In Los Angeles, LAist most definitely celebrated Thanksgiving like no other. After all, one has to keep up all the energy to keep on walking the line at the Writers Strike and fighting the unfortunate return of the wildfires in Malibu, which single handedly destroyed over fifty homes within the first 24 hours. National outlets may be covering the fires, but CNN also found it is easier to buy a gun than fruit and......

At Pine and Divisadero on Wednesday afternoon, a man severely slashed a woman with a box cutter (some reports we saw said she might die, while others said the wounds were not life-threatening); the cops subsequently caught him. A police officer in Oakland shot a man to death yesterday afternoon at 54th and MLK, where a number of shootings have occurred recently. The officer confronted the man for reasons that they declined to specify to......

What is it with all the hapless criminals and would-be criminals in Fremont? We should do an all-Fremont edition of the Blotter one of these weeks. Well, today's Fremont Blotter entry involves an attempted robbery of a Quiznos by a man wearing a straw sombrero, sunglasses, and gloves. The man walked in, "simulated a handgun" under his sweatshirt, and asked for cash. The employees told the man they didn't know how to open the register......

We got two (two!) stories today about weird little traffic related mayhem. ...

When the Party-Party folks started agitating to Dump Dufty, we couldn't wait to see who'd step up to the plate. Who would dare run against a celebrated gay man in the gayest gay district of a city populated entirely by gay homosexual gays? Alix Rosenthal (pictured at right, hovering majestically above the treetops), that's who. Bevan, can you hover majestically? We didn't think so. Alix is an attorney and civil servant, known for her......

Love is in the air, everywhere you look around... Nerds in love, and you know we love it. Geeks are back, baby! And if your pardner gets hilariously wonky jargon-jokes like this, you may have just found your special someone. In the "why we love The City department:" The annotated notebook Dinah Sanders lost? Found! And turning up the cute dial past eleven, congratulations to Neekole and Brandon on their first anniversary! Just to......

We've got friends on both sides of the Prop H debate: friends with handguns and friends who've lost relatives to handguns. Friends whose parents were proud Black Panthers and friends who co-authored the proposition. Of course, our stated middle ground is that no one has banned shotguns, which you're more than welcome to carry openly. Now that's what we call a deterrent! In 2002, nearly 10 in every 100,000 Californians died at the hands......

Good ol' Chris Daly -- in an interview with the NY Times about Proposition H (reduces swelling), he said about the anti-H forces, "I'm crazy, but they're crazier." (Special bonus quote from the article: Daly is described as "a self-described far-left progressive." Yes he is!) Well, Daly may or may not be proven right as the NRA rumbles into town, so upset about the 58% yes on H vote that they filed suit directly in the state appellate court. Why don't they have to go through the Superior Court like everyone else, huh? They shoot their way in or something? Prop. H prohibits any SF resident from owning a handgun, and will require that everyone turn in their guns by April 1, 2006. Second Amendment advocates are claiming that the law makes us unsafer, would require cops to go gun-free, and would prohibit people from using guns in opera productions. Daly says police are exempt and operas and school plays can just use toy guns. Dennis Herrera, fresh from his 98% victory (almost as popular as Saddam Hussein!), says he's confident the city as a local municipality can regulate guns however it wants. ...

See The Lineup and Dirty Harry tonight at the second-to-last night of the Balboa's Reel SF film fest! A disgruntled former employee stormed the Conard Community Services Center at 9th and Mission yesterday morning and shot a caseworker dead. It could have been much worse, but for the quick thinking of another employee, a man coming by to pick up a public assistance check, and a third homeless man in the area, who wrestled the shooter to the ground and disarmed him. The shooter was carrying a handgun, a shotgun, and an axe. Y'know, coming back and shooting up your former office just confirms that they were probably right to let you go in the first place. The finger lady's back in town! Anna Ayala was arraigned (check out that smirk!) in Santa Clara Superior Court yesterday, with a cheering crowd of 12 present. (They were asked to cover up their homemade INNOCENT shirts before entering the courtroom.) Ayala waved big and repeatedly mouthed "I love you" to them and the cameras, and let out a big whoop when the judge set bail at $500,000. Meanwhile, the cops are now searching a ranch in Mexico. And the student leader of the gay-straight alliance at Tamalpais High in Mill Valley has confessed to faking incidents of anti-gay vandalism at the school, saying that she just wanted some attention. The school had been investigating anti-gay graffiti on the walls and doors of openly gay teachers, and the vandalism of the gay-straight alliance student leader's car. The school has stripped the student, a wrestler, of her award for Best Student Athlete as a result. ...

In the "No s**t, motherf**ker" department, John over at the Legal Reader recently posted an excerpt to an AP story which points out that under California's weapons registration law, the chances you'll get a felony rap is in linear proportion to the amount of milk you need to add to coffee to resemble your skin tone. Black coffee? Felony. Cafe-au-lait? Felony. Just milk? Misdemeanor. The study of the law was initiated by state Attorney General......

We must have missed this in the midst of all the Apprentice hoopla, but last week the San Francisco Board of Supervisors did what they do best- passed a sweeping, half-baked but well-intentioned measure to put on the ballot. The legislation this time? Handgun ban. And we’re not just talking about the sale of handguns, but the owning of handguns. In something right of the fevered dreams of the NRA, the legislation calls for......