ScottishFox

Critique wise, you made no mistakes. Good color choices, and very gameable. How many pixels across is it? 
 
As for their use, I find maps and minis necessary for any game that has a large tactical element. 

I stood outside an iHOP last night talking politics with a friend for an hour in my Artic Cool heat-dissipating shirt.  It was 39 degrees.
 
Sounds like some of these folks aren't fat enough. 

I tested positive.

I doubt it. This issue is far from new, and many white people have also been inadvertently killed. Yet it persists.
 
Edit: Now, if you said ". . . if Breonna Taylor had been wealthy, " I'd agree.

That's because the officers weren't ever going to be charged with murder or homicide.
 
The boyfriend defended himself against what he perceived as home invaders. Nobody has an issue with him firing on the police as far as I've seen.

However, the police are in the very mirror of his situation: They were fired upon by someone who they assumed was the subject of a no knock warrant. Such warrants are issued under the presumption that there's a danger of the subject fighting or destroying evidence if a normal warrant is served. The officers were completely justified in returning fire. That bit of it means they aren't ever going to be charged with murder or a lesser level of homicide. Their perceptions of the situation count as much as the boyfriend's perceptions that also gave him a free ride on the fight.
 
If I was looking for malfeasance on the part of the officers serving the warrant, I'd look at their crappy aim. I've seen police training materials online where the trainer or author advises suppressive fire. That is, putting up a defensive wall of lead. That's a military tactic and unsuitable for any urban civilian law enforcement situation I can think of. IF the officers were responding using such tactics, and IF it was a documented part of their training, I could see a very easy win in civil court against the department. I'm not saying I've seen evidence of such tactics in this case, but I'd damned sure be looking at their training if I was investigating, and evaluating it.
 
You know who never gets held accountable in these cases? The person who f***s up the paperwork and puts the wrong address on it. The person who requests a no knock warrant when it isn't necessary. The judge who approves excessive numbers of no knock warrants. No knock warrants have been abused for decades, and these stories aren't new. And although minorities may bear the larger number of these f***-ups, I don't see this case as a racial issue at all. This is a no knock warrant issue. Hopefully, we elect a Congress that will ban them.

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

I find it truly appalling that you cannot get tested right away nine months after the start of the pandemic and even more shocked at how uneven the testing availability is.
 
Alabama is by no means a hotbed of modern society, but we've had drive-in testing with 45 minute wait lines since June. My aunt, sister and I went in after my sister fell ill in one car. They gave us the brain swab, temperature checks and blood oxygen at curbside. My sister had blood oxygen in the low 80's and the doctor on site wrote her a hospital admittance on the spot. 
 
I don't know if you have a blood oxygen detector, but if you can get one and your reading is below 90, go to the hospital right away.

I have a fever, wet cough and muscle pains.  Waiting to hear back from the doctor now on when I can get tested.

And who is at the heart of the Ukraine scandal?

Biden by way of his son.

Margins of victory in the popular vote are interesting, but not particularly meaningful. Popular vote does not, and has not ever, determined who becomes the President. The President has always been elected by the States through the Electoral College, never by popular vote. Good, bad, or indifferent, those are the rules. Continuing to talk about the popular vote, while interesting, is not particularly meaningful.

Let's get real here.  How do hospitals "just ramp up"?  Just add a wing on, complete with medical equipment, fully staffed with brand-new, fully trained medical personnel?
 
Who will be paying for those new facilities?  When they can rely on a steady stream of patients, those costs get amortized over decades.  Aren't we planing/hoping any ICU crush will be short-lived and we will have a vaccine in a year or two?  What do you do with all those extra beds after the pandemic?
 
What has been done is to re-purpose existing resources - no elective surgeries, for example.  Push off preventative health care to deal with acute, urgent problems.  That will come back to bite us later, but we're focused on keeping people alive now.
 
Economic damage?  Long-term health consequences have been mentioned a few times.  Losing a chunk of the workforce temporarily, and some becoming permanently unable to work is also going to create significant economic issues.  What happens to one of your theatres when an employee brings in the virus, and half your staff can't come come to work for 2 - 4 weeks because they are sick?  I will suggest training up some new ticket-takers, popcorn scoopers and drink pourers takes a lot less time than replacing MDs and nurses, but replacing a large group of unskilled labour isn't all that easy either.
 
And when they are not working, those unskilled labourers have no money to go out to see a movie and eat popcorn.

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?
 
 

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-landslide-victories-in-us-presidential-election-history.html
 
10. Herbert Hoover defeats Al Smith, 1928 (17.41% margin)
9. Franklin Roosevelt defeats Herbert Hoover, 1932 (17.76% margin)
8. Andrew Jackson defeats Henry Clay, 1832 (17.81% margin)
7. Ronald Reagan defeats Walter Mondale, 1984 (18.21% margin)
6. Theodore Roosevelt defeats Alton Parker, 1904 (18.83% margin)
5. Lyndon Johnson defeats Barry Goldwater, 1964 (22.58% margin)
4. Richard Nixon defeats George McGovern, 1972 (23.15% margin)
3. Franklin Roosevelt defeats Alf Landon, 1936 (24.26% margin)
2. Calvin Coolidge defeats John Davis, 1924 (25.22% margin)
1. Warren Harding defeats James Cox, 1920 (26.17% margin)
 
Wow, lived through three of those. Let's make it four.

Seriously, though.  The new format was GREAT!
 
I recommend this setup for all debates going forward.  It was so much better than all of the previous ones with candidates (especially Trump) yelling over one another.
 
And the moderator was amazeballs.

Assuming that model is accurate we're still talking a mortality rate of about 0.11% and even that is massively skewed towards the already sick and elderly.
 
If I take the CDC numbers and extrapolate it will look like...  (based on CDC report when we only had 207k deaths).
 
One thing I take away from this is that only 21% of deaths are working age people.  And if you restrict it to 54 and under it's only 8%.
 
Surely we could use the masks and social distancing and other basic precautions while putting everyone not in a vulnerable group back to work.  It'd be much easier to financially support the last age band or two of workers who are at risk instead of 100% of people in certain industries.  Age band 65+ is almost 79% of the total and they're mostly retired.
 
It feels like we've used a chainsaw instead of a scalpel to deal with this crisis.
 

I think the cooler weather combined with season cold and flu infections will spike the Coronavirus related deaths up substantially.  I also think the CFR is substantially inflated since half or more of the people who get Coronavirus don't have symptoms and so they probably don't go and get tested.  Everyone I know personally who has been tested did so when they felt sick or were exposed to someone who tested positive.
 
Especially outside the big population centers in Texas it wouldn't surprise me if most people who get sick don't bother to get tested unless they are VERY sick.
 
 
Hard data won't be available for another year or so - most likely - but I have heard several anecdotal reports from first responders and hotline workers that are reporting increases in load on the order of +400% or more.
I have zero hard evidence to back that up, but whatever the real numbers ends up being I don't think the general point is false.  People working on those fronts are saying the suicide, overdose and alcohol related deaths are way, way up.
 
I generically agree, but in crisis scenarios you often have to run with best guesses because you can't wait 12-15 months for the data to solidify.  Though, the data nerd part of me wonders why it is so hard to get data like this.  If I can't provide data aggregated and distilled to my customers at least twice a day (and some of our stuff updates every 30 minutes) they tend to lose their !@#$.
 
Profit motive right now I suspect is merely attempting to survive for many, many companies.  I work in the theater industry and if we take another year off I suspect all three of the major chains in the USA will collapse entirely.  Nobody is shooting for profits.  They're trying to generate enough business to not go bankrupt before they cease to exist.
 
 

As you say, ScottishFox, we don't have numbers for suicide, overdose, and alcohol-related deaths for 2020. That argument is being driven by assumptions and anecdotes with no hard evidence to back it up. And is often being pushed by corporate interests who want laborers back at work to boost their profits. Not that I believe for a moment that's your motivation. But it's highly questionable to base public policy on a "bet." After all, many of our early bets for COVID-19 proved faulty.
 
But Old Man makes a salient point. You don't become obese from bumping into an overweight person. You don't become alcoholic from meeting someone who drinks. That's comparing apples and rocks. But everyone we encounter is a potential virus spreader.
 
I am, however, growing fatigued by the argument against restrictions focusing on deaths. That's not the only significant consequence of being sick from coronavirus. Many who have "recovered" from COVID are still suffering serious health conditions months later, and they may turn out to be permanent. You can't earn a living if you're chronically ill, let alone dead.

The timing is close enough to the election date to receive publicity, but too close to be investigated and confirmed before the election. The whole laptop story, in addition to its other improbabilities and inconsistencies, falls within that same window. It's not impossible there could be something to it, but it stinks of classic political dirty tricks.

So it's OK with you because it's only 1 in 1000 that die.
 
Also, your extrapolation is totally, completely wrong.  The Texas population does NOT mirror the high-death-count areas such as New York.  Heck, it's not going to be the same from city to city.  The Texas age distribution is here:
 
https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ed483ecd702b4298ab01e8b9cafc8b83
 
Yes, it's heavily weighted to older...but here, it's 50+.  And, yes, that's known and expected.
 
But man..."even that is massively skewed"...so you're saying it doesn't matter?  Because it darn sure sounds that way.
 
Let's not even mention that El Paso will have no free ICU beds.  Or that this is *after* taking whatever measures have been taken.

Assuming that model is accurate we're still talking a mortality rate of about 0.11% and even that is massively skewed towards the already sick and elderly.
 
If I take the CDC numbers and extrapolate it will look like...  (based on CDC report when we only had 207k deaths).
 
One thing I take away from this is that only 21% of deaths are working age people.  And if you restrict it to 54 and under it's only 8%.
 
Surely we could use the masks and social distancing and other basic precautions while putting everyone not in a vulnerable group back to work.  It'd be much easier to financially support the last age band or two of workers who are at risk instead of 100% of people in certain industries.  Age band 65+ is almost 79% of the total and they're mostly retired.
 
It feels like we've used a chainsaw instead of a scalpel to deal with this crisis.
 

Seriously, though.  The new format was GREAT!
 
I recommend this setup for all debates going forward.  It was so much better than all of the previous ones with candidates (especially Trump) yelling over one another.
 
And the moderator was amazeballs.

My thought is that magic items shouldn't be paid for with Character Points. 
 
As the GM you are "running" the world, if the players come across any magical items after a fight or find hidden away in a tomb, it is because the GM (you) decided to put it there. And unless you are handing out tons and tons of CP, way above the standard rule suggestions (average 3 per session), the players would never be able to pay for magical items with CP.  Just going by the few examples in Fantasy Hero 6th, most magical items (not counting potions) cost around 30 CP and some go up to 60.  So by the general CP reward system in the books, that would take between 10-20 sessions to save up that much CP and that is without spending any CP on character development or improvement, just straight savings to use ONE magical item. So why would you (the GM) put something into the game that the players couldn't use? Just to piss them off? 
 
So it comes down to either giving the players tons of CP per session so they can afford to gain/use magical items, which would be very unbalancing for the other characters who don't want to use magical items because if you are giving out say 10 CP a session then those not trying to save for magical items will be dumping all their points into their characters and soon will max out all the CAPs you might have on stats, max damage, SPD, skills, etc... SO you end up with Halfling thieves with 20 in all stats, Max SPD (for setting), and tons of combat skill levels by spending the 60 CP that the Human Fighter was saving up to spend to get his 60CP Magical Sword. 
 
And if you decide on another type of point system for Players to gain magical items (say X amount of Magical Item CP per session) then you are still controlling where that CP gets spent (only on magical items) so you might as well as just control when magical items "appear" in the game and give them to the players then and cut down on the extra bookkeeping. 
 
If magical items are common in your setting (the old "magic shop" idea) where you can buy magic items, then you already have a built in mechanic to stop players from buying them. And that is by limiting how much gold/money the character have. You can make the magic items cost whatever you want, so a magical sword might cost 1000gp or 10,000gp. It is your call and since you are the one giving out how much loot the players gain in their adventures then you already are controlling what they can and can't afford to buy. 
 
So it all comes down to the fact that there is no need for the Players to spend CP on magical items, either they will never be able to afford to do so because of lack of CP, or if they can then those Players who don't spend their CP on magical items will become unbalanced to the rest of the group, or if you are controlling all the bookkeeping for another way, then you might as well just limit when the players find items and let them use them without the bookkeeping, and if magical items cost Gold, then you already have the rules/mechanic to control that by controlling how much gold and loot they gain from adventuring. 
 
And as for magical items you want the bad guys to use against the players, but not sure what to do with them when the players win the fight and you don't want them to have/use them, then make it so the magical items have conditions on them (+2 Sword used by a Goblin chief was made by Goblin mages and only Goblins gain the +2 magical bonus the sword provides; or the super evil bad guy has a powerful magical staff, but it only grants its magic to beings that have sold their souls to a demon; potion of healing only works for Orcs, magical ring of defense is Troll sized so won't fit a player character, and so on.)
 
 
 
 

Karl Rove had an effective strategy to expand the appeal of the Republican party, but it was foiled when the base rejected the immigration reform proposals of Bush's early 2nd term.  The RNC wrote a post-mortem after Romney's defeat in 2012, advising the party what it needed to do to survive and thrive going forward.  Instead the base tripled down in 2016 and won a fluke victory.  There are a few stages of internal reform a party can go through: Superficial(changing tone, message, messenger); Moderate(altering some policies and deemphasizing the less popular policies); Major(reversing the most unpopular policies and softening other policies to broaden appeal).  I'd expect Republicans to go through these stages incrementally, by making superficial changes in 2024-2028, moderate changes in the 2030s, and major changes in the 2040s.  If they don't, they are indeed doomed in any system where you need to win a majority of the vote in order to hold and maintain power.

Its a Minor transform per the rules: its making physical changes to the character beyond simple color changes etc.
 
Cosmetic turns blonde hair into red, or a velvet cloth to a linen one.  Function is utterly unchanged, only sensory input is affected.
 
Minor would make blonde hair into bald or velvet cloth into a pile of leaves.  The function changes but the game effect is minor.

26 MILLION followers?!?!?