Divemedic

Here are two documents that have been sent to teachers in my area in recent days. (pdf alert) I disagree with the premise:

Consider two scenarios: A principal is late on a report and the boss says, “You
didn’t do it on time, so you don’t have to do it.” It’s April 16, your income taxes
haven’t been submitted, and you receive an e-mail from the IRS stating, “Your taxes
are late so you don’t have to pay them this year.” Neither scenario is realistic, yet in
schools many educators have policies that if a student doesn’t complete work on
time, the student earns a zero and the work cannot be completed for credit. Thus,
the student doesn’t do it. It is just the opposite that should be true: Students should
be required to do the work and not permitted to take the easy way out by accepting
the zero grade.

This is ridiculous. The student either meets the learning objective, or doesn’t. You can’t grade what isn’t turned in. When a student doesn’t do the work, what then? The author says that you assign them to an after school “homework club,” and if that doesn’t work, assign them to “Saturday school.” Many of my students don’t even come to regular school. What makes you think that they will come in on Saturday?

Let’s being this to the real world: You boss tells you that he wants a particular project completed by Friday, so it can be completed for an important client. You don’t do it. The boss tells you that you need to come in on Saturday. You don’t. What will the boss do? Fire you. If he doesn’t, he will still be forced to fire you when all of his clients find other ways of getting what they need.

This constant mollycoddling of students is why they are all graduating with expectations of being paid for not really doing anything.

This is what I have been saying about education for years. We are required to give 85% of our kids a C or higher. Even then, we are often asked to increase grades later. Earlier this year, I was asked to change a student’s grade from last year so he could be eligible to play basketball.

There are news stories that the leaders of the investigation into then Presidential Candidate Donald Trump that was responsible for the Fusion GPS dossier and wiretapping of the NYC election headquarters of Trump’s campaign were using HAM radios to communicate and coordinate this effort, in violation of Federal law.

I find this to be a very useful bit of information, and it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. The National Security Agency (NSA) picks up and records almost all electronic communications, thereby effectively wiretapping telephone conversations, email, and practically everything else we send out electronically.  When a FISA court permits spying on American citizens, that universal wiretapping capability can be used to spy on their conversations.  It now appears that an elaborate plot was crafted to generate phony accusations of dirty ties to Russia that would be used to get a FISA court warrant to spy on members of the Trump campaign.

The wife of a Deputy Director of the DOJ was coordinating this attempted coup, and would be well aware of the NSA’s capabilities. For that reason, I got to thinking about that. There are many technical reasons why spying on HAM radio would be a nearly impossible task. Just by using the frequencies and methods permitted to a person with a Technician license, there are thousands of available channels. Toss in the various modes like Digital, SSB, USB, AM, FM, CW, etc., and then consider that the higher frequencies are short range and would require hundreds of listening stations in every state, and it becomes a very difficult proposition to monitor HAM radio.

Insert basic tradecraft where a message is inserted into an innocent sounding conversation, and there is no practical way to shut down or monitor communications. It also becomes impossible to monitor a quick message through traffic analysis, if the operators do not identify, the conversation is short, and the transmitters mobile. 

The coup plotters know this, and this is why they chose to communicate that way. This is how the pros do it, so they can participate in an extra-constitutional coup. Lesson complete.

I joined because I thought they were going to do a good job. Then this happened. Then, I joined their FB page and saw posts like these:

Clips are always Very handy. Im an old outlaw; and i know when things are about to go down. Not one of those scared guys with one in the chamber all the time


Okay legislative geniuses, what’s the next step and when for this horrible HR 38 turd?

Most of thee group seems to be a circle jerk of wannabes who have exactly zero knowledge of the law, concealed carry, or anything else firearms related. Coupled with their recent opposition to changes in Florida law, I think that this is my last year as a paid Florida carry member.

A store owner in Yalaha, Florida saw some suspicious activity at one of his gas pumps and went to investigate. When he saw that the man at the pump was installing a credit card skimmer, he confronted the criminal, who attempted to “intimidate” the store owner. The store owner drew a firearm and the man fled. The would be thief and his female accomplice were caught and arrested by deputies just a few miles away.

In Florida, it is legal for a person to carry a weapon, whether openly or concealed, at his place of business. It is also, as a matter of law, considered non-lethal force to merely point a firearm at someone. It is lawful to use non-lethal force to protect property or to prevent a crime. In other words, what the store owner did was completely legal.

So why is the Orlando media posting the same article with this misleading headline?

Man pulls gun in confrontation over gas pump skimmer, deputies say

If one were to read the headline, you would think that the entire incident was some sort of road rage argument, and not a store owner performing a citizen’s arrest on a criminal. It is subtle things like this that the press uses to influence public opion against guns and gun owners. Why not make the headline “Gunman interferes with man attempting to earn a living” and just go full bore with the propaganda?

As a side note, the man who is accused of the crime is not a US citizen, and has already been convicted once of credit card fraud.

I have to say that I usually tell everyone to respect the jury’s findings after a trial. The jury got to see all of the evidence, and we did not. I have a much harder time doing that with the Zarate case. The jury in that case found a convicted felon not guilty of every charge involved with the killing of a young woman, with the exception of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

There was a comment on a recent post of mine, where an anonymous poster said:

Based on what I’ve read of the case, the jury verdict not to convict for murder seems correct. That the prosecution didn’t go for negligent homicide instead suggests he overreached for personal political gain.

Let’s see what we can find…

To me, the most damning piece of evidence was the security video of the shooting and its immediate aftermath:

During his testimony, video provided to him that was recorded from a distance was played for the jury. It showed Steinle falling, the suspect walking away and something splashing in the water.

So we have video of the suspect shooting the victim and then disposing of the evidence by throwing it into the ocean. The fact that he tried to conceal what happened is evidence that he knew that he had committed a crime. The suspect freely admitted that he had a firearm, he fired it (saying, “It just went off.” when he picked it up.) The firearm that he had was stolen. He is a prohibited person in possession of a firearm and ammunition. He admitted to both in open court. He claims he “found” the firearm lying under a bench.

He was charged with manslaughter, which is the negligent or careless actions that result in the death of another. At the very least, he should have been convicted of that. My feeling here is that he was found not guilty by reason of being a liberal avatar for Trump hate.

Also to blame is the government of California.  The victim’s family sued the state, claiming that their refusal to enforce the law (pdf warning) led directly to the killer being there to kill their daughter. A liberal California judge threw out the suit.

The result here is that a woman is dead, killed for doing nothing but walking in a tourist area. Her killer will be released, likely immediately, and criminals will continue to cross into our nation and kill our citizens.

So the illegal immigrant convicted felon was deported 5 times before he killed a woman in California while illegally carrying a concealed firearm. These facts are not in dispute. He was acquitted of most of the crimes he was charged with, but was convicted of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, but under California, and not Federal, law. This carries a penalty of 16 months to 3 years in prison. Parole could cut that to less than 6 months in prison.

If he had been convicted of the same crime in Federal court, he would have a possible sentence of 5-15 years without parole.

Why do we pass laws that we do not enforce? Why does California push for gun laws and then allow people to break them? My guess is that these laws are not being used for their stated purpose.

I just got off the phone with my CPA. The GOP tax plan is going to cost me tens of thousands more in taxes for tax year 2018. Let me explain how I understand this:

Most businesses are small businesses. Small businesses like LLC’s, Schedule C corporations, and the like are called “pass through entities” and the IRS treats them as though they do not exist, for tax purposes. In other words, whatever income that your business has is your income.

Larger companies tend to be corporations. Those are considered to be corporate persons, meaning that their income is considered separate from the owners of the company, the stockholders.

(I am simplifying this to make it easy to understand, please don’t flame me.)

As a part of the tax code changes, the GOP plan calls for doubling the standard deduction, and then eliminating nearly all other deductions, including the individual exemption, and itemized deductions like attorney’s fees, paid accountant fees, deductions for mechanics who buy their own tools, security guards buying their own weapons, etc.

Because of this, pass through entities and individuals will lose out when they can no longer deduct the cost of carrying out their livelihoods, but corporations can still deduct those expenses from profits as a cost of doing business, AND the corporate rate is reduced. This is one time that the liberals are correct: this is a huge handout for corporate welfare, one that benefits the corporate taxpayer while screwing the small businessman.