Tough week for Mark Sanchez: Widely seen as the District 9 front runner, the Guardian endorsed him for third place. What happened?

One theory: He owns rental properties. Is that what done him in?

Meanwhile, Eric Quezada needs to learn how to count, everybody loves Ross Mirkarimi...and everybody would love Sean Elsbernd except that I think he's a jerk.

Panelists Joe Eskenazi, Melissa Griffin and Paul Hogarth disagree, though. And they've got the inside track on everything votable in San Francisco.

Stick around. --Benjamin Wachs

According to its Web site, Filippa K combines "timeless simplicity with contemporary edge" for "distinctive fashion for modern urbanites with personal integrity." There's a lot of this tiresome fashion babble on the company Web site: "It’s about the ‘punk within’ combined with the simplicity of Filippa K. The essence of cool and stylish lead singer of Velvet Underground, Nico."

Nothing screams "punk sensibility" like "jersey and knitwear."

Filippa K is a Swedish label that hawks "minimalist" fashion (read: grey sweaters, little black dresses) and has been doing so for thirteen years. They've leached their particular style of tasteful basics to 41 countries and according to an article in today's Wall Street Journal, they'll be opening a store in San Francisco next month. Writes the WSJ:

The label, named for founder and creative director Filippa Knutsson, is one of a number of Scandinavian brands that have gained currency among U.S. fashionistas, helped by an under-the-radar mystique and prices that are lower than European labels.Filippa K men's sport coats, for example, range in price from $325 to $575, compared with starting prices of $1,000 for Armani Collezioni and Versace.

Then there's this:

The 15-year-old label, now sold in the U.S. at upscale chains like Barneys New York, acknowledged the awkward timing. "When we started to plan the San Francisco project, the financial market and economic situation in the U.S. were not this bad," said Patrik Kihlborg, Filippa K's interim chief executive.

Um, yeah. Awwwwwwwwwkward.

It's good to know that even as the economy whizzes sharply past your ears you can still look forward to snapping up an affordable $575 sports coat sometime in November.

Here's one of the photos from the slideshow accompanying WSJ's story about the Dow dropping 678 points and closing below 8600. This guy is probably thinking, "New York doesn't even have its own Filippa K store! Just shoot me!" --Andy Wright

By Andy Wright

You are about to watch a political ad whose opening line, delivered with wide-eyed sincerity and a cartoonish shrug, is: “Some people thing I’m a child predator. What is up with that?”

The Yes on Prop 4 campaign (which would require parental notification for minors to obtain abortions) sponsored a YouTube contest in which people crafted commercials advancing their cause. This was the best one.

The makers of this ad picked a suitably creepy looking star and then stuffed him into the universal uniform of sketchy dudes everywhere, the track suit, but that’s where the plausibility ends. “Ok, so I get a couple of them pregnant?” He says of the teenage girls he likes to kick it with, then Seinfelds “What is the big deal?" The Prop 4 people’s argument is that child predators routinely impregnate young girls and then take them for abortions.

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(Click here to view the video.)

By Ashley Harrell

As of yesterday, polls suggested that Prop 8, the ballot measure that would eliminate the right of gays to marry in California, would pass with 47 percent of the vote. Only 43 percent were projected to vote no. That's damn scary.

The new Yes on 8 ad -- designed to tap into swing voters' irrational fears over the welfare of their children -- is even scarier.

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By Will Harper

Most likely you were watching that other debate if you were watching any debate last night. But about 75 people made it out to the Victoria Theatre Tuesday evening to see the District 9 supervisorial candidates gab and jab in their quest to succeed Tom Ammiano.

District 9 includes the Mission, Bernal Heights, and various former Soviet republics. Basically, this district is so left-wing it makes the rest of San Francisco look like Wasilla, Alaska.

Unlike most political “debates,” which are really forums where candidates take turns giving speeches, this truly featured a debate format where candidates asked each other questions. The event, moderated by GILF (Gadfly I’d Like to Fuck) MILF (Moderator I'd Like to Fuck), Sweet Melissa, lasted about 90 minutes. Of course, you don’t want spend that much time figuring out what happened, so here are the talking points (subtext and made-up quotes added where necessary):

ERIC QUEZADA
Distinguishing Feature: Soul patch

His Message: He has been in this district for 20 years getting’ it done unlike that snobby carpetbagger David Campos, whom he respects very much.

For Decriminalizing Prostitution? Yes

Miscellany: Lots of his supporters in the audience wearing yellow T-shirts, not wearing deodorant.

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Your powers are weak, old man...

S.F. crowd cheers and boos where you'd think they would -- but would be doing more of it if this were a freewheeling debate that rewarded mental agility.

By Joe Eskenazi

At some point during Tuesday night’s debate, I’m pretty sure that Sen. John McCain proposed making the founder of eBay his next Treasury Secretary. Maybe that would go well with his other proposal of the government buying up bad home loans. Why just buy them when we can...bid on them?

And, to be fair, I think Sen. Barack Obama proposed that the government needed to put people to work with “bridge projects.” Bridge projects? So long as the bridge is to somewhere, right?

I could nitpick – and, after McCain’s agonizing hair replacement joke/dig at Joe Biden, it’s tempting – but I’d rather look at the bigger picture. As in: The “town hall”-style debate format is complete shit.

The portions of this debate people are going to remember are when Obama and McCain got a bit surly, and fired contrasting viewpoints at one another – debating, you could call it. Of course, that didn’t fit into the format. There’s no follow-up allowed in this town –- which gives debaters the incentive to stretch the truth and repeat talking points because then your opponent will have to look like an asshole when he interjects to say “Wait, I’ve got to respond to this, wait!”

No, no, no! It’s far more important for a dazed “undecided voter” to read a question with diction befitting a porn actor and be subsequently patronized by the candidates before they go on and talk about whatever it is they wanted to talk about anyway.

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Did Pepperdine law professor Richard Peterson have permission from the university to star in an intellectually dishonest political ad?

By Ashley Harrell

If you've been following the Prop 8 ad campaigns, then you already know about how last week, Pepperdine University law professor Richard Peterson made an asinine appearance in a Yes on 8 ad calling for the elimination of gay marriage in California. The ad resulted in the school distancing itself from Peterson's opinions and eventually having its name removed.

But if you haven't checked back on the Snitch, you might have missed the comment left by David Peterson, purportedly the professor's son, asking that people stop sending angry emails to his father (Richard.Peterson@pepperdine.edu) and the dean of Pepperdine's school of law (Ken.Starr@pepperdine.edu). The younger Peterson, who left comments on several other sites, also claims the university initially supported Peterson's appearance in the advertisement and later apologized for retracting its name from the ad.

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Okay, Okay...is it just us or does embattled former AIG CEO Martin Sullivan look just like journeyman actor Bruce McGill?

Or, while we're at it, is Alan Rickman a a better choice to play him in the eventual movie of our times, "There Goes Your Retirement"?

-- Joe Eskenazi

Notes by John Geluardi
Photos by Joe Eskenazi

There was a rare sight outside the SF Weekly's windows this morning: A young female great blue heron with her yellow eyes, dagger-like bill and fringed breast was warming herself atop a piling near the Fourth Street Bridge. What made the sighting even more amazing was that sitting on pilings right next to her were a double crested cormorant and a snowy egret, a Mission Creek regular that a local reporter named “Sally," for her resemblance to the high-dressing madam Sally Stanford.

The three birds had probably finished their morning meal on the abundant fish life in the creek that empties into the San Francisco Bay at AT&T Park. Great blue herons were not known to nest in San Francisco until Nancy DeStefanis, director of the San Francisco Nature Education, discovered a nest on the small island in the middle of Golden Gate Park’s Stow Lake.

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Radical Women Conference
The Women’s Building, San Francisco
October 6-9, 2008
Notes and photos by Masha Rumer

Better than: Calling yourself a maverick.

Feminists of all walks of life came together over the weekend for the Radical Women Conference to talk Marxist feminism, unionizing, reproductive rights and queer leadership, drawing participants nationally and from as far as Australia and Costa Rica.

The venue – the Women’s Building in the Mission District – made a symbiotic hub with its democratic mural art on the outside and a plethora of activism within, from women’s and children’s services, to advertisements for Bush-going-away parties and a same-sex dance show, to free condoms and lube. And while socialism to some may seem as far-fetched as freezing borscht in the snow, the conference entailed personal and political advice for all, with one distinct message: you have rights.

Over the course of four days, 250 plus women (and a sprinkling of men) participated in workshops on public speaking, organizing on the job, gender and affirmative action, poetry and rebellion. Highlights included an address by Lynne Stewart, a human rights attorney from New York who was convicted and sentenced for providing "terrorist support" for delivering a note to Reuters. Other panelists included Debbie Brennan from the Australian Services Union and Patricia Ramos, a Costa Rican labor lawyer and organizer against CAFTA.

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By John Geluardi

The Feds have joined a lawsuit against San Francisco-based McKesson Corporation, which alleges that the medical supplier submitted false claims to Medicare, paid illegal kickbacks and set up a sham company to cover its tracks.

The Department of Justice announced today that it has entered into the lawsuit, which was first filed by an individual whistleblower named Thomas F. Jamison. The suit involves several companies including McKession Medical Surgical Medinet, and Arkansas-based Beverly Enterprises, which operates 345 nursing homes, 18 assisted living centers and 56 hospices.

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By Benjamin Wachs

God what a dull week. The only thing that could make this week in government interesting is a sex scandal. Luckily Mayor Newsom is running for higher office, so, there's a pretty good chance.

To keep things interesting until that happens, I'm going to add a sexual undertone to each of this week's meetings.

Monday, Oct. 6

10 a.m. – Government Audit and Oversight Committee

If I had an intern, I would have them describe this meeting to you while I nursed a hangover and tried to remember why why why I got into journalism in the first place.

But I don't. So instead I'm just going to pour another single-malt and cry.

Hey, whose panties are these?

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By Will Harper

The cover of this week’s issue of the Bay Guardian is devoted to, yet again, Sonoma State’s Project Censored and its list of the most important stories ignored by the mainstream media. Sometimes Project Censored does unearth stories deserving of more attention, but all too often the “censored” stories simply didn’t get the kind of treatment the lefties who put together the list would have liked. In fact, many of the “censored” stories actually appeared in the mainstream press. This year, for instance, editorials and opinion pieces ran about some of these censored subjects in such underground publications as the New York Times and the Moonie-owned Washington Times.

But at least our rivals had the good sense not to include Guardian strongman Bruce B. Brugmann’s latest rant about PG&E, public power and the Raker Act in the paper. Instead, Brugmann was left to blog about “The Most Censored Story in SF History,” which his paper has been writing about for the last 40 years. In it, Brugmann offers his tendentious view of how “the local media, led by the Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle, has censored and marginalized the scandal in every way possible.”

The gist of Brugmann’s tirade: Old-man Hearst cut a deal with PG&E in the late ‘20s to reverse his support for the Raker Act and public power. “To it's (sic) everlasting shame,” Brugmann wrote last week, “Hearst corporate has marched in lock steps everlatter with PG&E and against the city and county of San Francisco and its residents and businesses.”

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Download: News & Booze: Episode 6 Part 2

Every November San Franciscans promise to do incredible things for their fellow human beings just as soon as they've slit the throat of the people getting in their way.

Don't get me wrong, we're used to poison politics in SF - but this time, will it take our hospital down with it?

Should it? Prop A, a bond measure that needs to pass in order to save the hospital, does have a few flaws...

Meanwhile the race in District 9 is kind of a Rorschach test for progressives: when you look at these identical candidates, what do you see? Remember, you can only vote for 3 of them.

Joe Eskenazi, Melissa Griffin, and Marc Salomon are in the Sunset Studios drinking - pull up a chair and join them. --Benjamin Wachs

By John Geluardi

While most of the country is squabbling over the fine points of victory after Wednesday night's vice presidential debate, the fact is the “debate” was more like watching a comfortable, second-marriage couple arguing over where to have dinner; Olive Garden or the Outback Steakhouse.

No communities lost more in the nationally televised patty slap than San Francisco's. Don’t forget Matt Gonzalez, a popular former president of the Baord of Supervisors, is also in contention for the VP spot with Ralph Nader on the Independent ticket. It looked to me like there was plenty of room on that St. Louis stage for ideas that Gonzalez was sure to have brought forward.

Chief among them, the right for same-sex couples to marry in the eyes of God and country. Both VP candidates Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin went on record saying gays should not have that right. Most Americans, I believe, not matter what their beliefs, could have have survived an argument for basic equality for this country’s citizens.

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