Re: Paranoia

1

This is like one of those murder mysteries where everybody had a motive. I suspect it isn't that unusual for a child molester to be treated 'carelessly' in prison. The real question is: How could this happen in America to a rich person?


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 3:06 PM
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I don't understand why he didn't stay out of the U.S.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 3:10 PM
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He thought he was above the law. Seems reasonable to me.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 3:18 PM
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After everything started being in the newspaper again, I think he should have maybe wondered for how long.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 3:23 PM
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Honestly, watching a rapist to be sure they don't commit suicide seems like the kind of thankless, boring job that I would stick on the employee I hated most figuring that if something went wrong, I could be rid of two problems at once. It's probably not a good idea to put me in charge of things.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 3:53 PM
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The next evidence for the conspiracy theories: three or four guards and/or supervisors are going to be publicly identified, probably suspended or fired, for not doing sufficient bed checks and such to prevent a suicide. One or two will turn out to be REGISTERED DEMOCRATS (how do I know this? They are unionized New Yorkers, and probably black or Latinx), and at least one has a fourth cousin who actively volunteered or contributed to something vaguely left/liberal/democratic, maybe even to some of the six Clinton campaigns between 92 and 16.

What actually happened: 5 above. Epstein made a rational decision, and correctly figured that the overnight weekend shift was the best time, since that crew tends towards the low end of competence.


Posted by: Unimaginative | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 4:54 PM
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I would add to 5/6 that Ep was likely a guy operating at a pretty different level than the usual customer, and would likely have been able to correctly guess and recite the words that would get him off suicide watch.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 6:10 PM
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He probably has staff to google the right answers for him.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 6:16 PM
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I looked up all the answers for a Mini Mental and gave them to my mom and a small piece of paper. But she forgot the paper and what year it was.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 6:22 PM
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Jeffrey Epstein was killed by thirty to fifty feral hogs.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 6:33 PM
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Juan Epstein was killed by thirty to fifty sweat hogs.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 6:36 PM
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5 is superb.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 7:48 PM
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Lots of people predicted beforehand that Epstein wouldn't live to see trial, so I'm going with "murdered" as my default explanation, until persuaded otherwise.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 8:50 PM
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If Epstein was threatened, and killing himself was the only way to keep what was threatened from happening, would that count as being murdered? It seems like, in addition to fearing sentencing for his crimes, it's likely that he was being threatened with other things, by other people.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 10:50 PM
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it sounds like the actual suicide watch involved clear cells and someone, often a "trained" inmate, in an office nearby. that's sounds a bit weak, though the bolted down bed and lack of sheets probably kept harm definitively at bay. well, kept suicide at bay, but wouldn't have kept you from swiftly beating yourself silly on the bedframe or any convex corner of the walls (if you see what I mean).

why they pushed him out after eleven days I can't think, though 'talked his way out of it' isn't unlikely at all if there are psychological code words in place (apparently this jail and another share a psychologist/psychiatrist). and if we're wondering "how could this happen to a rich person" it's probably worth considering that this was the rich person's desired result. there are only three questions: why was he taken off suicide watch, on whose order, and why didn't the guards even go bother to check on him as per protocol. I honestly think it's some kind of fuck up rather than murder. it was a terrible jail, understaffed, with untrained people running the unit. sure lots of people wanted to see him dead, but that doesn't mean anyone had the means to kill him. (other than trump I guess). I honestly think that if anyone got bribed it was by epstein, to leave him alone for long enough to off himself.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 11:28 PM
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I kind of worry "Epstein was offed" makes us all sound like republicans who are certain Hillary Clinton personally killed Vince Foster. But I seem to know a lot of people who think it's a valid theory so maybe I'm just too worried about appearances.


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 11:30 PM
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Smearcase!


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 11:32 PM
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fa's explanation above has some merit, that he might be getting threatened with something worse than 45 years in jail but...what? you can't threaten to dip someone in a vat of acid while they're in jail. waterboard, I guess, that's pretty improvisational. does he care about any other humans? to kill them, I suppose, but seems weak tea. I'm honestly not sure what anyone is threatening him with that's so much worse, and which would be coming so swiftly he would have to kill himself now (since otherwise he can just knuckle under later--people not actively suicidal of their own will put death off whenever possible.)


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 11:44 PM
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19

Didn't we used to have a late night show when we were the only people who were awake?


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 11:44 PM
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smearcase!


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 11:45 PM
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al!
What we need obviously is a baseline for non-rich non-famous suicide watch suicides in NY. Or wherever.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-11-19 11:49 PM
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19: Yeah, we did. Good times.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 12:05 AM
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18: I'm wary of entering "it would be irresponsible not to speculate" territory and I don't know enough about Epstein to know if it's plausible that he cared about anyone other than himself, so I won't speculate on that.

On the other side of motivations, not related to threats, Epstein does seem to have built himself a world where he was seen as a patron of science and maybe some arts, getting to hang out with important people, and seeing that all come down in a way that couldn't be recovered from (unlike the earlier sweetheart deal), plus the prison time, could have been enough to push him over.

Meanwhile, Mark Halperin: how is he still around? How was he ever around? What a fucked up media world.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 12:06 AM
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he might be getting threatened with something worse than 45 years in jail but...what? you can't threaten to dip someone in a vat of acid while they're in jail

So you'd need to be someone who had the power to order Epstein released from gaol, so that you could get at him. Pardon authority...


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 1:42 AM
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Current odds from Joe Coral (or someone like him):

20-1. Hit by British secret service to protect the Duke of York; long odds because they wouldn't want to draw attention to it.

10-1. Hit by Russian secret service to protect their assets in the US; shorter odds because they would want to draw attention to it- that's how they roll.

5-1. Hit by one of the many US security organisations; because Epstein was an asset of one of the others.

4-1. Hit by a private hit man hired by a zillionaire friend of Epstein; explains prima facie incompetence.

3-1. Genuine suicide while on suicide watch because the guy assigned to watch him had hacked the screen on the CCTV to watch sports instead.

2-1. Genuine suicide while on suicide watch because the guy assigned to watch him was masturbating in the bathroom at the time.

Evens. Genuine suicide while on suicide watch because the guy assigned to watch him was asleep.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 3:42 AM
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Hit by British secret service to protect the Duke of York

Honest question: How many people in the last, say, hundred years have actually been credibly shown to have been assassinated by the British secret service?

This does not include: SIS or SOE or other agencies blowing up Germans, etc, during the war; army or armed police shooting people in the UK or in other British territories overseas; people being killed in a coup supported by British intelligence; people being killed by their fellow terrorists or whatever with the knowledge of British intelligence.

I am looking for actual cases where a member of SIS or MI5, or an agent of SIS or MI5, killed someone because SIS or MI5 told them to. Because for all the Licence to Kill publicity and terribly superior cynicism about it, I suspect that the answer is "zero".


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 4:29 AM
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26. I'm damn sure it's zero, but this is a conspiracy theory that's already out there.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 5:01 AM
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26. Isn't that exactly what they'd want you to think? "Don't worry about that impeccably dressed gentleman over there at the baccarat table; he's a British secret agent, and they never kill anyone."

The most suspicious thing about Epstein's death is the eagerness of the NYT to assert (without evidence) that it was suicide. Maybe more details about method, etc. will be forthcoming, but for now it's all unnamed sources and deep background.


Posted by: DaveLMA | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 5:10 AM
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29

Isn't that just, you know, journalism?


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 5:12 AM
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26 How's Auric Goldfinger, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Dr. No, Hugo Drax, Karl Stromberg, Dr. Kanaga, Francisco Scaramanga, for starters


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 5:21 AM
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I find it difficult to believe that he committed suicide unprompted - this is someone who had all kinds of loony ideas about cryogenics, who had been above the law all his life and who held a great deal of extremely damaging information about some of the world's most powerful people. He had no reason, at this stage, to believe that something couldn't be worked out - even if he went to prison on a nominally long sentence, he would have every reason to believe that he'd be out in a few years, still with life, health, money and connections.

If it was a sort of suicide rather than an outright murder, I assume there was pressure on the "you're not going to get a fair ["rich-people fair"] trial, we're going to insure that you take the entire fall for this and go to jail for the rest of your life under the worst possible conditions, better kill yourself now" side.

I think there's some possibility that he's not even dead - it's not like the body's on national TV, right? I know that sounds completely bananas, but doesn't the whole case sound completely bananas? "Many of the world's richest and most important men helped a panderer to become a billionaire so that they could have access to teenage girls, and their wives went along with it with everyone hanging out and spending a bunch of time on, like, private islands" is pretty bananas by ordinary middle class moral standards.

Surely the world's most powerful people could arrange to bribe the right doctors and smuggle him out for plastic surgery. It might be easier to kill him or encourage him to kill himself, but surely they all figure that if it was them they'd rather be smuggled away to a new identity.

I have to say, I am pretty disappointed. In a weird way, I thought this going to be a "break capitalism" kind of trial - sleazy enough that everyone would pay attention to it and very, very much about the horror-movie levels of sordid evil that characterize the very wealthy and powerful, regardless of their formal political affiliations. I'm not much of a one for scandal trials and don't generally follow them, but this one seemed so promising.

~~
I mean, the whole thing exposes just how arrogantly sleazy the very rich are...like, many merely average wealthy men would figure that instead of victimizing underage girls they'd have a string of just-turned-eighteen ones that they could also treat badly but not risk prison over; many merely average wealthy men would have hired sex workers in a fairly standard "payment for services rendered" kind of way. You don't need to be some kind of towering moral giant not to hang around with a man who pimps teenagers.


Posted by: Frowner | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 5:41 AM
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30: Excuse me, but Goldfinger's death was an accident during a struggle on board his aircraft. Blofeld is still alive and under arrest as of the end of Spectre. Dr No drowned accidentally when he fell into that reactor pool - falling into a reactor pool by itself is not lethal and Bond couldn't have known that Dr No was unable either to swim or to climb out (https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/). Kananga was self-defence while he tried to murder Bond.

Drax and Scaramanga, I grant you, but in neither case was Bond acting on orders. His mission in the first case was to investigate a shuttle accident and in the second to recover a missing solar scientist. He seems to have killed both men simply because it seemed like a good idea at the time.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 6:00 AM
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33

Stromberg, meanwhile, was presumably killed when the US Navy torpedoed his base. Bond was uninvolved.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 6:06 AM
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The CIA's body count, meanwhile, is probably well into the five figures, due largely to it having operated its own air force in three recent wars. (I interviewed one retired CIA pilot who reminisced entertainingly about improvised napalm.)


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 6:08 AM
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35

Blofeld survived this?


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 6:16 AM
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36

I put it to you that you cannot realistically accuse MI6 of murdering someone in 1974 when that person is still alive in 2017.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 6:19 AM
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Also, the governor charged the coordinators to ensure that cultism and cult-related activities were eliminated or reduced to the bearable minimum in their localities.
|>


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 6:25 AM
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19: with gswift.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 6:47 AM
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39

Surely the world's most powerful people could arrange to bribe the right doctors and smuggle him out for plastic surgery.

yeah, I'm also sad that Jane the Virgin ended.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 6:52 AM
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40

29 to 30.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 7:14 AM
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41

25 or 6 to 4


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 8:43 AM
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42

You people don't understand clocks.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 8:49 AM
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42 to 36.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 8:51 AM
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44

That's more of a calendar issue.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 9:01 AM
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45

I only now realized that verse should be read as 25 or 26 to 4. Was this obvious to everyone else?


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 9:15 AM
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46

I find it confusing when comments aren't either signed or really sexist.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 9:24 AM
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I remember hearing the explanation via a DJ on a classic rock station years and years ago. And furthering the ridiculousness, it's referencing a timestamp - "It was either 25 minutes before 4 am, or 26 minutes before 4 am" thereby being both vague and specific simultaneously.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 9:26 AM
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45: No. It never made any sense to me -- not that I gave it a whole lot of thought.

I just googled this and found out the song is about trying to write a song very late at night (or very early in the morning). That kind of makes sense to me now -- when I'm half asleep late at night, I will look at a clock and not be able to figure out what time it is --"25 or 6 to 4" evokes that feeling.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 9:30 AM
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It's a song from a bygone era, when bedside clocks had hands on them, so you couldn't easily tell if it it was pointing at 25 or 26. Also one of the first rock songs about feeling middle aged. The greatest rock anthem about insomnia until Danciing in the Dark.


Posted by: unimaginative | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 10:07 AM
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It's a song from a bygone era, when bedside clocks had hands on them, so you couldn't easily tell if it it was pointing at 25 or 26. Also one of the first rock songs about feeling middle aged. The greatest rock anthem about insomnia until Danciing in the Dark.


Posted by: unimaginative | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 10:07 AM
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You all are tying yourself into knots out of dated allegiance to a terrible band. No one rounds up 25 minutes before the hour. It really ought to be "half past 3, or 5 past half past 3." Perhaps "4 or 5 past half past 3." (passed?)

And I still like the song! You just have to embrace the ridiculousness.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 10:13 AM
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Does anybody really know what time it is?


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 10:15 AM
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1:18.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 10:17 AM
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Does anybody really care?


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 10:18 AM
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I had to resort to google to figure out what song you all were talking about. Since it turns out it's a song by Chicago, I don't feel too ashamed about this.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 10:23 AM
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OT, but between this thread and the thread above it, it occurs to me that a real hard core conspiracy theorist would have no problem coming up with a scenario in which Elizabeth Holmes is the mastermind behind Epstein's death.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 10:25 AM
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57

Disappointingly, nobody was selling ice cream in our local park this Saturday.


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 10:28 AM
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58

||
Let me be the first to say, Chernobyl is really good. Anyone know how accurate it is?
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Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 10:42 AM
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58. Masha Gessen's New Yorker review addresses the presence of an ahistorical and impossible hero in the drama. There are technical missteps-- helicopters don't fall out of the sky while flying through zones of strong radiation. Most Russians I know dislike it, "American propaganda."

Anyone read something well written about this week's Siberian missile accident? In particular, clear writing about radiation level measurement? The clearest article I've seen (5 dead physicists, some context for the video from their colleague https://youtu.be/bLJ2CusfOVs ) is in Czech, mostly details the sources of conflicting and fragmentary reports.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 11:22 AM
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I'm sure the president and Moscow Mitch will get to the bottom of this.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 11:24 AM
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"No one rounds up 25 minutes before the hour. It really ought to be "half past 3, or 5 past half past 3."

Surely to God no one actually says "five past half past three". This is madness. It's worse than when you learn that Russians reckon that the tenth hour of the day starts at 0901 and so give 0930 as "poldesyatova" literally "half-tenth" so you, a novice Russian speaker, always think it's an hour later than it is.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 11:24 AM
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Oh, despite 58.1, I liked it a lot myself, intrepid hero excepted. Especially the response of the bureaucracy. I have a friend who lived in Kiev at the time, they were told nothing.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 11:25 AM
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61.last: What a peculiar habit to be occurring in the 21st century.


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 11:27 AM
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61. Czech describes times simlarly. 9:45 is "three-quarters to 10". "A few minutes to three-quarters to ten" is plausible, "it'll be threequarters to ten" with unspecified interval is normal to refer to 9:40.

Don't you people have a meal called elevenses?


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 11:28 AM
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Sim. Afrikaans: half-twee=1:30.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 11:36 AM
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59: Isn't the actual falling helicopter documented on film? IIRC, there's some ambiguity about the exact cause of the falling copter, but no doubt that it occurred generally in line with the TV portrayal.

On the Chicago song, I probably didn't find out what it meant until I was approaching 30.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 11:38 AM
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Here. It broke its main rotor on a cable.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 11:42 AM
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66. I think much later. They did use swarms of cargo helicopters to drop sand, an improvised and dangerous plan for the crews. A crash at some point is different from the dramatization.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 11:44 AM
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half-twee=1:30.

This is the cutest time I've ever heard of.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 11:49 AM
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You say that because you don't know how to pronounce it.
68 appears correct, the original footage shows the fire completely out.
59.1: Burn! But I'll take it. I'm sure the series would be more accurate with an extra fifteen hours of circumspect committee meetings but at some point you've got to make a TV show, right?


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 11:56 AM
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69 Definitely a hobbit meal time.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 12:00 PM
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I can't eat a whole hobbit these days. Too much indigestion if I eat a big meal.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 12:03 PM
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You say that because you don't know how to pronounce it.

It's actually pronounced "crotch-rot". Not cute at all.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 12:09 PM
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58 Largely accurate, except for that woman whose fetus got a dose of radiation causing a stillbirth. That would be impossible as the father/husband would not have been radioactive after having been washed thoroughly of radioactive particles when he was in the ICU.


59.1 It was a composite character, which is allowable AFAIC in an historical drama.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 12:44 PM
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58.1 There was a helicopter crash at the site, caused by hitting a crane or some such, but it happened months later.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 12:47 PM
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Looks credible? (White Sea, not Siberia.)


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 12:48 PM
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That's got to be that insane Skyfall missile project going wrong again.


Posted by: Ajay | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 12:53 PM
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And that you can hear the cigarettes burning as people take drags. Did they do that for real ("in-mike"? Is that a phrase?) or in post?


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 1:09 PM
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55 same here on both counts


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 08-12-19 1:31 PM
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Most Russians I know dislike it, "American propaganda."

Hahaha I bet they do. Have they called it a "provocation" yet?


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-13-19 1:48 AM
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78: BSG was the first show where I ever noticed it, and now it's everywhere, and it annoys the shit out of me. Real life among smokers is not an endless background sizzle of paper and tobacco.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 08-13-19 3:30 PM
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In fact, the extent to which it's bogus is evidenced by the Simon & Garfunkel song "Overs", which begins with the very clear, very close to the mic sound of someone (I assume Paul?) lighting a cigarette and taking a drag, and yet the freaking CBS Studios vocal mic didn't pick up that sound.

I'm not saying it literally doesn't exist, of course, just that IRL it's all but inaudible.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 08-13-19 3:33 PM
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Relevant to 59.2:

Local news agency reports doctors and nurses in Arkhangelsk who treated the injured from the mysterious White Sea explosion weren't aware they were dealing with radiation. Their clothes later triggered Geiger counters. The staff is now monitored in Moscow.
https://t.co/WWc6f8uVa6?amp=1

Suddenly the "Chernobyl was US propaganda" crowd seems less credible?


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 08-13-19 5:29 PM
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81: Obviously! It's a cinematic choice, which I liked.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 08-13-19 11:55 PM
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Epstein's hyoid bone was broken, which makes it irresponsible not to speculate.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 08-15-19 7:52 AM
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"Among the bones broken in Epstein's neck was the hyoid bone..."
That's either a really violent neck injury or Epstein has fragile bones.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 08-15-19 8:11 AM
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86: very common in cases of manual strangulation, according to the detective stories at least. The hyoid's not a particularly big bone.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-15-19 8:12 AM
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88

Breaking the hyoid bone alone is going to be hard with little distance to fall, and they're implying he also broke vertabrae.


Posted by: Egggplant | Link to this comment | 08-15-19 8:16 AM
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In hindsight, maybe brainstorming how to optimally hang oneself with bunk and bedsheet wasn't the best idea, mental health-wise.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 08-15-19 10:27 AM
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"Hyoid" is the body part best said in a Professor Frink/Jerry Lewis voice.


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 08-15-19 10:46 AM
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88: yes, exactly. Manual strangulation as in someone used their hands to strangle him; he didn't hang himself.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 08-15-19 11:32 AM
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I enjoyed how Chernobyl felt like a modern take on a monster movie. The reactor was grendle et al.


Posted by: yoyo | Link to this comment | 08-16-19 11:12 AM
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Russian cigarettes back in 1974 or so burned very quick. Don't recall any sound effects but they had v long cardboard roaches.


Posted by: Dave Heasman | Link to this comment | 08-26-19 4:07 PM
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