kimmy

I think this is the key point. We want to avoid sock puppets, and we want to prevent people from circumventing bans. Beyond those two issues, I can't see any issue. In the case of Derek's return, I can't imagine what the issue is, since he was (1) never banned, and (2) is up front about who he is-- it is not a sock puppet account. I can't imagine any possible benefit to the board that would come from evicting Derek. Rather the opposite. I think you disagree with just about everybody on what constitutes a troll. A hypothetical user who wades into threads trying to derail discussion of the topic by baiting people with material like "hur de hur Canada, hur de hur de hur, hur de hur de the Queen, hur de hur" is a textbook troll and is a real detriment to the board. -k

He also costarred with Carla Gugino in a short-lived science-fiction series called Threshold. I thought it had potential, unfortunately it was cancelled partway through its first season. Wow! Tonight's episode was pretty exciting! Giants! Mammoths! Ygritte! The long-awaited return of Janos Slynt! The episode went by so fast that I didn't even have time to wonder what was going on at King's Landing. "You remember that cave? We should have stayed in that cave." -k

Yeah, I don't think we're anywhere close to 93.75% happy endings. I don't think we're anywhere close to 50% happy endings. I think we're batting about 0% for "empathetic" characters (which is a good choice of words because it ignores that whole annoying "but what is good?" sidetrack. Is Tyrion good? I dunno. Is Cersei bad? I dunno. But clearly we empathize with Tyrion, not Cersei.) The only characters on the show who've had things go well for them are people we can't stand. Cersei, Tywin, Littlefinger, the Boltons, Walder Frey... Daenarys is the only empathetic character who has had any success in the show, even as she becomes steadily less empathetic. And conversely Joffrey is the only antagonist who's suffered a significant setback. One of the things that has kept me watching has been the anticipation that eventually the antagonists would see their fortunes turn for the worse, but so far there's been little sign it'll happen. I am really hoping they throw us a bone before the end of the season. At the end of last season, there was that scene where Bran told the story about the cook who suffered a terrible curse when he killed a guest under his hospitality, and they immediately cut away to a scene with Walder Frey. And you figure "alright, that's some foreshadowing" and we anticipate some payback for the Freys... and we get frickin' nothing. If they keep teasing us like this and not delivering, they're going to lose people. After the Viper was slain last episode, I was looking for silver linings and I thought "well, he severed The Mountain's Achilles tendon. Gregor will never be the same. He'll be easy prey when Sandor (or one of the Brotherhood Without Banners, or some Dornish killer, or any number of other swordsmen who have a bone to pick with Gregor...) catches up with him. That'll be fun." Except it won't be, because-- ha-ha! --that's never going to happen. We won't get to see Gregor get what's coming to him. Pycelle is going to administer him some milk of poppy for the pain so that he can sleep... and Tywin is going to tap Grand Maester P on the shoulder and say "give him something a little stronger, wink-wink" and Gregor never wakes up. Because Tywin certainly can't have Gregor talking any more about the murder of Elia Martell, so Gregor is dead already. We the viewer have been strung along with the idea that Sandor has this grudge against Gregor... but we won't actually get to see a confrontation between the two. Next season Sandor will hear in passing that Gregor died from wounds he received in the duel, and he'll say "Fook. I wanted to kill the cunt me self" and that will be all. We've been following Bran's mystic journey into the wild in search for the 3-eyed crow, and I bet he's going to die from a rabid raccoon bite, because-- ha-ha! --why not? KUNK-KUNK-KUNK smashed beetles. -k

Good points... When episodes are released one at a time, it builds suspense and anticipation. "Argh, I can't wait to find out what happens next week!" And, when episodes are released one at a time, all the fans are watching at the same time. One of the fun things about following a series that has a fan following is chatting about the episode with other fans online or in the lunch-room. Having the whole series at your finger-tips whenever you have time to watch it might be convenient, but I think you lose out on part of the experience. I know someone who is an avid GoT fans, but he refuses to watch until he has the set of BluRay discs in his hands. So he doesn't get to participate in the weekly post-mortem discussions. I think he's missing out on half the fun. -k

I agree with Shady. Sure, finding the plane would be nice, but at any cost? The money that's being spent searching for corpses could be used to buy updated electronics for airplanes so that they're easier to track, or provide medical care for a lot of sick people, or spent in any number of ways that could yield more tangible benefit. -k

This was political the instant it happened, and I doubt gun control people will wait long to use this to their advantage. I agree it's a stupid statement, though. Canada's gun control measures work very well. -k

Didn't you say you were some kind of special forces commando or something? I would think anybody with even passing knowledge would recognize the big red shotgun shells on the stock of the gun on his back. -k

I think the Kings vs Blackhawks was the real championship. -k

I don't think anybody here is upset that there is little black and white, and lots of shades of grey. And I don't think anybody here is complaining that the endings aren't always happy. I used to watch David E Kelley's "The Practice" TV series. I used to think it was good. But gradually I became sick of it. It became very predictable: almost every trial on the show concluded in a manner that was most likely to enrage the viewer. If the defendant was a despicable piece of crap, it was guaranteed that Bobby Donnell and his team would get him acquitted. If the defendant was innocent or at least sympathetic, that would be one of the rare times the district attorneys would get a conviction... or else Bobby and the gang would resort to the most heinous tactics imaginable to obtain the acquittal. Whatever the case, it played out in a way that was calculated to infuriate. And at first this seemed like brilliant TV, because it was raw and intense and made me mad and shout WTF at the TV. But after a while, it didn't seem brilliant or raw or intense anymore, it just seemed manipulative and contrived. And I quit watching. I'm not there yet with GoT, but that same feeling of being manipulative and contrived is starting to creep into it. Sometimes seems like stuff is just done to antagonize the viewer. Sure, they throw us a bone once in a while... Dany's dragon's hatch... Robb wins a big battle... Jaime heroically rescues Brienne from Bolton's henchmen... Joffrey chokes to death... but overall those little triumphs seem pretty few and far between. Here's some crap I wrote three years ago: Sooo... I was wrong on some of the details, but things turned out more or less they way I predicted. I was wrong in guessing that Robb would be quickly defeated... they spent 2 seasons stringing us along... and I was wrong in thinking it would be a military defeat... the way things played out was so much more upsetting. The main error in my prediction was underestimating how far they'd go to rip the viewer's heart out. Likewise last episode. Oberyn being defeated wasn't entirely unexpected, so they had to go the extra mile. So he was not just defeated, but horrifically mutilated in the most graphic and grotesque manner, just to make sure the viewer gets that special punched-in-the gut feeling. -k

I kind of had a hunch that Oberyn might end up dead, because that's what happens to everybody who comes to King's Landing seeking justice. Still, I can't imagine what this "verdict" will mean going forward. It's hard to imagine the show without Tyrion... but of course it was hard to imagine the show without Ned too at one point. Perhaps Jaime will finally take action. The final shot of Oberyn was one of the most gruesome things I've ever seen on TV. Sansa's tour de force performance for the Lords of the Vale was pretty cool. I liked it, anyway. I think this is the first time in the series that she's made her own choice about anything of substance. I wouldn't have guessed that Tyrion would be a Beatles fan. Ser Jorah got out of the "friendzone", at least. I think Tyrion's monologue about Cousin Orson and the beetle smashing kind of sums up the whole philosophy of the show. He was obsessed with finding out the purpose of the beetle smashing... but he never did. There was no purpose. Beetles got smashed. Chud. Chud. Chud. No reason. You think somehow Ned has to get out of prison and get revenge on the Lannisters... but he never does. You think that sometime down the road Arya is going to put her sword through Joffrey's neck... then Joffrey dies the next week. You think Oberyn has to win the duel because the show can't go on without Tyrion... well... If you start thinking that there's some kind of grand design that is going to play out-- this character is destined to do this, or that character has to survive for some reason-- you find out you're wrong. There's no greater purpose, no destiny. Chud chud chud. -k

Big deal. We've gone from talking about The Constitutional Right To Bear Arms to an administrative triviality. If requiring a background check to buy a gun at a gun-show isn't a violation of his constitutional rights, then requiring a background check to buy a gun from a private seller isn't a violation of his constitutional rights. Ok, so not all Americans have the right to own firearms. Apparently the 2nd amendment isn't without limitation after all. So why convicted felons but not crazy-people? That might be how it's done right now, but so what? This is once again dickering over an administrative triviality. -k

ffffffuuuuuuuuuuu -k

Of course not. That's not their mandate. However, even they concede the point: And (to coin a phrase) "they were for it before they were against it." "We think it's reasonable to provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere for anyone. That means closing the Hinckley loophole so the records of those adjudicated mentally ill are in the system. This isn't new, or a change of position, or a concession. I've been on record on this point consistently, from our national meeting in Denver, to paid national ads and position papers, to news interviews and press appearances." -NRA head honk Wayne Lapierre, testifying to Congress in 1999 after Columbine. So there should be no restriction on the 2nd Amendment? Any American, whether they be convicted violent criminals, or mentally ill, or 9 years old, or senile, shall have the absolute and indisputable right to own firearms, without restriction? Is that how the courts have generally interpreted it? -k

Who cares about a few individual Talibans? -k

Yeah, that's kind of the point. It ought to be more complicated than buying a used lawnmower. Even the NRA concedes that there are people who shouldn't be allowed to own guns. There ought to be official documentation of gun licenses and serial numbers, and if you get caught selling a gun to somebody who doesn't have a valid license, you should be in deep trouble. -k

I think that understanding Rodgers' motivations and circumstances is an important part of trying to prevent such incidents. -k

Some argue that putting restrictions on legal sales of guns is useless because criminals can just go to the black market to get guns. And that might be true for some types of criminals, but it's not true for the Elliot Rodgers or Adam Lanzas or Marc Lepines of the world. Anybody who's seen a few episodes of Sons Of Anarchy can appreciate how difficult it would be to put an end to black market firearms. No argument there. But the deranged loners who have committed many of these crimes don't have black market connections. They don't even have contacts, let alone black market contacts. If these guys can't buy their firearms legally, what are they going to do? Hit up Craigslist and start asking around? When people who don't know how to criminal get the idea that they want to criminal, they are often highly conspicuous and attract attention of law enforcement. Whether it is would-be spouse-killers attempting to hire hitmen, or would-be thieves attempting to fence stuff, or would-be johns trying to find a prostitute, or would-be drug users trying to find drugs, the story is the same. This is the part of the plan where the would-be criminals expose their intentions to somebody else, and law enforcement people know this and use this opportunity to catch people who are in the process of criminal acts. The "Toronto 14" attempting to buy fertilizer is a perfect example of what happens when people who don't know what they're doing try to become criminal masterminds. If Elliot Rodgers didn't have access to legal firearms, he'd have probably got flagged while trying to obtain them illegally. If somebody like Elliot Rodgers could have obtained a gun from an illegal source, an undercover law enforcement agent would have obtained a gun from the illegal source first, and shut the source down. An illegal source that's easy enough to find to be accessible to a dweeb like Elliot Rodgers is an illegal source that's easy enough for the cops to find. On the subject of community: you can't really have a community with more than a couple hundred members. When groups reach a certain size, they stop being being groups and start breaking into smaller groups. Sure you might have a club with thousands of members, but nobody in that club knows everybody in the club at a personal level. There might be a number of circles of friends within the club that, collectively, encompass everybody in the club, and the circles of friends might overlap, but no one person in the club knows everybody at a personal level, and nobody in the club can be sure that any particular member of that club is part of somebody's circle of friends. The pastor at the church down the street probably knows each member of his congregation, but Joel Osteen certainly doesn't know each member of his multi-thousand member congregation. I was reading yesterday that Rodgers' parents had seen some of his recent video rants and became so concerned that they contacted the police. And the police actually sent a couple of officers to interview Rodgers, but they concluded that he seemed normal and non-threatening. But the officers hadn't actually watched the videos that alarmed Rodgers' parents, so Rodgers wasn't actually confronted with the stuff he'd been saying. -k

Indeed. For all the hand-wringing some in Canada do regarding firearms, the statistics indicate that firearms violence and firearms accidents in this country are insignificant in number compared to more mundane causes of death. -k

It happens from time to time. It's front page news at Breitbart when it happens (which isn't very often.) -k

Leaving aside the question of whether it's an excuse... did we ever get that explanation? -k

Keeping guns out of the hands of crazy people would be a good idea. Elliot Rodgers' own parents were concerned about his mental health. Surely some kind of screening process would have reduced the chances that such a psycho would be able to obtain guns. When I got my license, I submitted myself to a thorough background check that included interviews with references and an approval from my doctor. -k

And it wasn't even close! Up yours, Sam! -k

I assume these "pundits" are the usual anti-gay and social-conservative suspects who are looking for any possible angle to attack him from. If this opinion came from analysts whose opinion I respect, I would give it some thought, but I doubt it has much merit. Who would he sue? All 32 teams who didn't pick him? I read Bryan Fischer, the douche from American Family Association, floating the theory that the NFL pressured the Rams to draft him, that Sam is a player who wouldn't have been drafted unless the league stepped in to bully some team into using a sympathy pick on Sam. I doubt it. Michael Sam was the Defensive Player Of The Year in the best conference in college football. He had earlier been projected to go in the 3rd to 5th rounds of the draft. I read an article where the writer (I can't recall who it was right now) said that in conversations with executives with teams he did not identify, there was definitely unease about drafting Sam. It's not that the execs themselves were homophobic, but there was fear that the presence of an openly gay player could be a disruptive influence (ie, it's assumed that at least some of the players on the team might object to a gay man in the locker-room) or that having an openly gay player would become an unwanted off-field distraction (such as with this Jack Burkman clown who is now attempting to mobilize a boycott of the St Louis Rams.) I think there's plenty of reason to suspect that being openly gay hurt his draft position, and little to no reason to believe it helped him get drafted. -k

Short headline: "Seattle Seahawks waived offensive tackle Garrett Scott with the non-football illness designation." The full story: The Seahawks just drafted Garrett Scott. He arrived for his physical, and doctors discovered that he has a rare heart condition that means he might never play football again. The Seahawks had no choice but to cut him. But before they cut him, they signed him to his first (and last) pro football contract. So, although Garrett Scott's dream of a pro football career has been ended before it even got a chance to start, at least he gets to collect a year of salary and a signing bonus. It's nice that the Seahawks signed him and paid him a year of salary when they could have cut him without signing to a contract. It's probably small consolation to Garrett Scott, but at least the money should help him get started on whatever path he chooses now that his football dream is over. -k