Contests

Looking for a sign of the “super PAC” sea change in campaign finance? Even Texas Rep. Ron Paul - whose official campaign has been bolstered by legions of small donors - stands to benefit from an outside group that can spend unlimited donations in secret until after a string of key nominating contests occur. The Los Angeles Times/Tribune Washington Bureau noted Thursday that independent groups expected to spend heavily in the primaries on advertising and voter outreach for their preferred candidate will not have to report their donors after the first five primaries and caucuses.

During the dog days of summer, sometimes it's too hot to even think. That's the ideal time to pick up your laptop, head to an air-conditioned coffee shop and do something more mindless than people-watching: Enter a few travel contests. My e-mail box has been flooded lately with contests that promise to treat you to San Antonio or Oregon -- provided you win. Here are some that seem easy to enter. Good luck! --Group trip to Texas: The city of San Antonio is giving away a trip for eight (as in you plus seven others)

The British Broadcasting Corp. said Wednesday that it was suspending all phone-in contests and interactive quizzes after an investigation exposed several rigged competitions. The BBC, which has been battered by revelations about bogus contests and doctored footage, said an internal inquiry found that "a small number of production staff ... have passed themselves off as viewers and listeners."

When Ernst & Young trumpeted, "We Went Looking for the Best Entrepreneurs in Los Angeles," it didn't have to look far. Eight of the 11 winners of Ernst & Young's annual contest to select the area's hottest entrepreneurs are clients of either the accounting firm or the competition's co-sponsor Merrill Lynch or both. What's more, several losing contestants complained that the competition--which was jointly sponsored by Ernst & Young, Merrill Lynch, Inc.

Can U.S. Car--the Administration's proposal for a government-Big Three research and development consortium--build the car of the future? Proponents say yes. They contend that making government expertise and research available to U.S. car makers could help triple fuel efficiency within a decade and restore U.S. leadership in this critical, beleaguered industry. Skeptics--among them columnist Michael Schrage--argue that competition, not cooperation, drives innovation. The trade-off between the benefits of cooperation and the benefits of competition is well known.

What do a free college education and a closetful of Tommy Hilfiger threads have in common? A Dec. 30 deadline. Until then students 15 years and older are eligible to enter the FullRide Sweepstakes by logging onto http://www.tommy.com or http://www.colleges.com and win a four-year scholarship to the college of the student's choice, four years of room and board and a four-year car lease.

The National Writers Workshop, a nonprofit organization for hopeful screenwriters, is holding its fifth annual screenwriting contest for minorities. American Film Institute graduate Willard Rogers founded the contest in 1990 as part of the workshop's Ethnic Minority Screenwriters Development and Promotional Program. Rogers, 53, head of the organization, established the $500 scholarship to discover talent in ethnic communities, which account for only 2.

The Third International Sibelius Conductors' Competition in Helsinki, Finland, came to a surprising end this week when the jury declined to name a winner in any of the top three categories. "The level of the competition was a disappointment," competition chairman and Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Esa-Pekka Salonen said.

A Slovenian mock-opera artist, a Hungarian blues singer and a Ukrainian drag queen in a glitzy silver outfit were among 24 competitors in the Eurovision Song Contest -- an annual extravaganza of colliding musical tastes. The showdown in Finland today will have an Eastern European flavor after former communist bloc countries scored a near clean-sweep in the semifinal that ended in the early hours Friday.

The 11th annual Joanna Hodges Piano Conference and Competition draws to a close this week at the Bob Hope Cultural Center in Palm Desert. Concerto competition finals (junior, intermediate and senior divisions) take place at 8 tonight and will be followed Friday by both the New York and London competitions finals, which run concurrently from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.