The latest round of storms have left flooded roads that have stranded hundreds in the Santa Cruz Mountains, with flood advisories in effect for several Bay Area counties, and a flooded I-580 in Oakland was taken over by a paddling of ducks.

It’s another Pineapple Express day today, and even if it’s not raining where you are right now, there’s a high likelihood that ongoing road flooding will affect your Bay Area travels. Just Friday morning, President Biden approved another presidential state of emergency declaration for much of California, right now 511 SFBay lists almost two dozen road closures or traffic alerts in the Bay Area, and you can expect BART delays of about 20 minutes regardless of your destination.

But to start this weather calamity roundup on a light note, flooded portions on I-580 were taken over by ducks Friday morning. “We have ducks on the water on the flood here on the westbound side of the highway,” KTVU’s James Torrez reported. Though as of 11:45 a.m. Friday morning, KGO had the update that “All lanes on Interstate 580 in Oakland have reopened after shutting down Friday morning due to flooding, Caltrans said."

But things are nowhere near resolved down in the Santa Cruz Mountains, as the Chronicle reports that hundreds of people can’t leave their neighborhoods because as seen below, the roads in Soquel have literally been broken by the floods. An estimated five inches of rain fell in that area Thursday night, and several neighborhoods in or near Santa Cruz were evacuated last night. Reports from on the ground there say that "Houses on county water are also without water. Power on for now.”

Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties both remain on flood advisories until 2:30 p.m. Up to the north, Sonoma County is on a flood advisory until 2 p.m.

Napa County details a number of road closures above, the most severe being Duhig Road. Caltrans reports that State Route 121 is “Closed in Sonoma County from Fremont Drive just north of State Route 116/Arnold Drive.”

And if you think this means it’s a great weekend to head skiing in Lake Tahoe, it’s not. Heavenly, Kirkwood, Mount Rose, Northstar, Palisades Tahoe, and Sugar Bowl Resorts are all closed today.

Related: CHP Baffled As Same Sinkhole Near Tracy Claims Three Vehicles — All Because Drivers Ignore Road Closure Signs [SFist]

Image: @CHPDublin via Twitter

A man who may be new to town was spotted this week walking a rather obedient duck on a leash while also carrying two tiny dogs in his pockets. I say he may be new to town just because sightings of him popped up on on Facebook and Reddit, and were picked up by Hoodline, and if he'd been around a while we surely would have seen such documentation before. And if he's not new to town, at least maybe the duck is?

Also, the duck has shoes.

Observe:

And if you can't see, because they are so tiny, here are the dogs.

We applaud this man, of course, both for his love of animals and for doing his part to keep San Francisco weird.

But we must also applaud another man spotted recently — is there something in the air? — walking a white rabbit on a leash downtown. As Hoodline puts it, "Amid challenging times, we hope to see many more unexpected cuddly creatures staying active."

Below, video of the bunny getting irritated by one of Market Street's buskers.

Photo by andertho.

Oh, this is rich. Ever since foie gras was banned (or "banned") in the state of California on July 1, a smattering of animal rights activists, it seems, have since harassed Mission District ice creamery Humphry Slocombe to make certain that they have stopped selling their decadent foie gras ice cream sandwich.

Humphry Slocombe's response to the anti-foie grasians has been as follows:

Ha! Now someone call to see what they say when you ask if they sell Gold Medal Ribbon.

When the state's foie gras ban goes into effect in July of 2012, California restaurants will have to pull the luxurious (yet allegedly cruel) item from their menus. Although producers claim it doesn't hurt the birds -- producers who make anywhere up to $15 million a year for the savory treat -- foie gras is made by force feeding ducks and geese to fatten their liver. When the ban goes into effect, the item will most likely turn into an underground treat for the artisan set. A few notable California chefs revealed to Bloomberg their thoughts on the controversy, with some wiling to defy the state ban.

• Gary Danko, who plans to obey the law, explained, “I sell probably 40 orders a night or more...When the protesters are here, double that.”
• "When the ban comes in, we’re going to serve it every day," said Laurent Quenioux, a chef at Starry Kitchen in Los Angeles, "They can send me the foie gras police."
• Thomas Keller, chef at the French Laundry (three Michelin stars) in Yountville, and Per Se (another three Michelin stars) in New York City, said in an email: “Foie gras is a product that we have enjoyed preparing for our guests through the years and has been a regularly featured item on our menu...But we will certainly comply with the new foie gras ban law once it goes into effect."
• “The feedback from my guests and diners is it’s something that they really wanted,” James Beard Award-winner Traci Des Jardins revealed. “Foie gras is an attractive luxury food that people, when they are going to a fine-dining restaurant, want the opportunity to eat."
• “I think we need to get together and fight it,” demanded Roland Passot, owner and chef at Michelin-rated La Folie. “We eat meat. We raise those ducks to be eaten. We don’t raise them to become pets.”

As far as local production goes, business will be as usual since it's "a product that is in full compliance with...federal regulators.” With regard to the fattening method used, it's a difficult one. Wikipedia notes:

The feed is administered using a funnel fitted with a long tube (20-30 cm long), which forces the feed into the animal's esophagus; if an auger is used, the feeding takes about 45 to 60 seconds. Modern systems usually use a tube fed by a pneumatic pump; with such a system the operation time per duck takes about 2 to 3 seconds. During feeding, efforts are made to avoid damaging the bird's esophagus, which could cause injury or death, although researchers have found evidence of inflammation of the walls of the proventriculus after the first session of force-feeding. There is also indication of inflammation of the esophagus in the later stages of fattening.

For what it's worth, alternate productions of making foie gras have been used in recent years. This involves "timing the slaughter to coincide with the winter migration, when livers are naturally fattened."

Last week the Chicago City Council overturned its ban delicious, smooth, and flavorful foie gras. Rejoice, liver lovers! See, the process of making foie gras involves geese-fattening, which, more or less, means one has to shove food down the birds' throats. And some view the process as a bit cruel.

Anyway, a pro-ife SFGate reader writes o Michael Bauer to, well, basically tell him how righteous he and his girlfriend are. Also, he asked for his thoughts on foie gras. Bauer rebuts with a colorful image of seared foie gras with caramelized apples, shallots and cherries, explaining:

As for foie gras, when I was in Gascony a decade or so ago, I spent some time on a small farm that was fattening geese and producing foie gras, and it seemed to me the birds were humanely treated and lined up and waited patiently at feeding time. However, I have also seen the videos that show the abusive side of the practice.

It seems like if it can be done kindly--if that's possible--then this shouldn't be a debate among meat eaters. But what say you, readers? Should SF ban the savory paste that's been made since the ancient Egyptian times? Or will is set a dangerous precedent?

Bas relief of Egyptian pushing food down geese throats: Wikicommons

The Sharks dispatched the Mustard Men in 5 games, which makes the series seem a lot less close than it was. 3 of the games were decided by one goal, with Game 1 in double overtime. Even Game 2, the Predators 5-2 win, was not decided until late in the 3rd period. Nashville's undisciplined play (they led all playoff teams with almost 30 minutes of penalties per game) was their undoing, even though the Sharks power play was more or less ineffective, and often frankly ugly to watch. But it was one more way to wear down the Nashville defenders, and keep their skill players on the bench. Patrick Marleau again scored some big goals, and Joe Thornton took the first step toward erasing his playoff-choker reputation with dominating play and 6 points in the series.

Nashville wasn't the only team to distinguish itself with dirty play in this year's playoffs. The Calgary Flames managed to steal the spotlight by having their backup goalie come in to play lumberjack to the Detroit Red Wings Johan Franzen's, umm, old growth redwood late in Game 5 of their series (Franzen, fittingly, scored the series winner in Game 6). Then the Flames' Jarome Iginla and Daymond Langkow got in the act late in the game (cross-checking plus slashing and sucker-punching, respectively). Classy. Brad May of the Anaheim Ducks got a 3 game suspension for sucker-punching the back of Minnesota Wild defenseman Kim Johnsson (who is both emphatically not a pugilist, and happened to be Minnesota's best D man), which then caused a multi-player dust-up between the Ducks and Wild during the *pre-game skate* of Game 5 in their series.

By Ian, contributing

The Pond's horrible ice and Teemu Selanne's illegal stick helped the Sharks avoid being down a man in overtime against the Ducks last night. Selanne was called for unsportsmanlike conduct at the beginning of overtime, negating a Craig Rivet penalty that was carrying over from the end of regulation, and San Jose went on to win the shootout for a 3-2 victory. The Sharks came back to even the score after being down by 2 goals in the first period, and both teams helped their playoff positioning against the Dallas Stars.

The expansion of hockey outside of the snow belt has often meant late- season and playoff games are played on ice that in other circumstances would be better off scooped up, drizzled with syrup, and handed to small children. Anaheim's ice last night was terrible, and it marred what otherwise was a tightly played, playoff-intense game between two excellent teams. The ice did help out the Sharks, however, when both Selanne (now using a legal stick) and Andy McDonald flubbed their shootout attempts, making Jonathan Cheechoo's and Ryan Clowe's shootout goals standup.

Um, remember what we were saying about Jonathan Cheechoo not scoring goals? Just forget we wrote that, ummkay? Cheech recorded his 3rd hat trick of the season in last Sunday's 6-2 thumping of the likable, but hapless, L.A. Kings, bringing his season goal total to 35. He's scored 12 goals in his last 10 games (adding 5 assists).