Sean Bonner (our fearless leader) and Tara Brown (fearless leader-adjacent) were married yesterday. Jason DeFillippo took some amazing pictures of the ceremony, including this one.

Congratulations, you two!

This morning, Hero Complex’s Geoff Boucher reached into the Times’ archives, and pulled out this photo of Cal Tech students protesting the cancellation of Star Trek at Paramount in 1968.

Groovy, man. Like, click it to embiggen, dad.

For fuck’s sake. You know what’s even worse? People are actually casting votes on the goddamn thing. “She didn’t” is currently leading with 56%, in this crucial test for the Democratic party.

The Dodgers reacquired Maddux from the San Diego Padres on Tuesday, getting the future Hall of Famer and cash for two minor leaguers to be named or cash.

“It’s nice to be back,” Maddux said with a smile. “Last to first. It’s pretty cool. One off day and I make up 16 games, so I’m excited.”

I’m excited too, because the Dodgers can’t seem to stop stranding runners, and recently the bullpen seems to be more focused on throwing batting practice to opposing teams than preserving those rare and slim Dodger leads. This team needs pitching, and adding one of the greatest players to ever step onto the field is a great place to start.

These recycled RCAs are sitting atop the ruins of Los Angeles’ first attempt at mass transit dating back to the turn of the century. The cement forms underneath the televisions were the footings for a railroad trestle that ran across Fletcher Ave. in Silverlake for the Pacific Electric Red Car line. Even though GM took apart the Red Cars in the ’50s to sell us all on buses, what is left here of the old run from downtown to Glendale has recently been declared a historical monument.

While you’re there, be sure to check out his pictures of the old Los Angeles Zoo, yet another one of those cool LA landmarks I’ve always wanted to visit, but never have.

This story is horrible, but that wasn’t enough for our local news directors! They had to play the fucking audio of one of the children — a nine year-old girl — screaming and crying that they’d watched it happen, and didn’t want their mother to die.

Can someone please tell me what part of the public’s interest is served by broadcasting this horrible, tragic moment of children suffering? Other than the sick voyeurism and television ratings parts, that is.

I’m sure the people who made the decision to play this tape (purely for the news value, not the shock value, of course) will hide behind Lee Baca, who said the tapes were released because people just wouldn’t pay enough attention to the crime if they didn’t:

“When we talk about crime in the family, this is a level of incomprehensible violence that all of us have to step back and contemplate why these this things happen,” Baca said. “This type of crime … where children are participants in trying to rescue their mother as she becomes mortally slain is really beyond the pale when it comes to someone quite frankly in a deranged state.

“We need to get a desperate man off the street, we need to get him off the street right now.”

Right. We get it. This man is a monster and should be off the street. You know what? We kind of got that when we heard that he murdered their mother with a sword in front of her children.

There’s just no good reason to exploit their suffering by blanketing the city with their anguished cries at the top of the 9, 10, and 11 o’clock news.

Now, in the public interest of catching this son of a bitch:

Jesus Humberto Canales fled the scene in the 4100 block of West Avenue L about 2 a.m. Saturday in a bronze-colored 2002 GMC Safari van, California license plate number 6CBY663, according to the sheriff’s department. Canales may have a pistol and should be considered armed and dangerous, deputies said.

Anyone with information on his whereabouts can call homicide detectives at 323-890-5500.

The upper- and lower-level roads were immediately shut down after the man made the threat outside the Tom Bradley International Terminal, authorities said. Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad officials are examining a black bag the man was carrying.

The FBI says the suspect was arrested, and they’re checking out his backpack . . . but get this: an LAX spokeswoman wouldn’t confirm that it was, in fact, a backpack. OMG CONSPIRACY! WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

LAist has pictures, and an eyewitness report that everything is back to normal at the airport, which, of course, means massive gridlock.

That’s awesome. Getting cars off the road is great for the environment, and anything we can do to reduce congestion on our over-crowded freeways is always a good idea. The metro doesn’t really go to as many places as you’d expect (thanks, City Council Board of Supervisors!) and it doesn’t run as late as it does in . . . well, every other city in the world, but you go to work on the metro you have, not the metro you wish you had.

Sure, it’s a little inconvenient to take the metro, but with a some sacrifice and extra planning, it can be a pretty pleasant experience (as long as you don’t want to take pictures, you goddamn terrorist-fist-jabbing America hater) and it’s certainly cost effective.

However, the experience of riding the metro is about to become as annoying and frustrating as trying to get on an airplane, because security theater is coming to town:

In June 2008, Metrolink’s Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Bureau will begin deploying its Passenger Random Baggage Search Program to further strengthen rail security and discourage and deter violent criminals from carrying weapons, explosives, or other dangerous items onto Metrolink trains. According to the Transportation Security Administration, random baggage inspections are an effective security tool for deterring individuals who may pose a threat to passengers on board commuter trains.

If the Transportation Security Administration says it’s an effective security tool, you know that shit is seriously vetted, dogg. Remember, according to the Transportation Security Administration, 3.1 or more ounces of any liquid is deadly (3.0 is fine, though), shoes are dangerous, we should be scared shitless all the time, everywhere we go, and people who aren’t too keen on having some guy shove his fist up their ass to take a look around whenever you want to ride in a plane, train, or bus is worthy of tremendous suspicion. In fact, those people probably want to take pictures of things while they’re in public! OMG TERRORISTS! OH NOES! EVERYBODY PANIC!

The MTA tells us that this the best thing since cupcakes. It’s going to keep us safe because it’s totally random and the big scary bad guys won’t know where the cops will be stopping and searching people. See, when they don’t know where the cops will be, they won’t be able to plan . . . uh, what are we scared of today? I haven’t watched cable news in a long time, so I’m going to use a reliable old standby: the suitcase nuke that takes 3.2 ounces of toothpaste and a pair of tweezers to activate!!!1!

Being random is the opposite of being predictable, so that’ll make this really effective. The Terrorists (OMG) will never know where the security will be, so they’ll take their bomb vests and go home. This makes a lot of sense, right?

Wrong. This isn’t even random like it is at the airport, where everyone goes through the same checkpoint, and someone randomly wins the “I’m not a criminal, I’m just being treated like one” lottery when they’re late for a flight. This particular bit of security theater randomly moves from station to station, where:

Prior to initiation of a screening event, signs will be posted at all entrances to the station parking lots and platforms to notify passengers that the deputies are present and the random security screening will be conducted.

GENIUS! Let’s schedule random searches, but make sure everyone knows exactly where the random searches will happen! Good thing criminals and terrorists don’t know how to read signs and go to a different station! Oh, wait, they don’t have to read. All they have to do is refuse to be searched:

Any passenger may refuse to permit an inspection of his or her baggage. A refusal to permit inspection will result in the individual’s not being permitted to access the Metrolink system. Deputies will request that the passenger leave the station facility.

Now, this may seem like it’s kind of a stupid idea. It may seem like the police could use this as an excuse to harass people who aren’t doing anything wrong, but might be . . . undesirable. It may seem like this is just happening so people are constantly afraid. It may seem like this is happening to justify the existence of a giant government bureaucracy that’s really pretty pointless.

Yes, it may seem like any or all of those things, but I’m here to remind you that we have to do things like this prevent THE TERRORISTS from taking away our precious freedoms, like the freedom to ride the subway without being subject to constant surveillance and random security theater. And if you think this is a stupid idea, maybe you should just stare at the terror alert warning for a moment until you remember that it’s your patriotic duty to shut up, keep shopping, and vote for McCain.

God bless America! Fuck yeah!

(Terrorist fist-jab to Opher Banarie.)

*Bert Green points out in the comments that this random screening is coming to Metrolink, not Metro. Metrolink is, of course, the train service that runs from city to city, while MTA (Metro) is the Green, Gold, Red, Orange, Blue, etc. lines that still don’t serve Dodger Stadium. I regret the error, but still scoff at the security theater.

Um. Anyway, I was reading Boingboing this morning, and saw this phenomenal video of the Simi Valley wildfires in 2005:


Mark at Boingboing sez it was “Shot with 3 cameras over a period of 28 hours during September 28-29th 2005. Firestorm shows a a unique look at the Simi Valley fire which consumed 25,000 acres. Look for Mars, Orion & the Moon rising in the distance…”

One of the pictures that caught my eye today was a picture of 400,000 balls being dropped into Ivanhoe Reservoir. The Times has the story:

The agency started dumping thousands of floating plastic balls into Ivanhoe Reservoir — the dwarf sibling next door to Silver Lake Reservoir, the neighborhood’s crown jewel — to protect the drinking water supply needed for summer.

The water needs to be shaded because when sunlight mixes with the bromide and chlorine in Ivanhoe’s water, the carcinogen bromate forms, said Pankaj Parekh, DWP’s director for water quality compliance. Bromide is naturally present in groundwater and chlorine is used to kill bacteria, he said, but sunlight is the final ingredient in the potentially harmful mix.

The DWP drop was designed to stop the three from mingling in the 10-acre, 58-million-gallon Ivanhoe Reservoir. The 102-year-old facility serves about 600,000 customers downtown and in South Los Angeles.

It looks cool to pour them in, but I bet the novelty of looking at them wears off really fast. The Times says that the Ivanhoe and Elysian reservoirs will be covered with balls for 4 years.

(Image from flickr user councildistrictfour.)