ScottishFox

Went through a whole cycle of getting sick early last week.  Right after visiting elderly parent.  It hit very hard, went to get tested... already largely feeling better, no idea on test results.  No idea if it spread, but doesn't look like it... will know around the time I get the results.  >_>

I think the protest/riots/both? was probably what set that off. Well, other than the earlier hoarding.

When I was in 8th grade, I could leg press 600 pounds, if I remember correctly. That was much more than anyone else in the gym class, even people who were much bigger and much more athletic.
 
I could do fairly rapid (no straining) sit ups for the whole class when no one else could do 15 minutes.
 
After school I split and hauled firewood. That involved a heck of a lot of throwing the cut firewood a number of yards out of the brush toward the truck then throwing it again up into the truck then stacking it neatly. Then emptying the truck and stacking it neatly when we reached our destination.
 
I couldn't do one chin up. My body mass index at the time showed me to be obese despite 30-40 hours a week of intense physical activity, another 10-20 of lighter work, plus gym class.
 
After measuring my BMI, my coach told me, no kidding, that I "should get some exercise".
 
I have no idea what an appropriate STR score should have been.  Maybe I bought STR with (-1/2 limited applications to upper body strength)  

We went with 1 copper = $1 for my campaigns and it had the nice benefit of gold not being quite so prolific.  A gold piece was like busting out a $100 bill and in certain locales would draw some (possibly unsafe) attention.

Yep.

I won't simply say 'the DHS memo should be ignored'.  I'm all for fact-checking the heck out of any and all official documentation that comes from the government.  Act on information, not on belief.
 
The issue with 'fact checking' is there's investigative and scientific.  Scientific details are easily fact-checked because, you know, they are repeatable.
 
Investigative fact checking involves a record.  And the integrity and completeness of that record becomes very important.  It's interpretive, and selective cuts of information can provide wildly different interpretations.
 
This is why I err on the side of examining the known endemic problems with the police, and push conversations in the direction of resolutions.  I also suggest knowing the tactics used in these protest situations (by the police, by protesters, by looters), and what they accomplish.
 
These are things you can take away from this situation _before_ you get into the details of what's going on.  This knowledge will arm you to better understand the context of these situations.
 
And maybe I can stop seeing conversations that start with "they all deserve it they're all rioters anyway"

That said, we should absolutely continue to push...and push...and push some more...for higher standards. This nonsense about high IQ applicants being denied the opportunity to become law enforcement officers must be consigned to the trashcan of history.

IIRC, the Chaz/Chop was literally cut off of supplies.  Consider the Fyre Festival for an example of how that goes...
 
edit:  There are places that spend a lot less on their police forces, or weapons, and places that have a much better balancing of how their society operates around its needs.  Police shouldn't be the be-all-end-all, and it's a definite problem that it's become so strong as to be a literal standing army in every major location in the country 😕
 
 
My main point of contention is the counter to complaints of repeated graffiti on government buildings is escalation to kidnapping people off the street as if to threaten a literal lack of due process.  It's the communication that "we are willing to ignore the laws for any of you, and since we aren't charging someone we don't seem to care who we do it to".  (edit: There are more serious crimes on the list, I know, I address it briefly at the end)
 
There are strategies to deal with repeated damage to federal property without literally doubling the protest or creating their own insurgency scenario. 
 
But honestly ScottishFox, as with "Kettling" tactics, it really seems like the point is to create an "violent anarchist uprising" so they can crush and kill and point at it.  The violent end is the objective of tactics like this.  It's how it's employed in places like Israel.  That's the problem I have here.
 
As for the violent antagonists, well-organized protesters have been shown and video-taped as turning those people over to the police.  Even shoving them into a police line.  This is why protest leadership is needed, not discouraged.

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...” - Carl Sagan
The current trend of anti intellectualism in America scares me....it truly does.

I've said it for many years: Liberty, equality, justice, will never be "won." Their establishment and preservation are a never-ending struggle. The veneer of civilization is thin, and it doesn't take a lot to scrape it off and expose the barbarian underneath.
 
I remember when 9/11 occurred, I was saddened and disgusted, but not surprised. Same with just about every tragedy and outrage I can remember over my adult life. I guess I never assumed there is a "here" where something could never happen. When you do that, the chance of it happening just goes up.

There are many anarchist groups in the US, it is not impossible to believe that an organized group of them have inserted themselves into this season of protesting and are causing trouble.  Just like groups of looters do the same thing during civil unrest.  However, that doesn't mean that government agents should come in and start disappearing them either.  As with everything, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

You could. People have shot police serving no knock warrants on the wrong house and walked without being charged, for just those reasons.
 
On the other hand, you're not likely to be able to put up much useful resistance in the moment, so a lawsuit after the fact might be the more prudent course of action. (Assuming the intent isn't to permanently disappear you, of course. Or even semi-permanently.)

Assassin disguised as FedEx driver guns down family of federal judge assigned to Epstein case
 
Guess they couldn't be bothered to make it look like a suicide this time?

As long as the one way is using Change Environment and not Images... 

as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t really matter to me what you use. Seriously, coming down to Brass Tacks, I don’t see a problem with CE.

I don't have the 6th Edition version, but in the 5th Edition Bestiary, the Air Elemental's Desolid is not always on and the attacks do not have Affects Physical World--it can be desol OR it can attack, but it can't attack WHILE it's desolid.

Buy some of their movement with RSR and Side Effect. Drive too fast, and you need to make a driving check. Miss the driving check, and you have an accident and take damage.

Ask the bear.

Is the LAPD an improvement?

I'm not going to be outraged at anyone shooting back if someone is firing a gun at them, full stop, whether it's a triple homicide suspect or a swat team who kicks in the wrong door and starts plugging away before assessing the situation.

My brother-in-law and wife have both worked in law enforcement for quite awhile while my father was a judge and defense attorney at different parts of his career.
 
I could NOT agree with this man more.  Don't say a MF'ing thing, ever, for any reason.  Hand them the card to your lawyer and get out of there.  The only direction the situation can go is worse.

And in the Why Would We Need Good Data category today:
 
Nothing like inflating positive rates by 10x.  It's not like life altering decisions are being made on this data.
 
This kind of thing is the bane of people who work with data.  So frustrating.
 
 
 
 

If there were no conflict, there would be no parties. But, if one man is certain of one solution to a problem, and his neighbor is certain of a different solution (or even disagrees that there is a problem requiring a solution), there is conflict. We have voting and public deliberation so that conflict will stay in that arena. Parties exist because there are enough people in favor of differing solutions. 
 

That sounds great in theory. But having yet another thing to keep track of as a GM isn't appealing. And having another thing to gimp my spellcasting as a player isn't appealing to me either.
 
But for anyone specifically looking for a way to simulate easily interruptible spells, you've come up with a straightforward and elegant solution.

In the vernacular, "[...] who I was responding to" is fine, but "[...] to whom I was responding" is the approved way to say it in Nitpickese.