pinkstones

These will be new the talking points, delivered fresh from Rush O'Hannity's festering gobs.

66 ain't elderly. Now grab a shovel and start scoopin', gramps.

LOL. I used to shovel out parking spots for our neighbors, only because they were elderly. If you could do it for yourself, then you did. It was weird, in all the years I lived in Chicago, which was the first 19 of my life, all the neighbors we ever had were elderly. Every apartment, didn't matter what neighborhood it was; old people. At least we didn't have to worry about noise and trash. Thankfully where I live, if it does snow, it's not anywhere near enough to bury a car. Just enough to cause people to drive like absolute idiots.

No, you just pay attention to where the car is. I had to shovel out my parents' car more than a few times growing up in Chicago. You found the tires, or started at the top from the roof, and used the edge of the shovel to push the snow off. Then you shoveled out from around and the underneath the tires. Voila, no scratches or dents.

Light My Fire - The Doors Listening to it here: http://beta.musicchoice.com/#channel/4

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it sure sounds like you're trying to make the point that other countries/people are better than Americans because they don't have the gun problem that we do. Also, of course animals don't need guns to kill other animals. They have claws, sharp fangs, poison, and other evolutionary ephemera to aid them. We don't. That doesn't make animals inherently better. I'd say that we're slightly better only because we crap in toilets.

I certainly didn't think you meant any offense, I was just throwing my $0.02 into the pot.

It's gallows humor. It's how some people (like myself) choose to deal with life's crap. Just because I don't say "how terrible" doesn't mean I conversely don't care that this happened.

Clearly this is because we took God out of fire. I say all fire must have armed guards so that this doesn't happen again.

A burglar can think the house is empty and be wrong. It's in those instances people who legally own firearms will use them to defend themselves, if the burglars aren't scared off by the fact the homeowner is home and armed. Yes, it's rare for someone to try and rob a house they know is occupied - that usually only happens when it's drug-related, and the thieves are trying to get drugs and/or money from whoever is in the house or apartment.

I can see the merits of it. I mean, the roll goes where you take from the top, not the bottom.

Yes, nothing screams "everything is okay, kids" more than turning our schools into armed encampments, complete with gun-toting military personnel. Why not just turn the U. S. into a police-state while we're at it, and put armed military personnel EVERYWHERE. Even in your bathroom, to make sure you put the toilet paper on the roll correctly.

Are you seriously asking whether home burglaries happen?

No, not even close. I don't see how what I said had anything to do with what he did and why he did it.

I really highly doubt a 12-year-old on his own, came to this conclusion. Whenever kids insert themselves into hot-button political issues, there is usually one or both parents standing behind them giving them a nice, hard shove.

I didn't find it funny, but hoped someone else would say something so that I didn't have to.

You don't understand. Because mentally disturbed people cannot separate reality from fiction, we must ban ALL THE THINGS. It doesn't matter that the overwhelming majority of people who play video games, watch Tarentino movies, or listen to death metal don't go around killing people. Guess what? Drunk drivers kill people, so maybe we should ban alcohol and cars!

1. A Hazy Shade of Winter - Simon and Garfunkel 2. Winter - The Rolling Stones 3. Early Winter - Gwen Stefani 4. Snowbird - Anne Murray 5. You're So Cold - Mariah Carey 6. Cold As Ice - Foreigner 7. I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm - Ella Fitzgerald 8. Sometimes in Winter - Blood, Sweat & Tears 9. She's So Cold - The Rolling Stones 10. Sleigh Ride - The Ronnettes

This nonsense really has to stop. By nonsense I mean, the blaming of violent video games. This crap started with Columbine and it just won't stop. At least they don't blame heavy metal music anymore. Millions and millions of teenagers, male and female, play violent video games in this country, and how many of them are mentally disturbed, kill their mothers with her own gun, then go shoot up a school? It's not the games that are the problem, it's the people playing them. I couldn't care less if your kid or anyone else's kid doesn't play them. I couldn't care less if this kid threw all his video games in a wood chipper. THEY ARE NOT THE PROBLEM.

I had an idea for a special we can do after the New Years holiday - Burt Bacharach songs. He's had so many, it shouldn't be hard to come up with 2-3 nominations a piece. We could also do specials based around other songwriters later on, like Carole King/Gerry Goffin, for example.

I don't even know who you're talking to, however I'm bored so I'll respond. I think it's a cop-out to solely blame violent video games, the Internet, or lack of parental guidance. There's a lot of factors that go into what makes someone do what this kid did. His mother was a paranoid survivalist who stockpiled guns for the upcoming end of days. Her son was mentally disturbed and had unfettered access to her completely outrageous and unnecessary arsenal. According to articles I read, her ex-husband begged her to get their son into therapy or some kind of treatment for his issues, and she didn't think it was a big enough deal. This kid was screwed over by a myriad of factors, none of which absolve him from blame for what he did, but they explain how and why. For every 1 person who plays Call of Duty and Halo and then decides to go see if they can do that in real life, there are tens of thousands of people who don't. Is that the game or the player? For every 1 person who spends absurd amounts of time on the Internet, eschewing face-to-face conversation with human beings, there are tens of millions who don't. Is that the person or the Internet? For every 1 person who doesn't have strong guidance at home because their parents are divorced or work all the time, and then lash out because they're angry and lonely, there are tens of millions who don't This school shooting didn't happen because the shooter played violent video games, or like violent movies, or had sh*tty parents. This happened because he was mentally unbalanced, and mentally unbalanced people lack the ability to separate real life from fantasy. Millions and millions of kids in this country play video games but don't go shoot up their schools, or malls, or churches. I can watch Saw IV and know that it's fake, and not real....someone whose mind is broken cannot. The movie is not the problem. The untreated sickness is the problem.

For one, this doesn't work. It's security theater, and it's main job is to make you FEEL safer, which isn't the same thing as actually making you safe. If someone wants to bring down an airplane, they will. No amount of crotch-grabbing, x-raying, or wanding is going to change that. Two, as Benjamin Franklin said (paraphrase), those who would give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither. I don't steal from stores, but I wouldn't be okay with a store policy mandating that upon exiting the store, your entire person will be searched for possible stolen goods, including your body and your purse. Just because I don't do it, doesn't mean I would be okay with being subjected to that. To another point you made, there was just as much violence in the first half of the 20th century as there was in the last half. There was murder, rape, child molestation, terrorism, drug use, alcohol abuse, mass violence and everything else that we know today. The "good old days" were not good....they were just old. The idea that they were some peaceful bucolic time when people skipped down the lane to see Wally and the Beav after getting cookies at Donna Reed's house is what television and movies have taught and conditioned us to think. My parents were born in 1949, and life was just as rough then in terms of violence as it was when I was born in 1982. The reality is, as long as there has been humanity, there has been violent humans. This is before radio, television, and the Internet. Blaming video games, violent movies, or heavy metal on an abundance of violence is ridiculous, because violence predates all of that, and will exist long after it's all gone. The major difference between then and now is that the media didn't report on and sensationalize violence the way it does now. The same as they didn't report on and sensationalize the private lives of celebrities and politicians the way they do now. Few people at the time knew that FDR was in a wheelchair. No one outside the Press Corps knew JFK screwed around on his wife. Kids were abducted, women were raped, people were shot, but this was before 24-hr news cycles, so it was never reported on the way those things are now. THAT'S what has changed.

IANAL, but if you believe someone to be a danger to themselves or to others, you can have them committed. I don't know what the law is in your jurisdiction, so you'd have to look that up, but you can have someone involuntarily committed for their own safety.

What is it going to take to get another Beastie Boys song in the TT?

Early Winter - Gwen Stefani (2008) Snowbird - Anne Murray (1970) You're So Cold - Mariah Carey (1991)