, but we elected the folks who voted him in – including Joe Biden, whom I deeply respect, but who was dead wrong to ignore the testimony of Thomas’s other accusers.). I don’t care how many of his decisions you endorse – they are crap, because he is wearing that robe on stolen time.
Lest you think I’m out to get conservatives in favor of Democrats: Bill Clinton never should have been elected. I think he served our country well. And I also think, because of his numerous assaults on women, that he never should have been President. WE KNEW what he was… but we elected him anyway. We did that.
Likewise with Donald Trump. Not because of any of the other gazillion reasons for disliking him, but because his abominable predatory behavior should automatically have disqualified him.
You know how when you’re looking to buy a car and you absolutely need seating for eight because you’ve got six kids or you’re the basketball team driver or whatever and the salesperson says, “Check out these shiny bells and whistles! This is the best car ever!” And you’re like, “Those bells and whistles are sweet, but this car only has seats five. I need seating for eight.” And the salesperson is all, “BUT LOOK AT THIS LEATHER! And the rearview camera! And it folds your clothes as you drive!” And you think, “Man, I could really use a clothes-folding car…”
But you absolutely have to have eight seats – it’s a nonstarter, a deal breaker – so you turn it down. Even though it is otherwise your dream car. Even though the only other car on the lot makes your skin crawl. Even if it means you have to walk home with no car at all: you cannot get a car that betrays one of your fundamental requirements. You don’t even consider it.
Donald Trump was our leathery, clothes-folding five-seater car and his refusal should have happened well before election day. “Well, we’ve got this Republican and this Republican and a sexual harasser – oops. That’s one line we can never cross. That’s a deal breaker.” ASSAULTING WOMEN SHOULD ALWAYS BE A DEAL BREAKER.
Instead, we’ve told women that they don’t matter enough. The highest office in the nation is held by a man who openly admitted to groping women without their consent. Why on earth do women think they’ll be heard and valued when the most powerful man in the world behaves otherwise – and he was chosen to represent us?
We did this.
We can also UNdo this. Maybe not for Trump, but from here on out. We can come together to say, “If you have harassed, demeaned, assaulted or preyed upon women, you are disqualified – from office, from directing movies, from hosting television programs. We don’t care what other terrific qualities you may have or what you might accomplish, because your treatment of women renders you unfit for your position. We realize that this may leave us with other folks with whom we vehemently disagree, but hey – they didn’t treat women like shit, and you did, so we’ll have to figure out how to work with them (*gasp*). You literally leave us no choice because we will never choose someone who’s done that. It’s a deal-breaker.”
John Conyers “retired” this week. He did many important and fundamentally good things in his more than 50 years serving this country. He also needed to go, and even though he didn’t call it “resigning,” I’m glad he did. It was the right thing to do.
Now let’s cross our fingers and see how many other politicians follow his lead. In the meantime, don’t hold your breath… and if you’re a woman, bring pepper spray.The main tip I can give you when playing with a sniper or marksman rifle is to play your distance. It's a long range weapon and generally most effective at this range. This might sound dumb, but reading between the lines this tells you to move and keep the distance between you and your target.  
("Distance" in this case does not mean 200m by default, but I would advise to not get closer than medium range unless you absolutely have to.)

When playing with a team, I would also advise you to communicate your loadout and estimated playstyle with your partner(s). I'm translating a saying directly from my native language, so it might not make much sense in english, but: "Good agreements make good friends".

I'm just saying: If your partners are adamant on bring shotguns or melee weapons, that's fine (eventhough it's much better to make sure your loadouts are complementary), but be sure they are aware of your loadout, and *potential* inability to be of much help in their effective range. (If they're pushing into a bosslair and you're sitting perched at 100m... fill in the blanks. :) )

In my opinion, when playing sniper, it's ideal to do so with a partner or partners who are playing long or medium range weapons. This way, you can cover them and they can more easily cover you. Should the need arise that you do have to support them close range, make sure your secondary weapon can be used as such (Pax with Fanning, Bornheim, Dolch,... whatever) when you're needed for that specific circumstance.

Again: You need to focus on engaging from long range and need to avoid getting bogged down in anything below medium range. A tip I would give towards that is to always stay mobile when sniping. Take one single shot and regardless of hit or miss immediatly relocate afterwards. Always keep repositioning, never move in a predicable pattern. Map knowledge comes with experience and after some time playing like this, you'll be alternating between the best angles to scope out compounds and areas.

As for loadouts... for a primary, you ofcourse take your rifle of choice... but for sidearm, I would recommend a pistol. I would never take a handcannon for the simple reason that it's limited to the 10m (-ish) range. Meaning you're effective at either long range or close range, but the moment an enemy is anywhere in between, you could end up in deep shit.

You can either take a pistol with Fanning (e.g. Pax), but that would mean you would have to invest 7 traitpoints for a trait that's only borderline useful in your case. What I tend to do recently is just bring a Dolch or a Bornheim. Both work with Bulletgrubber (which also works with both the Mosin Sniper and the Lebel Marksman) and are good/decent at short to medium range, plus have a high rate of fire. You might get some salt for bringing either of those guns and I might get some for suggesting them, but if you have the coin to spare... I don't see a reason not to bring either.

For tools, I would recommend a knife, throwing knives, medkit and some concertina traps. The latter can help you cover a choke point.

For consumables, I would recommend an antidote shot, a large vitality shot, a staminashot and a consumable of choice. I find the staminashot particularly useful to speed up my rotations or help cross larger distances (when chasing other teams) at a faster pace.

Recommended traits (in my opinion) are Sniper/Marksman Scopesmith, Steady Aim (optional), Bulletgrubber (when secondary is Dolch or Bornheim) or Fanning (when secondary is Pax) and then personal choice favouring mobility (Determination, Greyhound, Gatorlegs, Lightfoot, Beastface,...).

Also, and this is in my opinion the biggest tip when playing a sniper loadout... be patient. Wait for the other guy to make the mistake, wait for the other guy to peek, wait for the other guy to leave the lair. Don't get pulled into situations where you don't have the upper hand.

To end with, I'm not saying this to toot my own horn, but [here's a Youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8yL-iFYcQo&amp;list=PLLV0pSQ66q6pmgDEVttVvH0WJRBOBdJA8) of sniper matches and highlights, which might give you a visual idea of what I mean with the mobility, the patience, the loadout,... You'll find some videos in the list also shows some top notch sniping spots all around the Bayou.A microscopically-informed modelling approach of damage in cement-based materials

Multiscale modelling of damage in cementitious materials can be performed through either a downscale or an upscale approach. The drawback of downscale modelling is that it requires the recalibration of model parameters whenever the material composition changes. Therefore, an upscale approach is preferred. This article proposes a method of multiscale modelling of damage starting from the microscale. Once the intrinsic parameters of the cement paste phases are identified, the microscopically-informed modelling approach can theoretically be used for different concrete mixtures. The numerical simulations show that the transition from the scale of the cement matrix to the scale of mortar requires that the interfacial transition zone be modelled as a separate phase with different properties than the bulk matrix.Want to