Yesterday, I ran across a video in which the NRA accuses the president of being a hypocrite for simultaneously advocating arms control laws while he and his family are protected by armed secret service personnel.
How much of a hypocrite is he for receiving protection? I am not aware of any units with which to measure or quantify hypocrisy, but I did find some numbers and facts to think about:
Crime rates are often normalized to instances per hundred thousand person years. In other words, in a year in a place with 100 thousand people, this is a measure of how many times the crime in question might be expected to occur.
New York City in 2010 had 6.4 homicides per 100k people.
Canada in 2006 had 1.9 homicides per 100k people.
Japan in 1989 had 1.1 homicides per 100k people.
The United States has been around since 1776.
This year is 2013.
The United States has existed for 237 years.
The United States has one president at a time.
1 [person] * 237 [years] = 237 [person years].
Four presidents (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy) were assassinated while in office.
( 4 [homicide] / 237 [person years] ) * ( 100k / 100k ) =
1687 [homicide] / [100k person years]
Being president is 263 times more dangerous than living in New York City.
As a point of reference, Wikipedia's US Armed Forces page claims there are approximately 1.456 million active duty personnel in the US military. At the same time, icasualties.org/ reports a total of 6661 US military fatalities (combined) in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
1.456M [personnel] * 12.25 [years] = 17.836 million [ person years ]
( 6661 [fatalities] / 17.836 million [person years] ) * ( 100k / 100k ) =
37.5 [fatalities]/[100k person years]
Being president is about 45 times more dangerous than being on active duty in the US military when the country is conducting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As a result of this analysis, I conclude that the president is not a hypocrite in wanting some protection, or at least in accepting some if he wants it or not. Based on the numbers, turning down presidential protection would be downright foolish, just like walking unaware through a New York subway, Baghdad, or Kabul.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Holiday challenges
My gym in Boulder had a holiday rowing challenge. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, athletes put in 100km on the rowing machines. Being in Fargo, I had no problem with doing a majority of my exercise indoors. As a result, I became very familiar with the rowing machines at the NDSU student wellness center gym.
I finished the challenge a couple days early. Two of the toughest sessions were 5km time trials. While a 5km on the bike might only take about 6 minutes, 5km on the rower takes about 18 minutes and involves quite a bit more suffering. My final 5km effort involved changing the damper (resistance) setting on the rower every 500m and going to a lighter and lighter damper setting over the course of the effort, while maintaining a consistent pace.
After the rowing challenge ended, I decided to take up a new challenge as I wait for warm weather to return to the frozen tundra of the north. My next idea was to run 100km between Christmas and Martin Luther King Jr Day. I was able to knock off a few kilometers in California while visiting my folks for Christmas, and have been continuing to chug along here in Fargo. Most of the running has been outside in <20F weather, while some has been on the indoor track at the NDSU wellness center. In a few cases, the "run" has been little more than slogging along in sub-5F temperatures.
Below is a plot of my progress toward completing the running challenge (the blue line), along with a plot of the progress required if I were to run the exact same distance every day from Christmas until the MLK holiday (the red line). As long as the blue line stays above the red line, I am on pace to finish this challenge too.
I finished the challenge a couple days early. Two of the toughest sessions were 5km time trials. While a 5km on the bike might only take about 6 minutes, 5km on the rower takes about 18 minutes and involves quite a bit more suffering. My final 5km effort involved changing the damper (resistance) setting on the rower every 500m and going to a lighter and lighter damper setting over the course of the effort, while maintaining a consistent pace.
After the rowing challenge ended, I decided to take up a new challenge as I wait for warm weather to return to the frozen tundra of the north. My next idea was to run 100km between Christmas and Martin Luther King Jr Day. I was able to knock off a few kilometers in California while visiting my folks for Christmas, and have been continuing to chug along here in Fargo. Most of the running has been outside in <20F weather, while some has been on the indoor track at the NDSU wellness center. In a few cases, the "run" has been little more than slogging along in sub-5F temperatures.
Below is a plot of my progress toward completing the running challenge (the blue line), along with a plot of the progress required if I were to run the exact same distance every day from Christmas until the MLK holiday (the red line). As long as the blue line stays above the red line, I am on pace to finish this challenge too.
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