So, like, you might assume that interviewer Hank Plante would ask about this mysterious absense from all his official events, and his unannounced, Mark Sanford-style trip to Hawaii. But Newsom just wants to grin and laugh the soulless laugh of a cornered Scientologist, and talk about the budget deficit. It is a terrible, terrible interview, with the rictus smile and the mirthless laughter. And it ends with Newsom removing his mic and bitching, off the record, about how mean it is of journalists to ask what the hell is up with him.

And then the Wall Street Journal reported that Newsom was going to quit politics and go back to his winery. Newsom called the reporter to deny it, but there's no way in hell this guy's remaining in office until 2012.

As if he planned to reveal it all along, Newsom casually Twittered that his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, was pregnant, after the Valleywag reported the news yesterday. In a news conference today, though, he admitted that the news didn't come out quite the way he wanted:

The mayor fielded questions about fatherhood today following a news conference about improvements to Civic Center Plaza, saying that the baby is due later this year, possibly sometime in September.

Newsom welcomed "any advice on diapers, any advice on feeding times, any advice on names," or other topics related to a new child, and said he was already receiving tips on his Twitter account....

He said some extended family members learned of the pregnancy through TV reports.

He even apologized to his Aunt Annie:

"Unfortunately, some gossip column in New York City leaked this, and so we didn't announce it in the way we intended to, but such is the life of public service," Newsom said Thursday outside City Hall. "I had to deal with my aunt. To my Aunt Annie, I apologize for you watching it on TV last night. The point being that I hadn't reached out to our extended family to let them know before everyone else found out."

("Some gossip column in New York City"? Gavin, hon, you need to brush up on your local media. Valleywag is based in San Francisco. How else would we have heard about it first?)

What better way to play the news than as benighted new father, dealing with anxious relatives and soliciting advice about diapers? It is a happy event for the Newsoms, certainly, as a family. But going into a tight race to be California's next governor, it could also spell a rebirth of his political ambitions.

Newsom, a Democrat, has declared himself a candidate for California's governor seat, a wide-open race taking place next year, since term limits are keeping Arnold Schwarzenegger from running again. A rising star in the Democratic party, Newsom has hurt himself with gaffes both personal and political.

He and his first wife, Fox News TV host kimberly Guilfoyle, divorced in 2006. While going through the divorce, Newsom had an affair with Ruby Rippey-Tourk, the wife of his campaign manager, Alex Tourk. The divorce and affair ruined Newsom's Camelot-by-the-Bay image.

His wedding last year to Siebel, a cousin of wealthy software entrepreneur Tom Siebel, was a step towards restoring his tattered image. (Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin ferried guests in their private jet to the wedding site on a Montana ranch.)

But then came Proposition 8, California's ban on gay marriage, a cause Newsom has championed since he defied state law in 2004 by issuing marriage licenses to gay couples (including the author of this post). At a rally, Newsom declared that gay marriage was coming to California "whether you like it or not," a sound bite Prop 8 supporters aired endlessly in TV commercials and was cited in many election post-mortems as a factor in the passage of Prop 8.

With memories of his messy personal life still fresh, and his main cause defeated in the last state election, Newsom's push for the governor's seat looked like it was off to a rocky start. In the Democratic primary, he faces California Attorney General Jerry Brown, the former Governor Moonbeam.

But political observers say Brown may strike potential voters as too old. With Newsom's wife expecting a child in the fall, he will have the perfect family-man campaign prop. What better way for a claimant to the throne to seem young and vital than to have his very own heir?

Update: The mayor's office has confirmed that the Newsoms are expecting. Spokesman Nathan Ballard said:

We are pleased to confirm that Mayor Gavin Newsom and First Lady Jennifer Siebel Newsom are starting a family. The Mayor and the First Lady are thrilled to be embarking on this adventure together, and they appreciate your good wishes.

Guess who wasn't expecting this? Gavin's dad and Jennifer's mom, both of whom told the San Francisco Examiner that their children hadn't let them in on the secret.

(Photos by Getty Images)

At age 22, Patricia West already has her small-business model fully launched. She's done her market research, knows how to advertise online and has a competitive rate structure. There's just one problem: She works in the world's oldest profession, which is illegal.

Sure, it's way more boring to frame escorting just like any other work-from-home freelance gig, but it's increasingly the case. It's a great strategy, PR-wise. Everyone gets worked up over the idea of sassy streetwalkers arguing over who owns which corner. But really, how could San Francisco voters get seriously up in arms over prostitutes clocking overtime hunched over their laptops at Ritual Roasters, answering email?

(Photo by St. James Infirmary)

• Childs is said to have access to email, 311 service, and law-enforcement applications. He only had the power to block network access to these apps, not to log into them.
• Childs had a list of 150 VPN groupnames and passwords. These were part of his job, not something he'd stolen. Ironically, these passwords were entered into court documents, making them publicly-accessible information.
• When Childs was arrested, he had documentation of the city network, including configurations, maps, and diagrams of the FiberWAN and possibly other networks in his possession. Again, knowing this info is part of his job.
• He had configured some number of routers to disable password recovery, but did not write the device configurations to flash memory on some number of routers. This would cause them to fail if power-cycled. City officials claim this was a "booby trap" designed to disable their data center at One Market Street during a forthcoming planned power outage. I think they're giving him too much credit for plan-within-plan cleverness here. Disabling password recovery is a standard security procedure for routers. More likely Childs just forgot to save to flash.

You can read a longer, wonkier takedown of the city's claims at IT World.

The most damning charge, technically speaking, is that Childs had several modems hooked up to computers in his workspace. It appears that he used these modems to access the network remotely without leaving an audit trail back to himself.

What an amateur.

The Childs case backs up a point I've been making to clients for years. City officials have admitted — in public! — that "not only was Childs the only admin, he was always on call, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. As the only admin with the knowledge and access to the FiberWAN, he had no help. During the past few years, the DTIS staff has been significantly reduced due to budget cuts, keeping the city dependent on a sole admin for its core network."

Overwork your techs and bad stuff will happen. Maybe Childs is happy to be in jail. He can get some sleep there.

(Photo by Robert McMillan)

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom may be known nationally as the patron saint of gay marriage, but back home, Newsom has built his career on things like buying fleets of hybrid vehicles and installing windmills near the Golden Gate Bridge.

Small problem — as Curbed SF points out, Newsom has never built a windmill or anything else energy-related anywhere near the Golden Gate Bridge. Not that such considerations would quell admiration from right-coast hacks looking to promote handsome, young politicians for the benefit of the party machine.

If you live in New York, you might think San Francisco's Gavin "Gavvy-gav" Newsom is some sort of John Lindsay-handsome but Michael Bloomberg-effective miraculous wonder. He married the gays! And instituted universal healthcare! And tans his hot bod with solar panels! It's okay, we understand — you guys have never had as firm a grasp on left-coast reality as you thought you did. In truth, Newsom's administration has failed on such basic points as violent crime, public transportation, and affordable housing.

While local New Yorker correspondent Tad Friend chewed on Newsom's presentation hook, line and sinker, even he can't be entirely blamed. The regional press corps has been filled with unapologetic boosters since the gold rush days. With Nancy Pelosi, our local political machine's grand inquisitor, running the House of Representatives, it's only natural that we press a lanky golden-boy type upon you poor suckers statewide. For my sake and yours, however, don't believe the hype.

Gavvy-gav was, and is, a ditzy jock who just happened to be related to somone endeared to the Getty oil fortune. As a perennial ringer for upwardly mobile softball teams otherwise stacked with the obliged noblesse, he rose quickly from above the muddied ranks of local activists and condo association street fighters. Picking topics which cost him little political capital locally while presenting them as daring moves nationally, Newsom has cemented the perception of his position firmly between the socially center-left and economically center-right.

Which, honestly, is about the perfect balance for the pot-smoking, free-market and gay-loving populace which forms his constituency. Still, it's no frame to hang an Obama-level cult of personality on. Newsom's feather-light shoulders and uncannily cheery countenance really can't take the weight of serious responsibility. Take pity, east coasters, and please don't bother to burden him with it.

(Photo by Franco Folini)

Yes, that Steven Brill — the one who founded CourtTV, Brill's Content and dotbomb casualty Contentville. VIP largely arose from Brill's contention that a private company institute a national ID program in his Newsweek column, where according to Slate:

Brill had the keen insight that it would take an outsider to make the security pass happen. He had no faith that the government could pull off something like it.

Now the Trasportation Security Administration has grounded Clear from signing up new customers until more robust data encryption is put into place. (Photo by Getty/David Paul Morris)

Instead this here Tesla appears to have taken so great of a liking to the back end of a Mercedes, it's up and gone right up the German car's rear end. The folks over at Hey apparently have the full story — or as much as they know — as well as a second picture of the incident apparently taken by someone named Alex Volkov. We wish we had more to tell you — if only Tesla PR would return our phone calls — ever. (Hat tip to Andy!) [Hey, Flickr]

Allison's sort-of ex, Digg cofounder Kevin Rose, said he was buying Google. Surely not for Knol, Google's weak attempt at taking on Wikipedia — at launch, its search engine didn't even work. Jackson, come back and help us make sense of this crazy business! (Photo by Jason Calacanis)

Infoworld has an insider report on the tech side of the story from another San Francisco IT staffer. The Chronicle report by Matier & Ross is more people-oriented:

A team of code crackers brought in from Cisco Systems had been working around the clock to try to decipher Childs' codes, but with only marginal success.

"It wasn't cheap and I just couldn't see us keep spending that kind of money," Newsom said.

Then, out of the blue, Childs' lawyer, Erin Crane, called the mayor's office Monday afternoon, offering a jailhouse meeting.

Childs, according to the lawyer, was ready to give up the codes - but only to the mayor, who had gone out of his way in his public comments not to portray Childs as some sort of monster.

Newsom didn't hesitate. Without asking the city attorney for an opinion or giving a heads up to police or the district attorney, he was at the Hall of Justice in half an hour.

With Crane by his side, Childs told Newsom about the computer system he'd set up and how all the current problems sprang from a series of misunderstandings.

Crane didn't let him go on for too long, and Childs got to the business at hand, asking for a pen.

He then wrote out a very long computer code.

"This better be right," Newsom said.

"It is," Childs assured him, but asked the mayor to deliver it in person to the Cisco specialists — not to the city's computer brass.

Newsom took the code to the city computer center and gave it to a Cisco techie, who found that it didn't work — prompting a call-back to Crane.

"He said you would be calling and you would be upset," the lawyer said. "He forgot to give you the protocols to go along with the code" — and she read the accompanying computer prompters to the mayor over the phone.

By Tuesday morning, the system was back in the hands of the city.

(Photo by AP/Eric Risburg)

Here we go again. New graffiti on the sidewalk at 18th and Dolores claims nothing short of "Mission Exploitation" by Google employees. A decade ago, the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project posted flyers urging Valencia Street's self-styled "artists" to vandalize luxury cars. Some did. In 2008, most Web 2.0 workers aren't rich enough to draw the righteous anger of their slightly-less-privileged neighbors. Except for Googlers who dare move into the city's youth-culture ghetto between Cesar Chavez and Market.

The company's unparalleled success sparks rage in the hearts of permalosers who never, ever want to look at anyone whose career is doing better. Somewhere under the sheer jealousy is a legit issue: San Francisco was once a low-rent haven for hippies and a sanctuary for political refugees from all over the world. Dotcom money and disingenuous "live/work" lofts — I signed a contract declaring I was an "artist" to move into one in 2003, enabling the loft's developer to collect $2,700 a month without paying local school taxes — helped drive SF's cost of living higher than much of New York.

But the antiyuppies aren't playing straight, either. Progressive economist Paul Krugman has cited rent control as a major contributor to San Francisco's housing shortage. No one ever quotes him on that. Instead, if Google keeps growing, expect a resurgence in white-on-white carbashings and hatemongering handbills. O cool, grey city of love! (Photo from San Francisco Wiki)

A tipster snapped this late-night shot of Apple's Union Square store being overhauled. You — yes, you waiting in line with your old iPhone — send us photos of the results when the store opens at 10, willya? Separately, we've been told that Apple Store employees at the San Francisco flagship cut off would-be buyers who arrived after 5:30 p.m. Shoppers timed the morning line at 2.5 hours yesterday. That's even more time than I spend watching my BlackBerry reboot.