Tag Archives: Los Angeles Times

by | May 31, 2013

Powerhouse Fire Means Overtime Pay For Firefighters

I don’t know why the firefighters are not dancing a jig on TV when interviewed by the media about these brush fires that break out. These fires mean tens of thousands of dollars in overtime pay for most of them.

Most Americans have been “conditioned” by the unions and media to believe that firefighters are “heroes” and spend each and every day of their career saving lives and fighting fires.

I don’t know how it works around the rest of America, but here in California firefigters make a grip of money and a lot of them only work ten days a month. A lot of these same firefighters have so much free time on their hands that they run small businesses on the side.

I love writing and reporting on California firefighters and their amazing pay scale. If brings a ton of email and comments from their wives and kids defending their mom or dad and their “hero” status.

However, many of my best friends are firefighters. ALL of their wives are stay at home moms. ALL of these friends have businesses on the side. ALL of them have houses that are small mansions. ALL of them have every toy a man could possibly want. Boats, PWC’s, Harley’s and everything else.

Am I jealous. Not a bit. I am angry. Angry that California is a state RUN BY UNIONS. Angry that firemen and prison guards are paid 200K + a year. Angry that California’s public workforce now rivals its private workforce.

All I know is that business is leaving California and so are all the people with any kind of money in the bank. Our taxes are incredibly high and so is our unemployment.

It will all come crashing down soon enough. We are heading for bankruptcy. JD

A brush fire continued to burn out of control on Friday in the Angeles National Forest just north of Castaic, officials said.

Flames burn along Francisquito Canyon Road. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times /May 30, 2013)

The blaze, dubbed the Powerhouse Fire, has burned more than 1,000 acres with no containment, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

At least one structure, believed to be a utility building, has been destroyed.

New evacuations were ordered on Friday morning along San Francisquito Canyon Road south from Called Daggett.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies went door-to-door around 5 a.m. alerting residents.

The fire broke out shortly before 4 p.m. on Thursday near a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power facility in Francisquito Canyon, near Drinkwater Reservoir.

A DWP power plant operator first noticed the fire and alerted the L.A. County Fire Department, DWP officials said.

The flames spread quickly, fueled by strong winds and warm temperatures.

Some 500 firefighters were working to build containment lines.

The winds had died down by Thursday night, but firefighters remained concerned about the heat, with temperatures in the 90s expected on Friday and Saturday.

Authorities were forced to evacuate hundreds of residents on Thursday as the fire burned close to homes and threatened high-voltage power lines.

Some 200 people were evacuated in the Green Valley area between San Francisquito Canyon Road and Bouquet Reservoir.

A Red Cross evacuation center was set up at Marie Kerr Park, located at 39700 30th St. West in Palmdale.

They were allowed to return to their homes as of 10 p.m. on Thursday, sheriff’s officials said.

San Francisquito Canyon Road remained under a hard closure. Bouquet Canyon Road and Elisabeth Lake Road were under soft closures and open to residents only.

The flames also burned next to electrical towers. Some of the lines supply Los Angeles, DWP officials said.

Power was re-routed away from the threatened lines and no outages were reported, according to the DWP. The agency was closely monitoring the situation.

Rescue helicopters on Thursday were searching for nine hikers believed to be in the area of the fire, according to the L.A. County Fire Department.

By 9 p.m., all of the hikers were accounted for and were not in danger, fire officials said.

No injuries to firefighters or civilians have been reported. The cause of the fire remained under investigation.

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by | October 27, 2012

Los Angeles Times Online Poll Has Obama 52, Romney 48

I was clicking about the internet this morning and found something interesting on The Los Angeles Times website that I thought I would mention here.

Its an article titled “California poll shows Obama with smaller lead” which as usual with the Times is a misleading title because its pretty much a fluff piece of propaganda extolling the greatness of the messiah and at the same time portraying Mitt Romney as a pariah.

The entire article is racially divisive and constantly compares white voters to their black counterparts.

Its amazing to me that the media does this, because before anything else, aren’t we all Americans first? Why should color matter? In fact most media outlets are writing their mindless drivel with the assumption that all white people will not vote for Obama simply because he is half black but completely leave out the fact that he is half white too.

Its as if the half white part of Obama shouldn’t matter. In fact, why does the media not call Obama half white? After all his mother is a white woman.

By thinking of it like this, one would be inclined to realize that color doesn’t matter in this case. Unless of course you are of some other racial makeup.

Anyway, here is another link to the article and at the top as of 10:20 this morning there was a poll there asking people that supported Obama in 2008 if they will vote for him again and it was 52% no 48% yes.

Now before you go off half cocked, I understand that this poll is not scientific and it could simply be a bunch of Romney shills clicking “no” repeatedly, but it could be a bunch of Obama shills too, right?

Go check it out here. JD

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by | March 27, 2012

Dennis Rodman broke, extremely sick

What would anyone expect from Dennis Rodman?

Former NBA star Dennis Rodman is “extremely sick,” “broke” and is in no position to pay hefty child and spousal support payments, according to court documents.

Rodman is behind in his payments and faces a court hearing Tuesday in Orange. He faces up to 20 days in jail for failure to pay spousal and child support, according to an attorney for his ex-wife.

As of March 1, Rodman, 51, owed $808,935 in back child support for the 9- and 10-year-old children that he had with his third wife, Michelle Rodman, said her attorney, Jack Kayajanian, in court documents.

Rodman also owed $51,441 through March 1 in back spousal support, Kayajanian alleged in court documents.

Michelle Rodman, identified in court papers as a Costa Mesa resident, is also requesting attorneys’ fees, according to the Daily Pilot.

Dennis Rodman’s attorney, Linnea Willis, said in court documents that the former Laker is barely capable of paying for his living expenses, let alone the $5,000 he has for one child from another relationship, and the $4,500 monthly payment for spousal and child support to Michelle Rodman.

The attorneys who have represented him to date have worked pro bono, Willis said.

“Respondent Dennis Rodman is broke and cannot afford any additional fees,” according to court documents filed on his behalf.

He is “extremely sick” and his marketability is diminishing with age and illness, according to court documents.

Rodman, who played on championship Chicago Bulls teams with Michael Jordan before coming to the Lakers, often led the NBA in rebounds. He has a long history with Newport Beach, whose police were called to his Seashore Drive home in West Newport 80 times during the eight years he lived there.

At the time his third wife filed for divorce, he listed his monthly expenses as more than $30,000, according to a 2004 article in the Los Angeles Times. Michelle Rodman listed her monthly expenses as $17,000.

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by | November 25, 2011

Black Friday Shopper pepper sprays crowd to get deal at L.A. Wal-Mart, shootings in California

Only in California will you find people that are willing to use pepper spray and guns to get deals on Black Friday. It should be noted that these crimes happened in the barrios and ghettos we call WalMart.

Black Friday took an ugly turn at a Los Angeles Wal-Mart when a female shopper -desperate to get her hands on discounted electronics-pepper sprayed a crowd to keep them away from the merchandise she wanted.

At least 20 shoppers suffered minor injuries and police are still looking for the woman.

The melee began shortly after 10:20 p.m. Thursday as shoppers prowling for Black Friday deals were let inside the store.

The suspect began shooting the pepper spray when the coverings of items she wanted were removed, according to police.

“Somehow she was trying to use [the pepper spray] to gain an upper hand,” police Lt. Abel Parga said.

Witnesses described the frenzied scene to the Los Angeles Times, describing how shoppers-gone-wild tore down video game displays, trampled merchandise and shoved each other for the deeply-discounted goods.

“People started screaming, pulling and pushing each other, and then the whole area filled up with pepper spray,” Alejandra Seminario, 24, told the newspaper.

After the competitive shopper unleashed the chemicals, Seminario said she began to cough and her face began to itch.

“I guess what triggered it was people started pulling the plastic off the pallets and then shoving and bombarding the display of games. It started with people pushing and screaming because they were getting shoved onto the boxes,” she added.

Chaos also erupted at a Fayetteville, N.C. mall after gunfire erupted. Police are looking for two suspects. Luckily no one was injured.

In addition, a discount-seeking shopper was shot and critically wounded during a robbery outside a Wal-Mart in San Leandro, Calif.

And in Myrtle Beach, S.C., a 55-year-old woman was also shot and injured during a robbery attempt near a Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart came under the microscope on Black Friday in 2008, when a store employee died after a mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through a Long Island store front and trampled the to death.

Despite the mayhem in Los Angeles, the store remained opened and those not affected by the pepper spray continued to hunt for bargains.

“I don’t care,” Nakeasha Contreras, a 20 year old who arrived after the incident, told the Times. “I’m still getting my TV.”

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by | June 3, 2011

Gunsmoke’ Star James Arness Dies at 88

James Arness, the 6′ 7″ actor best known for playing Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke for 20 years, has died. He was 88.

Arness passed away of natural causes Friday, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Arness’s death comes a year after his brother, Mission Impossible actor Peter Graves, died of a heart attack at age 83.

Arness was born May 26, 1923, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, starting out as a radio announcer in Minnesota in 1945.

He eventually moved to Los Angeles, where he landed his big break in 1947, starring opposite Loretta Young in the film The Farmer’s Daughter.

During his career, Arness befriended John Wayne who was instrumental in helping him score the role of Marshal Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke. (CBS originally wanted Wayne for the part; he declined and suggested Arness.) During his 20 years on the show, he was nominated for three Emmys.

The show, one of the longest running dramatic series ever produced, was cancelled in 1975. Arness made four Gunsmoke movies for TV.

From 1976 through 1979 he starred in the television miniseries How the West Was Won. His last TV series, the police drama Big Jim McLain, aired in the early 1980s.

He is survived by his wife Janet, three sons and three grandchildren.

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