new yorks finest? new yorks worst....

[NYDrew]

Brooklyn, the majority of the police are great, upstanding people. The type of person most of us wish we could be. I have friends in NYPD, SCPD, NCPD and as a firefighter I consider them my hideously ugly step brothers. If you truly have a friend in brass you would know that your blanket statement is an uneducated lie. As far as overpaid....why don't you go stand in front of the business end of a glock and tell me how much you think that is worth. Whats next, soldiers are murderers, firefighters are drunks. Until you step up to the plate and risk your life for another, please just sit back and let the real men do their jobs.

The video that was posted. The cop was 100% wrong, but put yourself in his shoes. Your a rookie doing a dangerous job, people are swerving by you, you head to the sidewalk for something, your nervous and a bike zips by. At your disposal you have a G19 with 15 rds, a bottle of pepper spray, a taser and a knight stick.....how would you react?

 

[dmc]

Whats next, firefighters are drunks.

Well.... that could be debated as true...

If I made a living out running in opposite direction that my gut tells me - I'd tip a few to relax too... Being a cop is one thing... But running into a burning building is crazy.. Friend of mine was FDNY - he said he loved it. crazy dude..

 

[NYDrew]

there is no greater rush then being inside of fire, but until fire learns to use sights and fire a weapon the cops are my heros.

 

[wa-loaf]

speaking of off season training, i'm gettin worried about my achilles tendon. Its been sore for over a month now and my brother blew his out last year. hereditary? i hope not.

brother in law blew his out last November. He's almost back to normal now. Pretty much a freak thing. Wasn't even really moving at all. Just squaring up to the ball playing goalie in soccer.

My understanding is there's not much that can be done to prevent it from happening.

It's funny so many of you are mentioning Achilles tendon. Never had problems with it before until this past season. Not sure what to make of that but it acted up during ski season and periodically complains now.

You guys should consider getting orthotics for running/sports. I hurt my achilles last summer running, not to mention all the other aches I was getting in joints. Spent some dough on a pair this year mainly for running and they have made all the difference. My feet pronate a bit which causes the achilles to rub out of line and increases the chance of injury.

 

[wa-loaf]

The video that was posted. The cop was 100% wrong, but put yourself in his shoes. Your a rookie doing a dangerous job, people are swerving by you, you head to the sidewalk for something, your nervous and a bike zips by. At your disposal you have a G19 with 15 rds, a bottle of pepper spray, a taser and a knight stick.....how would you react?

I agree with most of what you said, but this cop was watching the guy the whole way and intentionally nailed him. There's no fear for his life or injury going on there.

 

[Brownsville Brooklyn]

Tiny mushrooms blamed for 400 deaths in SW China

By TINI TRAN
Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) -- Every year during the height of the rainy season, villagers of all ages in a corner of southwestern China would suddenly die of cardiac arrest.

No one knew what caused Yunnan Sudden Death Syndrome, blamed for an estimated 400 deaths in the past three decades.

After a five-year study, an elite investigative unit from China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention believes it has pinpointed the cause: an innocuous-looking mushroom known as Little White.

The search for the culprit took investigators to remote villages spread over the rural highlands of Yunnan province, said Robert Fontaine, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There was "this very obvious clustering of deaths in villages in very short periods of time in the summer," said Fontaine, who helped in the investigation. "It appears that there was something a little different going on."

Local health officials had noted the deaths for years. In 2004, they appealed to Beijing for assistance. The government gave the task to the China Field Epidemiology Training Program, a unit of medical investigators at China's CDC assigned some of the country's toughest health mysteries.

The medical teams encountered obstacles. Many villagers communicated in their own dialect. Villages were scattered in often remote areas. Rapid burials made it difficult to conduct autopsies. Torrential rain and mudslides hampered travel.

But that first year, investigators were able to narrow the list of possibilities: most victims had drunk surface water, they had emotional stress and they ate mushrooms.

The investigators zeroed in on mushrooms, because the deaths were closely aligned with the harvesting season. More than 90 percent of the deaths occurred in July or August. By the end of 2005, investigators began issuing warnings to some villages to avoid eating unfamiliar mushrooms.

That was a difficult order to follow. Yunnan province is legendary for its wide variety of wild mushrooms, many of which are exported at high prices. Entire families go out to hunt for them during the summer months.

By 2008, investigators had discovered a relatively unknown mushroom in a number of homes where people had died. The mushroom is not usually sold in the markets, because it's too small.

"We repeatedly found it at all these sites," Fontaine said.

A public information campaign to warn against eating the mushrooms has dramatically reduced the number of deaths. Only a handful have been reported in the last couple of years, and none so far this year.

However, the mystery has not yet been definitively solved.

Testing found the mushroom contained some toxins, though not enough to be deadly. Chinese scientists need to isolate the toxin and test whether it triggers cardiac arrests.

Researchers have hypothesized that there is a second agent. Many of the victims showed high levels of barium, a heavy metal in the soil that seeps into mushrooms.

"There is a lot of work left to do," Fontaine said. "We really need additional lab investigations."

Problems with poisonous mushrooms are common throughout Asia, said Diderik De Vleeschauwer, a spokesman for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization regional office in Thailand.

"Normally we expect people to have knowledge of what they can and can't eat. One would think there is indigenous knowledge available about what they can forage," he said. "But these are accidents that can happen."

© 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Click here for copyright permissions!

Copyright 2008 Associated Press

 

[2knees]

Or field hockey..

I'm reserving this.

 

[Marc]

Well.... that could be debated as true...

If I made a living out running in opposite direction that my gut tells me - I'd tip a few to relax too... Being a cop is one thing... But running into a burning building is crazy.. Friend of mine was FDNY - he said he loved it. crazy dude..

The more you understand about firefighting the less crazy it seems. Becomes more a calculated risk.


What drives most FF to the bottle is the human side of the job. Stuff you see. Can be brutal.

 

[Marc]

I agree with most of what you said, but this cop was watching the guy the whole way and intentionally nailed him. There's no fear for his life or injury going on there.

I hope you don't think less of me as a person for that I chuckled when I watched the vid the first time.

Probably partly because of my intense, burning hatred for Critical Mass. Cop was a db and deserved to lose his job BUT... it was still comedy gold.

 

[Marc]

Brooklyn, the majority of the police are great, upstanding people. The type of person most of us wish we could be. I have friends in NYPD, SCPD, NCPD and as a firefighter I consider them my hideously ugly step brothers. If you truly have a friend in brass you would know that your blanket statement is an uneducated lie. As far as overpaid....why don't you go stand in front of the business end of a glock and tell me how much you think that is worth. Whats next, soldiers are murderers, firefighters are drunks. Until you step up to the plate and risk your life for another, please just sit back and let the real men do their jobs.

The video that was posted. The cop was 100% wrong, but put yourself in his shoes. Your a rookie doing a dangerous job, people are swerving by you, you head to the sidewalk for something, your nervous and a bike zips by. At your disposal you have a G19 with 15 rds, a bottle of pepper spray, a taser and a knight stick.....how would you react?

Next time you're hanging around with the blue canaries, tell 'em this joke:

Q: What do cops and firefighters have in common?


A: They both wanted to be firefighters.

 

[NYDrew]

i like that one Marc...are you on the job?

 

[Marc]

i like that one Marc...are you on the job?

I was a vollie for 2 years, then did a college live in for 2, then a vollie again for 2 more.

Then I moved to a different town where I'm too far from the station to make many calls and there's too much political BS because it's mixed full time/call.

Two union shops (IAFF + MCVFA..., which ok, isn't technically a labor union but close enough) under one roof sucks.