SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET:

GREAT ADVANCE IN PUBLIC SAFETY – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   A university in Michigan is taking a novel approach to the threat of school shooters, outfitting its faculty with hockey pucks in order to protect against potential mass murderers armed with firearms.  The weaponized pucks at Oakland University are “a ‘last resort’ precaution to throw at any active shooters on campus,” The Detroit News reports.
According to the university’s police chief, the program stemmed from an idea raised during an active shooter training session, in which “one attendee asked what staff and students could bring to prepare themselves for a fight.”  The chief “recalled once being struck in the head with a puck and said it ’caused a fair amount of damage to me’.”  The “spur-of-the-moment” decision “had merit to it and kind of caught on,” the chief said. The faculty union at the university went on to spend $2,500 on the pucks and are distributing them to faculty members, as well as students, for free.  According to one professor, “My first reaction was: You are talking about facing an assault weapon and asking us to fight back with hockey pucks? It sounded silly. Then I went through the training session, and it all made sense. None of us want to face an armed assailant. Students will look to us for leadership in a situation like that.”  Yes, I'm sure students will look to postmodern leftist professors in a situation like that.  The fantasy world of colleges never ceases to amaze.

FASCINATING – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:  White liberals present themselves as less competent when addressing minorities, while conservatives use the same vocabulary no matter what the race of their audience, according to a newly released study.  Yale and Princeton researchers found that both white Democratic presidential candidates and self-identified liberals played down their competence when speaking to minorities, using fewer words that conveyed accomplishment and more words that expressed warmth.  On the other hand, there were no significant differences in how white conservatives, including Republican presidential candidates, spoke to white versus minority audiences.  “White liberals self-present less competence to minorities than to other Whites—that is, they patronize minorities stereotyped as lower status and less competent,” according to the study’s abstract.  Cydney Dupree, Yale School of Management assistant professor of organizational behavior, said she was surprised by the findings of the study, which sought to discover how “well-intentioned whites” interact with minorities.  There it is – what we've always suspected.  Liberals patronize minorities, whereas conservatives treat minorities with dignity.  We've always known it.

RETURN OF A WARSHIP – FROM ABC NEWS:   Fifteen months after a deadly collision that killed 10 U.S. sailors, the Navy destroyer USS John McCain is floating again, leaving its dry dock and mooring pier side in Yokosuka, Japan on Tuesday.  On August 21, 2017, 10 sailors were killed when the destroyer collided with an oil tanker as it entered the busy waterway into the port of Singapore, leaving a gaping hole in the port side of the ship. The incident occurred two months after seven sailors were killed when the destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan.  The McCain has been undergoing repairs for nearly a year with final repairs expected to be completed in late 2019, the Navy's 7th Fleet said in a press release on Tuesday. But the ship's move from dry dock to water was marked as a "major milestone" in the ongoing effort to repair and restore the destroyer.  Given the amount of time required for repair, the damage must have been enormous.  The ship, originally named for the late Senator McCain's father and grandfather, was rededicated earlier this year to include the senator.

November 28,  2018