Divemedic

War on Math

If you think that 32% of $71,456 a year is $6,000 a month, it explains why you still rent and don’t own a house. You can’t do simple arithmetic.

In Massachusetts, Florida and New York, Americans spend 32.9%, 32.6% and 31.2% of their income respectively on rent. Assuming you make $71,456 (the mean American income as of 2022), if you live in the Sunshine State, you’re actually sitting under a dark cloud: paying close to $6,000 a month in rent, based on those income and 32.9% figures.

I really don’t know where they are getting these “average” numbers from. Florida has a median household income of $61,777. (source: US Census bureau) When you want to borrow money for a home purchase, lenders want you to have a Debt to Mortgage ratio of no more than 35%, and a total Debt to Income ratio of no more than 50%. So that equates to a payment of $1650 per month for housing (35%) and all monthly debts that are no more than $2,575 per month. (including housing)

In most places, that gets you a pretty decent place to live. There are places claiming that the median one bedroom apartment in Florida costs are higher than they really are. Rent.com claims that renting a one bedroom in Miami costs an average of $3,250 a month. That’s about average in places like South Beach, but South Beach is a VERY expensive area where oceanfront condos regularly rent out for $25,000 a month. But if you don’t make a pile of money, don’t live in Miami Beach.

Closer to my home, there is the Orlando area. There are over 900 one bedroom apartments there for less than $1,600 a month. Go out to the suburbs, and the rents are even less. You can rent houses that are a short commute away, and pay $1,600 a month for a three bedroom house.

The problem is that people want luxury living in the most desirable areas and think it should be free. IF you are living on minimum wage, expect a minimum standard of living. My mom used to call that “Having a champagne and caviar taste on a beer and crackers budget.”

By Divemedic, ago

War on Fox and Speech

Having cut off and destroyed OAN, coopted reporters like Levin and Hannity, the Democrats are now talking about declaring war on Fox news.

“There is nothing in those documents to show they operate like a real news organization,” said Doug Gordon, a Democratic strategist. “If you are running a campaign in 2024, how do you in good faith hand your ads to Fox when you know they handed them over to Republicans? If there are any general election debates, how do you let Fox be a moderator?”

Et tu, commie. Fox news is the only major news organization that isn’t completely in the tank for the Democrat party, and even they aren’t so far to the right.

Democrats have started calling on the White House Correspondents’ Association to ban Fox News reporters from the briefing room, and are demanding that The Associated Press declare that Fox News is not a news organization. This would, in effect, move the entire nation one step closer to having official state sponsored news.

Keep in mind that this administration has been using private companies to carry out its policies, claiming that it isn’t a violation if a company does it, even if done at the behest of the government. Now that they have control of social media, it’s time to move on to traditional media.

We might as well begin calling the remaining press things like “Izvestia” and “Pravda.”

By Divemedic, ago

Local Utilities

I had some issues with the local services.

Issue 1: So a car hit a telephone pole somewhere in the area, and we lost power for about an hour. That isn’t the bad part. The bad part is that the electrical surge that came along with it fried some electronics in the house. I wonder what a whole house surge protector costs. It seems like we are constantly losing electronics here because of power surges, although they are usually lightning related. It’s pretty much an annual event.

Issue #2: In preparing to move, we were getting rid of some bulk items. We called to have the garbage people come get them, then put them out on the curb for pickup day. No one showed, they remain out there. So we call the garbage folks on our bill, and they can find no record of our house. I ask “Well, if I stop paying my bill, who will call me?” They say, “You must be covered by our contractor” and transfer the call. Company two says, nope. We have no record of your house having an account. Call company number three. So we do. Company three says that they aren’t servicing our neighborhood. So back to the number on our bill. They say that company two is definitely the one, and transfer us to Company 2’s manager. Voice mail, leave a message. Total time on phone: 75 minutes.

You guessed it. No call back. So we call again the next day and play phone tag for another hour, getting nowhere. I snap a picture of the garbage truck while it was picking up our garbage, and it has the name of Company 2 on the side in foot tall letters. So we call them.

Company 2 drone: “Sure, I can place an order to get your bulk items. What is your address and the name of your neighborhood?” We give them, and she says: “That neighborhood isn’t in our reporting system. Do you have the correct name?”

We reply, “That is the only name. We have lived here for 15 years, and we are sure that’s the name.”

Drone: “Well, that one isn’t in the system, and I can’t put in the work order without one. The computer has a drop down menu with neighborhood names, and unless we put it in, it won’t let us go any farther.”

Can we speak to a manager?

Drone: “I can transfer you to their voicemail, and they will call you.”

I can’t drive it to the dump myself, because the closest dump is in a different county and won’t accept out of county drop offs. I think what I am going to do is load the items up over the weekend, and dump them in front of the garbage people’s business office and let them figure out what to do with it.

Issue #3: My storage locker had been costing me $68 a month. A new company bought out the Mom and Pop that was running it, consolidated it with three other facilities, and then doubled rates. That was back in November. When February came, they raised them again. Now it’s nearly $200 a month for storage. So I spent three days emptying that 10×10 storage unit into my garage. Now I can’t park in it, and I lost my little workshop I had set up in there. That’s OK, since we are moving in less than a year, and we are getting a larger garage in the new place. I will probably build a storage barn in the back of the new place. I can get a 10×16 that looks like the one below for about $4,900, delivered.

When I went in to tell them that I had moved out, I noticed that the security cameras were no longer hooked up, and I had noticed that the electric gate securing the property has been disconnected. So this place was bought out by a large company, the on site managers are gone, the security gate is gone, and the security cameras no longer work. And rates are now 285% higher than they were just four months ago. What the hell are those higher rates paying for? Don’t know, don’t care. I vacated the place.

By Divemedic, ago

Instructive

The documentary below shows a group of five teens being interrogated for the 2011 murder of a 15 year old boy. I know it’s over an hour long, but it includes the interrogations and tactics used. This murder happened less than 10 miles from where I once lived, but years later.

The video is instructive in that it shows how teen drama has grown now to where teens just don’t value human life any longer. It shows police techniques in gaining convictions, and shows the value of shutting up and demanding a lawyer. The psychology at the end, when the little murderers deflect blame and have trouble understanding the consequences of what they have done was also fascinating. Here is the video, with a synopsis below:

The youngest girl was the ex-girlfriend of the 15 year old victim, with whom she had broken up just 3 weeks before.. She lured the victim to the home where the oldest girl lived by texting that she wanted to make up with him. The younger girl’s brother, and a friend beat the victim with wooden poles. The younger girl’s new boyfriend shot him with at least two cylinders full of .22LR. The teens burned and dismembered the body before stuffing the parts into paint buckets and dumping them in a nearby quarry with the help of the siblings’ step father, who also helped to plan the murder- even though he wasn’t there when the killing happened.

The stepfather was found incompetent to stand trial and eventually walked away, a free man. (Despite continuing to be a one man crime wave) Everyone involved got life in prison, except the triggerman boyfriend, who got the death penalty. The older girl later had her conviction overturned after serving 9 years of her sentence, because a judge ruled that her lawyer had made some key errors that entitled her to a new trial. Rather than face another trial, she pled guilty in exchange for time served.

There is still a Change.org petition started by a girl in Germany who wants the death penalty sentence overturned, but it has less than 600 signatures. He remains on death row.

By Divemedic, ago

A Disarmed People

So now that California residents are more and more becoming disarmed, the state feels emboldened to pass laws that redefine what it takes to toss you into a camp. The latest is a law that enables authorities to toss you in a camp if they feel that you can’t properly care for yourself.

state law allows courts to order people into treatment, but only if they are “a danger to themselves or others.” This new proposal would expand that definition to include people who, because of a mental illness or an addiction to illegal drugs, are not capable of caring for themselves or protecting their own safety.

They redefined mental illness to say that men who think they are women so completely that they have someone cut off their dick are completely rational and should be a protected class. How long before they redefine a belief in liberty or the RKBA to be a mental illness?

By Divemedic, ago

Has It Been That Long?

40 years ago this week, the final episode of MASH aired. It was the most watched television episode of all times (not counting sporting or news events) in the United States. That list includes:

  1. Final episode of MASH, 106 million viewers
  2. The Day After, and Episode 8 of Roots, 100 million viewers (tie)

I don’t count sporting events because 23 of the top 30 watched television events were sports: 22 Super Bowls, and one Boxing match (Spinks v. Ali). Four of them were news events: Apollo 11 moon landing, Nixon’s resignation speech, the Simpson low speed chase, and Disneyland’s opening.

Still, 40 years? I remember seeing it (vaguely). Man, I’m getting old.

By Divemedic, ago

Complicated Shooting

Almost 30 years ago, I lived and worked in Poinciana. At the time, I was a part time firefighter and full time industrial robotics technician. Poinciana was a community of mostly blue collar workers. I coached the local little league football team that my son played in, and my daughter was a cheerleader. It was the kind of area where people raised kids. I left there when my first wife and I were divorced in 1997. It has since become the center for much gang activity. Parts of it are controlled by the Latin Kings, the Crips, and several other gangs. It is now a high crime area.

Poinciana is divided down the middle by the Osceola and Polk County line. Police in the Polk county side arrived to a reported shooting to find one dead gunshot victim, two wounded victims, two unharmed victims, three children who were unharmed, and a car that had hit a house. It was complicated, but Sheriff Grady Judd lays it all out.

All of the people involved are in a street gang. The same gang, the Crips. The guy who was killed is the aggressor and is a felon with multiple convictions. He arrived and began demanding to speak with victim 3. When victim 3 approaches him, he punched him in the face and pulled a gun. Victims 4 and 5 ran to get guns. Victim 5 fired the first shot, and a gunfight ensued. Victims 1 and 2 were in a car at the scene and were not involved in the incident. Victim 1 was shot in the head, and Victim 2 (a woman) was shot in the jaw. At the end, the aggressor died.

No one really wants to talk, mostly because they are all criminals. Guess the race of all involved.

Poinciana is in the 16th percentile for safety. The rate of all crime in Poinciana is 50.27 per 1,000 residents. The US average is 22.7, making Poinciana’s crime rate double the national average. Your chance of being a victim of crime there may be as high as 1 in 13. Diversity is strength!

By Divemedic, ago