Divemedic

Ripple Effect

This kid found out his teacher needed a car before starting a fundraiser to get him one. Officials tell the kid that it’s illegal for students or their parents to give a teacher a gift worth more than $25.

One could argue that the car isn’t a gift from students or their parents. It’s from the anonymous donors who gave to GoFundMe. I wonder if there is a Montana attorney that would have donated some assistance…

Back when I worked for the fire department, the mayor of our city was caught taking season floor seats to the Orlando Magic in exchange for awarding city contracts to a particular company. The city then put a rule in place that no employee was permitted to accept any gift whatsoever from any business within the city, not even a cup of coffee or a discount on soda.

This didn’t stop the cops from getting free apartments, because many apartment complexes give cops a free apartment in exchange for the cop agreeing to be the on site security guard. Of course the apartment was always right in front of the office, so people would see the officer’s take home patrol car parked in front.

Anyhow, it all came to a head back in 1998, when the state of Florida was struck by a drought. The wildfires that happened as a result caused 10,000 firefighters from all of the country to spend weeks putting out fires. I know I was out there for a week and a half at a time, sleeping on the ground in the woods. I actually enjoyed it.

As a result of these fires, Florida businesses decided that firefighters would be appreciated through various discounts. Disney offered free one-day tickets, Sea World and Bush Gardens were giving free annual passes to firefighters, local restaurants were giving discounted meals, those sorts of things. Our city manager prohibited us from accepting any of it, on penalty of immediate termination. Even though Disney was in our back yard, firefighters from Illinois who didn’t even participate in putting out the fires were enjoying free days there, while we were stuck without. This made a few guys angry. Disney wasn’t within the city limits, so we couldn’t possibly do them any illegal favors, it was just the city manager being petty, as far as some guys were concerned.

So one of our firefighters called a local news radio station. The station called the city manager on the air, and the dumbass actually said, “I saw one of our firefighters towing a boat behind his pickup truck the other day. If they can afford boats and new trucks, they make enough money to buy their own Disney tickets.”

The radio DJ’s then said, “How is it any of your business what they buy? Is that how you decide what your employees make? You decide what they should be able to buy, then pay them accordingly?” It all blew up, and the resulting PR storm eventually saw the firefighters being allowed to accept the discounts. The city manager took it out on the fire department for the next few years by giving the rest of the city employees raises, but not the fire department.

After 4 or 5 years of that kind of treatment, the firefighters voted to become a union department. That is how my department went union. All because of a boat, a truck, and a mouse.

On a side note, those fires changed the way Florida’s firefighters handled wildfires. Up to that point, firefighters in the state put out every wildland fire. This caused there to be fewer fires, and allowed debris like dead bushes and trees to pile up in the woods. Naturally, lightning caused fires usually burn this dead material off periodically and clean up the woods. Wildfires, it turns out, are a big part of nature. Some plants and animals count on those fires as a part of the life cycle. (For example, there is a species of pine tree that requires a wildfire in order to reproduce)

We were disrupting the normal cycle of life. So now, firefighters allow these fires to burn, as long as no structures are in danger. In addition, the forestry department occasionally does prescribed burns of areas of state land that haven’t had a fire in awhile. Now the woods aren’t filled with large fuel loads of unburned debris.

By Divemedic, ago

Why is the Answer Always College?

The latest trend in the press thinking that they are experts in all things, is the claim that US police training needs to be more like police training in Europe. They claim that police in other countries receive more training than the 6 months that is typical in the US.

police recruits in Japan get between 15 and 21 months of training. Police in Germany get 2.5 years of training. And in Finland, police education takes three years to complete.

So they want to make police training a 4 year degree? What will that cost? I do agree with them that police training is too much like military boot camp. If you train your police like soldiers, you can expect that your police will act like soldiers. I don’t think that the problem is in how long the training is, I think the problem is in the institutional mindset- “War on crime,” the “War on drugs,” that sort of thing. When you think of criminal justice as warfare, you get police who act as if they are on a battlefield.

That’s where my agreement with them ends. The next claim simply tells me that they have never dealt with someone who needs to be taken somewhere, but isn’t going to go. You are assuming that the people who police contact are rational.

As a street medic, and even in the ED, we encounter people who can’t be reasoned with, yet still need to go somewhere or do something. Whether it’s due to mental illness or simply because they are assholes, some people just need to be forced into compliance. Talking only works on people who are rational.

Imagine negotiating with a spree shooter. Someone who believes in what they are doing so strongly that they are willing to gun down a dozen or more people isn’t going to be negotiated out of their act.

You can tell that some people have juts never had to deal with those kinds of people.

By Divemedic, ago

Regarding the Balloon…

Many have suggested that the Air Force should have just shot down the balloon using a laser or bullets to pop the Chinese balloon, instead of a missile. The reason that the fly boys used a missile is because popping a rogue balloon has been tried before, and it doesn’t work.

It was 25 years ago when the Canadians shot a balloon full of 1,000 holes and they found that this didn’t pop it, because the pressure inside of a balloon at that altitude isn’t high enough to burst the balloon.

Now you know…

On a side note, I was surprised that an AIM-9, which is a heat seeking missile, was capable of locking on to something like a helium balloon.

By Divemedic, ago

Obvious Outcome

The one obvious outcome of people’s belief that you can be whatever you believe yourself to be- man, woman, or any one of other genders you invent for yourself- is that gender isn’t the only thing you can be. Of course it was mocked in memes, but as we all know satire is becoming reality in mere minutes lately.

As there is only one outcome, it was just a matter of time before gender identity morphed into other things. Southpark predicted this in the episode “Mr. Garrison’s Fancy New Vagina” where one of the characters decided that he wanted to become a woman. Other townspeople then got surgery to become all sorts of things, including one man who decided to become a dolphin.

As life is now become satire, we come full circle when we see that one man is upset because his son won’t speak to him now that he has abandoned his career as a banking executive and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to become a “genderless dragon.” Yes, it’s as goofy as it sounds.

Before and after

There is no limit to the stupidity that we are seeing from people now. This insanity has got to stop, but we all know that it’s going to continue to get worse until sane people do something about this national psychosis that we all seem to be living in.

By Divemedic, ago

Because F- You, I’m Rich

Bill Gates made some comments on why he will continue using a private jet while demanding that you stop producing so much CO2 by driving to work. His comments boil down to, “Because I’m rich, that’s why, you peons.”

Well, I buy the gold standard of, funding Climeworks, to do direct air capture that far exceeds my family’s carbon footprint and I spend billions of dollars on … climate innovation. So, you know, should I stay at home and not come to Kenya and learn about farming and malaria? I’m comfortable with the idea that, not only am I not part of the problem by paying for the offsets, but also through the billions that my Breakthrough Energy Group is spending, that I’m part of the solution.

It isn’t an either or situation. If he really believes that he is helping, he can still help without flying all over the world in a private jet. Also, we have seen the Climeworks people on this blog before. It’s a bullshit grift that purely exists to take money from gullible people.

This is like most green energy/climate stuff- you can’t get more out of a process than you put into it. These companies are collecting billions, and Bill Gates gets to go on being a hypocritical asshole.

By Divemedic, ago

Dying Breed

When I first got out of the military, there was this old WW2 vet who used to come into the place where I worked. Guy used to tell us stories about how he was a pilot during the war, and was shot down. I think he said he was shot down over Malta, but I’m not sure. This was more than 3 decades ago, so I may have the details wrong.

He told me that he was in a POW camp that was separated from one of the concentration camps by a fence. He came by nearly every morning, just to talk and tell us stories about his life. Nice guy.

Anyhow, he told great stories. The generation that fought the war is dying off at a rapid pace. The youngest of them is 93 years old. I’m a member of a Veteran’s organization, and we don’t charge dues to WW2 vets, and they don’t EVER pay for drinks in that club. Hear their stories now, before they are lost forever. We owe them. They built the nation that their boomer kids have plundered (and continue to plunder).

By Divemedic, ago

Picture This

This exchange is caught on guy’s security system:

Cop 1: We need you to step outside. One of your neighbors says that you pointed a gun at them, and you need to step outside and give us a statement to prove your innocence.

Guy: Uh, I didn’t do anything and I can answer your questions through the door just fine.

Cop 2: Why are you being so confrontational?

Guy: My entire property is on camera. I can prove I did nothing. Hang on. (closes door)

Cop 2 (says to other cop): He definitely pointed a gun. Well, it was that or a flashlight.

Cop 1: We don’t have enough to charge him.

Cop 2: I don’t care. I’m gonna charge him with something if we don’t.

If I were a juror in this case, I would vote not guilty if a defense attorney played this video in court. Watch closely:

I will repeat: Never talk to the police. They aren’t there to help you. All you can do by speaking to them is give them the evidence they need in order to arrest you. Tell them to go away. Oh, and having plenty of cameras around doesn’t hurt.

Just don’t resist them if they decide to use force. We all know that many cops can’t wait to get their violence on. Say nothing. Hire the best lawyer you can afford. Spare no expense- it’s better to go into bankruptcy than it is to spend the rest of your life in jail. Let the lawyer talk for you. But above all, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

By Divemedic, ago

FL Population Shifts Will Change 2024 Election

I ran across an article that Pasco county is considering a ‘tent city’ to handle the large number of homeless in that county, because things have gotten so bad. I think the article is a bit misleading. The only reference as to whom is considering this tent city is a quote from the head of “Pasco County Continuum of Care.” That organization is not a part of any government. It is a nonprofit that is dedicated to serving the homeless. (Community Organizing) So it isn’t Pasco county that’s considering it, it’s a charity organization that is considering it.

This is where my post today goes from facts to largely being speculation on my part. Some of what you are about to read is anecdotal, and some based upon fact. We are seeing some interesting shifts in the Sunshine-Gunshine State.

I think that if there really are more homeless in Pasco county, that it’s a reflection on population shifts that we have seen here since 2020. Since the COVID lockdowns, there has been a huge influx of people of all economic levels from the northern states.

I know it’s anecdotal, but there seem to be many more people here than normal. There are many more “off color” license plates here than normal, and they aren’t leaving. This isn’t like our normal snowbird migrations. I keep seeing younger and younger people running around here, getting into cars with out of state plates while carrying golf clubs, looking as though they are retired. The grocery stores, restaurants, and other facilities are packed with out of state people. My theory is that we are being overrun by people who came here to escape their home states’ lockdowns, and many of them never left.

A few that I have been able to speak to tell me that they are “working from home” as they chuckle about how they moved here and got an apartment for far less money than they pay “up north” while they are collecting northern city wages. This is having a huge effect on the Florida economy, and is causing severe disruptions down here.

Home prices and rental rates are skyrocketing. Homes that were worth $250,000 in 2019 are now seeing their values topping $400,000. Rental rates in the state are continuing to climb at double digit rates, even as rents in other states decline. The statewide median sale price in Florida for single-family homes in 2022 was $402,500, up 15.7% year-over-year. For condo-townhouse units, it was $306,500, up 21.6% year-over-year. It isn’t a bubble in the classic sense- no one is panic buying. Prices are climbing, even though sales are falling.

As all of you know, we have been looking for a new home. Talking to real estate people, they say that sales are still strong. One agent I spoke with told me that he normally closes one or two homes a month, but has gotten contracts on two homes in the first six days of February already.

People are fleeing Florida’s cities for its smaller towns. The hottest markets right now are:

  • Marco Island: A community where a million dollar home is on the poor side of town and a condo will cost you $700k. Condos are reaching $600 a square foot!
  • Venice: This is where a house will cost you between $600k and a million, and mobile homes go for $150k. Can you imagine paying $150 a square foot for a trailer?
  • Dunedin: Another expensive beach town where condos sell for more than $200 a square foot.

So all of this is putting pressure on the people at the low to mid end of the economic spectrum. Housing prices are skyrocketing. That is why IMO, there is a huge push for people getting out of the Democrat controlled cities and into smaller towns.

The huge influx of people from liberal northern states and the shift of more conservative locals into small towns is going to change Florida’s electoral landscape in 2024. What it will do is anyone’s guess. I’m guessing that the liberal cities will become larger and more spread out, which will make the liberal areas expand, while the smaller towns will see less of an impact. Still, Floridians tend to be a funny lot. Time will tell.

By Divemedic, ago

Chipping Away

Granted, this ruling has no real precedential value, but a Federal judge has said that marijuana users cannot have their 2A rights taken away. Essentially ruling that marijuana is commonly used, and using it isn’t an indicator of a propensity for violence, therefore making a user of the drug into a prohibited person is a step too far, in light of Bruen. That’s the second significant case this week.

That case is the gift that keeps on giving. The best part of this ruling is that the left will be torn: Support marijuana use, or oppose guns. What to do? LOL

By Divemedic, ago