firemn23

Pay Your Taxes, Pa-Rum-Pum-Pum-Pum.... Oddly Enough - Reuters HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) - Tax defaulters in southern India are being forced to face the music after city authorities hired drummers to play non-stop outside their homes until they pay up. After many residents ignored repeated demands to settle overdue property taxes. authorities in a city in Andhra Pradesh state have sent 20 groups of drummers to play outside offenders' houses for the past week. "They put up a spectacle outside the houses of defaulters, draw them out and explain their dues to them and the need to clear it at the earliest," said T.S.R. Anjaneyulu, municipal commissioner of Rajahmundry city. "They don't stop until people agree to clear the dues." The city, owed a total of 50 million rupees ($1.15 million), had been at its wits' end after sops like waiving interest and penalties had failed to recover the arrears. The new method seems to be working, though. One week of incessant drumming has cleared 18 percent of the backlog. What a noble Idea

Got to go with the Lowes Car. Jimmy Johnson

so you all know Ardsley is not specing a new rig yet. Ladder 50 is almost 20 years but a commttee has not been formed or discussed with anyone from the village. As we have stated before the firehouse is our first priority.

Wasn't this kind of like the question Seth posted about a year ago to us. Sethstradomus

Not sure of all the details but this Saturday at 12 Noon in Pekskill there will be a welcome home for one of the batallions that is coming home. Every department is asked to bring a rig or a car to the event. Could someone fill in all the blanks here.

907.6 We should try this every week to find a game and the person with the highest score at the end of the week has to find the next game.

Prank Shuts U.S.-Canadian Border for Hours Mon Feb 28,10:20 PM ET Add to My Yahoo! Strange News - AP LYNDEN, Wash. - A practical joke shut down U.S.-Canadian border crossing for nearly four hours just as the weekend was getting under way. A 42-year-old man was stopped at the border around 4:40 p.m. Friday. During an inspection of his vehicle, "a crude device thought to be an explosive" was found under a seat, Corporal Dale Carr of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a news release. The inspection area and a duty-free shop were immediately evacuated, spokeswoman Paula Shore with the Canadian Border Services Agency said. The RCMP closed southbound Highway 13, and, at Canada's request, U.S. officials closed their side of the border to vehicles northbound on Highway 539. Investigators subsequently determined that the "suspicious device" was harmless, Carr said. Turns out the man's co-workers in Olympia had put ball bearings into a metal tube and crimped the ends. They placed the device in his vehicle to annoy him, the idea being that "it would create a rattle that the driver would find difficult to locate," he said. The man was questioned and released. He will not face charges, Carr said. It will be up to U.S. authorities to decide whether his co-workers face charges, Shore said. "It's not a good idea to play practical jokes at the border," said Shore, clearly not amused. The border reopened around 8:30 p.m. My opinion is even though what happened is wrong, I think this should relieve us that the border control works.

I believe this is an issue because the said department is not required to respond on the rigs.

Does anyone know if this group is still ongoing?

Questions haunt town where man North Carolina was prematurely declared dead By ALLEN G. BREED Associated Press Writer INGLESIDE, N.C. (AP) -- Larry Green stepped out of the darkness so suddenly that the car that hit him didn't even leave skid marks. The impact sent his shoes, socks and the unopened beer in his hand flying. Green came to rest on U.S. 401 alongside a trash-strewn ditch, where he was examined by paramedics and declared dead. Over the next 2 1/2 hours, the bloody body with a gaping head wound was zipped into a black vinyl bag, taken to the morgue and slid into a stainless-steel refrigerated drawer. There was just one problem: Green was alive. Advertisement Click to learn more... Two weeks after that shocking discovery, the 29-year-old Green clings to life in a hospital intensive care unit, paralyzed. Anguished family members have listened in horror as officials described the many missed signs and miscues that led to the error. They and others in this rural tobacco community northeast of Raleigh are left to wonder how something like this could have happened - and whether it has happened before. "Something ain't right with that," said T.J. Henderson, a high school classmate of Green's. "I thought they were supposed to try to give mouth to mouth or the shock at least till they got to the emergency room. That's where I thought you were pronounced dead at, not on the scene. ... Not on the street." On the chilly night of Jan. 24, Green and a pair of friends showed up at the Ingleside Grocery about 8:45 p.m. to pick up a few tall-boy cans of Natural Ice to take back to his trailer down the road. Green never made it. According to reports from state troopers and the Franklin County attorney's office, 36-year-old Tamuel Jackson did not have time to stop her car before it slammed into Green as he tried to cross the highway in front of his trailer. Randy Kearney, an off-duty paramedic, was on the scene at 8:54 p.m. and found no pulse or sign of breathing. Blood had formed a foot-wide corona around Green's skull. When county paramedics Paul Kilmer and Katherine Lamell arrived moments later, Kearney told them Green was dead, but asked Kilmer to double-check. Kilmer replied that his determination was "good enough for me," according to Kearney and two firefighters. Kilmer told officials he could not remember saying that, but doesn't deny it. By the time paramedic Pamela Hayes arrived at 9 p.m., Green was covered by a white sheet. Although the law does not require the medical examiner to go to accident scenes, Dr. J. B. Perdue showed up half an hour later and began examining the body, lifting and twisting Green's broken right leg, rolling him over and inserting a gloved finger into the gash in Green's head. "That's more than I need to see!" Lamell shouted. When Perdue opened Green's jacket, several firefighters holding a tarp to shield the body from onlookers noticed what appeared to be an in-and-out movement in Green's chest and abdomen. "Doc, is he breathing?" the firefighters heard Kearney ask. Perdue told Kearney that it was just air escaping or moving around inside the body. Paramedics put Green in a body bag and drove him to the morgue in nearby Louisburg. There, Perdue examined the body a second time. He took a blood sample, lifted Green's eyelids and sniffed around the man's mouth for alcohol. Hayes, who had accompanied the body, thought she noticed twitching in Green's right eyelid. She asked Perdue if he was sure Green was really dead. Perdue responded that the twitching was a spasm, "like a frog leg jumping in a frying pan." "I don't feel good about this," Hayes told colleagues, according to the county attorney's report. She asked Perdue again if he was sure Green was dead. He reassured her. The body bag was zipped back up, and Green was placed in the portable morgue unit, where the temperature is kept a few degrees above freezing. Green probably would have remained in the stainless-steel container had state Trooper Tyrone Hunt not arrived around 11:20 p.m. and asked Perdue to help him determine the direction from which Green had been struck. This time, Perdue observed slight movement. He could not find a pulse in Green's neck, thigh or wrist, even with a stethoscope. Perdue summoned paramedics and an electrocardiogram, which was able to pick up a faint heart rhythm. Family members who have kept vigil at Green's bedside say his eyes flutter at times and he shows signs he recognizes those around him. It is unclear whether his paralysis is from the accident, or the handling of his body afterward. Within days, Kearney, Kilmer, Hayes and Lamell were all suspended with pay. The state's Office of Emergency Medical Services suspended Kearney's and Kilmer's credentials, citing "a lack of competence to practice with a reasonable degree of skill and safety." Kearney and Kilmer were fired; Hayes and Lamell were ordered to undergo remedial training before coming back to work. Kearney declined an Associated Press request for comment, and the others did not respond to messages. Dr. John Butts, the state's chief medical examiner, said that Perdue did everything the law required of him and that there are no plans to censure the 34-year veteran. "He went because he was informed that a man was dead as a result of violence or trauma," Butts said. "He did not come with a doctor's bag and a stethoscope. He came with a pencil and paper to get information." Perdue told the AP: "I am not in any shape form or fashion responsible for pronouncement of death. ... Obviously, I'm in sympathy with the family. My heart goes out to them, and my prayers are that this person recovers." The family has retained an attorney. Elaine Hicks, who lives two trailers over from Green's, said she thinks people should focus on the miracle of Green's survival. In fact, she asked, who's to say the paramedics weren't right, and that Green did not come back from the dead? "It could have been the Almighty," the 57-year-old woman said. "He has the last say so." ---

I think it was cause she said she drove the ambulance, when in fact it was an ambulette

You didn't drop the kids off at the pool?

=D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> Congrats to the Partiots, or should I really say I just hate the Eagles. On a side note congrats to everyone who one in the point pools. Especially AFD-PM

Hey it could have been worse it could have been a person like what happened in long island a few years back.

I must say that these numbers are totally inaccurate. For the most part departments do not put there real response time on the BIFR. The report shows that fairview fire district (not sure which one) has a slower response time to other volunteer departments such as (Dobbs Ferry or Irvington). I know for sure Irvington has a haul to some areas of thier district and there is no way from time of dispatch to arrival that they are there with in thte six minutes. Fairview is not a huge district with two stations pretty well situated in its district. On another note I couldn't find Elmsford on the list?

WIth the impending snow storm, so they say, how dows your department decide on snow stand bys. MY department has the chief decide, usually if it is a night snow storm when he wakes up in the morning. Also they usually wait till there is about 6 inches on the ground before calling it, they have trucks where they have no problem driving in the snow. Also while we are on teh topic of snow who still uses chains and no on spots.

I know we aren't there yet but let me be the first to say congratulations on reaching 15,000 articles. By the way anyone want to take a guess on when it will be reached?

Another black eye for the Sacramento Fire Department Oddly Enough - Reuters Reuters Firefighters Suspended for Sex on Duty Wed Jan 26, 8:41 AM ET Add to My Yahoo! Oddly Enough - Reuters SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Four Sacramento, California firefighters who admitted to having sex while on duty have been suspended pending an investigation, a spokesman for the city's fire department said on Tuesday. The three men, including a captain, admitted to having sex with a fourth firefighter, a woman, while on duty. Superiors put all four on administrative leave on Monday, marking the second recent sex scandal to hit the sleepy state capital's fire department. "The four individuals have admitted to having sex in the firehouse," said Captain Niko King, a spokesman for the department. "They even conspired to keep it secret by putting one person on watch so they wouldn't get caught." The firefighters face disciplinary action ranging from time off without pay to dismissal, said King, noting officials took quick action as rumors of on-duty sex circulated through the department. The probe follows an investigation after city firefighters attended a local p***-star costume ball last July. The department began that probe, its largest internal investigation ever, after a woman who does not work for the department said she had been sexually assaulted by a firefighter in a department fire truck.

My opinion is let them keep their nicknames, but if the names are outdated to the neighborhood then why not be proactive and change them. The companies need to see that the department had a black eye and should try to remove the sterotypes from thier image. We all know public perception is that we sit around drink beer and sleep, while waiting for alarms. We all should try to bolster our image, especially volunteers (my own department is horrible at this). Don't forget this isnt a city think this is a firefighter thing, we all have our problems with the 1 out of 100 members. As a taxpayer and a firefighter I would be offended if my department or comapny was named after a gin mill right after members in neighboring companies were beating the crap out of each other wihile drunk. Heres another point how come we always say do the right thing stop following tradition and start doing what is right but not changing a company motto because it is tradition is ok?

IE Still holds a 90% market share, down from 95.3%. The last article written about this on Yahoo I think had a direct link to Mozilla. I use it and love it only problem is playing some online games. Keep both and use IE for gaming only.

How long have we been waiting for this system to be finaliized? Do what you have to do to keep your members safe, never rely on the county.

Honestly what do you use the 10 codes for responding, returning to quarters, back in service, acknowledgment, we only really use about ten 10 codes if that. I cant remember ever hearing some one use a 10 code to call a false alarm, or for extrication. No department pulls up to a extricaiton call and says the 10 code so why do we do it for structure fires? Everyone needs to be consistent. It also seems that we have the same conclusion on every thread that we all do what we want to.

Ardsley is no lights no sirens

any spy shots

"Since you have gaming and you have private double beds maybe there are two ways of getting lucky on a Virgin plane," My favorite quote