Good news: Translink will be up and running on Muni in the late fall/early winter of 2007. Or at least, that's what Muni said last year, and surprise! It's still not working. (And before that, it was January of 2007.) Translink is the work of a company called ERG, Ltd (emphasis on the "limited"); and in the decades (decades!) that it's been bandied about, lots of other cities have managed to set up Translinks......

SFist interviews the Reverend Billy of "what would jesus buy?"...

Found Magazine's inexhaustible founders, Davy and Peter Rothbart, will be at Berkeley's Pegasus Books tonight and at SF's The Dark Room on Thursday night for Found's "There Goes the Neighborhood Tour 2007." We're excited to see what's in Davy's trunk of "sparkling, brand-new finds" and be privy to Peter's songs based on notes from Found #5, aka "The Crime Issue." The Bay Area marks the halfway point in the bros.' "65-city, 36-state, 3-month rampage!" Found......

We stuck it in Day Around The Bay already, but thought we would let you hash it out here in its own pad, readers. It seems that, according to the preciousness that is Dan Noyes, "the Silent Drill Platoon of the U.S. Marine Corps wasn't allowed to be filmed Sept. 11 on California Street in San Francisco for a segment of its new advertising campaign." Stefanie Coyote, executive director of the San Francisco Film......

This Saturday at the San Francisco Embarcadero Hyatt Regency from noon-4 p.m., you can join KGO Radio and the Mendocino Wine Growers Foundation in celebration of the wines and other good stuff from Mendocino County. The event, called "Wine By The Bay 2007,", is $35 if you buy your ticket now; it'll be ten buck more ($45) at the door. What's exciting to us is that Friend of SFist, Destination Dinners' Lisa Diamond, is scheduled to be interviewed by KGO's Gene Burns during the event for his "Dining Around" program....

[NSFW] -- Crank (prank?) calls to 911. [Chron] -- Wildfire still wild -- 7,000+ acres wild. [CBS5, San Jose Merc] -- Death, death, death, death... [Chron, Examiner] -- Fines to go up for carpool cheaters. Good. [Oakland Tribune] -- Scott Beale goes to this strange place called Fisherman’s Wharf and to San Francisco's only In-N-Out. Also: really, Snyder family? 524390645 Quizno's Subs just opened up on my block, so why can't you? [Laughing Squid]......

-- Barefoot Nellies: "The Bay Area's finest all-gal bluegrass band" headline at one of the Bay Area's finest bars, Amnesia, starting at 8:30 p.m., 853 Valencia; free. -- Killer of Sheep (1977): Charles Burnett's masterwork about a slaughterhouse worker/father and his family living in Watts, LA screens tonight at 7:15 p.m. 9:15 at The Red Vic, 1727 Haight (at Cole). -- Ryan Auffenberg: Local, tender singer-songwriter performs in the Mission. So does Clare Burson.......

We're a "transit-first" city, and have been for years. That means that cars are a last resort -- rely on the bike, on walking, on the bus if you must, but don't clog up the streets unless you absolutely have to. Too bad nobody told the terminally out-of-touch 511.org; the MTC-run "service," designed to facilitate your movement around the bay area, continues to all about cars, cars, cars. Fuck you, Muni riders! In their......

Last week's winner, the SF Weekly. Hey, why is Sucka Free City before the letters this week? Anti-Jewish slurs at Rainbow Grocery. The story behind that weird killing in Hayes Valley you guys got all worked up at us about (blah blah blah, hipsters, blah blah, SFist is racist, blah blah). Cover article: Disbar more lawyers. We are adoring the cautious yet game-for-adventure tone in this Southern Exposure pie delivery service piece! Meredith Brody bills......

Back after the July 4th break! The winner from two weeks ago: the SJ Metro. This Media News Corp. group taking over the Merc News is bad for local news coverage. Dude! We need to start following San Jose local politics -- one of their city council members eloped last weekend! Annalee Newitz liked Transformers. Bodybuilders in San Jose this weekend -- look at the cords on that guy's neck! Cover article: we're embarrassed to......

--The SF Weekly writes us (us the site and you the readers!) a totally nice note about the mix-up over our dueling Day Around The Bay columns! Hugs! [The Snitch] --An ABC 7 blog doesn't think all this Chris Daly and Ed Jew stuff is funny! Of course it's funny! [ABC 7's The Kitchen Think.] --Thought today in the SFist comments were bad? It could always be worse. [Craigslist's SF Local Politics Discussion Forum.] --The......

--Gavin Newsom angrily denies Chris Daly's cocaine allegations, calls them "sleazy," and calls for everyone in the Board of Supes to condemn them. Tom Ammiano says he thought it was one of Daly's better speeches. [The Chron (and audio clip), CBS 5 (with video of Daly at the meeting and Newsom's denial), ABC 7 (also with video), Fog City, Beyond Chron, Examiner, SF Sentinel. Watch the video from SFGov here, around item 36.] --Your Two......

It wasn't just that shooting in Western Addition this morning -- it's been kind of a violent 24 hours there and in the Mission. At around 5:40 p.m. yesterday, there was a stabbing at Capp and 17th -- a guy was stabbed with an ice pick after getting out of a car. The stabber then jumped into another car and tried to run the victim down, and then jumped out of the car and stabbed......

It's the Ed Jew San Francisco calendar for 2007! We want the Burlingame one too. Thanks to reader Jake for sending it along -- we may use the back cover for the Day Around The Bay post we're going to write up next. The Chron's gotten a copy of the 44 page affidavit that the DA investigator filed in support of arresting Ed Jew, and, wow, it does not look good: --Okay, to start......

Remember yesterday, when Supervisor Ed Jew told the city attorney that the reason why his water bills were so low at his purported house in the Sunset because he showered at his flower shop, and we said we wanted to see the water bills for the store? Well, lookee here! The Bay Guardian's gone and done it -- and there is no running water in the flower shop. NO!!!! Well, to be precise, the flower......

We've got a really cool giveaway this week. Everyone knows who Rufus Wainwright is, right? Please, tell us that you do. He's still crooning luxuriously behind the piano, wearing fabulously tailored suits and hasn't aged a day since his auspicious self-titled debut nearly ten years ago. His brand new record, Release the Stars, is hot off the presses and he's coming to play a special show at Nob Hill Masonic Center with Sean Lennon......

It's another music giveaway bonanza this week! First up is a prize pack from Sea Wolf. They've been touring with Silversun Pickups (see a few SSPU members in the video for "You're A Wolf"), but they're a far more mellow outfit: Alex Church's vocals and melodies are gentle, strummy and soothing. Sea Wolf open for Devotchka on Friday night at the Grand Ballroom Bimbo's, and we have a pair of tickets for the winner......

--The SF Board of Supes has imposed a moratorium on SoMa studio condo construction. --The Bay Area author of "Searching for Your G-Spot" was attacked by a shark in Maui. --Gavin Newsom's sneak-announced Fifth Fake Question Time this Saturday, in West Portal and on the topics of public works. "They're for your wife." --MUNI officials meet about the troubled T-Third. --The Newsom administration is forcing KFOG to charge for the KaBoom fireworks festival this year......

The Bay Area Hip-Hop Theater Festival kicks off its two-week run of politically-inspired and racially-conscious dramatic and spoken word arts at Berkeley's La Pena Cultural Center at an event featuring the teen poets of Youth Speaks and their Brave New Voices College Tour. $10, 8 p.m., 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley (between Ashby and Alcatraz Aves.) Other events: --A documentary about Patrice Lumumba, an anti-colonialist who became the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of......

Here's todays wrap up of the news...

Last Wednesday, we told you our quick take on Juno Baby's line of educational entertainment products for kids (the long and short: cute, cool, and engaging). Adam Adleman, one of the founders of Juno Baby, took a few minutes out of his busy schedule to answer some questions: ...

The Bay Area is home to many intriguing small businesses. Still, color us surprised that we've found in Juno Baby a local purveyor of high-quality children's educational products that manages to encapsulate what we like best in a company. ...

We got a frantic call from SFist Jon about a power failure making it impossible for him to do Day Around The Bay today, so we're subbing in. --There was a shooting outside the Power Exchange during rush hour yesterday. The cops did manage to catch the guy, but traffic was a mess. --Your best buys are always at Fry's -- along with an exhaustive listing of the finite dimensional representations of the closed......

-The Bay Bridge will be even costlier and will take longer to build, all due to issues around Yerba Buena Island. -In an attempt to hold onto the 49ers, San Francisco is asking the Navy to hand over the Hunters Point Shipyard so the city can do an Extreme Makeover on it to get it ready to build a new stadium -It's going to be a lot harder to recruit and train new cops......

Gavin, Schmavin -- bored now. Call us when a shorn-headed Gavin goes bananas outside Kimberly Guilfoyle's house and starts whacking an SUV with a bright-green umbrella! (Maybe Britney was just looking a little too much forward to a drink at the end of her workday as well.) Anyhow, since everyone insists on continuing not to run for mayor against Gavin Newsom (including us, though that's very sweet of you to suggest it, Jill and......

Man, we thought we'd be able to get through a week without any sort of Gavin bombshell, but we were wrong. As the saying goes, everytime we think we're out, he pulls us back in. So today there's a big story about Ruby Rippey-Tourk taking a paid ten-week leave of absence maybe illegally, maybe not. Basically, the time off given to her was not commiserate with the amount of time she worked. Now, employees down in city hall are allowed to give their sick time to somebody if they really, really need it and supposedly, Ruby's fellow coworkers donated their time to her. The question, of course, is whether or not they did it out of the kindness of their own hearts or whether Gavin asked them to while making all sorts of hints about how they should really, really donate their time. The Bay Guardian is reporting that the time off was requested by her husband, Alex and that her coworkers wanted to help out. Fog City, however, says that her coworkers weren't very down with it all. The other thing is that the money she was given was much more than normally allowed. ...

We gobble the various food sections up each Wednesday. These are our favorite tidbits from today's offerings: SF Chronicle: Tea time! The Bay Area is into fine tea. Our cupboard would cry over the notion that the bagged "finings" stuff is made from dust swept up off the floor. Okay, ew! Tea also makes an appearance in Karola Saekel's round up of the Fancy Food Show, which ended yesterday. Other hot items include sea salts,......

Starting next Wednesday, we're wishing the Rickshaw Stop a very Happy 3rd Anniversary! In the last three years the venue has presented shows with everyone from Jonathan Richman to Silversun Pickups and has hosted all manner of wacky special events. Our favorite memory was an early show by Phosphorescent, and a pretty fun time on New Year's Eve in '05. They're celebrating their anniversary with a three day festival featuring a different style of......

You know how Gavin said we were "seconds" away from inking a deal with Earthlink/Google over providing free WiFi to everyone in the city? Well, "seconds" might have been a slight exaggeration but late yesterday, a deal was actually reached, the i's dotted, the t's crossed, and pen was put to paper. Soon the entire city will be a "hot spot." But we knew that already. ...

Don't forget, everyone, tolls went up on all local bridges starting yesterday -- so it's now $4 to cross any of the seven bridges run by the state: The Bay Bridge, the San Mateo, the Dumbarton, the Carquinez, the Richmond, and the Antioch (we always forget the Antioch [and the Benicia! Sorry! See comments below.]. Since the Golden Gate Bridge is run by a separate entity, it'll stay the same at $5 (unless, of course,......