Photo of our lunar eclipse...

At first, before reading this story, we were ready to shake our finger at the Vespa rider in question. Lord knows we worry about you kids. But it seems she wasn't at fault. You see, last night a 24-year-old San Francisco woman was put in the hospital with life-threatening injuries while riding a Vespa on South Van Ness Avenue. It seems that "a 1994 Honda Accord, which was traveling southbound, tried to make a......

California's First Lady makes yet another visit to S.F...

Piff! Pow! Zwap! On Valentine's Day at precisely 6 p.m. at Justin Herman Plaza, San Francisco will play host to its third annual public pillow fight. And they're looking for a few good men and women. The rules of the fight are as follows: 1) Tell everyone you know about Pillow Fight! 2) Tell EVERYONE YOU KNOW about Pillow Fight!!! 3) Nothing in your pillow but pillow. 4) Don’t hit anyone with out a......

Though this may amuse a smattering of transplants who neither want this city to grow nor evolve into the world-class city it secretly is, a new global Monopoly board is coming and San Francisco is not a part of it. You see, people of the earth get to vote to see which of the 68 world cities will make the final 22 on the global board game. San Francisco, it seems, is not on......

Obama '08 is coming your way. ...

After a federal judge blocked "a key provision of a new city program providing basic health care to uninsured residents, City Attorney Dennis Herrera is scheduled to petition the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today for an emergency stay pending appeal to help SF maintain the "Healthy San Francisco" program. The program, which would help uninsured San Franciscans receive health care, was scheduled to begin on January 2, 2008. According to CBS 5: U.S.......

While not nearly as exciting as receiving top honors as the best city for tourists to walk slow on city sidewalks, or best city in which singles can hump, on Monday the FBI just awarded SF as the city with the largest reported number of hate crimes in 2006. According to Bay City News (via SF Crime): With a population of approximately 746,000, had a total of 94 reported hate crime incidents in 2006,......

Back during his halcyon days. Presumably. Dude. Duuuuuuude. After a four-year federal investigation, today cranky baseball icon Barry Bonds was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice. Ouch. And Jesus. He's like Pete Rose, but worse. Which? Again, ouch. According to CBS 5, "[w]hile Bonds was chasing Aaron amid the adulation of San Franciscans and the scorn of baseball fans almost everywhere else, due to his notoriously prickly personality and nagging steroid allegations, a grand......

Good news everyone-- well-known libertarian, Ron Paul fan, exotic male dancer and bisexual male escort Starchild has been aquitted of charges of prostitution by a Fremont court. Starchild was up on charges for soliciting prostitution on Craigslist and was caught up in a sting by a Fremont police officer. ...

Anyway, the real story here is that it's an uninteresting race, but that that shouldn't matter. With Gavin Newsom running unopposed in the minds of many a San Franciscan, the city sheriff having no serious challengers, and the district attorney running unopposed, we can see why. And according to Alex Clemens in today's Examiner (AP), "[w[]"ithout a good fight at hand, a lot of people are worried that many San Franciscans will opt out of the process and just go to work instead." (That what they want you to believe, man! Wheels within wheels.)...

Well, this is interesting. Today we received a (rightfully) irritated press release from Tom Radulovich, District 9 BART Director (co-signed by Chris Daly). It seems that he wasn't involved in the decision to go ahead and close BART on Halloween night. Which? Is bizarre and inappropriate considering, well, he's an elected District 9 BART Director. The missive, which is long and available for your viewing pleasure below (and continues on after the jump), reads......

Looks like we're in a heapin' load of trouble as those who like to get outraged at us are outraged again. Or, at least something the Archbishop of San Francisco did. Last weekend, while conducting mass, the Archbishop was giving communion when up came two people "wearing bizarre makeup and costumes, including one dressed in a parody of a nun's habit." Hmm…couldn’t that also describe the Pope? Anyways, the "offenders" in question, of course, were members of the Sister of Perpetual Indulgence. So Archbishop George Niederauer gave them communion. ...

After last week's dueling press conferences and memo-leakage, the Homeless issue is becoming the Issue du Jour, leading to a full-fledged reporter dogpile. First came CW Nevius who weighed in with yet another story on the issue, this time saying that even in liberal, tolerant, San Francisco, residents might not be feeling so liberal and tolerant when it comes to dealing with the homeless. As evidence, he points to one of those online polls SFGate ran about the issue in which 90% of the people said they wanted something to be done. We, as a rule, hate those "polls" because it's actual scientific value is nil as it's all determined by people who were motivated enough to play along and doesn’t factor in those who were too lazy to. ...

Although it's supposed to rain tonight, maybe baby Jesus will create a precious miracle for us San Franciscans, clearing the skies in order to view tonight's meteor shower. Alas, we doubt it. Still, from spaceweather: METEOR WATCH: The annual Draconid meteor shower peaks on Oct. 9th at 0430 UT--in other words, tonight at 9:30 pm PDT or 12:30 am EDT. Don't expect a big display. The source of the shower, comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, is far......

San Franciscans have already had a year to enjoy the Green Zebra Guide coupon book. We here in the East Bay wouldn’t know about that, since we’ve never seen that book ourselves, although we’ve heard tell of its exploits. However, when we found out that a coupon book specifically for East Bay eco-minded businesses, organic food, restaurants, sustainable living services, and entertainment was on its way to our little forgotten corner of the bay, we......

Critical Mass bike ride turns 15 years old today...

Even though he runs without any serious opponent, Newsom's camp is still pulling their hair out over this election and the turnout. Newsom'07 Phone Bank sent us a release, with the following: We want to turn out as many voters as possible on election day, so that Mayor Newsom can continue to make government more responsive, effective and accountable. But, we need your help. There are only 47 days left until San Franciscans go......

-- Not enough credit card debt in your life? Top-shelf department store Barneys New York will solve that problem after it opens this week. [Chron] -- Health care for uninsured San Franciscans to "expand" next Monday. Woo hoo! [Examiner] -- Cadillac Hotel celebrates 100 years of survival in the TL. [BeyondChron] -- Shot/killed by cops, 20-year-old Naser Solis' parents sue Hayward police department. [Chron] -- Transbay Terminal neighborhood meeting happened tonight. (Our apologies for not......

From the moment you first plugged it in, your home telephone has been waiting for the moment when its existence would be justified. And now! At last! The Gavin Newsom '08 Phone Bank is ACTIVATING! Six days a week, starting this weekend and running until November, the phone bank will will be harassing San Franciscans all over San Francisco: vote for Gav! As we know, he's got a pretty extensive collection of phone numbers,......

Ahhh, the lazy days of summer keep on keeping on, yet the commentary here on SFist continues to be fast, furious, fierce, and even funny. We like when you talk back to us about stuff--some of our favorite comments from last week follow....

If there's a widespread contingent of San Franciscans that feel Bonds is a cheater unworthy of praise, that sure wasn't reflected in the celebration down at Justin Herman Plaza today. Music, tons of fans in the orange and black, Old people, young people, tall people, most in ballcaps. Plenty of police to ensure nobody gets injured should a fan go into a 'roid rage....

Update: See Paul's comment below about why they had to do what they did, and what they're doing about it. Are there quiet, law-abiding people on Sixth Street? Sure, but it's hard to stand out when your neighborhood looks like something out of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome -- take a walk down 6th, especially at night, and you'll find yourself surrounded by brawls, the mentally ill, drug deals, screaming gibberish, glazed-over eyes, and people......

In all the marches in of the cities in all the world, a march to City Hall is taking place today for one of the most noble causes in San Francisco to date. 100 or so golfers will be marching to the Board of Supervisors meeting to demand their voices be heard on the topic of shutting down public courses in the city. 100 golfers – wow. Is Van Ness wide enough to handle......

A photo of a shooting star...

PAWS (Pets Are Wonderful Support) is celebrating its china anniversary this year, with a celebration on Saturday at AT&T Park before the 1p.m. game. It’s hard to believe that this organization, which provides numerous services to low-income San Franciscans’ with HIV/AIDS and other disabling illnesses, has been around for 20 whole years. PAWS staff and volunteers do lots of stuff to help people keep and care for their adored pets. There’s dog walking, cat......

The next season of Top Chef is looking for a few good contestants, right here in San Francisco. Applicants that aren't able to attend can submit video profiles instead, but Sunday brings you a chance for a little face time with producers. Either way, there's paperwork to fill out....

Bless you and may the Lord keep you, SFist readers! Look what turned up in the SFist Flickr stream (tag your pictures too!): a picture of the cursed 666 taxi medallion!!! Thank you, reader gusmacroy! The story's gone national, with a picture of the taxi union leader testifying with devil horns on in the designated "wacky San Franciscans" spot in the national section of the New York Times. As we write, it's the seventh-most-emailed......

To honor Barry Lamar as he approaches the exalted numbers 725 and 726, Gavin announced yesterday that City Hall will be lit up in Orange until he breaks the record. There will also be a pennant hung in front of City Hall to count off each and every home run he hits on his way to 726. Quoth the Gavster: "I think I speak for all San Franciscans when I say,''Go Barry.'" ...

Oh no! Brilliantly, some crossed wires resulted in us writing two separate articles about the same event. Whoops. Celebrate independence by celebrating mind-control! Go check out the one-day-only "PROPAGANDA III WORLD TOUR" (it's capitalized in all of the PR materials, so you know it's legit). They've collected hundreds of political posters from all over the world, and hung them at the Phoenix Hotel's Bambuddha Lounge at 601 Eddy Street. The display's open today (the......