More executions on the way in AZ

As a follow-up to a diary I posted last year, the state Supreme Court decided yesterday to go ahead with a pair of executions they delayed in late November, and I have posted a new diary about the latest news. I expect this one will get ignored like the last one. For some reason, only compelling stories, doubt about the guilt of inmates, seems to get attention. But for a lot of folks, when someone seems guilty beyond whatever they call reasonable doubt, then it’s no big deal.

These two fellows are most likely doomed. It’s not that I am particularly sympathetic for them after reading their stories; it’s just that the practice is useless, unnecessary, wasteful. The state has been trying to kill them since the late 80′s. Something like 20+ years. That takes some dedication, and to what kind of principle? There’s nothing noble to it that I can see.

Ah well. Another diary to get ignored and shuffled off the list of recent work before long, I expect.

What fresh outrage is this?

The news is actually about a week old, but when a story gets buried and I’m busy house-sitting instead of surfing the Net, it takes me awhile sometimes, ok?

So today I posted on Daily Kos, since no one else seems to have in the past week, that a hunger strike in California’s prisons has been renewed. This story is from July of this year, when it started in Pelican Bay and spread through other prisons in California and other states, protesting the inhumane conditions at the solitary confinement wing at Pelican Bay. It took nearly a month, and some prisoners definitely pushed it to their limits not eating, but negotiations broke out and it seemed to have been resolved.

Fast-forward a couple of months, and we find that the prison guards have been cracking down on the instigators of the hunger strike, and otherwise making prisoners’ lives a bit more hellish in the interim. Meanwhile, there are negotiations and legislative hearings and token gestures of appeasement. I can see why that didn’t go over too well.

So, back where we started again, I suppose. I would expect this of some third-world country, or perhaps Texas, or Arizona for that matter. California I would have thought to be some kind of liberal bastion, but I guess it’s not all that. Then again, when it comes to third-world countries, the U.S. does…well, aspire isn’t the right word. I need its antonym. There isn’t a good one for that. But you get the idea, I hope.

Education fail

My latest offering for Daily Kos goes up on the Baja AZ list, since I’m talking education in the desert today. When the business community warns the state gov’t that their education cuts are going to make it hard for businesses to find qualified workers, i.e. create jobs and locate businesses in the state, and the governor and assorted lackeys don’t care…well, it spells trubble.

ba-dum-ching.

Atheism vs. despair

A recent thread on the RS forum came up about the despair some feel results from the loss of faith in a god, afterlife, etc. Unfortunately it became bogged down by a particular fellow whose personal experience with despair has apparently achieved clinical depression. Since I can’t really speak my mind about the guy there, here we are.

It’s times like these that I’d like to do something about the poster. He’s admitted to clinical depression and anxiety, for which we’d like to think he’s being treated, but it sure doesn’t seem that way. His disappointment in the prospect of an inherently meaningless life, inevitably transitory experience, and in the suffering he and his family have experienced, have pushed him to arguments no sane person would make. Stuff about forcibly sterilizing the human race, so it can die off and put an end to human suffering.

The poor sap seems to revel in his despair, in an odd way. He’s reminded several of us of ex-agent Smith from the Matrix movies, the anti-Neo.

Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you’re fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself. Although, only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can’t win. It’s pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson, Why? Why do you persist?

These ideas wouldn’t get into a character in a popular movie if they didn’t have some resonance, if they didn’t make somebody stop and think a little. And I would be kidding myself if I didn’t own up to occasional glimpses of this despair, that I have a dark night of the soul every so often. There’s some irony in that being a term associated with xianity; not even the believer is immune. The sense of crushing despair they impute to the skeptic is something they know very well indeed.

You learn something new every day. I thought that was just a bit of poetry. I thought the smug satisfaction of the xian, however deluded, might be genuine. It pleases me to see that it’s not.

As for the depressed forum poster, it is a difficult line to walk. Personal attack is forbidden, yet he is clearly sick and in need of help. His arguments are repulsive, and at times seemingly designed to piss people off. Several times I’ve tried to warn people off of telling him to go through with his suicidal tendencies if his life is so bad; I don’t wish death on anyone.

Although, I wonder which is the more merciful suggestion…linger on, or end it? There’s the rub.

Having seen what happened here in Tucson, the mix of mental illness and whee, guns! that took lives and shattered others, I would seriously consider reporting this guy to whatever authorities are in his area — if I knew where to go. The anonymity of the Net puts it in the hands of the site admins. And so I consider asking them about it.

So why do I persist?

I can’t disagree with Smith. To the extent that life is apparently, evidently, meaningless, without purpose of its own. To the extent that anything I do or build or experience is temporary, quickly forgotten when I am gone, swallowed into oblivion in a relative eye-blink on the cosmic scale. I know, I’ve learned, how much of our thought processes and systems of ethics are built up from simple survival mechanisms, how our consciousness of choice appears some time after the brain has made its decision.

The final experiment that they showed proved that scientists could establish which decision a human would make, 6 seconds before the human consciously made the decision – by pressing a button to indicate which option they were choosing.

Skepticism takes ideas like meaning, purpose, and free will and puts them in serious question. Evidence suggests life on our planet is a fortuitous accident. The lack of evidence suggests no purpose to it. Experiments suggest that what we feel to be free will may not be quite what we think it is.

So again, why do I persist?

Because meaning can be what we make. The evidence suggests that the supposedly ‘inherent,’ ‘objective’ meaning and purpose of the xian is made-up, so what harm is there in doing the same myself, consciously? Without delusions to the contrary? I can choose to make the best of this life, as I see it, knowing that it is just my opinion and not some divine imperative. I can accept that this choice may be influenced by the biology and evolution that got me here, a mix of instinctive drives and emergent consciousness. It may not be the reputed ‘free will’ of organized religion, but perhaps I can content myself that the process is complex enough that it is hard to follow, hard to classify with certainty as not free.

Sure, scientists can hook me up and run some tests and show that my brain chose this path before I could say yes or no. Maybe someday, they’ll be able to follow the cascade of decision-making and instinct that makes me value life. I don’t particularly need them to, though. I would be surprised if I lasted long enough for the technology to become available.

There’s some irony to the argument on the forum, where the deranged poster questions the rationality of this answer. I wonder why he expects a rational response to a question like ‘why do you love, why do you care‘. Why do you persist. If he’s like Smith, no surprise then that I answer like Neo.

Because I choose to.

It helps to know that it is their finite qualities that make life and experience and love valuable. It’s when we take something for granted, when we have a seemingly endless supply, that it’s devalued. We don’t value the environment because it seems like we can go on dumping whatever and keep on truckin’. Kids take risks and join the army because they have no sense of mortality. Endless life would have no value.

So the terminally depressed skeptic questions why we get out of bed in the morning. But it is in the context of an eternal life that this question really hits home. Why bother? Why do anything? There will always be another day. Put it off till tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It can wait.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Comfortable with hypocrisy

Talk of Interpol this week has made for some serendipitous news stories. Yesterday, I got to watch Keith Olbermann talk up Nigeria’s plans to indict Dick Cheney — which would lead to an Interpol red listing, effectively an international Wanted poster — and how the Obama administration is busily working to put the kibosh on such plans. And this is after Obama successfully stopped the wheels of justice from turning in Spain.

Meanwhile, the gov’t speaks out about an Interpol red listing for Julian Assange, Wikileaks founder. Naturally, it’s not hard to find conservatives lining up to bash this guy…Sarah Palin, for example.

Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential candidate, likened Assange to an al-Qaida propagandist and accused him, without offering any proof, of having “blood on his hands.”

“Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaida and Taliban leaders?” she asked in a message posted on her Facebook page.

It is interesting, isn’t it, what a hypocritical position this puts Obama in, what with the quid pro quo above-the-law mentality shared by both sides of our political class. Of course, I don’t see liberals calling for bloodshed quite so quickly and fervently as can be found from the other side. Need it even be said that this political adviser is conservative?

“I think Assange should be assassinated, actually,” Tom Flanagan, a former adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told the CBC. “I think Obama should put out a contract or maybe use a drone or something.” Flanagan, a U.S.-born professor of political science at the University of Calgary, later apologized.

I can understand Obama not cooperating with foreign governments’ justice departments regarding such indictments, as it would be too easy for every single American administration to get indicted by somebody out there. What I have to wonder about is the pressure he’s exerted to stop investigation. Going back to Keith:

OLBERMANN:  Well, what Mr. Gibbs did not divulge is that the Obama White House working with the GOP was pressuring the Spanish government to drop the investigation.  As Corn reports, the WikiLeaks cables reveal that high-ranking American officials, like Senator Judd Gregg and former RNC chairman, former senator, Mel Martinez, were part of the U.S. effort to kill the torture probe.

The men alongside embassy officials cautioned Spanish leaders that criminal investigations of the Bush six would not be understood or accepted in the U.S. and would have an enormous impact on bilateral relationships.

Spanish ultimately dropped the investigation.  How‘s that for bipartisanship?

So a bipartisan(!) effort on the part of American politicians was employed to not only refuse cooperation in any indictments, but to threaten Spain about any continued investigation. Don’t even look at these guys. Much less investigate what horrible things they did, don’t expose the torture regime to the light of day. That’s so yesterday.

It seems rather ironic that Wikileaks document dumps have revealed this, given the apparent support for Interpol going after Julian Assange. Interpol therefore becomes not a tool of justice, but of opportunity, used when it serves one’s purposes and opposed when it does not. And preferably, let’s keep that opposition hidden when possible, pretend that we care about justice eh?

I expect the same kind of ninja politics to take place when the presidential primary season begins next year, just to make sure that no credible primary challenge is fielded against Obama.

Add this to the political concessions we continue to see, and the difference between Democrats and Republicans gets harder and harder to see. Well, that and any reason to actually vote in 2012. Instead of hope and change, I guess I’m stuck with despair and stasis this week. We’ll see how things are closer to the next election.

Democratic scare tactics

It’s a bit out of character for me to go on ranting politically and not tackle some WoW-related or skeptical topic. Have to get some in later. But I have been listening to an interview on the Diane Rehm show today with David Plouffe, who managed the Obama presidential campaign in 2008. And it has seemingly crystallized a tactic that, sadly, I think Democrats are wise to employ. It is the politics of fear.

Fear after 9/11 led the American people to hand Dubya a political blank check. We went to war, our civil liberties got trashed, our privacy invaded, our government’s budget sank into debt, our economy bubbled and popped; and by and large, no one cared, no one checked out the man behind the curtain. We’re scared, we’re mad, let’s go kill somebody.

Not that Obama has really stopped this. He’s managed to accomplish a good deal, and they talk about keeping us out of a new great depression, and they’re probably right. But our rights, our country’s pride of purpose remain trashed, and the fleecing of the middle class continues. I was reminded of it this morning in a commercial starring (ex-)Senator Fred hawking reverse mortgages, proudly touting government insurance of mortgages designed, I suppose, to finish taking away the property and inheritance of the middle class, and to allow baby boomers to literally take it with them.

Makes one wonder who they think will buy all these houses once they’ve thoroughly destroyed the middle class. But that’s the corporate way. Profits today, don’t think about tomorrow.

Of course, Mother Jones (linked above) also has some interesting articles on Goldline, Glenn Beck, and another form of fleecing of spooked Americans. I am perhaps a bit unsympathetic of the conservatives fleecing their own stupid flock, but they are. And I see vultures likewise in my own city, spamming cable TV with their eagerness to buy gold, silverware, and other valuables (on the cheap, quick, cash of course) as the morons who have some means buy gold and drive the price up. Interesting. Good Ole Tom’s is a Connecticut institution. I thought the premise of trustworthy old-timey Tucson folk was a sham.

Doh. I digress.

Anyway, the running theme of Plouffe’s interview was the standard bad vs. worse scenario, although he tries of course to paint the past two years in the best possible light — not easy considering the state of the economy. Easier by far (and more frequent) were his reminders of what the Republicans wish to do should they regain power. Roll it all back, do what they’ve been doing, more of the same. It’s scary. He actually used the word several times, scary. He wants his base to be scared of what the Republicans will do.

As we saw in 2001, fear is a great motivator, after all. It’s a pretty harsh judgment, though. While the right wing fears terrorists, or, say, brown people, it seems one Democratic strategy is to get its base — me — to fear Republicans (Republican Tea Party included). It’s a dispiriting point of comparison. What should scare us more, what did more damage to the country? The planes on 9/11 or the popped housing bubble? Terrorists or toxic assets? The only thing to fear is…the other side. Perhaps we’re right to. But it is sad to see politics come to this impasse.

So, hope and change. But also,

Tax cuts. Always.

Just a little political rant before I go see Inception with Sue this evening. No WoW on a weeknight, zounds!

Well, I’ll probably come back and work the auction house for a few minutes before bed…anyway.

(Late night edit: I’d recommend Inception to anyone I know, a nice intricate psychological thriller with some strong and somewhat trippy action notes.)

So we’re hearing a lot of GOP noise about their beloved Bush-era tax cuts that are set to expire. Mind you, the Republicans did that, because otherwise the cost of the tax cuts would have been too obvious and they would have failed to become law. It’s a remarkable policy in how little sense it makes upon scrutiny; and remarkable in how it manages to survive despite that. I’ve heard all about the notion of ‘class warfare’…we always do. Here’s a bit from the Fox news crap, courtesy of Senator Fred (ex-senator Fred Thompson, who I remember more from The Hunt for Red October and Law & Order).

THOMPSON: Well, in the — in the first place, you know, every politician that ever run for office ought to be asked a simple question: how long — a person who worked for the government, should we work two days for the government or three days for the government? What answer should that be. A lot of people would be surprised at how long we work for the government.

They come up with nice-sounding rhetoric to back up their form of class warfare; it’s not as if the rich have much of a tendency to even pay these taxes, what with loopholes in the tax code, contributions to politicians and charities and such. We yammer on about income tax rates when a big chunk of the populace doesn’t pay out in income; they pay out in payroll taxes, which we never talk about. Don’t even touch that. Don’t even bring it up.

And in truth, we’d better not. But for some reason, the Democrats can’t come up with any spin for their argument. They just speak truth, as if truth really mattered in politics.

And then there’s the popular Republican canard that tax cuts pay for themselves. This snippet is from Marco Rubio, who is running with teabagger backing for a Senate seat from Florida.

“They will be paid for because they create economic growth, especially in the long-term,” he said. When Guthrie interjected that unemployment benefits act as a stimulus, he said, “Well I don’t think anyone can say that with a straight face.” “First of all, private sector growth is stimulus.” Rubio’s position puts him in the mainstream of Republican political thinking, that the Bush tax cuts pay for themselves while unemployment benefits should be paid for without adding to the debt.

This is one of those cases where the oft-repeated lie drowns out the obvious truth. No, they don’t pay for themselves. Bush was making the same noise back in 2006 when his struggling economy showed some signs of life; that is, before the bubble burst and the rich cashed in their chips.

Economists and budget analysts outside of the administration have explained that these claims are not supported by data or economic theory.[3] Now a Department of Treasury analysis presented in the Mid-Session Review itself confirms what outside experts have consistently said — tax cuts do not come remotely close to paying for themselves.[4]

Even using its rosiest projections of the budget, spending cuts to offset tax cuts, and the state of the economy, Bush’s own Treasury Department couldn’t bring the projected cost of his tax cuts down by more than 10%. That is to say…

Thus, even if the Treasury’s most optimistic assumptions are accepted (and the dynamic effect is assumed to happen much more quickly than even Treasury seems to assume), the cost of the tax cuts in 2016 — taking into account “dynamic” effects — would still be more than 90 percent of the cost of the tax cuts under the standard cost estimates.

…no free lunch. And this obvious truth can be made clear by a simple reductio ad absurdum. So, tax cuts pay for themselves. They stimulate the economy. They increase tax revenues. Does this mean that by reducing tax rates to zero, we raise revenue to infinity? Is that too obvious? How about keeping them at one percent? Surely the incredible stimulated economy would explode and we’d have all the revenue we’d ever need. Right?

No? What do you mean, there’s an actual tax rate we need to maintain? Any idea what it is? Show your math…

I can recall one prominent Republican, ever, who actually turned on this policy and advocated tax increases. Because there has never been a time — ever — that I can recall, where tax cuts weren’t the way to go. Are we prosperous, running surpluses? Cut taxes, give the money back to the people. Are we running deficits? Cut taxes, it’ll stimulate revenue. Is the economy good? Cut taxes, the gov’t is raking in cash. Is the economy bad? Cut taxes, we must help it. Are we at peace? Cut taxes, we don’t need all the military spending. Are we at war? Well, cut taxes anyway. One fellow I can recall who bucked this trend, and I remember what they did to him, too.

Yeah, they certainly stuck his head on a pike, now didn’t they. To the point that when he was endorsing McCain back in 2008 it was kind of a joke. They were spiteful enough to vote for Perot and give us two terms of Clinton! Not that McCain enthused them either, but then I think they wanted a Democrat to take over and make Americans take all the necessary medicine (and gain their ire for it). Clinton of course went through the same thing, but I have my doubts that Obama can turn it around like that. He’s too honest.

Anyway, I know about the whole ‘starve the beast’ mentality, but I see it as waging class warfare against the likes of me, even as they bark about class warfare every time they get it back. They lie and pretend it’s not what they’re doing. Of course, if it weren’t for the variety of folks voting against their own economic interests over social issues like guns, gays or god, the Republicans would never stand a chance.

A good segue into how Republicans have an interest in destroying our education system, so that stupid Americans can stab themselves in the back voting for the benefit of the rich. Or, how Republicans in power somehow manage to not do anything about their social issues, the better to keep their base fired up while they do accomplish the eternal preservation of wealth. But that’s another show.

No real point to this beyond the obvious; time will tell on whether or not the Democrats have the stones to do that which is obviously the right thing to do. I’m skeptical.

Main tank disease

This phenomenon is something I’ve touched on before. But since the horde guild I’m in is such a great example of it, the subject came up again as Sue and I talk about our experiences. I wish I knew about the backstory to the latest version, since the MT is a death knight — zounds! But since he also has a warrior tank alt, I wonder which came first. Could be an ex-warrior tank, like me.

Many of the guilds I’ve been through suffered from this disease. For most of the game, it mattered more because you needed more of them, and there were fewer around: basic supply and demand. Back in the old days, you could have fights with as many as five, maybe more that I’m not remembering. That’s a lot of potential weak points.

Ironically, Blizzard fixed this somewhat when they cut the basic raid design back to 25 raiders max while increasing the potential pool of tanks, but it was the raid design that mattered. Adding a new tank-capable class didn’t necessarily add anyone who was good at it.

Anyway, raiding guilds seem to often center around their main tank. It’s hard not to. And with so few being necessary, it’s difficult to break into the tank racket and get much experience. Sure, random heroics is fine, for that. But most of that involves no technique, and the harder heroics that do often turn into wipefests and players dropping out like rats from a sinking ship.

Halls of Reflection continues to challenge me, if not personally then because of the random jokers I get thrown in with.

So the standout, skilled, ever-present tanker may end up as the designated MT and after awhile, people start to lose the ability to raid without them. I see that on the rare raid when this DK tank can’t make it. Raids get cancelled, or get run (badly) by someone else.

Back in the day when a go-to MT disappeared from the guild I was in at the time, and I inherited the MT position, I had seen and recognized this problem and had the opportunity to do something about it. I was the guild’s MT, but I trained a tank corps. It mattered more back in the Molten Core days, of course, when more were required. But I would rotate other tanks into doing my job and let them have at it. It created some painful wipes, certainly. But it worked out in the end when I disappeared and they had to go on without me for awhile. It was a genuine source of pride for me that they could, and did.

Well, that lasted until one of my crew used some class imbalance to become indispensable and re-established the disease. Thanks Blizzard! Warrior tanks: screwed since Burning Crusade.   Vanilla WoW was definitely the good old days for warriors.

Nowadays no raid requires more than three. You might need four to reliably run a couple of 10-mans in a week. Six, if you’re worried about no-shows. The guild I’m in doesn’t even have that many. And their MT, a competent fellow, knows his stuff, explains all the fights too, is indispensable. Not in a malicious way, but then it doesn’t have to be.

Ah well. It all feels like past tense now, what with the pre-xpac doldrums and serious consideration being given to switching to the Star Wars MMO if it’s ever released. Now that would be a strange twist. What could be the tank class of that? Maybe I should avoid it.

Interest dwindles

Since I might as well continue with the quiet desperation theme of my WoW postings, ha! Mage Revised all over again. This week I’ve begun to explore other options for finishing my Shadowmourne quest. As it happens, my private forum posting for the officers was seemingly ignored for several days, and then got some responses there and in-game.

The hardcore guild’s GM-MT type — I don’t think he is technically GM, but he might as well be — is clearly burned out on Lich King content and on herding cats. To that extent I can sympathize, been avoiding officer duties myself like the Blight! As a DK player and an ex-officer type I am familiar with these plagues, you see.

Still, they are interested in helping me finish the damn quest, although it didn’t happen yesterday due to the raid being 3-5 short depending on who was AFK/puking/DCing/lagging/Skylab crashing on their house etc. Under the circumstances, it was impressive enough that we cleared the lower wing, Valithria and the bommies before blowing it on Putricide and calling it a night.

Of course, I still suspect that I am being strung along or that the guild officers are simply helpless to assist me, and so there is a GDKP (bidding for gear with gold) pug run that I am looking into for next week. How much for Frost Infusion? Heh.

On the brighter side of things, I’ve observed from a distance with some amusement as the horde guild I left behind self-destructs. Sue has kept me up to date, since she stayed put. Most of the guild /gquit and reformed under new name and leadership, which neither of us has any interest in. The old guild, in the fashion of a dying star, has cast off its alts after a hacking episode and is down to distributing the guild bank contents before retiring the guild completely.

She thinks it’s karma. I don’t know; but it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people, I figure. As the saying goes. Whatever else happens, I feel nothing if not vindication at my departure, faction transfer, and progression far beyond anything that guild or its spawn has accomplished. I may still fall short of my end goals for WotLK, but I’m closer than I would have been.

Frost Infusion, take 2

New raid week, after the Monday LK 25 tries fell through — some people failed to show, typical. So new lockout, new piles of gear, more sanctification marks. I seem to have all the ones I need as a DPS, so the plan is to hold out until interest dwindles completely and then I will start sanctifying my tank set. It’s interesting to see how things have changed, now that we can clear all the wing end-bosses and get 8 marks a week instead of 2 or 4.

Over the weekend I began rediscovering the joy of alts. Amber reminded me with her alt-update. I read it and thought, hm, I just spent half the weekend working on my 65 belf rogue (now 67) and it hadn’t even occurred to me. I am leveling her so she can advance in Northrend blacksmithing — for the Horde! I also spent a couple hours just playing Halo on Sue’s old Xbox. I like it that much, I guess. The music made that game for me.

I’m looking forward to this being the norm, I can tell. At least for awhile. The hardcore pursuit is what I want to do, certainly. But it can be hard work, and that’s a drag. I am sure I will continue raiding, but a break at least will be nice.

So this week I expect the 25-man raid will reach LK again and fail some more. The 10-man success may help though…the spread out – Defile – collapse routine for the DPS really seemed to help, we’ll see if it works on the larger scale and with more potential for failure. I am skeptical, of course, but last week was a pleasant surprise. I wouldn’t mind another.

I also wouldn’t mind if we could accomplish that blasted Sindragosa fight without me having to dps it full-time. Weak! We punished ourselves many times until the warrior got his quest done. Slackers. It’ll happen eventually. I may as well get my mocking in now.

I know one consequence of this 10-man heroic stuff is that Cyo’s regular 10-man ICC lockout may be freed up. A lot of people already had no interest in it, they were probably just waiting for somebody else to gain the heroic capability for them. Slackers. Yes, it’s a theme…even in this hardcore guild, there are the exceptional and the merely adequate. You never know for sure how much effort someone will put out from an application. But anyway, if I can free up her regular 10-man I might be able to join my guild of friends on their runs with the DK. That could be interesting.

All this is to be expected, especially when building a larger raiding group from scratch as they have, and when building a tight group, not ‘overbooking’ as it were. I didn’t have the luxury of finding some chance opening in one of the top high-end guilds on the server. I expected some setbacks along the way. I am still getting done what I intended to do.