The Year of the Bad Call

There was a word for people who approached decisionmaking rationally: losers

Illustration by Tomasz Walenta for TIME; Corbis

Sure, people always miscalculate. We drink too much at a party, scrape our side mirrors, spend $3.8 trillion while taking in only $2.5 trillion in taxes. We are risk takers at heart: fracking shale, driving with Amanda Bynes and reading poorly written S&M; novels in public. But risk takers are not the people who messed up in 2012. This year, reasonable people went wrong making wise decisions and getting totally hosed. This was the year of the bad call.

NFL owners thought no one would notice if they used replacement refs during a labor dispute, since all refs--zebras--dress exactly the same....

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