Charming. The spoiled children high atop the Berkeley redwood have, of course, resorted to (allegedly) throwing their urine and fecal matter at arborists trying to get them down. (Yeah. Fight the power. Idiots.) If you recall, some people under the false impression that they're making a difference have quickly turned an attempt to save a patch of trees into one of Berkeley's most massive protest fails to date. They are scheduled to get ripped from......

Whether pro or con saving the oak tree grove on the UCB campus, it's safe to say that we're all looking forward to seeing just how how the last few tree-sitters are extracted. This morning, cherry pickers and scaffolding have been fashioned around redwood tree where the last few remaining protesters sit. (And below? Protesters this morning are benignly screaming like children, banging drums, and burning sage. Jesus.) While campus authorities decline to say when......

Christine Borden over at the Daily Clog has both word and a VIP invite to the launch of BARE, UC Berkeley’s fashion publication. Also, holy hell, Cal has a fashion rag! Yeah, we have no idea what to think about that either. But they do have a "quasi-Sartorialistic blog," which features a smattering of the edit staff's friends dressed up to the Berkeley nines, and reviews of Shiseido, Lancome, and Laura Mercier products, which, let's......

Berkeley police responded to a menacing looking suitcase sitting in front of a Bayer AG-owned building on Seventh Street between Dwight and Parker. Jackson West informs us that said drug company has "its biotechnology headquarters in the town and contributes grants to student research at the University of California." (Rut row!) Anyway, it didn't explode. Alas. But check out some harrowing shots of today's dramatic suitcase scare. (Valleywag)......

A disrobed lady disrupted traffic this morning on I-80 at around 5:45 a.m. It seems that the fully naked female was running in and out of traffic willy-nilly on the busy freeway, requiring the CHP and Berkeley police and fire department to bring her down. She was finally taken into custody after jiggling over to the stables at Golden Gate Fields. She has been sent to a local hospital for a medical (and presumably mental)......

More time is being wasted over in Berkeley over those damn oak trees. This time the Berkeley City Council voted last night that they it "will not seek a stay of a judge's order allowing UC Berkeley's athletic center project to proceed," according to CBS 5. Good. Also, many of the protesters, who awesomely are starting to view themselves as Christ-like figures as of late, held a small rally outside Berkeley City Hall last......

After a judge ruled that the University of California can cut down those cumbersome old oak trees, the kids still stuck up in the grove aren't coming down. What else is new, right? But in the end, the protesters have no one to blame but themselves. The twee aesthetics the sitters used to save said trees turned off any fence sitters, and "Dumpster Muffin"'s dilettante-ish and affected temper tantrum earlier this month made some supporters......

UC workers, ranging from janitors to food service workers, walked off the job this morning at all University of California campuses and hospitals. According to CBS 5, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 3299 guys walked off the job this morning after the UC offered workers a pithy, disagreeable hourly wage increase from $10.28 to $11.50 to $12. Then, the AFSCME Local 3299 declared it was "calling a strike on behalf......

Although we guffaw over Berkeley news items sometimes (we know: pot calling kettle black blah blah blah), a recent turn of events makes us wish for more news of oak grove protesters, not ultra. serious. news. Seems that some guy (or different dudes?) have performed a couple of home invasions, resulting in burglary and sexual assault. With the weather being hot and bother-y, residents are advised not to leave windows open and to keep doors......

We put this in DATB, but it merits its own post because: Oh my, God!!!! Convicted killer/open source computer programmer Hans Reiser led police to the whereabouts of his wife Nina's remains. Her body, it seems, was located somewhere "near Redwood Regional Park in the Oakland hills ... buried next to a deer trail, reports the Gate. Her body was found at around 4 p.m. today. If you recall, Reiser maintained his innocence over the......

Ah, finally a few UC Berkeley protesters who aren't selfishly and clinically insane. A few angry lads we could get behind. (That is, if we didn't love the taste and texture of a rare-, medium rare-cooked red meats. Oh! And we're all set to make our very first batch of steak tartate. Is this good? Should be bother making it? WWJWD: What would Joanne Weir do?) Around nine pro-life protesters "in the hills above the......

After nine months of living in the UC Berkeley oak groves, Dumpster Muffin (AKA Amanda Tierney) finally climbed down yesterday. Alas. The 21-year-old activist, according to ABC 7, was "having troubles standing up," which prompted her surrender. She was then arrested by UC Police for trespassing the moment she touched ground. But! The battle isn't over. Three tree sitters still remain up high for at least another "two weeks, when Cal's lawyers go to court......

Photo by zombietime Saturday's woefully ineffective war protest in Berkeley looked like all sorts of fun! There were ladies sporting furry pink outfits, large signs with lots of small text making incomprehensible messages of protest, flag-waving bikers, Melanie Morgan speaking, privileged UCB students shouting, upside down American flags, baked goods, and much more. Sadly, though, the anti-war contingent blew it in the final round when they busted out the Nazi salute as U.S. National......

While police have tried to starve and cutoff supplies to the few remaining protesters up in the UCB oak grove, another tree-sitter was arrested yesterday afternoon at around 5 p.m. Performing yoga exercises on the median strip on Piedmont Avenue in front of the grove of trees, it seems, police arrested someone going by the moniker "Redwood." According to university spokesperson Dan Mogulof, the protester came along "very quietly." Yesterday, as you may recall,......

UCB's plans to mow down an oak grove and put up a sports training facility were put on hold. It seems a judge halted the plans until "the university can prove the project would not violate state earthquake-safety laws, a judge ruled Wednesday," says the Gate. The university, though, thinks it's a rule in their favor, keeping "their plan alive, arguing that the center would not violate state law because it would not touch......

The battle to save an oak grove on the UC-Berkeley campus turned even uglier yesterday. Protesters sang bizarre Native American-ish sounding songs (seriously, check this out) and threw buckets of urine at police and arborists (where "an acrid tang hung in the air afterward." Ew.) One female tree-sitter was forcibly and understandably removed and placed into custody after she bit an arborist. Millipede, as she now goes by, was arrested and might possible be......

Five remaining tree climbers over at the University of California at Berkeley -- you know, the ones who have been protesting the school's plan to tear down the Memorial Oak Grove to put in a shiny new ball-throwing stadium -- are being threatened to come down via 25 police officers and a cherry picker. According to UCB officials, the tree protesters might have to come down as early as today, Tuesday, or be removed......

A man was fatally shot near Top Dog hot dog dining establishment in Berkeley last night. According to the Oakland Tribune, "[t]he name of the man in his late 20s was not immediately available from police, who said he is not a UC Berkeley student." (Well, thank God. Because that would have been upsetting.) It seems that the victim and the shooter were having a heated debated just before the murder. Then after getting......

In a continued effort to fetishize the "game of chess" that is Palestinian/Israeli relations, UC Berkeley students staged a harrowing--harrowing!--border checkpoint commemorating the anniversary of the Nakba (i.e., "Arabic for "Catastrophe," the Palestinian name for the founding of Israel in May of 1948").The fake security checkpoint happened on campus at Sather Gate yesterday.on May 7, 2008. But in all seriousness: good job, kids. This almost makes us miss our days at old the ala mater.......

Hey, did you know that most gunfire in SF (and everywhere else, we assume) goes unreported? It does. At least according to the Examiner, it doesn't. They report that ShotSpotter--that magic recording device that can pinpoint the locations of discharged gunfire in San Francisco's most at-risk neighborhoods--hears gunfire that city residents should be reporting. Via. Two men were shot and killed in SF on Saturday night. First, just outside the Japan center in Japantown......

An unidentified man killed himself this morning after running his car into parked cars at 80 mph at Yolo and the Alameda. Just before the fatal wreck, it seems, he was sitting in his car in North Berkeley and in the process of taking his own life, via a tube coming out of the car's exhaust pipe. A homeless man noticed what was going on, removed the tube. The homeless gent then flagged down......

You know that movie we're not talking about whose marketing campaign sucks? And the fine folks of SF parodied on 24th Street? That we reported on over a week or so ago? Well, now, in addition to Fametracker and Hollywood Elsewhere, Berkeley is getting in on the act. And in typical fashion, a week later. ...

Yes, yes -- most of you are so over the whole flash mob thing. But for those of you who aren't jaded and bitter old turds, check out today's flash mob froze over in Berkeley at Upper Sproul Plaza as the Campanile struck 1 p.m. today. We've only seen pictures of frozen flash mobs -- which could have been any photo of any large gathering, really -- so this video is kind of nifty.......

The Library Tower (AKA the U.S. Bank Tower) in Los Angeles could soon be the second tallest building west of the Mississippi thanks to San Francisco's proposed Transbay Terminal. While the Library Tower, located in downtown Los Angeles, stands at an alluring 1,018-feet tall, the Transbay Terminal is primed to win the measuring contest at 1,200-feet. You know, we're just saying. Not to brag or anything. Anyway, our tallest skyscrapers so far are as......

In case you missed The Daily Show last night-- not that any member of the self-respecting Bay Area intelligentsia would dare to admit missing a second of sparkling political satire -- check out Berkeley and its Marine corps nonsense getting skewered last night care of Jon Stewart's clan. It's chock full of funny. (Except the overt and cruel hippie-hating part, which we find not only a played out but a bit dangerous; there's nothing......

For your viewing pleasure, more Pelli Clarke Pelli Transit Bay Terminal renderings -- now with birdies! [Curbed]More Milk memories. [WhatImSeeing]Alt-Weekly Death Watch explains it all. Also: ouch. [AWDW]Cyclists mourned. [SFGate]Technical difficulties: Burger Joint opens, then closes...temporarily. [Eater]Lemons have loads of disease-causing bacteria? We feel more like Julianne Moore in Safe each day. [SFoodie]More blasted Berkeley tree tomfoolery. [Daily Clog] Porn thespian Michael Lucas labeled "NeoCon Kingpin of gay porn" by New Republic. So, so......

Bay Area filmmakers Arne Johnson and Shane King present Girls Rock! The Movie, a highly moving documentary about Portland's Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls, a place for girls ages eight to eighteen to learn an instrument, form their own bands, write songs, make friends, and then perform in front of 700 people -- all in a week's time. The film is opening in seven cities today -- San Francisco, Berkeley, Portland, New York,......

Kicking it at the Days-Inn on Lombard. [Butter Retriever]Twitter explained in plain English. [Laughing Squid]The very hot Tyler Florence to take over the very gay Plush Room. Intriguing. [Eater]More on Prop. 22. [BAR]Moth alarmism? [SFBG]UC Berkeley gets restraining order against animal rights activists. [EBX]The best drama on television? Intervention The Wire. Of course. [SFGate]......

*FILM: The 5th Annual San Francisco Irish Film Festival kicks things off with Garage by director Lenny Abrahamson and writer Mark O’Halloran. This is followed by a reception with the Consul General of Ireland, Emer Deane. According to LS, "other highlights include Speed Dating, a romantic comedy about a lovelorn amnesiac; the award winning Irish-language feature film Kings, and finally The Undertaking, a documentary about Irish American undertaker and poet Thomas Lynch, who is......

An unidentified person was shot and killed on the 1600 block of Russell in Berkeley last night, brining the city's murder tally to three. (The much larger city of San Francisco, BTW, is at 14.) The Chron goes on to report: The slaying comes a little more than a week after Brandon Terrell Jones, 29, of Berkeley was shot and killed on the 1500 block of Harmon Street, about seven blocks away. No arrests......