I'm not even going to try mimic Moxley's harlequin prose whenever he bothers with Orange County Register columnist Gordon Dillow, so here's the straight dope: Today, Bootlicker writes about Joe Labarrere of Brea, who visited Fresca's in the city and was offended that the mildest hot sauce was labeled "gringo." Labarrere was so perturbed that he actually lodged a complaint with the Orange County Human Relations Commission. The group—God bless their PC hearts—investigated the matter rather than telling Labarrere to go get a life. As a result, Fresca's in Brea no longer labels its mild salsa as "gringo."

"If we as a society are going to play the ethnic and racial sensitivity game as relentlessly as we do," Dillow harrumphs at the end of his column, "then everyone should get to play—white guys included."

The first problem here, of course, is that Labarrere (who is of French descent—important point to remember in the next sentence) is patronizing Fresca's, a chain only slightly less disgusting than Green Burrito. More importantly, "gringo" shouldn't offend Labarrere at all—now, if it was gabacho, he'd have more of a case.

But, as always, the onus of this idiotic episode falls on the Bootlicker. Oh, Dillow: will you ever not defend the gringo from...what, exactly? I understand you folks are majority-minority in the land of Nixon now, but still: WTF? Hey, gabachos: am I just a clueless Mexican, or is the gringo way of life really almost over?

Clutching a package of velvet lace to his chest, Bootlicker elbowed by an elderly lady to get first in the checkout line at Michaels arts and crafts shop. Time was of the essence. Thirty minutes earlier, the Orange County District Attorney’s office had released its “Investigative Report” on the beating death of an inmate in November 2006. Bootlicker grabbed the first copy, raced to his pickup truck and, as if God himself granted a special wish, watched as the report fell open to pages 25-26. The Orange County Register columnist, who’d spent his career fetishizing a violence-prone police state under the nom de plume Gordon Dillow, gasped. His spine shot erect. His self-styled “country” brain focused not on sentences but words: “lifeless body,” “protocol,” “the size,” “large scale,” “joint investigation,” “command,” and--oh-my-golly!--“homicide unit.” In his mind’s eye, the word “unit” grew larger and larger and larger until it was the only word he saw. Could a single word engulf a body and pulsate in hot pink? It felt that way. An appreciative Bootlicker closed his eyes, dropped a hand to his loins and imagined buttons popping—exploding in rapid fire, really—from a male motorcycle cop’s uniform shirt. Underneath, a soiled white T-shirt barely masked the officer’s firm nipples. Bootlicker imagined that the angry cop had just used his Billy Club on the face of a disrespectful, young man of color. A part of the Reg columnist suddenly tingled and then he grunted twice. He opened his eyes, sighed and drove to Michaels. A report this special would have to be wrapped in velvet lace.

-- R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

Holding a gun with both hands sent sensations racing down his spine to a semi-firm point between his legs. Gordon Dillow wanted to moan—purr, really—like he did in the privacy of his home. But he’d been warned twice before about fondling weapons inside Orange County Register headquarters. There was also the problem of his co-workers: in his mind, a bunch of unapologetic liberals, women, homosexuals, Jews and "gooks."** He knew they didn’t sympathize with the depths of his love for men in uniform, weapons, badges, boots, steel neck collars and cop domination techniques—particularly ones performed on young brown people who haven't yet learned to quickly salute state authority.

Dillow’s memory flashed to the time in the men’s room when he had reached out to another Register employee in hopes of finding an ideological soul mate. The man flushed, called him a “sick douche bag” and stormed out. Weeks later the Pentagon’s PR unit sent Dillow to Iraq under the ruse that he was an independent embedded journalist. Men. Uniforms. Weapons. Heat. Torture. Dead civilians. He felt so blessed he tried to stay indefinitely.

But that was several years ago. Dillow gripped the gun tightly, squeezed his eyelids and recalled his favorite photograph: a smirking, erect Heinrich Himmler, dressed spectacularly in a Nazi uniform and surrounded by shirtless males ready to obey. He sighed and let his mind wonder about the possibility of a master race.

A tingling returned. He rolled his chair over to his office door and quietly locked it shut. Deadline for his next column was 15 minutes away. What could he write about? Cops? Soldiers? Cop/soldiers? A coin flip wouldn’t help.

His eyes searched his office in hopes of sparking an idea. A Donna Summer song played softly in the background. There--partially hidden underneath his prized copy of a My Lai massacre movie (actual footage!) and a stack of photographs he’d secretly taken of men entering an Army recruiting station in Stanton on successive Saturdays--he found inspiration: a Register crime story. I’ll let him tell describe his excitement:

“It happened earlier this month in Irvine,” Dillow wrote for today’s column. “Police were looking for a man suspected of raping an 18-year-old woman in her home. As the cops searched, the fleeing suspect, a 27-year-old L.A. gang member, tried to hide by breaking into another home. Inside, the homeowner, a man who had recently undergone defensive firearms training, heard the commotion, grabbed a handgun and confronted the suspect.”

Men. Uniforms. Gun. Action.

Dillow swiveled repeatedly in his seat, purred and looked over his shoulder. Yes, the office door remained shut. In the distance he heard Tony Saavedra snoring, Frank Mickadeit bragging about his own popularity and Martin Wisckol slowly repeating a series of orders from GOP boss Mike Schroeder. Even for Dillow, those noises were troublesome. He re-focused his attention on the rapist article.

“Well, I don’t have enough space to go into all the Second Amendment arguments,” he wrote. “But to me it’s obvious that a homeowner in Irvine or any other law-abiding citizen has a constitutional right to have a firearm.”

Dillow finished typing and smiled. His left hand dropped to his lap region. Nobody—not a single person on the entire planet—had argued that this homeowner wasn’t legally entitled to possess a gun or use it in self-defense. The 57-year-old columnist marveled at his ability to produce imaginary dilemmas. And get paid! For the first time since the California Supreme Court strengthened police secrecy and lethal force laws, Dillow laughed out loud, packed up and went to CVS to buy more hand lotion.

-- R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly

**In a column, Dillow once admitted "there was a time when I called [Vietnamese] gooks without so much as a second thought." Repentant? Nope. Later, in 1999, he defended--imagine this!--caucasian police officers in Orange County's Little Saigon calling Vietnamese Americans "gooks."

Over the weekend, Orange County Register columnist Gordon "Bootlicker" Dillow wrote some claptrap about the continuing controversy involving the proposed renaming of John Wayne Airport to something reflecting idiot Orange County television shows. But because the Reg is the Reg, that column isn't online despite it coming out yesterday...wait, I just found it after digging. Argh! Where were we? Ah, yes: in trying to find Dillow's most recent column, we stumbled upon a reminder of his one good cause over the years--urging veterans in 2002 to visit legendary cartoonist Bill Maudlin before he passed away in a Newport Beach retirement home. Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran an excerpt of Bill Maudlin: A Life Up Front, in which Dillow is given prominent, rightful play for promoting Maudlin in his final days. The book is out today--buy it, and remember the old adage about blind pigs and truffles.

• Back the Badge, Support the Star, Empty your Wallet: Peggy Lowe at the Register watched “dozens of black-shirted deputies march through Civic Center Tuesday as the union went on a public offensive to rally support for their fight to preserve” an incredibly generous pay, perk and pension package. The message on the T-shirts worn by the deputies said, “Back the Badge, Support the Star.” Supervisor John Moorlach has put the boys in green into a tizzy because he thinks a 2001 pay deal the cop union won from his fellow Republican supervisors was a slimy, political move to placate a continually demanding bunch, a looming financial disaster for taxpayers and, yes, unconstitutional. In the past, supervisors have merely bent over and spread their cheeks the minute union leaders whined. But in Moorlach, the union faces a man who isn’t afraid to challenge conventional assumptions or dig into questionable union financial dealings. And he won't (at least so far) cave to threats--or even cute slogans. The deputies’ strong point is a good one: How can county officials renege on retirement plans relied upon especially by older officers? As usual, the deputies can’t figure out how to properly make their point, so they resort to aggression. It’s what they do best. On Monday, the deputies demonstrated their anger with Moorlach by refusing to transport inmates to the county’s numerous courthouses for trials. I doubt anyone--except inmates--really cared. Judges, who should have held the deputies in contempt of court, seemed to treat the day as a semi-vacation.
• Asian Hotties Go To Jail: Two weeks ago, Irvine police began receiving complaints about the number of men pouring into a Villa Coronado apartment near Jamboree and the 405. Now KCBS-TV is reporting the arrest of three woman on felony pimping and prostitution charges: Kyung Ah Lee, 34; Hyun Jung Shin, 28; and Su Jin Park, 34.

  According to the report, the women used Craigslist to advertise their services. Men stopped leaving the apartment said they paid $160 for sex after reading the online ad which stated, “hottie Asian girls waiting for you . . . 1HR 160 roses for your good time . . . open 11 a.m. until 2 a.m.”

  District Attorney spokeswoman Susan Kang Schroeder added this tidbit: the ladies kept their condoms in a refrigerator container. How sadistic.

• Like a Final Scene in Bonnie & Clyde: Santa Ana police “shot and killed the male driver of a sports utility vehicle at the conclusion of a 20-minute vehicle pursuit” near the Highway 55 and MacArthur Boulevard, reports Ryan Hammill. Cpl. Jose Gonzales told the Reg reporter that an earlier collision caused officers to open fire at the unnamed driver. Stephen Murray witnessed the mess. “About 12 police went toward the back of the Suburban shouting orders. After about a minute, they began shooting,” he told Hammill. About a minute? Must have been close to the afternoon shift breaktime. Money sentence in the story: Police refused to say whether the dead dude even had a gun or how many shots hit the man. The Reg also has a pic of the bullet-riddled SUV and a sheet-covered corpse.
• Bootlicker is Back! Columnist Gordon Dillow quietly closed the door, lowered the shades and took a slow, appreciative whiff of the musky men’s locker room smell that permeates his Register office. He looked to make sure the door was locked and carefully--ever so carefully--retrieved one of his prized possessions from a secured box: an old Naval Academy yearbook loaded with pictures of athletic men in uniform. He studied the images and thoughts popped in his mind like: I bet his fella has a deep voice, big biceps and always votes Republican. It took everything in his power not to, well, you know. After about an hour, Dillow closed the book, closed his eyes and sighed. He’d once again found the inspiration for another gung-ho pro-soldier column.

  
  Yep, Gordo’s on a rampage because he thinks all Navy Seals were tainted when an alleged child molester in the news claimed he had been a Seal:

  It took just one two-minute phone call for me to determine that fugitive accused child molester Chester Stiles was never a Navy SEAL. So why did so many news organizations give the impression that he was? The answer, in my opinion, is simple: It's because some people are only too happy to portray American military men not as honorable warriors but as losers and thugs and criminals.

  
  Gordo, is there really a conspiracy of people portraying all American soldiers as “losers and thugs and criminals”? If so, show us. News reports said Stiles claimed to be a Seal. (He did, in fact, serve in the Navy.) I’m sure that if you claimed you are a journalist, some media outlets would carry that lie too.

Gordon Dillow is best known as the barely readable OC Register columnist and professional boot-licker who's never seen an officer-involved shooting or excessive use of taser on an unarmed suspect he didn't like. But did you know Dillow isn't just a tool of law enforcement--he's also a stooge of the international commie conspiracy to pollute our precious bodily fluids with fluoridation?

That's right, America: Gordon Dillow may seem like a patriotic citizen but when it comes to oral hygiene he's a pinko pure and simple. On Sept. 23, Dillow opined that the Metropolitan Water District's plan to increase the level of fluoride to the county's water supply is a "safe" plan "especially now that 'commies' are out of the picture." Dillow dismissed decades of well-researched reporting that proves that adding fluoride to the water doesn't prevent tooth decay but instead turns innocent civilians into mindless robots.

One of the most important scholarly exposes about fluoridation and the international communist conspiracy comes from the brilliant 1964 Stanley Kubrick movie Dr. Strangelove, which depicted the heroic U.S. Air Force General Jack D. Ripper's efforts to prevent the Russkies from polluting our water with fluoride by starting a nuclear holocaust. ""You know when fluoridation first began? "Nineteen forty-six! How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy?" Ripper says in the film. "A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard core Commie works."

Dillow evidently finds something funny about Ripper's insights and feels fit in his typically feckless fashion to quote a bunch of so-called "dentists" to argue that fluoridation is a good idea. Dillow quotes a certain Dr. Paul Reggio, an alleged mouth scientist who insists he isn't a "communist or a subversive," as saying that water fluoridation is "extremely beneficial" to oral hygiene.

But isn't that exactly what a communist agent posing as a dentist would say? I'm not a commie, I'm just a dentist. Oh sure! And who better than commie dentists to perpetrate the intellectual and ideological superstructure of the vast pinko plot to pollute our water and betray our precious bodily fluids?

Answer me that, Dillow! Stalinist stool pigeon!

Fortunately for red-blooded Americans, there's a substitute for water-borne fluoride that also happens to be a cure for reading too much Gordon Dillow. It comes from Col. Ripper's own cookbook: grain alcohol and rainwater. Bottoms up!

• Welcome to the Real IC: We should change the name of this place to Irony County. Latest reason? Peggy Lowe, a sleuth at the Register, reports today that during the very same meeting that the Orange County Board of Supervisors talked about slicing into generous pensions for sheriff’s deputies they spiked their own. Yes, the all-Republican board so often yelling about looming pension funding disasters increased the taxpayer contribution to their own retirement plans from six percent to eight percent. Lowe also found that the supes “nearly doubled the number of annual leave hours they may cash in for a salary jump and increased their monthly car stipend to $765.” Larry Yellin, president of the Orange County Attorney’s Association and a damn fine prosecutor to boot, told the Reg: “It's the height of hypocrisy to carry a banner of pension reform while quietly spiking your own pension.” County CEO Tom Mauk said his bosses needed a more lucrative package because his bosses had recently sweetened pay and perks for county executives and—I swear to God I’m not making this up—the supes have to have a “higher category of compensation” than the execs. Hey, these people are going to continue to rob taxpayers blind because the public isn’t paying attention.
• Please get some effective help now: The Daily Pilot reports that Kurt Eric Reiter allegedly fell asleep intoxicated behind the wheel of his Toyota SUV at about 8 a.m., jumped a curb into a Newport Beach elementary school area and crashed into a tree this week. The paper claims that if the crash had happened minutes earlier, kids could have been injured or killed. They also noted that Reiter has been convicted of possession of narcotics and multiple traffic violations. What they left out was that the 44-year-old has three drug convictions, about a dozen traffic violations including exceeding 100 mph and has been locked up for grand theft. With the help of Costa Mesa criminal defense lawyer Paul S. Meyer, Reiter’s often received light punishment if anything. Your honors, what is it going to be this time if he's found guilty again?
• More Lost in OC: Top five Times stories in the paper’s online Orange County news section: Los Angeles is still the reigning champ of traffic delays, (story listed twice); Google spokesman is pushing a project in San Francisco; L.A. Unified “can’t figure out the math on employee paychecks"; and Schwarzenegger seeks funds for dam projects in the Bay Area, Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. I’m not saying each isn’t a good story. But this embarrassing trend says the Times is okay with OC’s 3 million residents turning elsewhere for local news.
• Bootlicker Likes Police Tool: Register columnist Gordon Dillow writes today that—quick: would it be gung-ho pro-police or gung-ho pro-soldier?—that citizens have only themselves to blame if they get in the way of a lethal police Taser. Background: Yesterday, sheriff’s deputies unknowingly shot Tasers into a 15-year-old autistic kid darting into traffic. The event prompted some controversy around the question of excessive force claimed by the kid’s mother. Dillow, who probably had been working on a column about the evils of Miranda warnings, quickly dropped the hot, stiff Glock he was fondling at his desk and called—drum roll—a police officer to find out if police believed police had overreacted. Cop to Gordo: Nope. Gordo to his readers: Nope. See how the facts line up so easily? Anyhow, Bootlicker ended his column with his usual cowboy code: “Statistics make it pretty clear that Tasers are not the instruments of death that they're often portrayed to be. And if you get high on dangerous drugs and get in a fight with the cops and get Taser-ed and then die, it almost certainly wasn't the Taser that killed you. Instead, through your own reckless behavior, you managed to kill yourself.” Ok, Bootlicker. You've done your deed for the day. Go back to the Glock.
• OC Waitress Finishes Second on Big Brother: The CBS reality series Big Brother 8 ended last night with 21-year-old Huntington Beach waitress Daniele Donato finishing second to her father, LA night club manager Dick Donato for the $500,000 grand prize. Other contestants preferred Dick, 44, to the daughter even though he was a nightmare to live with during the 70 some days of filming. Daniele’s big contribution to the show was an on-the-air romance with Nick Starcevic, a former European League professional football player considered the stud on the show.

My colleague R. Scott Moxley loves to paint an aura of homoeroticism around Orange County Register columnist Gordon Dillow whenever the crank writes about men in uniform, but the Dillow-nator (as former Weekly managing editor Matt Coker loved to call him) also has a hard-on for Know Nothings. Yet nothing Dillow has ever published will ever compare to the spilled load that was today's piece on deposed Anaheim Union High School District trustee Harald Martin. Martin, you may recall, was appointed by AUHSD trustees to fill a vacancy this summer but resigned last week in the face of a pitchfork-and-torch-wielding recall effort. Harald--who previously, controversially served from 1994 through 2002--vows to run again. In the meanwhile, however, Martin told his side of the recall to Dillow--not a big shock. But, wait--there's more after the jump...

• Doesn't marijuana go stale? I dunno, but Jim Spray, 51, and Felix Cha (the person, not the tea), 22, want the government to return the pot police officers confiscated two years ago, according to Christine Hanley at the Times. Lawyers for both men told the Santa Ana-based Court of Appeal yesterday the narcotic was legally possessed for medicinal reasons. In separate cases, judges have previously tossed out their arrests but bureaucrats in the cities of Garden Grove and Huntington Beach refuse to return the pot. With Hanley watching, Magdalena Lona-Wiant--Garden Grove's attorney--argued that although the Compassionate Use Act allows patients to smoke the drug, it doesn't necessarily mean that lawmakers intended for patients to have “property rights” to it. Uh-huh. Just give the crap back, bitch.
• Aiding and Abetting: On the same day that the Orange County DA's office announced it had obtained a 10-year prison sentence for identity thief Michael Alexander Hartsell, the state government apologized for printing social security numbers on brochures it mailed this week to more than 445,000 retired state employees. Officials at California Public Employee's Retirement System (CalPERS) tried to downplay their boneheaded mistake by claiming “it is unlikely that someone would recognize the series of numbers as being a Social Security number except our members.” Right.
• Yes, Chriss. That's Dionne Warwick you heard: Until recently, Supervisor John Moorlach stood by his man, county Treasurer-Tax Collector Chriss Street, even as embarrassing ethical blunders mounted. Peggy Lowe, who has owned this saga, reports this morning that Moorlach finally crossed the Street by claiming his longtime pal “may have used a falsified document to cover up an improper award process on a contract to a private company.” (If you aren't aware of this guy's questionable financial activities at this point, shame on you. Suffice to say: the U.S. Justice Department is investigating.) The powerful supe--who hired Street when he was treasurer--now agrees with the rest of the civilized world that Street has no business running the county's $7 billion investment portfolio. Moorlach told Lowe at the Reg that Street refused to resign during a private meeting. The board of supes may now initiate action to suspend the treasurer's powers. It wasn't too long ago that I imagined Moorlach singing to his pal, “Keep smilin', keep shinin'. Knowin' you can always count on me, for sure. That's what friends are for. For good times and bad times, I'll be on your side forever more. That's what friends are for.”
• I'm betting Dillow's nipples are erect this morning: When I read stories about men in uniform taking stern action, I know that across town Gordon Dillow has quietly locked the door and lowered the blinds. Reporter Tony Perry of the Times reports today that a San Diego Marine drill instructor was charged yesterday with 110 incidents of assaulting recruits. The only description Perry offered was “cruelty,” and so I was forced to look elsewhere for the entire story. Hey, thanks Rick Rogers at the San Diego Union Tribune! Rogers reports that Sgt. Jerrod Glass is accused of “244 counts of abusing recruits in what could be the worst case of such maltreatment in modern Marine Corps history.” The military claims Glass struck almost every member of his 60-man platoon “during a month-long rampage early this year” and other abuses that “resemble fraternity pranks,” according to Rogers. Can someone at the Reg get Bootlicker a napkin?
• Channelling Barney Fife: City officials in Laguna Beach are hailing their successes from the past year and they include hiring a private company to process its lucrative parking meter violations business. Apparently, the two city employees who were paid to process the fines weren't collecting as much as the city wanted. Okay, so far so good. Police Chief Michael F. Sellers had whipped out his pencil, grabbed a notebook and licked his thumb. Let's see. Carry the two. Minus the six. Anyhow, Sellers calculated that a private company would process each ticket for $2.16 while it costs the city $2.46 per ticket using two city employees part-time. Still fine. City council members even bought it. The deal was signed. But Sellers made a move that qualifies him for The Government Bureaucrat Hall of Fame: He privatized and then kept both city employees on the public dole. See Mike, the cost now is $4.62 per ticket.

• Tinker Bell Plot: Reporter Dave McKibben visits the turf war in Anaheim and discovers “The Disney-supported initiative, which supporters say has gathered enough signatures for the ballot, seeks to bar new housing in the resort district unless voters approve it. [But the] measure wouldn't require voter approval for Disney's commercial ventures.” That's evenhanded in a Tinker Bell sort of way. Disney folks want to block SunCal's 1,500-residential-unit plans across the street from their third planned theme park in the area. Almost laughed taking a sip of coffee when I read that Annette McCluskey, spokesperson for Disney's Save Our Anaheim Resort, told the Times reporter that opponents of Disney's shenanigans are “a little disingenuous.” Ballsy, babe.
• Now they're protesting casinos: Little Saigon is a place where counterfeit products, prostitution, violent gangs and gambling rings thrive, but some Vietnamese Americans are now saying that a proposed Indian casino in Garden Grove would lower community standards. Deepa Barath of the Register quoted from a letter to the city by five elected officials opposing the project. They said a casino “brings about social problems such as addicted gambling, family breakdown, domestic violence, child abuse or neglect [and] financial bankruptcies.” In case the point was missed, Truong Diep — one of the fabulous five — told Barath, “It's a proven fact that casinos attract a variety of criminal activities.” Jonathan Stein, CEO of the Santa Monica-based but federally unrecognized Gabrielino-Tongva Indian Tribe, was pissed. Earlier this month, he met with Vietnamese community leaders and thought he had explained the massive windfalls he projects for everyone — including $70 million-per-year for city coffers. City Councilman Mark Rosen, a Democrat who backs a casino project perhaps because union bosses are drooling at the idea of new turf, called the letter “disgraceful.” Two to one odds this feud gets better.
• Hot dogs, peanuts, Crackerjacks! The Daily Pilot reports today that the state is looking for a concessions-stand operator at Corona del Mar State Beach. The beautiful spot hasn't had a concessionaire for two years during renovations. The paper notes that Kilmer Enterprises, which had the contract, offered “hot dogs and hamburgers, drinks and other picnic-type food.”

  Proposals will be accepted at 3300 Newport Blvd., Newport Beach, through 4 p.m. on Aug. 31. Please run your ideas by Gustavo first.



• Speaking of sauerkraut: Gordon Dillow must have rested his head on his Reg desk, dreamed of sweaty men in uniform and wrestled with his important weekly decision: Should I spin for a questionable cop or questionable soldier? I don't know if a coin toss settled it, but Dillow picked this week's hero as Marine Lieutenant General James Mattis. Here's Gordo on Mattis: “An honorable, courageous and widely admired officer who isn't afraid to forgo political correctness and speak his mind.” What deserved this plug in Gordo's mind? Last week, Mattis overruled charges against two Marines who had been accused by military police of murdering three Iraqi men in Haditha. To explain his decision, Mattis said, “I eat breakfast 300 yards from 4,000 Cubans who are trained to kill me, so don't think for one second that you can come down here, flash a badge and make me nervous.” Oh, sorry. That was Jack Nicholson as Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men. Hey, guess what: That's essentially what Mattis wrote in a statement that must have had Gordo praisin' the Lord and thinking of flashbacks to gory black-and-white war movies. I suspect that what really pleasured the Reg columnist were recent public comments Mattis made to the laughter of soldiers: “Actually, it's quite fun to fight [Middle East folks], you know. It's a hell of a hoot. . . . It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling. . . . You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left, anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." F-yeah, shooting people proves you're a real man!


• OC GOP “principles” fight: Steven Greenhut thinks fellow conservative Jubal at OCBlog went too far in his praise for Senate Majority Leader Dick Ackerman leading the effort to stall the Democrat's budget bill. I think Jubal (a.k.a. Matt Cunningham, a political/corporate PR strategist) said Ackerman is “pride-inspiring” for Orange County conservatives. Greenhut (pictured) attempts to dismantle the notion by pointing out Ackerman's support of budget-busting pension gifts to public employee unions, opposition to property rights and attempts to put a liberal Republican (Lynn Daucher) in the state senate over an ultra-conservative Democrat (Lou Correa). Jubal responded in the comment section: “Ever heard of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good?”


• Local Dems are quiet, but the other side isn't: Congressman John Campbell brings acclaimed cable TV and Wall Street Journal journalist John Fund to the Balboa Bay Club today at 5. The two Republicans will discuss "current political events and legislative issues" followed by a Q&A. If you attend, you'll have to drink each time they utter the word “illegal.” Call (949) 232-8882, or e-mail jpitkin@jpitkin.com for more information.

• Picking themselves up with your bootstraps: The lobbyists at the Orange County Tourism Council believe they are entitled yet again to a public handout. And, once again, they're going to get it without even a minute of public debate. The board of supervisors placed on its Tuesday consent calender a $150,000 corporate welfare payment to the large businesses--the Irvine Co., Disneyland, Marriott, Wyndham etc--which already prosper handsomely on OC tourism. Good for them. But why should local taxpayers pay a dime for their marketing? Why can't they be self-sufficient like good little capitalists? Why did Supervisors Moorlach and Norby cave on this waste of money? Meanwhile, the county continues to increase parking fees at county beaches because public coffers are allegedly low...
• Thumb operations spike to aid iPhone usage? Here's a new cottage industry in the cosmetic surgery world: carving your thumbs to better use cell phone messaging keys! From www.engadget.com: “Thomas Martel hails from Colorado, and after upgrading to an iPhone, he decided his big hands were just too much of a burden to bear. So what's a man to do? Why, get those digits downsized, of course. Thomas went under the knife for a new technique called 'whittling.' The doctors made a small cut in each thumb and shaved down the bones, then they adjusted the muscles and fingernails to fit the new thumb size. Martel's new thumbs look a tad effeminate, and there's always that problem of expense and general discomfort, but he thinks the procedure 'will pay for itself in ten to fifteen years. And what it's saving me in frustration - that's priceless.'" The story, which appeared first in a Colorado newspaper, was a hoax.
• Story of the Day: Reporters John Gittelsohn and Ronald Campbell managed to take a less-than-exciting topic, subprime lending, and make it interesting by focusing on what happened to a single Santa Ana neighborhood. Here's Gittelsohn and Campbell:

  
  "An Orange County Register investigation found that lenders targeting Hispanic buyers wrote $19 million in loans on this modest Santa Ana block of 1920s bungalows, where roses and jasmine bloom behind white picket fences. Those loans helped nearly triple sales prices from $182,000 to $600,000 over five years. Some owners got cash out. Others sold for big profits.

  Then the credit stopped. And home values crashed.

  Lenders seized the homes at 920 and 946 after owners failed to keep up with payments. 946 sold at a loss, and 920 is in escrow at a loss. Lenders also filed default notices against the owners of 926 in April and 937 in June. "For Sale" signs hang outside five of the remaining 48 homes. Desperate to escape escalating payments, the owners of 937 and 1033 have slashed prices."

  To see how the reporters personalized the issue, read the story here.



• LAX Hell: A U.S. Customs & Border Protection computer system breakdown at Los Angeles International Airport Saturday left almost 6,000 international passengers stranded for as much as six hours, KCBS reports. The cause of the problem is unknown, but event became operational again. Incoming flights were diverted Ontario and Las Vegas. From a cell inside a plane stuck on the tarmac for five hours, Chris Cognac said, "People are getting a little stir-crazy, feeling claustrophobic." Houston resident Gaynelle Jones landed at LAX after a 13-hour flight from Hong Kong, was forced to stay on the plane for another five hours and described the ordeal as “just unbearable.” KCBS has a video of angry people at its website.


• Sharp as a mashed potato: In his latest installment of “I love the feel of a firm badge in the morning,” Gordon Dillow did the impossible. Brace yourself. He insulted Orange County cops. The Register columnist had written something like 29,397 consecutive, shamelessly fact-twisting pro-men in uniform columns. I particularly enjoyed his recent tacit, golly-gee defense of soldiers who murdered, raped and planted evidence on unarmed Iraqi men, women and children. We demand too much from our soldier, he offered.

  
  But this streak is now toast and Gordo's got to struggle with the knowledge that he wasn't 100 percent pro-cop during his career. I'm sad because I know this feat ended on an unintended error. Mistakes happen when someone gets all excited--like Dillow does when he sees shiny shoes and thick leather belt buckles accentuated with steel black Glocks.

  Here was Dillow's argument: Cops--particularly ones in Anaheim--make relatively crappy salaries. (Wonder why he failed to disclose that every new cop hire costs city taxpayers a whopping $180,000-a-year in salary and sweet benefits?) Cops have “awesome powers . . . to enforce the laws, to arrest, even to lawfully kill – to me it only makes sense to pay them top dollar up front,” he wrote. “Because cops are like anything else. You get what you pay for.” (My emphasis.)

  So if Dillow's right that Anaheim cops are paid shit, then according to Dillow's logic the city is filled with shitty cops.

  Shame on you, bootlicker.



• And finally: "World championship" boat races today at the Long Beach Marine Stadium (PCH and 2nd Street). They request no BYOB. There's a beer garden on site. Free admission to soldiers with a military ID. Adults pay $10. Save $3 bucks per ticket with a coupon on page 47 in the current OC Weekly.

• 'Biggest racist ever' back on Anaheim school board: Last week, the Anaheim Union School District appointed Harald Martin to an open board seat created by the death of Denise Mansfield-Reinking. I managed to obtain the board's top-secret qualifications checklist for Martin: Racist, check. Uneducated cop mentality, check. Nincompoop, check. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! Of course, I'm kidding. Nothing was top secret. We all know about Martin's history during his previous board service. Art Montes, past president of Orange County's League of United Latin American Citizens, told Times reporter Seema Mehta, “It's like nominating [segregationist] George Wallace. Even ultra-conservative Alexandria Coronado, who has served with Martin, calls him “evil” and “the biggest racist ever.” According to Mehta, Martin says his plans include boosting police presence on school campuses. Harald, how about a couple of tanks too?
• Twisted: An Orange County Juvenile Court sent 22-month-old Miranda Davila back to her drug addicted parents and their nasty motel room. It was the best place for her, according to court Commissioner Gary Vincent. In an excellent if sad story, the Reg's Jenifer B. McKim reports that seven months later paramedics found the baby girl “bruised and unconscious, her skull shattered, in a motel room fouled with mold and infested with maggots.” She died hours later.
• Frederick Forsyth eat your heart out: During a trip to her native Russia in February, UC Irvine graduate Yana Kovalevsky and her mother were poisoned with thallium, a substance usually associated with “political assassinations or “murderous inheritance seekers,” reports Paul Pringle of the Los Angeles Times. Pringle says it's unknown how the pair ingested the poisoning favored by Saddam Hussein or why someone would want them dead. But this much is certain: if it wasn't for an Orange County pharmacy, 27-year-old Yana and Dr. Marina Kovalevsky, 50, might be goners. While Russian doctors twiddled their thumbs, Dr. Leon Peck--Marina'a brother, called an FDA staffer for an antidote. “He told me about this company in Texas, and they gave me the number of this pharmacy in Santa Ana.” Writes Pringle: “The pharmacy had a batch on hand. Peck had a relative speed down to Orange County to buy $1,300 worth and was on the next plane to Moscow.”
• No, you are: A Little Saigon weekly publication published a pro and con about the impact of long dead Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh and some elements of the community are protesting that the paper is pro-communist and sympathetic to terrorists. In fact, yesterday about 1,000 people gathered in front of Viet Weekly's Garden Grove offices to protest, according to Erik Ortiz of the Register. Recently, Le Vu--the paper's publisher--told me that he isn't going to be intimidated into shaping stories to suit a bitter group which hasn't accepted history. To Ortiz, he merely said he isn't pro-communist. Here's the rub: George Friggin Bush (R-Skipped Vietnam Combat Duty) has repeatedly huddled with the Vietnamese communists of Ho Chi Minh lineage. Yet these Little Saigon protesters--who are mostly elderly and Republican--look the other way to harass a small newspaper staff. Shamefully hypocritical.
• Revolution! Like many of us who routinely see the nuts and bolts of government and come away horrified, Steven Greenhut at the Reg editorial department says it's time for change. He notes that most local bureaucracies are “centered on what's best for the officials who run the city, and the privileged interest groups that live off of government largesse.” Very true. Greenhut offers “a 5-point, new urban agenda that embraces freedom rather than top-down planning and regulation.” Read his plan here.
• No. 1 high school football in SoCal? Reporter Eric Sondheimer of the Times says he's spent seven weeks watching high school summer football tournaments and he's decided that the No. 1 pre-season ranking belongs to Newport Harbor. Okay, calm down. It's not Newport. It's Santa Ana's Mater Dei. According to Sondheimer, the school might not be invincible but with junior quarterback Matt Barkley--could be the “top prospect in the nation for 2008”--and “secret weapon” kicker Patrick Duffy the Monarchs have to be favored.
• The bootlicking on Grand Ave. continues: Gordon Dillow went looking for a story and once again found--suspense moment: would it be a cop or a soldier?--Cpl. Stephen Tatum on trial at Camp Pendleton. The 26-year-old is accused by military officials of “the unpremeditated murder and assault of Iraqi civilians, including women and children.” Dillow is pained that Tatum--a soldier doing God's work, dagblameit--must answer for his actions. He writes, “I can't help but feel sympathy for young infantrymen who are thrust into a deadly situation, told to follow rules of engagement that seem to change from place to place and day to day, and then are criminally charged when things go wrong.” Speaking from experience, he concludes, “to think too much can sometimes be to die.” Don't start now, Gordo.
• Comedy tonight: Last chance to catch Norm McDonald of Saturday Night Live and movie fame at the Brea Improv. 120 S. Brea Blvd., (714) 482-0700.

  Also, Gabriel Iglesias from NBC's Last Comic Standing has one last evening at the Irvine Spectrum's Improv. For more information, call (949) 854-5455.



• And don't forget: The U.S. Open of Surfing takes place all day in Huntington Beach.