Usagi Yojimbo's page

Is there a summary anywhere of when Radiance upgrades and what he players need to do?

We just finished the first book. I was skimming the second and I see that it upgrades an additional +1 at then end, but the book didn’t say whether it was to +2 total or +3 and or whether there were any other powers.

An American Healyite?!?

Didn't see that coming.

[Sectarian grumbling]

Wait, so... What? How can you tell? Is there something wrong with liking WSWS? (Besides the whole 'enemy of civilization thing')

Are they Pabloites? Are you a Spartacist? What is a Healyite? I swear I googled this before asking you.

Was Pablo trying to dilute Troskyism into nothingness, or was he trying to infiltrate and take over mainstream communism?

Most importantly, am I at risk of being purged for liking Brust?

Marxist General: "Doodlebug! What is best in life?"

*golf clap*

Also couldn't believe my ears when the speaker averred that even the Bolsheviks had offered Citizen K(e)rensky's namesake "critical support" in the face of the Kornilov coup.

No, they f!~&ing didn't!

Really? Based on my extensive[1] research, the Bolsheviks helped interdict troops movements and were given back weapons in case Kornilov managed to get troops to Petrograd. Is that not true, or do you not consider that 'support'?

1) I spent three minutes reading the wiki page.

Hadn't seen this photo from the Charles Cobb and Judy Richardson event until now. Kinda like it.

Man, I hang out with good-looking people.

Somebody warn those beautiful people that there is a horrifying hairy humanoid sneaking up behind them!

Brust is a lot of fun. I don't think he's 'Trotsky-leaning', though, I think he's just a flat out out Trotskyite/ist.

thejeff wrote:

It is interesting how so many conservative types, always worried about government overreach and abuse of power, seem to have no problem with the most blatant example: police brutality.

Take a look at where most police brutality is directed and the answer becomes a lot more obvious.

To be slightly more charitable, it might also be an example of the Just World Fallacy. The police happen to people who 'deserve' it.

Vod Canockers wrote:

You are calling for unions to come out and protest against police violence.

Police are part of the unions

Arcane Marxist shiznit: Not that it's really pertinent to this thread, but, for the record, the standard commie line is that cops aren't workers, they are agents of the state. Therefore, police unions aren't workers organizations but, rather, professional associations of agents of the state.

Interesting - so what is the conservative line on this? Am I correct in thinking that conservatives dislike all unions except for police and fire? Or is that an unfair simplification?

If true, can you give us the reasoning?

I'd probably stack some Mythic tiers on top of those 19 levels of Wizard if I had to.

The problem is that as soon as you stat him, your players will kill him. Why does he need stats?

He isn't a god, it's okay if they kill him! He's just pretending. :)

I seem to remember that he really doesn't have any Mythic tiers- for one thing, if he did, he would have been able to take Divine Source and grant real cleric spells instead of taking it.

The books have him as Wiz19. I believe it's in Inner Sea Magic.

Have spoken with her all of twenty minutes since Wednesday night. It's weird. Usually I have to recharge my phone every day, but not since Wednesday. Hmmm.

:(

At least you know it isn't because you screwed something up?

It may be a good song sign, for your health, at least, that she is working on things by herself for a few days.

...stand by and let you fight your secret war

Comradely sympathies, DA.

A cathartic, i.e. completely unhelpful, message from Uncle Todd

Mind you, he's got a sleeveless tiger-print top and a very small ballerina dancing on top of his piano, so he's alright, the object.

Limey, that is a fantastically ugly man. My eyes hurt now.

Doodlebug, I listened to part of the podcast you told us about with La Principesa and the two dudes from Brooklyn. She was interesting, but those two guys were boring as hell. She should have nationalized the microphone and taken over the show.

In other news, did you know that your pernicious philosophy of the destruction of all right-thinking people had spread to the Middle East?

He calls for a “total divorce” from “the five-thousand-years-old culture of male domination,” including but not limited to capitalism, the state, the nuclear family, prisons and the constructed gender binary.

Socialism will get everybody laid!

Well, NOW you tell me!

My Camille Paglia quote from above was done from memory and, thus, was nowhere near as nuanced as what she actually said:

Interesting. I've heard that Paglia is sometimes considered controversial among feminists, I wonder if it's because she gets icky class issues on her politics?

Good point, though, that hadn't occurred to me before.

Columbus Day arbitrarily renamed by Socialist Seattle

You rabble-rousing Red! Now I've got a site in my browser history where the top 'Read next:' link is an article about whether Michelle Obama was born a man. I think I lost more than one of my precious few IQ points just looking at that article.

Oh no doubt the person deleted knows. My direction was more towards the other bad little boys and girls out there. :)

Thank you for responding Chris and for all your hard work.

Does the 'deletee' get a message that their post was removed? I don't normally look at old posts.

Would you equally object to a doctor giving someone who was bleeding out (say from trauma) a transfusion if they had a braclet saying they opted not to take another individual's blood for religious reasons? We'll even say the person is unconscious so you can't simply ask them.

Eta: Or, to avoid the religious topic assume they are under the influence and cannot consent to a life saving, emergency, procedure.

Presumably they were of sound mind when getting the bracelet.

Vlad Koroboff wrote:

JohnLocke wrote:

As for the wreckage of MH 17 - I wasn't aware we had so many experts in our midst!

I'm no expert,but in Soviet Russia either you obtained military degree in college,or you were drafted.As a private.

You do sound knowledgeable, my friend. I was just surprised Jeff and Gallo would grace us with their considerable knowledge in this field, as well.

I won't speak to the politics of who may have fired the missile, but it doesn't take much expertise to notice that Vlad is contradicting himself in different posts and at least once in the same post. It was that bit about how the large warhead wasn't large enough, so the missile must have been a smaller one with the same type of warhead.

There's also the 'it was like an AA-9' and 'it couldn't have been an AA-9' with just twelve hours between the posts.

I just saw a new post where he's claiming that the ~2kg warhead on an AA-11 was the only thing powerful enough to do the job, and that the ~70kg or ~50kg warheads on the other missiles would be too weak.

Does that sound plausible?

I haven't really been paying attention to what you guys have been arguing about, but a new Jacobin piece came across my FB feed that isn't exactly on topic, but goblins have short attention spans:

Timothy Snyder's Lies

I haven't actually, you know, read it yet, but I like the pictures.

My favorite thing! I get to say, "You are wrong, you horrible green person!"

... It actually is on topic. So... Thanks.

It's more towards the end of the article, which is more interesting in any event. Apparently this Snyder guy is involved in a lot of the propaganda against Russia. It is NOT REASSURING at all to read the excerpts from his book and then think that people might be listening to him.

Also, whatever one's politics, that first picture is amazing.

I am seriously suggesting that damage from the blast wave looks differently than described.It not "multiple high-energy penetrators",it's "ENTIRE nose of the plane crushed to pulp in the blink of an eye from a single,powerful blast,oh,and maybe there were some shrapnel".
Should i really describe difference between piercing and bludgeoning damage on THESE forums?
Gods...

I honestly can never tell when you are joking, but just in case, it turns out that when large objects break apart in midair, fall approximately 10,000 meters, and slam into the ground.... They take some bludgeoning damage.

And you, what were you doing in the 90s? Selling the remains of your country to buy used shoes from West?

Dude, he's from Canada.

Vlad is the one from Russia.

Usagi Yojimbo wrote:

Add a few shanty homes and

you will have lots of dead bodies after first winter.Russia and shanty homes don't match well.

Didn't say that it was a *good* idea. :)

Besides, some of the folks from that thread would say that the shanty-dwellers should generate heat by pulling harder on their bootstraps!

Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

hunger which, of course, isn't anything like starvation.

You see,comrade,in Soviet Russia land belonged not to wealthy landowners,but to the people.Which,among other things,translated to ability of average citizens to claim about a thousand of square meters of land for themselves.

And because they were able,they did so.
This translates to situation where most families in the country are owning land with substantial ability to produce their own food.So no hunger!:)
Mine's also have old WW2 command post.

Wait, really? Where are AndrewR and dingo? Add a few shanty homes and this was their prescription for ending homelessness and hunger.

For the record, I also don't have a mobile phone even though the comrades keep telling me to get one. Apparently, it's easier to plan picket lines and paper sales with one. I prefer e-mail.

You should get one, we ...I mean they, totally won't use it to track you come the revolution!

Peter Stewart wrote:

Pan wrote:

Peter Stewart wrote:

I really enjoyed Luther, and especially episodes with Alice. I felt like her dynamic with him really made the show.

Agreed I finished the series last night.

I really hope they make a feature length film as rumored.

Looks like they are, but it'll be before Alice entered the show, which is disappointing. They've been talking about an Alice spin-off though, which I'd totally watch.

Oh thats no good why would they go without Alice?

No Alice!?! That's horrible!

I don't know. Off the top of my head, Comrade BeeNee, but if I were to guess, I'd guess Chicago around the time of the failed attempt to march to Cicero where King gave up and SNCC got attacked by brick-wielding Nazis. It's just a guess, though.

There was an American Nazi party all through the sixties led by a guy very awesomely named George Lincoln Rockwell.

Google doesn't show anything for that phrase. Maybe someone with the original image could do an image search.

Like I said, it can cut both ways...

The incident you described is, to me, less a lesson in the inherent danger of the the military in police operations and much more a lesson in the danger of mixing forces with disparate training and tactics...

I wasn't clear, I didn't intend to disagree with you. Wanted an excuse to share that quote.

The danger of using the National Guard these days is that they really aren't weekend reserve soldiers any more. Most of them are relatively battle hardened veterans of urban asymetrical warfare. This can cut both ways.

"Police officers responded to a domestic dispute, accompanied by marines. They had just gone up to the door when two shotgun birdshot rounds were fired through the door, hitting the officers. One yelled `cover me!' to the marines, who then laid down a heavy base of fire. . . . The police officer had not meant `shoot' when he yelled `cover me' to the marines. [He] meant . . . point your weapons and be prepared to respond if necessary. However, the marines responded instantly in the precise way they had been trained, where `cover me' means provide me with cover using firepower. . . . over two hundred bullets [were] fired into that house."[1]

From an essay on the 1992 riots in LA.

On the other hand, I've seen comments and tweets from military folks along the lines of "why are they pointing sniper rifles into the crowd?", which suggests that they might have better training for this.

Sissyl wrote:

Violence breeds violence? Wow, that's just so ridiculous. I mean, talk about obviously false!

So, what's your explanation?

I feel safe in asserting that Sissyl's post had an implied 'sarcasm' tag.

Usagi Yojimbo wrote:

Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

The Britishiznoids had successful revolutions in the 1640s and again in the 1680s, although I prefer the former.

I'd think someone who claims to speak for the entire continent of Europe would know that.

Also 1745 and 1916!

Edited for the Japanese bunny. (It's weird, if I'm not looking at your avatar, Usagi-san, I always picture the character and when I look at your avatar--Roy, right?--I get disappointed.)

No bunnies for avatars. :( Yes, that's Roy.

"when I look at your avatar"... "I get disappointed"

Watch it, you little green commie!

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Actually, calling it military gear isn't fair.

The geneva convention won't let you use tear gas on enemy troops. Your own citizens is fine though.

I've seen a number of quotes from Iraq war veterans saying the cops looked better equipped than they were.

Plus at least one quote from a veteran of the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia.

It doesn't matter, though. I don't put preconditions of political correctness on nations exercising their right to self-determination, or, in this case, limited self-rule.

But Anklebiter, if you do that, they might make the WRONG determination.

The Britishiznoids had a revolution in the 1640s and again in the 1680s, although I prefer the former.

I'd think someone who claims to speak for the entire continent of Europe would know that.

Also 1745 and 1916!

There appears to be good news: they have pulled (one of the?) the outside department(s) that was helping. The replacement commander is a state trooper captain who is walking around without a flak jacket and is actually talking to protestors.

229: Heinlein's Battlefield Earth:

Bite your tongue! L. Ron Hubbard.

231: The moment in Firefly when they are threatened with destruction by the Federation fleet, and then the whole mass of Ravers comes out of the nebulae behind them...

Wouldn't have posted just for this, but as long as I'm here and already being a je...

"Alliance"
"Serenity"
"nebula"

Damon Griffin wrote:

Robert Downey, Jr. as Londo
Scarlett Johanssen as Ivanova
Bruce Willis as Garibaldi

I'd...see this.

Not sure about the first one, but Johanssen would be fun as Ivanova and Willis would be *wonderful* as Garibaldi. :)

Well, the other sectarian commies have been outmanuvering us on the left--

** spoiler omitted **

--but, thankfully, Ambassador Dermer might restore our leftist credentials:

Ambassador of Israel to US says Seattle's Kshama Sawant will have to retract statements

I misinterpreted that title, I thought he was demanding a retraction, he actually meant that she would be proven wrong and would then need to retract.

I was having a reaction very similar to your sister's last night. It really knocked me down and had me crying. His work meant a lot to a lot of people, self included. Add in the sadness of the details of his death (to the extent that we know them), and thinking about the joyfulness and light he could bring, even just his smile, being extinguished, and I don't think it's surprising, the reaction this has been receiving.

"Me too" for a lot of this. I try to avoid paying attention to celebrities, but Williams was special in many ways.

He plays "Dryden" in Lawrence of Arabia who is an amalgam of a bunch of Britishiznoid imperialist-types, including, according to wikipedia, Colonel Sykes.

Mostly, though, he just retreads the amoral Captain Renault cynicism.

Movie time!!!

Wow! Capitain Renault got old. Probably from having to deal with "a savage people... A silly people!"

-and would give Claude Rains another memorable role-

Wait, really? Which one? I only really know him from Casablanca.

So this guy is driving in Northern Ireland a while back, and he's stopped by a bunch of men wearing balaclavas at a roadblock who drag him out of his car. They hold a gun to his head and ask "Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?" He says, "I'm an atheist!" and thinks he's going to be safe.

They think about it for a moment and say, "Sure, but are you a Catholic atheist, or a Protestant atheist?"

The author, btw, is the husband of Ambassador "F%** the EU, we call the shots around here" Nuland,

Also, Usagi-san, there's a joke for you over in the Intro to Comparative Religion thread.

A) AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!!! Great. Just what we need more of.

B) Funny, until it reminded me of the "joke" about the Troubles in Ireland...

No, never mind, I'll post it over there. OTD can handle black humor.

I heard they gradually transform their military into near-best in EU...but that's basically the same,because they have no enemies to defend FROM.

So Iraq,Afghan....err....Ukraine?Whatever is USA's enemy of the day.

This is one of those times where I can't tell if you are serious. They would say they are getting ready to defend themselves from a large, aggressive country to their east which has invaded them many times in their history.

Anyway, it did point me in the direction of Mr. Nuland's relatively recent article in The Atlantic, In Defense of Empire.

Should be a good read.

Huh. "A measure of equality"? "America should intervene around the world to improve it, while avoiding entanglement"?

The author appears to be somewhat confused. Though bonus points for admitting that he was cribbing from "White Man's Burden".

So I will ask again, in as clear a language as I can.

If the Palestinians have a right to kill Israelis, as you say they do, do the Israelis have a right to kill Palestinians that are trying to kill them?

So, you realize that we can *see* his post, right? The one where he specifically answered this question and explained his answer? Why are you asking again?

If a player invests a lot of resources into knowledge checks it's because he wants to make them when they come up. He's not going to be upset if there's another character that can help make sure that happens.

That opinion speaks well of you, but I think you'll find that people can sometimes be unhappy if someone else solves all of the tasks that they thought they were needed for. :)

Rudy2 wrote:

blackbloodtroll wrote:

I was correct.

There are still ways to use Bluff for Dayjob rolls, through Vanities.

Just a minor note that you wouldn't be able to get the +4 to bluff though, since that's a temporary bonus.

Yes. I already stated the ability was not viable with Day Job rolls.

Earlier:

Huh. Most PFS Judges I have met are actually happy to see players get high Day Job rolls.

Although, I still don't see this as unusable with that check.

This is what has people confused. Perhaps you meant, "...don't see this as usable with..."?

Alright, Mizrahim are another name for Sephardim, Druze are those dudes who trace themselves from Moses's uncle or something, who the hell are the Hardeim?!?

What we would call Ultra-Orthodox.

Though, if you want to be technical, World War 3 already happened. It happened in the 1940s. World War 1 is known as the French and Indian War.

No one in the rest of the world calls it that, the North American theatre was a sideshow to what was happening in Europe.

Interesting article for the "no faction of the Palestinians wants to work with Israel" crowd to consider:

Operation Protective Edge: Reading between the lines

It was surprising to see how quickly they were able to set up an operation to arrest hundreds of people, including many of the ones who were just released in the prisoner swap. That is a lot of people to track.

It seems likely Netanyahu had the plan ready and waiting.