archer

He's deliberately lying to promote his agenda, nothing more, nothing less. He knows the answers to the questions, he's just saying what his audience wants to hear so he can hold on to them as an audience. The audience wants the other side to be idiots or bullies or authoritarians or fill-in-the-blank...and that tool of pretending that you don't understand the publicly-available answers to simple questions lets the host paint the other side to be what the audience wants and expects the other side to be. If the host was always honest and painted the other side as being on occasion reasonable people who had valid arguments to back their points of view, his audience would leave him to find someone who would instead feed their own inner narcissist (it's MY opinion which means I must be right, how DARE you present contrary information). Unfortunately, he's not alone in doing that among TV hosts. I love Rachel Maddow to death. But when she hits one of her hot button issues, if the other side hasn't said or done something inflammatory that she can point to, she pretends to misunderstand something to suck up to her audience. That lack of inflammatory stuff wasn't something she had to worry about in the Trump administration but she's gone off on a couple of rants since Biden came to town because the other side quieted down. To her credit, her little ploys never deliberately try to rack up a body count. But she uses the same tactic. The TV host who follows Maddows' show does the same ploy all the time. His name escapes me at the moment. The CNN host who comes on after Cuomo does it. Former FOX host Bill O'Reilly used to do it all the time. I haven't watched FOX since doing opposition research in mid-2016 so I don't know their current line-up. But I'd guess they all do it at some point every week, especially since Biden is a lot more low key than the Democrat leaders they've gotten used to.

Ah, thank you for the explanation. "Emotional level" things don't penetrate the ol' noggin every time. Sometimes I just get irritated that someone is trying to manipulate me emotionally and I don't adequately process why someone is trying to manipulate me emotionally. (Or understand how someone could be manipulated emotionally with that particular message, but that's another matter....)

I think we can do basic math without being political. South Korea and the USA each had the first identified case of COVID on the exact same day. South Korea is widely acknowledge to have had a good response to the disease and much better than the USA. South Korea today lists 1770 deaths from COVID since the beginning and has a population of 51,303,892. That gives a death rate from a country with a good response to the disease as 0.0000345003065265. The USA has a population of 332,526,757. If it had that same death rate due to having a good public response to the disease, the USA would have 11,472 who are dead from COVID today. In real life, the USA has had 578,058 deaths. So the number of actual deaths 578,058 minus the number of deaths we should have had under a good response scenario, that 11,472 number, shows the USA has 566,586 deaths which can be reasonably attributed to having a poor response to the disease rather than a good response. Now how much of that you attribute to particular politicians, to a fractured healthcare system, to an inadequate healthcare system, to deliberate disinformation, to pig-headedness of Americans, and to a dozen other things is a discussion for the political thread rather than here. (stats from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries ) But in your own mind you can certainly determine a percentage of those 566,586 excess deaths which you think should be attributed to deliberate COVID disinformation campaigns. One percent would be 56,658 deaths. Fifty percent would be 283,293 deaths.

I could shamefully confess that I frequently use DuckDuckGo as a calculator when multiplying or dividing large numbers....

It'd be easier to put The Eye of Agamatto around his neck.

He's either an monster who stops aging but can't effectively interact with others because they're terrified of him. Or he's a mortal who is aging. "Immortal who can't interact with others because they're terrified of him" is a pretty good reason to not be in that form. You couldn't Facetime with someone, much less go to a grocery store, walk in the park, or a party, without changing back to human form. "The lonely immortal who everyone is terrified of" is a well-worn trope in fiction. ===== Not sure how many points you're needing to save so if you can tell us what number you're needing to get down to, that'd be helpful to me. But looking at the multipower idea. 36 OMG I'm an ice monster multipower (45 Active Points) Only In Alternate Identity (-¼) 3f Cold Breath: Killing Attack - Ranged 2d6, Area Of Effect (26m Line; +½) (45 Active Points); No Range (-½), Only In Alternate Identity (-¼) 41f Talons: Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 1d6 (4d6 w/STR), Armor Piercing (+¼) (19 Active Points); Only In Alternate Identity (-¼) 22f Bite: Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 2d6 (6d6 w/STR) (30 Active Points); Only In Alternate Identity (-¼) So before that cost you 65 points. Putting it in a multipower costs you only 42 points so you saved 23 points right there. (Someone more familiar with 6e might want to check my point totals to see if the unfamiliar edition screwed up my math.) You can also put your movement into a multipower. I'm not sure off-hand how 6e deals with multiple limitations in each slot and whether you can add those limitations together to reduce the cost of the multipower itself in addition to the slots. I've got to go right now so I can't mess with it. But you can probably cut your costs, maybe increase the ability in a couple of slots and maybe add some swimming. But here are your movement powers as written for quick reference for anyone who wants to mess with it. 34 Swift When Running On All Fours: Running +48m (60m total), Reduced Endurance (½ END; +¼) (60 Active Points); Only When Running On All Fours (-½), Only In Alternate Identity (-¼) 2 4 Icewalking: Clinging (normal STR) (10 Active Points); Only On Icy Surfaces (-1½), Only In Alternate Identity (-¼)10 Super-Strong Legs: Leaping +26m (30m forward, 15m upward) (13 Active Points); Only In Alternate Identity (-¼) 1

Yeah, a lot of people these days aren't aware that the Superman radio show played a large role in dismantling the power structure of the Ku Klux Klan by showing the public how silly there were by revealing true insider information about all their secret handshakes and rituals.

I try to work in a variety of reactions in my stories because people are varied. Sarcopha-Guy became worshipped as a god, much to his annoyance and extreme inconvenience. But elite warriors? The Tonton Macoute in Haiti were instrumental in keeping a brutal dictator in power for decades and were famed for their atrocities. Saddam Hussein's Imperial Guard was the backbone of his army and were his most loyal troops. Saddam warehoused the bones of the "enemies" he executed (with US troops finding 300,000 skeletons which he'd had boxed up...and no telling how many others were buried across the country from less formal executions). The Russians have their special forces (Spetznaz). A defector wrote a book detailing how they trained their special forces people to kill by putting them in gladiator fights with prisoners from the Gulags. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquarium_(Suvorov) But despite that, special forces troops were held in high regard in the USSR and in today's Russia. Yeah people can worship elite warriors. But there's also plenty of real-world examples of why they should be feared (it's not like I even scratched the surface of all the bad ones). As for superheroes, I prefer most of their activism to be low key and mostly off-screen. Visits to children's hospitals. Helping to build community centers. Social worker in their civilian ID. Big money donor in civilian ID. Yeah, technically almost any hero could do more as mayor, governor, president, or dictator for life...and likely better than whoever was doing that task previously. But that's not what I'm looking for in a gaming experience as a GM. Now if I was doing a Dark Champions campaign, finding people who have outstanding warrants and bringing them to the police would be proactive, in a sense, because you'd be catching "known criminals" before they commit more crime. Or if you were some kind of Harbinger of Justice, you could shoot someone on the off chance that the might commit a crime at some point in the future (or shoot some husband on the off chance that he might someday abuse his spouse). Maybe do the Harbinger of Driving: He roams the freeways at rush hour and marks out drivers who do something blatantly stupid which endangers all the cars around him. The Harbinger follows him home and caps him, thus improving the gene pool and making the streets literally safer.

Your internet searches sound suspiciously similar to my internet searches.

Well, dusters aren't completely unique. I've seen them on Into the Badlands, Killjoys, Pandora, and several other recent series. But look at the gun:

At least there's online videos these days so you can actually see amazing things rather than just hearing about them.

Thanks for the information. I felt guilty about almost always skipping over his videos because I thought maybe I was shortchanging a forum member by not listening to him. At least I can skip his stuff in the future with a clear conscience. I listened to about 2/3rds of this one. They're throwing more money at hiring operators for vaccine and testing appointments than they are at hiring operators for doling out funeral benefits because the vaccine and testing operators are helping to save lives while the funeral benefit operators are not. That makes perfect sense and is appropriate. If he had some great point in the last third of his video, he lost me as an audience member by spending a lot of time pointing out something that should be obvious and appropriate government behavior. In the first days of vaccines being available, it was tough as hell to get through to make an appointment on the phone. There were stories in the papers about people waking up at 2 a.m. to start trying to call the phone lines because they couldn't get through otherwise. Since then, they've hired more operators and vaccines are available in more locations. Knowing about the existence of the funeral expense phone number could be helpful.

Originally Drathreth was create as a Nightbane for Palladium's Nightbane RPG. What can I do to improve his sheet? I have no frame of reference for "Nightbane for Palladium's Nightbane RPG" since I'm totally unfamiliar with the product. So I don't know whether this is intended to be a monster, an opponent, or a player character. I'm also not sure what you're meaning by "improve his sheet". Are you wanting to figure out how to save some points? How to make him more flexible? Trying to figure out other powers an ice creature should reasonably have? Trying specifically to replicate something out of Palladium which I don't have the background to even start helping you with? I mean, the straight up greatest improvement would be to give him 70 more character points so he can buy 7 more points of SPD. But I don't think that's exactly what you have in mind. ==== If you're looking to save points, put his main attacks and movement powers into an OMG I'm an ice monster multipower. Or separate multipowers for attack and for movement. You could also mess around with his other powers to save a few points here and there such as: 3 Immortal: Life Support (Longevity: Immortal) (5 Active Points); Only In Alternate Identity (-¼), Unified Power (Regenerative Healing Factor; -¼) Add to that Costs END -1/2 Costs END only to activate +1/4 Increased END x3 -1 Extra Time only to activate 5 minutes -1 That'd reduce the cost of his immortality to 1 CP. And spending 5 minutes each time to become immortal isn't a huge drawback in the grand scheme of being immortal. ==== I'm also not sure what license you have to have in order to become an artist. You might want to clarify exactly what kind of license is involved. Like is it a license to sell art on a street corner or is it something else?

Horror stories about what people found in their Cokes which were bottled in recycled bottles which hadn't been properly emptied. " Yeah, some guy actually drank a rusty nail that was in his Coke." "I still think that sounds better than the guy who found the dead rat in his Coke."

I think he's holding a gun from the Firefly series. Nice touch that I almost missed.

I almost never watch videos. I generally have the audio on my computer silenced since noise tends to give me migraines...and video is a really inefficient way for me to absorb information compared to reading. But people post this guy's stuff on a regular basis. Out of curiosity, is he a forum regular or something? I'd be more likely to watch video of him if he had a personal link to these forums.

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A fireball streaking across the sky Monday night was seen from Tampa to the northwest Bahamas. So what was it? CBS4 Chief Meteorologist Craig Setzer said it looks like it was a very close pass of asteroid 2021 GW4. He said it was likely passing about 9,000 miles above us and briefly struck the atmosphere while moving at 16,000 mph. https://miami.cbslocal.com/2021/04/13/passing-asteroid-south-florida-sky/ This is really good news: the Earth has a lot more air than we thought it did if an asteroid which is 9000 miles away is touching the atmosphere.

< looks at draft card > Not me.

There needs to be a "Bring back the EU" movement.

Crimson Force Field : Barrier Meglo-Drain Effect : Absorption Flames of the Sun : Blast/RKA with variable special effect fire Comet Storm : Blast/RKA with variable special effect hail Asteroid Barrage : Blast/RKA with variable special effect rocks Gravity of Jupiter : TK only to pull down Gravity Grip : TK Hyper-Jets : Flight Blindness Ray : Darkness, not some permanent blindness Poisonous Fog : Change Environment non-damaging fog but useful to get heroes to rescue innocents Strength Amplifier : Density Increase with SFX of looking slightly taller, larger, and bulkier. Could instead go Multiform. Teleport Ray : SFX flash of light and he goes Invisible rather than teleporting. He's a villain so why tell the truth? Also makes it harder for gadgeteers to build specific counters to him if he isn't telling them the truth about his powers. Alternately he could tell them it's a time travel device and since he can't stop them in the present that he's going back to erase them from history. (More fun if his henchmen are outside the building putting up a big sign welcoming President Gore to the city. If the heroes are confused enough, they might even build a time machine...which would give Dr. Zarkon something worth stealing.) Invisibility Projector : Teleport Venusian Spider Web : Entangle Karate Chop : HA or HKA Hypnotic Inducer : Mind Control Rocket Boots : Running Body Mask : Shapeshift usable as attack (+1 1/4). If you just Shapeshift vs sight, it might be cheap enough to give it range plus add it to another attack maybe like Flash. The person is blinded plus Shapeshifted to look like a henchman or the villain himself. Could be used against one of the heroes, an innocent bystander, or the mayor according to what works with the villain's plans. Atomizer : Shrinking Maybe Duplication or cloned followers instead of or in addition to robots? It'd be a surprise to a hero who takes the mask off a lowly follower and finds that the person behind the mask is the "mastermind". And if there's going to be any kind of followers, add 5 points of Flash to each Blast effect they use. Might as well hope to blind at least some of the enemies to set them up for the others. It'd also make it difficult to convict the villain of a crime since he could create doubt over whether he'd committed some crime and he could always have an iron-clad alibi.

When I was a teen, we followed our state university's college basketball religiously. Mot of the time they showed it on TV tape delay on the local station after prime time and the news. But when they showed it live on TV, we watched the game on TV with the sound muted and listened to the radio. That was in the days of real basketball with no shot clock and no three point line.

Utah's law on assault is a bit weird: "a threat, accompanied by a show of immediate force or violence, to do bodily injury to another". Threating someone's life by telling them that you're going to go do something violent in the future would not seem to be "immediate". I'm sure there's other laws they could use but in a some states, such a threat in front of witnesses would be sufficient if the DA wanted to prosecute.

I remember comics were 12 cents. But I didn't have access to money until comics were 25 cents. My parents weren't much for buying unnecessary things like comics and my dad actively discouraged things like imagination, fantasy, fiction, and most anything that wasn't grounded in his philosophy of "poverty is noble and struggling is a sign of virtue".

Yeah, I get disoriented when it gets noisy in a crowd and my balance/sensory aphasia is so bad that if someone lightly brushes up against me when I'm not expecting it, I go reeling as if they shoved me. Social distancing made getting out of the house a lot easier at first. But after my wife insisted I quit going to the store just before Thanksgiving, I've gotten used to not having to go through the ordeal of being around others. I'm having a real problem getting back into the swing of things like going to the bank or the grocery store. I was pleased when I had to go to the DMV last week that despite the governor lifting the mask mandate that the DMV was still "masks required.

The cost increase from 25 cents to 30 cents to quickly 35 cents was a killer. I remember trying to find names and addresses of different printers to recommend to them so that they could reduce their costs.