Almost 57 years after he was killed in an “explosion of fire” while trying to save fellow firefighters during the Hacienda Brush Fire in 1955, Los Angeles County Fire Captain Glenn Rockey will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Valor by Fire Chief Daryl L. Osby. Rockey will be among 25 members of the Los Angeles County Fire Department and 16 citizen heroes honored at the 2012 Valor Awards on May 21, at 7 p.m., at the Pasadena Convention Center.

As a special tribute, Randolph Mantooth and Kevin Tighe, best known to audiences as Los Angeles County Fire Department Paramedics Johnny Gage and Roy DeSoto in the beloved 1970s television show “Emergency!,” will attend the award ceremony as special guests.

Highlights of this year’s awards program include the crew of West Hollywood Fire Station 7 for assisting the City of Los Angeles Fire Department during a house fire and bravely working to free veteran LAFD Firefighter Paramedic Glen Allen from entrapment inside the collapsed home, suffering major injuries in their attempts. In other emergency incidents, ordinary citizens who stepped up in extraordinary moments of bravery to assist firefighters or perform rescues themselves are also being honored. Many of these heroes are teenagers who took quick actions and rescued victims from the ocean, a backyard pool, a remote motorbike trail, and also during the highly publicized stabbing of a South East High School student last September.

The award categories, which include Unit Citation, Certificate of Valor, and the celebrated Medal of Valor, will be presented for 20 separate incidents. According to Fire Chief Osby, “The Medal of Valor is the highest honor bestowed upon a member of Department. It is given to those members who have exhibited courage above and beyond the call of duty, risking their own lives to save another under conditions that place them at extreme personal risk. I am proud to announce that five members of our organization will go home with this prestigious award next Monday night.”

The Los Angeles County Fire Department is an international leader of the fire service and one of the largest emergency service agencies in the world, providing fire protection and life safety services to more than four million people living and working in the County’s 2,300-square-mile area, and around the globe whenever needed. Visit www.fire.lacounty.gov, or find them on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Photo Caption:

On September 2 1955, Los Angeles County Fire Captain Glenn E. Rockey was killed on this La Habra Heights hillside during the Hacienda Fire, which also took the young lives of five members of the Los Angeles County Probation Forestry Camp 5-1, and severely burned seven others. Fire investigators mark the spots where some of the men were killed. (Los Angeles County Fire Department Historical Archives)

(From the ft.com) Andrea Stautberg, 27, and her husband James wanted to buy a house after finishing graduate school in 2009. But in the face of a tough economic climate, uncertain job prospects and $115,000 in student loan payments, the couple instead decided to save money by living with James’s parents in Texas.

They stayed for more than a year – longer than the three months they had planned – before deciding to rent a flat.

“We are looking to buy a house, but have yet to get preapproved,” said Ms Stautberg. “We lived with his parents for as long as we did to pay back our student loans and still save for a down payment.”

The Stautbergs’s story illustrates how difficult it has become for young Americans to buy their first homes, despite low interest rates and years of declining house prices. The number of first-time buyers fell last year – they made up only 37 per cent of home purchases in 2011, down from 51 per cent in 2010 – sapping the struggling US housing market of a traditional source of vitality.

Read more here: Young Americans delay purchase of homes

The City of Santa Clarita is calling on local businesses to rally their employees and compete in the 9^th annual Bike to Work Day Challenge on Thursday, May 17, 2012.

“Biking to work takes cars off the road, relieves traffic congestion, and saves money on gas,” says a City official. “Bicycles are our greenest form of transportation and by participating in this friendly competition, residents can help decrease carbon emissions, improve air quality, and contribute to making Santa Clarita a greener and healthier community,” he continued.

The competition will be broken down into three categories: small businesses (2-10 active employees); medium businesses (11-100 active employees); and large businesses (100 or more active employees). Businesses with the highest participation rate in each category will win a gift certificate to the restaurant of their choice, and free frozen yogurt from Golden Spoon for each employee.

Santa Clarita Bike to Work Day participants will get reenergized and enjoy free refreshments, giveaways, and cycling information at four different pit stops stationed across the City while biking to work.

Pit stops will be located at:

1. City Hall, located at 23920 Valencia Boulevard
2. Bouquet Junction, located at the corner of Valencia Boulevard and Bouquet Canyon Road
3. South Fork Trail access, located at the corner of Newhall Avenue and 16th Street
4. Santa Clara River Trail access, located at the corner of Camp Plenty and Soledad Canyon Road

Participants will also be entered into a raffle for prizes including KHS bicycles, high-quality cycling gear, gift certificates, movie tickets, and more. Bicyclists can be eligible to win additional prizes from Los Angeles Metro by pledging to participate in the Bike to Work Day Challenge online at Metro.net/BikeToWork.

Interested businesses should designate a “lead rider” to be responsible for registering their business for the Santa Clarita Bike to Work Day Challenge. Lead riders will act as the point of contact and are required to submit a list of bicyclists to City Event Coordinator Laura Jardine at (661) 255-4376 or ljardine@santa-clarita.com.

For more information about the Bike to Work Day Challenge, visit GreenSantaClarita.com.

(From Science Daily) For the first time, researchers have been able to combine different climate models using spatial statistics — to project future seasonal temperature changes in regions across North America.

The analysis, developed by statisticians at Ohio State University, examines groups of regional climate models, finds the commonalities between them, and determines how much weight each individual climate projection should get in a consensus climate estimate.

Through maps on the statisticians’ website , people can see how their own region’s temperature will likely change by 2070 — overall, and for individual seasons of the year.

Given the complexity and variety of climate models produced by different research groups around the world, there is a need for a tool that can analyze groups of them together, explained Noel Cressie, professor of statistics and director of Ohio State’s Program in Spatial Statistics and Environmental Statistics.

Cressie and former graduate student Emily Kang, now at the University of Cincinnati, present the statistical analysis in a paper published in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation.

“One of the criticisms from climate-change skeptics is that different climate models give different results, so they argue that they don’t know what to believe,” he said. “We wanted to develop a way to determine the likelihood of different outcomes, and combine them into a consensus climate projection. We show that there are shared conclusions upon which scientists can agree with some certainty, and we are able to statistically quantify that certainty.”

For their initial analysis, Cressie and Kang chose to combine two regional climate models developed for the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program. Though the models produced a wide variety of climate variables, the researchers focused on temperatures during a 100-year period: first, the climate models’ temperature values from 1971 to 2000, and then the climate models’ temperature values projected for 2041 to 2070. The data were broken down into blocks of area 50 kilometers (about 30 miles) on a side, throughout North America.

Read more here: Statistical Analysis Projects Future Temperatures in North America

IN THE HOUSE

The House convenes at 10:00 a.m. for morning hour and 12:00 p.m. for legislative business.

First votes are expected between 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.

Last votes are expected between 4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

One Minute Speeches (15 per side)

H.R. 4970 – Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2012 (Closed Rule, One Hour of Debate)(Sponsored by Rep. Sandy Adams / Judiciary Committee / Energy and Commerce Committee / Education and the Workforce Committee / Financial Service Committee)

H.R. 5740 – To extend the National Flood Insurance Program, and for other purposes (Suspension, 40 minutes of debate) (Sponsored by Rep. Judy Biggert / Financial Services Committee)

Begin Consideration of H.R. 4310 – National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013
(General Debate Rule, One Hour of Debate) (Sponsored by Rep. Buck McKeon / Armed Service Committee)

Postponed Votes on Legislation Considered Under Suspension of the Rules:

1) H.R. 4119 – Border Tunnel Prevention Act of 2012 (Sponsored by Rep. Silvestre Reyes / Judiciary Committee)
2) H.R. 2621 – Chimney Rock National Monument Establishment Act (Sponsored by Rep. Scott Tipton / Natural Resources Committee)
3) H.R. 2745 – To amend the Mesquite Lands Act of 1986 to facilitate implementation of a multispecies habitat conservation plan for the Virgin River in Clark County, Nevada, as amended (Sponsored by Rep. Joe Heck / Natural Resources Committee)
4) H.Res. 568 – Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the importance of preventing the Government of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, as amended (Sponsored by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen / Foreign Affairs Committee)

Special Order Speeches

House voting on violence bill, draws veto threat  -  The House is voting on a Republican-written bill to renew the Violence Against Women Act, but the White House has threatened to veto it. (AP)

IN THE SENATE

The Senate convenes at 9:30am.

Following the prayer and pledge, the Majority Leader will be recognized.

Following Leader remarks, the Senate will proceed to the consideration of motions to proceed to several budget resolutions, en bloc. There will be up to 6 hours for debate on the motions to proceed, equally divided and controlled between the two Leaders or their designees. Upon the use or yielding back of time (at approximately 4:00pm if all time is used), the Senate will conduct up to 5 roll call votes on the motion to proceed to each concurrent resolution. There will be 2 minutes of debate between each vote and all votes after the first vote will be 10 minutes in duration.

Reid Moves to Force U.S. Senate Vote on Two Fed Nominees  -  U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid moved to force a vote on two nominees to the Federal Reserve Board, setting the stage for a vote as early as this week. (Bloomberg)

OTHER NEWS

Earmarks still have friends in high places  -  A provision for a uranium-enrichment plant in Ohio keeps cropping up all over Capitol Hill: $150 million in the Senate’s highway bill, $150 million in a Senate energy bill, $100 million in that bill’s House counterpart. There’s even talk of putting it in a final House-Senate transportation bill. (Politico)

Senate approves renewal of export bank  -  The U.S. Senate approved a bill that would reauthorize and increase funds for the Export-Import Bank, a federal trade bank that helps boost U.S. exports, delivering to President Obama one of his administration’s top priorities for job growth as he seeks re-election. (USA Today)

Boehner talks tough on debt ceiling again  -  Government shutdowns are bad, but increasing the federal debt ceiling this fall without deep cuts in federal spending would be even worse, House Speaker John Boehner declared yesterday in a stark challenge to President Barack Obama. (Columbus Dispatch)

Senate devotes a day to the federal budget  -  For lack of a battle outside of the debt-limit debate, the Senate on Wednesday is expected to discuss and vote on several Republican budget resolutions, mostly just to show that Democrats won’t support them. (The Hill)

Obama issues veto threat against House defense bill  -  President Barack Obama threatened on Tuesday to veto a defense policy bill in the House of Representatives that would authorize higher Pentagon spending and tie his hands on national security issues from nuclear arms reductions to handling war detainees. (Reuters)

FEDERAL GRANT OF THE DAY

Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE): Training Program for Federal TRIO Programs- The Training Program provides grants to train the staff and leadership personnel employed in, participating in, or preparing for employment in, projects funded under the Federal TRIO Programs to improve the operation of these projects. There are five priorities of the training programs, the first being Training to Improve — Reporting student and project performance; and the rigorous evaluation of project performance in order to design and operate a model TRIO project.  For more information on the additional priorities and complete background, see initial grant announcement.

TODAY IN HISTORY

May 16, 1868- On this day, the U.S. Senate failed by one vote to convict President Andrew Johnson as it took its first ballot on one of 11 articles of impeachment against him. (He was acquitted of all charges.)

Source and thanks to www.anchor-consult.com / For more information, contact Anchor Consulting at 703-333-6013

“When I told my doctor I couldn’t afford the operation, he offered to touch up my X-rays.” – Henny Youngman

I’m not real big on doctors to begin with, but, to be fair, if I ever broke or severed anything personal, I’d probably go to a doctor before visiting, oh, say, a monkey. It’s just that being in the syndicated writing business, you have access to all these bizarre stories about medical misconduct and hijinx.

I remember years ago, there was this Dr. Allan Zarkin, one consonant shy of being Allan Arkin. He was that Manhattan physician convicted of carving his initials on the tummy of a lady whom he had just assisted in delivering her baby via a Cesarean section.

NOTE TO MYSELF: Do not order the Caesar’s Salad at lunch today. Probably no connection whatsoever, but why take the chance?

Anyway. Let’s imagine.

You’re the new mom. You get home and you’re thoughtfully scratching your belly button. You feel some alien-like signs on your personal topography. You pull up your blouse, bend over and see the 3-inch initials, “A.Z.” scrawled graffiti-style on your stomach.

I’m not a woman but I guarantee you if that happened to me, the first words out of my mouth would not be, “Gooooo, Wildcats!”

Not to be indelicate here, but I wonder if the woman looked in the mirror, squinched up her face and asked: “What the hell is ‘ZA?’”

As is frequently the case, no matter what the resume or pedigree of the perp, there is The Excuse. Dr. Zarkin claims he “wasn’t himself.”

The 61-year-old obstetrician — and isn’t the mom lucky he didn’t spell THAT on her tummy — was evidently suffering from, “…a frontal lobe disorder.” Life being ironic, this disorder is known by its official name of Pick’s Disease, as in, yes, ice pick.

Both sexes along with the junior varsity genders may all take a moment from the reading of this column to involuntarily tighten their sphincters and self-consciously tuck in their shirts, followed by a folding of the hands around our belt buckles.

Pick’s Disease is sort of like Alzheimer’s, except instead of losing your car in the parking lot and thinking you’re married to your cat, you think you’re Daniel Boone.

“D. Boone killed a bar and delivered a baby

and scratched the particulars on this dang tree.”

Zarkin had been charged with two counts of assault when his patient, Dr. Liana Gedz, a dentist, pointed out that she did not go into the delivery room with the initials of the 48th state on her stomach. Dr. Zarkin faced up to 25 years in prison (in lawyer talk, that translates to 3 months) but cut — (sorry) — a deal with prosecutors. He was placed on five years probation plus agreed “not to practice medicine anywhere.”

Does that bother you or is it just me?

Why do they call it, “practicing” medicine? You’d think after $12 million in medical school loans and a 15-year internship and residency, they’d be beyond the practice stage.

Sorry. Old joke.

You wonder if Zarkin was enrolled in the New York City version of the 99-cent Store HMO.

The lawyers felt that Zarkin would not be a danger to anyone, well, anyone awake, and felt that prison wouldn’t be appropriate because he was a white collar guy just like them. I’m thinking prison is a great place for him. Think of the tattoo work he could do.

Anyway. The physician pleaded to two counts of secondary assault. Isn’t New York something? One count per initial. Can you imagine if the case went to trial, and, bonus, it was moved to Los Angeles? After two years of grueling testimony, the jury finally arrives at the verdict of: “On the first count of Dr. Zarkin carving the letter ‘A’ on the tummy of Dr. Gedz, we find the defendant guilty. On the second count of Dr. Zarkin carving the letter ‘Z’ on the tummy of Dr. Gedz, we find him, not guilty. Guilty is a positive, not-guilty is a negative, they cancel each other out and the misunderstood fella gets to go free. Yay! Hooray! Let’s go have peach margaritas!”

Dr. Gedz, the mom with the first and last letters of the alphabet acting as a minimalist license plate above her navel, says she, “feels like a branded animal.”

She’s suing Beth Israel (the New York medical center, not the nice elderly Jewish manicurist at the Nail Emporium at 2,947th & Broadway) for $5.5 million.

That would be $2.75 million per initial.

How creepy is it to go fainting toward the scalpel while a doctor stands over you singing, “Take this ether and close your eyes, if you wake you’ll have a big surprise!”

The part of me that’s always measuring the angles figures I wouldn’t mind at all having Arizona registration tags on my tummy for $5.5 million, less, oh, maybe $1,500 for the attorney?

With 119 major writing awards, John Boston has been noted as one of America’s top humorists and political satirists. Look for his major new multimedia website, thejohnbostonmagazine.com, to come out this summer.

CCAC Meetings are OPEN TO THE PUBLIC and FREE OF CHARGE.

1. The Sanitation District Staff Returns to Canyon Country Basil Hewitt, Senior Engineer,  LACO Sanitation District will present  Understanding the Chloride Problem in the Santa Clarita Valley
2. The Disclose Act- Legislation that will let us know WHO PAID for that campaign add Presented by Carole Lutness
3. An update from the High Speed Rail Task Force Presented by Rick Drew
4. An opportunity to Join the CCAC 4th of July Float Team, Last year we had a ball.

Plus Information and Updates on:

1. What’s happening at the City Council,
2. The Canyon Country Community Center
3. and much much More……

“Together We Can Make A Difference”; for more information contact Alan J. Ferdman, Chair, Canyon Country Advisory Committee at 661 713-9344

(From the-signal.com) The second phase of the Newhall Ranch project passed its final hurdle for construction approval today as the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a number of permits for the project.

The motion to approve the permits passed 3-1-1, with Supervisor Gloria Molina voting against the permit approval and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky abstaining on the vote.

Newhall Ranch is a planned development that would add more than 20,000 new homes and a number of new commercial areas in the northwest Santa Clarita Valley.

Read more here: Supervisors OK second phase of Newhall Ranch

(From the sacbee.com) As Standard & Poors urged lawmakers Tuesday to pursue “credible” budget solutions to bridge the state’s $16 billion deficit, the ratings agency did not approve of Senate leader Darrell Steinberg’s idea to forego a reserve this year.

Brown built a $1.05 billion reserve into his $91.4 billion general fund budget for 2012-13. Steinberg said yesterday that one idea was to use that money instead on public programs.

Read more here: S&P douses Democratic idea to forego budget reserve

The latest plan for building a California bullet train system got a very conditional blessing Tuesday from a “peer review committee” of transportation experts. Will Kempton, the veteran transportation official who heads the committee, told a Senate hearing that the latest revision is “measurably improved” from previous versions.

“It’s more reasonable and realistic than previous proposals,” said Kempton, who runs the Orange County Transportation Authority.

Senators are weighing whether to give the California High-Speed Rail Authority permission to begin construction on a $6 billion initial segment in the San Joaquin Valley.

Read more here: California high-speed rail project given conditional blessing