Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Close to Home — What it’s like on the street where you live
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
JF said: "One of the biggest crimes by councils past was not requiring developers to provide fire protection, be it downtown or elsewhere. The people of University City should be furious at their lack of fire protection." ========================================= JF, what do you think of your fire chief being paraded in front of the city council to lie about response times to aid the argument for a new bridge over Rose Canyon (which would coincidentally greatly increase the land value of a huge political backer), rather than build the badly needed University City fire station? Your fire chief put pure politics above the safety of University City.— January 8, 2009 3:14 p.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
brianwilson said: "Not that I think JF needs my help in this arguement or that I am even agreeing with him, but I just did a little research of my own..." ============================================================== I don't disagree with you. The failure rate of the bar is pretty high, so there could be more graduates per practicing lawyer than there are for firefighters coming out of their schools. That would be one factor in explaining why there would be more schools offering law degrees, but I don't think saying it is very tough to pass the bar helps JFs arguments. Of course what I don't have are numbers for the failure rate coming out of the firefighter programs. Even if we did know the failure rate it wouldn't necessarily be an apples to apples comparison with law schools unless we knew the qualifications of the people entering the programs. A school (or test) with a high failure rate may be very difficult to pass, or it may be indicative of poor quality candidates. Without more info it would be impossible to know where the truth lies. My main point was to refute JFs assumption that "there are a lot less firefighters than lawyers, thus there are less colleges". He used that statement to chastize Don, but not only are that not "a lot less" firefighters than lawyers, there are actually more!— January 8, 2009 3:08 p.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
JF said: "Yes, some of that population increase is infill, but then those areas need additional fire protection." =============================================================== That is not necessarily true. Response time is a major consideration in how many fire departments you need, and although the population has grown the geography has not. Infill does not increase response times except in consideration to traffic. I'm not arguing that the current number of stations is adequate or that the increase since the seventies shouldn't have been greater, just that an increase in population alone is not a particularly pertinent argument.— January 8, 2009 2:47 p.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
JF said: "Don also wondered about higher education in the fire service. Well, there are a lot less firefighters than lawyers, thus there are less colleges. However, as jamesems pointed out, Don seems to like to throw barbs without any research." ============================================= JF, you ought to do a little research of your own before you criticize others for not doing theirs. According to the NFPA, in 2007 there were 1,148,800 firefighters in the US. According to the ABA there are currently 1,116,967 practicing lawyers in the US. Currently there are actually more firefighters than practicing lawyers. To be fair, the number of full time career firefighters is only 28% of that total, or 323,350. The rest are varying degrees of part time. Even discounting all part time firefighters, that is still only 3.5 practicing lawyers for each full time professional firefighter, which is a much lower number than I would have guessed. Many if not most part time and volunteer firefighters take at least some classes too, so that still doesn't explain away the discrepancy in schools.— January 8, 2009 11:58 a.m.
San Diego City Employees pension fund ailing
Johnny, In light of the 60 minutes piece you cited, I think you will appreciate this: "Ray Soifer, a top-rated banking analyst based in Arizona, has an explanation for the crisis gripping the stock market: Blame Harvard! Soifer has long studied the proportion of Harvard MBAs who pursue careers in finance; when more than 3 in 10 head for Wall Street, it's time for investors to sell, he says. The implication: Harvard MBAs, in aggregate, subtract value." http://valleywag.gawker.com/5053618/harvard-mbas-…— January 7, 2009 8:30 a.m.
Wall Street's Goldman Sachs, Which Got $10 Billion Government Handout, Paid Only 1% in Taxes
Don (or anybody else who knows), A little off topic: What do you know about Gerald Celente and the Trends Research Institute? I just heard an interview with him that was very interesting, and I was wondering what his real track record is and what (if any) credibility he has.— December 17, 2008 9:41 p.m.
San Diegan Who Spearheaded Tax Avoidance Schemes for Dentists and Doctors Indicted on Tax Charges
"Pyramidal Funding Systems"? Are you kidding me? I'm sure that didn't set off any red flags at the IRS!— December 16, 2008 6:55 p.m.
What's the best/worst pickup line you've heard?
You usually think of pick-up lines from men, but one of my favorites was delivered by a woman to my friend. We were hanging out near closing time in a pizza place in Isla Vista with the mostly female wait staff. One of them (already a bit tipsy) told us that her roommate had a nice water bed and was gone for the week, but had locked the door to her room. She then looked at my friend and asked him if he knew how to pick locks! That is the last we saw of him (or her) for the night.— November 28, 2008 11:46 p.m.
Dick Rider wants competition, Mike Aguirre wants bankruptcy
why else would one man be so lame in his hard-on for the police and firefighters who,everyday do something heroic,whilst everyday paul(rhymes with not tall)does something lame and stupid. ================================================================ Gee, I don't know why else, but since Paul also ryhmes with tall, I guess you are going to have to dig a little deeper and find out. Do you think short Mr. Bunyan could create a fire break with that little axe of his??— November 25, 2008 11:50 a.m.
Dick Rider wants competition, Mike Aguirre wants bankruptcy
JF said: "I talk to employees from other departments all the time who like being city employees. Not for the pay and benefits, but for the job itself." ============================================================ Trouble is that you are constantly harping about pay and benefits for firefighters, which puts the lie to your statement. I do think Don overstates it at times, because I believe the vast majority of city employees are hardworking and do the best job they are allowed to do. There is lack of leadership at the top, however, along with far too many people who do game the system. If you look at the list of highest salaries in the city, JF, you have to admit that the number of police and fire making $140K+ and up is waaaay too high. I also think that outsourcing is almost never a good solution for a city, because a corrupt city cannot be trusted with outsourcing, while a well-run city doesn't need to consider large-scale outsourcing.— November 25, 2008 8:09 a.m.