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Stop it!

I keep hearing the right bleat on about how this country is a Christian nation. They are wrong. John Adams, Sr. (one of the founders) wrote in the Treaty Of Tripoli, which was unanimously approved by Congress, and became law in 1797:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen (Muslims),—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Yet, the Republicans are constantly trying to worm religion into every corner of American life, by using the coercive power of the state to do so. For example, wanting to alter the WW2 memorial to add a prayer to it, or passing resolutions about posting the phrase, “In God We Trust” in public buildings. (Even though the phrase was not a US motto before 1957)

Look, I don’t care if you worship any particular god, but using government to force others to listen to your version of “the way” is not proper. Show me in the Constitution where it says that we are a Christian nation.

A religion is like a penis- it’s great that you have one, but rude to try and cram it down other people’s throats.

By Divemedic, ago

Unions and elections

My opinions for Unions have been expressed before. In fact, I have done so on more than one occasion. I have worked in two different workplaces that would be considered a union shop. One of the biggest problems with a union shop is that they are run as a democracy, with the majority making decisions that everyone must abide by. Another big problem is that certain members of the union use power and influence to control what the majority thinks and votes for. This can result in some pretty underhanded dealings.

The most recent union shop is the one that I am about to retire from. The issue that has brought this to light is a recent vote that was taken by the union at my current employer. Let me begin by saying that I am retiring in 5 weeks, and will not be affected by this vote, but that doesn’t mean that I approve of how it was done.

The vote is to change the fire department schedule from a 24 hours on, followed by 48 hours off, to a schedule where firefighters work 48 hours on duty, followed by 96 hours off. This topic has come up for debate every year at contract time, for about the last five years and has not ever been approved. There are a lot of conflicting opinions on this, and I will not debate or air them here. Instead, I want to talk about HOW the vote was done.

There is a core of firefighters that want the schedule to change, and they have been pressing for it for a few years now. An election was recently held for union president, and the new president is in the 48/96 camp. As his first act, he decided to lobby everyone for the schedule change and held a vote, which he said would require a 65% supermajority to implement. Everyone would be able to vote, even employees who would be affected by the change, but were not even union members. Sounds fair, right? I thought so too, but the devil, as they say, is in the details.

The vote was done by secret ballot. Each voter was given a piece of paper and told to write which schedule they preferred. There are 90 firefighters who work for the fire department, and the vote was close to not passing with the required 65%: There were 60 votes for, and 27 against, meaning that the new schedule was approved by one more vote than was required.

There is a catch: At least three votes were not counted. Mine, another firefighter who has said that she is leaving in February, and a firefighter assigned to a 40 hour work week in the front office. The excuse for that is because two of us were quitting, and the third was not going to work that schedule, our votes shouldn’t count. Additionally, there were people who wrote “I don’t care” and another who wrote “I have no opinion until I see details” and both of those were counted as “yes” votes.

Complicating things further, the president, who was the one pushing for the new schedule, was the one who collected and counted the ballots, which he claims to have thrown away after counting them.

This whole issue is like our elections process in miniature.

And before anyone comments here about how unions are evil, stuff it. Corporations are no better: Enron, Citigroup, GM, and many others have proven that people are the problem, not the organizations that they create to gain power.

By Divemedic, ago

Two year anniversary

I also just realized that today marks the two year anniversary of my bankruptcy filing.

After finding myself owing $240,000 on a home that was only worth about $120,000, and trying to get some help from the banks that were flush with billions of bailout money, I decided that I could either be stuck with 27 more years of mortgage payments totaling over half a million so that I could own a home worth less than $100,000, or I could do the financially wise thing and walk away, I decided to declare bankruptcy.

It was a wise decision. It turns out the bank had sold my loan to 3 other banks at the same time, so no one knows who really owns the loan. They cannot find the loan paperwork, and it turns out that there are no bank records showing who owns the loan, so I still own the home even though I haven’t made the last 25 payments. The bank lied in court, and provided forged papers to try and prove that I owed them money. They got caught, I sued them, and won a not insubstantial pile of money.

I have no debt, a 3 year old, paid for in cash pickup truck, and $40,000 in savings. I have no debt. My credit score of 655 isn’t too bad, considering a two year old bankruptcy.

By Divemedic, ago

Veteran unemployment

There is an article from Reuters this morning about the difficulty that veterans are having in finding a job. This is nothing new, and I blame the military and its recruiting system. When I got out of the Navy in 1992, I thought that I had a large bank of skills that employers would value. After all, that is one of the big pitches that you hear from the recruiters, is that the military teaches you skills that employers want. When it was time to get out, the pressure from the military was high: I was told that there were no jobs out there, and that I would either be back within a year or wind up homeless. They were right. I wound up homeless within a year.

I was trained as an Electrician’s Mate. During the six years that I spent in the Navy, I went to the Electrician school, where I learned to repair all sorts of electrical systems, run the ship’s electrical power plant, and other valuable (I thought) skills. I spent nearly 4 years performing those activities, and then topped it off my going to Motor Rewind School and learning to rebuild and repair electric motors, another allegedly valuable skill.

It turns out that the best training that I got while I was in the Navy had nothing to do with the Navy. While stationed in Virginia, I had been a volunteer firefighter in a nearby town during what spare time I had, and the volunteer department had trained me to be an EMT.

When I got out of the military, I was in for a rude awakening. I tried to secure a job repairing electric motors, but no one would hire me to do anything other than entry level work for $6.50 an hour, because military equipment and repair procedures tend to be ten to twenty years behind what industry is up to. When I got out in 1992, the Navy was still using amplifiers that had vacuum tubes. I tried running my own business, but it turns out that I was ill prepared for that, and my wife, children, and I were soon living in the storeroom of my business.

We thought it was the job market where we were, so the wife and I picked up and went to Orlando, Florida. I tried to get jobs at power plants, theme parks, factories, and many other places. Many employers told me that military equipment, skills, and training were outdated and meant nothing. They also explained to me that many of the things the military trained me to do required a license to do out in the civilian world. A license that I did not have.
I finally wound up as an electrician’s helper, building houses for $7 an hour. I traded jobs as I could find a higher paying one, and we ate a lot of meals that consisted of hot dogs sliced into a pot of macaroni and cheese. We ate so much Hamburger Helper that now, fifteen years later, I still can’t stand to even look at the stuff. (neither can my kids.)

During the entire episode, I was a volunteer firefighter/EMT.  Four years after moving to Florida, at the age of 31, I was able to scrape together enough money and pay for the school that would earn me Florida certifications as a firefighter and as an EMT. Once I got my licenses, I was able to secure a job with the fire department for $8.50 an hour, and the rest, as they say, is history. It was tough doing this, as many fire departments have physical agility tests as a part of the hiring process, and I found myself physically competing against men who were 12 years younger than I was. I had effectively started over at the age of 31.

The moral of this story is that the recruiters will tell you that will be learning valuable skills in the military. It is a lie. The general rule is that the skills you learn in the military are loosely connected to the outside world, and when you get out, you will find yourself being treated as if you were right out of high school.

Do yourself a favor, and remember this: Do not join the military for the education and training. If you want to join to defend your country (I can understand that, even though our military hasn’t had to defend our country in over 70 years) but go to college first and do it as an officer. At least then you can use the degree to get a decent job when you get out.

By Divemedic, ago

Safety is an illusion

I ran across this article about five of the safety measures that we take that do not make us safer. Interestingly enough, number five is the TSA and their airport security measures. According to the article:

There’s a reason security expert Bruce Schneier described the No-Fly list as “a list of people so dangerous they cannot be allowed to fly under any circumstance, yet so innocent we can’t arrest them even under the Patriot Act.”

 So they are so innocent that they cannot be arrested or charged with a crime, but there are plenty of people out there who would add this secret government list to the reasons why you should not be allowed to own one of the best tools of self defense: a gun. Secret lists kept by the government never work out very well.

 It turns out that antilock brakes and bike helmets do not help us, even though they are required by government. Sunscreen is a marketing ploy (because it doesn’t block the rays which are most likely to cause cancer). Breast exams actually increase mortality, because the number of unnecessary biopsies and the complications associated with them cause more deaths than the cancer they are designed to detect. Gated communities are also worthless.

In other words, security and safety as it is practiced today is an illusion designed to make you FEEL safer without actually making you safer. I guess feeling safer is better than actually being self reliant.

By Divemedic, ago

45 days

I am retiring in 45 days, and I will be moving 1100 miles away to become a full time student. In a way, I look forward to what is to come, but I am also a little apprehensive. What will happen? Will I succeed? How difficult will school be? Even though I have budgeted, did I make an error? Will I be broke?

By Divemedic, ago

Of laws and tyrants

There are some lawyers who are arguing about the legality of the Declaration of Independence. Let me settle this: Of course declaring Independence from the King was illegal: If it weren’t, then it wouldn’t have been necessary. No tyrant ever makes it legal to resist his power.

The only difference between George Washington and Osama Bin Laden is that Washington won. Let me explain:
Did the colonists burn down the homes of tax collectors, and kill their families? Yep.
Did the colonists use force to destroy public property to further their political aims? Yep.

There was little difference between what the American Revolution attempted to do, and any other citizen uprising. What made the American Revolution unique is not the Declaration of Independence, it was what came after the revolution was run. Very few revolutions succeed in providing more freedom, many simply cause one tyrant to be replaced with another. When Washington became president, he insisted that he not be a king, and that the office remain one of the people, and that the Federal government was to remain a servant of the states, and of the people. That held true until the beginning of the civil war, nearly 100 years later.

Was it legal for the southern states to secede? Of course not, but they did. They only came back through military conquest. When the civil war ended, so did the republic. What replaced it has become far worse than that which caused our founders to declare independence from the King.

By Divemedic, ago