Divemedic

I will be making an appearance at the Central Florida Fairgrounds in Orlando today for the Southern Classic gun and knife show. Maybe I can see something worth buying.

So my old employer found out that I am back, and I was offered my old job back. I told them I wasn’t interested. I left government service because it is no longer a good job to have. For the past few years, the TEA party has been attacking public sector workers by claiming that their benefits are an endless gravy train.

The TEA party claims that public sector workers have benefits packages that are too generous, and they claim that the public and private sectors should be equivalent. Among their complaints:

– Public sector workers make too much money. The claim is that public sector workers make about 5 percent more than private sector workers
on average.  Of course, they overlook a few details that would change the equation a bit:
 First, the hourly wages for public EMS in my area tell the story. EMS systems for local theme parks have starting wages of $18 an hour for paramedics, while my former employer starts paramedics who must also be firefighters at only $13 an hour. You would never know that by looking at take home pay. Many public workers like fire and paramedics do not get overtime at 40 hours like private sector workers, but at 52 hours. This results in a 56 hour work week because the employer is free to schedule workers to a 24 on/48 off work schedule, so that a firemedic works 2,912 a year, while the theme park medic works 2,080 hours a year. That results in the firemedic making 4.7% more money than his private sector counterpart, but at the expense of working 40% more hours.
Second, comparing all private sector pay to all public sector pay is not an apples to apples comparison. Comparing the majority of government jobs, with their higher educational requirements, to the private sector is not an even comparison.

It used to be that the disparity was made up with benefits packages like pensions and health insurance, but those have been under constant attack. The fact is that public sector health insurance and pensions combined only eat up 4% of the Florida state budget, while Medicaid consumes over 30%. Free lunches for poor kids in school add up to more than what it costs to fund the pensions of state employees.

When I left the fire department, I was earning just $19.27 an hour after spending 15 years at the same employer and receiving two promotions along the way. I worked for the government for a total of 21 years, and I get a pension of $32,400 a year. If I return to that job, I have to give up the pension for the duration of my employment. If I return to a private sector medic job, I don’t. That means that I can work a 40 hour week and make $68K a year, or I can return to the fire department and make $58K a year. That is a no brainer.

I started looking for a job recently. Let’s see what’s out there.

In Florida, if you are selected for jury duty and actually show up, you are not selectable for another year. I have been called to jury duty twice in the past four years. The first was in November of 2008, and I sat in the jury holding until noon, and was then told I wasn’t needed and sent home. The second was in July of 2010. The clerk sent out 200 summons, and only 110 actually bothered to show up. Fourteen made it to the jury.

This is brought to mind when I read the article about how people are protesting that a cop was found not guilty of beating a burglary suspect in Houston. Now, I am certainly not above slamming cops when they are wrong, and this may well have been the case here, I don’t know. What I DO know is that the jury listened to all of the facts in the case, and returned a verdict of not guilty. That is it, as far as I am concerned.

There are people who claim that the jury was biased, because they were all white, and others in comments are claiming that the reason for this, is that the jury was constituted in the south. I have a number of problems with this:

1    It is racist to claim that white juries can’t reach a decision based on the facts.

2   The jury pool is randomly selected from the general population of Houston. The population of Houston is 49% white, 25% black, and 5% Asian. The jury pool should have had a similar makeup. With all of that, only 2 blacks bothered to respond to the jury summons. That means that black people who received a summons were overwhelmingly unlikely to show up, probably due to apathy.

3   It could be that he was acquitted because of the actual evidence. The cop was accused of kicking the teen on the left side of his head, but photos presented at trial showed the teen’s injuries were on the
right side of his head. That may have been the reason.

4   Then the article talks about the Travon Martin case, even though it is completely irrelevant. This case was about a beating that allegedly took place with cops as the perpetrators, and the Martin shooting was a Hispanic citizen shooting of a black teen. Where is the relevance? This is about the press doing what it can to increase dissatisfaction on the part of black citizens.

A suspicious, conspiracy theory minded individual would begin to suspect that this is being done by the MSM to fire up apathetic black voters and inspire them to go to the polls. You see, this voting block voted 80% for Obama in 2008, and unless they show up to the polls in large numbers in November, Obama will lose the Whitehouse, because he is losing the swing voters.

Too many times, we hear about ‘all white juries’ when a decision doesn’t go the way that the black community wants it to go. I got news for ya: Juries do this all the time. They hand down verdicts that don’t always go the way that you would think they would, but they see ALL of the evidence, not just the part that the press manipulates. Try to remember that. Not everything that doesn’t go your way is racism.

We often hear about how the Constitution was written by a bunch of bigoted slave owning white guys, as a way for people to discredit the founding fathers. We are told that slavery was all about white men owning black slaves. Too bad that those statements are misleading.

Ben Franklin was born in 1706 as one of seventeen children of Josiah Franklin and Abiah Folger. His father could not afford to pay for his education, so at 12 years old, his father signed an apprenticeship contract on Ben’s behalf, making Ben an apprentice to his older brother James.

Under the law at the time, an apprentice worked for the master craftsman and in exchange was taught the skill of that craft. In essence, his father had signed him into indentured servitude. Ben did not want to work for his brother, and as a result his brother frequently whipped him.

Benjamin wanted to write for the paper too, but he knew that James would
never let him. After all, Benjamin was just a lowly apprentice. So Ben began writing letters at night and signing them with the name of a fictional widow, Silence Dogood. Dogood was filled with advice and very
critical of the world around her, particularly concerning the issue of
how women were treated. Ben would sneak the letters under the print shop
door at night so no one knew who was writing the pieces. In all, he wrote sixteen of the letters, and they were wildly popular. So popular in fact, that when Ben finally admitted to writing them, his brother was angry with him.

The paper that James owned was frequently critical of the government, and he was ultimately jailed for expressing those views, leaving Ben to run the paper. Upon release from jail, James was not grateful to Ben for keeping the
paper going. Instead he kept harassing his younger brother and
administering beatings from time to time. Ben could not take it and
decided to run away in 1723, at the age of 17. Under the law at the time, this made Ben a fugitive, and he fled. He eventually wound up in Philadelphia.

Later in life, Ben Franklin owned slaves. It seems odd to think that a man who was in favor of liberty and who had been a slave himself would do so, but I think that judging the behavior of people from the past through the lens of our current attitudes and morals is not a fair comparison, especially considering that he became president of the Philadelphia Abolitionist society, and in 1790 petitioned congress to abolish slavery.

The petition, signed on February 3, 1790, asked the first Congress,
then meeting in New York City, to “devise means for removing the
Inconsistency from the Character of the American People,” and to
“promote mercy and justice toward this distressed Race.”

Our founding fathers were not perfect men, but at least had to foresight to establish a government that protected freedom more than any other government on the planet.

The evidence was released in the Martin/Zimmerman case today, including the autopsy results. There have been a few interesting developments in the past few days:

1 Martin was using drugs. THC, specifically. THC both impairs judgment and makes the user paranoid.

2 Martin’s only injuries were the gunshot wound, and bruising on his knuckles, and the gunshot was delivered from a distance of less than 18 inches. This shoots holes in the theory that Zimmerman was the aggressor. If he was going to be the aggressor, Martin would have other injuries, or no injuries (other than being shot).

3 Zimmerman had a broken nose, lacerations, bruises, a split lip, and was complaining of a back injury.

So far, not one piece of evidence has been released that contradicts Zimmerman’s version of events. While it is possible that Zimmerman was in the wrong here, we don’t convict people on possibilities. We need proof beyond a reasonable doubt. As long as Zimmerman’s version of events stands up to scrutiny, it remains a possibility. As long as it remains a possibility, that possibility makes self defense that reasonable doubt. As long as that doubt exists, Zimmerman cannot be guilty.

Edited to add: The  levels of THC (1.5 ng/mL) in the blood were low enough to show that Martin had not smoked marijuana within the last hour or so, and so low as to mean that he was probably not impaired at the time of the shooting. Levels in this range have been shown in studies to be present for up to 48 hours, so all the test shows is that Martin had been smoking marijuana within the last 48 hours.

I have to admit that I do not wear a gun strapped to my side while I am at home. I frequently walk around the house in gym shorts, and those are not exactly suited for carrying a firearm. Now there are many here who point out that this would leave you defenseless against home invaders.

You could hide a firearm in rooms where you spend a lot of time, thereby always having a firearm within easy reach, but how do you do that? What about security? A gun safe or lock box in every room can get expensive. There is a solution for people who do not have children in the house: The Quick Draw.

This magnet allows you to hide a gun on the underside of furniture in rooms where you frequently spend time, meaning that you will always have a gun within easy reach, and an intruder, being unlikely to look at the underside of your kitchen table, will likely not find them. The real downside here is that you will have to police them all up, should children come over for a visit.

I have a few of these, and they allow me to stash a small revolver in the dining room, or a pistol to the underside of a coffee table, the bottom of the countertop inside of a drawer in the kitchen, or the underside of a desk at the office. You are limited only by your imagination, and the fact that the only security for the weapon is the fact that it is semi-hidden.

Borepatch has a link to a post that reminds me of a story of my own. Some of the details of this story have been altered, because I am not sure how classified all of it still is. Still a good story.

While doing time in the Navy, I spent some time temporarily assigned to security. I carried a 1911, and my job as an armed sentry was easy: Follow the orders of the security officer and his designees, and no one else. Since we had nuclear weapons present, the Marines guarded the nukes, we guarded everything else. I hated it.

The authority of an armed sentry is nearly absolute, otherwise a person intent on doing bad things would merely dress up as a general and order the sentry to let them in. The second principle when you are in a nuclear command is that there is no such thing as a hostage. We were instructed to shoot through intended hostages to hit the target, but the safety and security of the weapons was absolute. When a security alert is declared, everyone who is not on the security detail is trained to turn away from the security team and either go prone, or face first against the wall. I have seen marines strike and handcuff officers who didn’t want to be ordered around by enlisted. The Navy took this security seriously.

My best story was the time that my partner and I (we were in pairs) were told to go to the safe and escort this officer and his briefcase filled with classified briefing papers from the safe to the place where the briefing would be held. We were told that at no time was this officer and his papers to be allowed out of our sight, and deadly force was authorized to protect them.

When we arrived at the location where the briefing was to be held, we were told by the officer that he would call us when the briefing was over, so that we could escort him back to the safe. That was when I pointed out to him that my orders were that I not let him or the papers out of my sight.The conversation went like this:

Officer: “You are not cleared for this information.”
DM: “Sir, I have a security clearance, and I have my orders.”
Officer: “I don’t care what clearance you think you have, you are not cleared for this. I am countermanding those orders, and I order you to leave.” 
DM: “Sir, I cannot take orders from anyone except my direct superiors. I have to stay.” (my partner at this time is whispering in my ear that maybe we should just go, before we get  in trouble)
Officer: “If you do not leave, I will have the Chief Petty Officer remove you.”
DM: “Sir, it is my duty to point out to you that I am carrying a sidearm, while you and the chief petty officer are not.” (putting hand on pistol)
At this point, my partner is having a seizure, because I just threatened to shoot an officer. The officer grabs the telephone, calls the security officer, and demands that we be brought up on charges. That didn’t work, and we stayed for the briefing.

I was sent back to my regular job less than a week later, three months before I was supposed to be.

So with the local news reporting that Zimmerman had head injuries, including a broken nose, and Martin had a gunshot wound and injured knuckles, it is apparent to me that Zimmerman’s account which claimed that Martin was the aggressor and was shot in self defense is the most plausible story, considering the evidence.

I recently had a conversation that shows how little some people understand about self defense and the law. Here is the conversation that I recently had:

Woman: but still Zimmerman was the one who followed Martin

DM:  Not illegal, and someone following someone is not a legal reason to begin beating on them.

Woman: no, but how do you know who “started it”? Martin had to fight harder, all he had was candy, Zimmerman had a gun.

DM:  One
man has head injuries, the other has no other injury than the gunshot
wound and bruised knuckles. This supports Zimmerman’s statement that he
was attacked by Martin. Since the state has to prove that Zimmerman is
guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, unless
there is some other evidence here that changes the story, there is a
real possibility that Zimmerman is telling the truth. As long as that
possibility exists, there is reasonable doubt, which means that
Zimmerman is not guilty.

Saying that Zimmerman had a
gun is meaningless. It doesn’t mean that Zimmerman was looking for
trouble, simply because he carried a gun, any more than having car
insurance means that you are looking to have a car accident. I have
carried a gun every day for over 20 years, and not once have I started a
fight while carrying it.

 Woman: No response.

My homeowner’s insurance cost $1,200 a year. My insurance on my two automobiles costs $1,500 per year. I have been with the same insurance company for 7 years, and I have never filed a claim. In that time, they have collected nearly $20,000 from me in profit, without a single dollar in losses.

I called them this morning, because I was registering a vehicle that I bought in Missouri. Since I was moving the title and registration from Missouri to Florida, I had to provide proof of insurance. That was when they gave me the bad news: For the last two weeks, I have had no insurance. Apparently, they did a routine check of my file, and discovered that my credit score had dropped since the last time they checked, and they say that makes me uninsurable. They didn’t even bother to send me a letter or make a telephone call to tell me that I was not insured. If I had not called, the first hint that I would have had would have been if I got in an accident. They didn’t even refund the premiums that I paid for the year in advance.

If it weren’t for the government demanding that I carry car insurance, I wouldn’t. I am not sure about other states, but the law in Florida is that a vehicle owner must have insurance that pays the owners and occupants of other vehicles in the event that an accident occurs that is the insured driver’s fault. In other words, you insure everyone except yourself. To insure your own vehicle costs extra. Here in Florida, there are so many drivers ignoring the law and driving without insurance, coverage for uninsured motorists is important.

I say that the law should be rewritten, so that I insure me and mine, and if you don’t want insurance, then don’t get any. Your loss.

As I said in yesterday’s post, I met a guy while I was in Belize City who was telling me how he was making a living by playing the handout game. I let him go on and on about how great he had it, because I wanted to get a feel for how America and Americans were perceived in that part of the world.

One of the things he told me was that Belize had a health care system that was better than the US model, because all health care was free or subsidized. He then went on to tell me that he was surprised that the US didn’t have free care as well. While researching some things for yesterday’s post, I discovered why that is: Because the US is the majority of the health care system for Belize, at least the portions that require anything more complex than a simple office visit.

A portion of Belize’s system is to subsidize travel to the US for patients that need:advanced care. Even at that, a significant portion of the funding for the health care system comes from the US, UN, Britain, and other countries, as well as volunteer health workers from other nations like the US.

PAP smears, C sections, cancer treatment, CT scans, chemotherapy, radiation therapy are performed in the US. MRI, nuclear medicine is simply not available. All doctors in Belize are educated elsewhere (5 out of every 7 are educated in Cuba) and are employees of the government and receive a salary of US$30,400 (BZ$60,800) a year (PDF alert). Many doctors, clinics, and hospitals will stay open after hours and treat the richer residents (and American expats) for cash, so that they can make some money on the side. All dental work, other than tooth
extractions, is done within this private system after normal business hours.

This is not a free health care system, it is a triage and transport system with a black market way for people with money to actually get care. Since we here in the US do not have anyone to send our sick people to, we cannot have a system like this.