Another criminal dim-bulb

Burglar at police officer’s home charged

A man who allegedly broke into a Denver police officer’s home and was confronted by the officer wielding a shotgun loaded with “less than lethal” ammunition has been formerly charged with first-degree criminal trespass and second-degree assault.

Dustin Mertz, 18, was discovered in the home of the officer about 4 a.m. They struggled and he got outside but was arrested nearby a few minutes later.

Seems like a fundamental part of casing a house would be ensuring that the owner wasn’t a policeman.

Election Dissection: Campaign Errors

There has been quite a bit of post-election analysis concerning the performance of the base of both parties, I don’t think enough fault has been laid at the feet of the GOP. Bad candidates and bad campaigns lost a lot of unnecessary seats for the Republican Party. Does anyone doubt, for example, that save the “macaca” comment, George Allen would have retained his seat? Here are a few examples of other candidates and errant campaigns.

Beware the disinformation

My wife just got the old Target-doesn’t-support-the-vets email that started circulating back in 2002. Must be the impending Christmas season. It’s been thoroughly debunked, by Snopes and others. Here’s the list of high points from Snopes:

• The Target Corporation does not contribute to veterans’ causes: False.
• The Target Corporation is French-owned: False.
• The Target Corporation provides corporate grants only for ‘gay and lesbian causes’: False.
• The Target Corporation does not contribute to the U.S. Marines ‘Toys for Tots’ program: False.
• The Target Corporation does not allow reservists called to active duty to continue their health benefits: False.
• The Target Corporation does not allow Salvation Army bellringers to solicit contributions in front of its stores: True.

So fear not – Target is not the pawn of French homosexual veteran-hating thugs. And they’ve got a great selection and great prices!

Daily Debunking: Subliminal Advertising

Everybody seems to recall the famous theater study which showed the awful dangers of subliminal advertising. From the Wikipedia entry on Subliminal Advertising:

James Vicary, a market researcher, falsely claimed in 1957 that quickly flashing messages on a movie screen had influenced people to purchase more food and drink. Vicary coined the term subliminal advertising and formed the Subliminal Projection Company based on a six-week test in which he flashed the slogans “Drink Coca-Cola” and “Eat popcorn” during a movie for 1/3000 of a second at five-second intervals. Vicary claimed that during the test, sales of popcorn and Coke in the New Jersey theater where the test was conducted increased 57.5 percent and 18.1 percent respectively.

Turns out, of course, that he faked the data – a fact he admitted to 5 years later. But by then the topic of subliminal eadvertising had taken root in popular culture, and no one seemed aware that Vicary’s sensationalistic claims were fabricated.

I first heard about it in 8th grade, where the Vicary study was mentioned as proof of the dangers of subliminal advertising. I’ve seen it crop up from time to time in the press and on the web, and I’ve run across it in discussions with friends and family. Don’t believe it, folks, and try to squelch it if you can.

I’ll leave you with a closing statement from the Wikipedia article:

Controlled experiments that attempt to demonstrate the influence of subliminal messages generally find little to no effect.

AP report from Iraq…

Hard to find anything but election analysis and recriminations in the news today. But from Iraq we have this reaction to Rumsfeld’s resignation: Iraqis cheer Rumsfeld departure

Of course the article quotes exactly 4 Iraqis who are cheering:

• Ibrahim Ali who works at the Oil Ministry
• Osama Ahmed, civil servant
• Saad Jawad, who works at the Oil Ministry
• Louai Abdel-Hussein, who owns a small grocery store

I imagine that Rumsfeld’s not very popular in Iraq, because he’s an easy guy to blame for the security situation (and he does, in fact, deserve some of the blame). But the reporting here is ridiculous: there are no mentions of crowds, demonstrations, polls, flurries of emails or letters, or any other sign that this disapproval is widespread. Basically it’s just these four guys. I’m sure that the next stop for this reporter will be publishing articles in Lancet.

But according to the AP, this passes for hard news.

UPDATE: Well, it took only a few hours for a better-sourced article to emerge, and this new article contradicts the AP’s feeble effort above. Here are the opening paragraphs from Iraq unmoved by Rumsfeld exit, from today’s Financial Times:

The Iraqi government on Thursday dismissed the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as “an internal issue”.

“We are dealing with an administration, not persons. We are committed to an understanding with the administration,” said Ali al-Dabbagh, a government spokesman, in response to the change at the top of the Pentagon.

Iraqis generally reacted cautiously. Some expressed satisfaction that someone had been held accountable for the situation in their country but others doubted there would be significant policy changes.

“Iraqis don’t care about Rumsfeld . . . America will not withdraw from Iraq unless their interests are finished here,” said a resident of a mixed Sunni-Shia neighbourhood in south Baghdad.