unclevlad

Holy incineration, Batman! The Athletic has a story today on the Coyotes' failure in Arizona. They basically attribute it to Alex Meruelo, the owner, almost entirely. Gutierrez is Meruelo's right hand man. They ran construction companies. They have suppliers and employees there. Sounds like the Oakland A's owner. Lots of other bits and pieces. He basically was better at burning bridges than trying to build them.

The absolutely best black comedy ever made. Probably the best Cold War era movie ever made. And what's scary is, I think a LOT of it will sound terrifyingly familiar, albeit with slightly different spin in many cases. Dr. Strangelove. I suspect many of us have seen it, but it may have fallen through the cracks at this point. If you haven't seen it, you really, really should.

3 Republicans joined with the Democrats in the Arizona House to repeal the 1864 abortion ban. One down, one to go. This might be interesting. State Senate and House seats are all up for election. The primaries are end of July. In the Senate, there are 3 Republican incumbents with challengers. The House is trickier, as it looks like they use the same districts...but there's 2 representatives for each district. The vote on the ban here...for or against...may become material in the primaries.

Of course it is. Seems like 80% of shows on TV are spin-offs.

The pain, most likely, but as I say, I only remember one very brief moment of it.

Depleted Milwaukee is the first to lose a home game. With Giannis out...not entirely surprising. EDIT: and Dallas knocks off the Clips, making 2 straight for the road teams.

Nature abhors a vacuum, therefore *someone* is going to pick up the pieces. Many of the MAGA/Trumpist policies have been on the Republican agenda anyway. If Trump goes, the tone changes, but they can still retain the entire pre-vetting for ideological purity, planning for '28. What aspects of the principle Republican agenda disappear with Trump? EDIT: note the "gains" they've made in several states, in moving to control the education system, the voting system at state levels. They'll still have the Supreme Court. They've largely stripped the legitimacy of several government agencies, when it was in their interest...the CDC being the obvious one. They like the House being seen as a clown show; there's been the argument made that the Supreme Court's loss of respect has led to state-level 'revolts' if you will, like Texas using state agents to enforce border laws...but rendering the House mostly pointless and paralyzed helps with that too. What we need to see is more pushback at the state levels. Preferably, rolling back some of the recent moves like the abortion bans; blocking the extreme moves by, say, Texas, isn't enough. That's a holding action. SOMEHOW breaking the wall of willful ignorance, behind which QAnon thrives.

I think it's fair to say that Howie Schwab was the first celebrity sports stats/info type guy. He was big on ESPN...even to the point of them trying a sports trivia show called Stump the Schwab. He was part of the first of the big purges at ESPN back in 2013, but continued to be valuable behind the scenes in other ways (including being Fox's NCAA bracketologist for a couple years, which I hadn't known.) He died, apparently of a heart attack, Monday. Age 63.

And pain can absolutely keep you awake. I'd also extend your statement, CRT, to include the (in)ability to focus on what's going on around you...disorientation. That's what getting stunned is. And to a point...serious, sharp pain would do that too. Even pass out. Had THAT happen once. LONG!!! time ago. OLD fridge on the top, freezer on the bottom. The doors had squared corners. I was getting something from the freezer...didn't realize the fridge door was open...and stood up quickly. Corner went *squarely* into my back. I don't remember anything after that...even tho I believe a trip to the hospital was involved. But generally, yeah, they're not well-connected concepts.

Part of the system bloat problem in 6E is having so many hair-splitting limitations. I'm not sure this'd be worth -1/4 on its own...and by and large, I suspect people would take it just to take it. My favorite limitation is Limited Range, because once you get to an 8d6 base...that's 40 points, so full range is 400 meters. The range mod at 100m is -8; there's targets that *can* be hit, sure...area attacks in particular...but for most single target attacks? That's Fat Chance time, even with some PSLs to offset range. It generally does not limit. Is that a character flaw, so that the limit should be disallowed? Not IMO, it's mis-structured rules. Doesn't Reduce KB feels like it'd largely be the same. Note that STUN Only eliminates this...and the protection against the drains, because they're not STUN damage. That's a significant package of benefits that get removed...or, perhaps we're realizing that Negation's total package is better than we realized. 2 dice negation gives 3 CP of rDEF, 5 CP of STUN reduction...it's too easy to layer the defenses to mostly eliminate BODY, so this is not worth a limitation, IMO...and effectively 2m of KB resistance. THEN there's however much you want to assign to the special defense aspects. They're worth something, no question about that, but...how much? Eliminating the KB aspect, 2 dice would still mean 8 points in the base defenses, AND the special defenses, for 8 points, and quite often, the KB resistance just isn't that big a deal. Figure: did we realize this? I suspect...generally, no. Did people buy a few meters of KB resistance? I've done it for specific concepts, where the character's body just deforms to absorb the momentum, it doesn't go flying back...but how many of us take this routinely? Some of this is, we're also realizing how *complicated* DN is, as it's written. Which is not a good thing, IMO.

Mmm...not really. They're mostly separate, particularly in this context. A paper cut doesn't do BODY most of the time, and you're no closer to losing consciousness, so it's nothing to do with STUN. Or a minor burn...like you forgot that pan was just in the oven...and you tried to grab the handle without a pot holder? Or the stupid things we did as kids? Or spattering grease, that's no fun. Or what was going on in my mouth, *especially* the last couple days before I was able to get a root canal done *quickly*. Or the even worse case...some years ago, I got some shampoo in my left eye. We've all done that...but this was particularly nasty. And within a few weeks? That eye started suffering from corneal erosions. Literally, the super-thin layer of cells over the eye...sloughed off. Think a piece of grit or a hair, then turn it up. And up. And UP...when most of it sloughed off. SHARPLY!!!!! painful, and tears? Hey, tears are salt water! Oh yeah. Joy. None of these really felt like they were related to STUN; they were something unto themselves.

Pain is a stock, if not necessarily effective, element of torture, so a bonus to interrogation, or possibly intimidation-based PRE attacks, would work.

From The Athletic, through me, to Mr. P...don't say I never did anything nice for you.

If it holds up in court. It might. I wouldn't be surprised if, for example, non-competes are allowed...in restricted situations. From NYT: That seems like a LOT of people, and many who wouldn't seem to be privy to corporate privileged information. There is no heir apparent because Trump is still on the scene. We're talking the person who would coalesce out of the rubble of the Party if Trump's out of the picture.

And that changes the game. DeSantis still loses out, I think, because he's botched the Disney issue so badly. He's the most exposed clown. Even if Trump's not in jail...let's postulate he loses the election, and is convicted in Georgia, where we've got the biggest smoking gun, the phone call. That's 3 separate, significant defeats...motivation to move on politically, and with the discredit from the Georgia convictions, it's likely his cult of personality will wither. So the bashing will begin. Those who have been TOO sycophantic...DeSantis is the obvious one...have another big strike. I'm thinking the election steal just won't be discussed any more...it's too Trumpian. That's a major strike against Carlson, but...Carlson would have to try following the Trump path, and he doesn't have the charisma for that. Abbott has policy points that align with the MAGA base, but I don't think he was so much tied to Trump personally. He's co-royal on his own...the Emperor of Texas. But he's anti-woke, he's anti-abortion, he's anti-immigration...he could pick up those pieces, if he wanted to. A humiliated, completely discredited Trump *wrecks* the Party as it is now. The shakeout might be the '26 mid term elections (including the Congressional primaries). That's likely to be the first time we have a chance to have a broad look at the post-Trump Party. I think that shuts the door on anyone from the House...and the disastrously bad clown show of the last couple years will be hard to overcome. The Senators? Cruz is too tied to Trump. Hawley is worse. I'm not gonna strain my brain trying to think of one that might work, tho. Feels like the best option might be a Republican governor. Abbott's the most widely recognized nationally, except perhaps DeSantis.

Bail on him, as he's clearly the flawed messiah. They'll anoint someone who doesn't come with more baggage than Paris Hilton. Abbott, perhaps? They'll try hard to repudiate the person while embracing the MAGA message.

I don't buy that his sharpness, or lack thereof, is a factor. In particular, I absolutely don't believe that he realizes he's not as sharp as he was...at ANY level, even subconsciously. His narcissism won't allow critical self-analysis. You're basically postulating that Trump is rational. I don't. When I say "narcissistic"...I mean the clinical interpretation. From Wikipedia: And IIRC, it's right up there in seriousness with psychopathy and sociopathy. I do buy that his lawyers would grill him with questions and force him to see that he won't be able to hold up, and thus get him to (reluctantly) agree.

..................................................................... May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your mistress's bed sheets.......

ahh...hm. Those are a bit different. I wouldn't try to describe how it does it myself, just what it does to them. Nerve induction should, by and large, do what's suggested. That's how the pain box is most commonly written up. The agonizer may have had a higher setting, right? Where it disrupted nerve signals, and might've done more...induced seizures, even stop the heart? Disrupting nerve signals could probably do either one. I remember reading what I think was a legit experiment, wherein people were subjected to minor levels of shock, heat, and cold...all at the same time, say on different fingers...and their reaction was OMG WHAT!!!! because the 3 separate signals, from 3 separate sources, amplified each other. People YANKED their hand out expecting to see notable damage...but there wasn't any.

Yeah, a pretty stock trope is that using one's powers requires concentration, and what pain can do is make it hard to concentrate through the pain. That's the motivation. Look at the example major transforms on 6E1 304. --impose a limitation (up to -1) --CV penalties --giving a Complication...unluck. Several of these would work pretty well with Partial Transform. A suggested, nasty complication is Requires 11- roll, that's -1. There's lesser levels for Partial Transform. Here, the pain's just the SFX, the goal is to just make it HARD to do something. And it's not cheap, as Partial Transform makes it 15 points per die. EDIT: oh, and note the key is concentration disruption. Pain's not the only way to do that. In Drew Hayes' Super Powereds series, the tech kid incorporates an itching attack into his weapon. Massive itching might be a better way to disrupt concentration; people are used to fighting through pain, but man, SEVERE itching? An attack I often like is to swap the defenses on a Flash attack from Flash Def to Ego Def...a flash bang targeting the sensory centers of the brain directly. That could be done here...instead of shutting down, overload.

So Mr. P, never a doubt, right? for those who didn't watch...

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Mmm...maybe, but that's a fairly bright orange. IMO that limits your options. I like the navy, myself.

With prejudice, no less. That bars refiling, at least on materially similar grounds, IIRC. They'd need to come up with something quite different, and "with prejudice" is a major warning that it'd darn well be BETTER grounds. None of this lame, bitter, Starbucks-like grounds.... Meanwhile back in New York...from NYT:

You hate the uniforms of the last few years by association.