On Saturday it looked like this from Santa Monica — like a nuclear-blast mushroom-cloud. The heat vortex so intense it created its own weather.

Yesterday, Sunday, it was worse — bigger even. I noticed in the paper’s map of the evacuation zone that it was within 6 blocks of where I used to live in Altadena.

On the dog walk yesterday the skies were not so pretty, and the breathing a bit nasty — way over here on the coast. I can only imagine what it must be like closer to the fires. Our bread lady at the farmers’ market we frequent told us that she had been to a market near Edward’s Air Force base on Sat. and it was “raining” ash.

The media transmission towers for this whole area are being threatened. Homes are burning to ash. A couple was nearly “cooked” trying to ride out the fire in their hot tub — they were seriously injured. Two firefighters died when their truck went off a cliff.

Pray for those in the fire zone.

[Update: h/t Patterico, more pics there as well.]

This says it better than I can | Wow!

Again, pray for those in the fire zone.

John Schroeder and Lowell Brown of Article6Blog.com have put up a petition at “I Will Not Convict” where you can vow not to support the Obama administration’s ill-timed, mean-spirited, totally stupid and just flat out dangerous legal attacks on the CIA and former Bush administration members that were involved in interrogation of al Qaeda terrorists or in the preparation of the legal arguments for those interrogations.

These folks took their responsibilities seriously and kept us safe for over seven years. For their efforts the raging loonies on the Left want them castigated, convicted and incarcerated.

As Hugh Hewitt writes:

A brilliant way to register your disgust with the Obama Administration’s witch hunt directed at the CIA and other interrogators of al Qaeda operatives and other terrorist suspects.

Yours truly built the site for them and got to be the number one signer. Now, it’s time to do your part.

SIGN THE PETITION!

Gotta LUV the Dems and their funding sources!

The U.S. attorney in New York on Tuesday charged a New York investor and major Democratic fund-raiser with a $74 million scheme to defraud Citigroup Inc (C.N).

Hassan Nemazee, 59, was charged with one count of bank fraud, and faces up to 30 years in prison plus a fine. His lawyer Marc Mukasey, a former federal prosecutor, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Nemazee was a national finance chair of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and a supporter of John Kerry’s run for the White House in 2004.

He typically donates more than $100,000 annually to Democratic political candidates, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Charles Schumer, and sits on the board of the Iranian American Political Action Committee .

Bill Clinton, when he was president, nominated Nemazee to be U.S. ambassador to Argentina.

Prosecutors said Nemazee, the chairman and chief executive of Nemazee Capital Corp, sought to induce Citigroup’s banking unit to lend up to $74 million based on fraudulent and forged documents suggesting that he had hundreds of millions of dollars of accounts available as collateral.

They said Nemazee also provided Citigroup with fake references so that when the bank would try to confirm details about his accounts, it would actually be contacting him. The scheme lasted from December 2006 to this month, the prosecutors said.

Michelle Malkin writes:

Man, the updates to Culture of Corruption just keep piling up. Here’s another one for my Clinton and Money Men chapters:

Can one even imagine what would surface if the Obama campaign’s credit card donation sources could be made public? One can dream . . .

She would have been 88 today.

Gettin’ hotter at the Town Halls!

“If Nancy Pelosi Wants To Find A Swastika, Maybe The First Place She Should Look Is On The Sleeve Of Her Own Arm”

They still don’t get it — In 2010, they will!