Austria, Second Most Violent Country In Europe

According to the Daily Mail, from this report, the UK is the most violent country in Europe, with Austria coming second. Meaning, I guess, my life is slowly becoming less violent. I should perhaps move to South Africa next, despite, er, it not being in Europe. Here's the chart:

I'm not sure when Canada was part of Europe either, but when you've got a point to prove I suppose these things don't matter.

Interestingly, and slightly under-reported in the article, the UK comes 13th in Europe in homocides and if I had to choose between a beating, robbery or being shot to death I guess I'd choose being robbed then being beaten with death a somewhat distant third.

It also gives something of a lie to that South African thing:

While the UK ranks above South Africa for all violent crime, South Africans suffer more than 20,000 murders each year - compared with Britain's 921 in 2007.

Hmmm.

As for the Austrian thing, the Overseas Security Advisory Council, which is something set up by Americans to protect Americans abroad says:

The crime rate in Austria is among the lowest in Europe. Violent crime is infrequent and is rarely directed against Americans. Most criminal activity is focused in large metropolitan areas.

And the American government takes the same tack:

Austria has one of the lowest crime rates in Europe, and violent crime is rare.

The odd thing here is that the figures in the above report taken at face value do bear some of this out. In Austria, in 2007, 133,546 incidences of violent crime were reported in a country with a population of 8,210,281 does give you around 1600 violent crimes per 100,000 people or, approximately, 7 or 8 per day in Linz and one per day in Steyr. Anecdotes aren't evidence but I doubt anyone in Austria believes this.

This may be, though, because:

Crime statistics are often better indicators of prevalence of law enforcement and willingness to report crime, than actual prevalence.

Now that I can believe in. Austrians may not commit much crime, but they sure are willing to report it.

So, Elvis Costello, Then...

I guess he's adenoidal, at least according to the New York Times.

via TMN.

Useful, But Somehow Wrong

So, I'm almost ready to join that whole home Internet revolution malarky. Mostly by getting my X-Box on-line in the next few weeks. I've already been allowed to try it at work, so I am now the proud owner of the latest Sam & Max game (and it's great), and I like the idea of just downloading things to my 'Box from my couch rather than that pesky Amazon/walking to the shops thing.

One thing I found out straight away is that the console also uploads stuff, so any time I want I can check out my gamer achievements whenever I want. I'm not entirely sure why I find this slightly unnerving, but I suppose always being able to know whether or not I've done the "Absolute Power is Kind of Neat" achievement on Civilization Revolutions is what the Internet was built for.

Used Ass Dealer

You know, I suspect that more context would explain this, but, really, I prefer to be mystified.

Via the inscrutable, but beautiful, this isn't happiness.

Another Victory For Common Sense

Portugal has the most lax laws on drugs in Europe, or at least since 2001, when it abolished all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine, it has. As expected by everyone not involved in the War on Drugs this has turned out to be a good thing.

[It was] found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."

Egging Griffin

Crooked Timber has post on whey it is every right-thinking British person's duty to throw eggs at Nick Griffin whenever he's seen in public.

Good News Everyone Redux

Apparently trying for more come-backs than the Zombie Jesus, Futurama will return to TV.

I shall commence patting myself on the back for keeping on buying the DVDs, even though the quality may have dipped slightly on the third one (nerdy I'm more than okay with but there's a limit).

That's Good Cos Your Tits Aren't Up To Much

So my excuse for not blogging this week is:

Angina!

Possibly "acute" if you want to the use the punchline provided above.

Thankfully, this was "angina tonsillaris", or tonsilitis.

You know, a week in bed isn't that much fun when you can't do much else. I have so much stuff to catch up with, of course.