More Midwestern firefighting drama I wonder why we think of Washington and Oregon as the Northwest, Maine and all those states in the Northeast, but Minnesota and Wisconsin as the Midwest?

I'll skip the geography lessons for now, mainly because I don't know the answer. When the news connects 'fired' and 'firemen' these days, the Midwest is the destination.

No great lines about betting testicles this time. But this account of a fire marshal who may have had malice in mind is in the ballpark...

A Middleton fire marshal has been on paid leave since July while officials investigate allegations he used a department computer to consult with an online psychic and conspired with others to buy an Internet voodoo hex against the chief.

The consultations by Tom Weber sought to divine whether he and others would be successful in removing Fire Chief Aaron Harris, Harris said. Searches of department computers also found Weber had exchanged e-mails seeking to discredit and disparage the chief, Harris said.

One of the e-mails Weber received indicated someone had bought a hex "wishing harm upon me," Harris said, although he hadn't seen the alleged curse.

They just can't handle not having the Packers in action up there, can they? What happens when Brett Favre retires, are they going to nail cow tongues to the doors at Lambeau Field? Swap out the Cheeseheads for black roosters?

Wisconsin, Fire Marshal, Voodoo

Tagger tagged for tagging Mayor's bus Not everyone who does something stupid is employed enough to be fired for it. This kid in LA goes by 'Zoner' and he really zoned out when it came to picking a bus to tag...

A 15-year-old sophomore at the Santee Education Complex in South L.A. was arrested late Tuesday on suspicion of being the student who scrawled his nickname on the outside window of a city bus carrying Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Schools Supt. David L. Brewer, among others. Santee Principal Vince Carbino, who was also on the bus Monday, said he believed the youth had no idea that dignitaries were aboard - but looked stunned, hid his face and stopped his tagging when he saw a photographer on the bus taking his picture.

The Times has a great picture of this asshat in action, right in mid-tag. The principal thinks El Zoner needs help with his achievement issues. Mayor Antonio can't say out loud he'd like the kid to get seven kinds of crap kicked out of him, but he did suggest El Zoner should get a hundred hours of scrubbing tags off other buses.

Mayor Antonio and the collection of suckups and reporters were on the bus to open a new bus stop that would keep kiddies from having to walk through some of south LA's more interesting territory. The bus got a block away from the bus stop, and El Zoner stepped up to do his thing.

Smile for the camera.

Fired, Los Angeles, Bus, Tagger, Zoner

FredPoll – who deserves punishment over Walter Reed? Google says it's got 1,812 articles about the mess at Walter Reed hospital in Google news. I can't add anything to this, funny or serious.

So I thought I'd leave it to the witty, informed, stylish readers of The Fired Blog to do my work for me decide just who is in most need of an authentic Gitmo waterboarding for this mess. Voting is open for one week, mouseover the poll to see stuff scroll.




Fired, Secretary of the Army, Walter Reed

Urine big trouble now This was just cold blooded. A TV photographer got fired for taking a wizz in a cemetery. He picked a bad time to do it...

Gerry Edwards, of Center Point, was dismissed in December by KGAN-TV in Cedar Rapids.

In November, Edwards urinated near a monument at a cemetery while he was there covering the funeral procession for 23-year-old Sgt. James Musack, of Riverside, who was killed in Iraq, court records said.

He's been denied unemployment bennies, even after saying he was pressured to stay at the funeral to get shots for the station. TV news types love flag-draped coffins, 'cuz that gets more people to watch and more money from advertisers.

Here's the cold blooded part...

Another journalist photographed the incident, and it was e-mailed to Edwards' managers. Records said officials escorted Edwards out of the building within hours and gave him a choice of resigning or being fired.

Backstabbed by another journalist. Shouldn't the tattletale be fired for shooting a pissing picture instead of the funeral?

Fired, Gerry Edwards, Funeral, Photographer

When we said we'd treat you like family, we meant the Sopranos Prosecutors dumped by the Bush Administration told their new pals in the Democratic Congress that they felt "leaned on" to get indictments against...wait for it...Democrats.

The Bushies then tried to impose the Republican version of omerta on the ex-prosecutors and told not to get chatty with the media about their firings.

Arkansas' Bud Cummins wrote other fired prosecutors in an e-mail last month of a "message" conveyed by a Justice Department official that if they continued to talk with news reporters, the agency "would feel forced to somehow pull their gloves off" and fight back.

Republicans were not happy to find out politically damaging indictments would not hit their Democratic brethren before the 2006 elections. Hey attorneys, if you wake up and feel a sticky spot next to you in the bed, chances are you're going to save a lot on horse-related expenses.

Fired, Prosecutors, Congress

Wal-Mart fires eavesdropping tech, doesn't thank him for shopping The Feds are very interested in why a computer systems techie working for Wal-Mart just happened to be recording phone calls and picking up on pager and text messages to a reporter named Michael Barbaro with the New York Times.

The Times was probably happier than a paparazzi blundering into a newly-bald Britney to have this little scandal become unearthed. Politically the two couldn't be any farther apart without being on different planets...

Mona Williams, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, which is based in Bentonville, Ark., said the company fired the technician and a supervisor yesterday. A third manager in Wal-Mart’s information technology group was disciplined. Ms. Williams declined to identify the technician or his supervisors.

H. Lee Scott Jr., Wal-Mart’s chief executive, called the chief executive of The New York Times, Janet L. Robinson, early yesterday to explain the situation and apologize, Ms. Williams said.

Ms. Williams added that she contacted Mr. Barbaro and personally apologized to him, as well.

I just know the Wal-Martians would rather wash down a bowl of ground glass with battery acid than be put in a position of apologizing to the Paper of Record.

Fired, Wal-Mart, New York Times, Secret Recordings

You too can be a Wikipedia theology expert All it takes is a copy of Catholicism for Dummies and a credulous Wikipedia audience to be a religious expert.

I guess that makes Bono's Mirrorball Man the Second Coming of Christ. This is still a pretty slick con a 24 year old guy with no real degrees managed to pull not just on Wikipedia, but on a real journalism type thing, The New Yorker...

The Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Stacy Schiff was referred by the Wikimedia Foundation for an interview for the article to Wikipedia administrator Essjay, a member of Wikipedia's arbitration committee and generally trusted member of the community....

One regular on the site is a user known as Essjay, who holds a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law and has written or contributed to sixteen thousand entries. A tenured professor of religion at a private university... ...

EssJay had fabricated a persona which he described on his user page on Wikipedia, presenting himself as a tenured professor at a private US university. After the news broke, EssJay claimed that the false details were intended to avoid cyberstalking.

The Outlaw Jimbo Wales who started Wikipedia sounds like he's been seriously backpedaling after his initial response over the whole mess. Facing the potential wrath of a Pulitzer Prize winner and her lawyers probably yanked ol' Jimbo right out of Nirvana...

I have been for several days in a remote part of India with little or no Internet access. I only learned this morning that EssJay used his false credentials in content disputes. I understood this to be primarily the matter of a pseudonymous identity (something very mild and completely understandable given the personal dangers possible on the Internet) and not a matter of violation of people's trust. I want to make it perfectly clear that my past support of EssJay in this matter was fully based on a lack of knowledge about what has been going on.

As Homer Simpson said, "Mistakes were made."

I'm going to use that on Lucas if he ever has to ask me about a post on this blog. "Sorry dude, I was deep into the Upanishads in a remote part of India after I posted that."

Now that the Outlaw Jimbo Wales is back in touch with reality, he's fired Essjay, aka Ryan Jordan, from his positions of trust in Wikipedia. At least he wasn't pretending to be a 14 year old boy on MySpace or anything.

Fired, Wikipedia, Essjay, Jimbo Wales

Astronaut fired from NASA, no rocket required Normally I wouldn't have bothered with the Loony Lisa Nowak story. Fortunately, some forward-thinking NASA administrators have decided to turn their diaper-wearing, Glenn Close-imitating astronaut loose, making her fair Fired Blog game.

They say this has never happened before, which probably means it's never happened where everybody knew about an astronaut getting a pink slip...

It was the first time NASA has publicly fired an astronaut, according to space historian Roger Launius of the Smithsonian Institution. She is also the first active astronaut to be charged with a felony, he said.

In case you missed the saga of the lovelorn Nowak or her role in making the concept of the 'astronaut diaper' part of pop culture...

Nowak, a mother of three who is separated from her husband, is accused of confronting Colleen Shipman, the woman who had become Oefelein's girlfriend, at the Orlando airport after driving from Houston. She wore an astronaut diaper so that she would not have to stop during her 900-mile trip, authorities said.

She allegedly pepper-sprayed Shipman through a partially lowered car window. Police said they found a BB gun, new steel mallet, a knife and rubber tubing in Nowak's possession.

Sounds like she's a few stars short of a constellation, doesn't it?

Fired, NASA, Lisa Nowak, Astronaut diaper

Mrs Grumpy Lady hits a sour note If the ten year olds in Carla Shinners' music class can be believed, sour notes weren't the only things being hit...

A substitute music teacher has been arrested after allegedly whacking a 10-year-old student on the head with a viola bow after telling the class they were "the worst players I've ever heard."

Briggs Gamblin, a spokesman for the school district, confirmed in a telephone interview Thursday night that she had been fired.

I thought this kind of behavior was reserved for the conductor in Bugs Bunny or Tom & Jerry cartoons. Too bad one of the kiddies didn't have a camera phone. This would be a great embed for the school website.

The tuba player is lucky the teacher didn't reach for him. That would hurt in a non-cartoony kind of way.

Fired, Music, Teacher, School Of Rock it is not

Getting fired is bad, m'kay? I think I found an easier major than Undecided. Judging from this article, psychology majors must get to sleep in, party late, and take softer classes than star quarterbacks.

Check out this astonishing insight from MSU psychologist Richard Lucas...

But nobody had specifically looked at the impact of big life changes, such as marriage, divorce or unemployment, he said. He found that marriage buoyed the spirits for only about two years, after which the spouses were no happier than they had been as singles.

But divorce, he found, could plunge you permanently into the emotional dumps. So could losing your job.

His findings, based on several different studies, were published in the April issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science.

On the plus side, he said, divorced people could climb back to the relative happiness they enjoyed as singles by getting remarried. But for those who had been fired, even finding a new job didn't completely repair the damage.

You can tell this is professional journalism by all the sentences started with "but." There's your news flash, getting fired is depressing. Got any other deep thoughts Doc?

Fired, Unemployment, Depression, Not exactly fun stuff

Gonzo Gone-Zo? Maybe so Ooh, they're buzzing like busy bees through the Democratic offices on Capitol Hill. Since Dubya's hand-picked prosecutors didn't bust on Democrats for voter fraud as quickly as he wanted, some of them were among the eight canned for management issues, or whatever the excuse of the day is from Tony Snow.

So either the prosecutors were diligently taking their time in assembling cases in the best interests of the White House, or they were foot-dragging traitors who forgot just who put them in their jobs.

That's politics. Now the Democratic donkeys are braying for blood...

In a nine-minute news conference at the Justice Department's Washington headquarters, Gonzales brushed aside suggestions that he step down and blamed his chief of staff for failing to keep him informed of the dismissals. The firings, which Gonzales said were appropriate, have provoked an outcry from Democrats who have likened them to a political purge.

Yep, that loud thumping sound you're hearing was the body of that chief of staff being tossed under the bus...

Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's chief of staff who was responsible for carrying out the firings, quit last night. The attorney general said today that Sampson failed to keep officials at the department properly informed about the process, leading Gonzales and others at the agency to provide inaccurate information to Congress.

The last time I heard someone prominent saying "mistakes were made" was the last time I played Simpsons Skateboarding as Homer.

Fired, Kyle Sampson, Justice Department, Alberto Gonzales

Fired teacher can't bewitch court for cash Lauren Berrios learned a few things about the world when her case made it to court.

Nobody thought she was a witch, as in the Harry Potter type. Whether people thought she was another kind of witch is their opinion. I'm leaning toward 'probably everyone' as the size of that group as a guess.

She isn't going to get $2 million for denying she was a witch, or for anyone believing she was a witch and firing her for that.

Just because her ex-boss is a born again Christian doesn't necessarily mean he hates witches, which really doesn't matter because she's denied being one and no one ever thought she was a witch anyway.

She'll just have to keep her new job teaching in Atlanta. Hey parents! How would you like Lauren to teach your kids?...

Defense attorney Steven Stern told the jurors that Berrios had told co-workers about visiting a coven meeting, but was not fired for being a witch.

Instead, Stern said, she was a bizarre "storyteller" who fabricated tales that her husband was involved in a plane crash, and that her 2-year-old son lost his fingers in a VCR accident.

I guess Atlanta's pretty hard up for teachers. Either that or their education jobs fair advertised opening for oppressed falsely accused witches who may be a hose or two short of a fire truck.

Fired, Lauren Berrios, Lawsuit, Denied

How not to run your school fundraiser Principal's approval? Check.

Suitable building to hold the fundraiser? Found.

Support from the school community? The principal's wife will lend a hand.

Products available that will generate plenty of student interest? No problem there.

Effective pricing point? How's $5 bucks sound?

Legality of fundraising offering? Nowhere near legal...

An assistant high school principal and his wife, a middle school teacher, are accused of holding a keg party where students paid $5 to drink, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

John and Mary Clark turned themselves in to police and were charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, said prosecutor Jerry Peace. One of the students who attended the party last year at the couple's lake house told a parent, who went to authorities, Peace said.

Peace said he did not know how many students attended the party or their ages.

Fired? Not yet, but hubby and wife are on administrative leave. That shouldn't last long. Oh, it wasn't really a fundraiser, either. But that sounded funnier to me.

Fired, Teachers, Kegger, Middle School, Uh Oh

Fired deputy spaced out on MySpace I know the people who run MySpace must be glad when they hear about how long they keep their visitors occupied. A Montana deputy sounds like the kind of guy who was easy to amuse...

Sgt. Ty Evenson created a MySpace account to improve "relations between law enforcement and the public," according to his online profile.

Could this go wrong? Oh so very easily...

"Your documented pattern of activity more closely resembles that of a sexual predator than of a deputy sheriff dedicated to 'improved relations between law enforcement and the public,'" a letter of termination from Sheriff Mike McMeekin stated.

The sheriff wasn't real pleased to find out his deputy was starting up sexually explicit chats through MySpace, and even delaying his response to emergency calls. Yeah, too bad about that heart attack, Mr Emergency Caller, Deputy Ty is getting jiggy with Hotthing69 right now, think you could hang in there a few more minutes?

A three-week investigation revealed that Evenson's browsing criteria on MySpace.com were set to "swinger" and "women," and shows he initiated contact with hundreds of women across the country who identified themselves as strippers, prostitutes and porn stars. The messages were frequently sexually suggestive and "occasionally in very sexually explicit language," according to McMeekin's letter.

Not the kind of community outreach effort the sheriff wanted, I guess. He could probably post those messages and charge for access to them, and buy a new squad car with the proceeds.

NCAA prediction: There's no way Notre Dame can bring Mike Brey back as coach after losing to Winthrop. You can't be Notre Dame and get owned in the first round by a school that sounds like it was named after a butler. Unless it's Butler. Mike is totally gone from Notre Dame before the next season starts.

Fired, Deputy, MySpace, Bad boys whatcha gonna do

Sheller shacked for shaying Teletubbiesh If you're going to discriminate
Be prepared to litigate
Threaten someone and they might threaten you.

A fellow selling toys
To girls and little boys
Had a problem speaking, yes it's true.

His lisp was quite evident
An audio predicament
His bosses knew just what they had to do.

They fired him with speed
His pay claim, they paid no heed
Forget it pal you're gone, you're done, you're through.

The Teletubbies would say 'Eh-oh!'
To see him done over so
That's ok 'cuz he knew what to do.

Pay up what you're owing
Or to trial we will be going
Discriminate against me? Uh uh, F U.

Tomy paid him for his work
Apologized for being jerks
Said in the future they would get a clue

When they next decide to hire
They'll make him talk so they don't have to fire
Someone else who can't say Ess either. Woo hoo!

Fired, Teletubbies

Family friendly programming does not include family-making imagery The heat in Phoenix must have got to the fired and unnamed ex-employee at KPPX who decided to spice up a Tom Brokaw newscast on the family-friendly ION Media Networks cable channel.

All those retirees living out in the desert must have been thrilled to see the extra saucy 30 seconds the unemployed prankster dropped in the middle of whatever Tom was droning on about...

ION Media Networks has fired the employee who inserted about 30 seconds of hard-core pornography into a Tom Brokaw news show on March 12.

ION Media Networks, which offers family-friendly programs, called the incident “an intolerable act of human sabotage� and apologized to viewers. They said the images of sex acts only appeared in the Phoenix market at KPPX, a station owned by ION.

The station wants a pound of flesh from whoever did this, as they've got further legal action planned. Assuming it's a guy, what are they going to do to him? He's been fired already. Does the family-friendly network want this guy to get his ass curb-stomped for 30 seconds on live TV just to satisfy some uptight executive's overblown sense of morality?

I wonder if he gets fired if he'd spliced in 30 seconds of a firefight in Iraq. Probably nobody would have a problem with seeing a female soldier getting shot, unless her top flew open and showed some nipple too.

(Just got this link, the Brits really know how to have fun with the news.)

Fired, Cable, Porn, Tom Brokaw, It is not what you think

Federal whistleblower protection is a little drafty I want my coffee to be good to the last drop, not my elevator. Audrick Payne didn't want that either when he worked for a Washington DC agency...

Payne was an elevator inspector at DCRA and exposed the fact that nearly half of the elevators in the District lacked proper certification. Payne testified that building owners were circumventing his inspections by hiring third party inspectors to overrule his orders to shut elevators down.

In November of 2006, Payne was terminated by then-Director of DCRA, Patrick Canavan.

Canavan has been replaced by Mayor Adrian Fenty, but still works for the D.C. Government.

There's lots to have fun with in just these few lines. It's not just that Audrick had glad-handers going behind his back to keep their crappy elevators in service and avoid paying for repairs. The guy who fired him, very possibly as retaliation, has wormed his way into another taxpayer backed government job.

Then there is the possibility that old Audrick may have been playing the game himself...

According to a November 9, 2006 letter to Payne from Canavan, Payne was terminated for "using public office for private gain."

Canavan cited a D.C. Inspector General's report, which found that Payne had "solicited work as third-party inspector for his private commercial business while on official duty."

Payne admits to passing his business card to some property owners, but denies that he acted improperly.

So he's been fired for whistleblowing about third-party elevator inspectors wrecking his job, but he advertised himself as a third-party inspector. Hint hint, maybe he wasn't upset about third-party inspectors getting work, he's upset about not getting that work in his pocket.

It looks like he'll get his job back anyway. For my DC readers, take my advice, and take the stairs if you have to visit a government building. The elevators may let you down, in a freefall. Play it safe and definitely skip the Washington Monument, who knows if the Park Service or whoever runs it knows anything about elevators.

Fired, Washington DC, Whistleblower

Firing time at LA Times over sexytime What is the world coming to when a couple of people in the media industry in Los Angeles can't have a fling without someone getting bent out of shape and someone else getting fired over it?

I can't figure it out. Next thing I know the Rice Krispies will sound like Super Mario when I pour in the milk. This has to be bizarro world...

The L.A. Times' Web site is reporting that its editorial page editor has resigned after a tiff over this Sunday's special opinion section that was to be guest edited by Hollywood producer Brian Grazer.

The resignation came after the publisher decided to not publish the section to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest in Grazer's selection.

The issue surfaced after it was learned that the Times' editorial pages editor, Andres Martinez, had been dating a public relations executive, Kelly Mullens, who worked for Grazer.

Seriously, this is a firing offense? In L.A.? What's next, Sandra Bullock gets kicked out of Hollywood for making 'Premonition'? Pfft, yeah, that'll happen.

Fired, Andres Martinez, Brian Grazer

But did the psychic see this coming? If psychics really could predict things, there would be someone winning those really big lotteries every week. Maybe it would be like that Jim Carrey movie where he got to be God and granted all those lottery prayers, so that a few million people would win and they'd each get about five bucks each.

There's an ex-fire marshal in Wisconsin who probably wishes he had made better investments than in psychic readings. Enron stock would have been a better bet.

The cool thing is why Tom Weber was tuning in to the great beyond from a workplace PC...

Tom Weber, a 22-year fire veteran, was put on administrative leave nine months ago after he was accused of asking an online psychic on a department computer whether he and others would be successful in removing Middleton's fire chief.

Things probably got a little strained around the chili pot when the chief found out Tommy Boy was hunting for some spiritual help to get rid of him. The boy isn't exactly remorseful, either...

But he doesn't dispute contacting psychics on department computers. A computer technician found other communications dating back three years.

"Everyone is entitled to their spiritual guidance," Weber said.

A Magic 8-Ball only costs about five or six bucks. He could have kept that on his desk. "Why have you got that Magic 8-Ball there Tom?" the chief would ask.

"Just asking it if you're going to get your dumb ass fired."

"Yeah? What's it say?"

"It's said 'Don't Count On It' like 835 times in a row now. Hahaha." I hate you.

"Hahaha." You're a damn freak.

Fired, Magic 8-Ball, Tom Weber

Fred's taking a blogging break So, um, I'm going to spend the next 72 hours, uh, on a richly deserved, midweek, vacation.

Yes. Vacation. More of a break for three days, ha ha, nothing to be concerned about. In fact, I think Lucas and the other Simply Hired people want to give the ol' Fired Blog a little spit and polish.

It's good timing, as it turns out. Friday, I'll be back, at least that's what I've been assured by my attorney the engineers. See you then. Probably. On a new great looking site and everything.

Remember, laugh at the boss's jokes, and always give him ten percent off the top of whatever little workplace schemes you're backing.

See you soon. On Friday. Yes, 72 hours from now. No problem.

Amnesty International, Geneva Convention, Lubyanka, Human Rights Watch

And we are back! So what do you think? Like the new look? Love the new look? Fanatically appreciative of the new look? Comments are open, give me something to read besides the spam I filter for you, m'kay?

Shareholders bust caps in GTA's board and CEO If you're cruising around Liberty City tonight, don't be surprised if you see someone push the pixellated bodies of Take-Two now ex-CEO Paul Eibeler and a half dozen board members out of speeding cars.

It sounds like the natives showed up for the board meeting toting lots of weapons and all the ammo anyone could care to eat. Since these were shareholders, they were probably discreet, and had personal assistants carrying the heavy weapons in Hermes bags.

For Pushed-Out Paul, the day probably could have gone better...

In true “Grand Theft Auto� style, an angry mob at game publisher Take-Two’s annual shareholders meeting Thursday chairjacked the board and dropped the CEO off a pier with some sturdy new footwear. The coup was led by Oppenheimer Funds and DE Shaw Valence Portfolios LLC, which together control nearly half of the company’s shares and had grown increasingly impatient with the company’s problems, including steady losses and an accounting scandal that saw a guilty plea from a former CEO and is the subject of continuing investigation. All six directors nominated by the dissidents were elected, and the reconstituted board promptly fired CEO Paul Eibeler.

I'd like to see something like this happen, except when the new board gets selected, the hated CEO kicks back all Palpatine style because all the newly elected directors are going to vote to keep him in power and he knows it.

Those hedge fund people really would be breaking out their Nines if that happened. It would sound like the background to half of Death Row's output in the last decade.

People were busting on Paul way before this. A couple of years ago, he was called The Worst CEO of the Year. What took them so long to kick him out?