couple times now. Is that your campaign slogan, homie? We hope not, because you're not exactly the underdog. It's almost April and you still don't have an opponent. ...

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. ...

Fog City Journal is reporting that Matt Gonzalez has been in talks with a campaign manager, Nicole Derse, about running. We're all guessing it's for Mayor but who knows with Matt? We've heard speculation that he might be going for Kamala's job. Or maybe he's doing his patented "wait for the right moment" thing to try and snag a spot on "American Idol?" We hear his rendition of Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" is pretty amazing.

...

Hey, here's some shocking news, but the SFPD actually have a bunch of people in custody for the shooting of a13 year old girl several weeks ago. Police had arrested two men and a third gave himself up to officers. They are being charged with a whole host of bad things, like attempted murder and aggravated assault. ...

The Gavin Newsom Mea Culpa tour continues on as he put on his hair shirt on (with matching blue tie) and sat down with CBS 5's Hank Plante to talk about his rather crappy past couple of weeks. ...

ABC 7 is the latest people to do a survey on Gavin and all the recent Gavin news and found out that the dude is still pretty popular in town, all to the tune of 75% approval ratings. That's five percent higher than the poll Matier & Ross wrote about last weekend. ...

Lest we forget, the Gavster is also up for re-election this year and there's a few stories taking the temperature of his campaign, not least of which is Matier & Ross' story that Gavin still has 70% approval ratings, even after l'affiare du Tourk....

Let's take you back on the Wayback Machine to last spring when the Board of Supervisors wanted to close down Kennedy Drive like it is on Sunday. They voted for it, Gavin vetoed it, then sought a compromise on the issue by asking for a study. The study was to see if closing the street down on Saturday's would hurt museums attendance, make life miserable for neighbors, and make it more difficult for people to get to the museums. Well, on Valentine's Day, the report came out and said the effect of closing down Kennedy Drive on everything would be pretty much nothing. In fact, it said that attendance went up on Sundays. How you like them apples? ...

We come back from Second Fake Question Time and.... WHERE'S GAVINWATCH???? Emails to the anonymous blogger/videohounds' gmail account were bouncing, their YouTubes clips were gone, and their website had crashed. What th---? It wasn't like Blogger was down, and even if it were, why would that affect the gmail and the YouTubes? Mysterious, we thought. Then we went out for dinner with some friends. Well, in the time between that and now when we're......

KCBS is reporting that Peter "Byorn" Ragone has finally copped to using all those fake names and admitted that all the postings as "John Nelson" and others was him. He also said he wouldn't do it again and would only post under his real name. We wonder if that means he'll go as "Peter Ragone" while posting on MTV's "Sweet Sixteen" message boards. ...

It's the return of our column where we compile all the attacks and defenses of Gavin Newsom in one handy place! This week it's all attacks, though. Send your Newsom defenses here! (or post 'em in the comments.) So... who's on this week's list? Let's bring 'em out! --Aaron Peskin and Ross Mirkarimi!: Luke Thomas at Fog City Journal reports that Supervisors Peskin and Mirkarimi decided to take advantage of Gavin Newsom's much-touted "open door......

-Fire at the Richmond refinery scares the crap out of a lot of people. -It's still cold out there. -Why did the T-Third line take so long to be ready? Matier & Ross have the answers. -Stanford releases a whole bunch of writings by Martin Luther King Jr. -Fog City Journal has the preliminary Democratic State Central Committee (DSCC) Election results......

-The Governator has a health care plan and the Chron breaks it down. Arnie's actually getting good press from this, except with these guys. Or these guys. ...

-Man who shot Officer Bryan Tuvera is said to have allegedly (allegedly) killed himself and was not killed by Tuvera's partner....

-The Governator wants to bring bipartisanship back. -He's also out of the hospital. -Fog City Journal has the latest rumors on who'll run against Gavin. We have no idea what Matty G's quote means either. -Your total # of deaths homicides in SF this year? 85. -If a bloodhound goes missing, who do they send out to look for it? -The NFL gives the Niners thumbs up for their move to Santa Clara. -When the......

Late last night, Yahoo! of all sites was reporting that the leak in the BALCO case was Victor Conte's defense lawyer. Or at least that's what the FBI is thinking as they've launched an investigation. ...

The rumors are confirmed! Supervisor Chris Daly has indeed grown a mustache. That's good progress on the handlebar we were suggesting, Chris! Don't worry, folks, we have word that he's shaving it off soon. This picture is going to haunt our nightmares tonight. Thanks to Luke Thomas from the Fog City Journal for passing it along!......

-The San Francisco Unified School District is still trying to figure out what to do -Here's a really sad story about a funeral director who's presided over forty funerals this year -In the BALCO case, the Chron argued in papers filed with a Federal Appeals Court that protecting confidential sources is essential for the public interest. -Somebody on Death Row in San Quentin commited suicide -Fog City Journal says watch out for this dude. -Pelosi......

We can't be bothered to type up all these intriguing little political news tidbits into that many separate posts for the day! So we're compiling them all here. --That map above is from David Latterman's analysis (.pdf) of the yes votes on our favorite proposition this season: Question Time Proposition I! Greens are nos, blues are yes. Look at all those haters in Districts 7 and 8 who didn't want us to ask Gavin......