El Pibe

"They also point out the Canadian stats showing that gun ownership by itself doesn't result in higher homicide rates." I think I've demonstrater that it does result in high homicide rates, just lower than the US, which I guess skews the debate somewhat. Canada has a higher rate than any (non ex soviet bloc) European state (see links above). I guess the third argument holds water better considering that the guns are out there now. But that simply means there isn't the political will to do anything about it rather than that it can't be done and therefore gun-control is unworkable. I think your penultimate comment has it, it's just in the psyche, it's part of the national fabric. Going postal occasionally and high homicide rates are the acceptable corolloray to the right to own your own gun.

eh? Are you, like 2 ft tall or something?

during

To me that means the arguments about self-protection, deterrence and so forth are absolute nonsense. Gun control obviously isn't enough, social welfare, economic stability, rule of law and good governance are also paramount. Given the choice give me socialist gun control europe over individualist flooded with weapons US any day of the week.

Here's pretty much every stat you could ever want http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/Homicide/Globa_study_on_homicide_2011_web.pdf (about 8mb pdf, if you're on a slow connetion be warned) It is of course true and there are a host of factors. Innefective government/governance, corruption, a preponderance of criminal activity and civil war are of course the biggies in high homicide rates. Outside of that high firearm deaths are directly correlated to high gun ownership as is a high degree of firearm homicide. The Canada thing seems to be something of a modern day myth. This from the Canada MOunted Police website http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/res-rec/deaths_deces-eng.htm In the northwest territories firearm deaths is almost 20 (ie about 3 for homicide) per 100,000, that's a HUGE figure. In more urban(e?) Ontario (yes, with high prosperity, low crime, high community buy-in but significantly low gun ownership) that falls to 2.9 (ie 0.5ish). England's homicides per year is only 1.17 and of that figure a miniscule proportion is from firearms. THe US murder rate hovers around the 4.5 - 5 mark (and the gun is the favoured method) and I dread to think what the firearm death rates amount to!!!! *this brings up side debate about how easy it is to commit suicide. A cry for help is pretty inefectual once your brains are splattered across the ceiling I guess. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

London to Brighton is pretty popular though only about 70 miles. I've known a few people to do John O'Groats to Lands End (or vice versa) but that's more of an individual challenge than an event, a bit like cross channel swimming in that respect I guess. Mind you someone dropped dead in sight of the beach the other day so not sure I'd recommend that one. In fact given my general levels of torpor I wouldn't recommend anything much when it comes to exercise. A nice game of cricket perhaps?

Just on a quibbly aside, I can't see Brazil ever being a world superpower, and India, well, maybe in a century or two, but it has HHUUUUGGEG hurdles to overcome before it comes close. Even China has many challenges soon to face before it can start flexing that sort of influence. In fact what we may need to ask is not who will be future superpowers, but will the US realise hanging on to that status is a false economy and we may return to a more multipolar world of big powers with spheres of influence rather than the peculiar post-total-war concept of superpower? Anyway, back to dg2's equally peculiar obsession with greeks bearing up in London to buy houses..

Motorways, Beetles and errr pictures of dogs I wonder if a dictator would not only have made the trains run but made forums worth reading. Slim pickings these days.......

I lived for three years on said corner in very close proximity and never once had any issue with noise. It's nice to see a bit of life being brought bag to the old dog as it goes.

Things in the wrong place, bumping, spam, slander, libel and offence. They make up the bulk of it....I imagine.....

2 weeks in Guatemala and Belize. Jungles, ancient Mayan Ruins, stunning colonial towns, pine forests and walking on live volcanoes in Guatemala, all in an area about the size of Dorking. Beach and booze in Belize.

The American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of yemenis injured in drone strikes against US citizens, is suing the US gov't for the killings without recourse to trial and due process. This could bring into question the whole drone strikes policy. It has admittedly been successful in tackling al-qaeda, but I guess murder is murder and it's dodgy territory for a liberal democracy to be standing on. It'll be intersting to see how this pans out. http://www.aclu.org/national-security/al-aulaqi-v-panetta I loved this line "The New York Times recently reported that the government counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent." Dunking witches springs to mind!!! *edited for unforgivable grocers' apostrophe*

That sort of club player is a rare commodity too these days. Good lad and best of luck to him.

ALan Dale will be very upset by tht comment jeremy, assuming he still reads. This message will self destruct in about 3 weeks.

Blackfriars, bits of it still a bit claustrophobic and can't wait for the hoardings to come down on the main platforms, but I'm genuinely excited about what it will become. On a similar note Kings Cross is less the hell hole it has always been these days.

"Or is ED not populated by little rays of sunshine?" Or is the EDF populated by miserable moaning ninnies? Mayhap....

"As one athlete put it, it was "cheat or get beat"." ..or as it turned out, get beat or drop dead before your time. I think the last time I got excited about athletics was probably Daley's defence of his title in 1984. I don't know if maybe the kempston/rubber key destroying game on the speccy might have been responsible for that. 1936 was probably before my time. My dad was about then but being bombed by Franco so had slightly more pressing concerns.

There are worse problems to have in all fairness ;-/

Phew, the hammers finally get a victory under their belt in pre-season against the mighty southend. Next stop Champions League qualification......

Just watched Dogtooth. Oh....my. Sort of Truman Show meets Josef Fritzl via Big Brother. I think it was funny, which wouldn't account for my typing this from behind the sofa.

Ha, I was thumbing a smart phone whilst catching a bus at the time. Maybe I shouldn't have prefaced the link at all ;)

The recipe for napalm is freely available on various sites on the internet, though some sort of distant proxy server might be advisable before heading to google.

Is this some ironic meme i missed out on or is the weather driving everyone insane? Either way I think a cat section for the forum may be the only way.

The Tour de France would probably benefit in the long term, though short term a competition with no competitors will be something of a damp squib.

I was ambivalent about it all before reading that. Now I couldn't be behind it more, what an arse. The military securty is very very silly though. I quoted another blog elsewhere but it stands repeating here. Much better expressed than that awful awful article. "Ah, memories. Here's Tessa Jowell in 2008: The London Games in 2012 will beat Beijing by being more "democratic", Olympics minister Tessa Jowell says. By 'democratic' Tessa meant 'involving more mass participation', by which metric the Arirang games in Pyongyang are festivals of popular anarchy. But it was an aspiration of sorts. And them times ain't no more. I mean, if you were going to write that trite leftie dystopia novel, the one in which the army man checkpoints in central London and crowds of children are taught to be publicly grateful to the corporate sponsors, and there are missiles on the roofs, but you hadn't because you were aware on some level that it was a bit shopworn and clich?d and besides you're not so sure about Chomsky as you used to be, well, then it's too late, because reality has just beat you to it. Now that we're up to around a quarter of the entire British army guarding the Olympics, a thought occurs: given that rights to the whole thing have been parcelled up and flogged off, does the event have an official terrorist group? I mean, we wouldn't want no-marks like ETA turning up and spoiling the whole thing with a crap atrocity. A world class event demands high quality terrorism, either from established global players in 'far enemy' markets or from dynamic, savvy regional armed gangs seeking entry on to the world stage: I'm looking at you, al Shabaab. Obviously, we could make subsidiary rights available to your bog standard national liberation movements. They could have a crack at, say, the rowing."