If you're willing to brave the chill of DC in January to see some warmth injected into the White House and to rep LA in the crowds, there's only one way to get tickets: Ask your local Congressional rep. LAist's sister site DCist explains the process via a press release: Tickets to the 56th Inaugural Ceremonies will be provided free of charge and distributed through Members of the 111th Congress. The Joint Congressional Committee on......

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost. Londonist HQ—that is to say, the city of London—was battered by heavy winds, making it a bad time to be a twelve-meter (nearly forty-foot) tall snowman. Still, not everyone decided to keep warmly covered. Meanwhile, back indoors, the Big Brother racism is now causing all kinds of headaches for international diplomats, and Londonist got into......

Blood on the Sand is the new Apple-tini. British-born Muslim extremist Abu Izzadeen (AKA Omar Brooks) declares that the Prophet Mohammed would want nonbelievers to know, "I come to slaughter all of you." Militant + thirsty + batshit crazy = "We are the Muslims. We drink the blood of the enemy..." Yum. -CNN Bill Moyers gives our spineless politicos (and that includes Bill Clinton) a long-overdue verbal spanking for their willingness to bend over and......

Do you have State Farm Insurance? Your rates might be finally going down. (SFV Biz Journal, Registration Required [but worth it, it's free]) What if the City threw a $60,000 meeting and no one showed up? It just might happen at the next Congress of Neighborhoods. (CityWatch) 2006 brought the hottest summer ever for Los Angeles. Too bad we didn't pass Prop 87 and are all still using our cars and polluting the skies,......

This has been a rough week for your -ist pals, though you wouldn't know it from the great posts all over the network. Plagued with server problems, our tech team (led by the great Neil Epstein) toiled around the clock to solve the glitches as they arose. Seriously, we've said, typed, and thought the phrase "server problems" more in the past week than we have for the last 35 years combined. Why not say it......

We know David Hasselhoff is awesome. How could the driver of K.I.T.T. and the head lifeguard on Baywatch not be? Besides that he's a musical superstar and so locked into our cultural fabric that some even think he's the anti-christ but luminary? As in an inspiration to others? Well, former Governer Jerry Brown seems to think so. He writes of his experience at Mayor Villaraigosa's inauguration:On Friday I attended the inauguration for Antonio Villaraigosa,......

Today, July 1, Los Angeles gets a new mayor. Just in the past, pre-inaugural week, Antonio Villaraigosa has been working, and getting some anticipatory scolding. First he helped broker a compromise between management and striking workers of local hotels, winning praise for being hands-on and helping people reach consensus. Now, on inauguration day, the LA Times and the LA Weekly both point out how much it would cost to keep some of his campaign......

One week before we expect hundreds of folks to protest the inauguration of our Commander in Chief to his second term locally, PETA is doing their own protest against another military man: The Colonel. Today at noon, the KFC at 3850 Figueroa will be treated to Meat is Murder posters and angry chants from megaphones telling them to get the 'cluck' out of LA. Hopefully there will be people in chicken costumes. We don't......