Green Bay Press Gazette and Race Baiting

The Green Bay Press Gazette recently published a hard hitting article with the headline "Wisconsin Black Arrest Rates Dwarf Ferguson's."

Are you kidding me?  We know the stats - black arrest and incarceration rates are well above whites.  There are a lot of theories why this is, but few people dare to suggest that the reason it is so high is because that is the demographic group that's actually committing the crime.  Despite this, the GBPG felt it important to lead with such a bombastic headline.

What were they trying to accomplish?  Personally, it looked to me like they wanted the pot stirred - nothing sells news media like our cities aflame.

The media, and how they've behaved throughout this Ferguson episode should be ashamed. 

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays.  In fact, if you've ever been in conversation with me about favored days, I've always said, "Christmas, Thanksgiving, and fantasy football draft day, in that order."

This year is a weird one for us.  Since I need to be on a flight tomorrow for work, our options for celebrating the holiday with family were extremely limited.  Hence, for this Thanksgiving, for the first time in my 50 years, the only loved one I'll share the day with is Mrs. YDP.

However, I could not have a better person with which to share the day.  It has been about two and a half months since her cancer diagnosis, and we've been through a massive amount together - the lowest of lows, and the highest of highs.  Thus, even through our party will just be a party of two, a party it will indeed be, as her health and current state is something for which I'm so incredibly thankful.

We'll start the day at mass, and then from there go to a brunch at one of Green Bay's more mediocre restaurants.   Normally, I'm all about cooking a turkey (actually, I can't remember back to how long its been since I didn't cook the bird), but with just the two of us, and with me leaving the following day, all that food just could not be justified.  So we'll indulge on "just OK" buffet food, but will come home, turn the TV on, have a couple of glasses of wine and nap to football all the same.  

Nope, for us this is not your typical Thanksgiving day.  But for the health and future we've been granted, a quiet and deeply thankful day is just fine with us all the same.

Here's wishing you and your loved ones a plethora of blessings for which you can give thanks.

Retail aka What the Hell Did I Do with My Life?

As we approach Thanksgiving, and as the rest of the world gathers with family to enjoy the time together and to reflect on their blessings, I'll be checking on my business.  Over and over again.  My wife will yell at me to get off the computer and the phone.  Indeed, retail has ruined Thanksgiving, and for those of us that work in trade, Thanksgiving has now become more of a hell than a holiday.

Don't feel too bad.  I've done this to myself.  I've been in retail pretty much since my first job as paperboy when I was 8.  I've held jobs on the sales floor, in the warehouse, and in the corporate office.  Thought it all is has been an exciting and rewarding career.  But a career that comes with a cost.

So Mrs. YDP and I will have a quiet Thanksgiving at home, as I'll need to be on the first flight out on Black Friday to visit our warehouse to ensure they're keeping up.  I'll be there most of the weekend.  And while I'll miss my family, and I'll be jealous of those people that actually get to have a normal Thanksgiving, part of me (a bigger part than I'd like to admit) will be energized.  For retail, black Friday represents our World Series.  We work all year for it.  And I love it.

Sick?  Yep.

Ferguson Aflame

To nobody's surprise, after months of analysis, review, and deliberation, the grand jury in Ferguson found no evidence to indict the officer that killed Michael Brown.  For anything.  At all.  In essence, the grand jury found that officer Darren Wilson did nothing wrong for which he could be tried in a criminal court.  Nothing.

Once the verdict came down, the other shoe predictably dropped, and protesters in Ferguson went on a breaking, burning, shooting, looting, and lawless spree.  In the meantime, President Obama came on air to claim that we are "a nation of laws," (unless, of course, you're the President, in which case you can use Executive Orders to get around the law) and that the protesters should lawfully and peacefully let their voices be heard.

What?

For the man looting the liquor store, what was his voice saying?  How about those looking to turn over a police car? What about those firing guns indiscriminately?

The left sees this as a "call to action," and a "sea change."  But for what, exactly?  In looking at the evidence, it appears that what is being called for is that you can rob a store, beat a cop, then charge said cop and not get shot.  Seriously?

The godless left often talk about Darwin, evolution, and science.  It would seem to me that under normal circumstances should be happy that someone that did the above got summarily drummed out of the gene pool.  Ah, but these are not normal circumstances.  We need to "understand the rage."  We need to "feel the yoke of their oppression."

As simple as charge a cop, get shot?  No, my friend.  It is so much bigger than that.  Just ask Al Sharpton, President Obama, and every other liberal talking head.  

Fight the power.

Saturday Night Live - I'm Just a Bill

This pretty much sums it all up:


Cold Open - School House Rock (Immigration Bill... by IdolxMuzic

Canadian Class

A couple of nights ago, the Detroit Red Wings were visiting the Maple Leafs in Toronto, and as custom, before the puck gets dropped both the US and Canadian national anthems were played.  Unfortunately on this night the singer's microphone cut out toward the end of the US anthem.  

Check out how our friends to the north handled the situation:



I guess this should not come as a surprise.  As a hockey fan, I've always sung the Canadian anthem at the Minnesota home games, and have done so since I was a kid.  I know others do as well, hence this response seems appropriate.

Regardless, it still was a classy thing to do.  Hats off to you, Leafs fans.

Saturday Song Share: Thin Lizzy - Dancing in the Moonlight

We're going way back for this one this week, folks.  Today, we visit the under-appreciated Thin Lizzy from 1977.

They just don't make music like this anymore:

ISIS versus Israel at UC Berkeley

Here is a fascinating look at the take on two very different camps, conducted in a warm bastion of liberalism.  At the University of California Berkeley, our "protester" here first spoke in favor of ISIS, then later in favor of Israel.  

I'd like to say that the results were surprising, but they really aren't:



It is shocking to me how much hardened liberals loathe Israel, and how the Jewish voting bloc continues to keep voting for Democrats.  The hatred for Israel seems well beyond the political, and well into the antisemitic.  

From a survivor: "In November, 1943, some 27,000 Jews were exterminated in Section 5 of the Majdanek concentration camp. I was interned in Section 4, from where it was possible to catch glimpses of what was happening inside the adjacent section. The ugly truth is that most of the victims were handed over to their executioners by other Jews."

Unless US Jews wise up, it looks like history will continue toward repeating itself.