Like the bad ass she is, occasional San Francisco resident and current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has written to the "Homeland Security Department's inspector general requesting an investigation of preparation for and response to last month's oil spill in San Francisco Bay," according to CBS 5. In a wordy missive to Inspector General Skinner, she fired off over a dozen issues she wants taken care of right-quick. A couple of points she needs to......

Well spun, Dianne. Looking to use the oil spill to get some much needed face time -- perfect for balancing out other less savory images of the Senator -- Dianne Feinstein flew to San Francisco yesterday to put her foot down about the Bay Area's "disturbing lack of readiness" to the oil spill. "It's pretty clear cities around the bay should have been brought in faster than they were," she said, according to the......

According to CQ Politics, the FBI combed through customer data collected by SF and Bay Area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006. Why? To see what amount of Middle Eastern food products were purchased, with the hope of leading authorities to the sweet spot: Iranian terrorists. Of course!...

Thank goodness the Department of Homeland Security's on top of all the threats to American freedom -- the New York Times today profiles Nalini Ghuman (at right), a British musicologist and assistant professor at Mills College who hasn't been able to get back to Oakland to teach her classes and work on her book about composer Edward Elgar, because Immigration and Customs refuses to let her back in the country. Ghuman is a British citizen......

In case you missed it, President 25% Approval Ratings was able to ram through some legislation revamping all those FISA laws you keep hearing about. It's hard to make heads or tails of what the bill says as the administration, in a surprise to no one, won't tell anyone what it says, but it involves making warrants kind of unnecessary, the monitoring of anyone suspected as a "terrorist" and-- get this-- the oversight by one Alberto "Fredo" Gonzalez. That's more than letting the fox guard the hen house, that's letting Michael Vick run the SPCA. ...

The way Wired's Noah Shachtman sees things struck us as astonishingly clear and pragmatic in reference to the Lawrence Livermore lab's partnership with Texas A&M....

Photo of a Homeland Security traffic stop...

Well, wouldja look at that. It's a Homeland Security car parked right in front of a hydrant last Wednesday, at Folsom/18th in the "abandoned warehouse" section of the Mission. And look, there's another one in the very same spot on Thursday! And get this: the same car is parked in that very spot today -- only the driver managed to inch up so the car's only barely in the red this time. Well, one legal......

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... Gothamist spent the week writing about New Yorkers behaving badly: at the post office, at the Garden, and at the fertility clinic. Calvin Klein may not be misbehaving, but he's just a little dirty, and in a completely different way than some NYC kitchens. SFist had its share of misbehave-rs, too, like......

Last week's winner, the East Bay Express: Well, this is interesting! Bottom Feeder Will Harper is leaving the EBX to become the executive editor of the SF Weekly. We're sorry to see Harper leave, but we're excited to see what he does at the sister SF publication! Plus, this collection of Bottom Feeder's greatest hits is pretty exciting. We may not be making as much money off stem cells as everyone says we will --......

It's another East Bay/West Bay collision! After months of Sampling Oakland, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (701 Mission St. at 3rd) sets its sights on Berkeley's Kala (rhymes with ta-dah) Art Institute for an exhibition entitled, Cultivating Creativity: In Residence at Kala. Vampiric gesture or reflection of an "ongoing commitment to celebrating local arts organizations," no matter, check out the work of current and past Kala-affiliated artists working in printmaking, digital media, photography......

Sunday. Usually, a quiet, contemplative day in the Blogosphere. But not here in the Ist-a-Verse. Nonono! Just look below and see all of the wild and crazy stuff our staffs are up to....

-Bay Area officials race to spend Homeland Security funds before they lose it. Memo to officials: make check out to SFist.com. -Hit and run in Oakland kills one. -Effort to keep San Francisco schools ad free ain't as easy as it sounds. -Neither is keeping principals around. -Smelly things are not the only kinds of ads our transit systems won't run. -Nancy Pelosi to introduce some actual "San Francisco Values," wants to shut down smoking......

It's another installment of.... Who's! Attacking! Newsom! Now! Where we compile all the negative things people are saying about the San Francisco mayor and report it in bullet form! We'll run a Who's Defending Newsom Now post next, as soon as we find someone defending Newsom, besides Peter Ragone. So here's the list! --Sean Elsbernd!: Newsom's erstwhile ally on the Board of Supes in District 7, Elsbernd is irritated that Newsom's new "let's fix the......

Security is a "top priority" for tomorrow's Mausoleum Party, hosted by the Stanford frats. You gotta love an article that starts with the splash headline "Police: Stanford not the place to go for free beer on weekends." As one officer tells the Stanford Daily, "I’ve had experiences where a high-school student from Palo Alto has gotten a hold of a Stanford ID card, made copies of it and put it over their own ID. Then,......

Sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but for those of you looking for a good excuse not to go to the Raiders/Cards Bottom-of-the-Barrel-Fest this Sunday, what was looking like the best possible excuse ever just fell apart. That excuse? Oh, terrorists unleashing a dirty bomb at the game....

We were avoiding posting on this -- but given the local angles and our own horrified fascination with it, here goes. Authorities in Thailand, working with the Department of Homeland Security, have arrested John Mark Karr (at right), a former substitute teacher with a history of questionable behavior around children, for the murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey almost 10 years ago. As the story develops, though, people are starting to wonder if he's actually guilty,......

If you've been like us, you've been reading all sorts of stories about terrorist plots in a whole bunch of cities that aren't the Bay Area and feeling kind of jealous. Hey, terrorists, what about us? Aren't we good enough to terrorize? Are we not infidel enough? Does our lack of good bagels preclude us from being part of the International Zionist Conspiracy? Luckily, reports have been coming out saying that yes indeed, the Bad Guys have been looking our way and plotting some terror. ...

We'll be straight with you -- we're having a hard time following the whole "is Annemarie Conroy qualified" debacle that's been afoot for the past few days -- something about a report being released and how the Office of Emergency Services isn't really prepared for an earthquake? C'mon, guys, all they need is enough water and power bars to get through the first 72 hours! So apparently Conroy put in for more money than she......

You may have already noticied the surprising tactical move to seize local public transportation, or the advance battalions who've landed on the Embarcadero, sending skirmishers down Market street. Word is that their supported by another invasion force on the North Coast, while yet another detachment is rumored to be marching from South City. BARBARians have us cornered on this damn peninsula! This is especially disconcerting considering news that the invasion is already on the......

Welcome, readers, to an all-too-rare edition of SFist Answers, where we pretend to know stuff. Today's theme: crying. Let's make people cry. Fun!...

Want a trip to the Wild West with your favorite masked hero? Or maybe a hilarious romp with Restoration comedy? Naughty puppets, anyone? You want it, they got it....

Watch out for that 16th hole -- it's a doozy! The sandtrap and rotating windmill take on a sinister tone now at San Jose's mini golf haven Golfland, as authorities discovers that the fun park was listed as a potential terror target on a list submitted to the Dept. of Homeland Security. Was it the skeeball that might have attracted jihadist attention? (And why wouldn't the Goflands in Castro Valley or Sunnyvale attract the same kind of Al Qaida attention?) Rep. Zoe Lofgren from San Jose is annoyed about this -- noting that while the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and certain check-cashing facilities in LA were included on the homeland security list, no one bothered to put down the area where all of the Internet's servers are stored (is that Cisco?). Homeland Security will not comment, but it sounds like someone's gone ahead and taken Golfland off the list. Golfland manager Bob Kenney is pleased, saying, "I just hope nobody was upset or scared away by us being on the list. I heard we were 17 on a list of 18 sites, in order of the terrorists' favorite targets. We're small potatoes. They'd probably rather go for the Winchester Mystery House.'' Picture of Golfland off Golfland's website...

Hope y'all had a Merry Fitzmas. -After the umpteenth and fifth non-sell-out, the Oakland Raiders "brain-trust" have started to think that maybe all their ticket trouble could have something to do with the fact that a lot of people are kind of afraid about going to Raiders games. After all, Raiders fans have a reputation for being a little on the dangerous side. Some would even say drunken hooligans who like to beat the......

Last week's winner, the East Bay Express: Life sucks in Haiti. Hybrids -- they may look cute, but their silent wheels make them angels of death for visually-impaired pedestrians! Cover article: Day in the life of the Homeland Security agent patrolling the bay in a gunboat. Down In Front thought the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club show blew. Yay, Green Day! Yay, Blackalicious! And Savage Love: a baaaaaad experience with a mistaken-gender date, and an invitation to send your thoughts about it to Dan. Should be an interesting column next week! And some sad news from the other New Times affiliate, the SF Weekly: we got a tip that publisher John Mecklin will be leaving, as of next week. No! Who will Mr. Brugman fight with now? Thanks for all the fun over the last eight years, Mr. Mecklin, and we wish you the best of luck for whatever you do next. Weekly: Matt Smith's hilariously bad afternoon the day the beer truck blew up, which segues only somewhat seamlessly into a discussion about how we're misusing transportation money from Congress. Awesome Ted Rall about disasters across this great land. Are you an apologist for FEMA? Cover article: the Lower Fillmore area -- in-fighting about its redevelopment. Is Little Star better than Zachary's (or is it just SF snobbery?) The lead singer from Xiu Xiu. And Mecklin loves trance music. We'll miss you, big guy! After the jump: The Bay Guardian, the Metro, and the pick of the week....

Could it happen here? Could it happen here? On the theory of forewarned is forearmed, the news media from potential FEMA disaster spot number 3 (that's us!) are now frantically investigating the qualifications of SF's own Homeland Security liaison and City Dept. of Emergency Services head Annemarie Conroy -- who, like Michael Brown, is an attorney with no real experience in emergency management who, people charge, only got the job based on her political connections. Conroy seems better than ol' man Brownie in that she probably wouldn't refuse to talk to a woman governor and only talk to her husband instead (WTF?) -- but when your only qualification for emergency management is that, um, your father was in emergency management, perhaps KGO 7 is right to be a little concerned. Then again, given that she replaced Alex Fagan as the previous emergency guy, maybe we're actually better off. (At least we don't live in NJ -- where Gay-American governor Jim McGreevy appointed his clandestine boyfriend to Jersey's equivalent post). Part 2 of the KGO special airs tonight at 6:30, right after the president's speech. ...

DCist forwarded us an article from Roll Call (paid subscription required) entitled "Q: Where Is Nancy Pelosi Not a San Francisco Liberal? A: San Francisco." We love it when DC politics realizes that, like, there's a whole country out there! Really! And it's full of constituents! Not all of whom like their elected representatives! Of course, this information is basically a re-hash of the same arguments surrounding her accension to House Minority Leader. San......