Don't panic

The world is not falling apart: The trend lines reveal an increasingly peaceful period in history.

Steven Pinker sets out to prove that the world is not, despite current impressions, going to rack and ruin with violence.  He does a pretty good job, too.

As for Tony Abbott's "Merry Christmas" warning that terrorism was "likely" - I'm not sure that anyone believes anything he says about anything anyway.   Certainly, historically, it seems Islamic terrorists have chosen never to stage massive attacks during the Christmas season.  But now that I Google the topic, I see that the UK and US media gave some coverage at the start of December to concerns that al-Qaida was planning airline attacks before Christmas.  I don't recall reading that in the Australian media, which is odd, seeing Rupert has developed a large Islamic bee in his bonnet. 

Hey, I seem to have strayed somewhat from the cheery tone that I was aiming for.  Oh well, there's probably an asteroid with Canberra's name on it that Abbott's cuts to science means won't be detected, anyway.

And for the astute observer of this blog, perhaps you can tell from my Marvin-tinged tone, as well as the title, that I recently found that the BCC TV version of Hitchhikers Guide is on Youtube.  You can thank me later.