Maybe you should have voted for Prop A this election cycle after all -- at the halfway mark for 2006, there've been 45 murders this year, putting us on pace for 90 by Dec. 31. At this point last year, there were only 41 murders, but the grand total for 2005 ended up at 95, leading us to assume that maybe homicides aren't linear functions. (In 2004, there were 88 murders, for those of you keeping score at home).

In terms of trends, African-Americans make up 25 of the victims, but the SFPD reports that African-American gang-on-gang slaying are down (5 this year, compared with 11 at the same point in 2005 and 27 in 2004). Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Bevan Dufty have suggested maybe moving cops from SFO back to the city. Ross Mirkarimi, meanwhile, pushing his left-wing tough on crime "hug it out, bitch" platform, wants the SFPD to redraw its districts in response to new pockets of criminal activity (including the spate of crime in District 5's Western Addition).

The head of Newsom's Office of Criminal Justice says he's looking into it -- and adds that things could always be worse -- you could live in Richmond. You know, this does not really reassure us very much.