CNN reports that a brazilian woman was shot six times in the head, and none of the bullets penetrated her skull.

This quote got my attention:

Doctors could not explain why the .32-caliber bullets did not penetrate Pereira’s skull and didn’t even need to be extractedimmediately.

“I can’t explain how something like this happened,”surgeon Adriano Teixeira said, adding that the bullets were lodged under the woman’s scalp.

That’s odd. I’m pretty sure I can explain it — cheap ammunition. If you get a partial burn of fouled powder, or if only the primer fires, the bullet will exit the barrel at a fairly sub-lethal velocity. I don’t know a whole lot about .32 caliber ammo, but since she was shot six times I suspect her ex-husband (the shooter) was using a revolver. Revolvers rarely “jam,” and a primer-only firing would only cause a problem if the bullet stopped between the cylinder and the barrel.

I seem to recall a similar incident in which a US soldier took a round in the face at point-blank range, and proceeded to tackle and secure the man who shot him.

So… can a firearms enthusiast with a bit more working knowledge of .32 rounds shed more light on this?

–Howard

p.s. And before you make the obvious “the woman wouldn’t take her husband back so she must just be thick-skulled” joke, bear in mind that she probably divorced this murderous jerkwad for good reasons. She’s not thick-skulled. She’s SMART.

You know, I really, really, really hate the down-swings I suffer through. They run something like this:

1) I don’t feel like working.
2) I try to work, and STILL can’t get much done.
3) I feel guilty about getting nothing done.
4) Now I can’t play, because I have guilt preventing me from enjoying it.
5) The day ends, and I hope that I’ll wake up in better spirits tomorrow.

Usually on a day when I’ve got huge quantities of work to do and that work is DIRECTLY CONNECTED to money, I have no problem getting moving. Today should have been a joyous celebration of “doing what I love.” Instead I moped, slept, inked a few panels, colored a little, and basically followed the numbered dance steps above.

Fortunately for you guys, Sandra and Kiki began laying out work for me in my office. I can begin sketch edition work in earnest tomorrow (as soon as I finish coloring a week or two of comics. Yes, Sunday’s strip is only partly colored right now. Ideally, tomorrow I will color a week of strips and then knock back about 200 sketch editions. If there’s any hand left, I’ll ink a week of strips.

Believe it or not, I LIKE 12-hour days. And on the days when I don’t like them, I WANT to like them. All I can figure is that on days like today (and yesterday, truth be told) something is wrong with my brain.

–Howard

I can count the issues I see with Electronic Voting on the fingers of one hand:

1) Entrusting public information that drives public policy to private, proprietary systems is counterintuitive and disingenuous.
2) When votes are electronically countable, they are also electronically transformable. Electronic ballot stuffing seems like it would be easier than large-scale paper forgery.
3) Voting machine glitches are more common the more complex the machinery is. The simpler the process, the less likely you’ll be faced with long lines at 7am because some poll worker can’t program a VCR, either.

That pretty much sums up the issues. And I still have one finger left, not to mention a thumb.

The benefits:

1) It looked cool and modern. Nothing says “progress in government” like shiny new election machines. Yes, I’m easily impressed (this may be “issue #4 — expense,” but I believe these terminals will eventually cut election-day expenses, because I’m a forward-thinking optimist.)
2) I was in and out in five minutes. No glitches, no lines, and the machine was FAST — even when I was insisting that it let me double-check how it recorded my selections.
3) Big, easy-to-read text on a nice touch-screen. No more itsy-bitsy fine-print in dark little booths. When I looked at the proposition for a school leeway, I was able to read the whole whing without squinting or bending over. (I voted yes on that one. No new tax — the vote was for a re-allocation of existing tax monies, which is one of the few bits of true democracy you’ll find in this representative republic of ours)
4) It scrolled a little piece of paper inside, which I could read, review, and approve or even reject. Apparently there is a hard-copy being made in case the election is contested. While this does not completely address issue #2 above, it goes a long way towards making electronic manipulation of votes more difficult.

So there’s my experience with electronic voting. Summary: I like it. I’m not denying that there are issues (I would love to see the software, encryptions, and everything related to the process open-sourced, or at least open to peer review) but they were transparent for me.

–Howard “I probably just elected Adolph von Hussein-Amin as the Tyrant Principio of the Secessionary Territory of Utah” Tayler

Blank Label Comics’ Dave Kellett needs your help. He’s moving his daily strip, Sheldon, to www.sheldoncomics.com tomorrow.

He is leaving United Media to go completely independent… which means he needs help spreading the word to as many people as possible. The majority of Sheldon readers currently get the strip via “comics.com/comics/sheldon”, or via United Media’s e-mail delivery. When the strip moves, these readers won’t have any way to know where the strip went. (Dave tried putting a notice in the strip…it got edited out, and United Media won’t send a “Sheldon is moving” message either.)

(If anybody from United Media is reading this… it may be too late to save the syndication business model, but it’s not too late for you to go out of business with a clean conscience.)

Here’s how you can help not just Dave, but also the thousands of Sheldon fans that United Media is trying to put the screws to. Right now, while you’re thinking about it, take two minutes and post this infomation on your Web site, in a forum you visit, or on your personal blog:

Dave Kellett’s Sheldon is moving to http://www.sheldoncomics.com .

Why are you still reading? Go Do That Right Now. When you come back you can read about the cool new site features like:
– Free access to 5+ years of Sheldon strip archives
– Larger-sized Sunday and daily comics
– Faster loading times
– Free daily delivery of Sheldon by e-mail
– Free RSS feed
– Free “Send This Strip to a Friend” feature
– “Jump to a Random Strip” feature
– No pop-up/pop-under ads
– Daily blog
– Direct links to the forum, store, and more
– … basically, everything the strip didn’t have at comics.com