Left Rudder

Who can forget:

I don’t recall ever saying I could KO either of those men (although with the Okinawan karate and Muay Thai experience I have, if the rules permitted me to use my legs and elbows and knees, a boxer who’s only trained in using his fists would be in trouble if a real fight broke out…

For the record, Sebastian is claiming Lennox Lewis or Mike Tyson would be in “trouble” if they ever took on Sebastian. Personally, I believe the only trouble Lewis or Tyson would be in is with lawyers for the posthumous Sebastian.

More fun:

… says just the act of carrying a gun makes a person less likely to be caught off guard. “When you’re carrying you are hypervigilant,” he says. “You have this tremendous responsibility; you have to be extremely careful not to reveal [the gun] or let someone take it away. I made myself a target by walking slow, looking at the ground, talking on my cell at 10 p.m.”

Imagine that! Just the act of carrying a firearm makes you like Spiderman (”with great power, comes great responsibility”); a gun has magical powers.

Somebody’s compensating.

Kleck’s ’studies’ rely on anonymous phone surveys. These surveys are known as self-report surveys. Self-report surveys are troublesome because there’s virtually no way to omit responses which are untrue, misunderstood, misremembered, misinterpreted or are just plain lies.

As I sagely noted before, a DGU is a subjective thing; it means different things to different people.

Additionally, some people will often tell a questioner what he/she thinks the questioner wants to hear. It’s not done out of malice or ignorance–it’s just a fact of self-report surveys; some respondents will tell you what they believe you wish to hear. A self-report survey on who subscribes to Sports Illustrated , several years ago produced a finding that subscription rates to the magazine were 4-5 times higher than reality.

Similarly, respondents in self-report surveys will often tell questioners what they they think makes them look good. Example, self-report surveys concerning issues such as seat belt usage or library card ownership often contain large exaggerations. It’s easy to see a person who owns a firearm might wish to place himself in a heroic light by claiming a DGU.

There are also false responses from respondents who may be mentally ill, impaired, or otherwise unable to respond accurately.

Finally, there are mischievous responses; that is, respondents who knowingly lie.