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you just random picked links w/o reading, yes? "Supporters of the Equality Act claim that it will outlaw discrimination against transgender Americans. But, by altering the legal meaning of the word “sex” in civil rights law to include “gender identity,”, the law could backfire on women and girls, stripping them of important protections and putting them at physical risk. "In addition to putting female prisoners at-risk, if the Equality Act passes, it will: "Open women-only spaces (including locker rooms, battered women’s shelters, and bathrooms) to men. "Destroy women’s sports by requiring that biological males be allowed to compete with and against female athletes. "Limit freedom of speech for those who believe that biological sex is an immutable characteristic. "Threaten the rights of parents and doctors who do not approve of procedures to alter sex. "Force religious organizations to stop providing educational and other charitable services." is kinda a trend in a few o' your links. use scare tactics from extreme rare incidents to push a broader agenda. nevertheless, you no doubt thought it were meaningful to show a list o' unread articles which actual point to an "tiny" number of cases. accusations made by supposed department of corrections employee on a conservative radio show? ok. where is follow up? none? 7 acts o' sexual assault in england by transgender prisoners... over the course of eight years? your first linked article is noteworthy 'cause the accused were simultaneous a plaintiff in an aclu case where days after the lawsuit were filed regarding the alleged rape (note: no criminal charges were ever made) judge were to decide whether or not to dismiss a case which accused the idoc o' failing to provide adequate medical treatment for transgender patients while incarcerated. the judge denied efforts to dismiss and the rape lawsuit (again, no criminal charges ever filed) were voluntarily dismissed with prejudice. oh, and the usa today link is authored by https://lgbtbar.org/annual/conference-speakers/grace-detrevarah/ , a trans person and a VICTIM o' rape by male inmates, which you mighta' realized if you had bothered to read. nevertheless, thanks for the link, we learned o' grace who is working tireless to help educate people 'bout the difficulties trans people face, particular during incarceration. you (accidental) helped bring her to our attention, so... thanks? sheesh. HA! Good Fun!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/836367155/monomyth https://store.steampowered.com/app/908360/Monomyth/ Demo: https://rattower.itch.io/monomyth-kickstarter

HA! Good Fun!

tiny. however, spend extra money on prisoners is always gonna be a hard sell politically. sure, the state is custodial responsible for these individuals while they is incarcerated, but the majority o' the populace has little sympathy for prisoners. nevertheless, given how horrifying the conditions is in cdc facilities for men in ca, am thinking there is concern people will in fact begin to identify as trans in the hope they might be moved someplace less awful by pretending to be trans. is hard to imagine the level o' desperation it would take to fake trans identity and the abuse one needs suffer for such an admission in both male and female facilities, but am suspecting this might be part o' the reluctance on the part o' prison authorities and state legislators to change policy. has been almost a year since legislation passed and a mere two dozen transfers have occurred. so what kinda fear would drive a person to pretend trans to escape their current situation? is not as if fake trans inmates is gonna suffer less abuse than true trans. heck, am suspecting the fakers, if outed as fakes, would suffer even greater punishment from fellow inmates. but again, how terrible is their reality that inmates would fake trans in hopes o' a possible transfer? regardless, spend money on prisoners to make their incarceration less brutal is almost always a dead end. am nevertheless disappointed by the myopia regarding the faker possibility. recognizing some will pretend to be trans in the hope they might be transferred is legit, but such a reality should speak as a damning condemnation o' the current incarceration approach. HA! Good Fun! ps am agreeing with gd regarding the overincarceration o' non violent offenders, but politically, tough on crime is the winning position. look to the recent nyc mayoral race for one such example.

I have three friend is various unions (plumber, electrical, brick layer) and not a single one are there for the "political affiliation". They are there for the job security, ridiculously high pay, and great benefits. The down side to unions is their prices are x2/x3 of non-union companies, so naturally customers in need of those services gravitate toward the more economical options. They also like to protest in front of non-union business with a giant inflatable rat, which always makes me lol hard.

Can they issue the death penalty for politicians that deliberately kill people (outside of stuff like war etc.)? Edit: After all, if they are so keen on getting people killed, they should really appreciate experiencing it themselves.

I can't link to any direct quotes, because they never said it directly (afaik). Just 12 months of constant criticism of the other state PM's in the media for enforcing mask rules and doing snap lockdowns (to prevent lengthy lockdowns down the road). If you repeat a message often enough, people think you actually stand for what you say and that forcing people to wear masks and do lockdowns is a bad idea. Edit: And yes, I the failure is first and foremost on a federal level because of the complete lack of a program to handle travelers entering Australia (something local state PM's have no jurisdiction over) and the completely ****ed up vaccine situation. But, unlike when Australia was burning down to the ground, there is no option for Scott Morrison to just put his family on a plane and flee to Hawaii (to go on "vacation" while things comes crashing down back home). Edit2: To compound the issue, there are not even *signs*, that the federal government is trying to fix any of their many mistakes. Neither the quarantine situation nor the vaccine situation.

oh and boar is the cutest "pet" of rangers, my personal favourite. he likes to roll in dirt and rub his back

this comment will come from someone who also likes to RP, and not min-max, and also fan of dwarves, so I would go with a multiclass that has lots of passives. I think the biggest problem of Ranger is that not many insane abilities are there to choose from, so its one of the easier picks to multiclass. as first char I would go with: 1) Scout (Ranger+Rogue, more passives from rogue side, and a few escape like spell), scout still fits the ranger RP theme, if you like to use stealth, then Assassin would be great for this. if not, then go no subclass rogue 2) Hunter (Ranger+fighter, also there are a few passives thats good, as a fighter you can wear heavier armor - RP wise I think dwarf ranger is not like an elf archer, you can be an archer in mail/chainmail/breastplate, and fighter passive helps in this case. subclass should be Devoted, but check the comments above if you want the Hunting Bow or one of the Crossbow weapons) maybe you can consider these 2 as well: 3) Wildrhymer (Ranger+Chanter, you can roleplay this like you are the bard of your dwarf clan, whose traveling with this animal companion to sing those stories he heard during travels in the mead halls. I would not recommend it for first as Chanter has TOO MANY good abilities, and at first it can be confusing) 4) Wanderer (Ranger+Monk, you are a travling ascetic type of ranger, monks also have great passives, and Helwalker is especially good with a ranger, as it increases your damage taken risk, but since you are far away from mobs, it shouldnt be a problem, but I still dont recommend this combination at first, it can feel like a glass cannon. maybe a Ghost Hearth+Helwalker could be a great RP choice, your animal died, so you've taken the road for a more spiritualistic lonely life) Edit: maybe just one additional thing, 2 handed guns are also insane in this game, and if you played dwarf hunter in Wow, guns also fits it. https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/The_Red_Hand this particular gun is basically a shotgun, lower dmg, but shoots 2 bullets at the same time ^^

Not to quibble, but I'd imagine that four-wheel drive is useful while driving on sand.

edit: Language warning, obviously.

The short answer is that she has lower than the permitted level of testosterone as defined by weightlifting's governing body, passed the qualification mark (by a fair margin) and therefore had to be picked. If she hadn't been she could have sued our Olympic Committee over it and would have been there anyway, just with even more aggro. The idea that especially in weightlifting you don't get permanent benefit from having male levels of testosterone for 30 years is completely ludicrous, but ultimately any blame for decisions made around that lies with the sport's international administration. And it should also be said that despite all that the expectation is maybe a bronze medal for Laurel Hubbard, not gold or silver, and there's absolutely no chance that she went transgender just to go to the Olympics.

I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to try all those combinations, but for now... I understand 1/4th of what you say I just want to focus on "role playing" my dwarf and boar, min/maxing and optimizing builds will be next step. As far as I'm having fun and the character reflects what I thought he would be...I'm fine. I think that, while I play easy difficulties, I should have little to no issues in going on with the main quest... Confirm?

Surprised that any personal benefits they can get from the union would not outstrip any loyalty they have for their political party.

One could say that being political is a way to fight for your members, especially if you're in an important sector like healthcare or education where so much improvement is needed. I don't see why a "video game developer union" should be political though. On that note...haha: https://kotaku.com/activision-blizzard-hires-union-busting-firm-as-workers-1847386654

Ok thanks first and foremost to both of you! I forgot to mention that I usually play at easy levels, I don't do PotD, I don't solo. Playing PoE has always been like reading a good ol' book, I let the game tell me a story in which I take part and relax at the same time. My only doubts are: Is a ranger "in theme" with the water-y atmosphere of the game? I wouldn't want to feel "out of place"... And second question is: what is PL8?

Flavor-wise, dwarf with a boar may really want this hunting bow, which grants special bonuses for a dwarf wielder. A ranger can get stupid amounts of accuracy, so once you get stalker's link and marked for prey you could leave the hunting bow modal on (-50% recovery time, but -15 accuracy) without hurting your acc relative to the enemies and wreck house. Only problem with that suggestion is that hunting bows have low PEN, which is a major problem on higher difficulties. I would recommend Sharpshooter ranger SC (who can get close for bonus PEN), or an MC with a devoted fighter (+2 PEN with hunting bow, but you go all in on it). Just a suggestion since you specifically called out dwarf. much of the ranger's big wins can be easily had with multiclass as well (the stupid high accuracy), but there are a couple of good end-game abilities. I have enjoyed heart seeker in my current run, which is a bit skill-intensive to use versus other abilities, but is really really good in the right setup.

Existing labor unions in the US have become weaker and weaker over the years. And a bunch of key occupations don't have unions at all. Specific to this discussion, tech workers Unions are almost nonexistent in the US. Also, Union and collective agreement coverage is really low in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_agreement_coverage

Because the US have vilified worker's rights for the better part of a century, and unions are the one thing the federal government will always come down hard on. Isn't it telling that unions have a bad reputation for mob influence over them, while the same control the mob had over police, municipal authorities, the courts, was never addressed in the same way.

IMHO this isn't useful. If you're a tank: you're likely going to have high defenses so the idea is to not be critically hit by enemies. you're frontline - you probably want to lock opponents in place with engagement. So you don't really care about being immune to their engagement. again, you're frontline - you don't want to flee somewhere if you're taking too much heat (which this ability is all about). Otherwise your backline will be exposed and crumble. As a tank, you don't want extra mobility in a pinch, you want extra healing or defenses in a pinch. But maybe there's an awesome synergy I'm missing...

I'll never understand why workers in the US don't want.....worker rights. These protests won't amount to anything in the long run unless they actually unionize. There is way too much exploitation of people going around in the video game industry, and elsewhere. https://kotaku.com/inside-blizzard-developers-infamous-bill-cosby-suite-1847378762

@Monte Carlo Would have loved all those tunnels.

The toss-up of whether this should go under "weird-interesting" or the tv thread... Lucasfilm Hires YouTuber Behind 'The Mandalorian' Deepfake (gizmodo.com)

Well, they dont want to lose a full days pay.

Do you mean the one with the Russian dub? Because that really is god awful.

*a new challenger enters the ring against AUS* Texas Governor Bans Mask Mandates as Republicans Embrace Death and Disease.

So, just to recap. The quarantine arrangements, which are the federal governments responsibility has been shown to be completely not working for 12 months. Facilities are there, that could be used, but they aren't The vaccine supply and distribution is the responsibility of the federal government, has been shown to be completely not working for 12 months. Australia is currently rock bottom amongst OECD countries. This means, Australia is completely unable to handle a major outbreak one were to happen. Guess what? Yes, the federal governments local party branch in NSW has the "honour" of completely losing control of the situation and is now panicking. So is the federal government by the way. Not that they give a **** about Australians, but it will hopefully get them wiped off the map at the next election. The "geniouses" in the NSW government spent most of the last year mocking the other states for doing snap lockdowns of 5 days each, in order to cover for the federal governments constant **** ups. Most of their contributions being to tell other states how stupid they are and such measures aren't needed. Now they managed to completely lose control after it happened in their own backyard and nobody else in Australia has any sympathy for their plight. More like gloating, except people are now dying again because of their mismanagement. Besides the federal government wanting to seize what vaccines the other states have and redistribute them to their fellow party members, they are also digging into the national treasury to support NSW financially (something other states didn't get, when suffering from the federal governments constant failures). The NSW government's solution? Well, they have encouraged their own population very loudly so far, to resist lockdown measures, social distancing, mask wearing etc. and now they have decided to do a hard lockdown of an indeterminate duration. Not only that, because they "educated" the local population so well, nobody listens to them talking about lockdown measures, so now the army has been called in to keep them in check. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58021718 "Covid in Sydney: Military deployed to help enforce lockdown" Way to go Liberal Party. I've mentioned it before, Australia is really a third world country in so many ways. Hard not to think of the term Banana Republic when describing it. That would be insulting to bananas though, and the QLD bananas are great... Honest Government Ads have made a new video about the subject, I'll see if I can find and share it when it becomes available to the public (currently available as an audio preview on their Patreon page)

Needed something a little lighthearted to watch to take a break from my lighthearted anime, so I watched Vampire Princess Miyu (1988). Turns out, something that looked like this wasn't very lighthearted either. Who could've guessed?

Got punched in the face going home from work after a roadraged **** decided to follow me. That was fun. There's no witnesses to it either, and I couldn't fight back since I was in the drivers seat. Police told me to my face that there's not much they can do since I couldn't get the licence plate on his car, but I've got everyone I know looking for his car, it's quite distinct. Atleast I could avoid most of his punches by keeping in the car but he still got me in the nose and cheek, and got a fat lip from it.

Picard gets 3 more seasons The mediocrity will continue. Resistance is futile.