Notes from two debates:

Homeland security? Please. At the GOP candidates' debate Wednesday in Simi Valley, you could walk in with pretty much anything and no one would know. Cell phones, Blackberries, etc. were not allowed, but guests were on the honor system: You could take out your Personal Digital Assistant and check it, but if you wanted to keep it in your pocket, no one would be the wiser. No ID checks, no pat-downs, no metal detectors. If you're in Simi Valley -- and the Reagan Library, no less -- you must be OK.

At Thursday's Democratic debate in Hollywood, forget it. No cell phones, no exceptions. And no place to check them -- what is this, a welfare state where you want the government to solve your problems? And yes, there were metal detectors. And better get that driver's license out. Democrats may love you, but they don't trust you.

After the Dems' debate, by the way, there were plenty of parties -- but by invitation only. You'd better know someone. And if you got to the Kodak Theater too late, sorry, the bar is closed. For the Republicans, it was generous entitlements all around. Come one, come all -- full bar, roast beef, turkey, vegetables (just in case there was a Democrat in the crowd), full dessert array, and individual servings of red, white and blue jelly beans. This is Reagan Country, after all.

Of course, sometimes Republicans are just Republicans. If you wanted to get to the GOP debate by some way other than a car -- well, you can't. Why don't you have a car? You could see the hoi polloi with their signs and chants (lots for Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee, and one lone Fred Thompson holdout), but only through your car window. Going to the Kodak on Thursday, car or no car, you had to quite literally rub shoulders with, and push your way through, the chanters, enthusiasts, pamphleteers, conspiracy theorists and activists. Getting in was chaos. No special privileges for members of the City Council, the Assembly, the Senate, who had to elbow their way through the masses along with everyone else, hold their driver's licenses aloft and plead with the harried people behind the check-in desk to get their paper bracelets.

That's more like it -- Democrats acting like Democrats, Republicans like Republicans. The world's order is restored.

The biggest ovation at Thursday evening's Democratic primary debates went to former California Gov. Gray Davis.

Art Torres, the state Dems' chair, was introducing the state party's A-list at the beginning of the program. When he got to Davis, there was a smattering of applause as the bigwigs on the floor craned their necks to see where the ex-guv was. Then they spotted the shock of white hair way upstairs, in the first balcony, in the back. The smattering turned into affectionate cheering, which turned into a standing ovation in his balcony, then the other two balconies, finally the floor.

Torres jumped in: Which governor had the biggest deficit? (Hint: Not Davis). More clapping. The warm reception outdid even Hillary's big applause line of the night -- the one about needing a Clinton to clean up after the second Bush, just like the first.

At the GOP debate in Simi Valley the night before, the reception for the man who ousted Davis -- current governor Arnold Schwarzenegger -- was polite enough, no doubt in part because he escorted Nancy Reagan into the room.

The issue of waterboarding drowned out almost all other concerns about Attorney General Michael Mukasey during his confirmation hearings last year, and it could wipe out today's confirmation hearings for Mark Filip, slated to become the next deputy attorney general. From Congressional Quarterly:

Senate Democrats plan to delay a floor vote on President Bush’s nominee for the No. 2 post at the Justice Department until the department responds to several Judiciary Committee oversight letters.

Mukasey had managed to stay afloat and pass muster by the smallest margin in 50 years. At the time, he hedged wildly on waterboarding, protesting that he didn't know enough to make a judgment.

Yesterday, judgment day came. And the verdict? That he can't issue one.

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick has a scathing critique of Mukasey's logic:

Mukasey won't speculate about future water-boarding, either, claiming he will not be drawn into "imagining facts and circumstances that are not present and thereby telling our enemies exactly what they can expect in those eventualities." He also refuses to tell "people in the field ... what they have to refrain from or not refrain from in a situation that is not performing."

Just to be clear then, to the extent that there is any purpose to the law, i.e., to punish past bad acts and to alert people as to what types of conduct will be punished in the future, the attorney general has just obliterated that purpose. Unless someone were to actually be water-boarded before Mukasey's eyes at the witness table in the Hart Senate Building, America's lawyer cannot hazard an opinion as to its legality.

But Mukasey calls out the senators as well -- and he has a point, says CBS News analyst Andrew Cohen:

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, especially Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), want Mukasey to do their heavy lifting. They want him to proclaim by legal memorandum what they have so far been unable to accomplish by political power. It would be nice if he were willing to do so. And you can bet that if a majority of Republicans and the President were calling upon Mukasey to say the magic words he’d be game. But they aren’t and he isn’t and it’s time Leahy and Company moved on.

Judging by their toying with today's confirmation hearings, it doesn't seem like they're ready to take Cohen's advice just yet.

The Times reports today that the mayor of Ecapetec, a suburb of Mexico City, has declared his town a sanctuary for Central American illegal immigrants, many of whom pass through on their way to the U.S. Mayor Jose Luis Gutierrez has asked law enforcement not to harass or question migrants — a provision that several U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, have instituted as well.

But those provisions aren't enough for immigrants in those cities. In Chicago, which has sanctuary rules, Flor Crisostomos is claiming "sanctuary" in the same church where now-deported Elvira Arellano stayed. Of course, she isn't just looking for safety (though she is facing deportation). Like Arellano, she wants to draw attention to the illegal immigration issue.

Is it a good strategy? Some bloggers have taken it up already. Post your thoughts below.

Perhaps it's time to finally ditch the oft-made comparison between Southwest Airlines and Ryanair, the uber-low-cost European carrier that makes the former look positively first class. Sure, Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary drew his initial inspiration from Southwest, but take a look at this article and the accompanying photo:

Ryanair has locked horns with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over a newspaper advert featuring a "saucy schoolgirl", the BBC reports.

The advert punting cheap flights, which appeared in the Herald, Daily Mail and Scottish Daily Mail, shows a teen temptress (right) with the strapline “Hottest back to school fares”. . .

According to the ASA adjudication, Ryanair "disagreed that the ad suggested sexual connotations" and further "believed it was obvious that the image was of a woman fully clothed and that the short skirt and bare midriff were representative of the type of clothing that was fashionable among young women in the UK".

Ryanair defended that it "believed the ad was likely to be found offensive only by the minority of people who were likely to find any such representation objectionable".

Yep, Southwest sets a different mood by dressing its flight attendants in more casual, shorts and T-shirt uniforms, while Ryanair entices passengers to its planes with pictures of....jail bait — how far we Americans have yet to go. And this is the lesser of Ryanair's current adventures in advertising faux-pas.

Anyone remember Hooters Air?

Patt Morrison waggles a finger at mail-in voters who jumped the gun:

Now aren't you sorry?

Two or three weeks ago, maybe even earlier, you zipped through that absentee ballot, check check check, and hustled it off to the mailbox as if you were claiming a lottery prize.

And see what you missed? So much has happened since then that it's barely the same election it was on Jan. 7.

Also on the Op-Ed page, author David Callahan sees a sea change in U.S. businesses' attitudes toward their role in society, and David A. Lehrer and Joe R. Hicks of Community Advocates Inc. urge the state Senate to kill a bill that would require nonprofits to disclose employees' gender, race, ethnicity and orientation. Rosa Brooks proclaims her support for all things Obama, and cartoonist Matt Davies watches the Bush administration navigate the twin specters of war and recession.

The editorial board finds that the front-loaded primary schedule has been a surprisingly good deal for voters, and pokes fun at Huntington Beach for its trademark battle with a a Santa Cruz beachwear shop. On a more serious note, it condemns Sacramento for failing to pass a major healthcare reform bill:

Whatever direction the conversation takes, [Assembly Speaker Fabian] Nuñez and [Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger should keep the focus on comprehensive reform and the notion of shared responsibility. Their great achievement was forging a broad coalition for change. Their greatest failure would be letting it disintegrate.

Readers rebuke Melody Petersen's Op-Ed on the pharmaceutical industry. "Petersen does a disservice, through bias, ignorance or her profit motive, to an industry that is heavily regulated," writes Angelo P. Calfo. "If she had her way, healthcare professionals would be spending their weekends digging herbs."

Seven pickets in a row: Survey finds 100% opposition to L.A. Times

Seven picketers on the line outside CBS this morning. I stopped to chat them up. To the following question...

Do you think the L.A. Times' coverage of the strike has been horrible?

...I got seven affirmative responses.

Optimism unbound

Nikki Finki, who has actually covered world issues as a foreign correspondent, hears optimism coming from the labor side of strike negotiations. And more optimism. Nothing but optimism for five days or so. Even the Oscars may go forward.

Who's the only loser in this? I am, the guy who wants the strike to continue for at least one full calendar year.

The editorial board says President Bush is right to scrutinize earmarks, but he might be using it as a way to extend executive power:

More scrutiny of earmarks is an undeniably good thing. Lawmakers' pet projects account for a slender slice of the federal budget -- about one-half of 1% -- yet they feed much of the cynicism that the public feels about Congress and its penchant for spending. Bush's stance, however, betrays more concern about executive branch power than about taxpayer dollars poured into questionable projects.

The board examines the crisis in Lebanon spurred by two bombings this month. The board also asks City Hall to be pragmatic with its plans to remake downtown's Broadway.

Columnist Tim Rutten takes a look at another would-be downtown makeover -- this one a developer's dystopian, "Blade Runner"-inspired vision. USC's Harry P. Pachon and Columbia University's Rodolfo O. de la Garza say Hillary Clinton can count on Latinos. Author Michael D'Antonio argues that Explorer may not have beaten Sputnik to space, but it did represent a greater scientific breakthrough. And state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas thinks the now-defeated ABX1 1 was California's best chance at healthcare reform.

Readers react to historian Sean Wilentz's argument that there's no comparing Barack Obama to Abraham Lincoln or John Kennedy. See why Los Angeles' Donald Cosentino says, "A scholar ought not to disguise such partisan rants as historical analyses."

Last week's Bigfoot on Mars story demonstrates two important truths: 1. This wonderful age of human discovery and achievement is too good for many if not all of the humans lucky enough to live in it; and 2. the evil MSM can't win.

First point: When you see a picture like the one at right, a panorama of a valley in the Gusev Crater on a planet five-to-ten light-minutes away from us (see the picture in its full-sized glory here), is your first reaction: a) to get misty thinking of the intellects vast and cool and partially sympathetic who managed to send robot envoys on this magnificent journey; b) to consider the barren, nearly airless, geologically inert rustscape and consider what it has to teach us about our own prehistory and ecology; or c) scan the picture carefully looking for evidence of a boring old hoax by a bunch of rustics?

C was the choice of observers who found evidence of Bigfoot taking a load off out on the surface of the Red Planet. Here's the detail, an optical illusion that was treated to some deadpan news coverage, a few revealing enhancements and a (clearly unnecessary) debunking. I'm not sure anybody actually believed the humanoid-form-on-Mars story, and at least this news cycle wrapped up more quickly than the Face-On-Mars fad that endured through most of the nineties and even inspired an expensive NASA-assisted Hollywood movie. But really, there's something off about this need to find the most banal, people-sized mysteries, whatizzits lifted from old Six Million Dollar Man episodes, in a field that doesn't lack for real, interesting mysteries. Accept the verdict of science, earthlings: You ain't all that.

On the second point, one Bigfoot buff uses this story to generate (what else?) a bloglashing of the mainstream media, which not only refuse to accord this story the respect it deserves, but allegedly used the same deride-and-conquer strategy to dismiss the 2006 O'Hare airport UFO sighting. As it happens, the O'Hare story is precisely the wrong example to pick if you're looking to reprimand the MSM in this way: The tale got a fresh wind and much wider distribution thanks to some FAA shenanigans that were revealed thanks to a FOIA request from that obscure blog The Chicago Tribune.

Images courtesy of NASA.

Driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants remains a major crash-and-burn issue in California. Some fear they could be used to prosecute license holders, while others don't want to give illegal immigrants anything except a kick across the border. As the San Francisco Chronicle points out, even Hillary Clinton backed off the issue after voicing support for it in a debate last year. So why would Barack Obama be fueling the fire by revving up his support for the measure?

Because he really, really needs that jump start in the polls among Latino voters. According to the Field Poll, he's trailing Clinton by 40 points — 19% to her 59%. She's banking on her name and nineties nostalgia. Apparently, it's working.

Some also argue that it has to do with racism against African Americans — an idea Gregory Rodriguez trashed yesterday. Along with Rodriguez and Roberto Lovado at the Huffington Post, San Diego Union-Tribune's Ruben Navarrette Jr. partly blamed this popular misconception on the media, who often "don't know much about Latinos." Some say Sen. Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama will bring in more Latino voters; then again, Clinton now has some Kennedys of her own.

In any case, Obama stands to benefit from taking a stronger position on licenses in two ways: He distinguishes himself from Clinton on a policy matter (which has become increasingly dificult as the campaign continues) and he could lure some Latino voters away from the Clinton camp.

But, the SF Chronicle article points out, Democratic pollsters say two thirds of voters oppose the licenses. So is the gamble really worth the risk?

Probably. Because even if he gets negative publicity, it's still publicity — which could boost name recognition among Latinos. And right now, he needs as much of that as he can get. From last week's Times:

A Spanish-language news report from the Nevada caucuses described some voters as unclear even as to the name of Clinton's prime challenger. "They were looking for an Omega, not an Obama," Pachon said. "So his name is just not recognized yet."

The Kennedy clan isn't a united front for Barack Obama, it seems. Three Kennedys write in support of Hillary Clinton and compare her to their father, Robert F. Kennedy:

Like our father, Hillary has devoted her life to embracing and including those on the bottom rung of society's ladder -- giving voice to the alienated and disenfranchised and working to alleviate poverty and injustice, while urging that we cannot advance ourselves as a nation by leaving our poorer brothers and sisters behind.

She's been an equally effective champion for human rights and for women's rights, a worldwide cause that will profit enormously by her elevation to the presidency.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg remembers that Bush and Clinton promised change, too, and everybody suffered when they delivered. Author Craig Childs asks how much treasure museums really need. And English teacher Alan Warhaftig wonders what the teachers union will do in the post-A.J. Duffy era.

The editorial board reacts to the State of the Union, finding that Bush's speech about trust reflected his distrust of his own government. The board notes that Bush will spend anything -- including multiple trillions -- to secure Iraq, Afghanistan, and his legacy. The board also says that the Foothill South tollway is a disaster waiting to happen, no matter what the governor says.

Readers react to Obama's South Carolina win. Mary McLemore of Pike Road, Ala., isn't so sure about his prospects: "One wonders whether, after the Clinton machine makes road kill of Obama, minorities will suddenly wonder why they have allowed the Democratic Party to use and abuse them for decades."

Republicans must really be feeling down at the mouth. If the GOP presidential field weren’t in such disarray, surely by now we would have been hearing full-throated harangues about a dangerous, ascendant liberal dynasty.

Not the Clintons. The Brolins.

Oliver Stone’s making a bio-pic of George W. Bush; the 43rd president is to be played by actor and registered Democrat Josh Brolin, he of the SAG award-winning ensemble cast of  ‘’No Country for Old Men.’’ George W. Bush, before things went pear-shaped on him, was a conservative hero who aspired to be like his great conservative hero, Ronald Reagan.

And in a 2003 Emmy-nominated TV miniseries, Reagan was played by … James Brolin, Josh’s father, also a registered Democrat.

Which means that the two actors cast in the only movies to date to portray two significant Republican leaders are the stepson and the husband of … Barbra Streisand, the Hollywood liberal Republicans love to loathe.

Coincidence????

Let the conspiracy spinning begin...

Go ahead and write angry letters about how much you can't stand Jonah Goldberg or his book Liberal Fascism. From the New York Times bestseller list to the always hotly contested Opinion L.A. Top 10, America has spoken. Goldberg's tale of his Daily Show appearance is number one with a bullet, and the columnist makes it into the list a second time with his column on new nanny state outrages. Columnist Rosa Brooks places with her Billary takedown, and the editorial board finishes with an ominous view of the Tata Nano. Brian Doherty scores one for libertarianism and Jonah Lehrer apparently draws in both the artistic and the scientific factions of the brain debate. Michael Shermer does an encore after last week's impressive performance. Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman mark an important abortion anniversary, and all the rest is about some election that is rumored to be happening...

1. What The Daily Show cut out, by Jonah Goldberg
2. A Clinton twofer's high price, by Rosa Brooks
3. Super delegates may sink the Democrats, by Joshua Spivak
4. 'The better angels' side with Obama, by Joseph Ellis
5. Why people believe weird things about money, by Michael Shermer
6. Abortion's battle of messages, by Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman
7. Tiny Tata Nano, big threat, by the editorial board
8. Taking liberties, by Jonah Goldberg
9. Misreading the mind, Jonah Lehrer   
10. Real libertarianism, by Brian Doherty 

The Kennedy family's endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama — Caroline Kennedy's glowing New York Times Op-Ed on Sunday and Sen. Ted Kennedy's highly prepublicized endorsement today — will probably only serve to strengthen the Kennedy-Obama parallel that pundits have been drawing almost since the junior senator from Illinois entered the race. But it brought to mind Sean Wilentz's Op-Ed in Saturday's paper, which trashed the Kennedy connection — and the Obama campaign for encouraging it:

Historians cannot expect all politicians and their supporters to know as much about American history as, say, John F. Kennedy, who won the Pulitzer Prize for a work of history. But it is reasonable to expect respect for the basic facts -- and not contribute to cheapening the historical currency.

Spreading bad history is no way to make history.

But there's another issue here as well. As Rosa Brooks pointed out, touting your iconic political forbears can have lasting negative consequences, as in the case of Hillary Clinton. In other words: The '90s weren't all they're cracked up to be, Bill.

While Obama has undoubtedly benefited from critiques of the Clinton legacy, he's been very quick to don Kennedy mantle. And I find that somewhat disconcerting. What happened to 'change'? Embracing the Kennedys as kingmakers seems a little out of sync with that message.

Both Clinton and Obama try to capitalize on ties to a golden era in Democratic politics. Obama may be a little luckier than Clinton — perhaps partly because fewer are alive who remember the on-the-ground realities of the Kennedy administration. But keep in mind, Kennedy was also the chief executive during the Bay of Pigs. Is that a message Obama wants to send?

The Clinton campaign may be pulling out another race card — that Latinos won't support a black candidate — but Gregory Rodriguez calls that bluff:

Here in L.A., all three black members of Congress represent heavily Latino districts and ultimately couldn't survive without significant Latino support. Five other black House members represent districts that are more than 25% Latino — including New York's Charles Rangel and Texan Al Green — and are also heavily dependent on Latino voters.

So, given all this evidence, why did this notion get repeated so nonchalantly?

Writer Vicki Leon sketches out tattoo culture through the ages, and Joseph Mailander takes on Proposition S. Atlantic Monthly correspondent Bing West and L.A. Times contributing editor Max Boot argue that in Iraq, "victory is within our grasp — if only the Iraqi government could effectively reach out to Sunnis and Shiites alike who are fed up with violence and sectarian divisions."

The editorial board marks Barack Obama's decisive win in the South Carolina primary as a day to remember:

On Saturday, black men and women stood beside whites and a smattering of Latinos as a black man accepted South Carolina's Democratic nomination for president. "This election," Obama told a cheering crowd in the Confederacy's cradle, "is about the past versus the future." Whatever one thinks about Obama and Clinton, whether one is a Republican or a Democrat, that is a moment to treasure in our short history, a history marked by the pursuit of a perfected nation, where all are created equal.

The board also urges the state Senate Health Committee to approve the healthcare bill negotiated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, and warns lawmakers not to let the ouster of prison healthcare czar Robert Sillen obscure the issues he raised.

Readers react to Patt Morrison's column last Thursday. Bill Gervasi writes:

Patt Morrison captured the feeling that I, and probably many others, have had since the beginning of the Bush administration. The bombardment of so many wrongs against our liberties, science, the environment, world opinion and our prisoners from a war that can never end, coupled with such blatantly illegal acts as the outing of a CIA agent and wiretapping without court orders, have a shock-and-awe effect that still leaves me wondering how it is possible that these things could have ever happened in our country.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's flirtation with a presidential bid has had a dreamy-eyed media playing effeuiller la marguerite. He'll run! He won't. He'll run! He won't. Will he?

But that daisy may have already wilted under the California sun. According to the Field Poll, one quarter of the state's registered voters said they'd consider voting for Bloomberg — but two thirds said they'd definitely not.

Why so disenchanted, and so soon? It may be that Bloomberg inadvertently fell into the Thompson trap, by not entering early enough to capture the public's imagination. And left-leaning Californians (including the ever-growing population of decline-to-staters) might feel their choices among the Dems are more than ample, thanks all the same.

Unfortunately for a Bloomberg bid, politics this season has been fun. At Monday's Democratic debate in South Carolina, the audience gasped, laughed or cheered at nearly every jibe the candidates threw at one another. No matter how they felt about each contender, they weren't going to let favoritism get in the way of having a good time.

If Bloomberg was ever planning to run, he was probably looking to walk into a race that needed a little shaking up. But starting with Iowa and New Hampshire, the ground has shifted so often that it's hard to believe the mayor could ever get solid footing on his own.   

Media guru Shelly Palmer offered a provocative post this morning about a video channel on magnify.net (a service provider that helps interest groups create their own versions of YouTube) called "Islam Will Dominate." Although he acknowledged that he hadn't seen anything on the channel that was "particularly offensive or dangerous sounding," Palmer tried to build a case for companies like magnify.net to deny service to groups that menace us:

Our constitution prohibits our government from preventing anyone from saying almost anything (other than crying out "fire" in a crowded theater) in public spaces. But this idea of freedom of expression does not apply to private spaces, homes, workplaces or the purview of private enterprise.

Should magnify.net give a voice to Islam? Will it dominate? What does that mean? How about evangelical Christians? Don’t they have to be stopped as well? What about Mormons or Jews? Should we limit the flow of their messages?

To me the answer is very simple – as long as you don’t advocate killing me, you can say anything you like. But, when you are actively recruiting people who will be brainwashed to end my life, you don’t get to use my tools to do it.

He also asked whether general sites such as YouTube should try to filter out content from groups advocating terror. These are interesting questions, but the magnify.net channel Palmer singled out may not be the right example. His complaint mainly was with the name, which has since changed -- it's now called Muslim TV, probably in response to the conversation Palmer had with magnify.net's founder. Based on the time I spent with Muslim TV this morning, the channel's content struck me as broader and more reflective than the earlier name suggested. The first video I clicked on featured an Islamic scholar, Dr. Bilal Philips, discussing tolerance and forgiveness (bottom line: the religion is rich in those qualities, even if some practitioners haven't been). It's hard to tease out any one theme on the site; for instance, although the featured video was "Last two Afghan Jews fighting each other," a video of a verbal spat between two elderly men who happen to be Jewish, the home page also offered this clip about a Muslim intervening to help four Jews being attacked on a New York City subway train.

That's not to say the site is neutral or reliable. It's an offshoot of Muslims for Freedom, a self-described "movement for change" which declares, verbatim: "Islam is the words most misunderstood religion, not by accident it is by design, primarily by individuals and corporations who have a vast fanatical interest in stopping the spread of Islam."

To quote further from Muslims for Freedom's home page:

Many individuals who profit financially from such things as alcohol, interest, pork, pornography,  and gambling are also in positions of influence over media outlets. They use this position to insure that Islam is portrayed as a barbaric evil religion that oppresses women and condones such actions as suicide bombings as well as the killing of non Muslims. Our plan is to wage a counter media campaign in order to spread the truth of Islam by having a fully staffed marketing department that will work towards promoting the truth of Islam by purchasing commercial air time, space in print media as well as utilizing direct mail.

A few clicks around the site take you to nuttier conspiracy theories, such as this one asserting that the 9/11 bombings weren't done by Al Qaeda. Still, Muslim TV is monetized in a decidedly non-revolutionary way. Each video is accompanied by advertisements, such as a link to Amazon products (including this Hannah Montana video game) and Google-powered contextual ads. Islam may dominate some day, but at Muslim TV, Amazon and Google pay the bills.

UPDATE: I finally heard back from magnify.net, which informed me that the name of the channel has always been Muslim TV. But if you look at magnify's channel rankings, where channels are represented by screen grabs instead of their names, the image for Muslim TV is a shot of someone holding a poster that says, "Islam will dominate!" It was the only channel whose name wasn't shown in the screen grab or the channel description, so Palmer's confusion on this point was understandable.

Columnist Joel Stein hangs out with the Oscar accountants:

PriceWaterhouse seems to have more safety systems in place than the Air Force department in charge of transporting nuclear missiles. The counting location is kept secret. Counters work in groups but don't know one another's totals. "Winners" envelopes are prepared for every nominee; the losers' are shredded after the ceremony. Rosas and Oltmanns also memorize the winners and take separate cars to the show. So I was shocked to find out that no one checks to make sure [Rick] Rosas and [Brad] Oltmanns didn't just make winners up -- either for fun or under the threat of violence from a Weinstein brother.

Writer Woody Woodburn recalls his Super Bowl highlight -- miraculously surviving a car accident just after the game in 2003. Author Philip Jenkins notes that the religious right has splintered, but tough times could bring it back. 

The editorial board says the U.S. can't afford to lose Canada and NATO's support in Afghanistan. The board also tells California lawmakers not to micromanage lenders, and praises a wage deal for private security guards.

Readers react to the new animosity between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. San Clemente's Denise Gee says, "Right now, there is not one candidate in any party I could visualize taking charge of our country, bringing back dignity and honor to the office, providing real change and restoring America's place in the world."

The slow wearing out of Mike Huckabee's welcome among self-described moderates and progressives has left behind a pretty interesting question: How did the stars-and-bars-salutin', Satan's-brother-worshippin', animal-sex-speculatin' former preacher manage, however briefly, to win the hearts of liberals? What drove progressive pundits to gas about his daring stances, teachers and machinists unions to endorse him and editorial boards to praise his "stout heart for working families and the poor"?

It could be his personality; I can attest that Huckabee is every inch the affable, intelligent, engaging fellow he's made out to be. It could be the cockeyed hipsterism of this unlikely guitar hero. But what really turned the heads of the bien-pensant was the low-BMI razorback's staunch anti-capitalism. And nobody's brief encounter was as moving as that of Hendrik Hertzberg, the New Yorker's distressingly productive "Talk of the Town" thinker.

The flirtation had a definite shape and intrigue: an early, in-spite-of-himself recognition that, Hey, you can see why the groupies are all over this guy; a growing passion disguised by only the flimsiest of to-be-sures (which could be stated most succinctly as: "To be sure, the sun will supernova before The New Yorker ever supports a Republican"); and at last disillusionment marked by a funny, catty kiss-off. But while the fling was on, Hertzberg found points of commonality in Huckabee's refusal to issue the "usual denunciations of socialized medicine," his departure from the "economic-royalist wing of the G.O.P." and his apostasy from "the secular church of supply-side fundamentalism."

I love that last bit, as I love all attempts to imply that belief in a free market is some kind of revealed religion, unmoored from any ocular proof. Sure, a member of the irrational capitalist religion might say there's actual evidence for the effectiveness of economics. Maybe by noting that, in the period after lending at interest and common-stock corporations came into regular use, human beings went from not wiping their backsides to landing people on the moon, expanded their population by orders of magnitude, abandoned slavery and serfdom, etc., all in about a third of the time it took the tale of Huckabee's savior to travel the token distance from Jerusalem to Oslo. But hey, that's just theology.

I digress. The bittersweet news is that the left has abandoned Huckabee, and while it's sad to see a romance end, it's probably for the best. Presidents don't make a lot of difference on gay rights or the Confederate flag, but they do have the power to wreck economies. Thankfully, Huckabee's enlightened fans never figured that out.

Power tie alert! Editorial page editor Jim Newton sits down with the governor of California to talk budget, economy, health care reform and the immovable feast of Golden State politics at the California Newspaper Publishers Association. Full video and and transcript right here.

At ITWorld, Josh Fruhlinger, the award-winning Comics Curmudgeon (and once an L.A. Times contributor whose article now exists only in fragments in our pages but is still viewable in its entirety here), takes a jaunt through generic-domain-name history to discover a saga of defunct companies, foiled business schemes and web squatters. Sample:

eat.com: If music.com had real geek cred in its earliest incarnation, a cursory look at the 1996 version of eat.com might lead you to believe that it was a similar outpost on the new frontier of the World Wide Web. "Mama's Dining Room" is the page's name, and the text -- charmingly unformatted on a white background on a hideous gray background, apparently unedited by anyone professional, offering a variety of tasty Italian meals. Then you get to the verbiage at the bottom of the page: "Mama's niece Ana, the lawyer, wrote this next part: Copyright 1996 Lipton, Inc. All rights reserved. Ragú, Chicken Tonight, and Pizza Quick are registered trademarks of Lipton, Inc." Yes, eat.com was one of the world's first astroturfing sites! The current iteration of the site is a much more straightforward homepage for the Ragú brand, now owned, like the other Lipton brands promoted by the entirely fictional "Mama", by Anglo-Dutch megacorporation Unilever.

The saddest part is that the outdated nineties aesthetic on display at these old, archive.org-preserved versions still looks cool and hip and now to me. Whole article.

Sure, he's a free-loving drug-dabbling boomer who came of age at a racially charged time, but Bill Clinton's endorsement of a vote-by-your-color-or-sex principle was disappointing.

The former president isn't wrong when he says, "people are proud when someone who they identify with emerges for the first time." The same sentiment may run through coreligionists (particularly if they're members of an oft-maligned sect), or hometown or home-state supporters of any candidate.

But, like so many media accounts that seem to be stuck in the '60s, Bill ties pride and identity to sure-fire votes for his wife and her opponent: "As far as I can tell, neither Senator Obama nor Hillary have lost votes because of their race or gender. They are getting votes, to be sure, because of their race or gender."

Doesn't the "first black president" know how silly it can be to identify by race? (That title was given him by Toni Morrison, who crudely, if tongue-in-cheek-ly, equated being black to being poor, fatherless, and Southern — a test Obama fails, in part.)

Bill uses classic boomer logic: Our generation saved the world from the specter of racism and sexism — so Barack and Hillary won't actually lose votes because of race or gender. But because everyone must still think in terms of race and sex, like we do, and because everyone must (mis)take those qualities for an actual overlap of opinion, they're going to vote by identity.

Green fever seems to have hit the state, the media, or both. Here are some of the verdant shades of California controversies:

Tree-huggers versus sun-lovers: A Sunnyvale couple refuses to cut down their redwoods, even though a neighbor says they're blocking his solar panels. Now that's environmentally awkward.

EPA battle heats up: EPA head Stephen Johnson gets the third degree at a hearing chaired by California's Sen. Barbara Boxer for preventing the Golden State from enacting tougher fuel efficiency standards. Embarrasingly enough, Johnson's mostly on his own, as EPA staff last month issued findings that contradicted his decision.

Off the mean streets, into green sheets: Alameda County is opening an environmentally friendly homeless shelter, equipped with solar panels and water-based heaters.

Green eating hits Sacto: And we're not talking vegetarian.

Thin as plastic: Los Angeles city councilmembers' willpower, that is. The city has given up on following San Francisco's lead and instituting a plastic shopping bag ban. The editorial board said China had a better idea, anyway.

It's not easy smoking green: Even with a doctor's note (and strictly off-hours), a state court rules that using medical marijuana can get you fired. Assemblymember Mark Leno says he'll see about that.

Okay, so maybe that last one wasn't exactly on topic.

Columnist Rosa Brooks says the Clinton two-fer might cost the campaign:

The problem for Hillary Clinton is that, as usual, she wants it both ways. She wants to be judged on her own merits and not be treated as Bill's Mini-Me. But she also wants to reap the benefits of Bill's popularity, and offers voters the reassuring suggestion that if there's a crisis while she's in the White House, there will be someone around who really does have executive branch experience -- namely, Bill -- to lend a hand.

But the Clintons are playing a dangerous game. The more they remind us of what we liked about Act I of the Bill and Hillary Show, the more they also remind us of what we hated.

Board of Equalization member Michelle Steel notes that California owes millions to small-business owners. Arizona State University's Erica Rosenberg argues that environmental groups shouldn't be so eager to collaborate and compromise on deals with Congress. Columnist Patt Morrison sees the light at the end of the George Bush tunnel.

The editorial board supports Proposition S, a city communications tax, and asks the California legislature to pass a pollution-fighting "feebate" on new cars.

Letter writers reflect on the 35th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Monrovia's Ellen Zunino writes, "if we truly thought life precious and valuable, impregnating a woman outside of the marriage bed would be a felony, and failing to support the woman and her fetus would be a 'special circumstance' crime."

Someone from Sen. Barack Obama's campaign called me a few evenings ago to urge me to vote for him in the Democratic primary Feb. 5. I told her that I'm a registered independent, not a Democrat, and she said that didn't matter, I could request a Democratic ballot. True enough. Still, I told her I'd rather let Democrats choose for themselves.

Last time we posted your recommendations for the 2008 presidential campaign, we referred to it as positively the "last batch" of letters. So of course, here's the next installment. Manhattan Beach'e own Janie MacHarg doesn't mince words, with a subject line that reads: "Please Endorse Barack Obama." Her reasons:

Thank you for inviting your readership to submit opinions on your upcoming endorsements for the presidential primaries in California.  I am a 62 yr. old white female, who lives in Manhattan Beach.  I am the niece of a long-ago politician, Robert Y. Thornton, who served as the Attorney General of Oregon for 16 years, from 1953-1969.  When I was a young girl, my uncle taught me the paramount importance of honesty and integrity in a politician.  Although I voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, and have admired Hillary Clinton in past times, I am now thoroughly disheartened by and disappointed in both Clintons.  My past admiration for Hillary has dissipated to the point of being almost non-existent, so great is my disgust for her willingness to twist and distort the meaning of Barack Obama's words and record.  It is worse than mis-representation; Bill and Hillary are both shamelessly telling bald-faced lies with straight faces.  I implore the Times editorial board to endorse Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate. I do so for many reasons I won't enumerate here, but integrity and an ability to think intelligently about how to address old problems in new ways, particularly in the area of foreign policy, are high among them.  I think Sen. Patrick Leahy's endorsement of Sen. Obama said it best — we need Barack Obama because he is the person "who can reintroduce America to the world, and actually reintroduce America to ourselves."  Thank you for listening.

In case you hadn't heard, Iraq has finally agreed on changes ot the national flag! Temporarily, of course, until they can figure out a permanent solution next year.

It's not a huge accomplishment: All that's happened is that the three stars (representing Saddam Hussein's Baath party slogan of "unity, freedom, socialism") have been removed. And the lettering is a nice deep hunter green rather than the tacky quasi-neon shade — clearly, an indication of evolving Iraqi tastes.

The de-Baathification of the flag is a little ironic, considering that the  government has just recently eased restristrictions on former low-level party members. It was mostly a Kurdish demand, given that Hussein's forces massacred thousands of Kurds in the 1980s. A previous attempt to change the color of the script from green (a color representing Islam) to yellow (indicating the sun, which holds religious and cultural significance in Kurdish tradition) failed pretty miserably in Parliament.

An interim flag really wouldn't be that big a deal if it weren't for the flag's rocky recent history. In 2006 tensions spiked when Kurdistan's regional president refused to fly the Iraqi national flag from government offices; in 2004 a leaked copy of a design sparked flag burnings in Iraq. The military newspaper Stars and Stripes said it was "an unfortunate shade of light blue — an unfortunate shade because, to many, the color reminded them of the blue-and-white theme of the Israeli flag. You can see why there were problems."

Needless to say, consensus colors just mean all factions are free to disparage it. "It was an organized conspiracy to change the flag," Sunni parliament member Khalaf al-Alayan told the Washington Post.

That's not the only conspiracy theory flying around. From today's Los Angeles Times:

"This is literally a comedy," said Haseeb Mohammed, 33, a Sunni Arab in Mosul. "Is this Iraq's flag? What was wrong with it? What has changed? Nothing has changed. It's just a poor comedy charade to satisfy some sides. It's a conspiracy against Iraq and the Iraqi people."

Given how little the Iraqi Parliament seems able to acomplish, he kind of has a point.

The editorial board says it's time for the world to live up to its promises to Sudan:

Appeasement and negotiation from a position of weakness have not and will not stop the thuggery of the oil-rich Sudanese regime. Only muscle will do. But the "civilized" world has done next to nothing to enforce meaningful economic sanctions, hasn't even moved to arrestthe indicted war criminals and, disgracefully, has yet to provide even one of the helicopters that U.N. peacekeepers need. It's time to face facts: Unless the U.N. gets far more political, economic and military support from its posturing but so-far feckless members, it may as well pack up its blue helmets and go home.

The board also examines the bipartisan "stimulus package" for the economy, and reacts to state schools chief Jack O'Connell's annual education address.

"Beasts of No Nation" author Uzodinma Iweala argues race is still a problem in supposedly "post-racial" America. Voices and Faces Project founder Anne K. Ream asks if a rapist deserves a military burial. And columnist Tim Rutten says the City Council should let LAPD reform go forward.

On the letters page, readers react to a court's decision to deny experimental drugs to the terminally ill. Encinitas' Steve Weller says, "This is yet another instance of compassionate conservatives killing people in order to protect them. Iraq comes to mind."

Only in California will the media critique carjack victims for poor fuel economy. Such was the Oakland Tribune's follow-up yesterday on Senate Pro Tem Don Perata's recent run-in with crime:

When armed carjackers last month relieved state Senate Pro Tem Don Perata of his state-owned vehicle, it raised two eyebrows — one for the brash daylight crime on North Oakland streets, the other for the flash of Perata's ride.

While more lawmakers are going hybrid-green, the Capitol's most powerful Democrat was rolling candy-apple red in a $38,600 Dodge Charger with 22-inch rims, yo.

Turns out Perata was far from alone among state lawmakers — and not even in the top 10 — in his taste for gas-slurping automotive luxury at mostly taxpayer expense.

More than half of senators who use state-leased cars opt for traditional gas vehicles that get 20 combined city/highway miles or less per gallon, according to a Bay Area News Group analysis of Senate data, using newly revised federal fuel economy ratings.

The Assembly, which offers a lease break for members who go hybrid, fares greener. Nearly two- thirds of the 72 members with state-bought cars now drive hybrids.

The Los Angeles Daily News followed suit today, and included a handy list of California legislators and their rides. And incidentally, from the Reporter:

Those of you who have traveled under government contracts or had an expense account with a private businesses will love this: Legislators now get mileage (didn't before) and a 30 percent increase in their per diem - yes, that's right, both.

In an astounding correlation, Republican tastes tended toward lower fuel efficiency and higher price tags. Why study liberal and conservative brains at all when you've got their miles per gallon?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course, is a prime example of the you-are-what-you-drive philosophy. He never denies his unabashed love of Hummers ("I like to do everything big," he told TIME last June) and yet invested in the Tesla, a $100,000 electric car, which he seems to see as the wave of the future. 

Fun as it is, judging politicians by their vehicles is little more than a frivolous exercise. Because really, given how many different signals a car can send about its driver, how many more ways can we parse this data? By region? Ethnicity? Affluence? Personality? Patriotism? Judgment?

In Perata's case, anyway, it indicates recent experience. Again, from the Tribune:

It wasn't cost or mileage that weighed most heavily when Perata chose a replacement car: A silver 2007 Ford Crown Victoria with 17,500 miles on it. It cost $18,646. It gets 18 mpg.

"A gun was stuck in his face," said spokeswoman Alicia Trost said. "He wanted to drive a car that looked like a cop drove. That's all he was thinking of."

Columnist Jonah Goldberg describes his experience as a guest on "The Daily Show":

It started civilly enough, discussing my new book, "Liberal Fascism." But things got sufficiently testy that we spent nearly 20 minutes swearing and sparring, and only six minutes aired. The result was "choppy as hell," Stewart had to concede.

Largely left on the cutting-room floor were some important points that might have made my book seem a bit more nuanced....

Former Gov. Gray Davis throws his support behind Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget cuts. Dickinson College's Crispin Sartwell examines the twists and turns in presidential candidates' image. Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman remind us that it's not 1973, and pro-choicers have to take back the moral high ground.

The editorial board also marks the 35th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, supports Propositions 94, 95, 96, and 97, and says declining record sales mean time for the industry to rethink its business model.

Readers react to President Bush's proposed stimulus package. L.A.'s Scott Kaye says it could be Bush's "most cynical proposal since his post-9/11 recommendation that we go shopping."