Divemedic

They Want You to Suffer

After it was pointed out that, should Americans switch to electric cars, it would require 4 times more electricity to charge them than Americans use on air conditioning, CNN tells us that we don’t need air conditioning because Europe doesn’t use it.

Let’s begin with a geography lesson. Berlin, the town where the author of the article lives without air conditioning, is at 52.52 degrees north latitude. The entire continental US is south of that line. The closest North American city to that latitude is Calgary, in Alberta, Canada, which is located at 51 degrees north.

Rome is located at about the latitude of Boston. Atlanta is on the 34th parallel, which places it as far north as Beirut and Tripoli. Orlando is near the 29th parallel, which places it as far north as Kuwait city. Miami is near Luxor, Egypt in latitude.

During the summer, Rome is ten degrees Fahrenheit cooler than Miami, on average. Hell, in Arizona it gets too hot for airplanes to fly. The US is warmer in summer, and colder in the winter than most of Europe.

Right now, all I am seeing on the news is the people in Europe whining like little bitches about how hot it is over there, because it is 100 degrees in the afternoon. Here in central Florida, we call that June, July, and August. They are closing roads because it looks like this:

Pussies. Our roads look like that when they are new. And what’s this about house fires? Do British homes spontaneously combust at 100F?

So Europe can go fuck themselves.

By Divemedic, ago

The Rest of the Story

Radio personality Paul Harvey used to do a bit called “The Rest of the Story” where he would tell a story. The end of the story would have a surprise ending, revealing a connection that the listener wouldn’t suspect. He would then close with the tagline: “Now you know… the rest of the story.” In homage to that show:

Stop me if you have heard this story before. New York police attempted to arrest a 21 year old man for driving with a suspended license. His 30 year old brother tries to physically prevent the arrest. Before it is over, 16 cops wind up involved. At the end of the day, the 30 year old brother winds up dead, and two cops are injured, one with a broken kneecap, and one with fractures in his back. The year was 1978, and the man’s name was Arthur Miller.

The son of that 30 year old man, Lamor Miller-Whitehead, was only six months old when his father died. Whitehead was arrested in a $2 million identity theft scam in 2006. When he was arrested, he was wearing a long mink coat like some bad 1970’s stereotype.

Whitehead and former girlfriend Valerie Rodriguez had access to personal identifying information of customers of the Honda dealership where she worked. They created fake email accounts and voicemail boxes using stolen identifying information, filled out fraudulent loan applications, and bought cars with the proceeds.

He was was convicted of one count of Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree, one count of Attempted Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, thirteen counts of Identity Theft in the First Degree, and two counts of Identity Theft in the Third Degree. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

He served five before being granted parole. (He claims that his conviction was overturned, but I can find no evidence of that. In fact, every one of the many appeals that he filed was denied, at least that I could find.)

Whitehead founded his own church when he got out of prison in 2013, and gave himself the title of “Bishop” just two years later. As the leader of this church, it appears as though the charity most favored by Whitehead’s church was Whitehead himself; he regularly drove the church owned vehicles: a Maserati, a $350,000 Rolls-Royce, and a Bentley. His church has over a million online followers, who he regularly urges to vote for politicians that he favors.

Whitehead is also a “community organizer” and has donated large sums to political causes. One politician that he favors is close friend Hizzoner Eric Adams, the mayor of NYC. In fact, he has called the mayor his “mentor” and is frequently seen with him.

It’s obvious what is happening here, at least to me. This guy is a scam artist, a convicted felon, and con man. He is using his fake church to con people out of money, then donating it to politicians so that they will look the other way. This is what community organizing is: criminals donating dirty money to corrupt politicians. If it seems like the criminals are running this country, that’s because they are.

Still, let’s stick with Whitehead’s story. So here we have a convict parolee who is running a fake church while driving multiple cars worth $300K apiece, while wearing ten thousand dollar outfits adorned with hundreds of thousands of dollars in jewelry.

Whitehead and his wife

That’s why I really don’t care that members of his flock decided to redistribute some of his property at gunpoint during a livestream of a church service.

Now you know the rest of the story.

By Divemedic, ago

The Dinner Dance

Here is something familiar to any man who has ever had a wife or girlfriend.

Woman: What do you want for dinner?

Man: Steak.

Woman: No, I don’t feel like that.

Man: Chinese

Woman: No, I don’t feel like that.

Man: Burgers?

Woman: No, I don’t feel like that.

<ten minutes and two dozen other suggestions>

Man: So just tell me what you DO want?

Woman: Whatever.

Man: Dammit.

Woman: I don’t understand why you get so upset.

Then you finally get somewhere, and she orders a f*cking salad, which she could have gotten at any one of the places that she shot down.

By Divemedic, ago

Orlando Tourist Attraction Gang Shooting

A fight broke out in the parking garage at Universal Studios on Saturday night, and the Orlando police evacuated the parking garage “out of an abundance of caution” due to “a fight between several juveniles.”

We all know that the police don’t evacuate major tourist attractions because of simple fist fights, and we also know that “juveniles” is a code word used by the local press for black teenage gang members. To understand what a HUGE thing this is, you have to understand how Universal Studios is set up:

You can see the two parking garages. There are elevated walkways that run from the garages to a rotunda, also elevated. (I marked the rotunda with a 5 pointed star). In the rotunda, there is a security station where they inspect bags and run everyone through a magnetometer.

That parking garage is the ONLY parking garage for the three main USO attractions: Universal Studios Orlando, Islands of Adventure, and Orlando City Walk. So the police evacuating the parking area means closing all three. Since it happened at midnight, the only thing open would have been City Walk, which is a Universal owned attraction of restaurants, bars, stores, mini golf, and other associated businesses.

So theoretically, no one is armed past that security station and the magnetometers that are located in that rotunda. I say theoretically, because that security station has been in place for nearly a decade, but I have made a hobby out of smuggling firearms past it. While I will admit that Universal has better security than Disney, it isn’t foolproof. They have even tried to claim that they are a school.

The area where Universal is located is a bad neighborhood to start with. Once when I was leaving the park, I missed a robbery of a nearby store by seconds.

The police claim that there were no weapons found or shots fired.

So with all of that being said, I can’t see the OPD evacuating a major tourist attraction to the point where people fled and left personal belongings behind, to include vehicles.

The news is calling it a “shooting scare” and blaming guns, even though there is no evidence that any guns were involved. Note that the parking garage was evacuated, which means that the “fight” occurred in the area outside of the security inspection station.

Me? I don’t see there being an evacuation of a major theme park unless someone in the OPD overreacted, or unless there really WERE shots fired.

This is the weakness in having a gun free zone with security inspections: you have an area where victims are guaranteed to be disarmed, and are easy pickings.

By Divemedic, ago

Suspensions

Many times we hear about public employees like teachers and cops being suspended with pay. Many people think that this is some sort of slap on the wrist that is simply a paid vacation, and the public employee will face no further discipline. That is simply not the case.

That paid suspension is actually a part of the employee’s constitutional rights. The case was Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, a 1985 case that was decided by the US Supreme Court. The underlying question for the case was:

“Can the government remove a civil servant’s property rights to employment before providing an opportunity for that employee to respond to the charges offered for his termination?”

The court said that the Constitution prevents the government from depriving anyone of their property without also providing that employee a chance to defend themselves. Calling witnesses, having counsel, a hearing, and all of the other due process rights that any other person would have before the government can take something from them.

So back to our cops and teachers. A cop or teacher is being considered for termination or unpaid suspension. In order to do that, the administrative authority who will take that action must hold a hearing where the employer (the government) will present its reasons for terminating or suspending the employee. The employee then has an opportunity to bring their own witnesses, present their case, and respond to the allegations. Only then can the employee be terminated or suspended.

Until that hearing has been held, an employee cannot be deprived of anything. That includes their job and their pay. So this leaves the employing agency in a quandary: Do you leave the disgraced employee in his or her job? Many employers choose not to, and will suspend the employee with pay, pending further proceedings.

After the punishment has been imposed, the employee has the right to appeal that decision in front of a court. If the appeal is successful, then the employee will likely be reinstated with back pay. This appeals process can sometimes take years.

By Divemedic, ago

Great Analogy

I heard this analogy today:

Let’s say that it’s your birthday, so you mix some flour, eggs, oil, butter, milk, and other ingredients in a bowl. You pour that mixture into a pan, place it into the oven, and prepare to wait for your birthday cake.

Now I come along, pull that pan out of the oven and toss it out of the window. You say to me, “Hey, you just ruined my birthday cake.”

I reply, “No I didn’t. It wasn’t a cake yet.”

You say, “It would have been in about an hour.”

At what point does a cake exist? When I mix the eggs into the batter? When it’s done baking?

That is the crux of the argument, isn’t it?

By Divemedic, ago