[quote]**VERY FEW PEOPLE ARE QUALIFIED TO DO THEIR JOBS,**[/quote]

I think this is where I and most people on this thread vehemently disagree with you.

I know quite a few firemen. I lived with a helicopter crew in the backwoods Idaho (5 of them died in a helicopter crash), my brother in-law is a SD fireman, another friend is a hotshot in the tahoe area, another good fiend is a firehouse medic in mammoth, my mentor growing up was a CO fireman.

So again I know a lot of firemen. And most of these guys are not some sort of physical or mental phenoms. Some even fail some pretty basic responsibility and common sense tests (for anyone reading who knows me, some are really smart and anal to the point of psychosis). But if you ask them about their work, They will freely admit they are riding the gravy train.

So CAR, I am sorry if you disagree, but your assertion that firemen are hard to come by does not shake out. It is a great job, with lots of rewards, and it is highly compensated. Is it a good job for family men, maybe not. Is it a good job for people who like 9-5 monday through friday, probably not. But are there people who can make it work for their families, and like LARGE chunks of time off…most definitely.

CAR, what is your relation to fire?

Flu,

Fact is, we are spending more per pupil in education then we ever have…and we are giving an arguably teaching our kids less. We should be able to demand more for less, because once upon a time, we got it.

The politicians will hold the firemen and teachers over our heads so they can punish us into giving them more money to delay reforms which make their head hurt. What more can we do, but vote them out and call their bluff.