The question of which Nguyen won is about to be answered. Or maybe not.

The Los Angeles Times reports that OC Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley has finished the recount of the February 6 special election, and determined that Janet Nguyen is the winner. Republican Nguyen's margin of victory over Republican Trung Nguyen is said to be seven votes, which brings the proceedings to a neatly symmetrical end, since the losing Nguyen (T.) was seven votes ahead of the winning Nguyen (J.) at the beginning of the recount.

Trung Nguyen, following the example set by his party's leader during the 2000 presidential election recount, is preparing to challenge the recount results in court. Janet Nguyen also seems to draw inspiration from Maximum Leader George W. Bush, as evidenced by this line from the Times story:

Elsewhere in the courts of OC, the long shadow of the Mouse throws a chill over the democratic process. Disney is suing Anaheim to prevent a reconsideration of an affordable housing project. That would the same project that Disney recently worked so hard to kill, the high point of its efforts coming when its attorneys raised the possibility of civil and criminal penalties for Council member Lucille Kring, if she voted on the project.

And finally, events in another OC courtroom show that sometimes shared xenophobia just isn't a strong enough basis to keep a relationship from fracturing. From the Times:

Gustavo reviewed Gilchrist's book when it came out last year. You should read the review ("The book is riddled with typos. It's badly organized and stilted. But its worst sin is that it's boring".) so you too can wonder about the most remarkable allegation in the current court case, which isn't that Gilchrist inappropriately used Minuteman funds for his own needs or that he violated federal laws governing nonprofit groups-- it's that Gilchrist's book generated any royalties worth mentioning.

Ever wonder why some fake fur feels so real?  The Associated Press has one explanation:  "An animal advocacy group says its investigation has turned up coats — some with designer labels, some at higher-end retailers — with fur from man's best friend."

The Humane Society of the United States said it purchased coats from reputable outlets, such as upscale Nordstrom, with designer labels — Andrew Marc, Tommy Hilfiger, for example — and found them trimmed with fur from domestic dogs, even though the fur was advertised as fake.

"It's an industrywide deception," said Kristin Leppert, the head of the Human[e] Society's anti-fur campaign.

The investigation began after the society got a tip from a consumer who bought a coat with trim labeled as faux fur that felt real. Leppert and her team began buying coats from popular retailers and then had the coats tested by mass spectrometry, which measures the mass and sequence of proteins, to determine what species of animal the fur came from.

Of the 25 coats tested, 24 were mislabeled or misadvertised.

Three coats — from Tommy Hilfiger's Web site ShopTommy.com, Nordstrom.com and a coat from Andrew Marc's MARC New York line sold on Bluefly.com — contained fur from domesticated dogs. The others had fur from raccoon dogs — a canine species native to Asia — or, in one case, wolves. The single correctly labeled coat was trimmed with coyote fur, but it was advertised as fake.

Most of the fur came from China.

I suppose I can understand why even the correctly labeled coat trimmed with coyote wasn't advertised as such, given that one of the most common adjectives used to describe a coyote's appearance is "mangy".  Mangy probably isn't very appealing to fashion conscious-- of course, Heroin Chic was popular a few years ago, so maybe there is hope for Mangy Chic.

If you're one of the fashion forward who favor faux fur, you should definitely read the whole story-- though you should probably be warned that the story contains descriptions like "routinely killed by stomping them, or beating them, or skinning them alive".  Unfortunately, that is not a description of what happens to the people making a heap of money mislabeling fur from a heap of dead dogs.

Birds have been dying in suspiciously large numbers near the mouth of the Santa Ana River.  Since February 4, approximately 60 dead and dying birds from the area have been brought to the Wetlands and Wildlife Center, and the bodies of more dead birds have been spotted in the area around the river's mouth.  No cause was immediately apparent, so tests were ordered, and the results are in, reports the Huntington Beach Independent.

The usual suspects were rounded up-- parasites, fungus, cancer, toxic effects of red tide-- and found not guilty.  So what is killing the birds?  According to the Independent, "The latest testing does indicate a toxin, but no more specific information is available."  Not entirely helpful, and not exactly reassuring.  Just one more chapter in that never ending story, What the hell is in OC's water?

It seems a new day is dawning at the Los Angeles Times. No, it's not another thinning of the staff herd-- it's new language. Well… new for the Times, at least.

As is traditional, it's the appearance of a cock that heralds the new day. Kevin Roderick at L.A. Observed explains:

Times language a-changing

Last week a womanizing UCLA professor was described in a quote as a "cocksman." In today's Bob Pool story about Oscar preparations disrupting Hollywood Boulevard (chasing our post from yesterday) a woman jokes about the bent-over workers: "Get a picture of all those butt cracks."

Cocksmen and butts in the Times? Will wonders never cease? Well done, Spring Street scribblers. Pony rides for everyone!

While the well-moneyed, Republican-friendly overlords of Chapman University celebrate the school's new film studios, trouble is a-brewin' at my alma mater. Last Monday, the school held a faculty-led panel discussion on free speech and civility after African-American and Latino students complained about some racially charged incidents that occurred on campus last semester. Among the sticking points, according to the Feb. 5 issue of the Chapman Panther: posters for a dance club grafittied with anti-black slurs, an Oct. 16 opinion column attacking the Right's favorite college bogeyman, the Chicano student group MEChA, and posters with the slogan, "No se Puede," a play on the Chicano rallying cry, "Sí se Puede." These incidents aren't surprising in light of how Chapman kicked off its year.

Notably absent from the Feb. 12 discussion was Panther opinions editor Michael Stack, the author of the Oct. 16 anti-MEChA column (he was working that night). That same day, Stack wrote a scathing column about Chapman professor Paul Apodaca, who's the advisor to Chapman's MEChA chapter and was also on the faculty panel discussion. In it, Stack claimed Apodaca and MEChA sought to have him fired from the Panther and boasted he "felt it was too bad that MECha got their feelings hurt."

On Tuesday, someone stole the entire run of the Panther (est. circulation, 2,000). Yesterday, Chapman Dean of Student Joseph Kertes sent a faculty-wide e-mail alert under the subject "An apparant [sic] act of theft....2000 Panther Newspapers," stating "This act served to deprive the campus community of the right to read the weekly newspaper that students pay for and The Panther newspaper staff work very hard to produce."

There are no suspects at the time, but I sure as hell hope MEChA members weren't involved. But you know what? It wouldn't be the first time. Stay tuned...

The first sentence tells both what you already knew, and in many ways, all you need to know.

In Anaheim, even the tie goes to Disney.

That's the first sentence of Dave McKibben's story in the LA Times on how an attempt to build low-income housing in Anaheim was killed Tuesday.

But what really makes the story worth reading is its account of how Disney manufactured the tie vote by the Anaheim city council.  Some might say Disney's attorneys intimidated Councilwoman Lucille King into recusing herself, thereby setting up the tie vote that killed the affordable housing project.  Some might say Mickey's members of the bar strongarmed her.  I prefer to say they "imagineered" a menacing specter of "civil or criminal penalties", if King performed her duties as a member of the council and voted on the project.

Read the story here.

Ah, Valentine's Day! A day when many reflect on love gone wrong, and the harsh things that are said when love spoils like potato salad left too long in the sun. Charmingly, the Times has a story today on a UC Irvine-centered case of spoiled love, and yes, harsh things were said.

"Irvine is not exactly the center of the world," Kamuf said…

Not a nuclear-winter inducing strike, admittedly, but there's no denying that nasty edge there. So, who is Kamuf and what bit of unrefrigerated mayo-based-salad-of-the-heart inspired her to say that?

The somewhat snotty Kamuf is Peggy Kamuf, "chairwoman of USC's comparative literature department" (ah, USC), and more importantly in this context, "a friend of the Derrida family". The Derrida family is, of course, the currently green parts of the family tree of the late French philosophy idol, Jacques Derrida, who taught part-time at UCI from 1986 to 2003.

It seems that once there was love between Derrida and UCI, and Derrida promised the blushing young school a token of his affection (his papers). But then the old man had second thoughts, and rethought his promised gift. Words were exchanged. Derrida died. Words continued to be exchanged with the Derrida family. Lawyers were retained. Unpleasantness on a [insert your favorite Hollywood divorce here] level loomed. But now passions have cooled, the lawyers (well paid) have been sent home, and a middling sort of "can't we still be friends" compromise appears to have been reached.

"This is what should have happened all along," [Kamuf] said. "One hundred years from now, Derrida will be considered the most important philosopher since [Immanuel] Kant."

OK, apparently not all passions have cooled. Most important since Kant? Really? That's the sort of love-drunk declaration-- especially with that gaseous I'll be right when you are dead assertion-- you might expect from a squealing fan-girl, not a scholar of such lofty status that she can sneer at Irvine from on high.

But since it's a holiday, let's skip the philosophical arguments and instead enjoy a combination of a different sort of drunkeness and philosophy. I give you Monty Python's Philosopher's Song (click link, You Tube won't embed) featuring some of those thinkers Kamuf would tell are nothing but "beery swine" compared to her Derrida.

Over at her Deadline Hollywood Daily column, Nikki Finke charts all the controversies swirling around American Idol contestant Tom Lowe.

Her piece begins:

American Idol 6 would be nothing without its controversy. The latest: 28-year-old ex-British boy-band'er Tom Lowe is the target of not just one but four controversies, which is a rarity even for that Fox show. Allegations include that Lowe is too successful, or too well-connected, to compete fairly on the show. Then there's the fact this runner-up "Britain Choirboy of the Year" posed nude (with all the appropriate places covered) for a trendy British magazine. A college interview presents him as the first "out" gay American Idol contestant. There are headlines how he's had influential helpers -- so influential that the British press alleges one of them may be Simon Cowell himself, and the Boston Herald says the other is the Massachusetts Tourism Board. But there's also another issue: just what, exactly, is American Idol supposed to be? Is it an obvious avenue for finding undiscovered talent (like Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood)? Or is it a shrewd method of banking on a sure thing (like Taylor Hicks, who'd already put out an album pre-Idol). And what about the show's forced notion of "wholesomeness"?

Tom Lowe . . . Tom Lowe . . . why does that name sound familiar? Oh, yeah: Tom Lowe was also the name of the GOP operator who alleged he banged a chick on then-Assemblyman (now Anaheim Mayor) Curt Pringle's desk at the state Capitol, something Lowe detailed in his June 26, 1996, story for us, "I Was a Gigolo for the GOP" (which I'd link you to if only I could).

The same Tom Lowe? Nawwwww . . . the GOP gigolo Tom Lowe was a mezzo-soprano.

In case you missed it, you can find video of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Surfin') speculating about the effects of dinosaur flatulence here. And no, booze was not involved in the congressman's ramblings. Probing the effects of dinosaur farting is just something Rohrabacher sees as part of his official duties, one of the ways in which he serves the interests of his constituents.

The question about the noxious gas emitted by thunder-lizards was part of the noxious gas Rohrabacher emitted during last week's Congressional hearing on the new IPCC report on global climate change. The report spelt out in unequivocal language the role of human activity in climate change, and its disastrous consequences. But the Surfin' One doesn't believe in the human role in global warming that scientists have so clearly documented. He don't hold with all that science and fancy book-learnin'. Hence, his kindergarten-level question about dinosaur farts.

To be fair, this must be a difficult time of year for the Pride of Huntington Beach. It's movie award season. And Dana Rohrabacher is, after all, more than just an embarrassing congressman, he's also a failed screenwriter. So far, the only producer to show real interest in any of his screenplays was a con man looking for Rohrabacher to help him make connections in D.C. Rohrabacher did his part, but the con man ended up being carted off to prison instead of producing Baja (a tale of men doing manly things in Mexico), crushing one more Hollywood dream. So, with Oscar night hard upon us, and no one showing an interest in such masterpieces as Rohrabacher's The French Doctoresse (which stands out from other WWII dramas, thanks to "its oddly positive depiction of Adolf Hitler"), is it any wonder that Dana Rohrabacher's head is full of nothing but bad gas?

Truthy and hard-hitting as ever, last night Stephen Colbert took on the burning question: is OC Congressional Rep. Loretta Sanchez a whore? You can find his answer (no) here. Look for Last Night's Highlights, and scroll down to California Values Watch: Sanchez.

Those interested in Stephen's answer and his explanation of how the question started burning in the first place-- as well as those who want to know which Hilton sister Sanchez is most like-- better hurry. The video's available at the link today only, and while it might be Comedy Central's Motherload a bit longer, there's a pretty good chance it will soon disappear behind the paywall at iTunes. Why? Because the executives at Comedy Central are whores, and they only love you for your money.