According to Marin County officials, about "1,500 gallons of raw sewage" was dumped into the San Francisco Bay today near Point San Quentin. Grody. According to the Gate: Deartment of Corrections officials have taken action to contain the spill, and are also conducting water testing in the area, authorities said. The public should not go in the water near San Quentin until the area is deemed safe, authorities said. Warning signs will be posted......

And in real estate news, the Modesto bungalow-style home in which Laci Peterson was murdered by her (oddly handsome) husband Scott Peterson was sold again. Although the home sold in 2005 for $390,000 (right after Scott arrived at death row at San Quentin Prison), this time it only went for a meager $280,000 to an anonymous buyer. See where trying to profit off of murder gets you? A $110,000 deduction. Well, it had to......

We used to think we couldn't stand Sean Penn, but he never really did anything to deserve our ire. He's talented; seems to have similar political to ours; married to her, wonderful her; surfs; from Southern California; lives in the Bay Area; and above all else, is attractive. Then we figured it out: we didn't hate Sean Penn, we feared him. He seems like the kind of guy who could and would kick our......

Tonight at City Hall, three men are being honored for 1) attacking an attacker, 2) chasing said attacker, and 3) coming to the aid of the attacked. Remember in May when a teenage girl was randomly attacked with a knife in a bakery by some loser who got out of San Quentin the day before? Well, that happened in our part of the city, where not much usually happens. Have you ever heard of Miraloma......

-- Sweetie and Love is Chemicals (image to the left): Hear rock and melodic ditties in the Mission with these two “sugary, pop” outfits. Show starts at 10 p.m. at the Knockout, 3223 Mission; $10 -- Bad Boys of Summer: It's like Oz meets Field of Dreams, or something like that. Catch this documentary about San Quentin convicts playing baseball. Film starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Screening......

Famous for creating the Mitchell Brother(s) O’Farrell Theatre and then committing fratricide with a 22-caliber rifle, Jim Mitchell helped give San Francisco the sick reputation it still (sort of) maintains. Today he died at 63 in Sonoma County. Starting out by selling nudie pics with his brother Artie, the two built a porn empire (they're always "empires") with the help of such luminaries as local horny SF politicians, Marilyn Chambers, and lots and lots......

We are deeply, deeply regretful that the cityblog format had not been launched back in 2001 and 2002, when we were totally obsessed with the Diane Whipple dog mauling case. For those of you not here at the time, that was the case where a rugby lacrosse coach was killed by two fighting dogs kept as pets in a Pacific Heights apartment by two really loopy local lawyers, Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller -- and......

Send your Bay Area finds to found at sfist.com! We call on you to submit discarded photos, objects, letters, and other items that you plucked from streets, thrift stores, flea markets, et cetera! Tell us where/when you found the item and any other helpful info. The find must be from the Bay Area, and its previous ownership shrouded in mystery. Special thanks to Captian Disco for sending us this link to an auction on eBay of a photo album containing photos from San Quentin circa 1932, including mug shots, suicide photos, and a track and field event. The auction ends tomorrow. Today's two featured lists were each separately found on the sidewalk near Hayes Valley about three or four years ago. The grocery list was at Hayes and Buchanan, and we honestly couldn't tell you the exact location of the "Reason for Blockages" find....

--The Golden Gate Bridge opened 70 years ago today! The Golden Gate Bridge RULES. --Hilarious cartoons of vacations gone awry by Don Asmussen. (Even more in the print edition!) --M&R admit that they got Chris Daly's outfit wrong in their item about him busting in on Newsom's meeting last week. Chris magnanimously gives them a quote in response that he's growing a beard in tribute to Baron Davis. (M&R also have some more gossip......

A man stabbed a 15-year-old girl and the man who tried to stop the attack on her, in a Twin Peaks bakery on Saturday (link fixed per comments). The man, Scott Thomas, had just been released from San Quentin the day before, where he'd been in solitary confinement for attacking a guard. Thomas had been sent to San Quentin for violating the terms of his parole (which he's done 8 times since 2001 -- it......

As entertaining as the Gavin years have been, SFist always kind of wished they were around for the Dog Mauling case, you know the one where a couple of Presa Canario dogs killed Diane Whipple in the hallway of the apartment complex they all lived in. Now that was a trial-- there was the creepy couple who owned the dogs (Marjorie Knoller and her husband Robert Noel), their prison pen pal and Nazi skinhead Paul "Cornfed" Schneider who they also adopted, the lawyer who got on all fours and pretended she was a dog, and rumors of all sorts of nasty pornographic pictures involving Knoller and the dogs. Oh, and how could we forget the fact that one of the lawyers on the case was a then unknown Kimberly Guilfoyle. Now that, my friends, was good times. ...

-Man who shot Officer Bryan Tuvera is said to have allegedly (allegedly) killed himself and was not killed by Tuvera's partner....

-The San Francisco Unified School District is still trying to figure out what to do -Here's a really sad story about a funeral director who's presided over forty funerals this year -In the BALCO case, the Chron argued in papers filed with a Federal Appeals Court that protecting confidential sources is essential for the public interest. -Somebody on Death Row in San Quentin commited suicide -Fog City Journal says watch out for this dude. -Pelosi......

Meat may indeed be murder (or perhaps suicide), as the erstwhile Sausage King of San Leandro, who was convicted of murdering three meat inspectors last year, was found dead in his San Quentin jail cell early this morning. An autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death. And the annual race to the final murder count begins, as SF hits murder number 96 in the early am hours of Boxing Day, with a shooting outside the Velvet Lounge on Broadway. Oakland is fast on our heels with murder 93, with two shootings over the weekend in East Oakland. ...and hey, number one on the threatdown -- bears! Vinters in Napa have started asking for permits to shoot the bears that munch away on this year's cabernet grape harvests. The Aetna Springs Vineyard shot four bears after the owner began to fear for the safety of his workers (and after his fences and vines were damaged) -- but the woman who owns the golf course down the street from Aetna Springs calls it "wine for blood, life versus profit," saying that it's wrong to move into a wildlife area and then kill off the wildlife. Other neighbors think the bears are "neat." ...

As many legal observers expected, Gov. Schwarzenegger denied Stanley "Tookie" Williams's request for clemency, ">stating that (.pdf) there was strong evidence supporting the jury's guilty verdict, and that he doesn't really believe that Tookie has really reformed (various Nobel Prize nominations notwithstanding) because Tookie has never apologized for the killings for which he was imprisoned, and has never explicitly apologized for the murders committed in the name of the Crips. (Also, Tookie still supports George Jackson, who the governor says shows that Tookie continues to advocate for "violence and lawlessness."). Williams's attorney will file a renewed petition for clemency this afternoon, and can still appeal to the US Supreme Court. Meanwhile, his supporters are planning a 8 p.m. rally outside San Quentin. There's also a "walk for abolition," which started at 7 a.m. today at the Palace of the Legion of Honor and will end at San Quentin at 6. They should be around St. Paul's Church in San Rafael right about now if you want to meet up with 'em. We can't find any info on any pro-death penalty rallies but presumably, they'll be happening around the same time and at the same place as the anti- ones. ...

SFist Jon forwards along the following news item: The art and antiques store Phantom*SF at 18th and Castro's in a tough spot about the coffee-table sculpture the owner's displayed in the window, of a well-muscled, well-hung man. The store owner has been told to cover the statue completely or face pornography charges -- which is a problem because the owner has hung the price tag on the tip of the.... well, you know. Apparently some neighborhood families don't want their kids seeing that sort of thing (though it's unclear what the store owner will do about the David statue he has in the same window as well). The owner, Bevan Dufty, the cops, and the DAs are all unsure about what to do next. Dufty suggests "dialogue" (always the last refuge of the wicked!). A big rig filled with fish overturned around 3 a.m., closing down southbound 880. Since 880's always such an easy and uncongested commute, we're sure this has had no impact on the morning commute. From Death Row records to an actual death row -- Snoop Dogg's going to be protesting for the clemency of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. Williams, who founded the Crips gang, was convicted of killing four people in 1979, and is scheduled to be executed at San Quentin on Dec. 13. No governor has granted clemency for the death penalty since it was reinstated in California in 1978. ...

We can't even begin to tell you how tired we are, but it's a great tired, like we're running a marathon, if they had marathons where you're sitting down watching blood go everywhere and drinking beer. (If they actually had marathons like this we might find a reason to exercise, but until then, hello sloth!) After another carb-o-rific breakfast, the 22 took us back over to the Roxie for (yet) another day of (Yet)......

A real estate mogul in San Jose was murdered by a psychotic ex-girlfriend in Saratoga, who then unsuccessfully attempted to kill herself. The girlfriend had previously been charged with attempting to kill another ex-boyfriend, but when he left the country, the DA dropped charges. She had also previously attacked the mogul, but he had declined to pursue criminal action at that time. The latest reports have the ex-girlfriend snapping when she found the mogul......

In the "No s**t, motherf**ker" department, John over at the Legal Reader recently posted an excerpt to an AP story which points out that under California's weapons registration law, the chances you'll get a felony rap is in linear proportion to the amount of milk you need to add to coffee to resemble your skin tone. Black coffee? Felony. Cafe-au-lait? Felony. Just milk? Misdemeanor. The study of the law was initiated by state Attorney General......

Clemency has been denied in the pending excution of death-row inmate Donald Beardslee, and the first execution in California since January of 2002 should go on as scheduled tonight at 12:01am. The Governor's official statement [PDF] (which did not include the above quote from Commando, although we have a feeling someone will make a tasteless "Hasta La Vista, Baby" joke before the night is over) reads in part: The Board of Prison Terms unanimously recommended......

Nothing the like Jesus' birthday around the corner to get juries in the hangin' mood, apparently. We understand that getting home to your family for the holidays after a long sequestration would be a priority, but they could decide just as quickly to let them rot in a cell, tortured by their guilt (and fellow inmates). We sure think that any extended stay in San Quentin or Pelican Bay would probably be worse than......