Bellmen, desk workers and other employees at the Hyatt hotel on Sunset Strip walked out early Thursday after nearly a year of contentious contract talks, union officials said.

About 120 employees at the hotel, known as the “Rock and Roll Hotel” for its high-profile music bookings and glitzy location, could be joined by workers at six other Los Angeles-area luxury hotels within days, said Amanda Cooper, spokeswoman for Unite Here Local 11.

Strike rally tonight at 5pm at the Hyatt West Hollywood at 8401 Sunset Blvd.  (Sunset & Kings Rd.)

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Will anyone ask about the Downing Street memo?

One issue that Bush — and Blair — should be questioned about is the Downing Street Memo in which the head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency asserted that the White House was already set on invading Iraq in July 2002.

Any reporter asking about the memo could make an easy grand, being offered by a group of liberal Web activists.

More headlines

Bush and Blair deny ‘fixed’ Iraq reports.

British MP George Galloway on Al-Jazeera: Calls for Bush, Blair, Koizumi, and Berlusconi to stand trial.

Photo via our fine friends at Freeway Blogger!

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An unprecedented joint statement issued by the leading scientific academies of the world has called on the G8 governments to take urgent action to avert a global catastrophe caused by climate change.

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We have over five divisions coming in this year, including MSN, Windows Marketplace, the Windows Client Consumer department, and… something brand new, and another something secret!

That makes Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google among the sponsors for this now sold out convention limited to a mere 300 people. Big hitters indeed for a small convention about podcasting and blogs.

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Kevin McKeown, Santa Monica City Council member and highly visible Green, recently resigned from the Green Party over the inability of the California Green Party to live up to its own standards of openness and transparency concerning political donations and disclosure. He passed out a flyer about it, Keep Green clean, at the plenary where the agenda item was eventually killed in maneuvers reminiscent of sleazy major party politics.

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The aptly named dog vomit slime mold (yuck!), it lives … and in our backyard too …

Incidentally there’s no way to get rid of it, so I recommend you just enjoy it. 

These slime molds have also inspired a science fiction movie, “The Blob.” (1958 with Steve McQueen, remade 1988)

Occasionally people in more subtropical regions find large slime mold plasmodia in their yard and call the police, believing the blob has landed. It pays to know something about these organisms to avoid being embarrassed when the police come!

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