The Battle of Algiers (La Battaglia di Algeri) (1966): We were going to start throwing shade at the overall ineffectiveness of political satire -- which, by the way, The Battle of Algiers is not -- but instead we this interesting tidbit about this classic regarding Algeria's struggle to overthrow French Colonial Government in the mid-1950s. According to IMDB: "In 2003, the New York Times reported that the Pentagon screened this film for officers and......

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. ...

The feds have gotten big bucks for the value of the Busan, so it now has one less hurdle to jump before heading home. ...

Carole Migden's girlfriend (OK then, "wife?" We refuse to use the sterile and patronizing "partner") Cris Arguedas, it seems, now must deal with yet another San Francisco diva: Barry Bonds. According to the Sacto Bee, the letter "h" eschewing lawyer "joined the defense team of baseball star Barry Bonds last week, as the long-time Sam Francisco Giant pleaded not guilty to charges of perjury." Arguedas is now part of a high-profile team that will......

-- Cinewhores Present Midnight Cowboy (1970): Although tame by today's smut-filled standards -- oh, you heard right! -- Midnight Cowboy has the distinction of being the only X-rated film to have ever snagged the Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The film -- about the friendship between Joe, a rookie New York City hustler, and Ratso, a terminally-ill New Yorker -- is prefaced by a reading by queer author Kirk Read. (Oh, and Sylvia......

An update on news about the oil spill ...

Monica Lewinsky's interest level in working for SF city government just went up a notch, as the SF Board of Supes overwhelmingly voted down Chris Daly's proposal to ban office affairs between supervisors and supervisees. (No, not affairs with supervisors like Chris Daly is a supervisor, affairs with supervisors like your boss. We could probably get a proposition on the ballot barring affairs between the San Francisco Supervisors and their constituents, though -- because, come......

The sands of Marin and San Mateo have officially reopened to the public. (We recommend hitting the beach in the fall. There's something luxurious about walking on the beach, bundled up in winter clothing.) What's more, 50 wild birds have been cleaned up and released at Pillar Point Yacht Harbor at Half Moon Bay. But what's worse, "the spill has cost the U.S. government $1.4 million, money spent on operations by the Coast Guard,......

Choose your allusion-- the sword of Damocles finally striking, the chickens coming home to roost, karma being an ill-tempered bitch-- but Barry Lamar is now up against it for breaking the law, breaking the law. Personally, we were a bit stunned that it happened coming as it did years after the actual case, but we're cavemen-- we fell on some ice and was later thawed by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses us! ...

Weep no more, my lady. After handing over an apology to the sobbing mother of a Chinese journalist that they helped imprison, Yahoo now must hand over an undisclosed amount to the scribes. Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao, the latter a former journalist at Contemporary Business News, will receive a hefty, unknown amount from Yahoo, Inc. The Chinese journalists sued Yahoo, blaming them for their imprisonment and torture by Chinese government officials. "According to......

Image: EFF The secret room at AT&T's Folsom Street facility is in the news again. Staffers from the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation are in DC this week and next, trying to convince Congress that telecoms shouldn't be given retroactive immunity for their cooperation with the NSA's secret (and illegal? or illegal-ish?) wiretapping programs. Mark Klein, the AT&T technician who spotted the NSA's wiretapping room in the AT&T building and blew the whistle, is......

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos threw down some serious shade today. "While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies," he cried, shaming two senior Yahoo officials. Why? Because the Sunnyvale company named names, handing over private information about Chinese journalist Shi Tao's online pro-democracy action to country officials. (Or, as the New York Times so eloquently put it, their "complicity with an oppressive communist regime." Oh snap.) This landed......

Well, well, well. According to Alix Rosenthal (Citizens for Halloween), ahem: Word has arrived from a credible source in city government. The City has rented 120 toilets to be placed in the Castro by 5pm today. It may not prevent all of the public urination, but it is certainly better than no toilets at all. We are thrilled that the City made the right decision, even though they could have done more to decrease......

Yesterday, we got a press release touting the fact that the city was going to issue a proclamation to Perry Mann, founder of the Exotic Erotic Ball, and Snoop Dogg. Our reaction? Get! Out! But after the news was released, bigger wigs got together and basically decided "what the frak are we thinking?" and so the proclamation was taken back....

The Office of the Controller and the Office of the Legislative Analysit want to know: what's up with special events? Apparently, Bevan Dufty's been poking around, asking questions; and at his behest, a couple of government-types banged out a report about how the city could do a better job of managing events. The report asks, and we paraphrase: could SF make itself more attractive by attracting more attractions? Can events be improved by fixing the......

Good news for students of the struggle of the proletariat: even if you don't have time to read Marx, there are alternatives. Like Paul Krugman, Harpers, Howard Zin, Noam Chomsky, the Guardian of London -- and even our very own home-grown SF Bay Guardian. This reading list is the result of a conversation that started innocently enough on the SFBG's blogs, in a post about homelessness in Golden Gate Park and, tangentially, the Spanish......

Even though he runs without any serious opponent, Newsom's camp is still pulling their hair out over this election and the turnout. Newsom'07 Phone Bank sent us a release, with the following: We want to turn out as many voters as possible on election day, so that Mayor Newsom can continue to make government more responsive, effective and accountable. But, we need your help. There are only 47 days left until San Franciscans go......

Photo of a bunch of old cell phone chargers along with news of a new universal standard. ...

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....

Remember the Jamba Juice hepatitis A scare? And remember how we said there were gymnasts competing in a national meet in San Jose a few weeks ago? Well -- you guessed it -- it turns out the gymnasts might have been exposed to the virus. The hepatitis A carrier made smoothies for the gymnasts during the meet and in the trade shows outside. She claims she used good hygiene and food safety practices throughout (wearing......

But for those of you that this applies to (or those of you thinking about owning property in the future), consider this a bit of a PSA. Prop 13 will only let the government increase its valuation of your property for tax purposes by 2% -- but should you let them take even that much in a down market (understatement? perhaps; we'll leave that to the experts)? Point is, you might want to think about contesting your revaluation. ...

Forget that Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, and Chris Cooper star in The Kingdom. The divine Jason Bateman also appears -- reason enough to check out this action flick. IMDB tells us that it's about "a team of U.S. government agents...sent to investigate the bombing of an American facility in the Middle East." But seeing as how it's an action release, The Kingdom is bound to be riddled with explosions, the word "fuck," and tons......

Since February, that's $670,381.39. It's been a busy month for lawyers: Muni's conceding $131,695.06 (about the cost of a bribe to Ted Stevens, or one foot of collapsed-bridge repairs, or a single union employee, or an English teacher in Seoul, or your very own hair salon) in settlements for August in nine separate cases. The biggest payout is $47,500 to a guy who broke his ankle when the bus lurched forward before he could......

We can only hope that every single news outlet has printed a typo when reporting the amount of cash the United States is sending Peru, which is still experiencing severe aftershocks. As the death toll climbs past 500, with more than 1,500 reported injuries, the United States government has pledged a whopping $100,000 in support. Why don’t we just send America’s Player, Eric (with his oh-so-attractive pierced nipples) from Big Brother to help them......

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness - we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week. After the Minneapolis bridge collapse, Bostonist did a little research and found that Massachusetts......

Chris Daly was finally reassigned to a new committee today, in a total step down. After getting removed from the "powerful" budget committee chairmanship Chris was totally lonesome, floating in a committeeless void. But yesterday that changed as he was introduced as a member of the Government Audit and Oversight Committee. Note that Daly is not mentioned on the agenda of the meeting, but if you go to sfgtv and watch Monday's session you......

Banner week for SFist as the site's new editor introduced himself -- hooray for Brock! While the NY Times weighed in on SF's mayoral race, only SFist had the (insert tongue firmly into cheek) hard-hitting latest on candidate/activist Josh Wolf. Coverage of a protest vs. gentrification spawned a fantastic debate amongst SFist's readers. Finally, from the sublime to the ridiculous: video of a man that confused a Board of Supes meeting with "open mic......

What with all the Ed Jew Borderline and guy taking off his nose business at our city's seat of government, we almost missed some interesting news about the Market/Octavia onramp of bicyclist injury! The Board of Supes has authorized local transit people to put in a raised median strip at the rightmost lane at the intersection, to discourage people from illegally turning onto the highway. We're not absolutely positive that's going to solve the problem......

The rumblings from a week ago have been confirmed: Josh Wolf, on his blog, has declared his intent to run for mayor. ...

Okay, okay, okay, okay -- we hear you about Laughing Squid's scoop that Chicken John running for mayor, folks! We were totally slammed at work today, that's why we're getting this up late. Who's Chicken John? He's a local countercultural legend! He's a Burning Man guy, the former owner of the Odeon Bar, and he hosts Ask Dr. Hal on Pirate Cat Radio. We had absolutely no idea! (Steve Jones at the Guardian knew,......