Yes, San Francisco can now proudly claim to be the first city in the U.S. to ban plastic bags. Or at least in grocery markets and pharmacy chains as the legislation allows small corner markets to use the old school bags. According to the legislation sponsored by Supervisor McDreamy, grocery stores and pharmacy chaings now have to switch up and use either compostable bags made of cornstarch or bags made of recyclable paper. ...

-The rain and all the usual stuff causing havoc on the roads. -Teachers to get Lunar New Year off. Oh, and students will too. -Vallejo cops shoot a driver for extremely reckless driving. -Thanks to activists in the Bay Area, people will be able to whack off to a more eco-friendly Victoria Secret's catalogue. -The Ex thinks the Transit Effectiveness Project should do a book report on how Portland does public transportation. -Berkeley U.N. Center......

We bloggers are old-fashioned, but we remember a time when the front page of a newspaper was reserved for, you know, news. But not so Thursday morning, when The Examiner decided to do away with their usual collage of headlines and photos in favor of a full-page advertisement. Well, not totally full-page; at the very top, the masthead was still in place. So, it didn't just look like "hey, here's some random ad," it......

SFPD not surprised that a member was off doing kiddy sex junkets in Asia as they sort of knew it for years. -Caltrain board approves plan for Wi-FI on Caltrains. Thousands of commuters jump for joy. ...

Well, the 2005 body count in SF is now up to 92 after a man was found strangled to death in a SoMA hotel, making this the worst year in SF for murders in ten years. In response, Chief of Police Heather Fong held a press conference the other day to address people's concerns. Chief Fong seemed somewhat defensive, at one point blaming the uptick in murders over the last three months on the nice weather we've been having. "If it’s always nice out, people start drinking, there are arguments and violence ensues," she said. See, it's the Bush Administration's fault for not adopting the Kyoto Protocol! Fong did note that black-on-black gang violence is down 35% this year, but murders in the Western Addition and the Mission are up sharply from last year (The Western Addition had 20 this year and 6 last, and the Mission had 13 as opposed to 4). Aren't at least some of the murders in those areas considered gang-related too? And you know, what about those Nortenos and Surenos -- what going on with the Latino gangs? And intriguingly, our city controller's calculated that for each murder, the city loses about $38,000 (in police and medical expenses). No wonder no one can afford a house these days. The Ex also has a totally and completely fascinating connect-the-dots map of all the murders this year in SF. (.pdf only, but worth the download wait.) Our only quibble -- we thought the first murder of the year took place at Fisherman's Wharf: where's that one? ...