Uncategorized

 I recently bought a set of Axil GX Extreme ear buds for hearing protection. I got them on sale for $129 each and bought two pair. They are Bluetooth ear buds that also have built in ambient sound processing. I took them to the indoor range and they did a good job of reducing the sound of gunshots to a non-painful level, as they don’t pass the actual gunshot through. The echoes still were passed through and that seemed a bit loud, but turning the volume down seemed to fix it. 

They are rechargeable with a microUSB cable and the battery lasts for hours. I have used them to make calls, listen to music and pod casts, and even to wear in high noise areas. They are much more comfortable and less obtrusive than earmuffs. 

I recommend. 

I did not receive any compensation for this review and paid what any other customer would pay, other than catching them on sale. 

 Florida’s new minimum wage rises from $8.56 to $10 an hour (a 16% increase) on September 30, 2021. However, there is a provision in that law allowing employers to take a “credit” on the wages of tipped employees and assume that some of their wages are paid in tips. The amendment sets that amount as what the FLSA allowed in 2003. In 2003, the allowable employer tip credit was $3.02 an hour. 

What this means is that instead of rising 16%, the minimum wage for tipped workers will increase from $5.44 to 6.98 an hour. Every restaurant in the state just saw their tipped labor costs rise by 28%.  Look for  price increases to cover that, plus you STILL get to tip.  

Even worse for dining establishments: on September 30, 2022, the tipped minimum wage will rise another 14% to $7.98 an hour. 

Most workers do not make minimum wage. The reason for this is that the value that the worker’s labor adds more to the transaction than that. If a worker is only making minimum wage, this is an indication that their job can literally be done by anyone, so the value of their labor is worth no more than whatever that minimum wage is. 

So workers whose labor is of low value figured out that it is easier to vote to have the government force people at police gunpoint to pay them more than it is to increase their skill set so that their labor is worth more. In other words, they are voting to remove voluntary cooperation from the market- they are warping market forces. 

So now I am going to have to pay the person who carries the food to my table a 28% raise as a part of my menu cost increase, plus a 15 percent tip? I don’t think so. So beginning September 30, I am going to cut my tip amount to 5 to 10 percent. Perhaps 2022 will see me no longer tipping at all. 

 One of  the things that must happen after a coup is that the new leaders must eliminate anyone who can challenge their authority. That includes members of the previous administration as well as any “up and coming” challengers. It is a sure sign of a dictatorship when there are mass arrests and disappearances. The Soviets even had a word for it- “vzyali” meaning “they have taken,” and there was no pronoun or noun needed to indicate who “they” were- “they” were unspeakable. It was never “arrestovani” or arrested. Vzyali was a word that struck fear in the hearts of Soviet citizens. 

So that is what needs to be watched for– if Trump and his staff disappear. If the lists being made suddenly result in vzyali- this blog will immediately be shut down. The time for talk will be over. I know that I am not a big enough fish to make a national list, but the time to disappear myself before some local apparatchik gets around to it will have arrived. 

Do I think this is likely? No. However, TEOTWAWKI isn’t likely, but we still prepare for it. 

However, there are people whose disappearance should serve as a warning that it is coming. 

The arrest of Trump and/or his staff. The disappearances of prominent media personalities like Ron DeSantis or Sean Hannity. Locally, I have a list of major Trump donors that live near me that I obtained from the FEC database. 

There are three business owners in my area that donated a combined $140,000 to the Republican party and the Trump campaign within the last year. 

If they disappear- have they gone John Galt, or were they vzyali? 

 This is a part of the OPFOR training manual. Some of it may be useful. 

 SCOTUS ordered the Pennsylvania Department of state to have county election boards keep ballots received after 8 pm on election day and before 5 pm today separate from other ballots in anticipation of a court challenge. That order was passed on to those boards on October 28 and November 1. The boards stated that this was mere “guidance” and not binding. The election boards of PA have simply ignored the order. 

Judge Alito issued an order directly to all election boards in PA. (pdf warning). 

So what? The Democrats have been so “in your face” about their activities in this election, they are likely to ignore the order. Then what? What power does the court have? The goal here is to get their guy elected. SCOTUS doesn’t have the power to do very much. Fines? So what? Those are paid by the taxpayers. 

I just don’t see how any of this matters. 

 You couldn’t write a better thriller:

A Machiavellian power wanted to start a Civil War. They first released an engineered virus that caused tensions to skyrocket. Then agitators began rioting and civil unrest that put everyone on edge and made them suspicious of the other side. 

Then they screwed with the election in an obvious way, ending with Biden getting elected, but with the right pissed off that they were cheated. 

Then they lit the fire of civil war by getting rid of the President just a few weeks after his inauguration by having him assassinated in a public way, and the assassin was an apparent right wing gun nut right out of central casting who used an AR-15 that had been modified to fire full auto (or used a bump stock). 

 Even if it is proven that the Democrats cheated, what then? Everything is such a mess, I just don’t see a way forward. Word has come through that the senate races for BOTH of Georgia’s senate seats are headed for a runoff. Since we know that the election was rigged in some way, it is likely that the control of the senate will belong to the Democrats. 

We are now looking at both houses of Congress AND the Whitehouse being Democrat. That doesn’t upset me. What does upset me is how we got there. The fact that no one trusts the process any longer means that our nation is broken. Again, what next? 

I don’t think it will come to a civil war. Republicans just don’t have the guts for it. Even if they did, the American public would not approve, and they are too busy watching television to care. I honestly believe that the American people wouldn’t care if all elections were cancelled forever, as long as they could still watch TV and drink beer. 

What will happen, will happen. I am still taking the “wait and see” approach, but I am thinking that the USA has already had its last free election. My suspicious self thinks that China will be using this to their advantage. Almost like they planned it. 

 I posted the other day about the effect of the new Florida minimum wage on prices. I spoke with my brother about it, and he actually gave me a few details about how he is going to deal with it. 

My brother owns a retail sales company that has 30 employees. Since the new minimum wage is going to increase his labor costs, he is going to have to find a way to make the new numbers work. He can’t raise prices very much, because his competition will slaughter him if he does. 

So he has to cut costs. He can’t cut the cost of inventory, those prices are what they are. he is already at a cost disadvantage because larger companies already buy product by the railcar and get quantity discounts that he cannot hope to match.

Here is what he came up with:

Plan A:

An employee currently is paid for 2,080 hours per year. A 16 percent raise is equivalent to 333 hours of work. That is equal to 42 days at 8 hours a day, or about 2 months of the work year. 

Vacation, paid sick leave, and holidays mean that employees get paid for 180 hours per year when they are not working. That means that 9 percent of his labor cost is paying employees when they are not working. So, half of the first year’s raise is going to be made up by eliminating all paid time off- no sick leave, vacations, or holidays. If you aren’t at work, you aren’t getting paid. Now he isn’t a Scrooge- his employees will still get holidays off, they just won’t be getting paid. 

Additionally, he will be implementing a quota system for productivity. Any employee who falls short of their quota will receive a warning. If they continue to fail to meet that quota, they will be terminated. 

Plan B: 

Liquidate, fire everyone, and retire. 

 Yesterday, a student was told to remove her mask because it had BLM printed on it. The school is even handed- the dress code prohibits Trump stuff, too. Also prohibited are things like rebel flags, clothing with sexual or vulgar language, and other things that are disruptive in a school. 

Anyway, that student then organized a group of about 30 to 50 students who then refused to go to class and stood outside chanting “Black Lives Matter” while standing in front of the school’s entrance so as to prevent anyone from entering. They began sending pictures of themselves protesting to other students in an attempt to get them to leave class and join the protest. 

This student is known to me- I had her last year. She is a loudmouthed asshole. In fact, the same student was the subject of a post last year. When I was having trouble in class with students using phones during class, I gave them a writing assignment of “How cell phones disrupt learning” and I got back a barely literate screed that included statements like “I am not your pet or your child… but I am not finna sit here and act like I am OK with the way y’all treat us just because y’all got a little piece of paper that says you are a teacher”