SFist interviews the Reverend Billy of "what would jesus buy?"...

After screwing up mandated drug tests and failing to report the severity of the oil spill in a timely fashion, as of this morning Coast Guard Captain William Uberti is out. And an experienced specialist in oil SNAFUs, Capt. Paul Gugg, is in. According to the Chronicle, Gugg, 49, has "has crafted spill regulations and response plans in Washington, D.C., and helped design emergency tactics after the catastrophic 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska."......

Oh is it a voting day or something? It totally sneaked up on us! It still feels like Monday today. Actually it also feels like October. Anyway, you should probably vote yes on A and no on H, because that's what everyone else is doing. Prop A will protect The Mt Soledad National War Memorial and do something to the air force? and will transform some colleges. Also, Aristotle endorsed it it. Proposition H......

It's the latest in the Tsk Tsk Supervisorial codes of conduct battle front! You've got sex, you've got drugs, all you need now is some rock and roll: Supervisor Chris Daly went and introduced the code of conduct regulations he's been waving around ever since his fellow supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier said she was going to put in some rules about (his) offensive language. Daly's code would prohibit sexual relationships between managers and subordinates at City......

Well that certainly was lively, wasn't it? Our post about the proposal to shoot SF with a Los-Angeles-gun by adding parking to the city (and subtracting everything else) attracted tons of comments, with some very well-put arguments on both sides of the issue. Time to channel that energy into Real Life, if you can bear to leave your wretched computer: SPUR is hosting a Transportation Committee meeting to discuss the initiative! It's happening Monday,......

Week Around The -Ists...

The latest government entity looking to green (which, as we all know, is the new black) is Caltrains. In a staff report, codenamed Project 2025 (we can already tell it's going to be cool because it has a codename), Caltrains lays out a plan to start using lighter trains that run on electric power. Hello fuel efficiency. Plus, because the trains are lighter, more cars could be added to each train. Hello more space. ...

Those crosses in Lafayette that overlooks the Lafayette BART station were vandalized last night as somebody went by and dumped a whole bunch of either black tar or paint on the sign that says "In Memory of 2,867 Troops Killed in Iraq." This was the second time something has happened to the sign as earlier a woman kicked it over. We guess the logic behind all of this is that if you take the sign down, it's just a bunch of crosses. You know, like maybe some sort of Halloween decoration not taken down. ...

Somehow, the world of -ists managed to make it through the week despite news that Jen & Vince broke up. -Chicagoist had fall on their mind as they made squash and fudge, read "House of Leaves" and ">tried to figure out what's next for the Cubs. Not fall related, but still of utmost concern, the whole skinny black pants thing. -Torontoist fought off an evil scourge of raccoons and went to go see who......

Welcome SFist Jessica, our undercover tourist! The all-Alcatraz outfit was definitely a nice touch -- and we're still looking forward to the poignant watercolors she's going to paint of her time on the San Francisco Bay Quackers tour. Lots of local news tidbits this week: the musical saw competition, Hitler references by a departing Niner, the police escorts for the renegade sound system on the N Judah -- and we noted the difficulty of complying......

We finally have a new head of the Taxi Commission, that being the old head, Heidi Machen. We certainly hope she enjoyed her month-long vacation. Unlike her previous reign, however, Gavin gave her some homies to have her back and finally replaced three outgoing commissioners whose terms had already expired. Gavin should have done this earlier, but it got in the way of his appearing on morning radio shows. ...

This was first mentioned in a Leah Garchik column, but we have actual first-hand knowledge of CapGate from someone who was involved in l'affaire. Our story began last week when a mens softball team headed off to the Connecticut Yankee for some post-game celebratory drinks. As is softball players' wont as the Yankee is known as a sports bar and a good home for wayward New Englanders. So the group began to order and when the last person, a person who was most definitely wearing their baseball cap backwards, ordered, the bartender told him that they wouldn't serve him unless he turned his cap around. When the guy protested, the bartender announced to all of the backwards baseball cap wearers in the group that none of them would be served again unless they all turned their caps around. Some stayed (hey, they already paid for their drinks), some left in protest. ...

Now that yesterday's BART fire is out and trains are moving again, the inevitable finger-pointing has begun. Who bears the blame here? Is it BART? Why does BART use flammable solvents on its tracks? Is the reason why there was garbage on the tracks to catch on fire because they took out all the trash cans in the station post 9/11? Shouldn't BART have a better way of alerting passengers about track emergencies? Is it......

Two places in the East Bay have decided to start thinking about the children and are proposing new rules and regulations on fast-food joints to help fight the supposed epidemic of fattie children. First up is Oakland which is thinking about taxing certain merchants a few extra bucks to help clean up the messes left by customers, something that is apparently becoming a problem. The legislation is primarily aimed at fast-food joints and conveyance stores, especially near schools, as that's where most of the mess is. Which raises the question what is wrong with the kids today? Can't they pick up after themselves or are they to fat these days to bend over and pick something up? Why, when we were kids, we'd walk three miles in the snow to pick up our KFC boxes. Merchants, of course, do not like the new legislation and think it could hurt business. That sound you hear is the sound of the world's smallest violin playing a sad symphony for McDonalds. ...

The gang at SFWall.net are in full rant mode over the fact that after Ross Mirkarimi passed legislation that set certain zoning regulations for pot clubs, he is now in the process of trying to pass legislation to change the zoning regulations for one of the pot clubs that was going to be closed for not being up to snuff with the regulations. The problem in all this, of course, is that it looks a little bad to pass legislation establishing certain rules, then try and pass legislation that circumvents those rules. The club in question is the Vapor Trail on Haight which has become one of the most well known medical marijuana clubs due to it's friendly atmosphere, friendly owners, and for posting flyers up and down Haight street and other outlying areas. It's a good thing Ross is pushing this legislation through too because between the four pot clubs existing on the Haight and all the hippies roaming the streets, it's just so hard to get dope on the Haight. ...

Everybody and their mother seems to want to know what blogging can do for their business, especially for marketing, public relations and customer service. Conferences are organized around the concept, consultants hired, poor shmucks given the task of maintaining a blog for work, at work and for no extra pay. Folks still don't really know what works, whether or not it's worth the investment or how to do it in a way that draws......

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if the same goes for intellectual property theft and encroaching on other people's business, then a lot of people should be feeling very flattered this week. Pixar should be flattered by the attention they're getting from former owner George Lucas, who opened a computer animation studio in Singapore on Thursday. Rob Coleman, the new studio's animation and development director, name-dropped Pixar while describing......

After a long, raucous day of debate that lasted even longer than last night's ball game, the Board of Supervisors stared straight into the eyes of several controversial, contentious issues and decided to make a decision later. We start with everyone's favorite topic, or at least SFist's, the medicinal marijuana debate. After holding off on making a decision last week, the Board took it up yesterday and was about to pass the measure before Daly aide Bill Barnes pulled a fast one and derailed it by calling an appeal on environmental concerns. Daly is against the legislation for the fairly understandable reason that due to a lot of the new rules, most of the dispensaries that will be kept open or will be opened will be in his 'hood. He also thinks that all of the new rules and regulations are too restrictive and will lead to many of the dispensaries having to close (which would mean he wouldn't have to worry about too many of them being in his 'hood, but we digress). And by too restrictive, we're guessing he means the fact that dispensaries can only dispense half a pound of marijuana to one person a day (that would be about eight ounces of dope). That's more dope than a van full of Dead Heads on the road to the Bonnaroo Festival could smoke. Or maybe it's because it's so difficult these days to get medical marijuana cards. ...

Man, we're running out of pictures and titles for the ongoing ski jump saga in Pac Heights. So the big day's tomorrow! Skip work and watch Jonny Moseley zip by multi-million dollar homes and their angry occupants! (If you go with a digital camera, send us your pics!) Today's latest outrage: the amps are coming back! Previously, the city entertainment committee (that's gotta be a fun committee to be on, like "social committee" for your dorm) denied Moseley a permit for loudspeakers and music, with a vote of 3-3. Based in part on the quieter noise levels, the transportation subcommittee approved the request to close off the streets for the jump. But -- oho! Much like with Superintendent Ackerman's pay raise, the entertainment committee then called a special meeting to reconsider the issue on a day where one more committee member was available. This time, the vote passed unanimously. Kick up that bass! Angry, angry! Pac Heights residents have hired an attorney, who tried to appeal the decision but found out there is no appeal right for a traffic commission decision. The attorney has found out that the company sponsoring the jump is not in compliance with corporate regulations in Nevada, and the company that was hired to clear out the snow is in default on a civil judgment against it. ...

Okay, we all know what the internet is best at -- porn, porn, rants and porn. Sure, blogging is nice, but it doesn't really pay all that well. There was certainly a point after the dot-bomb where the only people hiring HTML and Photoshop wizards were porn sites, and yes, we totally took their little nudie-photo color correction tests and sent them our resumes. Hell, we might have even considered acting in a few......

Duboce Street's loss is Hayes Valley's gain, as the City and Caltrans laboriously rebuild the Central Expressway offramp one block over from where they laboriously tore it down, but leave Octavia to become a beautiful pedestrian-friendly street. And, in keeping with the beautification theme, the city has just announced a competition where architects are challenged to design innovative residential houses for Octavia Street. Designs must conform to city codes and zoning regulations, and the plots of land in question are all different in orientation (yes, some are straight and some are gay), and they're hoping to encourage beautiful but liveable spaces in an open-minded up-and-coming neighborhood. The winner gets $40,000, though the city also notes that the last time they had a similar contest, for Union Square, the design of the architect who won was too avant-garde for the area and they ended up building on the designs of a runner-up. Info on the contest is here. There's a briefing on March 19, and entries are due on June 1. All entries will be displayed in City Hall, and winners will be announced some time in mid-June. ...

In the "it would be funny and surprising if you didn't live here" department, the Mendocino County assistant agricultural commissioner, Tony Linegar, is asking the state to regulate Marijuana cultivation so that the rules can be put in place to regulate medical marijuana crops as organic. "With no products officially developed for marijuana cultivation, some growers have been using chemicals intended for ornamental plants, which could make users sick." Mendocino County, like many Northern California......

As if we didn't have enough to worry about already (sex offenders in Cupertino trying to hit on you, insane criminal clowns), UC officials have admitted that they have been less than diligent in keeping track of donated cadavers. That's right - your dear Aunt Millie, who thought she was donating her body to science, may well have ended up on the black market in Nevada.  In 1999, the director of UC Irvine's body......

Tuesday brings the Giants and the Padres and the Essefficist. What could possibly be better? Don't answer that. Today we turn to an issue especially dear to many a San Franciscan: parking. Specifically, parking regulations, enforcement thereof, parking tickets, and towing. More specifically, parking for people who are worshiping, mourning, dining, or shopping in the Mission. Let's turn to George: Explain why church goers can park their cars in the middle of the street, like......

New overtime lawas and how they might affect YOU....