Divemedic

The EPA’s highest-paid employee and a leading expert on climate change was caught bilking the government out of nearly $1 million in salary and other benefits over a decade.

He told his bosses that he REALLY worked for the CIA, and frequently took months long sabbaticals, claiming he was on missions and task forces in the war on terror. He then used his EPA accounts to pay for the first class air tickets and stays in luxury hotels. The EPA paid all of the expenses without question.

He even got a handicapped parking spot by claiming he had complications from malaria that he caught while serving in Vietnam. He never had malaria and never served in Vietnam.

He was only caught when he told his boss and coworkers that he was retiring, and stopped coming to work. They even threw him a retirement party. Six months later, his boss noticed he was still on the payroll and inquired. Had that not happened, one wonders if he would have EVER been caught.

You have to read the whole thing in order to believe the incompetence of the supervisors. Good to know our taxes are being so well spent. 

My gun safe was full, so I decided to order another. The one that I selected was a Winchester Big Daddy. I looked around, and my LGS had them for $2000, plus delivery and taxes. I found one on Amazon for $1735 with free delivery, plus sales tax. I ordered it on May 6.

At the time of ordering, I had to select the delivery date. Of the available times and dates, the one that worked best with my schedule was May 17 from 3-6 pm. The shipping company was listed as Pilot freight. They got it as far as Tampa, and turned it over to a subcontractor for final delivery. That was where things went sideways.

I got a call on May 15, telling me that they would not have a delivery crew available on the 17th, and offered to deliver it at noon on the 16th. I explained that I had a job, had scheduled this delivery 2 weeks in advance, and couldn’t do it on the 16th. We finally wound up rescheduling the delivery for the 20th, between 3-6. They showed up at 12:30. My wife hurried home and things got worse.

As they were delivering the safe, you can see on my security video where the dial for the lock came off. The delivery guy picked up the dial and stuck it back on. My wife, not realizing that the safe was broken, signed for the delivery. The safe is useless and will not lock. It is still on the skids.

I wound up buying the one from the LGS and paying $250 for the delivery. I called Amazon (they have a 30 day guarantee) on May 21 and arranged to have the broken safe picked up. We made an appointment for May 27th from 12-6. You guessed it- they didn’t show and stated that when they made the reservation, they didn’t realize it was a holiday. Now we have another reservation for June 1 (today) from 12-2.

If this one is a no-show, I am going to dispute the charge on my credit card. This wreck of an experience has been a month in the making.

The city of Orlando is about to ban plastic straws, bags, and containers from all city property.

“This covers … public right of way like food trucks,” Castro said.

Ironic last name aside, will this result in traffic stops if you are seen on the public right of way with a McDonald’s cup? There is also a city ordinance about scooping your dog’s poop. Maybe you can use bags made from a liberal chick’s underarm hair.

Billionaire Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, one of the (seemingly) fifty 2020 Democrat Presidential Candidates, and former Hillary 2016 supporter, has a supposed “compromise” way that he would like to rewrite the Second Amendment. Here is a quote:

I would go to change the Second Amendment in ways that people probably wouldn’t expect. One, every American citizen has the right to own a gun. Two, the federal government will never be allowed to ever confiscate that gun from an individual. Next, he said states should have wide latitude to determine gun policy within their borders. States have the right to manage the ownership—the purchase, ownership, and management—of guns owned and held within their borders.

In other words, he wants to outlaw firearms at the state level by not applying the Second Amendment to the states. He is looking at the wrong Amendment. What he REALLY wants to do is get rid of the Fourteenth Amendment. That would open a HUGE can of worms for him and the rest of the Communist Democrat party. Once the Fourteenth was gone, Roe v. Wade is gone. Slavery would be up to the states. So would every other item in the Amendments: voting rights, Religion, free speech, and even jury trials.

Good luck with that. 

Here is a story about a philanthropist paying off the student loans of an entire graduating class. While that is nice, it isn’t the point of this post. What really stunned me was this quote:

In the weeks before graduating from Morehouse on Sunday, 22-year-old finance major Aaron Mitchum drew up a spreadsheet to calculate how long it would take him to pay back his $200,000 in student loans – 25 years at half his monthly salary, per his calculations.

Why would you go to college and select a major where your career would cost you half of your salary for the next 25 years? This proves to me that this college doesn’t teach its finance majors very well. There are a few ways that this quote can be taken, but each of them shows a lack of financial knowledge on the part of Mr. Mitchum.

A simple calculation on a student loan of $200,000 yields a payment of $1400 a month. That means his salary is expected to be about $48,000 a year. If he was hired to work at WalMart for their minimum wage of $15 an hour and started work the day that he would have started college, he would be 55 years old before the college degree put him ahead.

Instead of demanding free college, perhaps graduating high school seniors should be looking at trade school.

Officials said they received a tip that a device at Darrin Williams’ Mount Dora home was accessing suspected child pornography. 

I wonder if this tip came from the NSA?

Assange is being charged with espionage for publishing information that the government deems sensitive. The government responds by insisting Assange is “not a journalist.” I disagree. The government does not get to decide who is and who is not a journalist. For the government to have such power would render the First Amendment meaningless. Imagine a President who can simply declare that some news organization or another is not the press that is entitled to First Amendment protections, and simply shuts them down.