jon

With the economic and health care debates that have been raging recently, there hasn’t been a whole lot of press or popular argument on the gun control front lately. It’s something I think about pretty regularly, though.

One of the points I often see brought up is that many countries, particularly those in Europe, that have very strict gun laws (generally to the point of bans on private ownership) have among the lowest gun crime rates in the civilized world. In contrast, the US has one of the highest. This brings us to the question of why America has such a deeply-ingrained gun culture. It also makes us ask whether there’s anything we can do about it. Or whether we should do anything about it.

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I’ve switched from MovableType to WordPress. So far, WP is about a billion times better than MT ever was.

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The best way to describe this “sandwich” is to say that it’s a frontal assault on the buyer’s pride.

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Allow me to don my conspiracist’s cap for a moment.

I’ve always been mildly curious about Scientology. There’s something so unreal about it. Any of you reading this probably have a good appreciation for how much (ha ha) I think of the average person’s reasoning ability, but the idea that anyone can actually “believe” in Scientology pushes even my limits.

So… perhaps there’s something more to it that we don’t realize? I have a theory.

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[Yes, I'm intentionally using the terminology normally used for Holocaust denial]

Let’s forget about the political aspects of the debate for a minute. Put all that aside. Forget about it. Let’s just think – together – for a few minutes.

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Remember Troy Davis?

Turns out that the Supreme Court has decided to hear him out, as explained in an excellent New York Times article.

Also see these quotes from the decision and dissent.

This is a pancake machine.

If you’re still with me, that means you haven’t bought one yet. This in turn means that you didn’t hear me properly.

This is a pancake machine!! Do I really need to say anything else?

Eventful week for the website here. First my ISP shut down all the server ports, then I find out the site has been hacked.

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I discovered an awesome new comic today: Sunday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

I was going through the (extensive) archives when I found one that made me think a bit:

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I’m going to have to put my golf habit on hold for a weekend trip to the Squam lake house in NH.

Speaking of golf, lessons make you worse! In fact, they make you as bad as you were when you first hit a ball. Yeesh. I was shooting 45 consistently at the par-28 course and improving weekly when I took my first lesson (thanks to Em for the 6-pack as a birthday present!) I took a lesson, changed everything about my swing, hit the range a few times, and then started shooting over 50 again. I posted a career-high 66 at the par-36 Frear Park back nine. Yeesh.

But, hey, at least the sun is still there. I think that I literally didn’t see it once from June 18 until June 23. That gets old real fast, let me tell you.

Also speaking of golf, I ordered myself a new driver last night, which is nice considering I didn’t really have one before. So far all of the clubs I’ve bought have been from GigaGolf, a strange little company that makes clone golf clubs. They take popular designs from the major manufacturers and replicate them almost perfectly. Different logo, different colors, but the same materials and technologies. It’s sort of weird playing knockoff clubs, but I’m really not entirely sure why. The clubs are all very high quality and would look right at home on the sales floor, but they’re literally 1/4 the price or less.

But enough about golf.

…. and I guess that also means “enough about this whole post.”