Matt the Bruins

I'm grateful to be old enough that there was no Internet when I was young(er) and stupid(er) where I could thoughtlessly post every insensitive and stupid comment I made, so they could go on forever, and be thrown in my face decades later, presented as the sum total of my character.

So at what point should we start comparing the violence in our society to be comparable to the acts in the Middle East?  ie- the bombings, shootings, and so on?  That is, 'failed state' level violence?

I mean, it bothers me because literally everyone is fooling themselves at thinking they are making "the correct financial decision for their retirement" by supporting these policies.  Retiring is hard when your grocery bill is higher than rent.........

...and I just checked the voter registry here in OH to see if I was listed.  We just had an election back in May, voted with no issue...
 
...I've been removed.

I still like it more than some MCU films. 

It's been disappointing to see right wing media successfully direct the narrative to the irrelevant grabbing-the-wheel story.  The man knowingly directed armed insurrectionists to attack the capitol and clearly intended to lead them himself.  That almost certainly counts as levying war against the United States.  It absolutely counts as seditious conspiracy, and you can tack on any number of obstruction charges for the witness intimidation attempts that happened on Monday.  It's not a smoking gun, it's a smoking arsenal.

Are you watching the same Phase Four I am?  Loki?  WandaVision?  Hawkeye?  Shang Chi?  Moon Knight?  If you want a letdown, go watch the Star Wars stuff.

Many companies have learned that taking care of their employees makes them more loyal and more productive, and positive public relations translates to more customers.
 
Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still doing the right thing.

He missed Loving v. Virginia. https://www.businessinsider.com/obergefell-telling-clarence-thomas-didnt-bring-up-loving-v-virginia-2022-6

The counter argument to not packing the courts is that just letting them run amok is going to do lasting harm right now. In real time.
 
If you limit their ability to erode human rights now, at least it kicks the can down the road and opens up the possibility that things might actually improve. Sure, they could undo things if they ever regain power, but that was going to be the case anyway. 
 
If you're not going to use your temporary advantage to change the situation to redress the obvious injustices done by the other side by refusing to even give Garland a hearing and to ramrod their candidate in record time, what is even the point?

Yeah, it's being blamed on Biden by his political opponents, and spoon-fed to their cult followers by their media allies. But keep in mind, the highest rated Fox News program is Tucker Carlson's with a viewership of 3 million. I.e. one percent of the American population. The Jan. 6 committee hearings have been getting 20 million viewers across all platforms. The word is getting out. At the end of the day, there are more sane Americans than cultists.
 
That said, Democrats need to get more aggressive in countering Republican propaganda. This past year we've seen hopeful signs as some Dems have been publicly taking the gloves off, but they still have to go farther.

I low key mocked the British for that unbelievably stupid election, then November 2016 happened and now I'm just sad for everyone.

Ah, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you...
 

Snap, Crackle, and Pop?
 
Too obvious.

Ran across this article on NPR: The creator of the FBI mass shooting protocol is 'shocked' by Uvalde police response
 
Fairly short read. The interviewee, Katherine Schweit, is frustrated, and with good reason: There are two very simple things that still aren't being done according to protocols that have been in place for quite some time.
 
The first, is that the police need to immediately head toward the sound of gunfire and attempt to neutralize the threat.  It doesn't matter if there's only one officer. (My opinion: If schools are going to use resource officers, they need to find those with the intestinal fortitude to do so.)
 
The second, is that the protocol in schools should be to run, not shelter in place. Yet students are always taught and told to shelter in place first.
 
These really are very, very basic tactical considerations that become obvious when your objective becomes "protect the victim" rather than "my family needs me, I have to go home tonight."
 
I have no issue with the ethics of prioritizing one's own survival so they can go on to take care of their family or continue helping a greater number of people in the long run. That's fair. It's not an unethical position. But I'll say that soldiers, police, and other emergency personnel should not be in those positions if that's their ethos. They'll have to get used to their life insurance policy being their family's solace should they fall in duty. Or seek other work.
 
I'm not sure when "run, hide, fight" became "hide, hide, hide" in schools, or why. Running has issues. But it beats being fish in a barrel.

Both 5E and 6E go to great lengths to say it's NOT a rule...that there are decided drawbacks, for example.  The AP caps are in there, IMO, to help reduce the complexity of character/campaign building.  They're guidelines.  The lower end?  You generally don't want a base attack lower than 40 AP (at 400 points) because the character isn't going to be effective with it.  The high end?  Likely to be too effective.  But game balance doesn't boil down to just one number.
 
It can be OK to use APs;  I think DCs are much better, but what we're arguing against primarily, is using them SO rigidly, and so blindly.  No one's countered that you can't do a Multiform or Duplication, at 400 points...on a 60 AP cap.  The base power exceeds it.  It'd be hard to do a significant Summon...because of the major cost of Amicable.  How about Fantasy Hero, where a TON of spells have pretty darn high APs, then massive limitations to make their costs practical?  How does that fit with AP caps?
 
Y'all are taking a tool and enshrining it as Holy Writ.  

To me it makes more sense to limit the control cost rather than the pool cost.  The Control cost determines how high the active cost of the power in the pool can be.  Allowing the control cost to be higher than the campaign limit would allow breaking of the limit.  Putting a limit on the control cost does not make since in this case.   Do you count the cost of the slots in a multipower when determining if it is over the campaign limit?    If you are going to limit one framework with a campaign limit you should limit all frameworks as a matter of fairness.
 
 If that is the case the classic 3 power multipower with blast, flight and force field in a campaign limited to 60 active points would mean you can only put in 36 points into the power.   39 points for the multipower itself and 3 variable slots at 7 active points each works out to 60 points. That would give you a 8d6 blast, a 12 DEF force field, and a 37 “ flight. 
 
Seems like that is going to really limit certain character concepts to the point where they become unplayable.  Throwing In barrier to the multipower listed above would be a basic green lantern concept.  But that would require reducing the blast to 6d6 the force field to 10 DEF and the flight to 30” to afford a barrier of 6 PD 6 ED 1 Body with a length of 8”, height of 2”.   Does that seem reasonable for a character in a campaign with a 60 point active cost limitation? 

Off hand, I can't think of a single instance of conservatism where maintaining the status quo *didn't* involve different rules for different people... though the intent might be disguised Fiscal conservatism is a prime example. Fiscal conservatives present themselves as merely concerned with governments digging themselves into financial holes they can't get out of. But what expenditures must be avoided or cut for this prudence? Why, the welfare state. I don't remember ever hearing a self-described fiscal conservative ever saying, "We shall simply have to slash our military budget and hope for the best." Much less, "Corporations will simply have to pay more for the benefits they gain from government," or "We can still afford pensions and health care if we raise taxes on rich people." No, the pain of austerity must be borne by the less affluent. So in practice, different rules for rich and poor.
 
The current Republican obsession with "election security" similarly tries to present itself as a hard-headed, prudent concern for accuracy and reliability (against those wild-eyed liberals who'd hand a ballot to anyone willy-nilly), but is rather unsubtly code for "Keep Black people from voting."
 
I will grant that some conservatives have become fairly slick at presenting liberal innovations as creating new privileged groups or new oppressions -- opponents of affirmative action were quite brilliant at selling this -- but it's usually not hard to spot the defense of an old unfairness hiding behind the accusation of a new unfairness. So I think my formulation stands.
 
Dean Shomshak

For my birthday today, my wife bought me the complete series of The Middle Man.  Watched the first three episodes with the wife and kids.  They loved it, as did I.

Add an animatronic feature that makes it turn its head in reaction to motion, and you're golden!

My copy of Superman Returns was included in a three-pack of Blu-ray movies, which also included Superman and Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. While I've watched the other movies several times, Superman Returns basically is the movie equivalent of Pratchett's dwarf bread:
 
 

While I still revere Christopher Reeve as the quintessential Superman, I have to admit that Superman III and Superman IV were both terrible, terrible movies.

Shippers are always upset. That's kind of their existence.