This is cool: Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot - SAFFiR

Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot - SAFFiR 

Do you really want to pay huge pension benefits for these losers? This is really shameful.

Police and firefighters in San Francisco watch man drown in bay and refuse to rescue or even try to recover the body. They blame budget cuts and lack of cold-water training. A bystander had to wade into the water and retrieve the victims body.

On Memorial Day, a suicidal man waded into San Francisco Bay outside the city of Alameda and stood there for about an hour, neck-deep in chilly water, as about 75 bystanders watched. Local police and firefighters were called to the scene, but they refused to help. After the man drowned, the assembled “first responders” also refused to wade into the water to retrieve his body; they left that job for a bystander.

The incident sparked widespread outrage in northern California, and the response by the fire department and police only intensified the anger. The firefighters blamed local budget cuts for denying them the training and equipment necessary for cold-water rescues. The police said that they didn’t know if the man was dangerous and therefore couldn’t risk the safety of their officers. After a local TV news crew asked him whether he would save a drowning child in the bay, Alameda fire chief Ricci Zombeck gave an answer that made him the butt of local talk-show mockery: “Well, if I was off duty, I would know what I would do, but I think you’re asking me my on-duty response, and I would have to stay within our policies and procedures, because that’s what’s required by our department to do.”

Taxpayer Abuse: LA Police-Fire Fighters Can Retire and Stay on Job Drawing Salary

How would you like to retire early and stay on the bob drawing your full notmal salary in addition to retirement? This kind of double-dipping is allowed under the LA DROP program.

"DROP" stands for Deferred Retirement Option Plan. LAPD and L.A. Fire Department personnel who've worked for at least 25 years and are at least 50 years old can "retire," then go back to work immediately. When they return to work, pension payments are held while they continue collecting a salary, and after five years, they can leave and collect that money in a lump-sum payment. Read more here.

Sotomayor Rationalizes that if Minorities can't Pass a Test, An Easier Test Should be Devised

Judge Sotomayor is often criticized for being part of the three judge panel that ruled a Fire Fighter's test had to be thrown out because no blacks were promoted based on their scores. The Hispanics and Whites outscored the black Fire Fighters. Using typical left wing logic, Sotomayor suggests the test must be flawed. Fire fighting is the same regardless of your color. How can a test on fire fighting knowledge be discriminatory? Wouldn't it be dangerous to put the least knowledgeable Fire Fighters in charge?
From Flopping Aces Blog:

The Wall Street Journal got their hands on a recording of the Ricci v. DeStefano hearing that is much talked about when Sotomayor’s name comes up.

JUDGE SOTOMAYOR: Counsel … we’re not suggesting that unqualified people be hired. The city’s not suggesting that. All right? But there is a difference between where you score on the test and how many openings you have. And to the extent that there’s an adverse impact on one group over the other, so that the first seven who are going to be hired only because of the vagrancies [sic] of the vacancies at that moment, not because you’re unqualified–the pass rate is the pass rate–all right? But if your test is always going to put a certain group at the bottom of the pass rate so they’re never ever going to be promoted, and there is a fair test that could be devised that measures knowledge in a more substantive way, then why shouldn’t the city have an opportunity to try and look and see if it can develop that?

KAREN LEE TORRE: Because they already developed it, your honor.

JUDGE SOTOMAYOR: It assumes the answer. It assumes the answer which is that, um, the test is valid because we say it’s valid.

KAREN LEE TORRE: The testing consultant said it was valid. He told them it was valid…. They had evidence that the test was job-related and valid for use under Title VII.

I can’t wait to hear the evidence that Sotomayor has that would prove the test was “always” going to put certain groups at the bottom of promotion lists.