So, I now have three Roll 20 games going - two are text-chat only (5e Runelords at Epic-20, Mini Six Primeval Thule) while the 5e Princes of the Apocalypse game uses Microsoft IM video phone for audio. A kind PoTA player bought me a 3 months premium membership but I have no idea what to do with it, the fancy VTT stuff is not how I like to play online.

I also restarted my 1e AD&D Faerun 1359 DR game set in post-war Damara, which is a lot of fun.

Quote from: Brad;1124776Fake fucking news...stop watching CNN. If we can hold out another week should be able to handle the demand. Seriously, this is nothing other than fear-mongering. If you mean 18 months until the virus isn't a threat, sure, but that has NOTHING to do with the capacity of the US healthcare system to handle the demand.

Well, so far, the only place the U.S. Healthcare System has been tested has been New York. It is very likely become much, much, worse before it becomes better here in the United States. Korea is also seeing a second wave of reinfections occurring in people who have already had the cornoavirus. It continues to exhibit a 4-15% mortality rate (depending on the age of the infected.) The facts are this: Coronavirus is a deadly virus, highly infectious, and we have no known cure at the present time. You get it, you live or die based on the quality of your medical care, and your natural immune system. In yesterdays "Fake" news as you call it, I observed the first mass burial of victims in unmarked graves in New York.

Reinfected again! - Korea (If it is happening there, it is happening in China which just came out of lockdown, and everywhere else as well!)
https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/25264/20200410/south-korea-recorded-another-40-coronavirus-reinfections-bringing-total-reactivations.htm

Mass anonymous grave burial of unclaimed coronavirus victims
https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus/2020/04/new-york-city-starts-burying-coronavirus-victims-in-mass-graves.html

I can tell you for a fact the U.S. Healthcare System is not prepared for this. The Hospitals here in Indiana have already run out of masks, and are turning away people with healthcare insurance, without testing them (becuase no more tests are available), who are exhibiting coronavirus symptoms and are ordering them into self-quarantine to live or die without medical care.

Pay attention to what is really going on, plan for the worst, and hope for the best. By the end of the day today America will have the most deaths from Coronavirus and will pass Italy in total number of fatalities. There is a half a million Americans infected meaning another 20,000 or so are going to die and that is without even one more person becoming infected.   The Federal Government already unleashed this pandemic upon us, what makes you think they are going to do any better at handling the pandemic when things really get bad?

Quote from: S'mon;1126476So, I now have three Roll 20 games going - two are text-chat only (5e Runelords at Epic-20, Mini Six Primeval Thule) while the 5e Princes of the Apocalypse game uses Microsoft IM video phone for audio. A kind PoTA player bought me a 3 months premium membership but I have no idea what to do with it, the fancy VTT stuff is not how I like to play online.

I also restarted my 1e AD&D Faerun 1359 DR game set in post-war Damara, which is a lot of fun.

I assume by premium membership you mean PRO membership.  If you do a lot of theatre of mind type stuff it is not going to be much use to you. With PRO membership you get access to Dynamic Lighting  and Advance for of War .i.e. the player  sees what the character sees.  The other memberships have much more limited version .  You get more  storage space but I have been a PRO and  after 5+ years and I am nowhere near my storage limit. You have access to custom character sheets but if you have no html/javascript/css  you can forget about it.   You also have access to API scripts which are user created scripts which automate and extend a lot of the features of the VTT.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1126486The Federal Government already unleashed this pandemic upon us, what makes you think they are going to do any better at handling the pandemic when things really get bad?

The Federal Government nor any other Western government for that matter unleashed this.  It was the Communist Chinese and their stooges in WHO. You fucking cunt.

I don't think any government unleashed it. They all reacted to it, with greater or lesser degrees of incompetence.

Quote from: Gagarth;1126576The Federal Government nor any other Western government for that matter unleashed this.  It was the Communist Chinese and their stooges in WHO. You fucking cunt.

You can't even lie convincingly. Facts contradict you.

Fact check: A list of 28 ways Trump and his team have been dishonest about the coronavirus
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/11/politics/fact-check-trump-administration-coronavirus-28-dishonest/index.html

I won't go into the general incompetence of the entire Federal Government including both houses of Congress, and every single president going back at least to 2008 as that year and every single year since then, the budget has been cut for the CDC and the National Health Service (NHS) curtailing their ability to forecast and prevent the outbreak of pandemics. Right after he was elected in early 2017, Trump fired the entire White House Pandemic response team while he was busy trying to drain his swamp.

Yes, the Pandemic started in China, The American response has been 3rd world though, which is why we have the highest death rate in the world. It is still going to get much worse before it gets better because Pandoras box has been opened, and there is no closing it. Feel free to continue being ignorant though, it suits you well.

Quote from: S'mon;1126579I don't think any government unleashed it. They all reacted to it, with greater or lesser degrees of incompetence.

I would tend to agree with you. They didn't unleash this on purpose. Seems very likely it was developed in one or more labs though, and unexpectedly got out into the general population.

Both the Chinese and the Russians claim it was unleashed by the United States, and have provided an interesting link to a 2008 patent filing where the coronavirus has been genetically modified in a United States research laboratory, specifically The Pirbright Institute here:
https://patents.justia.com/patent/10130701

Patent # 7452542

of course the Pirbright Institute no longer works with Coronavirus, because President Obama issued a executive order prohibiting continued research into producing new variants of viruses back in 2015. I find it interesting, and amazingly coincidental that at ground zero in Wuhan, there are not one but two Chinese genetics research labs that are sponsored by the ComChinese government. Plenty of cities in China with wet markets, but no research labs, and this unique new strain of the virus, didn't break out in any of the  other Chinese cities first even though the other markets are much larger in scale, than Wuhams'. I'm receiving credible reports that the outbreak was already present in the Wuhan population before the wave of infections occurred at the market there, which lends creedence to the Chinese, that this virus didn't originate in China.

Save the page, as it will likely be removed from the US Patent database in the near future.

Here is another article from 2015 with scientists here in the U.S. debating whether they should continue modifying viruses
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/lab-made-coronavirus-triggers-debate-34502

..and yet another research article (cited in the article above) in NatureMedicine from 2015 is being actively blocked both in my regular browser and when I'm using a Tor browser to access the website index of articles there at the present time. ...And found the direct link... from 9 November 2015. This article cites 27 other similar reports and research papers.

A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence
https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985#change-history

Reported studies were initiated after the University of North Carolina Institutional Biosafety Committee approved the experimental protocol (Project Title: Generating infectious clones of bat SARS-like CoVs; Lab Safety Plan ID: 20145741; Schedule G ID: 12279). These studies were initiated before the US Government Deliberative Process Research Funding Pause on Selected Gain-of-Function Research Involving Influenza, MERS and SARS Viruses (http://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/Documents/gain-of-function.pdf). This paper has been reviewed by the funding agency, the NIH. Continuation of these studies was requested, and this has been approved by the NIH.

Some real science for you. Read the entire article and know the truth for yourselves. They added a disclaimer to this artlcle on the 30th of  March stating they believe the new variant originated in a wild animal, LoL! Really save these articles locally on your hard disk drive, as I believe they may become unexpectedly unavailable online for a variety of reasons not related to this outbreak of course, in the near future.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1126616I'm receiving credible reports that

Hmm. From your highly located friends in the Illuminati?

QuoteSome real science for you. Read the entire article and know the truth for yourselves. They added a disclaimer to this artlcle on the 30th of  March stating they believe the new variant originated in a wild animal, LoL! Really save these articles locally on your hard disk drive, as I believe they may become unexpectedly unavailable online for a variety of reasons not related to this outbreak of course, in the near future.

Some real science that you obviously have mastered but neglected to mention. Coronavirus is a class of viruses. It's not that there is one THE coronovirus. Yes?

Addendum: Seeing how the facts are elided with fantasy is heplful for planning future conspiracy games - with only pretend lives at risk.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1126614I won't go into the general incompetence of the entire Federal Government including both houses of Congress, and every single president going back at least to 2008 as that year and every single year since then, the budget has been cut for the CDC and the National Health Service (NHS) curtailing their ability to forecast and prevent the outbreak of pandemics. Right after he was elected in early 2017, Trump fired the entire White House Pandemic response team while he was busy trying to drain his swamp.

That's just not true.

Obama eliminated the White House Health & Security Office in 2009, and only replaced it with a Directorate for National Security and Health at the NSC in 2016, after the Ebola outbreak of 2014.

When Trump took office, he appointed Timothy Ziemer to lead it. But after Trump made Bolton his third National Security Advisor, Bolton reorganized his unit, which was widely considered a bureaucratic mess. Bolton eliminated a number of deputy NS advisor posts, consolidated groups, and reduced bloat. This included creating a new directorate focused on counterproliferation and biodefense, and folding the security and health directorate into it. In 2018, Ziemer left for a high level post in international development, something that had reportedly been planned for a while. His staff, which Ziemer called his "dream team", remained in place. And the head of the new combined directorate is actually a higher level position than Ziemer's post was.

There are a lot of similarities between biodefense and pandemics, and the reorganization meant the formerly separate staff were forced to interact and didn't have to pass through a security check to visit each other, so there were good reasons for the merger. On the other hand, there's also a good argument that pandemics are different from biodefense and thus the merger was ill-advised. But that's an administrative judgment call, not a deliberate attempt to eliminate the pandemic team, and happened below Trump's pay grade. It's also worth noting that insiders from the Obama administration talked about how difficult it was to figure out where the pandemic team belonged, so it was an open subject for debate. Of course, this also largely irrelevant, given Trump's managerial style. He typically points at someone and says you're in charge, as he did with Azar then Pence, instead of using existing structures.

There are a lot of articles that narrowly look at whether Trump was wrong, whether Biden's tweet was wrong, dissect Fauci's statements, or the like; but they all lack context. The Washington Post article below is one of the few that covers the history, institutional environment, what happened when, and uses sources from both the Obama and Trump administrations:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/20/was-white-house-office-global-pandemics-eliminated/

Also, the CDC budgets have increased, not decreased. Trump wanted to cut them, but Congress added money, and Trump signed those bills.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1126614Y
Yes, the Pandemic started in China, The American response has been 3rd world though, which is why we have the highest death rate in the world. It is still going to get much worse before it gets better because Pandoras box has been opened, and there is no closing it. Feel free to continue being ignorant though, it suits you well.

That's not what your post said you lying cunt.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1126616Pile of turds snipped

Next you will be  claiming Jews flew the planes into the towers.

Quote from: Pat;1126633That's just not true.

Obama eliminated the White House Health & Security Office in 2009, and only replaced it with a Directorate for National Security and Health at the NSC in 2016, after the Ebola outbreak of 2014.

When Trump took office, he appointed Timothy Ziemer to lead it. But after Trump made Bolton his third National Security Advisor, Bolton reorganized his unit, which was widely considered a bureaucratic mess. Bolton eliminated a number of deputy NS advisor posts, consolidated groups, and reduced bloat. This included creating a new directorate focused on counterproliferation and biodefense, and folding the security and health directorate into it. In 2018, Ziemer left for a high level post in international development, something that had reportedly been planned for a while. His staff, which Ziemer called his "dream team", remained in place. And the head of the new combined directorate is actually a higher level position than Ziemer's post was.

There are a lot of similarities between biodefense and pandemics, and the reorganization meant the formerly separate staff were forced to interact and didn't have to pass through a security check to visit each other, so there were good reasons for the merger. On the other hand, there's also a good argument that pandemics are different from biodefense and thus the merger was ill-advised. But that's an administrative judgment call, not a deliberate attempt to eliminate the pandemic team, and happened below Trump's pay grade. It's also worth noting that insiders from the Obama administration talked about how difficult it was to figure out where the pandemic team belonged, so it was an open subject for debate. Of course, this also largely irrelevant, given Trump's managerial style. He typically points at someone and says you're in charge, as he did with Azar then Pence, instead of using existing structures.

There are a lot of articles that narrowly look at whether Trump was wrong, whether Biden's tweet was wrong, dissect Fauci's statements, or the like; but they all lack context. The Washington Post article below is one of the few that covers the history, institutional environment, what happened when, and uses sources from both the Obama and Trump administrations:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/20/was-white-house-office-global-pandemics-eliminated/

Also, the CDC budgets have increased, not decreased. Trump wanted to cut them, but Congress added money, and Trump signed those bills.

No... they didn't. Stop yer lying! Used to be there were plenty of gamers on the rpgsite with good reading comprehension and a brain that worked.  Seeing alot of refugees from TBP and similar boards without these two essential cognitive skills. You'all are making me tired.

Charles Koch Network Pushed $1 Billion Cut to CDC, Now Attacks Shelter-in-Place Policies for Harming Business
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/26/americans-for-prosperity-cdc-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR0Xcw6B82XZhX4bvSu6jZJ1oJTumnyiL0LKwHZIiREdsWHJJuANIhmLjxE

Quote from: Gagarth;1126682That's not what your post said you lying cunt.

The pandemic did start in China, it just wasn't their creation. The virus was likely engineered elsewhere, until of course, it became illegal for Americans to engineer viruses, which was back in 2015. Of course, the Americans shared their newfound love for virus engineering with their "respected peers" in a fucking communist Chinese country. And they are still so scientifically incompetent there, that they unleashed the beast.

You should really go back to whatever rock you crawled out from under, and just quit lying, it doesn't suit you well here. Even better you should learn how politics really works in the U.S. today and what is broken in our system:

https://online.hillsdale.edu/landing/congress?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=congress&sc=MK1018SO57&fbclid=IwAR0limNXrqL_uydYD2Fe4aB8dFN2mkF5N_9Le0rvbNm_L0ALv1tv06Zhg4Q

Quote from: Anselyn;1126622Hmm. From your highly located friends in the Illuminati?

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Quote from: Anselyn;1126622Some real science that you obviously have mastered but neglected to mention. Coronavirus is a class of viruses. It's not that there is one THE coronovirus. Yes?

Addendum: Seeing how the facts are elided with fantasy is heplful for planning future conspiracy games - with only pretend lives at risk.

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Quote from: GameDaddy;1126689No... they didn't. Stop yer lying! Used to be there were plenty of gamers on the rpgsite with good reading comprehension and a brain that worked.  Seeing alot of refugees from TBP and similar boards without these two essential cognitive skills. You'all are making me tired.

Charles Koch Network Pushed $1 Billion Cut to CDC, Now Attacks Shelter-in-Place Policies for Harming Business
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/26/americans-for-prosperity-cdc-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR0Xcw6B82XZhX4bvSu6jZJ1oJTumnyiL0LKwHZIiREdsWHJJuANIhmLjxE

Everything I said is easily verifiable, and your link in no way contradicts it. Your source is talking about a third-party organization's proposal to cut the CDC's funding. The proposal hasn't turned into policy.

As I mentioned, the actual funding for the CDC has increased every year, for Trump's entire presidency (2017 to 2020). And as I also mentioned, Trump did initially propose cuts each year, but each time Congress passed a bill increasing their funding, and Trump signed it.

This was widely reported, so you can verify it nearly anywhere, but here's one with some graphs:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/feb/28/michael-bloomberg/did-donald-trump-fire-pandemic-officials-defund-cd/

Incidentally, we should defund the CDC. They failed, badly. As a matter of general principle, we should stop rewarding ineffective agencies and administrators with additional funding and status when that happens, because it creates a perverse incentive. And more specifically, having a central source that monopolizes the official response to a pandemic is clearly a bad idea. We need more agencies and labs working on things like tests, instead of a single-agency serving as a bottleneck. We should look into a more dispersed response, perhaps state-based.