Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost. Londonist HQ—that is to say, the city of London—was battered by heavy winds, making it a bad time to be a twelve-meter (nearly forty-foot) tall snowman. Still, not everyone decided to keep warmly covered. Meanwhile, back indoors, the Big Brother racism is now causing all kinds of headaches for international diplomats, and Londonist got into......

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....

--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.] --The chomping sea lion's disappeared. They think he might have died, or moved on. --They debate the public schools and an unflattering drawing of Chris Daly......

Next up in our SF school board candidates interview series -- Mr. Omar Khalif! Omar's got a MySpace page, and he's a Scorpio. Khalif's also been endorsed by Gavin Newsom, and is running on a platform promoting neighborhood schools in the Bayview-Hunters Point, and charter schools. Introduce yourself, and tell us what you currently do. For the last seven years, I have been an independent contractor with the City and County of San Francisco Juvenile......

And the second in our school board interviews -- Kim Knox! Knox is currently a member of the local SF Green Party County Council, and blogs with Robert Haaland and Sasha Magee at Left in SF. Just to remind you guys, everyone gets the same questions and we run the answers unedited! The floor is yours, Kim! Introduce yourself, and tell us what you currently do. My name is Kim Knox, an education and environmental......

Did you know there's fifteen people running for three seats on the school board this election cycle? That's almost like a District 5 election! How will you figure out who to vote for (besides just blindly voting the Bay Guardian ticket, that is)? Never fear -- SFist has bravely gone out and contacted all the candidates, and, much like we did for District 6, we've sent them all the same interview questions and will run......

Ok, so perhaps SFist's own Donor's Choose challenge isn't going to break any records (and we're not the best promoter's are we?). But that doesn't mean there's a flaw in the system... well not a flaw in the Donor's Choose system anyway, don't even get us started on flaws in the public school system. So from now until September 30, Donor's Choose is trying to raise $250,000 for California school proposals and half of......

You know, we're kind of getting into the week-long series that the Chron's doing on the San Francisco school system. It's a comprehensive look at all the various factors affecting the perception of our local schools: segregation controversies; why people flee to the East Bay once their kids hit school age; how the school system is actually doing much better than everyone thinks it is; and how the lottery actually works. Tomorrow they're discussing private......

You know, public schools just can't win. Up here in San Francisco, it's a constant "our schools are failing and segregated," so affluent upper-middle-classers have to spend gajillions of dollars on private schools or leave the city. But down in Cupertino....! The Wall Street Journal reports that Caucasian families are unhappy with their public schools too, to the point where they're also opting out of the Santa Clara public school system -- but not because the schools are bad. Rather, parents are unhappy because the schools have become too rigorous. Is this an Onion article or what? White families in Cupertino complain that Caucasian children are in the minority and the constant academic pressure is bad for their children's self-esteem. Other families complain that there are too many math and science classes at Monte Vista High, and not enough sports teams. One mother says she would never have moved to Cupertino if she'd realized "how much it would change" (now, what do you think that means?), while Asian-American families note that no one in (whiter) Palo Alto seems to have a problem with its competitive high school academic scene and wonder if it's got something to do with race. That said, it's also true that in Cupertino, the lower-level classes are the only ones with diverse enrollment -- and an overall 3.0 GPA puts you in the bottom third of your class. Man, we are so glad we're done with school. This Asian sucks at math. ...

Good morning, class! Today's the first day of the school year for the San Francisco public schools. Mmmm, smell the chalk in the air! Test scores are up, Ackerman's raise was approved by a trial court, things are good over at the SFUSD. One problem, though -- some union workers are staging a one-day sickout over their labor negotiations for raises. The school district wouldn't say how many people were out today, but volunteers will be staffing the principal's office at Malcolm X Elementary and there may not be hot lunches today if enough people are out (though the schools will give out sandwiches). This is not an officially union-sanctioned action, though the union is taking the position that if people are sick, they're sick. Also in honor of today, the Chron's got an article that follows three kids who went to the same preschool, didn't do so well in the school lottery system, and are now at three different elementary schools -- a public school teacher who's sending her child to an expensive private school, the Protestant family who's enrolled at a Catholic school after they decided the public school wasn't working for their child, and one who's thrilled with their public school despite its middling-level test scores. The article's fascinating -- we hope the Chron keeps following these kids throughout the year. How'd you take the first day of school as a kid? What's your thoughts about the SFUSD? Share with the class! ...

Stage Fog provides you this week with a virtual tour of the world, all for the price of several theater tickets....

It's the Big Game this weekend! Guess who's not excited about it? ...

SFist comes from a family of teachers and counts many teachers as friends, so we like to think of ourselves as friendly to the cause This might sound a bit like "some of my best friends are (insert group here), but you get the picture....