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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Morning After Open Thread

Morning After Open Thread

by $8 blue check mistermix|  February 4, 20138:08 am| 89 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Looks like we need another open thread for post-Super Bowl rehash or whatever else you’d like to discuss.

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Previous Post: « Open Thread: Glad I’m Not Paul Krugman…
Next Post: The First Rule Of GOP Fight Club Is To Blab To Politico Openly »

Reader Interactions

89Comments

  1. 1.

    Elizabelle

    February 4, 2013 at 8:15 am

    Just caught the Puppy Bowl. Well worth watching.

  2. 2.

    Raven

    February 4, 2013 at 8:23 am

    I was worried about not having enough but now I get to freeze about 20 tamales!

  3. 3.

    Wag

    February 4, 2013 at 8:32 am

    @Raven:
    My twins school had a fundraiser last week selling handmade tamales. I love em.

  4. 4.

    Raven

    February 4, 2013 at 8:34 am

    @Wag: Cool! What kind? I did chicken and vegetarian.

  5. 5.

    Southern Beale

    February 4, 2013 at 8:38 am

    This is probably the wrong time to mention this but I’d like to know why we need a a national registry for mentally ill people when gun enthusiasts are taking them to the shooting range as therapy.

    Fucking-A.

  6. 6.

    rikyrah

    February 4, 2013 at 8:43 am

    The Dowager Countess is a clever one.

    FREE BATES!!

  7. 7.

    J.W. Hamner

    February 4, 2013 at 8:43 am

    Crab cakes and football.

  8. 8.

    Southern Beale

    February 4, 2013 at 8:47 am

    @rikyrah:

    NO SPOILERS!

    We haven’t watched last night’s Downton Abbey yet.

  9. 9.

    Cassidy

    February 4, 2013 at 8:48 am

    So, I’ve been having issues with my downstairs neighbor. They think playing their music loud enough that I can sing along until 2 AM is okay, yet feel that we walk “too heavy”. Admittedly, I have stomped around a couple of times after that just to be a dick. We had a verbal altercation a few weeks ago which escalated from me telling him to get his white trash ass the fuck away from my door to him threatening me with violence. Not feeling particularly threatened, I let it go. This morning he kicks at my dog after he got off his leash and screams at my daughter. I was at work, but now at home waiting for the police to file a report instead of following my urge to kick his door in and hold his face to the top of his stove until he gets the point.

    This is not how I wanted my week to start.

  10. 10.

    Elizabelle

    February 4, 2013 at 8:50 am

    @Southern Beale:

    I think the Chris Kyle story is going to reverberate, and bring depression, suicide and PTSD to the forefront as a gun-related consideration.

    Issue isn’t creating a national registry. It’s access to guns.

    And isn’t it beyond bizarre to argue for registering mentally unstable human beings (a trait not completely fixed in time) but never, never registering guns (always lethal; 150 year expected lifetime.)

  11. 11.

    WereBear

    February 4, 2013 at 8:52 am

    With Valentine’s Day coming up, I wanted to give a shoutout to:

    Lake Placid Chocolatier

    Which is, hands down and bar none, the most delicious AND the most gorgeous chockies I have EVER enjoyed.

    Exactly the right time of year to have them shipped, too.

  12. 12.

    Wag

    February 4, 2013 at 8:53 am

    @Raven:
    I bought a dozen chicken and green chile w quest fresco and a dozen classic pork w red chile.

  13. 13.

    Patricia Kayden

    February 4, 2013 at 8:54 am

    @Cassidy: I remember living in a duplex where you could hear the rock music from the neighbors. Hated it!

    Probably why I live in a single family home far far away from the neighbors. I can wave “hi” to them, but don’t have to hear their musical choices or smell their cooking.

    Hope your neighbor calms down and behaves more neighborly in the future.

  14. 14.

    Linda Featheringill

    February 4, 2013 at 8:55 am

    Uh . . . regarding the super bowl, who won?

  15. 15.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 4, 2013 at 8:56 am

    @Cassidy:

    Seems as though the loud music until 2:00 a.m. would be in violation of the lease. But of course kicking your dog and screaming at your daughter is more a law enforcement issue.

    When I was first married we had downstairs neighbors like that. They harassed us constantly about walking across our own (mostly carpeted) floors, and took to calling us on the phone in the middle of the night if we got up to go to the john. We finally took out a restraining order on them, but moved shortly thereafter so it didn’t have a chance to play out.

  16. 16.

    Randy P

    February 4, 2013 at 9:01 am

    We hadn’t intended to watch the game, but had a hankering for wings. The store was all out of chicken wings, so I decided to try turkey wings and a buffalo sauce based on sriracha. Pretty darned good.

    Ended up watching the end of the 1st half and the end of the game. So I got to hear the CBS announcers talking about the blackout. Bizarre.

    Also saw the halftime show which is why I was watching the end of the 1st half. I guess I’m an old fart or something but I don’t get why Beyonce is a such a big star.

    Saw all this online. No TV. Really good streaming coverage. Missed nothing by seeing it that way.

  17. 17.

    Cassidy

    February 4, 2013 at 9:05 am

    The police just stopped by. He was surprised I didn’t try and handle it. I told him you can’t be a firefighter with a criminal record. We’re going to talk to the property manager when my wife gets here and then I’m going to file a no contact injunction at the courthouse at the advice of the deputy. They said they would talk to him, but criminally, nothing has happened to file a report about. Hopefully, between those I can get him evicted. It may not be the most mature, but it physically pains me that I can’t go down there and settle this. Sometimes I hate being a responsible adult.

  18. 18.

    gene108

    February 4, 2013 at 9:09 am

    @Elizabelle:

    I think the Chris Kyle story is going to reverberate, and bring depression, suicide and PTSD to the forefront as a gun-related consideration.

    Nope. It’s going to blow the doors off of Obama’s secret executions of Americans, who support the 2nd Amendment. /snark

  19. 19.

    Baud

    February 4, 2013 at 9:10 am

    @Linda Featheringill:

    Uh . . . regarding the super bowl, who won?

    America! And farmers! (really the same thing)

  20. 20.

    WereBear

    February 4, 2013 at 9:14 am

    @Cassidy: The police just stopped by. He was surprised I didn’t try and handle it.

    I’m surprised at his surprise. Police are highly familiar with the kinds of awful fallout which occurs when people try to handle it themselves.

    Which is impossible. It might not be in the DSM, but this guy is mentally ill. Distance is the only cure for YOU.

  21. 21.

    Anya

    February 4, 2013 at 9:16 am

    @Linda Featheringill: Beyonce, the Illuminati and Sandy Hook children’s choir.

  22. 22.

    Linda Featheringill

    February 4, 2013 at 9:21 am

    @Baud: #19

    America! And farmers! (really the same thing)

    LOL! Thanks for the Monday morning laugh!

  23. 23.

    jibeaux

    February 4, 2013 at 9:23 am

    I don’t watch much football, and only watched until the power failure, but it was a good game and I guess got even better from there. I thought Jacoby Jones was going to get MVP. I realize I don’t understand all the rules of football, though, do you guys have a source for where you can find the minutiae? Like, there was one play where it really looked like the defender was basically sticking his hand in front of the receiver’s face going for the ball, it seemed intuitively like pass interference to me but it wasn’t called or talked about. Or that first TD of Jacoby Jones, where he fell and somersaulted backwards and then hopped up and kept running? He had his back and then one knee on the ground — what made him not “down”, was it one knee down and not two?

  24. 24.

    Baud

    February 4, 2013 at 9:26 am

    @jibeaux:

    In pro football, it’s not enough to be “down”; you have to be touched while you are down. He was not touched. (In college football, you don’t have to be touched to be down.)

    What is or isn’t pass interference is often a controversial question. But it’s ok to stick your hand in front of a receiver’s face as long as you’re not touching the receiver. “Incidental” contact is also permitted.

  25. 25.

    RP

    February 4, 2013 at 9:29 am

    The defender has to touch the ball carrier at the time the ball carrier is “down” (one knee touching the ground is enough). If a ball carrier trips and falls with no defender around him, he’s free to get up and continue running.

  26. 26.

    flukebucket

    February 4, 2013 at 9:30 am

    @jibeaux: In professional football you can get up and keep running if you just fall down and nobody has touched you while you were down. When it comes to interference it it kind of like offensive holding. It can be called most any time or not called. Whatever. But I think that either in college or pro there is not such thing as face guarding but I don’t know which. The last offensive play of SF there was definitely defensive holding and I don’t give a damn what Phil Simms says and I did not care who won or lost.

  27. 27.

    RobertDSC-iPhone 4

    February 4, 2013 at 9:31 am

    I had no real stake in yesterday’s game but one of my people is a big Niners fan. If they had won, she would have been happy & that would have made me happy. Alas, it wasn’t to be.

    I still think Jim Harbaugh’s play calling on that last series straight up sucked. Run it in, fool!

  28. 28.

    Rosalita

    February 4, 2013 at 9:32 am

    @rikyrah:

    The Dowager Countess is a clever one.

    I love me some Voilet!

  29. 29.

    jibeaux

    February 4, 2013 at 9:32 am

    Thanks for the answers! But where do you guys learn this, is it guy osmosis or picked up from commentary over the years?

  30. 30.

    Face

    February 4, 2013 at 9:34 am

    @Cassidy: That shit almost never ends well. I’d be extra careful, especially with a daughter involved. I suspect she’ll learn a slew of god-awful cuss words.

  31. 31.

    Southern Beale

    February 4, 2013 at 9:35 am

    Oh and this is lovely. The wingnut state house sponsor of Tennessee’s “guns-in-parking-lots” bill admits that he a) keeps a gun in his car at the state capitol even though it’s illegal, and b) doesn’t even have a carry permit.

    He says,

    “One day I’ll probably get caught if I don’t get a permit, and I’ll get in trouble,” he says.

    Ay-yup. Wonder what his auto insurance company thinks of this? And yes, by all means let’s take the NRA at their word and enforce the laws we already have on the books, starting with this asswipe.

  32. 32.

    Rosalita

    February 4, 2013 at 9:35 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Issue isn’t creating a national registry. It’s access to guns.

    From my experience, and someone correct me if I’m wrong, former soldiers can keep their service weapons. My former fiance had his at any rate. And had a get out of jail free military id he kept in his wallet.

  33. 33.

    handsmile

    February 4, 2013 at 9:35 am

    “Sin, death and hell have set their marks on him.” (Act 1,Scene 3)

    Bioarcheologists today announced that DNA evidence has confirmed “beyond reasonable doubt” that a skeleton found beneath a parking lot in Leicester, England is the remains of Plantagenet King Richard III, Shakespeare’s infamous villain and the last English king to die in battle (1485).

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/feb/04/richard-iii-dna-bones-king

    Irredeemable literary geek I may be, but I think this story is so freaking cool!

  34. 34.

    arguingwithsignposts

    February 4, 2013 at 9:36 am

    @jibeaux: It’s picked up by listening to people whinge about it every time someone on your team is ROBBED! of a play because of a bad call.

  35. 35.

    Randy P

    February 4, 2013 at 9:37 am

    @Linda Featheringill: My recap from the approx 30 min total I saw: Baltimore was up by a zillion points (22 I think) at the half. Then there was a power outage in the 2nd half. I suspect Beyonce’s light effects used up all the electricity. Power was out for half an hour after which SF had a huge comeback and were within about 2 yards of the winning touchdown.

    But Baltimore held them off and held onto the win.

  36. 36.

    gogol's wife

    February 4, 2013 at 9:37 am

    @handsmile:

    Yes, it’s amazing.

  37. 37.

    gogol's wife

    February 4, 2013 at 9:39 am

    @Cassidy:

    I’m really sorry about this. There’s nothing worse than bad neighbors. You feel so helpless. I hope it works out somehow.

  38. 38.

    orpho

    February 4, 2013 at 9:40 am

    @jibeaux

    Amusingly enough, the actual NFL rulebook is copyrighted padlocked protected intellectual property and is completely unavailable except to officials. So yeah, osmosis (although I’d nitpick on the “guy”), hanging out with fans who’ll give you a tutorial, reading blogs on football minutiae, and (last and least) listening to commentators. The commentators are a lot more useful for new-football-watchers in the first 2 or 3 weeks of the season and spend a fair bit of time talking about the rules.

  39. 39.

    flukebucket

    February 4, 2013 at 9:42 am

    @jibeaux: For me it has been commentary over the years and it is constantly changing. One of the most disturbing changes I have seen is this “did he catch it or did he not catch it” bullshit that has come into play. “Well Boomer if you look closely you can see that the nose of the ball did kinda, sorta move on his way down….” Fuck that. Also the helmet to helmet contact call is discretionary as hell. You never know when they will or will not call it. And roughing the passer? You never know when that will be called. It normally depends on the annual salary of the QB as to whether it is called or not. Professional football is getting almost unwatchable to me due to the fact that it is getting very hard not to get cynical about the officiating. College is not far behind.

  40. 40.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    February 4, 2013 at 9:45 am

    @Cassidy:

    it physically pains me that I can’t go down there and settle this.

    If you were my size this course of action wouldn’t even cross your mind. You’ll have to get used to being a responsible adult. I’ve had to be one my entire life.

  41. 41.

    ThresherK

    February 4, 2013 at 9:48 am

    Trying to not be “it was better when nobody liked it” hipster, but: Why did they need to put clips of Animal Planet stars “reacting” in the midst of Puppy Bowl? That’s the first year of it for PB, right?

  42. 42.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    February 4, 2013 at 9:49 am

    @handsmile:

    My modest understanding is that Richard III was a good ruler. History is written by the winners and the Tudors spent no little effort on blackening his name.

  43. 43.

    BroD

    February 4, 2013 at 9:52 am

    From Baltimore:
    I’m not the fanatic I was in my younger days (when we were the Colts) and I’ve always liked the 49ers but, of course, I’m glad we won. Except for the outage, it wasn’t a particularly memorable game and, except for the special effects, it wasn’t a particularly memorable half-time show.

  44. 44.

    Maude

    February 4, 2013 at 9:55 am

    @Cassidy:
    I have a female neighbor I hope will just drop dead.
    You need to move. This guy is a real problem.
    Get out of the lease and find another place.
    He is a danger to your daughter and wife.
    Even if he is evicted, he could make serious trouble.

  45. 45.

    gene108

    February 4, 2013 at 9:57 am

    @jibeaux:

    But where do you guys learn this, is it guy osmosis or picked up from commentary over the years?

    I think it’s something people, who get interested in sports pick up over years of watching and/or playing and then some of it is from the commentary about what is and is not legal anymore.

  46. 46.

    RSR

    February 4, 2013 at 9:57 am

    Pittsburgh-to-Harrisburg Amtrak route may end
    Service called too slow to justify hefty subsidy

    Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/pittsburgh-to-harrisburg-amtrak-route-may-end-673327/#ixzz2JwUkLD3i

    As Atrios would say, we can borrow money for free to build nice things for the people (or upgrade them, in this case). Also, too, Supertrains!

  47. 47.

    Sir Nose'D

    February 4, 2013 at 10:02 am

    Any chance we can get George Clinton and Parliment Funkadelic for the halftime show next year? Or are there now rules against tearing the roof of the sucka?

    Every time they showed a wide-angle shot of the dome, I just kept thinking of the mothership.

  48. 48.

    GregB

    February 4, 2013 at 10:02 am

    The talk of settling the neighbor crisis in a physically intimidating manner should be ended period.

    A 5 foot tall, 100 pound neighbor could easily come up there and settle it with you, your wife or daughter if they are armed.

    Don’t stomp around, don’t escalate.

  49. 49.

    Steeplejack

    February 4, 2013 at 10:06 am

    @Rosalita:

    [. . .] former soldiers can keep their service weapons.

    I’m pretty sure this is bullshit. Your source for this wouldn’t happen to be the former fiancé himself, would it?

    And the part about his military ID being a “get out of jail free” card is way out in the woo-woo zone.

  50. 50.

    soonergrunt (mobile)

    February 4, 2013 at 10:09 am

    @Rosalita: nope. We can’t keep our service weapons. They are property of the US government.

  51. 51.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 4, 2013 at 10:10 am

    @handsmile: Awesome.

    @Rosalita:

    From my experience, and someone correct me if I’m wrong, former soldiers can keep their service weapons

    No. This is incorrect.

  52. 52.

    JasonF

    February 4, 2013 at 10:10 am

    Superbowl recap: We had Beyonce, and we had a bunch of people without power in the New Orleans Superdome. Apparently, this years theme was “Things that cause Kanye West to make weird, uncomfortable outbursts.”

  53. 53.

    jibeaux

    February 4, 2013 at 10:11 am

    @gene108: That’s what it sounds like. I would have to watch a lot of football, though, there are an awful lot of rules. I’m only a little more interested in basketball (= having watched a little more), but I have a much easier time understanding the calls and no-calls.

  54. 54.

    Rosalita

    February 4, 2013 at 10:16 am

    @Steeplejack: @soonergrunt (mobile): @Omnes Omnibus:

    Thanks for the info. More reason for the EX in the fiance. I was too gullible.

  55. 55.

    Phylllis

    February 4, 2013 at 10:16 am

    @gene108: Dear dog, I saw something about that on the Book of the Faces over the weekend. It appears almost all of my high schoo classmates are full-on wing nuts these days. Sigh.

  56. 56.

    eemom

    February 4, 2013 at 10:16 am

    @GregB:

    A 5 foot tall, 100 pound neighbor could easily come up there and settle it with you, your wife or daughter if they are armed.

    Not directing this at you, but I am so tired of all guns, all the time.

  57. 57.

    handsmile

    February 4, 2013 at 10:17 am

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    That’s certainly the position of the Richard III Society (I just love that there are such organizations) who hope that today’s announcement will advance its campaign to rehabilitate his reputation and there are near-contemporary historical accounts (notably Francis Bacon) which make that claim as well.

    Such efforts could be complicated, however, by the fact that the skeletal remains do seem to indicate scoliosis (spinal curvature), a condition the Society had maintained was part of Tudor distortion. Richard’s brief reign (little more than two years) was so beset with intrigues, rebellion and warfare that it’s difficult to assess whether he would have been a broadly benevolent or despotic ruler. To be sure though, a certain Elizabethan playwright has been a most effective propagandist.

  58. 58.

    Death Panel Truck

    February 4, 2013 at 10:20 am

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Hope your neighbor calms down and behaves more neighborly in the future.

    Won’t happen. People like that only get assholier the more you confront them. I had a similar problem when I lived in a triplex in Yakima, Washington in the early 90s. The people to the left of us played their stereo constantly. I confronted them several times about it, and finally one of ’em says, “Call the cops, faggot!” (I was standing in my doorway with my wife, so I don’t know where that came from.)

    So I called YPD. They said they’d send a car out as soon as one was available. Thirty or 40 minutes went by, so I called again. The dispatcher asked for my address, I told her, and she said, “We can’t come out there. You live one block outside the city limits.”

    Thoroughly pissed off, and wanting to take it out on someone, I screamed, “WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THAT THE FIRST TIME I CALLED?!”

    Her reply: “Sir, you need to calm down.” I hung up and called the sheriff. A deputy shows up and tells the neighbors to turn the music off (it was well after midnight.) He wasn’t gone five minutes before the music started again. We moved out a few days later.

  59. 59.

    Death Panel Truck

    February 4, 2013 at 10:27 am

    @Sir Nose’D: Considering what happened yesterday, I think “Flashlight” would serve as an appropriate encore.

  60. 60.

    Origuy

    February 4, 2013 at 10:42 am

    Was there a big game yesterday? The local Scottish Country Dance group held a review of the dances for next week’s Valentines Ball, so that’s where I was all afternoon. We also had a waltz class, since a waltz is always played at the end of the dances. We also had a class on the hambo, a traditional Swedish dance which is often done at the end of the dances around here.
    I think I’ve finally gotten the waltz down, but the hambo eludes me.

  61. 61.

    flukebucket

    February 4, 2013 at 10:57 am

    @JasonF: When the lights started going out in the Superdome I told my wife that I sure hoped everybody there was armed :-)

  62. 62.

    Cassidy

    February 4, 2013 at 11:01 am

    Well, my wife came home, the cops were called, and the apartment manager talked to. She was very helpful and supportive. I’m glad my wife came home; she calms me. I grew up poor and I spent my youth handling things with my fists and I didn’t always win, but that’s just the way it was. Then of course the Army which takes natural aggression and focuses it to where it’s so easy to be aggressive. I suck at being patient and calm, so it’s good the wife came home because the fucker started blaring his music as soon as the cops left.

    But all is well. I’m going to handle it the right way and I appreciate the space to gripe and bitch.

  63. 63.

    SatanicPanic

    February 4, 2013 at 11:02 am

    @jibeaux: Asking stupid questions of people who know better, mostly.

    ETA- not calling your question stupid. Mine usually are though.

  64. 64.

    handsmile

    February 4, 2013 at 11:06 am

    And in other regicidal news, Cambodia’s revered King Norodom Sihanouk was cremated today following an elaborate months-long ceremony (he died last October).

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/04/cambodians-last-respects-king-sihanouk

    With the mercurial temperament of a louche dilettante and yet a political figure central to the carnage-soaked history of southeast Asia in the Cold War era, Sihanouk was one of the most fascinating characters of the past 60 years.

  65. 65.

    Cacti

    February 4, 2013 at 11:09 am

    For those who have read this morning’s news…

    What made half the lights go out?

  66. 66.

    redshirt

    February 4, 2013 at 11:11 am

    What was the name of the formation the 49’ers were using to great success with 3 running backs? It was dynamic, and they should have stuck with it on the last series instead of trying to pass.

  67. 67.

    JoyfulA

    February 4, 2013 at 11:12 am

    @RSR: I’ve often taken Harrisburg-Philadelphia but never Harrisburg-Pittsburgh. I’ve just never had a reason to travel west.
    The Philly trains carry state workers and even legislators to Harrisburg; they would be good to agitate for provision of the same and better services if state workers and legislators travel east to work by train as well as west.

  68. 68.

    Cacti

    February 4, 2013 at 11:13 am

    And for the conspiratorially minded, did anyone else find it suspicious that the lights went out right as the game was about to turn into a blow out?

  69. 69.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    February 4, 2013 at 11:14 am

    @Cassidy: I’m glad you have the space to bitch and gripe, and I never doubted that you were going to handle it appropriately. I am concerned, however, that the extra attention from building management could escalate the asshole neighbor’s behavior – it’s not uncommon with people like him.

    So keep an extra eye out – he sounds like a loose cannon. With plenty of powder, sadly.

  70. 70.

    catclub

    February 4, 2013 at 11:21 am

    I am still surprised by how little discussion there has been of Israel bombing a Syrian [convoy/research center].

    Isn’t this something that could involve other nations and other armies?

    Is pretending it did not happen the best approach?

  71. 71.

    handsmile

    February 4, 2013 at 11:21 am

    @Cassidy:

    Just wanted to say that I realize I’ve been rather flippant on this thread while you’ve been dealing with something of immediate and real consequence, but I’m happy to read now that the situation has been addressed at least somewhat to your satisfaction.

    Yeah, “sometimes [all of us] hate being a responsible adult,” but I bet you’re the guy your daughter looks up to (and I suspect with good reason).

  72. 72.

    Badmoodman

    February 4, 2013 at 11:22 am

    If Dodge’s “God Made A Farmer” ad looked vaguely familiar, it’s because it was on YouTube before the game.

    Over a year before the game.

    Made by a different company:

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/02/03/god_made_a_farmer_paul_harvey_speech_goes_from_youtube_to_super_bowl_ad.html

  73. 73.

    chopper

    February 4, 2013 at 11:26 am

    @handsmile:

    i like how they verified his humped spine.

    looks like the hunch paid off.

  74. 74.

    Mnemosyne

    February 4, 2013 at 11:40 am

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    I can’t find the darn quote, but Churchill quoted Sir Thomas More as basically saying that it didn’t matter to the English people how good of an administrator Richard was because he had gotten to be the king by murdering his two young nephews in cold blood. And, frankly, all of the hemming and hawing by the Richard III Society can’t conceal the fact that Richard took his nephews into his custody, declared them both bastards, and then they conveniently disappeared, never to be seen again.

    Alison Weir makes one of the strongest cases for the “Yeah, he did it” side in The Princes in the Tower. Richard may not have been the incarnation of evil, but all the evidence points to his having murdered his nephews to gain the throne.

    @handsmile:

    I do find it fascinating that there is now physical evidence that Richard was in some way disabled, though I doubt it’s going to change any minds at the Richard III Society. They’re almost as delusional as the anti-Shakespeare crowd.

  75. 75.

    Yutsano

    February 4, 2013 at 11:45 am

    @Mnemosyne: To be fair though, Bill wasn’t gonna write something that could risk pissing off Lizzie. Granted England was a constitutional monarchy with personal rights, but the queen still had quite a bit of power to deal with those that displeased her.

  76. 76.

    Comrade Mary

    February 4, 2013 at 11:48 am

    @handsmile: Tudor lore made Richard a hunchback, but this skeleton shows only a pronounced S curve.

    @chopper: No hump, no hunch: this skeleton had a lateral curve.

    The various ways a spine can curve.

    The Tudors also claimed he had a “withered” arm, but the skeletal arms were symmetrical. So while the jury is out for me on whether Richard III committed any or all of the crimes the Tudors accused him of, the hunchback claims are poor description, at best, and the withered arm may not have existed, either.

    (Not a member of the RIII society — eww! — although I was swayed by Tey when I was in university. I’m agnostic now, although I should check out The Princes in the Tower.)

  77. 77.

    Mnemosyne

    February 4, 2013 at 12:00 pm

    @Yutsano:

    The whole Elizabeth I thing is kind of beside the point, though, because the War of the Roses did a very good job of wiping out all of the other claimants to the throne, even before Richard killed his last two rivals. There’s a reason the only “in” other people had was to claim that they were one of the lost princes who had magically survived — there literally wasn’t anyone else left alive who had a better claim to the throne than Elizabeth.

    That’s what I kind of don’t get about the Richard III boosters — it doesn’t matter whether Shakespeare was right or not because there was no one left alive who could have made a claim for the throne at that point anyway. Given that Mary, Queen of Scots, had been executed about 3-5 years before the play was written, it makes more sense (to me, anyway) as a warning to Catholic rebels about the kind of chaos that would erupt if Elizabeth was overthrown and replaced by a distant Catholic relative. (Her nearest relative, James of Scotland, was a staunch Protestant, so there weren’t all that many plots to replace her with him.)

  78. 78.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 4, 2013 at 12:02 pm

    @Comrade Mary: If you think of the rulers who were Richard’s rough contemporaries – Borgia popes, Vlad Tepes, Ivan the Terrible, etc. – disposing of the kids would not have been unthinkable.

  79. 79.

    Susan K of the tech support

    February 4, 2013 at 12:36 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    NO SPOILERS! We haven’t watched last night’s Downton Abbey yet.

    There’s a particularly delicious line uttered by (who else?) the Dowager Duchess at a luncheon table. She can say so much by commenting about pudding.

    There. I talked Downton, but I don’t think I spoiled a thing. Edited to add: I see that this line and this scene has already been obliquely referred to, upthread. A case of Nobless Oblique.

  80. 80.

    scav

    February 4, 2013 at 12:53 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I thought Henry VII made quite a pruning of any possible opposition too, so it’s not as though the Tudors had such delicate modern sensibilities about inheritence and how to consolidate it

  81. 81.

    Elizabelle

    February 4, 2013 at 12:54 pm

    @Cassidy:

    Hope the noisy neighbor problem resolves itself.

    Watching your discussion: am struck by how much the George Zimmerman and other unqualified people with guns stories have colored how we deal with our neighbors now.

    We live amidst people who feed on “Mad Max” scenarios fed them by the NRA and other fear-mongers (their conservative congresscritters and deficit hawks, etc.), cable entertainment companies among them (all the bottom-feeding reality shows — c’mon people, these ones are on TV because they ARE freaks).

    And so we’re more afraid of them than we used to be.

    (Lindsey Graham was suggesting that people need large magazines and enhanced firepower because budget cuts mean your local responders won’t be responding in your time of need. Like there’s no other way to deal with that potential situation.)

  82. 82.

    Origuy

    February 4, 2013 at 1:37 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    (Her nearest relative, James of Scotland, was a staunch Protestant, so there weren’t all that many plots to replace her with him.)

    As it turned out, James VI and I wasn’t as staunch a Protestant, or at least Calvinist, as he was supposed to be. Once he got out from under the thumb of John Knox and George Buchanan, he found that he liked smells and bells and that bishops were nice for a king to have around. He tried to turn the Presbyterian Scottish Kirk into an Anglican clone. Didn’t work.

  83. 83.

    Bruce S

    February 4, 2013 at 1:40 pm

    @Randy P:

    Yeah – I don’t get Beyonce as iconic “artist” either. She’s boring and vapid IMHO. None of her music resonates. The dancing around is totally disposable. I do give her props for not totally embarrassing herself portraying Etta James in Cadillac Records, but frankly there’s no comparison…

    I’m old. And glad I was young and impressionable during the Golden Age of R&B and Soul.

  84. 84.

    Cassidy

    February 4, 2013 at 2:00 pm

    @Elizabelle: The most aggravating part is that when it all started I went down and politely asked them to turn it down and be a little more aware. The response was to turn it up. Everything since then has been deliberately antagonistic.

  85. 85.

    J R in W Va

    February 4, 2013 at 2:24 pm

    @jibeaux:

    If you really care, Google “NFL Rulebook”. I haven’t read it, and I understand it’s complicated – looks like about 103 pages. I have seen official timeouts while professional referees stand in a small group discussing whether a play should be ruled one way or another, sometimes consulting a rule book, if I recall correctly. Looking at something on paper, anyway.

    I’ve mostly picked it up from attending and watching college and pro football games for 45 years or so. My Dad was a huge fan of his alma mater, and for many years when they were offered a bowl bid he would take the family to where-ever to watch the game.

    Some were wonderful experiences, and some not so much, but the family experience was always pretty good. We always root for the team, even though I’m the only member of the family who didn’t attend it.

    Sometimes when they win a big upset, I get teary thinking of how excited and happy my Dad would be if he could know. Thinking the Orange Bowl last year, every series they broke another NCAA or Bowl record, Wow!

    To him, whenever they lost, it was either the Refs making bad or biased calls, or the other team cheating somehow, behind the Ref’s back. Sometimes, though, really, the other team was just better skilled or better coached. But I’m not a graduate, so I have a more realistic attitude, even tho I’m a big fan too.

    I have to admit, the concussion issue has me upset. How come Aussie Rules or Rugby players don’t need helmets and pads? Could the answer be to take the helmets and pads away, and just leave them heavy cotton shirts and shorts, and a cup? It seems counter-intuitive, but reality is that way sometimes…

  86. 86.

    Schlemizel

    February 4, 2013 at 2:30 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    Things are going poorly at the Abby for some of the people until the lights go out. Then, miraculously, that group stages an amazing recovery. They are darn near successful until (chose one) the staff ignores bad behaviour on some peoples part OR the first group finally gets back on track and is successful in the end.

    The murderer and his friends walk away with the family silver while the ego and his bigoted friends are left bereft.

  87. 87.

    Schlemizel

    February 4, 2013 at 2:34 pm

    @Linda Featheringill:

    I believe the Crawley family managed a last minute wicket and the home was saved

  88. 88.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 4, 2013 at 4:32 pm

    @Susan K of the tech support:

    A case of Nobless Oblique.

    Nice!

    :: appreciative claps ::

  89. 89.

    James Hulsey

    February 4, 2013 at 5:29 pm

    @handsmile:

    Bioarcheologists today announced that DNA evidence has confirmed “beyond reasonable doubt” that a skeleton found beneath a parking lot in Leicester, England is the remains of Plantagenet King Richard III, Shakespeare’s infamous villain and the last English king to die in battle (1485).

    What seems to be missing is the probability that the DNA match is a false positive. It sounds likely that this was Richard III given the physical evidence of a violent death and the post-mortem mutilation of the body in accordance with historical accounts, but there is still a chance the claim is mistake3.

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