A wall of smoke rises from a fire in the Porter Ranch area that prompted the evacuation of Browns Canyon Road and Oat Mountain Motorway near Chatsworth.

The fires still burn and peoples lives are impacted.

From the Los Angeles Times.

The fast-moving brush fire above Lake View Terrace had residents wondering if their neighborhood would be the next to face the flames.

As they stood on Gavina Avenue on the boundary of the Marek fire, cousins William Alvarez, 17, and Carlos Alvarez, 18, both seniors at Sylmar High School, looked out across the scorched hills where they grew up hiking and playing in the treehouse they built years ago. About a quarter of those still around the periphery of the fire were wearing face masks to protect them from the soot and smoke billowing from the blackened hills.

The younger cousin had awakened at 5:30 a.m. to see orange flames sweeping over terrain above his house on Hubbard Street in northeast Sylmar and ran to Carlos' house on Tibbetts Street to alert the family that "the hills are on fire."

Around 7 a.m., police cars raced by with sirens blaring, warning everyone in the area to evacuate. By 8 a.m., about 10 family members had crowded into the Hubbard Street residence, where the cousins expected to be able to ride out the fire and avoid a second evacuation unless the blaze spread.

"I woke up and there were orange flames everywhere," William Alvarez recalled as he and Carlos stood on Gavina Avenue, looking out toward Kagel Canyon and Lopez Canyon Road. They had recently gone off-trail riding in the area in William's Ford Explorer.

"You could see the flames all through the mountains," said Carlos Alvarez, who described the scene as "like waking up to hell."

"It's crazy, because yesterday it was completely out," he added.

Also viewing the scene from Gavina Avenue was Efren Urbina, 32, a juvenile probations officer for Los Angeles County whose home is just outside the evacuation zone.

"The whole night we heard helicopters but we didn't think much of it," Urbina said. He was alerted to the severity of the blaze when his wife, a teacher at Hubbard Elementary, got a call around 7 a.m. to say the school was closed because of the fire threat.

"I didn't think it was that serious" until then, he said. "This is devastating. This is a tragedy."

He said he has family members in San Diego who have gone through such fires. "It's different when you're living through it and you can smell it," he said.

A firefighter pours water on a structure at the Sky Terrace Mobile Lodge.

UPDATE 12:30 p.m. PST: The 118 Freeway has been closed. There is alot of traffic stuck there as the fire approaches. 

UPDATE 12:13 p.m. PST:  Now there is a fire in the porter ranch area. Also KTTV has a live video feed so my readers outside of LA can follow what is going on.

PORTER RANCH, Calif. (KABC) -- Another fire breaks out near Porter Ranch as crews battle a burgeoning wildfire on Monday.

Firefighters attempted to quickly tackle a brush fire north of the 12800 block of Tampa Avenue, about a mile and a half north of the 118 Freeway. The second fire, reported at about 10:30 a.m., is about seven or eight miles west of the Marek fire and poses a serious problem for fire crews because of its proximity to homes.

Los Angeles County Fire Department Inspector Frank Garrido says the blaze is at five acres but is growing quickly near Browns Canyon Road a few miles north of Chatsworth.

The area is known as a high wind area.

There is a forest fire burning here in Los Angeles and its closling freeways and I got caught up in the mess.

The fire in the northeast San Fernando Valley was causing major traffic tie-ups this morning.

The California Highway Patrol closed the 210 Freeway between the 5 Freeway and 118 Freeway. The eastbound 118 was closed at Glenoaks Boulevard, and a transition between the 5 and 210 had been shut down.

With the morning commute underway, traffic on freeways in the area was jammed. Congestion was especially bad on the 5 Freeway south into the San Fernando Valley as well as the 14 Freeway south.

Numerous surface streets around the fire remained closed, including Lopez Canyon, Little Tujunga and Kagel Canyon roads. Smaller streets near the intersection of Osborne Street and Foothill Boulevard were also closed.

Firefighters fight the Marek fire on Foothill Boulevard next to the 118 and 210 interchange. A 3,200-acre wildfire whipped by intense winds has forced the closure of parts of the freeways.

Robotech.com member amoes has found article with awesome pics of the new Toynami/Beagle 1/10 scale cyclone.

See more of this awesome toy here!

Somthing tells me that he thought he had complete anonymity online when he did this.

Breitbart.com VIA Gateway Pundit.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The son of a Democratic Tennessee state lawmaker pleaded not guilty Wednesday to hacking the e-mail account of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

David Kernell, 20, of Knoxville, Tenn. entered the plea in federal court in Knoxville, the same day prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging him with intentionally accessing Palin's e-mail account without authorization.

Kernell, an economics student at the University of Tennessee, was brought into court wearing handcuffs and shackles on his ankles.

He was released without posting bond, but the court forbade him from owning a computer and limited his Internet use to checking e-mail and doing class work.

Kernell's father is longtime state Rep. Mike Kernell of Memphis, chairman of Tennessee's House Government Operations Committee. The lawmaker has said he had nothing to do with the hacking incident.

David Kernell was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Knoxville and faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. Trial is set for Dec. 16.

Prosecutors declined to say if anyone else would be charged. U.S. Magistrate Judge C. Clifford Shirley restricted Kernell from discussing the case with any potential witnesses, which include his roommates.

Kernell was also restricted from having any contact directly or indirectly with the Alaska governor or her family.

Shirley warned that if Kernell violated any part of his release conditions, he would be held until the trial.

Kernell's attorney, Wade Davies, accompanied his client in court.

"As soon as we found out about the charges this morning, David voluntarily turned himself in," said Davies, who refused to answer any other questions.

The indictment alleges that on Sept. 16 Kernell reset the password to Palin's personal e-mail account to gain access to it. Authorities say Kernell then read the contents of the account and made screenshots of the e-mail directory, e-mail content and other personal information, later posting some of the information to a public Web site.

Wow! Totally nailed and it looks like his life is going to be runied. I'm always amazed when people who spam boards, hack into things, astroturf then turn around and say "i'm just a fan how dare you be critical of me" think they can hide who they really are online. You will be find out eventuallly if you pull this shit.

I will be following this story very closely.

Yep its back and better than ever!

Chris Meadows at the St. Louis International Film Festvial

From Justy Ukei on the Robotech.com fourms.

I just got off the phone with Chris Meadows (the host of Space Station Liberty) and he was involved in an accident and broke his left leg below the knee.
At the time of this forum posting, he is still in the hospital and should be discharged within the next couple of days.
He's going to be off of it for the next 6-8 weeks, and will have physical therapy afterwards.
Hopefully he'll heal quickly and heals well.
Please send him your warm wishes by going to his contact page at http://terrania.us/emailme.htm

I want to wish Chris a speedy recovery.

It's tough to do a anime convention in NYC. Yes there are alot of Anime Fans in NYC, but throwing a convention is expensive and there are alot of logisitical hurdles to overcome.  Yet NYAF makes this all look so easy.

There were alot of people at the convention, on Saturday it was wall to wall people, with the Robotech panels/screenings having strong turnout. During the Robotech panels fans ooohhhed and ahhhed when I told them who was producing and writing the live action movie.

After that my Anime in China panel was well attended and may even pop up online at some point during the future. Once I know more I'll post it here.

Well next up is Providence Anime Conference.

Everyone is happy at NYAF.

From the AP.

Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in an months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election.

Republicans have made lifting the ban a key campaign issue after gasoline prices spiked this summer and public opinion turned in favor of more drilling. President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling in July.

"If true, this capitulation by Democrats following months of Republican pressure is a big victory for Americans struggling with record gasoline prices," said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Democrats had clung to the hope of only a partial repeal of the drilling moratorium, but the White House had promised a veto, Obey said.

Just last week, the House passed legislation to open waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to oil and gas drilling but only 50 or more miles out to sea and only if a state agrees to energy development off its shore.

Republicans called that effort a sham that would have left almost 90 percent of offshore reserves effectively off-limits.

The Interior Department estimates there are 18 billion barrels of recoverable oil beneath coastal waters now off-limits.

While the ban on energy development will be lifted if the Senate goes along with the House action, it doesn't mean any federal sale of oil and gas leases in the offshore waters — much less actual drilling — would be imminent.

The Interior Department's current five-year leasing plan includes potential leases off the Virginia coast but probably would not be pursued unless the state agrees to energy development. And the state is unlikely to do so without Congress agreeing to share federal royalties with the state.

The congressional battle over offshore drilling is far from over. Democrats are expected to press for broader energy legislation, probably next year, that would put limits on any drilling off most of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Republicans, meanwhile, are likely to fight any resumption of the drilling bans that have been in place since 1981.

 

Well this just gets better and better...It's worth quoting GatewayPundit in total...

Feds break up a party to serve University of Tennessee student David Kernell with a search warrant!

David is a self-described Obamacrat and his father Mike Kernell is a liberal Tennessee State Representative.

All signs pointed to the young Obama supporter as the Palin hacker.

The federal agents put a damper on that university party!
They had the students wait outsid while they took photos and evidence from inside the apartment for over an hour and a half.
WBIR reported:

The FBI is stepping up its investigation into the possibility that a University of Tennessee student hacked into the personal e-mail of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

A person who identified himself as a witness tells 10 News that agents with the FBI served a federal search warrant at the Fort Sanders residence of David Kernell early Sunday morning. Kernell lives in the Commons apartment complex at 1115 Highland Ave.

David Kernell is the son of Mike Kernell, a Democratic state representative from Memphis.

A Department of Justice spokesperson confirmed there has been "investigatory activity" in Knoxville regarding the Palin case, but she said there are no publicly available search warrants, and no charges have been filed.

A separate law enforcement source confirmed to 10 News that a search warrant was served on Kernell's apartment.

According to the witness, several agents arrived at The Commons of Knoxville around midnight.

They presented their badges upon entering Kernell's apartment, where several students were having a party, and took down their names.

The witness tells us they asked him and those who did not live in the unit to go outside. He believes the investigators took about 1.5 to 2 hours taking pictures of everything inside the apartment.

He says Kernell's three roommates were also subpoenaed, and must testify this week in Chattanooga.

Holy cow! I said previously that the idea of anonymity online is more of a illusion than a reality and this just proves it. The look on the faces of those in attendance must have been priceless when the FBI showed up. I mean its not like like they did not know it was comming.

This is should become very interesting over the next few days.