According to FBI "Black Friday" broke the record for most background checks for gun purchases. Well that's troubling.

Courtesy of USA Today:  

More Americans had their backgrounds checked purchasing guns on Black Friday than any day on record, according to data released by the FBI this week. 

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System processed 185,345 requests on Nov. 27, one of the largest retail sales days in the country. 

"This was an approximate 5% increase over the 175,754 received on Black Friday 2014," wrote Stephen Fischer, the FBI's chief of multimedia productions. "The previous high for receipts were the 177,170 received on 12/21/2012." 

Previous spikes for background checks, conducted before a gun buyer can obtain a firearm, occurred after prominent mass shootings, like in December 2012 in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

So to be clear some of the same people involved in these displays of rational behaviors also purchased firearms.

Gee no wonder they call it "Black Friday."

Arkansas, Tennessee, and Alabama round out the top three for Black Friday brawls.

Courtesy of WRCB: 

Arkansas and Tennessee top the list for Black Friday fights. Arkansas tops the list at number one, followed by Tennessee and Alabama. Missouri ranks in at number 5. 

Shoppers love saving money, but when it comes to Black Friday, some Midsoutherners go to extreme measures to get those hot items. Experts said there is a way to save money while staying safe.

Yes there is a way to save money and stay safe, DON'T go shopping on Black Friday. (More brawls here.)

Wait until Cyber Monday, that way you still get great deals and you can shop in your pajamas from home.

Who wouldn't rather shop in their pajamas?

Oh wait, I forgot about the Wal-Mart shoppers.

Did anybody else happen to notice that the map up above closely matches this one?

Anybody else completely unsurprised?

It's Black Friday! Everybody take cover until it blows over!

So it is Black Friday which I will celebrate in my traditional fashion, by not buying one single damn thing today.

Nice try corporate America but if you want me to participate in the shopping equivalent of the Hunger Games you're going to have to offer something a little more tantalizing than 40% off of big screen TV's. (Besides I already have a big screen TV.)

After all I'm a guy, and as a guy this is essentially my caveman like approach to shopping:

"Ugh me need clothes."

Three months later:

"Ugh me still need clothes."

Then another six months after that:

"Ugh me all out of clothes without holes, must go shopping now."

At the store:

"Ugh these clothes next to entrance. Good enough, me buy."

Later at home:

"Ugh hate all of new clothes, me still wear old tattered clothes instead. What's on TV?"

That essentially it, only sometimes it is more primitive.

So you all enjoy your day of allowing big business to manipulate you into acting like animals. I will be right here at home, eating, sleeping, and scratching myself.

You know like an animal, but one who still has money on his credit card.

Video of massive Black Friday crowd outside Urban Outfitters.

Seriously aren't we better than this?

Allowing retailers to turn us into animals fighting over table scraps is pathetic.

Here is another one from yesterday featuring fights and at least one arrest.

Christmas shopping with the President.

Courtesy of USA Today:  

President Obama is doing his part to support small businesses. 

Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha dropped in Saturday at Washington's Politics and Prose bookstore and purchased what he said was a "long list" of books that included The Kite Runner,Harold and the Purple Crayon, and The Sports Gene. 

The president said he bought a reader for every age, from 5 to 52 — his age. He paid by credit card. The total was not announced.

(Well I can tell you which book he didn't buy!)

I have to admit that I am feeling a little sentimental towards our President right now. 

After the holidays I might come back and bitch about the NSA or complain that the Healthcare.gov website should have been ready to rock and roll on day one, but right now I can't bring myself to do any of that.

During Thanksgiving the relatives waited until I was full of turkey and wine before going at me over Obamacare, but I am happy to report that I had little trouble knocking heads together and correcting talking points.

However at one point somebody said that President Obama was a failure, the worst President ever in fact, and I have to admit that I got pissed! Really pissed!

Instead of rationally explaining why that was incorrect, I lost my shit and demanded examples.

When they started throwing out talking points and quotes from Facebook I explained that if they were going to come at me with shit they read on Facebook they were going to walk away with stumps for arms.

I sat them in their chairs and went through the entire build up to the Affordable Care Act, from Hillary's attempt in the 90's, to the fact that it was really an expansion of Mitt Romney's Massachusetts plan, to the steady stream of Right Wing attacks it has endured since its inception.

I also asked my family to consider the purpose of the law, and why they thought this man considered it important enough to risk his entire presidency on.

They stuttered for awhile, so I explained the benefits from the program, and even explained why THEY should  be building a damn statue to the man instead of running him down.

In the end I think they had their perspective shifted quite a bit, but I came away angry that the Republicans had been so successful that such a conversation had to take place.

So now I am just raring for a fight.

Who's next?

How is Black Friday not a sign of the end of civilization as we know it?

It is like watching a road show version of the Jerry Springer Show.

Look if you find yourself in handcuffs after fighting with a woman over a 25 inch flat screen TV you may want to reevaluate your damn life.The cost of the TV may be dramatically reduced but your dignity should have a higher price tag.

The other day at my Mom's house I had a couple of female relatives tell me they were heading over to stand in line and take advantage of the Black Friday sales.

I told them they did not have to bother, and that I would gladly hold up a flaming hoop for them to jump through right there in the living room. I also filled them in on why they should avoid shopping at Wal-Mart.

But it did no good, these are my relatives who get all of their information from Facebook, and refuse to read my posts because there are "too many words." (Yeah there's simply no helping some people.)

Let me just say that I have three flat screen televisions in my home, of varying sizes, and that I did NOT ONCE stand outside in the cold for six hours, nor bitchslap a fellow consumer, in order to get my hands on any of them.  Perhaps I am simply not a good example of the American capitalist, but I think I would feel some sense of shame if I had injured another human being or froze my testicles off in order to watch reruns of "How I Met Your Mother" on a slightly larger screen.

And this is why I do NOT participate in Black Friday shopping opportunities.

You know I remember watching nature videos of army ants swarming over vegetation and unfortunate insects, and rapidly devouring them completely. That had NOTHING on this.

It's scenes like this which reminds us just how uncivilized we can become under the right circumstances.

For fucks sake they're just phones!

(Source)

"Attention Wal-Mart shoppers, you have just been pepper sprayed!" Welcome to the 2011 version of Black Friday.

"Quit being such a baby! It's a food product, essentially."

Courtesy of the Guardian:

Shoppers in the US kicked off their annual "Black Friday" orgy of consumerism amid scenes of pushing, pulling, running and – in one case – pepper-spraying their way through the doors of the nation's shops and malls. 

The annual tradition, when many stores open early with cut-price sales on the day after Thanksgiving, has become a source of controversy amid frequent scenes of near-rioting and injuries as mobs of people crowd into big-name shops. 

But few can have expected even the most determined of bargain-hunters to adopt the brutal tactics of one female shopper in a Los Angeles suburb who attacked her rivals with pepper-spray: a substance more recently associated with police brutality against Occupy Wall Street protesters. 

At least 20 people, including several children, were injured as the woman deployed her weapon. "I heard screaming and I heard yelling. Moments later my throat stung. I was coughing really bad," said Matthew Lopez, a shopper who recounted his story to the Los Angeles Times. 

The woman, whom witnesses said appeared to be defending an X-Box games console, has not been found or yet identified. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the gigantic store remained open amid the mayhem and other shoppers continued to roam the aisles filling their trolleys with goods. 

The incident occurred late on Thanksgiving evening as the Walmart – like some other stores – had pushed back its Black Friday opening to begin late on Thursday.

You know it's stories like this that make me wonder what the hell is wrong with people?

I mean here we are in the year 2011, so intellectually evolved that we have created a virtual Utopian society (For those that can afford it), and yet under the correct circumstances were are still capable of such incredibly primitive responses we might just as well still be in the back of a cave fighting over a Mastodon leg.

Personally this whole Black Friday thing is something that I avoid like the plague. I like to save money as much as anybody else but will not sacrifice my dignity by standing in the freezing cold for hours outside of a big box store, nor sacrifice my humanity by trampling my fellow human beings just to save a couple of dollars.

On Christmas day I would like to proudly stand up and tell my family members, "I may have spent more than I should have, and perhaps I did not get you the top of line gift that you asked for, but I can assure you that none of your fellow human beings were sucker punched, pepper sprayed, or tasered in the purchase of these items. "

Of course that kind of thinking may place me in the minority. But oh well, when I have I NOT been in the minority?