Divemedic

Posturing

The nice folks over at GunFreeZone posted a link to a video and expressed an opinion on posturing. I invite you to go and check it out. Unfortunately, that opinion is incorrect. JKB makes the claim that the loser of the fight is displaying decorticate posturing. He is wrong.

What you see in the video is decerebrate posturing. In the difference lies a huge change in prognosis. All posturing is a common outcome of severe brain injury. It refers to involuntary and abnormal positioning, and the presence of posturing after TBI suggests a poor prognosis.

Both types of posturing often indicate some extent of damage to the brainstem, which is the part of the brain that controls important functions like breathing. Decerebrate posturing, which is what we see in the video JKB linked to, is caused by damage to deeper brain structures and is much more common than the other type, decorticate posturing. Decorticate posturing is caused by damage to both hemispheres of the cerebral cortex and is rarer than decerebrate posturing, but is generally associated with better survival rates.

Generally, the recovery outlook for individuals with abnormal posturing after brain injury is poor. Even though there are instances where individuals regain consciousness and recover, only 37% of those who display decorticate posturing after a head injury survive. Only about 10% of individuals with decerebrate posturing survive.

In the video JKB links to, the individual displaying this posturing has one thing going for him: Youth. If he is admitted into the hospital within 6 hours of his injury, he is likely to double his chances of survival, even though it is still likely that he will have some permanent disability. So an 80% chance of death, and a 20% chance of permanent disability. All of that from a punch to the head.

Think about that the next time someone says that a concealed carrier should just take “his beating like a man.”

By Divemedic, ago

Quality Teachers

The video below is an example of what is teaching your kids. I spent 7 years as a teacher, and I can tell you that there are some really good teachers in your schools. There are also some real pieces of shit. The Wisconsin woman in this video is the latter: you can see for yourself what she dresses like to go to work and the mouth she has as she is driving over 100 miles per hour in a 30 mph zone, passing people on the shoulder, and admits to having both mental health and drug problems. A real pillar of the community.

35 year old Amanda McKaig’s arrest is also reported in this news story.

By Divemedic, ago

Hate Crime

Take a look at this before I comment on it. I’ll wait while you watch it.

Note that there are at least two, perhaps as many as four, black kids as old as 14 are beating on a 9 year old white girl. What the video doesn’t show is the rest of the facts here.

  • Her 10 year old brother was beaten on the same bus at the same time
  • All of the assailants were black
  • All of the attackers were older than the victims
  • The two victims had only been students there for three weeks at the time of the beating
  • The mother had been reporting escalating physical beatings and school officials refused to take action

Now the school wants to do something, and has had the oldest of the assailants arrested. I think it should be a hate crime. Imagine if the situation were the same, but races were reversed: a group of white kids were harassing and beating two black children. What would happen then?

I also blame the mother. She let her white kids go to a school that is 2% white , likely because she wanted to show how progressive and inclusive she is.

Coconut Palm K-8 Academy placed in the bottom 50% of all schools in Florida for overall test scores (math proficiency is bottom 50%, and reading proficiency is bottom 50%) for the 2020-21 school year.
The percentage of students achieving proficiency in math is 27% (which is lower than the Florida state average of 48%) for the 2020-21 school year. The percentage of students achieving proficiency in reading/language arts is 31% (which is lower than the Florida state average of 52%) for the 2020-21 school year.

You let your kids go to a public school just to prove a point. Now they are paying the price.

When my son was in school, he was bullied and physically attacked by a larger boy. I went to the school and asked them what they would do about it. The reply was that “We can’t watch the entire outside during PE.” So I told my son that he was being given permission to beat the shit out of the other kid. He did.

The school called me and said my son was about to be suspended. My reply to that was my son had a right to legal representation before being suspended, and that I would return for his suspension hearing with an attorney, who would want them to state on the record why one kid can beat others, but no defense is allowed. They decided not to suspend him.

That kid never touched my son again, and my son learned an important lesson about bullies.

By Divemedic, ago

NIMBY

As is typical of the left, we see an article where a prominent, rich leftist who demands more housing be built for the poor then having a meltdown when that housing is proposed for their neighborhood. That was perfectly illustrated when DeSantis shipped illegals to Martha’s Vineyard. So now it’s an Obama supporting sportsball athlete who demands more housing be built for the poor at public expense, but doesn’t want poor people living near his home.

It’s the lefty who demands that he be allowed to feed homeless bums in the park, but who shies away from allowing a homeless person to stay in his own home, or doesn’t want to set up his soup kitchen in his own gated community.

It’s seen when the left demands that landlords be forced to accept section 8 vouchers, or advocates prohibiting foreclosures, or rent control, or any one of another things that are paid for by someone else.

The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the enthusiastic support of Paul.

By Divemedic, ago

Blood in the Streets

My news aggregator turned up this little gem: A convicted felon flouted gun laws and was arrested at gunpoint. When he was arrested, he had three different handguns, as well as a supply of drugs, on his person.

What really struck me about this, is that this story came to me while the liberals of Florida are in the midst of a meltdown over Republicans (and especially Ron DeSantis) pushing Constitutional Carry in this state. The biggest arguments that I see are:

  • that, without a law making permits necessary for legal concealed carry, criminals will carry guns
  • Police can’t tell the difference without permits telling them who the good guys are

What is so disingenuous about this, is that it wasn’t that long ago that they were saying that people with concealed weapons permits are nothing more than criminals who haven’t been caught yet, who will snap at the slightest provocation and turn every contested parking space into a full scale firefight.

As I said in response to the above linked article: There are already 25 states that have passed Constitutional Carry. Crime and shootings in those states haven’t gone up any more than anywhere else. Every time a gun rights bill comes up, the anti gun people drag out the same old, tired arguments about how every car accident will result in a gun battle and it never happens. They did made that argument in 1989 when Florida passed concealed carry. None of it happened then, and none of it will happen now.

What we know for sure is that criminals are called criminals because they don’t obey the law. This is evidenced by the number of convicted criminals who are caught not only possessing weapons, but doing so without a permit. Therefore, we must assume that this law only works to prevent people who AREN’T criminals from carrying weapons. Who would be opposed to a person who isn’t committing crimes carrying a weapon? The answer is obviously one of the following:

  • people who are planning to commit a violent act against that armed person
  • people with so little self control that they themselves know that they cannot be trusted to carry a firearm, and are projecting that lack of violent impulse control upon others

So my question to those people who are opposed to law abiding citizens carrying weapons is: Which of those are you?

By Divemedic, ago

Free Welfare House

Substitute teachers in Highland county make $119 a day. It’s a part time job, where they only work when there is a classroom needing a teacher for the day. They are only needed on days that there are students in the school in need of supervision, so at most they can work 180 days per year. That maxes out their earning potential at less than $25,000 a year.

One of those substitutes, Lashawn Kinsey, bought a house in Highlands County, Florida on January 13, 2021. She did it by getting a mortgage for $127,645, meaning that she made a down payment of $2,355. At the time of the mortgage, she had three kids, which placed her below the Federal poverty level of $26,500 for a family of four. I can’t confirm this, but she is almost certainly on public assistance. On top of that, she is a college student, meaning that we are likely paying for her education with Pell grants, because she is a black single mother.

It’s no surprise then that she was soon unable to make the payments, and had to seek assistance from the Florida homeowner assistance fund to avoid foreclosure. The state has been picking up the tab for her mortgage and utility payments, or at least they were until an administrative screw up caused payments to stop back in October.

I don’t feel sorry for anyone in this story, except the US taxpayer. As all of you know, I am shopping for a new home. In order to do so, I had to allow the bank to do a net worth audit, income verification, and credit check. How could a bank loan money to someone with a part time job and no assets? This sounds like the stuff that was going on in the early part of the 2000s that caused the mortgage collapse.

The fact that I had to work a full time and a part time job while going to school, so I could afford to pay tuition, then had to save money and build credit in order to be able to buy a house, while some black woman gets a free one at taxpayer expense must be all of that white privilege I keep hearing about.

By Divemedic, ago

Defamation

Being tough on crime is one thing, but grandstanding for votes is entirely another. It began with Arpaio’s tough on prisoner approach of making prisoners live in tents and eat baloney sandwiches. Then it morphed into Grady and his political grandstanding. Now it’s gotten to where Sheriffs are posting people’s names and pictures on television to tell the world that those people are criminals, even when they aren’t.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not against being tough on crime, but there is a process for that. We don’t allow police in this country to punish lawbreakers. There is a process for that, and it doesn’t include destroying people’s lives because you are trying to garner a few votes. In this case, they were putting people’s pictures on television with the accusation that they are criminals without actually making sure that those people were actually accused of having committed a crime.

Keep in mind that Florida Sheriffs went to the state legislature and lobbied against carry laws. They went to the state legislature and lobbied against SB 234, which would have allowed those people in Florida who have a concealed weapons permit to carry a weapon openly. This proposed law wouldn’t have changed who may carry a weapon, only how they carry it.

The rule is innocent until proven guilty. Things like this show, red flag laws, and ex parte court hearings are destroying that principle. Everyone is entitled to their day in court, and I don’t mean the court of public opinion. I hope the guy wins.

By Divemedic, ago

Until Proven Guilty

One of the basic tenets of this nation is that you are innocent until and unless you are proven guilty as confirmed by a jury of your peers.

Yet another is that you can’t be forced to testify, if that testimony can be used to prove your guilt, and the fact that you refused can’t be used against you.

That’s why this hit piece, insinuating that President Trump’s refusal to testify is in any way a reflection on his guilt or innocence.

By Divemedic, ago