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Occupy Oakland videographer shot by police with rubber bullet,...

Added 11/08/11
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Occupy Oakland videographer shot by police with rubber bullet, for no apparent reason

[LESS INFO] 7 VIEWS | ADDED 16:00:00 11/08/11
Scott Campbell, a participant in the Occupy Oakland movement, describes the unprovoked police attack that left him severely wounded. “There was absolutely no warning whatsoever,” says Campbell. via MercuryNews.com/Oakland Tribune > A video clip is raising new questions about whether police used excessive force against Occupy Oakland participants during the fracas after last week's general strike. The video by Scott Campbell, 30, of Oakland, shows a line of riot-gear-clad officers at Frank Ogawa Plaza's north end, near the foot of San Pablo Avenue. Campbell said the video was made shortly before 1 a.m. Thursday, around the time that police moved in after other protesters broke into and defaced a nearby building and erected and set fire to barricades in the street. Campbell, holding the camera, moves slowly to his right, filming the line; Campbell is heard twice asking, "Is this OK?" "When I was approaching the line, an officer told me to stop and step back, so I stepped back 5 or 10 feet and started filming, and I asked if that was OK," he explained Monday. He said there was no reply until an officer raised a weapon and fired, striking him in the upper right thigh with a nonlethal projectile; the video ends with his crying out in pain. ... Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina criminal justice professor who's an expert in police decision-making and use of force, said the video left him "astonished, amazed and embarrassed." "Unless there's something we don't know, that's one of the most outrageous uses of a firearm that I've ever seen," he said. "Unless there's a threat that you can't see in the video, that just looks like absolute punishment, which is the worst type of excessive force." The YouTube video has now been viewed over 100,000 times.

Occupy Oakland videographer shot by police with rubber bullet,...

Added 11/08/11
5 Views

Occupy Oakland videographer shot by police with rubber bullet, for no apparent reason

[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 16:00:00 11/08/11
Scott Campbell, a participant in the Occupy Oakland movement, describes the unprovoked police attack that left him severely wounded. “There was absolutely no warning whatsoever,” says Campbell. via MercuryNews.com/Oakland Tribune > A video clip is raising new questions about whether police used excessive force against Occupy Oakland participants during the fracas after last week's general strike. The video by Scott Campbell, 30, of Oakland, shows a line of riot-gear-clad officers at Frank Ogawa Plaza's north end, near the foot of San Pablo Avenue. Campbell said the video was made shortly before 1 a.m. Thursday, around the time that police moved in after other protesters broke into and defaced a nearby building and erected and set fire to barricades in the street. Campbell, holding the camera, moves slowly to his right, filming the line; Campbell is heard twice asking, "Is this OK?" "When I was approaching the line, an officer told me to stop and step back, so I stepped back 5 or 10 feet and started filming, and I asked if that was OK," he explained Monday. He said there was no reply until an officer raised a weapon and fired, striking him in the upper right thigh with a nonlethal projectile; the video ends with his crying out in pain. ... Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina criminal justice professor who's an expert in police decision-making and use of force, said the video left him "astonished, amazed and embarrassed." "Unless there's something we don't know, that's one of the most outrageous uses of a firearm that I've ever seen," he said. "Unless there's a threat that you can't see in the video, that just looks like absolute punishment, which is the worst type of excessive force." The YouTube video has now been viewed over 100,000 times.

Does John Boehner's 60 Minutes Interview Confirm That He's A P...

Added 12/13/10
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Does John Boehner's 60 Minutes Interview Confirm That He's A Pathological Cryer?

[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 18:00:41 12/13/10
Click here to view this media Did you see all the golf references in the 60 Minutes segment on Rep. John Boehner? You can thank your donations to Blue America and Americans for AmericaPac, because CBS contacted us for permission to use our "golf ads" in their program. Lesley Stahl brought up his golf game a couple of times as she gave CBS a puff piece on Boehner just in time for Christmas. I didn't really expect too much from her, but it would have been nice to mention a little of his sordid history of handing out checks from Big Tobacco if she was going to do a personal profile. > In this 1996 documentary by PBS called "The People and the Power Game ," John Boehner is caught red-handed in an amazing act of corruption, and his biggest critics are fellow Republicans. > Boehner: Mine asked me to give out a half dozen checks quickly before we got to the end of the month and I complied. I did it on the House floor which I regret and I should not have done, it's not a violation of the House rules, but it's a practice that's gone on here for a long time. Were the checks from tobacco companies? Boehner: Ahh, I think if my memory serves me correctly, I think it was a tobacco company, yes. Q)....but in this case tobacco's well timed contributions helped save its subsidy. The people that were passing out the checks won. He did say that he's never been to a tanning salon before so I guess it's all that golf he plays in the bright sunlight that gives him that orange hue. Lesley also got hung up on the fact that President Obama repeatedly said that the Republicans were holding America hostage. > Stahl: He basically called you a hostage-taker. Boehner: Excuse me, Mr. President. I thought the election was over. You know, you get a lot of that heated rhetoric during an election. But now it's time to govern. {} Stahl: There have been moments of disrespect shown to President Obama. Boehner: Well, there was some disrespect, I would suggest, that was shown to me yesterday by the president. Boehner repeatedly attacked the Democratic Party and the President too many times for me to recount but here's a few: > Hmmm. So let's see now. This would be the same John Boehner who threw an hour-long hissy fit on the House floor, called President Obama a "leftist" (when you stop laughing so hard, remember that David Gregory didn't bother to challenge him on that either), promised to do everything within his power to make it difficult to pass health care reform , advocated layoffs of police and firefighters rather than compromise on the stimulus bill, and called President Obama a socialist before lying about calling him a socialist . He's so sensitive, or is he? One of the most alarming things in this interview was the fact that he starts crying like a baby at the drop of a hat. There's "sensitive" and then there's pathological . It was truly bizarre. People think that's it's hard for an actor to cry during a scene, but watching Boehner weep more often than Glenn Beck illustrates that it's not very hard at all. > And on election night, in his victory speech, the public saw something they probably never expected from Boehner: it was called "the sob heard round the world." Can you imagine if Democratic politicians acted this way? FOX News would be running stories 24/7 about how al-Qaeda and all the lone wolf cells would be emboldened to terrorism because of their weakness. It would be non-stop. How serious is a man like John Boehner after all? Here's his take on global warming with the very serious George Stephanopoulos. Boehner cites cows' flatulence to defend his sacred carbon emissions">Rep. John Boehner cites cows' flatulence to defend his sacred carbon emissions > STEPHANOPOULOS: So what is the responsible way? That's my question. What is the Republican plan to deal with carbon emissions, which every major scientific organization has said is contributing to climate change? BOEHNER: George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you've got more carbon dioxide. And so I think it's clear... Stahl missed that one too. His Tea Party allies will not be pleased as soon as he has to vote to raise the debt ceiling, but just think about it. He's like the choice after VP Biden to take over the White House in case of an unforeseen emergency.

Wintergrasp - Rated BGs - BestBuy DevChat

Added 11/19/10
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Wintergrasp - Rated BGs - BestBuy DevChat

[LESS INFO] 17 VIEWS | ADDED 01:38:35 11/19/10
Wintergrasp queuing changed in 4.0.3 In patch 4.0.3, Wintergrasp queuing was changed so that each battle attempts to match the factions at a 1-to-1 ratio. This is the exact system being used for Tol Barad in Cataclysm. While we understand that this inflates queue times for factions which are vastly overpopulated on select realms, we prefer this system over using Tenacity. In addition, the new system at least encourages playing on a faction that's better balanced against the opposing faction. With the old Wintergrasp functionality, players were almost encouraged to be on an overpopulated faction, further contributing to realm balance issues. That said, we'll review realms with significant faction imbalances on a case-by-case basis in the event we need to take further action. Rated Battlegrounds FAQ World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is just around the corner -- and that means Rated Battlegrounds will soon be available. While Rated Battlegrounds will only be open to level-85 characters, we know many of you may still have some questions about this new system, so we’ve put together an FAQ to help address some of the more common inquiries we've seen. Q. What are Rated Battlegrounds? A. Like the Arena system, Rated Battlegrounds are an alternative way for players to battle against opponents of similar skill levels and accrue rating to purchase powerful PvP gear. Instead of competing in a 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5 bracket, though, you'll be testing your mettle in familiar environments like Arathi Basin and Eye of the Storm, as well as all-new Battlegrounds set to release in Cataclysm. Q. How are Rated Battlegrounds structured? A. Rated Battlegrounds are broken down into two brackets: 10v10 and 15v15. These brackets rotate weekly and can be viewed in-game via the calendar by activating the Battleground holiday filter. Q. What Battlegrounds are eligible for Rated Battleground matches? A. Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm, Strand of the Ancients, Battle for Gilneas, and Twin Peaks. Q. What happened to the 25v25 bracket? A. We decided to remove this bracket. We don't feel it's feasible to ask players to coordinate a group of 25 players for Rated Battlegrounds. If any player happens to drop group just before a match begins, the raid group would not be able to enter the battle. We anticipate most players or guilds will stick with fairly dedicated 10-player groups, and making the jump to 15-player groups shouldn't be too difficult. Q. How can I queue for a Rated Battleground? A. Before entering the queue, you must first create a raid with the full number of players required for the weekly bracket (10 or 15). Any level-85 player on your realm and of your faction may participate in the battle regardless of guild association. Once you have a raid of the appropriate size, simply open up the PvP window, click on the Conquest tab, highlight "Rated Battleground," and then click "Join Battle." Q. Can I queue up solo and just be matched with a Rated Battleground team? A. No. You will need to first join a raid of the appropriate size and level before you can queue up for a Rated Battleground. Individual queuing will not be available for Rated Battlegrounds. Q. Do all players in the raid group have to be from the same guild in order to queue for a Rated Battleground? A. No. So long as the raid group size matches the weekly bracket and is comprised of level-85 players, you can queue up for a Rated Battleground no matter what guild you are in. Guild membership has no effect on the formation of Battleground teams. Winning a Rated Battleground with a team composed of at least 80% guild members, however, will result in the additional benefit of guild experience gain for that guild. Q. How can I tell if my Rated Battleground team meets the minimum guild requirement? A. If you join a Rated Battleground with the minimum number of required guild members, a special guild banner will appear in the upper-left corner of the in-game mini-map. This will let you know if you are eligible for the bonus guild experience. Q. What are the normal benefits of winning a Rated Battleground? A. When you win a Rated Battleground, you will be rewarded Conquest points, up to your weekly cap. Weekly caps are individual for each player and are based on your highest single PvP rating from the previous week (the cap resets on Tuesdays). This rating can be derived from your 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5 Arena rating or your Rated Battleground rating. Q. What Rated Battleground rating do players start out with? A. Players start at zero Rated Battleground rating and progress upward from there. If you lose a battle, your Rated Battleground rating will only be reduced if that rating is currently higher than your Match Making Value (MMV). For the most part, a rating only goes up. Q. What’s MMV? A. Match Making Value (or MMV for short) is our best measure of an individual player's skill. MMV is the skill rating per format (2v2, 3v3, 5v5, Battleground) and per character that is used for matchmaking. It exists to help the matchmaking system create great matches as quickly as possible for all players. It's generally not a rating we show, with the exception of an average MMV for Arena teams. Q. Will my MMV go down in the event of a Rated Battleground loss? A. Yes; however, unlike Arenas, all players in a Rated Battleground team will win or lose the same amount of Rated Battleground rating per match depending on its outcome. Q. Does MMV for Rated Battlegrounds function the same as it does in Arenas (i.e. does it go up more when you beat a higher-rated team, and go down more when you lose to a lower-rated team)? A. Yes. Your MMV will go up faster if you defeat a Rated Battleground team with a higher average MMV. Q. What’s the plan to prevent your Rated Battleground rating from skyrocketing at high win ratios? If your rating only goes down when it is above your MMV, it seems that ratings will just be high on average (compared to Arena). A. If your Rated Battleground rating gets inflated much beyond your MMV, you’ll only receive a minimal amount of points when you win. Similarly, you’ll lose many more points after a defeat, until your Rated Battleground rating gets back in line with your MMV. This will prevent inflation. Q. Can consumables and engineering items be used in Rated Battlegrounds? A.Yes, but they will follow the same rules and restrictions as Arenas. Q. Will Rated Battleground teams only be matched against other teams in their Battlegroup? A. No. Rated Battlegrounds will be region-wide, meaning that when you queue for a Rated Battleground, you will have the opportunity to be matched against a team from any of our North American World of Warcraft realms. Q. Are there any plans to reward players with the highest Rated Battleground rating, similar to Arenas? A. Epic ground mounts will be rewarded at the end of each season to the top 0.5% of players according to Rated Battleground rating. Titles are also available as you gain rating in the system. The titles are rewarded directly from achievements earned from gaining the required rating. Developer Chat Hosted by Best Buy (transcript) Will the heirloom items scale to 85? The current plan is to have heirloom items stop at level 80 at the moment. I was wondering what new and exciting mounts there will be and what your favorite so far is? Not surprisingly there are all kinds of new mounts, we have spectral wolf/horse mounts, a dark phoenix, a camel, the new alchemy mount that turns you into a drake can ride, among others. Also a scorpion for the horde and a lion for the alliance. My favorite has to be the camel though... i mean really, who doesn't want to be a camel jockey?! Has Blizzard considered adding a "Tabards Tab" to the UI, so that tabard collectors can switch out tabards more effectively without having to take up bank and bag space? --Thanks! Deathunholy of Galakrond We have talked about adding a tabard tab. We've talked about doing a closet tab to handle it. It isn't something we are adding for Cataclysm though. Will it be as long of a wait to fight Deathwing as it was for Lich King? Hopefully not, we definitely have a goal to get our content patches out more quickly than we have in the past, without sacrificing quality of course, we plan for deathwing to be the most amazing encounter we've ever made! =] Are there any plans to potentially add queueing to the rated battlegrounds instead of it having to be a pre-made raid team? I was really excited when I first heard about this feature, but after reading the FAQ i was a bit disappointed with that design. We're currently looking into the possibility of having players in the honor battleground queue be able to be called to action by groups that aren't quite full, but we're going to see how the current queue'ing works out first so, that isn't something that would be available just yet Will you allow players to fill their quest log with say, 25 dailies, and then turn them in right after Midnight on December 7th to get a quick boost towards 85? This is how it worked in the beta, but some players are confused on whether it will work on Live. Thanks! Regarding 25 daily quests to turn in when the expansion goes live, this is something players have been able to do for the last 2 expansions and we aren't talking about changing it now. I understand the decision from an economic perspective but I was wondering if the deveopers were disappointed in the decision to allow race changes immediately following the release of the expansion. Regarding allowing race/faction change on day one. Actually this wasn't an economic decision at all. This was a decision that the leadership team made. Our priority as a dev team is to allow players to play the game with their friends, the way they want too. We also talked about the fact that this is a week one problem. So we made the decision not to restrict anything. Will Darnasus be re built to be a real tree or will it always look like a dead stump with trees at the top? ...but now that Deathwing is doing his thing it makes much more sense than it used to! ;] Deathwing hates trees. A lot of players I know are trying to plan out what characters to roll for the new expansion, and the big question is: Will there be ANY new realms tagging along with the release of Cataclysm? Some point to low pop realms as a reason against, but surely with the redux'd 1-60 experience and the droves of returning players desiring clean slates, there has never been a better time for a fresh realm or two? We haven't decided exactly what the new realm decisions are yet, but we open new realms when there is player demand for them. One thing we can't do is plan all realms for day one. The goal is for realms to have good concurrency so everyone has a great game/matchmaking experience. Could you comment on the plan for raids in Cataclysm? If i remember it was said that there would be smaller raids in cata but more of them. Would that mean like two small raids per patch or more patches in total? The idea is that we'll have more raid environments, but fewer bosses in each environment, but a similar total number of raid bosses overall... if that makes sense. =] so, for cataclysm launch we have the skywall environment, the twilight bastion environment, and blackwing descent, versus having almost all the bosses in one environment like we did with naxrammas. With the changes to the game environment itself, what new computer requirements will be optimal to run the game smoothly? One of the things that is really important to us is a great gaming experience regardless of your hardware. While the system requirements do go up over time, we do want the experience on slower machines to be great. We do this by trying to add a lot of graphical options to allow players to control the experience from "runs fast" all the way to "looks great". Will there be more than one Legendary weapon in Cata? Will there be a Caster DPS legendary? Any info or plans would be awesome =) Thanks! It's likely there will be more than one legendary weapon, although it's too early to say for sure. We do, however, have a plan to do a caster dps staff soon. Where did Uldum come from? Egypt ;] The idea with Uldum is that it has always been there, cloaked from the eyes of the players. The emergence of Deathwing has damaged some of the technology that kept it hidden. There is a story in the zone that explains this and what has been happening in the player absence. With resource systems now broadened to include focus, rage, energy, and runic power as well as mana, and there being conditionals like enrages, holy power, combo points and runes, will classes that just use mana be getting similar treatment or remaining as they are? Really that decision is made on a class-by-class, talent tree-by-tree basis. If we feel like the talent spec in question needs a broader resource management then we do it, but we don't like to unnecessarily complicate a spec's resource management if it isn't absolutely necessary. Why is it that we are not able to use Archaeology before the expansion? I thought it was really cool how you guys released Inscription last time and would love to have the opportunity to level it before the expansion drops. Using archeology before the expansion was something we talked about, but ended up adding everything about the profession to the "post sundered" world. Thus, you won't be able to use archeology before the sundering happens. The first tier of Cataclysm raiding has 3 separate instances to tackle. Are you guys planning on keeping with the Burning Crusade model (SSC/TK, BT/Hyjal) and having multiple instances per raid tier? Will Deathwing have to share the spotlight with some other instance? We'll evaluate that on a tier by tier basis. When we have awesome ideas that we can successfully make happen we'll do multiple environments, but it won't necessarily always be the case. We do have a super cool idea for the deathwing tier though... ...or at least so we hope. =] What happened with the Worgen district in Stormwind? We decided it didn't really fit very well, it was looking kind of awkwardly forced into the city. Plus deathwing would have destroyed it anyways. As the world of Azeroth is changing I was wondering if the Death Knight zone will stay the same or will it also be affected by the cataclysm? The death knight zone doesn't have any changes for Cataclysm. I have been confused from the different posts for tier gear. Will there be three levels within each tier still or just heroic and normal and in either case will u just be getting them with points or will u still have to get certain things off drops off certain bosses to get the higher more heroic version of the tier gear? There is still just normal and heroic difficulty for the raid and dungeon content, and the heroic gear has a higher item level than the corresponding normal gear Do you feel faction imbalance is a problem at the moment? My queue is around 10-15 min at prime time as a member of the Horde and I know this is the case on at least two of the battlegroups. If so, do you think Worgen will fix the problem? And if they do not, will free faction changes ever be a possibility in the future on battlegroups or servers with a major problem? We are working on some technology to further combine the PVP queues at server sites. This has been going on behind the scenes for a few weeks now in preparation for Cataclysm. Queue time is one of those things that gets a lot of attention and time, but will change significantly post Cata. Really good question. What would you say was the hardest and/or easiest parts of developing this expansion? After all, many are saying this is the best expansion to date... So, what was the biggest challenge/easiest feat in creating it? There have been huge challanges with this expansion, unlike any we've seen in the other two expansions. The scale of Cataclyms is huge for us, and something we didn't really expect when we started development. But we certainly feel like the effort has been worth it, and feel it's our best expansion so far. Why does it seem the scorpion guild mount doesn't have a guild flag where the lion does? I was hoping to see Hordes of scorpions from our guild walking around with our tabard hanging from the tail like a flag behind them. When riding a scorpion mount, your character displays holding a large standard with your guild symbol on it. Why did you decide to make 310% mount speed purchasable in 4.0? It's a huge price for such a tiny speed upgrade, and used to work well as a just-above-vanity perk for people who completed the toughest achievements. The primary reason was to equalize the awesome vanity mounts players had, and change the mechanic to one where you used the mount you were most excited about using. We wanted players to be able to see the mount players want, without considering the speed differential as a factor. Will you allow players to change their login screen? I'd love to be able to use the Classic login screen, the unreleased one that was shown at Blizzcon, or perhaps a login screen of a previous expansion. Players are not able to change their login screen. How would a person get a Guild Mount? Would it be guild rep? If so how would that be calculated or obtained? Once your guild gets to a high enough level and unlocks the guild mount, any player in the guild with a high enough guild reputation is able to buy the mount. Will heirloom items work for goblins and worgens leveling from 1-80 at release? Heirloom items will work perfectly for Worgen and Goblin characters! Enjoy! Has there been any discussion of changing the heirloom items to true "Bind on Account" instead of the bind on server limitation that it has currently? That is something we would like to do. Currently the servers mail carriers refuse to work together, and haven't worked out the economic terms from transferring mail from one server to another. One day we hope to resolve the union issues. Will the option ever be available to change ones class, contingent upon what's currently available to the race restrictions at the time? Never say never, but we don't currently have plans to do that. There's any through about making account wise achievement, like Starcraft ones? It a reason for many players to not reroll/change mains since its look like a lot of work wasted when you switch your main char. Even changing to another char to help with one fight look a bit wrong now, if you are after achievements. We do have plans to solve this problem, as it is limiting people from re-rolling for sure. This is something we want to solve, but don't have a good solution on how to do it at the moment. Was there anything you guys regret not being able to include at launch? Possibly something that didn't have enough polish to it that me way see in the future? (You don't need to mention the Dance Studio at this point, really, it's okay) Well... there is the dance studio. ;] There are of course always things we'd hoped to get into any patch/expansion that get pushed out until later. One example would be the idea to have a built-in atlas that details every encounter in each dungeon/raid. We're not super happy about the fact that the first time anyone encounters a new boss, the only way to learn about it (other than looking up strategies on the web) is to charge in and die a lot. We'd love to give players some idea of what they're about to fight before they engage the boss. =] Do honor points and Badges roll over into CATA, or do they reset to zero? Yes, honor points and justice points carry over into cataclysm. Stock up now! Is there any talks of maybe some faction cooperative campaigns? Since the cataclysm is threatening to destroy all life of azeroth, to me a logical response from the heroes of azeroth would be to set aside their differences and be able to work together in a raid. An Idea to maybe lessen the frequency of such groups is make the raid difficulty increase by choosing to work with the other faction, a sort of Heroic mode. Possibly even dual faction specific raids. Has there been any talks of such poss... This is a common request, but not something we are looking to do. While there is a singular main bad guy in this expansion, the Horde and Alliance have their own unique challenges and agendas, and typically don't look to team up. After all it's the World of Warcraft, not the World of Peacecraft. When designing expansions and content patches, do you have a list of new features to choose from that are planned out in advance or is there more of a brain storm session? The feature set for each patch is determined by a combination of doing things (or finishing things) that we've been wanting to do for a while, along with completely new ideas that emerge as a result of the immediate needs of the game The primary things you won't be able to do if you don't have Cataclysm are create a new Goblin/Worgen, level to 85, and fly in the orld world. We like to stay as flexible as possible, so it's important to us to make sure that we aren't "over planned" into the future even though the real needs players have are changing With the previous two expansions, the new content was actually on other continents, so if you didn't have the expansion, you just couldn't visit the continent. Since Cata is largely reworking of old-world content, however, how do you differentiate between someone with or without the xpac? What kinds of things will and won't be available to players don't have the upgrade? See my answer above! Will the 80 to 85 experience be closer to the 18hr mark or the 5 day mark that was 70-80? That totally depends on the player to be honest, you'd be amazed by the differences in play patterns. That being said, somebody usually finds a way to level up very quickly. What new feature(s) in WoW: Cataclysm are you guys most proud of? I would have to say the 1-60 revamp, it's a ton of fun to play through the zones and an incredible amount of new content. I'm most happy with the new Worgen and Goblin starting experiences. I think they are the best starting experience we've ever done, and that includes the death knight. I have is why not have this latest expansion as a new territory like a Southrend similar to Northrend or a Moon body like Outlands instead of destroying Azeroth and Kalimdor? Were there limitations to expanding outwards or was this just to facelift the original game? We make decisions like this on a case by case basis.. again depending on the needs of the game. In the case of Cataclysm, the world was due in for an overhaul, and we wanted to make everything fly-able, so it was important to flesh out any areas that were originally unfinished. Can you clarify and confirm what will be available to players when 4.0.3a hits and what will be unavailable until 7th Dec? 4.0.3a will be the patch that actually causes the world to shatter and change forever. At that point you will be able to experience the new 1-60 leveling experience, as well as the new race/class combinations. Is there an alternative mount for worgens that other races can ride Worgen can ride the other mounts in the game, if that's what you're asking. They're not limited to their feral run. With the level 1-80 Heirloom items, when Cataclysm is released will the xp gain work while leveling until you hit level 81? Or will XP gain be disabled for those on release? They will not. Heirlooms stop granting their XP bonus at level 80. Not level 80.999999. Will achievement points ever be able to be used to purchase any perks? We have no plans to allow this. Achievements are a badge of honor only. Druid Is the Moonkin form for troll and worgen on the beta and ptr the final form or is it just a placeholder? Final! Mage Right now, up to 50% of Ignite damage disappears due to the technical limitations of spells critting within certain timeframes. This has implications for Mage dps and the value of Mastery as a stat. Is overall damage being balanced to compensate and can we expect a solution in the near future? We're resolving that by rolling up any "lost" ignite damage into the next ignite that overwrote it Warlock Are there any plans for a new Lock mount? I would love to see a possible flying mount for Locks.. One of the things we look at with mounts is broad appeal. While we do specific class mounts from time to time, most of the time we look to have mounts that all classes can use. Warrior Is Hit rating intended to tramp all other stats but Str for Fury till the 27% hardcap? Seems excessive Generally speaking, we do balance hit rating to be the "best" stat until you're at the hit rating cap

Loaded: iPhone on Verizon? Stop me if you've heard this one be...

Added 06/30/10
2 Views

THAT OLD TAM FEELING **updated x3**

Added 06/24/09
1 Views

THAT OLD TAM FEELING updated x3

[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 15:36:00 06/24/09
A nd that stands for Tian An Men. But you knew that. Image: Wasserman / Boston Globe Iranians had been further threatened with violence today, and it looks like the Ayatollah delivered on it. The free elections movement attempted to gather at Baharestan Square, near the parliament, in late afternoon. Khamenei's forces were out in force. Citizen journalist persiankiwi was in the square, and I take the liberty of taking his series of tweets out of crimped-speak .> Just in from Baherestan Square, the situation today is terrible. They beat the people like animals. I've seen many people with broken arms, legs or head. Blood is everywhere, and pepper gas. It's like war. They were waiting for us, they all have guns and riot uniforms. It was like a mouse trap, people being shot like animals. I saw 7 or 8 militia beating one woman with a baton on the ground. She had no defense, nothing. I'm sure that she is dead. So many people are arrested, young and old. They take people away, we lose our group. People run into alleys, and militia are standing there waiting. From two sides they attack people in the middle of the alleys. All the shops were closed. Nowhere to go, they follow people with helicopters. Smoke and fire is everywhere. An Iranian student, who had been twittering under his own name before things began heating up, stopped broadcasting on Saturday afternoon. His latest entry .> I'm going to sleep a little before joining with the others, please pray for all people of Iran & wish us peace & freedom 5:55 PM Jun 20th from web More from persiankiwi just now as I'm about to post this. I'll give them to you raw (hover your mouse over the icon here for current):> rumour they are tracking high use of phone lines to find internet users - must move from here now - #Iranelection34 minutes ago from web reports of street fighting in Vanak Sq, Tajrish sq, Azadi Sq - now - #Iranelection - Sea of Green - Allah Akbar29 minutes ago from web in Baharestan we saw militia with axe choping ppl like meat - blood everywhere - like butcher - Allah Akbar - #Iranelection RT RT RT27 minutes ago from web they catch ppl with mobile - so many killed today - so many injured - Allah Akbar - they take one of us - #Iranelection25 minutes ago from web Lalezar Sq is same as Baharestan - unbelevable - ppls murdered everywhere - #Iranelection24 minutes ago from web they pull away the dead into trucks - like factory - no human can do this - we beg Allah for save us - #Iranelection20 minutes ago from web Everybody is under arrest & cant move - Mousavi - Karroubi even rumour Khatami is in house guard - #Iranelection -15 minutes ago from web we must go - dont know when we can get internet - they take 1 of us, they will torture and get names - now we must move fast - #Iranelection9 minutes ago from web thank you ppls 4 supporting Sea of Green - pls remember always our martyrs - Allah Akbar - Allah Akbar - Allah Akbar #Iranelection6 minutes ago from web *UPDATE*: (23:30) Embedded video from CNN Video *UPDATE-2*: (01:40) CNN is playing around with the videos %mdash when I posted that at 11:30 pm, it was four minutes long. They cut off the most gripping descriptions of the carnage and her heart-rending pleas for help, right after she tells of the large mob emerging from a mosque to beat people. They trimmed it down to the first minute. I'll leave it up there in case the following YouTube version doesn't stay up. This is the full segment. It's in a wide format and I can't make it any smaller, so if your browser window is too narrow and it doesn't appear directly below, scroll down past the end of the sidebar to see it: *UPDATE-3*: (25/06/09: 15:30) I'm feeling really annoyed that CNN has apparently deep-sixed most of this interview. The one-minute family-friendly version replaced the four-minute original, as near as I can tell, within two hours of its first airing. Only the truncated interview has been broadcast today, at least on CNN International. I know that some people can't view embedded videos, so for the non-clickers here is a transcript, partly done by The Lede Blog and finished by me.> I was going towards Baharestan with my friends…. This was everyone, not just supporters of one candidate or another, everyone — all of my friends, we were going to Baharestan to express our opposition to these killings these days, and demanding freedom. But the black-clad police stopped everyone at Saadi. They emptied the buses that were taking people there and let the private cars go on…. We went on until Ferdowsi then, all of a sudden, some 500 people with clubs and woods, they came out of [Hedayat] mosque and they poured into the streets and they started beating everyone. [This is where CNN has trimmed off the rest of the interview, both from their online video offering and in its broadcasts.] And they tried to beat everyone on Saadi bridge and throwing them off of the bridge…. And everyone also on the sidewalks. They beat a woman so savagely that she was drenched in blood and her husband, who was watching the scene, he just fainted. And I also saw people shooting, I mean the security forces shooting on people, on Lalezar. And of course people were afraid… the security forces … They were beating people like — hell. This was a massacre. They were trying to beat people so that they would die. They were cursing — saying very bad words to everyone. They were beating old men. And this was — this was exactly a massacre. You should stop this. You should stop this. You should help the people of Iran who demand freedom. You should help us. … [Here ends The Lede's transcript, the rest is added by yours truly.] [nearly speechless interviewer: "How many of you were there in this terrible situation?"] There were thousands of people on the streets, but it was me and ten of my friends. [interviewer: "And you said the security forces were shooting at the people? Did you see anybody injured by gunfire?"] No, as I explained earlier I didn't see, I heard the shooting and my friends and I we just scattered. We heard the shooting near Lalezar and we were near there, and we just ran away. I didn't see again what happened, I'm sure people are dead there but I couldn't see, I couldn't catch the film or anything. [interviewer relates to her some other received reports of shooting and beating the people "like animals"] Yes exactly, exactly, exactly. This is what's happening, they beat people so bad. You know in the previous days they are killing students with axe. You know they put the axe through the hearts of young men and it's so... devastating , I don't know how to describe it I can't find the words, but this is horrific. This is genocide, this is a massacre, this is Hitler! And you people should stop it! It's a long time we have been exposed to this and nobody takes action! It's time to act! If anyone is thinking, "Yeah, that axe thing is just a rumour," brace yourself. ThreatsWatch.Org has posted a photograph taken on Saturday, June 20 (the same day Neda Agha Soltan was murdered). Don't click through until you have prepared yourself to witness gruesome barbarity. If you're in doubt of your ability to handle it, don't. You can't unsee something like that. .

LIONESS DOWN, SPIRIT SOARS

Added 06/22/09
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LIONESS DOWN, SPIRIT SOARS

[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 11:41:00 06/22/09
Neda Agha Soltan, a 27 year old philosophy student, died by the hand of the Islamic Republic's Basij militia on Saturday. Photo: "A Voice for Neda" H er name is Neda. Her name will always be Neda. When she fell and left it behind her, it was raised by hundreds, then thousands, now millions. Not was — her name is Neda. Neda Agha Soltan was a 27 year old student of philosophy in Tehran. The bare outline of her story can only be provisionally pieced together from the unconfirmed snippets of discussion trickling out of Iran by her compatriots in freedom's cause. Perhaps one day soon, when journalism is no longer illegal in that country, her full story will be told. It is said that she was standing on the sidelines of Saturday's forbidden protest, watching beside her father teacher. A wobbly cell-phone video shows the two of them together among the crowd. He is the grey-haired man in a blue striped shirt, she wears black. If the gentle reader has not yet seen what happened to Neda (some news outlets are showing it), and is willing to have his or her heart broken yet again, then click the button while observing my strong content warning . Neda was alive at the beginning of this scene, but not at the end. Direct Video Link The original upload carried the following description:> At 19:05 June 20th Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st. A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim’s chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes. The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St. The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me. Please let the world know. I've gathered from reading many Iranians (who have become like autonomous solo broadcasters) these past days that her name, Neda, means "Calling" or "Voice". The man believed to be her father is calling to her as she dies, which has been translated as:> "Neda, don't be afraid. Neda, don't be afraid. [obscured by others yelling] Neda, stay with me. Neda stay with me!" Courageous women have been the backbone of these demonstrations, according to many witnesses. I listened to an Iranian professor this morning talk about the phenomenon, which is not new. "Shirzan" is the Persian word he used for them, which he said Iranians will commonly use to describe such women without fear. It means "lioness" or "lion-woman," he said. Women have been estimated to comprise around 40% of the freedom protesters during the past 10 days. No one knew whether the planned Saturday protest would go ahead or not, following the unveiled threat delivered by Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei on Friday. Everyone who considered going out of their house on Saturday knew that they could be risking their life. Mr. Moussavi had promised a statement in the afternoon, but it never came (his website has come under attack as well). Yet less than an hour after the planned meeting time of 4 pm, everyone who was following any of the many autonomous solo broadcasters (twitterers with a reliable reputation), knew that Tehran's people were in the streets again and were being foiled by huge numbers of riot police and Basijis already occupying their meeting places in the public squares. International media continued for hours saying the streets were quiet, while heads were already being cracked. CNN's not the "first name in news" anymore, and if they keep getting "Khomeni" and "Khamenei" mixed up and refering to demonstrators as "rioters" for defending themselves, they'll be the last name in news before long. While earnest news anchors were saying that no one had seen Mr. Moussavi on Saturday, those who followed the solo tweet-casters already knew that he had spoken to the demonstrators in Jeyhoon Street. Before long, his words were translated, posted and linked by the Iranian tweeters. By late night in Tehran the truth was evident to all, finally including international media. A vicious crackdown was underway, an unknown number of the freedom movement had been killed, and protests were continuing in most (if not all) Iran's major cities. Tweets from eyewitnesses circled the earth in seconds, thousands of citizen videos were uploaded to sharing sites, there are no secrets any more — at least, nothing this big can be kept secret when technology and an adept people are present. I'm in a time zone two and a half hours ahead of Tehran. At around 2 am on Sunday morning here, the screen of the AP satellite feed showed a caption warning agencies to be ready. (paraphrasing) "Standby. White House statement 3:10 pm. Standby." The time corresponded to 02:10 am Bangkok time, in other words, imminent. It was just before midnight in Tehran, and we all knew what had happened during the afternoon and evening there. The White House was finally ready to take a stronger moral stand after these latest brutal killings, I thought. It could have come days earlier, after Basijis had raided Tehran University, beating and killing a number of students in their dorms. Or, a day or two before that when Basijis shot up a crowd around one of their bases, killing at least seven. But better late than never. I waited. Nothing came across the AP feed after an hour, then after two hours of staying awake refreshing some pages of those solo broadcasters, I crashed out around dawn. Sunday afternoon, I learned what the "Standby" was all about. Can't a man enjoy his waffle(cone)? The White House statement was that the President had taken his daughters out for a Father's Day ice cream. Seriously! And that's not all. Bo got frozen Puppy Pops to go. (The photo is from an earlier ice cream excursion, I can't find any pictures from Saturday's fun.) Take a look at Patterico's juxtaposition of contemporaneous tweets out of Iran and Washington. Hey, did you know that real journalists use Twitter too? It's true! But only click on that one if you don't mind your heart being broken yet again. Earlier, President Obama had said something which seemed stronger than the previous "concern" and "bearing witness."> "I'm very concerned based on some of the tenor and tone of the statements that have been made that the government of Iran recognise that the world is watching," Obama said on US television on Friday. "And how they approach and deal with people who are, through peaceful means, trying to be heard will, I think, send a pretty clear signal to the international community about what Iran is and is not." Well, it nudged the concern and witness ideas ahead a little bit (if ya squint!). A later written statement added the mourning of innocent life lost to the bearing of witness and concern. The toughest line was, "We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people." Those brave 21st century Iranians need to hear that the free peoples of the world are with them. The placards, chants and comments of the demonstrators have often asked specifically for this, and it would mean a lot for them to hear it unambiguously from the leader of the free world. Whether he makes a strong, principled statement on the urgent need for liberty and the dignity of Iran's freedom-seeking people, or sticks with the current weak expressions of concern, makes no difference to the ruling hardliners in that country. They are blaming Britain, France, USA and all western countries for fomenting the rebellion in any case. To hell with them — speak directly to those millions of Iranians who are demanding their fundamental rights. They are the only ones who count, and the only ones listening anyway. So far, the Prophet of Cairo seems to be all Barack and no bite. His original "on the one hand, but on the other hand" stance (that dealing with Ahmedinejad or Moussavi makes no difference to him, that they are about the same) certainly did offend many of those risking life and limb for liberty, and they should expect clearer messages from a US president. For better or worse, those who want to live in a free(r) country have gathered together with Mr. Moussavi, demanding the fair election they have yet to receive. That alone means that the two are not the same. A Life Magazine photojournalist disappeared on Saturday in Tehran. You can view his gallery here , with the following notification:> A NOTE TO OUR READERS: We are saddened to report that the Iranian photojournalist, whose pictures appear in this gallery, is missing. He has not been in contact with us; this morning we received the following email from one of his relatives. We will update this space when we have more details. THE EMAIL: Hi im [photographer’s relative], when he go outside yesterday for he never came back home and also his friend and a lot of our young brave people, government arrested them [. . .] don’t let them suffer in those bloody hands. With thanks. Here's a sample of some of the proven reliable Twitter feeds. Most are in Tehran. The last two are hashtag searches (categories). #Neda sprang up on Saturday night. #IranElection is very high volume (beware of rumours and regime dis-information there).> Raymond Jahan (StopAhmadi) Iranian Student (Change_for_Iran) Alireza Sedaghat (IranElection09) TehranBureau.com (TehranBureau) madyar (madyar) Iran (IranRiggedElect) oxfordgirl (oxfordgirl) persiankiwi (persiankiwi) #Neda #IranElection If you need to get caught up on the important developments over the weekend, there's no better place at the moment than Hot Air. AllahPundit is keeping on top of things very well, and these were continually updated on Saturday and Sunday . Also very good is NYT's The Lede Blog . The blog of the National Iranian American Council is worth keeping an eye on, for nuggets like this — which stuck in my mind last week (and I had a hard time finding it again). Posted on June 17 :> 9:47 am: In response to Ahmadinejad calling Mousavi supporters “brushwood and thorns” at the victory rally Monday, Iran’s most famous classical musician has ordered that Iranian government television/radio never play his music again. Mohammad Reza Shajarian told BBC Persian in an interview:> “Don’t broadcast my voice on Seda va Sima [IRIB Music channel] ever again: my voice is like brushwood and thorns, and it will forever remain brushwood and thorns!”