And how the hell did it spread to Canada?

Something's up with your hosting.  I tried posting something, I reloaded the page a half hour later and my post was gone.  Then the site went down (for everyone, not just me) for a few minutes and now it's back up.

I mean, I know we use MySQL so it's not like we're really worried about consistency

Feelbombs incoming! This could probably be either the before-credits hook or the climax of the first act for a webcomic, or a romcom TV-movie-of-the-week. I don't have anything to connect it to, but I've learned to accept these scene fragments as they come. (edit: Because how did this tiny thing take two damn hours to type!? Standard terms apply: If anyone wants to adopt or adapt it for a project of your own, feel free, but try to get in touch so I can see what you make of it if you can.

Hope it's a good one!

What the unholy fuck.

And for months, your president has been sucking up to Putin.

Here's a thought inspired by a line in a fanfic I'm currently reading:

Young Harry was left on the doorstep at No.4, and found when Petunia went out to collect the milkman's delivery. Even a single day's observation from outside the house had let Minnie McG realize what sort of folk they were, a milkman might not have the concentrated duration but he'd see the folks on his route on the regular, and likely talk to them in a gossip-Gertie neighborhood like Privet Drive. Any decent human being, on finding a toddler abandoned on a doorstep should call the bloody coppers, or at least bring him out of the November morning air, not just leave him to be found. The Creepy brothers' father was a milkman. (There may have been some "somebody else's problem" charm on Harry for anyone-not-Petunia but set that aside for the nonce, or say Creevy Sr. was just under the degree of magical enough to have gotten a Hogwash letter himself but had enough to resist it.) Put all these together and I ask you - What if Harry Potter had been raised as an older brother to Colin and Dennis? Of course, we've all seen a plethora of minor variations on "Harry raised by a different family" by now, but if anyone has a new twist on how to run that but lacked a way to get the skrewt to blast off, well, here you are.

edit: Also I am now considering skrewts or skrewt-derived potions as part of a magical space program. KSP/HP anyone?

And because we're just about to hit 300 messages on the original COVID-19 Check-in Thread, it's time to create a new one.  News from our area is that the newly-opened barbershops and salons have three-hour-plus waiting times...

Well, maybe - but it's in Bloomberg.

Quote:The United States is planning to re-impose tariffs on aluminum imports from Canada, Bloomberg reported late on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

If Canada declines to impose export restrictions, the United States will announce on Friday the re-imposition of 10 per cent tariffs on aluminum from the country, the report said.

The tariffs would then be implemented by July 1, the report said, which is also when a new Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade is expected to take effect.

I actually wrote this something like six months ago to be part of a larger story, but it has some relevance to today's current events so I thought I'd post a preview of the relevant scene.  Enjoy! --BL

Oakwood Pentagon District, Venice
[November 8 2016] 5:30 PM

Sakura thought she was settling into her school life in America, but things kept throwing her for a loop.  They were assigned a group art project in class, but were expected to do most of the work at home.  No club rooms were available in her small school after class, but this was hardly an unusual state of affairs in American schools.  And so it was that Sakura and her besties ended up at the home of a classmate to assemble a scene.

As part of their local history education, they had been granted the assignment given to generations of schoolchildren in the Southland: to build a diorama scale-model of the local Spanish mission.  In this case, it was the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, which had served as the Franciscans' home base to indoctrinate the Tongva people into the Roman Catholic faith and intimidate them into the Spanish social order.

The fourth group member, assigned by the teacher, had an opinion about that.  "I can't believe they would give us an assignment like this.  It just romanticizes the imperialists!  And all that bad stuff they did, right?"  No one else knew quite how to respond to it, but Alanna Emory didn't give them much of a chance to speak anyway.  "Hey Sakura, pass me the scissors.  No, not those. The fabric scissors."

"Um, hai!"

Despite Alanna's complaints about the subject of the assignment, it turned out the form of the assignment was right up her alley.  She had oodles of art supplies spread out in her room, and many more buried in the drawers or under piles of sketches.  It was the main reason that their teacher had assigned Alanna to help her new transfer students, as she had real talent for the arts, and handled the newcomers with her typical aplomb.

As is the case of most group projects in school, a couple of kids were left with pretty much nothing to do.  Occasionally Sakura and Shaoran would attach something or other with the glue gun, but it was obvious that Alanna had creative control.  Tomoyo provided a good share of input on costumes and staging, but could only get so far in the face of Hurricane Alanna.

Had it been her own house, Sakura would have made snacks to stay busy, but even that task fell to Alanna.  Shaoran's primary contribution was to stop Kero-chan from "reenacting" a kaiju attack on the L.A. Mission while Alanna was in the kitchen.

Truly, they were just a little bewildered by the whole thing.  Back at Tomoeda Elementary, the kids would have made an effort to distribute work to everyone, so that everyone had a chance to do their best.  But here in America, in Alanna's realm at least, the creative directors had control and everyone else was working for scale -- or at least the grading scale.

The upshot was that everyone was going to get top marks, since their creative directors had a good eye for these kinds of things.  Their diorama included buildings, walls, European priests, and native farmers.  It didn't depict life all that accurately, but the look showed good craftsmanship and that's all that really mattered in the end.

By the time they were finished, it was well after dark.  The diorama turned out quite a bit bigger than expected, too.  In the end, they implemented Shaoran's suggestion that they drive it back to his home at Aria House, then simply carry it the couple blocks from the apartment to the school the next morning.  Sakura called for a ride home, then joined everyone else in packing up sundry art supplies.

A few minutes later, Tomoyo's private stretch limousine pulled up in front of the Alanna's bungalow.  Double-parked, of course -- on Venice's streets, it was hard enough to find parking for a normal length vehicle.

"You brought a limo to our house?" Alanna complained, "Are you trying to gentrify me out of the neighborhood?"

"Hoe?"

"I was reading about it on Twitter.  The neighborhood gets too nice, and the black folk can't afford to live in their homes any more.  That's gentrification."

While Tomoyo was still formulating the proper apology in her head, Sakura spoke up, "Um, well, my brother drives limousines for his part-time job."  Her answer had the advantage of being technically true, while not explaining why this particular limousine was present.

When the driver got out, the biracial girl couldn't stop her gaze.  He was tall, fair, athletically built, and made those glasses look pretty cute.  He greeted them, "Hi everyone. I hear you need a ride?"

Tomoyo responded, "Thank you.  Can I trouble you to carry our diorama into the car?"

"No problem," Yukito said.

"Here, it's back this way," Tomoyo led him to Alanna's craft room.

"That's your brother then?"  Alanna half-whispered to Sakura, "He's really cute!"

"I know," Shaoran half-sighed.

"Oh, no, that's my brother's boyfriend!"  As he gingerly carried the diorama through the hallway, Sakura introduced him, "Yukito Tsukishiro, meet Alanna Emory!"

"Ah, nice to meet you, Miss Emory."  Not having a hand free to shake, he automatically bowed to her.

She eagerly returned the bow, "Nice to meet you too, Yukito!"  She thought about how respectful the Japanese culture was, so cool.  She had a brief pang of regret about bowing -- was that culturally appropriating?  Nah, he looked happy to accept her greeting.  How cool, she decided, to be asked to experience their culture.

"Well, I'm going to go put this in the car.  Thanks for taking care of everyone."

"You're very welcome."  As soon as Yukito made it outside, Alanna told Shaoran, "Aw man, boyfriend.  Well, at least you have a chance with him."

"Me?"

"You don't have to be ashamed.  We stand in solidarity with our LGBTQIA brothers and sisters."  In this case, "we" referred to herself and the rest of Black Twitter.

"Um, I'm not really…"  Shaoran blushed.  It was a misconception, but a little too close to home.

Tomoyo headed her off, "You are a very enlightened young woman, Alanna."

"Aw c'mon, you guys are all crazy woke.  All my friends are!"  She thought a sec, then amended her statement,  "Um, I mean guys and gals, no offense intended!"

"None taken."  Tomoyo smiled.

The kids said goodbye to Alanna for the night, and piled into the back of the limo.  After the power window slid a pane of tinted glass between him and her, Shoaran groused, "I can't explain why, but somehow she reminds me of Meilin."

Sakura nodded, "Un."  As the car rolled slowly through the streets, she studied the frustration on his face, while keeping a small smile on her own.  After about a minute, she added, "It's okay to miss her.  I miss her too."

"Yeah.  I'm sure we'll see her again."

"For certain."

Tomoyo sat on the seat across from them in silence, camcorder in hand --  capturing this romantic moment, like a precious card, for her archives.

Kerberos finally dug himself out of Sakura's backpack.  "Oh man, we're finally out of there.  I thought that munchkin would never shut up."

"Now, Kero-chan, be nice."

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While it could be used to justify some form of emotion/mind control, I think this one is better as a null-power used for psychological effect, like Fat Bottomed Girls. Not exactly the same sort of effect, but easily worth busting out while dealing with some kind of racially or ideologically motivated incident. Or, I suppose it could be used to forcibly temper Doug's own tendency to go from zero to asshole in nothing flat by way of repeated "realize I'm being a jerk" checks like Good Morning's saves vs. sleep, if he's self aware enough to do so and has an idea that he might overreact to something in the next few minutes. Or just to keep reminding himself not to fly off the handle with the lyrics and no power shenanigans as such.