All day long, I keep seeing social-media reminders that I should be ashamed — the world is paying attention to Manti Te’o, and not to the Notre Dame St. Mary’s girl who said she was raped! This is terrible, etc. etc.
I won’t apologize. This story takes Crazy to a whole new level. An invented tragic girlfriend is one thing, but an almost entirely hoodwinked sports media is quite another, and truth be told, I’m getting more pleasure out of watching the spinning by august outlets like Sports Illustrated and ESPN. A friend of mine asked me today, how could this happen? For a couple of reasons, which I mentioned in comments yesterday. First, because once something is reported, the chances of it being re-reported fall pretty sharply. There are, simply put, a lot of hacks out there. There are also a lot of overworked reporters doing more with less. And let’s also remember: There’s less and less time. For everything. But there’s no doubt that many people who should have known better failed to follow up, and missed what was sitting in plain sight. Which makes it a good story with a creamy layer of good-second-story icing.
And also, a lot of great Twitter action:
Since he’s Mormon, it’s possible Te’o has multiple fake girlfriends.
— Mick Farrell (@StumpWoodley) January 17, 2013
If Manti Te’o is really that naive, they should invent a new word: naivete’o
— Ben Greenman (@bengreenman) January 17, 2013
If you think it’s impressive that AJ McCarron’s girlfriend was Miss Alabama 2012, Manti Te’o’s girlfriend was Miss Narnia 2009, 2010 & 2011.
— She Ratchet (@RatchetAfrican) January 17, 2013
And so I would like to close out this week and start primping for the Charity Preview. I went out and bought some department-store foundation, a splurge for me. But I cannot deny it — this Almay drugstore crap just doesn’t blend. Because tomorrow is payday, I also went for a new lipstick, because that’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull. And as it usually takes seven hours to make me presentable, I’d better sign off now. But first, some links:
Six theories to explain why Te’o did it. A nice little condensation.
OID: Necromancy in the Motor City, or how a 93-year-old corpse ended up in his son’s freezer.
As long as we’re harshing on national magazines, did anyone getta loada Esquire’s profile of Megan Fox? Vice did.
You know what really makes a man’s outfit? A fancy watch. The Rolex Romeos speak:
Mike, who earned $400,000 last year, including a $120,000 bonus, even admits to driving his Lexus LS around the Jersey Shore in the summer, the windows rolled down and his wrist hanging out, on display.
“[The girls] will cheer and wave when they see my big watch,” he laughs. “It’s right out of a rap video!”
Have a good weekend, all.
Dexter said on January 18, 2013 at 12:56 am
Wow, this Manti Te’o story stinks worse as the hours pass. He told the Notre Dame A.D. and other high-ups of the hoax on December 6, 2012 and then goes to NYC and still talks about his dead girlfriend to the press? I am removing the possible gay angle here. Te’o is a psychopathic liar who desperately wanted that Heisman trophy. Some of his teammates have already made disparaging comments which were showing up on the espn crawl last night. They knew, but probably knew they would be ostracized by the ND community if they blew the top off the lie before the farce against Alabama.
The gay angle may surface as true, but the shame of his actions stays forever.
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Brandon said on January 18, 2013 at 1:02 am
It reminds me of the Rolex joke:
http://dailyjokes.somelifeblog.com/2011/09/rich-man-and-his-rolex-watch-joke-humor.html
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Sherri said on January 18, 2013 at 2:40 am
I don’t think we should feel ashamed for paying attention to the Manti Te’o story (and I haven’t forgotten the Lizzy Seeburg story). I do think Notre Dame should be ashamed for evidently spending far more resources to track down the fictitious dead girlfriend than to investigate the potential sexual assault. Notre Dame likes to claim a moral high ground in college athletics, but their actions leave them well short of that.
BTW, ESPN should never be considered an “august outlet” of journalism. Sports Illustrated does have a long history of actual journalism, but ESPN, no, not so much. Deadspin has done a good job of covering ESPN and showing just how weak their journalism is. ESPN has never been careful enough about keeping a wall between reporting and content; the egregiously bad way they handled the Mike Leach/Craig James situation is but one example: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=ohlmeyer_don&id=4844048
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alex said on January 18, 2013 at 5:05 am
I think it’s a stretch to call sports writing journalism. It’s fluff.
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alex said on January 18, 2013 at 5:18 am
As is anything written about Megan Fox, well-executed or otherwise.
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ROGirl said on January 18, 2013 at 5:24 am
I admit to having no previous knowledge of the football player/tragic dead girlfriend story until I read about it here. It strikes me as something he conjured up to gain a bit of sympathy, it got out of his control once it went public, and he kept on upping the ante with more ridiculous details because by then it was too late to admit the truth. Or else he’s gay.
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Dorothy said on January 18, 2013 at 6:05 am
Harkening back to Wednesday’s delicious, carefree, Manti Te’o-less soup discussion, there’s this from the Post Gazette today:
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/life/food/grilled-cheese-and-tomato-soup-670672/
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alex said on January 18, 2013 at 6:27 am
The Post-Gazette’s copy desk missed “right of passage.”
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velvet goldmine said on January 18, 2013 at 7:21 am
In that Vice piece on Megan Fox, Jamie Lee Curtis Taete did his namesake proud. He’s right in that it’s one thing for a shallow beauty to be entitled and whiny, but quite another to posit her as a misunderstood goddess walking the earth.
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coozledad said on January 18, 2013 at 8:32 am
The only person I ever knew with a Rolex was some sadass who worked at a securities firm in Chapel Hill. When it became obvious he was going to face jail time for the grift he and his company had been working, he drove his Land Rover out to the coast and sprayed his brains through the roof with a Ducks Unlimited commemorative shotgun.
I saw him flash his watch at a female coworker of mine. She was a sorority girl, but had some sense. She was pretty squicked out. He might as well have laid his mangy penis out on the shop counter.
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Mark P said on January 18, 2013 at 8:34 am
Rolex watches are a good indicator of the capability of an individual to believe things that are not true.
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alex said on January 18, 2013 at 8:38 am
When I lived in Boyztown in Chicago, fake Rolexes were all the rage. You could buy them out of the back of a truck, along with counterfeit designer jeans. I’m happy to say I never owned one, although I did score a pair of YSLs that made my ass look good.
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Mark P said on January 18, 2013 at 9:02 am
@alex
And, hey, it’s better to have an ass that looks good than a wrist that looks good.
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brian stouder said on January 18, 2013 at 9:06 am
Edit alert!
…and not to the Notre Dame girl who said she was raped!
She was a Saint Mary’s girl
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nancy said on January 18, 2013 at 9:11 am
Objection noted, Brian, but I was under the impression St. Mary’s is to UND as Radcliffe is to Harvard, i.e., nominally separate, but in practice, unified.
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coozledad said on January 18, 2013 at 9:23 am
Brian: I just saw your question about “bull’s pizzle” from yesterday. In Shakespearian English, that would probably have been a mild reference to a bull’s dick, seeing as there were few words they regarded as inherently vulgar. All that came later.
LA Mary is probably more up to date on this, but in current British English usage, “pizzle” is probably equivalent to “pee-pee”. Somewhere on the frangible border of polite conversation, as opposed to Southern US “pizzlin’ strang” which is a referent likely to be used by someone holding his out the window of an automobile as it passes you on I-85 south, or even less appropriate situations.
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brian stouder said on January 18, 2013 at 9:24 am
True enough, although possibly still worth noting since Saint Mary’s is women-only, yes?
And my assumption would be that they therefore market that place (at some level) as a bit insulated from exactly this sort of hooligan threat, when in fact it appears that the place offers exactly zero support for the young women they’re entrusted with, when they fall into the clutches of the chuckle-headed gladiators from ND’s football program.
Re-reading the Henninberg piece, did I miss a reference to any St Mary’s administrators?
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brian stouder said on January 18, 2013 at 9:29 am
Cooz – thanks!
Funniest thing I saw was on I-64 (a beautiful stretch of highway)when I passed a car driven by a young woman who had her left foot out the window. She had very nice bright red toenail polish; but really, that couldn’t have been comfortable, could it?
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Dorothy said on January 18, 2013 at 9:32 am
You’re so rite, Alex! ha ha Actually you reminded me of a situation I found myself in last week and I’m wondering what some of you might think about this. A guy I know here in town has written a play and it’s being staged later this year. I have an extremely low opinion of this guy’s writing abilities. He’s the president of the acting group I’m a member of. We did some self-written pieces over the last 18 months or so. I wasn’t the only one that thought he had zero talent for writing. (Amazingly enough his major at OSU was English) So … last week his wife posted a link on Facebook. The link was the website advertising the new play. The website in general looked pretty good. Then I clicked on the tab “About the Director” and found numerous grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors. First I contacted a mutual friend about this. He works for the organization that is producing the play. He begged off when I asked him to let Jim know about all the errors. So I waited a couple of days and decided to go ahead and let him know about some, but not all, of the errors. He thanked me profusely and corrected a couple of them. But I didn’t mention his overuse of quotation marks and commas. Those bugged the crap out of me. But I didn’t want to come across as being overly critical.
What would any of you done? My husband thinks I should have kept quiet. But I only wanted to help. Part of me wishes I hadn’t said anything and let it stand as it was. But then my conscience would have bothered me. I’ll be curious to hear everyone’s thoughts. If you want to look at the website let me know and I’ll post a link.
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brian stouder said on January 18, 2013 at 9:58 am
Dorothy – I think you were right to assist your colleague. It sounds like the website is a pretty important part of whatever marketing they’re doing, and if it has lots of silly mistakes on it, it would be bother me (for one), and cast a shadow on whatever else it is trying to communicate.
And indeed – if he looked again and corrected a few things, then so much the better. You gave him the opportunity and he at least partially capitalized on it.
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Bitter Scribe said on January 18, 2013 at 10:09 am
I think the sheer, bizarre enormity of the dead-girlfriend lie is what kept it from being questioned. Some lies are so preposterous that they aren’t debunked right away simply because no one believes that anyone would lie so brazenly. Joe McCarthy built an entire political career around that principle.
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Dexter said on January 18, 2013 at 11:08 am
My niece is a St. Mary’s music grad who married an ND pre-med student and they lived happily ever after, now in Milwaukee where the doctor just became a full partner in a lucrative clinic business , and where she could give up her music teaching career to take on full-time motherhood with three little ones now. All of her friends “snared” ND dudes. Must be the thang t’do?
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brian stouder said on January 18, 2013 at 11:16 am
But stay away from the ND football players
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BigHank53 said on January 18, 2013 at 11:19 am
I’ve one friend with a Rolex. He bought it (used) because he always wanted one, basically. He’s not real hung up on status symbols; the last time I saw him he was still driving his 14-year-old car. I know he’s never tried to impress anyone with it.
Nancy, I apologize if my comment about Notre Dame yesterday felt like piling on. It certainly wasn’t intended as such. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised when imaginary women get bigger headlines than real victims, but it’s angry-making.
I’ll second the Gawker “six theories” link. Quick read and decent summary. What the fuck was Te’o thinking? And what kind of mental contortions do you have to go through to convince yourself that he was a victim?
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Charlotte said on January 18, 2013 at 11:23 am
Here’s the ND Admissions stats page — and if you click through the Prospective Students it doesn’t say anything about women students being segregated to St. Mary’s. I know when I had a HUGE fight with my mother in 1981 about how there was no way in hell I was applying there, even then, it would have been ND, not St. Mary’s that I’d have been applying to. Anyhow: http://admissions.nd.edu/admission-and-application/admissions-statistics/
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MichaelG said on January 18, 2013 at 11:38 am
Where I come from a fake Rolex is called a ‘Nolex’.
Alex, I think it’s a mite harsh to call all sports journalism fluff. I don’t think it is, although I’m not going to go into a long thing about it.
I can’t see the attraction of Megan Fox. She’s always left me cold. There’s something really scary about her facial expressions.
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nancy said on January 18, 2013 at 11:45 am
When I first saw Megan Fox in “Transformers” — the shot of her leaning over the Camaro engine, butt in the air — I could see the appeal. But she’s lost weight since then, and just wrecked everything. Now she looks like a typical Hollywood lollipop-person, only with plastic boobs. I don’t get why women do that to themselves.
BigHank, you have nothing to apologize for. I get the objection, and it’s valid. But for a story like this, it ends up sounding like how can you have fun when there are people suffering in the world? Some stories are simply fun, and should be enjoyed.
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beb said on January 18, 2013 at 11:50 am
Norte Dame is co-ed but St. Marys’ is not. However there is only a street between the two campuses as I recall.
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Danny said on January 18, 2013 at 11:57 am
I’m with Deborah, this national media frenzy Manti Te’o story is a real head-scratcher for me. And over-employment saves me from spending any time on it.
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Catherine said on January 18, 2013 at 12:10 pm
Daily Beast follows up with James Deen re the NYT story on the filming of The Canyons. The last Q/A is the best: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/17/porn-star-james-deen-on-his-canyons-experience-with-lindsay-lohan.html
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LAMary said on January 18, 2013 at 12:17 pm
Petco has pizzles displayed near the cash registers and they’re labeled bull pizzles. I’ve never heard the in house Brit call a pizzle a pizzle, but that doesn’t mean it’s not done in UK. For a place that’s geographically pretty small they have a lot of regionalisms in their language. Who knows. They might call it a pizzle in Chipping Sodbury.
On the Rolez issue, I used to have a neighbor who had two sort of awful grown children. The son, who wanted to be a cop but didn’t make it into the academy, had a job at a market research firm. He had an apartment in a cool part of town, but moved back home so he could buy a Rolex. He had a six year payment plan on a Rolex.
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BigHank53 said on January 18, 2013 at 12:18 pm
Thanks, Nancy. What set me off yesterday was someone’s comment about how amusing it was to watch Notre Dame scramble for excuses. And it is amusing, and yeah, let’s break out the popcorn and watch, ’cause there’s enough embarrassment in this story to put three coats on everyone involved. I just hope all of Notre Dame, and the NCAA in general, gets some more skeptical attention.
Enough downers, though–has anyone interviewed Te’o’s bishop yet to find out what he thinks?
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Jeff Borden said on January 18, 2013 at 12:32 pm
The first time I became aware of the Rolex brand was while reading Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. It’s been a long time, but I seem to recall the watch was prized because it was heavy. . .sort of a suggestion that Bond might be able to use it kind of like brass knuckles in a fight, or maybe it gave him more power with a karate chop or something. (Fleming was a notorious brand name dropper. No character ever lit a cigarette. They lit a Parliament with a Ronson lighter.)
I am a watch geek –though none I own come anywhere close to the price of a Rolex– but I’ve had no interest in owning one for the same reason I never want to drive a BMW. It may be a fine timepiece (and god knows BMW makes a wonderful car), but it has come to be associated with people I don’t particularly like or admire.
The more I read about the ND story, the more I’m struck by the simple advice of my j-school professors at Kent State: If a story sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
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Bitter Scribe said on January 18, 2013 at 12:39 pm
Re: Pizzles: Mike Royko once wrote a hilarious column on a guy who made walking sticks fashioned from bull penises. He wanted a euphemism for “penis.”Somehow he heard the word “pizzle,” but he wasn’t sure it meant the right thing. He apparently didn’t have a dictionary (or the right dictionary) at home and this was way before the Intertoobz, so he had to call up his friendly local reference librarian. She was considerably less friendly once she looked up the word for him.
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Sherri said on January 18, 2013 at 1:40 pm
The inestimable Mr. Pierce on the Manti Te’o scandal: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/lessons-of-manti-teo-011813?src=rss
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Prospero said on January 18, 2013 at 2:24 pm
Manti’s stake bishop is proobably hard at work on a “Lying for the Lord” explanation for the lie. If Pete Thamel had uncovered the decption, Deadspin would be full of complaints about how the evil Pete Thamel was using all sorts of underhanded forms of underhanded tricks because he enjoys ruining the lives of college kids. Deadspin was a hotbed of comiseration with Ohio State after Tressel lide his ass off, quite flagrantly, to NCAA investigators, and much of that dross was vituperation against Thamel. I’m kinda wishing the whole subject would go away for now. It will be back bigtime, replete with amateur psychiatry, when the NFL draft comes around
I have never seen any reason to spend more than $25 bucks on a watch, which is about what a Timex electric costs. I’ve had lots of them, they’re remarkably reliable and accurate, and when, inevitably, I smash them to smithereens playing basketball or whatever, I don’t really care. I apply the same philosophy to glasses, which are even more sure to get broken than are watches. I do have a great big ol’ railroad pocket Watch from 19aught 6 that was my grampa’s. Runs like a charm and came with a beautiful sterling silver fob. Love that thing. I do not like gold watches at all.
Impeachment for Presiding while Black, apparently. These dickheads should undergo psychiatric examinations before any one of them is allowed a gun license. Dumber than grunt. Who would ever want to admit to voting for any of these cretins?
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Danny said on January 18, 2013 at 2:25 pm
I just have to say that I am extremely bummed to be at work today. My little brother had a ski chalet reserved this week on the slopes of Deer Valley in Park City during the Sundance Film Festival… AND he had VIP tickets to the events (yes he travels in rarefied circles).
Anyway, he couldn’t go because he broke his leg badly at Whistler skiing off a forty foot cliff (accidentally) a few weeks ago and he told me that I could use it gratis since it was already paid for. Then I could not make it because of work. Now the place is just sitting idle. {{{sigh}}}. This sucks.
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Sherri said on January 18, 2013 at 2:31 pm
Bummer for you, Danny, and even bigger bummer for your brother! I hope his broken leg was at least at the end of his Whistler trip. I once spent most of a week doing physical therapy for an injured shoulder at Whistler while the rest of my family skied after a fall early in a visit at Whistler, which was not my idea of a vacation at all.
I hope he has a good recovery.
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Hattie said on January 18, 2013 at 2:47 pm
A whole school of crap journalism has evolved around sports. This latest nonsense is the result of that.
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Danny said on January 18, 2013 at 3:00 pm
Sherri, me too, but it sounds like he will do well in recovery. He is already walking without crutches.
He is lucky that he didn’t get hurt worse or even die. His iPhone clocked him at 85 km/hr. When he accidentally went off the cliff, he landed on his skis, squatted/bounced back off his butt, hit a mogul, catapulted airborne again, somersaulted mid air and came down on his back, snapping his shin two inches above the boot line. It was almost a compound fracture and was termed a “limb-threatening” injury.
Not sure if it was at the end of his trip, but it was after 5 days of hard skiing, so it wasn’t a total waste.
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brian stouder said on January 18, 2013 at 3:07 pm
I’m fairly certain I shall never, ever ski down a mountain; or at least, not on purpose
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Danny said on January 18, 2013 at 3:09 pm
Another funny thing was that I unknowingly texted him right after it had happened to ask if the dates were firming up for Park City. He sent back a real-time picture of his legs stretched out in front of him in the ambulance, ski boots still on and left leg in a splint… and no explanatory text, which made it a puzzle for me because my crappy little cell phone that I showed you all a few weeks back doesn’t do graphics well.
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Deborah said on January 18, 2013 at 3:21 pm
I’m with you Brian, I will never ski down a mountain, or even a bunny slope. It would be death for sure. It’s possible that during some hike I might slip and slide but that would also be the end, so same outcome.
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Prospero said on January 18, 2013 at 3:23 pm
Dear Abby obit. I’ve been reading those columns for many decades. The stories of the Abby Ann sibling rivalry always seemed like self-promotion to me, but having a song written about you by John Prine sort of makes you sui generis as an advice columnist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2ccC4aULow
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Danny said on January 18, 2013 at 3:29 pm
You know, amazingly a paradigm shift took place in the skiing/snow boarding realm recently. I had missed skiing for several seasons and when I started back a few years ago, it seemed as if 90 percent of the people were wearing helmets. I think Natasha Richardson’s death transformed everyone’s thinking kind of like Dale Earnhardt Sr’s death did with respect to the HANS device in racing.
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Sherri said on January 18, 2013 at 3:56 pm
How does a snowboarder introduce himself?
“Oops, sorry!”
When my daughter was young, I wasn’t going to put her out there among the snowboarders without a helmet, and it seemed stupid to make her wear a helmet and not wear one myself. It’s been a few years since I’ve been to Whistler, but the last time I was there, you could tell the Americans from the Brits because the Americans were wearing helmets. (Whistler is a popular skiing vacation for Brits and Brit expats in Hong Kong; the Brits I’ve talked to there prefer it to Europe because the facilities are nicer and the people are nicer. It used to be a more popular place for Aussies before post-9/11 regulations made flying through Hawaii so onerous.)
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Danny said on January 18, 2013 at 4:06 pm
Interesting. I’ve never skied Whistler, but I sure hear a lot of good things about it. And surprisingly, I’ve never skied Mammoth either. If you have, can you comment on how Mammoth compares?
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Danny said on January 18, 2013 at 4:28 pm
Betsy Andreu weighs on on Lance:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/news/20130117/betsy-andreu-lance-armstrong/
Nancy, she’s practically one of your neighbors there in Dearborn.
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Brandon said on January 18, 2013 at 4:29 pm
66.Brandon said on November 20, 2012 at 7:39 pm
Mantei is better than Jarvis–Prospero
Prospero, Manti Te`o is huge in Hawaii. They just had a special on our local news, Manti Te`o: The Making of a Legend.
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/category/251017/manti-teo
Nancy doesn’t follow sports so she’s never commented on Manti Te`o when he was just one of the best college football players in the country. Unlike her and others, I don’t regard the Manti Te`o story as entertainment, certainly not one “with a creamy layer of good-second-story icing.”
And I was never gung-ho about him, Notre Dame, or sports in general. This is sad for all involved.
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Prospero said on January 18, 2013 at 4:43 pm
Historically, the well regulated militias in the 2nd Amendment were a sop for southern states that demanded shoring up institutionalized slavery before they would agree to the new Constitution. Makes some sense if you think about what passes for sensible argument on the gun-nut right these days.
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brian stouder said on January 18, 2013 at 4:43 pm
This is sad for all involved.
well, except as jackash (I think it was) pointed out – it’s sort of ‘happy’ news in that the dead girl never died at all; in fact, her spirit has taken on a life all its own – sorta like that MASH where the fictitious heroic doctor makes a big impact on everyone (despite never having existed)
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Brandon said on January 18, 2013 at 4:46 pm
@brian stouder: That is a good point.
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Sherri said on January 18, 2013 at 4:50 pm
Danny, I’ve never skied Mammoth, so I can’t compare. Whistler is bigger than any of the resorts I’ve skied in Tahoe, because Whistler is actually two mountains (Whistler and Blackcomb). The immensity of the place makes it pretty easy to get away from crowds and still find reasonable skiing. There’s always someplace with good snow, because the glacier on Blackcomb is accessible even if you’re only an intermediate skier (or at least it was, don’t know what global warming has done to it.) The downside to Whistler is you can have more days of fog than sunshine on your trip, and even when it’s not foggy, the light is often flat, meaning there aren’t any shadows, making it harder to distinguish terrain features. The same is true of the ski areas near me in the Cascades; too near the coast.
It’s been a few years since we’ve been, because our school district stopped taking a week off in February about the time my daughter hit high school (which meant that it was harder for us to just take her out for a week.) If crossing the border were a little more predictable, we’d be more inclined to go up for long weekends, but it can add an extra hour or two on the return trip just to get back into the US.
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Danny said on January 18, 2013 at 4:50 pm
…it’s sort of ‘happy’ news in that the dead girl never died at all…
I didn’t even know that she wasn’t sick.
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Danny said on January 18, 2013 at 4:52 pm
.. or that she wasn’t!
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Jolene said on January 18, 2013 at 4:57 pm
That video is really something, Brandon. I am really curious to see what Te’o will have to say if and when he speaks in public. Also wonder how this situation will affect his draft prospects? Will an NFL team want to take on someone who seems so screw-loosey?
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Sherri said on January 18, 2013 at 5:03 pm
He will be drafted, but this plus his poor play in the BCS championship game almost certainly moved him down everybody’s draft board. At one point he was being talked about as a top 10 pick (which I think overrated him), but that won’t happen now. The NFL has a rookie salary scale, so where you’re picked determines how much you can make on your first contract, and the first contract can’t be re-negotiated for three years.
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Brandon said on January 18, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Jolene, that was a local news special made at the height of Manti fever in Hawaii. Though the name of Hawaii is known worldwide*, very few people from Hawaii, especially athletes, become nationally famous. Whenever musicians or athletes get successful, they attract huge followings. It’s part of the local-boy/girl-made-good phenomenon. And people even don’t mind that he went to Punahou (simply put, Hawaii’s equivalent of Cranbrook).
*(The Honolulu Star-Advertiser has a weekly photo feature, “The Search for Hawaiian Life in the Universe”, of places outside the islands with Hawaiian names, e.g., a restaurant in Tokyo called Aloha Grill.)
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ROGirl said on January 18, 2013 at 5:53 pm
I received a Rolex watch in a bequest from an aunt. It’s stainless steel, not flashy or gaudy. It was valued by the estate at around $800, but when I took it to jewelry stores they offered me $400 and told me it needed to be cleaned. I don’t wear it because it’s too heavy and clunky for me, and it’s a ROLEX (I like Skagen), but I did spend about $150 to have it cleaned and reconditioned. I haven’t taken it to any jewelry stores since I had it cleaned.
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Deborah said on January 18, 2013 at 6:58 pm
I have never spent more than $150 for a watch. The one I have now is by M&co, designed by the famous graphic designer Tibor Kalman, who was married io the illustrator Maira Kalman (the M of M&co). Tibor died awhile ago and Maira does a lot of illustrations for the NYTs. Anyway I love this watch because instead of the usual numbers 12, 3, 6 and 9, it only has 1, 4 and 10 on the face.
Here’s what it looks like http://shop.cooperhewitt.org/p/673/10-One-4-Watch?gclid=CJKVlP-N87QCFYw-MgodbgcAmw
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Jakash said on January 18, 2013 at 7:08 pm
Brian,
It wasn’t me who said anything like that, about the imaginary girlfriend’s spirit taking on a life of its own. I just tried to find such a comment in yesterday’s thread for proper attribution, but came up empty. Thanks for the shout-out, regardless!
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Joe K said on January 18, 2013 at 7:38 pm
Danny,
Bummer although this week if I was staying in deer valley I sure wouldn’t be skiing their, I would much rather drive over to alta, and be free of the boarders and actors.
It’s been awhile since I skied, but after skiing the Wasatch range, Michigan wasn’t worth the effort.
Pilot Joe
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Sherri said on January 18, 2013 at 9:04 pm
San Jose Giants (minor league team) announces Lennay Kekua night: http://sanjose.giants.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130118&content_id=41031446&vkey=news_t476&fext=.jsp&sid=t476
Catfish on the menu. Two free tickets to future game to all Stanford students because they may know or be Te’o’s girlfriend.
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Deborah said on January 18, 2013 at 9:37 pm
Sherri, I think that San Jose Giants promotion is hilarious and just the way to handle this thing. Play up the farce that it is. Humor is fantastic isn’t it?
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Julie Robinson said on January 18, 2013 at 9:50 pm
In another generation no one will care about owning a Rolex watch, because no one will own a watch. Take a look around at anyone under 35, and notice if they are wearing a watch. They use their phones to tell the time. To me this seems like a lot of work, because first I have to either remember what room I left it in, or dig it out of my purse and open it up to see the time. Unlike so many I observe, I don’t have it sitting right in front of me at all times, constantly humming, vibrating, and erupting in song. Who cares about a Rolex when you can get the latest iPhone?
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 18, 2013 at 10:28 pm
Tuttle! (hat tip, Brian @ #51) God bless you, Major Tuttle, and your new Samoan girlfriend.
You know, with an analog (hands) watch, you can tell north* anytime between sunrise and sunset. So there’s that.
*You can tell south, actually, and north is directly opposite 180 degrees.
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BigHank53 said on January 19, 2013 at 12:34 am
If the sun’s up, you can figure out which way is north with a straight stick.
1. Poke the stick in the ground so it’s pointed straight at the sun–no shadow.
2. Go do something else for ten or fifteen minutes.
3. The stick will now be casting a shadow. That shadow points east.
Brandon, the Te’o story isn’t sad. It’s embarrassing. Watching people–many of them them putative adults–scramble to avoid admitting their screwups, okay: that’s sad. Suck it up and own it, boys. For people involved in a sport that risks broken bones and career-ending injuries on a daily basis, their pride sure seems delicate.
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Dexter said on January 19, 2013 at 1:44 am
Holy Hanky-Panky, Batman! Sugar Daddies are financing the smart honeys who otherwise can’t afford schools like U of M. Now I have heard EVERYTHING! I thought this was the fodder of cheapo porn films…no? I B damn!
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/20599828/4-michigan-universities-on-list-of-fastest-growing-sugar-baby-schools
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Dexter said on January 19, 2013 at 1:55 am
The rabbit made it out of the river safely and the scumbag who threw it into the river got the collar! Yea!
http://theinterrobang.com/2013/01/a-homless-man-his-rabbit/
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jerry said on January 19, 2013 at 4:02 am
Regarding the bull’s pizzle: speaking as a Brit I am not aware of ever having heard the word used outside the theatre. I suspect there would be a good many of my acquaintance who would look puzzled and then assume they knew what it meant because it sounded similar.
And I’m miserable as we have snow – just a few centimetres. I know that’s nothing to most of you but we are so unused to any snow that we just find it hard to cope.
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alex said on January 19, 2013 at 9:45 am
And we thought we’d heard the last of Richard Marx.
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Danny said on January 19, 2013 at 9:49 am
Joe K, Deer Valley is free of boarders and I’ve been in Park City around Sundance Fest quite a few times over the years (not purposefully, just the way the schedule worked out) and the slopes are usually quite devoid of celebrities and non-celebrities because everyone is inside watching movies or at events. I mean, I saw Tom Arnold across from me in baggage claim once, but it was no big shakes. Although he did have a small entourage to help him with his bags and I wistfully imagined having my own.. just for bags though.
Another thing about boarders, at the bigger resorts like in Park City and Tahoe, I’ve never found them to be a problem. Perhaps it’s because everyone has more room or perhaps it because the folks who come to these places are more frequent skiers/boarders who know how to act… unlike the carloads of aggressive teenagers from LA, all full of teen angst, who ascend to small, local resorts in So Cal to treat every run like it is their own private jackass reel. Some of my best friends are boarders… Hee
Man, I have not worn a watch in over 20 years. Not only is there always someone around to tell me the time, now with cell phones, what’s the point?
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Dorothy said on January 19, 2013 at 10:06 am
Julie I think you are right about watches. However at my son’s wedding rehearsal dinner, his wife told us she loves when Josh wears his watch. He usually wears it with his Army uniform – she told him she thought it was sexy! So now he wears it all the time – it’s a little joke between the two of them I guess. And it was funny that she shared that with us!
Prospero I know you have mentioned my niece’s bookstore in Athens, GA a few times. I can’t remember if you’ve been there in person. At any rate, her long-time boyfriend is a musician in Athens, and a very good friend of theirs is another musician, Craig Lieske. Craig worked as a bookseller in the shop. He has played with the Drive By Truckers, in case you’ve heard of them. Sadly, Craig died very suddenly yesterday of an aneurysm. He was only 48. My niece and her b/f are devastated, as are many in the Athens community. The DBTs have a picture of Craig on their Facebook main page today.
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coozledad said on January 19, 2013 at 10:45 am
The hair of Richard Marx alone is a glyph for “Kill me with fire.” Put him behind an electronic keyboard singing graduation songs, and he’s a living indictment of an entire generation.
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coozledad said on January 19, 2013 at 10:50 am
Oh, and the fact he’s outsold The Beach Boy’s Pet Sounds is proof that human life arose as part of random processes, and will inevitably return to some featureless snot.
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Prospero said on January 19, 2013 at 11:46 am
Wonderful movie about steel drums, made by Pete Seeger.
Saw the Truckers many times way back in the day when they used to play at Allen’s and Between the Hedges, two very old time Athens joints. A great band.
Amazing drummer, Pretty Purdie.
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Prospero said on January 19, 2013 at 11:56 am
Deadspin offered a job to infamous girlfriend beater Jay Mariotti.
Then they claimed they didn’t, after Mariotti made fun of Deadspin and Daulerio’s offer in a so-called e-Book.
That is lameass. Both guys come across like Peewee Herman.
http://sonsofsamhorn.net/topic/72784-mariotti-v-daulerio/
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Prospero said on January 19, 2013 at 1:24 pm
Andy Borowitz effectively making a total mockery of GOPer buffoon. Pretty funny.
What happens when you deploy a firearms expert as an armed guard in a school? In one Michigan Charter School, this.
With Dicks in, all 6 WA congressional Democrats favor repeal of gay-marriage ban. The head was quickly edited to remove the name of Democrat congressman Norm Dicks.
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Charlotte said on January 19, 2013 at 1:32 pm
Only time I ever got into it with a boarder was opening day at Solitude — guy came down too fast, lost it at the bottom and took me out in the lift line. Cut my face on his board, came up cursing, he gave me lip and I had the patrol throw him off the hill for the day. All those brothers and boy cousins, and well, fight or flight, I come up throwing punches. I skiied Alta a lot in grad school — loved it. Best snow in the world, those little glades up at the top are marvelous, and I’m a tele skier, and there was a big tele community there. Don’t ski on area much anymore. I got bored.
And I used to like Sundance when I lived in SLC — I went to all the weird documentaries I could get into — figured there was no point trying to get into movies that were going to be distributed later anyway, I always wanted to see the ones that this was your only chance. The scene was gross but I did see some terrific oddball movies.
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Danny said on January 19, 2013 at 1:45 pm
The Earl of Baltimore has died. Rest in peace, Mr. Weaver.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/sports/baseball/earl-weaver-volatile-and-visionary-manager-of-the-orioles-dies-at-82.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Tele is cool. Wish I had time to try it and develop technique. It does seem like my kneecaps would pop off and skitter down the hill, though.
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Sherri said on January 19, 2013 at 2:38 pm
Earl Weaver was a treasure. Hard to believe he was only 82.
There’s nothing wrong with snowboarders, per se, other than they do have a blind spot on one side that both you as a skier and the boarder should be aware of. The biggest problem I’ve had with boarders is really just with 18-24 year old males who have no judgement nor sense who tend to be boarders more often than skiers. They would be just as much a pain on two sticks. I was gliding along a traverse once when a boarder dropped out of the trees right in front of me and cut me off. I was able to stop hard before hitting him, but I was in his blind spot, and he didn’t even realize I was there until he heard my hard stop. It never occurred to him to check the traverse path before dropping on it.
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MichaelG said on January 19, 2013 at 2:51 pm
I’m the opposite, Danny. I have an I-Phone but half the time I leave it on my desk or on the kitchen counter when I go out. I don’t see a need to be connected all the time. I do wear a watch. I have on a 20 year old Swiss Army watch that my wife gave me all those years ago. I also have a Seiko that dates way back.
Heard a good one about Manti Te’o a while ago: He should do well in fantasy football.
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Linda said on January 19, 2013 at 3:14 pm
Best Earl Weaver story I ever heard:
Umpire: I had my eyes insured for $100,000
Weaver: What did you do with the money?
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Prospero said on January 19, 2013 at 4:18 pm
For most of a day, Nancy’s introductory clause to this post was tickling something in my right brain. It just came to me on a long bike ride with a heavy load of Our New Sensation Dale’s Pale Ale. This is a very vine, verry hoppy brew, expensive, but that’s good as it limits consumption. The can grapphics claim it’s employee owned. And, yeah cans. Bringing beer bottles to recycling on a bicycle is a drag.
I can still do telemark turns, last time I tried. My knees make noise but seem to stand up to abuse while the rest of me breaks down. A perfect tele turn in deep back country snow in bright sunshine on some short mountaineering skis is a marvelous thing. I got timid years ago after I went up the Kancamagus in foul weather on my mountaineering skis and slid into the Swift River. Pain was telling me I had broken my leg, I was 25% soaked, and I was 10 miles from my car. Some happy cross country types happened by, built a campfire as only Coleman fuel can do, had tents, Mr. Boston cherry brandy, food and excellent pot. Oh. And they had aspirin. I fashioned a splint the next am and actually sort of skied out. That was one treacherous trail. The rest wanted to make one of those Amerind litters and drag me out, and were dissappointed I wouldn’t agree.
Concerning Earl Weaver: Was there an autopsy to prove he was human and not fairey or leprechaun folk. Old fool was a hoot, that’s fer sure. My exxxperience of snowboarders is that they lack any sense of the beauty of skiing. Probably the iPods, and the lame-o fashion. I don’t like to hear anything but the sound of skis in the snow. I neveer tried skiing until I was in my thirties, and I found it to be relatively easy to do halfway well. You just pretended Gifford was calling the action. That’s how I got on to the backcountry version. I do sing to myself when I ski, but it’s as likely to be J.P. Sousa as Close to the Edge. Depends upon conditions. Anyway, for me, making a hard day’s climb then launching into fast downhill oblivion, that’s how to ski.
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Prospero said on January 19, 2013 at 4:20 pm
So what I meant about Nancy’s introduction is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmZdvVnMXCc
Before I started thinking about the Laurentians.
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Danny said on January 19, 2013 at 4:58 pm
Props, we will be skiing Squaw week after next with one I my buddies and his wife. He grew up as a ski patroller and is an expert-level skier, but he switched to boarding years ago to save his knees. I can honestly say that he and his dear wife make boarding a thing of beauty and it is a lot of fun to carve the slopes with them.
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Prospero said on January 19, 2013 at 6:39 pm
Whatever you say Danny. I prefer short skis. And Telemark is how to ski.Fuck you all.
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Danny said on January 19, 2013 at 6:57 pm
Earl Weaver getting thrown out of a game (one of 91, I believe):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl-4FSRYagc
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Sherri said on January 19, 2013 at 7:49 pm
Retrosheet has Weaver with 94 ejections, including being thrown out of both games of a doubleheader twice (8/15/75 and 9/29/85).
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/W/Pweave801.htm
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Charlotte said on January 19, 2013 at 8:08 pm
Free your heel and free your soul. Although the new boots are so stiff that they make parallel-e-marking too easy. I took it up when I moved to Telluride in 1988 because I had no equipment of my own, my friends ran the rental shop so they set me up, and I was a teeny tiny bit better at it than on parallel skis. Since it was so much cooler to tele, at least I was flailing on cool skis. Also, I’m short, with short legs, so it all just worked for me.
Was skiing about four years ago with one of my “borrowed” children and had an equipment failure — it was late, and I had to go find Sophie after her ski race up on the hill, so the guys in the rental shop loaned me some gear. I could hardly ski! It was so odd — I kept trying to drop a foot back and tripping myself up.
And never wear a watch anymore. There are clocks everywhere — in my car, on my computer, on my phone, and I don’t like the way watches or bracelets get in the way when I’m typing.
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coozledad said on January 19, 2013 at 8:11 pm
Dixie Gun& Knife show erupts in fountains of arterial spray. I hope none of the Hitler memorabilia was harmed.
http://news.yahoo.com/three-hurt-firearm-accident-north-carolina-gun-show-234451916.html
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nancy said on January 19, 2013 at 8:21 pm
Alan says that stuff happens at a local gun-show venue ALL the time. Just the other day, there was a story about a guy shooting himself in the leg — you may have even posted it, C. There’s supposedly a “weapon-clearing area” you’re supposed to visit before you bring shit into the show, but these morons must be pretty unclear on the use of their own property, because it’s a common occurrence.
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Sherri said on January 19, 2013 at 8:47 pm
Another baseball great passes – Stan Musial dies.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb/news/20130119/obit-stan-musial.ap/?sct=hp_t2_a2&eref=sihp
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Danny said on January 19, 2013 at 8:49 pm
The story says this was a 12-guage.
Flipping through the channels last night, I saw this shooting exhibition on Fox News where a woman who was a world champion shot one assault rifle, another rifle (30-06, I think) and a shot gun with two different gauges of shot. The gist of it was that the assault rifle, though it looked “scary” from a this-means-business sense, it seemed to have the least lethal rounds, while the 12-gauge, which would not be covered by any currently proposed bans, would seem to be the most lethal.
I know next to nothing about this, but I am sure that basset and a few others could enlighten.
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Connie said on January 19, 2013 at 8:56 pm
5 People Shot At 3 Different Gun Shows On Gun Appreciation Day http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/19/1473881/two-people-accidentally-shot-at-a-gun-show-safety-checkpoint-on-gun-appreciation-day/
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Jakash said on January 19, 2013 at 9:49 pm
Prospero,
I bought some Dale’s Pale Ale recently myself. Very good, indeed. Their website quotes some article calling it “the best canned beer in America.” Take that, Blatz…
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Deborah said on January 19, 2013 at 9:50 pm
I thought Stan Musial had died a long time ago, and I lived in St. Louis for many years. There was a creepy statue of him at Busch stadium that I always thought was there because he had died. I think I’ve mentioned this before that Lou Brock lived in one of the buildings I lived in, in St. Louis, I used to ride the elevator with him every once in awhile.
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Kirk said on January 19, 2013 at 11:12 pm
RIP, Earl and Stan. Proud to say that I got to see Musial play once, in 1959 at Crosley Field.
The only watch I’ve ever owned was the Timex I got for Christmas when I was 6. I wore it a few days but couldn’t stand having anything on my wrist. Without a watch or other time-teller, I pretty much always know what time it is within about 10 minutes.
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brian stouder said on January 19, 2013 at 11:22 pm
Ok – an editorial/style question for the media types here.
Consider this segment of the article Cooz posted:
Saturday’s shooting occurred when Gary Lynn Wilson, 36, of Wilmington, North Carolina, approached the entrance of the Dixie Gun and Knife Show in Raleigh to have his personal firearm inspected.
So far, so good. The article refers to a “shooting” having taken place. But then this sentence immediately follows:
The shotgun fired as he removed it from its case, according to a statement by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, a host of the gun show.
It sounds like the damned gun did something on its own, as opposed to the idiot owner.
Would it have been deemed inappropriate to report something like:
“He fired his shotgun as he removed it from its case, apparently unintentionally, according to a statement by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, a host of the gun show”
And did you read Prospero’s completely ridiculous Michiganian story, about the nitwit school that hired a fool with a firearm to patrol their hallways, only to find the guy’s revolver in the boys bathroom (presumably atop a urinal)?
I don’t think there’s a Bridge that’s long enough to span that disconnect from sensible reality….but we digress
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Sherri said on January 19, 2013 at 11:35 pm
I feel naked without a watch, but I’m hell on watches (and left wrists, for that matter; I’ve broken my left wrist three times.) I’ve tried going the cheap Timex route, but I’ve had Timexes fall apart on my wrist within a month, no joke. My husband, who has worn the same cheap Timex the whole time I’ve known him, just laughs at me. I finally bought a Casio Baby G. It’s not the prettiest thing around, but so far, it’s pretty indestructible. The large raised bevel means that the face of the watch hasn’t been scratched so I can still read the time.
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Dexter said on January 20, 2013 at 12:43 am
Bob Greene wrote a column for the Trib in which he told of his watch quitting, and he hailed a cab and told the cabbie to get him to the nearest drug mart where he had the cabbie leave the meter running while Greene ran in and grabbed the first watch he saw. He said he would upgrade later but he needed a watch immediately.
I am the same way. When my daughter attended Ohio State University I had season tickets for football, and I was meet her twenty minutes after the game and were all were going to a restaurant. I glanced at my wrist…no watch. It had just disappeared. When we met, I had her and her boyfriend take me immediately to a Big Lots store and I went in and bought a ten dollar watch to get me through this ordeal. I must have an accurate watch at all times. I sleep with a watch on my arm. I do not shower with a watch on so I am no some kind of nut. 🙂
People have told me to just check my phone when I want the time but that is horseshit. It’s clumsy. Now I am waiting for my Timex Triathalon to quit but it keeps on ticking. It is 20 years old. I got it when it was reported that it was the watch of choice of President Bill Clinton. It won’t die. Ten years ago I was sure it was going to die so I bought another one. That’s the one I sleep with. Still working.
Earl Weaver…definitely NSFW…really gross profanity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWQbN0jFo_k
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Dexter said on January 20, 2013 at 12:55 am
Kirk, I saw Stan Musial play a helluva lot on TV because in the early 1960s before CBS bought the Yankees, we got to see a lot of National League games. The Saturday Game of the Week. Musial was still great up until about 1963. I’m glad you got to see him at Crosley. I did get to see Clemente, Koufax, Mantle, Maris, Berra, Kaline, Santo, Fergie Jenkins, Yaz, Carew and many more. I got to see Donnie Baseball play on my one trip to Yankee Stadium. I saw Johnny Bench many times at Riverfront.
The thing about Stan Musial that set him apart was his batting stance. He looked odd and different while awaiting the pitch, then he’d spring out into an energy-packed swing and just crush the baseball. I wish I could have seen him play around 1946, his prime. Man, he was SOMETHIN’!
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john not mccain said on January 20, 2013 at 6:52 am
speaking of drive by truckers, if any of y’all know of a band that plays the same sort of if-the-stones-were-from-alabama rnr i would very much like to know about it. i grew up in the south and hearing dbt and isbell’s solo stuff is as close as i’ll ever get to going home again.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 20, 2013 at 6:58 am
I got taken to a gun show once by a parishoner. Who wanted to buy me an 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition sword, which he did and that I still have, but still (long and different story). I would not go back to one for any reason I can possibly imagine, except that there’s often one associated with various Civil War shows. Guns go off at those all the frickin’ time, and everyone has grim jokes about said occurences. A 12 gauge presentation shotgun that’s loaded in the case? That just screams incompetence and irrational thinking. And any Boy Scout will tell you that when you keep having incidents of “Yes, this gun is unloaded, and . . . BANG” then someone has to go back and start from A) on their firearms safety. All guns are to be considered loaded until amply demonstrated otherwise, and magical thinking is how you get actual injury.
There are too many guns floating around out there. What leaves me without anything to say as yet is that I’m waiting to see a proposal that would do something meaningful about that which is short of a complete non-military/police ban with legal confiscation. And I don’t presume those who say “that’s your answer right there” are anti-American or anything like that, it’s just that trying to do that makes about as much sense as saying you propose to deport 11 million undocumented Mexican immigrants — not gonna happen, couldn’t be done even if you could build a 51% plurality to say it should be.
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Prospero said on January 20, 2013 at 7:50 am
Reading about shotguns always reminds me of Dickless Cheney, who favors a “lady gun” 18 gauge, much to the benefit of Harry Whittington. And I’m no expert, but comparing damage between a .223 bullet and 12 gauge shot sounds like NRA bullshit to me. The difference between a .22 from a normal deer rifle and a .223 from an AR-15 is about 1000 l.b.s of force at the target end. So it’s a safe guess it does a great deal more damage.
I got shot in the leg once by a guy that lived in a turret house he built for himself with gun embrasures at about 10 degree spacing for a 50 cal machine gun he kept mounted in the center of the cylindrical house. Guy was a gun whacko, and when he shot me, I was coming to his aid when it appeared eight or so guys were assaulting him in a bar and grill parking lot. I freed the asshole from his tormenters long enough for the dickhead to get to his pistol, and who does he shoot? Me. His fracking savior from a bad beating. Turned out, the guys beating the shitheel were getting revenge for a friend he’d shot earlier in another part of town. Kinda like the samaritan with a gun that almost shot the guy that disarmed Gabriel Giffords’ attempted murderer. Here’s how this shit gets twisted :
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2011/01/friendly_firearms.html
Here’s some information about the lethality of AR-15 ammo:
http://www.americanhunter.org/ArticlePage.aspx?id=1964&cid=59
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Prospero said on January 20, 2013 at 10:03 am
Alex: Sportswriting may not matter in any great scheme of things, but it is writing, so it isn’t necessarily “fluff”. There is a great novel by a guy called Fred Exley called “A Fan’s Notes”. I suppose it’s sportswriting, and it’s probably something that Manti Te’O should read right about now. One thing Exley’s book is not, is “fluff”. You want “fluff” read Jennifer Rubin’s drivel in WaPo. Paper Lion is longform sportswriting, and it is brilliant writing by a guy that was capable of acute political thought, but he liked writing about sports. Dismissing sportswriting as “fluff” is narrow-minded. For instance, there is this masterpiece, that makes the Manti hoax seem particularly asinine and questionable:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1119283/index.htm
Now, that isn’t fluff, any more than any brilliant fiction is fluff.
And was it gut joournalistic instinct that led Deadspin to crack the Manti? I doubt it. I figure Deadspin created Lennay to destroy Lennay. That’s as reasonable as believing those nerdly turds ever exposed a grand hoax. Deadspin defends THE OSU. What is wrong with that picture?
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basset said on January 20, 2013 at 11:04 am
Danny@94, that demonstrates why the AR-15 and its cousins are not a good home defense weapon, unless you live in the country and want to take someone out at the far end of the driveway… the short-barreled 12-gauge pump shotgun is indeed the best choice when someone’s coming through your door. It’s simple, has a relatively wide spray of lead so you don’t have to be exactly right on the aim, easily maneuverable, you know it’s going to work, great stopping power, and it won’t shoot through the house across the street and kill your neighbor’s kids. Doesn’t look nearly as cool when you’re strutting around the park quacking about your right to open carry, though.
Skiing… Mrs. B’s whole family skis, I never wanted to try it. Maybe walking up the slope at Caberfae with a film camera (Canon Scoopic, iirc… anyone else remember those?) while skiers gave me shit off the chairlift put me off it, I dunno. That, or being totally uncoordinated and not needing another sport to do poorly.
Being borderline old, I do wear a wristwatch. Plastic, though, I’d lose or tear up a good one.
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Danny said on January 20, 2013 at 11:59 am
basset, that pretty much supports what a old high school friend who is now a cop told me when we were talking hypothetical about guns for personal protection in the wilderness. He said that if someone came upon your campsite with ill intentions, a shotgun was best because it is easy and unambiguous.
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Prospero said on January 20, 2013 at 12:10 pm
Danny @108 Then why air the AR-15 apologia?
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Kirk said on January 20, 2013 at 12:27 pm
Pros@106: Absolutely correct re: sportswriting.
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Danny said on January 20, 2013 at 12:35 pm
Props, I do not know why they aired that.
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jcburns said on January 20, 2013 at 1:23 pm
Vegas, baby.
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Joe K said on January 20, 2013 at 1:29 pm
John @ 103,
Try putting the drive by truckers in pandora search, should bring up similar bands, love their sound, saw a great documentary on them awhile back it was excellent.
Pilot Joe
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Sherri said on January 20, 2013 at 2:33 pm
Is Katie the new Oprah? Manti Te’o’s first on camera interview will be on Katie Couric’s talk show: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/katie-couric-to-interview-manti-teo/?smid=tw-mediadecodernyt&seid=auto
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brian stouder said on January 20, 2013 at 2:41 pm
Another reason I’ll never ski
http://www.wane.com/dpp/news/local/benefit-to-be-held-for-northrop-student-paralyzed-in-ski-accident
(and not for nothing, but note also the know-nothing commenters that are already crawling upon the news article)
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Prospero said on January 20, 2013 at 3:45 pm
I’d like to go online as saying Danny is an ahole. And brian, skiing is a lot of fun if you do it off the beaten path. Manti is either an idiot or a sorry-ass hoaxster. Jarvis and Tree were both going to be picked before his ass in the NFL draft anyway. They both go sideline to sideline, but Tree goes twice as fast. To the Steelers.
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jcburns said on January 20, 2013 at 4:04 pm
I’d like to go online as saying Prospero is a name-caller.
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Prospero said on January 20, 2013 at 4:16 pm
brian @15: Might as well say, another reason I’ll never live. If living isn’t courting danger, what’s living for? But by choice and not by some idiot’s wayward bullet.
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Prospero said on January 20, 2013 at 4:21 pm
jc, danny’s transparent bullshit about AR-15 rifle fire was odious and deserved to be called out. Somebody needed to do it, why not me? Since I take so much bullshit anyway? I mean, I think bloggers self-aggrandize sometimes, despite being pure as driven snow. Who’dathunk?
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brian stouder said on January 20, 2013 at 4:27 pm
Pros –
I get what you mean, but I do not agree.
By my lights, living means traveling, learning, and indeed – experiencing things…but not tempting fate and/or running risks wherein the risk/reward equation is (by my lights) skewed so heavily toward the ‘risk’ end, and so meagerly on the ‘reward’ side.
For example, I enjoy driving a car, and I enjoy watching people who have extreme talent in high-performance cars race one another ; but I do not have any desire to drive a race car myself….and if I won an obscene amount of money and could buy an exotic car, I might do it…but the damned car would have to pass this test:
if you cannot park it in a department store parking lot without worrying what someone will do to it, then to hell with it.
See, when you say “another reason I’ll never live”, what I hear is “CHICKEN!! CHICKEN!! CHICKEN!!” and/or – “Double dog dare ya’!”.
If I have learned anything in my half century on earth, it is that this Clint Eastwoodism has lots of truth in it: A man has GOT to know his limitations.
My corollary would be – if you don’t wanna do a thing, don’t do it.
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Danny said on January 20, 2013 at 4:59 pm
Michaelj/Prospero, I have know idea what your deal is in this thread. Let’s review…
First, there was the telemark skiing that Charlotte and I were discussing. I commented that I think it is way cool and wish I had time to try it and get some good technique. Then I also comment on how I can appreciate good snowboarding too, especially from my friend who comes from a solid ski patrol background who his just very graceful. You response: “Fuck you all.”
Then there is the assault rifle thing. I’ve made it clear in recent weeks that I have never owned a gun, will probably never own a gun, don’t know much about guns and that I am in favor of anything that can keep these random, senselessly violent shootings from happening ever again. My comment at #101 was merely to say that I had recently learned something from a news story that I had not been aware of: namely, the difference in lethality of the various firearms with different ammo. Based upon this, it seems to me that banning the AR-15 will have little effect on curbing gun violence, but I am still fine with them being banned. Your response: “I’d like to go online [sic] as saying Danny is an ahole.”
I can’t fathom how you get these odd ideas that you then argue against, but I am beginning to suspect you’ve had many an epic debate in front of a mirror.
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Sherri said on January 20, 2013 at 5:01 pm
It’s possible to ski without risking your life unduly. I’m no daredevil skier. I go down mostly intermediate runs, and when I’m on a more difficult run, I do it a turn at a time until I feel comfortable. Anything can happen, obviously, but I could get hit by a car crossing a street tomorrow. The only big injury I’ve suffered on a ski slope was a shoulder injury (an AC separation, which hurt like the dickens), and that was on a very easy slope; just a fluke in the way I fell. My ACL tear and three broken wrists weren’t incurred skiing (they were karate, gym class, volleyball, and karate, respectively.)
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Danny said on January 20, 2013 at 5:01 pm
Not #101, but #94
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jcburns said on January 20, 2013 at 5:07 pm
Prospero: there are ideas and points of view and then there are ad hominem shots that are just name-calling, nothing more or less. Stick to the former!
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Danny said on January 20, 2013 at 5:12 pm
Brian, I second what Sherri said. Many people, including myself, have skied for years without injury and my little brother’s incident was just him being stupid and out of control in an area he did not know well. When he told me that he was doing 50 mph, I had to ask him if that was a typo, because most people not named Lindsey Vonn never see that speed on ski’s. And to tell you the truth, bombing down hills at high speed holds little allure for most skiers/boarders. Smoothly carving and methodically working out how to take on more difficult terrain at one’s own speed and skill level are the most fun for me.
That’s part of the reason that I love watching the telemark skiers so much. It’s an art that also has a connection to a time when skiing was more utilitarian.
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beb said on January 20, 2013 at 6:28 pm
I forget which blogger mentioned it but they observed that a lot of talk about guns, self-protection etc. centered on how much fun fun fun it was to use guns. So the appeal for a 30 round clip is the fun fun fun of letting off a burst — just like that! And an AR-15 is sexier than a thirty-ought six is because it military!!! Woo sexy.
Danny, a suggestion: Do with I do … don’t read Prospero. It would be nice if we could set a filter on this blog to screen out people we dislike.
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Deborah said on January 20, 2013 at 6:28 pm
I had to google telemark skiing as I’d never heard of it before. I still don’t get it but that’s probably because I’ve never skied before (and never will).
I did something today that I haven’t done for ages, I didn’t get out of my pajamas until 2 pm. I got up earlier, made a big breakfast of eggs and english muffins which is also a rare occasion, then went back to bed with the NYT which I read from end to end (also rare to read that much of it). I even napped in between which is even rarer. I used to love to nap and was quite good at it but in my dotage I find it hard to do.
Last evening we saw the movie Amour. I highly recommend it. The actress Emanuelle Riva who plays the dying wife would win best actress in the Academy Awards which she is up for if it was up to me.
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basset said on January 20, 2013 at 7:04 pm
Meanwhile, there are none so blind as those who will not see – awake, citizens!
http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/chart-obama-conspiracy-theories
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Prospero said on January 20, 2013 at 7:08 pm
Deborah, save your best actress vote until you see Quevenadzhe Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild. You may change your mind. And Beb, whatever, but Danny implied that AR-15s are not deadly because they are .22s. Nothing is farther from the truth, and it is exactly that sort of bullshit pedaled by the NRA that keeps weapons of mass destruction in the hands of loony toons and aholes in the USA. They sell them to each other in the parking lots at gun shows, and there are no background checks. Or they just borrow Mom’s for walkabouts.
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brian stouder said on January 20, 2013 at 7:36 pm
When we get to the Oscars, I simply cannot cannot cannot root against anything connected with Les Miserables; and in any category where there is more than one nominee from that movie, I’ll take either.
Anne Hathaway/Hugh Jackman should highjack Oscar night away
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 20, 2013 at 9:13 pm
Oh my oh my oh my. Just saw “Lincoln” finally. Oh my. I really don’t know what else to say.
Had me in tears multiple times, for a multiplicity of reasons, but what a marvelous thing to see, and having heard Robert Caro talk about LBJ & civil rights legislation on the way over to the big city to see it.
I will only concede this flaw: it should have ended with the walk down the hall following the over-the-shoulder line “I’d really like to stay, but I must go.” The theatre scene with Tad and 2nd inaugural flashback really weren’t necessary, as much as I enjoyed hearing how Day-Lewis chose to interpret the speech. As with so many other odd moments in the film, the fact that Tad was at a different theatre and heard of his father’s shooting from the stage is historically accurate.
Tommy Lee Jones was dangerously close to stealing this movie all the same.
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basset said on January 20, 2013 at 9:19 pm
>>AR-15s are not deadly because they are .22s
which is, as Pros pointed out, bullshit, and dangerous bullshit at that. the .223 round in a AR-15 is indeed roughly the diameter of a standard rimfire .22, but it’s longer, heavier, and driven by quite a bit more explosive, which means that it goes a whole hell of a lot faster and does more damage, particularly if it starts flipping and rolling on impact.
and the standard rimfire .22 can be lethal on its own. you should never, NEVER think of it as “just a .22,” it can kill you every bit as dead as a larger and/or faster round.
Dunno about the Oscars, dunno about football, don’t care about either one. Been given Titans tickets a time or two, just turned around and gave them away… I do want to see the stadium full, though, and the fans spending lots of money in our community.
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Sherri said on January 20, 2013 at 9:54 pm
Simple physics tells you that the explosive fire behind the round matters; energy is affected by the mass, but by the velocity squared.
If you’re a fan of Justified, you may remember the scene last season when Raylan throws a bullet at Winn Duffy and tells him that the next one will be coming a lot faster.
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Danny said on January 20, 2013 at 10:13 pm
And for the record, I never said that AR-15’s are not deadly. Knowing next to nothing about guns, I was merely surprised at the difference in the size of the holes that all these various firearms made. They all seem pretty deadly to me.
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Danny said on January 20, 2013 at 10:57 pm
Ravens, baby!!! They won one for Earl. So happy for all of my fellow B’more hons.
This all-Harbaugh bowl should be an interesting storyline.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 20, 2013 at 10:58 pm
Muzzle velocity, and tumbling on impact, are why the .223 round is so deadly. You’d have similar entry wounds with a Mossberg shot and a Bushmaster hit, but unless that Mossberg round hits bone (and at that, you’d get a single straight-line deflection), the exit wound is opposite and identical to entry. Your AR-15/M-16A1 entry point can be the elbow and come out in a savage gash on your backside, with three or four vital organs compromised along the way.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 20, 2013 at 11:03 pm
If I was thinking I needed to protect a typically configured home on a large suburban lot or rural residence, I’d be getting myself a shotgun. That’s the point I thought Danny was making, too, not that the AR-15 isn’t lethal. It can be, but it’s most lethal with a squad of more of trained folks laying down targeted fire over time across a battlespace than in a sudden, unexpected engagement in close quarters.
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Danny said on January 20, 2013 at 11:10 pm
True dat, Jeff. I wouldn’t want to be shot by any of them (nor would I want to shoot one at anyone), but it looked like that shotgun blast would cause a very grave injury.
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