Innocent Bystanders

Pucking Liberal Defense Strategy November 28, 2018

How are our fearless intellectual leaders in academia planning to confront shooters in the future? Well, you can be sure it’s not by allowing carry on campus:

A university in suburban Detroit is distributing hockey pucks as a form of self-defense against potential active shooters, according to reports.

…and how did the head of campus security come to the conclusion that this might be an effective form of protection?

“The first thing that came to my mind was a hockey puck. I was a hockey coach for my kids growing up. I remember getting hit in the head with a hockey puck once and it hurt,” Gordon told Detroit’s FOX 2.

Well that seems pretty well-researched. Though it makes one wonder if he should be issuing hockey sticks as well.

But only if there were a means of defending yourself where it didn’t rely the strength of your arm . . . where you had more than one chance of hitting the shooter . . . where he couldn’t simply bat your puck out of the air . . . where you might actually take the shooter down . . . where your form of defense wasn’t the equivalent of throwing smooth rocks . . .

Which brings us to the opening line of the article:

How do you stop a bad guy with a gun when there’s no good guy with a gun around?

In a rational world, that scenario would be rare.

How to Draw a Turkey (Repost) November 22, 2018

Here’s a fun activity for Thanksgiving that’s easy to do and a festive way to decorate. All you need are pencils and a piece of paper  (and maybe an eraser, if you suck).  Let’s get started!

Step 1: Trace your hand

Don’t worry if you have more or less fingers than I do. It just means your turkey will be unique!

(more…)

Unclear on the Concept… November 13, 2018

…of capitalism. Target wants to close two underperforming stores in south Chicago, which is an economically depressed area.

Target, which descended on the Chicago area with its Greatland outlets in the early 1990s, is closing six stores next year in Illinois, New York, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Two Illinois locations are closing and both are in South Side neighborhoods, Chatham and Morgan Park. …
…
In other words, the South Side loses again. Hundreds of workers will be displaced. Nearby stores that rely on Target as an anchor will suffer. And left behind? Two vacant behemoths, each the size of three football fields.

So far nothing out of the ordinary. Businesses close underperforming stores all the time. But since this one is in an economically depressed area, Target is catching extra flak.

A group rallied on Monday in an effort to save two Target stores on Chicago’s South Side. Target recently announced plans to close stores in the Morgan Park and Chatham neighborhoods.

“We are demanding that Target rescind its decision,” said U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush.

Rush is threatening a Black Friday boycott if Target does not reverse its decision to close two of its South Side stores.

And this is where their brilliance shines. By depressing sales during the hottest sales event of the year, they’ll be convincing Target that their decision was absolutely correct.

So all their protesting and boycotting is/will be completely counterproductive. That, combined with their unconvincing social justice arguments for keeping the stores opened, means that this community is doomed to economic mediocrity at best.

It’s really time that conservatives and/or the GOP started formulating and executing plans to improve the lots of those trapped under Democratic rule.

November 2018 Exports Data November 10, 2018

I haven’t updated the exports data in a while. Here ’tis, with the trade wars with China & Canada probably responsible for the past 5 months of poor growth:

Hopefully the resolution of both of those situations will get us back on the growth track. Still, better than it was.

*Data from 1/1/16 forward updated per latest BEA release.

Crazy Drive Through the California Fire November 9, 2018

Man Drives Through Camp Fire Flames in Concow, California

Manufacturing Job Growth, Oppa-Trumpy Style! November 9, 2018

What is there to say about the manufacturing jobs story, other than “Thank Goodness for the November 2016 Election Results!”

Trump has added 446K manufacturing jobs in 22 months. During the 48 months of Obama’s promise, he added only 386K jobs, with stagnation in manufacturing job growth during the last 21 months of his terms.

Fortunately our new House of Representatives will be focusing on shackling Trump’s future efforts, which should bring his numbers more in line with Obama’s.

*sob*

*These numbers have been updated with BLS’s latest corrections, which extended back to 2015.

The Retrosexual Man (republished) November 8, 2018

[composmentis wrote this evergreen screed more than 11 years ago. I ran across it recently and thought it needed to be republished.]

All this talk about boobs got me to thinking about something I received in an email some time ago.  The words rang true then, as they do now.

Every time my TV is on, all that can be seen is effeminate men prancing about, redecorating houses and talking about foreign concepts like “style” and “feng-shui.” Heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, metrosexual, non-sexual; blue, green, and purple-sexual – bogus definitions have taken over the urban and suburban world!

Real men of the world, stand up, scratch your butt, and yell “ENOUGH!” I hereby announce the start of a new offensive in the culture Wars, the Retrosexual movement.

The Retrosexual Code

A Retrosexual man, no matter what the women insists, PAYS FOR THE DATE.

A Retrosexual man opens doors for a lady. Even for the ones that fit that term only because they are female.

A Retrosexual DEALS WITH IT, be it a flat tire, a home break-in, or a natural disaster, you DEAL WITH IT.

A Retrosexual not only eats red meat, he often kills it himself.

A Retrosexual doesn’t worry about living to be 90. It’s not how long you live, but how well. If you’re 90 years old and still smoking cigars and drinking, I salute you. If you are still having sex, you are a god.

A Retrosexual does not use more hair or skin products than a woman.

Women have several supermarket aisles of stuff. Retrosexuals need an end cap (possibly 2 end caps if you include shaving goods.)

A Retrosexual does not dress in clothes from Hot Topic when he’s 30 years old.

A Retrosexual should know how to properly kill stuff (or people) if need be. This falls under the “DEALING WITH IT” portion of The Code.

A Retrosexual watches no TV show with “Queer” in the title.

A Retrosexual does not let neighbors screw up rooms in his house on national TV.

A Retrosexual should not give up excessive amounts of manliness for women. Some is inevitable, but major reinvention of yourself will only lead to you becoming a froo-froo little wuss, and in the long run, she ain’t worth it.

A Retrosexual is allowed to seek professional help for major mental stress such as drug/alcohol addiction, death of your entire family in a freak tree chipper accident, favorite sports team being moved to a different city, favorite bird dog expiring, etc. You are NOT allowed to see a shrink because Daddy didn’t pay you enough attention. Daddy was busy DEALING WITH IT. When you screwed up, he DEALT with you.

A Retrosexual will have at least one outfit in his wardrobe designed to conceal himself from prey.

A Retrosexual knows how to tie a Windsor knot when wearing a tie — and ONLY a Windsor knot.

A Retrosexual should have at least one good wound he can brag about getting.

A Retrosexual knows how to use a basic set of tools. If you can’t hammer a nail, or drill a straight hole, practice in secret until you can — or be rightfully ridiculed for the wuss you be.

A Retrosexual knows that owning a gun is not a sign that your are riddled with fear, guns are TOOLS and are often essential to DEAL WITH IT. Plus it’s just plain fun to fire one off in the direction of those people or things that just need a little “wakin’ up”.

Crying. There are very few reasons for which a Retrosexual may cry, and none of them have to do with TV commercials, movies, or soap operas. Sports teams are sometimes a reason to cry, but the preferred method of release is swearing or throwing the remote control. Some reasons a Retrosexual can cry include (but are not limited to) death of a loved one, death of a pet (fish do NOT count as pets in this case), loss of a major body part, or loss of major body part on your truck.

When a Retrosexual is on a crowded bus and or a commuter train, and a pregnant woman, heck, any woman gets on, that retrosexual stands up and offers his seat to that woman, then looks around at the other so-called men still in their seats with a disgusted “you punks” look on his face.

A Retrosexual knows how to say the Pledge properly, and with the correct emphasis and pronunciation. He also knows the words to the Star Spangled Banner.

A Retrosexual will have hobbies and habits his wife and mother do not understand, but that are essential to his manliness, in that they offset the acceptable manliness decline he suffers when married/engaged or in a serious healthy relationship – i.e., hunting, boxing, shot putting, shooting, cigars, car maintenance.

A Retrosexual knows how to sharpen his own knives and kitchen utensils.

A Retrosexual man can drive in snow (hell, a blizzard) without sliding all over or driving under 20mph, without anxiety, and without high-centering his ride in a snow bank.

A Retrosexual man can chop down a tree and make it land where he wants. Wherever it lands is where he damn well wanted it to land. Except on his truck–that would happen because of a “force of nature”, and then the retrosexual man’s options are to Cry, or to DEAL with IT, or do both.

A Retrosexual will give up his seat on a bus to not only any women but any elderly person or person in military dress (except 2nd Lt’s) NOTE: The persons in military dress may turn down the offer but the Retrosexual man will ALWAYS make the offer to them and thank them for serving their country.

A Retrosexual man doesn’t need a contract — a handshake is good enough.

He will always stand by his word even if circumstances change or the other person deceived him.

A Retrosexual man doesn’t immediately look to sue someone when he does something stupid and hurts himself. We understand that sometimes in the process of doing things we get hurt and we just DEAL WITH IT!

Belated Employment Post for 11/18 November 8, 2018

I’ve had a bit of disruption the past month. Well, the past year, really.

My wife and I became empty-nesters last year, and sold our house in March of this year. We wandered around the country from April – June, looking for a suitable retirement locale (though sadly retirement is almost a decade away), but came back to Colorado with a renewed horror for heat and humidity.

We moved into a new place in August, but a month ago I had to uproot my office, leaving me without adequate blogging infrastructure. I mean, I’m sure there are some people who can blog on a 15″ laptop, but this boy ain’t one of them. Give me my dual-screen desktops if you want to see any posting from this fellow.

Anyway, last night I finally established a foothold in my new office, and I have full computational power once more.

Bwahaha.

So here’s  a chart:

Nice uptick in the IB employment metric over the past couple of months. Since Trump has become President, he’s made up 38% of the ground he needs to get us back to “normalcy.”