The insistence that it is every nutcase's right to carry a gun in the US is causing problems for the search engine Google.

The problem is not that Americans carry guns, it is just that the American method of shooting involves flinging as many bullets at the general direction of the target in the hope that it might kill something. Google has found that the cracked shots of the US have been regularly taking out its aerial fibre links to its data centre in Oregon. Apparently such skilled shooting has forced Google to put its cables underground.

Network engineering manager Vijay Gill told the AusNOG conference in Sydney last week that hunters unable to kill something warm and fluffy were taking out their frustration against insulators on electricity distribution poles. While the hunters were not good enough, or ran out of ammo before they hit an insulator, the fibre usually got hit in the cross fire.

He said that every November when hunting season starts invariably we know that the fibre will be shot down, so much so that we are now building an underground path. We would have thought that workers laying fibre in the woods would make an even better target for the skilled American hunters armed with uzis and RPGs. Gill said that these guys had to go in and fix the fibre while facing gunshots... So, network management in the US is more dangerous than you realise. (I can already see them bent over a log, squealing like a pig. sub.ed.)