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Today's LAT editorial page delivers on its Rose Bowl wager to say something nice about Texas: "Any state that gave us Lance Armstrong, Lyle Lovett and Larry McMurtry can't be all bad."
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♦ Mayor Villaraigosa banned all city purchases of bottled water. It apparently applies equally to pothole-filling crews on the blazing streets of Canoga Park in August, firefighters out in the burning brush and the cozy suites at DWP headquarters.
♦ Rhino confirmed LA Observed's news of its closure to the Times and announced there will be a parking lot sale Jan. 21.
♦ Michael Hiltzik posts round two of his Patterico analysis, Patterico replies and the sympathetic blog Independent Sources offers its own anti-Hiltzik take.
♦ Razing the Ambassador Hotel won't be finished until March. Meanwhile, the schools to be built in its place just got more costly: they found methane gas in the soil. But it's no Belmont Learning Center, they tell the Times.
♦ Republican Dana Rohrabacher was the only L.A.-area member of Congress to accept money from discredited lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Rohrabacher still defends his friend, drawing a blog rebuke from Joe Scott. * Rohrabacher backtracks: In the Breeze.
♦ Rick Orlov does the Daily News obit on Ernani Bernardi, who died Wednesday, and Mayor Sam's Sister City has a personal remembrance from a reader.
♦ Comedy Central is adding eight web-only shows to its website, so people can be amused while they are at work.
Turn the page for L.A.'s best mensches, a Derek Lowe and Carolyn Hughes sighting, Wonkette pens her goodbyes and downtown goes mysteriously Japanese—plus more, of course.
♦ L.A.'s top ten mensches is the cover story in the Jewish Journal.
♦ Spotted at the Rose Bowl: Dodgers pitcher Derek Lowe with Carolyn Hughes.
♦ I noticed the other day that a couple of blocks around Wilshire and Grand downtown are decorated with Asian banners and that the the copying shop in the Welton Becket building on the corner is dressed up like a sushi place. Heard it might be a re-creation of Tokyo for Mission: Impossible III, but Eric Richardson at Blogdowntown found out it's for The Fast and the Furious 3.
♦ Ana Marie Cox ascends to emeritus status, in her own words: "Until now the idea of Wonkette being taken over by two men only existed in my letters to Penthouse Forum."
♦ Jim Bursch's West L.A. Online has taken a partner: "Our hope is that by joining with Westside Today, we will elevate our standing in the community and somehow be the better for it."
♦ New L.A. Times tech writer Dawn Chmielewski's husband Dan writes the N-Irvine-A blog, which is all about the city of Irvine in Orange County: "Rhymes with nirvana."