Ragitsu

If the status quo was how we got a guy like Trump, I can understand why some people are hesitant to return to that "normal".

I would say it was a complete rejection of the status quo that got us Trump.  The public was so sick of politicians that they gave the reality TV star and real estate guy a shot.
 
That is a blistering condemnation of the quality of politician we have been getting lately.
 
Comparing what we've seen the last few elections makes the politicians of yesteryear (Reagan, Clinton) seem like demigods in my very old opinion.

There is a reason why many have stated that their vote was against Trump as opposed to for Biden. That distinction may seem minuscule in the here and now, but it will become rather important...especially once the pandemonium dies down.

If Trump somehow gets another four years...I officially give up on America, its "values", and humanity.

Wow! Hollywood's casting practices truly are incestuous.
 
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THAC0 isn't nearly as complicated as I had once imagined; most factors that influence it (Strength/Dexterity, Weapon Specialization, the enchantment bonus of any given weapon, et cetera) are calculated and recorded in advance. One point in its favor: it keeps the player guessing more than D&D 3.0+'s BAB versus AC.
 
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I discovered that you have to back off and give the forum software some time before you post a second reply.
 
Edit: archer the ninja!

I wasn't expressing a personal belief; I was pointing out the beliefs of other people.

Nope.  It's not that simple.  Barring an overwhelming win by Biden (that none of us expects):
 
--We all, or almost all, expect massive challenges to the mail-in ballots and broad charges of election fraud to try to force changes in individual states.
--The members of the Electoral College are NOT required to abide by the popular vote, and there is no set process to select them.  This was bandied about in some depth a few weeks ago when Trump wouldn't say he'd abide by the vote.  More here:  https://people.howstuffworks.com/electoral-college2.htm
--The job never moves to Biden without affirmative action to select him.  Things could end up in the House, but there's a wrinkle there...it does look like it's by *state*.  Each state's delegation makes its choice, and the winner is the one with the most *states*.  

Exactly this.  The problem isn't just the cops who served the warrant, it's the entire system that led a nurse to get gunned down in her own bed.  Yet there is zero movement on the parties involved to reform no knock warrants, verify the informant's testimony, check whether the perp they're looking for hasn't already been picked up, or check whether they have the right address.  Instead the only serious charges that were leveled were for the one cop who missed, and then the prosecutor intentionally fumbled the case in court.
 
And while it might not have been a racial issue until the bullets started flying, if Breonna Taylor had been white, I guarantee you that there would have been a lot more effort to review and reform police procedures. 

The Democrats entire platform for the last 4 years has been "not Trump". Starting from the time he was elected. Their first action was to find (or make up) ground for impeachment.

The picture itself is mildly amusing to me. However, I don't really care about the chainmail bikini "controversy".
 
a. I can separate fiction from reality.
b. I usually game with people that are mature enough to do likewise.
c. Escapism is a healthy outlet; real life is depressingly grey.
d. Armor with a cleavage window is - in terms of titillation -  nothing compared to other options. In Dungeons & Dragons, there is a magical item known as the "Bracers of Defense". The defensive potency of a particular specimen sets AC somewhere on a range from 8 to 2; at the lowest end of the spectrum, a bare-ass warrior can run around with protection comparable to that of an armored knight (this is before Dexterity, spells or other magical items are factored in, mind you). Toss on some "Boots of the North" to protect against pesky freezing temperatures and you've effectively got Red Sonja or Conan the Barbarian. Of course, you can obviate the need for any mystical artifact by playing a Monk .

In all fairness, she's an artificial life form, so she may not even feel cold or heat.
 
Alias

The picture itself is mildly amusing to me. However, I don't really care about the chainmail bikini "controversy".
 
a. I can separate fiction from reality.
b. I usually game with people that are mature enough to do likewise.
c. Escapism is a healthy outlet; real life is depressingly grey.
d. Armor with a cleavage window is - in terms of titillation -  nothing compared to other options. In Dungeons & Dragons, there is a magical item known as the "Bracers of Defense". The defensive potency of a particular specimen sets AC somewhere on a range from 8 to 2; at the lowest end of the spectrum, a bare-ass warrior can run around with protection comparable to that of an armored knight (this is before Dexterity, spells or other magical items are factored in, mind you). Toss on some "Boots of the North" to protect against pesky freezing temperatures and you've effectively got Red Sonja or Conan the Barbarian. Of course, you can obviate the need for any mystical artifact by playing a Monk .

I'm the exact opposite. I could sign my name 5 times, and at least 2 wouldn't match. I keep joking that if my handwriting gets any worse I'll have to go to medical school.

I for one am glad that Thanksgiving will be different or perhaps even cancelled this year; the last thing I want is a political conversation with some of the geniuses in my extended family.

Experts were calling for a couple of weeks of shutdown to buy enough time to start mass produce masks, gowns, and other PPE. To use the Defense Production Act to crank up producing millions of tests. And to set up contact tracing.
 
The president and the vice president, by their own admission on multiple occasions, were assuming that the virus would magically go away if we waited until the weather was a bit warmer. 
 
Yeah both the administration and the experts were looking to buy time. But they were looking to buy time for completely different reasons.
 
You still can't go into a Wal-Mart or a Home Depot and have a reasonable expectation that they'll have disposable masks for sale...NINE freaking months after the president knew there was a pandemic coming. Testing is still hard to come by and what little testing the feds did, they've scaled back. Contact tracing is still a dream by the people who want to control the virus rather than a plan being implemented by an administration which, by their own admission, wants it to spread.
 
The president, VP, and administration, as we were starting out, were intentionally withholding information from the public which the people could have used to protect themselves. And were also deliberately spreading disinformation about how deadly the virus is.
 
And none of that has stopped. The administration is still not telling the truth, as we saw last week with the congressional committee which dumped the weeks of White House data which it was sharing with Congress behind the scenes. 
 
The president is holding maskless events with no social distancing. Is saying there's a cure to the virus when one doesn't exist. Lying by saying a vaccine will be here in a couple of weeks and the military is prepared to distribute it around the country. The vaccine is at least six months away. The military hasn't even ordered the equipment which would be necessary to distribute the vaccine around the country, much less taken possession of the equipment. 
 
We can't even get into a discussion about what tool is being used to deal with the crisis, whether scalpel or chainsaw. 
 
This is not "dealing" with the crisis at all.
 
Welcome to Fantasy Island, where all your nightmares come true.

Death count isn't the only measure of risk at play.  You have overwhelming of hospital resources and lasting side effects for survivors for two more.
 
How do you measure the impact of a survivor who lives but has chronic fatigue and pain or other neurological problems for months afterward, possibly forever? Or the lasting effects of patients who recover but have systematic damage from being intubated for extended periods?