Sorry for the late notice, but we just got word: \head over to the Castro between 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. to celebrate Iowa's ruling in favor of equal rights. The official Celebration Rally in SF for Iowa Same-Sex Marriage Ruling say it'll be a seriously fun celebration honoring the Midwest. Rumor has it popcorn will be served -- which, we assume, is all they eat in Iowa -- so this could be the one day of the year many of you will get to digest carbohydrates. (Ack!)

We will distribute popcorn - that Iowa staple food - in their honor and update people on plans for the day of decision from our own State Supreme Court. (Tentative appearance from a few country western dancers from Sundance - yippee!) Let's send the message to the California Supreme Court that marriage equality is popping up all over. The value of fairness and equality for all has resonated today in America’s Heartland let us hope the ripple of hope and tradition of extending civil rights to all minorities continues back to the Golden State.

Drink responsibly. Ish.

Also, be sure to check out Stop8.org for all of comprehensive coverage about civil marriage equality in California.

Iowa became the third state in the U.S. (and the first in the heartland!) to legalize gay marriage today.The Iowa State Supreme Court "upheld a lower court's ruling that found a state law restricting marriage to between a man and woman only violated Iowa's constitution." According to Richard Socarides, former adviser on gay rights during the Clinton administration, "It's a big win because, coming from Iowa, it represents the mainstreaming of gay marriage. And it shows that despite attempts stop gay marriage through right-wing ballot initiatives, like in California, the courts will continue to support the case for equal rights for gays." LGBT community will have to wait a few weeks before they can obtain marriage licenses. Way to go, Iowa. Hopefully, California will follow your lead (did we really just say that?) when the State Supreme Court makes its final ruling on Prop. 8.

First Oprah, now Craig. Who's next?

Image: BeyondChron

We like one of the SFGate commenters' take on the sitch: hit by a car "after getting thrown under the bus by Newsome [sic]." We hit the recommend button on that one! You may recall that Newsom has been pestering Leal to resign, either because she wasn't considered a sufficiently loyal Newsomite (she ran against him for mayor), or because she was pushing for public power. You know, if Newsom actually is cleaning house for his second term, the PUC is not the place where we figured he'd start.
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Newsom's got an alibi, anyways -- he's in Iowa with Hillary Clinton -- but the message has been sent! Chris Daly, be careful out there!

-- King Corn (2007): Sounds like a tasty breakfast cereal, doesn't it? But in fact, it's a documentary about two college buddies who "plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain [corn] on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat--and how we farm." Screens tonight at 7:15 p.m. and 9:15 at the Red Vic; $5-8.50.

-- Day of the Dead March: Honor loved ones from the other side of the grave. The procession starts at 24th & Bryant, ending up at Garfield Park at the Festival of Altars 8:30 p.m. at 26th & Harrison; free.

-- Masonic / Mason Bates: Juilliard trained composer, whose work has been performed at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, and local electronica DJ spins tonight starting at 7 p.m. at Varnish Gallery; free.

-- Dilated Peoples: This hip hop outfit's "hard, intellectual grooves" get the floor boards, and your ass, shaking tonight. Show starts at 9 p.m. at the Independent; $20.

--Are you into those Iowa Futures Market invisible-hand-of-the-marketplace economic-based ways of predicting political races? Usual Suspects has started one for the SF mayoral race. Gavin Newsom is pegged to win at $36.78.

--The ACLU is going to sue a San Jose company for arranging those "rendition" flights for outsourcing torture.

--Don Perata and his spendthrift ways win him a Golden Pig!

--Midwifery in San Francisco suffers another blow.

--Wow, the real estate market must be tanking -- they'll give you a new car (either the Prius or Mini) if you buy a unit in this SoMa building.

--On a similar note, they're expecting a lot of foreclosures in Vallejo.

--And Cal says there is no way they'd ever have an imposter student like Stanford's Azia Kim. Speaking of whom, it turns out Azia Kim spent most of her time at Stanford volunteering for ROTC.

But that's all about to change because the idea of moving the California primary up to February is becoming more and more of a done deal.The reason is because for politicians in the state, supporters made it an offer nobody could refuse. Essentially they'll put a measure stretching out term limits so all the legislators now don't have to be worried about being termed out. Or those that are about to be termed out can get all of their reelection cards in order and run this year. There's enough time between February and June to get something together for the primaries.

The deal is so sweet that Arnie is throwing in his redistricting measure for good measure and everybody is so gaga over the whole term limit thing that they don't even care what Arnie's up to. Hell, Arnie could wear make it so that he's allowed to wear his costume from Conan the Barbarian and be served by scantily clad women wearing sheet metal and the legislature wouldn't care.

And speaking of Arnie, there's an extra benefit to him. Rumors are flying that the reason he's in favor of it is because that term limit thing applies to him too. It's entirely possible he could use these laws to his benefit and run for a third time. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

You want to know what's scary about all of this? According to MSNBC this morning, if California moves their primary to February, Iowa and New Hampshire might move theirs up to late 2007. Which means we'll have to move our primary up to get closer to Iowa and New Hampshire which will make them move theirs up earlier and the next thing you know, we'll be voting all of this in June.

LIBERTY BOWL
Fresno St vs. Tulsa
Saturday, December 31, 2005

Fresno has been all slumpy since nearly upsetting USC in a monstrous toe-to-toe battle. Tulsa used to be in the same conference with Fresno and is on the way up, winning their first league championship in 20 years by taking Conference USA from UTEP.

Tulsa's mascot is the "Golden Hurricane." That's considerable more serious than a simple Golden Shower. Who OKs these mascot names? It just makes us gloomy to ponder.

I love Tulsa's tight end Garrett Mills, he's like 80% of their offense. (And he just broke the NCAA 1-A record for TE receiving yards in a single season.)

Sponsorship: The Liberty Bowl is sponsored by AutoZone. Their company name might also be used for a 1970s paperback sci-fi novel. "To win your freedom, you must pass through the AutoZone!"

HOUSTON BOWL
(14) TCU vs. Iowa St.
Saturday, December 31, 2005

TCU would probably be playing after New Year's Day if they hadn't lost to an unranked SMU. Doh. So here they are in the Houston Bowl, which is Texas. And Texas means fightin'!

This game will be held in the NFL Houston Texans' Reliant Stadium. No one would be shocked if this bowl game outdrew a Texans game.

MC Fried Chicken's take: TCU should win. They have a hot QB and should take out Iowa St.

Sponsorship: EV1.net. A who-da-what? Upon further review, EV1.net is an ISP from Houston. Perhaps you're even using them right now.

Image of Jim Crowley, one of the famous 4 Horsemen, carying the ball for Notre Dame during the 1925 Rose Bowl from the Rose Bowl site.

SFist Christopher Rogers, contributing

Well, it's come to this. Remember the brouhaha over docking the USS Iowa at Fisherman's Wharf? It was DiFi's idea to send $3 million worth of pork our way. Nevermind pacifist sentiment, the Navy's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and the fact that floating military museums are a money-losing proposition -- everybody and their mother got on the Supes' case about turning the offer down.

So of course The Daily Show sent out cub fake-reporter Nate Corddry [Torrent] (Rob's younger brother, apparently) to do interviews with Tom Ammiano and Chris Daly and to play up every gay stereotype he could, including wearing a sailor suit to Trannyshack ("after six Cosmos and two grams of something..."), and the report played tonight before the intellectually stimulating interview with Cameron Diaz.

Don't get us wrong, we love The Daily Show, but we left disappointed. They cut Chris Daly out of the bit, meaning that we didn't even get to play SFist Rita's drinking game. At least Nate got a nice dry hump out of the deal. And Tommiano certainly held his own, not getting punk'd and dishing out The Funny (lord, we love that guy). But we expected better from fellow commie pinko queers.