Where the State affirms the contract, e.g., Justice of the Peace or Judge, it should be blind to the terms, where a private party (e.g., clergy) does the affirmation, they should be allowed to follow their conscience or the doctrine of their faith. Where’s the problem here?

From a comment to an article discussing Rand Paul on gay marriage. This statement does a pretty good job of summing up my position on the issue.

Oh, yeah. By the way, I’m not dead yet.

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…should do this.

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As in, “the police officer negligently shot himself in the stomach in an elevator, while endangering his wife by fumbling with a loaded gun while his hands were full.”

Like Tam says, “stop touching it!”

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What else can you call it when he appoints a lawyer as the Czar in charge of responding to a possible outbreak of a deadly disease?

Ron Klain, an attorney who worked for Vice Presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore, is president of Case Holdings, which handles business interests for former AOL CEO Steve Case, and general counsel at Revolution LLC, a tech-focused venture capital firm in Washington, according to the White House.

A lawyer, in charge of a medical crisis. What could possibly go wrong?

What are his qualifications?

Although Mr. Klain does not come from the public health sector, the White House said he possesses “strong management credentials, extensive federal government experience overseeing complex operations and good working relationships with leading members of Congress, as well as senior Obama administration officials, including the president.”

Okay. No medical or public health experience whatsoever. So what are his qualifications?

Well, according to Wikipedia, he “was involved in both of Bill Clinton‘s campaigns, oversaw Clinton’s judicial nominations, and was General Counsel to Al Gore’s recount committee in the 2000 election aftermath.” He has served as Chief of Staff under former Vice President Al Gore and current Vice President Joe Biden. He was “heavily involved behind the scenes in John Kerry‘s campaign”. He “apparently signed off on President Obama’s support of a $535 million loan guarantee for now-defunct solar-panel company Solyndra.”

In other words, he’s been a loyal Party hack supporter and lobbyist for a long time, and this position of status and power is his reward.

Never mind the lives at stake, we have to reward Our Glorious Leader’s supporters! SMH.

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[Source: Washington Times article, retrieved 10/16/2014]

[Source: Wikipedia entry for Ron Klain, retrieved 10/16/2014]

If you clicked through the product links in my last post, you may have noticed that they went to something called “AmazonSmile”, instead of just plain Amazon. But what is AmazonSmile? It’s pretty much just Amazon – in fact, it is Amazon – but when you buy through Smile, a portion of the purchase price is donated to the charity of your choice.

When you shop at smile.amazon.com, you’ll find the exact same low prices, vast selection and convenient shopping experience as Amazon.com, with the added bonus that Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price to your favorite charitable organization. You can choose from nearly one million organizations to support.

You log in to Smile with your same Amazon account, and the first time you log in you are prompted to choose an organization. You can change which organization gets the donation at any time. I have my account set up to donate to my local Rescue Squad (the same one I’m a member of, actually).

I have compared between Smile and regular Amazon, and the prices I’ve checked are the same. They’re donating part of their profits (albeit a small part), not tacking on an extra charge. It seems well worth it, to me!

I encourage everyone who uses Amazon to at least consider AmazonSmile. It looks like a good setup.

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After reading Tam’s post on adding stuff to her first aid kits the other day, and seeing some offerings on Amazon, I decided (after looking at the checkbook and doing some math) that it was time to finally upgrade my current kit.

What was wrong with my old kit, you ask? Well, that requires a short history lesson. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a member of my town’s Rescue Squad. Back in the late ’90’s, we started up a bicycle EMS team for special events (mainly university football games). For that first year, while it was still being run on a trial basis, we were responsible for providing our own bicycles and our own bags for gear. Since our response area during football games included the dorms and other campus buildings, we had to be able to take our gear with us while leaving the bikes outside, so most of us used some form of fanny-pack. What I ended up getting was this:

Am I going fishing, or rescuing someone?

That is actually a fishing pack that I picked up at Wally-World. Cheap, portable, and the extra belt pockets allowed a little more organization than most fanny-packs that were available at the time. But it’s also bulky, the main compartment has no internal organization, and it’s neither marked as a first aid kit nor is it a conspicuous color.

It worked, and it has worked as my in-car kit for over a decade, but it’s far from ideal. Last week, the stars aligned and I ordered this bag as a replacement.

It’s designed from the ground up as a medical kit, has multiple internal pockets and loops for better organization, is a conspicuous color (“Rescue Red”) and can be easily marked as a medkit with a Velcro patch. It is a little smaller, with less internal volume, but I also planned on thinning out my inventory a bit, since it’s main purpose is now as an off-duty personal kit.

So, on to the RFAK (Responder First Aid Kit) building! (Below the fold, since there are several pictures to load.)

Read the full post »

Wow, it’s, uh, been a while, hasn’t it? Well, in the immortal words of Granny Weatherwax, “I aten’t ded.” Sorry about the long silence.

Anyway, I’m actually working on a new post. It should be up in the next day or so.