The San Francisco Citizen

Here’s what you’ll see tooling around San Francisco’s Mission District these days - an aging Mercedes Benz 300 SD sedan that’s been converted by Oakland’s Veg Rev to run on vegetable oil in a process called “vehicle fuel reassignment.”

So instead of inky diesel soot covering the back of this OM617 W126, we see vegetable oil. See the conversion process courtesy of this nifty video. (But just ignore a laughable MTV-style intro from the abysmal Current TV network.) The car shown can’t accelerate quickly, but in many ways is superior to (and costs about $115,000 less than) the quick, all-electric Tesla Roadster.

Of course the best way to spread the word about veggie power is to fashion a bumper sticker to make Toyota Prius owners feel bad:

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“YOUR NEW HYBRID USES GAS - HA!”

From Teh Mission with love…

So, you’re all set to motor on the streets of San Francisco with your high-performance vehicle and then…

Disaster! Some funeral procession is blocking you even though you have the green light. It’s just like Critical Mass, except these car parades can show up at any time. Do you really have to listen to these “funeral cops” when they try to block your vehicle’s path?

Maybe. See below.

Per Tom Marshall, a CHP spokesman in HQ in Sacramento:

“The Vehicle Code says any person who disregards any traffic signal or direction given by a peace officer authorized to escort funeral processions in uniform shall be guilty of an infraction and subject to penalties.

“The Vehicle Code is silent on non-peace officers performing funeral-escort duty.

“However, we would recommend that motorists observe the directions of such an escort not only out of respect, but also to avoid danger to themselves and those in the procession.

“It is reasonable that a motorist in a funeral procession is somewhat relying upon the escort’s direction and may not expect someone to not observe their directions.”

What that means is that, especially in places like San Francisco where there are rules for Funeral Precession Escorts, you probably won’t get a ticket for ignoring a so-called “fake cop,” but you very likely will get the blame if you get into an accident.

Choose wisely.

You can tell this is a real City And County of San Francisco street sign by the small letters encoded on the bottom.

So it’s easy to tell its an official sign, just like our “END BUSH“ sign on Presidio. And totally the opposite of this fake, home-made “PET WASTE TRANSMITS DISEASE“ sign on Franklin.

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A similar sign up in British Columbia leads this couple to ask, “Whatever happened to romance?”

Autumn is almost here, so the bees of San Francisco are working overtime before these Dahlia blooms die off.

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Good luck, little bees.

See you next year.

You people love you some penguins. And the California Academy of Sciences knows that, so what better way to guide you to this fabulous new mega museum than to put down footprints from the Richmond and Sunset districts.

“If you’re arriving by public transit, follow the webbed footprints of the Penguin Path from 9th and Irving, or 8th and Fulton, right to the front of the Academy. It’s only a ten minute walk.”

Ay! Trayectoria del Pingüino! (or sendero pingüino? No se.) Once you see this, you’ll soon see all the footprints on the sidewalks leading to where you want to go.

Most people will probably arrive from the 5 Fulton or the N Judah. If you can see the tower of the de Young Museum, you can also use that as a guide to get to the general area.

Conveniently, the CAS also has instructions for those arriving by bike, car, tour buses and, of course, spacecraft:

“The Academy is located on planet Earth, approximately 93.1 million miles (or one Astronomical Unit) from the G2 star known as the Sun…”

Once you arrive you can meet the penguins: 

These little critters should be a major draw for the CAS.

See you there on Opening Day, September 27th, 2008.

This is the scene from yesterday at the University of California, Berkeley, where the final four Memorial Oak Grove treesitters made their final stand after two years of arboreal occupation.  

It’s Raul Colocho, 27; Armando Resendez, 20; Ernesto Trevino, 18; and Michael Schuck, 26, shown shortly before their arrests.

Click for a high-rez version:

A great shot via the photostream of ingridtaylar, also the below

Campus police Chief Victoria Harrison and Assistant Chief Mitch Celaya finally were able to talk these people down, with a little help from a crane and a scaffolding crew.  

You can see more of the action over at Zombietime and ProtestShooter and you can learn more about this whole affair at Save the Oaks.

This is what it looked like at Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park at the 10th Annual Power to the Peaceful Festival 2008, Music Conciousness Action, featuring Michael Franti and Spearhead, Ziggy Marley, Warren Haynes, Rebelution, Martin Luther, King Britt, and Cheb i Sabbah.

No longer known as the “911 Power to the Peaceful” festival as it was in 2007, this year’s effort allowed you to hear about Aloysius Weasel Bear, and see about how to “connect the dots from Palestine to Pine Ridge,” and wonder about the call-and-response question, “Can you feel me?”

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Yoga Tree was in the house to inspire.

And there were 5 or 6 dudes trying to sell you weed brownies.

Of course.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom addressed a crowd of about 300 at the No on Proposition 8 campaign kick-off on Market Street this morning.  Also on hand were City Attorney Dennis Herrera, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, Mark Leno, Fiona Ma, José Cisneros, and Carmen Chu.

The No on Prop 8 people are ahead in the polls, including the most recent one from Public Policy Institute of California, so it almost seems unfair to unleash the awesome power of the fully operational mothership that is the Alex Tourk operation.

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Now of course, the Yes on Proposition 8 people (protectmarriage.com) have their own supporters, such as Doug Manchester (so much to answer for) of the San Diego Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Knights of Columbus and the California Catholic Conference. 

And plus, they have a Facebook, a MySpace and a Twitter. But it’s going to take more than that to get Prop 8 voted into law in November, 2008

Read all about it at Equality California’s website.

California Assemblymember Mark Leno spoke out against Prop 8 at an event last night in San Francisco:

The kick-off rally tomorrow, September 6th, should be well-attended:

No on 8 Kick-off Rally
Saturday, September 6, 2008 – 10:00am
2278 Market St., 2nd Fl. (map)
San Francisco, CA 

North of Mission Bay and South of Market is where you’ll find the houseboats of Mission Creek.

You can look at them and ponder their future while exploring the new Mission Creek Park. The residents here have a lot to adjust to what with all the new visitors, and the new condo buildings, and the new UCSF Mission Bay complex.

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