When I was a small child, I got ahold of a bunch of pieces of copper wire and stuffed them into a receptacle and got shocked.

Should I blame the linemen who fed the electricity to the house for not adequately blocking electrical current from entering my hand?

Don't linemen have an "idiot stick" to tell if there's any voltage before they grab the wires, or are they dumber than a drunken plumber? Don't they have a multimeter of some kind?

Don't linemen shut off power above the break prior to working on the broken power line, in case the line is energized uphill?

Don't they protect themselves by removing the wire from a terminal downhill from the fix in case the line is energized during the fix, or are they naturally risk-takers?

Didn't the guy on ebay say to leave the main circuit breaker off?

Are circuit breakers not up to your standards to shut power off?

Do some of you think everybody is an idiot, and that they can't possibly power up their home with a generator without killing a lineman? Do you think that people have no right to keep their freezers full of meat cold, or to keep life-saving medical equipment powered up for Grandma?

Do you think that only an idiot would fly a kite in a lightning storm without a journeyman's license?

Do you think that only a journeyman electrician can drive a car? The movement of cars on city streets, with lights that tell them to go or stop, is dangerous, like electricity. Are electricians the only people smart enough to operate them? People without high school diplomas, housewives, plumbers, and borderline retards can drive cars legally.

Some of you guys are so (Removed)...so politically motivated. You're well-suited for organizations where you can politically ruin careers if somebody does something you want to cry publicly about, just because you can. Some of you can't see that there's a safe way of doing something that could be dangerous if done wrong. Some of you would rather just call everybody a fool. Some of you couldn't think outside the box if the box hit you in the head.

By the way, I've never powered up a house with a generator yet...but I do have a 5,500 watt generator. I've been through hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes etc. and if you haven't, you don't know the misery of long-term lack of electrical power.

Maybe somebody from New Orleans or S. Mississippi can lend something to this discussion, instead of self-aggrandizing holier-than-thou people who have no problems other than Removed

No offense...nothing personal.

Edited for absolutely non ECN-type content

[This message has been edited by electure (edited 01-10-2006).]