As it gets closer to Halloween for LAist, a contributer recollects her tale of staring down the serial killer, Richard Ramirez, otherwise known as the Night Stalker. Must think happy thoughts -- okay, free organic chocolate chip cookies for Los Angeles -- now that's a happy thought. Other happy Los Angeles thoughts include an interview with Jack Kehler of The Big Lebowski (he was the Dude's landlord), a beautiful and magical photographic moment in Venice......

As this Sesame Street YouTube clip asks, who are the people in your neighborhood, Ed Jew? And -- good idea, commenter Apioca Ted! Here's a summary of the declarations filed by Ed Jew's neighbors: --Barry Hermanson: Barry was the State Assembly candidate for the Green Party, and has lived a couple houses down from Ed Jew's "address" for 17 years. Barry met Ed when both of them were running for District 4 back in......

What's Ed Jew doing today, now that he's been excused from jury duty? This has got to be the first time anyone's been trying to get San Francisco jury duty, ever. --The Chron's got the news on the City Attorney's quo warranto petition. Among the tidbits revealed: Ed Jew's wife has been taking a deduction on the Burlingame house as her primary residency for San Mateo County tax purposes -- and, hey, remember how......

Transportation issues covered at Assemblywoman Fiona Ma's First Town Hall Meeting...

More Carole Migden driving news! The Sacramento Bee (which, we'll admit, we were only perusing to see if there were some more pictures of the whales) has found a woman who's still angry about the time Carole Migden totaled her car back in 1996 (Migden's first year in the State Assembly, and a year before Migden was diagnosed with leukemia). "It's really odd at my age that I just can't get over it," the woman......

Look at that fresh new picture of your 2007 San Francisco Board of Supervisors! Chris Daly even showed up this time! So what's the gang up to these days? (Besides Chris Daly; he's old news.) Here's an update: Bottom row, left to right: Michela Alioto-Pier: Giving medical marijuana stores more time to apply for permits. Bevan Dufty: Pleading with Chris Daly in vain about moving wi-fi forward. BoS Pres. Aaron Peskin: Making it more......

Here's todays news...

You could tell Mayor Gavin Newsom came in expecting the full costumed brigade this morning at Fourth Fake Question Time-- we definitely saw Gavin flinch when SFist Elaine saw him coming into the Excelsior Boys and Girls Club right at 2 p.m.. this morning and shouted out, "Holler!" -- but it was as chicken-free as a lunch at Cafe Gratitude, for the latest installment of Gavin Newsom's town hall meeting, this one on the......

A photo of S.F. Mayor Newsom at UCSF children's hospital...

Man, we are starting to get a headache trying to stay on top of the convoluted machinations of the San Francisco 2008 State Senate race. You may remember that current State Assembly rep Mark Leno floated a trial balloon to run in two years for the seat currently held by his former friend Carole Migden. After pooh-poohing the rumor, Migden then promptly started floating trial balloons of her own that she might run against Gavin......

-Gun related deaths: Not just for Oakland, Richmond, and San Francisco anymore. -Mark Leno to reintroduce Gay Marriage Bill before the state legislature. -Cute kids made a cute mural in a not-so cute neighborhood. -San Francisco couple arrested for bogarting some French Oil Paintings. -If you want to get ahead in the State Assembly, raise gobloads of cash. -The integration case before the Supreme Court could affect the SFUSD. -San Francisco DA to throw the......

We're begging for your help here, readers -- begging! Can someone with a digital camera PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go to this event and send us your pictures of Chris Daly getting thrown into a swimming pool? We'll throw in some SFist swag if you do! We'd go ourselves, but admission is $125 (and we don't have a digital camera anyways). The Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Center is sponsoring their 16th Annual Celebrity Pool Toss this Tuesday......

--The Bay Bridge lower deck is open again. --Immigration rallies for Labor Day. --Does Chris Daly want to run for the State Assembly? And who's going to run for mayor against Gavin? --Sun beats Dell. --is there a Bolinas sea monster? --And there's too many UC first-years. picture of an overflow intro chemistry class at Cal.......

--Pleeeeease don't vote to recall Gavin! --It's dusty near the Bay Bridge construction site. --Muni says their computer problems today shouldn't affect your commute. We'll see about that. --Tom Ammiano's running for the State Assembly (for Leno's seat, after Leno gets termed out.) --And District 8 candidate Starchild has been arrested on prostitution charges. The bust actually sounds kind of hilarious, involving the Fremont police, a K-9 unit, and a KRON-4 news team. Starchild to......

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! ...

Pillow Fight February 14th!!! Who wants to bet that Frank Chu just shows up? Banjo-pickin' blogger Jordan Klein will be appearing tomorrow and next Friday as part of the San Francisco Bluegrass & Old-Time Festival. And congrats to Irene McGee for landing her show "NoOne's Listening" on 106.9 FM. We love photography, we love parliamentary procedure -- Robert Haaland shot the recent Budget Comittee meeting on health care coverage. The Schadelmann covers Janet Reilly's......

You know, our busy urban lives are fraught with so many seemingly unsolvable troubles that it's nice to hear, now and then, that our leaders are tackling problems that don't actually exist. The nonexistant ones are so much easier to claim to have solved, after all. We're informed by the Richmond Review that the California Psychological Association has named its "Legislator of the Year 2004." The lucky winner is State Assembly Speaker pro Tem (whatever......

SFist is intrigued by SB 1841, which was passed yesterday by the California State Assembly with a vote of 41-29. This bill would require employers to inform employees if job site e-mail and Internet activities are being monitored. According to this brief piece in the San Jose Mercury News: "The measure, SB 1841 from Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey, requires employers to give employees a one-time written notice if they plan to read......