Divemedic

Work At Home

The hospital where I work has an extensive training program. One day a week, I get scheduled to work from home, attending online training. The hospital follows a protocol model, where everyone is expected to follow the hospital’s official guidelines when treating patients. An encyclopedic level of knowledge of those protocols is required in order to comply with this. My last hospital was more of a “come as you are” model, and I actually think that the protocol model is safer and more efficient. Still, that means there is a steep learning curve.

My wife seems to look at this as an opportunity to assign “honey do” chores for me to do, because she apparently hears the “from home” part more than the “work” part. Today, she has asked that I get laundry done, put away the dishes in the dishwasher, and fix the ice dispenser in the freezer.

Uh, you DO know that my workday begins at 8:30, right?

By Divemedic, ago

Sue Them, Then Sue Them Again

If you have a child in the Orange County, Florida School system, you need to sue the school for violating the law. They are refusing to remove the book “Lawn Boy” from school libraries, despite the fact that it contains child grooming pornography like this:

What if I told you I touched another guy’s dick? What if I told you I sucked it? I was ten years old, but it’s true. I put Doug Goebbels’ dick in my mouth. I was in fourth grade, it was no big deal. He sucked mine too. And you know what, it wasn’t terrible.

excerpt from Lawn Boy

Offensive? You bet. Even worse when you realize your kids are reading it. I’ve posted about this book before. Now supporters are claiming that the law is racist because the characters in the books are not white, so the mean Ron DeSantis is trying to ban books about POC children.

By Divemedic, ago

My Proposal

Democrats have proposed a 1,000% tax on all “assault weapons” and magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammo. That would make an AR15 cost $5,500 to $33,000. I didn’t realize that we were taxing Constitutional rights. Let’s try a few others:

  • a $10,000 tax for each person who wishes to register as a Democrat.
  • You can only vote for one Democrat each election. Each vote for a Democrat candidate after that will cost you $500. No cash? No vote.
  • In fact, only people who pay income taxes can vote. If you don’t pay any income taxes, you don’t get a say in how things are run. Skin in the game, and all that.
  • $2,500 fee for your first jury trial. Guilty or not, that fee doubles for each subsequent trial. Can’t pay? You get a bench trial.

What’s that you say? People can’t be taxed for exercising their rights?

Exactly.

By Divemedic, ago

That’s Not How It Works

There is a whole lot of angst going on with regards to the following video and the “mark of the beast.”

Except that isn’t how this works. No one accepts any sort of computer chip in their hand or any of that kind of nonsense. I had to do the same sort of thing when I took my licensing exam to become an RN. The device has a camera inside of it that takes an infrared picture of the blood vessels in your palm.

Due to anatomical variation, the blood vessels in a person’s hand are unique to each individual: no two people’s vessels are alike. Even people with identical DNA have unique features, such as fingerprints and blood vessel patterns. In this case, customers of Whole Foods create an account, where they associate a credit card with the image of the blood vessels in their hand. This allows them to show their hand to the scanner, which then matches the photo to their account and charges the credit card on file.

It’s no different than a fingerprint reader or facial recognition, except the blood vessels in your hand are more difficult to spoof than a fingerprint reader or facial recognition. This isn’t any sort of “mark of the beast” or anything like that. This is a file kept of attributes that you are born with.

Now one could argue that you don’t want a business having a file on your personally identifying attributes, and I could certainly understand that, and I am not sure that I would be willing to do this, but I just don’t see it as ushering in the apocalypse.

By Divemedic, ago

Two Economic Plans

What he is talking about is Demand side economics, or Keynesian Economics. Named for Economist John Maynard Keynes, who developed his economic theories during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the chief underpinning of this theory is that the demand for goods and services drives economic activity. Keynes believed that unemployment is the result of inadequate demand for goods and services. To solve this, he believed that governments should increase spending to spur economic activity by artificially creating demand.

The problem with this is that low demand causes a matching reduction in production. If a government tries to spur demand artificially by putting money into the economy, the increased demand in the face of reduced supply sees more money chasing a limited supply, which is a key driver for inflation.

Especially since he is providing the increased spending through application of Modern Monetary Theory. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). says that government spending can be financed by printing money rather than borrowing. Biden is doing both.

The US government has increased our debt by $1 trillion in the past 57 days. Our debt today stands at $32.8 trillion, and on June 27, it was $31.8 trillion. At the same time, the M2 money supply has increased from $20.5 trillion in the summer of 2021 to $20.9 trillion today.

So we have large scale government spending coupled with an increase in circulating money supply.

That’s Bidenomics.

Biden and the rest of the Keynesians are wrong- demand isn’t the problem. Demand remains strong, as evidence from the credit sector indicates that credit card debt is skyrocketing.

According to recent data from Credit Karma, Gen Z and millennials have experienced a significant increase in credit card debt in the second quarter of 2023. Average credit card debt for Gen Z now exceeds $3,300 — a 4.2% rise — while millennials hiked up credit card debt by 2.5% to an average of nearly $7,000.

This marks the first time since 2001 in which credit card debt didn’t fall in the first quarter. In fact, the only times card debt didn’t fall in the first quarter of the year since the New York Fed report began were 2000 and 2001. Every year since, card debt fell at least a little bit — until this year.

The money in circulation (M1) has decreased from $19.4 trillion to $18.5 trillion, so overall savings are increasing while credit card debt is rising. So the overall savings of Americans is increasing while at the same time credit card balances of GenZ and Millennials is increasing to record levels. This indicates that people born before 1981 are beginning to sit on bank accounts, while those born after 1981 are continuing to spend using credit cards.

So what will happen as a result? Rising interest rates, coupled with increasing credit card balances, will cause increasing credit card defaults and banks tightening up their exposure to risk. We are seeing that already, as numbers from the Fed indicate.

According to the most recent delinquency data from the Fed, the 30-day delinquency rate (or the percentage of total outstanding credit card balances currently at least 30 days overdue) rose from 2.25% to 2.43% in the first quarter of 2023. That’s the sixth straight quarter of increases, keeping rates above 2% for the third straight quarter.

That’s Bidenomics.

By Divemedic, ago

Checks and Balances, Regulation

Pro-gun people have been making a statement remarkably like this for years:

The phrase “well-regulated militia” had a distinctly different meaning in the 1700s and 1800s. It would translate today as “well-provisioned” or “well-supplied” militia.

I could find absolutely no historical support that “regulated” meant well supplied when the Bill of Rights was written in 1791. Using the dictionary found here, specifically  An Universal Etymological English Dictionary by Nathan Bailey (1775), the word regulate means:

  • to set in order, to govern, direct, or guide; to frame or square; to determine or decide

Likewise, in A Dictionary of the English language in which the Words are deduced from their Originals, explained in their Different Meanings, by Samuel Johnson (1792) the definition of regulate is:

  • To adjust by rule or method; to direct

I cannot find a single reference from that period that suggests the meaning of that the term has anything to do with supplies.

So “well regulated” in terms of a militia would mean a militia that was well governed, directed, or guided. In other words, it was in opposition to an irregular military force, which would be one that was not well directed or guided. Regulation has nothing to do with a force being provisioned or supplied.

Officers in 18th century militaries were generally made up of aristocrats. That was why the colonies were so despised for their tactics of hiding behind trees and rocks where they would target and kill the officers.

This is why I was so impressed with Penn and Teller’s interpretation of the wording of the Second Amendment. The framers of the Constitution were well aware that standing armies could be used as a tool of oppression, where a Federal government could use that Army as a bludgeon to control the states. That is why there were so many safeguards against the Union maintaining an Army.

To counterbalance this, the states had the ability to maintain a militia. It is, as the Amendment points out, necessary to a free state. The problem here is that the state can also use that militia to control the people. So the people maintain the ability to keep and bear arms.

The Army is the power of the Federal government. The militia is the states’ check and balance to that. An armed citizenry is the people’s check and balance to the militia.

That is the genius of Penn and Teller’s position.

By Divemedic, ago

An Alternate View on 2A

Penn and Teller had a show called “Bullshit” that was on CATV a few years ago. The premise of the show was attacking people with stupid opinions. They tackled the Second Amendment and gun control in one episode.

An interesting take. The phrase “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” is there precisely because the state has an armed militia, and the people may someday need to oppose that militia with arms because the state will use it as a tool of oppression.

By Divemedic, ago