Toxxus

No, I'm not intentionally ignoring those things. I'm legitimately asking what people think the difference is that converts prison to concentration camp. Actual prisoners all across America are separated from their kids. If you get rowdy on the weekend and end up in lockup for a couple days - you will be separated from your kids. However, I am probably the last remotely conservative voice in this thread because you keep threatening the ban hammer on anyone who's guilty of having a different political view from yours.

No, I don't like the current setup. I didn't like the old setup either. We shouldn't be holding anyone because they should be getting repelled at the border. However, out of respect to millions of people who got Zyklon-B gassed and cremated in actual concentration camps, I find the term to be grotesque overkill for what amounts to low quality prison. They are not concentration camps by any historically reasonable use of the word. They are not rounding up "those of a particular ethnic background" either as I'm sure anyone from China, the Phillipines, Zimbabwe or Norway sneaking over the southern border ends up in the same facility. Refugees cannot be fleeing violence in the South and Central Americas with the exception of Mexican citizens. Otherwise an actual refugee seeking political asylum should be stopping at the first country they can reach and applying for asylum. Passing through several other countries to apply for asylum at America's Southern border is called shopping. It is an economic decision and not one based on escaping violence or persecution.

It's 23% higher in June than the entire year of 2014. So in complete year terms it's about 150% higher. If you think a 150% increase in volume won't affect service quality - not sure what would convince you. What major difference in how detainees are being handled are you seeing? Just a reminder - While the Orange Man has kept Guantanamo Bay open - the previous administration promised to close it in a single year - and kept it open for eight years.

In modern times the 11 is unacceptable due to lack of diversity. Only the 10 is allowed.

Sounds great. You and I both know that's not how reality works. When the speed of incoming people quadruples in that short of a time period there are going to be logistical issues. What if it was 10 million people per year instead of 1 million? Would you still be expecting perfection? Medical doctors and nurses who are all highly educated and trained are responsible for 250,000 fatal errors per year... Analyzing medical death rate data over an eight-year period, Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S

Would you be able to expand on this thought a bit? They were obviously Trump years so I'm not sure what you're trying to convey.

Given the massive surge in volume it's not a shocker that the quality of treatment has degraded. We're not even through June yet and this year we've absorbed TWICE as many people as we did in all of 2017. We're on pace to have FOUR times the volume of just two years ago.

Also, looks like some potential help incoming from the Mexican government. The arrest rate at the border in the last few months has reached absolutely shocking volumes.

How come they weren't concentration camps when Obama was using them?

I don't mind interesting match ups and I understand that some extreme characters (like The Flash) have to toss realism and consistency out the window in order for there to be a threat by non-speedsters, but it still has to feel consistent. If Spiderman is facing a completely normal 3 year old boy and gets KO'd by an angry swat on the knee - nobody is going to enjoy that story. So, creepy circus themed freaks just need a moment of backstory enhancement to justify supernatural or superhuman ability. They have to have a reason they can hit a bullet-dodging Spiderman. I recall an equally jarring episode of Spiderman where he was facing the Punisher that had a mix of clever and stupid writing. At one point the punisher punches himself in the chest which confuses Spiderman even though his danger sense is going off. The sleep gas explodes from his chest compartment and it's a great surprise move. Later and this next part was unforgivably !@#$ writing by Marvel Comics - Punisher is blasting ineffectually at the agile Spiderman and somehow as Spiderman flips through the air the Punisher shoots both of his webshooters off his wrists. Spiderman complains he's been caught mid-leap and can't do anything to dodge. Oh, I don't know, you could move your wrists one !@#$ing inch to the side??!! So. Bad. I just want some narrative consistency. It doesn't have to be perfect nor especially scientific, but sometimes the writers are painfully lazy and just a single tenuous excuse on how character X can now (temporarily perhaps) face character Y would go a long way.

It was pretty bad in the 70s and 80s. I recall one episode of The Hulk where an elderly woman fought the Hulk to a stand still using Aikido. See, it doesn't matter that the Hulk is a 1000 pound monster that moves with terrifying speed and violence. You just have to sidestep and use his own energy against him.... I took a year of Aikido at the University of Hawaii and I promise you - this is fiction of the worst sort. A well executed Judo or Aikido move will let you do something to an opponent with a fraction of the strength to do it without technique. But this fraction is on the order of 1/2 or 1/4. It is not the 1/50,000 you would need to do something to the Hulk.

I've noticed, as well, that replacing OCV/DCV with Offense and Defense leads to instant understanding with the players. Same with replacing MOCV/MDCV with Mental Offense and Mental Defense.

They are unbelievably rare in actual combat sports though. Less than one in a thousand fights ends this way and they usually make the news when they do.

Only because of wildly bad writing and power level inconsistency. The same spider man who can lift 5-10 tons and is fast enough to dodge bullets. In one write-up part of spiderman's bullet dodging prowess was attributed to the fact he was so quick that he could actually see the bullets coming. Some normal judoka is going to give him any trouble at all? Complete BS. I have a brown belt in judo and a black belt in TKD and some other training and someone with spiderman's strength and speed would have me mutilated by the end of the first Segment 12. Rope tricks? Against someone who can dodge bullets? Not sure if anyone has compared the muzzle velocity of a lasso recently, but I'm betting it's 50-100x slower than a bullet. I HATED those comics.

This doesn't really seem to differentiate him several previous presidents. Obama, Clinton, Reagan all seemed reasonably immune to backlash from their various failings. Only the Bush's and candidate Hillary seemed to have suffered any real problems from their various foibles and I believe it was because all three lacked the charisma of the others. Whether or not you agreed with their politics or not it is hard to argue against the incredibly high PRE scores of Obama, Clinton and Reagan. Clinton, as I recall, was guilty of statutory sexual harassment (a felony) with Monia Lewinski and walked away from that and multiple rape accusations without any trouble at all. Hillary is recorded threatening to silence the accusers and she missed being president by the slimmest of margins. The rate of politician slime has been escalating steadily and you can't lay the root cause at the foot of Trump. It's been rising so rapidly that the public voted for a non-politician. It's hard to forget that the DNC completely f*cked Bernie Sanders and made sure Hillary was going to be the candidate. The corruption is everywhere. Here's a fun chart: PS: I didn't vote for Trump.

Every time I play 6e I feel like I'm cheating on 4e. She was the worthiest of the HERO editions. Really felt like the right balance between rules exposition and playability.

HERO takes longer to digest, but recently my Wednesday night table - that I had kind of written off in terms of really getting to understand the game has finally turned the corner and they are buying HERO Designer and trying to build their own power frameworks. Which has lead to a level 2 conversation - Why you need DM approval on warning/stop sign powers.

Holy balls! And I thought CNN was bad. That article pulls so hard left it makes AOC seem like a bitter 90 year old ultra-conservative. "Cory Booker, who seems like an obvious addition to the “moderate” bucket" - I literally laughed out loud - at work - like a crazy person at this. "Warren is, of course, correct. Fox News is a poisonous influence on our society, a propaganda organ that irresponsibly foments racial hate" - Alternately, it's just a right-leaning news site - like the only one remaining. It's one thing if I think CNN is pandering to its liberal viewer base and another thing completely if I think it is secretly part of Russia's attempt to undermine our democracy and turn us communist. One fun thing is to watch CNN and then Fox News and then realize those two news stations cannot be operating in the same reality. They're not difference of opinion distances from each other. They are alternate universe distances from each other. I just assume they're both full of crap and the truth lies not in-between, but somewhere else completely. Anyway, great article, read the whole thing. Enjoyed it for entirely the wrong reason.

Excellent summary. For my Fantasy HERO campaigns I would agree with everything above and add: 1- Armor mechanics are more intuitive: adds to safety, but makes you slower, clumsier and easier to hit. 2- Hit Locations: Add a lot of variety to combat and differentiate from systems that don't use it.

I wouldn't buy multiple blasts. I suggest upping the trigger advantage level so you can have multiple triggers (when removed or when Toy Boy triggers it). The ability of the damage to hit both the original target and someone who tries to pull the dart off is covered by Sticky, imo. I wouldn't bother with the cosmetic transformation either. It's just the special effects of the suction cup based weapon. Generally, I would recommend towards the simplest solution possible. Over-complicating power builds is a common malady.

There can be tremendous value in going first. One of the real benefits of going first is the ability to hold your action, let your opponent do a thing and then go twice back to back (after enemy in current phase, before enemy in next phase). DEX rolls also tend to be called into play during dangerous situations. Would you like to leap away from the fireball? DEX roll. Would you like to try to grab the edge of the pit before you fall 30 feet onto poisoned spikes? DEX roll. Haven't had anyone I've ever played with balk at the price of DEX. Quoting the legendary Kung Fu Hustle: In the world of kung fu, speed (DEX) defines the winner.

Someone needs a couple more levels in Axes.

Now we just need a mad scientist to breed killer bees with vulture bees to get an apocalyptic scenario going. Swarms of killer vulture bees are devouring people and crops alike as they descend upon [insert city your heroes are located in here].

Might be a good spot for a variation of Analyze as well such as Analyze Medical Condition or Analyze Health.

In a frozen wasteland in the north of America, but I saw this movie and it melted our collective minds. Eventually I had a whole collection of action miniatures. Really wish I had saved those.