Divemedic

Veteran’s Day

It bothers my wife that I don’t take Veteran’s discounts. I don’t stand when they ask veterans to stand and be recognized. I don’t want anything for my years of service. I served because I loved the country I was serving. I do want to recognize the people I know who are veterans:

  • Dad
  • Stewart, soldier, paramedic, leader.
  • Shane, a good soldier and caring paramedic who proudly served his country and community well. His demons finally got the best of him and he became one of the 22 that day.
  • Big Country
  • Peter Grant
  • Jeff D.
  • My FIL
  • Joe, my Mexican connection. Even though you became a lifer chief and a Cowboys fan.
  • Most of my firefighter friends.
  • The friends of my youth, who served with me: Jeff, Joe, Mike, Dave, Ed, Rich, Rick the Mayor. John. Hernan
  • Chef John.

The veterans who came before me: my uncle, father, and others who wore the uniform. It was your love of country that taught me to love it as well.

So many people in my life who served with me. We wore the uniform with me: we cried together, got drunk together, and laughed together. Most of all, we served our country together. If only we had known what a gift our youth was and how soon it would disappear, followed soon afterwards by the death of the nation that we served.

Those I came to know after I served: some police, many firefighters. It is no surprise to me that those who would die to defend their country would also risk their lives to save their fellow countrymen.

I salute all of you. Each of you knows what duty, honor, and sacrifice means- something that is sadly in short supply. May we all retain that moral compass to guide us through the difficult days to come. If I missed anyone, it was not intentional. There are so many.

By Divemedic, ago

Baltimore Shooting

Officers arrived on the scene Sunday of a stabbing and shot the assailant 14 times.

It looks good to me. However, the cops are already taking criticism for the shooting. The assailant who was shot is a “community activist” who was in favor of establishing “no shoot zones.”

“I think it was overkill and it shouldn’t have went that far,” said Carlton Moorehead, the assailant’s father, who claims his son had been suffering from a mental health crisis, and that police wrongly handled the situation. He insisted that police should have tried to deescalate the situation and gotten his son mental health counseling. Nevermind the fact that he was stabbing the innocent woman, whose only crime was walking down the street while your son was getting all stabby.

The NAACP issued a statement following the video’s release, and said they would conduct their own investigation into the incident, because of course they will. After all, we need to support the rights of black men to be able to stab women in the throat without police interference.

By Divemedic, ago

I, for one, am relieved

The agency that is in charge of ensuring that our elections couldn’t be tampered with, the CISA, has declared that our election systems were, once again, completely secure. There were no shenanigans in this election. No siree, we are on the job, and can assure you that everything is in tip top shape over here. Everything is just as secure as it was in 2020, when it was revealed that the CISA was working with leftist lobbying groups and leftist corporations to lock down the most secure election ever. Ever.

If you don’t believe this, you are a threat to US security.

By Divemedic, ago

Are We Stupid?

The government is telling us that year over year inflation was 7.7% for October 2022. That is something that Biden is celebrating. Meanwhile, a dozen eggs in my neck of the woods costs $4.49, stew meat is $6.99 a pound, and ground chuck is selling at $7.99. The same week last year, eggs were $2.99, stew meat was $3.99, and ground chuck was $4.99. That is an increase of 50%, 75.1%, and 60.1%, respectively. Perhaps that is why they don’t include food when they are calculating the rate of inflation.

You will note that I didn’t include the cost of gasoline. The reason is that the oil market is being deliberately manipulated by the sale of oil from the SPR.

People are being fooled into thinking that increased prices=inflation. That isn’t the case. Inflation is caused by a currency losing value. This is reflected in higher prices, but the higher prices themselves are not inflation, they are merely a symptom of it. I expect that, now that the election is over, fuel prices will return to their true price. Still, many Americans are stupid enough not to know the difference and to continue voting for the same old people.

By Divemedic, ago

RSV, Influenza, and COVID

Joe asks in comments if I have heard anything about this article referencing a “tripledemic” of RSV, COVID, and Influenza.

Respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is a common respiratory virus. It usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms. RSV usually strikes children before the age of 2, and is also known to have a severe effect on those over 65 and with weakened immune systems. In the United States, nearly all children have been infected with RSV by age two. This virus has a season, and in the United States, Florida and Hawaii’s season begins in mid September, with the rest of the country’s RSV season beginning by mid-November. The incidence of RSV peaks each year by mid-winter. It is an airborne virus that can also be spread by fomites.

A fomite is a surface that is contaminated because a virus that can live for a time outside of its host is on the fomite’s surface. A person touches the fomite and then touches their face. The average person touches their face 4,000 times a day. Kids even more so. This is why frequent handwashing can be effective in preventing illness.

Influenza also has a season, as we all well know. It also strikes the immunocompromised and the elderly.

Until 2020, patterns for RSV in the United States were predictable. The patterns of RSV and other common respiratory illnesses have been messed up since the lockdowns in 2020. The number of RSV infections began to rise in the spring of 2021 and peaked in July. Why? I mean, this is usually a winter virus.

In 2020 and into 2021, there weren’t many cases of seasonal illnesses because kids were largely kept out of school during the peak RSV and flu seasons during the winter of 2020-2021. In most states not named Florida, the same happened during the 2021-2022 season, so all of the kids who would have brought the virus home to their younger siblings weren’t in school to do so. That means all of the kids born in 2019, 2020, and 2021 have not been exposed to RSV and this will create a heavier than usual RSV and flu season. It makes total sense.

The same is true of the flu. This year, the season appears to be starting a bit earlier than usual, but that is not surprising, considering what I discussed above. The past couple of years have been unusually light for the flu, and I think that we are going to have a rebound year.

So what does this mean? Nothing. Most people who get it have a bit of a cold and then soon recover.

As far as COVID: granted that this is anecdotal, but we don’t seem to be seeing any more COVID than we have been seeing for the past year, at least not in my hospital. It’s just a constant background now. I have had it twice, and I don’t even bother to wear a mask when I treat COVID patients any more. The CDC is not really reporting a high number of COVID cases right now.

I don’t think that there is anything to make a big deal out of right now. That may change, but for now I don’t think it’s anything to get in a lather over.

By Divemedic, ago

Clean Getaway

The following states mail a ballot to every single registered voter: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Washington, DC. Most other states have voting by mail, but they are absentee ballots and require that the voter request the ballot.

Picture that you are a nurse’s aid working in a nursing home. You are responsible for the care of 200 patients with dementia. You have access to their names, dates of birth, and social security numbers. You register them to vote on the state website, and list the nursing home’s address as their home. You know, to help your residents vote. It’s their right, after all.

The ballots arrive by mail. You fill them out and mail them in. They all voted a straight Democrat ticket.

In the unlikely event that it is ever investigated, there isn’t a single one of them that can testify against you. They won’t remember a thing, at least not well enough to ever prove anything.

This is how the “register online” and “vote by mail” systems are ripe for voter fraud.

By Divemedic, ago

Scary, Indeed. That’s why I am redundant

The Biden administration is openly talking about making people who believe in free speech into enemies of the state by declaring them to be a threat to US security. Jonathan expressed concern that this blog could be shut down by simply revoking my domain name. I have taken steps to make this site more resistant to being cancelled.

  • This blog has multiple domain names that are all registered with different registrars. The different registrars are either known to be friendly to the right, dedicated to free speech, or are located in other countries. The sites are: areaocho.com, sectorocho.com, and divemedic.xyz Each of those web addresses lead to this blog.
  • This site is hosted on servers in Europe and Asia. The servers are owned by overseas companies that are known to be defenders of free speech and in countries that do not support censorship, especially by US authorities.
  • If THOSE fail, I have access to an emergency server that I can point any of those addresses to. If I need that one, we have real issues.

As a SCUBA diver, you learn from the early days of your training that your gear is your life support system. You wear backup gear. You dive with a buddy, who is also a source of backup gear. As I became more experienced, I began to push the limits. As with any dangerous activity that relies on mechanical devices, I experienced equipment failures. I learned to make my gear more robust, less prone to single point failure, and more redundant.

As a firefighter, I saw and did similar things. I saw the people who suffered as a result of Katrina. I know how to make things robust. This blog and site are as robust as I can make them. If I have overlooked anything and we wind up being taken down, that is a message in itself. The message is that the time for talking is over.

The most obvious single failure point is to haul me into jail or put a bullet in me to silence me. As the Soviets used to say, VZYALI. I am a small fish. There are others who are far more visible and more likely to be disappeared than I. For that reason, I watch some of them. If they disappear or are silenced without warning, it will be time to not be where I can be found. Sound paranoid? Maybe not. Five years ago, would you have dreamed that a sitting president would call someone a threat to national security for the crime of owning a social media site?

By Divemedic, ago

He WILL be silenced, and so will you

Bide was asked by a reporter “DO you think that Elon Musk is a threat to US national security, and should the US and with the tools that you have will you investigate his joint acquisition of Twitter with foreign governments which would include the Saudis?” Here was his response:

I think Elon Musk’s cooperation and/or technical relationships with other countries, uh, is worthy of being looked at. Whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate, I’m not suggesting that. I’m suggesting that it’s worth, worth being looked at. Um, and uh, and uhm, that’s all I’ll say.

The left is rejoicing that they defeated fascism. Remember that as the left shuts down all opinions that they consider to be a threat to their one party rule. The only reason why this blog hasn’t yet been targeted is that my traffic is nowhere near high enough to gain their attention.

By Divemedic, ago

Election Watch

This morning we enter Election Day III: The Search for More Ballots (special thanks to Mel Brooks), Congress is still very much a tossup. In the Senate races, the two parties are in a dead heat at 48D and 49R, with a Senate seat each from Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia still to be decided. Best case I can see at this point is that the parties split Arizona and Nevada. Georgia will be a runoff. If that one goes to the Democrats, we have a 50-50 Senate and the Vice President remains the tie breaker. I still think that the Democrats will wind up with 51 seats. I hope I am wrong.

In the House, things are a mess. What should have been a clear Republican victory has degenerated into a 192D to 210R race. There are 33 seats still left to be decided.

It takes 218 seats for a majority, but remember that there are some RINOs there who will undoubtedly break from the rest of the party to give the Dems what they want. It would take at least 230 seats for the Republicans to have a firm grip on the House, and that isn’t in the cards. This is one of the reasons why the Democrats are so much more effective than the Republicans- they know how to be team players and stick together.

Both sides in this are claiming victory, but we won’t know that until we know who controls Congress. Still, people and businesses have skin in the game, and the stock market is reacting to the election. It was down yesterday as everyone knows that the Democrats are bad for business and the economy.

The left and their mouthpieces are busy claiming that there are no shenanigans even as they say that it will take weeks to count the ballots in some races. That is complete and utter horseshit. The state of Florida managed to count nearly 8 million ballots in less than an hour and a half, but California has weeks of counting mail in ballots ahead. Mail in balloting allows for a level of election fraud that is perfect if you are the party that wants to rig elections. Imagine a single Democrat operative filling out and mailing in 200 ballots for the dementia-ridden residents of the nursing home where she works as a nurse’s aid or the community organizer who fills out ballots for the 300 homeless drug addicts that frequent his shelter. This is how election officials mysteriously “find” boxes of ballots that are all in favor of Democrats days and even weeks after the election. Florida used to have the same problem, with Broward county ALWAYS finding several bags containing a few thousand Democrat votes days later. Replace a few election officials, tighten up some election laws, and create a law enforcement unit dedicated to finding this sort of criminal activity, and that problem is solved. The difference is that California and the Democrats WANT these sorts of opportunities.

The cold war, albeit with some warm spikes, between the communists and the forces of freedom, continues. Let’s hope that it doesn’t flare up into full blown warfare in the near future.

By Divemedic, ago