BEEP BEEP

Thank you, Johan.

For various reasons I will not be going to Sao Paulo, Brazil for my employer. Sao Paulo has a reputation for crime, and I was a bit nervous about going there.

However, after reading this headline this morning I’m quite glad I’m not going:

Gunmen ambush Toyota F1 team members in Sao Paulo.

I’m shocked – shocked, I tell you! – but it seems that Australia’s strict gun laws have had no effect on their murder rate.

Couple this with the same effect in Canada, and the increase in gun deaths in Merry Olde England and you have a pretty good idea of how these things work. But, we’ve known that in the states for a while – as the cities with the most strict gun laws are the ones that happen to have the worst gun death rates.

The lesson: Only the law abiding obey gun laws. Criminals do not, and therefore it does not matter what gun laws you pass if your problem is the criminal use of guns.

Obviously, there are other factors at work – it isn’t a binary (or even ternary) issue. But all these laws have done is disarm the victims and provide a determined attacker guaranteed kills. Witness school shootings – hey, they know schools are unarmed – we’ve made sure of it. Also note – I’m sure this is totally unrelated to that disarmament thing – that crazed killers don’t seem very interested in attacking police stations, gun ranges or NRA meetings. Gee, I wonder why?

Lucky for us I think we’ve seen the crest of this nonsense in the USA with the repeal of the “scary looking weapons ban” (also known as the “Assault weapons ban”). Well, not here in California (yet) – so, to make my rifle less dangerous I have removed the pistol grip. I’m not sure how that makes it less powerful, less accurate or slows the cyclic rate, but I’m assured that this is true. Thankfully, I’m no danger to anything that isn’t a paper target at the end of a rifle range.

Now, I’m not going to make any predictions on the upcoming elections; I’ve learned my lesson on predictions back in 2000. It certainly seems likely that things might be a’changin in D.C. to me.

But others are certainly gearing up should things not go their way. In fact, if it doesn’t, it must certainly be because the election was stolen! Stolen, I tell you!

I’ll let you guess who that might be.

I miss Carl Sagan.

I can’t say I agreed with his political leanings when he was alive (although, strangely, I seem to be drifting that direction now – hmmm), but I think he might have approved of this page.

This is from Harvard, and it is a set of animations of our solar system.

Quite yummy for those of us who still have the astronomy bug.

My power is out.

I’m not sure why; we’re still trying to get useful information out of PG&E.

In the meantime, my two UPS systems are screaming bloody murder and the phone is complaining because it can’t find the base station.

So, having nothing better to do, I thought I’d post this.

Well, of course my internet connection works! Wireless, too. Can’t have THAT going out on us.

Not sure what his latest post means, but this is my favorite Uncle Monster post.

Via Boing Boing:

Second Life is (well, WAS) melting

SHHANDSHOWBO

I do like this video.

My mother had a Volkwagon bus (or Vanagon according to some) – I was never impressed with them. Too heavy, too slow, very bad in an accident.

But I would so very much like to own this vehicle.