From Dilbert.com
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Healthcare plans again
I got my nap, so here we go. We take the trip to Gubmint health care again. Reading this article, I noticed it made a few good points.
Imagine if your car insurance covered oil changes and gasoline. You wouldn’t care how much gas you used, and you wouldn’t care what it cost. Mechanics would sell you $100 oil changes. Prices would skyrocket.
That is exactly what has happened here with health care. It is even more pronounced on those who have no copay. I see it all of the time with people carrying those little gold Medicaid cards. They don’t care what it costs, so they go to the emergency room for everything, to the point where ambulances must wait in line to drop off patients, because ER beds are full. 30 to 45 minute waits are not uncommon, and I have seen more than a few patients die on an ambulance stretcher while waiting. In fact, the chief deterrent to this is that long wait for service, not the cost.
Things will only get worse, and more expensive, if we establish any sort of government sponsored health plan. This will mean that expenses will spiral out of control. When that happens, the government will have to find a way to pay for it. There are only a few options:
1 Increase revenue (iin other words, raise taxes)
2 Control costs (through rationing or price controls)
3 More deficit spending
Any of those three would be a disaster for our health system AND the economy. More on that in future posts…
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Sorry
I was on duty for 48 hours, and then I had to teach an EMT class today, so there will be no postings today.
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More problems for St George, MO PD
In this post, I discussed the problem of bad cops. There are more problems coming to light in the St George Police Department, the department that employed the Sergeant that was caught on tape in this incident threatening to frame a motorist because he didn’t show enough deference. It seems as if the motorist has good cause to film the local cops.
On a local website, a site that describes itself as a site “for the use of law enforcement officers employed by the St. Louis Police Department and their supporters in the St. Louis Metropolitan area,” a self described police officer had this to say:
I hope this little POS punk bastard tries his little video stunt with me when I pull him over alone- and I WILL pull him over – because I will see “his gun” and place a hunk of hot lead right where it belongs.
Of course, the videotape from Kuehnlein’s police cruiser is currently missing. St. George Police Chief Scott Uhrig is also being investigated by city officials who say he may have failed to inform them that the State of Missouri Administrative Hearing Commission concluded that, “Uhrig’s unwelcome sexual advances to a teenager, while on duty and under the guise of enforcing the laws, indicate an especially egregious mental state, show that he cannot enforce the law, and are cause for discipline.”
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Public Schools
From the Heartless Libertarian comes a story about the Public Indoctrination Education System, and a Themed High School called the “Social Justice Academy.” A little research shows this to be an actual school.
That is right- now we are indoctrinating our students in political agendas, and we aren’t even hiding it any more. Click here and scroll down to “Social Justice Academy,” and you will find this:
Social Justice Academy (SJA), also one of Boston’s small schools, prepares students to be social activists who can identify problems and have the skills and confidence to solve them. Their approach to education is based on creating a more just and equitable world. To achieve that goal, the rigorous curriculum was designed to require students to engage in debates, research, analysis, reading, and writing that address issues including Race, Class, Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Identity. Not only must all seniors complete a community service project which demonstrates their mastery of skills in research, writing, data analysis, critical thinking and public speaking, but they must all apply to and be accepted to a college in order to graduate, whether they plan to attend or not.
Why are my tax dollars going to pay for this obviously political crap?
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The debate rages on
The LawDog is talking about the film that is the subject of my previous post. The center of the argument seems to be that the University, being owned by the State, must allow students to exercise free speech wherever and whenever they choose, or face the wrath of the Constitution.
So, let me get this straight. You think that the students of a government run school should be allowed to disrupt lectures and classes, and that the teachers and administrators do not have the power to control or direct the students at any time, if said student is being disruptive?
So, if a student, say, stands up in the middle of class and begins a long diatribe that is disruptive to the learning process, the professor has no right to tell the student to sit down and be quiet? If the student refuses, the professor cannot ask the student to leave? If the student refuses to leave, the campus police cannot arrest him? If he resists arrest, the police must do what? Leave?
What if the person making the speech isn’t a student? Does the person give up these rights to speech just because he isn’t a student? If so, can a person go to the local kindergarten class and give an impromptu sex education class?
Or could it be that you are mistaken? Like it or not, the school has a responsibility to its students, the students are paying for an education, and they have a right to receive what they are paying for without loud mouthed trouble makers interfering.
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First Amendment
This video is all over the net. I am sure you have seen it by now. There are many comments that the kid was treated badly, or somehow the cops were wrong. Most of this criticism centers around one of two points:
1 That the kid was having his First Amendment rights violated. : This is incorrect. If anything, this kid was violating the rights of the others who wanted to speak by monopolizing the session. He was not asking questions, he was making a speech. If he wants to make speeches, he is allowed to do so, just not on someone else’s dime or during someone else’s meeting. I am sure the school will let him reserve a space and make speeches. Remember that the right to free speech is not a guarantee that people will listen, nor does it confer the right to disrupt the peace.
2 That the kid did not need to be tazed. This guy was given the lawful order to leave. He refused. The cops then tried to escort him out. He wiggled free. They tried to escort more forcibly. He resisted. They tazed him. I thought that was an appropriate escalation of force.
Too many people in this country think that the cops are not allowed to “boss them around,” or that free speech means being able to disrupt or annoy others. They also think that the cops are not allowed to touch them unless they have a weapon.
The police are there to do a job, its called keeping the peace. If you breach that peace, they are going to order you to leave. If you refuse, you are going to be arrested. Resist, and you will be forced to go.
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An agenda?
This article attempts to use statistics in a misleading manner to support a preconcieved notion that “assault weapons” are killing our police officers. A look at the truth shows this to be a lie. To date, there have been 127 police officers killed in the line of duty, according to the “Officer Down Memorial.”
Of those 127 officers, 58 (46%) were killed in vehicle accidents, 2 fell due to a bomb, 3 drowned, 5 through medical causes, one was killed by a tornado, one by a toxic exposure, one from a yellow jacket sting, and one when a pine tree fell on his car after the tree was struck by lightning.
Of the 55 (43%) officers killed by gunfire, 9 (7%) were killed by rifles, 33 (26%) by handguns or shotguns, and in 13 (9%) of the shootings, the type of weapon was not identified in the report, only being listed as “gun, unknown.”
Two of those killed by rifles were mistakenly shot by other police officers, three were shot by “hunting rifles,” one by an M1 Garand (which was not listed as an assault weapon by the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban), and the others were listed as simply “Rifle.” Not one mention of an “Assault weapon” as a single cause of death.
In short, more cops were killed by (take your pick) cars, bombs, water, tornados, lightning, pine trees, other cops, or yellow jackets, than were killed by “Assault Weapons.” But then, none of those causes fit the press’ leftist, antigun agenda, do they?
A hat tip to Kim, for alerting me to this article.
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Smoke and mirrors?
Several years ago, I ran across this article, and I have always taken offense by the assertions there. In it, he makes some claims that I would like to refute:
1 He claims we have cushy jobs, inpart because of our “easy” 24 on and 48 off schedule. If you add those hours up, you will find out that those hours equal a 56 hour workweek, and we don’t get overtime at 40 hours like most jobs. We work every day of the year, including holidays. Unlike most jobs, we don’t get weekends, Christmas, New Years, Easter, or any other holiday off.
He also claims that most firefighters run less than 5 calls per day. He is dead wrong, unless he is including rural, volunteer departments in that calculations. I have run as many as 26 calls in a shift before. Sure, there are slow days, but don’t we all have slow days at work? In my last two work days, I ran 3 structure fires (a total of 10 hours), one car fire, one fatal auto accident (we were there for 6 hours- assisting with the investigation), two heart attacks, one dead child (who collapsed playing basketball), one child with meningitis, 2 women experiencing a cardiac event, one diabetic emergency, one man in CHF, and 4 more medical emergencies. Plus, vehicle and equipment maintenance, and a minimum of 3 hours of training per day. Busy enough for you? Sure, we run fewer than 4 fires a day, but fires are less than 20% of our call load. EMS is getting us more and more calls every year.
2 He claims that firefighting isn’t dangerous, because the number of deaths has fallen. I can tell you this- I have had to attend the funerals of 8 firefighters that I know, killed in the line of duty. 2 in a fire, 2 struck by cars, 3 heart attacks, and one by cancer (caused by an on the job exposure). Nearly every firefighter that I know with more than 10 years on the job has been injured in the line of duty. It will happen if you work long enough. The only reason the number of deaths has fallen, is because we have worked hard to make it happen, and we are finally getting the safer building codes we have asked for. We still deal with hepatitis, HIV, and other communicable diseases every day.
3 He claims Firefighters are adrenaline junkies. I will give him that one. So what? All that means is that we like our jobs. Does that take anything away from what we do?
4 Then he goes on to complain that we have large funerals when firefighters are killed in the line of duty. “It’s just the firefighters doing their thing,” he complains. Can you believe that anyone would be so callous? I have never read or heard about a firefighter funeral that will shut a city down for a few days, it is more like a few hours. Big turnouts, pageantry and long processions are a tradition in the fire service. The funeral ceremony is not a propaganda scheme, it is a close knit community saying goodbye to one of their own.
He then continues his tirade by complaining that we as a profession are a selfish interest group.
A search of this author’s work finds him slamming realtors as well. He appears to have a hard on for firefighters. Maybe one slept with his wife, or could it be that left wing journalists hate men in male-type jobs. Not metrosexual enough for them. Everything they write is tied into the Agenda.
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Monday Morning Quarterbacking
Have you ever seen this video? These guys really screwed up. This was a dangerous and amateurish effort on the part of these firefighters. There are numerous problems that I saw there. Lets review the worst of them.
1 The incident commander apparently failed to recognize that the building was lost. He still had crews operating inside the building during most of the film. Why expose crews to this potential collapse hazard to try and save a building that is already a goner?
2 The building had already self ventilated through the roof, and these guys are still breaking windows. Why?
3 The exposure building on side D (the right) was burning for quite awhile before anyone did anything about it. Have these guys ever heard of exposure control?
4 The ladder that was lying against the building, being exposed to direct flame, was later used as a roof access on the second building. Then the firefighters (and I use the term loosely) compound it by being on the roof without a roof ladder.
The list goes on. In the comments section for the incident, firefighters accuse critics of being “monday morning quarterbacks” and say that if we weren’t there, we cannot criticize. Ridiculous. We kill 100 firefighters a year, and it is time we stop. Lets stop making excuses, and fix this.