Last week's winner, the SF Weekly: Someone's angry with the Bouncer. Local progressive Adam Werbach is a Walmart sellout. Why won't anyone endorse the mayor? Cover article: the back story about the Haight neighborhood activist killed in an S/M session gone wrong. These drawings illustrating the piece are pretty rad, though (see left) -- did Matt Smith do 'em? A Hank Williams Birthday Karaoke Sing-Off???? There's a tear in our beer too! The anti-war Berkeley Rep Play is uneven. Meredith hits her second good review for SFist Ced. And Let's Get Killed screens some rare rock movies. more ›

The Governor's annual May budget revision was rolled out yesterday. The document still shows a net operating deficit of $1.4 billion, but represents this as "major progress as compared to the $4.4 billion that was anticipated for 2007-08 at the time the Governor signed the 2006 Budget Act." The revised budget includes plans for early debt payments as well as to avoid tax hikes, and shows Arnold's intent to restrain spending growth and maint adequate reserves, among other things. Democrats are concerned, though, that it's doing so at the expense cuts social services and public transit -- which could have a direct affect on BART and other orgs. more ›

--Homicides are down about 10% (.pdf, page 4) (76 for the year as opposed to 86 at this time last year). Good! What's the SFPD solve rate on those homicides? [sorry for the .pdf links to the Examiner -- for some reason, none of today's articles are online yet.] more ›

-Some toys for tots contain possible toxic chemicals. Everybody panic! more ›

--SF Director of Emergency Services Annemarie Conroy has been demoted (but is keeping her salary). more ›

First the crash in the housing market, now this -- a woman in San Jose's been arrested for going to open houses near the Silver Creek Valley country club neighborhood, unlocking a door in the house while she was there, and then coming back after everyone left to steal stuff. She made off with 200 figurines (!!!) valued at $200,000 from one would-be home seller's collection and went through 10 houses total before the real estate agents figured out what was going on. more ›

Arrrgggghhh. Sometimes that is the one reasonable response to what people write about Craigslist. Of course we realize that due to network effects Craigslist will reach a critical mass in a city and that those cities will then be transformed. We also know that along the way the people involved with Craigslist, the posters, responders, discussion forum arguers, will touch many lives and be used by many different people. However, what we can't stand is that any time this happens a few writers, bloggers, media members and journalists will write about it as if it is the first time and no one has ever written about it before. more ›

We were feeling pretty good about the state of the California housing market after reading the PDF of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's most recent report. Housing prices up 18.8% in the Pacific region! California's housing appreciation up 21.07% over the year-ago period and 4.65% over the previous financial quarter! The Oakland area ranked as number 44 out of 275 urban markets in terms of price appreciation -- East Bay represent! (Silicon Valley was number 47, while San Francisco clocked in at 70.) The dread spector of a depression-style economy prompted by overleveraged condo owners busting out -- averted by continued price climbs! more ›

It's time for our monthly housing market speculation fest, as the real estate housing numbers come in for September. Like 'NSYNC sez, it's dirty pop! (Out of charity for you, we won't do the Justin Timberlake mouth-scratching noises.) Housing sales in the Bay Area are down for the sixth straight month -- sales are down 7.2% from last year and 7.5% from last month. House appreciation is down to 7.9% (annual). However, the median price went up $101,000 from last September (to $616,000). So you're spending more and it's worth less -- love it! And anecdotally, more and more folks are seeing houses move at cost or even at below asking (imagine!), and some people are just pulling their houses from the market entirely. (Optimists, though, report that this isn't happening in tony areas like Montclair or Noe Valley.) Man, it is never a good time to buy a house in San Francisco. more ›

Panic in the streets of San Francisco! Further adding to housing hysteria, the Chron prominently fronts an article reporting that the housing market is going to crash some time next year. Set your watches now, folks! Factors cited include an overreliance on zero-down interest-only mortgages, rising interest rates, and the sputtering U.S. economy in general. Plus, geez, how much higher can the market go, anyways? Picking a listing totally randomly, $939,000 for an 875 square foot house on 20th and Bryant?? (We apologize if this is your real estate investment, gentle readers.) Even the optimists are starting to sound a little nervous: an economist for the California Association of Realtors, who you know's gotta be the most up of anyone out there on the real estate market, concedes, "There may be some people who may get into trouble, but we don't think it will dominate the market." Gosh, we hope Third Eye Blind's Stephan Jenkins can move that Pacific Heights mansion of his before the inevitable market crash! more ›

For the past two years, visitors to Telegraph Hill have had another attraction to sightsee, Twiggy the Mannequin. Decked out all glamtastically fab, the mannequin has been perched on the balcony of jazz singer Carol Peters' house on Telegraph Ave. Tourists took pictures of her, the neighbors adored her, Aaron Peskin praised her. She was oh so San Francisco. Last week, Peters put Twiggy up for sale on eBay, having been forced to get rid of her due to a neighbor's complaint about all the commotion Twiggy caused. Also oh so San Francisco. more ›

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