OK, it's almost 2 p.m. on the Friday before Christmas. Time to do some last-minute shopping and head home, right? Maybe not. Traffic sucks even more than on most holiday weekends, thanks to an accident on 580 in Oakland. If you don't have one of those fancy GPS units that automatically updates you with the latest traffic reports, you can check Another blow for libertarianism. The People's Republic of San Francisco has forced Parking Control Service, the energetically entrepreneurial local company whose employees placed $40 "parking violation fine" tickets on cars in lots around SF and Marin, to We hear that It's been a long-running suggestion that California secede from the United States. But barring a massive tectonic rift, the Cali shows no signs of jumping from its comfy perch. San Francisco has taken matters into its own hands, however, and quietly declared that it's not just a city and a county -- it's a country, too. Just like he did with gay weddings three years ago, newly reelected and always hunky dictator-for-life Gavin Newsom was keen to make the shift go by unnoticed. One American patriot spotted the change on her tax bill. The jig's up, Newsom. A San Francisco man has pleaded guilty in federal court to filing false tax returns using identities he purchased for $20 off Craigslist. Roger Lexin Mai, 32, admitted to filing 17 false tax returns with the IRS in 2003 using names and Social Security numbers he obtained through the site. He claimed tax refunds of more than $100,000. [San Francisco supervisors this week rejected a legislation that would ban romantic and sexual relationships between city managers and their subordinates. The proposed law was crafted by left-even-for-SF supervisor Chris Daly and aimed squarely at hunky god-mayor Gavin Newsom. Early this year, the Gav admitted to an affair with his then-aide Ruby Rippey-Tourk, pictured here across the lap of lucky Engadget founder Peter Rojas in a Most passersby don't notice California Institute for Regenerative Medicine's austere signage tucked between Borders and Amici's on King Street, kitty-corner from the ballpark . And the San Francisco-based CIRM has struggled to turn its $3 billion in state funding into an active economic engine for the area.