Good business, if you can get it

The median household income of my county is just about $44,000 a year. That is for a two income household in most cases. That is down from $47,000 just two years ago, which mirrors the nationwide decline of incomes that 35 of the 50 states saw this past year.

Washington, DC doesn’t have that problem. The median income there rose to $88,000- the highest of any metro area in the nation. This is due to the massive growth in the Federal government under the Obama administration, and the lawyers and lobbyists that this growth is bringing to the nation’s capitol.

What makes this trend REALLY disturbing is just how much the size of government is increasing: the poor in DC are getting even poorer, with the number of households making less than 50% below the poverty line increased. The poverty threshold for a family of four that includes two children under 18 was $23,283 in 2012, meaning that to be in deep poverty, that family of four would have to earn less than $11,641 a year.

So in order for median incomes to rise in DC, they have to overcome the increase in poverty, plus increase the median income. Think about that.

This is the Obama that the poor voted for: Blacks have a 27% poverty rate, and yet they vote for the man that put him there, simply because he is black.

Terror arrest?

Ibragim Todashev was shot to death by the FBI while being questioned on May 22 about his connection to the Boston bombing. His roommate was arrested today, on what police say is an unrelated matter.

One of the comments on the story nails it:

They all … come from the same terrorist region and enter
the country supposedly to go to college. They attend a few months then
drop out. [W]ho knows what they are up to. How long will the US government allow this to continue?

Random thoughts on mortality

I personally knew more than a dozen firefighters and paramedics that were killed in the line of duty during the 22 years that I was full time.
There was Paul, who died six weeks after breaking his leg in a car accident where he stayed and helped the injured, making sure that he was the last one transported. He was killed in the accident and didn’t even know it. He was 40 years old.
There was Lou, who was run over on the side of the road by a drunk driver.
Lyle had a heart attack while on an EMS call. He was 45. The medic who worked him had just gotten a chewing out from him a week earlier for screwing up a medical call. Lyle had told the medic, “If I ever go down, I wouldn’t want your dumb ass touching me.” That medic still feels bad about that to this day, over a decade later.
Larry died of cancer that he likely got on the job, as firefighters get cancer at double the rate of the general public. He was 56 years old.
John and Dallas were killed in a training accident. John was 32, Dallas was 20.
There was Sean, run over at an accident scene.
John died of a heart attack just an hour after he left work from working a fire, and a heart attack also got Trevor when he was 43.
Bill got pancreatic cancer and died last year. He didn’t smoke or drink. Nothing ever got him excited. Even among long service firefighters that pride themselves on remaining calm under pressure, Bill was a legend. His nickname was “Concrete” because he was so solid that nothing ever moved him. He was a health nut that exercised and drank these health drinks that tasted and smelled like grass clippings. We used to make fun of him for that. I remember that he would eat a handful of vitamins for lunch. Didn’t help, he died at 56 years old.
Dave’s daughter found him in the shower, dead of a heart attack just hours after he got home from working a fire.

Then there are the injuries and illnesses. I know about a dozen guys with hepatitis, another 4 or 5 with cancer, I know three guys who are less than 50 years old that have gotten knee replacements. There are another ten or so with cancer. A few more have tuberculosis. I know my son has a positive TB test, indicating exposure. TB is so widespread in the homeless around here, that most of the paramedics I know test positive for the antibodies. 

I have had surgery to repair an injured leg. I was exposed to chemicals on a call that gave me a serious cardiac dysrhythmia that lasted for three hours when I was only 36 years old.

All in all, a dangerous profession. I am glad that I retired before anything fatal or debilitating happened to me, but I have to say that I am nervous, knowing that my odds of cancer are so high.

The guys in their 50’s who died: they spent their lives serving others. I know that sounds corny, but it’s true. Most of them spent more than three decades running towards what other were running from. I learned something from each and every one of them, even the new guys. I miss some more than others.

Military throwback to the Carter years

Robb at Sharp as a Marble had this to say about disarming troops while on base:

A Marine, trained in the art of rifles, with a Secret clearance, fully background checked and given access to real, military grade hardware, could not own something as simple as a handgun while on base.

Do you want to know why such rules happen? Here is why, according to the FBI:

Many street gang members join the military to escape the gang
lifestyle or as an alternative to incarceration, but often revert back
to their gang associations once they encounter other gang members in the
military.
Other gangs target the U.S. military and defense
systems to expand their territory, facilitate criminal activity such as
weapons and drug trafficking, or to receive weapons and combat training
that they may transfer back to their gang.

~ In
Iraq, armored vehicles, concrete barricades and bathroom walls have
served as canvasses for spray-painted gang art. At Camp Cedar II, about
185 miles southeast of Baghdad, a guard shack was recently defaced with
“GDN” for Gangster Disciple Nation, along with the gang’s six-pointed
star and the word “Chitown,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

~ In Germany, a soldier is being prosecuted this week for the murder
of Sgt. Juwan Johnson, beaten to death on July 4, 2005, allegedly during
a Gangster Disciple initiation in Kaiserslautern.

~ In September, Department of Defense Dependents Schools in Europe
warned teachers and parents to watch out for signs of gang activity,
including the deadly MS-13 gang. At the time, DODDS-Europe public
affairs officer David Ruderman said there had been two incidents in the
past 18 months that involved students fighting, wearing gang colors or
claiming to be members of gangs. In one of the incidents, a student’s
family member may have been a gang member, he said.

~ Earlier this year, Kadena Air Base on Okinawa established a joint
service task force to investigate gang-related activity involving high
school teens linked through the Web site MySpace.com.

When I joined the military in the mid-eighties, I arrived at my first command, and I was told stories by the “old timers” about how things were in the late seventies. They told me stories about people doing lines of cocaine right on the tables in the lounge areas of the ship. They told me stories about how the officers would not enter the enlisted berthing areas without armed escorts. Drug use and drug dealing were widespread.

Vietnam, and the seemingly directionless leadership had stripped the military of honor and left the United States with a hollowed out force. That is not to say that everyone that entered the military was a drug abuser. No, like a bad neighborhood, many of the people that are there are good people, but there are still more troublemakers than average.

I think we are seeing the same thing now: The bad economy, combined with the leadership that is lacking for our military, has combined to recreate the hollowed out shell of a military that we had in the 1970s. Instead of a fighting force, our military has become a type of welfare– a jobs program, if you will. A jobs program that doesn’t care about your honor, your background, or your mental state. After all, Aaron Alexis joined the Navy on a criminal background waiver. Eighteen percent of recruits joining the Army need criminal history waivers.

In 2007 more than half of the Army’s 511 convictions were for thefts, ranging from burglaries to bad checks and stolen cars. Another 130 were for drug offenses. The remainder included two for manslaughter; five for sexual crimes, including rape, incest or sexual assault, and; three for negligent or vehicular homicide. Two received waivers for terrorist threats including bomb threats in 2007.

Even the Marines are not exempt. 235 of the Marine Corps’ 350 waivers were for various types of thefts in 2007, and another 63 were for assaults or robberies that may also have included use of a weapon. The remainder included one for manslaughter in 2007; four for sex crimes; and five for terror threats, including bomb threats.

Without honor, of course the powers that be are afraid of giving you weapons. How many more people that are as crazy as Alexis, and have an even worse record? I am betting that there are more than a few.

Good cop, proper use of force

A woman is stopped for a minor traffic infraction. She had a tail light out. The cop wrote her a ticket. In this area, a ticket for faulty equipment will frequently be dismissed if you get the equipment repaired. Instead, this woman decides to escalate the situation and rolls her window up on the cop’s arm.

What follows is an example of why I think everyone will benefit from cops carrying body cameras:

The cop showed restraint, and this woman deserved to go to jail. Of course, she has filed a brutality complaint, and is claiming that she was arrested for “driving while black.”

To the officer: You are a calm professional, and I support what you did here.

Continuing Shenanigans

For those just joining us:
I had a house that lost its value in the real estate crash. I declared bankruptcy, and was going to turn the house over to the bank. The bank testified in court that they were the owner of the note and the mortgage, but I caught them lying. They had sold the note and mortgage to Fannie Mae, two year earlier. I sued, and we settled out of court for almost 10 grand. They then sold the note and mortgage again, this time to Nationstar mortgage. They recorded the sale in the county clerk’s office.

Then SunTrust tried to foreclose. The foreclosure was dismissed, and Nationstar claimed to not have any record of owning the mortgage.

The feds stepped in and sued the banks. I got another $4,000 in THAT lawsuit.

SunTrust continued to send me demands for payment, even though prohibited from doing so by the bankruptcy court, and the fact that they no longer own the note and mortgage. So after a few years of this, I got tired of it and sued again in May of this year (the hearing was in June). This time, the court awarded me $14,700 and instructed SunTrust to have no further contact with me.

The next day, SunTrust began sending letters and leaving notes on my door. Since that court date in June, I have gotten 2 letters, 5 notes on my door, and two phone calls.

Today, I get a letter from SunTrust, telling me that they have sold my note and mortgage, and effective October 1, 2013, I should send my payments to yet another bank. I am thinking that this is going to be my new career.

Bankruptcy is supposed to allow you to start over. It has been four years, and this bank STILL will not leave me alone.

In France

This article about a French Jeweler, who was being beaten at gunpoint during a robbery, is in jail for shooting the robber has a neat little factoid in it:

In a country where gun violence is rare but
armed robbery is increasingly common, the shooting – and the formal
charges of voluntary homicide – have placed the government in a
difficult position.

 So armed robbery isn’t gun violence? I thought that maybe the armed robbery was with a weapon other than a firearm, but no:


The robbery was carried out with a shotgun, he said. It wasn’t clear whether Asli and the accomplice both had firearms.

In fact, the article is filled with examples of firearm robberies. That can’t be. You see, the anti-gun crowd here in the US tells us that there is no gun crime in Europe because guns are illegal. 


Yet the sister of the 19-year-old who was killed says Turk shot him in the back and deserves prison.

“He shot a kid in the back. He’s a traitor, he’s a coward,” said Alexandra Asli, his older sister.
Asli,
who was shot dead in the street outside the jewelry store, had been
convicted 14 times in juvenile court, according to Eric Bedos, the Nice
prosecutor.

It seems that outlawing guns does indeed ensure that only outlaws will have guns.

Half an hour can last forever

Thirty minutes. That is how long the shooter in DC had to kill before police caught up with him. It was seven minutes before the first cops even entered the building. This is not a criticism of police, it’s just that they cannot be everywhere. I feel like they did what they could, and did it well. You are responsible for protecting yourself and your loved ones. Own a gun, and learn how to use it. Thirty minutes can be the rest of your life.