- Eric Earle, the Saugus man whose fiance was found dead on her bed in September, has been re-arrested by federal marshals and charged with murder. Earle, 40, was arrested in September but released as detectives had no official cause of death. If convicted, he faces a sentence of 25 years to life for the murder of Karla Brada. KHTSCVTV
- The family of Derek Milsap says the 22 year old Canyon high grad did not die while racing his car against a truck in Escondido. Rather Milsap’s father says his son died after being cut off by the truck. ”Two cars were jockeying for position. We all do it,” according to the father. KHTSCVTV says both vehicles were stopped at an onramp signal and accelerated onto the freeway together. In a sad twist, Milsap was friends with 19 year old Dakota Demott, the man who died in the January 10 crash in Sand Canyon. A vigil for Milsap will be held tonight at the Youth Grove SIGNAL
- Dante Acosta, the father of slain soldier Spc. Rudy Acosta, will not be allowed to tell his son’s story at a House Armed Services Committee next week on the matter of hiring & screening Afghan security contractors. Lots of quotes in the SCVTV story from the HASC spokesman on this. SCVTV
- So long redevelopment agencies, hello again to Enterprise Zones: Redevelopment agencies will close by February 1 as a plan to extend them dies in the Senate. Meanwhile, final certification of Enterprise Zones, like the one serving just about the entire SCV, are moving forward again. SIGNAL, SCVNEWS
- Apolo Anton Ohno, the gold medalist American speed skater, was apparently at Whole Foods recently serving produce to customers on roller blades. Funny video at CBS (ht:Shawna)
- The Humane Society through the DA’s office has awarded $5,000 to a tipster who reported on an “Antelope Valley couple deeply immersed in the blood sport of dogfighting.” Authorities found 11 adult pit bulls at the Lake Los Angeles home of the couple. Sad but encouraging pics at KHTS
- The Defense Department is cancelling plans for a longer-range Global Hawk drone program. The Global Hawk (you can see it here in this YouTube video) is built in Palmdale but seven SCV companies manufacture parts for it according to the SIGNAL
- RFI Realty, apparently the current owners of Whittaker-Bermite, is so broke it can’t even afford to pay a guy to unlock the gates to the sprawling donut hole in the center of the city. Lots of legal maneuvering on this story SIGNAL
- Red flag warning in effect as General Santa Ana exacts his revenge on the SCV ACCUWEATHER
- State GOP chairman endorses Tony Strickland in his run for CA-26 LA TIMES
- Neat: If you’re a recent college graduate interested in public service, Sharon Runner’s office has paid fellowship positions available SCVNEWS
- Don’t miss yesterday’s great National Journal article on the feud between the McKeons and Scott Wilk in the context of the 38th Assembly District race NATIONAL JOURNAL
- Really Patricia blogger alleges Signal is protecting Buck McKeon after the paper apparently pulled an online poll that asked readers for their views on McKeon’s “Friends of Angelo” mortgage RP BLOG
- The Signal’s automatic (or is it?) press release posting system called “This Just In” put up a story from a conservative abstinence group seeking to raise awareness for it’s “Day of Sexual Purity Campaign.” The campaign has nothing to do with the SCV but the PR is there anyway, sharing the same Local News page that I click on every morning for the Brief. THIS JUST IN
- Clyde Smyth was a “true role model of public service” for the SCV says the Signal editorial page SIGNAL Also, an attorney fondly remembers Smyth for his work on numerous local issues, including Porta Bella (remember Porta Bella?) SIGNAL
- Don’t miss this “Shit People say in LA” YouTube video
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Saugus Speedway closure was a scam. A month after government inspectors proclaimed the stands safe, the owners paid a consultant to declare them unsafe, and that brought an end to racing.
I storngly suspet the real reaosn was so NLF could build condos across Soledad and not have noise problems interfering with their sale, and so the owners could sell it for a profitable retail operation.
I miss that old track… nuthing more fun locally than watching figure-8 train demo-derby!
Heck yeah! That was one of my favorite childhood memories! I also remember being in the stands there one time for some tv show that was filming motorcycle stunts.
That place was the coolest thing happening on Saturday nights in SCV. But I used to live over by Saugus high and I can remember hearing the races happening all the way over there. So I can only imagine what the noise would be like in the new development on NR rd if they were still racing.
I remember going in the early 80′s and watching the figure 8 races. My parents used to visit with friends up Seco and I remember you could hear the races all the way up there.
My dad told me when they were shut down that it was the city that did not like the race track for whatever reason and they were behind the shut down.
Went there a couple of times in the 60′s; didn’t like the VROOM VROOM sounds, or the smell. But the races we went to were motorcycle races. When it was announced that we were ‘Go’n to the races!’, I’d hide. Never been a fan; childhood memories do run deep.
My earliest memory of Saugus Speedway was tragic — a young boy in the stands was killed by equipment flying off a racing car. Obviously, I was never a fan!
The place needs to be bulldozed now. Its an eyesore. If not bulldozed, than rehabilitated and put to good use. No, gypsies peddling blue blocker sunglasses on Saturdays is not “good use.”
*disclaimer… I know they’re not all gypsies…
Would be tough to rehab it because you’d probably have environmental issues that they wouldn’t want to address. Wasn’t the water well in front of the Speedway the first one to be shut down for perchlorate?
Ummm, maybe. As long as there is no change to the intended use (which, what is that now?) then I believe you are categorically exempt under CEQA, but that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have to do some remediation during construction. I would think that its just a matter of soil cleanup of what they’d dig out that would be their issue.
No Todd, the speedway/swap meet property owner can’t just go ahead and build on that property. DTSC issued an order that after the City’s planning process for use of the speedway/swap meet property, the owner of that property would have to record deed restrictions prohibiting the building or occupancy of apartments, condos, day care centers, schools, nursing homes, motels, etc. on the “first floor” of that property, because of the risk of up-gassing of carcinogenic volatile organic chemicals into the walls of the mixed use buildings. So you could work all day in an office or store on the property, be gassed by the carcinogenic VOCs coming up through the walls, and it would be OK with DTSC, but places where people sleep or where children would be could not be on that first floor. This sort of deed restriction is commonly used by DTSC to clear VOC contaminated property owned by “innocent land owners” for building “of something not endangering the public health”. DTSC actually has a basic standard form for that deed restriction, which gets edited on a case by case basis. As to the speedway/swap meet property DTSC’s records show that the owner of the speedway/swap meet property DECLINED to sign and record that deed restriction of its own property. (The CAG has DTSC’s records on the speedway/swap meet property, even though DTSC has removed some of them from its Envirostor online.) Presumably, some sort of negotiation for payment of “damages” by Whittaker to the speedway/swap meet property owner may have gone on, but that information is, understandably, private. Unless the City buys the speedway/swap meet property to build second and third story low and very low income housing, as is suggested in the One Valley One Vision General Plan, sadly the owner of the speedway/swap meet property is hampered by those VOCs in the sale or leasing of its property. The open air swap meet may be one of only a few “totally safe” uses of that property from a public health point of view, because there are few spaces for the carcinogenic VOC gases to build up in building walls.
No, Need for Involved Citizenry, the “Stadium Well” was the 5th or 6th well to be shut down because of perchlorate. I say 5th or 6th because Valencia Water Company secretly shut down the second of their contaminated wells, and it’s hard to prove the date Valencia’s shut down. The Whittaker Bermite CAG and Santa Clarita Water Company (owned by CLWA) watched with horror as the plume of contamination crept closer and closer to the Stadium Well between 1999 and 2002, because the Stadium Well was one of the largest drinking water producers in the SCV. The area around the Stadium Well, as well as much of the land on which the speedway/swap meet and Metrolink parking lot sit, is now drenched in carcinogenic volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) in the shallow and deep ground water, but the Whittaker consultants claim that the perchorate and VOCs in that area have not gone into the drinking water aquifer under the surface of the riverbed in that area. Right. And the Easter Bunny cut down of the giant Sequoia trees along Soledad Canyon Road in that area too.
“I storngly suspet the real reaosn was so NLF …”
Are you smelling burnt toast?
Burnt toast? An inside joke I am missing?
No, just fumble fingers and a system without a spell check!
LOL… smelling burnt toast is a sign you’re having a stroke.
I got a chuckle out of Bill Kennedy’s editorial in the Signal where says:
“First, any discussion of the future of Santa Clarita must provide for inputs, from all citizens, with the promise that the public’s contribution will influence the decision. The principles here are that no one of us is as smart as all of us combined, and public buy-in is critical to the success of any endeavor.”
Well, I several times expressed my concerns to Mr. Kennedy about SCV’s future as envisioned in the OVOV General Plan and was listened to politely but there was never any further questioning of issues by Mr. Kennedy or real influence that the regular folk were able to exert on this process. It is funny that he even continues this charade.
h community to
If I make any donations to campaigns this year, the first dollar will go to whomever is opposing Tony Strickland in November.
I shall donate to candidates who do not have a spouse in any form of politics, past, present or future.
Are you now a seer? (future spouse politician?)
I have… BRAIN POWER!!!
Why because he’s a yellow-bellied, lily-livered hack who abandoned an “old friend” because he was scared?
If Tony Strickland “endorsed” a supermarket product, it would be Tony Strickland’s Weak Sauce.
Just make sure the rest of the dollars after that first one go to Wilk and whoever is running against Buck(Hopefully a republican in the primary)!
The good doctor will get my money over a GOP challenger against Buck, but if somehow there were two GOPs in Nov., you never know.
I also want to give some money to the guy running against Newt Gingrich in November.
Newt won’t win the nomination. South Carolina was not Romney’s Waterloo. Romney will win Florida by 8 points on Tuesday and SCVers will rejoice.
Interesting that after 3+ years of Tea Party noise, the top two GOP candidates are 1) a Wall Street insider and 2) a Washington insider.
I thought the Tea Party was against insiders of all stripes? Is their power diminished or do they not know what they are doing?
Wishful thinking, of course. I almost always root for the opposition candidate that bothers me the least, but I will make an exception when the worser guy is a lock to lose. (yes, I said worser)
I desperately want Mitt Romney to win the Republican nomination because with an Obama/Romney contest Americans would have two candidates WITHOUT an identifiable mental illness that would represent two different yet sincere views on how to run the country. I would still vote for President Obama but I would not lose a moment of sleep if there was a President Romney.
I’m with you as far as that goes. I would highly favor Obama over Romney, but Romney doesn’t scare me. Maybe it’s his lack of convictions, but I put a premium on pragmatism.
“I would highly favor Obama over Romney”
Mike, I admire your conviction, but it begs the question; exactly how bad does Obama have to screw up before you say “no mas”?
I dig pragmatism too, but only to a point. As best I can see, Romney has no soul and no core.
He will attempt to be all things to whomever he is trying to please. I can’t believe he’s gotten away with his massive flip flops throughout the years, flip flops that make John Kerry look like the Rock of Gibraltar.
The only GOP candidate I would have been semi-comfortable with was Jon Huntsman. But he didn’t pander enough so he’s gone.
If I’m reading the tea leaves correctly, 60% or so of the Republican party isn’t excited about Romney at all. That means he’ll pick some archaeo-conservative as his running mate in order to have a fighting chance in the south (See 2008).
In a Republican, I prefer a principled pragmatist over a principled pragmatist, so even as Huntsman is probably more conservative than Romney, I’d take him over Mitt, for sure. But in a Republican, I will still take an unprincipled pragmatist over an ideologue.
Congratulations to SCVtalk’s LarMcc on the purchase of a 22″ Weber Smokey Mountain cooker. It’s the kind of product that makes you proud to be an American.
May the grilling of dead mammal carcasses commence!
Grilling? GTFOH!
Also, not just mammals. Birds and fish, certainly. Reptiles and amphibians, maybe. Arthropods? Maybe, but they are probably better suited for grilling.
What? What is the right nomenclature for this? I thought the BBQ purists preferred “Grilling” because the n00bs all called it BBQing
People incorrectly call grilling, BBQ. You grill over gas. You bbq using charcoal typically. BBQing is the indirect cooking of meat using smoke.
I have a grill as well. It is easier to use as you light it and go. But I find it better to cook steaks on the grill over very high heat. This sears the meat and locks in the juices.
BBQing is an art form and a labor of love. I typically smoke all kinds of ribs, roasts and chickens. It is done on low temperature, slowly.
My current favorite are buffalo ribs (Whole Foods carries them) smoked over hickory. Pair them with a deep dark petite sirah and you have perfection, IMHO.
Mike is the BBQ king here though, so I would recommend paying attention to anything he says.
ack, you replied while I was typing, but yeah.
Correction though, dudes in food science have recently disproven the long-held assumption that searing locks in juices. It doesn’t. But it’s essential for browning.
There are so many myths when it comes to food prep. I have done steaks over the BBQ and compared them to ones over the grill. You do get the smoky flavor over BBQ, but steaks cooked over high heat on a grill seem to be more tender and juicy. Maybe it’s the quickness of cooking time?
Cooking for a long time can result in water loss, for sure. Best way to do a steak, IMO, is directly over a charcoal and/or hardwood fire, with some time off the heat with the lid on. That’s more for a Weber Kettle than a WSM, or course. But there’s no shame in a gas grill (or even a frying pan) for steaks.
Grilling: hot, fast, over a direct heat. Radiant, conductive and convective heat.
Barbecuing: low and slow with hardwood smoke. Indirect heat, mostly convective.
The n00bs say BBQ when they mean grilling. Larry’s WSM is a genuine BBQ rig.
When are one of you pretenders going to get a BBQ set that you tow behind a truck like they do in Texas?
When I visited Texas and tried some real BBQ, it was like a whole other world. They don’t have EPA regulations there apparently (or they don’t care) they just chop down trees and set them on fire. The whole restaurant smelled like smoke and chewing tobacco.
FYI the restaurant was named after a bull who had never been ridden.
Here’s the thing™:
Go to a competition and you see, almost exclusively, one thing or the other: rigs so big that they have their own license plate or an array of Weber Smokey Mountains. Real recognize real. You don’t see backyard-sized offsets (6′ long rigs with 2 chambers and a chimney) and you don’t really see Green Eggs, either. Eggs are cool and all, but they are way too heavy.
Is pit cooking (in the ground and wrapped in burlap) allowed in Santa Clarita?
I’m sure there is an obscure AQMD prohibition on it… but they’re not in your backyard with a sniffer, are they?
I was down in Lockhart, TX (BBQ capital of the world) at the famous Smittys Market. They have their wood burning on the floor. You have to step around it to get to the counter to order:
http://www.austinpixels.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Smittys.jpg
Amen.
Ahhh … Men … and their BBQs …
Welcome to the club LarMcc!
Thank you all! Yes, it’s a fine American made product. I will be firing it up tomorrow and smoking all sorts of animals.
What time?
This is the test run. I would need to perfect it before I would ever submit it for judgement by my fellow scv talkers. Too much pride.
I’ve long dreamed of a State of the SCV BBQ where it all gets hammered out over some delicious something or other.
I recall offering myself to be a judge the last time this was threatened and I am willing to do so again.
Consider you name in the hat.
Sign me up.
You know I’m down.
I would love to see a SCVTalk BBQ this spring. Question is, would Petz show?
He would. But in typical Petz fashion, he would not BBQ .. he would bring salmon on a plank and grill it.
I find it increasingly funny how more and more conversations devolve (or maybe it’s actually evolve??????) into BBQ threads.
I’m 50/50 on whether or not this is a good or possibly even great thing.
It’s almost always a male-only conversation. The women are busy with real work.
“Real work.”
Is that what they’re calling TV Dinners these days?
(Bracing myself)
I was gonna say: In the kitchen preparing the salads and the dessert?
Unlike barbecue, salads and desserts require a little more than the application of smoke and hot air …. but if you do the dishes and clean the grill, we’ll call it even!
Well, we women aren’t accustomed to throwing a parade every time we put together a meal. But please don’t let that stop you.
No question, its great. Despite our differences, we can all agree…. BBQ is good.
It is a great thing. BBQ should be declared the official American food. Even though all societies have some type of cooking over flame and/or smoke America has taken it to new levels. All types of cooking this way are valid. I love my gas grill as much as my smoker. They are each perfect for the different functions already mentioned.
Congrats Larry on the Weber Smokey Mountain! I’ve been using a cheap Brinkman water smoker of the same style for a few years now. It’s not a bad alternative to the WSB but works like crap out of the box. The firepan does not allow for enough air circulation and the fire smothers out. I learned on the internet that installing a weber charcoal grate about 1″ from the bottom of the firepan corrects the problem and it works awesome. The Brinkman with modification is about $100.
A day rarely goes by without SCVTALK linking to a Buck McKeon story. However, he’s a link to one which is too sad and funny for words:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-auto-drone-20120126,0,740306.story
Buck McKeon on a high level national committee to study drones. Yes, those new ones that fly around without human brains. I guess it takes a man whose “career” involved running a country and western clothing store to provide expert commentary on how to operate without a human brain.