pistolsfiring11

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Same here. Red Wedding just pissed me off

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I read the books immediately after the second season finished. When I got to the Red Wedding in A Storm of Swords I almost threw my book at the wall. I was PISSED.

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Plus there is the whole 3 heads of the dragon deal to factor into it. Did the show ever cover that part of the Prince that was Promised?

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And isn't there some debate about whether Azor Ahai and the Prince that was Promised are the same person? I know Aemon thought they were the same before he died, but it's never been clarified. Could be 2 different people.

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I'm thinking he at least knows that she wasn't kidnapped against her will. Whether or not he know R+L=J is a different story (but it won't surprise me in the least if he does, and he probably isn't the only one that does (I'm looking at you Varys)).

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I think they implied that Melisandre knows something during her scene with Jon. She said something about trying to make another one of her demon shadow babies (I think) and the show has made clear that her sorcery needs a king's blood to work (well, at least the leeches but I'm pretty sure for the shadow babies too). So maybe show Melisandre has had a vision or something about R+L=J.

'88 Oklahoma State

Mike Gundy
Barry Sanders
Hart Lee Dykes

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Exactly. Two things made that possible..

1. Goering being an idiot can claiming his Luftwaffe could destroy the remnants of the BEF by itself.

and

2. Hitler thinking that by showing mercy to the BEF and ordering his forces to halt, the British would be more apt to come to the table to discuss peace terms.

Both proved to be woefully incorrect. The reality of the situation though is the Germans had three full armies (6th, 18th, and 4th) along with Panzergruppe Hoth (basically a Panzer Corps) surrounding the perimeter of Dunkirk. The British had the shattered remnants of 3 corps and the disorganized and defeated remnants of the French 1st Army. Had Hitler allowed them to attack, it would have been a slaughter.

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Hitler was not the only person in the German high command who wanted to stop the panzers. Von Rundstedt, Guderian's superior, also advocated stopping the panzers. And the reason was that despite the speed of the victory the panzer formations had taken the brunt of the German casualties, especially during the crossing of the Meuse. Von Rundstedt was therefore concerned that his panzer armies would not be ready to complete the conquest of France after the elimination of the Dunkirk pocket. Plus there were some rational geographic reasons for concerns about using the panzers, notably the presence of several canals that would have to be crossed in the face of significant enemy fire. This would have further eroded the combat power of the panzer divisions.

That's not to say that it was still the wrong decision. It probably was. But it wasn't solely based on the notion that Hitler hoped the English would surrender if shown mercy. There isn't a whole lot of documentary evidence for that argument.

Back on topic, it's the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

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To be fair, that's some pretty crappy schools with exception of two

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In an era when great offenses averaged maybe 400 yards a game. That makes his season stand out even more.

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Stalin encourage the Poles to rebell and then held his army back so the Nazis would kill them.

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Eh yes and no. The Soviets had been calling for the Poles to rebel for well over a year and the Red Army was advancing on Warsaw, but there's isn't really any evidence that Stalin purposefully halted the advance of the Red Army. At that point the Soviets had been advancing rapidly in Operation Bagration for several months and outdistanced their supply lines, so the Soviet fronts 20 miles outside of Warsaw, many commanded by Zhukov, had largely run out of steam. In that way Stalin didn't really stop the Red Army and it was going to take weeks to regroup. BUT Stalin, with his cold calculating political skill, realized that the destruction of the non-communist Home Army would greatly assist his plans to dominate post-war Poland. In Stalinist Russia any group that exhibited independent initiative was considered dangerous, even more so if they were not communists. So he didn't push his commanders to quickly regroup and, more importantly, didn't allow bombers and transports from the Western Allies to land in Soviet territory after flying support missions to Warsaw, which helped doom the uprising.

Essentially it ends up being a little bit of both. Did Stalin purposefully halt the advance of the Red Army? No and its unlikely that the Soviet formations could have advanced because of supply problems and fierce German resistance along the Vistula. HOWEVER, Stalin did as little as possible to help the Poles, particularly by frustrating the attempts of the Western Allies to bombing German positions and drop supplies to the Home Army.

Even as an OKC fan I can't even get mad about that series this year. My goodness, that was beautiful basketball.

When it comes to football, I'll give my very biased, homerific answers:

1988 Oklahoma State: Run, Barry, run!
2011 Oklahoma State: finally winning the Big 12 will make me cherish this offense forever. Haha.

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a step under blackwater but was still a great episode imo

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And Blackwater's the best episode of the series so far. If an episode is even close to that one, then it's fantastic.

Plus I'm glad "nothing happened" in this season's 9th episode. It was getting a little too predictable for the Hodors that some major, series-changing event would happen in episode 9. This battle was obviously important, but compared to what's coming next week it's minor. It'll be nice to not have a 10th episode that is largely just setting the stage for the next season (although some of that will obviously happen).

I thought last nights episode was pretty good minus a few problems with the timeline. Tonight's episode, however, was significantly worse. The timeline was even more jumbled and the archival footage was a complete mess. Showing B-17s when talking about the Luftwaffe's bombing of London. And what was a fricking T-55 doing in one of the filmed battle scenes? Was there no editor for this series?