Monday, October 23, 2023

Tom on Russia, Plane Rides and Florida Crimes



It seems that the Ukranians are raising merry hell with the Russians by employing more asymmetric warfare against their numerically superior  foes.   I've always felt that the Ukrainians should adopt a more robust guerilla focus as a way of forcing the Russianns to devote resources to areas that they once thought safe.  Commando attacks on Russian naval facilities. have kept the Russians off balance.  Targeted incursions into Mother Russia that result in civilian casualties are the way to go at this point.  The Laws of War should not be applicable to
only one side in a conflict. By flouting the norms of civilized behavior toward civilians, as the Russians have done through the entire course of the war, the Russians should forfeit any protections afforded their own civilian populations by the various Geneva Conventions.  

An Alaska Arline's pilot who was deadheading on a flight from Everett, Washington to San Francisco attempted to seize control of the aircraft from the pilot and co-pilot in order to cut the power to the engines and cause the craft to crash, presumably causing the deaths of all aboard.   He was subdued by the crew and was charged with 80 counts of attempted murder, among other things. This sort of thing happens from time to time. If a pilot is of a mind to commit suicide, what better way to do it than to take a planeload of folks with you?  There was that Malaysian Airlines plane that recently disappeared under mysterious circumstances that wes last seen heading straight down, which is not how crashing airplanes behave.  No trace of that plane has ever been found. And I dimly recall an EgyptAir pilot who took a plane load of passengers with him when he decided that that particular day was a good day to die. 

You've probably heard of Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law that's an important part of Gov. Ron DeSantis's "Kulturkampf', (culture war), against gay people..  The State Rep who authored the bill in question was recently convicted in federal court of fraud in a scheme to misappropriate $156,000 in Covid relief funds for his personal use.  He's a home health executive, a breed that's known for gaming the system for their own benefit.  The health care system is under constant attack by boodlers and grifters, large and small.  A few weeks ago, I wrote about scams involving purveyors of Durable Medical Equipment who took advantage of what medicare would pay for a particular piece of equipment and what it would cost to purchase that same equipmenton the open market.  The practice is called arbitrage, if you're interested.  Another favored form of fraud is manipulation of billing codes, which has been at the root of some of the largest healthcare frauds known to man.  It was that sort of scam that caused the Justice Dept to go after the healthcare chain, Columbia/HCA a while back.  The feds fined the rogue operation nearly a billion dollars, but the firm's CEO Rick Scott, now a US Senator from Florida, walked away with a billion dollars.  Aother huge fraud was connected to a company called 'HeathSouth', which was founded by a Respiratory Therapist named Rich Scrushy, who made a boatload of money before the feds caught up with him and tossed his sorry butt in prison..

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