Divemedic

Litmus test

A cruise ship just docked in Belize. Every crew member and every passenger over the age of 12 was vaccinated. Every living soul on board was tested and shown not to have COVID in the 72 hours prior to sailing. By the time the ship had entered port in Belize City, 27 passengers had COVID. All 27 were vaccinated, had mild or no symptoms, and were in isolation, according to the statement. The tourism board said 99.98% of the ship’s crew was vaccinated, as well as 96.5% of its passengers. Passengers are required to wear masks while they are inside of common areas.

How you view the above paragraph has become a litmus test of your politics. You either believe that this is evidence that vaccines and masking aren’t effective, or you find yourself believing that these steps are keeping the people who are ill from experiencing more severe symptoms.

I think that, if you tell me which camp you fall into, I can predict your political leanings on almost any other controversial subject with 90% certainty.

By Divemedic, ago

Fair taxes?

Read this article, and laugh with me. They claim that what makes a tax fair is people pay in proportion to the amount of use they get out of roads.

The gas tax was fair because it was based on a simple principle: user pays, user benefits. Before the gas tax, all taxpayers paid for the upkeep of roads and building new ones. But this was particularly unfair to the poorest people who could not afford a car.

They go on to then admit that the tax isn’t about revenue- it’s about punishing the rich.

Originally introduced as a fair way for automobile drivers to pay for the upkeep of the roads they use, it has become less fair as rich people buy hybrid and electric vehicles.

They go on and on about those people who aren’t poor.

This unfairness is compounded by the fact that hybrid or electric vehicle (EV) owners are likely to be well-educated, young, and comparatively well-off. A study by TrueCar.com, for example, found that the average owner of a Ford Focus Electric had a household income of $199,000 a year. The people who are paying the most for road upkeep are more likely to be less well-educated, older, and poorer than the hybrid/EV owners.

So poor people don’t benefit from roads? Obama claimed that business owners “didn’t build that” because all of society made business possible because infrastructure is paid for by all. Doesn’t that also mean that everyone is responsible to pay for that infrastructure?

Since electric cars do just as much damage to roads as gas-powered cars, we will still need to spend just as much on maintaining roads in a world with electric cars as we do today. Also, as long as most of the electricity is still coming from fossil fuels, we should want the tax to discourage driving in general.

Nope- just more communism sneaking into our political landscape.

By Divemedic, ago

Dysfunction?

The Washington Post says that the eviction moratorium is displaying the failure of the system in this country for renting houses.

When a property owner rents the property that he owns to another, he is doing so because he wants to make money. It doesn’t matter if that property is a saw, a car, or even a home. The owner buys the property and lets the renter use that property for an amount of time in exchange for money. It’s just that simple. Let’s look at a residential rental.

  • The property owner offers to rent a home to someone. This is called the offer.
  • The renter signs an agreement, agreeing to pay money (or sometimes other commodities) in exchange for living there. This is the acceptance.
  • The renter pays the money, the owner lets the tenant live there. Consideration.

What happens when the renter lives there, but doesn’t pay? The property owner loses money and must get the renter to move out so that he can rent it to someone who will actually pay. Any property owner would rather collect the money he is owed than evict, because eviction is an expensive thing to do.

The Post claims that the trials are unfair because the property owner wins the majority of the time. I don’t see how that is a problem. If the tenant signed the lease, lived in the rental property, and didn’t pay, there are very few defenses that would let him continue to live there for free.

The Post wants the US to declare that housing is a human right. So if it is a right, who is to provide it? The only answer is the complete elimination of private property in this country.

Communism.

By Divemedic, ago

Surveillance State

In another example of Mussolini fascism, private companies are surveilling private citizens and passing that information on to the government. Case in point, a company named Flock safety (as in sheep?) installed approximately 100 hidden cameras around Lake county, Florida, with the approval of the sheriff.

We have installed 1000s of cameras around the country, including all over Florida, and our team moves very quickly. 

statement from Flock Safety

The company places an emphasis on capturing license plate numbers and vehicle details.

From flocksafety.com

This surveillance state crap sickens me. Mask, spray paint, intrusive camera.

IANAL, but it seems to me that since this isn’t government property…

By Divemedic, ago

Hypocritical Schmuck

Arnold Schwarzenegger says:

“Yeah, you have the freedom to wear no mask — but you know something? You’re a schmuck for not wearing a mask. You are supposed to protect your fellow Americans around you.”

So here are some pictures

Here is a schmuck and his son on a maskless bike ride on August 1.
Here is a maskless schmuck and his son out for a walk.
Here is a schmuck out at an ice cream parlor on June 28.

Typical socialist. Socialism is not for the rich, only the poor.

By Divemedic, ago

Gangs funded by govt

An investigation by the state of Florida AG has found that street gangs fraudulently obtained funding from the Paycheck Protection Program and other COVID relief to buy drugs and guns.

At least six people created limited liability companies, or LLCs, solicited people through social media and in some cases stole identities to apply for PPP and SBA loans, then using the funds obtained to fund criminal enterprises. This included guns and drugs picked up from a marijuana farm in California and flown back to Orlando.

By Divemedic, ago

Thank you to me

There are so many times that I see news that disheartens me. I see our nation dying before my eyes. It saddens me that there are so many signs of what is coming. I truly love this nation and the ideals that it was supposed to stand for. To watch it fall to the communists is tragic. It is easy to allow this to get to you, but I also know that things will get worse. Much worse. This post is a message to future me, and I hope it resonates with others.

I, future me, want to thank past me. Thank you for continuing to prepare for what has yet to come, for keeping at it day after day, even when it was difficult. No matter how dark and disheartening things were, the dark days to come will be so much better because you were prepared.

This nation will continue to fall apart, and things that you cannot even imagine will come to pass. Have the courage and the foresight to keep preparing, and know that you are not alone.

By Divemedic, ago

Cause, effect

One of the many jobs I have had was at a plant that made stainless steel pipe and tube. The process was that we would buy large rolls of stainless steel, slit them to the proper sizes, then cold roll those into pipe. The edges of the roll would be welded together, then the now completed pipe was induction annealed so it would hold its shape.

We had a woman there who was in charge of QA. It was her job to test each batch of pipe to ensure that the pipe was properly manufactured. Once, the woman decertified an entire batch of pipe because the welds were faulty and had microscopic cracks in them. That batch had to go out the next day so we could meet the customer’s deadline. It was a couple of dozen tons of pipe.

Management fixed the problem by firing the QA department and shipping the pipe. Of course, the entire batch of pipe came back when the welds began to fail. Due to bad management, the company went out of business less than a year later.

I am telling you this story because there is a lesson there. One that will easily apply to the situation in this country with regards to our education. The Oregon governor recently decided that too many black students were failing tests in reading and math proficiency. To her, the obvious problem lies in the test, so the test was eliminated.

By Divemedic, ago