Kurt Eichenwald

I have no problem with responsible gun owners who own weapons for self-protection, hunting, or just sport. The ones who believe they have a constitutional right to 100-round magazines to fight off I don't know what - a zombie apocalypse? - try to shut down dialogue with threats and other macho posing because of their flawed beliefs.

Assess Bitcoins? All you can do is examine the trading patterns, which do not provide a real analysis of any underlying economic value. The economics of investments are not solely based on supply and demand, and that is all that goes into Bitcoin prices.

Bitcoins are not a real investment; they are bets inside a casino. If the price goes back up, don't be fooled. In the parlance of popping investment bubbles, it's something called a 'dead-cat bounce.' People who are desperate to keep the game going rush back in, hoping to bring the price back up, but it never lasts.

The bottom-line message of history is that if you're doubling and tripling your money in record time, you're also more likely to lose it all.

Bitcoins can be traded or used for purchases, but only with those sellers who will accept them. Because it is a system independent of external meddling, there can be no sudden devaluation of Bitcoins through the actions of governments.

If a doctor said you had stomach cancer, would you consult Rush Limbaugh for a second opinion? Of course, that sounds like nonsense, but many Americans have no qualms about listening to political commentators and untrained activists when it comes to even more complex scientific questions.

At any time of day, hundreds of different versions of Facebook are running on the Internet - with a changed color here, a moved button there - and the user response to each variation is measured. And the same is done with advertising.

As late as 2007, Facebook was still trying to figure out what it wanted to be when it grew up. An advertising space seemed to be the obvious answer, but how that would tap into the massive value of the personal data uploaded to the company every day remained a puzzle.

Plenty of people detested Michael Jackson before his death wiped away the world's collective memory. Timberlake was originally dismissed as just another boy-bander. Legions have joined in a 'Hate Anne Hathaway' movement. Elvis, the Rolling Stones, Kristen Bell, even Mozart had haters.

The argument by the anti-gay-marriage crowd is so absurd, so internally contradictory, and so awash in unproven assertions that it is difficult to take it as anything more than a construct cobbled together by people who just don't like those people.

No one - not a conservative or liberal or whatever - can stand back and 'define' what marriage means. Other people's marriages have nothing to do with mine; whether my neighbors are divorced or gay or widowed will not lead me to change anything about how my wife and I deal with each other or how we raise our children.

In the aftermath of the oh-so-predictable crash, the Bitcoin fanatics have begun marshaling out excuse after excuse for why this non-investment investment lost so much of its value so fast. One was that hackers attacked some of the exchanges for Bitcoins and crippled it. Really? A hacker can wreck an entire market?

Plenty of gun opponents have pointed out the obvious: that the Founding Fathers could never have envisioned the kinds of 'arms' that exist today - Washington, Jefferson, and the rest had never even seen a bullet. Musket balls for guns that required constant reloading were the 'arms' of the day.

When the Bill of Rights was written, no one owned a MAG5100, 100-round magazine for an M-16. The concept of a mass slaughter carried out over a matter of minutes was incomprehensible.

Because the Second Amendment is an incomprehensible mess, because too many lobbyists have argued that it is an absolute protection of actions and items never considered at the time of our nation's founding, and because there is a clear state interest in protecting the lives of its citizens, the words must be removed from the Constitution.

Until his dying days, Steve Jobs could not only predict the direction the marketplace would be heading, but help drive it there.

I have always trusted my impulses. I have always believed that once I'm in the circumstances, whatever they may be, I will find the right way.

There have been times that I have found myself in places, and I don't know how I got there, and I don't actually know where I am.

According to the Epilepsy Foundation of America, there are more than two million Americans with epilepsy. Half have what I have, idiopathic epilepsy, meaning there is no known cause for the seizures.

By the time I arrived for my freshman year at Swarthmore College in 1979, I had already had many seizures, although my family, friends and I did not know it.

The doctor gave me several warnings: Never tell anyone unless necessary, because I might be ostracized. Call it 'seizure disorder,' not epilepsy, because fewer people would be frightened. Try to choose a profession as free from stress as possible.

The myth that people with epilepsy swallow their tongues is very injurious. When I had seizures without my roommates present, I would often wake up with my gums bleeding, my teeth hurting or my jaw aching. Often, well-intentioned people, believing I would choke on my tongue, tried to force open my clenched jaw to put in a hard object.

I've often thought that Obama should come out in favor of oxygen, just to see how many right-wingers keel over from holding their breath for too long.

Basically, whenever someone says they're wrong, conservatives too often fall back on claims that those who disagree with them are biased and thus worthy of being ignored, a convenient position that allows them to avoid debating uncomfortable criticisms.

When it comes to the teapot tempest that is the Hillary Clinton email imbroglio, the real controversy isn't about politics or regulations. It's about journalism and the weak standards employed to manufacture the scandal du jour.