Welfare system that favours single parent families

Contrast the following two scenarios.

1. Single parent with 2 children under the age of 11, works 16 hours a week on the minimum wage, receives 487 pounds (with the aid of tax credits).
2. 2 parent family with 2 children under the age of 11, must work in total 116 hours a week on the minimum wage to receive the same amount of pay.

This clearly shows that remaining single is better than getting married if you are trying to make ends meet.

It would be interesting to know if there are any other equally ludicrous welfare systems around the world?

Guerrilla marketing ethics?

The idea of marketing is to make your product or service well known. The marketing can be negative but it can command a lot of publicity. Is it worth it? I don't believe that the following advertisers had any intention of negativity. Surely the best thing would be to have a positive marketing campaign that reaches out to as many as the negative?

Take for instance, Sony Ericsson who wanted to get the public to try out some functions of the mobile phone. They got people to look like tourists who wanted their picture taken with the phone and attractive women who sat in bars to start a conversation about their purchase. Once the people found out that they were not genuine, the campaign became negative. The moral seems to be, if you are advertising, make sure you are upfront about it. Especially when you are, in effect, invading their space.

IBM decided to chalk symbols on the streets of San Francisco. Some technologically minded people liked it but others thought it as graffiti. Although the chalk was biodegradable, it took weeks for the stuff to be removed. The moral is to try and be in the good books of everyone.

Some offensive images can arouse suspicion. For instance, Cartoon Network decided to place these images. Some residents in Boston thought they were bombs. I remember the news showing the city grid-locked. The moral is to be aware of the past incidents that could have changed people's sentiments.

Smells and sounds are a relatively new medium to be exploited. They have been used to try and gain a bigger impact but the more unusual and unknown it is, the more people would be scared. Paramount Pictures teamed up with the Los Angeles Times to trigger the theme music of Mission Impossible whenever a newspaper was baught at a newspaper rack. People had thought it to be a bomb. Sending smells through an underground system to advertise a drink did not go down too well because it could be thought of as poisonous gas. Besides, forcing someone to smell something is not a good idea. The moral again is to consider the sentiments shaped by recent events. And don't force something upon the unsuspecting public.

Examples from BusinessWeek: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/02/0209_guerrilla/index_01.htm

Petition: Dog DNA database

On the 10 Downing Street website for petitions, I have found someone who has started a petition. Follow the link below if you would like to sign up to the petition.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/K9DNADatabase/

The website states that you must be a British citizen or resident to sign the petition.

DNA analysis to identify dog owners who leave a mess

The idea of creating a database of dog DNA to clean the public areas does not seem to be new. A Freakonomics article in the New York Times (another link), a remarkable 12 year old girl's proposal, and Vienna and Dresden have proposed the same idea.

The idea is pretty simple. Firstly make sure that every dog is licensed. During this licensing process, the DNA can be collected through the saliva of the dog (existing dog owners' dogs can be included perhaps the next time they go to a vet). The data can be stored in a database. Now if a dog owner decides to leave the mess behind, the dog dirt can be collected and DNA analysed. A suitable fine should be imposed and sent to the dog owner's address.

I do hope that the health of our children can be protected with this simple idea. No more risk of blindness. The initial cost may be high but it will be a fraction of the cost of setting up the equivalent for us humans.

Dog muck on my daughter

I have just come back from the park with my daughter who had stepped on some dog muck and picked it up. She was crying during the way back because she thought she did something wrong. I had to explain to her that it was not her fault. It was a particular dog owner's fault.

I am usually very careful but this time, some children playing football had hid the thing under some leaves. They were old enough to know better that hiding it would not have prevented them from getting dirty themselves if they had stepped on it. Anyway, they did not mean anything bad and it is beside the point.

There may be a solution to this. I will write shortly.

Scam: Tickets to see The Queen

Scammers (or con artists) appear to be using The Queen as bait. They are dressed in The Queen's guard uniform to make the scam authentic. The incident I have been told occurred on a tourist bus. At the traffic lights, there is a knock on the bus door. They enter and mention a chance of a lifetime to meet The Queen. This is particularly effective because there are many people to sell the tickets to and they can be hidden from sight until a target bus appears. They can also sell the tickets and make a quick getaway.

Scamming is an evil practice as it is but to defame someone else makes the matter even more disgusting. I must contact The Queen and the police.

This was obvious to me because I am familiar with many scams. Since someone has asked for my opinion on this, I am inclined to believe that some people will fall prey to these con artists.

The convincing trick they have used is to operate near where the public see the genuine Queen's guards. In the example that I have heard, the bus was waiting to get into Whitehall from either Whitehall Place or Horse Guards Avenue. Since the genuine guards are in sight, they try to make you think that they are coming towards the bus from that vicinity. So that they don't appear too conspicuous, they did not wear the tall bushy hat. They had the red jacket which from certain angles could look like an ordinary jacket but from the front, it should convince the vulnerable public.

A solution could be to inform the tour leader of such a scam so that the next time they get on the bus, the tourists could be advised to take pictures of the Queen's guard. The photos can be past onto the police.