Well, frankly, neither had we. That is, until we read this crazy -- yet, not so crazy -- article on Republicans in Ohio switching party alliances and voting Democratic. 16,000 Republicans, to be exact. Now, why the heck would all these Republicans go Democrat? This is part of "The Plot." Instigated by Rush Limbaugh, the theory is that Hillary Clinton would be easier for Republican fave, John McCain, to beat at election time. By having......

We're a little late to this story, in part because we spent all day yesterday trying to separate out the hilarious comments from the offensive ones on SFGate.com (it looks like the homophobic ones have already been taken out as of today) -- but in a nutshell, last Friday, Lance Farber, the 47-year-old boyfriend of the city's new planning director John Rahaim trashed their temporary apartment, which the city put them up in and which......

While not all of us are fortunate enough to zip around in swank Aston Martins, or have sleek Tesla waiting for us on the horizon, the "bus of the future" is the next best thing. Well, almost. Yesterday, if you recall, we reported on the Connected Bus' dramatic at the Federal Building. On the green machine, according to Mayor Gavin Newsom, you can "[y]ou can download music, you can play video games. It's a......

SFist worried over drugstore chain Walgreens celebration of Black History Month.Gothamist was surprised that apparently New York City is the fourth most miserable city in the country, after Detroit, Stockton, CA, and Flint, MI.Shanghaiist finds out what the Chinese think of Hilary and Obama.It was with a healthy amount of schadenfreude that Phillyist reported that former Eagle, and now Cowboy (ew), Terrell Owens owes the Eagles a significant wad of cash.Torontoist is two weeks......

Before heading to a more pristine setting in Atherton, Barack Obama was in the Mission today at the Women's Building, stumping for votes before California's Feb. 5 primary. Over plastic cups of water, he met with four Dr. Laura-unapproved single mothers--two of them staunch Obama supporters, two "on the fence"--and we're loving the one on the left, school teacher Kara Daillak, 38. (Ditch the kid, and let's go get smashed in 'loin tonight.)...

Oh Lord. Is this for real? From the SFist inbox this morning we received alarming news that Gavin Newsom and Jennifer Siebel, like, totally hate Africans, or something like that. After the New Year's Eve announcement that the two were to enter holy matrimony, one concerned reader called "Mayor Newsom's Communication Office," wondering if the "rock he bought for his fiancee was not a blood diamond." After talking to an "incompetent" Newsom staff member......

Hoodies-N-Heels: Tonight's hip hop for the ivory white comes to you care of DJ VinSol. But he does more than just pump out hip hop staples. His electro, thrash, and slick soul sounds will have you staying to this Mission club just a little bit longer, getting just a little bit more drunk. A win-win, really. Goes from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. at Double Dutch; free. Media Web Meet-Up III: The Producers: Come......

Our favorite lady in San Francisco. And the future Mrs. Gavin Newsom. We're just saying. Vanessa's image goes to John O'Hara / Chron; Seibel's goes to Chris Stewart / Chron......

The South Bay gets it. California's High Speed Rail Authority picked the Pacheco Pass as the future route for the 200-mph train that will help you get from SF to LA in record time. According to SFGate, "without a vote, the authority accepted its staff's recommendation last month to run trains from the San Joaquin Valley to the Bay Area over Pacheco Pass, east of Gilroy." Well then. After a four-hour meeting with Mayor......

The feds have gotten big bucks for the value of the Busan, so it now has one less hurdle to jump before heading home. ...

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......

Yeah, yeah, it's been a crazy few months at the day job for us (thanks for noticing, commenter MHTH! We really are trying to get back to a semi-normal posting schedule again soon, we swear) but what are we thankful for? One word -- BROCK! (And that's why we didn't send in our thankfulness post with everyone else's a couple posts below -- there's no way Brock would have run it otherwise!) Thanks, Brock, for......

Last night at a downtown bar, we eavesdropped on a heated debate about the Bonds' indictment. The all-male group of self-proclaimed Bonds-haters argued loudly about whether or not sports should simply start allowing athletes to get as chemically enhanced as they wanna be, health risks be damned. The main pro-roids (pro-drug?) point was this: seeing as how athletes already push themselves to physical extremes, shouldn't synthetic enhancers also count? Since it also deals with......

Barricades have gone up, drag queens are slapping on the greasepaint and Cover Girl cosmetics, and your BART and Muni closures / re-routings start soon. With that said, this has been somewhat of...a mess. What with the fallout over whether or not to close BART at 16th and Mission, how the closure was executed (e.g., an important elected District 9 BART Director left in the dark), and if it's the right thing to do,......

We could also use a Dunkin' Donuts. Failing that, the makers of Raweos could always set up shop next door. Did you see or hear about Gavin Newson's State of the City address? We did. For a few minutes. It seems the Gavin went on for over 100 minutes, as SFist Jim already pointed out. (Pretty people have a habit of droning on. We waste more time feigning interest in what attractive people have to......

Aw. Earlier this month, the newest (and truncated) version of the OED got rid of many cherished hyphens. The editor, Angus Stevenson, "eliminated some 16,000 hyphens from the sixth edition," according to a New York Times article. Angus goes on to say, "“People are not confident about using hyphens anymore...[t]hey’re not really sure what they’re for.” Sad. We love us some gross hyphen use. But some of them remain, like hyphens in compounds ("well-being");......

Boss's day interview with Hillary Mendelsohn...

Hey, remember a few days ago, when we posted about how Muni sends out street-closure notices to reporters, but the notices also serve as handy little events calendars? Well, thanks to a well-placed tipster, we now have a better idea of just how rigorously Muni compiles the damn things. Their calendar of closures goes out NINE YEARS to the year 2016. Well, actually, Muni's only tracking one event that far into the future: the......

SFist interviews Contributor Julie Feinstein Adams, who write on the wonderful world of food. ...

We've mentioned before that the only "Law & Order" we watch is "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," and the main reason for that is our imaginary boyfriend Vincent D'Onofrio is on it. So you can imagine we were a little worried when the fate of the show was up in the air at the end of last season. It had something to do with the franchise not pulling in the numbers it used to,......

Even though he runs without any serious opponent, Newsom's camp is still pulling their hair out over this election and the turnout. Newsom'07 Phone Bank sent us a release, with the following: We want to turn out as many voters as possible on election day, so that Mayor Newsom can continue to make government more responsive, effective and accountable. But, we need your help. There are only 47 days left until San Franciscans go......

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market......

Here's a video posted on YouTube by the San Francisco State College Republicans. Yes, boo, hiss, etc. -- BUT they were trying to co-host a peaceful memorial for 9/11 victims with their democratic counterparts. Extending the olive branch and, according to the speech the guy gives, trying to whitewash this of political partisanship to whatever extent possible. Of course, some protesters showed up, once again proving that there are just too damned many opinions constrained within this predominately two-party system of ours. ...

A look at why a nice little project is coming to an end. ...

San Rafael-based Edutopia Magazine, which is brought to us by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, looks to the future in its latest issue, identifying 10 ideas or trends that its experts believe can improve K-12 education. We found them thought provoking, and hope you agree. ...

But for those of you that this applies to (or those of you thinking about owning property in the future), consider this a bit of a PSA. Prop 13 will only let the government increase its valuation of your property for tax purposes by 2% -- but should you let them take even that much in a down market (understatement? perhaps; we'll leave that to the experts)? Point is, you might want to think about contesting your revaluation. ...

-- Marga Gomez: Multiaward-wining lesbian/Latina comic makes her Plush Room debut with Joshua Raoul Broday on the ivories, and former Mornings on 2 personality and comedian, Mark Pitta. Show starts at 8 p.m., the Empire Plush Room, 940 Sutter; $20. -- Hard Eight (aka Sydney): Before making Magnolia, the sprawling masterpiece about fate and The Valley, Paul Thomas Anderson made his debut with Hard Eight. The visibly-boney Gwyneth Paltrow plays a cocktail waitress/whore in......

We arrived at 9 p.m., parked at the West Oakland BART station and walked the block or so to the Fire Arts Festival. A gathering of local neighbors stood just outside the fence, watching. Giant hand-wrought metal sculptures — spiders, dragons, machines from the future/past — viewable from that distance, and from the BART trains passing by above, thumped and shook and spewed balls of fire high into the air. We passed the LONG......

SFist reviews Band of Horses at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco...

Today, we feel rather like Homer Simpson in an episode called "King of the Hill from 1998 ("Sorry, I eat food only in the bar form") -- we totally hit "food of the future" paydirt. We get off at the Embarcadero BART stop for our real job, and people are constantly shoving footstuffs and fliers at us as we exit to Market Street. Today's haul? An Atkins bar and a "Balance Bare." ...