Divemedic

Follow the Science

The left keeps telling us to “follow the science” without actually knowing what science is, other than the subject that they received Cs in while in school. Science is a way of learning how things work. We observe a phenomenon, collect data on that phenomenon, then formulate ideas and rules on how that phenomenon works. We continuously test our ideas against data to see if our ideas are correct. So in a nutshell, science is a way of using data to prove how the world works.

For example, we know that the Y chromosome in humans has 30 genes contained in it. One of those 30 genes is called the SRY gene. It only works once in a lifetime, about 42 days after conception. That gene causes cells in a developing fetus to produce the SRY protein. This protein contains a string of of 79 amino acids that binds to specific regions of DNA, causing the DNA molecule to bend. This bending in turn causes the production in certain cells of some organs that produces other proteins, including one called SOX9 (sex-determining region-box 9) an autosomal gene regulated by the SRY protein. The presence of this protein (among others) causes a fetus to develop testes and a penis. Bam, the fetus is male. Science. You can’t wish your way into being male or female, you can’t change this because you feel like it. It just is.

The evidence and the data led science to that point. The facts don’t change. What can change is the scientists themselves. People who claim to be scientists allow their biases and preformed opinions to change or reinterpret the data to be what they wish it to be, thus placing their thumbs squarely on the scales.

This is squarely related to something I was talking about with regards to crime, sociology, and criminology. Science is what it is, even when some people want to wish away the facts as they are.

Sometimes people are wrong. Perhaps this is done because of personal bias or opinion, sometimes it is done for profit. Sometimes it is simple human error.

This lays the groundwork for a future post. Keep an eye out for it in the future.

By Divemedic, ago

Inflation and Rent

Biden made an ass of himself on the inflation topic on Tuesday. It turns out that inflation is running at over 8% for the sixth consecutive month, and that is just the understated official rate. The Fed is reportedly considering a full point increase in interest rates next week, the highest in 40 years.

It’s that time of year again. Time to begin looking at market adjustments for our rentals. We have decided that we are not going to rent out one of our rental properties any longer. We are going to sell it in a few months when the current lease runs out.

The second property is more profitable, and we are looking at adjustments. The market isn’t as tight as it was last year, with inventory of available rentals being a bit more than it was. Prices even stabilized a bit. The market can’t keep rising at 25% per year forever, I guess. Still, we held last year’s increase a bit because we didn’t want to get too pushy.

Because of Florida’s insurance issues, our insurance costs went up. Our taxes went up. Our other expenses are also rising.

That means the house we are currently renting out at $1,825 is far below market and is going to see a rent increase. Zillow rentals claims that the house can rent for $2,550, but that seems too high. The current market is running between $1.15 and $1.28 a square foot for comparable rentals, meaning that I could likely rent it out for $2,175 to $2,425.

Now I am not the kind of landlord who will screw over a good tenant. In three years, he has only been late on rent once. Still, fiscal and market conditions are what they are, so I think we are looking at setting rent at about $2,000 per month. I do need to eventually put new countertops into the place, and if the tenants insist upon that, then the rent will have to be increased closer to market, perhaps to $2,100.

In the meantime, everything you buy will continue to get more expensive.

By Divemedic, ago

I Bet They Don’t Show

A van full of men were pulled over on the Florida Turnpike because a trooper discovered that the van they were riding in had over $1,100 in unpaid tolls. The driver and one of his passengers (who is also the owner) didn’t speak English or have a driver’s license, nor have they ever had a driver’s license. The driver and the owner were arrested and taken to the Lake county jail. They each posted their $1,000 bond (meaning that they paid $100 each to secure a bail bond) and are due in court on September 27.

  • No English
  • Don’t pay tolls
  • No license

I’m sure that they don’t have valid insurance, either. You can’t get insurance without a license. The scam here is that an illegal buys a van with a valid plate from someone who is legal. They leave the tags on the vehicle, because they can’t get new tags or insurance without a valid license. They use the vehicle until it either gets impounded or in an accident. The driver they hit is left holding the bag, unless they have uninsured motorist coverage.

I wonder what the odds of them being illegal aliens are. I also wonder what the odds are that the two actually show up.

This exact scam happened to me on July 4, 2002.

I was on my way home from work when my pickup truck was rear ended. The car was incapable of driving away, there was transmission fluid on the ground. The man who was driving the car did not have a driver’s license, nor any other form of I.D.. He was cited for no license and no proof of insurance. He never showed up to court, because he was an illegal immigrant. I never saw or heard from him again.

The damage to my vehicle was over $1,200. I have a $1,000 deductible and uninsured motorist coverage, so the ordeal cost me $1,000. This same story plays out all over the state every day. You can add this to the true cost of illegal immigration.

By Divemedic, ago

More Teachers Grooming

In yet another case of liberals thinking that they are smarter and more caring than anyone else, teachers in an Ohio school district are being told that they don’t have to inform parents that their children are requesting changed names, pronouns, or sexual identity.

Then they tell you that sex and gender are not the same thing. This is gaslighting, pure and simple. They are telling you that things don’t mean what they have meant for thousands of years. The left is deliberately and systematically feeding people false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. The targets of this behavior wind up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity. Over time, their manipulations are growing more complex, more potent, more out of touch with reality, which is making it increasingly difficult for the victims to see the truth.

We are seeing the left targeting our most vulnerable people- our children- at the core of their being: their sense of identity and self-worth. It isn’t just children, almost anyone is susceptible to these tactics, which have been deployed throughout history by domestic abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders.

Don’t let anyone do this to you or your family.

By Divemedic, ago

Disney More Woke

Disney is redoing the animated classics about Princesses. In these versions, the Princesses don’t need a man, and don’t need true love. In the old stories, the protagonist spent the film trying to find true love. Not in these newer, more woke versions.

In 1937 the cartoon [Snow White and the Seven Dwarves] was so focused on her finding true love, and it’s not even in her mind at all in this film

Nope, in this film, the actress playing Snow White calls herself “Lantinx” and says that her character doesn’t want love, she wants power:

We keep a lot of the meat of the film that made us all fall in love with this film. It’s really her, and her gumption. And just excitement for the life above [her] world. So it’s amazing, but it’s also updated with the current times. I think she really just goes for what she wants. She’s not scared. And it’s not all about a boy. It’s all about what she wants for herself, and her life.

The new version of Little Mermaid is no different. This story is being redone with a black actress, the Prince that she is so attracted to that she decides to trade her voice in order to become human and win his love? Yeah. That doesn’t happen in this new version.

The original themes of the classic Disney films were about the power of love, purity, loyalty, and honor, and how those attributes could conquer all. What made the antagonists so evil was their lust, vanity, and greed.

Now Disney in its new generation has flipped the entire theme upside down. The protagonist doesn’t want love. They want power. The new generation is all about the love of power, greed, and coercion.

When the original Snow White was released in 1934, it was so popular that Walt Disney won an honorary Academy Award for his pioneering achievement. The music for the film, featuring Snow White’s famous ballad, “Some Day My Prince Will Come” was also nominated for an Oscar.

The studio re-released Snow White in 1944, during World War II; thereafter, it was released repeatedly every decade or so, a pattern that became a tradition for Disney’s animated films. Its power continues to endure: In June 2008, more than 60 years after its U.S. release, the American Film Institute chose Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as the No. 1 animated film of all time in its listing of “America’s 10 Greatest Films in 10 Classic Genres.”

That isn’t good enough for woke Disney. They don’t want timeless tales where love conquers all. The classic happy ending viewers would come to expect as a Disney trademark as the dwarfs defeat the villainous queen and Snow White finds love with a handsome prince isn’t what the new Disney is about.

The new Disney wants racial strife, sending stupid messages about feminism, and has flipped the traditional Disney message on its head. The protagonists and antagonists in the films have traded attributes. The new films are all about power for power’s sake. Winner take all.

Perhaps love and contentment isn’t what this new generation wants at all. Maybe that is why they seem so angry and so miserable all of the time.

By Divemedic, ago

They Know Where You Are

USA today recently discovered that Florida police are tracking people through plate readers and toll transponders. This isn’t new. Police have been doing this for years. I first reported on this way back in 2011, when I did a post on plate reading cameras.

There are also readers that track toll transponders without charging the driver a toll. They are everywhere. Then there are people tracking your cell phone. Ask the J6 protesters about that.

That’s the reason why every vehicle I own as a Faraday bag in it. If I ever want to be more difficult to track, I just drop the cell phones and transponders into the bag.

Of course, USA today didn’t care then, and they didn’t care when I showed that NYPD was doing it back in 2014. The only reason that they care now is because they want to make DeSantis look bad. They just fail to mention that the program has been going in for far longer than DeSantis has been in office, and it taking place in more places than just Florida.

By Divemedic, ago

Listen

Do you want to know what is coming here in the US? All you have to do is listen. On August 26, Biden told Democrats that, “The MAGA Republicans don’t just threaten our personal rights and economic security… They’re a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people. Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans have made their choice — to go backwards full of anger, violence, hate, and division. But we’ve chosen a different path forward, the future, unity, hope and optimism.”

Then, just last week, the White House Press Secretary said that anyone who doesn’t agree with Democrats is an extremist.

The President himself then sent this message out on social media.

The NY Times is comparing the American right to ISIS and the Taliban. The Times goes on to call the grievances of the right “either wild exaggerations or outright fantasies — antifa supersoldiers, totalitarian globalists, satanic pedophiles.”

Now word comes out just today that Hillary Clinton said 9/11 is a reminder US must ‘deal with extremism of any kind.’ Then the reporter asked Clinton, “All of America’s elected officials really genuinely put party aside and came together after those attacks. Would that be possible today?”

“Well, I hope that it will be, and I give President Biden a lot of credit for trying to continue to reach out to people while still sounding the alarm about the threats to our democracy,” Clinton responded.

So the party that spent the four years of the Trump presidency screaming ‘resist’ and ‘not my President’ while simultaneously doing all that they could to oppose Trump’s policies is, now that their party is in the Oval Office, demanding that the entire country fall in line behind the President.

That isn’t how this works. Still, Clinton went on: “So we are in a funny position, Dana, because there’s a small, but very vocal, very powerful, very determined minority who wants to impose their views on all the rest of us, and it’s time for everybody, regardless of party to say, ‘No, that’s not who we are as America.’”

It’s working. In a Reuters poll, most Americans polled see Trump supporters as being a threat to the country. Fifty-eight percent of respondents in the poll – including one in four Republicans – said Trump’s supporters are threatening America’s democratic foundations.

This is the sort of talk that you would expect in a country where a political power or a dictator is getting ready to purge people, is getting ready to ethnically cleanse people. This is not normal talk.

Professor William A Jacobson, Founder of the Website Legal Insurrection

It’s clear- they intend to eliminate what they are referring to as a “threat to democracy.” That threat is anyone who opposes them.

That threat to be eliminated is you.

By Divemedic, ago

Trump, 9/11, & Trump Derangement Syndrome

The day that terrorists brought down the towers, Donald Trump was interviewed by NBC news. During that report, he told reporters (who called him a “local real estate developer”) that he had hired hundreds of workers at his own expense to go to ground zero and help with rescue efforts.

The left can’t let a warm, positive story circulate about Donald Trump. So the fact checkers are working overtime to make sure that this story is killed. They are claiming that the interview is genuine, but there is no evidence that Trump was telling the truth at the time.

This is what TDS looks like. Their hatred is so complete that they cannot admit that Trump did anything good or positive for this nation. They have forgotten that Trump was known to be a close friend of the Clintons. He and Bill used to play golf together, and Bill Clinton was one of the people who urged Trump to run for office.

By Divemedic, ago

The Choice

Twenty two years ago today. I still remember that morning in more detail than all but of a few of the mornings that have come since. The sky was a beautiful blue, the sun was warm, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. A typical Central Florida day. My shift, C shift, had just started our 24 hour workday.

I was driving Engine 2 that morning. Dennis was riding in the seat next to me as the Lieutenant, and Justin was the back seat firefighter. Our shift had begun at 7:30 that morning as it always did. We did our morning routine as we always do. At 8:30, we left the station to do annual flow testing of fire hydrants.

By 8:45, we were behind the Winn Dixie and just about to test our first hydrant. Our Battalion Chief called us and told us to return to the station and turn on the TV. I remember jokingly asking Dennis who the guy on the radio was and what they had done to the Chief, since he would never tell us to watch TV during the workday.

We arrived back in the station just in time to see the second plane hit the south tower. I remember watching Fox news and seeing them switch to the DC bureau, where reporters said they could see a column of smoke. Things were happening so fast, I couldn’t figure out what that smoke was coming from. I commented “There is no way that the smoke from NYC is visible in Washington.” It was then that a fellow firefighter told me that the Pentagon had been hit.

The chief called us to disclose the plans for the remainder of the day. While I was on the phone with him, the first tower fell. The chief said to me, “Oh my God. 30,000 people just died.” I remember being stunned that so many people could be in a building.

By noon, we had an armed SWAT officer with an MP-5 riding along with us on all of our calls “for security.”

For weeks, we firefighters were stunned at the loss of 343 firefighters. I felt a sense of awe and respect for the guys who went into that second tower after watching the first tower fall. They went into that building knowing that they would never come out of the second tower. What was going through their minds? I asked myself if I was capable of making the same choice if I knew that I would not come out?

We all wanted to be able to say yes. It isn’t the same thing when you go into an ordinary fire. Firefighters are a cocky, professional bunch. When we run into a burning building, we tell ourselves that we are trained and experienced enough that it will not happen to us. Not so with those guys in the towers. They went in KNOWING that they wouldn’t come out. That is a time that you don’t know what you would do until the moment of truth comes.

I just hoped that I would have the fortitude to make the choice that needed to be made, to have the courage to choose duty and honor over self preservation and the fortune to never be placed in that position. I hoped that I would never have to make that choice.

I spent the majority of my adult life in one uniform or another, dedicated to the protection of American lives and values. I spent six years in the Navy, doing two combat tours in the Persian gulf. I wasn’t a big hero or anything. I, like millions of others, did my job. After that, I spent two decades in a firefighter’s uniform. In that time, I ran into hundreds of burning buildings, jumped into a dozen lakes, thousands of medical scenes, and traveled to 22 natural disasters. I was injured three times in the line of duty. I saw a couple of thousand dead bodies, dozens of shootings and stabbings, and saved more than a few lives.

In 2011, I retired. I had seen enough death, misery, and blood for one lifetime. I thought that the time of risking life and limb for the good of this nation and its people was over. I had given enough. I deserved to be left alone to grow old and enjoy the rest of my life in as much peace as I could manage.

All I want is to be left alone to grow old in peace. The events of the past two and a half years make me believe that this won’t happen. I fear that I may have to make that choice after all.

By Divemedic, ago