PFD

We had a good fire this Saturday. Good, of course, if you're a fireman, not good at all if you're the homeowner or someone trapped inside. That proves that all things are relative, in case that needed further proving.

The fire was not in our area of coverage, but since this is the boondocks, any major incident will almost always require assistance from neighboring fire stations. In this case, seven fire companies ended up working it. The fire was in a 2-story house a 100 feet or so from a major road.

We pulled in with about 5 of us already fully geared, which means we had all our gear on, including mask, with an air bottle turned on but not yet connected. We only start breathing bottled air when we're about to go in. A regular bottle will give you about half an hour, so you don't waste it lest you find yourself needing it while still inside.

The fire was cooking well when we got there, and I was sent in with 2 other guys from my station, into the basement, to relieve another crew that had been there for about 20 minutes, pumping water on the blaze. In the meantime, other crews were attacking the fire on the 1st and 2nd floors, and also on the roof.

Being in a basement, surrounded by fire, and knowing that the other two floors on top of you are also blazing merrily is an awesome experience. When I walked down I honestly had doubts as to whether I'd be walking back up. That house looked to be about ready to collapse. For the life of me I can't remember why the hell I did walk down there, but walk down I did. I was second man on a hose, making sure it was held steady so that the lead man could aim it and throw water on the fire, which was all around, but not as bad as before. The earlier teams had done a good job of knocking it down. We kept getting entangled in electrical wiring that was hanging free from the ceiling, and we could feel the heat even through all our gear.

Even worse, I could hear the hissing made by air leaking from an improperly fastened mask. Not a good sound to hear in that situation. It turned out to be the third man in our team, who hadn't gotten a good seal for whatever reason. We sent him back up after a bit, since he was using his air much faster than we were. By the time we were done, there were no flames showing down there, but the temperature was still way up there. We reported as much to the command post and another team was sent down to relieve us. I guess they continued spraying water all around to help reduce the temperature, and to properly douse any remaining hot spots.

When we got out, and took our gear off for rehab, I saw another team drag out a smoldering dog. Unfortunately, still alive, just barely. They unceremoniously dumped it behind some trash cans. I went over to look and it expired about then, or stopped breathing, at any rate. After a bit, we covered it up with some rugs.

There had been some people trapped in the house, but they were taken out before we arrived. As we pulled up, we saw a couple of ambulances pull out. We were told two people were taken to the hospital, but I never did find out how badly they'd been hurt. The only fatality seems to have been the pooch. Another crew told me one of the children had been bawling his eyes out for the dog earlier, but I guess the kid was taken away by relatives or in one of the ambulances, too.

After recovering for a bit, I went over to the Salvation Army truck for some Gatorade and beef stew. I've said it here before, but I'll say it again. The Salvation Army does a hell of a job around here making sure us emergency response folks have drinks and food during major incidents. It would really suck to be on a scene, for hours at a time, with only water available, which is the only thing we carry in our trucks. I used to feel nothing but contempt for the Salvation Army before being a firefighter, since I only knew about their Christian-oriented goals, their hospices and their used clothes sales. Now when I see them asking for donations I usually slip as much folding money as I have in my pocket, versus telling them to fuck off which was my prior, automatic response. While I still don't agree wholeheartedly with their philosophy, I don't let that interfere with actively showing my gratefulness for what they do.

So, ready to go in again but lazing about till noticed, I was tagged by my lieutenant and sent with another guy to report to our Chief. He was on the second floor, so we climbed up a ladder, again fully geared and ready to breathe bottled air. We stood on the roof, outside a window, and waited for instructions. After a few minutes, we were waved in and shown a smoking piece of wall, "See that smoke? I don't want to see it anymore."

With that as my full instructions, I grabbed a haligan and started attacking the wall. It was the insulation that was smoldering. We took turns whacking everything out with the haligan, and ended up taking the whole window frame out. Within about 15 minutes I called my Chief over, and he agreed there was no longer any smoke showing, and we were dismissed. We climbed out the same window we'd started in from, down the ladder, and back to resting.

By that time, except for the roof, the fire was pretty much out. A ladder truck was hitting the roof with water, and the rest of the teams were either resting, sightseeing or doing overhaul. Overhaul is the longest, and usually most boring part of a fire scene. It's going through the building and making sure there aren't any spots still smoldering within the walls, or anywhere else, that'll sprout into a full blown blaze again, usually just when you get back home and change into clean clothes. There's a lot of clean up involved, too, not to mention picking up all the equipment and stowing it away properly. Some of it can be put back as is, other items require special care on scene or back at the firehouse. Air bottles, for example, must be refilled. In a big incident like this one, there's a cascade system set up so you refill as soon as you're out of the structure, and thus you have a full bottle again within minutes. At lesser incidents, you stack up the empties to fill back at the station.

During one of our idle moments, we saw some folks parachuting down. A local airport was doing some sort of fundraiser, and for a very low fee people were allowed to skydive. That airport was just a mile or two down the road. They must have gotten a great view of the fire. One of my fellow firefighters commented that you wouldn't catch him jumping out of a plane for anything in the world. I chimed in in agreement, since I've often said that I'd never skydive for fun. I've seen too many accidents where a parachute fails to open. I also pointed out that in a real instance of a plane going down, I'd be first at the door with a parachute and would need no urging to jump, it's just that I'd never consider doing it for fun. I did finish the conversation off by noting that the skydivers might be thinking, right about at the same time, that they'd never go into a burning building for any reason in the world, and would probably be horrified to know that all of us there were doing it for free. It takes all kinds...

So, it was about 7pm before I got back home and collapsed in the living room. I spent a good half hour reflecting over the whole thing and, just as I thought, I definitely loved every minute of it.

Here're some pics I took, including one of the dead dog, which provides the title of this post, PFD. We all know what KFC means, of course... Well, PFD is Pennsylvania Fried Dog, folks... Don't hesitate to send hatemail my way if you think that's too cruel, but as I told one young asshole not too long ago, even though I am amused by some arguably very horrible things, I'm still risking life and limb every time I'm asked to, with no recompense being offered or requested in return. When you go out and do the same, then you can judge. In the meantime, bite me. :)

Katrina

About 4 years ago, I spent a very enjoyable week in New Orleans, strolling through the French Quarter, enjoying the sights, burning out my taste buds with some of the best food in Creation and, of course, spending an inordinate amount of time in the cemeteries.

I hope Katrina spares my beloved New Orleans... I hope to visit again soon...

Surprising? Not....

Male IQ proven higher than female IQ. LOL

Center of the Universe

Due to an evolutionary quirk, almost every human being sees him or herself as the center of the universe. Most conflicts in human history, if not all, are a result of this. Even when people fight for God, what they are really fighting over is THEIR idea of God, which admittedly has to be very different from the real God or Gods, even if by some unknown stretch it turns out that there is such a being or group of beings.

Humans strive for their petty, little concerns which for each one of us are of paramount importance, yet which in the grand scheme of things are almost always trivial. Go ahead and name the 10 most important people in the history of the world. Chances are you'll never get 2 people to submit the same list, proving that importance to the world is a subjective criteria.

Now, each one of us is important to ourselves, as noted in the starting paragraph, and of some importance to our loved ones and business associates. A few of us are important to our enemies and adversaries, as well, since we've either killed them or we keep them up at night with worry. Ha! That'll piss a lot of people off: Serial Killers are arguably more important than a lot of you, if only because they've had a greater impact on the world.

Anyway, the problem with all this isn't our inflated opinion of our own selves, but rather that as social creatures we tend to transfer some of this on to others when the world proves to us that we will never be important at a grand level. Adding to that problem nowadays is our worldwide network of communications. As little as a hundred years ago, most people rarely ventured outside their communities, they knew almost everyone who lived nearby and news from afar was neither frequent nor of true import. Being a baker back then had a lot more impact than being one today. People knew who you were and if you skipped work or disappeared altogether, the impact was immediate and community-wide. There was no need for externalizing one's sense of importance since one was definitely important enough. Today, a baker is at best the owner of a struggling local business and at worst just another cog in someone's corporate machinery. Hence the need for stars, superstars, idols and similar freaks of nature.

Lately, the already overflowing stable of celebrities seems to not be enough, so we're elevating random folks into that category, via the many reality shows which I still refuse to watch. I get my reality outside a TV screen, thank you very much.

But go to any modern news outlet, and I mean one dedicated (supposedly) to straight news, like CNN. You'll quickly find that the spurious news articles outnumber the real news by a huge factor. I mean, seriously, who the fuck cares if Oprah did or did not snub some dead dude whose accomplishments in life seem to have been reduced merely to having been black and having died? The only significant piece of info anyone can harvest from that type of news is that we've gone from a racism targeted against blacks to one targeted in favor of them. Would the same hoopla be happening if the dead dude had not been black? Of course not.

But either way, who the hell cares? I've been to many a funeral, and I've skipped a lot, too. And not all of them were deserving of my attendance or avoidance, it just happened that way. If it's not earthshattering when I do it, I'm guessing it shouldn't be that big of a deal if it's Oprah.

There was a time when newspapers were a few pages long. That wasn't lack of news, it was that they only printed real news back then.

Necessary Modification

Back when I was a mere whelp, untrained in the ways of the world, and totally unaware that the teen-aged neighbor girl my parents trusted my care to would undress and play doctor with only the slightest coaxing, I used to carefully study my cousin's Barbie (TM) dolls. I was very curious as to what might lie betwixt a female's legs, and why it was to be kept so mysteriously hidden. Only a few months after I started my research, I accidentally discovered how easy it was to undress the babysitter, and my use for Barbie dwindled to zero.

Still, I remember that upon seeing that Barbie was a complete blank down there, I was very perplexed. Surely, something had to be there.

Thankfully, some helpful soul has compiled a quick fix which should prevent future generations from suffering the same dismay I felt. Please, everyone, let's chip in and modify all the dolls we can get our hands on. If we all help out, we can do this quickly...

Simple Instructions for Modifying Barbie

Apologies for the fact that it's in German. It's a mystery to me why the best ideas of the past 60 years or so seem to be mostly formulated by German or Japanese minds, but there you have it.

Grave Harm

There's an organization founded by a single person, around a pretty nifty ecological idea. I joined my local group some months back, and when the owner/moderator moved out of the area, was offered ownership of the group. For the life of me, I'll never understand why people are so quick to trust me with their stuff, since I'm the first to admit I don't exactly inspire huge outpourings of confidence. Then again, I'm mostly above reproach when it comes to commitments or responsibilities, stupidly so, sometimes, so trust is almost always well placed in me. It's just that I don't look it. Maybe other folks see something in me that isn't apparent in the mirror.

Anyway...

Of late the whole global organization is self-destructing over the founder's unwillingness to let the local leaders around the globe share in the decision making, and the local leaders' unwillingness to make any sort of compromise on their requests to the founder. It's a shame that a perfectly wonderful idea will splinter and fragment over rank idiocy on both sides.

Both sides, you ask? Yes, both sides. I'm not even going to name the organization, or go into any particulars, but it serves as a perfect example of yet another problem plaguing our society. To wit, the idea that happy endings (not the massage parlor kind) are common and should be a goal in all situations.

Once upon a time people understood that often in life we are faced with problems that do not have a single, perfect solution that will leave everyone happy. When in that situation, each side should voice their "wishlist" and discuss mutually. Then each side proposes compromises, until they meet somewhere in the middle. This will not leave everyone happy, since each side will probably end up with less than what they (usually unreasonably) wanted to gain. On the other hand, it won't alienate either side nor leave them completely unhappy, since they'll have gained some of what they wanted.

The problem is, the current generation, weaned and raised on TV and Hollywood, is convinced that you can have a perfect solution. They have no concept of mutually exclusive desires, which will crop up always, where you can have a or b, but never a and b, at least, not without seriously violating the laws of physics and human nature. So, the media has helped create a culture where if everyone doesn't get what they want, then they sabotage the whole thing.

You can see this same concept working in our government, where if you have the Republicans on top, then the Democrats refuse to cooperate in anything, and try to sabotage almost every effort and initiative. Why? Isn't this still their country no matter who's in the White House, or who controls Congress? Ditto when the shoe's on the other foot. Back when Clinton was president, you would see the same thing, a lot of Republicans more intent on bringing him down than on advancing the country's interests.

So, back to the organization I'm using as my main example, a lot of the owner/moderators of the local groups under the umbrella of the global organization are pulling out and going their own way. Some closing up shop, others simply continuing with what they're doing, just no longer under the aegis of the global organization. As a result, the main focus of the group is and has been for a few weeks solely political, while the real objectives have fallen by the wayside. Whether the focus will ever return to where it should always have been is up for grabs.

Now I know how the few intelligent Romans must have felt near the end of their Empire...

War! What is it good for?

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed — they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

—ORSON WELLES, in his additions to Graham Greene’s script for The Third Man, 1949

How did it start...?

On Saturday night we got a call... My pager went off and I heard those magic words, the ones that make all of us firefighter folks orgasm instantaneously... "Fully involved structural fire in progress, flames showing". *Bliss*

I jumped out of my chair and almost tore a hole through the door as I ran for the car. Drove to the firestation, grabbed my gear, and piled into the truck with the rest of the crew that had showed up. As we pulled out, some more people were arriving. A working fire gets everybody out, you get almost 100% turn out. We sped away and left the latecomers to man a second truck, as well as our Rescue vehicle.

The fire was in some buildings behind a hotel in town. The buildings were used as their laundry, and a couple of storage sheds. They were cooking nicely when we arrived, but I didn't get to the top. I dropped off the truck at the bottom of the hill, and helped a couple of my guys pull down the 5-inch hose so that it would start sliding off the truck as it climbed the hill to the hotel.

That's so we could start getting a water supply hooked up, in this case to a nearby creek, out of which we suck water with another truck that's a pumper. The pumper then feeds it at a really high pressure up the hill to the 1st truck, which then feeds it out to the attack lines. While we were setting up the hard suction at the creek, firetrucks from all the neighboring towns started showing up. We're all volunteer, and small fire companies, to boot, so a really big fire always requires mutual aid from the surrounding companies. Plus, we all love to play with fire, so it's not fair to hog all the fun.

We arrived at the scene around 11pm. It took us about 30 minutes to establish the water supply from the creek, so I made it up to the scene around 11:30pm. It was really cooking good by then, despite 3 fire companies attacking it from different sides.

It was around 2am before it was under control, which basically means it's still cooking, but there's no risk of it spreading, and we are putting it out the right way. After the flames stopped showing, we had to do overhaul, which means you walk through the place, hip deep in water by then, and look for smoldering spots, which you then attack individually. The idea is to make sure it's all put out, and won't restart just when you're falling asleep at last, back home.

During the whole thing, we had the Salvation Army providing drinks and snacks, as usual, and many thanks to them for that. Also several ambulances ready in case one of us got hurt, or suffered heat stroke or something, many thanks to them, too.

It was probably a shame the hotel itself didn't burn down. I'm reasonably sure the crazy lady who owns the place inadvertently started the blaze herself. She loves to burn trash out back, when she thinks no one's looking. We haven't been able to catch her at it, but we're sure she's the one doing it. You can sometimes smell the smoke but by the time we get someone up there to check, she's done. Would serve her right if she lost her livelihood as a result, especially if owner stupidity can be proven, which usually makes the insurance company hesitant to pay up.

In the statements she made and which appeared in the paper a couple of days later, she states that she's never, ever had a fire, and how unexpected this all was. Yeah, right, lady. You've just been lucky you haven't started one so far. But, anyway, crazy lady, thanks to you, as well, since it gave us the chance to play until 4am.

Short on News

They must have been really hard pressed for a news story today. Reading this article, which has the following quote, I was left very perplexed:

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri has warned Britain and the United States of more attacks, singling out London for the first time since suicide bombings on its transport system killed 52 people.

Let's analyze that, shall we? The second in command of an organization whose sole purpose is the destruction of the United States of America and its allies, and whose only weapon is terrorism, is stating that it plans to carry out terrorist attacks on the United States of America and its allies.

My Gods! How unexpected... Stop the presses!

Next you'll be telling us that organized crime leaders are planning mob hits, and I'm sure the Pulitzer Prize will be awarded to the first fool reporter that proves that the Girl Scouts of America plan to continue selling cookies!

Idiots.

Profiling

Every time I lose hope in humanity, especially as represented in the Western World, something comes along that shows me that maybe all is not lost.

From the place I'd least expect to see sanity arise, comes this newsbyte. Two elected officials in New York City have publicly come forward proposing legislation that would mandate racial profiling to target people for searches. Current policy, backed by the Mayor, forces random searches in an attempt to be politically correct, albeit benightedly stupid.

Let's see, Mr. Mayor, how many terrorist attacks so far have been carried out by grannies, girl scouts, slutty-looking chicks or obviously gay ad executives? No, Mr. Mayor, I'm not going to give you the answer, go look it up on Google. Back yet? Now do the same search, but as applied to Middle Eastern men.

Exactly.

So why would anyone want to waste the time of the admittedly insufficient number of cops available to do searches by having them target people who obviously aren't out to topple our way of life?

And, no, not every Middle Eastern man is hellbent on destroying us. Heck, not even most of them, but you're a hell of a lot more likely to nab an aspiring terrorist by profiling Middle Eastern men than you are by checking girl scouts' backpacks! Now, if you add a little common sense and look for other telltale signs on top of the Arab look, then we may have a viable gameplan.

Just don't pay attention to the mandatory Liberal rants against what seems to be the first hint of common sense to come out of New York City in at least a century.

To be honest, I'm not saying any of this will keep NYC safe from terrorist attack. I actually don't think that anything short of a war of annihilation will do that, but at least it'll stop annoying the people who could only be terrorist suspects in the warped mind of a political correctness uber alles advocate, and who knows? It may actually prevent a terrorist attack or two.

Sure, mistakes may be made the other way round, London proved that with the unfortunate killing of that Brazilian young man, but let's face it... If I'm wearing a heavy jacket on a very hot summer day AND refuse orders to stop in a city that has had several terrorist attacks in the past month, then maybe, just maybe, it's partly my fault if I get shot at? What're the cops supposed to do? Guess that he's not a terrorist, but just plain stupid?

To conclude, until someone sees a troop of girl scouts hijack a plane and fly it into a building, for God's sake use some common sense and target people who could conceivably be terrorists when it comes to searches. Anything less is willful stupidity masquerading as enlightenment.

Mental Lacunae

The American people, and let's admit it, the world in general, are suffering from an incredible malaise which seems to have robbed most of their capacity to gather facts, analyze them, and arrive at conclusions which even slightly conform to reality as common sense would have it be. I blame most of it on the media, where intelligence is trivialized in pursuit of the fantastic or the emotional. Yes, we would all love it if UFOs were real and abducted people. Hell, I have some relatives I'd cheerfully volunteer for an abduction, or even an anal probe or two, but that's beside the point. And, of course, we would love it if real life stories had fairy tale endings, where everyone lived happily ever after, or more important for Americans, that the underdog be proven in the right and the establishment be humiliated for doubting it even for a second. Unfortunately, even if UFOs do exist, I have to doubt they'd be visiting a backwater like Earth, and even moreso that the occupants would have any interest at all in Uncle Fred's anal region. And, folks, when it comes to the poor, unlucky guy who never had opportunities in his youth and is now charged with capital murder, well, sad to say, he probably did it. I mean, what do you expect?

A classic example of the mentality we've fallen into, and which is even starting to affect me, was a recent Larry King Live show, whose transcript may be found here.

The show was about Kirk Bloodsworth who was accused and convicted of raping and murdering a young child back in the 1980's. He was sentenced to death, and remained imprisoned until 1993, when DNA evidence proved that he was not the culprit.

Now, that's where I, myself, fell into the media's little trap. What they really said was that DNA testing had proven that the semen found around the body of the girl did not belong to Mr. Bloodsworth, but instead to another man who was subsequently identified because his DNA was already on file, for other crimes he'd committed. Now, folks, I confess. My reaction right then and there was to think what bastards the prosecution had been, to frame this poor, innocent man just because they needed a culprit. And how unfair that he'd spent almost 20 years imprisoned for a crime he hadn't committed.

Yep, I hang my head in shame. I, as opposed to most of the viewers, actually possess a logical mind and know how to use it. But Larry King's charisma blinded me to that. DNA testing can conclusively prove, provided there is a usable sample, who was there. In other words, who left the biological debris which upon being DNA-tested can finger X person. It cannot, ever, prove I wasn't there, since there's always the chance that I simply didn't leave behind a usable bit of bio-debris.

To put it more succinctly, DNA testing provides positive proof, not negative proof. So, in this particular case, it proved that Kimberly Shea Ruffner had left semen on the little girl's underpants, but it can never prove who else was NOT there. I might have been there^*, you may have been there^**, Bill Clinton may have been there^***. And, of course, Kirk Bloodsworth may have been there.

The show had a few lawyers, for and against Bloodsworth, as well as Bloodsworth himself. One legal type, a prosecutor, though not from this case, took a lot of heat from Bloodsworth and everyone else. Her name is Wendy Murphy, and she calmly pointed out that the police had not concentrated on Bloodsworth willynilly. They'd had good reason to suspect him. At this point, another of the talking heads burst in, outraged, asking Ms. Murphy if she was suggesting that DNA proof was not conclusive. Note how convenient it is when you're on shaky ground to muddy the waters by asking a person, in outrage, whether they hold to a patently absurd belief they have never suggested they even entertain. Luckily, Ms. Murphy didn't fall into that trap and continued speaking. She pointed out that Mr. Bloodsworth fit the description given by witnesses (the guy the DNA evidence fingered almost two decades later didn't), uttered a couple of damning statements once taken into custody, and had yet to explain those statements away.

Ms. Murphy was again attacked on all sides, with everyone insisting that she either clear Bloodsworth of any possible wrongdoing or admit she didn't believe in DNA testing. There was a huge interest in hiding away the obvious alternate possibility. What if Bloodsworth had been there, at the scene, as well as the person who left the DNA traces? No need to speculate in what capacity Bloodsworth had been there. All that's necessary now is to admit that he might not have left DNA traces identifiable two decades later.

Every time Ms. Murphy attempted to make that point, she was drowned out by the talking heads and Bloodsworth. Now, what she did manage to state is that Bloodsworth had told his wife he'd done a terrible thing. He said that the night of the rape+murder. He later explained this by saying he'd forgotten to buy his wife a taco or something that night. I've had girlfriends who were ravenous hogs, but even I would not state that forgetting to feed one of them classifies as a terrible thing. Worse yet, the taco explanation changed during the program. It was no longer a taco, but rather referred to Bloodsworth leaving his then wife stuck with all the bills. Even his inconsistencies seem to be inconsistent.

There was also a characteristic from the scene, one of those things the cops don't publicize in order to filter out the crazies who inevitably confess to every crime they see on the news. Bloodsworth mentioned one of those unknown facts during an interrogation.

So, when you add all that together, witnesses describing him, bizarre statements made to the wife on the night of the crime and his knowledge of confidential crime scene info, I'd say the prosecution had a pretty good case. I'd even go so far as to state that there still is a good case against Mr. Bloodsworth, despite the DNA evidence, which, for the record, I believe in. There's no doubt that Ruffner raped the kid, seeing as his semen was identified beyond any reasonable doubt as present in the victim's underwear. But that does not mean he was the only perp involved, nor does it explain away the odd facts which still seem to inculpate Bloodsworth.

Sadly, I'm guessing no more than 1% of the audience of that show walked away with that impression. The rest of the viewers must still be railing at the stupid prosecutor lady who still insisted on blaming the poor underdog, even after he'd been cleared beyond the shadow of a doubt by modern technology.

This country may be doomed.

^* This is not a confession.
^** This is not an accusation.
^*** This is probably true, but not germane to the discussion.

The Norwegian Army Rocks!

Who says you can't have a little harmless fun in a war zone? Here's proof that you can, courtesy of the Norwegian Army.