I ain't skeered

TOTWTYTR replied to my recent post concerning the need for cops to wear cameras while on duty. I was originally going to respond in the comments section, but thought that my thoughts on this would require more room than I had, so I figure I can get a post out of it.

Be careful what you ask for because it's not a stretch for someone to say "Paramedics need cameras" too. Like the ones that some systems have in their ambulances to track your driving skills. 

My department installed cameras in the patient compartment of all of the rigs a few years ago, and the original plan was to record all of the action. I was one of the most vocal opponents of this plan, and I pointed out that personal injury attorneys would analyze every frame of video to score a "gotcha" moment and use it against you. I also noted that HIPPA compliance would be a real issue with these recordings. I used to think that there is no way that I would want to be recorded. I have since changed that view.

I have a few thoughts on this that I want to share:

First, it would be hypocritical of me to expect a cop to wear a camera and not be willing to do the same. I am being paid by the public, and the public has every right to know what and how I am doing things on their behalf and on their dime. I have no problem with being recorded while on the job, as long as those recordings protect the modesty and privacy of my patients, who do have a right to expect their privacy is secure. If the patient were blurred out, or if the recordings were only released to the patient, then the patient's right to privacy is secure, and I am just fine with it.

Second, if I am doing my job, and treating the patient they way that they are supposed to be treated, I have nothing to worry about. I do my job, and I do it well. The worst thing that anyone will see on video is that I occasionally miss an IV or a tube. So what? I will get an IO or a King tube, and that is the end of it. In order for this to create a liability, the lawyer needs to prove three things:

1 That there was a duty to act, and
2 That the paramedic failed to act, or acted in a way that a reasonable paramedic with his experience and training would not have acted, and
3 this failure resulted in a negative outcome or harm for the patient.

Even if there is no video, if you are doing things that are not in the best interests of your patients, you are going to get sued, and rightly so. To a good medic, a video can help more than hurt. A video is poison to a bad medic.

The only official complaint that I have ever had filed against me was one where a Doctor accused me of failing in a treatment, and the thing that saved me was a memory dump of my LifePack. If it wasn't for the telemetry information that was contained in the monitor, I would be a greeter at Wal-Mart. A video would have done wonders for my case.

The third thought on this matter: I know a lot of crappy medics. They make up vitals, they do as little as possible, and do everything they can get away with to complete the run and go sit down somewhere. They have been known to bring in patients with agonal respirations with only a nonrebreather. They bring codes in to the ER with only BLS in progress. These are the medics who make the good medics look bad. Those of you who want to improve EMS, and who want paramedicine to excel, remember that the crappy medics who are getting away with that sort of thing are the ones who are making us all look bad.

Maybe it is time that they leave us.

A joke

What is the difference between America's leader, and Russia's leader?

One is a commie who flouts his wealth while the people suffer, and the other shoots whales with a crossbow.

If we had to elect a foreigner to the White House, why couldn't we have gotten the whale hunting badass instead of the Lobster eating golfing socialist?

Cops need cameras

Story after story is in the news, where cops abuse citizens, citizens claim that cops framed them, cops murder citizens, cops refuse to be filmed, yet desire to film everyone else.

I think that since the technology is there, every cop should, for the duration of the time he is on duty, wear a recorder that they cannot shut off, and the recording of the officer's shift should be downloaded and stored for one year, unless a subpoena or court orders that the recording be kept longer. Such recordings would be public record, except those who identify minors, victims of sex crimes, or witnesses who are deemed to be at risk.

Any recording that is discovered to be damaged, missing, or unavailable for any reason (including the famous "technical difficulty" that causes so many police recordings to disappear) shall cause the court case to be decided against the cop. If you don't have anything to hide, you don't have anything to worry about, skippy.

How to simulate Paramedic life

Do you have a friend or family member who works in EMS? Do you want to work in EMS? Have you always wondered what it is like to be a paramedic? Well, wonder no more, I have come up with a way to simulate the life of a paramedic:

- Write down every task that you need to perform in the house and how it is to be done, such as lawn mowing, painting, sweeping the floor, etc. Place all of the sheets in a notebook titled "Protocols." Memorize the entire book. Then have your neighbors call you at random times throughout the day and night, so you can go to their homes and perform these tasks. Change the protocols at least once a month, and take a test to ensure that you have the new way memorized.

- Your neighbor gets bonus points if the task needed isn't in the protocol book, or if the task is gross, disgusting, or a complete waste of time. A good example would be calling you to come change the thermostat for their air conditioning, or rub cream on his hemorrhoids. If the task to be performed isn't in the book, you must call your father in law on the phone, describe the situation, and ask him what to do.

- Stay dressed all day so that you can make it to the car in less than 30 seconds. To test this, have a neighbor run through your house periodically with a megaphone yelling "Copy code three" whereupon you jump up and run to your car. Every fourth time, after you have gotten in the car, have the neighbor tell you that you are canceled, and you can return to what you were doing. Bonus points if you were in the shower, cooking or eating dinner, or sitting on the toilet.

-  Every day, write down the contents of your medicine cabinet and pantry. Then check the car out, paying close attention to fuel and oil levels, and the condition of the tires. Also, confirm that the headlights and horn work. Write this all down and stuff the papers in a drawer where no one will ever see them again.

- If you need something to replace missing items needed to carry out your protocols, send an email to a relative, who will go to the store and shop for you. Make sure they either buy the wrong thing, or get too much or too little of whatever it was.

-  To simulate your coworkers, when you perform a task, have another person stand behind you and comment on the way you did it, either telling you that you aren't following protocol, or pointing out that they would have done it differently.

- Every time you perform a task, write down everything you did in the form of a report. Have someone randomly pick out every fourth report from a week ago and point out that you misspelled a word, got the zip code of the grocery store wrong, or that you missed a step in the protocol for whatever task you performed.

- For at least 4 hours a week, you should watch training films that you have seen at least a dozen times.

- For another 2 hours a week, have someone "teach" you how to do something that you already do on a daily basis by reading an article from a two year old copy of JEMS out loud. It helps if they do this by reading the article verbatim from a power point that you could easily read for yourself.

- Make sure that there is no toilet paper in the bathroom, and at least once a day have your neighbor call you to come to his house while you are on the toilet.

- When preparing dinner, have that neighbor call you to come over while it is cooking. This will force you to either recook the food, forget to turn the food off and burn it, or just say forget it and get something to go from McDonalds.

- Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going to do for the day, then have her make you stand in the back yard at 7am and read it to you.

- Sleep in your car in the driveway. To simulate move ups, at random times between midnight and 5 AM, drive several miles and park in a random parking lot, sleeping in the parked car for 15 minutes, and then drive home to sleep in the parked car in the driveway. Make sure that whoever is asleep in the car with you farts at least twice an hour.

- Wash the car every morning with a scrub brush and brillo pad, then have your wife come in and complain that you missed a spot.

Did I miss any?

The AG has finally taken notice

You hear it all the time in the mortgage debate when dealing with the foreclosure mess and the plague of bogus affidavits and other legal documents: “we should not give some deadbeat a free home because they signed the mortgage notes and received the funds to buy their homes, so they must owe the money. I mean after all, you should not have borrowed money that you cannot repay!" How can those losers deny that they owe the money?   That money is owed to someone; the mortgage notes are somewhere; and someone, somewhere actually and lawfully owns the notes. The real question is: Who?

Many of the people advancing these “free home” arguments are the same people that didn't scream or shout when Wall Street stopped making money and the American taxpayer came to rescue with hundreds of billions of dollars to save their collective asses.  After all, it was all just a mistake by the smartest guys in the room.  These were the guys who failed to take into account that a lot of these adjustable rate mortgages might not perform once they adjusted.  These were also the same people who assumed that the value of residential real estate would continue to appreciate forever at an annual rate of at least 15% per year.

 Who exactly suggested that Florida or any other state for that matter is a pro borrower jurisdiction?  The facts are that about 95% of the Florida foreclosure cases are won and homes are lost without a fight. The foreclosure attorneys don’t even come into court to get their summary judgments in many cases, they just call them in to the judge. These lawyers are very busy and due process and proper evidence are just technicalities to be overcome.

The banks in many cases cannot prove who owes money to whom, and so their law firms have been busy manufacturing the evidence needed.

How about here, where the bank produced what was purported to be the same note twice, but with certain... irregularities:

If you can't prove it, photoshop it:

Well, the Attorney General's office of Florida has finally taken notice and is investigating the fraud that is occurring. It is about time. I wonder how many homes were illegally and fraudulently taken in the meantime?


A tip of the hat to 4closurefraud.org

Reports of oil plume are misleading

Here is an article that talks about how scientists have discovered where the oil from the BP spill went. It is highly misleading, and I will show you why:

the scientists mapped a huge plume in late June when the well was still leaking. The components of oil were detected in a flow that measured more than a mile wide and more than 650 feet from top to bottom.

 A volume of water 22 miles long, a mile wide, and 650 feet tall encompasses 398 billion cubic feet. That volume contains about 3 trillion gallons of liquid. The report goes on to say:

Now federal officials say as much as 42 million gallons of oil may be lurking below the surface in amounts that are much smaller than the width of a human hair.

So even if the entire 42 million gallons is located within the 22 mile long area tested, That gives us a concentration of 1 part per 71,000, or 14 mg per liter (to use the SI standard).  The EPA allows 10 mg/l of Xylenes to be present in drinking water. In fact, 14 mg per liter is equivalent to 3 shot glasses poured into your average swimming pool.

The article then says:

The study conclusively shows that a plume exists, that it came from the BP well and that it probably never got close to the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, Camilli said. It is probably even larger than 22 miles long, but scientists had to stop measuring because of Hurricane Alex.

Which means that the Gulf of Mexico, at least as far as oil is concerned, is cleaner than the water from your tap.

Trouble on the horizon

It all started when my wife said that hunting was evil, that no one should kill a living animal. I pointed out to her that the cow providing that Outback steak dinner that she loves did not become despondent and leap off of a building, thus making her position just a little hypocritical. She responded that she chooses to believe that the animals on her plate died of natural causes. I explained to her that it was illegal to butcher an animal that dies of disease or illness. We came to a truce of sorts whereupon I promised not to hunt, and we continued our normal dietary lives. (This excludes pork- she says pigs are nasty and won't eat pork. I still eat bacon, but that is cool with her, as she doesn't eat anything for breakfast except the occasional bowl of cereal or pancake)

Until today.

We were at the store, shopping for this week's menu, when she made the announcement that as soon as the supply of meat in the freezer is gone, she is becoming a vegetarian. I could almost live with this, except for two things:

1 She won't eat vegetables. She hates them. The only vegetables I can get her to eat are corn, peas, and tomato sauce.

2 She still says we will have a real issue if I decide to hunt. In other words, we are at an impasse. Not only am I prohibited from hunting, but I fear that the time will come when she attempts to control my meat eating habits.

Her diet will consist of pasta, cheese, seafood, and candy. I am a carnivore, and while I don't mind eating that stuff, the diet she is embarking on is most unhealthy, and is a road that I simply cannot follow. I recently had to crack down on her, as she was eating 2200 calories a day of life savers. (That is not an exaggeration- she was eating candy all day, and that is it.)

I really fear for her health, and for the health of a 6 year relationship that is taking a decidedly bad turn.

OK, vent complete.

I would have gone to jail

A story about a child taken from his parents because the parents slapped the crying child boils my blood. Whether or not you believe in corporal punishment for children, or whether or not you think the child was too young to be spanked is not the issue here. What is at issue here is the question of where a flight attendant, as an employee of a private company, gets the power to take a child from a parent. I can assure you that if a flight attendant had done the same to me, the plane would have made an emergency landing to take me to jail and the flying waitress to the hospital.

In the end, a flight attendant is an airborne waitress with delusions of grandeur, and has no police power at all. Touch me, touch my child, or touch my wife and I will use whatever force is required to stop that contact.

To those angry flying waiters and waitresses who will surely leave nasty comments, spare me. The fact that you are responsible for assisting passengers in the event of a crash does not give you any more authority to use force to enforce law than I have, so save your breath and your bandwidth.

Obama gets one right

The recent hubub over the Mosque in New York has finally earned remarks from the White House. There are those who claim that placing a Mosque less than two blocks from ground zero is an in your face move that should be made illegal. They are half right. It is in poor taste, but the act of building a Mosque, or any other church for that matter, is protected by the Constitution.

The fact that 68% of the public of New York opposes the Mosque is used as a justification for opposing the facility, and there are those who claim that Obama is opposing the people of New York. To you I say that the Bill of Rights of the Constitution is there to protect the unpopular. This is the very reason why we are not a democracy. As Mr Jefferson put it, a democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. Now I will grant you that the First Amendment begins with "Congress shall make no law..." but the right of freedom of religion is a natural right. 

Saying that "there are 100 Mosques in New York, so  this is not an issue of religion, but one of safety and security" is complete crap. They are not asking to make a bomb factory, they are asking to build a place of worship on their own property, using their own money.


Obama is not saying that he will interfere in the State's business (which the FedGov does not have the power to do) but he is weighing in with what I think is a correct opinion. Just because some Muslims have broken the law doesn't excuse violating the rights of others. Otherwise, we could forbid Catholic Churches from being located within 2 blocks of a school for little boys, or make all guns illegal because some people misuse them.

Gun takes son, just like Dad

The headline of this post is the headline of a story in the St Pete times newspaper. It is also a crock of shit. The gist of the story:

Byron Patty Sr was killed in a robbery in 1994 at the age of 21 years, while "playing cards with friends" in a local motel. A few years later (2010), Byron Patty Jr was killed at age 17 during a robbery while playing dice in an alley with some friends.

The article tries to blame guns, but glosses over a few facts that can be ascertained from the article:

1 Byron Patty Jr was 17 in 2010, and had already been arrested several times since 2004 (then age 11).

2 Byron Patty Sr had been arrested at least three times on drug charges and theft charges, according to Hillsborough County records. At least one was a felony.

3 Both father and son were involved in gambling activities when they were killed. (cards and dice)

4 Michelle Patty, the mother/grandmother of this story is a well known "community organizer" in the Tampa area. She has had a few dealings that were a little, well let's say they were suspect and leave it at that.

5 According to the another story about the shooting, the 17 year old accused of killing Patty Jr was his best friend, and was arrested near the scene and charged with attempted murder, armed robbery, being a felon in possession of a firearm and violation of probation.

The grandmother is being investigated by the FBI for finance irregularities in connection with public funds, the father is a convicted felon who is murdered during a card game, and the grandson, also with a criminal past, is killed in a robbery during a "dice game" by a convicted felon who is his best friend.

Yep, it is the gun's fault.

What I believe

or alternatively, why I do not fit into any political party:

I don't fit int with the Democrats because:

I think that the money I earn is mine, and I don't think that I should be forced to give up my income in order to have it redistributed to someone who made poor decisions and bought three houses and didn't have a job.

I don't think the government should have the power to favor one race over another in order to compensate for wrongs that occurred before I was even born, or for any other reason.

I don't think that we should give away money to people, poor or not. Stopping the gravy train will correct many problems from illegal immigration to welfare queens.

I don't think regulating guns will prevent crime, any more than I think regulating Wall Street will prevent greed.

I don't think that the government should regulate what I put into my body- that includes drugs as well as unhealthy foods, or alcohol.

The Republicans don't want me because:

I think that the money I earn is mine, and I don't think that I  should be forced to give up some of my income to support a business that made poor decisions and considers themselves "too big to fail." 

I don't think that my tax dollars should be used to "nation build" or to fund our military to enforce our values on other people. Freedom must be earned by those who wish to be free, freedom cannot be imposed upon others.

I don't think the government should have anything to do with marriage. That means if I want to marry someone of the same sex, or if I want to marry 3 women, it is not anyone's business but my own.

The Libertarians disagree with me because:

I think that we need some sort of government, because there are some things that the market cannot do. Police, fire, roads, sanitation, and some other basic services need to function as a part of society. That government should be as limited and local as possible. The wider the area, the more limited that power should be.

Economic force is still force. A monopoly on food, or water, or any other material is just as bad as a monopoly on force, and can still be used to control others. If I own a significantly large fraction of a resource, I can control others by refusing to sell that resource to people who refuse to submit to my will. 

All in all, I think that I am closer to libertarianism than the others, but I cannot be as close to the anarchist wing of the libertarian party as many are. The proper role of government is to prevent one group from using force (including economic force) to force others to act against their will.

Another downside to Florida

On top of all the high real estate taxes, falling property values, needing a translator to order breakfast at McDonald's, the drugs, the crime, and all of the Yankees coming down here to tell us how to do things, the weather here in the summer is teh suck. It is hot, and dangerously humid. Our low temperatures are limited by the dew point, meaning that since the temperature cannot drop below the dew point (which is around 75DegF), we always start the day at 100% humidity. From there, we reach a high of about 95DegF. Combine that with our dew point, and you have a heat index of about 110DegF.

The problem here is I have no idea how they measure temperature. I am showing a current temperature of 103 DegF, while the official temp according to the weather service is only 91. Using my temperature the heat index calculates out to 119 DegF. The tropical sun beats down without mercy.

Here in Florida, there are 4 seasons:


Hot: March through May
F'ing Hot: June through mid September
Still Hot: Mid September through Mid November
Snow Birds: Mid November through February

What does all of this mean? It means that you can't go outside from mid June to the middle of September without risking your health. It also means a $500 electric bill. (and I only keep the thermostat set at 78.)

The rich

We hear how the richest 10 percent of Americans account for 50% of all income in America. This is a misleading statistic for several reasons. First, this is pretax income. Second, it ignores additional sources of support such as the earned-income tax credit, which is a cash rebate to low-income workers; it ignores Medicaid, housing allowances, food stamps and other federal and local government subsidies to the poor.

In 2006, according to the annual Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, reported purchases by the poorest fifth of American households were more than twice as high as reported incomes. That additional money might represent earnings from unreported employment, illegal activities and unreported financial assistance. A proper measure of well-being is what a person consumes rather than his income. A huge gap has emerged between income and consumption at lower income levels.

From the report: How Poor Are America's Poor? Examining the "Plague" of Poverty in America:

-- 43% of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage and a porch or patio.
-- 80% of poor households have air conditioning.
-- The poorest American has more living space than the average middle class individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens and other cities throughout Europe.
-- 72% of poor households own a car; 31% own two or more cars.
-- 97% of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
-- 78% have a VCR or DVD player
-- 62% have cable or satellite TV reception.
-- 89% own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.
-- a third of poor households have both cellular and landline telephones.

Poor American children actually consume more meat than do higher-income children and have average protein intakes 100 percent above recommended levels. Most poor children today are, in fact, supernourished and grow up to be, on average, one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.

The poor of this country have nothing to complain about. America is the only nation in the world where the poorest ten percent of its citizens hear about an upcoming government handout on cable television through their big screen TV, call their friends on their cell phones, and then they drive to the government office to complain that they are poor and are not getting enough assistance.

The average poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year: That amounts to 16 hours of work per week. If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year-the equivalent of one adult working 40 hours per week throughout the year- nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty. The reason for this is obvious: The government is taking a third of my pay, and more than half of that confiscation is being used for paying people to not work.

Wlater E Williams, the smartest man I know of

Is breaking out the smart:

At present, federal revenue is fully consumed by three programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans -- the whole rest of the discretionary budget is being financed by China and other countries.

Consider an elderly widow, say 70 years old, with a modest retirement income of $18,000 living in a $300,000 house that's fully paid for. She might receive local property tax forgiveness, medical and prescription drug subsidies and other federal, state and local subsidies based upon her age and income.

When subsidies are provided for this lady, whom are we truly benefiting? It's not the lady but her heirs. Conceivably, the lady could make a deal with a financial institution to pay her property taxes, allow her to live in the house for the rest of her life and give her a lump sum cash settlement so that she can live without the handouts. Upon her death, the house becomes the property of the financial institution, not her heirs. Giving the widow handouts allows her to bequeath to her heirs her assets, a $300,000 house. If her children want to inherit the house, they, rather than taxpayers, ought to take care of their mother.

Read the whole thing.

Fight for your life, in EMS?

During my last shift, I responded to an "Unknown Medical." As we arrived, dispatch told us that the caller thought there was something wrong with her son, and he was hallucinating. When I opened the door, I saw a teen male who was covered in sweat and acting quite twitchy. Mom states that she took him in for his methadone injection, that they gave him 25 mg, and that he started acting funny about a half hour before, she also says that he has been with her all day and he has not had any other drugs. As she was explaining this, the teen kicked me in the balls, then the fight started.

Any fight that begins with a kick to the balls is going to get nasty. My first hit was a hammer fist to his brachial plexus. He didn't even flinch. He hit me several more times, and kicked my knee fairly hard. I followed with hits to his abdomen, kidneys, and a hard punch to the throat. Then I closed the distance, managed to get a grip on his arm, and got him in a headlock. Since I outweighed him by about 100 pounds, I took us to the ground. My partner (remember Paramedic George?) then decided to join the pile. My attacker decided it was time to start biting, and threw an elbow into my stomach. I had had enough, and I really felt that I was in danger. I grabbed him by the trachea and choked off his air supply until he stopped fighting, then I let go.

The two minutes it took the first cop to get there seemed like forever. We handcuffed him to the stretcher. He still began to fight, and bent the rails of the stretcher. He stuck his hand down his pants and started masturbating in front of the female medic that came in on the second EMS unit. She reached out to stop him, and he grabbed her arm. I pushed very hard on his parotid gland and he let go. He fought us nearly the entire way to the hospital, until the drugs finally kicked in. It took 10mg of Haldol and 5mg of diazepam to calm him down. His heart rate was 190, he was too combative for us to get a BP, RR 40.

His tox screen showed cocaine, methamphetamine, the diazepam, and the methadone. The cops asked if I wanted to press charges, but I didn't bother. The four times that I have pressed charges, the actors got probation and a fine. Besides, I know he is hurting at least as bad as I am at this point. My back, left knee, my balls, and elbows are pretty sore. I have been physically attacked more times than I can count during my career.

This illustrates a growing problem in EMS: 52% of all EMS responders report having been attacked on the job. According to the University of Maryland, the risk of nonfatal assault resulting in lost work time among EMS workers is 57 cases per 10,000 workers per year. The national average is about 1.8 cases per 10,000 workers per year. So the relative risk for EMS workers is about 30 times higher than the national average. This isn't just EMS getting hurt: in 1999, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that 2,637 nonfatal assaults occurred to hospital workers--a rate of 8.3 assaults per 10,000 workers. Healthcare providers are twice as likely, and EMS workers 15 times as likely to be assaulted on the job than police officers or prison guards.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has identified violence in the medical setting as a potential hazard, and found the training of medical staff to identify and deal with potential violence ineffective. It is the the third leading cause of on the job injuries in EMS (only lifting patients and vehicle collisions injure more EMS workers) and the second leading cause of on the job fatalities (behind vehicle accidents), yet the only training we get is "don't enter the scene unless it is safe." This approach is obviously not working. There remains a reluctance on the part of EMS agencies and hospital administrators to provide training to effectively address workplace violence. Some may not recognize the extent of the problem, and thus don't perceive the need for training personnel in basic defensive measures, while others erroneously perceive using defensive tactics as fighting, or a form of aggression.

My employer has no official position on self defense. Does yours?

Anniversary of the bomb, part 2

On this date 65 years ago, the Mayor of Nagasaki placed himself in the history books by calling the Mayor of Hiroshima and exclaiming: "Did you see that shit? What the hell was that?"

For those apologists that think we should apologize for dropping the bomb, I remind you that the empire of Japan was a savage, warmongering people, whose soldiers killed 200,000 people and raped over 20,000 women and young girls during the winter of 1937-1938  in "The rape of Nanking". Japan was hardly an innocent victim.
 

Why I can't be a conservative

The New Beginnings Ministries church in Warsaw, Ohio has taken up the cause of harassing and protesting a local strip club. Click here to watch the video.

The strippers have responded by protesting and harassing the church goers.

What an asshole. That preacher needs to mind his own business. This is the key reason why I tune out conservatives every time they mention religion or the bible during a political debate. I don't believe what you believe, I just want to be left alone, you hypocritical piece of crap.

I like looking at naked women, I like having an occasional drink, and I don't care what you think about it.

Late to the party

I know I am late to the party with this, but it sure is funny.

So much for being the smartest President ever, eh?

Taxes

In 2008, the best year that my wife and I have ever had financially, broke down like this:

We made a combined $106,743. To make this money, we both had jobs AND we ran our business.
We paid $6,932 in Social Security
We paid $1,621 in Medicare
We paid $12,506 in income tax
We paid $2,639 in property taxes
We paid $2,884 in Sales Taxes
The total of the above is  $26,582, and doesn't include hidden taxes like 46 cents in taxes on each gallon of gasoline, and other taxes like cell phone taxes, fees, the matching half of our Social Security and Medicare taxes that are paid by our employer on our behalf, and other hidden costs. These direct taxes comprise 25% of our labor for the year.

Someone explain to me how forcing me to spend a quarter of my year working for others differs from forcing me to work as a slave for 10 of my 40 productive years.

Another Islamic attack

The recent shootings in Connecticut were carried out by a man who called himself Thornton Omar Sharriff. You won't see the press spending much time mentioning the fact that he was a Muslim.

Scene safety and psychotics

Last night, there was a patient who called 911 and told dispatch that he thought someone had poisoned his drink. Now we get people who are mildly paranoid pretty frequently, but this one was different. The transport medic on this run thinks he has ten years experience. He has been on the job for two and a half years, but actually has one year of experience that he repeats over and over, because he learns nothing. Paramedic George has been precepted three times.

There was a couple on scene who told us that our 20 year old patient had a history of psychosis, had not taken his meds in weeks, and was on this night convinced that his parents were working with a demon to try and poison him. When I joined paramedic George in the back of the rig, the patient was already showing signs of aggression: he was trying to stare each of us down. Domination games. His thoughts are rambling between asking where his parents are, to making statements about how we are all doomed because Satan is coming.

By the time we get to the hospital, his statements have evolved to saying things like, "You are going to beat me up, aren't you? You know you want to. WE both know where this is headed, so lets just get it over with."

By then, there are 8 of us there, including the hospital staff. I look over at George, and he is standing in front of the patient, within arms reach, and is stretching and yawning with a full on, open mouthed, eyes closed yawn. The patient bowed up to fight, and an ER medic and myself jumped him before he could move. We wound up holding the patient down for some Haldol and some leather restraints.

Some people just never learn.