While his Holiness is more or less meh when it comes to non-consensual sex between a man and a boy, same-sex marriage just ain't cool in his book. So stop, says Pope Benedict. While not directly referencing yesterday's California Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, the Pope spoke to family values groups in Europe (white trash chic!) yesterday, saying: The union of love, based on matrimony between a man and a woman, which makes......

Heads have been exploding throughout California ever since this morning's delightful news about same-sex marriage was announced. City Attorney Dennis Herrera, in particular, is beaming--at least according to a press released sent out an hour after the ruling was announced. "I am profoundly grateful, not only for a decision that will end marriage discrimination for gay and lesbian partners in California, but for the Court's eloquence in stating its conclusion," said Herrera. "Our democratic......

According to ABC 7--who just mercifully brought The View to a screeching halt to inform viewers--the California State Supreme Court struck down the gay marriage ban. So: same-sex marriage is now legal, at least according to the California Supreme Court. ...

Yesterday, the state supreme court flicked away San Francisco's feeble attempt to bad handguns. Or, in the words of CBS 5, the court "unanimously rejected the city's appeal of a lower-court ruling that sharply limited the ability of localities to regulate firearms." This is the final nail in the Prop H coffin, an initiate that voters passed in 2005. Proposition H barred the possession, manufacture, and sale of firearms by anyone in San Francisco,......

Ha ha. Our mayor is better than yours. Why? Because Gavin Newsom wrote a thoughtful post for the Daily Kos regarding today's state Supreme Court gay marriage percolation. Cool, right? Sure, we're confused, jealous, and sad that he didn't turn to SFist first. But while we go hit the bottle to squelch this ego blow, we urge you to read his words of inspiration and shocking clarity: Separate Is Not Equal by Gavin Newsom......

And speaking of l'herb. Somehow, we thought San Francisco would be the first one to sport these dispensers, but LA has beat us to the punch: two marijuana vending machines will be available for use starting Monday at different locations. Yes, Mary Jane is now available via vending machine, but just how many hoops will you have to jump through to get at her? First, you must have a medical marijuana prescription. Next, you will......

Bad news cancer fighters, arthritic sufferers, and those of you who worked so hard at getting your medical marijuana ID card under false pretenses: employees who partake in the kind medical bud at home can be fired for testing positive for the drug at work. Which? Wow. In a 5 to 2 decision today, the court claims that Proposition 215, "the 1996 state initiative that allowed Californians to use marijuana for medical purposes with......

In Los Angeles, LAist most definitely celebrated Thanksgiving like no other. After all, one has to keep up all the energy to keep on walking the line at the Writers Strike and fighting the unfortunate return of the wildfires in Malibu, which single handedly destroyed over fifty homes within the first 24 hours. National outlets may be covering the fires, but CNN also found it is easier to buy a gun than fruit and......

Like a pesky gnat, the U.S. Supreme Court swatted away an appeal by former San Francisco Police Department Chief Earl Sanders yesterday. He claimed to have been nailed to the wall unfairly over his part in a little known thing called fajitagate....

In a case closely watched by Silicon Valley corporate types, a federal jury in San Francisco returned a guilty verdict against Brocade Communications CEO Gregory Reyes for knowingly backdating stock options, so they would count as having been issued at a time when the stock price was lower. While backdating is not in and of itself against the law, the SEC says that backdating and not telling your investors about it constitutes criminal fraud. Reyes......

Because kangaroos are so adorably bouncy and keep their little blessings inside of their pouches, the California Supreme Court just overturned the Senate’s May decision to end the ban "on importing and selling kangaroo parts." Namely, the David Beckham-inspired Adidas soccer cleats might not be for sale in California. (That and other Kangaroo-skin featured items.) Although the Senate recently allowed "kangaroo-derived products made by the sporting goods" industry to sell their stuff willy-nilly, the......

Photo of Dan Carbone and friend, by Mike Kuchar Why? Because the stuffed-animal slinging, falsetto-singing, universe-weaving, Dada-referencing, Bay Area playwright and theater artist (and good friend and muse of seminal filmmaker George Kuchar) is all that -- and he's just been nominated for a New York Innovative Theater Award (being announced at a party in NYC tonight) for his 2006 Off-Off Broadway production of Kingdom of Not. Savvy Fringe Festival regulars may recall that this......

--One person is dead after a Caltrain hit a car in Palo Alto this afternoon. [CBS 5, Merc News.] --The Lauryn Hill show sucked. [The Chron, All Shook Down, the Inside Bay Area Buzz blog.] --What's Berkeley going to do after this Supreme Court ruling? [The Trib.] --Blogging from the iPhone line in Walnut Creek. [Contra Costa Times.] --A fight over a local grad student's blog post about racial and class divisions on MySpace and......

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......

Here's todays wrap up of the news...

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. ...

So it had to happen and it did-- somebody sued the federal government about all those extra security measures going down in the airports. The dude who did it, John Gilmore, did so under the guise that the policy violated his right to be free of unreasonable searches. He lost most of the cases and the Supreme Court, perhaps due to Judge Rehnquist undergoing some sort of bad acid flashback, rejected the case. ...

he Calfornia Supreme Court yesterday decided to weigh in on Gay Marriage by agreeing to decide whether or not a ban on gay marriage is constitutional or not. At issue is whether or not the ban is discriminatory. How did we get here? Let's go take the Way Back Machine and see. ...

Oh, who cares about news when the title of the NEXT HARRY POTTER BOOK HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED. OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! WE'RE SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All right, enough of that. ...

-Gun related deaths: Not just for Oakland, Richmond, and San Francisco anymore. -Mark Leno to reintroduce Gay Marriage Bill before the state legislature. -Cute kids made a cute mural in a not-so cute neighborhood. -San Francisco couple arrested for bogarting some French Oil Paintings. -If you want to get ahead in the State Assembly, raise gobloads of cash. -The integration case before the Supreme Court could affect the SFUSD. -San Francisco DA to throw the......

>-Berkeley loves them some traffic circles. ...

--Homicides are down about 10% (.pdf, page 4) (76 for the year as opposed to 86 at this time last year). Good! What's the SFPD solve rate on those homicides? [sorry for the .pdf links to the Examiner -- for some reason, none of today's articles are online yet.] --The chomping sea lion's disappeared. They think he might have died, or moved on. --They debate the public schools and an unflattering drawing of Chris Daly......

She's going out like Jay-Z, Michael Jordan, and Stephen King -- after her erstwhile "retirement," former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's coming back in the game. The former Justice is (.pdf) sitting by special designation on the Ninth Circuit appellate federal court in San Francisco this week. She was on the bench today and will be there again on Friday. O'Connor's doing a tour of the country -- she also recently sat on the......

-SF Board of Supervisors Committee approves plan for more foot patrols in troubled areas. -Daly and Newsom go at it again over anti-violence measures. ...

Okay, we've really only got two things to say in this post, but we're so mad at ourselves for not referencing There's Something About Mary in discussing the Great Gavin Gel Gambol, so, um.... Gavin's still using gel! Next up: Bush Ter Down! As promised, those wacky World Can't Wait kids tied up traffic on Market Street protesting the war. As our waggish commenters noted, it did indeed rain -- but no word on whether......

Congratulations to Supervisor Bevan Dufty and his opposite-sex gay partner Rebecca Goldfader, on the birth of their daughter Sidney Maely Goldfader-Dufty on Monday! (You may remember that Dufty and Goldfader are both gay and continue to see same-sex partners, but have decided to co-parent Sydney together.) Just two days before Kimberly Guilfoyle! Sidney's 6 pounds 9 ounces, the family is doing well, and Bay Guardian political editor Steven T. Jones had no involvement in the......

A Federal Appeals Court today ruled that Josh Wolf had to turn over what is quickly becoming the hottest video since the Paris Hilton sex-tape or else go back to prison. The three-person court ruled unanimously that Wolf had to turn over the tape because there were no grounds for resisting the subpoena. The reason? "He simply videotaped what people did in a public place," the judges wrote. ....

If life were a Monopoly game, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada just rounded the Free Parking corner -- the next roll might put them in jail. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Earlier this week, Judge Jeffrey White of the local federal district court ordered the Chronicle's sports reporters who broke the BALCO story to testify before a grand jury which is investigating how the BALCO grand jury's testimony got leaked to the......

We were out of the area for most of this week, so we're only just now getting our hands smudgy with the alternative press! (Virtually smudgy; we're also reading everything online, because we can't be bothered to go outside and hunt for weekly distribution boxes that still have weeklies in them halfway through the distribution cycle.) Sorry for the delay! Last week's winner, the East Bay Express: Bottom Feeder was attacked by a Canadian goose......

Hey, have y'all been using our new "Recommend this" feature at the bottom of each post? This week we're bringing you the "Most Recommended" posts from across the -ist world, as well as recommending some of our own. Phillyist thinks that readers recommended this post the most because "most of our quieter readers (probably) agree with us that rude commenting sucks." Know what else sucks? Philly's not getting the Olympics, but they are getting thinner.......