BLAME THE WEATHER!

In 2014, Macy's stores blamed cold weather for poor sales.

2/25/2014: Sales and earnings full year 2013, ended Feb. 1, 2014

In part, poor January sales were due to the unusually harsh winter weather across much of the country. At one time or another during January, 244 Macy's and Bloomingdale's stores were closed because of weather, and the business remained sluggish until Valentine's Day,” he said. “Once warm spring weather arrives and our full assortment of fresh spring merchandise is in place, we believe customers will return to a more normalized pattern of shopping.

Fast forward to 2016. Sales not so good. Weather too warm!

1/6/2016: Macy’s, Inc. Reports Nov/Dec Sales and Updates 2015 Guidance

The holiday selling season was challenging, as experienced throughout 2015 by much of the retailing industry. In the November/December period, we were particularly disadvantaged by the historically warm weather in northern climate zones where both Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s are especially well-represented. About 80 percent of our company’s year-over-year declines in comparable sales can be attributed to shortfalls in cold-weather goods such as coats, sweaters, boots, hats, gloves and scarves.

Weather is hard. Or maybe this is what happens when a business closes stores, buys back stock, and runs a bunch of commercials about how great its products and service are while its product and service levels decline.

AMMON BUNDY: "YOU NEED TO DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS"

Done.

Ammon Bundy has created a country & western version of the Occupy movement: he has assembled an angry but inarticulate group of people, with government replacing Wall Street and gun rights have taken the place of marijuana legalization. 

The group's grievances are far too micro to be driven by principle. They have taken over a wildlife refuge in response to the prison sentences handed out to Dwight and Steven Hammond, two ranchers who lit fires which spread to federal land. There are apparently other references to the "unwinding" of federal ownership of lands, but nothing specific enough to suspect principled motives.

THE COINCIDENCE OF SAN BERNADINO AND SYRIA

Photo credit: The Sacramento Bee

Another week, another mass shooting. San Bernadino merits an Oval Office Address. And yet even the President of the United States can't talk about a shooting in the U.S. without acknowledging that there is a connection between domestic violence and military intervention in a foreign country.

In dealing with ISIS, the President suggests that Americans are "wondering if we are confronting a cancer which as no immediate cure." Doubt has a way of creeping in when today's high-tech military is presented as the solution for problems caused by yesterday's high-tech military, which was supposed to solve the problems created by previous military intervention. If the desire is to stop ISIS, the one action which hasn't been tried in the lifetime of anyone born since 2001 should be given a chance: non-intervention. ISIS is just the latest example of the type of groups who fill the void when you displace the peaceful population of a country.

No one at the Departments of State and Homeland Security will be fired. No agencies will be shut down. Instead, the budgets of anti-terrorism departments will grow. The centralization of power which has failed to prevent terrible acts--whether they are labeled as mass shootings or terrorism--will take more power from future victims and put it in the hands of fewer unaccountable people. We will be told that the tasks of stopping mass-shootings and overcoming ISIS will be complicated and difficult.  

And yet, the situations which led to the mass shooting in San Bernadino and the "war" with ISIS in Syria are quite similar. The connection is based on a very simple-but-true concept: law-abiding citizens have a vested interest in surrounding themselves with other law-abiding citizens.

And the remedies are far easier and cheaper than anything which has been tried to date. When law-abiding citizens are given the power to defend themselves, and when sovereign countries are allowed to function free of outside forces, the effect is similar to that which grass can have on weeds in a healthy lawn--the desired grass is given an environment in which it can grow until there is no room for the weeds. It is not by violence or great power that the grass overwhelms the weeds--it is a simple matter of the grass growing and increasing in population until there is room for nothing else.

SMALL SPACE, BIG STYLE: THE ANTITHESIS OF HGTV, ON HGTV

Photo credit: HGTV.com

Last week I came across this piece of paper. I had drawn my ideal home--this is when I was in high school--and I had a nook for a piano, and a library, and a dance area and music. And it was funny, because I was realizing that was what I've created here--and I'm very, very happy.

-Callie Kimball, Small Space, Big Style (Season 1, Episode 8)

HGTV is a network whose shows focus almost exclusively on lost souls who believe they will find happiness in granite countertops, vaulted ceilings, stainless appliances, hardwood floors, open concepts, brushed bar pull hardware, custom cabinets, gas stoves with red knobs, man caves, theater rooms, gigantic yards, dramatic entrances--basically, anything that looks shiny.

The show which forces the "almost exclusively" into that entirely accurate description of HGTV? A seemingly little-known show called Small Space, Big Style (SSBS). On its face, viewings by visitors of the 408 have missed the saving graces of SSBS in absolutely breathtaking ways--focusing instead on how "HGTV just forces the gay issue," "you don't really need a dishwasher," and "they'll just want a bigger space in a few months anyway," the ambient feedback has illustrated that sometimes even the best of things need to be spelled out. Like this. 

I'M HERE TO HELP!

My name is Timmy. I will help prepare you for a baby.

I will help you remember which things aren't kid friendly.

NOTHING PREPARES YOU FOR LIFE WITH BABY

Babies are bottomless pits of sleepless work--that's the subliminal story told by many in the current generation of parents when their childless peers dare to even joke about how something in their life is preparing them for children. Eyes roll. Difficulty is laughed off. You must bow before the impossibility of having children because having children is harder than anything you've ever done in your little life. Your pre-children trials are filled with helium, skippy. 

Replacing a radiator, for example, is nothing but work--but you aren't likely to be taken seriously if you decide to be dramatic about the task. Even if you replaced ten radiators in one day, you can bet money that you could find a parent somewhere who would shrug and tell you about how they once had an eleven-diaper day. And nothing is worse than eleven dirty diapers--oh, you don't know humility until you touch that much poop! What's that--you have to push your internal hemorrhoids back in every time you have to flush twice? Applying cream doesn't count when its on yourself. *quickly changes subject*

APPARENTLY VIOLENCE REALLY IS THE ANSWER

http://www.telesurtv.net/

Anyone born after 2001 has never known a time when America has not been at war.  Every day that "we the people" allow our troops to be used as a solution, we tell ourselves that violence and killing is the answer. News of the US military's bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan comes only days after a mass-shooting in Oregon, and neither the military advocates nor the gun control advocates seem to be talking about the overlap between the two: violence, when used as a solution, resulted in equally dead people in both cases.

Violence in America should come as no surprise. Many Americans are nothing if not patriotic, and patriotism is 99% supporting the troops and 1% voting. Voting only changes the color of the party ordering the troops. And what do troops do? A few National Guard units may help out after natural disasters, but--with rare exception--hammers are almost exclusively used for hitting things. Troops kill, maintain things that kill, or support people who kill. And you, American, must support your troops. It's like an ice-bucket challenge that you aren't allowed to forget.