unclevlad

Sometimes an old post hangs around in my editor. But the more accurate explanation is, of course, it's a kind of magic.

I'm more worried about the massive increase in banned books, than about this ruling. The banned books movement is another clear indication of their overall intent, so trying for the contraception ban is completely in their ideological focus.

Mississippi State is going to play in their bowl game, to honor Mike Leach. The game isn't until Jan. 2nd...which tells you, it's a big game anyway. It's the former Outback Bowl; they ended their affiliation a few years ago. This late gives everyone a reasonable amount of time to work through the debilitating stages of grief, most likely. This will not be a team with dubious motivation. They might be overly hyped...but they will be up for it.

Of course they are. I'm not that worried about it, yet. Go back to the special master appeal...the judge who said yes to it, got roundly criticized. There's strong reason to expect this will be struck down on appeal. And it's not news that the religious right will never stop until their notion of acceptable sexual behavior is made law. Remember Heinlein's Future History? It included a right-wing takeover, that buried America under all kinds of repressions, and America as a theocracy. It led to the Howard Families' bailing in Methuselah's Children, and thus set up Time Enough for Love. The culmination was the counter-revolution in Revolt in 2100. There are hints of it in Stranger...but that's actually a different universe. Still, remember the power that church wielded, in Stranger.

To what point? What would be on it? It'd also either be insanely long...and if you work in HD, one thing you know is that working with the Languages is something of a PITA because there are over 600 of them...and about half, perhaps 2/3, are applicable (other than a single representative language for general use) outside of campaigns sharply focused. This makes finding what you want MUCH more tedious than it should be. Or it wouldn't be complete. A Sciences table is probably worse than the languages table...crossovers between physics and astronomy, and massively between biology and chemistry. How do you classify Anatomy and Physiology? Uncommon sciences I've taken: --Metallurgy --Materials science (yes, it's quite different in its focus) --Mineralogy --Quantum computing (a quantum computer is built and programmed very differently from a normal one)...I just built a character with this. --Pharmacology --Toxicology (again, quite different focus) Others might throw in Nuclear Engineering, or Power Engineering. How about Cybernetics? The list of science skills is huge...limited only by one's familiarity with the specializations options.

You could make your prediction DT, so we know who to bet on... I have no clue, I've almost entirely avoided it. And that says something, because during the weekdays, other than Feast Week...it's the only notable sports.

Coaches' contracts are rarely guaranteed.

Ewww. This is truly Kingsbury starring in a remake of The Nightmare Before Christmas. He played for Mike Leach for 3 years. I think he's probably gone once the season's over, particularly if the belief is Murray's recovery will run on the long side. There's also a plausible question about the GM there. Signing Murray to that deal was questionable from the standpoint of his injury history, altho I must concede there might be a bit of hindsight there.

Yah, I don't see this becoming a significant source of energy much before the end of the century. Cool, sure, but LONG way to go.

There are bigger goals established by the academies, for those people, than winning or losing. I kinda wonder if the AD is going to get a lecture from the Commandant, altho the guy's been there for over 20 years. Or maybe...he's 71. Perhaps he'll be...politely...requested to step down. Here's his official bio: https://navysports.com/staff-directory/chet-gladchuk/1 So there's a lot of "money talks" in there.

Sounds like the AD is prioritizing winning, as if Navy was a Power 5 school.

Not the way I read it. You don't need Combat Driving to drive a car; you do need it to perform difficult maneuvers like, say, a forward 180 J turn. Remember there's also Transport Familiarity. Professional Skill: Pilot goes into the commercial side of things...you can make money as a pilot. That usually involves several standard emergency maneuvers, flight plans, flight operations in and around major airports...I'm sure there are lots of details. It definitely does not cover combat-capable planes, tho, or combat maneuvering. That is the dividing line, IMO. I'd also say: Combat Piloting might be useful as a complementary skill *at times* for PS: Pilot...Sullenberger's bringing down the plane for a landing on the Hudson River might be an example. (Wikipedia says, yes, he was a fighter pilot.) OTOH, PS: Pilot cannot be a complementary skill for Combat Piloting. Similar: PS: Demolitions allows you to do commercial blasting, for example to prepare to excavate, or to demolish a building. It does not let you disable a bomb threatening to blow a church up. Rather than exploding the basic skills list, it might work better to adapt the Specialization approach, a la Shadowrun. A specialization would be an element of the skill where you're extra good. +1 to the skill when the spec applies, for 1 point. Can only be taken once...there's no point in taking 2...and would require at least 11- proficiency. For something like Security Systems, biometric sensors or keypad systems might be specializations. For Combat Piloting, the skill's already tied to your Transport Familiarities, but "Combat Planes" covers a pretty big swath. The specialization might be "fighter jets" or even specific models. I'll grant: many of the skills might not readily accommodate a specialization. A few are very broad...Bureaucracy is even called out in APG 1 IIRC...and Security Systems is another. On the other end would be Acrobatics and Contortionist. They're fairly specific. This might be the middle ground. There's already places where there's problematic overlap, most clearly in the Interaction skills. Conversation vs. Interrogation. Conversation lets you extract information without seeming to do so; Interrogation is when you and your target both know you're trying to get information. But that's a lot of overlap. Charm vs. Persuasion is another; isn't Charm mostly a very specific aspect of Persuasion? Persuasion vs. Oratory. If I'm building a team leader type? I take both. The more granular you get, the worse this situation becomes. Plus, a bunch of very narrow skills can get to be quite expensive. I'd rather leave this up to the GM and group to lay out as they need it, rather than formalize a static structure in the rules. The specialization notion would be worth considering...because it's not static, and keeps the rules impact narrow. Difficulty. Steps needed to disarm. Taking out a tripwire probably starts with a Concealment check to even know it's there. A retinal scanner? You're not disabling it directly. You can --try to spoof it --hack into the system to disable it --access the controls to open the door anyway All of these should be HARD, and may have requirements and drawbacks of their own. Or specialized gadgets. Getting into the vault where the nuclear launch codes are kept should require more than a single, simple skill roll.

WaPo reports Musk has terminated Twitter’s trust and safety council. He’s Murdoching, it seems…no voice but his. This will skew his user demographics even more to extremism and drive away more advertisers. Also saw where he’s making what looks like a desperate move. Buy $500k+ in ads, they will match, up to $1m, for ads for the rest of the year IIRC. I’m hearing a panic move so the 4Q revenues don’t appear to be cratered. Killing the TSC can’t encourage the big companies to come back. EDIT: follow-ons. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/13/twitter-lose-users-elon-musk-takeover-hate-speech#:~:text=More than 30 million users,takeover%2C according to a forecast. And one of the authors I follow on FB mentioned today that he's left Twitter and changed to a different platform. Someone made the point that your tweets aren't deleted...and said someone claiming your user name might be able to get to them. I have no clue if that's the case, but deleting your tweets when you delete your account feels only sensible anyway. https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/is-your-twitter-embarrassing-heres-how-to-delete-all-your-old-tweets/

You don't often hear broad criticism from broadcasters...but just now...Troy said "there's a lot of bad football, especially bad offensive football." Arizona's continual mistakes were some of it; I think issues with Matt Patricia, which I've heard a few times now, is another.

Oh dear. 3 plays in, Kyler Murray goes down with a non-contact injury. Drops back, doesn't see anything, starts scrambling around the right side. Makes 5 or so yards, tries a cut...and goes down. And doesn't get up. He's going off on the cart. Offhand, I don't know of any relatively *minor* injuries that ever seem to happen in a case like that. Kobe's blown Achilles, some type of torn ligament, and probably not a partial tear. Very unfortunate. EDIT: Lisa Salters reports Murray is sobbing; Cards are calling it a knee injury. Combine those, and it would seem rather safe to say his season's over. EDIT 2: initial diagnosis is reported to be ACL. An MRI will be forthcoming.

NOT!! good. From the Mississippi Clarion Ledger: It's the time factor that causes me the most concern, even more than characterizing it as massive.

Well, OK, but no one can reach the end of one of those... Oh, and Emeril HATED them. He said many a time on Emeril Live, back in the day, I hate one-sided tasting food....

What Brady's performance today *really* taught us is... The Saints should be relegated.

Pretty bizarre week. Under .500 teams beating putative playoff teams in notable upsets: Jags, Panthers. Can't count the Lions here, because they were actually *favored*. Under .500 teams giving nominal power teams a major run for their money: Broncos, Texans. I don't count the Steelers because Jackson was out for the Ravens. Always a good thing: Browns lose. EDIT: Denver is officially eliminated. GOOD. FIRE HACKETT NOW.

Concussion evaluation for Wilson? Just noted on the gamecast "last play, injury R. Wilson" and saw him head into the Blue Tent. EDIT: NM...just got the injury update. And saw the honkin' big knot on the side of the head.

Did the Vikes lose to the Lions? Yes. Yes they did. Does one believe 10-3...or a point differential of -1? And...so close. The Cowboys escape being the ignoninny of the year.... Titans also blew it. Home game vs. a sub-.500 team, chance to take a 4 game lead with 4 to go, all but lock up the division. Nope. Still a 2 game lead with only 4 to play, but this is an ominous loss.

I doubt this will last, but the Cowboy defense has been befuddled somewhat, there's been a tipped ball leading to a pick, and the Cowboy punt returner let a ball get away. 17-17 tie as we're about to go to half. Who'da thunk.... EDIT: spoke too soon. Texans make plays, move the ball to try a 50 yard FG...and make it. TEXANS LEAD 20-17 at halftime!!!

The networks hate many of us. I mean HATE. And they're colluding in it. I mean, how else can you explain this? CBS single game broadcast. The blue is KC-Denver. https://506sports.com/2022/14-FOX-E-V2.png This isn't pasting directly, but it's a link to the Fox early slot. Texas, NM, OK, and Arkansas, along with much of Kansas and parts of Missouri, get...Texans at Dallas. <sigh> The late Fox game, which is opposite the Chiefs-Broncos fiasco, is TB vs. SF. Not *as* bad but...not great. They hate us. This proves it.

So did anyone watch the Heisman Award...more specifically, more than the last 5 minutes of the telecast, when the actual award takes place? Me either. Caleb Williams of USC. Saw some of his play, off and on...pretty crazy stuff there. USC's defense was shaky, so Williams hadda do a bunch. That means he gets to cash in on NIL like Bryce Young did this year...ya gotta figure that Young pocketed a *bundle* for the Fansville ads. Williams is NOT draft-eligible for '23; he's only played 2 years, it has to be 3. But the NIL money will probably soothe the pain to a good degree........

Would you prefer I call it a Faux Fur Jinx? I'd be happy to....