archer

The article says it isn't known to be transmissible to humans. Kind of like how coronaviruses were not known to be transmissible to humans before COVID-19?

A zombie-like disease has spread across Texas deer herds because deer farms apparently knew they had infected deer but released them into the wild populations anyway. The disease causes drastic weight loss and radical changes in behavior including stumbling around. It's also known that the disease can be spread to primates through contact with body fluids or eating the meat. With hunting season coming up in the fall, what could possibly go wrong? https://www.thedailybeast.com/zombies-semen-and-big-racks-inside-the-texas-deer-breeding-industry?ref=scroll

Ahh, I don't oil my breads or salads. That explains it.

Biden's greatest champion passed away today on the actual grounds of the White House. They're saying it's from natural causes but it doesn't appear there will be an autopsy and perhaps not even a doctor's report. Biden released a very classy and moving statement. I've seen some Trumpists high-fiving the passing on social media.

I've never really understood the disparity of pricing on olive oil. The primo stuff just doesn't seem different than the whatever stuff.

Remarkably little information on the company website and what was available was very well-hidden. On their largest board, the battery life is only 2 hours. There wasn't information on the battery life of the medium or small boards. If they get that up to a point where someone could do a whole afternoon on the water, I'd imagine these will become insanely popular. Still, the video of them going up the Mekong delta was inspiring. I could imagine those being used there or with a high-tech D-Day. Or Seal Team Six to the rescue!

Most people look outside their window and determine that people in the game world are just like the people IRL. There's all kinds of economic levels, beliefs, backgrounds, etc. For the most part, normal people don't interact with the superhero world other than reading gossip magazines and watching Peregrine's Perch after the nightly news. Those normal people unlucky enough to deal with the superhero world are typically either running from a man-made disaster or are trying to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives after a disaster. We don't spend a lot of time talking about normal people because they aren't particularly interesting while living their normal lives. They don't become interesting until they start interacting with the abnormal. 2 cents

I got locked out with a patch several years ago then decided to give up on the game altogether rather than deal with whatever it was the game was trying to accomplish.

For those living in the US and who qualify for the Child Tax Credit, the rules on that have changed with the COVID relief bill and you'll get a monthly check instead of a lump sum payment when you file your taxes next year. If you didn't file taxes last year or have had a baby this year and want your payments to start now instead of after paying your taxes next year, you can sign up now at this website: https://www.whitehouse.gov/child-tax-credit/ The first checks will be going out in July, if I understand correctly.

"But I'm the Trumpist candidate with Russian hit men!"

Complete agreement. My objections are purely an "I don't want to deal with this in-game regardless of historical or sociological accuracy". As societies become more complex, it's quite common that they need a way to deal with prisoners before they become rich enough to buy land then build prisons and hire guards. So people who've committed crimes are sold into slavery either to compensate the victims or to compensate the crown. There's also an issue when you conquer a neighbor. Soldiers were often paid with loot from a conquest which makes your army a bad choice for an occupying force. So you: 1) Kill everyone there. 2) Let the adult population alone there until they revolt and you have to send in soldiers again to slaughter everyone who might be in revolt. 3) Or enslave people then settle your own citizens on the land. Someone could attempt to make the argument that slavery is a more moral choice in that situation than to slaughter everyone or to have repeated cycles of slaughtering most everyone.

I don't do slavery. There's no real way to handle it delicately as a GM. And there's no way to ensure you aren't going to have a player who thinks slavery is a swell idea and who wants his character to abuse it in every way. In every way. It's just easier to sidestep the issue by not having it (and especially since for most Americans the issue of slavery is tied to race and ideas of worthiness/supremacy rather than a simple "we captured/conquered you so now you work for us" or "we're too cheap to build a prison system so you have to work off your debt to society"). On the other hand, indentured servitude is fairly common. There's no social security so people with no families, as they get older, have the option of indenturing themselves. That gives them someone to serve who will also be contractually obligated to care for them even after the point when they cannot care for themselves. (idea stolen from the Bible) It's also a way for a person with no "credit rating" to get a loan: goods, services, and/or transportation in exchange for contracted labor. (idea stolen from British colonies in North America) For foreigners, it can be a step toward becoming a peasant. Peasants have the protection of the local lord (sometimes literally the right to come inside the castle for protection during an invasion). Unskilled foreigners can be indentured to clear some land and farm it for a few years before being upgraded to peasant (assuming they did a good job, paid taxes, and seemed loyal/respectful). Skilled foreigners might be granted the right to build a shop, ply their trade, and buy into any local guilds which might exist. (idea about how it applies to foreigners is original) Foreigners wouldn't necessarily have to take the step of becoming indentured to the local lord first. But ones who don't would be essentially operating without official sanction and would leave themselves more open to confiscation and hassles from the local lord than businessmen who aren't foreigners. Obviously I don't deal with indentured servitude as being stigmatized in any way. It's an official contract agreed to by both parties and enforceable by the local governing forces. A guy who tosses out his indentured "life-long" woman onto the street because she's gotten too old to do any useful labor would in theory be held as liable for breach of contract as an indentured servant who runs off because he doesn't want to work. But while it's not stigmatized, most work is hired without official exclusive contracts (whether indentured servitude or not) and that work can be terminated by the employer at will. Or the rate of pay can change at will. Or what work is required can change at will. So if you're being hired to go to a foreign country and work, for example, you're actually better off being indentured (or having some other kind of contract). Otherwise, you might be fired and stranded there or have your pay cut to nothing or unexpectedly have to pay for your own room and board. Of course if you're in a foreign country, finding someone to enforce your contract might be difficult. But at least the threat is there.

GOP candidate Anna Paulina Luna filed a restraining order last week against fellow Republican William Braddock, who is also planning to run for Congress in her district. "I received information yesterday (at midnight) regarding a plan (with a timeline) to murder me made by William Braddock in an effort to prevent me from winning the election for FL-13," wrote Luna in a petition for injunction, which also claims that Braddock is conspiring with "political opponents" Matt Tito and Amanda Makki to "take her out." https://www.rawstory.com/anna-paulina/ Trumpists: the comedy gift which keeps on giving.

I'm reminded of this old Tank McNamara cartoon. The scene is inside the locker room. You can hear the announcer's voice telling that the team today has a surprise all-new lineup. The scene shows that players are ripping their own names off their uniforms and sewing on different names.

Pre-reformation, the Catholic church prohibited their members from charging interest on loans. And since there were significant disadvantages to being non-Catholic, almost everyone was a Catholic (whether religious or not) and no one would lend money since all lending of money could only occur at a loss: you lose the use of your money for a certain period of time plus you take the risk that the borrower wouldn't repay and without any possible upside. That left only people who saw a significant advantage to being non-Catholic available to lend money at interest, mostly the Jews. So Jews became bankers and operated unfairly by charging interest (you could tell it was unfair because the Church said what they were doing was sinful). One of the more interesting events in history was the run up to 1000 A.D. Since that was obviously going to be the end of the world because Christ was going to reappear at the end of the millennium, "Christians" decided to live as if it were the end of days. And that included borrowing out the wazoo since they'd never have to repay the loans. As 1001 A.D. rolled around, it started dawning on the Christians that the Jews were going to expect to be repaid. Many of the loans were spent for frivolous purposes and gone and couldn't be repaid even if the borrower was so inclined. For some unknown reason at exactly the same time, there was a spontaneous Europe-wide persecution of Jews (killed, burned out, and/or run off). I'd imagine that people hate the Jews for the same reason that people rail against bankers, the gold standard, the rich, the 1%, industrialists, or whatever other catchphrase happens to be in use at any particular point in time to denote "anyone who is more wealthy than myself".

Very true.

So reindeer everywhere? I'd like to see that in the cards.

I'm pretty sure you Finnish will never terraform Mars....

What you're wishing for is a variation on "pre-existing conditions aren't covered". And even though that's the financial basis of all insurance, we as a society have decided to reject that philosophy altogether rather than try to tweak it so it'd work better. As long as you could wish for impossible things, wish for mandatory vaccination. Or wish that everyone was smart enough to get vaccinated.

As amusing as that might be, I don't think it proves much if anything. What I've heard of China's healthcare system: People who are ill are still expected to show up to work. Multiple horror stories about pregnant women having to pedal themselves to the hospital while in labor. Decades of horror stories about women having a forbidden second child showing up at a Chinese hospital and the kid getting a lethal injection as soon as it crowns, while it's still inside the mother. I mean, a news organization is welcome to come by and film my impressions of the Chinese healthcare system and post it up for the world to see. But it wouldn't prove anything because even though I'm a certifiable news junkie, I don't have any particular expertise when it comes to the Chinese healthcare system.

You could do the same thing but with distributing drinks. Call it Scatter Shots.

Will they let you play in the second half if you missed the first half?

"Help, my country has fallen and can't get up, eh?"

Wasn't that how Dr. Manhattan was created?