Para o dia de Natal trago prendinhas antecipadas para todos. : )

O debut dos Delphic, (muito) depois do single Counterpoint, que lhes permitiu a presença no cartaz do Alive09. Irá sair no UK dia 10 de Janeiro.

http://rs559.rapidshare.com/files/324974841/acolitosanonimos.rar.rar

Keeping in theme with my BBC sound of 2010 posts here’s another nominee, Delphic.

I should really post about Delphic more. I saw them a while back on the Kitsune Maison tour and have had anything I can find by them on repeat. They’ve released a few singles this year and their debut album drops on Jan 11th next year via Polydor.

Tracklisting:

“Clarion Call”
“Doubt”
“This Momentary”
“Red Lights”
“Acolyte”
“Halcyon”
“Submission”
“Counterpoint”
“Ephemera”
“Remain”

Here’s a track from the album and hopefully the next single.

Delphic – Halcyon

Pre-order the album here:

Play.com
Amazon.co.uk

Graham

With their album set to be unleashed in early 2010, synth peddlers Delphic have revealed their track listing as well as their album’s name.

Entitled Acolyte, it will be released on January 11th. Recorded mainly in Berlin, it will feature ten tracks including the massive “This Momentary”.

The complete list is as follows:

1. “Clarion Call”
2. “Doubt”
3. “This Momentary”
4. “Red Lights”
5. “Acolyte”
6. “Halcyon”
7. “Submission”
8. “Counterpoint”
9. “Ephemera”
10. “Remain”

Even so early on in the year, it will no doubt prove to be a must have. Reserve your copy now.

(Image courtesy of Last Gas Station)

(click to enlarge)

Ye gods!!! F#$&ing AWESOME!

Not long ago, I featured a purely ferocious band out of Manchester called Delphic and their single Counterpoint with its beautiful arpeggios, bleeps and blips. It’s great to see that they’ve been getting a lot of attention recently. They’ve scored a pretty sweet gig as openers for fellow Mancunians, Doves, on their UK tour and now comes a brand spankin new single simply called Doubt.

Doubt is Delphic’s signature pop moment to date. Booming drums, an absolutely ridiculous bassline and a bangin’ chorus. One listen and you’d think you just heard a New Order track with a more melodic Kele Okereke from Bloc Party on vocals. The promotional film accompanying the single also further demonstrates Delphic’s run of striking videos. This is a band that truly understands the importance of the entire package. Sparkling electronic pop coupled with videos that are worth watching is quite the combination.

These guys are going places…

Delphic on Facebook
Delphic on MySpace
Delphic on Twitter

“Doubt” by Delphic. Taken from the forthcoming Polydor release, “Acolyte”

Around these parts there’s always reason to celebrate when something with the stamped producer seal of approval by the awesome – Ewan Pearson – lands on your desk.

Manchester outfit – Delphic – reached critical acclaim for their “Counterpoint” and “This Momentary” singles, and with Ewan Pearson onboard in the producer chair on their forthcoming album – “Acolyte” – rearing its head in January 2010 expectations are certainly still running very high.

First single from the album is “Doubt”, and as you expect this is great, melodic, breaks-driven stuff, which will see you singing along before you can hum the the theme tune to X-Factor.

Luckily for us Delphic have far more talent and edge than a bunch of twats pretending to become pop stars, and whoever gets behind the remix desk on “Doubt” we can only speculate about, but it will definitely be worthy of your attention.

If not only for the involvement of Ewan Pearson!

Sing now!

MP3: Delphic – Doubt (Album Version)

“Late at night, I’ll run through the streets and empty corridors.
I’ll find my counterpoint, inside a red room locked behind a door. Behind a door”

I mean, really. It simply is not fair. There must be more musical talent in Manchester, England than the whole US eastern seaboard. You know the names that have come out of that town from the past and the present so I won’t waste your time here. This post’s aim is to add another name to the Mancunian legend. Today I bring you Delphic! A talented quartet whose sound aims to bring back the point in trance music by bringing it back to basics. To be more specific, theirs is a sound that simply reduce the trance form down to its most basic element: a song. They take it from there with that mindset and create something very pure and very enticing to the listener.

This is quite evident here in the song featured here which is their debut single entited Counterpoint. It’s a song Paul Van Dyk could have written if he focused more on songwriting instead of his grandiose epic journeys. It really is a beautiful song to say the least. The production is right on. The arpeggios. The pristine drums… I could go on but you simply have to listen for yourself!

The band’s debut record Acolyte is due to hit stores in January via Polydor. It’s a safe bet this will be a early highlight of the year in music 2010.

Delphic on Facebook
Delphic on MySpace
Delphic on Twitter

“Counterpoint (Live in Amsterdam 19.02.2009)” by Delphic. Original version featured on forthcoming Polydor release, “Acolyte”

I know most of us lead busy lives, and that some visitors to this blog only skim through the posts to look at the pictures. However, for all those interested in pederasty and boylove, its history and its value, reading John Francis Bloxam’s “The Priest and the Acolyte” is a must.

John Francis Bloxam was an English poet and priest. While studying at Oxford’s Exter College, he submitted, in 1894, a beautiful story to The Chameleon, a one issue periodical for which he also served as an editor. The periodical also contained Lord Alfred Douglas’ poem Two Loves, which, along with Bloxam’s work, would later be used against Oscar Wilde in his trial.

“The Priest and the Acolyte” is a tragic story about a love affair between a Catholic priest and a 14 year old acolyte. It describes what the priest feels toward the boy, and how the love is reciprocated. It explores the priest’s mindset, and his struggles with his “sins”. At the end of the story, the priest is confronted by the rector, and he stands up for what he believes in a pure, direct, and unapologetic way.

"Bodo" by Otto Lohmüller

Despite the tragic end, the short story is fascinating. One can really tell that Bloxam understands the priest’s psyche in a way that only another pederast could. It is also interesting because it deals with pederast priests, a category that still seems to be alive and well in the 21st Century. But perhaps what makes this story unique is the fact that it was written in the late 19th Century, and is a true reflection of the “Uranian” pederasty movement of the time.

Here are some fragments of the story:

“He saw the oval face flushed with shame at the simple boyish sins he was confessing, and a thrill shot through him, for he felt that here at least was something in the world that was beautiful, something that was really true. Would the day come when those soft scarlet lips would have grown hard and false?”

"Patrick VI" by Otto Lohmüller

“And that night, and for many nights after, the priest, with the pale tired-looking face, drew the curtain over his crucifix and waited at the window for the glimmer of the pale summer moonlight on a crown of golden curls, for the sight of slim boyish limbs clad in the long white night-shirt, that only emphasized the grace of every movement, and the beautiful pallor of his feet speeding across the grass. There at the window, night after night, he waited to feel tender loving arms thrown round his neck, and to feel the intoxicating delight of beautiful boyish lips raining kisses on his own.”

“He said the solemn words with a reverence and devotion that made the few poor people who happened to be there speak of him afterwards almost with awe; while the face of the young acolyte at his side shone with a fervour which made them ask each other what this strange light could mean. Surely the young priest must be a saint indeed, while the boy beside him looked more like an angel from heaven than any child of human birth.”

“‘There is no sin for which I should feel shame,’ he answered very quietly. ‘God gave me my love for him, and He gave him also his love for me. Who is there that shall withstand God and the love that is His gift?’

‘Dare you profane the name by calling such a passion as this “love” ?’

‘It was love, perfect love: it is perfect love.’”

The full text can be found here.

• Acolyte

O Noviço

Noviços são abençoados com o poder de curar e aumentar a força e a determinação de si próprios, e de seus companheiros de batalha.
Dedicados a tornar o mundo um lugar melhor, dando apoio a outras pessoas ou pelas próprias mãos, livrando Rune-Midgard das legiões de monstros malditos e sombrios.

Angelus Prerequisite: Divine Protection Lv.3 This skill is mastered at Lv.10. Increase the Defense rate of the caster and all of the caster`s party members within the caster`s screen for the skill`s duration. Angelus has a 0.5 Cast Time and 3.5 second Skill Delay. Skill Level DEF by VIT Skill Duration SP Consumption 1 105% 30 sec 23 2 110% 60 sec 26 3 115% 90 sec 29 4 120% 120 sec 32 5 125% 150 sec 35 6 130% 180 sec 38 7 135% 210 sec 41 8 140% 240 sec 44 9 145% 270 sec 47 10 150% 300 sec 50

Aqua Benedicta Basic Acolyte skill mastered at Lv.1. Create Holy Water when character is standing in normal water. Each cast consumes 10 SP and is followed by a 2 second Skill Delay.

Blessing Prerequisite: Divine Protection Lv.5 This skill is mastered at Lv.10. Temporarily increase target`s STR, INT, and DEX for the skill`s duration. Casting Blessing on a target will cure the Curse and Stone Curse statuses. Blessing can also cause Curse against Undead enemies when the SHIFT key is pressed to enable targeting of this skill on monsters. Skill Level STR/DEX/INT Increase Skill Duration SP Consumption 1 1 60 sec 28 2 2 80 sec 32 3 3 100 sec 36 4 4 120 sec 40 5 5 140 sec 44 6 6 160 sec 48 7 7 180 sec 52 8 8 200 sec 56 9 9 220 sec 60 10 10 240 sec 64

Cure Prerequisite: Heal Lv.2. This skill is mastered at Lv.1. Cure removes the Cursed, Silence, Chaos and Blind statuses. This skill also causes the Chaos status when used on Undead monsters (not yet implemented). Each cast consumes 15 SP and is followed by a 1 second Skill Delay.

Decrease AGI Prerequisite: Increase AGI Lv.1 This skill is mastered at Lv.10. Decrease AGI can reduce a target`s Movement Speed and AGI by a low chance, but it has no effect on Boss monsters. This skill`s level and the caster`s INT affect Decrease AGI`s success rate, and the target`s Magic Defense reduces the success rate. Decrease AGI has a 1 second Cast Time and 1 second Skill Delay. Skill Level SP Consumption AGI Reduction Success Rate Skill Duration 1 27 3 42% 30 sec 2 29 4 44% 40 sec 3 31 5 46% 50 sec 4 33 6 48% 60 sec 5 35 7 50% 70 sec 6 37 8 52% 80 sec 7 39 9 54% 90 sec 8 41 10 56% 100 sec 9 43 11 58% 110 sec 10 45 12 60% 120 sec

Demon Bane Prerequisite: Divine Protection Lv.3. This skill is mastered at Lv.10. Increase the character`s Attack Strength against Undead and Demon monsters. Skill Level Additional ATK by Skill Level 1 3 2 6 3 9 4 12 5 15 6 18 7 21 8 24 9 27 10 30

Divine Protection Basic Acolyte skill mastered at Lv.10. Increase the character`s Defense against Undead and Demon monsters. Skill Level Additional DEF 1 3 2 6 3 9 4 12 5 15 6 18 7 21 8 24 9 27 10 30

Heal Basic Acolyte skill mastered at Lv.10. This skill can be used to restore a target`s HP or to inflict damage on Undead monsters. The caster`s Base Level, Skill Level and INT all affect the amount of HP recovered by Heal. When Heal is cast on Undead monsters, it inflicts an amount of Holy property damage equal to half of the HP that the skill would recover on other targets. The SHIFT key must be pressed in order to target monsters with this skill. Each cast is followed by a 1 second Skill Delay. Skill Level SP Consumption 1 13 2 16 3 19 4 22 5 25 6 28 7 31 8 34 9 37 10 40

Holy Light Special Acolyte skill that can only be learned after Job Lv.30 by completing a quest. Attack a target from a distance with a holy light that inflicts an amount of damage equal to 125% of the caster`s Magic Attack Strength. Each cast consumes 15 SP and is followed by a 2 second Skill Delay.

Increase AGI Prerequisite: Heal Lv.3 This skill is mastered at Lv.10. Double the target`s AGI and Movement Speed to increase its Attack and Flee Rates. Each cast consumes SP and 15 HP and is followed by a 1 second Skill Delay. Skill Level SP Consumption AGI Increase Skill Duration 1 18 3 60 sec 2 21 4 80 sec 3 24 5 100 sec 4 27 6 120 sec 5 30 7 140 sec 6 33 8 160 sec 7 36 9 180 sec 8 39 10 200 sec 9 42 11 220 sec 10 45 12 240 sec

Pneuma Prerequisite: Warp Portal Lv.4. This skill is mastered at Lv.1. Shield an area (3+3+3 = 9 cells) that will block long ranged attacks directed at characters within Pneuma`s range. Pneumas cannot be overlapped or cast on top of each other. Each cast consumes 10 SP.

Ruwach Basic Acolyte skill mastered at Lv.1. Summon a holy light around the caster that will detect and damage hidden enemies within its range. Ruwach inflicts an amount of Holy property damage equal to 145% of the caster`s attack strength. Each cast consumes 10 SP.

Signum Crucis Prerequisite: Demon Bane Lv.3 This skill is mastered at Lv.10. Decrease the Defense of Undead and Shadow property monsters within a wide range. Although Signum Crusis has a low success rate, it increases as the level difference between the caster and target becomes greater. When successful, the targets will have a “…” emoticon displayed over their heads and will suffer from decreased Defense until they are killed. Each cast consumes 35 SP, regardless of skill level, and has a 0.5 second Cast Time followed by a 2 second Skill Delay. Skill Level DEF Reduction Success Rate 1 -14% 27% 2 -18% 31% 3 -22% 35% 4 -26% 39% 5 -30% 43% 6 -34% 47% 7 -38% 51% 8 -42% 55% 9 -46% 59% 10 -50% 63%

Teleport Prerequisite: Ruwach Lv.1. This skill is mastered at Lv.2. Instantly move the caster to a different location. At skill level 1, Teleport will move the caster to a random spot within the same map. At skill level 2, it will moves the caster to his Save Point. Consumes 10 SP at Lv.1, and 9 SP at Lv.2.

Warp Portal Prerequisite: Teleport Lv.2. This skill is mastered at Lv.4. Consume a Blue Gemstone to create a Warp Portal that will transport those that enter to the portal`s destination. Warp Portals will close after transporting the maximum number of characters or after the skill duration elapses. When this skill is mastered, the caster can save a total of 3 warp destinations, Memo Points, by using the “/memo” command. The caster`s Save Point will always be available as an extra Warp Portal destination. Warp Portals can only transport a total of 8 characters, regardless of skill level. A 1 second Skill Delay follows the casting of Warp Portal. Skill Level Skill Duration Available Warp Destinations SP Consumption 1 10 sec Save Point 35 2 15 sec Save Point + 1 Memo Point 32 3 20 sec Save Point + 2 Memo Points 29 4 25 sec Save Point + 3 Memo Points 26

Delphic.? Nie gehört. Okay, das ist normal, schließlich erscheint ihr Debütalbum “Acolyte” auch erst am 15. Januar 2010. Noch steht ihr Name auch relativ klein unter denen von Bloc Party. und La Roux, mit denen sie bereits getourt sind. Als Produzenten konnte das Quartett aus Manchester Ewan Pearson gewinnen, der bereits Remixe für The Chemical Brothers und Hot Chip anfertigte und die letzten Alben von The Rapture und Tracey Thorn produzierte. Wie seine kühlen elektronischen Beats und Flächen auf den emotionalen Gesang von James Cook treffen, das macht den speziellen Reiz von Delphics Musik aus. Ihre Heimatstadt, insbesondere New Order als Referenz, ist deutlich in ihrer Musik zu hören. Eine dritte Ebene bilden die düsteren Videos der Band, wie der Clip zu “This momentary”, der in Tschernobyl gedreht wurde.

MP3: Delphic – This momentary

MP3: Delphic – Counterpoint

MP3: Delphic – Doubt

I was smiled-down-on today, in a big way.

I’ve mentioned before and often that my memory has just . . . left me.  It got so bad several months ago that I went to the doctor (remember this story?), who ended up telling me to get more sleep and stop stressing out about stuff.  I may have looked at him just a LITTLE askance but in the end, he’s right.  A brain can only do so much under certain conditions.

So now I have my new iPhone that I use as basically a coping mechanism.  I enter everything into my calender and then I send myself alerts.  All.  The.  Time.  Alerts for soccer practice and alerts for football games and alerts for ballet class.  Also alerts for birthdays and alerts for meetings and alerts for when scholastic book club orders are due.  OH AND alerts for things that it would be really bad to forget, like pajama day or bring-your-pet-to-school-to-get-blessed day.  So now I simply enter every single thing into my phone.  Everything.

[Is it even necessary to mention how catastrophic it would be to LOSE MY PHONE holy macaroni let's not even think of it]

SO.  This system is working pretty well because I haven’t forgotten anything in 2 weeks.  Which is when I started this system because I forgot to take my daughter to a birthday party AND my son to a soccer practice in the space of two days.  I felt PRETTY sure no other mother had ever forgotten anything like this and that I had failed my children in a pathetic and palpable way, so I sat there, trying not to cry, with my calender and all the scribbled to-do lists I had in my purse and added it all into my phone, set to alert me not once but TWICE before every event.

Well, today I was at a meeting at my kids’ school.  And I was just leaving that meeting to go to a different meeting so I was walking through the sweet little campus to my car.  I had plenty of time to get to the other meeting but I was rushing a little anyway because I was in go-go-go mode.  And as I was scurrying past the chapel, someone happened to open the chapel door to walk out.  And I happened to glance in that door.  And do you know what I saw?

I saw Eli.

My sweet precious Eli, all dressed in his acolyte uniform, holding the processional cross.  Standing at the back of the church, waiting for everyone inside to sit down and get quiet.  And in the next 1/16th of a second, I remembered with perfect clarity the reminder that had come home just over two weeks ago that Eli would be serving as acolyte in chapel on Wednesday, September 30th.  And I stepped in that door that had been opened, just as it was closing.  And his teacher saw me first and said “Oh LOOK Eli!  THERE she is, you see?  She didn’t forget.”  And he turned to look at me.  And he smiled.  He smiled his perfect Eli smile.  And it’s so VERY convenient that I was in a church at that moment because I felt so grateful to and blessed by God that if I hadn’t been IN a church, I would have gone looking for one just to say a proper thank you.

And so he marched on down the aisle of that church with the confidence of knowing that his mommy was there, watching.  He kept glancing back where I had sat down in the pew and he was being mighty proud and adorable.  I was watching him, thinking “I cannot believe I almost missed this.”  He would have taken it pretty hard if I had missed it, but that would be nothing compared to how hard I would have taken it.  Oh, the emotional beating I would have given myself, over and over.  I’m not saying I would have deserved it, but I would have done it just the same.

So when I left the chapel a little later to get to my other meeting, I thought of that expression “God holds you in the palm of His hand.”  And I got it.  There were forces at play this morning working in our favor, perhaps because neither Eli nor I could take a disappointment like that this week.  Or perhaps just to remind me that we do, in fact, have someone in our corner, whether we remember it all the time or not.  Or maybe a little of both.

And that is why I feel smiled-down-on today, in a big way.

Well, better late than never. My guild went back to Sartharion to get our raid leader the reins of the black twilight drake. A bunch of other nice stuff dropped that was actually not wasted- the fact that this is ostensibly a tier 7 encounter did not mean that we had no holes in our gear that couldn’t be filled with an older iLvl 226 drop. Anyways, today I’ll be going over how to not fail at Sarth +3!

First off, a primer. This fight is incredibly hard at appropriate gear levels, and the difficulty level goes up vastly if you ever have more than one drake up. There’s a variety of reasons for this, but any good general guide will go over them and they’re nothing we need to worry about. If you’re going to do this instead of modern T9 or T8 content, I’m assuming that you have already cleared the trial of the crusader this week and are just avoiding going back to Ulduar. That said, you start the fight working on Sarth, and then his friends drop by one every 30 seconds. They each do things to hurt the raid, and spawn a portal, various adds, and void zones. On top of this, periodically, a wave of lava will sweep your fighting area which will enrage adds, one shot clothies, and kill pets.

Tenebron is the first drake up. Don’t blow cooldowns, just DPS him down and do not go in his portal. You will have him down before the second drake comes out. We actually had a good 7 seconds that we used to wipe up adds.

Shadron comes up next. This is where you will blow cooldowns. Your shammie will pop heroism/bloodlust and you should rapid fire, and use a haste pot if rapid fire falls off before he’s down. You also need to go into the portal with an offtank and healer and the rest of the DPS to kill this guy’s disciple.

Vesperon is the last drake. You need to go in the portal here too, but once you’re done with the acolyte, if you have your whole raid up, you can see the end of the tunnel. Kill him, then AOE adds for at least two volleys before switching to Sarth himself.

Now, while these paragraphs were short, the fight itself is actually technically a little challenging. You need to get out of void zones, watch out for firewalls that can come from the north or south and make sure you’re in the proper gap, drop freezing (nor frost) traps to reduce raid damage from adds, tranq shot enraged adds that are on your healer, MD adds to the add tank, and be aware of the positioning of the portals. On top of it, when you go in a portal, if you finish the boss and you happen to be standing in the wrong area, you could eat a fire wave and not have time to avoid it at all. That said, there’s nothing so challenging here that you won’t be able to do it. All these mechanics are things you’ve seen before, and the cluster-frak levels are less than they are on Yogg, or even Freya, in my opinion.

Once you’re onto Sartharion himself, just DPS him down and collect the loot (and maybe a title and a mount!) For a more comprehensive guide that’s not hunter/DPS specific, check out one of these.

This Sunday will be my son Dean’s first Sunday serving as an Acolyte.  I am very proud of his decision to do so.  A few months back he felt a strong desire that he wanted to do more then just sit in his chair.  Somehow he wrapped his young mind around the idea that since Jesus has done so much for him.  He wanted to do something for him.

He has taken the whole thing very serious.  He is very proud of his vestments and his place by the altar.  One of his desires is that others will be inspired to worship our Lord with more sincerity by seeing him worship whole hearted.  God bless the little guy.

Dean is very excited and calm as anyone can be.  I on the other hand am somewhat anxious about the whole thing.  He struggles a little bit with his torch.  It is considerably larger then him.  I just hope he maintains control of it.  I know he will do just fine.

Yes today I am a very proud father.

Blessings.

The Alinskyite prince of South Side: crowned arbiter pietatis by South Bend’s renegade priests.

Candid readers, the “Catholic” theologians denouncing Notre Dame’s Obama protesters as like the Klan, badly need a refresher in irony. This man of blood, with his “Against abortion? Don’t have one,” is on the same logical and moral level as the antebellum slavers who said “Against slavery? Don’t own one.” And yes, there IS a place for Catholics who publicly dissent from the Church’s teaching authority — it’s called Lutheranism.

As is traditional, George Weigel deftly sees through the postures and rhetoric of Vatican II laicism about Obama at Notre Dame to ask cui bono, and the answer is: Obama’s, in the Electoral College:

In order to secure the political advantage Obama had gained among Catholic voters last November, the president of the United States decided that he would define what it means to be a real Catholic in 21st-century America…  He, President Obama, would settle the decades-long intra-Catholic culture war in favor of one faction — the faction that had supported his candidacy and that had spent the first months of his administration defending his policies…

Rather like Napoleon taking the diadem out of the hands of Pope Pius VII and crowning himself emperor, President Obama has, wittingly or not, declared himself the Primate of American Catholicism…

What the bishops of the United States have to say about this usurpation of their authority will be very interesting to see. Whether Obama’s Catholic acolytes will recognize a genuine threat to religious freedom in what they are already celebrating as their Notre Dame victory over the pro-life yahoos and reactionaries will also be instructive.

Indeed.  This is, of course, a live issue not only in Roman Catholic (and Orthodox) moral theology and Church governance, but in Constitutional law as well, which necessarily and passionately engages evangelical and other traditionalist Protestants.  These include once-and-future Republican Presidential candidate Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR), who during his campaign last year made the slavery/abortion analogy for federal law explicit, with some learning lightly worn about the Kansas-Nebraska Act and Dred Scott v. Sandford:

What are we saying to the generation coming after us when we tell them that it is perfectly OK for one person to own another human being?  I thought we dealt with that 150 years ago when the issue of slavery was finally settled in this country, and we decided that it no longer was a political issue, it wasn’t an issue of geography, it was an issue of morality. That it was either right or it was immoral that one person could own another human being and have full control even to the point of life and death over that other human being.

Huck is politically shrewd as well as ethically principled here.  An Old America strategy of invoking the natural law that undergirds the civil, is essential to conservatives’ building big enough coalitions to defeat the secular Left electorally on issues like the sanctity of life and marriage.  It was for instance the fervent participation of the black and Latino churches of California in the Yes on 8 campaign last fall, that enabled us to beat back the homosexual “marriage” lobby here (a majority of whites in the state, nine to nothing concentrated in the liberal littoral, voted to sacramentalize sodomy).

In this connection, herewith video of Dr. Alan Keyes, Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2004 Illinois Senate race, arrested for trespass along with 21 others at Notre Dame, while peacefully praying the Rosary to protest Obama’s presence.  The actual taking into custody, when the police replace the Rosary around Keyes’ wrists with handcuffs, is at about 2:20 in:

A picture or rather video is worth a thousand words; it started precisely this way with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., one recalls.

]]> http://johnryanrecabar.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/201st-post/ Fri, 15 May 2009 08:00:40 +0000 John Ryan Recabar http://johnryanrecabar.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/201st-post/ http://fawngrubbsya.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/huitlacoche-cuitlacoche/ Fri, 08 May 2009 17:00:52 +0000 fawngrubbsya http://fawngrubbsya.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/huitlacoche-cuitlacoche/

#7 won

Heres a great one from Kurasu and his awesome turtle with some new raid content tankage.

Who: Kurasu of Emerald Dreams – EU (80 Survival)
Pet: Panzer (80 Turtle)
Group: Full raid group (including DK MT)

Description: An early afternoon raid isn’t usually the most popular thing, but we had enough signups for one… just barely. The problem was, only one tank. The first drake was a mess, with a lot of the raid clothies and no tank for the portal boss.

The ‘whelp’ drake is no problem at all to do without tanking. However, the barrier one is …. ugly, to say the least.

“BRB. Getting the turtle.”

Panzer actually held aggro fairly well against the dragonkin, with a taunt to grab it right off the bat and from then on, just holding with a combination of nothing but growl and bite. He didn’t have a full-time healer, so most of the healing had to come from Mend Pet and an offhealer, and thus he ended up taking too much damage and dying at the third dragon. But if he had had a full-time healer, I honestly think he could have tanked the dragonkin without any problem, while the DK held the main drake outside. The aggro wasn’t the issue; the damage was.

No screenshot of mid-tank, thanks to things being too hectic and no body shots of the portal dragons, thanks to the portals closing as soon as it’s dead. Hopefully a shot of the two of us standing over the dead drake will suffice well enough.

Other hunters who have completed this feat:
No submissions yet

Nancy Pelosi looks like a shifty character. I’m sure that President Obama has more than one set of eyes on Ms. Pelosi. If he doesn’t,he will regret it.Something about her looks totally untrustworthy.I didn’t believe her when she told Rachel Maddow that she didn’t know that they were going to actually use enhanced interrogation methods.In other words,she denied that she knew that our government allowed people to be tortured.But,you could tell that she wasn’t being truthful. It’s all in her body language.

And she really looked irked by Rachel Maddow’s questions about what she knew.Politico.com has a very interesting article about Nancy Pelosi’s habit of making lists.They claim that she has a “disfavor file” which consists of all of those who have gotten on her bad side.After that interview with Rachel Maddow,I suspect that Nancy Pelosi might be considering adding her to the aforementioned D-day list! Here’s more on that list from Politico.com:

“But she has also moved to strip power from longtime adversaries — and she has a propensity for remembering slights and grievances for years. Hawkish Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who clashed with Pelosi on Iraq and intelligence policy, assumed she was in line to become chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee when the Democrats seized control of the House in 2006. But Pelosi refused to appoint Harman to even a seat on the committee, and she handed the chairmanship to Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas).

As speaker, she did nothing to stop her ally Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) from ousting Rep. John Dingell as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee after clashing with the octogenarian Michigan Democrat on energy policy and global warming.The list, Pelosi allies say, is real — even as they warn that overstating her vindictiveness feeds into the right-wing caricatures of Pelosi and perpetuates ethnic and gender stereotypes.

Moreover, they argue that portraying her as payback-obsessed misses a fundamental political point: Despite her commanding majority, Pelosi is painfully aware that powerful speakers, including Republican Joe Cannon, have been toppled for using their power heavy-handedly. “She’s not a vengeful person, per se, and she thinks that people who do bad things eventually get their due without her intervention,” a longtime associate said on condition of anonymity. “But that doesn’t mean she forgets.”

So who’s on Pelosi’s list now?

1. Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.). No Democrat has done quite so much in so short a time to arouse Pelosi’s disdain as the failed-Redskins-quarterback-turned-ambitious-North-Carolina-congressman. The conservative, anti-abortion Shuler would have made the list for voting against both bank bailout bills and the stimulus package, but the way he went about it didn’t help; Shuler told an audience back home that “House leadership and Senate leadership have really failed” on the $787 billion package. The thing that riles Pelosi most, according to several House aides, is that she believes Shuler’s motives are as much political as they are ideological — and that he’s picking a fight with her to position himself for a run against Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) next year. Unless Shuler is planning a long House career, picking a fight with Pelosi may indeed have its advantages: His 2006 opponent, incumbent GOP Rep. Charles Taylor, scored points by portraying Shuler as a Pelosi acolyte. “I don’t know if Shuler is talking without thinking or if he’s just making the calculation that distancing himself from Pelosi is never a bad thing to do,” said a senior House leadership aide.

2. Rush Limbaugh. He’s Pelosi’s sworn enemy — and she views him as beneath contempt and unworthy of her comment. Asked about the right-wing talk-radio king the other day, Pelosi said: “I don’t speak to that. I’m the speaker of the House. I don’t get into the popular culture.”(End of Excerpt) Read the rest here.

I know, another drone picture.  I just like to put the camera on my drones and take pictures.  And acolytes look so nice in flight.

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Acolyte drones flying in close formation tear past an engaged apocalypse.

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Ryan Quinn, son of Deacon Scott and Karen Quinn, received his 2nd Degree Brown Belt in Karate on December 12, 2008.  He started Karate in October 2004 just after he had turned 5. Ryan serves as an acolyte at Christ the King CEC in Sharpsburg, GA.