Please feel free to ridicule us Americans over this. We're loaded to the gills with guns, guns, guns. In this week's news alone, there's this trigger-happy idiot with his gun shooting his fiance in their own bedroom, apparently with his family's full .... Keep in mind because I passed a background check before receiving my permit I am one of the "good guys"! No amount of gun control will control crime or affect how criminals think. They don't pay attention to the law. ...

Undoubtedly, before finding such "common cause", it would have been far more prudent to check this out (as well as check Lerle's background out): first of all, this is the mistake that seems to me have been made in Lerle's case. ...

If only there were some sort of national database which could store people's expressed objections when made, on whatever grounds no matter how silly, that medics could check using a reliable form of indentification. Perhaps we should be asking to ... Let's face it; even rancid old Alistair Cooke was worth chopping up and selling off on the free market. And UN protocols have made it so very expensive to buy bits of third world people (living, dead or harvested) these days. ...

Across the channel you will find well stocked libraries in the homes of doctors, engineers and and jazz musicians - people who engage with culture in their free time, not for a reward and not to keep their jobs. ... I think what Timothy Garton Ash is missing is that the stigma he refers to concerning being a learned intellectual person is more deeply rooted in class issues which discourage those from less priviliged background engaging in intellectual pursuit. ...