Obion County, TN home burns while South Fulton firefighters watch, again. The City of South Fulton FD offers surrounding Obion County residents firefighting services for a $75 annual subscription, but not all county residents choose to subscribe (
previously).
The last time this happened, the city of South Fulton, Tennessee, received a lot of heat nationwide for this policy. That was more than a year ago but nothing has changed.
The mayor said it comes down to simple business. If they don't collect fire fees, the fire department can't survive and if they make exceptions to the rule, no one will ever pay the fee.
Obion County
lacks a fire department (pdf) and county residents, who do not pay taxes for firefighting, are provided firefighting services through local cities and towns, either by annual subscription or a per-call fee.
posted by 6550
on Dec 8, 2011 -
227 comments
This week has seen a lot of discussion of the American criminal justice system and its failings, and a lot of concern about what can be done to fix it.
In 1947, a working class black man looked like he was about to have the full weight of the system brought down on him for taking justice into his own hands. But after Chicago leftists - including labor unions, religious leaders, artists, civil rights activists & others - launched a movement,
James Hickman was set free after an all-white jury, in a trial presided over by a white judge, failed to convict, and the DA chose not to re-try because of the magnitude of public support for Hickman.
According to a
review in The Nation,
a new book tells the story in a way that turns the typical right-wing biases of the true crime genre on their head.
[more inside]
posted by univac
on Sep 22, 2011 -
11 comments
"I was daydreaming in class about who knows what, when I thought of my fire poofer project...I tried to think of ways I could apply a fireball shooter to things in ways that would be pretty awesome. I thought of using a microcontroller to sync the fire to the beat of music - now that would be pretty cool, and the patterns would always be different, so it wouldn't get as boring as fast. Then I thought of the game Guitar Hero."
High school student Chris Marion hacks a guitar controller and builds
FireHero. Facemelting ensues.
posted by therewolf
on Jan 19, 2011 -
28 comments
"All you do is put it in the center here like this and then set a fire to it. And not always but most -
uh oh." (Minecraft SLYT via
Reddit)
posted by stringbean
on Sep 19, 2010 -
382 comments
Arcade Fire devise 'synchronised artwork' for The Suburbs. Montreal band develop album art in the digital age, providing bonus material to accompany the download of their latest LP. "The idea is simple... Tightly sync a series of images with specific moments in a song using the m4a format. Like some podcasters do, but with micro chapters for each lines of the lyrics. In addition to that, we were able to add good old hyperlinks also synchronised to the song. This gives the possibility for the band to add, at any moments, all kinds of references related to each song. They plan to change and update those links occasionally."
says: Vincent Morisset, director of Arcade Fire's Miroir Noir live DVD
posted by Fizz
on Aug 4, 2010 -
51 comments
Kirtland's Warbler (Dendroica kirtlandii) is a small songbird that lives almost exclusively in the lower peninsula of Michigan. During the 1970's they were on the verge of extinction, partially due to the fact that they prefer young jack pine trees as a nesting place, and improved fire safety efforts had led to a lack of new growth in the forests. To address the lack of young jack pines, the Forest Service started a controlled burn on May 5, 1980. The fire quickly got out of control, and the resulting wildfire lead to the death of local firefighter Jim Swiderski, and the destruction of 64 homes. A
recent Radiolab segment has again raised the question: how much is a species worth?
[more inside]
posted by ivey
on Jul 18, 2010 -
17 comments
“This is hard work and these are tough decisions, but students only have one chance for an education,”
Education Secretary Duncan said, “and when schools continue to struggle we have a collective obligation to take action.” In response to a new federal mandate to fix under-performing schools,
every teacher will be fired at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island.
posted by lunit
on Feb 24, 2010 -
229 comments
Box 5-1438: Report of a structure fire at 266 Franklin St. 10 years ago this evening in Worcester, MA, the
Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Fire started when two people living in the abandoned building,
Julie Barnes and Thomas Levesque, knocked over a candle during an argument and then fled. Upon arrival at the
quickly growing fire, reports were received about two people living in the building, and firefighters
entered the building to rescue them. During the
primary search, Rescue 1 firefighters
Paul Brotherton and
Jeremiah Lucey were the first to report trouble. They were lost on the 4th floor and running out of air. Soon after, a four man rescue crew of
Lt. Thomas Spencer (Ladder 2), firefighter
Timothy Jackson (Ladder 2),
Lt. James Lyons (Engine 3), and firefighter
Joseph McGuirk (Engine 3) reports that they have also become disoriented while searching the 5th floor. All six men died
that night, they are known as the
Worcester Six or
W6.
[more inside]
posted by rollbiz
on Dec 3, 2009 -
27 comments
The fire tower, or fire lookout, was one of the main wildfire-fighting tools of forest services across the world for
much of the 20th century. Most are
small cabins,
alone or placed on
80-foot steel towers; these are then placed on top of peaks, giving them an unobstructed
view of the surrounding countryside. (There are
some exceptions, of course.) Operators in the towers, equipped with binoculars and
firefinders, spent their days searching for smoke or lightning strikes, which would be pinpointed and radioed in for firefighters. (The lookout operators, who staff the towers for a season at a time straight, have a life that is generally pretty
solitary and
quiet, though sometimes rather
intense.) At peak, there were thousands of fire towers across North America; while most of these no longer exist,
a few hundred are still active.
[more inside]
posted by Upton O'Good
on Mar 2, 2009 -
35 comments
As those of you on the wrong email lists can probably guess, Snopes is overflowing with
gang initiation rumors. What you may not know is that the New Jersey police
recently arrested someone spreading those stories for "causing false public alarm."
[more inside]
posted by tkolar
on Dec 7, 2008 -
23 comments
