"If I put this up your butt, you'll find out how effective it is. Let me put a round up your, you know." Strange words from our otherwise eloquent and contemplative mayor. This is his response to a reporter's question about the effectiveness of a 28 year gun ban in Chicago.
To be fair, it is quite aggravating to be called out publicly, and when you so thirstily pant after power, any challenge to your authority likely will stir angry feelings. But wow, to me this illustrates how personal this is to the mayor. The idea that things could get any worse is absurd. How difficult is it to see the failure of Chicago's successful erasure of constitutional rights, to keep the power of life and death in the hands of the elect.
"You have to go through driver's ed, you have to get a license, you have to pass a test for drivers, but you really don't have to do anything to own a gun." What offends me most by this explanatory statement offered by Daley, is his failure to observe that driving is not a constitutional right, where self-armament is. Not to mention he's lying or just ignorant of his own state's laws. In fact, Illinois is the only state that requires a state issued permit to purchase either a rifle or handgun. Illinois is one of two remaining states that have no provision for the concealed carry of firearms by citizens. Illinois has some of the most restrictive prerequisites for gun ownership in the entire U.S.
There's some statistical stuff out there about the effect of gun bans on violent crime. Yeah, lies, damn lies, and statistics. It's a place to start anyway. The lessons described in 25 years murder-free in 'Gun Town USA' may not apply to Chicago, but it's worth a moment's consideration.
"In March 1982, 25 years ago, the small town of Kennesaw – responding to a handgun ban in Morton Grove, Ill. – unanimously passed an ordinance requiring each head of household to own and maintain a gun. Since then, despite dire predictions of "Wild West" showdowns and increased violence accidents, not a single resident has been involved in a fatal shooting – as a victim, attacker or defender."
"By comparison, the population of Morton Grove, the first city in Illinois to adopt a gun ban for anyone other than police officers, has actually dropped slightly and stands at 22,202, according to 2005 statistics. More significantly, perhaps, the city's crime rate increased by 15.7 percent immediately after the gun ban, even though the overall crime rate in Cook County rose only 3 percent. Today, by comparison, the township's crime rate stands at 2,268 per 100,000."
No, it's not apples to apples. But comparing Morton Grove to the rest of Cook County is pretty interesting. Now that Morton Grove has chosen not to provoke a fight against 2nd amendment rights advocates, we may have a chance to see if crime jumps, falls or flatlines.
Either way, thank God I'm out of Chicago.
5/02/2010
Gnome Shell will destroy the scene
But not in a good way. Apparently, we're six months from Gnome Shell (the most user-facing component of the gnome 3.0 Desktop) going "live" this september with Ubuntu 10.10. Oh my. This will be the most controversial and hated moves of the open source desktop dramas.
Gnome shell is about as friendly as a bear with bees in it's mouth. Instead of categorized program menus (like every other desktop that uses program menus) Gnome Shell provides you with a 5x7 grid of icons and truncated names. This offers the user with such jems as "Uninstall" and in my case two identical icons, both labeled "Armegetro..." Ok, one is Armegetron Server, and one is simply Armegetron (both are cool Tron inspired lightcycle games). So, uh, gnome overlords, how am I supposed to know which is which? I guess just memorize, or click-and-pray.
Other highlights are "Configure ...," "Google ga...," and "Google ga...," "Manage Pr..." ok, you get the idea. I wonder, why didn't the gnome shell developers? You also probably thought to yourself by now, "Quit belly-aching, and just hover over the icon. I'm sure there's a pop-up notification." But, you'd be wrong! Probably violates some undergrad's idea of an HIG.
Always visible in the err... "Activities Overview Mode," is a list of 19 most recent items. There's no way to clear them. Not from the err... "Activities Overview Mode," menu anyway.
And about that "Activities Overview Mode," it is basically a start-menu that consumes about 1/5 of your screen, shrinking the rest down "OS X expose" style. Looks really neat, the first time. By about the 10,000th time you've seen "GNOME Shell take advantage of the capabilities of modern graphics hardware" you are sea-sick enough to have to go lay down for a bit. Another cool misfeature of the "Activities Overview Mode" is that you cannot simply click the desktop to exit the "Activities Overview Mode," rather, you must click an expose'ed window. Why? Dunno.
And that's the overall feel I get from using this beta version of GNOME Shell. Why? Dunno. And it seems like the whole thing was stitched together by people who will simply expect you not to ask "why?" But should you, and should you be granted an answer, I'll admit it likely won't be "dunno." But if the answer is given in a moment of honesty, it would probably be "because we say so."
I could go on. But it's just bumming me out too much. I'll just go back to using the very thoughtfully designed and innovative Google Chrome browser. I mean, the "desktop" is becoming more and more of an unwelcome necessity these days anyway. As I've said before, I've chosen GNOME as my (often abusive) partner, and I still hope for things to improve. Yeah, I'm a sucker. But I've got time: six months.
Six months to see what changes, and hopefully, six months to prove my prediction wrong: GNOME Shell will be the most ridiculed and reviled major desktop overhaul in the history of Open Source Desktops.
Gnome shell is about as friendly as a bear with bees in it's mouth. Instead of categorized program menus (like every other desktop that uses program menus) Gnome Shell provides you with a 5x7 grid of icons and truncated names. This offers the user with such jems as "Uninstall" and in my case two identical icons, both labeled "Armegetro..." Ok, one is Armegetron Server, and one is simply Armegetron (both are cool Tron inspired lightcycle games). So, uh, gnome overlords, how am I supposed to know which is which? I guess just memorize, or click-and-pray.
Other highlights are "Configure ...," "Google ga...," and "Google ga...," "Manage Pr..." ok, you get the idea. I wonder, why didn't the gnome shell developers? You also probably thought to yourself by now, "Quit belly-aching, and just hover over the icon. I'm sure there's a pop-up notification." But, you'd be wrong! Probably violates some undergrad's idea of an HIG.
Always visible in the err... "Activities Overview Mode," is a list of 19 most recent items. There's no way to clear them. Not from the err... "Activities Overview Mode," menu anyway.
And about that "Activities Overview Mode," it is basically a start-menu that consumes about 1/5 of your screen, shrinking the rest down "OS X expose" style. Looks really neat, the first time. By about the 10,000th time you've seen "GNOME Shell take advantage of the capabilities of modern graphics hardware" you are sea-sick enough to have to go lay down for a bit. Another cool misfeature of the "Activities Overview Mode" is that you cannot simply click the desktop to exit the "Activities Overview Mode," rather, you must click an expose'ed window. Why? Dunno.
And that's the overall feel I get from using this beta version of GNOME Shell. Why? Dunno. And it seems like the whole thing was stitched together by people who will simply expect you not to ask "why?" But should you, and should you be granted an answer, I'll admit it likely won't be "dunno." But if the answer is given in a moment of honesty, it would probably be "because we say so."
I could go on. But it's just bumming me out too much. I'll just go back to using the very thoughtfully designed and innovative Google Chrome browser. I mean, the "desktop" is becoming more and more of an unwelcome necessity these days anyway. As I've said before, I've chosen GNOME as my (often abusive) partner, and I still hope for things to improve. Yeah, I'm a sucker. But I've got time: six months.
Six months to see what changes, and hopefully, six months to prove my prediction wrong: GNOME Shell will be the most ridiculed and reviled major desktop overhaul in the history of Open Source Desktops.
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