I Hate That Stuff

Our thoughts, prayers, and sincerest sympathies are with the residents in and around Anchorage at the moment.
A 7.0 earthquake ain't no kind of fun; BTDT-GTTS.
But the day after mine hit me, it was 67°, not 27°  like it is in Anchorage today.
That's going to make a huge difference on what happens to people next.
Hang tough, Sourdoughs.

And to think we spent last night binge watching Coast Guard Alaska...

Justice!

h/t Weasel Zippers

Usually, this kind of Stolen Valor douchebaggery makes me want to see these guys punched in the mouth. I'll settle for him getting a stretch in the state pokey.

(MSN) Cary Haerlin, 56, certainly looked the part in his decorated dress blues uniform each year at the Marine Corps League Ball and various conventions.But detectives say he got his medals online, and his influential position as a judge advocate in the Marine Corps League by forgery.

“I received information from another Marine Corps League member who was onto his hoax and didn't think everything was truthful,” said St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Detective Matthew Brewster.

Brewster, himself a Marine, requested Haerlin’s official discharge document.
Brewster said it shows Haerlin was a refrigeration mechanic who was discharged in 2000 as a private first class under conditions "other than honorable.” The reason was listed as drug abuse.  

But Brewster said Haerlin forged a copy of the document to indicate that he was a machine gunnery corporal, who served in combat overseas and received a slew of honors and citations.

“I couldn't believe it - I was kind of hoping something was truthful to it, but nothing was true, even down to his basic rifle and pistol badge, that was false as well,” Brewster said.
He added that Haerlin used the forged document to secure a local position in the Marine Corps League, a national veterans group, in 2008.
His position as judge advocate meant he helped decide bylaws and other rules for the group.
He also traveled each year to League events, and was able to get reimbursed for that travel. According to the arrest document, Haerlin took almost $3,000 in reimbursement money – the reason for the charge of grand theft.
“I know he stayed in some nice hotels,” Brewster said.
Haerlin at first denied the forgery when finally interviewed by detectives, Brewster said. It was only when Brewster told him he was also a Marine, and he should have some honor and come clean, that he said Haerlin admitted it.
“He would only give a one word reason why he did it – ‘stupidity,'” Brewster said.

I have to think the guy had attained some higher rank than PFC in 2000 - when he was 38 years old. That has to be his adjusted rank after a court martial and separation. But if not, what a sad sack to only be lower level enlisted at nearly 40, and then get shitcanned for doing drugs. Some guys are retiring at 38. Recruiters should be saddled with a negative letter for signing up a slug like that if it happens on their first hitch.

But what an enormous skidmark on the world's underpants. Kudos to the FL detective who unsaddled that jackhole.
Hope he enjoys prison. And his new boyfriend. 

Boo Frickin' Hoo Dept. ...

h/t 100% F'ed Up

Couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch of @$$clowns:

According to the Washington Examiner, sales at Dick’s Sporting Goods dropped in the past three months amid backlash against tighter gun-sale restrictions following a mass killing early this year at a Florida high school. Revenue dipped 4.5 percent to $1.86 billion amid challenges in the company’s hunting business during the quarter through Nov. 3. Sales at stores open at least 12 months – a key metric for the retail industry – fell 6.1 percent compared to the prior year.

IOW, that move cost them about $80M in the last 3 months.
The bigger pity is they haven't gone completely bankrupt. Yet.
We'll rethink that position when they lose another 10-20%, fire their CEO, and reverse their anti-gun position. Not before.

Best wishes with the Snowflake demographic, Dicks.

Well, well, lookie here...

h/t A Herd Of Turtles

If this is legit (and there's no reason to suspect otherwise), I point out as a historical note, there's no statute of limitations on getting every act of the ineligible imposter overturned as moot, not least of which because it would immediately open up two Supreme Court vacancies, and gut the federal bench of a lot of recently appointed deadwood, while overturning eight years of legislation, immediately.
(It would also overturn literal acres of any court decisions by those ineligible judges, but things are tough all over, especially when you perpetrate a fraud on an entire nation.) And "Barry" would probably have to flee somewhere for asylum from imprisonment.
Be still, my beating heart.

Moonbat tears would be available by the supertanker, and the howling would rupture dog eardrums on Neptune.

See what happens when you decide someone's "not my president", except you have a Constitutional and legal basis for saying it...?

Enjoy.




#nevergonnahappen

People Are Pigs: Poo Found On Every McDonald's Touchscreen Tested

(BUTTFINGERSHIRE, UK) Traces of feces have been found on every single McDonald’s touchscreen swabbed in an investigation by metro.co.uk. Samples were taken from the new machines that have been rolled out at restaurants across the country – every one of them had coliforms. Senior lecturer in microbiology at London Metropolitan University Dr Paul Matawele said: "We were all surprised how much gut and faecal bacteria there was on the touchscreen machines."

Now for the rest of the story:

Yes, I'm sure they're right.
No, I'm not surprised.
No, you shouldn't be either.

They would get the same result from door handles, shopping carts, carry baskets, rails, and anything else open to the public that people touch routinely.

Everywhere.
In 175 countries.
And in your town.

So wash your paws before you eat your food.
It's cold virus and flu season: you should be doing that anyways.

In short, this is gross, and it requires action, but it's action you should be doing 24/7/365 when out and about in the first place.

It's definitely not anything like news.

FFS, we did this as a microbiology lab experiment 30 years ago, and we grew potato farms of funky lifeforms you wouldn't have believed, off of everything known to man.
Turn 35 microbio students loose with touch loupes, Bic lighters, and a stack of petri dishes, and tell them to test everything they can think of, and see what happens.

The only thing I can think of worse than a touch screen menu ordering device at Mickey D's would be doing the same thing at Mickey Mouse's home base, just down the road.

You could probably grow three-headed snails that'd eat Manhattan off the handrails and safety bars there, even if they dipped the whole park in bleach every night after closing, and then steam-cleaned everything within ten feet of reach for human beings.

You want to do a public service, test the food, and test the hands of the workers who prepare the food. Anywhere.
(At which point, a manager would appear and suggest you get the hell off the premises.)

At any rate, spend a little time in the bathroom washing your hands right before you eat.
Or, spend a lot of time in the bathroom anyways, right after you eat.

Your choice.

Nostalgia - Not So Much

h/t Kenny

Over at Knuckledraggin My Life Away, the host posted the above hospital bill, without comment other than the post title "Inflation", from Feb. 1933, which tallies to $120.30, if I didn't muck up the math in my head.

You can read the site comments for the range of replies, but what strikes me most is nostalgia for a time that, frankly, sucked poop, by people who - none of them, to a near certainty - actually lived through it. Someone alive in 1933 would be 85 today. Anyone who remembered it at all would thus be 90+.

So Sherman, let's set the Wayback Machine for 1933, and see what we find about how it really was.

1933 was the height of the Great Depression. The Dustbowl was about to kick in.
Al Capone was a free man. The mobs ran speakeasies.
And you couldn't get a legal drink anywhere in the U.S. in February.
Prohibition wasn't repealed until December that year.

Depression breadline, NYFC. Two blocks long, five guys wide.
Two cops for order, and everybody dressed like gentlemen.

Unemployment was 25%.
(Unless you're from Trashcanistan or Shitholia, you've never seen 25% unemployment nationwide. Pray you never do.) Breadlines and soup kitchens to keep people from starving outright were a daily reality, had been for 3 years, and would be for another 7. Because many lacked the 7¢ necessary to buy a loaf of bread on their own, or the 10¢ price of a can of Campbell's Soup, and didn't have a pot to cook it in.

And that bill? $120.30.
Purely from an inflation standpoint, that would be about $7000 today, if we use gold.
(That's why your current $1 bill is worth about 1.7¢ compared to a buck from 1932.)
If we used gasoline, it'd be 1203 gallons. Which averages to $3600, give or take.
Kind of stiff, actually.
About 6 weeks' salary in 1933.
Or 7 months' average rent, for a two week stay.
1/4 of the price for either an average house, or a new car. 
If you were lucky enough to have a job at all, anywhere in the world. 
And after a decade of battles in the streets in Germany between national socialists and international socialists, including armed coup attempts, the Germans had put Hitler in power. That would pay dividends to the world right up through today.

And this was when a hospital, for the most part, was simply a motel, with round-the-clock maid service. There wasn't a helluva lot of medical practice going on for having a baby at that point in history, in any sense.

Medicine has made just a bit of improvement since 1933. (Starting with the fact that we're not your maid service and room service. There are hotels for that.)

Infant mortality in the U.S. in 1933 was 57.1 (deaths per 1000 live births). One in 20.
Now, it's 5.8. One in 200.

A tent and a wood stove, in the woods? Luxury!  Odds were one of those six kids wouldn't survive to age 18. Like dad and mom, most would be picking crops as soon as they were able. Which somehow got harvested before large-scale machines, and yet without importing 40M freeloading illegal aliens. Amazing.
 

 Flu, TB, and diphtheria were huuuuge killers, worse than cars and guns combined.
Everybody got measles by age 15, and it killed 6000 kids/year, year in and year out, for another thirty years.
Smallpox and polio were still a thing too.
The treatment for extremity infection, unchanged since the Civil War, let alone medieval times, was amputation, made only slightly less horrifying by surgical anesthesia. But as penicillin was only accidentally discovered in 1928, and its medical significance unrecognized for over another decade, it was not even an option in 1933.
Systemic infections, like an ordinary urinary or kidney infection, were another top killer.

Imagine dying from an ordinary UTI as one of top ten killers.
Or paying 1/4th the price of your house to have a baby.

Inflation? Not really.
Nostalgia? For suckers. Things are pretty nice right now, thanks.
Learn to appreciate what you've got.
But if you've still got a hankering for the Great Depression, even odds are you're going to get a first-hand experience one of these days.
Because the world's economies are living on a monstrous bubble.
And bubbles pop. Always.

Best see about a plan for that.

The Butthurt, It Burns

I see we've garnered a response at WRSA from Deninger to what I posted Sunday.
I'm sure he's blogged it himself, but I don't put replies on page A39, or reflex banhammer everyone who disagrees with me, even here, so here you go:

"Well, the amusing part of the “rebuttal” that has been spewed all over DOZENS of websites now (identical text, so can we call it spam?) is that it’s nonsense. Why do I suspect the author is likely someone who could find themselves on the wrong end of things should the government suddenly decide the law matters once again? 

First, the claim that hospitals don’t bill people for their own errors of both execution and judgement? Horsecrap. Illegal, yes, fraud sure, but why does anyone care? They’re sure as hell not afraid of being indicted. Who went to jail for all the fraud prior to the 08 blowup in housing when it all came apart? Nobody. Who has gone to jail for the DAILY violations of 15 USC Chapter 1 which, I remind you, the medscam and insurance firms TWICE went to the USSC claiming exemptions from (under McCarren-Ferguson) and lost BOTH cases? Nobody, ever, period. Those two runs at the USSC happened in the 70s and early 80s and yet here we are nearly FORTY years later and not ONE criminal prosecution under said laws have been brought that I can find a record of. Not ONE. If you think I’m talking out my butt on this or speaking from conjecture you’re wrong — I’ve seen it first-hand in my own family and it nearly killed one of them (she subsequently managed to do herself with booze, but that’s a story for another time.) Fact is they never should have gotten the scalpel out of the cabinet in the first place given the reality of said person’s condition at the time but you can’t bill the government — or the next poor sop who comes through the door on a stretcher — a half-million bucks when things go *predictably* sideways if you say “no.” 

The math IS what it is. Medicare WAS sound from an actuarial point of view with medical care at 4% of GDP. Social Security is NOT going to collapse — unless they keep raiding the OAS fund for the “D” (disability) scammers, but even then it’s reasonably matched given the tax rate charged, the progressive nature of the benefits and the designed buffering to handle the “pig-in-python” issues with periodic baby booms (and busts.) Oh, and the actual drain on the budget in terms of percentage spend by Social Security starts decreasing (since the boomers start dying) in just a few years. Again, not just by my numbers — by the CBOs as well. 

Medicare, on the other hand, last year spent MORE than Social Security but has a tax rate of less than ONE QUARTER that of FICA. If you think that’ll work out…. no it won’t, and you can’t fix it with a tax increase NOW because of the 30+ years of malfeasance. That’s the math. 

The POLITICS side is that there is utterly no reason other than fraud, felony and scam that medical care is nearly 20% of GDP. It *WAS* 4% and must go back there, NOW — or the entire med system as we know it will collapse, likely taking with it federal, state and local budgets. If you think the government can *add* $1.5 trillion a year to the *existing* deficit run rate in 2024 to keep the scam going you’re flatly out of your mind — and that’s the projected requirement. Right here and now, today, it’s $800 billion — each and every year forward 

Exponents are a bitch when you’re on the wrong end of them. 

In the 1990s I started raising hell about this when I was running my Internet company because the trend was clear as was the exponential progression. To the person above who said I predicted the end date was before the end of Trump’s FIRST term, I challenge you to provide the quote. My original projection in the early 1990s was “30 or so years hence” and being off a couple of years on a 30 year timeline is, in my opinion, pretty damn good when you control ZERO of the variables involved. Further, the article in question isn’t citing “my” guesses on dates at this point IT IS CITING THE CMS TRUSTEES DATE OF EXHAUSTION — which just happens to be approximately in the same place (gee, they can do math too?) 

What I *did* say when Trump was elected (and have continued to) was that markets *never* let you actually hit the wall and that the point at which they throw up and force an issue that is apparent and on the horizon cannot be determined in advance. That is why it has to be fixed NOW — because the odds are quite high that indeed it WILL be before the end of Trump’s first term, not on the math but because the markets will call “BS!” on the entire charade and down it will all come on our heads. 

There ARE solutions. My original article linked to this, which provides one workable path forward. Of course nobody wants to debate that because then all the scams disappear. Fancy that. https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231949" - KD

Look Karl, stand up and let the clue here smack you in the head:

Are you right that Medicare et al are going tits up in a few years?
Abso-fucking-lutely, to a metaphysical certainty.
You and 5000 other economists can't all be wrong.

The problem is, you want to save that, because you see that impending smoking hole as a bug.
I see it as a feature.
I argued not so much as a speck against that economic premise.

As I explained at WRSA, my quibble wasn't and isn't with your economic math, but with your gross medical ignorance on things outside your lane.
(You may have noticed I don't offer bona fide and bonded investment advice or hypertechnical economic analysis here, for the same reasons.)

Do hospitals commit fraud? I'm sure sometimes they do.
If they do it to you, sue them. That's what makes a horse race.
The point is that suggesting that they can legally commit fraud is nonsensical in the abstract.
No matter how many people commit murder, it doesn't disprove the point that it's against the law. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that noting something is against the law is the textbook definition of illegal.

The bigger problem is you pointing to imaginary cost savings at surgical centers; having some wee experience in that line, I offered alternative evidence to better judge your counter-factual assertions. You also made recockulous claims that they're more circumspect than hospitals, and tried casting aspersions and some apples-to-pineapples sleight of hand to try to sell that pantload.

Now, I admit, I'm sorry you fucked up that bit of hand-waving, but it's your act, and it's not my fault you couldn't quite pull the rabbit out of the hat.

I'm sorry you have a relative who had a bad medical outcome once; show us on the doll where Big Medicine touched you.

I make no secret of the fact that I make my living within that employment category. (And I've been a patient a time or two myself.)
I don't sell ads or do anything else to suggest any other stream of income.
But having a paltry quarter-century or so of experience at it, and no small amount of horse sense, I don't suffer fools or interlopers gladly. I do treasure them, for the ceaseless bounty they provide me at work, in providing a steady stream of screw-ups that pay my bills, keep a roof over my head, and put food in my refrigerator. But that fiduciary relationship doesn't compromise the medical care I provide, the license I earned to do it, nor require me to patronize and tolerate their bullshit when they think they can tell a one-sided version of "what happened".

In medicalese, we call that a high index of suspicion.
Like cops and lawyers, I assume a non-zero percentage of my clientele routinely lies to me.
Because they do. And because I was born on a Tuesday, but not last Tuesday.

So look mate, you stepped on your dick, because you don't know dick about my biz.
No harm intended in my reply, but that approach on your part isn't going to fly.
Either learn whereof you speak, or skip the parts beyond your ken. And don't get raw with me for pointing out your jangly bits under your cleats. Let alone all but accuse me of criminal conduct because of the industry I work in. That's bush league ad hominem, at the kindest.

You want to save Medicare?
Hey, great. ROWYBS.
Write your congressweasel.
Let me know how that works out for ya. I hear Miss Alzheimer's 2018, Nancy Pelosi, is going to be in charge of that circus next month; that should really help things, doncha think?

Me?
I'm waiting for the crash and explosion to follow.
What cannot continue, won't.
It's going to hurt, but therapeutically, much like surgeons cut you to fix you.
The short answer is, government can't dictate the price of something, whether it's oil, medical care, or Big Macs, without shitting in the well, and screwing things up for everyone.
Evidence for that from my side of the argument is everything they've ever touched, forever.
You think differently? It's a free country. Saddle up, Don Quixote; that windmill isn't going anywhere, and you should catch up to it any second. Show it who's boss.

And if you think a surgical center is a better choice, go there. Best wishes.
Sometimes, maybe even a lot of times, some of them even pull off what they do.
But there are trade-offs involved, as always. And please, don't try to tar hospitals at the same time, or think you can gloss over the cons of one care modality while harping on the ad brochure pros exclusively. It's a wee bit more complicated than that in real life, which is why I have to make sure people understand both sides before gaining their informed consent. Sticking your fingers in your ears may work for your peace of mind, but I chose to let people know the things you don't know you don't know. Sorry if that left a mark. No, really.

But hey, maybe cast about, and seek out some subject-matter expertise and insight, from someone, when you're out of your depth, or writing from personal pain, instead of as a dispassionate scribe. I can get fact-free hacktivist yellow journalism from 5000 newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations; your blog doing that is just the 5001st guy to yell "I am Spartacus!"

Be different: post facts, or at least opinion based on documentable evidence. When you do that, everyone wins. Or so I've been lead to believe.

And my response wasn't "spam".
The word you were grasping for was expertise.
And if my "rebuttal" (which was only aimed at that part of your article, the medical mythos, not the economic part) got posted "dozens" of other places, I'd say, in full self-interested response, that maybe it's because I'm a better proponent of my position than you are of yours.

Or perhaps just better at expressing it. (There's writing software available, man; just saying.)

Either way, you work the financial side of the street, and I'll work the medical side of the street, and both our audiences will be better off when we talk about what we know about.

Because I think we can both agree, I piss more vinegar and crap bigger snark than you do.
I'm not saying it's a superpower, but it is what it is.

You're a big boy. You write your own blog, and post it where literally billions of people can see it. Learn to deal with it if you get off in the weeds. Probably starting with growing skin just a bit thicker.

Best Wishes.

Med Kit Minutiae

Yesterday, courtesy of poster jbryan314, CA at WRSA put up a link to a contents list of a basic first aid kit, posted originally on AmPartisan.
(The original AP post is missing and probably under revision, but should reappear soon, one hopes. Otherwise I'd have Amazoned the entire readily-available contents list myself, but the author promised to do it himself today. The link to the original article is till dead, two days later. -A.)

I had a few comments on it, which CA will probably work into a standalone post there momentarily. Here you go now, with my typos cleaned up. Because I'm happy to turn a post elsewhere into full blog fodder.

"A tad too brief on things, but as purely contents list, a very good overview of the basic requirements. (I mention that because a fuckton of people will think they know what they’re doing just because they collected the stuff, and read this one article.)

And a fully stocked kit is still just an expensive pile of shit if you don’t know WTF you’re doing with any of it.

A kit + adequate training and practice in using it is priceless.
This is the difference between a bell boy and a medic.
The former only carries the bags.
Don’t be a bell boy.

And you can get everything but the Rx items
(IV supplies, iodoform wound packing, syringes, needles, injectable lidocaine) from Amazon, at prices that would shame even Walmart, most days.
You could literally just go item by item on Amazon, and 90% of that kit could be ordered today for probably around $100, bag included, and be at your doorstep Wednesday.

For simple expendables, you should be taking $40 to the 99 Cent Store etc., about once a month, and leaving with a shopping cart full of basic items. They don’t go bad, and should be stocked as deep and wide as you can manage.

I’m still wrapping finger injuries currently with the metric fuckton of 1/2″ roller gauze I scored there in the late 1990s, still pristine white and wrapped in plastic inside the little assortment boxes.

Field tip: everything expendable packed in paper (gauze rolls and pads, bandaids, cotton swabs, etc.) will
a) un-adhese in a hot car over time, blowing your sterility, and
b) ought to be packed in whatever quantity you carry inside multiple ziplok bags from snack to quart size, so that on a rainy day, or if dropped in a puddle or stream, you don’t have a kit full of soggy contaminated mush.
c) bonus tip: sort your supplies into functional groups inside the big bag using the different colored zipper wallets online or hanging on the aisles at WallyMart.
E.g.:
Airway supplies: Blue bag
Bleeding: Red
Hazmat/PPE: Yellow
Tools and Toys: Green
Burn supplies: Orange
Meds: Black
Etc.
Knock yourself out. They come in about 20 colors, and multiple sizes.

You can even make multiple trauma pouches with a TQ, QuickClot, wound seal, an Israeli bandage, a chest seal, and a coupe of pairs of nitrile gloves, and pack up 2-6, all the same color. Grab and go, or hand off to a partner.

Also: It’s your kit. Own it. Get a big fat Sharpie, and mark the outside of those pouches with whatever you like to help you or someone else out.
You can even take Shoe Goo, and slap a luggage label to the outside of each pouch, with a contents list under clear vinyl, for quick checking.

d) Extra bonus tip: Unless you like brown gear, and a brown kit bag, you will securely bag the betadine, and every other liquid item, inside its own sturdy and sealable plastic bag/container/whatever.
A pint of iodine on everything is the end of that kit, and most of the contents.
It would not be too extreme to get a heavy-duty small Nalgene bottle from the Container Store, Bass Pro Shops, a high-end hiking supplier, etc., and then sealing your liquid items inside them in a bombproof fashion. You could even make do with Sched 40 PVC, with one end cap glued, and one press-fit. If it’s stupid but it works, it ain’t stupid.
The first time you, or some lunkhead, steps on your bag, and doesn’t blow 6 oz. of betadine onto everything, because you packed it like it was nitroglycerin, you’ve just saved your entire kit, and another $100, plus you’ll have that betadine when you need it. You’re welcome.

For the same reason, I put IV bags in my kit inside the bottle carriers by Condor, Gonex, Maxpedition, etc. My preference is the ones with the external pouch,

which holds a tubing admin set, and a full IV start kit including a set of gloves. I can grab the bag and toss it to someone else, and they’d have everything they need to start an IV in their hand in one grab.

If you put that kit bag inside a $2 Styrofoam picnic cooler (let alone anything sturdier and better made from Coleman, Igloo, Yeti, etc.) before dropping it in a trunk, it will last unattended for much longer. And in a pinch, you’ll have an extra cooler.

For med admin for those OTCs, either buy unit-dose (single person) packets in a box of 50-100, and put the packets into a snack-size ziplock; or carry a single plastic medicine cup so you can sort pills from the bottles without finger banging them, and dump all but the one or two you want back in the bottle without contaminating them with whatever’s on your grubby paws.

And jbryan, you’ve probably done it already (he did, but noted later he forgot to photo them for the original article -A.), but you should have some permanent markers (Sharpie, laundry pen, etc,, in black and red, and maybe even a paint marker in white or yellow, plus TCCC/Triage cards, Write-In-The-Rain, or even plain old 3×5″ cards, to mark meds given, TQ placement, and basic pt. info and vital signs, plus chief complaint. Zip ties and safety pins mean you can attach them just about anywhere, and small spool of yellow nylon twine makes a convenient necklace for patients who’ve been “stripped and flipped”.

Sample military DD 1380 TCCC card:
https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/forms/dd/dd1380.pdf

Anyone can print one, white-out “sample” re-scan it, and keep that pdf on file to print new tags at will.
Or just find them online, and buy a stack."

Preparedness vs. Cluelessness: Works Every Time

Today's lesson:

There's always a number of these stories after every disaster.

Back a few decades, I looked into firefighting (until it became obvious that, being a white male, that option was unlikely to happen in less than 5-10 years).

Before that point, I regularly perused EMS and fire science magazines, and became aware that one can purchase the exact same type of fire monitor you see on lots of fire trucks driving down the street. And you still can.

For the unaware, a fire monitor is not a video camera, it's the directable water cannon nozzle assembly, used on water trucks and fireboats as well.

They can be mounted anywhere (I'd pick the center of the roof, personally) and rigged to run off of one's pool, pond, or well, provided you also have your own generator power.

The can put out over 1000gpm for a hundred feet or more, and they run a couple of grand@. As opposed to your house, which in the hills and canyons of fire areas, runs $300K-$1M.

That's a real economic poser there.

And it's one helluva lot smarter than trying to fight 100' flames with little vinyl garden hoses.

Trimming trees and brush well away from the house is even cheaper.

Especially because both ground and air fire crews triage houses in the path of these fires, and if they see one that's savable, they'll make the effort, but if yours is an overgrown tinder trap, they'll write it off mentally as a total waste of their finite resources, and after that, you're screwed.

But most of the dumbfucks in the fire-prone hillsides are in their cosmic bubbles more often than not, and don't do the legwork before hand, and then get burned out.

Except for the few smart guys, like the two in this video.

PPPPPPP

(And this sort of thing doesn't apply to entire small towns amidst fire country, where you have fewer options, nor to renter tenants within them, who effectively have none. When the entire town burns down, you're simply SOL. Have a "go" plan, and stick to it.)

But it astonishes me that people who do have a choice will purchase a home on acreage, and spend years of salary for the view, but not invest a couple of paychecks, and some forethought, to prevent an entirely avoidable loss of everything they own.

Their fire insurance premiums should be 10-20% of the cost of their house, annually.
Triple that for any nimrod who still has a wood shake roof.
Unless they take the steps these guys did.

Plan ahead.
Learn not to burn.

Back At Ya. Who's Lauging Now?

What goes around, comes around. Both rhetorically, and literally.
In response to this little gem at Xenophilic's blog.

FIFY. ;)

Y'all can have your toothless banjo-playing kinfolk back anytime.
They weren't born here, and they ain't "Californians" by any stretch.
They weren't "Californian" when they moved here 5-10-20 years ago, and they won't be when they leave either.

We survived Okies back in the Depression, barely, but the endless onslaught of knuckleheads coming here from the Other 48 was just too much for any one state to bear.

So thank your new neighbors and former natives from there for wrecking a once-wonderful state, and their parents for shipping the freaks and geeks that didn't fit in there, out here, until they'd so thoroughly destroyed it here even they can't stand it any more.

Well-played.

Don't worry though; we go stone cold broke in a few years, and your cousins and nephews will all be coming back home, and bringing their illegal alien nannies and gardeners with them in droves.  

And all those retirees who moved back there to escape the taxes your kinfolk voted in?
When their retirement checks stop, they'll be your problem now. 

Best wishes when that happens. 

Your circus, your monkeys.

In the meantime, we've sent you DiFi, Barbara Boxer, and Kamala Harris as the national gifts that keep on giving by way of saying "Thanks a pantload."

Enjoy.

No harm, no foul, OddJob.
Own your kinfolk, and I'll take the hit for ours.

But not for the 15M+ dumped on us over the last 50 years, plus 10M illegals your congressweasels could never seem to find a problem with. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, go check outside your Home Depot tomorrow morning about 6AM or so, and tell me who's standing around outside. Then look at the color shift of congressional districts here in CA from 1978-2018.

Seriously, I enjoy my home state as much as y'all enjoy yours.
As it should be.
I especially liked it back when it was still part of the United States, before it became the New Jersey-esque toxic waste dump for all the ne'er-do-wells and fruitloops from your home states (for any value of "your"). 

So welcome your returning kinfolk freaks back to the motherland with the same joy you showed when you shipped 'em here for 50 years and more.
It's time you got to experience what you've inflicted on everyone else for awhile.

Check back with us in a decade or two, and tell me how it's working out for ya.
I promise you, it's going to be as funny for me for the next few decades as it's been for you for the last few.

Nature always seeks a balance.

Media Narrative On Fake Refugee Caravan Crumbles: Cue Plan J. Or K.

h/t 100% F'ed Up

So much for restless masses, yearning to breathe free.

This is merely the criminal elements of the Free Shit Army, coming to steal from Uncle Gringo, and being used as convenient photo op props by the MSM.

As posted by 100%:

Color me shocked.
Same photo op pic with obligatory prop mother-and-children, same story, channel to channel to channel.

And all 100% B.S.
This is media from the Gaza School of Fake Narrative, by way of Saddam's Baby Milk Factory nerve gas production facility. They teach middle school kids to spot this sort of propaganda as bullshit as early as the seventh grade, in schools worthy of the name.

Pity Jim Acosta or Don Lemon couldn't be there to get a few OC zingers in the face.

And BW for more thoughts:

 

Last words: the bucket of cold water from DHS Sec. Nielsen, to quell the media fever swamp nonsense:

 

“Given the activities of the last 24 hours at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, I want to provide an update on what occurred and attempt to dispel many of the rumors and much of the misinformation circulating.
“First, the violence we saw at the border was entirely predictable. This caravan, unlike previous caravans, had already entered #Mexico violently and attacked border police in two other countries. I refuse to believe that anyone honestly maintains that attacking law enforcement with rocks and projectiles is acceptable. It is shocking that I have to explain this, but officers can be seriously or fatally injured in such attacks. Self-defense isn’t debatable for most law-abiding Americans.
“Second, the caravan is far larger and more organized than previous ones. There are 8,500 caravan members in Tijuana and Mexicali. There are reports of additional caravans on their way.
“Third, the overwhelming majority of these individuals are not eligible for asylum in the United States under our laws. Historically, less than 10% of those who claim asylum from #Guatemala, #Honduras, and #ElSalvador are found eligible by a federal judge. 90% are not eligible. Most of these migrants are seeking jobs or to join family who are already in the U.S. They have all refused multiple opportunities to seek protection in Mexico or with the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Seeking employment or family reunification are not grounds for asylum under our laws, or any international obligation. There are, however, legal ways to seek a job or to be reunited in the U.S.
“Fourth, the caravan members are predominately male. It appears in some cases that the limited number of women and children in the caravan are being used by the organizers as “human shields” when they confront law enforcement. They are being put at risk by the caravan organizers as we saw at the Mexico-Guatemala border. This is putting vulnerable people in harms way.
“Fifth, we cannot confirm the backgrounds and identities of all caravan members which possess a national security and public safety risk to our country. However, at this point we have confirmed that there are over 600 convicted criminals traveling with the caravan flow. This includes individuals known to law enforcement for assault, battery, drug crimes, burglary, rape, child abuse and more. This is serious. Additionally, Mexico has already arrested 100 caravan members for criminal violations in Mexico.
“Sixth, our Border Patrol agents and officers responded admirably and responsibly to the events on Sunday. It is a testament to their training and professionalism that no one was injured. The accepted use of nonlethal force (also used by the Obama Administration in 2013) prevented further injury to agents and a mass illegal rush across the border. We will not shy away from protecting our people. I ask parents to avoid violent caravan groups and refrain from attempts to illegally enter our country – these acts will put your children in danger.
“Seventh, I want to thank President Donald J. Trump again for the decision to send @DeptofDefense to the border to bolster our ports of entry and provide force protection for Customs and Border Protection. This decision likely prevented injuries to personnel and migrants or additional damage to property. Instead of “a political stunt,” as suggested by some, this was in fact the act of a leader concerned about the rule of law.
“Eighth, this Administration has been working nonstop to fix our immigration system to address the crisis at the border. We have proposed legislation and asked Congress to pass it. The President has repeatedly made clear what is needed to secure our border and negotiated in good faith. It is time for Congress to do its job. Absent Congressional action courts have misinterpreted existing laws and have made the job of law enforcement far more difficult. But the men and women of DHS will continue to do all we can to enforce the law and DHS and U.S. Department of State will continue negotiations with Mexico and our other partners in the region. We are optimistic that cross border collaboration can help make America, indeed the entire region, more secure.
“Finally, this Administration warned about the danger of the caravan. We predicted the violence we saw on Sunday. We prepared to address it with additional personnel and DOD deployments. We will continue to prepare for the next assault while looking for lasting solutions with Congress and our Mexican partners. As always, I want to thank those officers and agents in San Ysidro who, under tremendous strain, used professionalism and restraint to ensure that no one was injured as they were attacked themselves. I also thank DOD and our state & local law enforcement who were on scene to support our people.”
~ Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen

It's truly sad when such a remarkably forthright statement of obvious common sense from a public official is so jarringly alien to what we hear day in and day out from the loons on the boob tube and in the blathersphere, or from anyone in the last administration for the prior eight years reign of insanity.

Another Criminal We Won't Be Letting Into The US.

"Mami, how come my eyes are stinging?"
"Shut up and keep running, mija!"

 

There is nothing she's doing not explainable by a room temperature IQ, and basic greed at the amount of welfare she qualifies for the instant her ass hits the States. There is nothing at work there besides the magnet of economic gravity attracting the loose fillings.

 

If she was fleeing "death squads" (Odds against that are about 200:1), she solved that problem the minute she hit Mexico, 2000 miles ago.

 

And walking 50 feet each morning to ride in trucks and busses for a few hours a day over a week is not the same as walking 2000 miles.

 

The problem here is no one told fat greedy mamacita Baby Factory that La Migra was disinclined to acquiesce to her illegal entry: means "No". And were fully prepared for the Born in East L.A. swarm-the-checkpoint plan.

 

That dumbassery stopped working about 1990, FTR.

 

They just close the gates, and start lobbing pepper balls using paintball guns with 250-round reservoirs of OC balls. First they sting, then it burns. I'm hoping someone had fun lighting her up yesterday. She's lucky it was less-than-lethal. Mexico would have simply opened fire, had it not been nothing but a non-stop PR photo op from the get-go.

 

And if you look around at other pics and video of the event, you'll see she was just about the sole female with children, out of several hundred military-age males in that group.

 

People routinely try to come here on rafts made of garbage, and bring their kids too. That's not a measure of refugee status or desperation, it's purely human greed and a lack of common sense. Fortunately, gravity and sharks coupled with poor boat-building skills take care of an awful lot of human stupidity. The fact that she's carrying nothing underlines that this whole caravan was a PR stunt; you don't make it 2000 miles north with nothing in your hands or on your back but your kids.

She's a walking photo op, nothing more nor less, and simply a prop for the MSM.

 

Further comments about her intelligence, or manifest lack thereof, would be superfluous: the picture itself is worth those 1000 words.

 

When she gets deported, along with the other 500 jackholes, as Mexico promised today, she can think about her own dumbassery all the way back to Guatemala.

 

So much for that Clever Plan by the Free Shit Army to jack Uncle Sam for moar stuff.

But pure comedy gold.

Progtard "Logic" Fail #4,867,142

Invasion Begins, Stumbles

The US has closed all pedestrian and vehicular traffic at the San Ysidro main border crossing just south of San Diego, after several hundreds of illegals tried to rush through Mexican riot police and tear gas to attempt entry to the US.

Step Two should be closing the entire border for a week, and telling Mexico to round them up and return them to their southern border, or the closure will be indefinite. And impound all remittances to Mexico to cover the cost of the military presence there. The minimum tariff should start at 40% on them, and escalate at 10% per week.

StepThree: weapons free, and no bag limit.
And if the military is too squeamish to do that, it's going to start happening free-lance.

I'm betting even closing the border for a day would topple the Mexican government if they failed to intervene and do their effing jobs, because it would cripple their economy, while leaving ours virtually unscathed.

What Is "Kicking And Screaming, On A Sunday"

h/t Silicon Graybeard

I'll take "How Did Aesop Get Goat-roped Into Posting On A Four Day Weekend" for $1000, Alex.

From SiG:

The impression we get is that we're in a wolves' den of terrible free market forces where providers charge whatever they want and kill off their patients (the two don't seem to go together).  The problem is we aren't in a free market for medical care, with very few exceptions.  We have a bastardized system where the people who pay for the product aren't the ones most affected by it.   Healthcare is paid for by brokers (insurance companies) who skim off a percentage for themselves.  People paying for that insurance pay not just for coverages they want and need, but they pay for many others because lobbyists get congress to mandate all insurance plans cover their favorite expenses; everything from sex change treatments to addiction treatments to other psychological treatments.  Devoted teetotalers are required to pay for addiction treatment coverage.  Families beyond the child bearing years or with no desire or interest in having children pay for maternity coverage. 

Medical costs are scary.  One of the reasons they're so scary are the market distortions we see throughout the medical world. 

I have to believe free market reforms would help immensely, mainly because there's a handful of places where free market principles are already working.  In his usual, bombastic style, Denninger talks about some of this at Market Ticker.

When it comes to surgeries (Hospital Part "A" stuff) may I point to The Surgery Center of Oklahoma which routinely, even when it has to buy supplies and drugs at monopolist prices which are 100-500% or more of a market price, manages to undercut the local hospital in your town by that very same 80% I cited as necessary?  Were they able to buy supplies and drugs at market prices it would likely be 90%.  Oh, and you're one twentieth as likely to acquire an infection in said surgery center as your local hospital because they can't bill you for the cost of fixing their own mistakes and as a result they're far more-careful than your local hospital is.

RTWT


Deninger, as usual when he gets outside his lane, is an idiot.

Nosocomial (hospital-acquired) infections are not billable to the patient nor the insurer, they are a liability assumed by the hospital/provider that caused them. Any other approach goes by the quaint legal term "fraud".

They've only beaten this into providers' heads for something like a decade or two, which is why doctors and hospitals are death on things like ordering indwelling urinary catheters, which are virtually guaranteed to cause the patient a UTI if left in long enough. It's the same reason leaving sponges or instruments inside people in surgery is an own goal: the doctor and hospital eat the cost of all subsequent care for the sequellae of that little foul-up.

And surgery centers are rightfully regarded both within the biz and outside it as the bounty hunters of the medical world, because they cut costs by cutting corners on patient safety, and hiring itinerant staff moonlighting from other jobs. If anything goes dreadfully wrong, they ship their mistakes to real hospitals to fix. No wonder they can undercut costs, because they've outsourced everything but the procedure itself; God help you if anything goes sideways, because they can't handle that, by design. Accidentally punctured a lung while doing a boob job? Ship 'em to the ER, then the real hospital OR, to sew up that "Oopsie". And no, they don't include that in their annual statement of average procedure costs. Ask me how I know.

Go into a pissy-smelling elder-care lash-up, and realize that's the business model for the surgical center.

There's also the obvious: surgical centers are virtual medical drive-thrus: In and out, same day. People in hospital are there for days and days. Getting an infection isn't from lack of circumspect care (you @$$h*le!), it's from constant exposure to everything and everyone in the building, and the fact that, unlike the surgical center, your only time there isn't in the prep/operating room/recovery areas, but rather in areas open to everyone, and their families, including their coughing uncle and snot-nosed kids, startingin the main lobby. Anyone wants to argue for banning all visitors from hospitals on medical grounds forever except expectant fathers in full surgical scrub, and I'll sign your petition, buy your newsletter, and march in your parade; but let's stop acting like that's the hospital's fault. If we told people there was a "No Visitors" policy, they'd shit kittens, make YouTube videos, and write Congress to "Stop the Nazis!!!".

Deninger has his moments, virtually exclusively on financial items.
If he bothered to learn WTF he was talking about WRT health care, he might rise to the level of only bloviatingly inept, instead of completely ridiculous.

As for the health care market, if you aren't paying for your care out of pocket, you're not the consumer. You're just a guest at the table, exactly like the person who goes to a wedding reception. Your input may be noted, but the person paying the caterer's bill decides what's on the menu.

You haven't had a free market in health care since before nearly anyone reading this was born, i.e. the 1930s. Your first clue should be that you haven't seen a doctor make a house call in 50 years, because no one's paying for that: you don't want to, and the insurance won't cover it. So unless you live in a mansion and pay cash, you don't get that anymore.

SiG is also right about government involvement driving costs up, but barking up the wrong tree if you think the money is what's doing it. That's like trying to figure out how the car is running by sniffing the tailpipe, instead of looking under the hood.

That model is correct for college tuition, (which, IIRC, has been a tenfold increase over GDP growth, not a 4-fold one), but that's because colleges control tuition. The feds just pay it all at full rate, hence the move to make student loans for worthless degrees non-dischargeable through bankruptcy. The feds and colleges would go bankrupt, as they need to.

But with healthcare, the thing driving up costs isn't the availability of government money, it's the availability of "coverage", to a vastly wide Mississippi River of recipients, while forcing providers to accept literal pennies on the dollar in federal compensation.

The average reimbursement for an ER visit to doctors is something like 2¢ per dollar of billed cost, both to the doctor and the hospital.

{Welcome to the other half (besides covering uninsured/homeless/illegal alien patients) of why your Tylenol was billed at $54@. They bill $54, they get $1 from the government, which covers the pill, the pharmacist, the pharmaceutical supply stock, the pharmacy tech, and the nurse.
My average is around $40/hr, so if it takes me one minute to read the order, get the pill, bring it and some water to you, and watch you swallow it, I've already spent 67¢ of that dollar, before we even get to what the pharmacist makes per his/her minute for verifying you weren't allergic to it and that the dosage and form are correct, and the tech for restocking the machine every shift, let alone the cost of the actual pill (1¢-9¢@, unless they expired and we had to throw some out). If the form ordered needed to be changed, because you can't swallow pills, we're already in the hole, financially. And that's just one aspect of the most basic element of care.}

Imagine if the federal government offered hunger insurance that was like Medicare. In return for no premiums from you, the government issues you a card good for a meal. So you go to McDonald's for the Big Mac Combo, and Uncle pays Mickey D's 12¢ for the Big Mac, fries, and drink.

So, you tell me: how long will Ronald and his minions stay in business, before we even get to paying order-taking flunkies $15/hr to screw up a cash register order with pictures of the food where number keys used to go??

This is also why coding is a medical thing, because if I, the doctor, can find a way to charge for every single thing in a Manhattan-phone book sized list of options, I can manage to squeak out a living, after hiring the coding clerk, an accountant, a lawyer, and two people to prepare the invoices in the format of every different insurance company in existence, simply by ringing you up for everything except the golf pencil you used to fill out the seventeen-page health and insurance questionnaire when you walked into my office. (Government forms and payment being the worst offender there.)

This is the point where the Big Mac would be one thing, even with the bun, but the special sauce, lettuce, pickles, and onions would be billed separately.

See if you can figure out why I personally pay for simple services out of pocket, and refuse to carry anything but a catastrophic illness policy. I get the cash price with my PMD, and I get my prescriptions generic on the local pharmacy's low-cost plan, for about $3.33/mo, which is cheaper than my co-pay was with gold-plated Hollywood movie industry Blue Cross.

The government doing the care at all is what fornicated the system up, and pooch-screwed your costs, while simultaneously requiring you to pay for unwanted things mentioned, as part of insurance companies' Faustian bargain with your congressweasels.

Government poisons everything it touches, like it was a wasp with VX venom.
True x1000 with health care.
Write it on your hand in case you forget.

And if you figured out (correctly) that in response for having to virtually give away Big Mac Combos to everyone disabled or over 62 with a government Meal Card, McDonald's would immediately raise the price for the same combo to $300, so that they would not only get their actual $6 from Uncle, but simultaneously screw everyone under 62 by forcing them to pay full freight, I should let you know there's an open supervisory position in the hospital's billing office, and you're over-qualified.

If your rejoinder is that you'd just go to Carl's Jr. or Burger King, be advised that they're on the same program, and for you really snotty ones, Uncle Sam has also made hamburger and condiments prescription items, and banned hamburger buns, home barbeques and George Foreman grills.

That's the medical system you woke up to five minutes after FDR got done screwing with wages and compensation starting during WWII, and then LBJ invented Medicare to troll for more of the senior citizen vote starting in 1966.

Nota bene that Baby Boomers couldn't vote on anything until 1967, at the earliest.

"Greatest Generation" my ass.
Greatest shuck-and-jive con artists, chiselers, and math-impaired gullible goofballs ever burped onto humanity, more like.

Who else would've voted for FDR four effing times?

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing you plenty of every good thing, and plenty of time to enjoy it today.

Dining will be continuous. Blogging will be non-existent. Shopping will be avoided until December.
Best Wishes.

From Comments:

From late last week, which I missed earlier:

Aesop,

My questions/thoughts are fraternal and non-antagonistic; I am assuming that you have thought about these, and I want your take:

1. Foundational: CA, with a significant population, already has some of the most onerous (not NJ but heading there as quick as they can) firearms laws. It has a longer history of more firearm liberty than a place like the aforementioned NJ, where the culture is, in majority, accustomed to "only criminal have guns". The people of CA have generally acquiesced to the ever tightening noose by continuing to elect more and more of the same people who will enact the same and stronger measures.

2. Maryland has already killed a man during a non-due process confiscation. He now has cold, dead, and empty hands. I have seen no widespread outcry.

3. Janet Reno ordered and oversaw mass murder with firearms in juxtaposition, with zero just consequences.

What do you envision as being "the thing" that would cause widespread overt non-compliance?

Dear Anonymous,

1. By the numbers between 60-80% of registered CA voters, don't.
And something approaching 25% of residents here are illegal aliens, and/or children of same.
Knowing that, re-try #1.

2. Cops kill people they shouldn't every working day. I expect if I, or any number of other gun owners, were targeted by such blatant failure of due process, I would die too. But I wouldn't go alone. At that point, I could give a shit about "outcry". But I expect that taking 2 or 5 or 10 of the bastards with me might give them some pause before their next foray, regardless of the media hay made about the situation.

And anyone not doing their level best to make it just as hard for TPTB to enter their domicile in service of such nonsense, just as they make it hard for other criminals, is behind the power curve on this topic.

When "coming to get your guns" = death sentence for the person(s) knocking on the door, they'll stop that silly and unconstitutional shit right quick.

Nothing else will suffice, until we see them prosecuted same day for murder.
Which I'm not holding my breath waiting for, and a pile of dead douchebadges gladdens my heart more than seeing them in stripes anyways, just as seeing them killed while actually enforcing reasonable and just laws saddens it.

The good cops (and they are out there, if you look), will put a halt to this nonsense, on self-preservationist grounds if for no other reason, in short order.

Give them a reason to stop: shoot back. Encourage others to shoot back. Vote to acquit any survivors who shoot back.

If they want to follow actual due process, serve a summons, and present evidence of your alleged unfitness in open court that can be challenged by your lawyers, and force the parties swearing otherwise to be legally and criminally liable for perjury and civil lawsuits, and only afterwards, with a legal verdict to stand on, get a valid warrant, and try to take your freedom and/or your property, go ahead on with that. They don't have that many judges and court houses in the entire country to do that if they did nothing else forever. I don't want crazy people to have firearms. But we have some five to ten centuries of jurisprudence on this topic as to how you go about establishing that, and instant revocation of your constitutionally protected and pre-existing natural law right to self-defense is no part of that, nor ever could be.

Trying to short-cut the months-long wait for trial, that would soon become decades, and the fact that they'd lose 95% of the cases outright within minutes, is why they're trying this.

And for pity's sake, stash more guns somewhere they can't find. If they were to get a few, and you have twenty more, the second trip for them isn't going to go like the first one for them, is it?

You want to legally but unlawfully take my weapons?
Bring friends.
Say goodbye to them before you try it.
Some of them won't be going home at the end of their shift, for something you know you shouldn't be doing in the first place.

3. The Clintons and their Korrupt Klown Posse were in charge for that, including the Congress. At a time when the average person's view about how jaded the DoJ and Far Beyond Insanity are was much rosier. (The BATFE, conversely, has always been known as a bunch of cowardly chickenshit gloryhounding assholes, so no one was surprised at all at their initial raid, nor their response under fire when folks shot back. The mistake, AFAIK, was allowing them to police up their dead and wounded without slaughtering all that could be seen.) In short, 1993 was nearly 25 years ago, in a different America.

And last I looked, there's no statute of limitations for murder in TX, is there?

So, the bigger question is, when will Texas officials indict the ATF and FBI agents there for murder, and prosecute every damned last one of them?

And if even Texas won't do that, what do you think the odds are in the rest of America?

Non-compliance is a continuum. CA and several other states have experienced a 98% non-compliance rate when they banned misnamed "assault" weapons the first time. Two subsequent attempts have only caused sales of loophole guns to skyrocket here.
So, when legal AR-15s outnumber police employees in this state by about 5:1, how far do you think the state will have to take things before they get a faceful of non-compliance?

My guess is when they come to the front porch and knock on the door, which is why they, in every state with such laws, won't do it. Ever. It would be a suicide mission.

They have done the math on 600M guns, and less than 2 million LEOs, and realize that even at 1% active non-compliance, and doing ten raids a day, they're out of cops in about an hour or two.

And then, the folks left behind will probably go hunting, down around city hall, and at the state house. With no officers left to protect them, that devolves rapidly into the day Mussolini or Qaddafi got fired, in about a heartbeat.

Note the inherent civility of Italians: they not only killed their dictator,
 his mistress, and his minions, they actually labeled the corpses
for the benefit of bystanders in the deeper rows of spectators.

In short, you can pull stupid shit off onesie-twosie, even here. Both sides regard a few dead citizens, or a few dead cops, as the cost of doing business.
You try doing ten or twenty at a time, and by 50 or 60, your odds of ever getting home drop to single digit percentages.

It's identical with the difference in baseball between one chin-ball, and throwing every ball at the opposing batters' heads. The benches empty on about pitch two or three. And sometimes, they bring bats with them.

And when bats become rifles, no one wants to play the game any more.
And every chief in every department, including NYFC, knows this in their bones.
And reminds their nominal government supervisors, every time they're asked.

The day they start coming for people, they'll do it after Last Rites in the parking lot, and wearing Rising Sun headbands, because they're not ever coming back.

So, functionally, it's never happening.

What'll tip things off won't be that sort of thing. Things cops know will get them killed, are the sorts of things mouthy "public servants" happily and cheerfully yap about out loud, as though they live in a magically impervious bubble, and no one would ever decide snuffing the candle was worth the burn.

That's going to cost them, because the politician species gets dumber by the day, while the populace grows better armed.

Just as war is far too important a business to leave to generals, politics is far too important to leave in the hands of politicians.

But Darwin is going to cull the worst of them, as happens in societies on a scale between decades and centuries. But inexorably, it happens.

Currently, we're overdue, and only the mass killing of the stupid people holds any hope of upping the mean IQ.

It's approaching time to Make Stupid Hurt Again.

What will be the actual match?
No effing idea here.

But I can assure you we're in a roomful of fused dynamite and aviation gas, and we have 500+ idiots flicking their Zippos.