FOR THE RECORD

FDNY Rant, the chat line frequented by firefighters, resumed operation last week after a hiatus that was prompted by inappropriate content.

It's not clear exactly what items caused its discontinuation, but a Fire Department spokesman emphasized that the agency had nothing to do with the service being 86ed. Among the dubious past postings were items disparaging Emergency Medical Service members as "slugs" and "mutts" and taking exception to the FDNY's including two EMS members who died on 9/11 among the 343 department members lost during the rescue efforts.

Even with those lapses into inanely bad taste, the better-known NYPD Rant site has attracted more attention, and caused a greater stir when the veteran cop operating it was forced from his job by the NYPD 18 months ago.

The FDNY site remains irreverent, but posters are on better behavior - so far - than some of their NYPD Rant counterparts. An alarming number of posters on the latter site who identified themselves as cops reacted angrily last week to the 30-day suspension of Police Officer Richard Neri for the 2004 fatal shooting of a black teenager who startled him when he opened the door to a Brooklyn housing project's roof. They maintained that Mr. Neri had done nothing wrong and that anyone using the rooftops was committing some illegal act.

One FDNY poster known as d7 issued some predictions for 2007, including: "FD will be more integrated into the PD", and "EMS will be more integrated into the FD." This prompted a poster known as TrasmtDaBox to respond, "FD gets integrated into Sanatation(sic)."

D7 also held forth on the upcoming fire exam and the futures of Uniformed Firefighters' Association President Steve Cassidy and Uniformed Fire Officers' Association leader Pete Gorman. "Recruitment problems will cause standards to be lowered even more," he wrote. "Cassidy will win a third term. Gorman will get a state job and retire."

Another poster known as "20 and in" predicted, "The PBA will break parity in PERB," referring to the police union's attempts in arbitration to get better contract terms than the UFA negotiated 15 months ago.

And one, who dubbed himself Optimist 3, alluded to a past FDNY problem that has faded from public notice over the past couple of years, predicting, "We will - not for a few weeks maybe - go 72 hours without a member receiving a DWI."

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Nominations are being accepted through March 14 for a $5,000 award to a city secondary-school Teacher who improves his or her school through collaboration with the local community.

This is the fifth year that the MetLife Foundation Ambassadors in Education Award will be presented to a city Teacher, with instructors in 24 others cities also being honored.

Previous winners here were Adam Stonehill of Townsend Harris H.S. in Queens, Howard Friedman of Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day School, Peter Giles of Chelsea Vocational High, and Colin Thomas of Bronx Regional High School. Middle-school Teachers are also eligible, with a national committee consisting of past winners, students, and members of the business community making the selection.

For information about the award and how to nominate someone, go to www.ncl.org/metlife/index.html.

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The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is holding a Feb. 27 workshop on job discrimination by race that will include a panel on addressing the issue in Federal, state and local governments.

City Human Rights Commissioner Patricia Gatling will be among the panelists, with a top official in the State Attorney General's Office, Natalie Williams, also invited to attend. Spencer H. Lewis Jr., the Director of the EEOC's New York office, will give a speech on the EEOC's response to racial stereotyping, and the keynote speaker will be EEOC General Counsel Ronald S. Cooper.

There is a $99 registration fee for the half-day workshop - which will be held in the EEOC's sixth-floor conference room at 26 Federal Plaza - and a continental breakfast is included. For registration information, call 1-800-600-6157.