Government

Surveillance State

In another example of Mussolini fascism, private companies are surveilling private citizens and passing that information on to the government. Case in point, a company named Flock safety (as in sheep?) installed approximately 100 hidden cameras around Lake county, Florida, with the approval of the sheriff.

We have installed 1000s of cameras around the country, including all over Florida, and our team moves very quickly. 

statement from Flock Safety

The company places an emphasis on capturing license plate numbers and vehicle details.

From flocksafety.com

This surveillance state crap sickens me. Mask, spray paint, intrusive camera.

IANAL, but it seems to me that since this isn’t government property…

By Divemedic, ago

Gangs funded by govt

An investigation by the state of Florida AG has found that street gangs fraudulently obtained funding from the Paycheck Protection Program and other COVID relief to buy drugs and guns.

At least six people created limited liability companies, or LLCs, solicited people through social media and in some cases stole identities to apply for PPP and SBA loans, then using the funds obtained to fund criminal enterprises. This included guns and drugs picked up from a marijuana farm in California and flown back to Orlando.

By Divemedic, ago

Cause, effect

One of the many jobs I have had was at a plant that made stainless steel pipe and tube. The process was that we would buy large rolls of stainless steel, slit them to the proper sizes, then cold roll those into pipe. The edges of the roll would be welded together, then the now completed pipe was induction annealed so it would hold its shape.

We had a woman there who was in charge of QA. It was her job to test each batch of pipe to ensure that the pipe was properly manufactured. Once, the woman decertified an entire batch of pipe because the welds were faulty and had microscopic cracks in them. That batch had to go out the next day so we could meet the customer’s deadline. It was a couple of dozen tons of pipe.

Management fixed the problem by firing the QA department and shipping the pipe. Of course, the entire batch of pipe came back when the welds began to fail. Due to bad management, the company went out of business less than a year later.

I am telling you this story because there is a lesson there. One that will easily apply to the situation in this country with regards to our education. The Oregon governor recently decided that too many black students were failing tests in reading and math proficiency. To her, the obvious problem lies in the test, so the test was eliminated.

By Divemedic, ago

Shut up, peasant

As you read this article, I want you to realize that anyone who votes for Democrats because they support the poor while the Republicans are evil rich guys is an idiot.

As I read it, it struck me that Kings of Imperial Europe didn’t have a life like Obama, Pelosi, and the rest of our nation’s elite.

Wear your mask and stay away from crowds, peasant.

By Divemedic, ago

Compulsion

Some parents of disabled students are suing Governor Desantis of Florida. Why? They claim that the state’s lack of a mask mandate is discrimination because the other children not wearing masks makes school unsafe, and is thus a violation of the ADA.

“He likes to be with his friends, he likes to be integrated into the school environment,” said attorney Matthew Dietz. “He shouldn’t have to be in a trailer isolated just because he has a disability.”

So instead, all of the other children in the entire state should be forced to wear masks? Yep, that is exactly what they want.

So Will’s parents and those of 14 other disabled students on Friday sued DeSantis, the state Department of Education and school boards, seeking an injunction to prevent the state from discriminating against the disabled students by denying them a safe environment.

Note that no one is saying that children CAN’T wear masks at school. The governor is saying that the child and their parents retain the choice of whether or not to wear a mask. That isn’t good enough for the left. People can do things without being compelled to do so. What is it with liberals? They think that the only way people do anything is for the government to require it, under threat of force. No wonder they hate cops. Every progressive idea ends with police, jails, and gulags.

I disagree with the premise of this lawsuit. I am not sure that the ADA can be used to compel behavior or acts from people uninvolved in the education of the special needs child. Yes, an IEP can be used to compel acts from the school or teachers, but I think it is stretching the boundaries of the ADA to require other students take acts to assist the student.

For example, putting a clause in the IEP requiring that other students push an ESE student’s wheel chair from class to class would not be appropriate.

By Divemedic, ago

Fundamental Change

A news story this week is another indication that a fundamental change in American politics is taking place. If you can read between the lines, you can see that there has definitely been a change in the DC climate.

The Biden administration defended the unconstitutional eviction moratorium in court. What they had to say about landlords is a glimpse into how the administration views small business owners.

Any injury to Plaintiffs caused by a temporary administrative stay is outweighed by the risk of illness and mortality

DOJ attorney

Pro socialist lobbyists said that “realtors, home builders and apartment associations wasted millions of dollars and goodwill in a public fight to allow landlords to evict struggling tenants during a historic and deadly global pandemic.”

This fits with Socialist dogma, which blames business owners for taking advantage of the poor, either by underpaying workers, or overcharging them for rent and loan interest rates, so this statement isn’t surprising. What IS surprising is what this says about the effect of lobbying.

The lobbyists for the landlords were incensed. The National Association of Realtors was frozen out of the offices of those who they have, until recently, counted on. The association gives out more than $30 million a year in contributions, making them one of the largest lobbying groups in the DC scene. The Realtors’ PAC contributed nearly $2 million to House Democratic candidates in the 2020 election cycle, including $10,000 apiece to Waters and Pelosi. Yet none of that mattered in this case.

For decades, lobbyists were used to the status quo, where they handed out millions in bribes campaign contributions in exchange for political favors. So what has changed?

Why would Democrats suddenly not need the money of one of the largest lobbying groups in the nation? It could be argued that there are so many delinquent tenants that the politicians need their votes more than they need lobbying cash. I don’t buy this one. The Democrats, and especially Joe Biden, had already sold the story of the Supreme Court declaring it to be unconstitutional.

Your guess is as good as mine. There is some reason out there for why the Democrats are infuriating a large source of campaign cash. Even if elections don’t matter, money does. What has them so worried? This one leaves me with more questions than it does answers.

By Divemedic, ago

Does this apply to laptops?

Apple announced that it will begin scanner user’s phones for child porn and reporting results to the police. My first thought is to wonder if this will also apply to laptops that have been dropped off for repair. Then I realized that, should Apple scan a Clinton laptop, the company will commit suicide the next day, and the security cameras will be broken.

Seriously, this begins with “protecting the children” as all such things do. It shortly progresses to scanning phones for disloyalty to the government. We are on the verge of seeing the most restrictive police state ever devised.

Great reset, indeed.

By Divemedic, ago

Market Forces

In a comment to my post on subscription products, an Anonymous user had this to say:

The marketplace is a feedback mechanism to discover what buyers want. The feedback vendors are getting is that products with remote controls leased on a subscription are acceptable, because buyers keep accepting them. This is not a “market failure”, and we don’t need communism to force other people to give us what we want.

No policeman would stop you if you made and sold an aftermarket engine computer for a tractor. Farmers can buy a $300,000 350 HP 8-wheel-drive tractor, but all farmers nationwide can’t chip in $500 each to hire a techie to car-customize it? Why do you trust farmers to vote?

To tackle the first paragraph: The problem is that this isn’t a free market. In a free market, companies that are poorly run go out of business. This means that businesses in a free market have a disincentive to make poor decisions. In this market, they get a bailout, pay huge bonuses to the executives that made the poor decision, and continue business as usual.

Businesses getting bailed out has become a huge part of what the government does. Just in the last 20 years, the following bailouts have happened:
GM and Fiat Chrysler received multiple bailouts for a total of $85.6 Billion, Amtrak: $1 billion, Adidas $3.3 Billion, US air carriers have received $26.6 Billion, Bear Stearns $25 Billion, Citigroup $45 Billion, Bank of America $45 Billion, AIG received $180 Billion, Fannie Mae $116 Billion, Freddie Mac $71 Billion, the list goes on. Over the past 20 years, bailouts have totaled over $1 trillion.

Addressing your second paragraph: The reason that farmers can’t just modify a truck or tractor to circumvent that software is simple: Federal Law prohibits it. It is a felony under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to modify the software of a product that has some of its capabilities controlled or restricted by software. So those subscription based devices, vehicles, and tools? They have the full protection of the might of the US government.

That isn’t a free market.

By Divemedic, ago