Divemedic

Cupid Stunt

Nikki Fried is running to replace DeSantis as governor. Here is her plan:

When I am governor, I will declare a housing state of emergency. I will direct the Attorney General to halt rent hikes and designate anything over 10% as price gouging.

I will fight to repeal the state law that prohibits local governments from imposing rent control, and explore innovative ideas, like utilizing empty hotels and motels for conversion to efficiency affordable housing

I will have to take some proactive steps to ensure that I can raise rents to match my expenses. For example: the property taxes, landscaping costs, property insurance, and interest on the mortgage are all up more than 10% year over year. It isn’t price gouging to increase prices to match cost.

On top of that, she will confiscate private property and convert it into housing. Where does the governor get that authority? Will unoccupied houses or extra bedrooms be next?

I will expand Medicaid because it is the right thing to do. It’s good for Florida’s economy. It creates jobs. It’s an investment in rural hospitals. It’s an investment in our seniors. It provides critical care to those in need. And, most important of all, it saves the lives of Floridians.

Medicaid already accounts for $49 billion of Florida’s $300 billion budget. So what other things will be cut from Florida’s services to pay for this?

Under my administration,

– we will implement universal free school breakfast and lunch. 

We will locate farmer’s markets at bus stops, train stations, and other public transportation hubs
Expand my “Victory Gardens” program, which encourages local growth and unity in our communities.
Encouraging innovative transportation options. A key component of food deserts is lack of transportation.
Limiting dollar stores to slow the spread of dollar stores, especially in food deserts.

So far, all we seem to have here is a socialist wish list of giveaway programs.

I will create a Florida Civilian Conservation Corps for residents of Florida. Individuals who serve in the Corps, or through other qualifying employment, will be eligible for forgiveness of most federally-guaranteed student loans.

Does a state governor have the authority to grant student loan forgiveness?

She also claims that she will push for a Florida minimum wage of $15 an hour. This is stupid. Florida voters already voted that in, and the wage is currently $11 an hour. It increases every October 1st, until the wage is $15 an hour.

Then she takes on guns and crime:

Sending mental health professionals to non-emergency calls makes our communities safer, and allows police officers to do the hard work of preventing crime and solving cases. I will also provide funding for State and local police officers to de-escalation training.

I will finally close the gun show loophole and ban so-called “ghost guns”.

Good luck with that. There are already plenty of so-called ghost guns in this state. I may or may not have cached a few of them. I also have blueprints to build full auto SMGs from parts I can buy at any hardware store. #Resist,bitch

The rapid dissemination of misinformation has been on a steep incline since social media platforms became widely used. I will direct state resources to combating misinformation, and will hold those accountable who deliberately mislead the citizens of our state.

I wonder if you have heard of the First Amendment.

This Cupid Stunt can never be permitted to become Florida’s governor.

By Divemedic, ago

Bull Run, part 1

A lefty just discovered history. Northerners are always accusing those of us in the South of attempting to relive the Civil War. Read this:

Expelling members of Congress, or of SCOTUS, because you don’t like their politics is tantamount to a declaration of war. You are in effect saying that you are going to impose your will upon the other party.

Many consider the shots at Fort Sumter to be the first shots of the Civil War, but one must remember that no one was injured or killed in that event. The first skirmish of the Civil War that involved blood was the reason why those members of Congress were expelled: The Battle of Philippi.

The incident served to embolden the Union, but it wasn’t exactly a battle. Since there had been no hostilities at this point, the 800 confederate volunteers, who had not yet even formed into regiments, didn’t post any sentries and were unprepared for battle. The 3,000 Union troops surrounded and entered the town, intending to perform a sneak attack. This sneak attack accidentally began prematurely when Union troops scuffled with a farm owner. The shots caused the unprepared confederates to rout, and there were a few casualties on both sides (a total of 30, to be precise).

The Union press seized upon this rout of the confederates, and predicted that the war would be a pushover that would end in a few weeks. Some political machinations led to the congressional expulsions, with the Union replacing those members with northern sympathizers.

As a result of the sneak attack, the Union ordered the Union general (McClelland) to invade Virginia and drive to Richmond.

Seeing no other option, the Confederates decided that armed resistance was the only solution. The first battle of Bull Run came ten days after those members of the legislature were expelled. That battle was the first organized battle of the war, and resulted in 4,700 casualties.

Is that what they want? Do they think that the war will be easily won? Are they planning on kicking out our legislators, gaming the courts, and ruling over us? If so, do they think that we will simply accept being ruled? Judging by some of their statements, it seems so.

By Divemedic, ago

Inflation

July is the time of year when I do the budget for the coming year for my businesses. That’s the main reason why I didn’t post yesterday. Busy with business. From an inflation standpoint, things are actually looking more dire than they were last year. My property taxes are up 10%, my landscaping costs are up 15%, insurance costs up 21%, and interest (in dollars) on the mortgage is up 18% year over year.

In December, I posted about the increasing popularity of rent control. It turns out that Florida’s constitution and state laws make rent control a difficult prospect at best. So the communists in the blue counties are looking at other ways to make financial war on landlords. Miami-Dade is looking at requiring that tenants be provided government funded attorneys in landlord/tenant disputes. That also increases both the expense and risk for landlords. If that catches on, then there will be even more increases.

I predicted that landlords would find other ways to increase income without increasing rent. Things like fees for lawn maintenance, rental fees for appliances like washers and dryers, forcing maintenance costs like pressure washing on to the tenants.

It seems like I called it, because that is exactly what is happening. Landlords are passing these “extras” on to tenants, adding all sorts of fees on to the lease. These are costs that are associated with a rental property that tenants just don’t think about. Here is a complaint:

“Usually these increased costs do not come with increased services or amenities,” Rabin said. “They are often used as a way to deprive people.”

Take washers and dryers. Once common in rentals across Florida, now, many tenants rent not just their apartments and homes, but the appliances within it.

I don’t see how making you rent a washer and dryer is a way to deprive a tenant. A washer and dryer is an unnecessary convenience item that costs the landlord to both purchase and maintain. Many tenants destroy these appliances because, well, they just have no respect for the property of others.

The cost of buying and maintaining property is increasing. That includes opportunity cost. Let’s say that I bought a house for $200K. I can rent it out, or I can sell it. The only way that I would (and do) choose to rent is if I can get a better return on that investment by renting than by selling it. As housing prices rise, so do rent costs.

The same goes for appliances. Washers, dryers, kitchen appliances, they all cost money. In the past two years, I have had to replace a range, repair a refrigerator and a central air conditioner, and replace a dryer. That costs money that must be recouped. As appliance prices increase, so do my costs. As the cost of lawn maintenance and appliance repairs increase, so do my costs. That means higher fees and rent.

So far, I limit the fees on my rental property. I charge an application fee for each adult who will live at the property. That covers my cost to do the background and credit check. I provide a washer, dryer, and lawn maintenance. I pay HOA fees. The tenant provides for electric, water, and trash service. They also have to pay for cable TV and Internet service, if they so desire.

So how rents are priced is actually pretty straightforward: the amount that it costs me to maintain and rent the property is my base. That includes maintenance expenses, insurance, taxes, landscaping, administrative overhead, and legal expenses. To that, I add my expected return on investment. Since there is more risk than previous years, my expected return is around 8 percent. If I get much less, it is more profitable to sell. The resulting number is my rent.

What all of this means is that my rents this year will be increasing to reflect those added costs and risks. Last year, I increased rent on my rental property by 8%. This year, the increase will likely have to be around 9 or 10 percent.

By Divemedic, ago

Paywalls

I don’t do paywalls. When I see a news outlet or story that is behind a paywall, I simply don’t read it. The same information or opinion, or one just like it, is likely to appear somewhere else. It is rare for me to see online information that is worth paying for, unless that information is directly related to my profession or business.

With that in mind, I have been seeing that there is a trend for bloggers to put their blogs behind a paywall. I just won’t do that. I actually began the server with the idea that I have some things that I would like to say, and I felt that others might like to read them. I am not looking to make money, so I won’t accept any paid advertisements, nor will I put this blog behind a paywall. You will also note that I keep moderation to a minimum.

I also knew that a blog isn’t very resource intensive, but resources cost money. Running an offshore server isn’t cheap. That is how the idea of sharing a server came to me. Bloggers need to have a space that is protected from censorship while being affordable. Blogs can share a server, splitting the costs, and making it affordable to have a voice.

So I began to offer server space to anyone who would like to have their own blog, which would allow blogs to be free speech zones. Anyone who shares server space with this blog has little worry that they will be censored for what they say. The only rule that I have is: no porn sites. I am not interested in having porn on my site for two reasons: they are resource hogs (both storage space and bandwidth) and I don’t feel like having to expend my own time and energy defending porn distributors.

With that being said, you can have your own blog space on this server for the affordable price of $25 per month, payable on a quarterly or monthly basis. There are a few ways we can make this happen, and there are a number of bloggers who happily have taken me up on this offer.

Even if you don’t contact me, find an alternative server now, or your blogs and podcasts may be gone forever. An XML backup is no longer sufficient, as Blogger and WordPress no longer support migration by XML. If your blog is cancelled, there may be no way to recover it.

By Divemedic, ago

July 11, 2007

This blog is fifteen years old today. It wasn’t always here at AreaOcho. This blog began over at blogger those fifteen years ago as a way for me to vent about things from my job as a fire medic. The first post was about one of my patients getting his penis stuck on a keyring. In the past fifteen years, there have been more than 4,500 posts, over 10,000 comments on those posts, and I don’t know how many people have read what I have written over the years because I didn’t count them for the first decade or so. There have been nearly a million views in the past year, so there is that.

So many things have changed for me in the past fifteen years. When I started this blog, the death of my father was still fresh on my mind. Since that time I have been married, divorced, and then married again. Employed, retired, then employed again. I declared bankruptcy and then became a millionaire. The last decade and a half have been busy:
In 2008 I got married.
In 2009 the bottom dropped out of the housing market, my pay was cut by 30% and, faced with a depreciating asset, I declared bankruptcy with the intent of giving my house back to the bank.
In 2010 My bankruptcy was discharged.

Before the bank could get the paperwork done to repossess the house, they were caught lying to the court. It turns out that they lied in court and hadn’t been the mortgage holder of my house for years. They were forced to pay me nearly $10,000 in damages.

A year later, they tried to repossess the house again and their lawyer was caught forging mortgage paperwork in my case and several dozen others. Their lawyer was disbarred and the bank had to pay me more than $25,000 in damages. He disappeared with a pile of his clients’ money and I have no idea where he went.

The FTC stepped in and filed a class action against the same bank, and I got paid another $4,000 as my part of the settlement.

In 2011 My wife announced to me (during the week of my birthday, no less) that she wanted a divorce. That divorce became final in June. In November, I retired from my career as a firemedic and began school to be a physician assistant.
In 2012 I decided to leave school, moved back to Florida, and began teaching adult education while remaining mostly retired.
In 2014, I met my current wife. I also applied for my teacher’s license and became a high school science teacher.

In the spring of 2015, my daughter made me a grandfather.

In the spring of 2016, my daughter made me a grandfather for the second time. By the end of that year, I was married again.

In 2017, my new bride and I took a 51 day road trip across the nation, spending two weeks in Alaska in the process.
In 2018, I finally had a net worth of over a million dollars. Not bad for being insolvent less than a decade earlier. We celebrated by spending the summer in Europe.

Of course we all know what happened in 2020, and this led to me leaving the teaching profession and returning to medical work in 2021.

My son, the man I thought would be a committed bachelor until the day he died, got married in 2021.

Fifteen years is a long time, especially for a blog. I wonder what the next few years will bring.

By Divemedic, ago

Pocket Vacancy

Proving that we are moving from a Cold Civil War to a hotter one, Shut Down DC is offering money to anyone disclosing the location of the six Conservative SCOTUS justices.

The reason for this, at least to me, is completely obvious. They WANT some looney to assassinate one or more of them. Such an act would allow Biden to name their replacement. This is nothing more than a group of people who want to commit murder but don’t have the balls to do it themselves. They know that there are people in their movement whose screws are loose, and are hoping that they can spur them into action by broadcasting the location of their desired targets.

I am willing to be that there will be a serious assassination attempt on a SCOTUS justice before the end of the year, with more copycats, and I would give you a 50% chance that at least one of those attempts will be successful before the 2024 election.

Meanwhile, the Republican baseball shooting of 2017 didn’t go far enough. This time, they are going to do something even bigger.

Now or Never is choosing to engage in direct action, it noted, because “conventional tactics are not enough” and it is “time to escalate.” 

The violence is ramping up again. If you think 2020 was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

By Divemedic, ago

Army

They claim that AR-15 owning gun owners can’t possibly hope to fight the US military. I doubt that. The US military will be too busy protesting the lack of abortion access to worry about my AR-15.

What I want to know is when the Article 15 proceedings begin. Or does that only apply to the right?

By Divemedic, ago