Divemedic

This is pretty funny. This is where Amazon and their shipping policies will inevitably take us:

A man in the UK died while waiting for an ambulance, because the closest crew was on a government required lunch break. We are told that this is the health care system is the one that we want to emulate, but is this really what we want?

EMAS chief executive Phil Milligan said: “Our practice on meal breaks comply, as they must, with the national NHS Agenda for Change employee terms and conditions, which require staff to be given a 30-minute undisturbed break.”

Andto those who think that EMS and fire, being public employees, should be treated like every other employee, remember that this is what you get when you want them to be like everybody else- when you need them, they might be out to lunch…

like everybody else.

All of the cool kids are doing it.

visited 23 states (46%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Like this? try: The Next President

visited 38 states (16.8%)
Create your own visited map of The World or jurisdische veraling duits?

I actually met an honest to goodness communist. This guy was hard core. He was trying to tell me how the Soviets had found the perfect form of government. We had a discussion, and I kept it civil, mostly because I was fascinated at his grasp on alternate reality.

I pointed out the many flaws of communism, and he actually said to me that communism will work, it just hasn’t because no one that is smart enough has tried it, yet. When I asked him how he would keep people working, once they realized that they got a share of the wealth, whether they worked or not, he said that people should work for the common good, not for personal gain. He said that those who refuse are traitors to the peole and should be imprisoned or killed.

The prosecution in the Zimmerman case has released statements from one of George Zimmerman’s cousins, alleging that GZ inappropriately touched her. When they were 6 and 7 years old. She also alleges that the behavior continued until they were 16 and 17.

Why do events that transpired more than a decade ago have any bearing on this case? Our justice system has become a reality show, where people dial a 900 number to vote for the winner.

EDIT: Come on, people. Here is the money quote:

At one point — the interview isn’t clear on timing — Zimmerman’s
mother said she didn’t like President Barack Obama, the witness said.
“I said ‘why not?’ you know just thinking she was joking,” Witness 9
told investigators. “And she said, ‘Because he is black. I am a racist.’
Just loud and proud.”

A post at Unc’s today illustrates the point that I frequently try to make about business in the modern American age: Businesses are trying to gain market advantage, not by being competitive on service, products, and prices, but by getting the government to tilt the odds laws in their favor.

The sales tax is a way that businesses fund the services that local and state government provide. When I open a business in another state, I do not benefit from those services, therefore I do not pay the tax. (Before you argue about the roads that the goods are shipped on, those are paid for by taxes on the shipping company, a different entity)

So the local businesses were upset that they are at a advantage by having to pay a sales tax, forgetting that they have the advantage of the shipping fees, and the advantage of the customer instantly getting his stuff. The businesses sought to get the government involved, so that they could eliminate the Amazon advantage, thereby tilting the equation in their direction.

Amazon now has no reason to keep their shipping centers remotely located, since the reason that they were remote was to avoid the taxes. So now we have the brick and mortar stores making me drive to the store, offering poor service, and employees that know nothing about the products they sell,  in competition with Amazon, who allows me to buy the same stuff without leaving the house, and able to do it cheaper because of fewer locations and not having to pay the aforementioned stupid and rude sales staff, and using robots to ship your stuff.

So much for trying to use government to eliminate the competition.

When I was a kid and the Soviet economy was crashing, I remember reading about bread lines- the Soviet people used to stand in line for hours to get a loaf of bread. Shortages were endemic, especially as the economy of that country got closer and closer to collapse. The most active part of the Soviet economy was the black market.

As our own economy falters and gets closer to collapse, we will see shortages get worse. Already, we are seeing significant shortages in medicine, and the ObamaCare changes haven’t even taken effect, yet. Speed completion of your preparations. This is gonna hurt.

I decided to go to the range today. I went to Shoot Straight in Apopka. They have an indoor range, and more importantly, they allow long guns, and since I needed to test some repairs that I had done to one of the ARs, we went there.

When we got there, I went to go pay the fee, and the employee behind the counter insisted that he inspect my firearms. Now, I have shot at this store and the sister store in Cassleberry perhaps 20 or thirty times. I have bought perhaps 15 firearms from that store over the last few years. Heck, I bought four firearms there so far this year alone. Not once have I had my firearms ‘inspected’ by an employee.

They have never asked this before, so I wanted to know why things had changed. He told me that they have always had this policy, and proceeded to lecture me about how they can inspect or search anyone who is on their property at any time. I told him that I wasn’t looking for a lecture, I wanted to know what they were checking for. He ignored me. I still don’t know why they were inspecting my guns.

This was rude, and will mean that I will likely never set foot in that store again. Congratulations guys, you just lost thousands of dollars in future sales.

Years ago, before I became a paid fire medic, I was a volunteer, and I made my living in industrial automation. It was a tough life, and layoffs were common, because Florida doesn’t have much industry to automate. One of the places that I worked was a certain theme park that was infested by a huge rat.

We, the employees, had a meeting once with management to discuss the future of the company. We were told that the company’s vision was to have no permanent, full time employees. Replacing the full time workforce would save the company approximately $90 million in benefit costs each year. Later in the meeting, during the question and answer portion, of my coworkers pointed out that he had read an article that the CEO had been paid $270 million in salary, perks, and stock options the year before. He asked if it would be more prudent to let the 30,000 full time employees keep their benefits, pay the CEO $180 million, and the company would still save the same amount each year.

The management team told us that executive compensation was not up for discussion. My coworker pressed on: He asked how one man could be worth three times as much as every other employee combined. After all, he pointed out, if the CEO was on vacation for a week, no one would notice, but if the other 30,000 of us didn’t show up for work for a week, the company would shut down.

He was disciplined for advocating a strike.

I think he had a valid question. The Disney CEO received nearly $53 million in salary and stock options last year. Disney’s 58,000 other employees received $1 billion, meaning that the CEO was paid 3,075 times as much as the average employee. I can see paying a CEO more than the average employee, but how can you justify paying him more than 3,000 average employees COMBINED? You can’t claim it is because he is such a great CEO, not when the company has shown a loss during four of the six years that the he has headed the company.

I think that the occupy movement has a legitimate beef, I just think that government intervention is not the answer.