Our Favorite LAT Headline of the Day: California tax proposals target beer-loving, pornography-watching yacht owners

Joel Stein Might Be High Right Now: Stein gets his hands on some medical marijuana. Hilarity (we guess) ensues. No word if he smoked the goods, returned them or had to surrender them to Sam Zell.

Kate Aurthur Wastes Her Considerable Talents On Speidi: The idea of her eating lunch with two vapid fame peddlers makes us a little sad. But then, so do Hallmark commercials, so who are we to judge?

In a move that is innovative, interesting and downright creepy, latimes.com announced a new feature called ICU in which a vid-journo stalks the people on freeways, street corners and the "missed connections" section of Craigslist.

The idea, from what we can tell, is to allow journo Katy Newton to find the real stories of "real people." But it sounds real prying. We're gonna try to connect with her ourselves in a minute here and report back to you. In the meantime, here's the press release:

continued...

An Indiana man saying that Barack Obama is a Muslim got quoted in three separate newspapers and wasn't corrected according to Media Matters.

The LAT article by staff writer Peter Nicholas says:

"I can't stand him," he said. "He's a Muslim. He's not even pro-American as far as I'm concerned."

Obama seemed unfazed. He had better luck at a round table where several men were eating.

The article never explained that Obama isn't a Muslim - he's a member of a Christian megachurch headed by Rev. Jeremiah Wright that made news because he scares the crap out of white people. At least get your foreboding religious zealot story straight. Geez.

We Are Officially The Only People Who Didn't Think Ang Lee's Film Sucked: This John Horn piece about the new Hulk film is one of many that accepts Lee's suckitude as a foregone conclusion. This... makes... us... so... angry!

Rabbi Rushfield's Eulogy: "And so we bid farewell to Jason Castro, American Idol's first hippy finalist. With his piercing eyes, goofy remarks, perpetual smile and unmistakable sweet nature, he was a contestant who was impossible not to like... Whether through his music or his personality, Castro always brought a bit of fun to the Idol stage, was never just filler, and for that we wish him well and treasure the time we've shared in the Idoldome."

Steal This: "The six major Hollywood studios have won a $111-million judgment for copyright infringement against shut-down file-sharing website TorrentSpy.com."

Scarborough Research released its annual Scarborough Newspaper Audience Ratings Report, "a comprehensive compendium of the weekly print, weekly website and Integrated Newspaper Audience (combined print and online) ratings for 161 newspapers in 81 Top-Tier markets."

The take-home? A higher percentage of the adult population in L.A. reads the LAT than our New York counterparts read the NYT (36% compared to 27% -- and, yes, we beat them in raw numbers, too). Yet we're still the unread, uninformed coast? Whatever.

The rest of the results:
23% of the adult market is reading the Los Angeles Newspaper Group's passel of papers and online products
12% get their news from the Orange County Register
9% read La Opinion
6% scan The Press-Enterprise
3% pick up the Ventura County Star.

Whole report here.

Protect the Journos: An LAT opinion piece says that while Georgie is still in the White House, "the Senate needs to follow the House in approving the Free Flow of Information Act by a veto-proof margin."

R. Kelly Trial To Start: After six years of delays, the R. Kelly pornography trial is set to begin in Chicago on Friday. If convicted, the crooner could face 15 years in prison.

Studios Walk From Table: After three weeks of talks, negotiations between Hollywood studios and the Screen Actors Guild ended Tuesday, "fueling anxiety over the prospect of another strike."

Favorite LAT paragraph of the Day: In a story about 75 students arrested in a San Diego State University undercover drug bust: "One alleged dealer was just a month away from receiving a master's degree in homeland security and had worked with the campus police as a security officer, officials said. Another student, who was arrested on suspicion of possession of cocaine and two guns, was a criminal justice major, officials said."

Dreamy-Works? We're not entirely certain, but we think Patrick Goldstein just likened David Geffen to a thoroughbred.

Is Britney-Mania Dying Down? The AP reports the scene surrounding Britney Spears' courthouse arrival this morning as surprisingly subdued and sparsely attended.

Un-Friend Us: From Joseph Menn: "Social networking sites, which let users create detailed profile pages and connect with friends, are becoming the hot new thing for identity thieves, both amateur and professional. As improved spam filters and skeptical consumers make bogus e-mail less successful, scam artists are taking advantage of the atmosphere of trust that exists within these online circles of friends." Ya-who? Yahoo Inc. stock plummeted this morning after merger talks with Microsoft Corp. collapsed. We hate it when those "buy gold" people are right. Catfight on the Catwalk: NBC Universal signed an exclusive pact with the production team behind Project Runway, two weeks after Lifetime Networks secured the rights to the show. Competition between the former producers and the show itself? Fierce.

SAG and the Studios Extend Talks: Again.

Cougar Sought In Eagle Rock: We thought the LAT was running Personals on the front page. Turns out this story is about an actual animal. So, if you live in Eagle Rock, run for your lives.

Tom Cruise Thought He Was Preaching To The Choir: Literally. Tom Cruise tells Oprah that famous Scientology video of him captured a "private" moment where he was speaking to his congregation.

Looks like Dean Singleton's newspaper readers got even less than the little he normal gives them: L.A. Observed is reporting that The Daily News, The Breeze, the Long Beach Press-Telegram and more failed to come out in full this morning.

According to an internal memo, a server got knocked off-line during the night. You know what would've helped? Employees. You know, right, Dean? A human workforce? Guess not.