who would stab someone because their shoes told them to.

This is just stupid. It just adds to the bile I've already built up over the beeb's report on banning sharp knives in kitchens.

Kona have been making mountain bikes for some time and have not (so far as I'm aware) had any complaints about the naming of their Stab model (which is quite a nice bike).

I'm guessing this is another case of mass hysteria; people who just cannot avoid flapping their gums on the assumption that they have to in order to prove to other people that they are keeping up with the "what to be offended by" zeitgeist.

Taking a stab at the poor offended customer, while also knowing very well that the knife cuts on both sides when it comes to publicity for nike.

(the knife-proof one)

Cue the trainers becoming sought after and going for a song on ebay.

"given the current media pushed bollocks in the UK"

Fixed that for him.

Does this mean the Kona will be withdrawing their Stab mountain bike range which includes a "Stab Deluxe" and a "Stab Supreme".

Getting my bike jacket now.

Hearing the name didn't make me want to shank someone (with the possible exception of the individual who named them), but it did instantly make me think "what a SHIT name for a pair of trainers".

Then, on seeing the image, my first thought was "what a SHIT looking pair of trainers". So I guess the name is appropriate -- maybe they can try to justify it like that to the overreacting mob.

The "Pocket Knife" shoes are no great shakes either (name+looks)... Iif there a whole "blade" theme coming through here?

Forget the air stab we should be banning vodka shots etc .. these not only lead to binge drinking but encourage the use of firearms whilst doing so.

Type your comment here — plain text only, no HTML

Is that like air guitar?

Coat please.

no wonder knife crime is so high, when a trainer is called stab......nothing to do with the abject poverty, drugs, and low standard of living some kids live with today.......

lets ban bats (the flying mammal kind) next, after all, its stab backwards!!

With the majority centred on large cities. So I'd say we're pretty much on track for a normal year.

Gun-related crime is, of course, down. As is violent crime in general.

"With the current gun and knife epidemic that is sweeping our country"

There is no 'epidemic', just as the previous problem was pedophiles and before that immigrants, the modern media has latched on to knife crime as the current 'problem' as it sells papers.

Apparently, according to the media, your going to get mugged, stabbed or abducted the second you step out your door these days, despite the fact that statistically your safer than you've ever been.

It's the idiot peoples own fault though, stop reading dreck and the red tops and feeding this hysteria cycle that does more damage than good.

I'm still waiting for the Swiss Army Shoe.

I presume that this means the end to blade servers and the Motorola RAZR too. To be on the safe side, I've deleted /etc/fstab before the thought police get here.

Anyway, if 'air stab' is anything like 'air guitar', it will just involve miming without the knives, so is absolutely harmless.

Please ban stuff like the canon powershot as well.

I'm suprised the country isn't panicked at the thought of all the kiddies playing about with the 'blades' on their xbox interface.

When the media calls for a ban on hands. They can be used to strangle people you know.

I demand the implementation of newspeak immediately to put an end to all of these problems.

Also, when did the amount of knife and gun crime reach "epidemic" levels?

an Air Stab is much safer than a Knife Stab?

The one with the kevlar lining please.

...whichever manufacturer came up with "Air Sole", without thinking through what that sounds like in various regional accents.

HP Blade's to be renamed HP Fluffy Kittens.

Lol.....there's always one isn't there.

YOYOY have they not yet banned everything that includes a "STABiliser"?

When diving, I won't be offending anyone whilst wearing my stab jacket.

..that they don't/didn't include retractable blades in the toes, like Rosa Klebb's. Come on, Nike - if you're going to use names like that, you should at least make them appropriate.

Political correctness goes mad once again (did it ever return to sanity)?

I wonder how long it is before they spot some very dubious phrases in sport...

Brace yourself for...

He shots, he scores -> He kicks the ball at the goal, he scores

Jeeez...

And what will become of moving through the opposition like a knife through butter?

<Austin Powers>

Who throws a shoe? Honestly!

</Austin Powers>

Kill me now.

I'm done.

This is just too much...

After all the partition mounting configuration is kept in the f-stab file. This anti knife hysteria is obviously a plot by MS to expand their monopoly.

The one targeted by the black helicopter

I am disgusted at Nike's insensitive naming policy. With global warming and rising atmospheric pollutants a major concern I consider it completely unacceptable that a responsible multinational organisation should even consider using the name "Air" on any product. They should take fair warning that I will never be buying another Nike branded product again because of my outrage. And neither will anyone else from Tunbridge Wells.

LoL... the TSA bans people with shirts that have depictions of weapons... what are they going to do with a shoe that says "AIR STAB"? I bet the poor sod gets taken to the ground and booked for being a terrorist.

Isn't Air Stabbing what Don Quixote did when he went off to vandalise some windmills? THIS BOOK ENCOURAGES KNIFE CRIME!!!!! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

I hope all copies of this, as well as the Three Musketeers and any stories involving pirates are banned from sale and our school libraries immediately!

I also hope that the consumption of Body Shots are also banned from Mexican restaurants as these obviously encourage gun crime.

PS under proposed EU legislation, won't Cervantes be able to retroactively sue Nike for infringement of intellectual property?

Jacqui, one of your demographic (screaming hysterical women) needs you! You must save them from stuff that has a loose correlation to other stuff!

Remember "Tough on stuff, tough on stuff that has a loose correlation to other stuff!" The Home Office motto???

And perhaps some sort of compulsory insurance? You know '3rd party stab' insurance, that way if you find yourself stabbing someone else your insurance pays out for your gratuitous stabbing! You have to pay an excess the next year depending on how many stabbings you've done.

Everyone of those knife criminals did NOT have '3rd party stab' insurance, ergo it is the cause of stabbings! We need to crack down on this lack of stab insurance immediately!

Perhaps ban people looking at stabbing incase they're inspired to go on a stabbing spree.. Extreme stabbing videos (alien is just a total stabathon) we could ban, make it a crime to even discuss stabbings, cartoons of people discussing stabbings even! Tough on crime, tough on Garfield knife wielding lasagne killer!

Ohhhh Jacqui please save us.... daytime television tells us the world is soooo scary.

v. stabbed, stab·bing, stabs

v.tr.

3. To make a thrusting or poking motion at or into: stabbed the air with his fingers.

Courtesy of http://www.thefreedictionary.com/stab

56 fatal stabbings in London alone?

While it's obviously horrific to the families of the deceased, the truth is, Britain is still a very safe place, if you're in such a tizz about that figure.

56 dead sounds like a bad (yet not uncommon) Friday night at Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital (Johannesburg, South Africa). One night, one hospital. And half of those would have been gunshots, not knives.

One of my paramedic friends told me of the exchange program they had with an English hospital. The paramedic they got was very fearful/excited when they were called out to a GSW on his first trip. He'd only ever attended to one of these in all his years in England.

By the end of the first evening, he'd seen so many that he became as blasé as the South African paramedics.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/go_for_a_song

I think its a good name, its quite hard to stab someone with a trainer. It could be worse, they could have released a Nike Knife called Stab - that would at least be justified hysteria.

Besides, why not use other name, like Nike Rape, Nike Murder or better still Nike Kidnap'n'torture.. i mean, if your going to start something, you may aswell go all the way and have a general theme. You could sell a few hundred before they get banned by public pressure.

"They were named before all the recent problems."

Glaswegians know that knife crime has been at a horrific level in the UK for a loooong time. But not in London, apparently, so the parochial London media treats it as a recent phenomenon when it's not.

Yeah, they're all a bunch of Air Soles

reading your comment makes me think that perhaps Nike should call the trainnees (as they apparently call them around here) the "Nike ShitStabbers".

As this probably won't make it past the El Reg censors, I'll just get my coat and leave quietly ...

Air Stabilisers, when I was a kid I had a pair of stabs on my bike and had the piss taken out of me. But when I was a kid I had the piss taken out of me for my bacon 2.99 trainers with the authentic hard plastic on tarmac slap. I think Mothercare should re-brand their toddler walkabout as deluxe child stabilisers, maybe something a bit shorter.

Maybe they should call them "Sweatshops"

http://shey.net/niked.html

The prosthetic limbs that athletes use for the Paralympic track events, etc., are referred to as "blades" (google Oscar Pistorius). Fatima, et al's, vilification of blade-inspired ambulatory aids is the height of insensitivity towards those that use them.

This is getting stupid . Whats next are Blizz going to remove my backstab ability ? oh nooooeeeessss !

"With the current gun and knife epidemic that is sweeping our country we would expect retailers to be taking a more sensitive approach to promoting products to a young and impressionable market.”

Actually, there aren't any statistics for knife crime that show such a trend, since police only started recording "knife crime" last year. And today was the first time such figures have been released.

"Because this is the first time we have such data this says nothing about the trend in such crime," said the Home Office's Scientific Advisor Paul Wiles.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL1754092020080717

The swoosh on Nike shoes reminds me of a machete and I would feel threatened if I were at Terminal 5 with a passenger wearing them.

Not sure which would be worse, that or a Transformers T-shirt.

woe-betide the poor film director who shouts 'cut'!

Well, they *will* be having problems with their bike range now if any Daily Mail hacks read El Reg.

My mower has a 20" BLADE. A 20" blade I tell you!

Three cheers to you sir, for stating what should be bleedin' obvious to anyone with the power of rational thought. The papers & TV have huge self-fulfilling prophecy power - house prices rising/falling, panic buying, knife crime, you name it, they hype it to fuck, then away we go. When did people start believing TV was more real than their own experience? I think that for many people the television has become their main experience of life....

Mines the one with the handbasket with the "To Hell" address label

...often use high PR value "outrages" like this to raise the profile of the charity itself. I can't really say I blame them.

This particular instance however is, I have to say, cock of the poppiest variety.

And surely the bottle, in utilising a trigger mechanism, is a direct incitement to commit gun grime... errr...

Paris - I'd ban... oh never mind.

And computers cant be said to "crash" any more because so many people are killed in car and plane crashes?

This is the dumbest thing I've heard since the "kids who say yuk are racist" thing.

Nike Airslash, or Airgarotte.

Efros

A bit tasteless, don't you think? ;)

Make guns legal.

It works like this. They'll still attack each other but instead of wounding they'll just kill each other, which means fewer injured idiots straining the A&E department, which in turn leads to less money being used up to save idiots who'll just be in again next week. Reduced strain on limited funding means that it can be more effectively distributed, saving money, reducing the costs and letting the NHS fund more livfe-saving treatments for cancer patients and so on. I just saved the NHS! Where's my consultancy fee?

Heathrow Campaigners were outraged at Nike's new Air Port range...

I guess these would be found in the 'Street Crime' section of the shoe shop! :)

who buys nikes anyhows? they are awful! or am i just getting old???

Not only should Nike 'Air Stab' trainers be banned, but also the word 'stab' should be deleted from the dictionary, and forcibly removed from everyday lingo. Similar sanctions should be imposed upon the words 'Hack', 'Slash' and 'Gouge'. In addition, we should also take serious action against anyone moving their hand in a jerky forwards motion, as it may be construed as 'stabbing practice'.

Only when all of this has been achieved will we have protected our children and our children's children from getting an almighty stabbing. I blame a pair of shoes for all of society's ills.

You'll take my anthrax laden assault trainers when your pry them off my cold, dead feet!

point your foot in the direction of your victim, tap your heel twice and see them on the ground in a hale of bullets from the integrated mini machine gun.

Jeez, grow up people.

Knife crime will continue to increase becouse as a nation we are incompetent.

Why do children commit crime?

They are bored. Get home from school, nobodies about, nothing to do, bored of their games, bored of school, bored of the humdrum pointlessness of it all. Nothing to do.

They go hang out with their mate. It's a laugh.

They and their mates become bored. They make some fun.

They drink, take drugs and come up with ways to make things more interesting, berating passers by, acting tough.

This behaviour ups the ante, other groups of bored teens looking to look tough go around looking for groups to have a barny with. Verbal starts, violence breaks out, people get a kicking, people go home.

Groups of kids get home, bit hurt, bit bruised, want some payback, want some protection, want a penis extension. They get weapons, next time they're out they're tooled up. Run into another group again, this time the weapons scare the other guys a way, someone takes a thrashing from a bike chain.

The other group gets tooled up, now you're looking at full grown parties, seige mentality kicks in, people protecting their turf, the kid and their mates are well full of themselves by now, harrasing folk, being tough, smashing windows, doing their thing. One day some guy f--ks them off, he fights back or doesn't hand over his junk. Guy gets killed. That's that. Or tehy meet another group and it all gets out of hand.

Society stopped taking responsibility. Locking folk up wont stop that cycle, but it's the only way for many, their too deep into the mentality, the siege and terretorial mentality, it's a base instinct after all and infects the mind pretty quick. You go from a normal person to a predatory pack member in days.

The problem? Nothing to do.

The biggest solutions would be after school clubs (as they have in Japan and to an extent in the states - where you are expected to join a club, the clubs are run by students and mentored by a teacher) but in Britain we'd never give students that kind of freedom or responsibility and schools just a dungeon anyway. Western society presses the idea that being good and intelligent are undesirable traits, it stresses that aggression and rebellion are the ways to get what you want.

The second solution is more out of school clubs and facilities, but the problem here is 2 fold, cost - our government would sooner spend 20 billion on ID cards then 4 billion on after school and weekend activities.

The second problem being that we have become obsessed with the notion of sex offenders, nobody wants to work with children accept people who have little credibility with them and think very much inside the box and government requirments makes those who may be interested in helping unable to do so. As someone mentioned on another thread about a village judo school.

A general problem is the media and society being willing to be retarded - as this article once again proves.

People need hobbies, obsessions, distractions - sports, science, litrature, games, technology. They need like minded people, but it's too late for most teenagers, for our school system, for the future.

When Tony Blair said "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" we believed him, but it seems his concept of cause was freedom not opportunity.

O well, what ever.

Personally, I hadn't even noticed these were on the market. I was looking forward to the Air Rape model. My running partner is still deciding between Air Pillage and Air Murder.

The atrocity here is not that stab reflects violence and death. The problem is that some (payed) jackass has the imagination to pair "stab" with shoes to form a sort of marketing ploy and Nike followed through with it!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7511192.stm

Yeah, a 10% reduction in crime is such a big problem.

Johnny 5 was a killbot, he had a Nike swoosh on him, so clearly they have links to violent bringers of lasery-death.

The dastards.

Each group outraged more than the last... Otherwise they wouldn't make the papers.

Does it come with a flick out knife a la Rosa Klebb in from 'Russia with Love'?

Mine's the sharp-looking suit on the hook.

All this fuss over a simple consumer product yet I don't recall any outrage and demands for withdrawing Proxim's Tsunami wireless router?

Hundred's of thousands of people have died as the result of Tsunamis across the world yet this product is still on the market and and I have yet to see a scandalized tabloid headline!

I think it's time to ban any product with a name connected to the cause of death of any one anywhere on the planet. Think of the grieving children!

The Nike Air Stab was released the first time back in the late 80s and was a shortened name for the previous model of the Nike Air Stabiliser (probably with a z for the yanks though)

What's next - complaints about the Puma Cell as it could refer to a terrorist group?

I can just imagine the horror when HP talks about how many Fluffy Kittens they can squeeze into a rack and that's before they mention applying electricity to them.

"But these are virtualized kitten images. No actual animals where harmed (other than the poor dumb BOFHs) in the construction of this data center."

"Sorry mate, but you should have read the new Internet porn ban law. Virtual images are illegal."

That's one sporting genre killed off entirely...

I been carrying my pocket knife for the last 40+ years and never had to carve anyone up with it (or use a gun on someone either)...what am I missing in my life?

As to Dogbyte and his kevlar lining....kevlar won't do much for a sharpish piece of steel.

Oh but it is. It’s frickin’ hilarious Ms. Fatima – maybe you need to lift your burka and look closer. And who knows, maybe one day someone will be saved by stabbing someone with their shoe. Maxwell Smart swore by (and at) his.

On the other hand, the Nike Cut Your Head Off And Piss Down Your Neck And Use Your Skull As An Ashtray line of trainers was deemed officially Not Funny At All.

Cars kill far more people each year than random knife attacks, so why are we not demanding the banning and withdrawal from sale of cars? All motor vehicles?

More people than this are killed falling down their own stairs. This is just ridiculous.

Actually though, MY trainers are in fact deadly offensive weapons.

One way to curb the number of knife stabbing, pass out hand guns. Don't just allow people to carry guns, require that they do.

Yes, there will be a few rough edges during the first year or so as the terminally stupid and/or clumsy off themselves and/or each other, but at the end of that time you'd have one very polite and orderly society.

Over 5,000 people admitted to hospital with stab wounds last year.

Or

About 60,582,000* people wern't admitted to hospital with stab wounds last year.

Its all about Perspective.

Someone please hand me my flame proof anorak.

*Based on National Statistics Statistics.

Didn't Nike have to withdraw it's Zyklon brand after have it was pointed out to them that Zyklon B was the gas used at the Nazi extermination camps?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQPU9tcuUm8

Works every time !

the steel toecapped, 26 hole Doctor Martin's F&*k You Ups?

"Nike has decided to withdraw its "Air Stab" range of trainers in the UK in response to "horrified reactions" from consumers"

Yeah, they saw how much they cost for a pair of cheap daps made in a sweatshop for pennies

In the 80's when I was at school, Nike's were really popular, in fact "Air Rage" could have summed them up.

(I've got more yet...)

:)

..... these are the most hillarious comments I've read in years!

Cheers guys ...... I was in need of cheering up, hehe :o)

Human-rights supporters: "We're offended by the way you exploit cheap third-world labour in sweatshop conditions and we're going to boycott your product."

Big corporation: "Meh. We don't care, because millions of people still buy our product and we make billions in profits, so boycott us all you want. It won't affect our bottom line."

...

PC-nannies: "We're offended by the way you use a commonplace word in your product name and we're going to boycott your product."

Big corporation: "Oh no! We're very sorry for our ill-considered and offensive advertising campaign and will spend millions withdrawing it and rebranding. Please forgive us, we'll do everything we can to make sure it never happens again!"

Considering that human-rights supporters seem quite common (I know quite a lot of them) and PC-nannies seem quite rare (does ANYONE here actually know one personally?), is it not strange that a corporation that cares only about its bottom line would actually pander to such a minority? What's the real agenda here?

Black helicopter because I get the feeling I just spotted something I shouldn't and they'll be coming to take me away real soon...

...the immediate withdrawal from sale and destruction of all stocks of the latest Half Man Half Biscuit album, CSI: Ambleside. "Petty Sessions" end with the line "Kill, kill kill, stab, murder and despatch". Obviously anyone hearing this will immediately go to the High Street and slice up everyone in sight.

Well, I gave my missus a serious bit o' stabbing with my Pork Sword last night.

Is that banned now? Dammit.

So, generally we're just ignoring the fact that they're a re-launched version of the 80's trainer of the same name - so named due to them being a "stability trainer".

The last stats I saw on knife crime said we were averaging the same levels of last year. It's not a sudden epidemic, it's just reported more. Had this been released last year (with the same knife-crime levels) there wouldn't have been an outcry - see above for the well made point about the Motorola RAZR.

NB - I'm not trying to take away from the seriousness of knife-crime. It's something that needs to be sorted, but not by banning shoes with weird names. I'd lay money that the chavs of today no longer refer to it as "stabbing" someone. Back when I was relatively hip and happenin' (ha!), it was "cutting" someone.

...but what's *really* disturbing here is that we live in a society that has names for its footwear. Stop *that* and the whole problem just goes away. Simple.

... is proceeding at full steam, it seems.

Expect it to be about as effective as the War on Guns, which saw gun crime double in the 10 years following the handgun ban.

Mine's the one that will soon have a US Green Card in the pocket.

...piece of marketing, bravo Nike. Let's fuel the fire!

Not sure how it's naive to get all this free publicity?!

And since when did Nike ever pretend to be interested in `the children` (other than `third world` children, in an cheap labour sense, of course)?

Next up, the Blackstab-Spaedo CO2 swimshorts range.... woohoo.... Come join us on the moral panic bandwagon! There's not much room left, so be quick!

Yeah suppose it should be renamed the warm and fuzzy router.

Just think though of the blade server form factor, that'll have to go too, but what could you call them instead without offending some section of society? skinnies? anorexics?

Well, thats the female of the species alienated.

As per my earlier comment, this is frankly a storm in a teacup and reflects that said outraged people have very empty lives indeed.

meh

By Anonymous Coward

Posted Thursday 17th July 2008 14:42 GMT

Nice analysis. Too sensible for a Register forum? Is that the reason for the Cowardice?

All our stuff runs on a BLADE SERVER !!!!

So nobody got stabbed up until very recently, then? The notion that youth violence and knife crime is a recent development is ludicrous

I'm American. '"Somebody please, think of the children!"

By Richard

Posted Thursday 17th July 2008 11:07 GMT

This is just stupid. It just adds to the bile I've already built up over the beeb's report on banning sharp knives in kitchens.'

...The BBC WHAT?

--Glenn

oregonnerd

gmail

Their URL is http colon slash slash www dot nike dot com.

Slash?! When will these people learn!

Mine's the one with the swoosh on the back...

At what point are we supposed to deny that stabbing happens?

Damn, there went O.J.'s best chance at a new series of TV ads.

...forget the coat, just give me the gloves. They don't fit anyway.

Well said, old bean.

There's some interesting Aldous Huxley stuff on anti-snobbery in the early 20th century, the idea that universal education of a mediocre standard produced generations of people who, having awareness of cultural ideals but not knowledge and understanding of them, became mocking of these existing precepts and thus became 'anti-snobs'.

I also read an interesting book recently, or an interesting couple of chapters in quite a dull book, about Outlaws and Highwaymen, which detailed the British obsession with robbers and thieves (Robin Hood, Dick Turpin etc). It made it very clear through numerous quotations and references that there has always been an unusual fascination with the rebel and the outlaw in Britain which is not mirrored in other similar cultures or even dissimilar ones. We have always had an idea in this country for example that it is better to steal than to beg, where other peoples might believe that it is better to die than to steal.

The point about after school clubs etc is salient. I believe there are a few problems with our attitude to this. First, teachers rebel whenever they are told to do anything more, perhaps because they have too much paperwork to do now. Both of my parents were teachers before this current age of bureaucracy, and they were able to work spontaneously and take the pupils on local history walks and many other activities. Now an event like this takes months of planning and clearances. Recently, the government reminded schools of the need to teach citizenship provoking an uproar from the teachers. But these teachers are the same people who say that the parents are pointless, and so where do they expect the children to acquire these principles from?

I am particularly annoyed with the parents who move house to gain better catchment areas for their children, rather than committing to their local community. Parents too can get involved in children's education, and so can businesses, although I know that the idea is abhorrent to many.

There is a scheme in London, something to do with Breakin' Convention, which encourages street arts - graffiti, hip hop, breakdancing etc, which I think is the right way to do things. Kids have a whole load of passion and energy to bring to things if they are interested in them. Another good example would be programming/gaming. Schools should get great computing guys to inspire kids about what is going on in technology, instead they provide kids with teachers that generally know less than they do, and IT is dealt with as a kind of business studies.

Rant over.

"We have always had an idea in this country for example that it is better to steal than to beg, where other peoples might believe that it is better to die than to steal."

Speak for yourself, you thieving pikey bastard. Nobody in the UK, today, is so poor that they need to steal to eat.

"I am particularly annoyed with the parents who move house to gain better catchment areas for their children, rather than committing to their local community."

Well, I hope that those heartless bastards feel properly chastised by you. I mean, how dare they try to better the lot of their kids?

Are you real? Or am I feeding a troll?

The last pair of Nike trainers I bought were Airstabs.

Why do I feel the need to post this information??

Because I bought them about 20 years ago!!! What the FCUK is wrong with some people!!??!!

Mines the coat with "Go Faster" stripes

its about 200 dead in a year in L.A. (Though 2006 was 262 dead) and about 160 in London

However aggravated assault (unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury) runs at 6000 pa.

If you look at the stats you have a great risk of rape but less chance of being killed in Hollywood.

Population is : 4.2 Million in LA and only 7.2M in Greater London