United Firefighters Union (UFUA) Over Country Fire Authority (CFA) The Federal Court in Australia recently  overturned an earlier lower court decision governing staffing in the Country Fire Authority which is responsible for emergency response across the state of Victoria excluding areas covered by the Melbourne Fire Brigade. CFA is roughly comparable to California’s CAL FIRE […]

Stay or Go? In this era of terror mayhem it behooves us all to think through how we would react in a potentially lethal environment. This past Monday afternoon a Washington, D.C., metrorail train stopped in a tunnel after an arcing incident occurred on the track. The loaded train apparently remained stationary as heavy smoke […]

According to media, Atlanta fire chief Kelvin Cochran, a former US Fire Administrator, has been terminated for lack of judgment in publishing and disseminating a book which compares homosexuality to bestiality and pederasty and for giving it to employees, some of whom complained. Cochran and others, including the Georgia Baptist Convention, charge that his religious […]

Make That A #4 To Go Life may be one big tragedy but where kids and guns are concerned there is a hierarchy of devastation. 1) The worst has to be a parent killing a child; 2) Then any adult killing a child; 3) Followed by a child killing a child; 4) Then a child […]

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Steamer Tremont The Tremont was a 260-foot long, side-wheel paddle-steamer plying the waters between Providence, RI and New York. She originally made the Boston to New York run but the burgeoning railroads had put a stop to that. Railroads were willing to cut their freight and passenger prices to match or undercut the steamer lines […]

Crowd Control or Part of One? Pay Attention. 2014 is the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough football disaster when 96 fans were killed and 766 injured in a crowd crush in Sheffield, England. Fans, most of them young, were pinned in or near the fence surrounding the field and died of compressive asphyxia. Though it […]

“…job cuts are ill-conceived and stupid” Victoria, Australia’s Country Fire Authority (CFA), the state agency providing fire service outside Melbourne, Geelong, and other cities is cutting 164 positions on the brink of the 2014 fire season. The United Firefighters Union of Australia (UFUA) Victoria Branch is taking strong exception to the cuts. Peter Marshall, UFUA […]

“We Feared To Fly” Welcome, Ebola, to America. The carrier, a recent Liberian traveler, with a fever, was seen and released from a hospital. Now, he’s back in, listed in critical condition. Confidence is not inspired by the CDC or other public health officials who say they have the situation under control. A Plague Upon […]

The Most Proportional Police In America Ferguson, Missouri continues as a slowly boiling cauldron after the shooting of Michael Brown there on August 9th. Like it or not, it is a contemporary touchstone for the notion that police departments across the U.S. constantly employ excessive force. If perception is reality, there’s a problem and not […]