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Fourmile Fire: Boulder County officials working this morning to estimate size … – Daily Camera

admin — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:30:37 +0000

Boulder County officials said they do not have an update yet this morning on the current status of the fire that began in Fourmile Canyon on Monday morning before scorching thousands of acres and destroying an unknown number of homes.

Firefighters hoped to contain the fire through the night, keeping the blaze to the 3,500 acres reported at about 9:30 p.m. Monday.

Officials have been working through the night to get a handle on the fire’s current size and the extent of the damage, according to a staff member at the Boulder County Emergency Operations Center. An update on the condition of the fire is scheduled for 9 a.m.

After winds died down Monday afternoon, three aircraft were able to fly 18 sorties and drop 40,000 gallons of fire retardant, according to Boulder County officials.

Slurry bombers were transferred to the tanker base at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield and were active Monday, said Steve Segin, spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center, which manages the fleet of slurry bombers.

Three planes were available, including two heavy tankers capable of carrying 2,000 to 3,000 gallons. They were flown in from airfields in Grand Junction and Rapid City, S.D.

“They’re available, but they might not fly,” Segin said. “What these aircraft are used for are slowing things down and reinforcing the line.”

If the Fourmile Fire is contained or controlled, the planes could be transferred to other hotspots around the country, Segin said.

Those aircraft will be fighting to drop as much retardant as possible before winds pick up again this afternoon. The wind today is expected to blow between 5 and 13 mph before increasing a bit this evening with gusts up to 21 mph, according to the National Weather Service. There is no chance of precipitation in today’s forecast.

An emergency shelter was set up last night at the Coors Event Center on the University of Colorado campus, but only 12 people took advantage of it, according to Boulder County spokeswoman Barbara Halpin. All other emergency shelters initially set up by the Red Cross have been closed because most evacuated residents made arrangements to stay elsewhere.

Boulder Canyon Drive is open this morning in both directions, but Fourmile Canyon Drive and Sugarloaf Road remain closed. Lefthand Canyon Drive and James Canyon Drive have also been reopened from U.S. 36 to Jamestown. But Lefthand Canyon Drive remains closed between Lee Hill drive and Lick Skillet Road.

The Boulder Valley School District has closed its mountain schools today, which include Gold Hill, Jamestown and Nederland elementary schools, as well as Nederland Middle/Senior High school. All Boulder Valley mountain school bus routes that serve schools in Boulder are also canceled.

Boulder County has set up an incident call center to assist residents affected by the fire. The number for the center is 303-413-7737, and residents are asked to call this number instead of 911 unless there is an emergency to report.

Fourmile Fire: Boulder County officials working this morning to estimate size … – Daily Camera is a post from: ThisCloud.net

Charo to show off her guitar skills during her upcoming visit to The Villages – Villages Daily Sun

admin — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 07:03:46 +0000

THE VILLAGES — If the idea of Charo playing an acoustic guitar doesn’t compute in your mind, the entertainer has a surprise for you.

“‘Cuchi-cuchi’ is where I get the money,” Charo said. “When I sit on the stool and play guitar, that’s where I get the respect.

“If someone’s at the entrance (of an auditorium), they’ll see a poster (of me) and say, ‘Oh, she’s fun.’ ‘How old is she?’ On the way out, the same people are saying, ‘Oh, goodness gracious. I never expected that.’”

Charo plans on wowing audiences with her guitar work when she returns to The Villages to perform at 5 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Tuesday at Katie Belle’s as part of its Up Close and Personal Series.

Local vocalist Mary Jo Vitale is opening the concert.

Doors for the 5 p.m. show open at 3:30 p.m., and people must be seated by 4 p.m., while doors for the 8:30 p.m. show open at 7:15 p.m., and people must be seated by 7:45 p.m.

The 5 p.m. show will include dinner, while the 8:30 p.m. show will have appetizer and dessert service.

Tickets for the show are $ 30-$ 45 for residents and $ 35-50 for the public, and are available by calling Katie Belle’s at 750-9411 or the Cattle Baron Club at 750-5981.

Charo said that her Katie Belle’s performance will feature a new show full of flamenco and classical music on the acoustic guitar, as well as bits of comedy.

“The show is so hot and new,” Charo said. “The music, it goes to your soul. I’m very excited.”

She enjoys playing a more intimate setting so people can see her fingerwork on the guitar. If she is playing in front of a larger crowd, she will put more spectacle into her show.

Charo, who said she lives in Beverly Hills, Calif., Las Vegas, Hawaii, and numerous hotel rooms, last performed in The Villages in 2007.

“It was a tremendous audience full of life,” Charo said.

Charo was born Maria Rosario Pilar Martinez Molina Baeza in the town of Murcia, Spain.

“I try so hard to talk without an accent,” Charo said. “It’s probably so deep in my DNA, the Castillian style. I don’t think I’m doing too good.”

At the age of 7, Charo got a guitar that had belonged to a gypsy. A local man who played flamenco guitar every night showed Charo how to play the instrument.

“I could not believe what that small instrument (was creating), the sound, the harmony,” Charo said. “It turned into a passion.”

Two years later, Charo decided she wanted to make the guitar her main instrument.

Her parents took her to Madrid where Andrés Segovia held his guitar school. She auditioned and was accepted.

“I was jumping like a jumping bean,” Charo said when she learned the news.

For seven years, she studied classical guitar at Segovia’s school.

“I studied music the right way,” Charo said. “I learned to write a score. Once in a while, Segovia would show up. He’d give this speech, then say, ‘Play something.’”

At the age of 16, Charo graduated from the school with honors.

She soon joined Xavier Cugat and his band, and they headed across the ocean to Las Vegas. This was during a time when flamenco wasn’t well-known in America.

“Flamenco is like good sangria,” Charo said. “It’s powerful, a high. They know what it is now; it’s an art. (Back then) they weren’t ready for this music.

“Then I said, ‘Cuchi-cuchi.’ I did what the producer wanted.”

Throughout her career, Charo made more than 45 appearances on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” and she was a regular guest on “The Love Boat” and “Hollywood Squares.”

She returned to her classical and flamenco guitar roots when she created such albums as 1994’s “Guitar Passion” and 2005’s “Charo and Guitar.”

Her dance-club version of “España Cañi,” a song played during bullfights, became part of a music video called “España Cañi: Dance, Don’t Bullfight” that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is using to protest bullfighting.

And this weekend, Charo will be making her 23rd appearance on Jerry Lewis’ Muscular Dystrophy Association Labor Day telethon.

Charo considers her career path a combination of “family and education and luck.”

“(Playing the guitar is) what keeps my career going,” Charo said. “I’ve never rested as one type (of performer). Now is the moment. I don’t dwell in the past.

“Music is my high. It’s an incredible feeling.”

Michael Fortuna is a reporter with the Daily Sun. He can be reached at 753-1119, ext. 9234, or michael.fortuna[at]thevillagesmedia.com.

Charo to show off her guitar skills during her upcoming visit to The Villages – Villages Daily Sun is a post from: ThisCloud.net

Putnam County Flood–A Photo Story…Plus Emergency Report From Brandon Smith, EMS – UC Daily News

admin — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:04:11 +0000

This morning there were many blocked roads, stranded motorists and citizens, and several accidents due to the magnitude of the flash flooding that pummeled Putnam County, Tennessee and some of the surrounding areas.

The pictures are labeled and tell the story.

Video will be forthcoming.

This report just in from the Cookeville-Putnam County Emergency Management Agency
700 County Services Drive, Cookeville, TN 38501, Phone: (931) 528-7575

Widespread Flooding / Water Rescue Report:

Water Reports:
– Cookeville Water Treatment Plant recorded 8.5” rainfall this date prior to 12pm CST.

Damage Estimates:
- Widespread flooding throughout Cookeville and the Western areas of Putnam County(near Baxter.)
- Home flooded off of foundation (2530 Dyer Long Road)
- State Highway 70 was closed, for a short period of time, to traffic in the Echo Valley area (between Cookeville and Baxter) due to flash flooding.

- State Highway 290(Gainesboro Grade) closed for flash flooding temporarily at intersection of Shipley Road.
- Bridge washed out on Pippin Road near Water Mill Road

- Timber Trail off Dodson Branch Road(state hwy 135) natural gas main ruptured under flood waters.
- A train reported to be hauling large quantities of sand was derailed on Fisk Road near Cookeville High School when it is reported that the tracks were washed away beneath the train. No injuries were sustained in that incident.

- Many county roads remain closed due to flooding or damage from flooding this afternoon.

Resources:
- Putnam County 911 Center(first call for help at 8:13am CST) and Putnam County Swiftwater Rescue team became inundated with rescue requests and immediately requested activation of the Tennessee Assosciation of Rescue Squads’ State Swiftwater Rescue Team, which responded with swiftwater resources to Putnam County from Smith County, Wilson County, Rutherford County, Cumberland County, Jackson County, and Smyrna.

- Tennessee Highway Patrol also responded with air support via a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter to help survey damaged areas and spot stranded victims.

- TEMA also sent a representative to the Putnam County Emergency Operations Center to help coordinate resources.

Word just in from State Rep. Henry Fincher:

Been on the phone with the Governors office and with TN Emerg Mgt Agency… agents are heading to Putnam County to assess damage in preparation of hopefully issuing a disaster declaration.

Please keep the affected families in your thoughts and prayers as we recover from this morning’s flood.

Putnam County Flood–A Photo Story…Plus Emergency Report From Brandon Smith, EMS – UC Daily News is a post from: ThisCloud.net

Daily Kos appoints new pollster after Research 2000 row – Research Magazine

admin — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 01:03:22 +0000

US— Political blog the Daily Kos has appointed Public Policy Polling to carry out election polling on the site.

The website is currently taking its previous pollster, Research 2000, to court after a trio of statisticians raised doubts over the reliability of the weekly polls the firm was carrying out.

Markos Moulitsas (pictured), founder of the Daily Kos, said: “We obviously wanted a credible firm to excise the ghost of R2K, but we also wanted an accurate one.”

He added that PPP would be releasing all the raw data associated with its polls, something he said “no other pollster has ever done”.

The website has also appointed another pollster to carry out its weekly State of the Nation polls, but is keeping the identity of the new firm under wraps for a “few weeks”.

Have your say

Daily Kos appoints new pollster after Research 2000 row – Research Magazine is a post from: ThisCloud.net

PPP To Poll For Daily Kos

admin — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 00:05:44 +0000

Markos Moulitsas, who first fired his former polling partner Research 2000 in June and subsequently filed suit alleging that polling conducted by that firm was fraudulent, announced this afternoon that his DailyKos website will soon resume polling with two new partners: Public Policy Polling (PPP) for “horserace” polling in statewide contests and another pollster to be named later for national surveys. The first survey, to be fielded in Delware, will be released next week.

Moulitsas was also quick to tweet what will amount to a new standard in polling disclosure:

And while we won’t be able to do it next week, both pollsters have agreed to RELEASE ALL RAW DATA. We just have to figure out the logistics.

Access to raw data will mean that anyone with basic statistical software will be able to use the data to run their own tabulations or analysis. While many national media pollsters provide such raw data to academic archives like the Roper Center for Public Opinion and the Pew Research Center provides it on their website, those resources are usually available many months after the results are released.

Tom Jensen, PPP’s polling director, provided this reaction for The Huffington Post:

We’re very excited for the opportunity, especially because Daily Kos has shown such a strong interest in surveying ‘under polled’ races over the years. We’re looking forward to getting data out there in states like Delaware, where we’re kicking off, that don’t usually see a lot of public polling. We’re also glad in a time when a few bad apples have cast a shade over the polling industry to let people see that we’re really doing our work. We really appreciate Markos’ commitment to transparency and are happy to partner with him on that

UPDATE: Markos posts more details to Daily Kos, including news that they “hope to be back up to pre-scandal polling frequencies by September” as well as this comment:

I’m so excited about all of this I can barely contain myself. While the R2K mess has been a nightmare, it has opened up new possibilities — the ability to work with some of the most accomplished pollsters in the biz, and break new ground by providing unparalleled transparency.

His post also notes that PPP was one of only two pollsters from a short list of those he considers most accurate that was available to do “horserace” polling. He explains that automated pollster SurveyUSA “couldn’t do horserace polling because of exclusivity contracts with other media organizations.” Could that be a clue to the identity of the yet-to-be announced pollster that will conduct non-horserace “weekly State of the Nation national polling” for DailyKos?”

Get HuffPost Politics On Twitter, Facebook, and Google Buzz! Subscribe to the new HuffPost Hill newsletter! Know something we don’t? E-mail us at huffpolitics[at]huffingtonpost.com

PPP To Poll For Daily Kos is a post from: ThisCloud.net

New York Daily News Reports On Deadspin’s Brett Favre And Jenn Sterger Fiasco

admin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:03:07 +0000

by Dan Fogarty | 10:27 am, August 5th, 2010

The New York Daily News became the first mainstream media outlet to pick up Deadspin’s story on Jenn Sterger and Brett Favre today, interviewing Deadspin Editor A.J. Daulerio on his decision to run the piece.

It’s an ingenious tactic employed by the Daily News. Since they’re running a story on Daulerio’s decision to run his story, they can print all of the juicy but not-yet-proven accusations against Favre that they want. Watch them and Daulerio run the give-and-go:

“What irks me a little bit is when people put us in the same category as The New York Times or you guys,” Daulerio said, referring to the Daily News. “We’ve run rumors and innuendo from the get-go. That’s what we do.”

The controversy dates back to just before the Super Bowl, when Sterger, currently a reporter on Versus’ “The Daily Line,” told Daulerio that Favre had sent her flirty voicemails and naughty pictures in 2008, when she was working for the Jets.

Everyone wins: the Daily News gets to publish details about Favre’s “naughty pictures” (except not really!), Deadspin.com gets coverage in a paper with a daily circulation of 632,595, and I get to write another post with “Favre and Sterger Fiasco” in the headline. Call it the page view circle of life.

New York Daily News Reports On Deadspin’s Brett Favre And Jenn Sterger Fiasco is a post from: ThisCloud.net

Book review: Hitch a ride – Daily News & Analysis

admin — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 09:04:45 +0000

Book: Hitch-22
Christopher Hitchens
Atlantic Books
Pg 422
Rs 599

A look at the index of author, journalist and polemicist Christopher Hitchens’ memoir is enough to convey that the man wants you to know he’s rubbed shoulders with the famous and infamous, been friends with the who’s who, and travelled to more countries than you can point to on an atlas. Famous for his shift from the Trotskyite Left to the American right and his abrasive opinions on a variety of subjects from Mother Teresa to the non-existence of the Almighty, his Hitch-22 is a capacious volume that unpacks an incident-filled life.

He tells us that quite early in life, when dealing with a schoolyard bully, he discovered that words can be weapons. An insight gilded later by the observation that “if you can give a decent speech in public or cut any kind of figure on the podium, then you need never dine or sleep alone”.His style can be prolix, not to mention allusive, as though the pen is hurrying up to put on to paper all that his mind teems with.

Those who seek the outspokenness that he is famous for will not be disappointed. There are broadsides against figures such as Gore Vidal and Susan Sontag, as well as assertions such as “the Nobel Prize is a huge bore and fraud”; “I neither know nor care anything about sports”; and “Cuban socialism was too much like a boarding school in one way and too much like a church in another”.

It was at Oxford that Hitchens’ interest in the Left Movement was awakened, and there are several passages dealing with his interactions with the International Socialists: the debates, the meetings, the conversions. Here, too, Hitchens was to make two of the friends he still swears by, Martin Amis and James Fenton.

He also confesses his dalliance with bisexuality, claiming to have slept with two men who later went on to become members of the Thatcher cabinet. That the two remain unnamed is one of the rare instances of restraint in the book.

In 1981, Hitchens moved to New York, writing for The Nation and other publications, and this awakened a deep love for the United States, made official by his receiving citizenship two decades later. With a convert’s zeal, he spends several paragraphs describing his passport. After the events of 9/11, he swore “a sort of oath to remain coldly furious until those hateful forces had been brought to a most strict and merciless account”. This, among other things, meant renouncing his Left credentials as well as supporting the second Gulf War, something that drew howls of protest from his former compatriots.

His coterie of comrades remains impressive, something he draws attention to time and again. (In fact, the words “my dear friend” recur more often than one can count.) Salman Rushdie is another close ally, whose defence he sprang to immediately after the fatwa, which also made him reinforce what he stands for: “In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humour, the individual, and the defense of free expression. Plus, of course, friendship…”

A Freudian would observe that much of Hitchens’ self-regard and indeed his thick skin arose from his close relationship with his mother, Yvonne, who, by her son’s warm and moving account, was a sparkling, supportive personality. (She was tragically to commit suicide while in Athens.) It was Yvonne who once proclaimed, “If there’s an upper class in this country, Christopher is going to be in it” — words that bring to mind the statement of one of Hitchens’ heroes, George Orwell: “I belong to the lower-upper-middle class”.

Much later, Hitchens was also to discover that she had kept her Jewish ancestry secret.

Though he may like to give the impression that his life is a constant round of parties, friends and alcohol, it’s clear that he’s an extremely hard worker. As he writes, “on average I produce at least a thousand words of printable copy every day, and sometimes more. I have never missed a deadline. I give a class or a lecture or a seminar perhaps four times a month and have never been late for an engagement”.

The title Hitch-22 refers to a state of ‘doubleness’ that Hitchens says he inhabits — for example, fighting for workers’ rights in the morning and attending a long, drunken Notting Hill lunch in the afternoon. As he writes, “What I hope to do now is give some idea of what it is like to fight on two fronts at once, to try and keep opposing ideas alive in the same mind, even occasionally to show two faces at the same time.” Whatever else you may say about him — and people say a lot — there’s no denying that he pours himself into whatever takes his fancy, and marshals all arguments possible against what doesn’t.

Book review: Hitch a ride – Daily News & Analysis is a post from: ThisCloud.net

Tolliver wins third Tahoe celebrity golf title – Daily Hosted News (blog)

admin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 02:03:24 +0000

Billy Joe Tolliver, the former NFL quarterback, collected 26 points on Sunday to easily cruise to a record-setting victory at the American Century Championship. Read more… Tolliver wins third Tahoe celebrity golf title – Daily Hosted News (blog) is a … Continue reading →

Tolliver wins third Tahoe celebrity golf title – Daily Hosted News (blog) is a post from: ThisCloud.net

CWBusiness: Rib Mountain Olive Garden … – Wausau Daily Herald

admin — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 19:03:24 +0000

Porn actors Amanda Logue, Jason Andrews indicted for murder of Florida tattoo … – New York Daily News

admin — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 16:03:09 +0000

BY Sean Alfano

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, July 16th 2010, 3:12 PM

A pair of porn actors are starring in a real-life murder mystery.

The X-rated boyfriend and girlfriend stabbed and pummeled a Florida tattoo artist with a sledgehammer, detectives said Friday.

Amanda Logue, a lingerie shop owner who also dabbled in prostitution, and Jason Andrews, a Chicago deejay, stand accused of the May 15 murder, police said, pointing to poorly spelled, profanity-laced text messages the couple exchanged before the killing as proof.

In one text, Logue said she wanted to have sex with Andrews after they killed Dennis (Scooter) Abrahamsen at his Tampa-area home, police said.

“I’m so glad you’re really commited to this take. Keep eyes for a knife, etc for me!” Andrews texted shortly before the murder, police said.

A grand jury indicted the two on first-degree murder charges.

The couple spent April and May in Florida starring in porn videos and hanging out at the beach, according to their Twitter accounts.

Logue spent the night before the murder at a party at Abrahamsen’s house, where she was allegedly hired to have sex oncamera, while Andrews waited outside the house in his car.

“Just get him on his face either bash or tell me to get in and. Where to go.” Andrews wrote in one text.

Logue replied, “I’m horny,” and Andrews told her to take her time.

Nearly a day later, Abrahamsen was found dead on a massage table in a room with blood-splattered walls.

The porn pair also stole ,000 from Abrahamsen police said.

Andrews and Logue were arrested on May 18 as they tried to use Abrahamsen’s credit card, but police didn’t have enough evidence to connect them to the murder.

Scared, the couple went their separate ways until their arrests in different states this week.

According to an affidavit, Logue denied she was involved in the killing, and told police Andrews did it and made her “view Abrahamsen’s crushed skull and told her that’s what would happen to her if she told anyone.”

Logue is being held without bail at a Florida county jail. Andrews was arrested in Chattanooga, Tenn., and will stay there until he can be extradited.

With News Wire Services

Porn actors Amanda Logue, Jason Andrews indicted for murder of Florida tattoo … – New York Daily News is a post from: ThisCloud.net