Vegan restaurant reviews are always more fun when it’s a meat eater doing the critiquing. Check out Niyaz Pirani’s take on Native Foods from the Register today.

On the topic of Native Foods, the LAV is still waiting for the Aliso Viejo location to open. Originally a soft opening was planned for early April, then it got pushed back to May, and now nine days in, south county folks still have to make their way to Costa Mesa for their Soy Amigos and vegan Jerk Burgers. Company officials I talked with today are saying a soft opening is likely “this month” - we’ll see what happens come June.

Perhaps I spoke too soon when I said there was a lull in new proposals regarding “In God We Trust” - this week we’ve got Fountain Valley and now Los Alamitos, which plans to let residents (and you, non-Los Al readers!) weigh in:

Residents have until June 4 to express to the City Council their opinions on the council’s consideration of displaying the phrase “In God We Trust” in its chambers.

An online survey is now available on the city’s homepage. Council member Gerri Mejia will distribute flyers around town. The council made the decision to conduct a 30-day survey at its meeting Monday night.

To save you the work of finding the unsecure, third-party, easily hackable web survey, it’s available here. Nothing on the site says that only Los Al residents can take part, though votes with a valid address may be the only ones counted. Of course, if Bakersfield’s Jacquie Sullivan can have a say, why can’t you?

At yesterday’s Orange County Atheists meeting, the group was remarking that it’d been at least three weeks since a city council had introduced a motion to display “In God We Trust” (five cities proposed the measure in an eight-week period earlier this year). Luckily for all of us, Fountain Valley came through to relieve the drought. From Julie Anne Ines’s story today:

The city of Fountain Valley could soon join other local cities such as Cypress and Westminster in displaying the national motto “In God We Trust.”

During the City Council meeting Tuesday, Mayor Pro Tem Guy Carrozzo requested that an item regarding the display of the motto be put on a future agenda. City staff will determine the date of the discussion.

In a letter that he read to the council, Carrozzo said that he thought about the issue and decided that “it is appropriate for the council to vote on this issue.”

Mayor Pro Tem Carrozzo also wants to go a step further and add the phrase “one nation under God” because it would be unique to Fountain Valley, and added “I don’t see anything wrong with this going on the wall. It’s just the right thing to do.”

I have a feeling some letter writers and attendees at the next city council meeting might disagree, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem. We’ll keep you updated.

The Register’s Political Pulse page has an interesting poll - “Would you prefer that the Democratic nomination was already settled, one way or the other?”

The more liberal groups in the poll (Democrats, Latinos, and Progressive Christians) are strongly on the side of “yes, it’s going too long” while the conservative groups (Republicans, Vietnamese Americans, Anti-Illegal Immigration Advocates, and Conservative Christians) overwhelmingly say “no, it’s a good battle”. Independent and Third Party voters are split.

The LAV’s take: I think more than anything, Dems want closure. We’re tired of the politics, the infighting, and the potential for damage done to the candidates by each other, no matter who takes the nomination. My read on the conservative side is that they’re all for the mudslinging and wasted resources of a prolonged Democrat campaign, hoping voters get tired of both candidates and migrate toward McCain.

That said, I think the months between the conventions and the vote are plenty long enough for this to still be a McCain vs. Democrat event, and even with the Republican nominee free from the costs of campaigning now, the Dems still have a huge money advantage, and will continue to. The 2008 race will be as close as 2000 and 2004, I fear, but I’m still hopeful.

In addition to this site, there are a lot of ways to connect with and read the Liberal Atheist Vegetarian blog, especially for you techie hippies out there. Consider:

Email. You’ve got this, you should use it. I can be reached at mdoss@ocregister.com if you’ve got a question, a tip, a story idea, or an upcoming event.

RSS. If you’re a regular feed reader or just keep hearing everyone talk about RSS, the LAV’s feed is available at http://lav.freedomblogging.com/feed. Just plug that address into your favorite reader (the LAV recommends the Google Reader) and you’ll get our updates right after they happen.

Myspace. The LAV has a Myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/liberalatheistvegetarian - become a friend, read the latest posts, and see what others are saying.

Facebook. If you’ve evolved past the other social networking sites and discovered the not-so-ugly joy that is Facebook, you can join the LAV’s group here. It’s new, so be kind.

Twitter. It’s likely you haven’t heard of Twitter — I hadn’t before last month — but it’s fun mini-blogging and update service, and the LAV is there, too, at http://twitter.com/OCRegisterLAV. Add the LAV for tweets every time there’s a new post.

If you know of another place we should be online, use the first option (email) and let me know. The internet is best when shared!

Tony Saavedra has the scoop:

Orange County Sheriff’s investigators were unable to substantiate whether personnel at Theo Lacy jail used a Taser on a cat, but two rookie deputies were let go during the course of the probe.

Information uncovered by investigators prompted sheriff’s officials to release deputies Joseph E. Mirander and Duy X. Tran, both of whom had graduated from the academy in November and were still on probation. Mirander did not return three phone messages left at his home. Tran could not be located for comment.

Because they were on probation, the two deputies could be let go immediately for such things as being evasive during questioning. Officially, their release would be recorded as a no-fault failure of probation.

Interesting information, and while it’s easy to assume they deputies for fired for their role in the event, they may just have been let go fo how they acted in the investigation. That said, there’s a lot the public doesn’t know here, yet.

The LAV’s take: I doubt highly that Sheriff’s officials would conduct such a thorough investigation, and fire deputies, on rumors alone. Best we can hope for now is a more detailed report from the Los Angeles County Office of Independent Review, who gets next crack at this. Very little coming out of the OCSD surprises me anymore.

A few recent stories from the Register that might tickle your fancy:

What are O.C. schools doing to ‘go green’? — Annie Burris details local school districts responding to recent trends toward environmental sensitivity with synthetic turfs on tracks, waterless urinals in restrooms, skylights in classrooms, and other initiatives.

‘Naked man’ breaks silence about Huntington Beach nudity ban — Cindy Carcamo talks to Michael Ferreira, the “Naked Man” that inspired Huntington Beach to ban public nudity. The LAV wrote about the issue way back in the beginning.

Chino slaugterhouse beef recall ‘not about food safety’ — Dr. Richard Raymond, USDA Undersecretary for food safety, said this week that February’s Hallmark/Westland meat recall wasn’t “about food safety”. The Fast Food Maven’s report has more.

As usual, the atheist and freethought events seem to cluster, with quite a few next week. Consider:

The Unitarian Universalist Church Of Long Beach will be screening the film “For the Bible Tells Me So” which explores the intersection between religion and homosexuality, on Saturday, May 3 at 7 p.m. The event is a potluck — more information is available at the group’s website.

Looking to avoid the Mother’s Day crowd next weekend, The Atheists United of Orange County will instead be meeting this Sunday, May 4, at 10:30 a.m. at the International House of Pancakes in Irvine (near John Wayne Airport) for their monthly brunch.

The next meeting of the Orange County Atheists will be held Tuesday, May 6 at 7:30 p.m., also at the Irvine IHOP. The group will be discussing plans for additional social gatherings, as well as efforts to stop more city councils from displaying “In God We Trust”.

Today’s May Day, and in recent years it’s become a day to protest for immigrants rights - of course, that means anti-immigration protests too. And while the big event is in Los Angeles, Santa Ana’s got some of their own, spiked with the usual controversy. From Amy Taxin’s Register story:

Shouting matches broke out this morning about an hour into a rally in support of immigration enforcement outside the Mexican Consulate in Santa Ana.

“I’m here because I’m against illegal immigration,” said Anita Hynes, one of the demonstrators. “They don’t want to accept this country as it is. … They want to do whatever they want, but not what the law says.”

Hynes, 60, a retired teacher from Yorba Linda, shouted insults in Spanish at people walking into the consulate, saying they were “very good at having children like dogs.”

Classy! Other anti-immigrant protesters yelling “Go back to Mexico” at the event got into it with pro-immigrant folks who wanted to know how you can determine status just by looking at someone. A good question, but it was met with more yelling, and likely some flag-waving.

Events are planned all day - Amy’s story has a list at the bottom of the page. If you’re heading out there, you’ll know you’ve found the protest when you see an absurd number of American flags.

If you don’t believe that, you might want to skip tonight’s lecture hosted by UCI’s Atheists, Agnostics and Rationalists club:

Professor Francisco J. Ayala from UC Irvine’s Ecology and Evolution department will be giving a lecture on the topic of evolution entitled “Evolution Is a Fact and It Is the Unifying Concept of Biology.” Following his presentation will be a question and answer session. His books, “Darwin and Intelligent Design” and “Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion,” will be made available for purchase and signing after the lecture.

The event happens tonight at 5pm at UCI’s Humanities Instructional Building, room #100. The HIB is shown as building # 610 on this map, located on the north end of the outer circle of Aldrich Park. If entering on Campus Dr, turn right on West Peltason and HIB is onthe left, just after the student center. Looks for the signs.