Music, theater and film producer Robert Stigwood passed away yesterday at the age of 81. A cause of death has not been released at this time.

A native of Australia, Stigwood is best known for his long standing association with The Bee Gees. Stigwood was also instrumental in the formation of Cream, the supergroup consisting of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. Clapton had been with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers while Bruce and Baker were with the Graham Bond Organisation. Both bands had also been managed by Stigwood.

After cutting his teeth as a business manager in collaboration with the eccentric record producer Joe Meek and singer John Leyton, Stigwood would become the booking agent for The Who before making the big time with Cream and The Bee Gees. He even briefly managed The Beatles when Brian Epstein's company merged with the Robert Stigwood Organisation although The Beatles would leave Stigwood to form Apple after Epstein's sudden death.

Wiping away tears at his press conference, President Obama today announced new ovearching gun regulations designed to "stop gun violence." In an extensive plan designed to curb future mass shootings, the President called for a number of reforms to existing gun laws that would, in no way, stop any of the mass shootings he mentioned in his emotional plea. 

Obama laid out executive action he is taking to require more gun sellers to get licenses and more gun buyers to undergo background checks.

Under the changes, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will issue guidelines intended to narrow exceptions to a system that requires sellers to check with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to determine whether buyers have criminal records, are charged with crimes or have mental health conditions that would bar them from owning a gun.

Any changes to gun rules in America are fraught with political risk. The U.S. Constitution's 2nd Amendment gives Americans the right to have arms, a right that is fiercely defended.

Would liberals like to see what a war on women really looks like?

Consider what the BBC had to say about what went on in several German cities on New Year's Eve:

The mayor of Cologne has summoned police for crisis talks after about 80 women reported sexual assaults and muggings by men on New Year's Eve.

The scale of the attacks on women at the city's central railway station has shocked Germany. About 1,000 drunk and aggressive young men were involved.

City police chief Wolfgang Albers called it "a completely new dimension of crime". The men were of Arab or North African appearance, he said.

Women were also targeted in Hamburg.

But the Cologne assaults - near the city's iconic cathedral - were the most serious, German media report. At least one woman was raped, and many were groped.

Most of the crimes reported to police were robberies. A volunteer policewoman was among those sexually molested.

Thomas Sowell is annoyed with technological devices for their lack of an on/off button:

My cell phone is a classic example. It does not have a single word blemishing its gleaming surface, except for the name of the manufacturer and the name of the phone company. There is ample room for words like “on” or “off” but nothing so pedestrian is allowed to upset the design.

For people who spend hours every day talking on their cell phone, no doubt it is easy enough to remember how to turn it on and off. But, those of us who have a life to live, and work to do, cannot spend our time yakking it up with all and sundry. We may keep a cell phone on hand just for emergencies — and months can go by without using it, or a year or more in my case.