Divemedic

In the wake of this week’s shooting at the Sikh temple, the Indian External Affairs Minister wants the US to have stronger gun control. Because strong gun laws like the ones in India prevent massacres like the one in Mumbai, or something. You remember Mumbai: the shooting rampage where over 200 people were killed, and 300 injured, while the police cowered in fear, don’t you?
What about the gun control in India?

 Did it prevent the killing of 60 Hindus in a fire that was set by Muslims in 2002? Or the dozens of Muslims killed in the fire set my Hindus in 2011?

Does it prevent the honor killings performed in India when a person dresses in clothes not fitting their caste?

What about the thousands of baby girls who are murdered by their parents because they want a boy?

To the Indian Minister: Fuck off. Mind your own laws before you lecture us about ours.

Never confront a person who is breaking into your car or home, unless you have a gun in your hand, or they just might kill you.

The reason why nothing ever changes in this country is because the politicians in this country are not chosen by the voters. They are chosen by the people who really run things.
A good example of this is the way that campaign financing is set up. The presidential election fund is a fund that the Federal government has used since 1976 to fund election campaigns of presidential candidates. Presidential candidates of the major parties are given about $90 million of tax dollars for their campaign, plus each major party gets another $15 million in public funds. Minor party candidates get some funding, but it is in no way a level playing field.
A major party is defined as any party that received more than 25% of the votes (I believe it used to be 15%) in the previous election. You can see the beauty of this: there are only two major parties, because you need money to get votes, but the only way to have votes is to spend money to get them. This ensures that the only two major parties are the Democrats and the Republicans.
The two parties have primary campaigns, but the powers that be in the party have more to say about who wins than the voters do: think about it, how many debates was Ron Paul allowed to participate in?
This means that the party leaders of the two parties are the ones who decide who the president will be, not the people. The people who are in place will thus ensure that no one upsets the apple cart, so that the parties continue business as usual, giving our money to the powers that be.

Here is how the Presidential campaign fund grants break down (millions of dollars):

Some things here are interesting:
In 2008, Obama turned down the funds, because of restrictions on reporting and funding that come with taking the cash.
In 2000, the Reform party was not able to get the major party status funding, because Perot only captured 8.4% of the vote in 1996, but they were able to get primary funding from the
In 1996, it was the Reform party that managed to score with the campaign cash as a major party, after securing 18.9% of the popular vote in 1992, due to Ross Perot being their candidate in that year.

Last Saturday, my computer died. I mean, I would push the power button, and nothing happened. I figured that it was either a problem with the power supply or the motherboard, but which was it? I took the power supply into the store that has squads of geeks, and they tested it, and told me that the power supply was working properly.
I ordered a new motherboard ($200) from Newegg. It came in on Thursday, I tested the system, and nothing. I wound up going to the same store on Friday and bought a new power supply. I am now back up. Thanks geeks, for the extra $200 expense.
At least my computer is back up.

I got a call from a paramedic at 1 in the a.m. this morning. She works for an ambulance service that responds as a second tier to the fire department, and transports any patients that the firemedic deems is not serious enough for them to handle. The call went like this:
“I need your help. My supervisor won’t answer the phone, and I don’t know how to handle this. I am on scene of a single vehicle rollover that shattered a telephone pole, and the driver is a 26 year old female who woke up in the grass and didn’t remember the crash, or how she got out of the vehicle. She states that she had a single glass of wine, is otherwise appropriate, and is refusing medical care and transport. She states that she doesn’t want to be on a backboard or have a C collar. Her vitals are: HR 162, BP 126/78, RR 16. The fire department allowed her to sign a refusal, but I don’t think that’s right. The other medics here from the fire department are telling me that I’m being too much like a “rookie.” What should I do? She is in SVT, and had an accident.”
The first thing that you need to know is that this particular medic only got her license 4 months ago. She is a very bright woman, but has no experience. I advised her to talk the lady into going, and if there was no other way, agree to not immobilize her if she agrees to go, and just document that she refused being immobilized. I also told her that she was not likely dealing with SVT, the patient was likely bleeding internally, was in compensated shock, and getting her to the trauma center was a high priority.
Enroute to the hospital, the woman began complaining of abdominal pain, and her abdomen became rigid and distended. It turns out that she had some significant bleeding.
Medics: This is one of the dumbest refusals I’ve heard of a medic taking. Lazy medics make me angry. Make fun of the new medic for confusing shock and SVT all you want, but at least she was smart enough to know what a sick patient looks like.

Every person who works EMS has a story about a patient who had an object stuck in an orifice. It never ceases to amaze me how many people cook or clean their home in the nude, and wind up with household items wedged in an orifice.
I saw a man with a birthday candle wedged in the end of his penis, where he had placed it for his boyfriend’s birthday, so he could blow out the candle. There was the guy with the wire coat hanger, the woman and the glass Coke bottle, and the guy who claimed that a home invader held a gun to his head, and forced him to insert the wooden handle of a BarBQ fork in his rectum, leaving only the metal tines protruding.
By far the winner in this is the unknown medical that we ran to a house only two blocks from the station. We arrived to find a man holding his groin, and it turns out that he had a keyring wrapped around the base of his penis. The member had swollen to the point where it was nearly the diameter of a grapefruit, and was an angry purple color. He said that the ring had been on there for nearly 16 hours. We tried ring cutters, but the keyring was spring steel, and wouldn’t even scratch it.
We took him to the hospital with an ice pack for pain, and turned him over to the staff. We found out later that they had to send a nurse to the local hardware store for some metal cutters to get the thing off of him.

On Friday night, I broke one of my main computer rules: I turned off the system. It seems like anytime a computer breaks, it happens when you turn it off. That is exactly what happened. The computer that I built on January 10 decided to go dead after I turned it off on July 27.
Dead. The power button doesn’t do anything. The power light is on, but that is the only indication of life. The power supply checks out fine, so a 6 month old EVGA motherboard is dead, the second to die like that this year. I don’t think lightning is the cause, as I run the system over a WiFi internet connection, and it is powered with a UPS, which is working fine.
I ordered a new MoBo(an AsRock this time), and it will be here by Thursday. In the meantime, I am tryping this on an older system.
This computer is a Pentium 4 with 512 MB of RAM.
Slow is not the word. At least it is better than the old days, when I had a 4800 baud modem. At any rate, I am checking email on an iPhone, and since the system I have is so slow, no internet and no blogging until my system is back up. That should be Thursday night or Friday.

As a part of my ongoing email exchange with Shoot Straight, here is the latest reply that I got from the store:

Please excuse our lack of clarity on the point you raised. Shoot Straight certainly respects the right to lawfully conceal a firearm. As long as the firearm remains concealed, and is not exposed, our staff will not seek it. However, if a staff member sees a firearm, then they may check it to make sure that it is unloaded. The meaning of our door sign that says “concealed means concealed”, is that store patrons that choose to conceal their firearms must keep them concealed at all times throughout their stay – even while on the range. It is against Shoot Straight policy for a customer to unholster their concealed firearm, or draw from concealment on our ranges. We hope this more detailed explanation clarifies any remaining questions. However, please do not hesitate to contact us again if there should be anything else that you might need.

 My remaining question is this: If I enter the store with a lawful concealed weapon, and I want to shoot at the range, are they saying that I must unload it prior to entering the store? I am not sure how to take this.