TALK Matt Welch, editor of Reason magazine and author of McCain: The Myth of a Maverick will be providing his take on the Republican Presidential nominee at the Deconstructing McCain chat. Sure to be a thought provoking and stirring presentation and of growing importance given the fast approaching election. 7:30 pm // Los Angeles Central Library, Mark Taper Auditorium // 630 W. 5th Street, Los Angeles // Free READING Michael Ondaatje, author of The......

"This is the guy who once called me the worst columnist in America," Steve Lopez explained in his column today about downtown activist, blogger and now King, Brady Westwater. "I did not," Westwater responded. "I called you the worst columnist in history."If you move downtown, Westwater will be your neighbor. Try, though you might, you will not be able to shake him. At every turn, you'll see Westwater wearing a cowboy hat and a......

When Apple announced their new iPods yesterday the big winner was LAist. Why? Because the new iPods have been equipped to work with WiFi so that people can access Apple's extremely profitable iTunes store. And in the iTunes store, for free, will be all of the LAist radio shows that we are doing on NowLive.com. And, in fact you can subscribe to all of the LAist shows as we record them. Ah, technology. Last......

LAist has an Internet radio show. Today is our soft launch. On the show will be Matt Welch of the LA Times talking to LAist Editor Tony Pierce about Welch's new book about John McCain. Call in at 310 984-7600 and listen by joining us after the jump.........

John Marshall Evans became the US ambassador to Armenia in August 2004. Six months later he visited California and was convinced by Armenian-Americans here to cut the political B.S. and simply say that the 1.5 million Armenians who were the victims of genocide at the hands of the Turks from 1915 and 1923... were indeed victims of genocide. Today President Bush will tapdance around the word in fear of insulting our ally Turkey, a......

blogging.la wins for best fire coverage of yesterday's blaze - blogging.la Zuma Dogg wins for reporting that Doug McIntyre of 790 KABC asked him for a hemp tshirt on the air - Mayor Sam We all win when Franklin Avenue takes the Gold Line and shows us what they did and where they ate on their journey - Franklin Ave h/t MetroriderLA Losanjealous wins for the meanest haiku review of the Jill Cunniff show......

Sorta sucks when the doctors are right. Two days ago Cathy's lungs collapsed and the doctors said she only had two days left. She had been fighting lung cancer for years and as far as I could tell she was fighting it beautifully and with grace. She had plenty of time to whine or change or become bitter at her great last challenge, but she handled it the way you'd want someone who you......

Brian Doherty of Reason just wrote a big honkin book about Libertarianism. He will be signing "Radicals For Capitalism" tonight at 7pm at Book Soup (8818 Sunset Blvd., W. Hollywood), talking about, reading from, and answering questions about all things Libertarian. We were lucky enough to get all the dumb questions out of the way for you. LAist: The Dems are the Left, the Repubs are the Right, what are Libertarians? Brian Doherty: Libertarians......

- On his blog, Matt Welch often frowns on MLB teams giving huge sums of money to over-30-year-old baseball players (because they're fragile), so when 31-year-old David Beckham hurt his knee today, we thought of Welch cackling from his ivory tower - LA Times - For the second year in a row there was a fatality at the LA Marathon. This year a 50-year-old bicyclist had a heart attack and died at S. Catalina......

- Crew member hurt on the set of the new Julia Roberts / Tom Hanks film in Downey - ET - Subway mercury spill exploits painfully slow LA response - LAT - The Valley has very few drive-thrus, Santa Clarita has a lot - Daily News - MySpace lawyers continue to have more reason to bill hours - NY Daily News - Robert Redford says George Bush owes the US an Apology for everything......

- In a new book, Gay LA, two authors discover that "more gay-oriented organizations have been founded in Los Angeles than in any other city in the world" - SF Gate - Former LA news anchor Jim Lampley accused of felony domestic abuse in San Diego - AP - Pamela Anderson demands that her next boyfriend be an editor of a city-based blog - UPI - Blonde chick from Lost divorces after just six......

A long time ago in a peninsula far far away (if a 90 minute drive is far), there was a college newspaper so good that Matt Welch's only regular writing assignment was the two or three sentences in the Weather box. Though this was late-'80s Santa Barbara and the weather for an entire year was Sunny and Mild (we were in the midst of a year-long drought), somehow Welch's Weather box was one of......

- Add a second Gmail Inbox - sitening - Apply for the third-best job in the world (sorry, Editor of LAist is taken, as is publisher of Playboy) - sheraton - Foil the dreaded "pit" manuever - almost - google video - Listen in on Gitmo detainee hearings - NPR - Laugh at Lohan's lack of edjumacation - Defamer - Wonder why Tom Cruise didn't faux-marry Penelope Cruz. Yowza! - egotastic - Enjoy Keeeersten......

"Love Pearl Jam. But Pearl Jam now is like the Gap crowd. The baggy trousers. It's a date. It's nice, lovely music. You know, there is a whole other world out there. But people are snobbish and don't want to mix with it. We love those people. We embrace them. They are as loyal as they can be." - Sharon Osbourne, LA Times 7/6 “We cannot allow political pressure from critics of unpopular ideas......

For a woman who claims to hate liberals so much, Ann Coulter has sure hung around lefty-lovin' Los Angeles lots lately. You'd think that after her Wednesday night appearance on The Tonight Show, she would have flown back East immediately to boast that her new book "Godless" will debut at #1 on next week's New York Times best-seller's list. But instead of taking Jet Blue (do Red Staters fly 'Blue?) on Thursday (back to......

If you like blogs (safe guess, since you're here) and have any interest in the media, you might want to shell out $10 tomorrow for the panel discussion at the LA Press Club. It's called Watching the Watchdogs: LA's Media Websites and will be moderated by blogger-turned-LA Times staffer Matt Welch. Panelists include LA Observed's Kevin Roderick, LA Radio's Don Barrett and Ron Feinman. They'll talk about how they keep tabs on local media......

Last week, local blogger Matt Welch was all set to go toe-to-toe with Blustery Bill of the Fox News Channel. The subject? The great city of Los Angeles, of course. From Welch's post, it sounds like Bill was set to bash our dynamic metropolis as an unmanageable hodge-podge, in order to flutter the hearts of his geriatric and bitter viewing audience. But O'Reilly's producers let Welch know that they decided to go "in a different......