it’s too bad they shoot the messenger…

i’ve got so much to share

i wonder if anything’s different this time around ..

i wonder if there’s someone out there who would say they’d want to put me down …

it’s too bad for them the truth being seen is inevitable

many say i care too much, i wonder if they realize it’s all a part of us now

guns are the weapons of the foolish

the wisest will tell you that the words hold the true power

and anyone who believes otherwise

see the definition of the word justice and how it’s used

in a thousand different ways to manipulate an occupied mind

it’s too bad they’ve always shot the messenger

i plan on making it through this time, to my delivery

barely born I was a child of Liberty from day one

t

]]> http://earlvagary.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/increasing-player-investment-in-shooters/ Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:25:31 +0000 Vagary http://earlvagary.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/increasing-player-investment-in-shooters/ http://rainbowwarrior2005.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/shocking-world-believes-same-iraq-style-lies-about-iran/ Fri, 27 Nov 2009 20:43:13 +0000 Rainbow Warrior http://rainbowwarrior2005.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/shocking-world-believes-same-iraq-style-lies-about-iran/

RT interviews German journalist Jurgen Elsaesser, author of the book “Iran: facts against Western propaganda”. He thinks Tehran has every right to produce nuclear energy. And fears that “extremist Israeli government could provoke war with Iran at any time”.

Seems Germany also does not have freedom of the press either.

Israeli Lobby is a problem even in Britian

Are we all going to sit Idily by and allow this to happen in Iran.

Pictures included. This is what the US has in mind for Iran,  with Israel pushing for war all the way. Be sure to check it out. These are the things the US does not want you to know. The horror of war is real.

Iran has done nothing wrong.  The comply with International Laws.

The US and Israel do not.

Both countries have committed War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity.

Iraq: I Should have called the link below ” Iraq a Picture is worth a Thousand words”.

Doctors report “unprecedented” rise in deformities, cancers in Iraq

The propeganda machine is hard at  work. The media is spewing out the same type of things used against Iraq. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction but they do have a lot of oil as does Iran.

Gaza (4): A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

(Afghanistan 1) A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

Israel is a terrorist state. They cannot be trusted.

Why do people around the world believe anything the US or Israel says?

Both have a long history of lieing.

Why is everyone so gullible?

Why do we tolerate it?

he Blast Knuckles is a self defense device which disrupts the message the brain sends to the voluntary muscles. Simply touching an attacker with it for three to five seconds will deliver a high voltage shock causing loss of balance and muscle control, confusion, and disorientation bringing him to his knees and making him incapable of further aggressive activity. Depending on the individual, full recovery usually takes about five to ten minutes and there is no permanent harm. Just test firing this unit into the air is often enough to stop an attacker. As the bright electric current pulsates between the test prongs and creates an intimidating electrical sound an attacker with any sense at all will be stopped in his tracks. If the sight and sound doesn’t stop them a jolt from this unit certainly will! This blast knuckles has 2 levels of safety built in, first the swith has to be turned on and second the trigger depressed. This blast knuckles has a 2 position safety switch: off, stun. In the world of self-defense gadgets the Blast Knuckles is one of the planet’s most powerful stun guns, now coming with a different approach to repel assailants and bringing a whole new meaning to “getting a grip.”

The first thing you should know about this contraption is that it packs a whole lotta volts, which are not to toy with. 950,000V is enough to have some faint-hearted felon kicking the bucket and thin current will definitely change the mind of any attacker as soon as the volts start going through their bodies. One very important detail on the Blast Knuckles is that it has the shape of the good old badass brass knuckles you get to see in old movies. Now, this special shape comes with a lot of advantages that raise the Blast Knuckles above other similar self-defense gadgets. First, the fact that you actually have it in your hand and can grip it tightly so no assailant could take it away from you with a simple blow on your arm is worth mentioning. There is no need for aiming you just punch like you normally would, using your fist. Consequently, your electricity-loaded clenched hand will discharge a very serious amount of volts in your attacker, leaving you 5 to 10 minutes to get away from the danger. The Blast Knuckles is made of no-slip, high-traction rubber with a full-grip design letting you get a good hold of the device. Furthermore, it also comes with dual lithium rechargeable batteries and a tactical holster. This stun gun additionally sports individual trigger and safety switches to prevent accidental discharges. Caution is required when handling the Blast Knuckles, and self-zapping is completely unadvised. While you can get your gadget for around $50, we should stress that you must be of legal age to own such a device and also make sure its use is authorized in your state, country, or area. Should you not believe us, just keep in mind that not all 50 states consider it legal, and, of course, one can only use the Blast Knuckles in self-defense situations, in order to avoid penal consequences.

The Green Industry Revolution!

How many have fallen for this trick? I won’t even bother counting.

Now, lets apply the title of this post to the green industry, and see what we get:

Problem - The concept of Global warming is constantly reinforced through repetitive suggestion and a whole load of misleading facts.

Reaction – Fear for the sustainability of the earth, and guilt among the masses.

Solution – Governments, Corporations, and International bodies take charge by saying to the masses, “We need to create a green Industry” (a fictional saviour who will fight greed, injustice, lies and murder in the world!) Oh, hang on… thats not the role of the green industry.

So, you reckon the green industry is backed by multinational corporations because they care about the earth and its inhabitants?? Well, If you’re naïve enough to believe that, then pigs can fly too:)

On the other hand, I wonder if billions of dollars which are to be now collected in carbon taxes, has got something to do with it…

Can this same system be applied in other sectors?

Create a problem: Terrorism

Get a reaction: Fear

Provide a solution: Invade common persons privacy on the pretext of fighting terrorism, and create wars that keep a multi-billion dollar weapons industry in business.

Eureka!

For the U.S. to sign the Mine Ban Treaty would be mostly symbolic, as according to Human Rights Watch, “[i]t has not used antipersonnel mines since the 1991 Gulf War, has not exported any since 1992 and has not produced them since 1997.” Essentially, they’d be saying, “There, you have it in writing. Can we get on with our wars now?”

But no such treaty will be signed in the foreseeable future, at least for now. A White House spokesman says this is because “we would not be able to meet our national defense needs nor our security commitments to our friends and allies.” This is baffling, considering that the U.S. “has not used antipersonnel mines since the 1991 Gulf War, has not exported” – well, you get the idea.

The article points out that because all but one NATO country has signed the treaty, the U.S. will not be getting any help with its own use of landmines. You know, if there is any use of landmines. What an excuse: they might need them later. That’s like someone building a bunker in their yard post-Cold War because there might be a nuclear war later.

I might have expected such a move from the Bush White House, where disregard for the whims of the international community – unless the country in question was one of the “Willing” – was flagrant. But this White House? The same White House that has always favoured diplomacy over direct aggression, engagement over acting in isolation? The same White House that has yet to prove any real need for U.S. landmine stockpiles? The same White House from which $1.5 billion have come over a 16-year period to support mine clearance and destruction? What the hell is going on here?

That’s not to say the U.S. will be completely absent from the discussions; they are sending some landmine experts from the State Department to a treaty review conference in Cartegena, Colombia. According to the aforementioned White House spokesman, this will allow the U.S. to participate as an “observer.” You can take this one of two ways, depending on your optimism: 1. They’re going to determine whether the treaty is worth signing after all. 2. They’re going to sit there and pretend to give a damn, just for PR reasons.

I’ll be looking forward to hearing the “observers” justify this to the rest of the attendees at the review conference. They have some pretty fancy ’splainin’ to do, and they have to do it soon. As it stands, there is no argument in favour of keeping the stockpiles besides the “might” factor, and that isn’t much of an argument at all.

Dude, how long have we been at this bus-stop? Like, 15 hours?
Told you using our only van as a car bomb was a piss-poor idea…

What is happening in the picture? Tell us in the Comments

Picture by: Zach Caption by: Zenonplazmos via Advanced Lol Builder

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Hello!!

Something a bit weird happened: I went off dreamblogging for a week cos I was so busy, but when I tried to get back on it I started not being able to remember dreams… I was out of practice; even a 20 minute soothing shower couldn’t coax them out of my cortex.

But then it happened at a party last Saturday, my mate Edd’s 30th, where the occasion warranted an exciting cocktail of Bassett’s Jelly Babies and proper spicy Sloppy Giuseppe pizza…

Dream count #1

Dream: I’m on a bus with my friends Poppy and Zoe and some other familiar faces. We’re driving east out of London on top of a hill looking down into a lush Essex valley with a great big reservoir. Poppy explains that it’s where they harvest all the meat that gets delivered to Smithfield market in the east end, and that we should go down for a tour.

Next moment we’re in these tin boats floating around the reservoir; about 12 feet below the water’s surface we can see all this big black plastic covering all this meat that is growing underwater. There are some other underwater meat tour boats ahead of us, travelling towards a corrugated iron building on the far bank. Problem is we don’t have any oars, so Poppy has to jump out into the meaty water and propel us to the building.

But, by the time we get there, we find that the other tour groups have already eaten the harvested meat samples. Luckily there’s one piece left… but it looks terrible, all white and puffy, from being kept underwater for so long. I’m not impressed with this, so I argue with the tour guide. Turns out he’s Spanish, so I argue in Spanish. Then suddenly, for reasons unknown, he runs off with one of the other meat tourists as a hostage, brandishing an Uzi. We stand there bemused… while I try to figure out what on earth I had said to him!

A small collection of English language Haiku that I created using “Text-snippets” of different books.
They are Haiku merely in their shape, their number of syllables, they are however not observations of a moment in my life or nature.
Enjoy!

Ghosts are not alike
In contact with the ocean
Cabbage patch Jesus

The lethal weapons
Ran here and there in search of
A tropical rain.

Familiar to
Marlena’s horrified face
The mountain, the blue

The top of the tree
Anarchist friends adopted
Naked universe

Honeyed tunes like
The fluorescent lights like
Church for midnight mass

True knighthood is the Holy Grail of manhood, a revelation attainable only by the pure.  The proud are ever barred from taking a draught from it.

Our very captivation with the Holy Grail consists in the fact that it has not been found and only few have even seen it.  And, of course, the reason that the mysterious cup remains ever out of reach for the ordinary man and is because its quest is fraught with danger:  fearful obstacles, inscrutable riddles, and deadly foes.

To those who possess true manliness, such obstacles are the reason why The Quest is so appealing.  By definition manliness is the penchant to overcome obstacles. The more hopeless the attainment, the bigger and better is the man who laughs in the face perils to be found there.  Those who are lesser men still aspire to the Grail, but fear leads them to experience the danger only vicariously by following along at a safe distance, through spectator sports, litrerature and movies.

And yet there is a temptation in that boldness to which those gallant men of the Round Table too easily succumb.  The bigger and better that a man thinks he is, the more likely he is to fail utterly in attaining the goal.  Gawain, for example, showed himself the fool for this very reason.  And Lancelot had to be taken down a few notches (many actually) before he was even granted a partial fulfillment of his desire.  Galahad attained the grail, not so much by his prowess, but more so, by his humility and purity.

There is a strange and wonderful coincidence of opposites in the embodiment of true chivalry:  courage, strength, boldness and skill, on the one hand; reverence, humility, meekness, and deference on the other.

In a sermon written during his Anglican Period, entitled, “The Weapons of the Saints,” Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman couched the spiritual life in terms of a war in which the stratagem for victory demands an inversion of worldly values:

But in that kingdom which Christ has set up, all is contrariwise. “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.” What was before in honour, has been dishonoured; what before was in dishonour, has come to honour; what before was successful, fails; what before failed, succeeds.

It is this inversion that constitutes the real difficulty to the attainment of the Holy Grail of true knighthood.  It is the riddle of riddles.  The Black Knight, enemy of our souls, guards the bridge that leads to the hermit who is ensconced away from the manners of worldly men.  It is from him that we are to unlearn our pride and find the real weapons by which we are to succeed in our quest.

Cardinal Newman’s sermon is a commentary on Our Lord’s words: Many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first (Mt 19:30).  And he supports his thesis from many other passages of the New Testament concerning, for example, strength made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9), the of putting down the proud and the exalting of the humble (Lk 1:52), the blessedness of those who suffer and the woes of those who are satisfied (Mt 5:2-10; Lk 6:24-26), and God’s choice of the weak and despised to do his work (1 Cor 1:27).  It should be abundantly clear to anyone with a modicum of familiarity with scripture that God triumphs in and through those who have rejected worldly ambition and self-assuredness.

The invisible powers of the heavens, truth, meekness, and righteousness, are ever coming in upon the earth, ever pouring in, gathering, thronging, warring, triumphing, under the guidance of Him who “is alive and was dead, and is alive for evermore.”

Truth, meekness and righteousness, according to Venerable Newman, are the real weapons of the saints, the means by which they are victorious over Satan, sin and death.  The Holy Grail of Christian Knighthood is so hidden that in order to find it the knight must lose himself in the process.

This is that intangible, greater thing, after which young men aspire.  It is the stuff of true nobility.  It is strength without arrogance, command without self-interest.

Venerable Newman notes that “we like to hear marvellous tales, which throw us out of things as they are, and introduce us to things that are not.”  The paradox of the cross and of the victorious King who triumphs through His own death is the cosmic myth, the retelling of which is the incantation that opens the sealed doors of our hearts. He that openeth and no man shutteth, shutteth and no man openeth, is the only one with the key (Ap 3:7).

The beloved disciple saw Him mounted on a white horse, and going forth “conquering and to conquer.” “And the armies which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations, and He shall rule them with a rod of iron.” [Rev. xix. 14, 15.]

The Quest of the Holy Grail is a lesser myth, as are all other stories when compared to the gospel myth in which the most fantastic tale is merged with history, and where what Tolkien called eucatastrophe, a literary climax beyond our wildest hopes, is made the substance of all our hopes and the ground upon which we walk in the daylight of this world.

Indeed, the return of the king in Tolkien’s mythology is an ascendency by way of descent.  Aragorn and the Dúnedain are content to be despised if that will better equip them to protect and defend the peoples of Middle Earth.  Aragorn himself must choose the path leading downward, literally underground, through the Paths of the Dead under the White Mountains, like Christ in His harrowing of hell, if he is to triumph on behalf of those entrusted to his care.

After Gandalf  had “passed through fire and deep water,” and had completed his own christic transformation, he delivered a message to Aragorn from the Lady of Light, Galadriel:

Where now are the Dúnedain, Elessar, Elessar?
Why do thy kinsfolk wander afar?
Near is the hour when the Lost should come forth,
And the Grey Company ride from the North.
But dark is the path appointed for thee:
The Dead watch the road that leads to the Sea (Book III, Chapter V).

Aragorn chose the path of truth, meekness and righteousness.  He was prepared to face his fear, and he was not afraid to confront his own ego with the double-edged sword of God’s truth.  He chose to go down in order to go up, to be last in order to be first.  Yet the myth of Aragorn cannot be a vicarious substitute for our own humiliation.  We must really experience it.  Newman has it right:

We so love the idea of the invisible, that we even build fabrics in the air for ourselves, if heavenly truth be not vouchsafed us. We love to fancy ourselves involved in circumstances of danger or trial, and acquitting ourselves well under them. Or we imagine some perfection, such as earth has not, which we follow, and render it our homage and our heart. Such is the state more or less of young persons before the world alters them, before the world comes upon them, as it often does very soon, with its polluting, withering, debasing, deadening influence, before it breathes on them, and blights and parches, and strips off their green foliage, and leaves them, as dry and wintry trees without sap or sweetness.

We must not loose our idealism as we grow older, but “heavenly truth” should purify our tendency to experience knighthood vicariously through its trappings and shards.  Ours is to be the knighthood of the real Dúnedain, a hidden knighthood in search of the hidden, but very real Holy Grail.

As a Franciscan, I have had many opportunities to reflect upon the militant example of Saints Francis and Maximilian, and of the great tertiary St. Louis of France.  The Holy Patriarch of the Seraphic Order, Our Holy Father St. Francis, was well aware of the Arthurian legends and aspired to knighthood and the Holy Grail himself.  Later, after he too had chosen the path downward, he called the simple brothers who lived in seclusion and despised status and pomp, his “Knights of the Round Table.”

In this last week of ordinary time, during the “octave” of the Feast of Christ the King, we look for His return at the end of the world, when he will preside over the cosmic resolution to the perennial struggle of St. Michael and the dragon.  Then He will raise his wounded hands over the universe and all of us will be witnesses of the full revelation of His truth, a more powerful illumination than possession of the Grail itself.  Then we will all know what true chivalry is and whether we are worthy to drink from the cup filled by the hands of Him who carried the sword of truth and slayed the dragon by His humble acceptance of our condition and by His willing suffering and death.

The weapons of the true knight are those of the saints: truth, meekness and righteousness.  They are best fitted to help us along the way of our Quest, a path that leads up a narrow crag in a mountain.  But this path to the heights strangely leads us downward by many uneven steps, until we arrive in the sanctuary of the Holy Grail and find rest in the yoke of Christ on the Holy Mountain of His Passion, Death and Resurrection.

Today I was charged with the responsibility of watching my sister in law Angela’s two boys for the evening while she and Kelly went to see the new Twilight movie “New Moon”.  So while the girls were out being entertained by vampires and werewolves I decided to help the boys create a mystical, fiction adventure of their own.  Nate, Grant, Georgia, Luke and Bella were all wearing foam crowns at Sunday supper, which came from the children’s time in church today.  And they had all dubbed themselves Kings and Queens of various things.  Grant, for example, having drawn lightning bolts all over his crown, was the King of Lightning.  Nate, always one to stick close to his older brother but also thirsting for a healthy amount of originality, called himself the King of Rain, which made him pretty powerful as he figured that without rain, nothing would grow.  How wise kids can be.

Once the ladies left for their movie night, we got right to business in my backsmith shop (garage) building swords so that the boys could really complete the king image.  What is a King after all, without a sword?  There is some back story to their demands for custom built weapons, however.  About a week ago I was watching my other sister in law Sarah’s boy Luke (this is starting to look like a pattern) and I had given him a small wooden dagger that I had whittled out of a stick of wood with a carving knife when I was about 11 or 12 years old.  It was sitting in a box of random things from my children and I just figured Luke would love to have it.  Well, I was more right about that than I could have predicted, and when his older cousins Grant and Nate saw it later that day they burst into tears upon discovering that no, there were no wooden daggers for them.  Only for Luke.  How unfair life can be, heh?  Seems like a simple lesson for a child to learn, an important lesson.  But we adults sure like to pity ourselves too when we see things we wish we had for ourselves.

So, since tonight was Grant and Nate’s turn to spend some time with their Uncle Ben, I decided to relieve their jealousy by doing a little more whittling.  But, as I discovered, it wasn’t going to be good enough to just fabricate two identical wooden swords for the brothers.  Something had to make them each unique so they could tell them apart.  Something, as it turns out, also had to make one of them “better” than the other one.  So, as I zipped the spruce lumber through the table saw and then made various cuts to form the handles and blades, I got as creative as I could with little time and crude, dangerous power tools.  The end result was two swords that at first glance are very, very similar, but upon closer inspection are actually totally different weapons, completely customized for the particular King they were being crafted for.  Nate’s was a double edged broad sword with a two-hand grip and a fancy cross guard (think He-Man) while Grant’s had an ordinary cross guard and a single hand grip but was more ornately styled with a cross inscribed into the grip and a yin yan symbol hand carved into the pommel.  They were pretty stoked about their swords to say the least and couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear as I tapped them on the shoulders with their new blades and Knighted them Sir Grant and Sir Nate.

However, throughout the entire fabrication process, and even during the sword fights that followed, Grant inundated me with a steady string of questions about which one was harder to make and which handle was cooler or which blade was better.  Clearly for Grant it was cool to get a sword, but way cooler if his sword was the best weapon of them all.

I got to thinking, as I watched the young brothers pretending to hack each others’ limbs off, that I’m often the same way.  We all have an arsenal of weapons in life and when our assortment of defenses, shields and walls fail us, we draw those weapons upon the people in our lives who are the closest.  We don’t use wooden daggers on strangers and enemies because the walls and moats keep them at bay.  But our spouses, siblings, parents, those are the people who we let get close.  And sometimes, when we ourselves least expect it, we pull out our swords against our loved ones.  As a preemptive attack in response to something that was likely never intended to offend us or threaten us, we strike first.  Don’t we all do it?

When you’re in a play sword fight you never really swing with the intent to cause your opponent real pain.  But you also never choose the shorter, flimsier sword either.  We subconsciously tell ourselves that if someone’s going to get their knuckles whacked, it’s not going to be us.  And when it comes to comparing what we’ve got in our belt to what our brother or cousin is carrying, we love them all the same but please uncle tell me mine’s the best one.  Right?  Kids at 4, 6, and 8 years old can be so unbelievably humbling and disarming.  I think in my role today as the lowly sword maker to those three royal knights of the round kitchen table, I learned a thing or two.  I learned about just being okay with whatever it is we’re given, and realizing that there will always be someone else out there with a cooler sword, so there’s no point in comparing.  And most of all, I learned that when you really truly let someone into your life, into the most unguarded rooms of your castle, there will inevitably be times when you feel hurt or suspect you are under attack, but if you can just learn to trust and feel safe in that place and in that relationship, there will be a lot less bruises in the end.

The gears are spinning again – we got a bunch of stuff done – and I have a screenshot to prove it!

If you go check the Checklist, you’ll notice a couple of things have turned a beautiful green.

I managed to show them all off with a single screenshot (yay!)

Notice:

The HUD is gone, excpet for the stats of the unit you selected and the end turn button. The other button you see is a notifier that tells you if you’ll have enough AP to take an action after you move to the cursor.

There’s a horse (yay!) and a guy riding it. Calvary. With working collisions. Oh yes. Notice: I actually took my time spriting the horse – trying to get a style down for the rest of the graphical revamp later. Check it out: 

It’s in widescreen – this isn’t default! It’s a custom resolution! Now anyone can have the game fit their monitor, yay! (Shown at my 1440×900 resolution)

Screenshot: http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/71/horseshudwidescreen.png

(Linked because it’s too big to post here)

Pretty nice, huh? Next up will be speed bonuses, and after that the collision revamp and ai revamp. Good things are in the future.

Also notice: The website’s been cleaned up. Now you can access the latest build AND the latest checklist through the navagation bar at the top of the screen! Classy!

Until next update,

SunnyKatt

Yoko is reenacting Zengar’s famous attack: The Straight-lined Honourable Slice (Ichimonji Giri) with the non-scale Daizengar’s Zankantou

I also “borrowed” his lines

Helldiver was practicing his shots when suddenly…

Omake

Poor guy… -_-;;;

I’ve finally submitted my third article at Alltern8 about LARPing and Dating. It’s a constant thing to hear people mention how they can never meet a significant other during a LARP. While I’ve seen it happen countless times! To open some eyes about scoring a date at a LARP I’ve written:

Article:

LARPing and Dating… Not a Myth

LARPing is a social event. I know! Can you believe it? Being a social event there tends to be some social interaction between people. Usually awkward, not looking in each other’s eyes, shifting your weight from feet to feet, and you can’t remember what you talked about after you walk away. Did I even introduce myself? What class is she?
Yup, that about covers a conversation between two people that are use to interacting with a screen between themselves and humanity. But you are subjecting yourself to actual social event outside of your basement so that alone is something to be proud of.
Most players when they think about the stress of carrying on a conversation do not even think of forming a relationship with someone unless they can call to trade Magic cards. Furthest from their mind is starting a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship.
And yet when guys gather around to plan an outing to the local LARP just the mention of lady LARPers have them cheering each other on, slapping each others back and drawing up intensive plans of who is wingman. But they are usually the first ones to mumble a hello and hightail it out of there to the first girl LARPer they come in contact with.
There are many girls out there that have the same reaction! We plan on meeting a lot of guys but it becomes overwhelming when we finally arrive to the camp. If you don’t have the confidence of a movie star the reactions you receive are intimidating enough to send anyone running for cover. And if you have the confidence to actually receive and handle the attention accordingly you become ‘untouchable’ by the guys who are nervous around confident girls and the stuck up princess to the rest.

To continue reading please click here!