EMS Discussion :: RE: Will the real EMT's please Stand

Author: NREMT-Basic
Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 10:25 pm (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 43

[quote="Dustdevil"][quote="AnthonyM83"]Yes, EMTs are at the bottom of the totem pole, but I'm rarely treated as just an ambulance driver.[/quote]
And, knowing you as I do, I don't doubt that for a minute. It's usually not that hard to size up a provider's competence and potential. And -- although there are exceptions and misjudgements -- you're generally going to be treated according to that size-up. Now, just think of your initial impression of others at this forum, and think of how comfortable you might or might not be with them on a scene.

There are basic providers out there who I look forward to seeing on my scenes, and give them all the respect and appreciation they deserve. But there are others out there who are not only worthless, but they carry a chip on their shoulder about it, making even their personality unbearable. They reap what they sow, but they'll whine like victims for their entire career.

It's pretty easy to tell who is who in this discussion.[/quote]

Actually, for accuracy's sake, MFRs are at the bottom of the totem pole.
_________________
There's stupid and ignorant. Ignorant is embarrassing. Stupid gets people killed.

Victoria, Romeo, and Cruz Beckham play at the park

Spice Girl Victoria Beckham, 33, enjoyed a very normal (yet fashionable!) morning at the park with sons Romeo James, 5 ½, and Cruz David, 3. She drove remote controlled cars with Romeo, gave him an unwanted clean sweep with wet wipes, and got a kiss from Cruz during snack.

Images by x17 specifically for use on the Celebrity Baby Blog, Inc only.  Use on other sites is prohibited without purchase.

Cruz is wearing adidas Kids NBA K ($54).

More photos below.

Potato Yam(Dioscorea bulbifera)

Botanical Name:Dioscorea bulbifera L. (Dioscoreaceae)
Syn : Dioscorea crispata Roxb., D. pulchella Roxb.. D. sativa Thunb. non L, D. versicolor Buch. Ham.
English names: Air yam, Potato yam, Air potato.

Sanskrit name: Varahi.

Vernacular names: Ben: Banalu, Kukuralu; Hin : Gaithi, Rataler, Pitalu; Kan : Heggenasu; Man: Ha; Mar: Manakundu, Karukarinda; Mun : Jo aru; Tam: Kodikulangu; Tel: Chedupaddu-dumpa; San: Bongo-sanga.
Habitat:Common in the outskirts of forests throughout India, ascending up to 2000 m in the hills; Bangladesh, Pakistan.

Description:
Climber, usually twining to the left; stem slender, green or purple, with 10-15 small crisped wings, tubers large, variable in form; leaves opposite and alternate, petioles 5-15 cm long, lamina cordate, very variable in size, attaining 35 cm in length, membranous, dark green, 7-9 costate; male spikes slender, almost capillary, 2.5-10 cm long, panicled, flowers crowded or scattered, green or purplish; female spikes 10-25 cm long, pendulous; capsules 1.6-2.5 cm by 0.8-1.25 cm, membranous; seeds with broad basal wing.
Flowering: August-September; Fruiting: November.

Click to enlarge:->…..…

Air potato is an herbaceous, twining vine that can grow to lengths exceeding 60 feet. It invades open areas in the sub-tropical southeastern United States. The leaves are alternate, long (8 inches), wide and heart-shaped with prominent veins that resemble greenbrier leaves. The rounded stems are thin and wiry. The chief means of reproduction are aerial potato-like tubers (bulbils) located at the leaf axils. The vine rarely flowers. Air potato can form dense masses of vines that cover and kill native vegetation including trees within a variety of habitats such as forest edges, hammocks, and many disturbed areas. It was introduced from Africa for food and medicinal purposes in the early 1900s. Air potato is a common and widespread food crop throughout most tropical regions of the world.

Ecology and cultivation: Plant of tropical climate, grows in the midst of scrub jungles, rare; wild and planted.

Chemical contents: Tuber: furanoid norditerpenes, norditerpene glucosides, diosbulbinoside D & F, diosbulbin B & D, a new dihydrophenanthrene, d-sorbitol; Bulbil: diosgenin.

Medicinal Uses:
Traditional use: TRIBES OF PURULIA (West Bengal) : Tuber: in boils; SANTAL : (i) Dried tuber (powdery: as shampoo and on sores; (ii) Plant: against madness; SIKKIMESE : Tuber: in jaundice; ETHNIC COMMUNITIES OF DEHRA DUN AND SIWALIK: Tuber: in dysentery, piles; DANG (Gujarat) : Tuber: in abdominal pain, bone fracture.

Modern use: Aerial parts (50% EtOH extract) : diuretic; Rhizome: anorexiant.
.

Remarks: Tubers are eaten as vegetable by the ethnic communities of Meghalaya, Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh, Purulia and Medinipur districts of West Bengal, Varanasi, Mirzapur districts and Kumaon area of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra, Ratan Mahal Hills (Gujarat), Rajasthan, Cannanore district of Kerala and Mikirs (Assam), Santals (West Bengal) and Tharus (Uttar Pradesh).
Boiled bulbils are eaten by Mikirs and Santals as vegetable.

Resources:
http://www.invasive.org/browse/subject.cfm?sub=3017
http://tncweeds.ucdavis.edu/esadocs/diosbulb.html

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I guess "brunch Nazis" seemed a little too ... [Berlin]

I guess "brunch Nazis" seemed a little too harsh. Still, it's hard to believe that in Berlin of all places, this meal for the indecisive and lazy has become so popular that waiters in some restaurants are nicknamed "brunch fascists." These martinets don't wait for orders, assuming instead that everyone sitting down on Sunday wants a big spread rather than just a coffee and pastry. The brunches are usually all-you-can-eat and around $12, so they're also a good deal in this "poor but sexy" city. Among the options is a fairy-tale-themed menu at Cafe Bilderbuch -- the "Little Mermaid" comes with fresh lox and eggs with caviar. Who knew you could get lox and caviar from a mermaid? [Globe]

Urdahl threatened?

AAA at Residual Forces has a post up about Dean Urdahl's tough weekend prior to the veto override vote expected early this week.

The West Central Tribune has been covering the story all weekend long.

Urdahl said he's being pulled in different directions by local government officials, taxpayers and his own party in how he should vote on the veto override, which could come as early as Monday."It's like a chess match," he said.

Sounding weary from the ordeal, Urdahl said in a telephone interview Friday that he's been told if he doesn't vote to override, a funding request for Litchfield's wastewater treatment facility could be blocked. The project is crucial for an expansion of the First District Association, a dairy processing plant in Litchfield.

"Certainly I'm being lobbied, threatened. All sorts of neat things," Urdahl said.

At this point, Urdahl said he intends to "support the governor" but "will continue to talk to people about the issue" over the weekend and will review amendments made to the bill.

To be completely honest, I'm not sure what to think about the "threats". Being threatened over his vote crosses a line for me. Litchfield and Meeker County have moved DFL the past two elections, Dean Urdahl has won because of Wright County. Eliminating a project in Litchfield could hurt DFL chances in this area in 2008. Could Urdahl be simply throwing this out there as a political ploy? We all recall his failed Dairy Tax Bill in 2006 and who he blamed that on.

Urdahl has had multiple opportunities to do the right thing here. He stated his support for a gas tax increase in the 06 election cycle, voted for it last May, and only after being called to the carpet by Governor Pawlenty, voted to uphold his veto.

I've heard a lot of excuses from him since then. Senator Dille, my opponent in 2006, has supported this gas tax increase from the start, just like he said he would.

Urdahl said the "government-type" people and those in the road construction business are telling him to override the veto while the "regular working guy taxpayer" doesn't want to pay a higher gas tax and would rather pay higher property taxes to deal with transportation.

Who was he listening to when he supported the gas tax increase in 2007?

What category do I fit in? Does Urdahl see Blueman as a "government type"? Does he see me as a "regular working guy taxpayer"?

Considering I drive about 1000 miles a week for work, and that Michele Bachmann is proud of me and my 2 jobs, I would hope it would be the latter...

A side note...Political Muse over at Liberal in the Land of Conservative has posted my Tarryl Clark You Tube, only to piss off more conservative bloggers.

Muse, did you ever get an opinion on where they stand on Molnau now, after we find out she got $3.3 million for a shady land deal in Chaska?

Chicago lawmakers are proposing a ban on ... [Chicago]

Chicago lawmakers are proposing a ban on miniature ziplock baggies, because pretty much nobody uses them for anything other than storing crack, cocaine, and weed. The law would prevent "self-sealing plastic bags under two inches in either height or width," from being sold in the city. The ban probably won't have too much of an impact, though, since drug dealers can just purchase their baggies on the internet. For example on one site that I found by googling "dime bag," mini ziplocks are available in several designs, including a version festooned with marijuana leaves. The site notes that their products are "great for storing rare coins, jewelry, and stamps!" I'm sure that, in addition to drug dealers, jewelers, coin collectors, and philatelists are all devastated by the proposed baggie ban in Chicago. [Chicago Sun-Times]

Are Socialites the New Celebrity du Jour? [Socialite]

Dumbo-based Brooklyn imprint Powerhouse Books' latest, Inheriting Beauty, is out. The photos are a bit lifeless, but the most interesting aspect of the book is its subject matter: "the women who rule the world." There are fashion royalty scions and spouses -- Armani, Arnault, Ferragamo, Hermes, Lauren and Herrera -- not to mention your Rockefellers and Hearsts. Captured in their penthouses overlooking the city skyline, or the Thom Bar in NYC, these women seem more powerful than Angelina could ever be.

Given the success of The Real Housewives series on Bravo, not to mention the fact that MTV's The Hills is still going strong after three seasons, it seems the power of the socialite has never been stronger. Many of them have strong entrepreneurial tendencies -- everyone from Tinsley Mortimer to Lydia Hearst has handbag lines (the latter recently collaborated with Puma on one), while Fabiola Beracasa is doing jewels, and Paris Hilton has a clothing line in LA's Kitson boutique. Her sis, Nicky, is showing hers at LA Fashion Week this weekend. In fact, some socialites are among the hardest working girls in Hollywood; Nicole Ritchie, whose fame is directly due to her social life, was out and about two weeks after giving birth, putting in necessary face time at a producer's birthday party. Brooke Astor may be turning in her grave, but even the resolution of the writers' strike may not be enough to put Hollywood back above the modern socialite.

Vox Keeps His Readers In The Dark

Via the Bad Astronomer I read this absurd post from a blogger called Vox who seems to think that dark matter and dark energy are outside the scope of science which means that secular societies are "arguably insane".  Of course, Vox's argument is unarguably retarded.  He's saying that because we don't know exactly what dark matter and dark energy are, they're outside the realm of science. But that's obviously false: it's only through science that we even know that dark matter and dark energy exist. There is nothing in the bible about the universe being 72.1% dark energy and 23.3% dark matter. Nor does it say on which day God created them.  They don't exist, according to the nomadic goat herders who wrote the bibble.  Furthermore, if we are ever to understand dark matter and dark energy, that will only happen through the process of science, not by assuming it's too complex and so Goddidit.  Vox's silly argument is just another lame Science Doesn't Know Everything appeal.

I did post a comment on Saturday, asking the assembled loons who support the blog's author, what other method they would use to try to understand dark matter and dark energy. Unsurprisingly they had no reply.

Autism – Still Not Vaccines

I'm sure you've heard anti-vaccinationists claiming recently that the government conceded that vaccines cause autism. Of course, they did no such thing. As Orac wrote in David Kirby and the government "concession that vaccines cause autism": The incredible shrinking causation claim, the government merely conceded that vaccinations may have aggravated a child's underlying mitochondrial disorder – with some of the child's symptoms being similar to autism. This doesn't mean the child is autistic, or that autism is caused by vaccines. Also, the "may have" rider tells us merely that the government chose to settle the case rather than go the prolonged and expensive route of a disputed court case. Since we know that (a) vaccines do occasionally harm a small number of patients, and (b) it clearly benefits the majority that we continuing vaccinating, it is entirely sensible and ethical to compensate possible victims the few times this happens. Such facts haven't stopped bigots such as David "the debate will never be over" Kirby and his ilk.

Anyway, others have deconstructed this case much better than I. If you want to know the facts on this case, Orac has a post up with some of the best links covering this vaccine injury case / mercury / autism story, including posts of his own as well as posts from Steven Novella, Kevin Leitch and others.

God Fails

Newsflash: God failed tonight to get Huckabee elected President. Imagine my surprise.

We know Huckabee was God's candidate. After all, the man himself said:

There's only one explanation for it, and it's not a human one. It's the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of five thousand people. (Applause) That's the only way that our campaign can be doing what it's doing. And I'm not being facetious nor am I trying to be trite. There literally are thousands of people across this country who are praying that a little will become much, and it has. And it defies all explanation, it has confounded the pundits. And I'm enjoying every minute of them trying to figure it out, and until they look at it, from a, just experience beyond human, they'll never figure it out. And it's probably just as well. That's honestly why it's happening.

I'll repeat – Huckabee said of his earlier poll success: "There's only one explanation for it". Only one. What's the explanation now then Mike? Did God change his mind? Or is he not powerful enough to swing a few measly votes? Or,  maybe your imaginary sky fairy doesn't exist.

There's only one explanation for it, and it's not a supernatural one. It's the same complete lack of power that proves again and again that prayer doesn't work. (Applause)  And I'm not being facetious (actually I am, but who's counting), nor am I trying to be trite. There literally were thousands of people across this country who were praying that a little will become much, and it didn't. And it is totally expected and totally explainable. It has confounded the religious idiots (OK, some redundancy there).  And I'm enjoying every minute of them trying to figure it out. And until they look at it from a rational perspective (as if) they'll never figure it out. And that's a pity. That's honestly why it happened.

Honestly.

Your God was no use. Never was. Never will be.