The Frankish Reich

I think Bill Maher said this a few years ago after a botched lethal injection — say what you will about the death penalty, but it shouldn’t be hard to kill someone. Every day we hear about accidental exposures to fentanyl killing someone. And the old Dr Kevlrkian death machine was just carbon monoxide — another manner of death in which people drift off in their sleep … Oh, I agree. But I’m speaking of confessions (affirmed in court), etc. Or true no-doubters like the mass shooters.

Not necessarily. The part about the possibility of executing the innocent could be nearly eliminated by raising the standard of proof. You can be convicted - and executed in many states - based on a jury finding that you’re guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. So may that means a 1% chance that you didn’t do it? Take 1,000 convicts on death row and that’s 10 innocent people being executed. What if we made juries find “no doubt whatsoever” in the penalty phase? Obviously this won’t satisfy people with a moral objection to the concept of capital punishment, but it would do much to satisfy those with more pragmatic concerns.

True … it’s an “always darkest before dawn” low point.

Yep. Not one play that symbolized a franchise hitting bottom, but one half of a game. If only Vontae Davis had quit in the middle of a defensive series (walking out the tunnel never to return) we would have one of the all-time low points. But if there’s no video it’s like it never even happened.

Agreed. No knock on Trey Lance, but Jimmy G being restored as starting QB is the best thing that could have happened to their playoff prospects this year. CMC is the second. He’s got himself a West Coast version of the Dolphins offense to manage now, and he’s fully capable of managing that right through the rest of the NFC.

You really want to go there - the Billsiest moments of the Forgotten Decades …

Hey, I’m not saying he’s The Answer. I’m saying there’s a reasonable chance he doesn’t suck as bad as Zach Wilson or Joe Flacco. It’s a low bar ….

I think you’re right. Contrary to popular belief, I think these last 2 seasons are showing that Belichick is a fantastic coach. He’s squeezing out wild card berth type performances with a Case Keenum (at best!) at QB with little talent on offense around him. O, Football Gods, please keep the Pats in QB purgatory for two decades … Mike White is in the house! He has Taylor Heineke or Gardner Minshew written all over him. Let’s hope the Jets don’t go there.

My fear in the Bills-Jets game was that Wilson would go down and Mike White would take over at QB. That almost happened - Wilson took a hit and White was warming up. I still stand by my comments last year after a White’s one huuuge game that there’s a small possibility that he could actually be good, which is more right now than Wilson and Flacco are showing.

They did look just as bad. But I’m a bit confused about the part where that’s “sad”

Nice to see that someone (not anyone here, apparently) appreciates Leslie. Even nicer to see that the ones who appreciate him are the ones who count.

Yes, you are! 😜

The first three got their first (only) Super Bowl wins in their second or third NFL head coaching gigs. McDermott: Super Bowl winner, Carolina Panthers, Super Bowl LX, February 2026.

Or maybe McKissic wouldn't have suffered the hits that apparently caused the season ending neck injury if he'd played in different games on different surfaces for different teams. Meanwhile: let's debate whether Micah Hyde would still be playing for someone else if we'd traded him away last offseason.

Oh, I agree with that. When I lived in the mountains I ran true winter tires. But most people will avoid the hassle/storage of switching out, so my point is that not all "All Season" tires are created equal. So ... Nokian is my go-to now. Wear a little faster running on hot summer roads, but a good compromise since they're still excellent in the snow and ice.

Nokian. The Finns know winter. Awesome all season tires that handle whatever the Rockies bring.

This Buffalo you speak of sounds like a lovely place. I really must plan a vacation there. Maybe next November.

True. But you gotta love how Detroit is considered a "temperate" climate if you're from Buffalo.

Should people unable to leave a hospital/nursing facility be disenfranchised? Should active duty servicemen abroad? Look, you have a point, but your point is way too broad. As for debates: no, I wouldn’t try to require them (and for federal office, I see no authority to require them). The opponent can make what she will of the refusal to debate, and the voters can decide whether that matters.

I disagree. The Eagles seem good but also lucky (that turnover ratio until Monday night). Cowboys somewhere around 10-12 in any fair power ranking, with the Giants as a Team Most Likely To Regress to the Mean. And Washington as a scrappy any given Sunday team. I am now convinced that both the Bills and (sorry) Dolphins are real contenders, with the Jets as our division’s Giants and the Pats as a playoff caliber (barely) team in most divisions.

That was astonishing when it happened. But I predict that it will now be the norm for both parties. Elections are increasingly about abstract feelings (“make America great,” “build back better”) than about concrete proposals (“we support federal legislation making abortion available on demand up to 15 weeks, and banning it thereafter,” or “we support legalization and regulation of marijuana along the model of alcohol regulation”). Good luck finding any specifics in the 2024 “policy” debates.

Correct. “Ego and intransigence” is always a fine excuse. Remember: the whole classification scheme exists not because it would be unlawful to use secret government information for your personal economic gain - that’s already covered by other criminal laws. It exists because of the danger that allowing that information to be accessible to outsiders poses a grave danger to national security. “I took them out of a secured location and kept them at a resort hotel out of pure vanity and vanity alone” isn’t, to most normal Americans (not to mention to the law) really an excuse at all. It is an admission that you put your own childish self-aggrandizement over the security of the country.

https://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/geothermal-still-in-play-at-ski-area-base/ I think they did exactly that. I hadn’t thought of that before.

I wanted to do that when I remodeled the house. Probably the most expensive upgrade, so I decided to buy a snowblower instead.

Thanks … I get it now. But now that the “secret” is out (it only took 16 years since the rule change for offenses to exploit it), isn’t it likely that we’ll see short yardage offenses with a big guy lined up to take the snap (Florio suggests Taysom Hill) and two enormous Jordan Phillips type “pushers” lined up behind him to slam the QB forward? It’s a pure matter of Newtonian physics: F = MV. Is that really what we want to see in today’s game?