What he defines as bare minimum , other people see as intolerable. I.e the recent idea floated that people on the "terrorist watch list" or "no-fly list" shouldn't be able to purchase a gun. Lots of people were claiming that that was common-sense without thinking thru the implications of a government restricting…

Gun violence has gone down even as the number of guns has grown and restrictive laws have fallen by the wayside , at least in large portions of the non-coastal areas of the US. I think the issue is more nuanced. The FBI messed up Roof's background check:

Comey disclosed the error to reporters on Friday at FBI…

In all of the mass shootings mentioned, background checks were performed. And there is no way of purchasing a gun online legally without it first being sent to a dealer for a background check. Most of what the President proposed is irrelevant to the problems he wants to address. This is more about cultural warfare and…

Never ever going to happen. There are something like 300 million guns in private hands. It's far too late to bar the door.

Yes. We should get rid of jury trials, requirements of evidence, empirical facts, statute of limitations or anything like that. Allegation of rape should always equal guilt. Anyone who disagrees with this is a rapist. It's all so clear now.

Jimmy Page and Robert Plant wrote this song, which was a pretty accurate description of their lifestyle at the time as Page was trying to hide his 14 year old girlfriend from the media.
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyr…

The stores have bulletproof glass so the workers don't get shot.

Donny Hathaway's live version of "Young, Gifted and Black".

Jimmy Page was doing his thing with a 14 year old back in the day. Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13 year old cousin. James Brown and Glen Campbell were abusive. Norman Mailer stabbed his wife. And so on. Sometimes good artists do bad things. If people are really going to refuse to enjoy art created by anyone of…

I hear you but one could argue that the President already did that (apologies) in his Cairo speech. It doesn't seem to have made a difference. Bin Laden and some of his folks as well as ISIS were making threats about taking back Spain for goodness sakes. IIRC the Madrid bombers referenced the expulsion as one of their…

Thanks for the article but I'm not confusing the two different groups, although it's worthwhile to point out that Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to ISIS. I'm just mentioning them both as examples of evil.

I don't think that the sorts of men who join ISIS or Boko Haram to enslave and rape pre-pubescent girls will be impressed with either apologies or amends. The US never should have invaded Iraq but at this point I don't see any good answers. More intervention won't work unless we wish to fully reinstate colonialism and…

Great post. Couldn't agree more. There's something missing in today's music. Don't sleep on country though, there's more of it than one might think in classic R&B and blues, esp early Stax.

UK fought to keep its empire. And when Tolkien started the LOTR the British still had their empire.

I think I mentioned in another reply about Numenor's turn towards evil and conquest, which JRRT presents as bad, full stop. The reason I don't think of the elves as expansionary is that upon their initial return to Middle-Earth they were pretty much the only intelligent living human like creatures on the planet. They…

But the elves never had colonies like the UK, as they were the first intelligent creatures. The downfall of the elves came from fraticide, disobeying higher powers and being too attached to material goods and revenge. Numenor's fall was similar with the added twist of starting to worship the Enemy and not realizing…

But the good guys "win" by entirely rejecting the opportunity to have power. The evil side never saw that coming because it couldn't imagine that anyone wouldn't want power. And in so doing the remaining Elves lose all of their worldly status and must depart for the West. I'm just not seeing any colonial similarities.

Hmm. But you probably know already that Tolkien detested allegory and specifically didn't care for people looking for allegory in his works. He also wasn't exactly a big fan of colonialism. The Numenoreans transitioned from people who were selflessly sharing knowledge, food and technology with other humans to people…

Nothing but truth here.

What a tremendously stupid and offensive article. There's no better way to show that for some, many(?), white people black pain and suffering simply doesn't matter. Because we just don't count.