March 2008 Archives

The Daily Breeze reported last week that Los Angeles County Assessor Rick Auerbach will reassess as many as 310,000 homes because of the downturn in the real estate market and consequent drop in home values. Numbers in the county have dropped 12.7 percent between February 2007 and last month, according to a new report from the California Association of Realtors. Over the same time period, the drop in South Bay home prices stood at 7 percent.

Homes purchased between July 1, 2004, and June 30, 2007, are up for automatic reassessment. The Manhattan Beach Confidential real estate blog discusses in detail the thinking behind the move and the span that it will cover. It also features information for those left out of the reassessment bonanza; because after all, a lower reassessment means lower property taxes.

MBWatcher writes: “Anyone can, at any time, file a 'Decline-in-Value Reassessment Application' to seek an adjustment in the assessed value of a property. You don't even need to support your case with data, but it's better if you do. The form asks for you to list 2 recent comparable sales 'that sold as close to January 1, 2008, as possible.'”

As one blog commenter points out, prices will inevitably rise again, and when they do, assessments will rise with them. The tax savings may last only as long as the current downturn, but for many, that's long enough.

With the real estate market in its current funk, you may be thinking you’d be better off working with what you’ve got rather than trying to sell and trade up. Several Web sites offer general and useful home improvement information, from remodeling tips to hiring a contractor. Here are a few:

411 Home Repair
Covers home improvement ideas and how-to’s by topic.

DoItYourself.com
Provides advice for homeowners who would like to take a hands-on approach to an improvement job.

Federal Trade Commission
Contains insights on how to find a reliable home improvement contractor.

Move.Com
Serves up advice on a wide range home improvement topics.

National Association of the Remodeling Industry
Offers wide variety of remodeling advice, from hiring a contractor to creating more space.

A Mojave-based company announced plans March 26 for a new rocket that will offer Mach 2 thrill rides to the edge of space. Test flights of the two-seat rocket ship Lynx from Xcor Aerospace are scheduled for 2010, according to The Associated Press. The announcement came two months after British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic unveiled a model of SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger vehicle that may begin flight tests this year.

But just how safe will space tourism be?

According to the AP story, the Lynx will have a pressurized cabin, but the pilot and passenger will wear helmets and pressure suits for safety. Passengers will need some kind of medical clearance and perhaps a day’s training in such things as operating the suits and evacuating the rocket. The Lynx will have an escape capability but no ejection seats.

Before you book your flight, however, you might want to learn more about the safety -- or lack thereof -- of space tourism.

You can learn such things as how the Federal Aviation Administration will require space tourists to agree to act as "participants," not "passengers," during flights, “since the expectations of safety will be lower on a space tour.” Citizens must also agree not to sue the government if there's a fatal accident.

Oh, and there is this: During a panel discussion concerning safety regulations for space tourism, a lawyer advising the FAA said: "We're going to kill some people." You can also find related links on the site to such topics as How Space Tourism Works, How Space Planes Will Work, and How Rocket Engines Work.

Have a good flight.

Susan at Random Madness in Torrance has been blogging about pests plaguing her Torrance property lately. This week, she detailed her twisted de-snailing methods and how they went awry with a science project:

There may be something wrong with me, but I can't resist a little mollusk vs Michelin.

Last year, we gave up snailing. My son had raised a couple dozen snails for a science project. He gave them the best, most tender greens, and a really nice terrarium. They were so happy, they created several hundred little snails. Caring for them as we did, we felt responsible for them, kind of like parents. And good parents don't throw their children under speeding vehicles. We released them into the wilds of our yard, and my eleven year old son was a tearful empty nester.

This year, all bets are off. We are going to embrace our killer instincts and throw the great grandchildren into traffic.

MBWatcher at MBConfidential conducted a poll to find the least-known street in the city. The winner (or loser?) is Francisco Street.

It's with good reason. For one, Francisco is a border street, more or less, at the far south end near Hermosa. For another, there are only 6 homes with a Francisco St. address, so odds are you haven't visited anyone there. We also don't see any sales on the short block since 2001.

Verna at Verna & Bob's Digital Diary lamented the neglect of San Pedro's art deco architecture.

Westchester Dad at Westchester Parents writes a note of thanks to Trader Joe's for donating food to the Playa Vista fire station after this week's explosion that killed Firefighter Brent Lovrien.

RedondoWriter shares artists' interpretations of Malaga Cove arches at her blog Sacred Ordinary.

Do you read or write a South Bay blog that we ought to know about? Send us the link.

There's a global rolling black-out heading are way and it'll arrive at at 8 p.m. today.
The Earth Hour is a voluntary effort to step off the grid for just a single hour. Individuals, communities and businesses are signing up to show their support of need to be a little greener.

It started in Sydney, Australia at 8 p.m. their time ( 3 a.m. PDT). And cities and people around the world are turning off and tuning into the need to use less power.
For instance in Pasadena, at 8 p.m. today, the city has organized several no/low light events that many Pasadenans can walk to in under 20 minutes. And the City Hall dome and façade lights will be shut off for an hour as a gesture of support for the event.

Check out the Earth Hour Web site to see how individuals, communities and businesses are showing their support. It also offers ways to make a difference every day of the year.

Six things to note about the upcoming tax rebate distributed as part of a federal $168 billion stimulus plan:

1) Senior citizens and low-income earners who don’t usually have to file a tax return will miss out on federal stimulus refund checks if they don’t file this year. The IRS is sending out more than 151 reminder letters to those who file tax returns and those who collect Social Security and veteran's benefits.

2) Taxpayers who file a return are automatically set to get the tax-free rebate payment and will get it sometime after May 1 when the first ones are to be issued. You'll get yours earlier if you sign up to receive it through direct deposit. Find out when your check will arrive with the IRS schedule.

3) Rebate payments will be separate from tax refunds and will be deposited electronically only if a taxpayer’s refund is made via direct deposit. A paper check will be issued to any taxpayer who uses a refund-anticipation loan.

4) You can’t get cash from the stimulus program if you: Don’t file a 2007 tax return or didn’t pay any federal income tax last year or your income from all sources — including non-taxable income such as disability or retirement benefits — is less than $3,000. Nor if you can be claimed as a dependent on someone else’s return or don’t have a valid Social Security number or are a nonresident alien. Nor if you use forms 1040NR, 1040NR-EZ, 1040PR or 1040SS for 2007.

5) You can figure out how much you will get with the IRS's calculator.

6) If you don’t ordinarily file a tax return, and you need help filing for your rebate, the IRS is holding special hours Saturday, March 29 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. to help prepare the Form 1040A returns for low-income workers, retirees, disabled veterans and others. You'll need to bring some documents with you. Here are the two closest locations:

Los Angeles
300 N. Los Angeles St.

Long Beach
(Federal Bldg)
501 W. Ocean Blvd.

These organizations can also help:

The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program provides help to low- and moderate-income taxpayers. Call 800-906-9887 for the nearest VITA site.

The Tax Counseling for the Elderly program provides free tax help to people ages 60 and older. As part of this IRS-sponsored program, AARP offers counseling at more than 7,000 sites nationwide during the filing season. To find a site, call 888-227-7669 or visit the AARP website, www.aarp.org.

Stingrays are getting a lot of bad press lately. This week, we ran a brief about a girl in Fresno whose fingers were sucked up by a ray in a zoo touch tank. Last week, we had one about a woman on a boat in Florida who was killed by an eagle ray that flew out of the water and hit her in the head causing massive head trauma. A couple of years ago, Steve Irwin's death by stingray was all over the news.

So just how much should you worry about being killed by a stingray? The consensus seems to be not very much, although no one really knows how deadly they are, because no one is keeping track.

Stings are common, especially in Southern California, where about 300 people a year are stung at Seal Beach alone. In fact, more people are stung by rays than by any other kind of fish, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Most often a swimmer is stung after accidentally stepping on one of the fish. But fatal damage seems to come from the barb rather than the poison, so try not to get stung in the heart or the carotid artery. If you're stung in the leg or the foot, which is where most victims get hit, you'll likely live.

Here's NOAA'S list of how not to get stung:

• Look, but do not touch or handle marine creatures.


• When walking in shallow water, shuffle your feet to alert creatures hiding on the sea floor to retreat before you step on them accidentally.


• Wear shoes and protective clothing to avoid and/or minimize getting stung or scratched.


• Be observant and look carefully where you are going.


• Skin divers, snorkelers and divers should maintain good buoyancy control at all times to avoid contact with reefs or the bottom.

Forget Mary and her lamb. Thomas Edison’s clip of the rhyme used to be considered the oldest known recorded human voice. But there is something older — 17 years older to be exact.

It’s a 10-second clip of someone singing “Au Clair de la Lune,” The Associated Press reports. The recording was taken from a so-called phonautogram, a device created by Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville that created visual recordings of sound waves.

Like what you heard? Catch some old speeches by men such as William Jennings Bryan.

And Tinfoil.com — a site devoted to the preservation of early recorded sounds — posts a new old recording every month.

The National Archives announced Wednesday that it is joining with www.footnote.com to make historical records of tens of thousands of deceased Vietnam War veterans available electronically for the first time.

The Associated Press has more:

A Web re-creation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall allows access to thousands of pages of casualty records and agency photos. People can search by name, hometown, birthdate, tour date, or dozens of other categories.

The interactive wall allows people to post photographs they may have of a deceased veteran and to make comments. The service is currently free for Vietnam War information; the company is deciding whether to charge fees for some of the 50,000 National Archives photos now digitized.

L.A.'s Metro Green Line has been derided as the train that goes “from nowhere to nowhere,” as it does not connect to either Los Angeles International Airport or the system's own Metrolink station in Norwalk. On Wednesday, it was announced that state Sen. Jenny Oropeza, D-Long Beach, will introduce a bill to create a Metro Green Line Construction Authority, which would oversee extension of the line to LAX. Assemblyman Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, introduced a similar bill last year, but it was deemed too costly.

Why not connect public transportation to the airport? A stop was included in the Metro Green Line's original plan, but was dropped amid outcry from airport officials, residents of nearby cities and owners of parking lots surrounding the airport.

For facts, figures, maps, history and more about the Green Line, visit http://www.westworld.com/~elson/larail/green.html

Want to get involved? The Transit Coalition is an all-volunteer grass-roots group that advocates a balance of bus, subway, commuter rail, light rail, bike, airport access, goods movement, physically challenged access and automobile transportation for the L.A. region. Their goals for the Green Line, including a map of the system that would connect the area in an idea world, are at: http://www.thetransitcoalition.us/GreenLine.htm The group also offers a free e-mail newsletter to keep you up to date on all things public transit.

Seafood Watch, a program run by the Monterey Bay Aquarium helps consumers help the ocean by educating them about how to buy seafood from sustainable sources. The program writes annual regional "pocket guides" you can download and carry with you. The guides break the most common types of seafood into three categories: "Best Choices" (abundant and fished or farmed in environmentally friendly ways), "Good Alternatives" and "Avoid" (overfished or fished in a way that harms other marine life).

Download a printable guide for the West Coast.

Download the lists into your phone.

Sign up for a monthly Seafood Watch newsletter.

Learn how different types of seafood are fished and farmed.

RELATED LINKS:
Make a splash for World Water Week
Orcas in Redondo Beach
Find a Farmer's Market

Blogger Jay White says he retired at age 51.

It’s not clear if buying store brands and brown-bagging lunch played a huge role in making that possible, but those tricks are listed here among the 10 “smartest ways to live beneath your means”.

The bigger picture is to avoid being taken in by advertising — and to save.

REALTED LINKS:
Cheap stamps forever
Free financial planning software
Make money through recycling
Mint.com money management tools
Help with gas prices
Rent comparisions
Bargain Hunter blog

The Las Vegas Sun introduces us to Mony Vital:

He’s immortal, or at least he says he is, and he’ll be happy to teach you how to be, too.
Of course, it costs you anywhere from $450 (for six months of immortality) to $2,875 (for lifetime immortality). …
Vital has discovered a way to fix your life force. It’s right here on his laptop, a program called the Quantum Prayer System. It prays for you in “millions of frequencies of prayers — they’re not religious, they’re just prayers.” And it channels and amplifies those prayers to you. “Imagine everyone in China chanting your name. That powerful.”
… The program needs to ascertain your energy signature, for which it will need your date of birth, place of birth, home address, phone number and e-mail address. Vital says the computer’s reading is 97 percent accurate — “Nobody else in the universe has this energy.”

Intrigued? Read up on Vital Energetic Balancing and Quantum Prayer System.

But there’s more to Vital than the Quantum Prayer System. The Las Vegas man used to be a breatharian, which means he lived off light energy instead of food for 18 months. Get an overview of breatharianism, also known as inedia.

Don’t believe it works? Neither does Robert Todd Carroll. The Skeptic's Dictionary tilts suspiciously in favor of food eaters.

Despite its kitschy name, Cap'n Bob & the Damsel is a no-nonsense blog written by a South Bay couple about their life and perspectives. Full of fine photography of flowers and firearms, the site has posts about politics, science and the South Bay scene.

The bloggers, a Navy veteran who works locally as an aerospace engineer and his shutterbug wife, describe themselves in their bios as patriotic, politically active news junkies who post as a conservative counterpoint to mainstream media. Their homepage features a 9-11 Tribute that has been viewed more than 37 million times.

The duo also writes a second, more personal, South Bay-centric blog. On it, you'll find many more photos, including this one of an Easter Lily. It also has a list of the Damsel's favorite recipes, including Savory Sweet Potatoes, that sounds like it might be good with Easter ham. For his part, Cap'n Bob has has posted a "Universal Triangle Solutions Solver." The couple also posts a lot of local videos including a B-17 Bomber at Zamperini Field and a helicopter flight to Catalina Island.

We've added the sites to our blogroll.

Read on for a Q&A with Cap'n Bob about his blogging habits, thoughts on the South Bay and where he got the blog name.

It may seem like the war has been going on for a long time, but think what it must be like for our men and women who are fighting in it. Whether or not you agree with the war, it's important to support our troops. At A Million Thanks you can let them know you support them with your thoughts, prayers, or emails. Take a minute to tell them how much you appreciate their sacrifices and service to our country.

Terry Peterson of Lomita gets his outdoor kicks riding and bouncing around on a unicycle specially designed for extreme mountain biking.

He first caught the attention of the Daily Breeze two years ago, when we wrote a cover story about him for our features section.

These days you can catch the 52-year-old Peterson on YouTube, where he has posted numerous unicycling videos under the name “UniGeezer.” (Some include footage of him as “UniKid.”)

A piano technician by trade, Peterson has put together a compilation of the videos he has made during the past two years.

The final piece of the compilation shows him jumping and clearing a set of stairs with eight steps.

See all of Peterson’s videos on YouTube.

If one fertile female rabbit is left at the county's Alondra Park within a year's time there could be a colony of 3,500 rabbits.
This is just one of the fun facts you can find here. The Web site is run by Linda Baley from Redondo Beach, who created the rabbit adoption and information site.
The rabbits that she offers for adoption are neutered and healthy. This makes them better pets if you just have to get a bunny for Easter.
Baley's site also stresses that like all pets getting a rabbit is a commitment and shouldn't be taken lightly. Because abandoning rabbits in public parks isn't fair to them or good for the environment.

Loyola Marymount University has a vision for its campus and it's ready to share it with its neighbors. To see what the Catholic university plans to do on its Westchester campus go here. The Web site shows the university's conception of its new buildings, and a map of the future campus. It also provides an avenue for visitors to show their support for the concept by cutting and pasting a letter to area politicians. Strangely there doesn't appear to be an option for showing your opposition to the plan.

The winners are in! YouTube held a contest for the best videos of the year, and no, Chris Crocker’s plea to “LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!” didn’t win in the commentary category. What the Buck?! show’s “LonelyGirl15 is Dead” broadcast won instead.
If you want to see what Web surfers thought were the best videos of the year, watch this.
find the winners at www.youtube.com/ytawards07
winners. Or, if you want to find out who didn’t make the cut, check out the nominees at www.youtube.com/ytawards07.

Do you have an idea for a new Starbucks drink? Or, do you wish you could connect with other Starbucks addicts across the country? Then we’ve found the Web sites for you. For Starbucks gossip and hordes of comments regarding the popular coffee company, check out: http://starbucksgossip.typepad.com/_/2008/03/thumbs-down-rev.html. Or, to submit ideas to the company, vote on other people’s suggestions, and hear about changes, go to http://starbucksgossip.typepad.com/.

Just in time for the first day of spring, a story in Thursday's Breeze details the effect of global warming on season's flora and fauna. A group of scientists is hoping to create a network of "citizen scientists" to help document the changes. You can help by tracking bud bursts in your own backyard. Here's how from The Associated Press:

The National Phenology Network is enlisting volunteers to help track early spring blooms and eventually changes in animals caused by global warming. It’s called Project BudBurst. When it debuted last year, thousands of people participated in 26 states.
“All people can contribute to it by tracking the timing of flowering events or leaf-out events for plants and animals in their back yard,” said phenology network director Jake Weltzin. He calls the volunteers “citizen-scientists.”
The idea is that tracking flowers blooming — especially lilacs which everyday people have helped track for decades — is fairly simple. The Web site gives directions on what to look for in different parts of the country.

The number of U.S. military casualties in Iraq is approaching 4,000. You can view Iraqi war casualty figures broken down by year, month, type and a wide variety of other statistical measures at the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a non-government site maintained by volunteers that compiles casualty data from every available source.

USA Today's Web site compiles an index of U.S. troop deaths in Iraq that covers the past two years by month.

In addition, since October 2006, The Los Angeles Times has been publishing profiles of California military personnel who have been killed in Iraq.

This is part 1 of the video of Barack Obama's March 18, 2008 in Philadelphia about race relations in the United States.

Last week we blogged about Guinness' ploy to get St. Patrick's Day recognized as an official holiday. Don't remember? Didn't care? You're not the only one.

The Proposition 3-17 Web site says it needed 1 million signatures by midnight March 16 (St. Patrick's Day eve). Nearly two days later, the site said 349,015 site visitors had signed on to petition Congress "to officially commemorate the spirit of this day" and "to celebrate and honor St. Patrick himself."

So much for that Irish luck.

Los Angeles County officials have put together a list of the 10 “most egregious” child-support-payment evaders.

Together, they owe more than $2 million in unpaid child support for 17 children, with individual amounts ranging between $63,000 and $427,000, City News Service reports.

Posters for the program will be put up countywide.

Easter is nearly upon us — likely the earliest Easter any of us ever has or ever will see. The next time the holiday will arrive this early in the year will be in 2228. It’s hard to believe, but Snopes — a site devoted to debunking or bolstering urban legends — confirms it, and explains how Easter’s date is determined. (It’s a long answer, but it’s based on the Hebrew calendar used to determine passover and is still related to astronomical phenomena that would have occurred at the time the Resurrection is believed to have taken place.)

So then you'll know when you’re supposed to hide those eggs, but since the holiday is officially the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, why do we hide those eggs? (It’s a shorter answer than the one to the date question, and it involves traditional rites of spring.)

Torrance Library's book group schedules

Barnes & Noble book group schedule

Find book groups by theme or location with BookClub Meetup.

If discussing books in a group is too much face time for you, try a virtual version with these links at BookSpot.

It's easy for Americans to take water for granted. Just turn on any tap, and it's right there for drinking. Yet UNICEF estimates that more than one billion people worldwide have little or no access to safe water. Every 15 seconds, a child dies of thirst or a water-related disease — that's nearly 6,000 children every day.

All this week (through Saturday, March 22nd) restaurants participating in The Tap Project will be offering their tap water for a minimum $1 donation. For every dollar raised, UNICEF will make sure a child has clean drinking water for 40 days.

South Bay restaurants participating in the program include the Bluewater Grill, 655 N. Harbor Dr. in Redondo Beach; the Daily Grill, 2121 Rosecrans Avenue in El Segundo; BT Cafe, 2160 E Grand Ave. in El Segundo, and more. Check the Tap Project's search page for more.

Last year's event was in New York only, and it was such a success the project expanded to cities across the country. So make a difference this week: treat yourself to dinner, and some children to a precious natural resource.

Tired of feeling like you are living your whole life behind a computer screen? A story in Saturday's Faith section reported on how some people in the secular world are taking a page from the Orthodox Jewish practice of a day of rest by unplugging from the wired lifestyle for one day a week.

One such person is Ariel Meadow Stallings, a Seattle author and marketing manager at Microsoft, who has attracted international attention for her program called “52 Nights Unplugged.”

Her rules, according to the Associated Press story: “Every Wednesday night, when she gets off her Wi-Fi-enabled bus, she officially removes herself from all screens. That means no television, no computer, no cell phone. She will take calls but won’t make them. She will listen to her iPod but won’t scroll through iTunes. She won’t even go to a movie theater, because that’s a screen, too.”

In an odd kind of twist, you can read about Stallings’ off-line efforts on her blog or check out the online community she started where avid Web users can discuss the notion of unplugging once a week.

Martin Lee, featured in a story in Monday's Daily Breeze, is not the only person to have led on a scammer. Others have tried to beat scammers at their own game, often with hilarious results.

• When an American eBay seller realized a European bidder was trying to scam him out of a Powerbook (a fake escrow site and hijacked eBay account were the tip-offs), he sent the scammer something far better: a P-P-P-Powerbook!
• Another "scambaiter" (someone who tries to humiliate and waste the time of rip-off artists) tells how he beats "Nigerian Letter" scammers with a story about having no time to help the scammers free their dead relatives' seized assets because he is so busy sending out $150,000 scholarships to talented carvers. He actually convinced one scammer to produce a detailed wooden replica of a Commodore 64 computer.
• A YouTube video shows two Nigerian men who were convinced by a scambaiter to reenact Monty Python's famous “Dead Parrot” sketch. The men sent a fraudulent e-mail to a scambaiter who told them he was in a position to give large cash grants to promising filmmakers, and advised them that the application process required applicants to submit their own Dead Parrot Sketch.

Fraudulent e-mail scams cost victims thousands of dollars every year, according to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center. It's a serious, pervasive crime, and responding to the messages is very dangerous. If you receive such a message, it's smartest to just delete it right away — and leave the scambaiting to someone else.

The NCAA tournament selections have been made. Need some help picking your brackets? First, you should read today's Tom Hoffarth column in sports.

But if that's not enough, here are some Web resources:

BracketScience.com: This site has head-to-head comparisons, historic stats, and strategies that have worked from years past.

10 Tips for Powerful Bracket Predictions: From Teamrankings.com, tells you the factors you need to consider and why some logic doesn't work.

Sportsline.com: Has a list of eight tried-and-true methods for picking a better bracket. We especially like #2:

2. Don't go putting all your No. 1 seeds in the Final Four. They might be the best teams on paper, but since 1979, it has never happened. The closest it ever came was in 1993, when three No. 1s and a No. 2 made it. Plus, do you really want to be the person in your office that picked all the top seeds? We here at CBSSports.com always make fun of that person.

Get your brackets ready and your money lined up for your office pool. It's March Madness time!

The tournament is set to begin. NCAA reveals all this afternoon at 3. The Selection Show determines the fate of the 64 teams battling it out in the first round.

The UCLA Bruins, ranked third in the AP Top 25 poll, have been dominant this season and are sure to be a force in the tournament.

Keep an eye on Hawthorne's Russell Westbrook, a Bruin sophomore guard. Before wearing No. 0 at UCLA, Westbrook was a standout varsity player at Leuzinger High in Lawndale.

Westbrook and the Bruins are the team to watch. Staff Writer Brian Dohn is on top of it at the Inside UCLA blog.

According to the U.S. Census bureau, 4.6% of people in L.A. County claim Irish ancestry. That's about half a million of us. So, there's no shortage of Irish things to do in the South Bay this weekend.

PARTY LIKE THE IRISH
HERMOSA BEACH: Unleash your inner leprechaun at the 14th annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday at Pier Avenue and Valley Drive, and wending its way westbound to Hermosa Avenue. Musical entertainment for the free event will be provided by the Wrath of McGrath Band, playing at noon. Call 310-318-0280 or go to www.stpatricksday.org, where you can also see
photos of 2007’s parade.

REDONDO BEACH: This year’s St. Patrick’s Day 5K Run/Community Walk and Little Leprechaun Dash for the Gold relocates from Torrance to Riviera Village on Sunday. A benefit for Redondo Union High School’s grad night program, the race starts and ends at the Village Runner, 1811-A Catalina Ave. Late registration opens at 6:30 a.m., the 5K run/walk begins at 8 a.m., the kids’ dash at 9:30 a.m. Entry fee for adults is $30, $20 for children. The top three male and female runners win cash prizes and the three fastest finishes in each age division will receive medals. For more information, call 310-375-2626 or go to www.villagerunnerracing.com.

SAN PEDRO: The St. Patrick’s Day celebrations at San Pedro Brewing Company includes The Hollywood Stones, a ’70s-era Rolling Stones tribute band, plays Saturday at 10 p.m. Hear Irish music, including Uilleann pipes (Irish bagpipes) Sunday and Monday. Corned beef, green beer and Irish car bombs will be served all weekend at the restaurant and award-winning microbrewery. Cover is $3 tonight, $10 Saturday at 331 W. Sixth St. For information, call 310-831-5663 or go to www.sanpedrobrewing.com.

For Irish eats, keep reading.

Think we're a couple days early? You haven't been reading.

This story from Catholic News Agency explains the move:

Church authorities reportedly spent weeks debating where to move the feast day because March 17, 2008, falls on the second day of Holy Week next year.
The liturgical norms would require the feast day to be moved to the earliest available date after Easter, which would be April 1. But church officials said the Vatican approved the March 15 date in order to minimize conflict with the scheduled civic events.
While religious celebrations honoring St. Patrick are affected, religious and secular authorities stressed this would not change secular festivities. The St. Patrick's Festival Committee in Dublin confirmed that next year's parade would be March 17 as usual. In addition, Monday, March 17, will remain an official day off of work in Ireland.
This marks the first time the date has been changed since 1940. The next conflict with Holy Week is not expected until 2160.

Here's some more on the religious background of St. Patrick’s Day.

In a clever marketing ploy, Guinness claims it is sponsoring a petition in Congress to make St. Patrick’s Day a national holiday. Its Web site claims it needs 1 million signatures by March 17 to make it happen. As of 3:17 p.m. on March 15, it had 443,123.
Text of the petition:

Guinness and Proposition 3-17 supporters believe that a regulated, official holiday would not only reduce the amount of employees missing work in order to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but officially allow people to express their Irishness.

My daughter and I staked out the seascape near the Point Vicente Interpretive Center after a field trip with her preschool class on Wednesday. The volunteers who track the whale migration for the American Cetacean Society were abuzz with tales of what they saw the day before: A group of orcas heading for Redondo Beach. So we waited. And watched. And waited. But my disappointed 4-year-old pouted the whole way home because we didn't see a thing.

Turns out we should have stuck around a little longer. According to the ACS Daily Log, Wednesday was the first big day for spotting the whales' northbound return trip

Log notes for March 12:

Our first big northbound count day featured pulses of gray whales throughout the day. One whale milled nearshore for over thirty minutes. One whale BREACHED two times within 1/4 mile offshore. The three whales in our final sighting milled nearshore, and one lunged. We also saw common and bottlenose dolphin.

The log also tracks the totals for the season and has charts comparing this year to last year. Check here foroverview of the project.

Ever get the feeling campaign controversies are following you around?

Just days after a key Barack Obama aide resigned after her controversial comments were published by my former newspaper, The Scotsman, my current paper The Daily Breeze found itself at the center of a media maelstrom when it published racially-charged comments made by Geraldine Ferraro to our reporter, Jim Farber.

The remarks made by Ferraro, the first woman to run on a ticket for a presidential nomination, about Obama’s race have been picked up by the Daily Kos, Raw Story and The New York Times.

In a home page piece posted Monday, Slate, the online political magazine owned by The Washington Post, follows the remarks by Obama’s foreign policy adviser Samantha Powers, in which she refers to Hillary Rodham Clinton as a “monster” .

Key similarity: Both, bizarrely, involve me. I woke up last Friday, clicked bleary-eyed to The Drudge Report and saw the front page of The Scotsman, on which my name has appeared, as a top link. Unsurprisingly, my eyes widened as I read on. Ditto Day 2, as the controversy reached fever pitch.

And much the same happened here. I joined The Breeze last week and, as Farber's piece with Ferraro’s comments echoed around the blogosphere -- and was picked up by the mainstream media -- a distinct sense of deja vu kicked in.

Key differences: Ferraro’s remarks were on the record. She did not try to retract them and she defended them Tuesday. But Powers immediately retracted her “monster” remark by adding that it was “off the record.” The Scotsman, the paper of record for my home country, published it. Cue a furious exchange on MSNBC between host Tucker Carlson and Scotsman reporter Gerri Peev on journalism ethics (unrelatedly, Carlson’s show was cancelled a day later).

That clip made the blogosphere rounds, too, but you can find more in-depth analysis of the reasons behind the decision here and here.

A week sure is a long time in journalism ....

Craig Howie

A Know section article today explored the huge impact of Dust Bowl-era immigrants on California.

By 1937, officials from counties all over the state met in Sacramento to try to figure out what to do about the flood of needy immigrants. “Los Angeles is the most seriously hit of all the counties of the state,” declared a July 11, 1937, San Francisco Chronicle article on the upcoming summit. Officials said nearly 20 percent of Los Angeles County’s estimated 2.3 million population was on relief, a forerunner of welfare. Between April 1936 and April 1937, more than 2.9 million people had entered California by auto; of those, 74 percent said they planned to settle in Southern California.

If you want to learn more about the era, check out these links:

See Dorothea Lange’s haunting photos of Dust Bowl refugees

More tales of Dust Bowl immigrants

PBS coverage

Learn more about the blues music that chronicled the era

Jim Farber's article Friday previewing Geraldine Ferraro's speech at Torrance's Armstrong Theatre last weekend has set off a firestorm across the Internet's most popular political forums. The controversy is based around this quote:

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she continued. "And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

Today, Obama's camp called on the Clinton camp to apologize and the mainstream media is all over the story.

Here's where the buzz is buzzing:

Daily Kos

Raw Story

ABC's Political Punch

The New York Times

Here's Ferraro on a You Tube video with John Gibson on Feb. 27, which is the same day our reporter interviewed her:

New on the Daily Link blog's permanent list of South Bay blogs is WestchesterParents. There, Westchester parents can get the information they need about the airport, schools, growth, traffic, water and more about the community. There's a feature to allow commenting and discussion of topics and an easy-to-navigate topics directory.
Recent posts are about LAX, the Entrada development, and links to local message boards.

Which of the following is a synonym for "anthracite:" "dusk;" "responsibility;" "coal;" or "style?"
We knew you'd pick "coal," the correct answer, because Daily Link readers are very well read. But we wanted to give you a taste, pardon the pun, of FreeRice. FreeRice is in league with the UN World Food Program to donate free rice, 20 grains for each correct response. So when we correctly responded just now that "colloquial" means "conversational," we flexed our brain muscles and helped feed someone in a less fortunate place.
Now, you're probably wondering just how much good 20 grains of rice can do. That's hardly sustenance, you're thinking. But in the time it took to write this blog entry, we donated nearly 1,000 grains. It adds up quickly. And we did a little Web surfing and math to help you get an idea of how much you can help. There are more than 29,000 grains of long-grain white rice in 1 pound. And 1 pound is about 2.5 cups of rice. From personal experience, one cup of rice makes about four servings. So, for every 2,900 grains of rice you donate, you've provided someone one serving of rice. That's 145 words to correctly identify -- not all that many when you consider the good you're doing for yourself and someone else.

Hollywood action star Chuck Norris, known for his martial arts prowess and tough-guy image, has become a cult figure among the U.S. military in Iraq and an unlikely hero for some in Iraq's security forces. A small cardboard shrine dedicated to Norris has been set up at a U.S. military helicopter hub in Baghdad.

"The fastest way to a man's heart is with Chuck Norris's fist," reads one message at the shrine, which consists of a signed photo of the actor surrounded by similar statements.
"Chuck Norris puts the laughter in manslaughter," reads one and "Chuck Norris divides by zero," reads another.

Known as Chuck Norris "facts," the claims have already become an Internet phenomenon, and scores are featured on www.chucknorrisfacts.com, including "Superman wears Chuck Norris pyjamas," and "There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Chuck Norris lives in Oklahoma."

The actor has visited Iraq several times and was made an honorary Marine last year. Some 20 U.S. military personnel and support staff spoken to by Reuters could recite at least one Norris "fact," despite many having not visited the Web site.

U.S. troops in Iraq say his support for them and Norris' invincible image has made him their idol and insist the exaggerated and satirical claims are not meant to mock him.

How many times have you gone to movies and wound up covering your kids’ eyes and ears — or your own — at the sex, violence and language found in what you thought was a family film?

Next time, go to Kids-in-Mind before you plunk down money for the tickets. In addition to a 1-10 scale for sex, violence and profanity, there’s a detailed summary of any questionable content.

TravelPod sponsors a great site for helping your kids with their geography homework and testing how much you remember from your own school days.

And after you figure out that your fifth-grader knows more than you do, you can explore the rest of the site, including the travel journals written by bloggers as they tour exotic locales around the world, and a game testing your knowledge of famous city and landmark locations.

We in the South Bay love our weekend breakfasts, don't we? And we have lots of options for greasy, healthy or somewhere-in-between breakfast. But if you don't have time to wait in line or have a sit-down, leisurely breakfast, there's always the Batter Blaster. That's right, it's pancakes in a can. And it's organic.

Nobody at the Breeze has tried it -- or admitted to trying it -- but before you turn your nose up, as we reflexively did, check out Keith Bussell's blog, where he reviewed the Batter Blaster -- and liked it!

Bussell says:

It’s real pancake batter–in a can. It’s not a simulation or an approximation. The resulting pancakes and waffles are light and tasty, and the only cleanup (besides the cooking implement) is rinsing off the tip of the can.

Batter Blaster provides a zip code search on its site for product availability, and several outlets in the South Bay carry the aerosol flapjacks. Check your local Albertsons, Bristol Farms, Costco, Kmart or Smart & Final.

Wild about wildflowers?

The combination of winter rains and warm weather conspire for what may be Southern California’s most vibrant spring blooms in many years, according to an LA.Com story by Breeze staff writer Jim Farber.

Want to see them?

Try George F Canyon's nature trail on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

If you want to re-create the wildflower experience in your own backyard, try this list of native plants of the Peninsula that are suitable for gardening.

If you want to get out of the South Bay, spring grasses, flowers and trees are sprouting on the Santa Monica Mountains. Annuals are in bloom at the Joshua Tree National Park in Twentynine Palms, near Palm Springs.

In Los Angeles County, the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve outside Lancaster is predicting an abundant blossom of the state flower, known by its scientific name as Eschscholzia californica.

For the specifics on visiting the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, consult our Ask Us column from Feb. 12.

For links to other wildflower destinations in addition to Antelope Valley, visit the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants. It includes links to more than 90 wildflower locations, an extensive catalog of native plants and the California Wildflower Hotline, which information about what's blooming where, updated weekly .

Kite fliers take to the skies — well, at least the kites do, anyway — at the Redondo Beach pier Sunday. The pier hosts the 34th annual Festival of the Kite, a free event taking place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Kite-flying experts show off their stuff for prizes and audience delight. Kites are also on sale at Sunday’s event. Non-kite activities include a hot-dog-eating competition and music provided by a band from Bishop Montgomery High in Torrance.

Redondo Beach’s Sunshine Kite Company sponsors the festival.

Judging by the preview of "10,000 BC," the caveman feature opening in South Bay theaters today (here are some show times in and around the South Bay), almost none of the film is historically accurate. In LA.com, our film writer, Glenn Whipp, points out that "10,000 BC" is faithful to the caveman-film tradition of causing archaeologists and students of ancient history to scratch their heads -- who could forget Raquel Welch in "One Million Years B.C." having to deal with giant sea turtles and dinosaurs? But it certainly isn't faithful to the history books.
Where to begin?
How about with the sailboats? In the preview, we see red-dyed sails powering boats along a river. Aside from the dubious physics of that scene, it's pretty clear that sophisticated sailing of that type wasn't occurring until about 4,000 B.C.
So if our "10,000 BC" cavemen hadn't discovered sailing yet, surely they'd been getting around by domesticated horse. Wrong. The earliest hypothesized date for horse domestication is 4,000 B.C.
Well, what about saber-toothed tigers? Most sources agree that the huge, fearsome cats were extinct 10,000 years ago, or 8,000 B.C. Our caveman friends in the film encounter them (if we're to believe the movie's title) around the tail end of the cats' existence. So that's not to say there couldn't have been any saber-toothed cats roaming the area -- except that saber-toothed cats are known to have inhabited North and South America. And if the pyramids in the "10,000 BC" preview are the ones in Egypt -- which wouldn't have been built until roughly 2,000 B.C. -- the movie isn't taking place anywhere near Kansas. Or anywhere near the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan, an Aztec site that was likely built in the 14th century A.D. That's right, A.D.
So before we ruin the entire film for you, we'll stop with the too-easy historical debunking. But let's just say that you should watch "10,000 BC" for entertainment value only.

Did you remember? Were you even aware? Thought not.

From our sister newspaper, the Dailiy News:

Steffen Thorsen, who runs www.timeanddate.com, said his site receives 50 percent more traffic during daylight-saving time — and twice as many e-mails.
“Most people want to get further confirmation that the given changeover date is correct,” Thorsen said.
And part of the confusion is because not all countries — or states, for that matter — adhere to daylight-saving time.
Most of the western world kept its time change in April — but Thorsen said several countries in Latin America and the Middle East change their rules on very short notice.
“Typically in only days or weeks,” he said.

Settling on a meeting spot for a lunch of a business discussion can be difficult, especially if the person you are meeting is pushy.
With mezzoman, you can be sure that a meeting spot is truly in the middle. Just enter your address and the other person's and the kind of place you want to meet - a coffee shop, an Italian restaurant - even a bowling alley. The site shows you the midpoint between your locations, along with suggestions of a meeting place. It will even give you a link to the Google Maps page so you can get directions.

Looking for a new or unfamiliar music without paying for the download? Try this site, where you can type in a favorite artist or song. It then makes the next selection based on the previous ones played and your feedback - thumbs up or down.
According to the Web site, a bunch of music-loving tekkies created this gem back in 2000. "Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. ... It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like."
Inputting Bruce Springsteen got us to Tom Waits and then to Nick Drake, Counting Crows, Bob Dylan, John Mayer and back to the Boss. You get the picture.

The Providence Journal, a Rhode Island newspaper, recently reported on a building that houses a daycare center, a rehabilitation program for "high-risk" sex offenders and a homeless shelter. Many say the arrangement is safe because the necessary precautions have been taken, but some aren't so sure, and a government review may be in the offing.
If you remember, the Breeze published an article on Monday about a hotel in Carson that houses about 30 paroled sex offenders. And for those who want to check on their neighborhoods, here's the Megan's Law Web site, which can show you where sex offenders have registered.

In our Know section in today's newspaper, you can get the history of the St. Francis Dam collapse of 1928. Six hundred people likely died when the dam broke — 12 hours after it had been declared sound. For more, Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society member Frank Rock discusses the St. Francis Dam collapse in a video interview with historical photos and film footage.

A study we reported on today found that despite iPods being convenient and entertaining, they're also very visible and expensive -- making them an easy target for criminals. Here are some tips to keep yourself and your iPod out of harm's way.

If you’re constantly catching yourself nodding off at your desk, you’re not alone. According to a survey by the National Sleep Foundation released Monday, one in three people admitted to falling asleep or becoming very sleepy at work.
Most people surveyed only clocked 6 hours, 40 minutes of sleep time on weeknights.
But fear not, because this week happens to be National Sleep Awareness Week. You can find out everything you need to know about having some good shuteyegetting a good night’s sleep by going to the Sleep Foundation Web site.
There, you can embark on the Sleep Challenge, by learning how to make a sleep haven, identifying your sleep stealers and promoters, and raising your sleep awareness through the site’s quizzes, games and downloadable posters.

California unveiled Kids Corner on Monday, which it billed as a safe and fun educational site on the Web. The site is basically a portal providing links to research tools and some free computer games.
The games offer lessons in safe driving and the importance of recycling.
The launch of Kids Corner helps kick off this week's California Cyber Safe Summit 2008 in Burbank. A two-day convention, which starts today, is sponsored by the state and offers information about how to
better protect children and safeguard privacy online. For more information about the summit here.

A story in Monday's Daily Breeze says that many recently paroled sex offenders are staying in the same hotel in Carson. Last week, 30 registered sex offenders had registered at that address on the Megan's Law Web site.

The Associated Press reports on the new "Indiana Jones" film:

Times sure have changed in the 19 years since Harrison Ford last donned the signature fedora of thrill-seeking archaeologist Indiana Jones. The viral spread of the trailer for “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is proof of that.

The trailer for the May 22 release has drawn highly enthusiastic responses in theaters. But it may have had its biggest impact online, on a younger audience that may not think of Ford, 65, as equal to today’s spry action heroes.

After its premiere Feb. 14 on “Good Morning America,” Lucasfilm and Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures sent the trailer to the Web, plus movie theaters and TV stations around the world. Paramount estimates the trailer was seen more than 200 million times worldwide in the first week alone.
There were cheers in the theater when the familiar theme song kicked in, said Harry Knowles, the “head geek” who runs the movie fan site AintItCool.com, and comments on his Web site have been positive.

“People generally really, really loved the trailer,” he said. “Some people think it’s a little more cartoonish-looking compared to the prior (films), with him whipping the lights and swinging on them and stuff. But at the same time, it seems that everyone is extremely excited that there’s a new ‘Indiana Jones’ film.”

The University of Rochester has released digitized versions of its collection of letters by and to Abraham Lincoln. The collection was donated to the school by William Henry Seward III, the grandson of the Civil War president’s secretary of state.

Among the highlights of the collection, which includes letters from Vice President Andrew Johnson and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, is a letter discussing an “emancipation with compensation” proposal Lincoln considered a year into the Civil War. The plan would have paid slave owners $400 per slave under the condition that states abolish slavery.

You can make a donation to the families of Officer Randal Simmons, who was killed during a gunbattle Feb. 7, and his partner Officer James Veenstra, who was severely wounded, through the Los Angeles Police Federal Credit Union.

If you're looking for a Redondo woman's commentary on writing, poetry, literature, family and spirituality, check out Fran's blog at http://redondowriter.typepad.com.

And, if you check it out today, you'll be able to see a wide variety of interesting pictures, including one of a sunset at the beach, some cute dogs and an adorable kid.

She also offers suggestions about what to do in the South Bay, which could prove helpful if you're looking for some local fun.

Two California companies have recalled alfalfa sprouts sold across the West because tests detected salmonella, which can be fatal.

The Always Fresh and Alfa One sprouts were distributed to Trader Joe’s markets in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Shipments to Beach Market, KV Mart and Superior Warehouse stores in California were also recalled.

The California Department of Public Health has product descriptions and codes for the sprout recall.

Many South Bay restaurants and retailers are on a partial list of hundreds of retailers and restaurants that received shipments of recalled beef.

The list traces the largest beef recall in U.S. history — 143 million pounds from the Westland-Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino. No illnesses have been reported.

The company came under fire after the release of a Humane Society videotape showing sick cows being beaten and prodded into the slaughterhouse. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Friday that a veterinarian and a floor inspector from the plant have been placed on paid administrative leave.

Much of the recalled beef is thought to have already been consumed, although officials warn that people who have beef in their refrigerators or freezers purchased prior to Feb. 17 either discard the meat or confirm that the retailer’s shipment did not come from Westland-Hallmark.

If you still need to check your freezer, you can get more details in the company’s recall notification letter.