[S03.E02: XX]

What Blackbeard told them was now that Nassau has this gold, it's grown soft, easy to take over.  The irony is that Flint and Eleanor thought that the gold would solve their problem, but it has just created new ones, more money, more problems.

Well, yes and no.  Different problems to be sure, but gold like that opens up plenty of opportunities, if they're smart enough to take them.  Once word gets out that there's bags of gold just lying around, there'll be nor shortage of pirates making a beeline for Nassau.  More pirates means more ships and fighters, and likely more people willing to sell goods to them.

 

That is, if they're smart enough to start spending some of it.  If they sit on it it'll just blow the top off inflation in the colony (which it already has, given the wages Jack had to offer for labor on the fort) and serve as a lure to every pirate who thinks he has enough men to raid it.  I mean I see Teach's point about these guys getting drunk and soft, but while squabbling might keep you tough, organizing will keep you alive.  Bigger foes (like a British fleet) mean you need more organization, multiple pirate ships working together rather than just loyalty among one crew.  Gold could make that happen but they've got to be smart about it. 

The boat/storm scenes were fantastic

Jeez, no kidding.  That whole storm scene was brutal and fantastic, which was odd given how the British Flotilla scene looked painfully fake.  I mean the ships were cool but them cutting through the water was not the best bit of CGI they did this week.  

[S03.E01: XIX]

Stealing from one another once they bring their booty ashore would not be tolerated.

I would remind that season 2 was all about Flint declaring war on Vane because seizing the fort put Vane in a position to maybe steal the Urca gold from Flint. Like as not, they steal from each other all the time, they just try not to get caught doing so.  Plus (IMO) Flint could well make the case that Rackham stole the treasure from Flint.  If Flint offered to share the treasure with the other captains, I'm pretty sure they'd see the 'justice' in Flint's claim.  There's even a witness, such as he is - Silver. With the rest of Nassau against them, I'll bet Rackham's own guys could be persuaded to go along that they 'had no idea' that Jack jacked the treasure that rightfully belongs to Flint and co.  They might get a finders fee for fighting off the spaniards but no way Jack gets to keep it all, just maybe his life.

 

Flint's on a holy rampage for the future of piratedom, and had plans for that huge fortune in this regard.  I still stay no way he'd let any sort of nicety with Jack Rackham deter him from that goal.  

[S01.E01: Pilot]

Since God created Lucifer (and all the angels) only to cast him out of Heaven in the Bible I assume they mean God.

I'd be pretty surprised if he meant anything else.  Wasn't Lucifer one of god's favorites?  Before, I mean.

[S03.E01: XIX]

Pretty good first episode, but did it make sense to anyone else that Rackham got to keep any of the gold?  I would think that Flint of all people would put aside his new-found Pirates Lives Matter for the guy who stole a world-changing fortune right out from under him.  Flint'd have something of a case that the gold was his and his crew's, not that this'd be much of an impediment.  

 

I chanced to wonder last season how Silver and the Urca guards were gonna explain how they were suddenly proved 'incorrect' about the gold being gone and were now, coincidentally, rich.  Flint would certainly kill them the moment he figured it out, which he of course would, in a second.  What was their exit plan was gonna be?  I doubt 'finders keepers' would have done it, nor kept Jack rich or alive when their perfidy was exposed.  I mean pirates, right?

[S01.E01: Pilot]

If the Devil looks and sounds like Tom Ellis, I would happily join Linda in buying a ticket to Pound Town.

Not to overstep, Bruinsfan, but I seem to recall from previous posts that you are of the gentlemanly persuasion, and this brings up something that crossed my mind too.  I'll be interested to see if Lucifer has no particular preference for boys or girls.  I mean he's not human so it's hard to know if human categories have any meaning here, but it would be an interesting direction to take the character.  Would also be funny if the writers went this way and stirred up controversy with a character of ambivalent sexuality, when that character is also the Prince of Fucking Darkness.  

[S01.E01: Pilot]

Do I really want to root for the Devil? Do I need to watch a show that is giving Lucifer a redemption arc?

They seem to be brushing up on a conceit I've been considering for a while - that Lucifer isn't so much the Father of Lies as he is the Teller of Truths.  I mean he's not human so he doesn't really give much of a crap about about human things but lies are weak sauce, and the truth is potent.  Satan is powerful not because he causes evil but because he exposes it, in the only place it can truly reside, inside humans.  

 

Not sure they're totally headed in this direction here but it would mean that Lucifer doesn't need redemption, and that the truth about the whole heaven/hell thing isn't as clear as we were led to believe.  I might enjoy that, and Supernatural (for its faults) has already been all over the interesting notion that angels aren't necessarily your friends and demons always your enemy.  

[S32: Spoilers]

Is this going to be the new norm? New twists every single season, so they can keep going along with the narrative that the show is evolving?

I don't mind them trying new things but I still think the super idol is gonna bomb, by which I mean either be inconsequential or so consequential that it's basically the whole story.  Adding to the strategic arsenal, I'm down with that.  Fundamentally changing the premise of how to win, not so much.  

 

And did the whole 'B/B/B' thing add anything the first time?  Other than me hearing 'Brains, BRAINS!' in zombie voice?

[Finding Bigfoot - General Discussion]

When they purposely ignore important information, I know I'm watching a bunch of con-artists and I feel like watching the show is supporting them.

I'm also losing my enthusiasm for the show, even for 'folding clothes' watching.  Maybe it was always this way but they seem to me to be purposely not looking for actual evidence anymore, just maybe evidence sufficiently vague to allow for reasonable misinterpretation.  I mean these things don't exist so 'maybe' evidence may be all there is, but I too feel like they're well into con-man stuff now. 

 

To be fair, I'm pretty sure Moneymaker was always a con man and Renee only in it for a paycheck, but Cliff and Boboes used to feel like actual believers.  Bending to the needs of making a show, perhaps, but guys who really thought this effort may pay off someday.  Now they just seem tired.  I hope Boboes is saving his money - his health problems seem to be piling up.

[Survivor In The Media]

Either no one will get the opportunity to use it paired, or worse, they will and it'll protect them to the end in a snoreworthy Pagongathon.

Add to this that when it becomes clear how powerful the SI could be, we're gonna witness Idol-Search-Paloosa.   Which is a wholly sensible move on the player's part but not exactly scintillating television either.  Instead of being a 'twist' and adjunct to an overall game strategy, the HIIs will be the overall game strategy.  Not sure this sounds like a recipe for good Survivor, but I guess we'll see. 

[Survivor In The Media]

A new twist. I'm not sure about it:

 

I'm a bit less sanguine.  My problem: a 'super idol' (two HIIs used together) requires no strategy to use.  Just wait for the vote and if you don't like it, reverse it.  You only get to do this once but the threat alone of being able to do it changes everything.  Those not in your alliance can only flush the idol at the cost of one of their own, and since nobody will ever agree who should sacrifice themselves, they won't even try.  It just became super easy to protect your entire alliance to the end, which will precipitate a line (possibly a long line) of fairly boring pagonings as the non-SI holders cut each other's throats.  

 

It's not an uninteresting twist but if they didn't want this to get out of hand, they should have a rule that says HIIs have an expiration limit, say 3 visits to TC.  That would at least take a bit of thought and planning.  The way it is now, not so much. 

[Best and Worst of the Reunion Shows]

I too cringe at tv proposals but apparently Carolina must've been ok with it.  They got married, and are still.

Happy for them but I've always found this sort of spectacle almost unwatchable, and this one sure was.  Mrs. Pootel has told me more than once that had I proposed in such a fashion, I'd have gained youtube immortality as 'that guy whose girlfriend kicked him in the gems on tv'.  Pretty sure she's dead serious but hey, married already, so I dodged that bullet.

[Best and Worst of the Reunion Shows]

I think it's pretty insulting to the medical team to suggest he tricked them.

He didn't.  They did the standard tests for appendicitis (and there are many) and they were negative.  But Colton mewed and cried so they removed him 'just to be on the safe side'.  These guys don't ignore pain, and the best move is always always always to err to the side of caution.  They weren't fooled, they just did their job, and if the guys insists that he's sick there really is only one answer - to the hospital he goes.  Some measure, though of how actually concerned they really were at the time - Colton got a long goodbye scene before they took him away.  That was ... odd.

What would be the point of that?

Because they wanted to invite a quitter back despite being on record as saying they hate quitters?  Colton was a 'big personality' and production apparently wanted to leave that door open, so production covered for him.  

 

Another possibility: most of the contestants these days are recruits, and possibly not super-motivated to stay on the island when it isn't fun anymore. Them quitting draws attention to this fact, much as Na'onka did.  She didn't even pretend to be sick or anything, just tired and hungry.  No fake evac for her, just Jeffy's undisguised bile. 

I always wondered if Shamar's medical exit was all or partly staged.

This one is in dispute, but I wondered too. I mean he was super-unhappy and (if I recall) talking about quitting.  Then suddenly he has a 'legitimate' medical thing which has nothing to do with feeling generally shitty (which is what he'd been complaining about) and bam, he's 'pulled'.  Mmmm, maybe. 

 

Does anyone remember what Jeff said to Colton at the reunion after the second time?  I seem to remember that Colton was there but I can't remember anything he said or if Jeff gave him a hard time.  

[Best and Worst of the Reunion Shows]

I too think he probably faked it but it's not like he straight up quit and got invited back.

Pretty sure it is.  Jeff confirmed this when he was bollocking Colton for quitting again, and that 'now it can be revealed' that the first time was a quit too.

 

And just in case it isn't clear what Jeffy meant by this, there was also a spoiler from this season (which was well and accurately spoiled) that someone quit and it was recast as a med-evac.   Plus Colton's 'med-evac' was ... odd, in many particulars.

 

I think it's beyond any doubt: Colton quit and the producers recast the whole event.

[Best and Worst of the Reunion Shows]

Jeff was as stunned as the rest of us that someone like Colton could have attracted someone like Caleb.

Enough to make me wonder how much of KKKolton was an act.  If it was, it was a pretty good one.  He really seemed to relish being insufferable.

If Na'Onka hadn't quit, she'd be on her third time by now.

 

Well, Colton quit, and he got invited back, Jeff's 'ironclad' admonition agains quitters notwithstanding.  I wonder if Na'Onka really had had enough and no amount of exposure was gonna get her to sleep rough again.  Or maybe she just didn't test well.  She certainly had an abundance of personality although I thought it was mostly kayfabe. 

[Best and Worst of the Reunion Shows]

I recently rewatched Nicaragua, and found the the antidote -- Jeff's not-too-subtle, richly deserved sneering at Shannon Elkins.

I enjoyed this exchange too and remember thinking that this might, might, be a bit of almost uncensored Jeffy.  He's a pro and this is reality tv so I'm never too sure what anybody actually thinks but Probst seemed actually peeved that day.  Which is odd in light of the fact that in casting Shannon, (cue Captain Obvious voice) the producers 'went there', took that picture, and hung it prominently on their wall.

 

Same with Colton.  As much as I did enjoy the richly-deserved pantsing Probst gave him, Jeffy himself reminded us that they cast this hateful little sombrero, twice. Was pretty great though that Colton's +1, against all odds, turned out to be a pretty straight-up guy and a decent player.  And at least Colton had (if I recall) enough sense to just let it go at the reunion and not dig himself in any deeper.  Hell, even Russell had enough sense to pander to Probst and not antagonize him.  Shannon was all-time clueless. 

[Best and Worst of the Reunion Shows]

My favorites are the ones where Russell cries. I think the Samoa reunion is all of my Top 10.

Ah, I remember that one.  Took one look at Russell and said 'Oh, man, he lost, and he knows he lost'.  It was as milk and honey to me, nourishing to my soul.

 

Mr. Pootel only likes to watch 'The Inflating', when they cut from the island to the studio and it seems like everyone swells.  And I bet it's been a dozen seasons easily since I watched more than half of the reunion, Jeffy's adoration is simply too much to take anymore.  

[Finding Bigfoot - General Discussion]

Is it weird that I'm a little stoked about this?

Mmm - yes.   But so am I.  And there it is on my DVR, let's have a ...

 

AGHHH!  BOBO IN DRAG!  BOBO IN DRAG!  CANNOT UNSEE!

[S05.E12: A False Glimmer]

Even if she was sleeping with Saul I still don't understand how she figured out the code he was using to send kill box messages to Quinn. I mean how much did Saul share.

This one I didn't mind too much, although this is the blackest of black ops, having a one-man hit squad.  Allison was station chief, right?  I'd think Dar and Saul would have to tell her about it just in case Quinn got caught.  If you're gonna have to lie about something, best to know exactly what you're trying to cover up.  This isn't nearly as big a problem for me as this: the list of people who knew about the kill box was absolutely very short.  Even if it'd gone to plan, Quinn had killed Carrie and then been killed himself, Saul would have probably figured out that somebody on the kill box list was dirty.  Allison using the kill box to have Carrie whacked exposed her greatly, and was totally unnecessary - SVR has hit teams all over Berlin, apparently.  Cut out the middleman and have them do it, Carrie will be a far softer target than Peter fucking Quinn and everyone will assume it's one of Carrie's old enemies.

Also for a billionaire, During's kitchen looked kind of shitty.

 

My wife watches a lot of shows where people take huge sums and update their kitchens, like 100,000 bucks, and another show where they tour houses that were customized at huge expense, like millions and millions.  I'm amazed at how often the super-expensive kitchens look exactly like my kitchen, only bigger and with slightly fancier gadgets.  I mean shit, millions at their disposal and this is what they do?  The same central island with granite, stools, and a sink?  Always reminds me of that gag at the end of The Jerk, where we see that Steve Martin's poor sharecropper family used the money he sent home to move from a small ramshackle shack to a large (but otherwise identical) ramshackle shack.

 

I actually found it kinda homey that Düring's kitchen looked like he, you know, maybe cooked there sometimes.  

[S05.E12: A False Glimmer]

henripootel , just as the Russians saw Allison as damaged goods, they would also see Krupkin in the same light. Either of them were responsible for a number of deaths, leaving a document trail and exposing a major safe house location to the Germans and Americans. A nice Russian retirement home was not in his future.

 

I'm gonna have to disagree, if only for the fact that Krupin was a dedicated Russian agent and Allison a co-opted agent of a foreign power.  I'd agree that Krupin's future was not so shiny bright after the debacle with Allison but Krupin saw all this the moment he realized Allison had been compromised, and he went along with her hair-brained scheme anyway.  Frau Farbissina made no bones about it with Allison - she was blown and would never, ever be trusted by either side no matter what happened next.  

 

So why did Krupin even pretend to go along?  We know the real answer - cuz it was in the script.  But the writers have a pro like Krupin commit to a course of action he knew would yield nothing, and might (and did) end up with him actually betraying his country, at least some, by telling Saul how to find Allison.  The Russians had gone to some expense to spirit her out of Germany so clearly they wanted her alive, and one of the few people who could have told them where to find her was in CIA custody.  Now Krupin's really fucked.

 

So Krupin fucked his career for no particular reason (even when he knew better) and committed treason for no particular reason (other than to give Saul a win).  At any time, all he had to do was stop cooperating and he'd have eventually been sent home, pension, if not career, intact.  He can't go home now but it's all on account of his being colossally, unaccountably stupid.  

 

And not for nothing, but no way would Saul be cleared for killing Allison if he could just as easily have captured her alive.  First thing CIA'd want from Allison is to know the extent of her betrayal, and this would completely outweigh any vengeance thing Saul had going.   It's also be hard for Saul to claim that Allison was killed as an inevitable part of trying to get her out of Russian hands.  They had the car stopped, nobody knew, and they didn't even try to take anyone alive, including the Russians, which is another can of worms - we don't usually kill theirs unnecessarily, they don't kill ours.  Even so, in no way did they have to kill Allison, not when they can just as easily have her in a small bunker for the next couple of years answering questions over and over.  

[S05.E12: A False Glimmer]

It was, however, revolting.

Ugh, so now Otto's taking dating tips from White Goodman?

 

If Carrie takes up Otto's offer, will we need to consider her career in two parts, before Düring and after?

[S05.E12: A False Glimmer]

The whole dénouement with Krupin confused me.  It was a nice scene with him and Saul, don't get me wrong, but it didn't quite make sense.  

 

So Saul knows that Krupin is a fake agent (and, given his absence from his day job, now defector) who is giving them chickenfeed to back Allison's story.  I was happy to see that Allison's story didn't work, at least not for long (thanks, Dar), and I get that Saul really, really wants to catch Allison.  So why does Saul think, realistically, that catching Krupin up on current events is gonna get Krupin to say anything?  

 

First, Krupin shouldn't believe Saul, and didn't at first, but evidently came around.  Why would he do this?  The moment Krupin realizes the jig is up he should have clammed up and asked to speak to the Russian consulate.  Krupin's still a Russian agent and hasn't given the Americans anything he (probably) can't explain back home as part of his work.  Until now, when he gives up how to find Allison.  This'd be nearly impossible for Krupin to explain back home so at this point, Krupin may well indeed be a real defector.  It seems to me that the only reason he did this is so that he and Saul can have a genuine heart-to-heart as two worthy professionals, but Krupin just betrayed his country and whole life just to give Saul some closure.  This strikes me as unlikely.

 

And how out-of-left-field was Otto's proposal?  I didn't find it menacing so much as odd, and it puts the count of people professing their undying (except in one case - too soon?) love for Carrie at 4.  I was half expecting the Turkish hacker guy to say at the end 'tell Carrie I love her!' just to round out the set, but it seemed odd.  I mean Claire Danes is pretty and Carrie is good at what she does, but she's bat-shit crazy and has a complicated life, not one that was great for provoking declarations of abject devotion.

Carrie, if she saw the documents, would realize something was amiss because of her past CIA work.

In retrospect, this was the part that didn't really add up.  How did the Russians know that, should Carrie see the hacked documents, she'd put two and two together and reveal Allison as a mole?  Did they know that Allison once, years ago, mentioned an obscure bar in the Caribbean also frequented by a Russian asset?  That's an amazing deduction by them, also preposterous.  

 

And if the Russians wanted Carrie dead, why go through the incredibly elaborate, messy, and unreliable method of having Carrie killed in Beirut?  One quiet, tragic accident in Berlin and bam, done.  

[S05.E11: Our Man In Damascus]

Right but now the question is who is she running from? She's got to have a sense that her Russian masters may now see her as excess baggage to be jettisoned. 

I would hope so but she did what they wanted anyway, even though she considered it impossibly heinous.  I mean we're given to understand that she did it so she could collect her betrayal money and dacha but I wondered if it occurred to Allison to think about what it'd mean for her to be of 'no further use' to the SVR.  Even more importantly, that implicating herself in what promises to be a major terrorist incident would make her a huge liability to the russian government.  But as far as we know, she left the hospital voluntarily, presumably with an SVR agent.  I mean I think we're supposed to assume that, but it makes me wonder what the other possibilities are.  If she realized that aiding the gas attack would make her a target for the SVR (which is reasonable), why'd she do it at all?  Virtually anything else is a better option.

 

I'da thought her best move, at the point where she knew where the attack would be, is to make a deal with Dar and Saul, or better yet the germans.  It'd be a bit 24, but she now had one great card to play - blanket immunity for everything in exchange for the time and location of the attack.  Allison would cop to everything and retire quietly to Phoenix, and nobody would ever know about the appalling breach of national security.  It'd turn Saul's stomach to make such a deal but I'll bet the Germans would have taken it, and so would Dar.  Better outcome for Allison than making the top 10 on the FBI, CIA, and SVR's most wanted lists all at the same time.

[S05.E11: Our Man In Damascus]

I have to ask - has Saul done anything right at all ever?

Has Dar?  He's been around from the beginning and we get the odd reminder that he's Dar Fucking Adal, but I think he's made mistakes before and he really screwed the pooch with Allison.  I thought these two were the grand old guard of the CIA.  Perhaps their great successes are behind them.

I don't think that Allison double crossed the Russians at all but was doing exactly what she was ordered to do, contact Aziz, get the info on the bomb location and and then mislead German Intelligence and the CIA on that to insure that the attack succeeded.

 

I agree, but why would Allison need so complicated an interaction with Professor Evil?  She doesn't really need to know where the attack will be, she can just pick a target at random and say Professor Evil told her this.  I mean what're the odds she'd accidentally pick the right target?  Pretty small, so were I her, I'd have spent more time maneuvering Professor Evil into position so that it was plausible that he actually shot Agent Too-Trusting.  As it is, the Professor would have had to get Too-Trusting's gun, shoot him, cross the room, sit down, and get shot multiple times as he shot Allison at point-blank range.  That's a hard sequence to explain away, and Allison should have spent more time setting that up rather than interrogating Professor Evil.  

 

This all assumes that Allison's plan was to stick it out at CIA.  I mean Krupin is off 'singing like a bird' to bolster Allison's bona fides, right?  Even once Allison reluctantly accepts the plan to let the gas attack go on, she can still just say 'Professor Evil told me it was the airport' which wouldn't do wonders for her credibility when this turned out to be wrong, but it probably wouldn't directly implicate her either.  By running again, she's pretty much outing herself as a mole.  Hope somebody tells Krupin cuz his singing act is no longer required.

 

And I agree with you Cali, the Russians won't want her around telling anyone that they were complicit in a gas attack on German soil.  I'm surprised that Saul didn't find Allison's body in that bed, as the SVR (like the KGB before them and the OGPU before them) are likely big believers that a silenced small-calliber weapon to the back of the neck is the solution to many of life's little problems.  Allison in her dacha would be confirmation of Russian complicity, so no way that'd ever happen.  That's so obvious I can't believe Allison would go along with any of this.  It's just good op-sec, and the russians basically invented it.  

So if the Russians don't kill her, then maybe next season Quinn (recovered, of course) gets to track her down and apply his method of cleanup.

Believe it or not, Quinn probably wouldn't be tasked to do this.  Tracking down and killing your own traitors in another country is considered bad form, although it was certainly not unheard of.  But even horrible traitors like Philby lived fairly openly in Moscow, and had the brits wanted him dead it wouldn't have been too hard.  That said, most of the turncoats we got we took some effort to hide, and many lived long lives under assumed names.  Had the Russians really wanted them dead though, they could probably have found them.  Still don't think Allison is gonna qualify for russian wit-pro, not if her even being there implicates them in anything ugly.

[S01.E10: Quantico]

Could someone please tell me what Gob Jammering is? Thx!

 

I think you're referring to 'Gom Jabbaring', yes?  It's a reference to Dune.  In the book, the main character undergoes a test which involves being put in pain, but with a small needle held against his neck.  If he flinches, he dies, so he's forced to go along with it.  The needle is called a 'gom jabbar'.  

 

This was essentially the same method Anne Heches's character used to get Simon out of a bar so she could murder him in peace, holding a syringe to his neck while frog-marching him out the door.  It seemed pretty silly that she could effectively use this as a threat since a) it's pretty easy to see that something's up (which indeed happened - someone saw them acting strange and intervened), and b) the Anne Heche had made it clear that she intended to kill Simon anyway, just not in the bar, givng Simon no incentive at all to go with her since it's death either way.  

 

Basically the scene made no sense and I was making fun of it.  I mean a gom jabbar might be good for making someone stay absolutely still, but making them walk to their death?  Not so much.

[S05.E11: Our Man In Damascus]

I'm ready to scream at how easily Allison is pulling the wool over everybody's eyes.  I sincerely hope that our real-life intelligence services are more competent.

Not everyone's eyes - the Russians saw the right of it, but I woulda thought that they'd do one of two things: either bring Allison in (maybe debriefing her would yield something worthwhile) or shoot her (to conceal how much they told her).  It was odd that the Allison's exit strategy all along was apparently ... a cushy life in Russia?  And why did the Russians think Allison could do anything at to make the attack successful?  They had to know the CIA suspected her and wouldn't, you know, assign her an agent who'd do something dumb like hand her his own weapon.  

 

And boy, wasn't Allison lucky today.  First, with the timing of an attack.  Shooting Agent Trusts-Too-Much and Dr. Evil might buy her an hour or two until somebody from CIA sees the crime scene photos and says 'It couldn't have happened the way Allison says it did."  What if the attack had been planned for way later that night, or the next day?  By then, they'd have found the gaping holes in Allison's story and not believed anything she said.   She'd already shot Agent TTM before Dr. Evil spilled the beans so good thing there wasn't enough time for fact-checking.

 

We'll skate right past where Allison was lucky in shooting herself (but not causing a dire wound) and ask 'why'd she shoot herself at all?'  I assumed that it was to lend her story credence after everyone dies in the subway, and she'll later explain that Professor Terror 'must have lied to her when he said they were gonna attack the airport'.  I mean there's still the forensics to explain away but she did get shot, right?  Who'd shoot themselves?  But apparently Allison'd planned all along to slip away as soon as she'd fobbed off a bit of rot on the germans.  She couldn't make a plan to do this that didn't involve gravely injuring herself?

 

Nitpicks aside though, a fairly gripping episode, if a bit Jack Bauer.