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A couple of stories

If a last-minute legal challenge fails, from Tuesday, gun owners in the state of Tennessee will be allowed to carry their weapons in a lot more public places. It used to be that only the bad guys packed. Gunning for a law change

"The US budget deficit has moved above $1 trillion for the first time - with three months of the financial year remaining. And last week a senior US Democrat said that legislators must be willing to consider the possibility of a second economic stimulus package." Those Democrats never do things by half do they?

"Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered that cats use a "soliciting purr" to overpower their owners and garner attention and food." Like putty in their paws.

Comments

  1. Ha! "putty in their paws" indeed...
    Our cats are rigidly disciplined and fed carefully calculated amounts of the proper food.
    Hang on, I'll just get Alfie off the keyboard and stop Boyd sharing this chicken sandwich..

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  2. That's why I'm not a cat person. Anyway, most domestic cats aren't cats at all - now a tiger, THAT'S a cat! :-)

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  3. Well, I'd love an Ocelot, Tips but we make do with what we have. :-)

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  4. You show me a kitten and I'll show you an animal that believes they are Tigers :-)

    There are cat people, dog people and I'm in the third category of "animal person" liking all animals (not insects, animals). And you may not have guessed, but I do have a soft spot for Tigers.

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  5. (not insects, animals)

    I've read some offensive things on this blog but "not insects, animals"!?

    ~90% of animals are insects, 1 million described species (against 1.6 million species at large) and likely 10x that waiting for someone to give them a name (though we are driving them to extension more quickly than we can name them).

    There are about as many dragonfly species as there are mammalian ones. And some people think we rule the earth.

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  6. Glad to see that Tennesseans will not have stupid gun-grabbers standing in their way.

    If only the rest of us were so accommodating.

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  7. OK, point taken TA. I'll rephrase to say that I like mammals, not insects.

    I don't really care about the numbers, and if there were a few billion less mosquitos (probably a drop in the ocean), then I wouldn't shed a tear. Other than mosquitos, I don't go out of my way to kill insects. After all, some mammals like eating them, and I wouldn't deny them that pleasure.

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  8. Why is very easy to buy a Gun in United States?

    I think is not a unsafe country

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  10. Francisco, it's very easy to buy a gun in the States because they're still a free people.

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  11. Francisco, it is easy to get a gun legally in the Netherlands too.

    The better question is "why is it easy to get an illegal gun" and that question applies to the Netherlands as much as the USA.

    Have a look at this report: Guns and Crime in the Netherlands

    Yes, there may be less legally owned guns per person in the Netherlands, but what does this mean? From the same report:

    Does lower criminal gun ownership translate to lower crime rates overall? Looking at the FBI data in table 1 on page 64, the violent crime rate in the US was 504.4 per 100,000 inhabitants, while property crime ran at 3656.1 per 100,000 inhabitants. The Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics has crime numbers online, but not the crime rate. The table shows 101,143 violent crimes and 919,262 property crimes in 2001. With a population of 16,171,520 (September 2002), this works out as 625.4 violent crimes per 100,000 people and 5684.4 property crimes. Or, to put it differently, the violent crime rate in the Netherlands in 24% higher than in the US, and the property crime rate is 55% higher.

    More guns, less crime. What a surprise.


    Thanks for your comment and welcome to the blog.

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