Summer time and the blogging is easy...

• Big story on KNBC at 5 pm with Controller Laura Chick accusing Playa Vista head Steven Soboroff of trying to bully her into dropping an investigation into methane at the development, and Chick squirming a bit herself. Channel 4's website includes a statement from Soboroff. The story provides a "rare inside glimpse into how the political power game is played in LA," says producer Frank Snepp.
• Sitrick and Company takes on Michael Vick, says O'Dwyer's. Good luck with that one.
• Jim Bursch at West L.A. Online has the report and the video of the LAPD blowing up a suspicious package near Westside Pavilion yesterday. The incident closed Pico Boulevard during evening rush hour and pretty much destroyed Westside traffic.
• Tony Jackson, the Daily News' Dodgers writer, admits on his blog that he missed last night's game in Houston because his flight was late. It ended a streak of 448 straight regular season games attended, dating to 2004.
• Dan Laidman, City Hall reporter for Copley News Service, signs out for the last time today. He has enrolled for the fall at UCLA Law School. In fact there's a gathering in Little Tokyo this evening for Laidman and Art Marroquin, who is leaving City News Service for the Daily Breeze. [By the way, if you didn't see, there's an update to Wednesday's post about morale at the Breeze.]
• Tad Friend has a "Letter From California" in The New Yorker about Vernell Crittendon, the recently retired spokesman for San Quentin State Prison. He has announced all thirteen executions since they resumed in 1992, and talks about the controversial last days of Tookie Williams.
• Garment & Citizen editor & publisher Jerry Sullivan won a prize for editorial comment from the California Newspaper Publishers Association.