Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

Bark louder, little dog.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

I did not have this on my fuck 2024 bingo card.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Let there be snark.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

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319Comments

  4. 4.

    jharp

    I see the Seahawks being ever so slight favorites over the Broncos.

    Peyton Manning is amazing.

    80’s Brown’s fan living in Cleveland. 00’s Colt’s fan living in Indianapolis.

    Still dig the Colts. And rooting for Peyton and the Broncos.

  6. 6.

    Yatsuno

    @MikeJ: D’accord. Not good ball placement though.

    SF is getting a bit jumpy though. Could be interesting if it bites them.

  7. 7.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @raven: Psycho Chicken / The Fools

    Psycho chicken
    Qu’est-ce que c’est?
    Better run run run run run run run away
    Oooh oh oh oh
    A psycho chicken

  9. 9.

    SiubhanDuinne

    As a new-to-football, totally-ignorant watcher, I think San Francisco is going to win this, but I hope Seattle wins.

    #likeievenknowwhatimtalkingabout

  16. 16.

    JPL

    @Yatsuno: As I mentioned weeks ago, I think it’s going to be a Seattle/Denver
    super bowl. The winner of that depend on the weather. Manning is just not a good player in cold weather.
    Although I love Seattle’s uniforms, Brit Hume might not think they are manly enough. Maybe Christie can model them for him.

  24. 24.

    lamh36

    One open thread about pet calendars, the next about football…wake me when there is an open thread about just shooting the breeze…lol.

    To make it football related, even if Saints didn’t make it, great to see a NOLA boy doing good. Go Peyton!

  25. 25.

    Yatsuno

    @raven: Hit was clean. If he hadn’t dropped the ball he most likely would have lost it on the hit. Would have been nice if the Seachickens had recovered but such is life.

  39. 39.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    I’ve been to 2 NFL games in my life. I just realized that one of these teams was in each game. I saw the Seahawks in Seattle and the 9’ers play the Rams in LA.

  41. 41.

    LanceThruster

    Physics Q: if a photon takes 1000 to 2000 years to reach surface of sun before the 8 mins to get here, how much longer for sun the size of Betelguese?

  46. 46.

    MikeJ

    @JPL: We have several people here who could answer that. I’m not one of them. Isn’t dmsilev a physics person?

  47. 47.

    Yatsuno

    @MikeJ: He is, but I don’t know if I’ve seen him around today. At least not recently.

    HOLY SHIT I THOUGHT THAT PLAY WAS DEAD!!!

  54. 54.

    lamh36

    I read that post 2nd term President Obama will begin writing his memoirs (himself I reckon, has GWB had some ghostwrite his memoirs yet…I kid I kid) and also that First Lady Michelle is also gonna be writing a memoir!!!!

    Is it bad that I kinda want to read FLOTUS book more than POTUS? Also too, is it too early to add both books to my kindle list for 2017…lol?

  55. 55.

    Roger Moore

    @LanceThruster:
    I’m not sure that it’s slower in Betelgeuse. The reason energy is slow to get out of the sun is because it’s so dense that the mean free path of a photon is ridiculously short. IIRC, it’s so short that most of the energy transport is by convection rather than radiation. Betelgeuse is a lot less dense than the sun, so I’d expect both transport mechanisms to be faster. But that’s just a guess.

  56. 56.

    Litlebritdiftrnt

    Are those pineapples growing in your garden Betty? If so I hate you. (Not that I use a whole lot of pineapple in my cooking I just think the idea of growing them is cool. )

  59. 59.

    Keith G

    With a quick check, I note that the equator of Betelguese is larger than the orbit of Jupiter. That is an area equivalent to the size of our junior Senator’s ego – a unit of measurement known as a Cruz unit.

  62. 62.

    MikeJ

    @LanceThruster: The radius is 10-12 times that of Sol (820M km v 700k km). A photon in our sun typically goes about 1cm before it is reabsorbed. Then a new photon is released in a random direction. Lather rinse repeat until it gets out.

    Q: Is the 1cm distance constant or is it less in the denser core of a much larger star?

  66. 66.

    YellowJournalism

    If the Seahawks don’t pull this off, there will be some very sad, mopey men in my family back in Washington. Go Hawks!

  73. 73.

    lamh36

    Wingnut heads will explode. I’m hoping for pics but no video…just enough to piss off the “hood in the White House” crew at Faux News…bastards.

    Beyoncé Performs at Michelle Obama’s 50th Birthday Party, Barack Does “The Dougie”—All the Details!

    ..In addition to Beyoncé, John Legend also performed at the White House party. Famous attendees includied Mary J. Blige, Jennifer Hudson, Samuel L. Jackson, Magic Johnson, Gayle King, Gladys Knight, Michael Kors, Rachael Ray, Smokey Robinson, Al Roker, Sheryl Sandberg and Stevie Wonder.

    …The leaked invitation promised “Snacks & Sips & Dancing & Dessert” and asked guests to refrain from taking photos inside the
    event. Attendees were also encouraged to wear comfortable shoes, as the entire state floor—including the gilded east room, the formal parlors and the state dining room—was transformed into a dance floor. At one point, POTUS, 52, taught guests how to do “The Dougie!”

    For some, however, the president’s remarks about his wife of 21 years were the highlight of the night. “It was really beautiful and really touching,” musician Herbie Hancock said. “He said something—his
    voice almost cracked like he was crying. It was just beautiful, a
    husband speaking about his wife.”

    BTW..there is pic of Beyonce with new pup Sunny…for you BJ pet enthusiasts

  76. 76.

    MikeJ

    @Roger Moore:

    It’s density dependent.

    But as you pointed out, it’s actually less dense. 7.7 times the mass of ours at 10 times the radius.

    I feel like I should be writing some R code to simulate it. It would be a race to see if I could get something to compile before my game day alcohol consumption catches up.

  83. 83.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @LanceThruster: Well let’s see, in order to maintain air-speed velocity, a photon needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?

    @MikeJ: Oh sure, a Betlegeusian photon.

  84. 84.

    Roger Moore

    @MikeJ:
    It depends on the density profile. Betelgeuse is less dense overall, but a lot of that is that it has a big, low density photosphere. I don’t know enough about stellar physics to know what is going on in the core.

  86. 86.

    Litlebritdiftrnt

    It is freezing outside, I have a roaring fire going in the fireplace, thanks to my former Lumberjack husband being outside all day cutting wood. I have to be honest it is getting a little overly warm in here right now. The animals aren’t complaining however. I absolutely love having a fireplace, because it means there is no such thing as trash, it is all fuel.

  87. 87.

    lamh36

    Sherlock Holmes Returns…Season 3

    I literally just finished watching the last episode of the last season from 2 years ago! I already knew what was gonna happen and I was still engrossed. To me that’s the mark of a truly well written series. You can go back and watch old episodes and even though you’ve seen it or you’ve already read/heard spoilers, it’s STILL holds up. The early season of Law & Order: SVU are also like this. I can sit and watch an all day marathon on USA and still love to watch the old episodes. Anyway…the new season of Sherlock Holmes makes its American premiere tonight on PBS. Check your local listings and set your DVRs…

  88. 88.

    Betty Cracker

    @lamh36: I look forward to reading their his-and-her memoirs. I read both of POTUS’s previous books, and he’s a darn good writer. It’ll be fascinating to read his take on the circus we witness daily!

    @Litlebritdiftrnt: I think those are some other kind of plant (the mister is the gardener), but we have grown pineapples. They look nice, but they aren’t as sweet as expected.

  89. 89.

    Yatsuno

    @efgoldman: He is rather entertaining to watch on the sidelines. It will get even better should Seattle take the lead. He loses it like nobody’s business.

    And yes that was a wish for the second half. Seahacks need to pull it together dammit.

  91. 91.

    Keith P

    @efgoldman: I’m hoping for an aneurysm. He gets too worked up over penalties that happen with next to no time left or even when the game’s sewn up. And for some reason, I don’t even like to look at Kaepernick. Maybe it’s that his head is too small (similarly, Tom Brady kind of weirds me out due to his strangely large forehead) or that his arms are too long for his body. I’m sure he’s an OK person, but I have this irrational dislike of him that I can’t quite put my finger on.

  95. 95.

    billgerat

    The offensive line for Seattle has sucked so far – they can’t pick up the blitz and not opening any holes for Lynch. Still, it’s a close game.

  97. 97.

    The Dangerman

    @Yatsuno:

    And yes that was a wish for the second half. Seahacks need to pull it together dammit.

    Their O-Line is getting abused on long yardage.

  98. 98.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lamh36: If I could pre-order both books today, I would! Part of me wants the Obama presidency to go on forever, the other part can’t wait for the administration to be over so we can read their memoirs! I will read both with equal enthusiasm, although I suspect Michelle may let it rip a little bit more than Barack :-)

  99. 99.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @lamh36: I said it at the start of all this will again: this guy is not going to be able to avoid meeting Sarah Palin in half-term governor purgatory of shame, let alone set foot in the Oval Office. He won’t last the month before resigning.

  100. 100.

    Heliopause

    Wilson is doing what he’s been doing for about six weeks now; looking like a confused rookie. Can’t find his first option, can’t find his way out of the pocket after quitting on his first option, so the play just breaks down. Needs to figure it out quick.

  101. 101.

    James E. Powell

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    What’s more uncomfortably premature, speculation about the 2016 Democratic nominee or speculation about the post-White House careers of Barack and Michelle Obama. Can’t see either retiring to a quiet, private life. What then? A foundation like Bill Clinton? There is no “up” from president of the United States.

  102. 102.

    lamh36

    I literally just finished watching the last episode of the last season from 2 years ago! I already knew what was gonna happen and I was still engrossed. To me that’s the mark of a truly well written series. You can go back and watch old episodes and even though you’ve seen it or already read/heard spoilers, it’s STILL holds up. The early season of Law & Order: SVU are also like this. I can sit and watch an all day marathon on USA and still love to watch the old episodes. Anyway…the new season of Sherlock Holmes makes its American premiere tonight on PBS. Check your local listings and set your DVRs…

  103. 103.

    raven

    “Warning, do not try to eat chicken while doing a backflip on your motorcycle, you might choke”!

  104. 104.

    JPL

    @Baud: Neither the lt.gov or Costello denied the story but had spokesman deliver a non denial. Maybe that’s common but it seems to me, a statement is better than no comment.

  105. 105.

    lamh36

    @James E. Powell: well not really premature speculation. The Remnick article said Obama plans to begin memoir after term ends and also says that Michelle Obama is already started working on her (Barack does always say that Michelle is even smarter and more laser-focused than he is)

    On the Road with Obama

    “When Obama leaves the White House, on January 20, 2017, he will write a memoir. ‘Now, that’s a slam dunk,’ the former Obama adviser David Axelrod told me. Andrew Wylie, a leading literary agent, said he thought that publishers would pay between seventeen and twenty million dollars for the book–the most ever for a work of nonfiction–and around twelve million for Michelle Obama’s memoirs. (The First Lady has already started work on hers.)…”

  114. 114.

    Corner Stone

    @raven: I barely paid attention to that commercial and thought the guy was choking each time he flipped upside down. Hence, that was why he was grabbing his throat.
    Who the hell are they selling KFC to with that?

  116. 116.

    lamh36

    @Baud: all the reports I’m seeing said she met with US Atty and i believe turned over her journal and documents.

    I would imagine the US Atty meeting for “hours” would want to dot their I’s and cross T’s…

    Hoboken Mayor Meets with U.S. Attorney

    Hoboken, NJ Mayor Dawn Zimmer “said she met with federal prosecutors today, a day after she alleged members of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration threatened to withhold Hurricane Sandy aid from her city if she did not approve a real estate project,” the Newark Star Ledger reports.

    “Zimmer said she met for hours this afternoon with staff from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark, providing a copy of her daily journal and other documents. Zimmer, who leveled the bombshell allegation on Saturday, said the meeting was requested by prosecutors.”

  131. 131.

    Corner Stone

    @Roger Moore: I haven’t had KFC in years but the last time I did, I was not hanging upside down from a spine extension thingamajig. Much less doing 35MPH 40 feet off the ground.

  134. 134.

    The Dangerman

    I thought you couldn’t intentionally kick the ball forward like Kaepernick did after the fumble. Isn’t that the Casper rule?

    ETA: BTW, I’m an old fart; I watched the Casper play live.

  140. 140.

    The Dangerman

    @raven:

    It just bounced.

    I beg to differ; from my view from the cheapest possible seats, Kap kicked it 5 yards downfield.

    No argument from Seahawks though.

  141. 141.

    cathyx

    Christie will not resign. It’s part of the republican DNA. He will hang on til the bitter end, or until he’s forced to. And then it won’t be his fault.

  142. 142.

    dmsilev

    @LanceThruster:

    Physics Q: if a photon takes 1000 to 2000 years to reach surface of sun before the 8 mins to get here, how much longer for sun the size of Betelguese?

    I’m late to the thread (had some, you know, actual work to deal with) but I see your question has been answered.

  145. 145.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: I think this is gonna be more a court of public opinion thing, and those journals will be examined down to the punctuation and doodles, unless the mayor of Hoboken (Oooooh, I’m dyin’!) turns out to be a real whack job, contemporary evidence would, I suspect, make her look a lot more credible.

  156. 156.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @James E. Powell: They could do a lot worse than look to Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter as models.

    ETA: With potentially even more clout, having won a second term. Carters had to get through the slough of having lost their bid for re-election. That said, they are far and away the best exemplars of successful former Presidencies. Example: Guinea Worm Disease is down to a few hundred cases worldwide; it was in the millions when the Carters started their initiative to eradicate it. Not to mention Habitat for Humanity, election monitoring, etc.

  158. 158.

    dmsilev

    @cathyx: It should be comparable to the time for the Sun. Bear in mind that ‘comparable’ means ‘anywhere from 1/10 as long to 10 times as long’; a more precise answer would mean either digging through the literature or hunting down one of my astrophysics colleagues (and they’re elusive little buggers; I’ve had some luck with traps baited with cups of coffee, but it’s not reliable).

  159. 159.

    JPL

    So are the Christie inauguration festivities going to cost more than the city of Hoboken received from the state funds?

  161. 161.

    Roger Moore

    @Suffern ACE:

    How many steps can you take with the ball and not have control of the ball?

    I think the rule says you have to make a football move or retain possession through the process of going to the ground. Running straight doesn’t count as making a move, so he’d have to hold the ball through the tackle to get a catch.

  162. 162.

    Corner Stone

    @JPL:

    So are the Christie inauguration festivities going to cost more than the city of Hoboken received from the state funds?

    Pretty sure just the donut budget for the day will be more.

    Yeah. Fat joke. Guilty.

  163. 163.

    Betty Cracker

    I’d support a rule change to make ostentatiously lobbying for a flag a 15 yard penalty. No matter how justified.

  164. 164.

    cathyx

    @Yatsuno: According to wikipedia, it’s the president of the senate.

    In the event of simultaneous vacancies in both the offices of Governor and Lieutenant Governor resulting from any cause, the President of the Senate shall become Governor until a new Governor or Lieutenant Governor is elected and qualifies. In the event that there is a vacancy in the office of Senate President, or the Senate President declines to become Governor, then the Speaker of the General Assembly shall become Governor until a new Governor or Lieutenant Governor is elected and qualifies. In the event that there is a vacancy in the office of Speaker of the General Assembly, or if the Speaker declines to become Governor, then the functions, powers, duties and emoluments of the office shall devolve for the time being upon such officers and in the order of succession as may be provided by law, until a new Governor or Lieutenant Governor is elected and qualifies

  165. 165.

    Corner Stone

    @Roger Moore: Running straight does count. But he did not finish possession through the tackle.
    If we’re all talking about the same SF incompletion. He had it but did not finish the catch as he hit the ground.

  166. 166.

    Yatsuno

    @Betty Cracker: Yeah. That was kinda ridiculous. But Harbaugh threw his fit and got his way.

    AND TOUCHDOWN!!!!

    @cathyx: Fair enough. I wasn’t sure if the rules went by the same rules as the US or not.

  173. 173.

    rikyrah

    David Remnick: Going The Distance

    Obama really is skilled at this kind of thing, the kibbitzing and the expressions of sympathy, the hugging and the eulogizing and the celebrating, the sheer animal activity of human politics—but he suffers an anxiety of comparison. Bill Clinton was, and is, the master, a hyper-extrovert whose freakish memory for names and faces, and whose indomitable will to enfold and charm everyone in his path, remains unmatched. Obama can be a dynamic speaker before large audiences and charming in very small groups, but, like a normal human being and unlike the near-pathological personalities who have so often held the office, he is depleted by the act of schmoozing a group of a hundred as if it were an intimate gathering. At fund-raisers, he would rather eat privately with a couple of aides before going out to perform.

    According to the Wall Street Journal, when Jeffrey Katzenberg threw a multi-million-dollar fund-raiser in Los Angeles two years ago, he told the President’s staff that he expected Obama to stop at each of the fourteen tables and talk for a while. No one would have had to ask Clinton. Obama’s staffers were alarmed. When you talk about this with people in Obamaland, they let on that Clinton borders on the obsessive—as if the appetite for connection were related to what got him in such deep trouble. “Obama is a genuinely respectful person, but he doesn’t try to seduce everyone,” Axelrod said. “It’s never going to be who he’ll be.”

    Obama’s thoughts have been down in the city. The drama of racial inequality, in his mind, has come to presage a larger, transracial form of economic disparity, a deepening of the class divide. Indeed, if there is a theme for the remaining days of his term, it is inequality. In 2011, he went to Osawatomie, Kansas, the site of Theodore Roosevelt’s 1910 New Nationalism speech—a signal moment in the history of Progressivism—and declared inequality the “defining issue of our time.” He repeated the message at length, late last year, in Anacostia, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., this time noting that the gap between the rich and the poor in America now resembled that in Argentina and Jamaica, rather than that in France, Germany, or Canada. American C.E.O.s once made, on average, thirty times as much as workers; now they make about two hundred and seventy times as much. The wealthy hire lobbyists; they try to secure their interests with campaign donations. Even as Obama travels for campaign alms and is as entangled in the funding system at least as much as any other politician, he insists that his commitment is to the middle class and the disadvantaged. Last summer, he received a letter from a single mother struggling to support herself and her daughter on a minimal income. She was drowning: “I need help. I can’t imagine being out in the streets with my daughter and if I don’t get some type of relief soon, I’m afraid that’s what may happen.” “Copy to Senior Advisers,” Obama wrote at the bottom of the letter. “This is the person we are working for.”

    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/27/140127fa_fact_remnick?currentPage=all

  187. 187.

    Roger Moore

    @cathyx:
    Each state needs to have its own rules because they don’t have identical governments. Some states have given up on having Lieutenant Governors. If I were designing a state government, I’d have the succession go through all the statewide elected offices before going to the leaders of the legislature.

  191. 191.

    raven

    @Spike: ” As a result of the play, the NFL changed its rules to make it illegal for the teammate of a ball carrier to advance the ball if the ball carrier fumbles on fourth down or in the last two minutes of the game.[5]”

  195. 195.

    Yatsuno

    @Betty Cracker: Yeah. But it’s not reviewable and the ruling on the field stands. In other words SF has a gripe here and I will call it legitimate.

    And I have no idea how Kearse survives a hit like that. Wowsers.

  197. 197.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho(fka Bella Q)

    @The Dangerman: I watched the Casper play live too – I must be older than I thought! A lovely thought two days before a birthday, but as my dad used to say, it beats the hell out of the alternative.

  208. 208.

    JPL

    Now instead of taking over on the one yard line, the 49’ers will take over on the fifteen. I hate bad calls but the bad god was watching over the 49ers.

  209. 209.

    The Dangerman

    Both teams are now trying to give this game away. How close is the nearest Pot dispensary to the stadium?

  221. 221.

    Corner Stone

    They’ve been trying to pick on Chancellor all night. Now he picked back for one time.

  224. 224.

    CaseyL

    This game is giving me angina. I cannot believe how bad the Seahawk offense has been. It’s like they’re allergic to getting into the end zone.

  231. 231.

    Yatsuno

    @CaseyL: That timeout is gonna suck donkey balls. We might need that back later dammit.

    23-17. You’re up Legion of Boom.

  234. 234.

    cyntax

    @Citizen_X:
    As someone who just broke his foot over the summer I couldn’t look away. Tough bastard kept control of the football the whole time.

  242. 242.

    Yatsuno

    @Baud: It is if they could get ahead and Seattle only has one time out. And the free one just hit. But wasn’t this one of the complaints about Harbaugh?

  265. 265.

    Citizen_X

    There you have it, folks: LEGALIZE WEED, GO TO THE SUPER BOWL. Contact your state legislature now.

  267. 267.

    Corner Stone

    I bet the NFL and the TV contract people are crying. Seattle v Denver in NJ.
    No history, no rivalry, no storylines.
    No real intrinsic fanbase media markets.
    What a disaster.

  270. 270.

    Ash Can

    I just hope the Super Bowl is this entertaining. (It should be; both teams are dandies this year.)

  274. 274.

    raven

    Here’s what the asshole was talking about:

    A day after Anquan Boldin spoke with the media, Michael Crabtree met with them. Someone asked Crabtree if Richard Sherman was the best cornerback in the league. Initially he said he didn’t think so, but he followed up with some context on his opinion:

    “I don’t know (anything) about the best cornerbacks in the league. I just know teams, you know. We are playing the Seattle Seahawks and hopefully we come out with a win. We are going hard.”

  277. 277.

    Jay C

    @Corner Stone:

    I bet the NFL and the TV contract people are crying. Seattle v Denver in NJ.
    No history, no rivalry, no storylines.
    No real intrinsic fanbase media markets.
    What a disaster.

    Well, as they say in Jersey….. “Fuck ’em!”
    They’re professionals… they can deal….

  278. 278.

    Ash Can

    @Citizen_X:

    There you have it, folks: LEGALIZE WEED, GO TO THE SUPER BOWL. Contact your state legislature now.

    Please leave your mailing address with the admins to expedite delivery of your intertoobz.

  279. 279.

    Belafon

    @Citizen_X: Maybe the beer company (don’t remember which one) can make an ad talking about legalizing marijuana: “It’s only wrong if it doesn’t work.”

  280. 280.

    James E. Powell

    No disrespect to Seattle for making the plays on the turnovers, but that is two straight years that Harbaugh, Kaepernick, and the 49ers have choked away a big game.

    That last throw was awful & stupid, and I mean Brett Favre awful & stupid.

  283. 283.

    Geoduck

    @Corner Stone:

    I bet the NFL and the TV contract people are crying. Seattle v Denver in NJ.
    No history, no rivalry, no storylines.
    No real intrinsic fanbase media markets.
    What a disaster.

    It’s hard to tell sometimes on the Internet.. you are being sarcastic, right?

    Either way.. I had no faith, but wow, they pulled it off. And the fact that two former division rivals are meeting in the Superbowl is highly amusing.

    Oh.. and obviously God approves of marijuana legalization!

  284. 284.

    James E. Powell

    @Corner Stone:

    I bet the NFL and the TV contract people are crying. Seattle v Denver in NJ.
    No history, no rivalry, no storylines.
    No real intrinsic fanbase media markets.
    What a disaster.

    Those things don’t matter for a Super Bowl. This isn’t the NBA or MLB.

  287. 287.

    Scamp Dog

    @LanceThruster: OK, I’m going to take a shot at this. The lower density means a longer mean free path, so that should speed things up, although the larger radius should make it take longer.

    Using the 7.7x mass factor and 10x radius factor, I’m guessing 1000-2000 years * (7.7/10^3)*10 = 80 to 150 years (after rounding). Warning: I’m an aerospace engineer with a physics undergrad degree, so I’m doing some semi-informed guessing. If there are any actual astronomers or physicists answering this, they’re probably the better sources.

  288. 288.

    YellowJournalism

    @efgoldman: Like Roger said, they don’t have to. We had one big Broncos fan in the family around the time Elway was playing. (Reasoning was silly, tho. felt we should support Elway’s team because he was from our area of Washington.) You did not talk football if you wanted family gatherings to be peaceful!

  289. 289.

    cyntax

    @James E. Powell:

    That last throw was awful & stupid, and I mean Brett Favre awful & stupid.

    Yes, yes it was.

    Ah well. I’ve been watching Niners games since before Walsh came to town so if I gotta suffer through a few of these, so be it.

  290. 290.

    Belafon

    @efgoldman: What, like those two groups – beer drinkers and marijuana users – won’t significantly overlap.

    ETA: And I was making a joke along these lines:

    I'm no scientist, but legalizing marijuana in your state seems to cause immediate football superiority.— Jeremy McCarter (@j_mccarter) January 20, 2014

  291. 291.

    Ash Can

    @Corner Stone: I don’t remember ever seeing preview commercials for other commercials. But I suppose someone was going to do it sooner or later for the Super Bowl commercials.

  293. 293.

    CaseyL

    I think it would wonderful beyond words if there are stoner commercials during the Super Bowl.

    Jack in the Box has already aired some in Seattle, advertising its Midnight Munchie meal.

  296. 296.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    Hey Yutsy – Congrats and keep up with the good healing rehab stuff!

  298. 298.

    The Dangerman

    @James E. Powell:

    That last throw was awful & stupid, and I mean Brett Favre awful & stupid.

    There was some ugly play from the start of the 4th Quarter on; from Seattle blowing a FG that turned into a TD to the TV running two sets of Two Minute Warning commercials to the ending pick, I was looking for Rod Serling…

    …and, seriously, Sherman, STFU.

  300. 300.

    Jay C

    @efgoldman:

    Yeah, a VERY ‘green” eyeshade…….

    Serious (if trivial-sounding) question: I see the some of the Seattle Seahawks already (as in immediate post-game-show) sporting “Conference Champion” shirts – so: does each team print up said “We Won!!” shirts just in case? And if so, what do they do with them when/if they lose?

  301. 301.

    ericblair

    @efgoldman:

    Yes.
    They box them up and send them to some third world country as a “donation.”
    No, not joking.

    Yep, so with multiple years of this Africa looks like some alternate sports universe.

  302. 302.

    Geoduck

    @Jay C:

    Serious (if trivial-sounding) question: I see the some of the Seattle Seahawks already (as in immediate post-game-show) sporting “Conference Champion” shirts – so: does each team print up said “We Won!!” shirts just in case? And if so, what do they do with them when/if they lose?

    They shipped off as charity. Seriously, you’ll eventually see people in African villages wearing the loser’s shirts.

  305. 305.

    Thlayli

    Storyline: Eli won his second Super Bowl on Peyton’s home field, can Peyton win his second on Eli’s home field?

  306. 306.

    Scamp Dog

    @efgoldman: I wrote up my guess before reading through the thread to find @dmsilev‘s answer. He didn’t say if the answer was right, though, so I still hold out hope for my answer. Not that anyone else should, really.

  307. 307.

    gwangung

    @Corner Stone:

    I bet the NFL and the TV contract people are crying. Seattle v Denver in NJ.
    No history, no rivalry, no storylines.

    Ah, dude, you know better….sports writers could write this in their sleep…..

  308. 308.

    James E. Powell

    @Jay C:

    does each team print up said “We Won!!” shirts just in case? And if so, what do they do with them when/if they lose?

    Yes they do. And the losers’ stuff is dumped in the third world.

  311. 311.

    Corner Stone

    @gwangung: Sure. They have to. But it’s going to be 133% more forced tripe than an Olympics coverage.
    I’m just wondering what they are going to do? The neophyte Wilson vs the last chance old buck Manning?
    The two teams are so different. The coaches don’t have any history that I know of. My best guess right now is they will go Legion of Boom v Denver WR core.
    I can’t see what else they have.

  313. 313.

    LanceThruster

    @Scamp Dog:

    Thx. I wouldn’t have guessed the density would have factored so much more than the size considering the size dif (radius near Jupiter’s orbit! – but then I’d have no reason to know).

  316. 316.

    Scamp Dog

    @LanceThruster: uh-oh, someone might be using my answer? My strategy was to look up a formula for mean free path (I found one on Wikipedia), and note that it had density to the first power, so I just multiplied the value for our sun by the density ratio, and then I multiplied by the radius ratio to account for the larger size.

    After posting my guess, I started thinking that the process is a random walk. The expected distance for a 1-d random walk is the step size times the square root of the number of steps; in this case, the step size is the mean free path, and the steps are taken at the speed of light. So now I think I should multiply by the radius ratio squared, changing my guess to 800 to 1500 years, which is compatible with dmsilev’s rule of thumb estimate of same as the sun, within a factor of 10.

    Of course, the motion is really 3-d, and the mean free path formula also depends on the mix of elements at that location, which varies between stars, and different depths for the same star…

    Anyway, this is how we techies fake answers when we don’t really know the topic. It gives you a general sense of plausible answers, so if someone tells you 3 milliseconds or 40,000 years you can be suspicious, but when someone with actual expertise on the topic shows up, pay attention to them.

  317. 317.

    Scamp Dog

    @Scamp Dog: …and I just looked up Betelgeuse and discovered that it’s about 1,000 times as wide as the sun, not 10 times, and the mass ratio is 7.7 to 20, so I’ll try again:

    (10/1000^3)*1000^2 = 0.01, so my current guess is 10 to 20 years, no longer within the factor of 10 rule of thumb. Anyway, it’s bedtime now. Hope this helps!

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