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The average Los Angeles firefighter earned nearly $43,000 in overtime in 2013, up nearly 20% from the previous year, according to data released Tuesday by City Controller Ron Galperin.

With overtime and bonuses factored in, the average firefighter was paid more than $142,000 last year, the data show.

Source LA Times: L.A. firefighters’ average overtime pay rose 20% in 2013

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Yesterday’s headline In a matter of seconds, qualified applicants lose out on LAFD jobs

Today’s headline One of five LAFD recruits in training class are related to department firefighters

res ipsa loquitur

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[quote=AN][quote=SD Realtor]Yep no inflation here. Except that that the food you buy is more expensive and packaged in smaller quantitied. You pay more for water, more for sewer, and more for energy. It has been staring you in the face for the past several years.

Don’t worry though, you can always eat your cheap flatscreen and keep warm by burning your low priced cell phone plan at night.[/quote]
Certain food is more expensive but not all. Same with energy. Sure, energy from sdge is getting more expensive, but energy from solar is getting cheaper every year. I went solar a year ago and my bill over the last year has been between $5-100. It used to be between $150-450.

I’m not saying we’re not seeing inflation. I’m just saying what we’re seeing is not as drastic as you’re making it seem. Maybe it’s the type of food I eat and the source of my energy.[/quote]

I went solar three years ago. My cost per Kwh works out to about 10 cents, the rest of the Pigg’s cost for my energy use works out to about 25 cents/Kwh. provided I get full life expectancy out of them.

Solar isn’t cheaper, it’s actually much more expensive and just transferred the cost to non-users via taxes thanks to the rebates and tax incentives.

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I don’t think it’s any worse than any other urban part of Cali. Wasn’t it about three weeks ago that a girl got beat to death in line for a club and the line basically stood there and watched?

Seems like events similar to that happen around most Cali urban areas

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[quote=spdrun]Advanced coal still has the problem of environmental destruction from mining (ever seen a strip-mine?), plus CO2 emissions, even if sulfur dioxide and particulates are scrubbed. [/quote]

Ever see the windmill farms or a big thermal Solarvoltaic installation?

Little difference, IMHO.

Also, those environmental costs are reflected in the variable costs of the operation.

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[quote=CA renter][quote=SD Realtor]Definitely Jeff… Had a thread on this site about 5 years ago about gray water systems. That should have been well thought out about oh…. 40 or 50 years ago and should have been mandated for builders to install them for residential landscape irrigations.

[/quote]

Could not agree more. I also have a problem with using potable water for toilets. Not sure about you guys in SD, but my DH and I remember well the drought in the 80s up in LA. One has to wonder why haven’t we done anything about it in the past 30+ years? It’s not like we’ve ever had abundant water supplies here.

Same goes for solar, too. All recent developments should have had solar installed on the roofs, IMHO.[/quote]

According to US Department of Energy, Solar is 60% more expensive in total than coal. 40% more expensive than advanced coal cleaning technologies and more than DOUBLE the total cost of Natural Gas in a conventional plant. And these aren’t dirty plants, these are plants going into production in 2018, so they have the current environmental cleaning factors.

The report is Levelized Cost in New Energy Production

So, new advanced combined cycle natural gas plants produce for 6.6 cents/KwH, and Solar production with photo-cells comes in at $14.4 cents/KwH.

Individual house installation are even more inefficient and expensive with real production cost coming in the 20-30 cents/KwH range.

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Courtesy of JPL

That minus 2 and minus 4 are quite large given the anemic nature of our rainfall in Southern CA, but overall, Cali and the west coast are getting wetter.

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You’re being played. The OC Register had a graphic a couple weeks ago of the last 60 years of rainfall in California.

We’re in a completely TYPICAL cycle. The the current ‘drought’ is no more severe and duration as 5 previous droughts in the last 60 years. And our ten year rain totals are about 1/2 inch below annual ‘normal’ for the same period.

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[quote=spdrun]

As the previous poster pointed out, most higher end neighborhoods require landscaping approval, hence you likely really are in violation unless the playhouse is so small it’s readily movable by a single person.

In the back yard? So long as it’s kept clean and free of nuisances (say stagnant water in a pool that’s breeding insects or old food that’s attracting vermin), I don’t get why it should be an HOA issue.[/quote]

Because they SIGNED A CONTRACT that says it is.

Is it PIA, overkill? yep, but that’s HOAs.

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[quote=svelte]
To all you piss and moaners telling her how to antagonize her HOA: not a smart move and pretty immature. She bought into the community knowing there were CC&Rs. She apparently misconstrued their application. She should take the time to learn their correct interpretation.[/quote]

Antagonizing the neighbor is bad form too, that last thing you want is a pissing match with a neighbor to generating fining issues for the HOA.

When tangling with the HOA, keep in mind, many of them now default to proceeding to fines, then collections as rapidly as possible until an issue is resolved. Until you reach a judgment, they will continue to levee late fees, etc and they add up incredibly fast.

As the previous poster pointed out, most higher end neighborhoods require landscaping approval, hence you likely really are in violation unless the playhouse is so small it’s readily movable by a single person.

All that said, what’s wrong with your neighbor to have pissy fit about a kids playhouse in the back yard.

And all that said, if same said neighbor is downwind, maybe you should take up smoking foods on an outdoor smoker. I’d suggest a beef brisket as it’ll take all day to smoke and can handle the heavy hickory, pecan or mesquite smoke which can be quite pungent and acrid.

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[quote=CA renter]Yep, a relatively new program, and a bad one. They’re stopping it immediately because of a newspaper article/investigation. My guess is that someone from the inside blew the whistle on it. Good for them.

Note that many people who tried to go through this program did NOT get hired. Not sure why some were and some weren’t, but my guess is that most of the people who were hired through the program were qualified. Some bad apples got through the screening process, though some investigators/hiring officials apparently tried to stop some of them from getting through.

Let’s see what happens. IMO, it’s probable that people are going to lose their jobs over this. Not only that, but some people might end up being criminally charged. It will be interesting to watch.

Tell me, nsr: What would happen in the private sector (where you seem to think hiring standards are higher) if someone hired a friend or relative who wasn’t qualified for the job? Would their names be in the paper along with the names of the hirees and the disqualifying factors? Would there be official investigations? Would they lose their jobs? Would they be criminally charged and/or end up in jail?[/quote]

No CAR, you’re the one always asserting that the Government employs such stringent hiring criteria.

Relatively new in this case means 8 years old. Basically it’s as old as Piggington’s. Granted Piggs about a year on it.

As for private enterprise, what private people do with their money is their business.

What the Government does with OUR money is OUR business. But you chronically have a problem with that along with the concept that the Government employees work for “the people” and instead insist they work for their department.

As we saw in the other thread, you can’t even acknowledge that the pubic sector unions are just as manipulative and just as dirty for gaming the political system as any CEO and company. As such, anyone taking their living from the ill gotten gains of the union is just as dirty as any CEO bilking the system.

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[quote] From Wikipedia:
Salk became ambitious for his own lab and was finally granted one at the University of Pittsburgh. However, he was disappointed. The lab they had given him was much smaller than he had hoped and the university forced him to conform to many rules which stunted his research as a beginning virologist.[25]

In 1948, Harry Weaver, the director of research at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP), which later became known as the March of Dimes, contacted Salk. He asked Salk to join the fight against polio and research/confirm how many polio types there were. At the time, scientists had discovered three; they wanted to know if there were any more types. Although this type of polio research would be repetitious, boring, and time-consuming, the National Foundation agreed to pay for additional space, equipment and researchers. Once the research was finished, Salk would be able to keep the facilities and continue his previous work.

Because Salk desperately needed space, he joined the fight. For the first year, he gathered supplies and researchers. Dr. Julius Youngner, Byron Bennett, Dr. L. James Lewis and secretary Lorraine Friedman joined Salk’s team as well.[26] Youngner remembers this period:
[/quote]

Obviously done for the joy of science.

BTW, the March of Dimes spent the equivalent of about $3 Billion 2013 dollars on treatment and research of Polio from the 1930s to 1955.

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Is hiring a ghost driver an option?

🙂

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