-- 9/11 felt around the Bay. [CBS5, Chron, Examiner, SFBG] -- Come get your soy-based ice creams and kombucha tea, Potrero Hill! [SFMetBlog] -- Grand Prix moves out of San Jose. For good. [CBS5] -- No deal for Ed Jew. [Chron] -- Extortion attempt at SF's Maze Cafe. [Chron]......

Well, better late than never. Behold: Images from this past weekend's vroom-y San Jose Grand Prix, which was almost as masculine and titillating as this past weekend's Up Your Alley Fair [NSFW]: Will Power Jason Pullen......

-- Feinstein endorses Clinton, which could very well be the start of one totally bitchin' clique. [Chron, Examiner] -- MUNI reform! MUNI reform! [FCJ] -- SF Weekly's Katy St. Clair (AKA Bouncer) talks a bit about awesome Art Bell and the Dog's Bollix in the fabled, foggy Richmond district. [ASD] -- Cyclist killed by big-rig truck. [Chron] -- Drug turf war blamed for Monday's Market Street shootings says SFPD. [Examiner] -- Bay Guardian says......

Back after the July 4th break! The winner from two weeks ago: the SJ Metro. This Media News Corp. group taking over the Merc News is bad for local news coverage. Dude! We need to start following San Jose local politics -- one of their city council members eloped last weekend! Annalee Newitz liked Transformers. Bodybuilders in San Jose this weekend -- look at the cords on that guy's neck! Cover article: we're embarrassed to......

The best professional road cyclists in the world are competing for the maillot jeune on the rolling plains and brutal mountain passes of Europe right now, but this weekend, we've got our own battle for cycling supremacy going on right here in the Bay Area.

Today through Sunday, road cyclists from Pro down through Cat 5 and beyond can compete in the Cougar Mountain Classic on and around the Infineon Raceway in Sonoma. As an added bonus, the Cougar is playing host to the USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Championships. That's the Nationals baby, right here, almost within sight of Mt. Tam, mountain biking's Hoboken.

Last week's winner, the Bay Guardian. Hey, their website's back up again (wish we could say the same for ours). Also -- new topical blogs. We love how Bruce Brugman's blog says "Bruce will not be posting until the end of the month." Thanks for letting us know! Redmond thought it was neat that lots of people went to Dolores Park to watch the World Cup. Shhhh, don't tell anyone, but Gavin Newsom is really......

Happy July 4th weekend! -- unless you have to work on Monday. The airports are hoppin', the roads are crowded, and CHP is cracking down on DUIs and seat-belt law scofflaws. Bummer for those of you incorporating I-80 into your July 4th vacation plans, though -- major delays in both directions are expected after a westbound big rig carrying unspecified musical instruments caught on fire and exploded around noon today, near Fairfield. CHP has opened......

It's not exactly the Tour, but this weekend the Bay Area plays host to the opening stages of the 2006 Tour of California. This eight-day, 600-mile, multi-stage road race brings the excitement of international professional cycling back to the Bay Area....

Chris Daly's being remarkably unsmug about the way the whole SF Grand Prix bike thing went down, isn't he? You may remember a few months ago, Daly staged a mock bike race to protest the fact that the mayor wanted to give a tax break to a bike race sponsored by Republicans when he wouldn't give money to villages affected by the tsunami. This was because the city was going to write off the amount of money it would cost to provide police services for the race. You may recall that Daly's proposal was greeted with chortles and harumphs all around (some even in this very blog), and went down in defeat (see angry blog entry!). Well, well, well -- how things change in seven months! It turns out the Grand Prix actually was cheating the system -- they stiffed San Francisco and somehow "forgot" to pay for almost $90,000 of police services they incurred in 2004. (They also haven't paid another $82,000 in fees to DPT and DPW). The City by law is not permitted to enter into a contract with someone who owes it money. No one has an explanation for this, and Peskin had a conniption ("I stuck my neck way out for you. You played me for a fool. I resent it deeply." That's the way he rolls, baby!) We imagine Daly smiled beatifically at the Chron reporters when he told them, "I have had many reservations about the San Francisco Grand Prix, even as an avid cyclist, as a commuting cyclist." (bonus link: read about how Daly got doored). Picture from the Daly Blog...

[Ed. Note: Special guest contributor Michael David Murphy brings this report from the San Francisco Grand Prix.] For the last seven years, bike racing has relied on Lance Armstrong's star power to draw new fans to the sport. And gauging by the size of the crowd yesterday at the Barclay's San Francisco Grand Prix, the Lance factor is huge. Now that Lance has left the sport, many of his fans, too, are "Leaving Las......

Well, we're going to have to endorse the "Can't Stop, Won't Stop" party for Jeff Chang tonight at the DNA Lounge. First, it's gonna be a late-night party until four in the am, so that you can literally rock your body 'til the breakadawn. And guess who's DJing? None other than the founding father himself, DJ Kool Herc. The chances that you are going to see a set by Kool Herc in your lifetime......

Boy, have we got some bad Cow Hollow ideas for you! Have you guys been following the whole "turning Fillmore Street into a ski slope" thing? So Icer Event Management has decided to shave enough ice (12,000 cubic feet of it) on Aug 27 to turn Fillmore Street from Broadway to Green Street (and Vallejo from Steiner and Webster) into ski jumps. (A 14 foot lane will be left open for emergency vehicles and for people who live there to get home.) This is all for Jonny Mosely's 30th birthday, and to film footage for a video game. Hilarious! But wait -- it gets even better! Wait until you hear how everyone's reacting! There's a Hindu temple on that stretch of Fillmore -- and right outside their meditation room, the event planners are setting up the apres-ski lounge, sponsored by Otis. What's more: the monks don't drink. The Pac Heights neighborhood association isn't very happy either, especially because the weekend right after the skiing one, the Grand Prix is coming into town next. "People are incredibly disrespectful of private property at these events. It's a real intrusion. We view this in the same class as street fairs," fumes the neighborhood associate president. (Aw, come on, everyone loves a street fair!) They've tried protesting to (hottest supervisor") Michela Alioto-Pier, but she's told them there's nothing she can do, because the ski people have already gotten all the necessary permits. The ski people are slightly confused by the reaction. "We really, really do not want to upset the neighborhood," the organizer told the Chron. "This thing is going to be done well and in a first-class way." And -- here's our absolute favorite part -- "We want to show San Francisco as an exciting place to visit, as opposed to a place with a lot of homeless." What goes on up there North of Market??? ...

Yesterday was a big day for race fans of both the four-wheeled variety and the two-legged variety. First, the Taylor Woodrow Grand Prix of San Jose finished up a wild weekend with Sebastien Bourdais winning in the Champ Car race and Katherine Legge winning the Toyota Atlantic race -- from blogs to formula one racing, it was a big weekend for the XX-chromosome set in the South Bay! PJ over at the Shark's Page......

The Board of Supervisors voted 6-5 to allow the sponsors of the San Francisco Grand Prix Bicycle Race, otherwise known as the T-Mobile International, to have around $200,000 in costs waived by the city. Whether to give dispensation to the sponsors became an issue when Chris Daly tried to block Gavin Newsom's attempt to give them a free waiver. Daly argued that the bicycle race was basically a corporate giveaway and that the city can't afford to give away any money in our budget conscious times. And not only that, the guy behind it is a Republican! Daly also brought up the vote he lost about sending money to tsunami relief to try and point out that the city refused to send money to help victims of the tsunami but will give money to some rich Republican who likes bikes. Bitter much? On the other hand, Newsom and other supporters argued that the race generated mucho dinero in tax revenues and tourism money and is worth the expense. Bike race watchers, and there are a lot of them, love to spend. ...

Thursday Thursday Thursday!!!! The grudge match! In the "Bloggers Are Such Bitches" SFist.com t-shirt, the dodgin' and weavin' Big Bad Chris "The Left Hook" Daly! And in the "Michael Bolton Is My Homeboy" t-shirt, fancy footworkin' Gavin "Trash Talk" Newsom! Get your ringside seats for the Thursday Thursday Thursday's top card fight at the Budget and Finance Subcommittee Arena (.pdf)! Daly's frenetic rope-a-dope style will be in full force, as he argues against the Newsom wall of muscle's proposal to donate about $250,000 worth of free police services to the sponsors of the annual San Francisco T-Mobile International bike race (formerly known as the San Francisco Grand Prix). "If you can't give $100,000 for tsunami relief, how can you write off $245,000 worth of police services?" he asks. Newsom and his posse are keeping quiet for now, but you'd expect that they'll be arguing in response that the bike race generates a significant amount of income back for the city. We all know how these head-to-heads turn out! This one could go either way! Get your seats now for Thursday's jaw-dropping, awe-inducing Fight Of The Century (or at least the Month), starting at 11 a.m.! Moi Cushle! Moi Cushle! Picture off Continue Reading "Political Junkie: Let's Get Ready to Rumble!"