Raithe

I blame the founding fathers who wanted to ignore lower tax rates than you currently suffer under, and also wanted to grab land from the natives we had treaties with and wouldn't let those treasonous colonials steal from. Oh, and the French for supplying money and arms, just because they wanted to give us a diplomatic black eye.

From my viewpoint over here in merry olde England, it isn't so much about "yes, your gun didn't kill anyone", it's that it seems to damned easy for any idiot to get hold of them over there. I can point to many friends around the world and say "Yes, they are competent, intelligent people who can be responsible with a car, with a gun, what have you." But I can also point to a whole bunch more of people who are just idiots I wouldn't trust with a stapler, let alone some form of automatic weaponry. But if they are in the good ol US of A...

Brazillian Drug Dealer Kidnaps medical staff and makes them vaccinate his local community against yellow fever

They went there... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI5RYgvPHLU

"When she found out he worked in technical support, it really turned her on. Then it turned her off. Then it turned her on again." - 50 Nerds of Grey

Genius. Colin Firth as Max Perkins, the editor at Scribner as he oversees the work by Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemmingway, F Scott Fitzgerald and other such folks. Those folks played by Jude Law, Dominic West, and Guy Pearce. Jude Law playing Thomas Wolfe, and most of the film focuses around Wolfe and Perkins friendship and the struggle to cut his prose and get it down to a managable size for publication while maintaining that friendship. You also have Laura Linney, Vanessa Kirby, and Nicole Kidman playing the various women in their lives. Some excellent performances (and amusing to hear all those american accents from that group of actors). Not exactly an action heavy film, it has that whole period biography / drama overtones. But one I'd rate worth a watch if that type of film catches your interest.

I'm waiting for official results for my first semester to come out at the end of the month, I've gotten a couple of provisional marks for some assignments in which are all 1sts or 2.1s, and I'm feeling slightly odd that everyone is saying I should be happy/excited over that and it really isn't. The two units I've got to do besides my research paper for this semester are both heavily theoretical, and the Security Management is not being taught in a really conductive manner, which is making me struggle getting the report for that started. We haven't got any real feedback on our research paper outlines yet, which makes it awkward to go ahead on that.. and realising there's only about 3 months left of semester 2 in which to get it all done. Which includes a whole batch of questionaires to be answered and analysed. That and I haven't actually had to make a presentation in about 15 years, so that's going to be somewhat interesting to figure out. Hm, and apparently I'm realising I have a bunch of unresolved emotional issues with my ex which are flaring up this weekend and putting me in a rather odd headspace. C'est la vie. C'est l'amour.

"How did you handle the transition from childhood to adulthood?" "I'm eating steak in bed at 3:30 in the morning in my Batman jammies while I play video games. When the **** did the transition happen?

Eh, I'll throw this on the nerdgasms thread for the sake of argument..ahem, discussion. Could Thrawn have saved Star Wars? An authors blog post on if the Heir to the Empire trilogy had been turned into films...

Of course, one interesting thing is that since the 2nd season should be following the second book, which is set basically 50 years on, and on another planet, while they might be keeping a bunch of the characters, they'll likely be played by different actors... So it's pretty much a mass Doctor Who regeneration sequence for every character who carries on. Joel Kinnaman's already signed on to do a different s how and has said he really doubts he'll have any return to Altered Carbon due to the story.