Divemedic

The recent shooting in CT has brought them out of the woodwork. The anti-gunners. They smell blood, and they think that this is their moment. As one of my anti-gun friends put it, the shooting in CT is the best thing that could have happened for the gun control movement. They are reveling in the deaths of those children.

I made the statement that gun owners are as responsible for the CT shooting as gays are for what happened at Penn State, and I was informed by a former coworker that no one at Penn State died, and that guns kill people, and if they were illegal, we would save many lives. No matter what I said, the talking points kept coming, and no amount of discussion would allow a point to be conceded. I walked away. There is no changing the mind of the zealot. The ironic part is that this guy has such an anger problem that he was once suspended at work and not allowed to return until he completed an anger management course.

Not all of the people who are currently calling for gun restrictions are beyond reason. I asked one woman who was demanding gun laws:

Suppose
it was shown that the reporting of violent crime has a causal effect on
copycat murders. Would you support a law that would make it illegal for
the press to report violent crime? If not, why not?

She conceded that it is a bad idea to restrict rights, but then said that 

Of
course not. But I see your point and I’m not saying that taking away
your 2nd amendment right is the solution. You have a right to bear arms
as do I. I just don’t believe that adding additional guns to an already
violent and self-absorbed society is
the solution. I don’t know if anything can be done at this point to
change things. The lack of self-control, misguided anger, obsession with
violence whether in music or film is destroying this country.

 I asked how a gun law would change a nationwide obsession with violence. She did not reply.

For that reason, I have decided to only speak to people who are willing to have an actual discussion, and not simply an argument where they scream about how inanimate objects are evil, how I am a wannabe killer, or any other such nonsense. I will simply accept that those people wish to deprive me of my rights, and remove them from my life. I will no longer be friends with anyone that wants to restrict my rights based upon the actions of another person.

The worst mass murders in United States history:

The World Trade Center Attacks: 2,996 killed by men wielding box cutters in 2001
Oklahoma City bombing: 168 killed, over 650 injured by a man with a bomb made from fertilizer in 1995
The Happy Land Fire: 87 people killed by a man using a gasoline can
The Bath School bombing: 45 killed (38 of them children) and 58 injured by a man with a bomb in 1927

Killers using guns didn’t even make the top four…

Although not a hard core anti-gunner, I have a friend who is a hard core Democrat. This is what she had to tell me on Facebook about new gun laws in the wake of the Connecticut shooting:

you
know they have to do something, public outcry and all. and restricting
guns is the easiest thing to address. i’m sure you’ll get to keep most
if not all of your arsenal. and soon there will be another
shooting/bombing/mass casualty event and they’ll
realize (hopefully) they were going at it the wrong way. i’m not sure
what the answer is. things like this are just always going to happen.
you can’t control all the factors in events like that.

This is the mental disconnect: They are aware that gun laws will not work, but will vote to remove your rights any way. Since gun ownership isn’t important to them, they will gladly throw your rights under the bus.

Shieffer at CBS news says that this shooting may be what gets an assault weapons ban passed.

A hostette at MSNBC, Alex Wagner, said, “Hopefully, this shooting will
result in political capital to reform gun laws. It is hopefully — and
we say this every single time we cover one of these things. There’s
gotta be some kind of measurable change, some kind of reaction. One
would hope there would be some political capital to reform the way in
which we handle gun and gun violence in this country.”

The Obama White House lost no time in releasing a statement calling for an assault weapons ban.

Dancing in the blood of the victims.

So a post over at Tam’s place got me thinking. Specifically, the link to the cameras and microphones on buses, and the link that Tam placed in the comments about what the Feds can get without a warrant. There is even scarier technology than that. For example, there is this software that allows a person to listen in on calls, and even activate “environmental listening” where the phone is used as a “bug” that allows a person to remotely activate your cell phone’s microphone in order to listen in on whatever is happening in the room- all without the knowledge of the cell phone’s owner.

You would be foolish indeed if you believed that the police have not been exploiting this capability. The government doesn’t need to bug your house, you are doing it for them.

There are a couple of reasons why volunteer fire departments don’t work in many cases. In rural communities, they are an excellent resource, but after a response area reaches a certain size, they generally (with a few exceptions) don’t work.
1. Insurance companies: The real mission of the fire department is not to put out fires. It is to save the members of a community money through reducing insurance costs. Fire departments are rated by the insurance services organization on a scale of 10 (no fire department) to 1 (very few departments achieve this). Rankings range from 1 to 10, with 1 being the best and 10 being the worst. An ISO Class 3 rating is a very good rating especially for a department that has both paid and volunteer staff. Class 1 is very difficult to achieve as it means total fire protection. Departments that are outside city limits tend to receive Class 8 or 9 because of extended response times and lack of water supply, and this is true whether or not the department is paid or volunteer.

This is where volunteers shine. In rural areas, the cost/benefit of maintaining a paid department is out shone by volunteers.

2 Liability: In general, it is difficult to discipline volunteers. After all, it isn’t as if you can suspend them without pay or terminate them. In addition, many younger volunteers tend to drive way, way too fast when responding to calls, and they tend to freelance more. This causes liability issues, especially in urban areas where there are more chances of hitting someone.

3 Activity levels: The training and response levels demanded of firefighters increases every year. In urban and busy suburban departments, a fire station may easily run 3,000 or more calls per year. It is difficult to find volunteers who will dedicate themselves like this. I know there are departments who have volunteers at this level, but they are the exception, and not the rule.

There are other reasons, but these are the big ones. I say this after spending 8 years as a volunteer and having to face all of the above issues. Volunteerism used to be fairly strong in central Florida, but it has all but disappeared within the last 5 years. That is also the case in many other areas of the country.

There are many paramedics out there who work for private ambulance companies and claim that paramedics in the public sector (like firemedics) are incompetent and lazy. While I admit that this is true in many cases, I also have to say that the state of the for profit medical world today is committing fraud for profit.

When I worked for the fire department, there were many paramedics that did everything that they could to get out of doing work: this often meant that patients were shortchanged and care suffered in the name of laziness. I fought the battle against lazy medics for years.

The flip side of that is what happens in for profit systems: systematic Medicare and insurance fraud.You see, insurance and Medicare will not pay for a patient to travel anywhere by ambulance, unless there is no cheaper way for the patient to safely get to his destination. Here is how and why it becomes a systematic fraud on the taxpayer:

When a person is in a nursing home, the nursing home gets paid a fee for the housing and basic care of the person. This includes food, medicine, and transportation to medical appointments. For a patient who is on dialysis, this means three trips a week to and from the dialysis center. The only way that a nursing home can get out of paying for the transportation is if an ambulance is required because of the person’s inability to take another means of transportation. This creates a situation where the ambulance company lies to get the business, and the nursing home lies to get out of paying for the person’s transportation.

It is so bad, that some nursing homes tell the physical therapists that they should stop rehabilitating a person’s ability to walk once they can walk 30 feet. Anything more than that, and the person is considered no longer eligible to ride in an ambulance. The ambulance company then instructs the transport crews to avoid using the word “ambulatory” in reports, and even threatens termination for any crew that allows a patient to walk to the truck and/or stretcher.

I have been on calls before where we are supposed to take a person from home to dialysis, and the person pulls up next to us in traffic while driving their own car, and told us she will be home in 5 minutes so we can take her to her appointment. Does that sound like an ambulance is the only way for her to go?

Private ambulances doing transfers, 911 calls, nursing homes, hospitals. The health system of this nation is broken, and riddled with fraud. Making everyone have insurance is not going to make it any better.

When I was in graduate school, I was telling some of my fellow students a story about 911 abusers, and one in particular. This patient used to call 911 at 3 am from the payphone outside of his favorite bar, and complain of chest pain. When we arrived at the hospital, he would get off the stretcher and walk across the street to his sister’s house. He would also call when he had no money for food. The hospital would give him a sandwich, and he would then leave. In all, he was transported by EMS to the hospital an astonishing 284 times in a calendar year. He once broke into a fire station and stole uniforms and personal items, and was caught by the police walking down the street in a firefighter’s uniform. One afternoon, he was found by a patrol officer, floating face down in a pond, having fallen in while intoxicated and drowned. We had ice cream and cake that night to celebrate his passing. The world is a better place without this welfare and resource abusing loser.

When I told that story, the other students and a professor who was there were horrified that we could be so callous as to celebrate a person’s death. I was told that we should be nice to everyone, and remember that people can be down on their luck, and that we are all one month’s pay from being in his shoes. I asked, “what we should do when a patient tells me to suck his dick?”
The professor, “You should tell the patient that we will not stand for that sort of language.”
I say: “Then the patient tells you to kiss his ass.”
The professor says, “Well, then you tell him that if he continues to behave that way, you will fire him as a patient.”
I tell her, “You know that in emergency medicine, the law says that I have to treat him no matter what, don’t you? The patients know this, and they know that they can have a lot of fun with you, especially if they know you are a pushover that will take whatever they dish out.”
 The professor, “Well, that is why I never worked in emergency medicine.”

And therein lies the problem. There are a lot of people who would and could never do your job, have no idea how to do your job, and have never seen what you have to do to accomplish it, yet are just filled with helpful advice and opinions on how you should be doing your job.

This reminds me of a scene in the movie “Demolition Man”

Squad Leader: Simon Phoenix! Lie down with your hands behind your back.
Simon Phoenix: What’s this? Six of you. Such nice, tidy uniforms. Oh I’m so scared!
[the Police Officers look at each other]
Simon Phoenix: What you guys don’t have sarcasm anymore?
[Police Officer talks to his automated assistant]
Squad Leader: Maniac has responded with a scornful remark.
automated assistant: Approach, and repeat ultimatum in an even firmer tone of voice. Add the words, “or else”. 

To all of those people, I have a message: Until you have done that job, you have no idea what it is like, dealing with the trash of society. Many people out there do not act like those who operate in polite society. They respond to courtesy and polite language as a junkyard dog does to fear: that is, they see it as a sign of weakness, and will exploit that weakness to their own advantage.

Many on the right were quick to condemn the unions for running hostess into bankruptcy. Of course, like most issues, there is another side to the story. It seems that the union in question actually agreed to take a pay cut in order to help stave off bankruptcy the time the union contract came up for renewal in 2004. Shortly thereafter, the executives of Hostess received substantial performance bonuses and large raises.

Fast forward to 2012, the union refused to take a pay cut, fearing that the money that they surrendered would simply be used again to reward executives. It seems that the fears were not totally misplaced, with executives getting a bonus equal to 75% of their annual pay:

The update on the sale process came as
Hostess also received approval to give its top executives bonuses
totaling up to $1.8 million for meeting certain budget goals during the
liquidation. The company says the incentive pay is needed to retain the
19 corporate officers and “high-level managers” for the wind down
process, which could take about a year.

In fact, earlier this year, the CEO of the company saw his own pay rate TRIPLE to $2.5 million per year, and other executives received 80% pay raises. Blaming the union because they won’t take a pay cut, but holding the executives who gave themselves huge pay raises harmless, is the epitome of cluelessness. 
 
Anyone want to take bets as to how many of those corporate officers will receive high paying jobs at the new companies?