Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. People want to lose weight this year, get in better shape, look good naked, blah, blah, blah, blah. Does it actually happen? Sure, some do. But most? We all know that reality. The problem for some is motivation. We've found one excellent way to walk the talk that is a little more than six months from right now. It's called The World Famous Mud Run, a 10K Adventure/Military race outside of......

So, you know how MTA is considering ridding our freeways of carpool lanes? One outraged blogger blames Bush because, "local officials in the MTA are being forced to take a more free-enterprise approach to freeway management in order to qualify for federal transportation dollars." In a move designed to empower local Iraqi municipalities, the US Army is planning on concentrating its forces in Baghdad as the army continues to draw down its forces after......

Want a Wii this holiday season? Well toooooo fuckin bad. The best you can hope for is a rain check certificate that will entitle you to a console at some point in January. Even the Wii people themselves are now admitting what a mess they've made of manufacturing this thing. Two members of a terrorist cell have pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to wage war: the splinter group was "was poised to attack......

MUSIC: CalTech isn’t just about nerdy rocket scientists. They have glee clubs, too! All kidding aside, tonight's concert will feature traditional holiday favorites as well as the Women's Club taking on Porpora’s Magnificat, written in the 1730s. 8 pm // Dabney Lounge at California Institute of Technology // 1200 East California Blvd., Pasadena // Free. DANCE: From CalTech, we’ll head over to CalArts in Valencia. The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance is holding its......

But first - Kobe vetoed a trade! Baseball in the Coliseum - Just after it was announced that the Red Sox will open the exhibition season against Oakland in Japan, the Dodgers confirmed that the defending World Champs would play three games against the Blue Crew. The cool part? One of the games will be in the Coliseum as part of the Dodger's 50th anniversary in Los Angeles. Yes, it can be configured that way......

We had no good photos from last night, so enjoy a video of Chad Henne getting tackled by a goalpost. Stars 5, Ducks 0 - Dallas center Mike Modano described it as Anaheim's "Stanley Cup hangover." His team took advantage by dishing out one of the Duck's worst whoopin's in almost six years. Goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere got yanked in the third ... The Pacific Division seemed like the strongest last year, but this year......

That's what Orange County Fire Authority Chief Chip Prather said this morning:If we had more air resources, we would have been able to control this fire. Instead we've been stuck in this initial attack mode on the ground where we hopscotch through neighborhoods as best we can trying to control things. But OCFA is not the only frustrated agency in Southern California, as losses grow to an estimated $1 billion in San Diego County......

In 2003, the New York City Council voted to oppose the war in Iraq. Two years later, they drew a resolution for the "orderly and rapid withdrawal" of Iraq. Now, three days short of exactly two years after New York, the Los Angeles City Council, in a 12-2 vote, voted yesterday to support pulling out of Iraq.The council said it approved the resolution because it wants the federal government to end the war, which......

A few months ago, after reading an LAist writer's experience about CrossFit in Santa Monica, I knew I had to give it a try. Knowing it would be extremely intense, I kept on saying to myself, "I'll go in when I'm a little more in shape." But for me, my desired workout routine only comes into play when I am preparing for a race and I accidentally missed the deadline for next week's Mud Run......

Nationally, a new Bin Laden tape appears, a bomb scare at a U.S. Military base in Germany, William Saffire looks into how the meme 9/11 has taken hold in the language (A meme is “a unit of cultural information”) and NYC tries to move on. Here is a smattering of local September 11th news: There are four city events taking place today between 7 a.m. and the Dodgers Game tonight. More info at the Fire......

Did you know today is the 226th birthday of El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles -- aka L.A.? The old bitch is looking pretty good for her age! Although the city did not incorporate until 1850, September 4th, 1781 is the date that 44 Mexican pobladores set out from San Gabriel with a military escort to settle alongside a great river -- then called the Rio de Porciuncula, later to......

Today the worst president ever got to share his thoughts on the worst AG ever, and the lies seethed out like snakes from Medusa's slithery scalp. This morning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced that he will leave the Department of Justice after two and a half years of service to the department. Al Gonzales is a man of integrity, decency and principle, and I have reluctantly accepted his resignation with great appreciation for the......

Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, i.e. Bush's "war czar," thinks it "makes sense" to consider a return to the military draft. Students are teaching educators about the crises facing many local high schools and teenage dropouts. Health officials are cautioning that Panorama City residents may be at great risk of contracting West Nile virus - with most confirmed cases arising in that region. Residents of Borrego Springs, a small resort and retirement community in......

Boy, it's certainly heartening to see that we're still making good "progress" on the whole "winning hearts and minds" objective: Here at this searing, dusty U.S. military base about four miles west of Baqouba, Iraqis — including interpreters who walk the same foot patrols and sleep in the same tents as U.S. troops — must use segregated bathrooms. Another sign, in a dining hall, warns Iraqis and "third-country nationals" that they have just one......

Civic Center developments still struggling amidst Downtown construction boom. Nothing like a good Saturday scandal story: a manager for the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles was found to have illegally steered almost $800,000 in contracts to family members and corporate allies. One begets another: an inmate serving a life sentence for the murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer in 1989 was stabbed 11 times by another inmate. Taking animal cruelty to a......

A welcome home celebration/legal aid fundraiser is being held for Agustin Aguayo this Friday, July 27th, at 7:00PM. I'll give the event details, but first let me tell you a little bit about Agustin: Agustin Aguayo served a one-year tour in 2004 as a medic for the United States Army in Tikrit, Iraq. En route to his place of deployment, he was told by his superiors in the Army that serving as a medic......

This 'tube is an oldie, but goodie (now repackaged with the soundtrack of Move Bitch by Ludacris) brought to you by the War in Iraq. News Sophisticate a political news blog, is shocked: No wonder the people of Iraq see US as an occupying force. Could you imagine if someone drove through the streets of L.A. or D.C. like this? If the police would not shoot them, a citizen sure would. Watch as pedestrians......

LOGO, the nation's first (and only) openly gay television network, is set to host the next Democratic presidential debate in Los Angeles on August 9. The moderators will include Joe Solmonese, the president of Human Rights Campaign, and Melissa Etheridge, the Academy Award (for her rendition of An Inconvenient Truth's "I Need to Wake Up") and two-time Grammy Award-winning rock musician and prominent gay rights activist. So what specific topics will be on the......

Although we would have thought that there would be no safer place for a 13-year-old at one o'clock in the morning than a Las Vegas casino, comes news that early this morning a teen from Van Nuys was clipped by one of the ten "random" shots fired by a Vegas local. Troy Sanchez, a 13-year-old from Van Nuys, Calif., who was wounded in the left ankle, said he heard more than 10 gunshots from......

It sounds like something straight out of Batman. Not the somber action movie from a couple of years ago, but the campy TV show from the 1960s. Apparently, the U.S. military semi-seriously considered a proposal for building a "gay bomb," a device that would unleash hormones into the air, turning enemy soldiers into homosexuals who were more interested in getting it on with each other than fighting. Shockingly, this idea was proposed by the......

This weekend marks the official start of barbeque season! If you've already mastered grilling, and are ready to move up to the next level, welcome to the world of smoking. Just remember, grilling is like a one-night stand and smoking is like a marriage. You should prep the ribs the night before and start smoking them six hours before serving. It requires a certain level of commitment. But the commitment is only one of......

Welcome to the lull between Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third, when studios and indie distributors alike unload little known films to sate audiences' hungry to be entertained by the fleeting magic of cinema. 28 Weeks Later... - Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (Intacto, Psicotaxi) picks up where Danny Boyle left off in 28 Days Later with most Londonites infected by a "rage virus" that turns them into violent zombies and prompts the great debate......

Silverlake Film Festival The 2007 Silverlake Film Festival heads into its second and final week. Highlights include… El Benny - A biopic based on the life of Benny Moré, considered by many to be the greatest Cuban singer of all time. The film concentrates on a period in the early 1950s when Moré left the orchestra of Duany and founded his own "Banda Gigante." The King of Kong - Washington resident Steve Wiebe decides that......

The LA Times has nominated five books in each of nine different categories for the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. In the weeks leading up to the Festival of Books where the winners will be announced, LAist will take a quick look at each category and will wax poetic on a few favorites (or least favorites) along the way. The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley......

With a weekend 3-game sweep of the elderly San Francisco Giants under their collective belt, the Dodgers (4-2) open their regular season home schedule at Dodger Stadium this afternoon against the Colorado Rockies (3-3). Prized off-season acquisition Jason Schmidt (1-0) is scheduled to start, and his first pitch is scheduled for 1:10pm. For those taking an extra long lunch today (and you know who you are, as this one's already sold out), here's what......

As AI contestants drop off one-by-one the show thanks to the Sanjaya Effect, senior citizen crooner Tony Bennett has become the latest casualty and it makes us wonder if it might have something to do with Mr. Malakar. Bennett has lived 80 full, rich years, he even served in the military. But days after "working with" Sanjaya, he became too ill to perform, and in fact will not return to the American Idol stage......

Peruse the work of photographer John Humble and it's obvious the man knows this city. While some of LA's famous perspectives (the Hollywood sign, Santa Monica Pier, Venice Boardwalk) have become international icons, Humble's work largely focuses on equally distinct, but far from iconic, images of the city and its people. The globetrotting photographer has worked for Time, Newsweek, Harper's, Esquire and others. His upcoming exhibit (and companion book), A Place in the Sun,......

The Host - Korean director Joon-ho Bong has created one of the scarier horror films of the year not to mention Korea's most successful domestic release ever. A mutant beast created by U.S. military negligence emerges from Seoul's Han River and snatches the daughter of a vendor who runs a small snack bar on the river's banks. The film is riddled with a sense of urgent dread but Bong also manages to poke fun......

Sorry for the delay, but your crack LAist Aviation Staff Reporters had their attention seized (at the time) by the guy at LAX with wires coming out of his…err…body cavity, and this slipped under the radar. However, after a 17 month investigation, three Federal Agencies announced Tuesday they had taken into custody four F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft, three from air museums around Chino and one from the company that produced the series “JAG” stored......

A good friend of mine is a pilot in the military and currently wrapping up what I hope to be his last tour in Iraq. I actually have a few friends who have been overseas the last few years and while reports here in America are often conflicting, one thing that remains constant over there -- among the soldiers -- is that you have to maintain morale and work together as a team to......