This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Society

  • Vote Fraud is “Insignificant”, Eh?

    “Vote fraud is insignificant.”  We hear that all the time from certain circles.

    Well, Norm Coleman would be virtually certain to disagree – and if he’s willing to be honest, so would Al “Felon’s Choice” Franken.  But I digress.  (smile)

    Back on topic:  I guess it’s at least theoretically possible that vote fraud is indeed “insignificant” today.  But IMO that also depends on what you consider “insignificant”.

    How about having 2.7+ million people being registered to vote in more than one state? If that were the case, would you call that “insignificant”?

    I certainly wouldn’t consider 2.7+ million potential multiple-voters to be an “insignificant” issue.  But that – along with numerous other problems – is precisely what Pew Center found when they studied US voter registration back in 2012. 

    Pew Center found over 2.688 million US voters to be registered to vote in 2 different states.  Over 68,700 were registered in 3 states.  And over 1,800 were registered in more than 3 states.

    Yeah, it’s unlikely that all of those folks voted in more than one state.  Some of them were doubtless dual-registered due to the individuals concerned having moved in the year or two prior to the election and their former state not removing their name from the list of registered voters.

    But I’ll guarantee you that some of those with multiple registrations did vote more than once.  As this Fox News article documents, there have indeed been a number of prosecutions for exactly that during recent years .

    My guess is that merely the blatantly stupid or a handful of unlucky few got caught.  I’m thinking the cases prosecuted are barely the tip of the iceberg.

    Short of requiring voting “in person only” and using indelible ink on a finger afterwards as proof of voting, requiring a prospective voter to produce a valid photo ID to allow reasonable verification of identity in order to vote is the logical first step in fighting vote fraud.  And even that’s not sufficient in and of itself when it comes to multiple registrations; some way to detect and flag duplicate registrations in multiple states would also be required to stop people from voting in multiple states.

    But for whatever reason some just won’t support requiring a prospective voter to prove he or she is who they claim before they vote.  Apparently they’re fine with leaving open a loophole that enables this kind of fraud.

    Kinda makes you wonder why.

  • Vietnam vet; Pokemon Go FY

    Vietnam vet; Pokemon Go FY

    Reed

    Winona, Minnesota, Veterans Memorial Park Committee Chair and Vietnam veteran Bruce Reed told Pokemon Go players to leave the park when he saw them turn the park into a campground, according to the Winona Post;

    Ever since the GPS-based, “augmented reality” smartphone game was released on July 6, players have crowded at Veterans Memorial Park. The game is played throughout the city and the country, but because there are three “Poké stops” together at Veterans Memorial Park, the tribute to veterans is the most popular place to play in Winona. Some players just stand around or walk through the park, but the grass has turned brown where others set up lawn chairs, hammocks, and shade tents.

    “People can come walk through the park, hold hands, sit on the benches, but don’t turn it into a campsite,” Reed said in an interview Friday.

    Reed was cited for criminal damage to property and disorderly conduct, but the city’s fathers are considering whether or not to place the park off-limits for gamers, according to Fox News;

    As the Winona City Council considered a measure to ban games at the park, council member and fellow veteran Gerry Krage said using the park to play Pokemon GO was disrespectful.

    If the ban took effect, people who played the game at the park could face 90 days in jail or a $1,000 fine, the Post reported.

  • 52% of Americans “extremely proud”

    52% of Americans “extremely proud”

    american-flag

    According to Gallup in their latest round of polling only 52% of Americans are “extremely proud” to be Americans and it represents a new low in the responses sine 2003.

    Americans’ patriotism spiked after 9/11, peaking at 70% in 2003, but has declined since, including an eight-percentage-point drop in early 2005 and a five-point drop since 2013.

    Americans’ declining patriotism is likely related to broader dissatisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. In January 2004, when 69% were extremely proud to be an American, 55% of Americans were satisfied with the way things were going in the U.S. That was the last time satisfaction has been at the majority level, and the percentage satisfied has mostly held below 30% since 2007, including the 29% in Gallup’s most recent update.

    Well, while I’m disappointed in the direction that things are going in this country, there’s no place I’d rather live.I’m proud that I was born here, I’m proud of my 35 years of service to the American people. As far as the direction the country is headed, it’s not like I didn’t predict that eight years ago, so I expected it. I’m not particularly proud of some my fellow citizens and they should probably leave the country before they goof it up even more. They can go to some place more to their liking like North Korea or Cuba, or Venezuela.

    Having lived in some of the shitholes of the world, I know what true poverty is, I know what the true lack of freedom is like, and I know the cause of those problems.

    Gallup says that the dissatisfaction with the United States is mostly among the young folks, the ones who won’t stay off my lawn;

    The largest decline has come among young adults, from 60% to 34%. In 2003 as well as today, young adults rank among the subgroups least willing to say they are extremely proud to be Americans.

    I’m not surprised – they live in their pretend television and Hollywood world and have no experiences with which to compare reality with fiction. Maybe if they had jobs and paid taxes they’d be more appreciative.

  • Why “Clock Boy’s ‘Science Project’ ” Should Have Raised Eyebrows – and Alarms

    Jonn wrote an article the other day about “Clock Boy” – the 14 year old in Irving, Texas, who took apart what appears to be an old Radio Shack digital clock and put it into some kind of carrying case, then took it to his school.

    Many seem to think what happened after he took the device to school was a gross overreaction on the part of local school and police officials.  Some even say that the lad’s “science project” could not possibly have been a “hoax bomb” (illegal under Texas law), was obviously innocuous, and should never have been treated as anything suspicious.

    Perhaps they’re right.  But let me make a couple of observations regarding the situation.

    •  The case into which the clock appears to have been installed looks to be about 9” x 6” x 2”, more or less.

    •  The clock’s working parts take up very little of the case’s interior space; virtually all of the interior of the case remains free.

    •  An M18A1 Claymore Mine is approximately 8.5” x 5.5” x 1.5”; it weighs about 3.5 pounds.

    •  The parts of a Claymore that “make bang/dead” only occupy somewhere around half of a Claymore’s total volume, give or take.  The rest of that 8.5″ x 5.5″ x 1.5″ volume is taken up by the Claymore’s case, sight, and the case’s curvature.

    •  The equivalent of that “make bang/dead” part of a Claymore will easily fit within half of the case in which the lad mounted the Radio Shack clock parts, leaving the rest of the space inside unused.

    •  Add a couple of other things – which I won’t list here, but which terrorists know quite well – and you essentially have a home-brewed Claymore with integral timer/detonator.

    •  Those “couple of other things” will easily fit into the unused volume in that case after the clock and “makes bang/dead” parts are installed.

    •  The total package would weigh maybe 5 pounds – probably less.

    Bottom line:  this kid’s “science project” is about 1/3 of what’s needed for a homemade and quite deadly little time bomb.  The other things needed are well-known to terrorists.  The fabrication required to finish the job is decidedly low-tech, not particularly difficult, and wouldn’t take very long.  And with the clock side towards a wall or otherwise hidden, it would also appear innocuous enough that wouldn’t be all that hard to hide it in plain sight.

    Yeah, maybe this was all innocuous and innocent.  But the possibility exists it wasn’t completely innocent, either.  Hell, the kid could have been duped into making it and taking it to school by someone else.

    . . .

    We Americans want to believe that people are inherently good, and that the world is a safe place.  We usually act as if that’s the case – and in the past it’s usually been the truth, at least in the USA.

    However, reality is now different.  There is indeed evil in the world; there are those who would kill us simply because we are American citizens.  And some of them are here among us today – just as they were living here among us on 10 September 2001.

    Denying that reality and refusing to act accordingly is not only deadly.  It’s also monumentally stupid.

    Now, tell me again why this kid’s actions were “no big deal” and why what the authorities did was an “overreaction”?  Especially since, roughly 4 months prior, a group of terrorists had tried to attack a “draw Muhammed” cartoon contest 10 miles or less from where this kid went to school?

     

    Author’s Addendum:  for what it’s worth,  it’s quite possible that an entire M18A1 Claymore would fit in the case the lad used if the case is indeed 9″ x 6″ x 2″, as it seems to be above.  If the case were slightly larger than that, it would fit easily.  In either case, there would almost certainly be plenty of space left over for the clock entrails and other items required to convert the case into a truly nasty little time bomb.  

    Under those conditions, there would also be very little fabrication work required for that conversion.

     

    Second Addendum:  here’s a link to a nice bit of reverse-engineering on “Clock Boy’s” little “science project”.  It appears to have been based on a clock sold by Radio Shack in the 1980s:

    Reverse Engineering Ahmed Mohamed’s Clock… and Ourselves.

  • Slavery and Guilt

    Another comment the other day by one of our readers also got me thinking. And when that happens, well . . . you know the rest. (smile)

    But this time, there aren’t all that many numbers involved.

    What got me thinking was the comment made by someone that no one in their family had ever been engaged in human trafficking.

    This isn’t meant as a slam at anyone. But the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that the individual is almost certainly wrong.

    Because the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that very few people on earth today can make truthfully make that statement. And outside of a very few isolated populations, I’d guess that number is almost certainly zero.

    . . .

    Slavery is an evil human practice – but it’s also an incredibly old human practice. Until relatively recently it was allowed, and was often fairly common, in virtually every human society that practiced agriculture (some of the cultures of Pacific Oceania are believed to be the only cultures having agriculture that are exceptions).  Slavery occurred on every continent except possibly pre-Colonial Australia (even that appears uncertain) and Antarctica (no human population).

    And yes:  it appears very likely that all races practiced slavery and/or participated in the slave trade, too.  The sole racial exceptions may be from Pacific Oceania, and even that’s not completely certain.

    Agriculture is thought to have begun around 10,000 years ago. Allowing a couple of thousand years (I’m being generous – I personally doubt that it took more than a couple of hundred) before slavery developed as a human evil, that means slavery has been around for roughly 8,000 years.

    Bottom line:  only those societies that never progressed beyond hunter/gatherer – plus possibly a few isolated societies in Pacific Oceania – seem to have never practiced slavery. (Even then, we’re not absolutely sure.)  So unless someone can verify that all of his or her ancestors were members of one of that small number of societies, that means you have ancestors from a society that practiced slavery.

    And that’s the problem. In any such society, go back far enough and the numbers essentially guarantee you have at least one ancestor that either owned slaves or was otherwise involved in the slave trade.

    . . .

    OK, the numbers.

    A human generation is generally accepted today to be a period of 20 to 30 years.  That wasn’t always the case – children were generally born earlier on average in the past than is the case today in much of the world – but for convenience we’ll use 20 years throughout for the length of a generation.

    That means a century is 5 generations; a millennium, 50 generations.  Since we’re assuming above that slavery began around 8,000 years ago, that means slavery has been around for about 400 human generations.

    Ignoring the possibility of consanguineous relationships, the number of ancestors each of us has can be expressed as a by a simple expression:  2 to the Nth power, where N is the number of generations “back” one looks. I’ll represent that as “2^N” here.

    So, going back 100 years – to 1915 – means going back 5 generations. In that generation you have 2^5 = 32 ancestors.  You can usually check that far back.

    In fact, going back even 300 years isn’t easy, but it’s not that bad. That’s the year 1715, and is 15 generations back – which gives that generation 2^15 = 32,768 ancestors. One can probably determine that far back with reasonable certainty whether any of your ancestors ever owned or trafficked in slaves if you are willing to put enough time and energy into the task.

    The problem occurs as you continue to look back further.

    Looking back 600 years, or the year 1415, and that’s 30 generations back – which works out to 2^30, or 1,073,741,842, ancestors in that generation alone. Even if the records were available, that’s problematic.

    It’s estimated that the world population in 1400 was somewhere between 350 and 400 million. That’s far less than the number above. Since every child has 2 parents, either that means everyone alive in 1415 was an ancestor multiple times over – or that something else is in play.  (The latter is obviously the case.)

    Unfortunately, allowing for the obvious fact that family trees eventually must “fold back” on themselves somewhere in the past doesn’t help much.  Even setting the effective number of “unique ancestors” per generation at the low level of 1.5 (e.g., the equivalent of each set of parents being half-siblings – something we would consider today an abomination and an unthinkably high level of consanguinity) only pushes out the problem a few centuries. Even under those conditions, the number of unique ancestors still grows exponentially and can be approximated by 1.5^N – and 1.5^50, which works out to the number of unique ancestors in the year 1015 for 20-year generations, is roughly 637,621,500.  Again, that’s far greater than the estimated world population at the time.

    So, even the above is actually rather an oversimplification.  But I believe it gets the point across – partway.

    And that’s only part of the problem.  The next is the real “killer”.

    For the claim of “no slavery in my family” to be literally true, that means every ancestor in every past generation must neither have owned a slave nor been otherwise involved in the slave trade. Um, I don’t think that’s going to be the case.

    Even if only 1 individual in a million on earth was a slave owner at any given time since slavery began, go back far enough and the number of ancestors in a given generation eventually becomes large enough that having a slave-owning or -trading ancestor becomes a virtual certainty. (I’ll pass on providing the mathematical explanation why and a simplified sample calculation unless someone requests it.) Bottom line: somewhere in the past, it’s a virtual guarantee that an ancestor owned a slave or traded in slaves – even if the vast majority did not.

    For what it’s worth: by the same analysis, go back far enough and it’s probably equally certain that every one of us has at least one individual in our family tree somewhere who was once a slave, too.  So we’re all “victims”, too.

    . . .

    My point in writing the above wasn’t to make anyone feel bad, or to point fingers. My point is to set the stage for the following.

    The whole “guilt about slavery” discussion today is based on the concept of “inherited guilt” – that people living today can be deemed “guilty” for the acts of their ancestors.  That concept is specious as hell.  Let me say it plainly:  the whole concept of “inherited” or “historical” guilt due to the past actions of one’s ancestors is absolute and unadulterated bullsh!t.

    Guilt cannot be inherited. A person is guilty for wrongs they themselves commit, or which they have a duty to prevent and willfully (or through negligence) fail to stop. For such failings, a person legitimately can be held accountable.

    However, a person cannot legitimately be considered “guilty” of something done before they were born.  Even the dullest village idiot understands that.

    A person living today had absolutely nothing to do with what happened 100 years ago – because they were not yet born at the time. Regardless of what their ancestors did or did not do, those living today are legitimately “guilty” of absolutely nothing with respect to what happened before they were born.  Guilt for those living today is due solely to their own wrongdoings, not those of their ancestors.

    Further, the argument is bullsh!t for another reason as well. Go back far enough, and it’s a virtual certainty that each of us has an ancestor that was guilty of the same. I find the hypocrisy in the argument as odious and offensive as the argument’s premise.

    . . .

    This idiotic concept of “historical” or “inherited” guilt IMO has fueled as many conflicts throughout history – if not more – than has religion. It’s fueled blood feuds (think Hatfields and McCoys). IMO, it’s the real basis for today’s conflict between Palestinians and Israelis (each believes it has has been historically wronged by the other). The same is true for the current tensions in the Balkans and in Central Africa and Asia.  Ditto many if not most tribal conflicts throughout history. Today, it forms a big part of the basis for the historical Arab-Persian enmity as well as the India-Pakistan hostilities – more, IMO, than do religious differences. It was a causative factor in most if not all of Europe’s wars.

    And yet, some still cling to the inane concept of historical or collective guilt.  Humans are sometimes incredibly slow to learn, both individually and as societies.

    Regardless of how much we wish otherwise, history cannot be changed; we can’t “fix” the past.  The best we can do is remember it, learn from it – and hopefully avoid making the same mistakes yet again.

  • More Thoughts on Guns and Murders

    A comment by one of our regulars (VOV) the other day – along with a video posted by another reader in a different discussion – got me thinking.  And it led me to look at a few numbers.

    I know that’s a huge surprise.  Try to get over the shock.  (smile)

    What I ran across wasn’t really surprising to me, except in one area. But it might be of general interest, so I decided to post what I found and my conclusions.  They concern guns, murder, and the distribution of the latter.

    In 2012, the USA had a murder rate (which includes non-negligent homicides) of 4.7 per 100,000 population. That year, the US population was somewhat less than 314 million (313,873,685); there were somewhat under 15,000 murders (14,866).

    What I found interesting was where those murders occurred. As most of our regular readers might guess, it seems a disproportionate number of them occurred in cities.

    1.  All Cities over 250,000.

    I was able to find data on the murder rate in all US cities over 250,000.   I then did a bit of number crunching (Excel is good for that) to determine the number of murders in those cities. Roundoff error may have resulted in a minor error, since I used rounding to get integer totals – but I don’t think it did.  If it did, I doubt any error is more than by 1 or 2.  Here’s what I came up with:

    US Cities over 250,000

    Rest of USA
    Total Population 55,501,250 Total Population 258,372,435
    Total Murders 5,805 Total Murders 9,061
    Murder Rate 10.5 Murder Rate 3.5

    Yep – for all US cities over 250,000 in population, the aggregate murder rate is roughly 3x that of the rest of the country. Although US cities with population greater than 250,000 have less than 18% of the total US population, they account for 39% of US homicides.

    If you think that’s an indication that murder is much more of a problem in cities than in the rest of America – that’s correct. But stay tuned; there’s a bit of a plot twist coming.

    2.  All US Cities over 500,000.

    I decided to look next at cities over 500k in population (Excel makes sorting REALLY easy). There are 33 such US cities.

    The results were a mildly surprising.

    US Cities over 500,000

    Rest of USA
    Total Population 41,237,116 Total Population 272,636,569
    Total Murders 4,114 Total Murders 10,752
    Murder Rate 10.0 Murder Rate 3.9

    Interesting. Though still disproportionate, considering only cities with a population over 500,000 actually narrowed the “gap” a bit. While some of that is due to adding the cities between 250,000 and 500,000 in population (and their murders) back into the “rest of USA” category, having any drop-off at all still seems . . . well, a bit odd.

    3.  Well, How about 600,000+?

    Here ya go. Not much change, actually.  Curious.

    US Cities over 600,000

    Rest of USA
    Total Population 37,852,847 Total Population 276,020,838
    Total Murders 3,783 Total Murders 11,0833
    Murder Rate 10.0 Murder Rate 4.0

    4.  The “Top 10” – US Cities over 1,000,000

    So, I decided to look at only the “biggies” – e.g., the 10 largest US Cities. As it turns out, there are also precisely the US cities that top 1,000,000 in population. So, I took a look.  Here’s what I found.

    US Cities over 1,000,000 (“Top 10”)

    Rest of USA
    Total Population 25,494,200 Total Population 288,379,485
    Total Murders 2.,261 Total Murders 12,605
    Murder Rate 8.9 Murder Rate 4.4

    Interesting – and, frankly, a bit surprising.

    The numbers continue to converge, which along with the previous data indicates the problem doesn’t always get worse as cities get larger.  One would guess it should, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

    5.  The “Worst Offenders”.

    So, let’s look instead at the “worst of the worst” and see what we can deduce. Sorting on murder rate and taking the “worst offenders”, here’s the list – and the numbers:

    The “Worst Offenders”
    State City Population Murder Rate Number of Murders
    Michigan Detroit 707,096 54.6 386
    Louisiana New Orleans 362,874 53.2 193
    Missouri St. Louis 318,667 35.5 113
    Maryland Baltimore 625,474 34.9 218
    New Jersey Newark 278,906 34.4 96
    California Oakland 399,487 31.8 127
    California Stockton 299,105 23.7 71
    Missouri Kansas City 464,073 22.6 105
    Pennsylvania Philadelphia 1,538,957 21.5 331
    Ohio Cleveland 393,781 21.3 84
    Tennessee Memphis 657,436 20.2 133
    Georgia Atlanta 437,041 19 83
    Illinois Chicago 2,708,382 18.5 501
    New York Buffalo 262,434 18.3 48
    Florida Miami 414,327 16.7 69
    Ohio Cincinnati 296,204 15.5 46
    Wisconsin Milwaukee 599,395 15.2 91
    Oklahoma Oklahoma City 595,607 14.3 85
    DC Washington 632,323 13.9 88
    Ohio Toledo 286,020 13.6 39
    Pennsylvania Pittsburgh 312,112 13.1 41

    Interesting. No apparent real rhyme or reason here. Some are large cities (Chicago, Philly); others are not. NYC and Boston didn’t make the list – but neither did Dallas, Houston, or LA. The list almost seems to have been culled at random from the list of US cities with population over 250,000.

    But whatever the underlying reasons these are the 21 US cities with the worst murder rates in the USA.  In fact, it’s all of the US cities with a population over 250,000 having a murder rate over 13.

    In the aggregate, those 21 cities have only 4% of the US population.  But they account for almost 20% of US murders – and their aggregate murder rate is just a hair less than 5x the national average.

    Significantly, though – those “gun crazy” states with really low ratings from the “Brady Bunch” don’t exactly seem overrepresented on the list.  None of the states with a Brady score of zero (AK, AZ, and UT) have a city on the list – and yes, each has a city large enough to be listed there.  In fact, if you do a quick count you’ll find that a handful of “states” – specifically, CA, PA, MD, NJ, IL, NY, MI, and the District of Columbia – account for almost half (10 of 21) of the cities listed.

    The average Brady Score of those eight “states” in 2011 was 51.375 (the “Brady Bunch” didn’t assign DC a Brady Score in 2011, but for computation here I’m arbitrarily assigning DC a Brady Score equal to that of NY). That average would meet the criteria for a “3-star” rating from the “Brady Bunch” with respect to the strength of their gun control laws.  Indeed, all of these states received at least 2 stars from the “Brady Bunch” in 2011.

    In fact, of the 11 states with a “2-star” or higher rating from the “Brady Bunch”, nearly 2/3 of them (7 of 11) have a city on the “worst offenders” list above.  I’m guessing it would be an even 2/3 (8 of 12) if the “Brady Bunch” had published a Brady Score for DC.

    In contrast, “gun crazy” TX – which has no cities on the list above – had a 2011 Brady Score of 4 and a 0 star rating from the “Brady Bunch”.  Plus, the US city with the lowest murder rate – Plano, with a 2012 murder rate of 0.4  (not a misprint; that really is intended to read “zero point four”) – is also in Texas.  Go figure.

    6.  Comments.

    A few caveats and comments before I get to my conclusions.

    The “cities” above are exactly that – legal and political entities.  They aren’t their entire metro area in many cases; they’re often ringed with smaller cities and towns (the famed “Suburbia”).  However, they do generally include the old, urban “inner city” areas for the  region in question.

    As I noted above, the number of murders for each city is calculated from the city’s population and its murder rate, then rounded to the nearest integer (best I can tell, it’s kinda hard to kill nine-tenths of a person).  So it’s possible that there may be a round off error in there somewhere – I don’t think there is, but since it’s possible I’ll mention that fact here.

    Data for 2012 national-level statistics was obtained a site called “disastercenter.com“.  They in turn give the source of their data as being FBI UCI statistics.  I didn’t verify that, but I did spot check their 2012 US murder rate against another source and found they matched – so I don’t think they’re “blowing smoke”.

    Data source for murder rate and population for 2012 for US cities of population 250,000 and over was Wikipedia.  Wikipedia data also appears to be taken from FBI UCI crime statistics.

    A personally retained softcopy of the “Brady Bunch” Brady Score Scorecard for 2011 was used to determined 2011 state Brady Scores.

    Microsoft Excel was used to “run the numbers”.

    . . .

    My conclusions?  Threefold.

    First:  gun murder does seem to be more a city problem than anything else.  But it’s not equally a problem in all cities – whether your talking big cities or smaller ones.   Some mid-size and large cities have a very good handle on the problem (San Diego and El Paso to name two), and even NYC and LA are doing a pretty good job; ditto for many other small- and mid-sized cities.  Others have issues, but aren’t sucking wind like the cities on the last list above.

    But some cities of all sizes have a major problem – including cities next door to other cities doing a good job, and with similar gun laws (e.g., Newark, NJ, and NYC).  Local conditions, policies, and quirks seem much more important than a city’s size.

    Second:  My original opinion about the Brady Score hasn’t changed.  The acronym for “Brady Score” is “BS” – and that’s perfectly descriptive.  Legal restrictions on firearms ownership by law-abiding citizens don’t seem to do squat to prevent murders.

    Chicago and DC legally banned most firearms until recently, and it’s still virtually impossible for a citizen without connections to get a handgun carry permit (or even legally purchase a gun) in either location.  But both are among the cities with murder rates grossly higher than the US average.  And of the US cities with the 10 worst (highest) murder rates, 6 of them are from states that the “Brady Bunch” awarded 2 or more stars in 2011 for having Brady Scores in the top 22% of states:  CA (2 – Oakland, Stockton), NJ (Newark), MI (Detroit), MD (Baltimore), and PA (Philadelphia).

    Third:   Little Marty-boi O’Malley should shut his dissembling, hypocritical mouth regarding guns and gun control.  He obviously doesn’t know sh!t from Shinola when it comes to preventing gun violence.

    Why do I say that?   One word:  Baltimore.  Look above for the details.

  • A Serious Marketing “Oops” – and a Correction

    Under Armor is a popular manufacturer of athletic and sporting wear. They’re also very popular among the military. The company is usually one of the “good guys” when it comes to supporting the military.

    However, even the “good guys” can goof. And recently, Under Armor did just that.

    Here are images of two of Under Armors recently-released t-shirts:

    The first shirt was called “Band of Ballers”. I don’t think I have to tell anyone what image that one what image was used as its pattern – but if you’re having a temporary brain cramp and can’t recall, here’s the original image.

    The second shirt was called “Crossing Over”. It also should look familiar – it’s based on the famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware River during the American Revolution.

    The resulting reaction from serving military and vets – and some of the public – was predictable. Much was highly negative; some was supportive.

    To their credit, Under Armor seems to have pulled the shirts from sale quite quickly, and has removed their images from their website. They’ve also rather profusely apologized for offending serving military and veterans. No word on whether they fired the “marketing genius” involved in approving the sale of those shirts.

    Just a bit of proof that not only government agencies can have those “WTF were you thinking?” moments. Highly successful commercial firms can have them too.

  • The Bravest Thing

    The Bravest Thing

    I recently had a conversation about bravery, why we see some act as courageous and others as part of a job.  One of the examples  used was a soldier and how its takes an extraordinary act of courage and often self sacrifice to get any type of recognition.

    The conversation turned to acts of personal courage such as facing fears, or doing something hard that in the long run will be for the best, when it would be easier to let things remain the same.

    We then talked about the bravest acts we had ever seen, I thought about this for quite a while and I arrived at one act that I can say is the bravest thing I ever saw.

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeFzeNAHEhU&w=500&h=300]

    What are some acts of bravery that you have seen?