"Everyone's Blogging!" "Everyone?" "Everyone."

The Los Angeles Police Department has an official blog. It only started yesterday and already has eight posts, including an illuminating discussion of how Los Angeles had been for two decades, but is no longer, misusing federal Universal Crime Report standards by classifying all domestic violence crimes in a different category than was the rest of the nation.

L.A. has now changed back to national practice. This has made for an apparent reduction here in "Part One" crimes under federal standards, which elsewhere always meant, and now mean in L.A. as well, "An attack for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury, usually accompanied by the use of a weapon or means likely to produce death or great bodily injury." But even factoring out this change in reporting, the LAPD is still proud that,

In 2004, we achieved a 13.6% reduction in violent crime and a 10.5% reduction in Part One crimes with no changes in how crime was reported from 2003. In 2005, we reduced violent crime by over 11,000 incidents and…achieved a significant crime reduction of well over 10%. Year to date for 2006, we are at a 11.9% reduction in Part One crime.

So far, the LAPD's permalink list includes only other law enforcement and fire-fighting resources, but how about some love for L.A.'s only locally-based political and cultural magazine?