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Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
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Ask not what your country can do for you: ask what you can do for your country
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@drafterman
I really like the way Drafterman mods. There's a lot of potential variables in rules and mechanics depending on which mafia traditions people favor so I appreciate it when those variables are reduced so that everybody's playing with the same set of rules. Same thing with defined roles- it really helps to limit the potential roles and role mechanics. It clearly takes some work to maintain that quality so thanks to Drafterman for taking the time.
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Or put another way, the US and EU are the second and third largest global contributors with a proven capacity for responding and adapting to crisis. China contributes more greenhouse gas but China is a dictatorship and dictators don't listen. We can't get China to stop slaughtering rhinos for boner pills that don't work. We can't get China to stop eating bats and pangolins even when it shuts down their economy for a month. The IPCC recommends a global reduction of greenhouse gases by 40-70% before 2050 to prevent a (catastrophic) > 2 degree increase by 2100. 24% of total contribution could represent as much as 60% of the required change.
Let's also remember that China and India create those gases while manufacturing US and EU goods. Apple and Nike and hundreds of other US corporations have far more influence over Chinese politics than the UN or international pressure might. The IPCC is focusing its influence on the levers that move the rocks because the rocks are heavy.
******
Let's note that GP has failed to identify the "they" that won't discuss nuclear power or global polluters or offer any evidence of straw man "they."
Let's note that GP's conclusion does not follow the premise or the evidence presented.
GP's argues:
- Some group of people is only responsible for one quarter of the problem, therefore the problem does not exist (scam).
but also
- Some people concerned about the problem are inefficient at problem solving, therefore the problem does not exist (scam).
In effect, GP gives two arguments that the problem is difficult to solve and obtusely concludes that the problem is therefore not.
[INSERT PICTURE of OSTRICH with HEAD BURIED UNDER THE SAND HERE]
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Let's note that GP's only source, the EPA quite clearly states that climate change is real and recommends correction. The site GP directs us to uses IPCC5 (2014) as the source for its data (including GP's percentages) which is the primary source of all climate change warnings and recommendations.
Two weeks ago Antarctica broke its all time high temp record @64.9F degrees. This week that record jumped another 5 degrees to 69.3. You don't have to be a scientist to apply knowledge about how long ice lasts in 70 degree weather. The observable trend called global climate change is real, well-tested, well-documented and quite palpable to any earthling paying attention.
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I can't make sense of two recent acts of deliberate destruction of street art- last night's destruction of Banksy Valentine's Day work in Bristol, UK
and last week's attack Hosier Lane in Melbourne.
The impulse to destroy art makes no sense to me. In both cases we are looking at vibrant art gifted to public spaces- artists donating their considerable talents to the greater civic beauty. Nobody was charged anything: nobody was compelled to anything: no offense was offered: no politics inferred. But still the impulse apparently exists in some to claw at the beauty of work, to erase the hours of loving craft and leave something broken where civic color and civil reaffirmation were gifted by the kind and the creative.
What's the payoff? What impulse is satisfied? What individual purpose is gained for all that civil expense?
I suppose I see some variation of that impulse in the DART forums. There are those participants who are entirely disinterested in creation or original opinion but tirelessly add a splotch of cynicism or dismissal or derision like a tag in the alley- just marking out territory absent interest or even intent. The advantage that DART has over Hosier Lane is that the hobgoblins are identified and their comments easily bypassed.
Most art belongs to its moment and seldom replicates the original impact. I suppose the vandalism too reflects its the time and place but the loss of the thing is hard to replace and the aftermath in ruin hardens all our hearts.
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@bmdrocks21
Well said & thanks for your insights
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so if that is the case, and they are so helpful, why would you support hypothetical legislation banning it?
We ought to be able to agree that not every useful thing is useful in every context. A uranium solid fuel rod is great in the context of a nuclear reactor but unwelcome at an orgy. Tigers are important apex predators but should be kept out of nurseries.
Guns have utility as well, self defense, helping us hunt, shooting is a sport, and they help ensure the government doesn’t rob us of our rights. Now you said to just ban them around schools, festivals, etc, but I’d argue that is where they are currently needed.
Let's agree that guns have some utility. I assume that I am rather more skeptical of a gun's absolute value in the purposes of self-defense and rebellion than the average gun lover. I don't think I mind guns at schools so long as underage children don't have access and the armed personnel are vetted, trained, and licensed to a rational degree. Likewise, I'm OK with armed police and security at a festival but I think the public at that festival deserves some assurance that no armed people will be drinking or dancing or getting into fist fights so let's ask the festival-goers to leave their guns at home.
The vast majority of mass shootings happen in gun free zones. Lots of people die when gun aren’t present.
You are citing JR Lott's research which does not claim that the majority of mass shootings happen in gun free zones but rather the majority of mass public shootings happen in gun free zones. Lott defines mass public shootings as four or more deaths in malls, schools, churches, health care facilities, government buildings, and military sites. In other words, Lott's report ONLY amounts to the unsurprising finding that the majority of shootings in gun free zones happen in gun free zones. We should note that Lott excludes drug shootings, gang shootings, domestic and residential violence to conclude that there were only 28 mass public shootings between 2009 and 2016 or an average of 3 per year which seems like a pretty obvious low ball. We should also note that Lott's list of gun-free zones included many sites where armed defenders were present and actively engaged- Ft. Hood, Washington Navy Yard, Pulse Night Club.
Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz dismisses Lott's research: "This is junk science at its worst. Paid for and financed by the National Rifle Association." Given Lott's controversial history and the fact that he has left behind any study of Economics in favor of blogging and Fox News appearances, I tend to dismiss Lott's research as well.
However, a recent church shooting was cut very short by parishioners with guns, saving many lives.
Anecdotal, although I do not dismiss the example as irrelevant. Should we not also consider the considerable anecdotal evidence that the presence of guns does not always save lives? Four Broward County deputies were fired for failing to advance while students died at Parkland. Armed Mandalay security guards engaged Stephen Paddock in the first minutes but failed to prevent the worst mass shooting event in US history. An armed Las Vegas police officer was later fired for cowering in the stairwell while Paddock continued to kill and injure.
I don't deny the utility of guns although I suspect the utility of guns as tools for self-defense is both overrated and less effective than common sense measures excluding the violent, the addicted, and/or mentally ill from gun ownership. I don't generally mind the notion of an experienced gun instructor sitting in back of the church for protection although I may regret any sense of necessity. I do mind the notion of a church filled with armed parishioners who each feel empowered to assess and execute a defense of the congregation- mostly because in my experience, individuals attracted to such authority exhibit a poorer capacity for a correct assessment and righteous defense than individuals who decline that authority. That is again anecdotal but important to informing my opinion regarding practical gun usage and control in my country.
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@Alec
Thanks, Alec. If we agree that 616 is a reasonable estimate for 2018 assault weapons fatalities and 21 is a reasonable estimate for 2018 lightning fatalities than I think my point is made.
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@bmdrocks21
--> @oromagiAlso, while 616 is certainly more than anyone would like, I think we can safely say that .000187% of our population could be described as “barely anyone”.
I left that to READERS to decide for themselves.
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@bmdrocks21
Lightning oxidizes diatomic nitrogen into the nitrates which fertilize the growth of plants as well reacting with sunlight to produce ozone which in turn protects the planet from deadly ultraviolet radiation.
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The World As Meditation
J’ai passé trop de temps à travailler mon violon, à voyager. Mais l’exercice essentiel du compositeur — la médiatation — rien ne l’a jamais suspendu en moi … Je vis un rêve permanent, qui ne s’arrête ni nuit ni jour. — Georges Enesco
Is it Ulysses that approaches from the east,
The interminable adventurer? The trees are mended.
That winter is washed away. Someone is moving
On the horizon and lifting himself up above it.
A form of fire approaches the cretonnes of Penelope,
Whose mere savage presence awakens the world in which she dwells.
She has composed, so long, a self with which to welcome him,
Companion to his self for her, which she imagined,
Two in a deep-founded sheltering, friend and dear friend.
The trees had been mended, as an essential exercise
In an inhuman meditation, larger than her own.
No winds like dogs watched over her at night.
She wanted nothing he could not bring her by coming alone.
She wanted no fetchings. His arms would be her necklace
And her belt, the final fortune of their desire.
But was it Ulysses? Or was it only the warmth of the sun
On her pillow? The thought kept beating in her like her heart.
The two kept beating together. It was only day.
It was Ulysses and it was not. Yet they had met,
Friend and dear friend and a planet’s encouragement.
The barbarous strength within her would never fail.
She would talk a little to herself as she combed her hair,
Repeating his name with its patient syllables,
Never forgetting him that kept coming constantly so near.
-Wallace Stevens
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Never Give All the Heart
Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that’s lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.
-WB Yeats
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How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
-EB Browning
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When You Are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
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Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
-William Shakespeare
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[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
-EE Cummings
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Love Sonnet XI
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.
-Pablo Neruda
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"The flower-crowned alleged skull of St. Valentine is exhibited in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome.St. Valentine's remains are deposited in St Anton's Church, Madrid, where they have lain since the late 1700s. They were a present from the Pope to King Carlos IV, who entrusted them to the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools. The relics have been displayed publicly since 1984, in a foundation open to the public at all times in order help people in need.Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church, Dublin, also houses some relics of St Valentine. On 27 December 1835 the Very Reverend Father John Spratt, Master of Sacred Theology to the Carmelite order in Dublin, was sent the partial remains of St Valentine by Cardinal Carlo Odescalchi, under the auspices of Pope Gregory XVI. The relics and the accompanying letter from Cardinal Odescalchi have remained in the church ever since. The remains, which include "a small vessel tinged with his blood", were sent as a token of esteem following an eloquent sermon Fr Spratt had delivered in Rome. On Saint Valentine's Day in Ireland, many individuals who seek true love make a Christian pilgrimage to the Shrine of St. Valentine in Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, which is said to house relics of Saint Valentine of Rome; they pray at the shrine in hope of finding romance. There lies a book in which foreigners and locals have written their prayer requests for love.Another relic was found in 2003 in Prague in Church of St Peter and Paul at Vyšehrad.A silver reliquary containing a fragment of St. Valentine's skull is found in the parish church of St. Mary's Assumption in Chełmno, Poland.Relics can also be found in Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesbos.Another set of relics can also be found in Savona, in the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta.
Alleged relics of St. Valentine also lie at the reliquary of Roquemaure, Gard, France, in the St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, in Balzan in Malta and also in Blessed John Duns Scotus' church in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, Scotland.There is also a gold reliquary bearing the words "Corpus St. Valentin, M" (Body of St. Valentine, Martyr) at Birmingham Oratory, UK, in one of the side altars in the main church."
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So called, "assault weapons" barely kill anyone.
A highly flexible claim depending on how you define terms. Let's use Wikipedia:
"The definition varies among regulating jurisdictions but usually includes semi-automatic firearms with a detachable magazine, a pistol grip and sometimes other features such as a vertical forward grip, flash suppressor or barrel shroud. Some firearms are specified by name. At the time that the now-defunct Federal Assault Weapons Ban passed in 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice said, "In general, assault weapons are semiautomatic firearms with a large magazine of ammunition that were designed and configured for rapid fire and combat use."
A 2018 study examined
(1) guns recovered by police in ten large cities,
(2) guns reported by police to federal authorities for investigative tracing,
(3) guns used in murders of police, and
(4) guns used in mass murders.
"Results suggest assault weapons (primarily assault-type rifles) account for 2-12% of guns used in crime in general (most estimates suggest less than 7%) and 13-16% of guns used in murders of police. Assault weapons and other high-capacity semiautomatics together generally account for 22 to 36% of crime guns, with some estimates upwards of 40% for cases involving serious violence including murders of police."
So, let's use 6% conservatively applied to the 10,265 gun homicides documented by the FBI UCR to estimate 616 assault weapons homicides in the US in 2018. We can let readers decide whether 616 dead Americans in 2018 should be fairly characterized as "barely anyone."
Your [sic] more likely to die from a lightning strike than you are to die from an "assault weapon" statistically.
This is a popular NRA talking point, repeated on every website and at every rally and it is a pretty egregious lie. The National Weather Service documented 21 US deaths by lightning strike in 2018. Statistically, America saw 29.3 assault weapons homicides for every death by lightning in 2018. Let's round that up and say that
Assault weapons are 30 times more deadly to Americans than lightning strikes.
Yet no one advocates for more research done to prevent humans from dying from lightning.
Completely false. 5 minutes of googling turned up hundreds of research projects improving lightning protection. Here is a survey of recent lightning protection projects that documents 130 recent papers. Everybody advocates for more lightning research thousands of scientists are working to do just that. What are you talking about?
Yet plenty of people talk about banning "dangerous" weapons they think are dangerous, even though dying from them is more rare than dying from lightning.
Your premise has been shown to be false.
Yet, people are more scared of dying from an AR 15 because of the corrupt liberal establishment news.
Alec should offer evidence here that the mainstream media is more corrupt than his source, the NRA. Wikipedia:
Investigations by the FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller resulted in indictments of Russian agents on charges of developing and exploiting ties with the NRA to influence US politics. The deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia, Aleksandr Torshin, is suspected of illegally funneling money through the NRA to benefit Trump's 2016 campaign. In May 2018, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee released a report stating it had obtained "a number of documents that suggest the Kremlin used the National Rifle Association as a means of accessing and assisting Mr. Trump and his campaign" through Torshin and his assistant Maria Butina, and that "The Kremlin may also have used the NRA to secretly fund Mr. Trump's campaign." Torshin, a lifetime NRA member who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been implicated in money laundering by Spanish authorities who have characterized him as a "godfather" in Taganskaya, a major Russian criminal organization
If Americans had the capacity to ban lightning strikes, particularly around say schools and festivals and sporting events, etc do readers suppose that would be popular legislation? Well, we can't control lightning strikes but we can control gun manufacture, licensing, sales. We'd regulate lightning if we could- that would just be common sense. Why should it not be common sense to regulate a phenomenon 30 times as dangerous?
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Cryptoclaim:
The Cornish Wonder?
Trammel of baseball under five Catfish
Woe betides that English river
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I support legal prostitution and some sensible health and safety regulation.
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J Jonah Jameson made the assignments
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So few women visit this site that the odds an actual expectant Christian mother will read and answer your question are virtually nil.
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I started out as faith healer (50% chance to doc) and got upgraded to doctor
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@bmdrocks21
Michael Bennet, one of my senators here in Colorado. He ran Denver Public Schools which I can't say are as good as they ought to be and he's a bit milktoasty but to him goes the best campaign promise of the 2020 season: "I promise that if you make me president, you won't have to think about me for long stretches of time." I have to admit that's an appealing promise.
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I’ve always wanted to try a probe but I’ve been waiting for the right alien to come along.
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UVC
DD (3/4)- GP, Oro, Lunatic
Supa (1/4)- Drafter,
Oro (1/4)- Supa
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"Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;'
Or leave a kiss but in the cup
And I'll not look for wine. "
-Ben Jonson
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@Lunatic
I'm presuming at some point you'll learn that this coded claim doesn't work and is only ever counter productive and stop doing it, right?
It's extremely counter productive, and we know if he's scum he's going to be clever enough to set up a claim that can be argued for being something else, based on the fact that his rhymes are as loosely interpreted as biblical passages. You can make them mean whatever you want if your clever enough
I’ve played maybe 40 games and I’ve been scum twice- once on DDO six years ago and once on DART last summer. The point is you don’t have to ever worry about me being scum. It does not happen.
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@drafterman
Added: 02.11.20 08:37AM--> @oromagiI'm presuming at some point you'll learn that this coded claim doesn't work and is only ever counter productive and stop doing it, right?
As long as you keep freaking out about it every game I’m convinced it is working according to design.
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@Lunatic
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My role changed overnight! My coded character claim is still correct but my coded role claim is no longer valid.
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My wincon came in a second pm, anybody else?
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If u r leather, don’t drop the aitch
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Cryptoclaim (character)
scrawl a brawl
etch a wretch
it’s a zit
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@Vader
First things first
VTL Supadudz
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Serendipitously, I was thinking about D&D themed Mafia yesterday, provoked by mentions of doppelgängers on HBO’s “The Outsider”
/in
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@Discipulus_Didicit
What does a tracker do other than sniff out what townies have roles worth killing?Lol you mean scout right?That is what scouts do.Trackers try to follow scum to the NK target thus proving they are scum.
classic
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@Zaradi
What does a tracker actually do this game for town? Look at the roles that have flipped so far. Half don't visit (or can even be targeted by a tracker a la supa and bullish) and the other half are the important PRs (doc, cop) that make good nk targets. In a double miller setup, a normal cop will be underpowered as hell, but itd allow a role cop to function in the same manner that a normal cop would, while negating much of the anti town nature of the millers.What does a tracker do other than sniff out what townies have roles worth killing?
Its not a bad argument. I have the advantage of knowing your scum, tho. You thought you could take advantage of my absenc
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@Discipulus_Didicit
con el Pueblo- I also breadcrumbed that in DP1
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@drafterman
Scout is mafia version of tracker
yeah but what are the odds that there would be a town cop and a town role cop in 12 man game. COP and TRACKER vs scum ROLE COP makes a lot more sense than COP and ROLE COP vs SCOUT
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