So let's get this straight:

The lieutenant governor is running for insurance commissioner. The insurance commissioner is running for lieutenant governor. The former governor is running for attorney general. The attorney general is running for treasurer.

Round and round and round we spin. Talk about a clusterfuck. Read more »

"Wow," my hacker friend Mason breathed as he looked at my computer monitor. "That's really horrendously fucking evil."

He was responding to the sight of my account with Root Vaults (root.net), a Web service with hazy goals but an interesting tool: If you sign up and download a plug-in for Firefox, Root Vaults will record your entire clickstream. When I go anywhere or click on anything online, the plug-in records it and sends the data to my account at Root Vaults. Read more »

Though Noise Pop 2006 technically begins on Monday, March 27, it doesn't officially get rocking until Detroit's Dirtbombs "Start the Party," as they said on 2003's Dangerous Magical Noise (In the Red). The Bombs feature two drummers and two bassists, which, for the uninitiated, may instill fear of Grateful Dead

The Flaming Lips headlining Noise Pop

On their hysterical Web site, We Are Scientists send out a warning to would-be critics.

"Journalists beware!" the New York trio declares. "An example has been made of a reporter who dared to impugn WAS!" It turns out that a certain writer, who had gone out of his way to trash the band, was recently busted for fabricating part of a story in the Village Voice. The lesson to be learned, according to WAS, is that criticizing them results in some serious karmic retribution. Read more »

The air of unreality in Washington, DC, is, well, unreal. On Face the Nation March 19, Vice President Dick Cheney proclaimed that the war in Iraq is going well, that the insurgency had reached "a stage of desperation" — and that the prediction that Americans would be greeted as liberators was "basically accurate." There's no civil war, the administration insists, no catastrophic political failure, no evidence that the war is well on its way to becoming the new Vietnam. No, Cheney insists, the problem is just the overcritical news media. Read more »

It still boggles my mind: One of the most significant development issues in years came to a head last week at the City Planning Commission — and none of the news media seem to have noticed. G.W. Schulz describes the situation in depth on page 18, but here's the short version: City planners have acknowledged they can't allow any more market-rate housing in the eastern neighborhoods for the indefinite future. Read more »

tali@sfbg.com

In the transgender community, to have full-time work is to be in the minority. In fact, a new survey of 194 trans people conducted by the Transgender Law Center (TLC), with support from the Guardian, found that only one out of every four respondents has a full-time job. Another 16 percent work part-time.

What's more, 59 percent of respondents reported an annual salary of less than $15,333. Only 4 percent reported making more than $61,200, which is about the median income in the Bay Area. Read more »

In the coming year the federal government will unfurl a $500 million grant program with the sole purpose of encouraging low-income people to get hitched. The idea is that advertising, counseling, and mentoring by real, live married couples will increase the marriage rate in "at-risk" communities — leading to increased prosperity. Read more »

Preserving affordable housing

It is a pity the San Francisco Bay Guardian published a narrow-minded article about the National Farm Workers Service Center ["Solidarity Never," 12/23/05].

Founded in 1966 by C ésar Ch ?