Posts Tagged ‘Austin’
Suspected arsonists sought as wildfires rage in Texas
Dropping water one bucket at a time
One of the dozens of massive blazes that have torched rain-starved Texas was set by arsonists, police say.
Cops in Leander are hunting for two teenage girls and two teenage boys suspected of starting a fire Monday night that gutted around a dozen houses and forced hundreds of people to evacuated their homes…
The teens were spotted running through a wooded area where the fire started, police said. The city was offering up to $2,000 to anyone with information leading to the arrest of the arsonists.
Local reports said the blaze ripped through at least 300 acres, destroyed 11 homes and damaged at least eight homes around Leander, about 22 miles northwest of Austin…
Investigators say one of girl suspects was wearing a pink shirt and blue jeans, and she had black hair that may have been dyed. The other girl was described as having dirty blond hair in a white T-shirt and jeans. Both boys had dark, shaggy hair and were dressed in jeans, police said. All four teens are white, cops said.
More than 150 different wildfires have ravaged hundreds of thousands of acres and destroyed more than 1,000 homes in Texas this week.
One fire, in Bastrop, southeast of Austin, was described as the most devastating wildfire in more than a decade. That fire raged for a fourth-consecutive day on Wednesday, consuming 45 square miles and forcing 7,000 to evacuate the area. More than 600 homes were said to have been destroyed, and four people have been killed.
Murder is murder is murder. If they catch these kids and they are proven to have started fires – throw away the key.
In a related story – a DC10 air tanker ain’t flying and dropping water on fires because the state of Texas in their infinite wisdom [which means Rick Perry] was too cheap to hire a backup pilot. The only one they hired has exceeded maximum consecutive hours for a pilot to be allowed to fly.
Yes, there are safety reasons for that – the maximum flying hours, not the cheapskate part.
Apple buys chipmaker Intrinsity
A month after the rumors first started flying, Apple finally confirmed that it has indeed purchased Intrinsity, a Texas-based chipmaker.
Apple confirmed the acquisition on Tuesday to The New York Times, though it did not disclose the purchase price or what Apple’s plans for Intrinsity are. One guess has the value at $121 million.
It’s the second chipmaker purchased by Apple in two years starting with P.A. Semi, which it bought for $278 million. It’s also the fourth acquisition Apple has made since last fall; it bought map API maker PlaceBase in October, social music site LaLa in December, and mobile ad company Quattro Wireless in January for $275 million.
Though it appears like Apple is on a bit of a shopping spree right now, the company has the funds to back it up. At the end of its second fiscal quarter of 2010, Apple reported it had accumulated $41.7 billion in cash. Though Steve Jobs told investors at the annual company meeting that he had no plans to use that to offer a dividend to shareholders, he did hint what he’d rather do instead.
“You never know what opportunity is around the corner,” Jobs said at the February meeting. “We’re very fortunate that if we needed to acquire something we could write a check for it and not have to borrow money.”
American-owned company doing most of its manufacturing offshore – making a lot of money for Apple investors who are often liable to be Americans. Intrinsity provides tools, technology and design expertise to the chip industry. Based in Austin, Texas – which ain’t Republican Texas country.
Not the purest example of what can be achieved in the 21st Century economy; but, certainly more productive than the buggywhips preferred as central to a growing economy by politicians who still haven’t figured out Maynard Keynes or Franklin Roosevelt.
Widow of Austin plane crash victim sues pilot’s widow
The widow of an Internal Revenue Service employee killed when a disgruntled taxpayer flew his plane into a seven-story building in Austin, Texas, last week is suing the pilot’s wife, according to court documents.
Valerie Hunter, the wife of Vernon Hunter, is accusing Sheryl Stack, wife of Andrew Joseph “Joe” Stack III, of negligence, alleging she knew or should have known that her husband was a threat to others and, thus, could have prevented the attack, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in Travis County District Court.
“Stack was threatened enough by Joseph Stack that she took her daughter and stayed at a hotel the night before the plane crash. [She] owed a duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid a foreseeable risk of injury to others including [Vernon Hunter],” the suit says…
Hunter was killed February 18 when, authorities say, Stack flew his Piper Cherokee PA-28 into a northwest Austin building that housed nearly 200 IRS employees.
Authorities say Stack set fire to his $230,000 home in Austin before embarking on his fatal flight.
Sheryl Stack issued a statement after the attack expressing “sincere sympathy to the victims and their families.”
So, Sheryl Stack lost her husband and her home. Valerie Hunter lost her husband. Neither is getting her husband back.
I’m not going to rail about Mrs. Hunter suing. She’s going through the worst time of her life. As is Sheryl Stack.
I just don’t understand what the reasoning might be – other than some ambulance-chaser convinced her they can make a bundle in compensation from some insurance company.
Anyone out there know of an insurance company making good on a policy when the insured kills himself in the act of committing a crime?
