If you go by records alone, this week's game with San Francisco should be a harder one for the Giants to win than last week's game was in New England. The 49ers are 7-1 and have outscored their opponents by 88 points, the third-highest figure in the league. Looking further at them statistically shows a team that is very good at forcing turnovers and very good at not committing turnovers. They are second in the league overall, with a turnover margin of +12 and have the most takeaways, 19, in the league. more ›

Peter Haskett and Raymond Huffman were two violent, alcoholic roommates living in a run-down apartment complex in San Francisco in the late '80s. Their near-constant drunken arguments kept two recent college graduates next door from getting any sleep. So the two friends, "Eddie Lee Sausage" and "Mitchell D.," began recording what would later be referred to as the "Shut Up, Little Man" recordings, named after Haskett's constant, boozy retort to his roommate's profane protestations. more ›

A San Francisco-bound United flight at Dulles Airport outside DC was evacuated around 12:41 p.m. today after experiencing engine problems. "The emergency chutes were deployed," an airport spokesperson told the Washington Post, and everyone—including passenger and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—slid down to safety. Will Ginsburg now have to recuse herself from Slip 'N Slide v. Jetliner Puffy Slides, Inc.? more ›

Mark Lugo, the Hoboken resident accused of stealing a Picasso sketch from a San Francisco gallery, must really love art: Police raided his NJ apartment and found 11 stolen artworks, many of them from Manhattan galleries. Among them was a Fernand Léger 1917 drawing, "Composition aux element mecaniques," worth $350,000, and another Picasso, the 1933 etching, "Sculpteur et Deux Tetes," worth $39,000. In fact, "Sculpteur et Deux Tetes" was taken from the William Bennett Gallery in Soho last month! more ›

Earlier this week, a man stole a Picasso sketch from a San Francisco art gallery. The thief was captured on surveillance video from a neighboring bar, which showed a man, wearing sock-free loafers, a dark jacket and large sunglasses, casually strolling down the street with the sketch tucked under his arm and then heading into a cab. Now, a suspect has been caught, and it turns out he's from the Garden State. more ›

Intactivism is the belief in the right of baby boys to keep their foreskins intact, and there's a movement to legally ban circumcision. After introducing legislation last year, a San Francisco-based group of intactivists opposing male circumcision has collected enough signatures for a ballot initiative next November on whether to bar the practice in the city. "It's excruciatingly painful and permanently damaging surgery that's forced on men when they're at their weakest and most vulnerable," said Lloyd Schofield, one of the chief opponents. more ›

Liquid Viagra to some, ecological insanity to others, shark fin soup has long endured as a controversial cultural touchstone, but it may go the way of whaling. The Independent reports that global opposition to shark finning—the procedure that cuts the fins off a shark and leaves it to die in the ocean—has reached a fever pitch, with environmental groups like New York City's own Shark Savers increasing their influence to countries like Canada and Australia. A Chinese legislator even proposed anti-finning legislation earlier this month but the bill is expected to die, given that 95% of the world's shark fins are consumed there. more ›

A new scientific study done by those pocket-protecting eggheads over at Atlantic Monthly says that NYC has ranked as one of the top five most walkable cities in America. But why aren't we number one? Because standing in our way is the god-forsaken, gay pothead homeless persons paradise that is San Francisco. more ›

A huge explosion rocked San Bruno, a suburb a few miles from the San Francisco International Airport, after 6 p.m. Pacific time. SFist has been compiling photos and reports—at first, it was speculated that a plane crashed, but it turns out it may be from a gas line explosion. It's now a six-alarm fire; people were evacuated, the fire is "jumping from house to house," and there may already be looters. One report said, "There is no fighting this fire. It is unbelievable. I've never seen anything like it." SFist agreed, "It's just one large fireball shooting from the ground." more ›

American Airlines Flight 24 from San Francisco International Airport headed to JFK Airport was grounded due to a bomb threat: "The airport police 'received a threatening phone call' just before the flight was about to takeoff." Fox News says, "A TSA official told Fox News that the phone threat was regarding a hijacking. The TSA said passengers were being taken off the plane on at least five buses to be interviewed and re-screened. American Airlines spokesman Tim Smith said the threat was phoned into local police. He said there were no hostages, but the TSA has moved the plane to a remote tarmac." more ›

In case you haven't heard yet, San Francisco really likes animals. So much so that they're considering banning the sale of pets in pet stores. The proposed ban aims to curb people from impulsively buying pets only to give them up later, which often results in shelter crowding or euthanization. The ban would cover the sale of all of God's creatures except for fish, because let's face it, nobody cares about your pet goldfish. But could the ban be making its way to New York? more ›

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom bragged yesterday that his city was beating New York in the race to turn taxi fleets green: Now 57% of San Francisco's taxis are either hybrid or run on compressed natural gas. "To Mayor Bloomberg, we have done it," said Newsom. "We beat you on this...The Big Apple is not the green apple yet." You gonna take that, Bloomberg?! more ›

Before he resigned from office, former Rep. Eric Massa was reportedly under investigation for allegedly groping three male staffers, as well as incidents of improper conduct with interns and aides. The southwestern New York Congressman has said he stepped down for a number of reasons including his health, his "salty" language, and because Democratic leaders had launched a conspiracy to force him from the House before the healthcare vote. White House officials have called those allegations "ridiculous." more ›

A recent nationwide round-up of metropolitan commutes placed NYC's sort of near the top of the list, at sixth place. But of the area's highways and byways, the Cross Bronx Expressway is a standout for congestion, reported the Daily Beast. “There’s an old phrase that we used to have: too many cars and not enough roadway, and that fits the Cross Bronx to a T,” said Tom Kaminski, traffic reporter for WCBS 880. “There’s no room to expand, there’s no way to throw in an additional lane or an additional shoulder—people have started changing their driving habits whenever they can.” more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] On New Year's Eve a Chihuahua was rescued by NYPD Harbor Patrol after jumping off a Brooklyn pier and diving into the frigid East River, in an attempted suicide or escape attempt. Today, over two dozen Chihuahuas arrived from San Francisco. Coincidence? Or did that despondent Bay Ridge Chihuahua decide to end it all after hearing about the glamorous, tan, West Coast betters coming to steal our hearts? more ›

Earlier this year author Joel Kotkin said in so many words that New York should be looking to San Francisco as a role model. Now NYMag names Ditmas Park one of their many reasons to love our fair city. Why? Because it's our own tiny version of the City by the Bay. The mag says, "What New Yorker with a repressed slacker-hippie side hasn’t fantasized about ditching Gotham for calmer, quainter San Francisco? Some locals have been satisfying that yen by simply moving to Ditmas Park, the Victorian-packed enclave south of Prospect Park. It isn’t just that the West Coast metropolis and the west-of-Flatbush hamlet share an abundance of turn-of-the-century painted ladies." And those painted ladies will cost you just about as much as the ones on the West Coast, now well over a million bucks. But that's the price you pay to live near bookstores, drum circles, and a laid-back SF vibe, man. One local told them: “It’s a bunch of communists hanging out and drinking Fair Trade coffee while reading conspiracy books." more ›

Joel Kotkin, author of The City: A Global History, pontificates on urban social trends over at The Observer, saying that New York should, and may already, be modeling itself after other cities. He warns that "New York has been on what you could call the ‘plutonomy wagon.’ So New York has been the ultimate trickle-down economy—it’s been a relatively small group of people driving the economy. The skills of New York are still here; the roots of some of the industries are still here. But, unless many things are grown to replace this plutonomy, the city’s going to continue to go through this spiral where it becomes more and more bifurcated—there are no middle-class jobs, except in the plutonomy." His solution: look to San Francisco as a model! Or Chicago, though all he really says about the Windy City is that they have good PR. more ›

After twelve years, 5,124 performances and a haul of $280 million, Rent's Broadway run has come to an end. The musical closed yesterday after a final sold-out performance packed with diehard fans (the "Rentheads") and a smattering of celebrities (a couple Gossip Girl cast members). Just before the curtain came down for the final time, members of the show's original company joined the current cast on stage to "Seasons of Love," one of the show's most famous songs, the Associated Press reports. more ›

The Naked Cowboy has been temporarily shaking his tighty-whiteys over on the west coast, and The NY Post reports that he got arrested for doing so! Reportedly he was busted in San Fransisco's Union Square for being in a restricted area. Who knew San Francisco would be so opposed to a nearly naked man, especially on the day of the Up Your Alley Fair? The arresting officers didn't realize this was the Naked Cowboy at first, but once they did, it didn't stop them from cuffing him. He told The Post that the cops laughed nonstop, "They're laughing hysterically because there's this guy in his underwear. Then they were like, 'Oh, that's the Naked Cowboy.'" In the end he was given a citation for "violating a posted sign," and is due in court today. more ›

San Francisco has been at the forefront of progressive social change and environmental issues, and now, it might be where a sewage plant is named after George W. Bush. After first floating the idea back in March, organizers qualified to put the naming initiative, to turn the Oceanside Water Treatment Facility into the GWB Sewage Plant, on the November ballot. A few weeks ago, White House Press secretary Dana Perino refused to comment on the possibility a sewage plant would be named after her boss, but maybe she would have been more willing, had she known Bush would refer to the U.S. as the "world's biggest polluter." More details here. more ›

In the near future, info about available parking spots could be displayed on street signs or sent to any phone with Internet capability, if New York follows the lead of San Francisco, which is testing the program. The new technology relies on embedded-in-the-pavement wireless sensors that detect the presence of a vehicle. The Sun reports that Councilman John Liu is pushing for it, but Bloomberg is concerned that it will cause reckless competition for parking spots: "We don't want people to start speeding and running past red lights." That would be unthinkable. more ›

Get this woman a reality TV show! Christina Szele of Woodside, Queens created such a disturbance during a Jet Blue flight from JFK airport to San Francisco that pilots diverted the plane and landed in Denver, where federal authorities took her into custody. According to an affidavit obtained by the Smoking Gun, things started to go sideways after a flight attendant noticed Szele waiting on line for the bathroom with a book of matches and a cigarette, which were promptly seized. more ›

An unidentified man was forcibly removed from a United Airlines at JFK before it took off last night because he wouldn’t sit down and stop praying. A San Francisco author named Ori Brafman, who was on the flight, told WNBC the Orthodox Jewish man ignored instructions from flight attendants to remain in his seat. During the minutes before take off, he walked to the back of the plane to pray, and when he continued to defy attendants' orders, they summoned airport security. more ›

Olympics planners and San Francisco authorities made many attempts (making up the route as it went along) to prevent demonstrators from disrupting the Olympic torch's only North American appearance on Wednesday, they couldn't stop a torch bearer from the Bronx from expressing her pro-Tibet sympathies. more ›