Today's Most Popular Stories

​A compilation of the most-viewed stories on Bay Area news sites and blogs at the moment. You're welcome.

SF Gate: Columnist Chip Johnson voted for Don Perata, who, he can't believe, lost to Jean Quan in the race to become mayor of Oakland. Quan prevailed after Johnson wrote a week ago that she'd been "mathematically" eliminated. Folks, this is what happens when journalists try to do math. At first, Chip was sad that his guy lost. But now, thanks to the power of rationalization, he realizes it's not so bad -- at least Quan will be a lot better than Ron Dellums. 

Marin Independent Journal: Over in San Rafael, the cops pull over someone for a seatbelt violation -- a seatbelt violation -- and then proceed to inadvertently let a wanted fugitive walk home. Now there's a manhunt for the fugitive, who has an outstanding warrant for burglary -- and now this whole seatbelt thing.

San Jose Mercury News: The Merc offers a handy search tool to find out if you're going to be laid off. Happy holidays!

KTVU: Protesters shut down the Fruitvale BART station -- that's where transit cop Johannes Mehserle shot and killed unarmed passenger, Oscar Grant.Yeah, yeah -- it's last night's news. What isn't last night's news is that when we did a Google News search for "fruitvale bart oscar grant protest," the results came back with this bizarre ad:


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Mission Local: OMG, so Microsoft was behind those street stencils promoting the Windows phone. We thought Banksy had struck again. The city's Department of Public Works says the stencils, even though they were done in chalk, are illegal.  So there!
 
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