Proximity-TOA Correlation

I think I just may have chanced upon a law from empirical observation, much like say Moore's law
or Murphy's law.

The observation is as follows:
"The farther a member of a rendezvous party is from the rendezvous point, the earlier he/she is
likely to arrive there before the others."

A plausible explanation I have as to why this prediction turns out true much more often than not
is because people farther off from a rendezvous point will make an effort to leave much earlier
than necessary so as to give themselves a buffer against any unexpected delays on the long way
to the rendezvous point.

The negation of this statement also holds good. People who are closer to the rendezvous point
tend to start later reassured by the fact that the rendezvous point is close by after all and
are unlikely to be delayed by any unexpected events. Unexpected events are by their very nature
rare, thus both the precaution as well as the lack of any guard against it seldom turns out to
be a factor in the arrival time.

Also note that this does not conflict the normal distribution of arrival times that is to be
expected in such cases. My proposition merely relates the proximity of the person arriving
the rendezvous point to how much closer or farther his time of arrival is from the median of
the bell curve distribution.

The correlation of this law is as high as the following factors are
relevant:

a) the formalism involved in the meeting/rendezvous (i.e. more applicable to a board meeting
than an informal party)

b) infrequency of the meeting (i.e. more often the meeting's repetition, lower the correlation)

The reason why both these factors will affect the correlation is obvious.

Hence, to put it succinctly, the early bird is the one farthest from the worm.

Guns and God(s)

Two key issues that rage in debates between liberals and conservatives in America are the twin issues of guns and gods. For the uninitiated, it goes like this: the conservatives want to keep guns with the people and get god into the Supreme Court (and schools, by the way.) The liberals want to keep god out of the courtroom and get guns away from the people.

Lets look at some examples of countries, and how guns and god are treated in them:

Case 1 : Guns with the people, God in the Courtoom : Afghanistan, NW Pakistan
(True, there aren't too many functional courtrooms in Afghanistan nor Pakistan. Yet, the ones that function at all are the Sharia courts where god's purported word is above all else. )

Case 2: Guns away from people, God in Courtroom : Saudi Arabia
(This is ofcourse, neglecting the suicide bombers and fellows who fly planes into buildings in other 'allied' countries.)

Case 3: Guns with the people, God away from the Courtroom : USA

Case 4: No Guns, no God : Scandinavian countries, Western Europe, Japan
(As per a Gallop poll, the most irreligious countries were associated with the highest standards of living in the world, and vice versa for the religious ones. As it turns out, these countries also have amongst the most restrictive gun laws. )

You can read a nice Wikipedia page on gun laws in different countries, here.

Now believe you me. I admire the 'Second Amendment'; I was also moved to tears when I first read the 'Right of Revolution' clause in the Declaration of Independence:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

However, one has to admit that right to carry a firearm, if it was primarily intended to be a deterrent against oppression by Government, is a bit outdated. No matter how many guns you arm the citizenry with, there are only so many tanks that all those guns are going to take out with a few rifles or handguns. So, you'll need to arm them with bazookas or rocket launchers or anti-tank whatever-it-is that the Taliban uses, and even then it won't suffice. Hence you need to grant the citizenry right to own artillery as well. And artillery units are only sitting ducks to an oppressor armed with F-16s so you'll need to let the citizens buy, own and operate their own air bases and air-force. Well, if you are smiling, you evidently haven't heard about Anarcho-Capitalism.

However, you haven't heard anything about American gun control either. Not yet. The following was a revelation during a chat with one of my friends, Rohit, in America. After hearing me talk so passionately about the right to rebellion:
Rohit: yeah

I know

you know what is more absurd?

the point is to be able to rebel against the government

guns are banned in washington DC

me: lol!!!

Rohit: no citizen is allowed guns there

permit or not