Results tagged “theexaminer”

60-year-old attorney William McGrane is fit to be tied. Why? Because of noted Ferry Building street percussionist John King's daily performances. It seems that his groovy beats, which stem from the many plastic buckets and pans and whatnot he uses as instruments, are flowing into the Ferry Building and disrupting the work flow of the hardworking lawyer, okay? (We always forget that people work on the other floors of the Ferry Building in offices. It's like realizing that people live above Forever 21 on Market Street. Freaks us out a tiny bit.) Now he's suing the city of San Francisco for $100,000, claiming the sounds hinder with his work.

Well, just to follow up on yesterday's day of violence, we can't find anything about the late-afternoon incident on Ellis Street that a couple of you guys saw, but there was another shooting around 11:50 p.m. in Visitacion Valley. That one was fatal. (The Examiner also has a list of other recent daytime shootings in SF, if you're interested.)

--Apple iPhone madness begins! That's a picture of the line in SF yesterday night by photo genius Steve Rhodes, who reported around 60 people in line by midnight. We're hoping to have more pictures of the madness starting at 6 p.m. today by tomorrow! [Steve's Flickr picture; Justin.tv video footage; Gizmodo; the Chron; the Merc News; the Trib; CBS 5.]

Yes, we know, we know, we made that exact same joke about the Recall Jake McGoldrick movement underway in District 1 -- we're going to keep making this joke until people stop trying to recall elected officials. We do not need more things on the ballot.

A lot of weird car accidents in the news yesterday: an impatient guy trying to pass around congestion on the road killed a pedestrian on 19th Avenue in San Francisco, a drunk off-duty cop killed a pedestrian on Solano Avenue in Berkeley, and a man was killed in Sausalito by a garbage truck backing up, a truck filled with hay tipped over and jammed up I-80 this morning.

Have you seen the new "services" picture in The Examiner's Classifieds section? The local "newspaper" recently updated the stock photos at the top of the page, and this new one is a bit, um, va va va with the manly toolbelts and the crotches and the hooked-thumb thrustiness. Is it getting warm in here? Just what kind of "services" are we talking about, Examiner?

It's kind of entertaining sometimes to have two daily newspapers around covering the same beat because you often get differing accounts of the same story. Like today. In a story about Nathaniel Ford's comments about the State of Muni after the recent debacle, the Chron paints a rosy picture of Ford's assessment. The Examiner-- not so much.

After weeks of playing coy, Danny Glover finally addressed the question about running for Mayor and said nyet to the whole idea. In a statement released to the press, Danny said "I have not considered, nor am I entertaining, the idea of running for mayor." That sounds pretty definitive, actually, not the usual kind of wishy-washy statement candidates make when they kind of sort of want to run but don't want to commit just yet. The Examiner's kind of funny but mainly not "San Francisco's Next Mayor?" bit had Glover listed at 450-1 odds anyways. That's slightly better odds than Wolfgang Puck but not nearly as good odds as Clint Eastwood or Larry Ellison.

Since this rumor is getting a lot of play these days, it's time to do the Official SFist post on it and that is the Danny Glover for Mayor rumors. The rumors supposedly started on SFJunto and have been picked up by progressives as something doable and even kind of exciting. Hell, somebody has to run against Gavin. The thinking is he'd make perfect candidate because he's a noted lefty (he was so virulently anti-apartheid that he killed a bunch of South Africans diplomats), lives in San Francisco, and is a star, baby, a star. Hell, if Arnie could be governor and Fred Thompson the sudden leading Republican Presidential candidate based on his appearing on "Law and Order" why not Danny? The Examiner has him at 450-1 odds that he's running.

OMG did you hear? Gavin says Muni's totally going to be free from now on! Also, if you ask nicely, the drivers will let you steer for a few blocks; and they're going to remove the floors so that the passengers can run the buses with their feet like the Flintstones!

Lest we forget, the Gavster is also up for re-election this year and there's a few stories taking the temperature of his campaign, not least of which is Matier & Ross' story that Gavin still has 70% approval ratings, even after l'affiare du Tourk.

As promised -- when we find people defending Newsom, we diligently write 'em up in the column we call.... Who's Defending Newsom Now! Who's swinging for the mayor?

Lots of gun-related mayhem in today's stories. One wonders why it is that everyone seems to be in a pissy mood lately.

-The Board of Supes have their first meeting of the year with Gavin as their Very Special Guest Star. -What do you do when you can't make budget? Make welfare cuts!

-Road the Kims took was supposed to be closed off but the gate at the entrance had been vandalized.

We're coming to you live, from Philadelphia as we write this from SFist's Philadelphia bureau. -Aaron Peskin is doing a heckuva job.

Because we've started the column "Who's Attacking Newsom Now!", we figure it's only right to start the counterpoint column next: Who's Defending Newsom Now!. So who's Mayor McDreamy got on his side? (beside these young ladies in the picture above, that is!):

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 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 looked like "The Examiner presents: information!"

We're launching a new sporadic political column, following Fiona Ma and Janet Reilly's battle for the 12th Assembly District. If anyone's got a better name for this column, post it in the comments! Anyone who's played one-on-one against Mayor Newsom's gotta have some game! Look at the fire in Fiona's eyes in this picture! Bring! It! On! After a fairly moribund start (for our purposes, "moribund" means "not too terribly hilarious in that car-wreck kind of way that we like") to the SF West-siiiiiide State Assembly race between Fiona Ma and Tori Spelling Janet Reilly (wife of the famously-aggressive political strategist Clint Reilly), where the candidates have agreed on almost everything except school exit exams and the death penalty (Fiona is against the first and for the second, Reilly is the opposite), things heated up today with the first use of the word "Nixonian." Yes! According to Ma, Reilly's people faked her name on IRS filings and have been falsely telling everyone that she was the treasurer in the 2002 campaign for Mike Rounds, the anti-abortion South Dakota governor. Ma is pro-choice. The Examiner did some research and found out that the Reilly campaign has been emailing Mark Leno and NARAL about it. Reilly's people (through Eric Jaye, Newsom's old campaign guy) now say they didn't fake anything, don't know if it's correct or not, and are now trying to find out from the IRS why Fiona's name is listed on those forms. Why would Fiona Ma be working on a campaign in South Dakota, anyways? We can barely get her to work on campaigns in San Francisco!

Hey, take one guess: what's the worst place on the web for finding up-to-date news about Muni? That would be Muni's very own website, of course, which despite having a section for "new links" bears absolutely no mention of its new study showing that fifty percent of riders don't pay. Maybe Muni doesn't want anyone to know! ...Or maybe they didn't post that news because EVERYONE ALREADY KNEW. Nice work, Muni; what did you spend, like, several thousand dollars to figure out the obvious? Maybe next you'll do a study to investigate the possibility that sometimes, drivers can be surly.

We really do feel pretty bad for the poor Berkeley high schooler who tried to throw a little house party while her parents were away and ended up with around 100 people at her place and a guy from another school stabbed to death over a skateboard. Her mistake? Putting up a post about the party on MySpace. (We heard that last bit on KRON 4 news but can't find it confirmed in print anywhere.) The Examiner starts running an online Police Blotter for the South Bay. So good. Items include: a man who called the cops to "arbitrate" a dispute at the South City Papa Joe's because he forgot his wallet and couldn't pay for his meal; a Redwood City woman cutting her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend with a car key, and the robbery of two bottles of Red Bull from a convenience store on Willow Road (the obligatory joke about it giving you wings was made as well.) And a car chase went bad last night, as a person fleeing the cops in a stolen VW Beetle lost control and spun into a Honda as he ran through a red light at Fifth and Brannan. The Honda plowed into the Golden Gate Tennis Club, and the Beetle ran into a fire hydrant, sending water pouring into the air. The cops caught the Beetle driver trying to hide in the tennis club.

The Examiner reports that new Muni transportation director Nathaniel P. Ford, Sr. (we love that name -- doesn't he sound like the guy who should be on the $7 bill or something?) wil become San Francisco's highest paid official when he takes over the position next year.

Well, the buyout offer the Chronicle gave former columnist Ken Garcia must not have been enough to retire on. Either that, or he missed having a public forum to laud Gavvy-Gav and harrass The Daly, and like a champion boxer wanted back into the ring:

"This is a great chance for me to write about what I love: San Francisco and the Bay Area and all the politics, personalities and eye-opening exploits that entails," Garcia said. "I'm looking forward to the competition and helping The Examiner grow in its role as the must-read local newspaper. It will be fun to be in a position again to really stir things up."

We admit, sometimes we get a little slacky when it gets close to a holiday, especially one as heady as Indigenous Peoples' Day. (That's why, later this week, you can look forward to us re-running our 1973 liveblogging of ABC's Nixon Family Thanksgiving Extravaganza.) And apparantly we're not the only ones: when we were reading the letters to the editor of The Examiner yesterday, we sensed an aura of deja vu around a letter from David Heller, the prez of a Geary Street merchants' association. What is it about his letter -- which argues against dedicated bus lines on Geary, despite the SPUR report's suggestion that they would actually be a huge improvement -- that's so strangely familiar, like the haunting melody of pain and love, drifting on a supple summer breeze? Oh, yeah, it's copied word-for-word from a letter he wrote back in September. Does it count as plagiarism if you're stealing material from yourself?

We've got a crapload to cover. We'll try to keep it short...

This is going to be a great day. First Tom DeLay gets indicted, and now this! The Examiner reports that Tom Ammiano and Chris Daly just got interviewed by the Daily Show!!!!! OMG! OMFG!!! OMFG!! You know in those segments how you always wonder, "who the heck would agree to be interviewed by Samantha Bee, anyways?" Well, now you know! Ammiano, a former stand-up comic, gamely answered all their questions about the gay-rights controversy over the USS Iowa and said he tried to be funny but that "they have total control over the camera." Ammiano also told his aides, "I think we're going to get punked." Daly, no doubt hardened by years and years of Matier and Ross mockery (and his own special archives category on SFist.com!), said, "I told them I didn't care if they made fun of me, as long as it's funny." (Oh man, Daly must hate us.) No word on when the segment's going to air -- but it's never too early to prepare! Your official SFist Daily Daly Show drinking game after the jump! (Sorry, Tom, it's Chris only.)

Did you look up the other day and see that big Green R rotating slowly in the sky? That's the Mirkarimi-signal! To the Ross-cave! We'll take the Prius-mobile! Remember when District 5 supervisor Ross Mirkarimi stopped a robbery in progress a few months ago? Well, the Examiner reports today that our superhero supe is safening up the Haight yet again: on Sunday, Ross was enjoying the beautiful weather in his district with a walk in Buena Vista Park. Suddenly -- "help! help!" Ross and his friend raced down the hill and found a man in need of medical attention. Ross performed CPR on the man as they waited for 911 -- and then Ross helped the EMTs get the man into the ambulance when it got there. The Examiner doesn't say how the man's doing now, but does note, "There's no word on whether the man was a voter in District 5." To be fair, the last time this happened, Ross seemed kind of embarrassed about the attention, asked people not to make him into some kind of "caped crusader," and said, "Anyone would do such a thing." Like Mariah Carey says, the hero lies in yooooooooooou. Maybe we'll name Ross the head of SF's Office of Emergency Services now!

So last week the Gavster announced this big, huge plan to build more housing, even low-cost housing. The point being, of course, the more housing the better, especially more low-cost housing, because the more housing you have, the less expensive housing will be. Gavin's idea is that with just the waving of the magic wand of better bureaucracy, the Department of Building Inspectors and the Planning Commission will have easier times allowing for more housing to be built.