unclevlad

The smaller, lesser cousin of the cloaker...the Enveloper.

My concern is much like Tricksta's. The concern is that Trumpists will win quite a few primaries in the mixed areas...there'll be quite a few districts where his sycophants will win easily, and some where they'll lose massively. But in those contested states like Arizona and Michigan, where the Party 'leaders' have excoriated anyone for 'disloyalty' to His Orangeness, they'll win the primaries. Now, come the general elections...which do they fear more, the Trumplican or the Democrat? 20 years of conditioning versus a bunch of media reports about which they're skeptical at best anyway. How many people would vote for a Trumplican but NOT for Trump himself? The two aren't necessarily the same.

Raven's Bluff (Forgotten Realms)

Viet Nam

Macedonia

Kenya

So they're polytheistic....

All but??

I wonder if a class action lawsuit can be filed against the Texas power companies; it's their fault their systems weren't prepared for an event like this. Not just from the cost issues, but the overall costs associated with such a failure to maintain their system. Fat chance, but one can dream.

It was also 10 years ago that another *massive* cold spell hit. Early February, 2011. https://www.weather.gov/media/epz/Storm_Reports/Cold11/Feb2011ColdWx.pdf The central area of the Texas-New Mexico border rarely gets *really* cold; the jet stream tends to steer things away. (The coldest we got over the last few days was, IIRC, about 18 above, and the coldest high temp was 30ish.) In this cold stretch in 2011, we had a couple days with single-digit HIGH temps, and IIRC the coldest pushed 10 below. That's insane for us. And during this, businesses and the university were closed to save heat. There were rolling blackouts, but never more than a couple hours, IIRC. And not for more than a few days. BUT, Texas had it MUCH worse. Power plants failed and power problems lasted MUCH longer. And it seems Texas did NOTHING to improve the situation. Yes, well, they darn sure BETTER start working on fixes. Because from what I've heard, this could *easily* happen in any winter.

Louis L'Amour EDIT: Keillor and Prairie Home Companion came here once...<looks it up> 2008. Awesome show. VIP pass to the after-party...totally worth it.

Harry Harrison

Fritz Leiber

The Zombies. New topic: Authors

Kale

cauliflower

Yugo

Studebaker

By the time August and September come around, hopefully the vaccination rates will be high enough to keep any outbreak relatively contained.

My hope isn't that we get rid of it, but that it's simply reduced in transmissivity and lethality so it does become like a bad flu season...and, I might add, that'll probably mean regular vaccinations. It's also possible that high-risk areas (hospitals, nursing homes) may retain mask requirements for a significant period of time. Airport terminal workers might too, simply because they're in contact with *so many* people over the course of a day. Passengers...in the terminal, in the plane? Harder to say. Sports events with normal, full capacity? The pressure will be on to allow it, but obviously the environment is a very dangerous one. People *will* screw up their mask protocols.

Edward Nigma

It also begs for martial arts DCs because the maneuvers and DCs don't cost END. Or possibly ECs with, let's say, force field, flight, and HA. The EC savings will tend to make the 1/2 END cost more tolerable. And it seems to me that this would make figured characteristics that much more significant, especially if the plan's to buy up REC. It's more expensive to do that in 5E, To be sure, that's competing with buying the damage (for example) in other ways, but that's a matter of playing around with it.

My brother spun out on black ice...LONG time ago. SUPER easy to do, unfortunately. And, not a great kinda day...a mother on Nextdoor posted that her 17 year old daughter had Covid-19...a BAD case. As in kidney failure bad. Which brings up: was watching ESPN basketball coverage. Jimmy Dykes was bemoaning that the weather for Monday, the high was going to be in the single digits. In Fayetteville, Arkansas. If it's that way, and with this in mind: be careful and stay safe, everyone. And my sincere hope that any problems you have, get better soon.

One thing I don't know is the trade rules. I know some leagues require a trade to be relatively balanced; in the NBA, it's why a lot of players get included, to balance out the money...and they promptly get cut by the team they're traded to. If something like that is in place in the NFL...JJ had a honkin' big salary. $17.5M for 2021...and UFA in 2022. NOT great trade bait. This way he can negociate a longer term deal to give the new club more confidence, and *possibly* take less money. It's really better for everyone this way. In other NFL news, yes indeed, Urban Meyer is off to a rocky start. Signs Chris Doyle *despite* a factory's worth of red flags...only to have Doyle resign (which, I suspect, was doing Meyer a favor by not forcing the team to fire him). Meyer's got a history of being rather tone-deaf on issues, and this hire strongly smelled that he learned nothing from when he got canned by OSU. College head football and basketball coaches have near-absolute authority; their players have almost no recourse. They can now transfer, but that's painful and usually requires them to sit out a full year. They can be tin-plate dictators...and some still are. But that is not gonna work with veteran pros. I give Meyer no better than a 50% chance to be the head coach in 2022 because I don't think he can change.

Vast