This will be the standing link for comments on the daily Decryptomaddowlogical. I can't enable comments on the posts themselves without also running the risk of exposing spoilers, so unless and until I think of a better idea, I'll link here from each day's puzzle for folks who need help or who can't stand not being able to tell someone that they figured it out.
Since it's bound to become disorderly, I recommend citing the number of the puzzle you're talking about in your comment.
ALSO NOTE: I'm going to reuse this link, which means there will be answers to all of the puzzles here. Depending on when you're joining in and whether you're working through the archive, you may want to ask a friend to look up a particular answer for you in order to avoid exposure to puzzles you haven't attempted yet.
I don't have a plan for prizes or anything yet, so for now "first" is just for bragging rights.
Leave a Comment:
I'll leave it to someone else to post an answer for #1, but I'll take the opportunity of this space to complain that I think writing the clue for #2 was harder than solving the actual puzzle. Let me know if you have a better way to compose it.
Maybe something like "If Republican votes on Hagel were for sale, they might buy them here." Oh crap. I like that better than what I wrote. :(
Also, I'm still feeling out when to use quotes appropriately. In #1 the quotes are around the pun word. In #2 the whole answer is a pun, but it's also kind of literal given the clue, so do the quotes help or make it more confusing?
No quotes are necessary...didn't notice them until you mentioned them.
I wasn't able to solve the puzzle until that second hint
(openy) makes the man....
DISCLOSE!! That 4 years of Latin finally pays off!
#18. Prints Harming.
2nd word: -"Stand"?
I believe the answer is "concession stand".
(for #2)
Excellent. Concession: -Something you own or are entitled to that you freely choose to give up. The term "entitlement" is the only real problem there as this kind of threat has never come up before. Perhaps the filibuster threat works as a conservative fund raising issue. Personally I think it has proven to be politically detrimental for the party.
#1 HOMELAND OBSCURITY
#2 CONCESSION STAND
I could not for the life of me figure out the second word in puzzle #1..Thanks!!
Imagine their....now I am stuck.
Although in my seventies, I do remember my Civics classes from many years ago: The law used to read that any U.S. citizen joining a foreign military automatically gave up his/her U.S. citizenship. My understanding is that's because one must pledge one's allegiance to that military, which automatically precludes giving one's allegiance to us. For instance, if one joined the French Foreign Legion, that was it: one was OUT. It seems to me that any former U.S. citizen joining AlQuaeda is no longer a U.S.citizen, and has no rights to that status. Have we forgotten that law, or is it no longer a law?
http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_780.html
"Although a person's enlistment in the armed forces of a foreign country may not constitute a violation of U.S. law, it could subject him or her to Section 349(a)(3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act [8 U.S.C. 1481(a)(3)] which provides for loss of U.S. nationality if an American voluntarily and with the intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship enters or serves in foreign armed forces engaged in hostilities against the United States or serves in the armed forces of any foreign country as a commissioned or non-commissioned officer.
Military service in foreign countries, however, usually does not cause loss of citizenship since an intention to relinquish citizenship normally is lacking."
The key seems to be "intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship" or "engaged in hostilities against" the U.S., or serving as an officer in foreign armed forces.
In the case you mention, with the U.S. engaged in hostilities against the al-Qaeda, the person joining al-Qaeda seems likely to lose U.S. nationality.
Also we have plenty that are serving within out military who are not US citizens although most of them do eventually become citizens for security clearance reasons.
Sorry to keep harping on this, but...
Where is the "DUE PROCESS)?!
Even if a person joins a foreign military and engages in hostilities against, shouldn't there be some official declaration/judgement that their citizenship has been revoked before we kill them?
Puzzle #1 Homeland Obscurity:
Sometimes it's better we not know what the devil we're doing, but ignorance is no excuse.
I agree with Elizabeth (re: #6)
#2 Concession Stand:
I find it highly unlikely that the Republicans are conceding anything with regards to Hagel, other than this...
Maybe they figured they have a bigger battle to wage with Brennan's nomination, and conceding on the Hagel issue gives them the energy to do that.
PS: Dear Senator Graham: Please find a boyfriend who can do you right, because you need a good *bleep* to "straighten" you out.
I think Eric Cantor is available? No?
Oh, right..he's in the closet, too.
Damn.
#2 Concession Stand - but in the case of Bonehead that "stand" would have to be a bar.
Doh - Here I was trying to decrypt the message (in decoder-ring type style, a->b, x->y, etc) instead of understanding it was a word scramble... Good thing I checked this thread first :-P
I did the same. I figured it out on the second puzzle that these are anagrams not cryptograms. That made it slightly easier to get the first.
#3 took less than a minute, though I'm still trying to work out how "monument" is related to gun legislation.
Maybe because it's not "monument", Einstein.
Had to pull out a draw program to make myself virtual scrabble blocks. "Momentum" it is!
#3 The spur of the momentum
Please fix the iPad video... I have been trying to watch via web site for months and it doesn't work. The commercial plays, the the segment doesn't load and doesn't play. I can switch segments but none of them will play... I have spent hours over months screwing with this and it is awful that I can't watch your show or ant msnbc program. Video works everywhere else I try except for msnbc programs.
Please can somebody overthrew test on iPad and get this fixed.
Hi, try playing the video through the Maddow iPad app. It's free and it works. I've submitted a ticket to our video techs about the video not playing through the iPad browser, but it works fine in the app.
It's not just on iPad, Will. I've had the standalone player(it's worse than the already bad embedded player) cycle through 26 (yes 26, I counted) videos without doing anything but beachball. It'll just cycle through in silence. The solution often involves killing the flash-player process, clearing cache, and/or CTRL-F5 refreshing. Sometimes even that doesn't work and I have to just download the video from LimeLight and play it in VLC. As such:
wget http://msnbc.vo.llnwd.net/l1/video/flash/n_lw_3big_130205.flv
This still refuses to play, but the others on either side of it do.
I have a possible solution to the spoiler issue. Use your first post ability to post a warning followed by periods and line breaks like so:
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With enough space you can push any possible spoilers, even in replies, down below, say, 1200 pixels.
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On September 19th, your warning could be:
Arr! Avast mateys! Thar be spoilers below! Do not venture there unless you have solved me puzzle ye scabs!
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See. It works pretty well. Don't it.
My OCD is screaming at you to fill up that gray space, OMG!
;)
Well, speak of the devil.
I went to the preview page and clicked on Bill Wolff's face and it did its worst. Bill's video (which I had watched earlier and could have been cached) sat there until [page turn] start next video, [page turn] start next video, [page turn] start next video,....last night's E-block [page turn] start next video..., I'll go for a walk.
I come back and it's on [page turn] start next video, last night's C-block. That's what? 18 + 11 = 29 without playing anything. So, after scraping the addys, I opened a terminal window and downloaded all 148,213,347 bytes in 56.8 secs and the thing is still beachballing its way through the playlist. It doesn't appear to be bandwidth or connection issues.
Another thing is that recently the videos are getting playlisted in the wrong order. The opens are getting posted last. All this week it's been "...and that's it for us, The Last Word is next... Good evening, welcome to the Rachel Maddow Show...." The order for tonight 2/6/2013 is ... spooky, respond, cap, mass, velocity, debunk, mitchell.
At least your video player doesn't suck as bad as Comedy Central's POS. :)
#3 "The spur of the momentum."
There's been a lot of talk about gun violence, on cable.
The local yokel news stations around here are not talking about it. I live in a gun-toting, like-ta-hunt section of rural PA, so the news is apt to cover the regular winter cycle of house fires and Turkey Hill holdups, (they use knives, mostly) before it touches a gun subject.
That's where the momentum has stopped. You'd be surprised how influential local news can be, and why some folks around here are still as dumb as rocks.
I have the same problem out here in rural IN...it's funny because if a news story about gun violence comes on in public (like the bank or walmart) you will see some people almost literally trying to do the "LALALALALA I'm not listening" bit, but it's not everyone and even though the county is pretty red and there are LOTS of hunters here and I think most of them get that this isn't about hunting rifles or shotguns it's about things that are essentially machine guns.
As for the puzzle, that's what I got too...this one was way to easy :)
#3 "the spur of the momentum". LOL, it took me awhile to get "spur".
Re: #4's clumsy clue, I have never had more respect for Will Shortz than I do after four days of trying to write clues.
#4 "'disclose' makes the man"
Answer to Puzzle #4 is
"Disclose Makes The Man"
# 2 is "Concession Stand"
#3 "Spur of the Momentum"
#1 Homeland Obscurity
This is fun. I have not logged in in a long time. Tonight's puzzle caught my eye and I decided to do them all. Keep them coming.
#4 Disclose makes the man
#4 "Disclose makes the man."
Be careful what you wish for.
To all the folks in Nemo's path:
Be careful, think safe, and for criminy's sake...stay off the roads!
YEs he sort of proved "disclose makes the man" but back in 2009 he must have thought about cloning a new, more efficient brain, but then he realized that he was tingegt adeha fo flhisme
Getting ahead of himself. (Richard's clue)
#4 I have a hanging "a"
What am I missing?
:disclose" makes the man a
there are only 2 As - you got it.
Extra a, hmm, I'll take another look. I thought dis makes the.... was it.