The Wall Street Journal

Is The Fancy Cupcake Craze Finally Over?

Sometime in the past decade, cupcakes, the single-serving frosted cakes that moms lugged to classroom birthday parties, became OMGCUPCAKES!, a cultural phenomenon that had folks waiting in long lines and forking over three bucks or more for a gourmet red velvet (or carrot, mocha or gluten-free red v ... More >>

Michael D. Drobot-Owned Pacific Hospital and Pharmacy Raided by Feds Suspecting Fraud

Federal agents recently raided Industrial Pharmacy Management LLC in Newport Beach and Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, which are companies owned by Michael D. Drobot, who is suspected of workers compensation fraud.A sealed grand jury affidavit cleared the way for last week's searches by FBI, I ... More >>

Starbucks Offers Backdoor Access To The New York Times Paywall

So here's something. The New York Times announced yesterday that Starbucks customers can get free access to 15 articles a day on NYTimes.com if they do it through the coffee store's in-house Wi-Fi network--a backdoor to the now tightened-up paywall that the paper instituted two years ago.

Media Mail: Printed Literary Matters. No, I Mean it Matters!

The ostensible purpose of this cheerful weekly blog post is evangelizing on behalf of Orange County reading, writing, literary culture, according to The Bibliofella. Sometimes your humble (not) blogger's reach is pretty wide, solipsistic, a stretch but then again writing about my two favorite subjec ... More >>

A "Pink Slime"-Using Beef Producer Files For Bankruptcy

The Wall Street Journal reports that AFA Foods, which contributes to about 2% of total U.S. beef production has filed for bankruptcy protection.  The company's products are sold by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Burger King Holdings Inc., Jack in the Box Inc., Carl Karcher Enterprises Inc., Wendy' ... More >>

McDonald's New CEO Described as a "Teddy Bear Of A Man"

​McDonald's has announced it is bringing on a new CEO come July when Jim Skinner, its current CEO, retires after 7 years at the helm. When Don Thompson, the 48-year-old Chief Operating Officer who oversaw the successful roll-out of its McCafe concept, takes over, he does so after working his ... More >>

Leak at San Onofre May Bring Summer Blackouts

​Download the Flashlight iPhone app, or if you're old-school, get out the scented Bath & Bodyworks candles. Orange County may be in store for the Summer of Rolling Blackouts, thanks to ongoing troubles at San Onofre. 

Starbucks Raises Prices In China; Chinese Mad As Heck

​For a country where the average person, according to data from Nestle, only consumes three cups of coffee per year, the Chinese are downright pissed that Starbucks is raising prices. They took to the Internet to bemoan a two yuan price hike that the Seattle company announced last week--a change t ... More >>

Google Music Store Rivaling iTunes Expected To Be Unveiled This Afternoon

​Google is expected to unveil a new online music store featuring songs from three of the world's four biggest music companies today, according to reports.

Freeway Pollution Linked to Brain Damage, Autism

​Robert Lee Hotz of the Wall Street Journal, of all places, put it best: "Congested cities are fast becoming test tubes for scientists studying the impact of traffic fumes on the brain."And what are these researchers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Boston, New York, North Carolina, Beij ... More >>

OC: One of The Most Expensive Places in America

​Now there's data to back up what our bank accounts have been telling us all along: This place ain't cheap.  The Wall Street Journal reports that the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER) has released its third-quarter cost of living index, which outlines the most and least expen ... More >>

Dead Sara at Slidebar on Friday Night

Brandon Ferguson​Dead SaraMay 6, 2011Slidebar, FullertonIn an April interview with the Wall Street Journal online, Jefferson Airplane singer and counter- culture legend Grace Slick mentioned that her favorite new female singer was  Emily Armstrong of Los Angeles band Dead Sara. After see ... More >>

Wall Street Journal Throws in Gratuitous Slam Against Obama in Article about Dining Dress Codes

Yes we can...tell accurate stories​There is much to criticize about President Barack Obama, whether from the left or right--but to blame him for the nation's continuing loosening of dining dress codes, a trend that has gone on for decades? Only the most frothing-at-the-mouth lunatic would ever mak ... More >>

Owners of Los Angeles Times and Other SoCal Papers Expected to Bid on The Orange County Register

​Like vultures hovering over roadkill, media companies and private-equity firms are expected to pick at what remains of Irvine's Freedom Communications--parent company of The Orange County Register of Santa Ana--at auction Thursday.Among those likely placing bids will be Chicago-based Tribune, whi ... More >>

Jeremy Scott's x Adidas Originals Marks the Sneaker

[Trendzilla] Get the latest buzzed-about Adidas shoe at South Coast Plaza

Nestlé Experimenting With Food That Makes You Full Faster & Longer

Flickr User Tobyotter​A month ago, there was news about research that suggests you could imagine eating to eat less. This month brings another news story about how scientists are trying to break our tendency to be relentless eating machines. Nestlé--who, along being a name synonymous with c ... More >>

New Rumors of a Merger Between Freedom and MediaNews

​Yesterday, Dean Singleton, the controversial chairman and CEO of MediaNews Group, which owns dozens of newspapers including the Denver Post and LA Daily News, announced he was stepping down from his longtime post. Now, the Wall Street Journal is reporting, two new members of the board of director ... More >>

Ex-White House Speechwriter Peggy Noonan Is Coming to Orange County

Read her lips.​Peggy Noonan, a White House speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, has been invited to be the keynote speaker for the 2011 Annual Dinner of the Orange County Business Council (OCBJ), a corporate lobbying outfit.Noonan, nowadays a best-selling Republican author and columnist for T ... More >>

Election 2010: Gustavo Drinks Through the Election, Or: Trashing the Dems and Bashing Whitman

​Updated throughout the day, with the freshest post on top. Click after the jump for vignettes on Barbara Coe, Loretta Sanchez, Meg Whitman, and Borat!Midnight. Drink of choice: Alka-Seltzer...my pockets hurt. Loretta Sanchez has pulled away by thousands of votes, but we'll wait until the official ... More >>

The Super Rich Aren't Like You and Me ... They're Whinier

​A letter to the Wall Street Journal by a Newport Beach real estate executive who believes it would be unfair if the Bush tax cuts were not extended for those who make over $250,000-a-year certainly set off McSweeney's writer Edward Murray. "The Poor Top 2 Percent" on the Huffington Post is Murray ... More >>

2012 Election: Tea Party Out, Weed Party In?

​The California campaign for Prop 19 this November is searching couch cushions for loose change, but that has not stopped chatter to get marijuana-legalization initiatives on more state ballots to drive Democrats to the polls in 2012.

Jesse James Opens Up and Bleeds About Cheating on Sandy, Their Black Son and Nazis

ABC NewsNightline's Vicki Mabrey sits down with Jesse James, America's most hated grease monkey. ​Portions of tonight's Nightline interview with Sunset Beach's (for now) Jesse James first trickled out via official ABC press release, then it was leaked online, then a chunk of it rolled on this morn ... More >>

Draft Newport Financial Guru Bill Gross for Governor?

Wikpedia Creative CommonsWhere dreams go to die.​Here's who's running for governor: an scary-old ex-governor, an ex-CEO who seems intent on writing checks and smiling her way into office and a dweeby businessman-turned-bureaucrat with a habit of lying about school children ... More >>

Camp Pendleton Welcomes Its First Arabic Food Stand

There's not a lot of warm fuzzy stories when you talk about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and even fewer ones about food. But here's one with both from the Wall Street Journal. It tells of how in nearby Camp Pendleton, they just set up a shawarma stand in the base due to popular demand. ... More >>

John Mayer's Apology, Lady Gaga Teams with Cyndi Lauper, Bob Dylan, Killers

John Mayer's apology from Nashville concert stage: "In my quest to be clever, to be clever, y'know?" said Mayer, who sounded to be choking back tears. "I completely forgot about the people that I love and the people that love me." After a lengthy mea culpa he delivered a crying blues guitar solo ... More >>

Harrison Ford Is Nothing If Not Useful in 'Extraordinary Measures'

Yet Another Newspaper Chain To Go Bankrupt

Who's Next?​The rest of the economy might be slowly recovering from the great global economic cataclysm, but the death march of daily print journalism continues. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal---one of the few daily papers that successfully managed the rise of the Internet--reported that Dean ... More >>

Doctor-Minister Arrested for Fake Cancer Cure Has OC Ties

​Another health practitioner with Orange County ties has been arrested on suspicion of prescribing phony cancer cures.WSJ.com​Licensed physician and ordained Pentecostal minister Christine Daniel of Mission Hills was arrested Thursday night in Los Angeles for allegedly taking $1.1 million from 5 ... More >>

Porn Proudly Enters Register Coverage of Freedom Bankruptcy

Perhaps this art photo by Nick Gaines is an example of the porn the newspaper company is trying to hide.​Orange County Register business writer Mary Ann Milbourn boldly got out front of the story about her corporate overlords at Irvine-based Freedom Communications being accused of trying to keep d ... More >>

How to Save Time, Money and Get Wall Street Journal Coverage for Cutting Your Own Hair

How do you get yourself written on Wall Street Journal online? If the nation is gripped by an economic recession whose bad ju-ju has spread even to the usually immune hair salon industry, and you're Dana Point's George Trimm, you start a Facebook group called "I Cut My Own Hair."

Freedom Communications/OC Register Woes: Financial or Political? [UPDATED WITH BANKRUPTCY CONFIRMATION]

​With the Orange County Register's parent company Freedom Communications of Irvine confirming it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (something deemed inevitable in Nick Schou's Navel Gazing item yesterday), one would assume this to be a financial matter. But according to several reader ... More >>

UC Irvine, A Campus of Hate, Bigotry and Intimidation?

UC Irvine: A battlefield?In today's issue of the JewishJournal.com, Judea Pearl--an acclaimed UCLA professor and the father of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl who was decapitated by nuts in Pakistan in 2002--has written "The Crucible of UC Irvine," which slams the Orange County univer ... More >>

Vicente Fox

Irvine Barclay Theatre

It's Official: This Recession May Make You Fat

Today is Mardi Gras (aka Fat Tuesday), so it's fitting that I'm writing about how unhealthy we're becoming as a nation - indeed, as a planet. According to the Guardian, the number of new cases of diabetes being diagnosed in the UK is growing at a faster rate than in the US. Now that is depressing. A ... More >>

Your I.O.U. for a Coupon for a Future TV Converter Box is in the Mail

Frequent listeners of Le Show on KCRW (or podcast ... or satellite ... or short-wave radio) know that host Harry Shearer has long had a bug up his ass about broadcast television's midnight Feb. 19 switch from analog to digital signals. Shearer's tales of looming digital woe are generally summe ... More >>

The One Good Thing Gordon Dillow Ever Did

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 onl ... More >>

Bugaboo Confidential

Life as a young, hot, white, educated nanny in the city sure is a drag

Friday's Headlines & Surprises

FBI targets one of OC's richest: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the FBI served subpoenas at the Newport Coast home of Henry T. Nicholas III, ex-chairman of Irvine-based, electronics giant Broadcom Company. According to the paper, the investigation involves drugs and other potential crime ... More >>

Loretta Taking Her Act to HBO

It's true! According to Dan Chmielewski over at theliberaloc.com blog, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D-Anaheim), is scheduled to appear as a guest on "Real Time With Bill Maher" Friday at 11 p.m. on HBO. Chmielewski wonders how many "pet the cat" jokes humorist Maher will utter. Perhaps not many ... More >>

Squeezing Money from Corpses in Irvine

That companies which use magical accounting practices to rewrite history to fatten the bank accounts of their executives would try to squeeze money from corpses isn't really too surprising, but it is still disgusting. And it's happening in Irvine. The Wall Street Journal reports that dozens of co ... More >>

Diary of a Mad County

Jan. 24-Jan. 30

Hugh Hewitt is a Hypocrite

The godfather of blogs trashes what he calls the MSM (mainstream media--essentially, anyone who doesn't toe the Republican line) every chance he gets. But in a post today on his blog, Hewitt reveals he's an investor in The News Right Now, a news aggregator, and calls it a "very wise move."  Her ... More >>

Eight Must-sees

We Kill Beauty

Good times in Huntington Beach

The Good, the Bad, and the God-awful

Thoughts on Gigli and late-summer truffle hunting

Letters

The Mormon In All of Us

The Hunger Artists bash, latterday plays

Billy-Bashing Bandwagon

Register jumps onand gets burned

Mickey Mite Club

Train Trash