Four years ago today, I began blogging. There have been so many changes in my life. I wonder what the next four years will bring.
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More Crime
As I said in this morning’s other post, I attended ClinCon yesterday. I drove home from the Disney area by taking Osceola Parkway to the Turnpike. I stopped at a convenience store, and saw more central Florida crime. A man shot another man right in front of the store. The victim then crashed his vehicle into a tree while trying to escape. When the paramedics arrived to remove him from the vehicle, a very large stack of currency spilled from the vehicle.
The crime in this area seems to be getting worse and worse. Here are the violent crime stories from just the past 24 hours:
Three arrested in drug investigation, in possession of firearms with filed off serial numbers.
Armed serial robber shoots cop, commits home invasion in second armed robbery.
Police officer arrested for stalking.
Smash and grab robbery steals guns from Bass Pro.
Armed drug dealer arrest.
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Obama Care and the future of medicine
I was at Clincon yesterday, and one of the lectures was about trends in medicine. One of the topics was Obamacare. When Obamacare takes effect in eight months or so, some provisions will change the way that medicine is paid for in this country, and not for the better.
The hospital will be paid a flat rate for a patient with a given problem, no matter how long the patient is in the hospital. For example, all patients who present to the hospital with congestive heart failure (CHF) will earn the hospital a set price, regardless of how many days that the patient stays in the hospital. This means that the hospital has an incentive to get you out of the hospital in a minimum amount of time, whether you are cured or not, and has the added incentive of diagnosing you with every ailment that they can think of, from halitosis to athlete’s foot.
To correct this problem, the geniuses in the government have devised a solution: If the patient must be admitted for the same condition within 6 months of discharge, the hospital gets nothing for the subsequent visits. So that CHF patient doesn’t follow his discharge instructions, and gets readmitted. The hospital eats it. It is only a matter of time before the hospitals are forced to find ways to keep frequent flyers away.
This is a real mess. I am not sure of everything that is coming, but I do know that it will create real problems in the health care field.
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This makes my point about Corporations
I posted about how Corporations are the essence of government interference in the free market. This article makes my point:
Wyoming Corporate Services will help clients create a company, and more: set up a bank account for it; add a lawyer as a corporate director to invoke attorney-client privilege; even appoint stand-in directors and officers as high as CEO. Among its offerings is a variety of shell known as a “shelf” company, which comes with years of regulatory filings behind it, lending a greater feeling of solidity.
“A corporation is a legal person created by state statute that can be used as a fall guy, a servant, a good friend or a decoy,” the company’s website boasts. “A person you control… yet cannot be held accountable for its actions. Imagine the possibilities!”
One house in Cheyenne, Wyoming is the headquarters of over 2,000 artificial persons, gaming the system and allowing the true owners of businesses to evade all responsibility and accountability. The free market only works if the customer and the business owner have exposure to market forces. Once you allow one party to avoid their half of the bargain, you ensure that the system is being gamed to their advantage.
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Big Business runs the show
This morning, I read the Orlando Sentinel’s local news page, even though I don’t usually read that anti-gun rag. When I got to the Osceola County page, I found same articles that I wanted to post on, so this is the second post in that thread. This is yet another example of how the big corporations are controlling the access that small businesses have to a level playing field.
Transportation impact fees that a new business must pay are cost prohibitive. [pdf alert] To build a business in Osceola County, that one impact fee can be up to $25,558 PER SQUARE FOOT, to be paid over five years. This fee is in addition to all of the other taxes and fees that must be paid.
For example, if a 24,000-square-foot bowling alley were to be built in St. Cloud, for every 1,000 square feet of building, the transportation impact fee would be $10,178, according to examples the city provided. The total transportation impact fees for the bowling alley would be $249,000.
My brother was going to open a ten lane bowling alley in that town, and he determined that opening this bowling alley would cost him over $1 million in taxes for the first five years of operation, not including payroll taxes, sales taxes, and not to mention the cost of building, operations, and personnel expenses for the 20 people that he would have hired. How can a small family business operate with such a heavy burden?
Of course, large corporations get waivers, like this 65,000 square foot Publix shopping center, where the government waived $1 million in transportation fees and $21,000 in permitting fees to allow this shopping center to be built.
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed.- Ayn Rand
Crime
Head in the sand policy of Osceola County
Florida Law Enforcement agencies have long followed a policy of denying the existence of gangs in the state, even though it is at odds with the opinion of the Florida Attorney General’s office [pdf alert] Florida police agencies say gang members use any information released about the crimes they commit to glamorize their lifestyles and attract new members. The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office generally follows that policy.
That policy, it seems, is failing.Hardly a day goes by when there is not a reported shooting in the Central Florida area, and many other violent crimes go unreported. Due to the long standing policy of ignoring gang related crimes, it is impossible to get an accurate picture of gang related crime in the area, but I can tell you from personal experience that it is growing.
The frequency of gang related graffiti is growing, as is the frequency of gang member sightings. The Outlaws Motorcycle gang has a clubhouse not far from where I live. A couple of friends of mine were recently riding their motorcycles and were stopped by five Outlaws, who told them that no one is allowed to ride motorcycles in the area as a part of any motorcycle riding club, unless that riding club paid dues to the Outlaws. They then demanded that my friends remove the leather jackets, and pay a fine of $50 cash on the spot. Outnumbered 5-2 by armed gang members, they paid.
The Latin Kings have staked out Poinciana as their territory, as well as parts of Kissimmee. The Bloods own other parts of Kissimmee. Saint Cloud has problems with white gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood. Orlando has similar gang and violent crime problems.
Your odds of being a victim of a violent crime in Osceola County are 1 in 100. In Orange County, the odds double to 1 in 50.Obviously, there are things you can do to reduce those odds. Don’t go into bad neighborhoods like Pine Hills (aka Crime Hills), Paramore, McLaren Circle, Waterway Village, and other notoriously unsafe areas. Don’t be a gang member, sell drugs, or engage in other highly risky behavior.
It is more likely that you will be a victim of a violent crime than involved in a car crash or a house fire with a fatality.You don’t hesitate to wear a seat belt, or own smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, and other safety devices, yet the odds favor your using a firearm to defend your life more often than any of those other items.
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Another mile post passed
Indulge me in a bit of self serving praise. The end of another phase of my career as a student. Today, I graduate from Saint Petersburg College with Bachelors of Applied Science in Public Safety Administration and a minor in EMS systems. To achieve this, I took 77 semester hours in just 4 semesters, while maintaining a GPA of 3.82, and while working 2 full time jobs. For those of you who do not know, a person is considered to be a full time student if they are taking 12 hours per semester.
I will walk to get my fourth diploma (Emergency Medicine, Liberal Arts, Fire Science, Public Safety Administration) as a Magnum Cum Laude graduate from my third college. So much for gunowners being uneducated idiots.
For my next trick, I am considering going on to graduate school. Maybe Health Science, so I can be a Physician Assistant? I took the GRE (kind of like SATs for graduate students) and scored in the 90th percentile with a 680 verbal, 780 math (top score is 800).
Apparently, this is considered to be a high score, and I was told that this score, coupled with my GPA and 20+ years of health care experience, will qualify me for pretty much any school I want. My “I love me” wall is getting crowded.
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Letter of Reprisal
Yesterday at work, we had a conversation on the costs of the GWOT. It seems that the US government blew through $8 trillion in the action, by the time costs of veteran’s benefits and claims are factored in. All of this could have been done for a fraction of the cost, and it would still have used a constitutional provision that many are not even aware of.
The US Constitution grants Congress the power to issue letters of marque and reprisal. These basically allow the Congress to contract out military actions, to outfit privateers and mercenaries. This would have been a simple feat: Issue bounties on terrorists. Osame bin Laden had a price on his head, but at $75 million, it was far too low to do any good.
Here is my proposal:
A letter of marque could be issued to all individuals, corporations, or foreign countries, that would pay amounts as listed below to any entity or groups that could verify the death or capture and surrender to US authorities of any terrorist on the list. In addition, American Citizens would be permitted to outfit themselves as needed to carry out this assignment without regard to the NFA or export controls. Need an armed Blackhawk? No problem, just pay for it. Need some missiles? Sold. We even have some warships we are willing to part with, say some older OHP class frigates, or even some old jet fighters that we have just lying around.
Then you issue a list of terrorists, and the bounties to be paid, beginning with bin Laden at $50 billion, and going down to the lower terrorists. you make the amounts large enough that it is worth the money for countries and large corporations to go after him. He would not be able to trust anyone.
This would have saved us trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives.