My mother is not doing well at all.

She's been told that her congestive heart failure won't get better and that she can have 2 more years dealing with the stresses, both on herself and her family, of dialysis... or die on her own terms in about 2 weeks.

She's chosen the latter. Her transplant doctor/nephrologist basically told her that her passing is likely to be one of the gentler ways to go. But she's still going, and I'm going to miss her terribly.

And... one of her favorite covers:

I was reminded of this song after watching the latest Epic Rap Battle of History




Power: creates a replica of The Calypso, handy for when Doug needs a ship on short notice.

Thanks to Bolsonaro (Brazil’s homegrown Trump) the Amazon rainforest has been on fire for several days.

Now, the way I understand it, if the forest loses upwards of 25% it will trigger a feedback loop beyond any hope of restoration.

The rest of the world is not far behind.

And just to pre-empt the climate denialists: “I’ll take your opinion and put it in my bank account to see if generates some interest.”

Under the Parliamentary system in Canada, elections are relatively rapid - it hasn't even been called yet and we know we'll be voting in October. So best to start a thread now - why wait for the rush?

So yeah.  The thing with Aaron's passing left me understandably paranoid.  The night before last, I had what felt like a terrible case of gas and was attempting to write it off as such, but it just kept getting worse and worse.

It turns out my paranoia was well founded - I have Appendicitis, and it's already perforated, causing an abscess in my abdominal cavity.

Fortunately, I came in when I did just before things could get real bad for me, and now I'm on some nice opioids and potent antibiotics.  The game plan is that since it's already abscessed, it's better to just clean it out and let the appendix heal - we'll be doing that tomorrow.  Then I'll be sent home to recover, and then later on come back for the actual Appendectomy.  In the meantime they're keeping a close eye on my to make sure my condition doesn't suddenly deteriorate.

Fortunately, this isn't costing me anything because I'm on VA Healthcare.  The only thing I worry about is missing out on classes, which starts on the 26th.

Your jewish population is being awesome.

Avast just quarantined cityofheroes.exe, and says its scan verifying it's safe will take 86 minutes.

Mainly because it's a rare file.

Okay this is a take on my INV/SS tank, going for Psi resist and recovery, incidentally capping everything else for resists. This uses Pine's version of the hero builder. Sadly the link tries to open Mids with a weird datablock...

The Block is a dirty liar, it's supposed to go in Pines' version.

• (A) Impervium Armor - Psionic Resistance
  
• (3) Impervium Armor - Resistance
  
• (7) Impervium Armor - Resistance/Endurance
  

• (A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (3) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (9) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal)
  
• (33) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge
  
• (34) Perfect Zinger - Chance for Psi Damage
  

• (A) Perfect Zinger - Chance for Psi Damage
  
• (5) Hecatomb - Damage
  
• (15) Hecatomb - Damage/Recharge
  
• (34) Hecatomb - Accuracy/Recharge
  
• (37) Hecatomb - Chance of Damage(Negative)
  

• (A) Gladiator's Armor - Resistance
  
• (5) Gladiator's Armor - Resistance/Rech/End
  
• (13) Gladiator's Armor - Recharge/Resist
  
• (37) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All)
  

• (A) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery
  
• (7) Numina's Convalesence - Heal
  
• (25) Numina's Convalesence - Heal/Recharge
  
• (46) Numina's Convalesence - Endurance/Recharge
  

• (A) Touch of Death - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (9) Touch of Death - Damage/Endurance
  
• (17) Touch of Death - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (29) Touch of Death - Damage/Recharge
  
• (46) Touch of Death - Chance of Damage(Negative)
  

• (A) Aegis - Psionic/Status Resistance
  
• (11) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance
  
• (11) Aegis - Resistance
  
• (40) Aegis - Endurance/Recharge
  

• (A) Perfect Zinger - Chance for Psi Damage
  
• (13) Perfect Zinger - Taunt
  
• (31) Perfect Zinger - Taunt/Recharge
  

• (A) Aegis - Resistance
  
• (15) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance
  
• (31) Impervium Armor - Psionic Resistance
  

• (A) Impervium Armor - Psionic Resistance
  
• (17) Impervium Armor - Resistance
  
• (25) Impervium Armor - Resistance/Endurance
  

• (A) Absolute Amazement - Stun
  
• (19) Absolute Amazement - Accuracy/Stun/Recharge
  
• (19) Sudden Acceleration - Knockback to Knockdown
  
• (42) Perfect Zinger - Chance for Psi Damage
  

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  
• (21) Luck of the Gambler - Defense
  
• (21) Luck of the Gambler - Endurance/Recharge
  
• (42) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance/Recharge
  

• (A) Overwhelming Force - Damage/Chance for Knockdown/Knockback to Knockdown
  
• (23) Overwhelming Force - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (23) Overwhelming Force - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (34) Overwhelming Force - Endurance/Recharge
  

• (A) Celerity - +Stealth
  

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  
• (27) Luck of the Gambler - Defense
  
• (27) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance
  
• (40) Luck of the Gambler - Endurance/Recharge
  

• (A) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up
  
• (29) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge
  
• (43) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Recharge/Endurance
  

• (A) Recharge Reduction IO
  
• (31) Recharge Reduction IO
  

• (A) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP
  
• (33) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance/RechargeTime
  
• (33) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance
  
• (43) Unbreakable Guard - RechargeTime/Resistance
  

• (A) Might of the Tanker - Recharge/Chance for +Res(All)
  
• (36) Might of the Tanker - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (36) Might of the Tanker - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (36) Might of the Tanker - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (37) Might of the Tanker - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  

• (A) Gauntleted Fist - RechargeTime/+Absorb
  
• (39) Gauntleted Fist - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (39) Gauntleted Fist - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime
  
• (39) Gauntleted Fist - Damage/RechargeTime
  
• (40) Gauntleted Fist - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime
  

• (A) Recharge Reduction IO
  
• (42) Endurance Reduction IO
  

• (A) Performance Shifter - EndMod
  
• (45) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Recharge
  
• (45) Doctored Wounds - Heal/Recharge
  
• (45) Doctored Wounds - Heal
  

• (A) Shield Breaker - Chance for Lethal Damage
  
• (48) Shield Breaker - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (48) Ruin - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (48) Ruin - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  

• (A) Ragnarok - Damage
  
• (50) Ragnarok - Chance for Knockdown
  
• (50) Ragnarok - Damage/Recharge
  
• (50) Ragnarok - Accuracy/Recharge
  

• (A) Empty
  

• (A) Empty
  

• (A) Empty
  

• (A) Empty
  

• (A) Empty
  

• (A) Empty
  

• (A) Quickfoot - RunSpeed
  

• (A) Empty
  

• (A) Run Speed IO
  

• (A) Miracle - +Recovery
  
• (43) Miracle - Heal
  

• (A) Jumping IO
  

• (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End
  
• (46) Performance Shifter - EndMod
  

So, yesterday morning I was reading the board when a "new user registration" banner popped up.  I may have mentioned it before, but in case I haven't, most of the folks here won't be aware that when someone requests membership, I send out a little email from the admin address asking them where they heard about the board.  If I don't hear anything back in 48 hours, I assume they're a spammer -- and I tell them so in the email.  I also check their IP at stopforumspam.com.

So, this new member... the IP turns up one record at Stop Forum Spam, like he's a brand new spammer just starting out.  It's also for the same email address used to create their membership, so it's pretty obvious what's going on. But I have my procedure, so like ten minutes after this guy requested membership I sent out the email.

Three hours later, for the very first time, I get an email back from the spammer.

Who apparently is upset that I don't automatically allow him to blithely traipse through my board, sprinkling semi-literate scam pitches as he goes.  He responds with a short, pithy and obscene message apparently intended to insult me, but which reads more like a six-year-old with a dirty mouth wrote it.  Not sure what it was supposed to accomplish -- it certainly wasn't going to get his membership approved.  Sorry, guy...

Steve King defending not allowing exceptions for abortions in the case of rape and incest: What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled those people out that were products of rape and incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?

Ben Shapiro: Poverty is poor peoples fault for taking jobs that don't pay enough.

Everything they've said about the statue of liberty this week.

I mean, there's being horrible people with no sense of decency, compassion or basic morals, but when did it become a fucking competition?