Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Thoughts on minimum wage and tipping. When is enough, enough? UPDATED

 I initially wrote this two years ago, today. I add the following as an update:

UPDATE:

Still the same. Except the minimum wage, ever increasing, is now $16.66 and will be $17.13 next year.
This is an insane amount of money for the work that's done, and tips on top of that?
No. ______________________________________________

Thoughts on minimum wage and tipping. When is enough, enough?

Washington State has determined that beginning next year, the state’s minimum wage requirement will be $16.28.
There are as this is written, locations in this state where the minimum wage is $19.00 an hour. Most recently, the democrat’s practice of buying votes has come to include jacking up minimum wage along with obviously unconstitutional efforts to force taxpayers to pick up the tab for student loans, an effort continuing to this day; still just as unconstitutional and still an unvarnished effort to buy votes.
I have stopped tipping. Period. And I will never patronize any business requiring tipping as part of the bill.
Wait staff are already paid what amounts to an obscene amount of money for what they do. They spend, at most, 5 minutes tending to the customer: They hand you menus. They bring you water. They take your order, they refill your coffee cup. And that’s pretty much it.
And for that, there is an expectation that they ALSO get 15% of your ticket?
So, you take out a family of four, for example. You buy a $100 worth of food at a restaurant.
The wait staff, as I pointed out, expects, at minimum, a $15 tip for the 5 minutes they spent waiting on you, 5 minutes they’ve already been paid for?
How does that make any sense?
Think about it. Multiply that tip by 12. Add it to what they’re ALREADY paid.
12X15.00 = $180 (tips for that hour) + $16.28 (hourly wage) = $196.28
Does that mean all wait staff make that kind of money?
Of course not.
But how much SHOULD they make for what they do?
And yes, this applies to all of the other workers demanding to, effectively, be paid twice for their jobs, such as Door Dash and Uber and so forth.
The reality of life is this: we are EXPECTED to tip in some segments, and ignore tipping in the rest.
We do not, for example, tip our dentist, our doctors, or our mechanic, the cashier at the grocery store, the plumber, or any number of others we hire to work for us.
Why not?
If someone with higher education or training who saves your life isn’t eligible/worth tipping, then why is it that someone with zero job-related education is?
I don’t see it. I don’t get it. And I have stopped doing it.

Monday, September 22, 2025

Thoughts on politics.

 I have a degree in PoliSci/Government.

As I look back, it was kinda like a dream.

In education, there are really only two facets for non-stem fields: PoliSci/Government education is one... and reality is the other. Those two rarely intersected.

What my degree taught me was how it's SUPPOSED to work.

Much like the builders of the Titanic were taught their ship wouldn't sink.

Reality has taught me that educationally? The white board was covered with theories that bore little to no resemblance to actual, real-life realities.

I'm 70. And I can't turn it off. Watching the manipulations and corruptions of government over the past several decades, recognizing them and experiencing them? It's like fingernails on a blackboard.

I wish I didn't know what I know. I wish I could stop seeing the slow-motion trainwreck of our system in action.

I know what it's SUPPOSED to be. But too many in government, on both sides, are far more concerned about money than they are our country.

And until we elect those who actually put this country first? Including ahead of themselves?

We'll never be able to fulfill the vision of our Founders.

Kirk served us nobly and well. He died doing that which he loved the most outside his country, his family and his faith.

He will be missed. And more blood will be spilled to silence those who follow in his steps.

In short, if I had it all to do over, I would have done something else. Politics is a filthy, destructive business. I was in it for over 30 years on staff and in campaigns. Even the biggest rock in a river is worn down over time.

It brings out the worst in people as we see from the hatred the left lives and thrives upon. And it's worn me down.
All too rarely, it brings out the best. But those instances are few and far between.

It changed me at the molecular level. And not in a good way.

At this point, I'd rather have been a mechanic. It's too late for me now. Be careful of your goals and aspirations. And if political involvement is in your future? There may very well be more to the wanting.... then there is in the having.

Thursday, September 18, 2025

Leftists and the "freedom of speech" card.

For what seems like the thousandth time, I saw the words leftists now trumpet repeatedly as those trashing Charlie Kirk and giddy over his slaughter now either feel or see the consequences for their act.

"What about freedom of speech?" or "what happened to freedom of speech?"

Whenever I see the question, this is how I respond:

Nothing. Still there.

But because of the outright failure of public schools to actually teach the true meaning of Constitutional law, people such as yourself (and I am NOT throwing rocks at you.... this is more of a teaching moment) the students they failed do not understand that the 1A applies ONLY to government efforts to criminally prosecute you for something you've said or written.

It has zero application anywhere else, including work.

In short, there IS no "freedom of speech" in the civil environment. ABC has the right to fire anyone at any time for anything they do, public or private.

While those on the right, for example, who used blackface for anything, were outed and fired for that sort of thing while the left cheered, Kimmel?

He who did the exact, same, thing?

Why, HIS blackface episodes didn't cost him a thing, let alone subject him to the very same "cancel culture" the left espoused. When in reality, if the leftist movement wasn't hypocritical on its face, Kimmel would have ben kicked off the air back then.

The left flips that "freedom of speech" switch on and off whenever they feel like it. And while "freedom of speech" didn't matter to them then, it's suddenly their holy grail.

After the slaughtering and celebrating the death a man practicing the very thing they now so staunchly, if not incorrectly, seemingly demand to protect.


Saturday, September 13, 2025

THIS is the democrat playbook.

When democrats decry violence, as many have in the Kirk assassination, you need to ask yourself:

Where were their voices during their Tesla insanity? The irony cannot be overstated: the primary owners of Tesla vehicles are those who bought into the EV/ecological hype/propaganda, i.e., their fellow leftists.

Their silence during THAT violence, which those democrats obviously agreed with, was deafening.

During the Floyd riots that lasted for months, where were the alleged democrat leaders then? Hundreds of millions in damages. Murders, looting, assaults, burning... These people NOW decrying political violence are ONLY doing so pro forma.

They don't believe it and they celebrated like everyone else on the left. They just kept it mostly private. Some were so hate-filled they went public... and some are paying a personal price for that (as in, getting fired.)

The current example is a tie between the rioters in LA that leftist leadership encouraged and applauded, and the ongoing terrorism of the rioters in Portland in the vicinity of the ICE facility where violation of Portland ordinances is an everyday, common occurrence and police are under orders not to respond to calls originating from the 4 block area of that facility.

Assaults are common place. Residents of area apartments and other homes are not allowed to sleep because the government of Portland ALLOWS the rioters to break their own laws because they do not want to be seen as "supporting ICE."

Leftists governments ALWAYS have excuses for their inaction.

These actions and inactions are a direct result of the mainstream democrat party.

Social media is rife with democrats expressing their hatred and death wishes for a wide variety of politicians and others to the right of Mao who are targeted for speaking.

For.
Speaking.

So now, when the media makes a big deal about leftist pols condemning violence... my first thought is their motives for doing this are self-serving on both the political front (They don't want to be viewed indefensibly and publicly hate-filled) and they don't want to be next, i.e., retaliation.

But what's an obvious miss for them is their past (and in some cases, current) failures to decry violence... like the terrorist supporter running for NYC mayor who refuses to condemn the October 7 massacre or the concept of "intifada."

There have been leftist gang members in Chicago aligning with both their mayor (Johnson) and their governor (Pritzker... the exception to the "hate all billionaires" democrat rule, since he is one) threatening to attack any Guard or other troops that Trump may send to the Chicago shithole where government is frequently nonexistent... like Labor Day weekend when 58 people were shot and at least 7 died.

The programming begins in the earliest stages of schooling. It's like seeing the rebirth of the fringe-left version of Hitler Youth.

And it continues through college, where your grades can depend not so much on academics but on how closely your POV has been made to align with your professors.

THOUSANDS of leftists have expressed their hate-filled death-inflicting fantasies on social media. And the "leaders" of the left remain silent or even have expressed OUTRAGE over the issue of toning down their rhetoric, instead blaming conservative public like Kirk for their own outcomes.

I despise most leftist politicians. I've made my feelings clear on this platform and on my blog.

But never once will you see me or read my words expressing a desire to see their blood spilled.

And that, apparently, is far too much to ask of our "loyal opposition."

The question? What do we do about it?
_____________________________

A former Vancouver mayoral candidate, Steven Cox, put it this way.

The modern Democratic Party is not ‘sorry’ when political violence happens. They want it to happen. They create the conditions for it. I know what my friends will say: “I am a Democrat and I don’t ascribe to this”. No, I didn’t say all democrats - this is what your party has become. What are you going to do about it?
Here’s the playbook:
1. Corporate media demonizes you, calling you Hitler, fascist, deplorable.
2. Left-Wing dark money groups fund, arm, and radicalize people to target you.
3. They hype violence, glorify killers, and manipulate minds with drugs and social media.
4. One of their radicalized, over-medicated loners decides they can die a hero if they just “kill Hitler”
Repeat.

 ______________________

That's the reality today. Will the slaughter of Charlie Kirk open the leftist flood gates? Will someone on the right see leftist reasoning as a justification to destroy what they see as a leftist threat, merely for speaking? I hope not. I pray it doesn't. Meanwhile? If you don't have a weapon, get one. If you don't know how or when to use it, learn (classes are available out there.) Practice with it. Carry it. And be prepared to use it to defend yourself or others. Understand that you may need to take someone's life as a result. But it's better to have a weapon and not need it... than it is to need it and not have it. And yes, I get that if Charlie was armed, it wouldn't have helped. But far too many governments have neutered their law enforcement so you cannot depend on them to react in anything close to a timely manner. Your protection is on you. Meanwhile, honor Charlie Kirk's memory by speaking his truths. Silence is complicity, the leftists tell us. And so it is.

Thursday, September 11, 2025

Thoughts on the Kirk assassination.

Maybe I've watched too much crime drama.

But this seems like the plot of a poorly written movie.

The shooter has an escaped planned. He's smart enough or planned enough that to this point, he has yet to be captured.

I would not be surprised if 1. He's already been "eliminated" as a loose end. 2. His escape was planned to the extent that he is no longer in the US.

Chances are, others are involved. If he's acting alone, he's no idiot.

But his weapon is found, with engraved ammunition? Not even in a predug hole but laying, weirdly visible, in woods close to the shooting sight? With the kind of engraving on the ammunition that SCREAMS "let's start a civil war?"

Would a professional have done that? Could it have been deliberate?

Look. I get that Occam's Razor may be at play here.

Am I over-thinking this?

Who could profit from the national division ripped open yesterday? (Yes, I'm aware we were already divided. But now?)

Politically? Economically?

Are we being played to achieve this reaction on the part of the American public and perhaps, be the first shot fired in Civil War 2?

I freely admit I could be 100% wrong. But it just doesn't "feel" right to me.