Inspired by his example, I propose curbing gun violence not by further restricting the availability of guns but by expanding and reorienting it. Men would still be forbidden to walk the streets armed, in accordance with current laws, but women would be required to carry pistols in plain sight whenever they are out and about. Were I to board the subway late at night, around Lincoln Center perhaps, and find it filled with women openly carrying Metropolitan Opera programs and Glock automatics, I’d feel snug and secure. A train packed with armed men would not produce the same comforting sensation. Maybe that’s because men have a disconcerting tendency to shoot people, while women display admirable restraint. Department of Justice figures show that between 1976 and 2005, 91.3 percent of gun homicides were committed by men, 8.7 percent by women.

Bush’s Backward Sprint To The Finish

In its final days, the administration is rushing to implement a sweeping array of "midnight regulations" — de facto laws issued by the executive branch — designed to lock in Bush's legacy. Under the last- minute rules, which can be extremely difficult to overturn, loaded firearms would be allowed in national parks, uranium mining would be permitted near the Grand Canyon and many injured consumers would no longer be able to sue negligent manufacturers in state courts. Other rules would gut the Endangered Species Act, open millions of acres of wild lands to mining, restrict access to birth control and put local cops to work spying for the federal government.

The judge who handed a guilty verdict and jail time to the defendants in The Pirate Bay trial is involved with not one, but two copyright organizations in Sweden. Judge Tomas Norström says he believes such a thing doesn't represent a conflict of interest, but the new findings have lawyers for the other side pushing for a retrial.

Obama’s speech underscored the Americans’ feeling that Turkey is in a prime position to influence events. To be Turkish is to balance oneself between the West and the Islamic worlds, as well as between the United States and Russia. Washington wants to use Turkey’s position as the leading Muslim state — with influence from the Middle East to South Asia — to deal with the unrest in the Arab/Muslim world and, ideally, as a hedge against Russia. Judging from the abject flattery and language indicating that Obama thought highly of Turkey’s ability to act in accordance with mutual best interests, it is fairly clear that Obama’s talks with the Turkish leadership went extremely well.

The EFF has put its entire archive of government documents online. These have been "pried loose from secretive government agencies" through Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits over the years, but EFF has scanned and indexed all of them, then created a custom search engine to make browsing or digging much easier.

Vivek Kundra is tapped as the federal government's CIO. But is that a new position, or just a new title?

The nomination of academic rockstar Cass Sunstein to head the somewhat obscure Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (within the equally wonktastic Office of Management and Budget) provoked a modicum of surprise—wasn't it a little like tapping Niels Bohr to teach high school physics?—and a chorus of kudos from some surprising quarters. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, bloggers at the Volokh Conspiracy, and Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds all hailed the pick.

All politicians are prone to make slips of the tongue in the heat of the moment - and President George W Bush has made more than most. The word "Bushism" has been coined to label his occasional verbal lapses during eight years in office, which come to an end on 20 January. Here are some of his most memorable pronouncements.