Aargh. Even pirates -- noted rapists and murderers! -- are none too keen on the Scientology movement. And while most you were at the farmer's market this weekend checking out the latest heirlooms tomatoes sans salmonella, Anonymous held their weekly protest over at Xenu's Montgomery Street branch. Seriously, folks, this is the best CoS protest yet. And the images are choice, featuring pedobear, simulated rape scenes, outraged pirates, revealing protest signs rising above cheeky slogans......

Anonymous' protests just get more and more exciting. So much so that SFist will start every Monday morning with a weekend protest review. Mind-numbingly brilliant title TK. Anyway, according to the lads trying to bring down the Church of Scientology with funny masks and regular weekend demonstrations typically held near the church's Montgomery Street branch, one very loud female was assaulted by a CoS member. Or so we're told. A tipster says: During a......

While most of you were in bed watching America's Test Kitchen or having a light brunch at Dottie's on Saturday, the tenacious Anonomyous clan were out in full force doing what they do best: protesting Scientology, amusingly. And it looked like fun: Twister was played, gorgeous protest posters were display, pedobear and Rick Astley's voracious meme made an appearance, stenciling streaked the sidewalks, and so much more. Check out what you missed. (Also, check out......

We're a bit late to the game with these images, but they're well-worth the tardiness. Believe us. Check out shots of Saturday's Church of Scientology protest/L Ron Hubbard celebration. In these images you will find protesters, Bay Area Scientologists, and an oldie-but-goodie NSFW shot thrown in for good measure. If any CoS Hubbard birthday attendees would like to chime in with regard to what went down or to write about the festivities for SFist, let......

Oh my. Here we have a shot of a protester taken at Saturday's CoS protest at the Washington/Columbus/Montgomery intersection. Since we found it at encyclopediadramatica, we have to ask: real or fake? For all of you randy readers, the NSFW version, complete with visible areolas and such, can be found after the jump. Enjoy.......

Since the Scientologists moved the day of celebrating their church's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, from last Saturday to this Saturday, due to last week's protest, there will be yet another rally against the CoS this Saturday. Ta da. Enturbulation.org has word that this protest will be "at the Hilton [at] 750 Kearny on the corners of Washington and Columbus" at 5 p.m. They'll be meeting on the Washington side iof the hotel near the......

Yesterday, it seems, was L. Ron Hubbard's birthday. Hubbard, as most of you know, is the author of the wildly successful Dianetics and founder of the Church of Scientology, a religion in which you achieve higher faith by giving them progressively higher dollar amounts. He would have turned 97 today. Born in Tilden, Nebraska, Hubbard served in World War I, attended George Washington University, was a member of the Explorers Club, and at some......

Photo credit: sniderscion Torontoist spent its week uncovering who was behind mysterious ads for a drug called "Obay" that popped up across the country (Scientology? Frank Shepard Fairey?), first tracing them to an advocacy group called Colleges Ontario and then confirming their suspicions a few days later.Phillyist learned how to put on a puppet show – it's not as easy as you might think!Shanghaiist discovers that the average starting monthly pay for fresh graduates......

Photo by Phillyist's Matt Johnson, SkyscraperSunset.com, December 19, 2007. Phillyist explored an impending implosion and lived to tell the tale.Gothamist marveled at the city's new NYC-branded condom campaign - especially the use of a Toronto landmark in the advertising. (Also, fun fact: Gothamist turned five years old yesterday.)Tired of the worldwide Scientology protests? Torontoist totally isn't: they covered the big downtown protest the day it happened, and followed up with an examination of all......

And honk they did. Yesterday a worldwide Scientology protest took place by "Anonymous" (AKA Project Chanology, an Internet-based protest against the Church of Scientology), and we caught a few images of the action on our rickety, old cellular communication device. Had we had a better camera, we could've gotten images of the police surrounding the Scientology building entrance; the tour guide telling his gaggle of tourists that John Travolta was, in fact, inside the......

Well, this should be exciting, hateful. This Sunday at 11 a.m. at 701 Montgomery Street in San Francisco, there will be a protest over that religious sect those zany Hollywood types know and love so well. You know, the one where you can't take Prozac, or call you Jewish children, or....whatever. (For a map of the SF branch, go here.) It sounds like it will be a Sunday afternoon well-spent. Instruction are as follows:......

Phillyist prepared to party by doing the hustle, lighting the lights, shopping up a storm, and... visiting Khrushchev? LAist continues to cover the Hollywood Writers Strike with visiting guest "strikers" such as KT Tunstall and Presidential candidate John Edwards. To celebrate Veteran's Day, they visited a Civil War reenactment and to celebrate Geography Week, they asked all the Los Angeles City Councilmembers about the districts they represent finding that LA's 180+ official neighborhoods are......

Oh lord, what's to be done with these people? It's every week with the loud speakers in Dolores Park, blasting devotional music and testimony and dogma and so forth. You can hear them from blocks away. They're not there to persuade anyone; like Critical Mass or Dore Alley, these aggressive displays of difference just reinforce the gulf of "we're totally unlike you," rather than adopting the shrewd Scientology approach of "hey, look, this is......

Those of you who've been vociferously participating in our ongoing debates about Falun Gong, Mormonism, and Scientology will be pleased to hear that we spent tonight steeped in Mozart's Catholic Mass in C minor at Symphony Hall. Begin the transsubstantiation debates in the comments.... now! We had promised our companion a tour of the swanky digs in the press room at Symphony Hall before the concert, as well as some of their excellent cookies......

Remember back to the giddy days of Napster? Remember how everything could be found online and for free and everyone did nothing at work other than download their favorite songs? Remember how there was a feeling that as great as it was, it was not meant to be as it was just too gosh darn great and how when it all came to a crashing end (thanks, Lars), we all somehow knew it was inevitable? Why are we bringing this up? Because YouTube is now running into problems. Sometime over the weekend, YouTube's new overlords, Google, took down clips from Viacom related shows. Big whoops, right? Wrong. The first things that were taken down were clips from Viacom owned Comedy Central. Which means we'll no longer be able to post clips from the "Daily Show" or "The Colbert Report" or "South Park". That sucks. There are still videos on there but not nearly as plentiful as there was before. And since they're all supposedly going down within days, no time like the present to show off the "South Park" episode that makes fun of us San Franciscans (see above). ...

The spitball fight between the business community and the Board of Supes escalated recently as the Committee on Jobs and the Chamber of Commerce took things up a notch and sued the Board of Supervisors. Oh, why can't those crazy kids get along? Should we bring in Dr. Phil? The nature of the lawsuit is over the implementation of Prop I in 2004, or more like the lack of implementation of Prop I. Prop I, for those who can't remember and really who would, called for the creation of an economic impact report on any sort of law to be assessed before being voted on by the Board. ...

Last week's winner, the East Bay Express: A letter-writer urges the food critic to open his heart to the magic and love that is Cafe Gratitude. Typos in Ellen Corbett's mailers. Open relationships, without using the word "polyamory" ("I hate that word. It's so '70s.") Cover: going wireless in West Oakland (and other East Bay cities). Steak in Danville. New music guy on Neil Young, and Sick Of It All about the lead singer's......

Londonist prepares a Happy Birthday bath for Buddah this week and then things get all cliched. A madman goes on a rampage while axe-wiedling and London's mayor warns an American diplomat to avoid the kitchen if the heat bothers him so much. LAist has finally come around to purchasing tickets for Clipper Train. Hyper local dating sites are spamming L.A. neighborhoods and the fascinating Dame Darcy talks with LAist about art, the city and earthquakes.......

We've gotten two emails, so we're starting a new column: "I Saw Gavin Newsom." Reader ALCSupporter writes in:

Guess who I saw last night at the Asian Law Caucus dinner? Gavin Newsom. He showed up, made fun of the items in the silent auction, didn't bid on anything, and then made a prompt beeline to the only non-Asian female in the room and started touching her.

It was Saturday night at Tosca - got there around 11 pm and the Gav was there in a very fancy tux, surrounded by a lot of other tux wearers and a ravishing, though all-too-plastic for my taste and kind of spaced-out-looking, Sofia Milos. At one point it looked like that Gav was heading back to go to the bathroom so I got up myself to go cruise him...but alas he just stood in the hallway and whispered into the ear of one of his companions. Was it secrets of Scientology? I know not. Nor do I know where they'd come from, but everyone seemed happy and deliciously enthused by their own company. The Gav schmoozed with Matt Dillon, who was fresh from being stalked by SFist MiHi. The Gav and Matty Dillon were exactly the same height!

Well, all right, we didn't get in the New York Times by name. But their slurpy Sunday Styles article about our glamorous gad-about-town mayor and his Scientologist/actress girlfriend did mention that "[b]logs in . . . San Francisco have fueled online chatter about the couple." (emphasis added). We're going to assume that's us! We'll take it! Rest of the article's all blah blah blah, is he in the pocket of Scientology, what about the North Beach building issue, Sofia Milos describing Gavin as "perfect" (what says perfect like a sagging murder solve rate?) , and one gem: an item noting that at a party last weekend, Gavin "took over the bongos for 45 minutes." Nothing says "so totally not annoying after 2-3 minutes" like bongo drums! Check out Catherine Bigelow's pictures of the party in Swells -- or just enjoy the mayor's previous bongo excursion, above. Gavin on the drums by 1115...

Let's check in with San Francisco couple of the moment, CSI: Plumpjack -- how's the love blossoming between Mayor Gavin Newsom and actress/Scientology activist Sofia Milos? Leah Garchik reports that CSI: Plumpjack made an appearance at Willie Brown's 72nd birthday party, hosted up in wine country by big Democrat donor Darius Anderson, and then on Sunday afternoon, they caught a showing of that spelling bee musical. Are we the only ones who find that an interesting choice, in light of all of Newsom's press releases about being dyslexic? And we're not sure if this is CSI: Plumpjack related or not, but SFist Jon pointed out to us that Newsom's doing a press conference tonight at 6:30 p.m. with John Travolta, where Newsom and the star of Battlefield Earth are scheduled to "exchange gifts." It's ostensibly to promote the arrival of Qantas Air to SFO, but -- who wants to bet that Travolta's "gift" is a copy of Dianetics? (Travolta says he's glad Qantas is flying to San Francisco as I formed a great attachment to the city over the years." We're sure he has!) Oh, it's so TomKat! Soon Gavin will be striving to give birth silently too! Picture of Sofia Milos and John Travolta at Scientology event...

Wow, Gavin Newsom must really like big hats. (Yes, commenter Matt, we know you like big hats too.) Leah Garchik reported in yesterday's The In Crowd that when CSI: Plumpjack made their triumphant reappearance in San Francisco, Gavin took actress/Scientology activist Sofia Milos out for an evening of fun in North Beach -- first, a performance of Beach Blanket Babylon and then an apres-show at the Tosca bar. Hm..... now who was the last local politico we heard about taking a controversial dark-haired television personality on a date to Beach Blanket Babylon and the Tosca? .....oh right! That would be Gavin Newsom! Dude, it is cold to take the new girlfriend to the exact same places you took the ex-wife. Don't those memories of getting your picture taken there with her by Harper's Bazaar there mean anything to you? This is totally like when Bill Clinton gave Monica Lewinsky the same book of poetry he gave Hillary. ...

Residents in North Beach are not very happy about the fact that one of the historic buildings in the N.B. might be bought by the Church of Scientology. The building is the Colombo Building on Columbus Ave. and Washington Street. In typical San Francisco fashion, the residents aren't upset because of the beliefs of the Thetan lovers, but because they tend not to mind their business and go out on street corners and try and recruit people. Hey, does this mean we can go after the people passing out the Daily Worker's on 16th & Valencia? Anyhoo, in response, Aaron Peskin is proposing legislation that will limit religious organizations from owning property in North Beach. At this point, the legislation looks like it has a chance to be passed especially as the Scientologist's don't really have an in with the Mayor. Oh, wait.Continue Reading "Who Reads Yesterday's Papers?"

Thanks, SFist Jackson, for the bang-up Photoshop job showing what the union of Mr. Newsom and Ms. Milos might look like! (Scientology Sea Org cap added by Jackson.) And keep those name-the-couple entries coming! We picked "CSI: Plumpjack" from the comments but that's not necessarily an indication of who's going to win! As we do our part to keep up the famed "blog chatter" on Gav-boy and Scientologist Sofia (including a shot in this week's US Weekly as a "hot new couple"), Newsom's released a frantic statement: "I'm Catholic! They didn't talk about Scientology at that dinner I went to, just psychiatry! I wasn't even listening because I was focusing on playing footsie under the table!" (okay, we made that last part up.) "I think everyone needs to take a deep breath and get back to focus on things that matter in this world, like homelessness, housing and poverty," our mayor said. Well, all right, Mr. Mayor, let's do that. According to the latest survey (as reported by anti-Newsomites Beyond Chron, even though the poll itself hasn't been officially released), Newsom's approval levels have dropped to about 50%, from his high of 80%. Beyond Chron speculates that it might be related to Newsom's inconsistent performance on crime and the SFPD. And folks on the sfwall.net are saying that apparently Newsom looked surprised on Channel 2 News this morning when they confronted him with the numbers later. Hm.... maybe talking about Ms. Milos instead (video) doesn't look quite so bad now in comparison! ...

Oooh, we hope Gavin starts jumping up and down on Bruce Pettit's City Desk Newshour couch next! Matier and Ross report that Gavin, a tireless warrior for nookie, eagerly accepted an invitation from his latest conquest, CSI Miami actress Sofia Milos, for a trip to LA. A stay at the Chateau Marmont -- where he could see Jessica Simpson, also canoodling while waiting for her divorce to become final; maybe some strolling down Melrose, and then a benefit dinner for the "Citizens' Commission for Human Rights." Sounds great, right? A little work, a lotta play! Whoot-whoot! Well. It turns out Sofia Milos is a very active Scientologist. And the innocuously-named Citizens Commission for Human Rights? A Scientology-funded organization that advocates against the use of psychiatric drugs. You remember, the group that went after post-partumly depressed Brooke Shields. Oh, we get it now! This'll be great for the mentally ill homeless population -- Care Not Lithium! (what is it with our town and the Scientology medical controversies, anyways?) Aides pointed this out to Newsom. (It's not like they hide it or anything -- their website says that Kurt Cobain died from psychiatric drug use. Funny, we always thought Kurt Cobain died from a gunshot wound to the head.) Newsom was like, whatevs, and went anyway. That guy is desperate for love! Unrelated, but amusing, picture of Globetrotter Gavin at last year's March Gladness tournament....

Tuesday, Tuesday. Does anyone else remember when Tuesday was the "Must See" TV night? What with the "Happy Days" and the "Laverne & Shirley"? Then Thursday became the new Tuesday. But with the loss of "Friends" and the failure of "Joey," the new Thursday is up for grabs. Might Tuesday become the new Tuesday? Don't worry. We're confused too. Let's just look at what tonight has to offer. First off is NBC's "My Name......

Oh man, is this rich. Eric over at Rangelife recounts the following tale of impassioned activism against the evil movie studios who are scared shitless that someone might make a crappy copy of their crappy movie at a preview screening, downsample it until it fits on a CD and looks and sounds even crappier, and then share it with others over the internet at a "War of the Worlds" screening: Granted, we were all......

SFist interviews Alexander Tonisson...