You Can't Silence Us

Cage Weighs In

If you remember, there was quite a bit of disagreement on whether or not Baldwin was responsible for checking to ensure that the firearm he pointed at a staff member was safe, or if it was proper for him to accept another staff member’s word for it.

There are bloggers who insist that anyone who hasn’t made movies is unqualified to have an opinion. Perhaps Nicolas Cage has enough experience making movies for his opinion to matter. Cage explained that he believes it is an actor’s responsibility to be educated in the use of guns as part of their craft. Here is what he has to say on the matter:

You need to know how to fight. You’re going to do fight scenes. You need to know how to ride a motorcycle. You need to know how to use a stick shift and drive sports cars, and you do need to know how to use a gun. You do. You need to take the time to know what the procedure is. Those are part of the job profiles.

Nicolas Cage on the Baldwin ‘Rust’ shooting

Of course, we all know that rich and famous people follow a different set of rules from everyone else. For that reason, I don’t expect a rich, antigun movie star to be held legally accountable. Still, that doesn’t change his responsibility for what happened, even if he will never be held accountable.

People who have read this post: 580
By Divemedic, ago

I Hope She Wins

A teen submitted a poem to her school newspaper, and the paper refused to publish it. She is suing. The reason for the refusal is that the teacher who was the editor declared that the poem was too controversial. The poem was about Chauvin and Floyd.

I hope she wins. Why? Because at its most basic, the lawsuit is not about free speech. After all, no one is telling this girl that she can’t say whatever she wishes. The crux of the argument here is whether or not a publisher can decide what they will publish. If the school newspaper can be forced to publish a George Floyd poem, then it can also be forced to publish another student’s poem about fraud in the 2020 election, or how the jab is killing people.

School newspapers have long suppressed those on the right. A decision in this case can only be in favor of the right. Why? If the girl loses, it is status quo ante. If she wins, the precedent can be used to the right’s advantage.

People who have read this post: 739
By Divemedic, ago

Phila Fire Kills 12

A fire in a public housing duplex killed 4 adults and 8 kids. As a retired firefighter, I can tell you that this is the sort of fire that all firefighters dread.

The thing that is incredible to me is that there were 26 people staying in the two apartments, and at least some of the smoke detectors failed to function. The housing authority claims that all of them were working in May when the unit was inspected.

People who have read this post: 556
By Divemedic, ago

Kill Switch

Former Vice President Joe Biden signed the infrastructure bill into law. Buried in that law is a provision that requires all new cars, trucks, and SUVs to have a “kill switch” installed by 2026. The system must connect to the vehicle’s operational controls, so as to disable the vehicle either before driving or during, when impairment is detected.

Marketed to Congress as a benign tool to help prevent drunk driving, this measure is disturbingly short on details. The switch will passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired. The term “impaired driving” isn’t defined by the legislation, so it would be open to interpretation by regulators such as the Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The worst part of the legislation is the open nature of the system which will feature at least one backdoor for third-party access to the system’s data at any time.

Who has access to the data collected by the kill switch system? Will the police be given access to the data without a warrant? What about insurance companies, will they be granted access to the data in order to better understand what kind of driver is being insured, or worse, will they know with what frequency your driving habits “change” which could then be interpreted as impairment?

What if a driver is not drunk, but sleepy, and the car forces itself to the side of the road before the driver can find a safe place to pull over and rest? Considering that there are no realistic mechanisms to immediately challenge or stop the car from being disabled, drivers will be forced into dangerous situations without their consent or control. Imagine your car stopping in the middle of a bad neighborhood.

This law is a disaster in the making. They just can’t resist bossing people around. Tyrants, the whole lot of them.

People who have read this post: 841
By Divemedic, ago

Tracking You

Remember when the Biden administration said there would be no federal database to track your vaccination status?
He lied. Again.
Here comes a tracking system, sponsored by OSHA. National ID card system. I am sure that illegal immigrants will be exempt.

People who have read this post: 912
By Divemedic, ago

Screwed

Back in October, I found a charge on my credit card for $340. The merchant was listed as GOOGLE*ADS4756092809. I didn’t recognize the charge, so I called the CC company and reported fraud. They cancelled my card, and I had to wait two weeks for another one.

I got a letter today that the investigation is complete, and the merchant (Google) has confirmed that it is a valid charge. That letter had a phone number on it, so I called.

The reason that the charges were considered valid, according to the woman on the phone, is that I provided no supporting documentation, and the merchant did provide some.

My first question was how I am supposed to provide documentation of a charge that I had no knowledge of. She didn’t know.

So I tried a different approach. I asked what documentation the merchant provided. She didn’t know that either. She said that I would have to contact the merchant directly.

So I asked for the merchant’s phone number. She didn’t know that either. She then unhelpfully suggested that I contact the Google Advertising Department and gave me that number.

I asker her what my options are. All I can do is refuse to pay it, and if I do so, the credit card company will cancel my credit card, then report the delinquent amount to my credit record, with interest each month. They will put a note on there that I dispute it, but that means nothing. My credit will still be trashed.

So next, I called Google Ads. The person who answered the call told me that they can’t release any information on the account, because I am not the account holder. I tried using the automated system, and all I know is that the account was suspended for violating Google’s terms of service.

It looks like I am going to have to pay this. I could call a lawyer and sue, but that would cost me more than just paying it, with no guarantee that I would win anything. I have no other recourse. I don’t even know what this charge is for, who it was paid to, or how they got my CC number, but I am just screwed out of $340.

People who have read this post: 1,144
By Divemedic, ago

NIH Fail

Here we are, over 600 days into “two weeks to stop the spread” and the director of the NIH holds a press conference to, well, just watch it for yourself. This is what your tax dollars have bought you:

People who have read this post: 529
By Divemedic, ago

Easier to Cancel You

How did I miss this? A Minnesota school board is making it easier to cancel those who they disagree with. Their rules say that, in order to speak to the board at a meeting, a speaker must:

  • The speaker must state their home address before speaking
  • Board members cannot be addressed directly
  • No one may discuss any issue not on the agenda for the meeting
  • If anyone cheers, claps, or speaks out of turn, the public forum will be shut down at once.

Effective tonight, open forum participants are prohibited from calling out or addressing any individual school board or school district staff member. If this occurs, open forum will be closed,. Beginning at the Nov. 1 school board meeting, open forum will be limited to those individuals who wish to speak to an item on the board agenda.

Crowd noise, or any sort of grandstanding during open forum, including applause, talking, hollering or any outburst will result in open forum being closed. Further, beginning at the Nov. 1 school board meeting, open forum participation will be limited to those individuals who wish to speak to an item on the board agenda.

So much for petitioning your government for a redress of grievances, eh? I wholeheartedly agree with the author of the linked page when he said:

This is exactly the kind of subtle tyranny that’s being implemented across the country, from private employers to the federal government to classrooms and everywhere in between.

Sure, no one is forcing you to take the vaccine, but you’ll lose your job if you don’t. Sure, no one is forcing your child to adopt the ideology of critical race theory, but they’ll be alienated by their peers and told in class they’re a racist if they don’t repent of their whiteness.

Sure, no one is banning you from speaking out against local school board policies, but just go ahead and tell everyone where your kids sleep if you’d like the opportunity to do so.

What’s next? I shudder to imagine.

Please take a few minutes and read the entire article.

People who have read this post: 591
By Divemedic, ago

Merry Sixthmas

It is now Sixthmas eve- the day before the holiest of Democrat holidays. This is the biggest holiday of the year for the left. I was going to write a poem based upon “A Visit from St. Nick, but then I remember that Ashli Babbit was murdered in cold blood and decided against it. Even so, my sense of humor is still messed up, so I leave you with this from the Babylon Bee:

People who have read this post: 524
By Divemedic, ago