Mr. Heartbreak

Sadly, this latest clown was hearing voices and was under psychiatric care recently. If nothing else, our system needs to be coordinated among mental health providers at all levels, law enforcement, and gun dealers large and small. This guy should not have had a legal right to any firearms, but he did have them.

Oh, I didn't forget that gun ownership was severely restricted. In fact, I would encourage that. Interesting info on the 2nd amendment via wikipedia: To answer your questions: I have never felt any need to own a gun of any sort. And by the actual definition of the 2nd amendment, it would be perfectly fine by me if private citizens were required to turn them in. They could belong, then, to law enforcement and, yes, obviously, criminals would still keep theirs. How do I think it would go over with the citizens? Shittily, with some. For me, couldn't care less. I would actually feel safer

Yeah, if you don't go for the comic stuff, I'd try to steer you toward instrumentals like "Black Napkins" and "Watermelon in Easter Hay," or more straight ahead songs (with lyrical content) like "Village of the Sun" and "Trouble Every Day." So many different styles and so much great guitar work.

I was just going off my memory of the news story I watched, but the statistic I had was from 2010: "Guns were used in 11,078 homicides in the U.S. in 2010, comprising almost 35% of all gun deaths, and over 68% of all homicides." I understand the "there is no point comparing countries" argument. I really do. But the fact remains, in the U.K., after they imposed stricter gun laws, the rates of homicide by firearm - in particular, mass shootings - dropped significantly. I believe we could do the same, with similar results, but for the resistance of the gun lobby. Because, you see, most of o

I can totally understand not getting into The Eagles, but I never understood the outright serious hostility towards them some folks have. It's kind of like hating vanilla. But Zappa? Brother, give him another chance. That is a whole universe of weird, wonderful, diverse music there.

When I read a statement like this, it's hard to agree with the statement "the opponents don't just dislike each other's stance on guns, they dislike each other."

I couldn't disagree more. Not only is it not sad, it's absolutely crucial that we have this conversation. And use it to drive some kind of reasonable gun control standards. How many more mass shootings do we have to have before we acknowledge that the standards that they have in other countries work better there than ours do here? In the U.S. last year, I heard on the news that there were 11,000 deaths related to gun violence. In the U.K., it was something like 200. If we adjusted for population size, the U.K. % would have been something like 400. Contrast that with 11,000. It is a staggerin

Well, here's an interesting little tidbit to take the gun control argument in a different direction: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/aaron-alexis-navy_n_3941851.html?utm_hp_ref=politics&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D376818 Apparently, this Aaron Alexis psycho entered the Navy during a time when "the Navy and the other military services were struggling to reach their wartime recruiting goals, and were granting thousands of waivers to potential recruits with criminal backgrounds." Disgusting. "Come on in, boys. Don't worry about that little record thing. We ne

Jesse may survive this after all...or Aaron Paul is just being very cagey here: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/aaron-pauls-last-word-on-breaking-bad-20130916#ixzz2fAmyw3T9

Any of you guys have Europe '72 Vol. 2? There was no way I was going to buy the big box ($450 or whatever), but I finally picked up a used copy of this for about 12 bucks, and it's quite good. The first disc is uniformly solid (although the Bertha opener is not quite as good as the one on Skull & Roses), and the second disc has huge versions of Dark Star and The Other One which occupy most of the disc. Personally, I would rather have had a bunch more 5-star versions of shorter songs from the tour that were not on Vol. 1 (Casey Jones, Black Throated Wind, BIg Boss Man, etc.), as the monst

Some people just have no impulse control. They want to watch a show in their own time, but then they expect everyone else to conform to their schedule. I would make a point of posting spoilers to that person's timeline as a not-so-subtle way of saying, 1) "You don't control the world," and 2) "If you don't want to know what happened, then don't read articles about it or go on social media, jackass." Then I would smile after they unfriended me. As for last night, was that one of the best hours of TV in history, or what? I think Wilco Me is right: Walt was giving his family what he could by tr

Confirmation from Vince Gilligan that Jesse makes it out of the desert alive: "I think there’s a scene with Aaron Paul that just made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. It’s one we’ve already seen out in the desert when he says to Walt, ‘Why don’t you just tell me the truth and say that you want me to leave because otherwise you’re going to kill me.’ There’s another one coming up two episodes from now with Aaron Paul [during the final three], which I will not say what happens but it is an electrifying moment of acting."

Seconded!

You are forgetting that we still have a nuclear arsenal capable of blowing up the entire world five times over. Not to mention the pinpoint accuracy of drones. There is no need for us to have military bases in 89 countries or whatever the hell it is these days. It's utterly ridiculous. We need to start "projecting power" at home more and not all over the rest of the planet. We can be respected without being as feared as we are now...there is no way any head of state would be stupid enough to view us as having the meager capabilities of a France or U.K.

Some of the old definitions of hipster on Urban Dictionary are very, very funny.

This is what every neo-con out there says. And yet, the only other thing we constantly hear - especially from the Tea Party right - is how broke we are, how much debt we have to China, etc. etc. So, which is it? Can we not afford to stick our noses into all these other countries' business, or do we have the money? I say, if we have the money, screw these other countries and their problems anyway. We need to start taking care of our own people at home. We have something like 40 MILLION people living in poverty here, not to mention major impending infrastructure failure on the most basic shit:

I wonder if Jesse will survive long enough to talk to the Nazis. He could use Walt's cash as a bargaining chip, maybe.

How about asinine-looking sideburns? Can we add that to the criteria? (Google Matt Kibbe of Freedomworks and you will see that he is a hipster).

This is exactly correct except for one thing: the world's opinion of the U.S. hasn't always been low. It was probably still pretty high until around the early 90s, when our first misadventure in Iraq began. It sure as hell took a huge nosedive during George W. Bush's first term, what with "Bring 'em on," and "If you're not with us, you're against us."

Good catch!

I have real confidence in Vince Gilligan, who wrote the final episode (though he says, with typical humility, that the upcoming Ozymandias is his favorite episode of the series). He did say that the writers satisfied themselves and Bryan Cranston said that the series ends in a "very unapologetic and appropriate" fashion. That's good enough for me. Cannot wait to see how it all plays out.

Exactly. He could give Skyler the coordinates, or even just tell her they are on the fridge. Saul could have the vacuum cleaner guy take care of them all, and they could just return to get the money at any time. This is, of course, assuming that Gomie, Hank and Jesse all bite the dust, and that the Aryan Nation goons don't therefore learn about the money there in the desert. Somehow, I can't help thinking it will be darker than that, but who knows?

I thought about this post today when I saw this political cartoon:

It's actually pretty predictable. Put yourself in his shoes: if you killed someone, went on trial for murder, and got off, how would you act afterwards? Would you not, at the very least, keep a low profile? Avoid conflict a bit? Maybe try not to break the law? Not Zimmy. I think most of us hope we never hear or read about him again. Sadly, life does not work that way. Hotheads get in trouble, and it's unlikely he will never get in trouble again. He has a lengthy history, yet no rehabilitation.