So, somebody making a prop for a movie guessed at the chemical compound for this.

What I find startling is that the new mineral does not contain fluorine.

And, yes, L.B., there is a Superman. He lives inside every one of us.

That's really stupid.
Why don't they have a way of retracting the tow rope once the glider has been released?

I like the pooping theory better.

Good point, Britt, although I've never felt unsafe when travelling in the USA.

MrBinky,
My "violence against women is a myth" comment was supposed to be oversimplifying, because in my opinion, this statistical representation is an oversimplification.

For one thing, the stats don't indicate the gender of the shooter, except in the suicide cases. Some of the stats are not complete people, but they use complete images - skewing our perception unless we read the text carefully.

And isn't it odd that they used pictures of lipsticks for these graphs?

Seriously though, I recall an activist a few years complaining about an increase in the murder rate: 49% of murders were female victims. She didn't seem to mind that 51% were male victims. We need to cut down on all murders, regardless of whom they're happening to. Do stats like this really contribute anything to our understanding of the problem?

There's been a lot of scandal with auction houses, including smuggling art and antiquities.

There's a big illegal trade going on with vases from Italy. A lot of large museums didn't ask where some of the art they were buying actually came from - "don't ask, don't tell". The trade's so huge that if you ever see an ancient piece of art with the words "provenance unknown" or "believed to be", you can be reasonably sure it's illegal.

The Getty Museum and the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art are just two recipients of illegally excavated and smuggled artwork.

Oops, I just checked the population for New York City - says 8 million. Guess I grossly underestimated the population, or I was thinking of some stat about a much larger suburban area - like including a lot of the area around.

Looking at the link for those stats, it still shows a suicide by gun rate much higher for men all the way across. You have to wonder when the info is presented like that just what the agenda, and what stats are being bent. For instance, the younger female category shows a whole bullet, when the words indicate that the number should be at the most half a bullet. Then you have to start to wonder why the division into age groups. Why not consider the population as a whole? Or is it more effective to keep hammering the point home with different age groups?

Gotta love these politicized threads. It's like marching in the Neatorama army - left, right, left, right.

I'd love to see the stats to back up the claim that Canada has a comparable murder rate to the US.

Canada has not outlawed guns. Gun control is stricter, and there are less around than in the US.

There are like, more people in New York City than in all of Canada.

What's overwhelming is only one woman out of those 17. Does this mean that violence against women is a myth?

I'm not telling what you can or can't say. If you want to say up is down and yes is no, be my guest.

I could keep saying it, but what's the point? Like I said, I'm not going to try and teach you manners. Or compassion. Hopefully, that will come as you get older, and maybe as you come to terms with your own personal grief.

Take care, Britt.

It's completely true. 32 victims of the massacre. You can't call that fellow a victim of the massacre.

Let's compare murders. How about the hijackers of the planes that hit the World Trade Center? They also died in that attack. Are they thus victims of the attack? Perhaps they're victims of something else - brainwashing, peer pressure, insecurity - but surely not victims of the attack. But they had families who mourned them. Surely, we ought to mourn their loss, as well.

Jeffrey Dahmer killed and ate several young men - obviously a messed-up guy. He was killed in prison. Does that make him a victim of the crime of cannibalism?

My opinion is "No, they are not victims of their own crimes".

I'm not telling you how to feel. You can feel sympathy for a murderer, if you like. You can say, "These lives don't matter because this happens all the time in the USA," or "just because they died doesn't make them better than anyone else."

To me, that's disrespectful. I'm not elevating them into saints or lowering him to the status of a devil. I just think it's sad that someone can say such callous things when people are grieving. And that's my opinion.

Anyways, I'm done with this topic. It's not my job to teach you folks manners.

Oh, well, I didn't know I was talking to an expert. Obviously, your father's drinking himself to death uniquely qualifies you to pass judgement on mass murder.

I agree that the press does tend to dwell on these things. It's news. If you want to criticize the press capitalizing on this sad event, go right ahead. I am reminded of the annual vigils of the "Montreal massacre".

Why do you feel the need to tell people you don't care? Why do you feel the need to tell people how they should handle their grief and shock at this crime? If you kept your mouth shut, maybe you wouldn't have your ass handed to you. We certainly aren't talking about it every day over here. If it's in the headlines too much, don't read the frickin' story.

And yes it is unspeakable. I didn't call those victims "heroes". It is sad to see you and "goodgrief" put down those people - "all they did was get shot", happens every day? Get over it?

That young man's life may have been sad. it still doesn't excuse what he did, and it doesn't give him the right to be memorialized along with his victims.

Tell you what. Why don't you set up a candlelight vigil for him next week? Poor guy, he just wanted to be accepted.

At the very beginning, it said that all parts of the cakes are "eatable".

Interesting how many cakes were fake American money. There seemed to be a lot of commercially-themed ones.

Oh my lord.

What complete insensitivity - to demean the victims of this person's unspeakable crimes with such twaddle.

I'm not dehumanizing him. He was one severely messed-up person. But there are a lot of frustrated, angry, lonely people out there who don't go that extra step and start killing other people. If anything, he dehumanized himself, to have such little care for others.

If you've heard his sister's statement, the family is mourning his loss, but they aren't making excuses for him. They are trying to understand why he did what he did. And they are apologizing profusely to the entire world.

But the memorial is not about him - it's about his victims.

And, when you look at it, we are all victims of something - it's what we make of what happens to us in life that matters.

And Britt, I doubt you'd be making such glib comments if you were a relative or friend of one of the people he killed.

Those have got to be troll comments.

If you're going to make such an absurd assertion that this killer was a victim, at least back it up with why you believe so.

Good old Cho, he really meant well. He was just a little messed up? He thought he was playing paintball.

Surprised to see that comment wasn't removed.

It's a sad day...

Looks like it landed on its lid. The sound board is probably fine.

How soon they forget...

Although, I do think the princess is placed on the wrong side if memory serves me right. She should be up high and to the right of Kong.