We're a little late to this story, in part because we spent all day yesterday trying to separate out the hilarious comments from the offensive ones on SFGate.com (it looks like the homophobic ones have already been taken out as of today) -- but in a nutshell, last Friday, Lance Farber, the 47-year-old boyfriend of the city's new planning director John Rahaim trashed their temporary apartment, which the city put them up in and which......

State Senator Leland Yee introduced a bill in the State Legislature this morning that, if passed, would see traffic fines double for violations occurring along the deadly strip of San Francisco road known as 19th Avenue. (Shudder.) Over the past few years, 19th Avenue -- which connects San Mateo County with San Francisco and pierces commercial and residential sections of the city rife with foot traffic -- has played host to numerous traffic accidents......

Making her move at juuust the right time, Jackie Speier is a shoo-in to fill Tom Lantos' seat by April 8 if she gathers a majority of votes in a special, pre-primary election. But first, according to the Merc: ...Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger must issue a declaration today that would allow the 12th Congressional District race to appear on the June 3 ballot. If he waits until after today, San Mateo County would have to......

Congressman Tom Lantos died this morning from esophageal cancer at the age of 80. He represented most of the Sunset, as well as a big chunk of San Mateo County. He was the only survivor of the Holocaust to be elected to Congress, and worked for years on human rights issues. That said, he ticked off quite a few people locally by supporting the Iraq war, although he had recently been pretty critical of the......

Photos from this year's Maverick's surf contest....

Denied. Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu - who helped raised cash for Mayor Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Fiona Ma, Hillary Clinton, and the victorious Barack Obama - was sentenced to three years in prison today for defrauding investors of nearly $1 million over 15 years ago. He was ordered to spend a sojourn behind bars after a Ponzi scheme involving latex gloves. This case is separate from a "separate federal complaint ... by the U.S.......

News from the non-Nancy Pelosi side of the San Francisco House of Representatives delegation -- Tom Lantos, the fourteen-term representative for the Sunset, along with northern San Mateo County, has announced that he will not be seeking reelection, because he's been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Jackie "Jonestown survivor" Speier is considered the early favorite to fill Lantos's seat, and reliable object of fun Leland Yee is reported to be considering a run as well. Lantos,......

Other than hawking some of the cheapest yet most breakable electronics around, we simply refuse to believe that Walgreen's can do wrong. Just walking thought their aisles of colorful and affordable products makes us giddy. Well, at least we thought that they were affordable. According to CBS 5, San Mateo County prosecutors claim that our beloved Walgreens has "agreed to pay $767,000 to four California counties to settle a claim of overcharging customers at......

The Mavericks surf contest waiting period will start soon...

Oil Spill Volunteer Training 2nite. ...

Photo from last year's Halloween in the Castro...

Fundraiser, five-head sufferer, and possible one-time kidnapping victim Norman Hsu skipped his San Mateo County Superior Court appearance this morning and is now the lam! He is wanted for a 15-year-old felony warrant for grand theft. Some fear that since he was supposed to return his passport this morning, but failed to do so, he might be en route to Antarctica, or somewhere, by now. Run, Norman, run! Hsu has donated to such Democrat......

There aren't a lot of reviews out there for Lol Tun Restaurant, on Folsom betw. 19th & 20th streets. The folks participating on Yelp generally say the food is good and cheap, but the restaurant is loud and slow. The police, on the other hand, aren't so concerned with the restaurant's food, but the 3.8 pounds of heroin, 5 oz. of ice, and 1 ounce of cocaine hydrochloride they confiscated. ...

--Picture of a woman collecting bottles from people in the iPhone line by reader zombie. Thanks for sending them in, zombie! [ZombieTime.] --Four murders in San Francisco this weekend, 10 murders throughout the Bay Area. One guy was stabbed in the back at Columbus and Union (by Washington Square Park). [Chron.] --Spotted: Gavin Newsom and Jennifer Siebel on a dinner date at the Slanted Door last night. [from a reader!] --The Chron Sunday Styles......

This story about the Berkeley family killed in Tilden Park by the husband over business problems is so sad. Friends of the family describe the husband, Kevin Morrissey, as "brittle," "desperate," and as having a "very controlling side," though by all accounts deeply in love with his wife. The wife, Mamiko Kawai, is described as a wonderful doctor and the two girls as adorable. The CIA will neither confirm nor deny the husband's claims that......

What's Ed Jew doing today, now that he's been excused from jury duty? This has got to be the first time anyone's been trying to get San Francisco jury duty, ever. --The Chron's got the news on the City Attorney's quo warranto petition. Among the tidbits revealed: Ed Jew's wife has been taking a deduction on the Burlingame house as her primary residency for San Mateo County tax purposes -- and, hey, remember how......

Photo of Sutro Tower in the fog...

A realtor called Chris Iverson was commenting on the "death of the newspaper industry" over at the 3 Oceans real estate blog. You may think "who the hell is this guy" to comment on the state of ink media. We'll tell you: He's one of the guys that pays (or perhaps used to pay, based on the entry) for ads in the classified sections of newspapers...

Well, some pretty good news for teachers in Ravenswood City School District: their union has managed to get them a little more scratch. ...

Okay, we're still freaking out about the Macarthur Maze collapsing, but here's the other news we were trying to compile when we found out about it this morning. --Civic Center SFMike went to check out Impeach Beach and caught this picture of an adorable doggie! Thanks for letting us use it, Mike! --Bevan Dufty said something mean about Gavin Newsom. He's since called to apologize. --Biotech's moving to San Francisco. --Liveblogging the baby eagle......

You know how they say, "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas?" And you know how it's mainly true? Well, it is, for the most part, except, of course, when you're involved in a police sweep. At a brothel. And you're a cop. ...

A recent wave of immigration sweeps (or, as Indy Bay calls it "Gestapo Immigration Raiders") is creating a bit of a fuss not only in San Francisco but throughout the Peninsula and East Bay. There's talk of protests, organizing, sending out nasty press releases, and even the creation of new laws. In Redwood City, there's talk of creating an "Immigration Sanctuary" in San Mateo County and in San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors will debate a resolution tomorrow condemning the sweeps. That'll show them. Hell, even Gavin's jumped into the fray with his very own press release tut-tutting the raids. All of this has brought the Minutemen into the action as they held a rally in Castro Valley to call for closing the border. It wasn't until a few days ago when we realized the Minutemen were named after our Revolutionary soldiers and not their sexual dysfunctions, although one could probably explain the other. ...

A Stanford graduate student missing for five days was found dead in the trunk of her car in Santa Rosa, in what authorities are saying looks like a suicide. She was an PhD candidate in electrical engineering with two degrees from MIT and held several patents in the field of digital imaging. Her grieving parents only learned of her death when reporters contacted them. Okay, after that, we're going to keep the rest of the......

Last week's winner, the Bay Guardian. And ... whoa! Pictures of Margaret Cho's burlesque performance online (probably NSFW, but not really hardcore or anything). Make Gavin Newsom tell us what he does all day. Aaron Peskin on some kind of shenanigans with a City College building in North Beach. And -- this is weird -- so the Guardian is sort of mad at (or at least puzzled by) Chris Daly on Sophie Maxwell's housing plan,......

There's a developing story hitting the peninsula today and that is an outbreak of a virus that's starting to infect a bunch of people. The virus is called Norovirus (virus for virus and Noro for we have no fricking clue) and is a gastrointestinal virus and for those who have had one of those things, they plain old suck. And this one sounds particularly nasty, one of those things where for a few days, everything comes out of everywhere and we don't think we need to go any further in the description. So far, the virus has infected a bunch of people at a Belmont senior living center and is thought to have also shown up at three medical facilities in San Mateo County. Upwards of forty-five people are said to have it. ...

Photos of Southern sea otters found in the Monterey area. ...

Tonight, our friends at Hyphen Magazine are having a party at 111 Minna (111 Minna at 2nd), celebrating their newest issue (#10--The Music Issue) with some of their favorite local Asian American musicians: native guns, marque, mud and lovelikefire, and DJs, kero one, politik and modest mark. (9p - 2a) Saturday, it's that time again - time for Miss Trannyshack Pageant 2006 at the Regency Center (1300 Van Ness at Sutter) with performances by......

Around the Bay Area, especially with mountain bikers, the name Skeggs is spoken in the hushed, reverent tones usually reserved for a place of worship, which is fitting, because Skeggs is a church of nature that provides sanctuary and solace from the ever-encroaching anxiety of the modern world.

We've always wondered what would happen if there was a power outage somewhere in Silicon Valley. Would the stock market crash? Would we not be able to surf porn? Would we no longer be able to download "Buffy" reruns over iTunes? Well, we're about to find out as there's a blackout in one of the hearts of Silicon Valley, that being San Mateo County. ...

-HP Chairman (Chairwoman?) Patricia Dunn will step down in January for all the craziness HP has been involved in lately. We're sure that with all the scandal swirling about that she's sort of responsible for, HP will give her a package commiserate with the mess, like say only several millions of dollars. ...