It's now been ten days since C.W. Nevius went off on the Gav for letting people camp in Golden Gate Park. Things shook out pretty much as you'd expect: follow-up articles , reactions from the Supes, letters to the Editor, promises from the Mayor, frothy commentary here on SFist, and a new issue du jour: what to do with all of the used heroin needles that turn up everywhere? more ›

The city provided a continental breakfast of "coffee, bagels, orange wedges, and blueberries" (delicious!) as well as temporary encampment tents for those that they evicted from Golden Gate Park at 4:30 a.m. this morning. (You can read Chron's article about it here, and SF Examiner's here.) more ›

There aren't a hell of a lot of Wendy's left in SF. The one on 658 Market closed all too soon, and we're dying to sample the Baconator. (We really are.) Although we appreciate the noble and expensive slow-food movement, we'll always prefer Wendy's square-cut meat patties cooked in record time. more ›

Since it's bound to open soon and we'll certainly never be able to step foot inside of the million dollar-plus apartments in SF's new and phallic-y One Rincon Hill -- biggest apartment building west of the Mississippi, damn straight -- the scary-sounding and fancy-named Telstar Logistics snapped some shots from inside the budding building. more ›

Hey, have you seen that giant, ugly monstrosity of a wall on Haight Street between Laguna and Buchanan? That's the old UC Extension campus. Yep, the one that's been closed since 2003 and has been fallow since. Why are we bringing this thing up now, ruining your beautiful June morning with mental images of a dilapidated, graffiti-scarred bit of lovely urban blight right in the middle of the city? more ›

You may recall our presence at a lower Haight neighborhood meeting back in January after a spate of gun violence galvanized the area and turned out hundreds of folks along with news cams and Heather Fong. Well, during that meeting Supervisor Mirkarimi promised that he would somehow find the city funding for a security camera at the corner of Haight and Webster, which is kind of the locus of all things crack-deal in the area. Well, the camera went up! more ›

A reader of SFist sends word that another great SF place will close, that place being Canvas, the coffe shop/art gallery/what have you in the Iinner Sunset. Word has it that like the John Barylecorn, the lease was up and the landlord sold it to the Pacific Catch, a seafood chain. more ›

Last night was a meeting about the spate of violent crime and shootings in the Lower Haight. In attendance were various officials from the SFPD, including Heather Fong, as well as supervisors Ross Mirkirami and Bevan Dufty. Dan From Burritophile was in attendance and gives us a report, after the jump. To see photos of the event, click here. more ›

rom SF Party Party comes word that a movement is afoot to make the ice skating rink at the Embarcadero a permanent thing. In the winter, it'll be an ice skating rink and during the spring and summer, a roller rink. more ›

Not everyone is afraid of answering questions from people as MUNI, of all groups, is holding a series of Open Houses to talk to you, the rider, and hear what you have to say. And if Gavin thinks taking questions from Chris Daly is scary, how would you like to be in MUNI's shoes and have to listen to disgruntled riders. The meetings are being held by the Transportation Effectiveness Project, you know, the one's who declared war on the "transit-dependent" so here's your chance to fight back. more ›

Welcome to This Is Good, a new recommendation column for SFist about things that are good. If something is good, we'll tell you. Simple as that. * http://AlertSF.org Is Good. AlertSF is a emergency services network used to send out emergency alerts and "post-disaster" information via text-messaging from the City & County of San Francisco. more ›

An event will be held today in yet another effort to Free Josh Wolf. Wolf, of course, is the video blogger/journalist being held in jail for contempt of court for not releasing the hottest video out there that doesn't involve a celebrity having sex with somebody else. And thank God for that but we'd love to see the alleged video of Britney and K-Fed playing chess. more ›

Ha ha ha ha -- they threw Chris Daly into a swimming pool! Commenter El Greco and photographer Drew Altizer earn a sweet spot in our heart for passing along their pictures of the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Center Pool Toss event on Tuesday. As promised, Daly wore a suit. more ›

The 'Gate is reporting that Josh has been granted bail by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, to wit:

In a brief order, two judges of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Wolf was entitled to bail because the government had not shown his appeal of a judge's contempt-of-court ruling was frivolous or intended solely to delay the proceedings...The court said another panel would rule on Wolf's appeal of the contempt order while he is free on bail. If he loses the appeal, he could be sent back to federal prison until the grand jury's term expires next July.

Screw getting Dooced, Josh Wolf has set the blogger bar a bit higher than getting fired. He's been jailed. Judge William Alsup, presiding over a federal grand jury case investigating the attempted burning of a police car and assault of an officer during an anti-war protest last year, has held Mr. Wolf in contempt of court, and ordered him imprisoned. The crime? Refusing to answer a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney's office for raw footage of the event and to stand witness before the Grand Jury. more ›

We just got a note from Lauren Gelman at the Center for Internet and Society that Apple has been handed a total loss at the hands of "Does," AKA O'Grady's PowerPage and Apple Insider, who published leaked details of Apple's firewire peripheral for GarageBand. In other words, it was not within Apple's rights to wander around demanding that journalists reveal their sources, under trade secrets protections or any other law. SFist and the rest of the Gothamist network pledged our support for the defendants along with dozens of other online news sources in the form of an amicus curiae brief which Lauren put together. From her blog:

This is a *huge* win! Now journalists can feel safe knowing that they can protect their sources’ identity no matter in which medium they choose to disseminate news (as we argued in our amicus brief [PDF]). more ›

By the time you read this, all the good booze will probably be gone, but it's still worth noting that the Cala Bell at the west end of Haight is having a ka-raaaaaaazy sale! All liquor 20% off! Miscellaneous grocery 10% off! Spices, for the love of God, 50% off! Lucky thing we're in a supermarket, because we're going to faint unless we can buy some paper bags to hyperventilate into! more ›

The good news is that vacancy rates are low across the hotel business in San Francisco. The bad news is that at least some of those rooms may be off the rolls as they are being fumigated. When we wrote our original post on San Francisco's growing bedbug infestation, we were at a loss to come up with direct reports of encounters with the parasites in some of The City's hotels. Well, Hotel Chatter dropped us a note to point to this tale of abject terror:

But by the morning of the 27th, my arms, legs and other parts of my body were full of bug bites (I took some pictures of the bites). As I was sitting on the edge of the bed putting my shoes on, I saw something crawling on the pillowcase. I carefully took a zip-lock type plastic bag and caught the little bug. I knew right away what I was dealing with. more ›

Okay, he's not REALLY a CIA agent. But his posters say he is, and that if you tear them down, you'll "get SMACKED." For the last month or so, a quiet, stocky, late-20s guy with a shaved head and a heavy-metal goatee has been posting gibberish on telephone poles around the eastern end of the panhandle. He wears what look like hospital scrubs, which make us hope that he's getting some form of treatment somewhere; and over the scrubs, he's got a white t-shirt with more of his rantings written in large block letters. It actually looks pretty trendy, like something you'd pay $70 for on Haight -- we'd totally wear a t-shirt that says "Jesus Christ lets people torture him because you can't kill me stupid, then I shove an ugly piece of wood up your ass," as reads one of his manifestoes. Someone get this guy on "Project Runway." Or into a residential care facility. Whichever. more ›

Kimo Crossman over at Webnetic tipped us to the release of the new, final request for proposals from The City on the citywide wireless initiative. Strangely, just last week the Local Agency Formation Committee (LAFCo) was asking to study the issue more before the Department of Telecommunications Infrastructure and Services (DTIS) issued the RFP. In other words, the mayor's office seems to be turning a deaf ear to recent public hearings on citywide Wifi, though they'll probably hold another splashy press conference or three. more ›

The very definition of a 'chilling effect' on free speech is when legislation or enforcement of new laws are so potentially onerous that people and organization self-censor out of fear and potential liability. Today, the users of Tribe.net were one of the first groups on the internet to feel that cool breeze, as Tribe have instituted their new Terms of Use with amendments to the provisions regarding mature public content, and presumably, any content deemed offensive by a Tribe user. more ›

The internet is strangely quiet about yesterday's Government Audit and Oversight Committee hearing. Not only were Daly, Peskin and Elsbernd arguing over whether or not they should be able to edit their own homepages on SFGov (can SFist petition to make it a crime to put sound, animated GIFs or blinking text on them?), they were also arguing over public oversight of the San Francisco TechConnect process. more ›

Last week we gave you some ideas for what to get the animal lover on your gift list. This week, we're going international -- looking at various international aid organizations that you might purchase a charitable gift from this holiday season. more ›

Members of SEIU Local 790 employed by the San Francisco Unified School District plan to announce their strike as early as Wednesday. We confirmed information posted on Indybay with a representative from the union yesterday. According to the Chronicle, the strike will not be legal under state law until ten days after a recommendation from a fact-finding panel is issued and considered by both the union and the district, which at the earliest would be November 28th. more ›

Time to find out if all those "if this special election tanks, Arnold's political future tanks with it" prognostications are true. Because the Governator just got slapped by California voters like a redheaded stepchild. Every single proposition he endorsed has gone down in flames. Most troubling was Prop 73, which nearly passed with over 48% of the vote according to the latest numbers (though it went down 79-21 locally). It's times like these we wish we had John Burton's number so we could call him for a quote. He must have some doozies saved for just this occassion. more ›

We all know by now that the latest reason to stay holed up in your apartment for the next half-decade or so is the avian flu. As if hating people and the sun wasn't reason enough. And sure, it's a scary prospect. But of more immediate concern, because we need to keep our day jobs, is the seasonal flu. You know, the boring old knock you on your ass variety. For the super paranoid, you can watch it coming. more ›

SFist is a long-ass way out of kindergarten but some lessons learned then have stayed with us, like "don't eat paint", that's a good one. Or how about learning how to tie your shoes? Very helpful. But the best and most important lesson we learned is that it's good to share. Sharing is cool because SFist can't have everything but maybe if we share what we have someone else can share what they have, and we covet, right back at us. more ›

How is it that our lives have come to resemble a Capital One commercial? "Be able to say 'No' clearly and easily, so that others are grateful and happy to honor your 'No,'" invites the blurb for "Giving Good No," an upcoming "experimental workshop." The phrase conjures images of Beaker and Dr. Honeydew wiggling their fingers over bizarre machinery; whatever it actually is, it's being conducted by WholeBody Wisdom, an organization that says "we are the most powerful and free when we have integrated all parts of ourselves into one healthy system." We have no idea what that means, but we suspect that the explanation would involve the words "attuned," "affirm," and "facilitate." It'll run you just under $300 to spend Oct 22 (11 a.m. to 10 p.m.) and Oct 23 (10 a.m. to 6 p.m.) to "say 'No' in a way that is clear, firm, and empowering." This is so granola we can't even be bothered to make fun of it. more ›

SFist is sending out an APB to the world: are you a ravishing young woman? Do you drive a Jeep? Were you driving it around in the Sunset last month? If so, a young man named Luke really, really really wants to speak to you. Consider the dozens of missed connections that have been posted in the past few weeks by the local 30-year-old to be a series of love letters. True, he only spotted you for a fleeting moment as you were driving a Jeep late at night near Judah and 37th -- seemingly tenuous grounds for a love affair -- but, as Luke told us when we contacted him, "Have you ever seen someone and known there was something special about them? That's how I felt when I saw her." Hence the near-daily postings to the missed connections. Excessive? Perhaps. Other craigslist posters have advised him to cool his heels a bit and not seem so eager. Maybe that's why he added to one of his posts, "(not a stalker.)" Mothers, lock up your daughters. more ›

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