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Saturday, 27 September 2014

Facebook Aliases, Mark Zuckerberg, and Integrity

Kari TervoOpinon, Tech2 Comments
What’s in a name? If you’re Mark Zuckerberg, whatever he decides. Do you use an alias on social media? Well, based on that decision alone, Zuckerberg has decided to degrade your character. He said about using an alias on Facebook, “Having two identities is an example of a lack of integrity.”
There are so many things wrong with that statement. As covered thoroughly by Karyne Levy at Business Insider, having an alias can be an example of lots of things, even in people without supposed moral turpitude. Serious repercussions can result from online transparency or trickery when using your real name. Like what? Here, Levy cites this helpful graphic by Mike Woolson that has been fervently circulating throughout Facebook:
Some good reasons to want to use an alias on Facebook. By Mark Woolson.
SOME GOOD REASONS TO WANT TO USE AN ALIAS ON FACEBOOK. BY MIKE WOOLSON. CLICK TO ENLARGE.
Anyone from people who don’t want to come out to their parents to people who are in the witness protection program might want to use fake names on Facebook. There are plenty of good reasons that people of good character might not want to operate under their real names on Facebook. And I’m not sure why Zuckerberg hasn’t thought this through, instead relying on knee-jerk assumptions. And maybe, his ick factor about drag queens, who are the ones who most effectively raised this issue to public awareness (Drag queens are good at getting attention. Drag queens should be an essential part of all social justice outreach).
Also, what is Zuckerberg saying about Facebook’s own “solution,” which is to have a fan page? That’s pretty clearly. . .operating under an alias on Facebook. I checked the fan page for Lana Del Rey. Even though she was born Elizabeth Grant, she has a blue checkmark next to her name. She’s operating under an alias on Facebook with Facebook’s explicit endorsement!
Why is that okay, but not okay to use your personal page as your performer name? It doesn’t make inherent sense. Yeah, bad guys can and do operate under aliases on Facebook, pretending they are people they’re not. But why should that possibility override the considerations of people at risk, as well as general logic?
And about that blue checkmark verifying that a page is operated by the team of a specific, usually very famous, performer: What is Zuckerberg saying about Twitter here? Twitter pioneered the verification system with its green checkmark, which Facebook emulates. Yet Zuckerberg seems to be obliquely criticizing Twitter, because all kinds of people operate under all kinds of aliases over there. And you don’t see Dick Costolo (I had to look that up; point: Zuckerberg) saying that his users who use aliases lack integrity.
The known risks faced by many people who use aliases far outweigh the hypothetical risks he may fear. If Mark Zuckerberg deserves to be known as an effective CEO, he’ll listen to feedback, re-think this issue, and pedal back on those words and his policy. Now, that would be showing integrity.
Kari Tervo enjoys pop culture as a universal language. Sorry, Esperanto and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department: Bieber wins. She’s not sure if she’s supposed to be writing about herself in the first or third person right now, so she’s going to act like someone does this kind of work for her. Why ruin the mystique? She’s developing a new animated series called E.D.Maniacs. The idea is, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot are lovable and mischievous candy ravers.
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Friday, 26 September 2014

More pit bull stats

More pit bull stats

A reader emails:
Thank you for your article about Pit Bull attacks. In almost every article that I have read where percentages involving Pit Bulls are mentioned I never see percentage of the total US canine population Pit Bulls represent. In searching the internet and emailing people who might know, I have received information that Pit Bulls represent 5% to 9.6% of the total US canine population of roughly 55-60 million dogs.The lower percentage of 5% translates to roughly 2 1/2 million Pit Bulls in the US. Other dog breeds involved in fatal dog attacks have dramatically smaller populations. Some breed populations numbers for the US that I did find are as follows:
Rottweilers- 900,000
German Shepherds-780,000
Chows-240,000
In addition to Pit Bulls, these 3 breeds were involved in fatal attacks from 1979-1998 as follows:
Pit Bulls-66
Rottweilers-39
German Shepherds-17
Chows-8
Other breeds of dogs that also caused fatalities were during that same 20 year period were:
Huskys-15
Malamute-12
Doberman Pinchers-9
Saint Bernards-7
Great Danes-7
I was unable to find any reliable population numbers for any the other breeds involved in fatal attacks.
I am unsure if the Chow, Rottweiler and German Shepherd population numbers are accurate but if they are even remotely close, Pit Bull population is 10 times the population of Chows and 2-3 times more than Rottweilers or German Shepherds. If this is the case, would it not be logical to conclude that the actual number of fatal attacks involving a Pit Bull would be higher than other breeds? When I used those populations and divided them by the attacks each breed was involved in, Pit Bulls were last on the list. Chows were number one. The AKC has only registered dogs in their statistics and do not even recognize Pit Bulls to be a specific breed and therefore no numbers on populations were available. I have had a difficult time getting dog populations by breed on the internet. It’s been a frustrating search and I still have not gotten any reliable numbers regarding breeds and their populations. In my opinion, without knowing the true populations of each breed involved in fatal dog attacks, all the statistics and percentages of specific dog breeds involved in these attacks are misleading if not flawed. Do you agree? When I read that Pit Bulls are responsible for 60% of all fatal dog attacks it is the same as finding out that California has more suicides than Rhode Island. Also, are there any web sites that have any information on breeds and population numbers in the US that you are aware of?
I’ve never found any info on that. Trouble with ‘pit bulls’ is that so many different ‘breeds’ are also considered to be ‘pit bulls’. So, the numbers would likely be inflated.
Posted in uncategorized on June 4th, 2007 by SayUncle |RSS 2.0 |

3 Responses to “More pit bull stats”

  1. Sebastian-PGP Says:
    June 4th, 2007 at 9:39 am
    Very common problem. One thing I realized (and I’ve read studies that confirm this) volunteering at the Baltimore animal shelter is that any wiry coated short haired dog with floppy ears and blocky build is considered a pit, even though in all likelihood they were NOT pits at all.
    The whole “those dogs are too dangerous” is no different than “those guns are too dangerous”.
    Either the owner of the property handles it responsibly or they don’t.
  2. Caveat Says:
    June 5th, 2007 at 8:37 am
    One of the major problems with ‘studies’ such as the CDC papers is that breed ID is a major confounder. This is stated right in the journal articles. The CDC has also stated that they wish they had not published their retrospective review of news reports because it opened a Pandora’s box in the media who latched onto the ‘breed’ thing and wouldn’t let go.
    In the CDC fatality study most often quoted regarding fatal dog attacks from 1979 to 1998, the breed allocation tables were flawed.
    Under ‘purebred’ they had ‘pit bull’, which, as we all know, is not a breed of dog but comprises 3 to 5 purebreds, about 20 lookalike purebreds and an unknown number of mixed breed dogs. They assumed that mongrel dogs are crossbred (ie, the progeny of two purebreds) which is statistically rare. Identification was performed by bystanders, relatives of the victims, etc and as we know, most people are unable to identify even the most common purebred dogs accurately. As we also know, no one anywhere is either able or qualified to identify a mongrel dog’s ancestry.
    Another often quoted study by the CDC (also performed with HSUS) states that ‘pit bulls’ and ‘rottweilers’ were responsible for 67% of dog bite-related fatalities. What those who quote this percentage fail to add is that it covered a one-year period when the total number of fatalities in the US was 27 so the 67% number refers to 16.
    The media likes to focus on deaths because they are sensational, but these events are so statistically rare that it is impossible to predict any sort of trend among types of dogs responsible. A one-year period is certainly not adequate to predict a trend. As they say, a little science is a dangerous thing.
    The most popular registered dog in the US is the American Pit Bull terrier. In 2005, 250,000 APBTs were registered. The next most popular breed, the Labrador retriever had 180,000 pups registered in the same year. I’m rounding the numbers.
    Estimates from breed registries put the population for the APBT as 5 to 6 million living dogs in the US. Add in American Staffordshire terriers, Staffordshire Bull terriers and other lookalike purebreds erroneously dubbed ‘pit bulls’ and you have a lot of dogs.
    Unfortunately, the whole ‘breed’ thing is nothing but a red herring promoted by those with an agenda geared towards either the elimination of domestic animal husbandry, the removal of civil rights, or an increase in advertising revenue as a result of fear-mongering and hyperbole which boost audience share.
  3. markm Says:
    June 5th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
    I suspect the working definition of “pit bull” for such studies is, “wiry coated short haired dog with floppy ears and blocky build that attacked someone.“
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bORCHARDT BLAMING EVERY BUT HIMSELF, A TRUE DENIALIST?

Father of Daxton

Who Killed Daxton James Borchardt?

Written on September 6th, 2013
Six months ago today, on March 6, 2013 in Darien, Wisconsin, pro-pit bull organizations whose lobbyists are backed by millions of dollars killed my son.

Six months ago today, the Best Friends Animal Society, that claims pit bulls are “just like any other dogs,” killed my son.

Six months ago today, the National Canine Research Council, Animal Farm Foundation, BADRAP, and Pit Bulletin Legal News Network, among others, killed my son.
Six months ago today, the American SPCA, which admits the dog- aggressive heritage of the breed, but holds to the false claim that pit bulls were once “nursemaid” dogs, killed my son.

Six months ago today, television shows such as “Pit Bosses,” “Pit Bulls & Parolees,” and “The Dog Whisperer” that keep pushing the lie “It’s not the breed, it’s how you raise them,” killed my son.

Six months ago today, the people at the Humane Society of the U.S. who tell us that responsible ownership is all it takes for a dog to be safe, killed my son.

Six months ago today, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention,
which dropped the pit bull issue in 1998, made my son the 211th American killed by a pit bull since then and the 358th in recorded history.
Six months ago today, the American Veterinary Medical Association message that “The owner’s behavior is the underlying causal factor,” killed my son.

Six months ago today, the myth that pit bulls were ever a “nanny dog” killed my son.

Six months ago today, the phrase “All dogs bite” killed my son.

Six months ago today, parents who post photos of their pit bulls and children on Facebook killed my son.

Six months ago today, my son was killed by the truth not being told to the American public.

Six months ago today, we were duped by the myths, misinformation, and lies that took the life of 14-month-old Daxton James Borchardt.

All of the people and organizations that I just mentioned are as responsible for the death of my son as the pit bulls who turned “dead game,” holding and shaking Dax in a sustained 15-minute attack that ripped his face off and crushed his skull.

The truth not being told killed my son six months ago today.
––Jeff Borchardt
East Troy, Wisconsin
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IFOAMERS TAKE PEOPLE PICS AND POSTS AND USE THEM TO BE LITTLE THE PEOPLE

Justice for Lexie who was brutally attacked at Petsmart by a Pit Bull
Yesterday
Because THIS is what people with NORMAL breeds have to do! Said no sane person EVER! Loca be LOCO!!!!!!!
Photo: Because THIS is what people with NORMAL breeds have to do! Said no sane person EVER! Loca be LOCO!!!!!!!
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