Free Republic

Brooke masters of the FT reports that Pension fund sues Goldman board: A pension fund for fire and police officers has sued the board of Goldman Sachs, seeking to stop the investment bank from paying out billions of dollars in bonuses to the bank's staff, writes Brooke Masters in London. Lawyers representing the Security Police and Fire Professionals of America Retirement Fund argue that the board has "abdicated" its responsibility to shareholders and "blindly "rewarded" executives for "corporate performance that has absolutely nothing to do with the skill of the company's employees". The lawsuit, filed in New York late on...

Link only (that's a shame) - Tips on protecting against Christmas tree fires

In this age of political correctness, a college student's best friend is FIRE -- the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Since 1999, FIRE has safeguarded the civil rights of students across the ideological spectrum -- winning victories at 121 colleges and universities, bringing an end to 81 unconstitutional or repressive policies, and benefiting 2.7 million students. Now, FIRE is riding to the rescue of students at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, where a heavy-handed attempt at thought control is underway. The Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group of the U's College of Education and Human Development has...

NEW HAVEN — Attorneys for a group of black city firefighters Monday filed a motion asking a federal court to halt the promotion of 10 other firefighters (including four minorities) who scored well enough on 2003 exams to be promoted. The 10 firefighters’ advancements were approved Friday by the Board of Fire Commissioners, just three days after the board ratified the promotions of 14 other firefighters (all but one of them white) mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Ricci v. DeStefano. The 10 in question scored high enough on the test to be promoted, but weren’t plaintiffs with...

Here is video showing a car bursting into flames at a Versailles, Kentucky gas station. The driver was reportedly using his cell phone as he pumped gas, and had left his engine running. Authorities said that static electricity caused the fire. No one was hurt, and no explosion happened even though both the car and the gas pump caught on fire. . . . (VIDEO)

A retired Minneapolis police sergeant leaped onto a burning boat in a Florida harbor north of Fort Myers, picked up and moved one badly injured woman, and then another, onto other boats, then got off the distressed vessel seconds before it was rocked by the second of two explosions. Just as Harry Baltzer finished moving the two women from the blazing boat last Friday in an Englewood, Fla., gated community, he could sense that time was running short. "I put one foot on one bow, and I had my other foot on the other bow," said Baltzer, who turns 68...

Earlier this week, Huntington Mayor Steve Updike held a press conference relaying information of coming citywide layoffs. The only position, at that date, to be announced in the layoff was the Mayor's secretary. He went on to say that six more layoffs were expected this week. Yesterday it was announce that......

HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - More than 25 NATO and Afghan troops were wounded during a search Friday for two missing U.S. paratroopers in western Afghanistan, the NATO-led force said. The Taliban said the missing two missing soldiers were dead and it had recovered their bodies.

A couple of weeks ago, the City of Huntington found that there was a 1.7 million dollar shortfall in tax revenues. After the failed .....

Police used a Taser gun to restrain a resident outside of his home on Crain Avenue as it burned at about 4:30 a.m. Sunday. The resident, Mike Bartlett, said he was returning from downtown for his cell phone when he noticed his sister's room on fire. He ran in to make sure she was not there and continued to find his friends in the basement and alert them of the fire. He said his cousin's girlfriend was sleeping upstairs so he went back in the house to retrieve her. "As I was running downstairs, I could hear the window glass...

THE Federal Government told scientists monitoring the huge oil leak off Australia's northern coast to focus on the Indonesian side of the leaking well. The instruction meant waters closer to the Australian coast, which contain more biodiversity and include important whale habitats, were not assessed for oil contamination in a report that the federal Environment Department released on Friday. To complicate matters, fire broke out yesterday on the oil rig, which has been leaking oil into the Timor Sea for 10 weeks. Oil field operator PTTEP Australasia said the West Atlas rig and Montara well-head platform were on fire. No...

A woman died at her apartment late Tuesday after trying to shed a bathrobe that had caught fire, officials said. A passer-by saw the woman, later identified as Linda Gadd, 58, on her balcony, on fire, said Jason Evans, spokesman for Dallas Fire-Rescue. The passer-by climbed up and put out the flames with a fire extinguisher, Evans said. But it was too late. Firefighters were called at about 9 p.m. to the one-alarm fire at the Pavilion Town Place, 7700 W. Greenway Blvd. in north Dallas. The neighborhood is southwest of the intersection of Lovers Lane and Dallas North Tollway...

More than 100 federal agents entered the smoldering Caribbean Petroleum Corporation fuel depot on Sunday as the investigation began in earnest into the cause of an explosion that rocked the San Juan metro area early Friday morning and sparked a massive fire that burned for more than two days. The blast registered 2.8 on the Richter scale and the ensuing blaze sent up an enormous tower of toxic smoke that forced the evacuation of some 1,500 residents from communities surrounding the Bayamón facility. Marcial Orlando Félix, the head of the federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Bureau in Puerto Rico...

Police: Juveniles laughed after setting 15-year-old on fireupdated 1 hour, 43 minutes ago (CNN) -- Five juveniles were in custody Tuesday after a 15-year-old was intentionally set on fire at a Deerfield Beach, Florida, apartment complex, police said. Michael Brewer suffered second-degree burns over 80 percent of his body. "He's in for a long, long recovery," Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti told reporters. Three juveniles were arrested Monday night, hours after the incident, and two others were arrested Tuesday, sheriff's Sgt. Steve Feeley said. "A couple of them last night were laughing about it," he said. "One of them arrested...

A changing climate, population growth and a decade-long housing boom has proved to be a combustible mix for the city of Los Angeles. Not only are the fires in LA becoming more frequent, but these days they are also less predictable and a lot bigger. More and more of them are now referred to as mega-fire and the response, in California at least, is to fight them with equal force. In the last few lazy days of summer an act of arson tore through 10,000 hectares within a day and doubled in size every day for the first four days....

The 25-year-old Nigerian national was reportedly seen tending a small blaze about six days before the Station fire started in the same area. Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives hope to question a man who was spotted tending a small fire in the vicinity of the Station fire almost one week before that deadly blaze erupted in the Angeles National Forest. At a news conference Monday, homicide detectives requested the public's help in locating a 25-year-old homeless man who was caught "feeding" a small, uncontrolled fire in the early afternoon of Aug. 20 -- six days before the start of the...

The National Weather Service has issued flash-flood watches this morning for mountain burn areas from Santa Barbara to San Bernardino as a powerful winter storm moved into Southern California. Rain was beginning to fall this morning, with the strongest portions of the storm expected late today and early Wednesday morning. The National Weather Service issued the flood watches for areas burned by the fires in Santa Barbara as well as the massive Station fire is Los Angeles County and the Sheep fire near Wrightwood. The watch also includes areas burned in last year's large Sayre and Marek fires in the...

A man was lit on fire Saturday night after he fell asleep on a sidewalk couch, Vancouver police said. The man was sent to the hospital with minor burns to his chest and wrist. No one has been arrested. According to police, the 26-year-old New Westminster man had been drinking when he stumbled across a couch near Commercial Drive and East Fifth Avenue. He decided to take a nap. At 11:40 p.m., a witness saw three men spray some type of fluid on the sleeping man and light him on fire, police said. The witness ran to help and got...

* Between 70 and 80 people were burned alive when a fuel tanker truck exploded in Nigeria, reportedly after a policeman fired a shot to keep passers-by away from a road accident, newspapers said on Saturday. The truck hit a pothole and overturned on Friday on the road between Onitsha and Enugu in the south of the country, spilling its cargo of petrol, witnesses and police told the papers. Several witnesses said that the truck exploded when a policeman who wanted to distance inquisitive onlookers fired his gun in the air. One witness said that people had been trying to...

Officials reverse earlier decision Community College of Allegheny County will no longer require prior review of student handouts after complaints by a women who sought last spring to form a group advocating the right to carry concealed firearms on campus. The student, Christine "Christa" Brashier, attempted to organize a campus chapter of a national group, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. In June, she said a CCAC employee told her the organizing amounted to "soliciting," ordered her to destroy fliers she created and warned she risked sanctions if she pursued the matter without the school's OK. Ms. Brashier said the...

For Immediate Release October 2, 2009 FIRE PREVENTION WEEK, 2009 - - - - - - - BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION As powerful as any force in the natural world, fire deserves our utmost attention. Unchecked, fire can destroy homes, devastate our environment, and, at its worst, injure or fatally harm individuals. Fire Prevention Week is a time to learn about important fire safety issues and empower our communities to stay "Fire Smart." It is also a time to honor our Nation's brave firefighters and volunteers who risk their lives to protect their...

The battered house on Sherwin Road was put to good use before the fire department burned it to the ground. SWAT teams barged through the front door in an exercise on dealing with domestic violence. Rescue crews scattered mannequins around the house and blew smoke through the halls to simulate a meth lab explosion. Firefighters set fires in one room after another and practiced putting them out. Then, in one last drill, they torched the whole place. Five years later, though, a dispute still smolders over the homeowner's attempt to claim a $287,000 charitable tax deduction for donating the house...

There are many reasons to fire Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and all of them are contained within his 66-page "assessment" of the war in Afghanistan. The document is fascinating, just as the work of zealots is always fascinating. As a high priest of the politically correct orthodoxy, McChrystal has laid out a strategy to combat Taliban jihad in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan without once mentioning Islam, and forget about jihad (fireable offense No. 1).

The Los Angeles Basin is expected to experience a heat wave starting today and moving into full swing Tuesday with triple-digit temperatures, low humidity and gusty winds, putting firefighters on high alert, weather officials said. "The low humidity means our air is going to be pretty parched," said Jamie Stern of the National Weather Service in Oxnard. Fire danger is expected to be highest Tuesday, when temperatures will peak and humidity will be lowest. Red-flag warnings indicating heightened fire danger were expected to go into effect at 4 a.m. Tuesday and last until about 6 p.m. Wednesday. The warnings cover...

I Saw Fire In The Sky Judy Curmi 2-11-2005 This was a very vivid dream. The dream occurred on a bright sunny day. I was walking along a black-topped road. My mother and sister Rosie were with me. We were in an upscale salt-water community, perhaps along the coast of California or Florida. Along the sides of the road were guardrails made of steel rods and thick beams of wood painted white, in keeping with a nautical theme. To our right a ramp went down steeply to wooden docks holding a number of small pleasure craft. Due to the steepness...

SNIPPET: "The flames broke out around 11 p.m. in the mosque on East 166th Street in Morrisania and then spread. It took several hours to get it under control. Three firefighters were taken to the hospital with minor injuries. "The whole place was gone. The fire started inside the store and it was burning for like two hours and then everything started blowing, exploding," said local resident Lenroy Carr. The cause is still under investigation."

A great explosion of purity is about to come , But "not" as before(as Katrina) ,something straight from my kingdom , The heavenlies are about to applaud , I AM The Lord behold I alone am God ! Yet for my children of my rod and staff , They shall rest in my bossom of Zion and laugh , For the Joy of The Lord is their strength , And these are my children of victiory that have gone the full length , Obedience to me has become their rod , My staff is their com(fort) for I AM their...

A great explosion is about to come , Destroying things not of my kingdom , Prophecies told about to unfold , Things new wiping out the old , The storehouses of God's lightning released , Disturbing things now resting in peace , Ancient walls suddenly cut down , Nothing left but burnt glass on the ground , As paper mache burnt and blown away , A prophecy of the past happening in one day , A blink of the eye and nothing left to see , Yet all the nations witnessing God's majesty , A turning point in a war...

Dropouts Seek a Boost From Equivalency Exams Numbers Seeking a Degree Swell -- But Gains May Be Limited A growing number of Americans are taking high school equivalency tests in their hunt for any leg up in a bleak labor market. Adult-education centers across the country report backlogs and waiting lists for prep courses cramming dozens of topics and years of lessons into weeks or months. But the potential for a better job and pay that drives many to seek a General Educational Development diploma comes with a caveat: The certificate generally is of limited value unless students use it...

Police, fire personnel, emergency medical technicians, and the military are often referred to collectively as the "uniformed services." But they share more than just a name. As novelist W.E.B. Griffin writes, they "share a number of unique traits: astonishing courage, loyalty, and camaraderie . . . like no other profession." Griffin omitted something. Each day members of the uniform services report on duty knowing there is a possibility that they may not report off. They do it anyway. Statistically, there are...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2009 – An Air National Guardsman from Cambridge, Mass., knows first-hand the extent to which his co-workers in the city’s fire department support their military brethren. “They all [offer] whatever we need,” said Patrick Haggerty, a lieutenant with the fire department and a master sergeant who serves in fire protection in the Massachusetts Air National Guard. “If work needs to be done at home, … everyone’s like, ‘If any work needs to be done while you’re gone, let us know.’” That’s one of the reasons Haggerty, a 16-year veteran of the fire department, nominated his employer for...

As the fire and homicide investigation continues, officials say several firefighters were exposed to cyanide gas in two separate incidents as they were mopping up hot spots near the small city of Acton on the northern edge of the massive blaze. The poisonous cyanide fumes are suspected in acute breathing problems suffered by Los Angeles firefighters battling the Station Fire in the Aliso Canyon. One firefighters suffered life-threatening respiratory arrest and remains in hospital after she was knocked out by noxious fumes on Sept. 1 near Acton. Two days later, six firefighters suffered severe breathing difficulties in another part of...

A wildfire in the foothills north of Los Angeles that has claimed the lives of two firefighters, ravaged more than 250 square miles and destroyed more than 60 homes was caused by arson, the federal Forest Service said. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has begun a homicide inquiry looking for the person or people responsible for the wildfire, which continues to burn. The blaze, known as the Station Fire, has burned for over a week in the Angeles National Forest outside Los Angeles. After a forensic investigation, officials with the U.S. Forest Service determined on Thursday that the fire...

LOS ANGELES, Sept 3 (Reuters) - A huge wildfire burning in the mountains above Los Angeles, the largest ever in the county, was started by arson and will be investigated as a homicide, authorities said on Thursday. The arson declaration was made after investigators found evidence of arson at the point of origin for the so-called Station Fire, which has blackened an area the size of Chicago, started. "Arson investigators from the U.S. Forest Service (and other agencies) ... have concluded that the Station Fire was the result of an arson," Forest Service Commander Rita Wears told reporters at a...

The monster Station Fire burning north of Los Angeles was human-caused, a U.S. Forest Service official said Wednesday. Meanwhile, fire crews prepared for potential setbacks because of returning drier conditions, MSNBC.com reported. Investigators don't know specifically how the Station Fire was started but have enough information to determine it was caused by a person, the Forest Service's deputy incident commander Carlton Joseph said during a news conference. Investigators were determining whether the fire was accidental or arson and identified the point of origin as mile marker 29 on Angeles Crest Highway. Firefighters caught a weather break Tuesday when moister, cooler...

LOS ANGELES – A U.S. Forest Service official says the huge wildfire burning in the mountains north of Los Angeles was human-caused. Deputy incident commander Carlton Joseph said Wednesday that it's not known specifically how it was started. Investigators will be trying to determine whether it was accidental or arson. Carlton says investigators have leads that brought them to the conclusion but he will not give any further information. Carlton notes that the options were lightning or a human cause and lightning has been ruled out.

Intense wildfires in Southern California are dangerously close to facilities atop Mount Wilson, threatening damage to cell phone and TV broadcast towers, as well as a famed observatory. The blaze, which started August 26, has burned approximately 20,102 acres and as of Sunday was only 5 percent contained, according to the Web site of the California governor's office. Known as the "Station Fire," as it began about one mile above the Angeles Crest Fire Station, the inferno has spread throughout the San Gabriel Mountains in Northern Los Angeles County. At an altitude of 5,715 feet, Mount Wilson houses a number...

The unstoppable Angeles National Forest fire threatened 10,000 homes Saturday night as it more than tripled in size and chewed through a rapidly widening swath of the Crescenta Valley, where flames closed in on backyards and at least 1,000 homes were ordered evacuated. Sending an ominous plume of smoke above the Los Angeles Basin, the fire was fueled by unrelenting hot weather and dense brush that has not burned in 60 years.

CEDAR RAPIDS (AP) -- A large aquarium has likely saved a Cedar Rapids home that caught fire. The aquarium shattered at Ricky Kuda's home Friday morning after a transformer beneath the aquarium caught fire. The water from the aquarium extinguished the fire. Cedar Rapids Fire Department spokesman Greg Buelow says the damage would have been much more extensive if the aquarium hadn't shattered. Buelow says the aquarium was about 4 feet wide. No one was injured in the fire, but all of the fish in the tank died.

ALERT ALERTThe LG battery that was in my wife's Verizon cellphone shorted out and became EXTREMELY HOT TO THE TOUCH and causing other items in the purse to get HOT. The battery is an LG Lithium Ion 3.7v 1000mAh, part number of LGIP-520B We contacted Verizon and I put a report into the Consumer Product Safety Commision website. I couldn't find anything online about this problem with this battery.

LOS ANGELES — Wildfires erupted up and down California Thursday as a late summer siege of heat and low humidity levels made conditions ripe for conflagrations. Structures could be seen burning in the wealthy communities on the Palos Verdes Peninsula south of Los Angeles, while suburbs on the foothills to the north of the city were threatened by a slumbering fire that suddenly roared to life in the evening hours. Dozens of homes were evacuated in Rancho Palos Verdes, Los Angeles County fire Inspector Steve Zermeno said. TV news footage showed structures on fire and at least one entirely engulfed...

ATHENS (Reuters) - Wildfires that tore through suburbs of Athens and forced thousands of people to flee their homes were contained on Tuesday as the government's handling of the disaster became an election issue. Likely to face voters early next year, the conservative government said very strong winds had made it difficult to fight fires in east Attica where swathes of forest and more than 150 homes were destroyed. "If what we experienced in Attica is the best this government can do, then it is obvious we must urgently replace it," the liberal daily Ethnos said in its main editorial....

Main Entry: zeal Pronunciation: \ˈzēl\ Function: noun My kingdom come " IS " yours for the taking for the kingdom is the Zeal ( fire , fervor )of My heart and this is the violence ( fire , intense heat ) I speak of . So come ! Take what I have already given you by the cross of My resurrection power , for all these things I have spoen of rest upon the wings of My shoulders ( Deut 33:12 )and this is " The Mind of Christ " . " Arrive " ( hebrews 12:23 ) and begin...

So, it's the southern tip of Africa, about 70,000 years ago, and some humans have built a fire. Maybe it's to keep warm, or to cook up some gazelle steaks. To kill time, they do a little flint knapping — whacking one rock with another to chip off razor-sharp flakes. They use the flakes to cut meat or make spear points. After the fire dies down, someone drags a big stone out of the embers and tries whacking that, and discovers that it makes really good flakes: it chips predictably and the flakes are symmetrical and sharp. Eureka — pyroengineering...

A U.S. Air Force Airmen from the 407th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron directs two Iraqi firefighters as they enter a burning shipping container during training on Ali Base, Aug. 3. Photo by Airman 1st Class Tony Ritter, 407th Air Expeditionary Group. ALI BASE — Underneath the blistering desert heat in 40 mile-per-hour winds, firefighters from the 407th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron and the city of Nasiriyah recently gathered here for their final training session with live fire. The Airmen here have been mentoring Iraqi firefighters for six weeks with the ultimate goal of preparing the group with the skills necessary...

Slovakia mourns 20 killed in coal mine blast, fire (AP) BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Slovakia is observing a day of mourning for 20 fatal victims of a fire and explosion in a coal mine, one of the worst accidents in the country's history. Rescue officials have recovered 18 bodies from the Handlova mine in central Slovakia and say they are certain that the two missing miners are also dead. Flags are flying at half-staff across the country Wednesday, and radio and television stations have canceled broadcasts of any entertainment programs. The explosion, caused by gases released in the fire, trapped the...

A pet cat is being hailed a hero after saving a man from his burning home. Engineer Andrew Williams was asleep when the fire broke out at his bungalow in Bracknell in Berkshire [UK]. As black smoke filled the property, his neighbour's cat Hugo came through a cat-flap and raised the alarm by clawing at the father-of-two's face. Rescuers said that the fire could have killed Mr Williams if he had not been awoken by Hugo. A smoke detector had been moved during work on the bungalow. The fire, which broke out at the family home in Birch Hill at...

Stanford University’s Teacher Education Program (STEP) has finally let dissenting student-blogger Michele Kerr graduate. When Stanford tried to revoke Kerr’s admission after she voiced disagreement with “progressive” views held by STEP administrators, Kerr turned to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help. Kerr sought FIRE’s aid a second time after Stanford School of Education administrators demanded the password to her private blog and threatened to expel her for her opinions and teaching philosophy. The shameful story of Kerr’s travails is featured online in The Washington Post today by education columnist Jay Mathews. “From before even her first...

Bryan, Texas SNIPPET: "As the situation eased, officials scaled back the number of mandatory evacuations. As of 8:50 p.m., only about 1,000 people were affected by the evacuations." SNIPPET: "John Carver with El Dorado Chemicals reports the plant on Highway 21 is a "typical dry blend fertilizer" facility. He reports a crew was welding in an empty ammonia nitrate storage bin when a spark started a small, smoldering fire. Two workers were in the building at the time of the fire; both escaped uninjured. Firefighters quickly responded to the scene only to discover they could not use water to battle...