A Case for More Gun Control Using Gun Lobbyist Data

December 15, 2012December 17, 2012Digital Citizen Leave a comment

I owe this post to a pro-gun friend who debated me on more gun control. His arguments and stats used, including the graph below, led me to do the degree of research I did to counter, which I used here. I didn’t convince him, which I didn’t expect to, but you can judge for yourself from what I present following. I thought it might be valuable for people to understand the flaws in many anti-gun control, if not pro-gun, arguments presented, coming from someone who does analysis of all sorts for a living.

I was shown the graph below with data showing why tighter gun control was not the solution to America’s gun problem with gun related deaths and incidents. What I, as a professional analyst, saw, instead, was the very reasons why America needs tighter gun control. I will also counter a bunch of other points brought up by gun lobbyists that doesn’t involve data, because it isn’t just about the data, of course. But let’s first look at one graph with lots of data.

US Firearms, Deaths and Population Trends

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Why Can’t Game Ending Official Rulings Be Reversed?

September 25, 2012Digital Citizen Leave a comment

On Monday night, the NFL replacement officials made a terrible call that robbed the Green Bay Packers of a victory, and gave the Seattle Seahawks one, on the final play of the game. Watch the video through the link and judge for yourself, if you have not seen it. The NFL has tried to support this decision, but I doubt anybody but Seattle fans and their team are buying it.

Back in June, 2010, American League umpire Jim Joyce made a wrong call on the final out of a Indians – Tigers game that robbed Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga of a perfect game. To be fair, Jim Joyce publicly apologized, but he should have pushed major league baseball to reverse the ruling given it had no external impact like game outcome or playoff race, or different outcome the way it was allowed to play out.

Both of these were potentially game ending rulings if done right. That is, what came after would not have mattered. There were no “what ifs” had the rulings been changed, like a mid-game ruling where there were lots to still play for and anything might still have happened.

So why can’t they be reversed and the correct results be placed in the record books?

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Peyton Manning Joins the Denver Broncos… and Why This Guy is Glad He Did!

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012Digital Citizen Leave a comment

The Peyton Manning Sweepstakes is over! Peyton has chosen to sign with the Denver Broncos, a team with a horse mascot like the Indianapolis Colts, for whom he had played for 14 seasons. Maybe he has a thing for horsey teams. Regardless, that means I’m going to be switching favourite teams because I was only in for the Colts to follow Peyton from the University of Tennessee, where he played college football. But now that Peyton has left, I go with him.

A lot of reasons were mentioned why Peyton chose the Broncos, see story link above, but here’s why I am glad he chose them. Some of these reasons I don’t doubt he considered, though maybe as a minor factor. Others are just for me that made me happy:

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How Canadians Died in 2007

November 16, 2010November 18, 2010Digital Citizen Leave a comment

Statistics Canada released its Mortality, Summary List of Causes 2007 (1.0 MB PDF) today, with a ton of tables on causes of death, by provinces, territories and country, gender, age, etc.

As morbid as it may sound, I thought it was a rather interesting document to browse through. It’s not because I wanted to know about all the ways that people died, in summary groups, but rather how they compared to each other. We often hear about stats on various diseases, accidents, criminal activities and other causes of death. However, it’s often without context, like how does it really compare to other causes since lots of people die every day, or the context whoever is trying to persuade you of something wants you to hear. In other words, death stats are often presented to you in propaganda format. Lobbying format if you want to be kinder.

What the tables in the Mortality Summary List does is let you go through those numbers yourself, though they would generally be of more interest to Canadians since it is about Canadians. See the big and the small numbers of deaths and their causes. Which ones topped the list? Find the causes you’re interested in and see how the number who died compared to other causes. How does cancer compare to car accidents? Is AIDS that prevalent any more? See how it is in your province or territory. Are the top causes the same? Maybe even make comparisons, though you’ll have to do a per capita (per person) or percentage type of calculation to have a fair comparison in some cases. The Mortality Summary List even provided some of those calculations for you!

You’ll never had such a clear idea of what Canadians died of in your life! Were things the way you thought they were? You may want to rethink some things about various issues related to death, whether disease, crime or otherwise, especially where priorities should be put.

Makes for a great school project or presentation, too! Do it well and I promise show and tell won’t have been this interesting in a long time! 🙂

It is too bad this data is relatively old, being for the year 2007 when we are almost nearing the end of 2010. StatCan is generally pretty good at being far more up to date than that. Odd, though, that they have economic data for so many things up to the month when what’s called vital statistics such as this lags almost 3 years behind. However, unless there were some shocking new trend, and I mean shocking by numbers, not by gruesome image or high profile media stories like shark attacks, things won’t have changed much. You’re still getting a pretty good idea of what’s happening. That said, in 2007, deaths by major cardiovascular (heart) disease passed deaths by cancer for the first time in 10 years, though the trend had been predictable from previous years. Together, heart disease and cancer combined for a staggering 59% of all Canadian deaths in 2007.

Can you see the impact of obesity on society coming? Who wants to bet this order remains the same for most of the next 10, maybe even 20 years?

Anyway, it isn’t morbid to mull over stuff like this. Death is a part of life. While this is not a spiritual examination like my philosophy in the previous sentence often suggests, it is a social understanding of it for Canadian society.

And whatever tangents your mind goes on thinking about death, it certainly is a lot to think about!

Seriously, it’s not a morbid exercise. Quite enlightening, in fact. I hope you give it a look.

I’d should do some research to find an American equivalent to have a look. I bet that’d be real interesting, too!

Which Facebook Friends Should I Remove?

September 29, 2010March 19, 2011Digital Citizen Leave a comment

Nov 6 2010 update:

This article just became much more relevant after Facebook introduced the Facebook Friendship Page feature on Oct 29, 2010.

Most people on Facebook have far more Facebook Friends than friends they have in real life. It is for social networking, after all, not deep friendships. However, every one of those Facebook friends is watching you, in a way, with Facebook’s notifications and updating system. How many stories have you heard about people caught cheating on relationships, lying for jobs or scholarships, and the like, because of something they did on Facebook that was found out by someone else? Even some misunderstandings of your actions and/or comments can be a lot of nuisance. These public mistakes, visible to all your Facebook Friends, are so common now you might even know someone who has been subject to it! But it’s not that a person did something wrong on Facebook that was the problem. It was that it got picked up by someone else who was probably on their Facebook friends’ list. Privacy settings can’t protect against Facebook friends. Well, they can, but if you have settings against Facebook friends, you should just remove them.

Having a Facebook Friends list closer to your real friends list means you have to worry less about who might get you in trouble. You can also misbehave a little bit more without worrying much about the consequences. Don’t kid yourself if you don’t think there are potential consequences. You’ll also waste less time screening through notifications looking for updates by those you really care about in life.

Keeping your Facebook Friends list up to date is the solution to many of the potential problems previously listed. Keeping your Facebook Friends list up to date means removing people from time to time, not just adding them. It is a judgmental act to remove Facebook friends, but seriously, if you made a wrong call, it’s just Facebook friendships. If you’re real friends to any extent in life, they’ll forgive you and you can be Facebook friends again.

So which Facebook friends should you remove? Well, you choose your own criteria. But here are a few I have found useful… in no particular order, and sometimes in combination as they are not absolute.

Do I feel like removing them or care enough to keep them?

I trust my feelings on this one. If I don’t remove them on gut reaction alone, I sometimes override that with other “thinking” criteria below.

Do I know who they are right away?

Some people’s Facebook Friends lists are so large they can really answer “no” to this question for some on their list. “Facebook whales”, or people with over 1000 Facebook friends, may find this criteria interesting to try. If I can’t remember someone on my Facebook Friends list to the extent I know them right away, I chuck them.

Would they remember who I am?

Facebook whales are prime candidates to be tossed under this criteria. It only takes knowing a few hundred people’s names for someone to seem like they remember everybody, but they really don’t. This criteria is a little hard for people to answer “no” to, because it makes them seem so unimportant to someone else. I just suck it up, so if I have any doubt a Facebook Friend might know who I am, I toss them.

Can I name 3 specific things about them not recently on their updates?

Knowing who someone is, is not exactly a deep criteria. If I barely know who a person is on my Facebook Friends list, I often remove them unless I know they will probably be a useful contact for me in the future. These are the people I often added because they might be a useful contact to me in the future, in the first place. I’m not very discerning to add Facebook friends, but I am to remove them.

Do I hide their status updates or block them on my privacy settings?

This one isn’t absolute for me, but I have eliminated Facebook friends on it. With some people, they’re real friends with annoying habits I put up with cause we’re friends. What people put up with in any type of relationship is more than what they’d put up with strangers due to the bond of the relationship. So I hide their statuses but keep them as Facebook Friends. However, if I’m not real friends to some extent, and am annoyed by their status updates, I tend to remove them. I can find other ways to contact them if I really need to. Certainly, if I ever considered blocking people to any extent with my privacy settings, I remove them.

Have I had any contact with them “lately” (like maybe a year or more)?

If I haven’t had any contact with a person in over a year, I usually remove them. Contact doesn’t mean they have to initiate the contact, but that they should respond to contact I have with them. Some people are so bad they don’t do that, in which case, no need to keep them. I can still be friends if we only ever communicate in real life, but there’s no need to have them snoop on me. We can become Facebook friends again later if they appear in my life again. Technical problems I can’t understand is a good way to explain what “happened” to our previous Facebook friendships.

Do they update their Facebook profile?

The main reason I use Facebook was to be in touch with the lives of people. If they don’t update, that defeats this purpose. We likely wouldn’t have had much contact, either, in which case, off they go!

Do I have them to avoid awkwardness?

There are times when I add people to avoid awkwardness, like partners of female friends. After a while, if I don’t develop any type of friendship with those partners, I remove them. They’ll have had their “check-in” time to make sure I’m not after their girlfriends or spouse. I also know I’m not doing that so the partner’s “jealousy” becomes his problem, not mine.

Those are the criteria I have so far. I may have more in the future and will add if so. If you have suggestions, please do share.

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Nov 6 2010 update:

Do I feel like removing them or care enough to keep them?

Do I know who they are right away?

Would they remember who I am?

Can I name 3 specific things about them not recently on their updates?

Do I hide their status updates or block them on my privacy settings?

Have I had any contact with them “lately” (like maybe a year or more)?

Do they update their Facebook profile?

Do I have them to avoid awkwardness?

Other Facebook issue posts on my site: