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Being retired, I still speak with quite a few of the people that I used to be professionally associated with. I was speaking with a Deputy Sheriff who was telling me a story that I cannot believe.

First, let me set the stage: There is a neighborhood in Osceola County Florida called Buenaventura Lakes. Locals refer to it as BVL. The BVL community continues into Orange County, but whichever side of the county line you are on, BVL is a high crime area where the majority of citizens don’t speak English as a primary language, murders and other violent crimes are common, and the reality police shows have filmed more than one episode. Gangs are prevalent, and you don’t want to be caught in this area after dark. The western edge of this area was my primary response area for eight years. I saw more than a few serious crimes in that area.

Early one recent morning, the Osceola County Sheriff’s department was responding to the report of a dead body in the road in the vicinity of BVL boulevard and  Osceola Parkway. After a thirty minute search, they located the body in the middle of the road, but the body was located a half mile north of the Orange County line, where BVL Boulevard becomes Landstar Blvd. This means that the body was clearly outside of the jurisdiction of the Osceola deputies. The man had been killed elsewhere, and then dumped from a moving vehicle into the road. The deputies decided to secure the crime scene, call the Orange county Sheriff’s department, and wait to turn it over to them, so that the Orange deputies could work the scene.

They were told that the Sheriff’s office doesn’t work dead bodies in the road, because this was likely a pedestrian accident, and that the deputies should call the Florida Highway Patrol. The Orange sheriff’s office said they didn’t have the manpower. Calls the SO also doesn’t respond to, due to lack of manpower: Reports of shots fired, suspicious persons, auto accidents, noise complaints, and other “non serious calls.”

Orange county Sheriff’s office is the department that wouldn’t investigate when checks were being stolen from my mailbox and being deposited in the thief’s bank account, and they cited manpower issues. It appears as though those issues have not subsided.

Except that I drove six miles to work yesterday, and I saw no less than six motorists get pulled over for traffic offenses. The Orange County sheriff’s office doesn’t have the manpower to respond to a dead body in the middle of the road, but they can sure as hell write you a $254 ticket for running a red light.

So I was one of the evaluators for a class of paramedics. This was not a class that I had a lot of contact with, because I was gone to grad school during most of their time there. I think that I may have covered three or four lectures for that class, and that is it.

Anyway, for the final, there is a written exam and twelve practical stations. There are stations that evaluate a candidate’s knowledge of cardiology, ACLS, and general medicine. Two of the stations are proctored by physicians, and the physician walks you through a medical scenario to see if you know your stuff. One of the students failed one of these physician medicated scenarios, and I went to explain to him that he had failed, and why. Once this is complete, we give the student a chance to try another scenario. A student can fail two stations and retest them. Fail three, or fail the retest, and you fail the entire year of paramedic school. While I was explaining this to the student, he got angry and belligerent, and began yelling at me. I didn’t feel like dealing with it, so I told him that he would have to speak with the director of the school.

The next day, I was told to retest him. During the scenario, he stated that he wanted to give Dopamine. Since Dopamine is given as an IV drip, I asked him how to mix and administer the drug. He said that he would add 400 mg of the drug to a 500mL IV bag, and this would give him a concentration of 1600 micrograms per mL. The problem is that this results in a mixture that is only 800 micrograms per mL, meaning that the drug was mixed incorrectly at half strength. When I told him that he failed because he mixed the drug incorrectly, he began yelling at me and told me that it was unfair to give him a problem where he had to do drug dose calculations, and accused me of failing him on purpose.

I pointed out that it was his decision to give that particular drug, and when you decide to give a drug, you should know how to do so. He complained loudly to the other instructors that were there, and said how unfair it was that I treated him like that.

When I left the school last night, there was a note under my windshield wiper that said “You are gonna pay for what you did”

I teach a night class tonight, and I leave after my students at 10 pm tonight. Good thing I am armed, and good thing that the classes I teach are not in a location where I am prohibited from carrying a concealed weapon. It is also good that the school’s director knows that I carry a weapon, and has no policy against it.

So now movie theaters are not allowing men to carry bags into the theater. Women can, but men cannot. Why? Because all men with bags can be a shooter.

This is a million dollar lawsuit in the making. I wish they were local to me, I could use the money.

OK, so the LA Times has their panties in a twist because a man in Ohio brought a loaded gun to a screening of Batman. After the cops arrested him, they found “eight rifles and handguns as well as “survivalist’s gear” such as gas masks and bulletproof vests.” They also flip out because he is “believed to have spent time in the military.” He also sat in a seat that had its back against the wall where he could see the exit, giving himself a tactical advantage, according to police.

Wow.

I saw Batman. I was carrying a handgun. A search of my home would reveal far more than 8 firearms, and a lot of ‘survivalist gear.’ I even spent six years in the military. I have books on electronics, explosives, chemistry, poisons, and many other topics that could be made to look sinister. So what?

Since when did being a veteran mean that you were a murderer? Since when did carrying a concealed weapon mean that you were going to go on a rampage? Sitting in the back row of a theater makes you the enemy? Is the press in this country completely stupid?

As a prepper, I frequently spend time preparing for the bad times that are to come. We must remember that we need to take the time to enjoy life, lest it become not worth preparing for. EM Forster once said “Those who prepare for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.”

Do not prepare for emergencies of life at the expense of the enjoyment of  it.

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.