You Can't Silence Us

Dive Accident

The worst diving accident in the history of the Maldives– 5 people died while on a cave dive to a depth of 160 feet. They died because they were foolish and likely were diving beyond their training, experience, and equipment. Let me explain:

Waves alone were likely not a factor. When you are underwater, you can feel waves to a depth of about 7 times the waves’ height. In order to even feel the effects of waves at 160 feet, those waves would have had to have been at least 23 feet high. That’s not very likely. However, strong winds can cause significant currents around atolls and through underwater caves. That may have factored into this, but no one is talking yet. Still, they had an experienced local dive guide who would be familiar with local conditions with them, so this may not be the case.

More of a factor was depth and the fact that they were in a cave. When you are SCUBA diving, the ultimate safety factor is being able to reach the surface. That’s why new divers are told to always dive with a buddy, because you can share that buddy’s air supply to reach the surface in an emergency. New divers learn all sorts of limits that are intended to ensure you can reach the surface.

When you can’t reach the surface, you are doing what is called “diving in the overhead.” In other words, there is something between you and the surface that is keeping you from reaching it. There are four things that can keep you from reaching the surface. Let’s discuss them:

SAC

The first is the amount of breathing gas you carry. A standard SCUBA tank is filled with 80 cubic feet of compressed air. At rest on the surface, a well experienced diver will breathe half a cubic foot of air per minute. Inexperienced divers can easily triple that, and a diver exerting themselves will also have increased air consumption. That is called your Surface Air Consumption, or SAC.

Depth increases your SAC. Since pressure increases by one atmosphere of pressure every 32 feet of seawater, a person at 160 feet is breathing 5 times the SAC as one on the surface. That 80 cubic feet of air is now going to last only 32 minutes instead of 160 minutes. Add in fear, exertion, and the fact that it will take 3 minutes to get to that depth and 5 and a half minutes to safely ascend from that depth, and now your bottom time is about 7 or 8 minutes, maybe less.

When I was heavily into diving, I would usually dive with 120 cubic feet of gas. At 120 feet, I could get a maximum dive time of about 25 minutes. If they were diving Aluminum 80s at 150 feet, that time would likely have been no more than 14 minutes, and my SAC was excellent.

You are limited from returning to the surface simply because you will drown before you get there if you don’t have enough breathing gas.

No Decompression Limits

Another thing limiting your return to the surface is physiological. Your body absorbs gas while you are breathing it under pressure. Since air is a mixture of multiple inert gasses that are not metabolized, those gasses tend to be absorbed into your body tissues. The principle of these is nitrogen. Once the pressure is relieved by going to a shallower depth, that Nitrogen comes out of your tissues and makes tiny bubbles that expand as the pressure lessens. Think about the bubbles in soda. That’s what is happening. Those bubbles get trapped in places like joints, blood vessels, and various organs and cause all sorts of problems.

To prevent this from happening, divers restrict the amount of gas that is absorbed through limiting the amount of time they spend at depth. The maximum time a diver can remain at a given depth is called the “no decompression limit” or NDL. The definitive table for determining what the NDL is for any particular depth comes from the US Navy. (non-hosted pdf warning) It’s a complex subject, but the NDL for 160 feet of depth is about 7 minutes. If you remain at that depth for longer than this, you can’t return to the surface without decompressing, or you will get decompression sickness.

The NDL can be extended by using gas mixtures other than air. For example, a mixed gas called Nitrox was carried on the boat involved in this accident. Nitrox allows divers to stay down longer because some of the nitrogen in the air is replaced with oxygen. The catch here is that oxygen becomes toxic when breathed under pressure (called oxygen toxicity, or OXTOX). That limits the depth at which Nitrox can be used. The most common Nitrox mixes are EAN32, and EAN36. These contain 32% oxygen/68% nitrogen, and 36% oxygen/64% nitrogen. Neither of those mixes is safe for 160 feet. The maximum oxygen mix you can have at 160 feet is 27%, which is an uncommon custom blend.

Decompression sickness can also be avoided by letting those gasses leech out of your tissues at a slower rate. The easiest way to do this is to return to a shallower depth for an amount of time, to allow them to bleed off. For example, a diver might stop at 30 feet for 6 minutes to bleed off some of the nitrogen he absorbed while at a deeper point before returning to the surface. Many divers do what is called a “safety stop” at the end of every dive, which is in reality a 3 minute decompression stop at 15 feet.

For various reasons, most divers don’t use tables to compute all of this. Instead, they wear computers that constantly compute the amount of gas in your tissues and advise you on how long you can stay down, and if you violate that limit they will make recommendations for decompression stops.

Physical barriers

The next barrier to reaching the surface is a physical one- diving in a location where there is a literal thing between you and the surface. That can be inside of a wreck, or in a cave. The hazard here is that it is easy to become disoriented or lost inside of one of these, and you are trapped and unable to find your way out. It takes different procedures, training, and equipment to enter a wreck or cave.

This incident

From diving oriented publications:

Though the dive-group were said to have entered the water in the morning, the alarm was raised only at 1.45pm, suggesting that they might have been prepared for a long, deep dive. Details have yet to be released about the equipment they were using.

Other reports indicate that the weather may have caused strong currents, which could have contributed. No information has been given about the precise cause of the fatalities, although some media reports have made references to oxygen toxicity and gas mixture problems.

Accidents

I have been present for several diving accidents, and I have known several people who have died SCUBA diving. I have also read hundreds of reports of SCUBA accidents. In each and every case of which I am aware, the accident was caused by a diver who went into a situation for which they were not:

  • experienced
  • equipped
  • or trained

Or some combination of those three. That appears to be the case here. A dive inside of a cave, at a depth of 160 feet is beyond the training and experience of recreational diving. It’s called a technical dive, and these require a lot more training and equipment than most divers have.

When diving in an overhead environment like this, the rule of thumb is take enough gas so where you have 1/3 of it in reserve when you reach the surface. For this dive, that would mean about 100 cubic feet of gas, but more like 110 cubic feet to be safe.

On top of this, the Maldives limits recreational diving to no more than 100 feet in depth.

This tragedy was a case of divers going beyond their limits, as most dive accidents are. Diving is a safe sport, as long as you follow the safety rules. Too many divers get tempted to push just a little beyond the limit, and that’s when tragedy strikes.

On the gripping hand

Other than diver error, there is also the possibility that their air was contaminated. Breathing in carbon monoxide, or air contaminated with compressor oil can be deadly. I once dove with Nitrox that was contaminated with compressor oil. I got a buzz from it at 50 feet and had to abort the dive. It cost me several hundred dollars to get all of my equipment cleaned for oxygen service. I never returned to that dive shop.

So there are other possibilities, but the smart money is on diver error.

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By Divemedic, ago

Words and Self Defense

Social media is abuzz over some streamer in Tennessee named Dalton Eatherly who goes by the handle of “Chud the Builder.” I must confess this is the first I have heard of him. Still, he is known for posting streaming content some call “racist,” although you know how low the bar is to be called a racist these days. I tried to find some of his content, but all I could find were stories about current events, and people complaining about him being a racist. So, I have no opinion on whether or not his content is racist.

Racist content or not, I think it is boorish and rather childish to run around trying to piss people off so you can film the reaction and make money or fame.

Be that as it may, the current events are lacking in details, but it appears to be essentially like this: A black man saw Eatherly streaming and asked him to walk away, which he reportedly did. The man later walked up to Eatherly and started a second confrontation. The man mentioned having PTSD, then warned: “You start saying all that chimp out shit to me and I’mma hit you.” The man punched Eatherly and began repeatedly hitting him. Eatherly then shot the man, the man kept attacking him, so Eatherly shot him at least once more. During the struggle, one of the bullets struck Eatherly himself.

At the end of the day, Eatherly was charged with a list of crimes including attempted murder.

There are many people, including quite a few on the right and in self defense circles, who claim Eatherly was in the wrong because he is known for posting racist comments, and those comments are considered “fighting words.” That is incorrect. Just because a person says inflammatory things at some point does not grant people who heard him in the past the legal right to physically attack you for the rest of your life. That’s not what fighting words mean.

Remember Charlie Kirk, and how the left kept attempting to incite the right by pointing at their necks? Or say a black man once called someone a cracker, does that mean I get to beat him? Of course not. Eatherly doesn’t forfeit his right to self defense simply because he called someone a nigger or a chimp, whether he did so in the past or even in the immediate seconds before the attack. Mere words don’t justify a physical attack unless they rise to fighting words, but that is a fairly high bar to clear, as discussed above.

Legal Standard for Incitement

The controlling precedent is Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). The Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot punish speech advocating force or law violation unless it is:

  1. Directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and
  2. Likely to incite or produce such action.

Abstract advocacy, inflammatory rhetoric, or offensive language—even racist speech like that at a KKK rally using the word “nigger” and calling for “revengeance” against Black people and Jews—was protected. according to the court. The Court struck down a broader Ohio law criminalizing advocacy of violence.

Someone using language that others find offensive or cause emotional distress, or potential for unrest does not qualify. Courts protect “the thought that we hate” precisely because the First Amendment prioritizes robust debate over shielding feelings. The First Amendment is there to protect unpopular speech. Someone saying “Puppies are cute” doesn’t need free speech protection. Someone speaking things making people uncomfortable does, even if that speech is unpopular, especially if that speech is unpopular.

A narrower exception involves “fighting words” defined as personally abusive epithets directed at an individual that, by their very utterance, tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 1942). However, this has been significantly narrowed:

  • Courts repeatedly hold that racial slurs, including the N-word, are not fighting words per se. Context matters heavily (e.g., tone, intent to provoke a fight, likelihood of immediate violence).
  • Examples: Someone loudly calling a Black man ‘nigger’ while trying to start a fight could qualify in one case, but yelling it without evidence of imminent violence or actual breach of peace does not. What matters is that the person saying it was trying to provoke a fight, and not merely being insulting.
  • Yelling slurs is widely viewed as rude, inflammatory, or bigoted, and it can have serious social, professional, or civil repercussions. But legally equating it to incitement to violence would gut the First Amendment, as affirmed across decades of Supreme Court rulings. Context always determines outcomes in edge cases.

Hate speech, slurs, and bigoted expression are generally protected unless they cross into true threats, targeted harassment, or the narrow incitement/fighting words categories.

Proportionality

However, once the physical confrontation began, the question becomes whether Eatherly reasonably believed he faced imminent death or serious bodily injury, and whether shooting was a proportionate response. There aren’t enough facts out there to determine that at this point.

In my opinion, this entire case hinges upon proportionality. Tennessee’s Stand Your Ground law (Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-11-611), like most states, allows deadly force only if the person reasonably believes it is immediately necessary to prevent death, serious bodily injury, or certain other harms.

  • A single punch or minor scuffle generally does not justify deadly force.
  • Factors that strengthen a claim: Continued attack after the defender is down, multiple strikes (“ground and pound”), size/strength disparity, weapons involved, or signs the attacker would not stop (e.g., the victim continuing to hit after being shot).
  • Juries assess this objectively: Would a reasonable person in Eatherly’s position fear serious injury?

Some accounts say Fox continued hitting even after being shot. If that was indeed the case, that could strengthen Eatherly’s case for self defense.

Critical gaps for proportionality:

  • How sustained or severe was the beating? One punch + a few follow-ups vs. a prolonged assault that put Eatherly at risk of being knocked unconscious or stomped?
  • Positions during the shots (standing, on the ground, distance after initial punch)?
  • Did the man stop after the first shot, or was he still actively attacking?
  • Any video evidence (courthouse surveillance, bystander, or Eatherly’s own stream) showing the full sequence.

If evidence shows Eatherly was actively being beaten in a way that created a credible fear of serious injury (e.g., head strikes, unable to disengage, larger/stronger attacker with PTSD-related agitation noted), self-defense is viable. If it appears more like a fistfight where Eatherly quickly resorted to a gun and fired multiple rounds, conviction on a lesser charge (aggravated assault) or full conviction becomes more likely.

There are not many facts out there, but there are plenty of people running around saying that because Eatherly said racist things in the past, he deserved to be punched, and is not allowed to defend himself from the attack. That’s false, and can’t be the law, or else we are all open to attack for any offense we may have caused someone to take by something we may or may not have said at some point in the past.

The case will hinge on the seconds of physical violence and whether shooting met the proportionality/necessity test. More evidence (especially video) will be decisive. As of now, it’s too early for a confident prediction. As usual, this case will rely upon all of the evidence, and right now the details are very thin.

People who have read this post: 315
By Divemedic, ago

College Scam

In 1970, only half of Americans graduated from high school, less than 10 percent went to college. When you were 15 or 16, you went out and got a job. Those who DID go to college were guaranteed a good career, because they were overwhelmingly doctors, accountants, lawyers, and architects. Parents saw that, and told their kids that the key to a great job was going to college. It was good advice, except too many people followed it.

The government, being run by those same parents and their peers, approved a plan to give out student loans and grants so all of those people could go to college. This greatly increased demand and money chasing those college educations. Everyone wanted to have a high paying college job because they considered physical labor to be for people who weren’t smart enough to go to college. We’ve all heard the insults- if you don’t have a college degree or if you joined the military, it’s because you are stupid.

Colleges attempted to meet demand by adding all sorts of degree programs. The government soon passed rules requiring a college degree, any college degree, in order to get a job. You couldn’t get a job sweeping the floors of the courthouse without a 4 year degree. Tuition began to rise- much faster than inflation. By the time of the turn of the 21st century, the cost of a semester’s tuition was up from $400 in 1970 to over $3,500, an increase of 11.2% per year- more than 3 times the official rate of inflation. During the same period of time, $400 in gold increased to $2,600 worth of gold. By 2000, it cost more than $55,000 to get a 4 year degree by the time room and board was factored in. The demand and profit in college became so great that colleges began opening in strip malls.

In the Orlando area alone, there are more than 40 colleges and 500,000 college students. Of course, most of them won’t graduate. That’s actually good news because there can’t possibly be enough jobs to handle 100,000 college graduates a year in a town of only 3 million. Even so, more than 25,000 people a year graduate with bachelor’s degrees each year, and another 16,000 with associates degrees.

So by the year 2000, people were earning degrees in things like Outdoor Recreation, or Medieval and Renaissance French Poetry. (Yes, I actually have met people with degrees in these majors) There being no demand for those jobs, the people who took out those huge loans were now having to pay $550 a month for a degree that didn’t get them a job paying nearly enough to do that. So that’s how we got here:

This woman thinks she is better than the cashiers at Target. A minimum wage job is beneath her. You can see the attitude. She thinks her bachelor’s degree- whatever it happens to be in- guarantees her a job because she is smarter than those uneducated morons who didn’t go to college.

The college majors with the highest unemployment are:

  1. Anthropology
  2. Computer Engineering
  3. Fine Arts
  4. Performing Arts
  5. Computer Science
  6. Architecture
  7. Art History
  8. Physics
  9. Early Childhood Education
  10. Environmental Studies

Note that 3 of the 10 most unemployable majors are in the arts. Art and expression aren’t things you can learn from a book for the most part. Sure, there are some things you can learn like music, but there aren’t nearly enough jobs in that field to keep up with new graduates.

Computer science and engineering are in that list because the technology of computers is changing so rapidly that the things you learn in college are obsolete before you even graduate. The professor teaching your course is likely passing on obsolete knowledge using outdated textbooks, and granting you degree certifying you are well versed in yesterday’s technology.

Physics and education are there for teachers. Those fields, even for those who CAN get a job in them, don’t pay enough to justify those loan payments.

The best degrees for employment are the same as they were in 1970: medicine, law, and civil engineering. The only problem is a medical degree now costs half a million dollars and twelve years of your time. College needs to be trimmed down and made cheaper. For most people, college is simply a bad investment, especially in a useless major. However, picking a good major won’t help if you can’t understand or master the material.

Two year colleges have a 43% graduation rate. Four year colleges are better at 71%, but how many of them are graduating with useless degrees? Of 2018’s entry class, 77% of Asian students, 73% of white students, 52% of Hispanic students, and 45% of black students graduated. Black student enrollment at elite U.S. colleges has declined significantly following the 2023 Supreme Court ban on affirmative action, with some institutions seeing nearly a 50% drop in new black students.

Factoring in the useless majors and dropout rates, perhaps only 20% of those who go to college will actually gain real benefit from them.

Colleges like Yale and Harvard report graduation rates in the 98% range, but I can’t help but wonder if that is due to students being passed along whether they learn anything or not.

I got a nursing degree. Half of the people trying to get into nursing couldn’t even finish the prerequisites. Half of those who entered the two year nursing program didn’t finish by getting their RN license. So we are talking 25% of those who tried to become nurses actually made it. Of those who DO make it, unemployment rates are under 1.5%, indicating a shortage of nurses.

Firefighting was about the same. There were 25 people in my fire academy class. There was a waiting list to get in. 80% of those who began the class went on to be licensed firefighters. It was still difficult to get a job, though. When my department had an opening, we generally had more than 200 applicants for every job opening. A third of those who became licensed never got hired. About a third of them left the profession within 5 years. It’s a tough job with a high attrition rate. About a third of them wound up rising to the ranks to retirement , and couple of them became chiefs. All of them I have spoken with have retired or left firefighting.

People who have read this post: 445
By Divemedic, ago

War of Actium

While researching my old posts for an unrelated reason, I came across this post from nearly two years ago. In that post, I stated my belief that the Federal government itself was the one funding the civil unrest in the country, as well as the attempts on Trump’s life. With the revelations of the USAID funding and all of the other things happening, I think my opinion has proven to be correct.

Most of the unrest and the attempts at taking over the government are actually one faction of our government attempting to wrest absolute power from the other factions. The citizens in the streets who are playing along are either paid dissidents or useful idiots who will be swept up in the purge when that faction wins.

This is what an empire looks like when it falls apart and is overthrown. The similarities to the death of the Roman Republic are uncanny.

People who have read this post: 310
By Divemedic, ago

Asset Forfeiture

This violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment. A person whose Corvette is taken after a DUI is paying a much higher fine that a guy who loses a moped for the same offense. He is also paying a fine that is disproportionate to the crime. A Corvette costs at least $70k, with many approaching 6 figures- which is the fine for bank fraud, a monetary crime.

I make no bones about being opposed to asset forfeiture as it is currently practiced. I think that it’s immoral and unconstitutional to take someone’s property without due process. It goes like this: you are pulled over on any pretext, no matter how weak. They ask for permission to search the vehicle. It doesn’t matter if you agree or not. If you refuse, they get a drug dog to alert on your car and search it any way. Even if the dog finds no drugs, and you aren’t arrested or charged with a crime, they will take any money they find. They tell the motorist to sign a form abandoning the cash or face a felony arrest. Sign it or not, they are taking the cash and you are never getting it back. This guy lost more than $100k in cash and PMs in a case just like this.

Many states and localities have made this scenario illegal, but the cops don’t care. They cops simply file the forfeiture in Federal court where the local law doesn’t apply. No matter what, if you have money, they are taking it. Any cop who tells you that civil asset forfeiture is morally or Constitutionally acceptable is a tyrannical asshole, and I will cheer when there is a video of them getting smoked. Even in the presence of a criminal conviction, taking thousands of dollars from someone is a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Don’t bother quoting any bullshit case on the matter. I can fucking read, and some lawyer in a black dress trying to justify his boss’ theft of the people’s hard earned money is a travesty.

To those who think that the cops or the military will take your side in the civil war that we all see coming: they won’t. They will take the side of whomever is signing their paychecks, and that isn’t you. I think that most people who are drawn to police work do so for good reasons. They are then captured by the lust for power and money.

In this case, the cops want to drive a cool car, so they pull you over on a pretext and simply take your car, Constitution be damned. Power corrupts.

This is why the original Constitution purposely kept the government weak and subservient. People, however, just love having the power to tell others how to live. In order to be able to control others, the citizenry gave the government more and more police powers. Those police agencies are now so powerful that we are in a police state. One where you can’t even be confident in your ability to drive down the highway without being robbed at gunpoint by a gang member wearing a badge.

EDITED TO ADD:

A second DUI in Florida is a misdemeanor. It’s punishable by up to 9 months in jail and a $2000 fine. If your BAC is greater than 0.15 or there is a minor in the car, the penalty increases to 12 months and a $4000 fine. Additionally, the car is disabled for 30 days after the convict is released from jail. I don’t think it should be legal to take a $100,000 car for a misdemeanor that carries a max fine of $4000. That’s blatantly unconstitutional.

On a different note, the police should not profit from asset forfeiture. That creates a conflict of interest. Any proceeds from forfeited property should be paid into a fund that reimburses victims of crime. The cops shouldn’t be looking at a cool sports car while trying to figure out how to take it for their own use or profit.

SECOND EDIT

In this second edit, I want to point out that all burglaries nationwide result in $3 billion a year in losses. Ironically, the amount seized by the cops under asset forfeiture laws is about $2 billion at the Federal level and a total for all government forfeitures is $4.5 billion a year, with 71% of all forfeitures done without a hearing- they take it, and that’s it.

We would lose less money as a society if we just didn’t have cops.

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By Divemedic, ago

Not Secure

The Giffords center says the allowing people to send guns via the US post office is insecure.

If they are insecure for guns, then how can it be secure enough for ballots?

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By Divemedic, ago

Mom, he’s looking at me

The Chicago Cubs are suing a bar located near their stadium, because the bar isn’t paying the Cubs for allowing their customers to look at the team while they play baseball. The team is claiming the rooftop bar is misappropriating the team’s property rights because the bar is selling admission to the bar and allowing patrons to watch Cubs games from that vantagepoint. It looks like the courts are going to side with the team. In the meantime, the city is investigating the structural integrity of the roofs, issuing citations to those in danger of collapse. I’m sure those investigations are totally legit and were in no way sponsored or encouraged by the billionaire team owner.

Money talks, I guess.

The Ricketts family, billionaire owners of the Cubs, began purchasing the nearby rooftop properties in order to control the marketable sight lines into the stadium and by the end of the 2016 season, owned (or controlled via agreement) 11 of the 13 rooftop locations that had a view into the nearby baseball field. Wrigley Rooftop is one of the two that has thus far refused to sell.

I don’t care what the court says, if I can see it from my property, then you have no claim to force people to pay for looking at it. This will open all sorts of legal maneuvering. If my neighbor can see into my yard, can I sue him for watching me swim in my pool?

If the Cubs don’t want people in nearby tall buildings watching them play, perhaps they should build a dome. I’m sure they can get taxpayers to foot the bill. After all, teams build sports ball complexes at taxpayer expense all the time. For example, the Tampa Bay Rays are getting a Billion dollars of taxpayer money to build their new stadium, even while the local governments of the state are assuring the taxpayers that property taxes are totally needed to fund things everyone agrees are needed- things like firefighters, police, schools, and roads: “The money we take in from property taxes totally is being used for needed services and is in no way being used to fund billion dollar sports complexes. The money going to build places of business for billionaires to pay millionaires to play children’s games is totally coming from a different line item that was totally taken from taxpayers in a different way, so it doesn’t count.”

If that doesn’t work, perhaps the team could try the Scooby Do method and pay someone to dress a ghost in order to force the owners to sell.

Meanwhile, the shortstop for the Rays is being paid $182 million to play baseball. Jason Heyward is being paid $184 million to play the game by the Cubs. Meanwhile, the bar in question (Wrigley Field Rooftop Bar) is estimated to be making $1 million a year.

This is one of those times where a billionaire is doing something immoral to make more money, and the government shouldn’t be getting involved. Government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. Remember, when the legislature decides what can be bought or sold, the first thing to be bought and sold are the legislators themselves.

People who have read this post: 368
By Divemedic, ago

Found Out

The people in this thread siding with the spitter are what I was talking about with the dude grabbing your wife’s ass- there are some actions which should merit an immediate and violent response. You can add spitting in my face to that list.

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By Divemedic, ago

Cool

This dude spent 4 years building a submarine in his workshop.

He even had it coast guard registered. So what happens the first time he took it out? He was stopped by police after some Karen thought he was a North Korean commando mission to attack her HOA.

Check out the video series of the build and him sailing it.

People who have read this post: 272
By Divemedic, ago