Divemedic

Stalkers and Spammers

This blog has been having issues with problem comments. More than 200 of them in the past 5 days.

There are the spammers. The most frequent one lately is a series of comments that begin with “Google paid me XX dollars an hour…”

Then there is an obsessed IT nerd who has been engaging in 2,000 word comments that are both insulting and inflammatory. Here are some excerpts from some of his recent comments:

this is you: “this is all terribly important and you should be doing it way better, YOU’RE HERE TO SUPPORT MY MISSION”, i.e. demonstrating that God-tier entitlement complex I talked about in pluperfect form

Or perhaps:

I hope you don’t approach your patient care with that kind of lackadaisical attitude (lol, who am I kidding)

Or even:

Things somehow never managed the trick of reading simple English; instead they post on blogs about what awesome lifesavers they are, despite the fact that their plumber has saved more lives in a week than any one of them has done in an entire career. 

I support the free exchange of ideas and opinions. One of the few rules that I have here is that no personal attacks are permitted. Another thing that I want everyone to understand is that I am the one who pays the bills here, this blog is my property, and I decide what goes down on here.

I try very hard to keep moderation of comments to the very minimum needed to keep things orderly and civil, but at the end of the day, it is still my call to make.

If this sort of thing keeps up, we may have to move to a registration system for commenting. I don’t want to do that, but the amount of spam I get is getting out of hand.

By Divemedic, ago

Saving Grace

Fellow Blogger Big Country Expat needs some help with his granddaughter. She was taken from him, and he is in desperate need of financial assistance with which to hire a lawyer.

Read about the entire story here. He is asking for $15K. Anyone who has ever needed to hire a lawyer knows that this is likely a lowball amount for an interstate custody battle. Help him out, if you have the means and the desire to do so.

By Divemedic, ago

Get Woke, Get Unemployed

The Miami Fire Department terminated firefighter Kevin Newcomb for making comments about a police detective who died in the line of duty this week, and in favor of gun control. It was pretty outrageous stuff.

This is what he wrote:

Who cares? Another dead cop, probably against gun control. They didn’t give a fuck when kids were dying in that school shooting they stood outside. Cops exist for the government to exercise its monopoly on violence. They want the whole world to stop when one of theirs goes down. How many idiots I had to transport with honor guard their dead bodies from coronavirus because they all were too stupid to wear masks or get vaccinated. All cops are good for is protecting the rich property owners and the status quo. Everything else is a farce. Fuck the police.

Firefighter Kevin Newcomb on Miami Detective Cesar Echaverry’s death

If the left can cancel anyone they disagree with, so can we.

We have confirmed that the firefighter in question authored a written statement using a social media platform that demonstrated a disregard for human life, demonstrated a violent and antagonistic stance towards civil servants and represented conduct unbecoming of a Miami Firefighter. These characteristics make it impossible for this individual to carry out his duties as a first responder in the City of Miami.

Fire Chief Joseph Zahralban

The firefighter was suspended with pay on Thursday to permit the Miami Fire Rescue department to complete its investigation into the text message. The agency announced his firing less than 24 hours later.

By Divemedic, ago

Outsourcing

There is a nationwide shortage of medical personnel. It is so bad in some specialties that pay is going through the roof. Emergency room nurses are making sky high bonuses in order to pick up extra days. Right now, if you are willing to pick up extra days, my hospital will pay you double time plus a bonus to come to work. Technicians like respiratory therapists are getting a bonus of $500 to come to work. Registered nurses are getting bonuses of $1,000 to $1,500.

I know nurses who are making $30,000 a month, although that is an extreme case. They are working more than 80 hours a week to do it, but it can be done. Most nurses are working 50 or so hours a week, and making somewhere around $13,000 a month. Even with that, we never have enough people.

These jobs are demanding jobs that require education, critical thinking skills, psychomotor skills, the ability to think quickly in stressful situations, and the ability to make life altering decisions in a fast paced environment. All with zero errors, hundreds of times per day, 12+ hours per day. Skills like that cost money. It’s money that hospitals are tired of paying.

So how are hospitals fixing it? They are importing nurses from the Philippines. The hospitals can force salaries lower by importing nurses from third world countries and paying them far less than their US counterparts. The average Filipino nurse makes less than $4,000 a month.

We have a mandatory meeting with management next week, where rumor has it we are being told that much of our staff will be replaced with foreign workers beginning in January.

This isn’t a slam on the nurses. They are well educated, with some of them even being licensed as doctors in their own country. What sucks is that you spend years becoming experienced and educated only to see your employer bring in people from other countries to do your job at a fraction of the pay.

By Divemedic, ago

I Hate Dealing with IT

This is where I vent about the computer nerds at my hospital.

I have been having a problem with a piece of medical equipment at work. In order to perform a procedure, a Doctor’s order must be in the system. The problem is that whenever the device tries to download orders, I get an error message “The Server Returned an unrecognized response.”

If the medical device can’t find the order, it won’t proceed with the test. There is no way to get around it. There used to be, but they eliminated that ability about three months ago.

So I did what I am supposed to do- I put in a work order. I did so at 8 pm.

The next morning, I find an email reply with a very snarky response. It says “If you would read your emails, you will see that we were doing server maintenance at XXX hospital from 10 pm onwards, and the server was unavailable.” Your work order has been closed.

There are a couple issues with that:

  • I don’t work at XXX hospital. I work at YYY hospital.
  • The problem was happening well before 10 pm
  • I work in the Emergency Room, and this equipment is pretty important. Why would you shut it down with no way to operate it?

Then the very next email in my box is a request that I take a survey about the “service” I received from the IT department. I blasted them, but in a controlled, polite way.

I was called into my boss’ office because “If you have a problem with the work done by another employee, you come to us. There is no need to disparage other employees on interdepartment surveys.”

If you don’t want my opinion, don’t ask for it.

Also, why does the IT department in every place I have ever worked have to be staffed with condescending assholes who treat you like a moron because THEIR equipment doesn’t do what it is supposed to be doing? I get that you don’t want to be bothered with actually interacting with people, but that is kind of your own fault for making sure that no one can do anything without calling the helpdesk because even changing the font on your screen requires an admin password that only you possess.

OK. Rant over.

By Divemedic, ago

IRS cops

Check this out. These agents will be going after landscapers, roofers, and others. Not billionaires. How do I know? Here is one job posting, and it is in the “Small Business Self Employed Office of Fraud Enforcement Field Operations” division. They carry guns, ammo, and “no Tasers:” dead or alive, you are coming with me:

I would also say that the way the agent is teaching how to apply handcuffs is not correct, according to how I was taught. You don’t “smack” the handcuffs on, because that is painful for the arrestee. Why be an asshole?

It looks like they are also looking for digital currency tax dodgers.

Interestingly, they refer to tax evasion as “stealing from the government.”

By Divemedic, ago

This Happens Too Often

Or: “It followed me home, can I keep it?”

A child is missing before being “found” at a female teacher’s house. I wonder what she was planning on doing with him. In comments, people are saying that there is no evidence that she was going to molest him, and the typical shit about “she was hot, this will make the kid popular” bullshit.

A groomer is a groomer. A molester is a molester.

EDITED TO ADD:

The teacher’s arrest affidavit is here. (pdf alert) Here is the information on the class she teaches, which is English 1. The arrest affidavit says that she was his English teacher last year, meaning that the boy is most likely a 15 year old who is just beginning the 10th grade.

No mention is made of sexual activity. I wonder if it was that, or if the teacher was planning on helping the boy become a girl.

By Divemedic, ago

So we can do this now, right?

Ron Desantis pushed for a law to stop companies from doing the following:

Ban unlawful employment practices to include training requirements by companies that teach any of eight “forbidden concepts,” including:

  • that individuals should be discriminated against based on race, color, sex or national origin
  • members of one race, color, sex or national origin are morally superior to members of another race, color, sex or national origin
  • an individual, due to his or her race, color, sex or national origin, should be discriminated against due to actions committed in the past by other members of that race, color, sex or national origin
  • the idea that virtues such as merit, excellence, hard work, fairness, neutrality, objectivity and racial colorblindness are racist or sexist
  • a person is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive based on their race, color, sex or national origin

The law was intended to stop companies from teaching that white people are the cause of all of the problems in America, according to the left.

A Florida judge just struck down the law, saying that it is an unconstitutional violation of free speech. So now, according to this ruling, I can teach my employees that it is OK to discriminate against black people because they are morally and intellectually inferior to white people, and also because blacks are a race of criminals who are inherently racist because they are black? Of is this another law that will only be enforced against white conservatives?

By Divemedic, ago

Election Tampering

As we enter the days before the election, word is coming out that multiple conservatives are being targeted by big tech for censorship. Steve Crowder has had his YouTube channel shut down, and LibsofTikTok has also been banned from multiple platforms.

I don’t want to hear about how they are a private company and can do as they please. As long as they are immune from lawsuits because they are claiming to be a neutral platform that can’t be blamed for what people post, they must remain free of using the ban hammer to influence the conversation. Otherwise, they are just another arm of government censorship.

By Divemedic, ago

Suing Out of Business

New York City just settled a lawsuit against a seller of gun parts, where the seller has agreed to modify their website to prohibit sales to anyone living in NYC.

The article calls them sellers of “ghost gun” parts, but the industry of 80 percent firearms is coming to an end in a couple of weeks. No, this is aimed at the parts market. They are nibbling away at gun culture.

The city’s complaint came after undercover investigators with the New York City Sheriff’s Office were able to purchase from Rock Slide’s website a Polymer80 PF940C unserialized, “unfinished” frame, slide, internal upper parts kit, recoil spring and guide rod, lower parts kit with trigger, and 32-round magazine — all to be delivered to an address in Manhattan. Rock Slide does not require customers to have a valid state or city license or permit, and it did not perform a background check on the buyer.

The reason that the seller didn’t require a license, permit, or background check is that one is not legally required for gun parts. There was no firearm sold there.

There is a NY state law that allows the state to sue gun makers. I wonder if the defendants in the case made a motion to dismiss on the grounds that they are not gun makers, the customer who bought the parts were.

I also wonder if the new ATF regulation will stand up to a legal challenge. I guess we will see.

By Divemedic, ago