Because he's too shy (and way too busy) to announce it here himself, I am proud to do the honors: Zach Behrens has officially accepted the Editor position here at LAist and he'll be starting on December 17th. BloggingLA has the announcement, as well as a nice picture of the new editor's "Sexy Face." That's how you get your Canadian fanbase, Behrens!!! Rain. Please. Rain. Effects of the strike are starting to ripple out... more ›

- Green LA Girl takes her show to the LA Times via The Emerald City - congrats Siel! - LAT - Laker center Kwame Brown gets popped for Disorderly Conduct in Georgia on Saturday after his cousin was charged with drunk driving after going the wrong way down a one-way street. Laker fans would like to see that sort of effort in the paint - AP - Even though it's only 56-years old, and... more ›

Kudos to California-based* EFF for taking Sony BMG to the mat on distributing CDs with spyware and hacker-friendly software. EFF joins Texas in the courts while The LA Times and The New York Times both discuss how Sony is having the worst year ever. In today's The Big Picture, Patrick Goldstein off-handedly throws out that the movie division has had only one hit (Hitch and that seems like it was ages ago) and a ton of flops while Tom Zeller notes in Link by Link that users of amazon.com are tagging sony bmg music products with phrases like "rootkit" and "scumware" and writing reviews encouraging the illegal downloading of sony music products as protest. more ›

There's a reason that when you flip through the radio stations, it's the same junk all along the spectrum, and it's not that everyone else really does love Celine Dion. Sony BMG has agreed to stop giving payola (bribes) to radio stations and DJs, under pressure from New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Yes, he has documentation that people were given trips to Las Vegas in exchange for playing Celine Dion songs. Anyone surprised? Yeah, OK. more ›