Authentication tokens - Some heirloom jewelry or letter of permission from the local royal family used to prove you are on their mission.

Gap analysis - when your party finds a crevasse or pit and determines if they can jump across.

Buffer - party member who casts buffs, usually a bard.

Microservices - when you barter with gnomes to repair your gear.

The thing about King is, and he’ll admit this now, he used to do a bunch of drugs and hammer out several novels back to back. He’s an incredibly talented writer, but sometimes his stories are just some cool shit he thought of that doesn’t really go anywhere. Sometimes there’s deep introspection, sometimes it’s just a big scary dog that terrorizes a family.

And Cujo is great. Read it. Read all his books. Just not all at once. The Dark Tower series is another good example, because it does a lot of world building, but also sometimes the story just happens and everyone moves on to the next thing. The Stand has a similar issue. It is well written, meandering, thoughtful, and mindeless all at the same time.

There’s also a loosely connected universe between the Shining, It, The Dark Tower, The Stand, and probably a few others I’m forgetting. These are all good books/series, but my recommendation is not to read them back to back. You’ll start to see the patterns and fall backs he uses as an author when he just needs to wrap things up and publish the book.

OK, but that’s the answer he gives when he doesn’t know the answer. Are we sure he understands what contraception is?

I don’t believe for a second that Trump doesn’t know the situation, but how is that lie better? “Here’s a picture of you endorsing a self-styled Nazi.” Well, I’m out of the loop on that one. “You endorsed him.” Yeah, but they just tell me what to say and do. I don’t ask a lot of questions. “Would you denounce him now?” I’m really not sure what I’m supposed to say here. Let me check with Vlad and see what he wants me to do. I’ll get back to you.

I think you mean “provenance” instead of “providence.”

Donations can’t be clawed back, but ongoing donations can be stopped. And you’re right that bigger donors exert more influence, and usually get something in return like naming rights for a building or changes to school policies. And that should be transparent, I don’t oppose requiring large donations be made public. My point was just that it’s always give and take. If the school changes the policy the big donor liked, they will shut off the money faucet. If the school does something most alumni don’t like, many of them will stop giving. Recipients of donations always want to keep donors happy, the difference is a matter of scale. How far are they willing to go to keep a donor happy depends on how big the donation is.

It’s weird when someone makes my point for me in the form of a question. I’m not sure how to respond to you, because clearly the answer is guilty in the scenario you’ve described. My point is that you think that’s the scenario that exists, and everyone who doesn’t agree with you is equally guilty.

You’re creating a scenario where the school child is as guilty as the school teacher and the politician and the factory worker and the airplane mechanic and the average citizen, all of them are the same amount of guilty to you because none of them threw off the constraints of their circumstances and took up arms against society itself.

And you’re unwilling to answer a simple, straightforward question because you know the answer reveals your prejudice. What should the punishment be? The school child, the laborer, the politician, and the soldier. All of them deserve death, because genocide is the absolute worst crime, and it should be stopped by any means necessary. That’s how “good” people justify bad things. It’s how Netanyahu is justifying the genocide of Palestinians right now, only he calls them terrorists.

Israel is engaged in a genocide, and they should be stopped. But killing all Israelis is not going to end the violence. Demonizing all the people who aren’t protesting the genocide will not end the violence. Labels and insults and demagogeury will only prolong and extend the suffering.

And if you’re a college professor, you really ought to know better.

Oh, you sweet summer child.

The way they are doing it is horrifying.

Sure, but not just generally “charity.” You pick and choose who you donste to, and you donate to charitable organizations that you think do good work. If they started smelting orphans, you’d probably stop writing checks.

I mean, I can also understand the knee jerk reaction, but I cannot imagine that he hasn’t had a new phone with a new number since the moment they knew their data was compromised.

I was asking your opinion. To my knowledge, none of the types of genocide enablers I mentioned were prosecuted in Nuremberg. You think the Jewish coeds from rural PA deserve a trip to the Hague?

So a Zionist is convicted as an accessory to genocide. What’s the punishment for the crime?

Ok, that made me chuckle.

Genocide is just about the worst crime we have a name for. So, what should be done with genocide enablers? Do they deserve death? Torture? Do they deserve civil rights? A chance to vote? Should they be denied healthcare? Denied commercial services? Should they be denied an education? Or are they merely deserving of scorn and to be ostracized? What’s the punishment for all the genocide enablers who are as bad as racists and murderers?

Yeah, lots of them. Some were good at their jobs, some were not good at their jobs. Some posted controversial things on social media and got justifiably fired.

So, basically what you would have gotten from the white pages, and an incomplete social security number. Is he worried someone is going to try to steal his identity? Mail him anthrax? Text or email him dick pics? Wasn’t he already concerned about those things? He’s the nominee for VP, and his running mate tried to have his predecessor killed on national television. He has tied to Russian oligarchs who defenestrate judges, and he’s the target of international spies who want his access to state secrets. He’s worried about half his social security number?

This is the problem, you’re talking about people, not crimes. Talk about the crime. Genocide is a crime. Enabling genocide is less clear. I voted for Biden, does that make me a genocide enabler? The factory worker who builds aluminum shells for bombs? The Israeli school child making care packages for soldiers as a school project?

When you reduce people to a single crime, it’s easier to paint with a wide brush, and it becomes easier to decide that all need to be punished equally. It’s like the people who call Hamas “terrorists” and decide all Hamas supporters deserve death. Treating all “Zionists” the same lends credence to the very argument that Israel is using to justify its own genocide. So are you a genocide enabler?

I’ve been called a Zionist for saying that Israel exists. I don’t support the Israeli government, I don’t support the genocide, I don’t support my country supporting it, and I don’t support the claim over the land. But a professor 20 miles from my house thinks I am the same as a violent racist.

That’s how you lose the high ground. You talk about people as criminals, and say they are bad people. All people have the capacity to be good or bad, but most people are just trying to survive the circumstances of their existence. It is their actions, their choices, that are good or bad, and if we focus on that, we can help people do better. Bad choices can be improved. Bad people can only be killed.

JFC Putin is going to drop a nuke as an October surprise.

The guy with the infidelity seems rather pedestrian by comparison. Remember when Clinton was impeached for lying about his affairs?