About Facebook jail

One of the businesses that I own is a paying advertiser on Facebook. In order to manage my PAID advertising, I need access to my Facebook accounts. I was released from Facebook jail for exactly one day, and then received a SECOND ban, this one for 30 days. This is unacceptable. I know that a large company like that doesn't care about me and my small company, but effective immediately, I am cutting all ties between my business and Facebook. Not one more dime. 

Unrealistic expectations, not racism

There is a story in Central Florida news media about a man who studied "hospitality management" in college and is complaining that he cannot get a job that pays him what he wants to be paid. I used to interview candidates and was responsible for hiring people, so I want to try and figure out why he can';t get a "career." Let's start by taking a look at his qualifications:

First, his resume (pdf warning) and cover letter (pdf warning) have multiple grammatical and spelling errors.
Education:
He has a two year degree in hospitality management that he earned 18 years ago. Two year hospitality degrees are a dime a dozen in hospitality focused Central Florida. The college that he went to is out of business, so no way to confirm his degree or education.

Let's see what his experience looks like:

He mentions being in JROTC and says that he dedicated 3 years of his life to the "core." JROTC is a high school program, and it is spelled "corps," not "core." I wouldn't mention this any more than I would mention being in the high school chess club.

While earning that two year degree, he worked as a cook and waiter at an assisted living facility.

After graduation, he claims to have taken over as the "supervisor" of Yvonne's Southern Cuisine for the next four years. That restaurant had poor Yelp reviews before it went out of business ten years ago.

That's it for hospitality management. He then went on to be a driver for a trucking company that owns exactly one truck. He worked there until the place went out of business. Maybe he was the owner?

In fact, he worked at five different companies in less than three years and claimed to have supervisory duties at three of them.

This guy can't get a "good job" that pays more than $10 because he has no real education, certifications, or experience. The fact that there is no record at all of the real estate company he claims was his employer for the past two years, and the three jobs he had before that lasted only a couple of months each makes him look like a poor employee.

His resume just doesn't make me want to hire him for anything other than an entry level position. He needs to be more realistic. The comments on that article claim that his inability to get a job is because people are racist.

Only One

Cop has a Negligent Discharge, blows a hole into his neighbor's apartment.

Facebook jail is getting ridiculous.

I was just thrown in Facebook jail for this picture that I posted last April:

A friend and I got shot today

An old Navy buddy of mine sent me an email today about an incident that happened at the range where he lives in Michigan. He was on the firing line when he felt a burning pain in his shin. He looked down, and pulled this out of the fabric of his blue jeans:

I was at the range and there was a couple shooting in the next lane over. They obviously were inexperienced shooters and didn't know what they were doing. I felt an impact to my face and the RSO called a cease fire. It appears that they had an ND and shot the divider between lanes. The bullet fragmented at a piece of it hit my safety glasses. The RSO made everyone was OK, and the new shooters were only allowed to continue after a second RSO was called over to personally supervise them.

Is HIV deadly force?

If a person tells you that they have HIV while they are trying to bite you a lethal threat?

The standard is a five part test, according to self defense attorney Andrew Branca:
- The person claiming self defense (you) must be innocent (didn't start the fight)
- You must have tried to avoid the fight
-  The lethal threat must be imminent
- Your use of force must be proportional

I really don't want to turn this into a discussion about the first four points. The one I want to focus on is the point that makes this situation unique: the last one. If a person is attempting to bite you while claiming to have a deadly disease presenting a lethal threat? Would using lethal force against such a person be proportional? In other words, if a person is threatening to give you AIDS by biting you, would shooting them be legally defensible?

What say ye?

They learned nothing

Yesterday, a 17 year old central Florida high school student was caught with marijuana and a loaded handgun while attending a sporting event at a high school soccer game. It was an away game, so it wasn't at his school, but rather an away game at a nearby school.

It is a Federal felony for anyone to have a firearm within a school zone unless they fall under a number of exceptions, none of which applied here.
It is a third degree felony in the state of Florida for anyone without a CWP to have a firearm on school grounds.
It is a third degree felony to carry a concealed firearm without a CWP.
It is a felony to possess marijuana on school grounds.

So was the student arrested? No. In fact, the incident occurred before 10 p.m. and the teen was at home, sending out posts on social media that same night. 
Was he suspended? Not as of today.

Schools lose funding if there are too many suspensions and arrests in a school district. Schools, not wanting to lose that sweet, sweet funding, often overlook criminal behavior so that their statistics look good. I am sure that we all remember this was why the Parkland shooter and Travon Martin never got in trouble before they progressed to big boy crimes.

It appears like our schools have learned nothing from the MSD shooting.

Not gun death

This guy here murdered his wife, three kids, and the family dog. He didn't use a gun, so their deaths are not "gun death" so they don't count, as far as the left is concerned.

Microdot

As I said in my previous post, I am in the middle of trying to convert to using a microdot sight for my EDC. The sight is a Holosun 507c. I mounted it on top of my Smith and Wesson M&P9c using a Trijicon RMR mount that fits in the rear sight dovetail. Installing it was difficult because I could't press it using my sight tool.

Right now things are going well, but I am having a couple of issues. First, the good news. Here is 15 rounds at 15 yards on a B29 target:

I did that while firing about two shots per second, but I am guessing at the time. That brings me to my first problem: No timer yet. but I am waiting on the delivery of a MantisX.

My second issue is that the time from draw to first shot seems slow. This is caused by having to hunt for the reticle. Once I find the reticle, followup shots are fast and easy. What I think is happening is that I have to stop indexing the pistol as if I was looking for my front sight. It feels like the pistol is pointing too low when I initially present to the target. I think dry fire will fix that.

Still, I absolutely love this sight. It feels like I am faster and more accurate. The answer to my first problem is a timer and the answer to my second problem is practice.

Puerto Rico corruption

Do you remember how much criticism President Trump got from the media when he blamed Puerto Rico's politicians for stealing aid meant for Hurricane Maria victims? It turns out he was right.

Minimum wage increase on the November ballot

This attorney is either lying, knows nothing about business, or is smoking the weed that his father is peddling.

The vast majority of business owners are not the mega rich, and they don't have the profit margins to pay for increasing the minimum wage from $8.60 to $15 an hour. The profits earned from the money invested in a business amount to less than a 7% return on investment. A 74% increase in the cost of labor means that the ROI goes down to 2% or even less. A business owner needs to find ways to make up the shortfall, or else he might as well put his investment in a high yield CD for far less work and risk.

A business owner has two choices: raise prices, or cut costs. A business can only increase prices so far before customers decide that they can do without that burger or that scoop of ice cream. The next step is to automate as many jobs out of existence as possible. This is why Amazon is killing the retail industry. This is why McDonald's is installing ordering kiosks to reduce the number of employees needed to run the place.

The Democrats keep putting things on the ballot that they know will encourage likely voters to show up at the polls. In 2016, it was medical marijuana. They are already saying that in 2024 it will be recreational marijuana.

Advice needed

I need some advice on purchasing a shot timer. I have specific needs, so I am looking for help.

I used to compete in IDPA. I stopped because it was too artificial and too much of a game. I just wanted to shoot in a dynamic environment to improve my skills. I have a shot timer that I once used to practice, but it is not working for what I need.

I shoot at an indoor range that has 4 shooting rooms with 10 lanes each: 2 rooms that are 15 yards long, a 25 yard room, and a 100 yard room that is approved for all calibers up to .50BMG. They also have a virtual range that allows you to run shoot/no shoot scenarios.

I am busy relearning how to handle pistols, because I am learning to use a microdot sight. Yesterday I went to my weekly range session and shot my M&P9c with the microdot with the intention of eventually making it my EDC, once I can get faster. My speed for a 15 shot string seems good, and I was able to put 15 rapid shots inside of the 9 ring of a B29 from 15 yards. I just don't know how fast I was, because my timer keeps picking up the shots of shooters in adjacent lanes.

I have been dry firing it for weeks, trying to improve the speed of my draw and presentation. I am using a dryfire mag, which allows me to dry fire without racking the slide.

Here is where the advice comes in:
The timer I want MUST be able to track MY shots and not the ones from adjacent lanes.
It would be nice if it could also track my time of my draw.

Any ideas?

Medicare fraud

I have hesitated for awhile to talk about how I left my career as a Paramedic and became a teacher. A recent story that has made the news in Central Florida has convinced me that it is time. A man from Connecticut who was being investigated for Medicare fraud decided to try to kill himself and his entire family here in Central Florida during the holidays. He only did the job halfway, killing his wife, three kids, and the family dog. After a few weeks, the Feds showed up to arrest him and found the bodies.

That brings me to my own story. I had retired from the fire department and was working as a Paramedic performing critical care transports for a Medicare contractor. I was supposed to be transporting only the very sickest people. Instead, I was mostly transporting people who were either not sick, or who could have been well, but there was too much money to be made in keeping them sick.

We were lying about the services we were performing, and I refused to play along. There were other patients who were sick, and we were purposely keeping them sick so we could make more money. One patient was supposed to be receiving physical therapy so he could learn to walk again. The only problem is that, once he could walk without assistance, we would no longer get paid for him. So they made sure that he never managed to walk far enough to be cured.

We used forged paperwork. We got doctors to sign blank orders that we later filled in as needed. My coworkers and I were expected to invent the paperwork to make it all billable. My employer wasn't alone. Most of the people I know in the health field are expected to do at least a little of this.

I refused to lie on my medical reports, and my bosses hated it. There was no way that I was going to help those people victimize my patients so they could make themselves rich doing it. I sure wasn't going to lie and risk my license and my freedom to make someone else a millionaire.

Six months after I began working there, I was approached by investigators. I told them everything that I had seen and agreed to cooperate. At their request, I began saving and forwarding documentation to investigators. The company found out and terminated me. I was blackballed from the medical field and my name was mud. I had to change careers and became a teacher.

 Over the course of the following six years, I was interviewed by the FBI multiple times. I had to hire a pair of attorneys, because you don't get interviewed by the FBI unless your attorney is there. A couple of the interviews included the Assistant US attorney. Five years after I was initially contacted, the Feds showed up at my former employers' offices with a search warrant and some subpoenas and began interviewing my former coworkers.

The investigation could only go back 5 years, and even with that my former employer was suspected of receiving nearly $80 million in fraudulently obtained Medicare money. My opinion is that it was even more than that. One company in ten years stole almost $80 million.

The employer worked a settlement with the Feds. No criminal charges, and they had to reimburse Medicare for less than $6 million of what they were accused of stealing and had to sign a paper promising not to do it again. I was declared to be the whistleblower, and my cut as reward money was just under $1.2 million. My legal bills ate up nearly half a million of that. The IRS got $250K. I lost the career that I had done for most of my adult life in exchange for $500K.

So after nearly a decade of investigation by half a dozen agents, attorneys, and contractors, and the government recouped less than $5 million of the over $80 million that was stolen, no one went to jail, and the company got to keep roughly $70 million of their ill gotten proceeds and no one can charge them with any fraud for anything that happened before 2015. I heard that the CEO got a bonus.

The only loser here was the US taxpayer. This is why Medicare for all won't work. There is so much fraud, so much profit, and so little oversight, that most health care providers are busy stealing the government blind.

As for me, some of my old friends and coworkers have called me a snitch. I am still blackballed from the medical field. I did what I thought was right. I was not about to let them victimize people to become rich. What is right is right. What is wrong is wrong. So, to paraphrase those stupid kneelers: Sometimes you have to do what is right, even if it means losing everything.

Oops, I thought I linked it.

In reference to my last post, here is the link to Kim. I stand behind what I said:

 Kim DuToit apparently thinks that it is OK for teachers to gang rape kids, as long as the teacher is someone that he personally finds attractive. I am not impressed.

ANY adult that wants to have sex with kids is a child raping pedophile child molester. I don't care how hot other adults think that those teachers happen to be, children cannot consent to sex. My guess is that Kim wouldn't be getting his rocks off over this story if the teachers involved were men. 

I just can't

So Kim DuToit apparently thinks that it is OK for teachers to gang rape kids, as long as the teacher is someone that he personally finds attractive. I am not impressed.

ANY adult that wants to have sex with kids is a child raping pedophile child molester. I don't care how hot other adults think that those teachers happen to be, children cannot consent to sex. My guess is that Kim wouldn't be getting his rocks off over this story if the teachers involved were men. 

Property crimes

People are all up in arms that the police in California are no longer investigating property crimes. That's nothing new.

In the year 2000 my car was burglarized. The police knew who did it. They got his identity from the fingerprints. They told me that he would not likely face charges, because the police department did not have the resources to deal with "minor" crimes like auto burglary.

In the year 2005, someone stole a check from my mailbox, forged my signature on it, and deposited it into their checking account. I got a copy of the check, and sure enough, there was the name, account number, and signature of the miscreant. The police again told me that they didn't have the resources to pursue the criminal.

On the way home, I passed 5 cops writing traffic tickets. The priority of the police has been about money for years. 

TSA incompetence

Every time I complain about the intrusiveness of the searches at the airport, someone always says some version of "Well, it is worth it to keep us safe." As an answer to that I point out that, even though I have to face the indignity of removing my belt every time I have to fly, the TSA still misses fairly basic things all of the time.

Case in point: a minor with autism manages to clear TSA using a drink coupon as identification to pass through the TSA precheck line.

This was just four months after another woman managed the same thing at the same airport.

 If security is this lax, how many security holes are there, waiting to be exploited by professionals?

Sting of the Scorpion

I was looking for a small, easily maneuvered, pistol caliber carbine. I looked at AR platforms, as well as offerings from several manufacturers, and I just couldn't find anything suitable. Until, that is, I saw a CZ scorpion. Being the same length as an AR, the carbine was longer than I wanted. The pistol version was exactly what I was looking for. Many of them were not any more compact than a rifle caliber carbine. If you’re going to carry a firearm the size of a rifle carbine, you might as well carry a rifle carbine and get the improvement in power, range, and accuracy.

 I plunked down $850 and bought one. It came with a pair of 20 round magazines and two 30 round magazines. The pistol has a 7.25 inch barrel, and the end of it has a flash suppressor threaded onto the barrel. The weapon also has picatinny rails and iron sights, as well as provisions for a single point sling. Removing the flash suppressor reveals a second set of threads that fit my Tundra suppressor.

The charging handle is non-reciprocating and has a handy slot to lock the bolt open. You can give it the old H&K slap to put the weapon in battery, while getting that satisfying 80's action movie sound. (OK, just kidding about that last part)  The charging handle on mine is on the left side of the weapon, so it can easily be operated with the left hand, but it is easily changed to the other side in the event you are a left handed shooter.

 The magazine release is mounted on the front of the trigger guard, and is easy to reach and operate with the trigger finger. The safety is mounted on both sides of the pistol just above the grip.

Magazines are an opaque polymer, and there are generic as well as factory versions. Handling the pistol right out of the box,

I only had two complaints: the pistol is too bulky to be fired with one hand, and my hand rested right on top of the safety, and caused it to rub the palm of my hand raw when I fired the weapon.

I wanted to put a stock on the pistol to make it easier to handle, but I also didn't want to make an NFA weapon out of it. I found a solution: a pistol stabilizing brace. I bought mine at preppergunshop.com and it came with 4 generic 32 round magazines for $199.99. This allows me to stabilize the pistol for shooting, and doesn't require the year long wait for approval.

 The second problem was solved with the removal of the safety lever on the right side and replacing it with a right side safety delete from HB industries. It was easy to do: just field strip the pistol, remove the right side safety by unscrewing the set screw with a 1.5mm allen wrench, and replace it with the delete.

I took it to the range and put the Scorpion through its paces. It ate anything I fed it without complaint. I fired over 500 rounds through it. It fired subsonic, +P, and standard pressure loads in 115 gr, 147 gr, and 124 gr. I also varied between round nosed lead, FMJ, and JHP. All of them fed and functioned without a single failure. I fired 100 rounds with the suppressor.

I turned on the laser sight I mounted, and put an entire magazine through the center of the target just as fast as I could squeeze the trigger.

Color me surprised

Greta Thornberg is just the front, an empty set of pigtails. Her page is being written by her father and an environmental activist from India. 

Drinking red dot Kool Aid.

A decade or so ago, I paid $400 for an EOTec holographic sight. I encountered all sorts of issues, the worst of which was the life of the batteries. So when I saw an online discussion about the new fad in microdot sights, I was less than enthusiastic.

I expressed the opinion that depending on the life of your batteries was a bad idea in a defensive firearm, and I also said that I don't carry pistols that require more input than simply obtaining a sight picture and pressing the trigger. I don't want to do more than absolutely necessary when my life is counting on putting lead on target. The contributors to that discussion told me how wrong and outdated I was, so I decided to take the plunge.

I bought a Holosun 507c sight for my M&P 9C from Amazon for $229. The Holosun has the same mounting as the Trijicon RMR, so I was faced with two options: I could have my slide machined, or I could get a mounting plate. With that being said, I just didn't feel like sending my slide off for several weeks, so I just bought a mounting plate.

Installing:

I bought a mounting plate for $20 and it didn't have the proper mounting pattern, despite the fact that the online description said it did. I bought a second plate from Trijicon which cost $90. The directions said that you just pressed it into the dovetail for the rear sight. That was easier said than done. The plate was too wide to fit into my Smith and Wesson sight tool, so it was a bit of a chore. After some filing of the plate with a hand file, and struggling with my press, I finally resorted to a non-marring punch and a BFH (Big Freaking Hammer). The end result was a bit of marring, and a plate that will likely never come off again.

Shooting:

I took the pistol to the range and had the sight adjusted in less than 10 rounds. I noticed that I was a bit slower getting my first round out because when I first present the pistol, I am trying to line it up with sights instead of the red dot. I think that I can correct that with some dry fire practice. Once you locate that dot, it is easier to follow it than the front sight. What this means is that I was much faster with my follow up shots than I usually am.

The Holosun has selectable reticles: a circle, a dot, or a dot within a circle. The circle allows for much faster shooting over the dot, at the expense of fine accuracy. At 15 yards, all you have to do is put the circle on the target and press the trigger. I am going to work with this one a while, but I think I like it. 

Hospital Transparency

US hospitals and drug companies are claiming that a Trump regulation demanding transparency in pricing is violating their right to free speech. The rule demands that health and pharmaceutical companies disclose pricing of their services as well as the discounts that they negotiate with trade groups and insurance companies, and they don't want to do so.

Let me explain:
I went to the emergency room about ten years ago because I woke up with my heart racing along at 140 beats per minute. An EKG showed an abnormal heart rhythm called Afib. I was far too young for that, so I was admitted to the hospital. They attempted several doses of medicine to no effect. After an hour or so, while the hospital was running tests, the problem resolved by itself, They hospital held me overnight, and then I was discharged.

A week later, the bill came in the mail: it was over $13,000. I went in to talk to the hospital's billing department to give them my insurance information. They gave me a revised bill that reflected the "negotiated discount pricing" from the insurance company. The new bill was $1,100, with $500 of that being my copay and the insurance company paying the other $600.

How can a negotiated discount be over 90% off the full price? Since the hospital is willing to accept that low of a price, it seems to indicate that they can make money at that price, so what is the deal? My opinion is that the insurance companies need prices for uninsured people to be scary high, so that people all clamor for insurance. I could see a discount of 10, 20, or even 30% off, but more than 90% as a discount seems to be some kind of scam.

This is why the companies hate this rule demanding transparency, because that practice would have to come to an end, once people realized they are being duped. Disclosing prices and discounts would be a great way to allow consumers to decide for themselves whether or not to patronize a business. Can you imagine any other business where the prices are not disclosed to the consumer until after purchase?

Bring free market pricing back to health care. Let consumers know the price beforehand, and watch medical pricing become more affordable.

Humor

Reasoned Discourse

I spent a good ten minutes formulating my points opposing another's opinion on gun control. This was what I got in return:

Fuck it. I've done my research and have been immersed in all this mess the last couple of days and just all of a sudden, I don't care about making my point or hearing any more of yours.
Corvus oculum corvi non eruit, right? Have a good life.

I especially love the condescending use of a Latin non-sequitur (see what I did there?) at the end.

Conspiracies

Referencing my last post: I used to laugh at people who believed in conspiracy theories with regards to the government staging or encouraging mass shootings in order to enact more gun control. I was even willing to believe incompetence was the cause of "Fast and Furious." However, start looking at the incompetence involved: 

1. We know that the Feds were deliberately supplying criminals with guns

2. It seems that shootings always seem to happen at the most convenient (for Democrats) times. 

How many times can this be a coincidence? Or is this entire thing caused by the press hyping shootings that fit the narrative, and ignoring ones that don't? 

They may not be staged, but there are enough odd coincidences that I don't laugh anymore.

Felons, shotguns, Texas, and sanctuary

The recent church shooting has everyone fortifying their positions on gun control. The would be mass murderer used a shotgun, despite the fact that he was apparently a prohibited person. However, there is a monkey wrench in that theory.

Under Texas law, a convicted felon may possess a firearm in the residence in which he lives, once five years have elapsed from the date his sentence was discharged. What this means is that, while he may not have been able to buy a firearm from a dealer (who would have had to follow 18 USC 922) there is no problem with him having a shotgun in his home.

Now suspicious me seems to notice that every time the gun control debate heats up, there is a mass shooting that seems to happen at the most opportune (for the Democrat gun banners) time. I am going to predict that this shooting, had Wilson not shot the bad guy in the face, would have been the poster child for nationwide UBC.

Virginia, Texas, and whichever state is convenient for the next time, are being used to push the narrative.

Shopping spree (I couldn't resist)

I woke up this morning to find an email in my inbox from Shooters' World:

I couldn't resist. I snagged an M&P Shield 380 for only $240. I got another handgun (a .45 ACP that isn't a 1911) and a BUNCH of ammo. A case of 1,000 rounds of Winchester 9mm FMJ for $150? Yes, please.

I drooled over a Trijicon ACOG that was selling for $600. The only reason I didn't grab it was that it didn't have the reticle that I wanted.

College = time and tax money wasted

Reading about this interview between Crowder and this professor, the biggest problem that I have is that major universities have professors of hip hop. Yes, even Harvard. If you are majoring in hip hop, you are wasting your time and your money. (Hint: Dr Dre isn't a real doctor.)

The saddest part of all of this is that most of those who would major in rap music are doing so using taxpayer funds in the form of Pell grants. You and I are paying our taxes so that some aspiring rapper can hand $150 to $500 per credit hour over to this guy. Once they get their degree, the graduate has spent tens or even hundreds of thousands of tax dollars and are now just as qualified for employment as they were before they started college.