Attn.: Al Davis.Some local engineers, computer programmers...

Attn.: Al Davis.

Some local engineers, computer programmers and sci-fi buffs have formed OSA, a group that wants to build orbiting space arenas for zero-gravity sporting events.

If you’re not interested, the Houston Astros might be.

“The technology is there, but the politics aren’t there, yet,” said Ted Neville of Montrose, the group’s design chief.

Toward that end, OSA has begun running newspaper ads to drum up public support--lists of potential viewers and financial backers. Neville estimates that the tab could run $400 million, but figures the gross receipts from cable broadcasts would cover that.

The group’s literature points out that in the weightlessness of space “you could jump off one wall and glide to another as fast as your legs could push you, effortlessly flipping (and) ricocheting around the room. . . With a little equipment you could fly. That is glide, turn in midair, speed up and slow down.”

Sounds like a negotiating session with the Raiders.

Sure, he’s no longer the firebrand he once was, but still it came as a bit of a surprise when Democratic state Assemblyman Tom Hayden received the accompanying note from . . . the Grand Old Party.

No word on whether the Republicans are also recruiting Hayden’s ex-wife . . . No one will ever accuse columnist Rafael Tammariello of being a Southern California booster. In a recent piece for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, he decried the “Health Fascist elite who rule the People’s Ecotopian Republic of California.”

He leveled blasts at everyone in PERC from the L.A. City Council, which he accuses of “preparing to require its police department to vigorously recruit and promote gay and lesbian cops,” to the city of San Luis Obispo, which recently prohibited smoking in public buildings. (Las Vegas proudly remains an oasis for smokers.)

Tammariello quotes a professor who says that “one could argue that it’s more difficult to smoke in Southern California settings than it is to take cocaine.”

Maybe. But it could be worse. At least the L.A. police chief hasn’t said that casual tobacco smokers should be taken outside and shot.

Now you know why the slogan for Channel 2’s newscast is “Watch What Happens”:

Keith Olbermann of KCBS has announced that if the Dodgers win the divisional title, he’ll deliver a sportscast while wearing a dress.

Well, what do you expect from the People’s Ecotopian Republic?

miscelLAny:

Cerritos once forbade a Toys R Us store from reversing the R in its logo because the city feared that schoolchildren’s minds would be corrupted. The city later reversed its stand.