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Tag: vladilena mirize
86 – 17 – A Certain Apocalyptic Railgun
The episode begins at San Magnolia's darkest and most desperate hour. While most of the military forces are presumably turning tail along with the civilians, Lena is standing her ground and commanding what forces she can bring to bear against an overwhelmingly superior Legion force.
While the usual blue lights of her sterile remote command station have been replaced by red flames and burning embers, Lena does not shrink from her duty. There's an explosion quite close to her position, but scene ends without irrefutable proof she comes out of this either alive, dead…or turned into a Legion.
Meanwhlie, four large Federacy bases were attacked in sequence, resulting in the loss of 20,000 troops, or over a quarter of their forces. The culprit is an ultra-long-range (over 400km) train-mounted railgun code-named Morpho (presumably after the butterfly genus). Shin & Co. are lucky; their base takes an indirect hit.
Morpho is damaged by a concerted attack by three nations whose names don't rhyme with Man Sagnolia, and it's believed that repairs will take eight weeks. That's how long humanity has to take Morpho out, because once it's back online it can use the continental high speed rail system to hit any capital it wants.
Ergo, in eight weeks, It's All Over. Giad, Roa Gracia, and Wald all commit to doing whatever it takes to destroy Morpho before that happens. But with the losses they've sustained and the multiple battle fronts they must maintain, and untouched Legion factories working at full capacity, eight or eighty weeks might not make any difference.
Additionally, even the combined air forces of the three nations simply don't have the firepower or range to do anything about Morpho, which means the only possible way to take it out is with a ground assault…over 100km into Legion territory.
Suddenly backed into a wall, Giad no longer has the luxury of keeping the Eighty-Six out of the fighting (if they wanted out; they of course don't). I doubt any of the five of them are the slightest bit surprised it's come to this. Could Giad have had more options now had they taken Shin's warnings about the Legion seriously?
Perhaps, but the sheer scale and scope of their utter hosedness means any positive benefit probably wouldn't have been enough. The Eighty-Six remark how Giad has a well-trained military, who are holding together in spite of the dire situation—unlike San Magnolia, which they imagine would fold like a bad poker hand).
But Giad has no one in their military as good at doing This Kind of Thing as the Eighty-Six and Lt. Shinei Nouzen. When brought before the general and told to point out where the Legion currently are on a map, Shin obeys, officially confirming his psychic powers. Lt. Col. Wenzel goes to bat for Shin and his comrades, yelling on his behalf about how unfair this is.
But the general, and indeed the entire Federacy's hands are tied. In this situation, the Eighty-Six are all they've got. Were they to send their own forces into such a mission, not only would it definitely be suicide, but it would undermine what little morale remains in the military. They can't afford that kind of storm of resentment that could lead to widespread mutiny and chaos, even in a force as disciplined as Giad's.
On the ride back to base, Wenzel tells Shin that it's not too late to back out of this, and even if he does participate and emerge victorious, he should quit the military immediately after. Shin doesn't want to hear it. The one thing he and no other Eighty-Six wants is anyone's pity, especially if that pity and vanity is being used to dictate how they should live their lives.
If Shin and the others are monsters, they'd rather remain monsters than become something else, for as young as they are, it's too late to be anything else. They learned that well enough during their "honeymoon" period in the Giad capital, trying to live "normal" lives.
With the voices of all the Eighty-Six he mercy-killed as well as the Major always in his head, Shin will never, ever let someone fight or die in his place, they way the Republic did with him and his friends. Oh, and did I mention lil' Lena has been sending Shin searing hate mail with her cutesy kid stationary for killing her brother? Yeah…that's happening too.
Not surprisingly, Raiden, Anju, Theo and Kurena feel the same way as Shin: If they run, they'll be no different from the white pigs. While the rest of Nordlicht squadron skulks out of the ready room after the briefing, the five Eighty-Six basically shrug it off as Just Another Job, and then laugh and joke on their way to dinner.
This newest development is simply nothing new for them. They've been sent on suicide missions their whole lives. Nothing to be done here but wait for zero hour, strap into their Juggernauts, and get to work. Only this time, at least, it's for the sake of a country that might just be worth saving.
That same day, September 2, we see the aftermath of the Legion assault on the capital of San Magnolia, which is a smoking, crumbling ruin devoid of life, as well as one big obvious metaphor for the cost of hubris. The final gut-wrenching shot is one we've seen dozens of times throughout 86's run: that of Lena's bedchamber.
The glass box containing the little drawings of the Eighty-Six lost under her command remains on the windowsill, but that's not necessarily a sure sign that she's dead somewhere in the city. More concerning is the fact Shin had a brief encounter with her in his visions.
Still, the show is officially being coy about her fate, and I for one am holding out hope that she and her sciencey frenemy are still breathing out there somewhere…and maybe, just maybe she and Shin will finally meet in person someday, when all this Legion unpleasantness is over.
Author braveradePosted on Sat, 6 Nov 2021 Wed, 10 Nov 2021 Categories 86 2nd Season, Anime Reviews, Fall 2021Tags anju, battlefield, death, dirty work, eighty six, frederica rosenfort, giad federacy, kiri, kurena, legion, morpho, nordlicht squadron, nouzen kiriya, pity, railgun, republic, san magnolia, shin, shuga raiden, spearhead, suicide mission, theo, vladilena mirize, wenzel
86 – 16 – A Child's Right to Dream
Hours before Giad's command structure realizes the full extent of the Legion assault not just on the Federacy, but on the three other major powers, and fully mobilizes its forces, Shinei snatches Raiden's pillow. It's time to go to work. He gave Giad all the warnings he could to make their situation more tenable, but now it's up to Nordlicht squadron to shore up the front lines.
Giad's woefully inadequate defenses fold like a cheap plug suit before the sheer volume of Legion hardware brought to bear against them. The fleeting beauty of their glittering forms rising over the horizon gives way to carnage, fire, twisted metal, and blood. In other words, where Shin, Raiden, Kurena and Anju feel most at home…as awful as that is.
Despite being outnumbered hundreds-to-one, the four of them do what they do best and lay waste to the Legion, who don't really have any tactics beyond "run straight at the enemy and kill". They're mechanized zombies, after all. Back at base, Frederica wishes she could be with Shin and the others, then wishes even more when she detects Shin…starting to lose it.
Shin wears an unsettling smirk in his eerily-lit cockpit as he goes totally bonkers berserk against any and all Legion in his path. He resembles more a ravenous beast killing for sport, not an elite soldier carrying out his duty. This is exactly what happened to Frederica's knight, Kiri: he went too far, in his case trying to protect her, and completely lost himself.
Fortunately, apocalypse is postponed, as the Giad lines behind Nordlicht get their shit together, and the Legion withdraw. Immediately upon Shin's return to base, Frederica is knocking on his cockpit, demanding he come out so she can berate him for being so foolish, then cry into his chest. This battle was a little too much for this child who carries such a heavy weight.
Meanwhile, in San Magnolia, three days earlier, apocalypse is looking a little more imminent, as military HQ is still an utterly ineffectual bacchanalian. Only Lena knows and cares about their impending doom, and prepares to mobilize all Processors, even pull them into the forbidden 85 Districts. General Karlstahl tries to stop her, saying if the Eighty-Six won't fight the Legion for the Republic, and if they enter the districts, it will only hasten the rebellion that's been a longg time coming.
Lena convinces Karlstahl to let her have her way, as he tells her the time has finally come for her childish, naïve dreams to shatter against hard, cold reality. He also intends to do what he wants, taking up a rifle and resolving to have her back until that shattering time comes. Lena, AKA Bloody Regina, rouses all Eighty-Six troops at once and orders them to battle. Like her Spearhead friends she's convinced are dead, she's going to go out fighting—for herself, and for them.
Roll credits and that sad, beautiful ending theme, and 86isn't done torturing its characters, or us. Frederica reports to Shin & Co. that her Kiri, whom she can sense just as Shin could sense Kiriya, attacked the republic and entered the 85 Districts. As for his present whereabouts, that's quickly answered when we see a flash of him saying he'll kill Shin, and then the room where they're in filling with a terrible light…perhaps the light of that dream-shattering reality Karlstahl mentioned.
Author braveradePosted on Sat, 30 Oct 2021 Categories 86 2nd Season, Anime Reviews, Fall 2021Tags anju, attack, battlefield, bloody regina, death, eighty six, frederica rosenfort, giad federacy, karlstahl, kiri, knight, kurena, legion, nordlicht squadron, nouzen kiriya, processors, republic, shin, shuga raiden, theo, vladilena mirize, wave, waves, wenzel1 Comment on 86 – 16 – A Child's Right to Dream
86 – 09 – No Signal
"If you find yourself alone, riding in green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled…for you are in Elysium, and you are already dead!"—Maximus
This week, Spearhead, whose living members now consist only of Kurena, Raiden, Theo, Anju, and Shin, ride out into a vast, dark, and bleak battlefield, where the five of them must face hundreds if not thousands of Legion, because they were never even meant to make it thisfar in their military "careers".
Of course, Shin has something else in mind: he's singularly invested in finding his brother and putting him out of his misery. He orders Raiden to take over the unit and find cover in the nearby forest, but his four comrades aren't about to leave him. Instead, they do what they can to give Shin a clear shot at Shourei.
As it turns out, Lena has a surprise in store for all of them: she managed to get access to the republic mortars, while also being able to swap vision in one of her eyes with Raiden so she can target more precisely. In that split second, Raiden—and only Raiden—catches a glimpse of their "pig princess" Handler.
When Lena prepares to launch a massive mortar attack on Shourei Legion's position—which is also where Shin is, dodging and grappling—the others are apprehensive: doe she mean to kill Shin too? Far from it; instead, she's giving Shin the opening he needs.
The impacting mortars are represented in Shourei's mind by the young Lena slapping him into something resembling coherence, and acceptance that Shin no longer needs his brother to look after him. Instead, his brother needs to know that he'll be at rest.
The opening is created, and Shin takes his shot, saying goodbye to his brother and then sobbing his eyes out both in grief over his brother's loss and relief that he's no longer a technological abomination who wasn't allowed to die naturally.
From here we shift to Lena's little control room, and she heeds Raiden's call to shut off the link for now, as Shin wouldn't want anyone hearing him cry. She then turns to a sullen-looking Annette sitting in the corner with laptops. We go back a bit to before the battle, when Lena visits Annette despite Annette saying she didn't want to see her again.
Lena tells Annette that her old neighbor Shin is none other than Undertaker of the Spearhead unit, that she speaks to him every day, and that this is now Annette's third chance to save him, the first two times having run away. While at first apathetic, knowing it's Shin forces Annette's hand. She calls Lena "the devil" for pulling such a stunt, but Lena simply says "that's right; I am…and so are you." Better to be devils who care.
With what was supposed to be the battle that should have wiped out Spearhead once and for all ending in unlikely victory thanks in large part to Annette's hacking, Shin and the others give their heartfelt thanks to Lena, as well as tease her for having turned into a "bad girl" by breaking the rules to save them.
But after that, the group continues their advance without further input from Lena. In fact, all she can say as they head closer and closer to a foreboding "UNKNOWN" area is "please don't leave me!" It occurs to her that while she made little drawings of them, her only connection to them is the Para-RAID, and soon the distance between them will grow too great to maintain that connection.
Lena bolts out of her control room and runs out of the headquarters, out into the streets, and just keeps running, all while Kurena, Raiden, Anju, Theo, and Shin describe their surroundings, mentioning a "cathedral" the same time we see the one in Lena's capital, and describing flowers that fall when you touch them carpeting the ground.
As they approach at the barrier of District 86 and the limits of the Republic's control area, Lena's desperate dash to maintain reception ends with her losing a heel and ending up collapsed on a lonely cobblestone bridge, suddenly, heartbreakingly alone. Her Para-RAID blinks out, and back at HQ the signals of the five remaining members of Spearhead are lost.
Losing Spearhead is just one of many burdens Lena will have to bear if she's truly serious about helping all Eighty Six—not just the ones with which she cultivated a quasi-friendship. Her resolute insistence on Doing What's Right despite being a devil demands she keep doing what she can—as long as she is able—to end the unjust suffering of the oppressed.
Author braveradePosted on Mon, 7 Jun 2021 Categories 86, Anime Reviews, Spring 2021Tags anju, annette, brother, crying, eighty six, final mission, futility, good and evil, goodbye, helping, hope, kurena, lena, loss, mortars, no-win situation, para-raid, republic, shin, shourei nouzen, shuga raiden, theo, unknown, villain, vision, vladilena mirize, voices, war
86 – 08 – We Weren't Ready
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.—Kay, Men In Black
The Alba are right: the Eighty Six aren't human. They're better than that. The humans who populate the serene Republic of San Magnolia blindly accept the government's policy of ethnic cleansing as the cost of peace, order, and harmony. Lena, like the Eighty Six, knows there's a wrong, but isn't prepared to do more wrong to right it.
It's why when Lena discovers the orders basically sentencing what's left of Spearhead to their almost certain deaths, she wants to rescind them. Annette pulls her out of the records room for some tea and biscuits, but when Lena once again says it's wrong not to try to do anything, all of the simmering resentment within Annette finally comes to a caustic boil.
Annette isn't merely "pretending" to be a bad person; she's fully embraced the role, heart and soul. She doesn't need an excuse to do nothing; her inaction has already caused the death of her former neighbor and friend (who it's pretty clear from the suspenders was none other than Nouzen Shinei) while her research is built upon the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of Eighty Six.
Like the vast majority of people would in such a situation, Annette chose not to fight a force that could not be beaten, but to join them. Even though her father committed suicide after the suffering he caused developing the Para-Raid, Annette carried on his work. She might've scared herself when she first called her friend a "filthy colored" like her classmates did, but that fear soon dissipated into acceptance.
After everything she's been through and done in the name of not being able to do anything else, Annette doesn't want to hear one more idealistic word out of Lena's mouth. After all, the Para-Raid that enables Lena to speak to Shin and the other members of Spearhead was the product of involuntary human experimentation and state-sanctioned suffering. So is her comfy bed, her crisp uniform, her tasty coffee and sweets. It's all tainted by evil.
Annette tells Lena she hates her and never wants to see her again. I mean, we already new full well Annette wouldn't join any potential crusade against injustice Lena might concoct, but this really twists the knife, as Lena doesn't even have a pretend friend in the capital in which to confide.
When she confronts her uncle before the statue of San Magnolia, he tells her the orders sending Spearhead to their deaths cant be recinded because it is the will of the republic that evry Eighty Six not only die, but be forgotten and erased from having ever existed. The only way San Magnolia will avoid becoming a pariah state after the war is if the atrocities they committed against the Eighty Six never come to light.
When Lena begs her uncle to remember the spirit of Saint Magnolia, he tells her their republic was never anything other than a country full of fools and villains who executed Magnolia for their wealth and greed. She says that's just his despair talking, but he doesn't consider his despair any different from her hope.
If Lena werent already having one of the worst days of her life, Shin also bids her farewell, fully accepting his suicide mission. Lena deduces he's going after his brother, but Shin doens't want her to hear his last words. Instead, he warns her that once the Shepherd is destroyed, the Legion is temporarily thrown into chaos, .
He urges her to head for the Eastern border, where she won't hear the Legion's voices and go mad. He and the others will buy her some time. With that, he signs off, for what seems like the last time. Now all Lena has is her tears.
With Lena left very much at rock bottom, we return to Spearhead, now only five strong: Kurena, Anju, Theo, Raiden, and Shin. They clean up their barracks, polish up their Juggernauts, have a final meal, and then set off on their deep recon mission with their heads held high.
As we've learned, they're not just doing this because the alternative is summary execution. They're doing it for their fallen comrades, and because just because they were always called pigs doesn't mean they'll become them. There's a biting sense of inescapable dread and crushing unfairness to their scenes. More than anything, they feel like five kids who shouldn't have to be anywhere near a battlefield.
Post-credits, we get one more taste of despair in the absence of anything else, in the form of the complete flashback of Shourei choking Shinei. He had been barely keeping it together before that point, crushed by his powerlessness to do anything about the loss of his parents. In a moment of weakness, he let himself blame Shinei for everything, and nearly killing him until someone pulls them apart.
A roboticized, Legionized Shourei narrates this final scene, lamenting that he couldn't protect Shinei before. But this time, as Shin and his four companions approach him and his Legion unit, Shourei says he'll protect his brother forever. All he has to do is come to him…which is what he's doing.
All I can say to any of this is damn…this is some good shit, but it is also incredibly heavy and upsetting. I can only hope that we'll get some glimmer of light at some point before the end…but that's hardly a sure thing.
Author braveradePosted on Sat, 29 May 2021 Tue, 1 Jun 2021 Categories 86, Anime Reviews, Spring 2021Tags alba, anju, annette, brother, despair, eighty six, final mission, fireworks, flashback, friendship, futility, good and evil, hope, kurena, lena, loss, para-raid, republic, shin, shinei nouzen, shourei nouzen, shuga raiden, slaughter, suicide, the truth, theo, villain, vladilena mirize, voices, war, war crimes4 Comments on 86 – 08 – We Weren't Ready
86 – 07 – Nobody Comes Back
86's structure returns to more of a mix of the processors' and Lena's perspectives rather than being split evenly, starting with the unit launching fireworks on the anniversary of the Republic's Great Revolution. Some are playing with sparklers, Anju is finally crying, and Kurena watches Shin off by himself talking to Lena.
Lena is the one who sent them the "special ammunition", emptying her wallet to bribe the quartermaster. It's a small gesture, but she can do it, so she does, and it also highlights her increasing disillusionment with the shallow material world she lives in. If it can soothe the hearts of those soldiers for just a few moments, it's worth all the money she has.
The superb juxtaposition of the fantasy world she inhabits with the realities of how it's maintained continues as Lena walks alone in a bustling plaza. Celebrating Alba citizens are stuffing their faces with fine food and wine and couples are whispering sweet nothings, and little kids are crying about something as little as tripping and falling (something Lena herself does in front of subordinates earlier, so nervous she was about the fireworks).
All the while, Lena is on her Para-RAID, listening to Kuren describe in unsparing detail all of the horrors processor see every day. Compared to watching their friends lose limbs, get their faces shredded, their bodies burned, their guts ripped open, and screaming in pain as they die, the voices of the long dead are nothing.
Because Lena is a kind and virtuous person, she never stops requesting reinforcements from the surrounding units, even "overstepping herself" in the eyes of her Uncle Jerome to complain directly to him about the lack of progress in her request. He assures her "the resupply and Processor replacement plans for the Eastern Theater are a settled matter."
She takes that to mean resupply reinforcements are on their way to Spearhead, and Jerome pointedly doesn't dispel that misconception. Despite what she takes as good news, she obeys the letter of her uncle's order to attend the Revolution gala in an "appropriate dress"—which for Lena, can only be mourning black.
When the time she usually contacts Shin passes, he ends up calling her, which may just be a first, and she's clearly thankful to be called away from the boring festivities. She heads out into the courtyard to watch the city's fireworks display, marred by light pollution, almost letting slip that she wishes she could watch the fireworks she sent with Shin, modifying her hope that all of them can watch them together when the war is over.
Lena knows Shin once watched fireworks with his brother, and Shin is happy Lena remembered her brother when he was still his brother, something he can't do anymore. Shin also reports Anju was finally able to cry, making the fireworks a unique opportunity for 86 to have a memorial gun salute. When asked if she'll remember them all, Lena says she will, but before that, she won't let anyone else die.
Rewinding a bit to the morning Shin received the delivery of fireworks, Anju and Kurena, the last two girls left in Spearhead, discuss whether they should "tell" Lena a secret they still carry, now that it's clear she's a good person. Anju warns that Shin and Raiden probably aren't telling her because she's a good person they don't want to hurt more than they need to.
We also learn Anju has words scarred into her back, and while she grew her hair out to hide them, Daiya thought she did it because her hair was so pretty. Now that it's just her and Kurena, and Daiya is gone, she sees no reason to hide it anymore. As for Kurena, she knows when they die "their Reaper" Shin will make sure they're properly sent off. What she fears most is when he's the only one of them left…who will carry his heart?
Two days after the fireworks and Lena's vow not to let anyone else to die, Spearhead attacks the forward base knowing full well it's a trap, and are then assaulted by a new ultra-long range Legion artillery cannon. Within seconds, four more soldiers are killed. Hopefully they died instantly, because Shin obeys Lena's retreat order, knowing if they stay they could be wiped out entirely.
When they manage to shake off their Legion pursuers, Lena launches into a diatribe about reinforcements and how it simply "doesn't make sense" that a unit as important as Spearhead hasn't received any in all the time she's been their Handler. That's when Shin asks the others if it's okay to "tell her", and they all agree. She's earned enough trust to learn yet another horrible truth.
Shin, Raiden, Theo, Anju, and Kurena all take turns telling Lena that nothing she does will change a single thing, ever. They're going to get wiped out, because they're supposed to get wiped out. The "replacements" Jerome told her about are the Processors that come after them, but they won't come until every last one of them is dead. Nobody ever leaves the 86th District. The five-years thing is a lie…of course it is.
The higher-ups are able to determine which Eighty-Six are smart by how long they survive, and place them in increasingly dangerous positions until finally they arrive at the Spearhead. They're not in an elite squad because they're the best at fighting the Legion. They're there to be killed off so no strong strategic or tactical Eighty-Six minds will ever be able to lead a rebellion against the Alba.
Now that she knows replacements won't come until all of them are dead, Lena doesn't want to believe it, but she believes them anyway. When she asks why they don't simply run, or let the Legion through, it's for many reasons. First, to honor those lost before them. Second: just as not all 86 are good, not all Alba are scum.
An Alba woman raised Raiden. Shin was raised by an Alba priest who refused to give up his land and was sent to the camps. Theo's captain was an Alba. They knew some of the good Alba, while Kurena and Anju knew the very worst. They mention how Kaie was abused by other 86 for her skin color, while many of them have Alba blood.
Raiden says just because some of the Alba are scum who treat them like scum, doing the same doesn't make them better. Even if they have no choice but to face the gallows, they can at least choose how they'll climb up there. So they'll keep surviving as long as they can. With increasingly advanced Legion—controlled by Shin's brother's brain—slowly advancing, that may not be long at all.
Now that Lena knows all of these things, simple gestures of kindness or little acts of resistance against her apathetic, hedonistic society probably won't suffice anymore. All her hopes were riding on reinforcements that she now knows aren't coming. And if Shin and the others are right, slaughtering their best frontline shoulders will eventually lead to the Legion invading the Alba districts.
So really, Lena can see the gallows in the distance as well. The difference is, she may still be do something other than merely decide how to climb up to them. With the help from what's left of Spearhead, there's a slight chance she can change all their fates.
Author braveradePosted on Sun, 23 May 2021 Categories 86, Anime Reviews, Spring 2021Tags alba, anju, annette, brother, communication, eighty six, fireworks, futility, ghosts, good and evil, kurena, lena, para-raid, party, reinforcements, remembered, remembering, republic, shin, shuga raiden, slaughter, the truth, theo, vladilena mirize, voices, war1 Comment on 86 – 07 – Nobody Comes Back
86 – 06 – Just a Question of When
Now that the ghostly, ghastly sci-fi horror elements of 86 have been introduced, we look back to worse times when Shin found the headless corpse of his brother in a once-grand bombed-out city (shades of Osgilliath) four years ago.
Then we look back to better times four months ago, when the ranks of Spearhead were a lot larger and livelier. Anju and Daiya began a kind of tender courtship while Shin lets it all soak in, perhaps knowing full well that it isn't a matter of if things will go to shit, but when, and for whom.
In the present day it's a hot July day, and everyone is baking in their metal coffins. They engage in a battle in which they are at a distinct disadvantage without mortar support, which the Republic hasn't and won't ever provide. The lighter mood caused by reminiscing about four months ago is shattered when Rikka gets into trouble and Daiya tries to rescue her.
Rikka's mech is wrecked, and a Legion mech approaches her, she shoots herself in the head, her final words hoping Shin will "take care of things" from there. Daiya is surrounded by horrifying suicide bomber bots, and his last word is Anju who must quickly get over the shock of his loss and continue the battle.
Later, Shin ensures for Daiya what Rikka ensured with her self-inflicted headshot: that neither of them will join the ranks of the undead Legion. He gives Lena the opportunity to shut off the Para-Raid, but she considers it her duty to hear the shot being fired.
Down another two soldiers, Spearhead now has only sixteen soldiers left, and those lost will not be replaced before the next battle. Both the grieving Anju and the others try to hide how much this sucks with protective smiles and cheerfulness. Shin collects two more metal shards to remember Daiya and Rikka, then recalls how his brother hasn't forgiven him for getting him and their parents killed. His search for his brother's head continues.
Unlike past episodes that better mixed up Lena and Shin's experiences, we're back to one section being all Spearhead and the other being all Lena. It's Lena's birthday when Daiya and Rikka die, and Annette makes her a cake and gives her a present. She also casually talks about how 86 are dissected like lab animals if there's a problem with the Para-Raid, while of course Republic soldiers are treated far more humanely.
There's been a tension building for some time between these two between idle chatter about Annette's suitors and cake ingredients. It doesn't seem the thoroughly jaded and complacent Annette will ever come around to Lena's increased empathy for the 86.
Lena's isolation is further reinforced in her briefing with her uncle. She suggests the Republic deploy the mortars in order to protect the lives of the 86. He responds by again warning her not to "side with the 86", and that under no circumstances would Republic soldiers ore resources be spent to aid them. As Handler she's merely responsible for making sure they follow their orders.
But Lena has obviously started to do far more than that. Unlike her uncle and Annette, whom I'm sure believe are "doing all they can", her threshold for what "what she can" entails continues to expand. She has a corkboard with hand-drawn sketches of the remaining Spearhead soldiers on her desk, while by the window is a crystal case containing those who have been lost.
After signing off with everyone else, Lena is kept on the line by Shin, who voices concern for her because sounds on edge. He suggests she eat some sweets and use the evening to take a break from all these troubles. To Lena, he sounds just like his brother, who gave her chocolate when things were bad. She remarks on how important she regards her memories of him, while also letting slip how important she considers her time talking with with Shin.
When she realizes how that sounds, she turns red as a beet, a color that intensifies when she unwraps the fortune chocolate to reveal a heart. Of course, as she's an Alba and a Republic Handler while he's an 86 Processor and it's a very bad idea to fall in love with him, I won't go so far as to say nothing good can come of it.
One day, he'll be the only member of Spearhead left, and then he'll die. But Shinei Nouzen still won't die alone, and he won't be forgotten. It's not nearly enough, but we can be assured, when that time comes, Lena will do everything she possibly can, even if it makes her a pariah in her world. There's no going back.
Author braveradePosted on Sun, 16 May 2021 Mon, 17 May 2021 Categories 86, Anime Reviews, Spring 2021Tags action, anju, annette, brother, communication, connection, conscience, crush, daiya irma, eighty six, father, flashback, flashbacks, futility, ghosts, handler, ideals, lena, para-raid, party, rekka rin, remembering, shin, shinei nouzen, shourei nouzen, the truth, theo, undertaker, vladilena mirize, voices, war1 Comment on 86 – 06 – Just a Question of When
86 – 05 – Ghosts In the Machines
This week we learn the details of how Shin's brother saved Lena's life when the helicopter she and her father were on crashed. Despite having everything taken from him by the Alba, Shourei was still a proud soldier of the Republic, and saving Lena—and giving her chocolate to eat—was his solemn duty.
Lena had seen and heard from her father how her people had done horrible things to the 86, so when Shourei's stomach grumbled, she split the chocolate with him. It's just that by the end of this episode, I wonder if it wouldn't have been easier for Lena if that approaching Legion had killed her, though even then, it wasn't a sure thing she'd remain dead.
The morning after reliving the most traumatic experience of her life, Lena is once again approached by Annette, who once again has a tasty dessert for her to try, and shifts the talk to party dresses for the upcoming Revolution Festival. Even Annette's "memorial" to all her past suitors on the wall remind Lena of the actual memorial she just visited, as well as Shin's undertaker role.
Even Shin tells Lena to go have fun; she's not expected to spend all her time with Handler duties. As she talks to Shin, she encounters two other soldiers flirting on the stairs and gets a little flustered herself, but any thoughts of kicking back and partying are dashed when Shin announces out of the blue that the Legion are coming—despite there not being any warnings on Lena's end.
Shin also makes the unprecedented request that Lena switch off her Para-Raid for the coming battle, as there are a lot of "Black Sheep" approaching. Lena resolutely refuses to disconnect, and Shin makes it clear that he warned her. As Shin and the others engage, Lena starts to hear strange voices among the static: the sounds of peoples' last moments…including Kaie's "I don't want to die."
The voices keep repeating and echoing in Lena's head, and immediately it becomes clear why so many other Handlers went mad; even in her bedroom with the Para-Raid deactivated, merely reaching for it causes all the voices to rush back into her head. But while no previous Handler ever called back after hearing the voices, Lena still calls Shin back. She had to; she needs answers to what the hell just happened.
Shin is happy to provide the answers, but they're all horrific downers. He can always engage the Legion before Lena even gets an alert because he can always hear the voices of ghosts of those who have died, but are still there.
Despite the Republic's official stance that the war will end in two years when the Legion's AI will shut down, Shin knows better: the Legion have been taking the brains of fallen 86 and copying them to replace the function of the AI due to shut down, thus extending their operating time—and thus the war—indefinitely.
This means the Republic, whose Alba citizens are so keen to hold swanky parties and get drunk and bang, believe they have the war in the bag when in reality, their defeat is almost assured. Not only will the Legion not shut down, but they've been building up their numbers, all while the 86 have dwindled to a smattering of children. Soon, Shin says, all of them will be dead.
When that happens, will the Alba fight in their place? Shin doesn't think it likely. Even if they did, they'd be outmatched, since some of the brains recovered by the Legion were undamaged enough to create "Shepherds"—ghost commanders who make their Legion units significantly more powerful and adaptive.
Lena says if all that is the case, they simply need to wipe out the Legion before the 86 are wiped out, and before Shin's service time expires. She wants the two of them to win and survive. But as Shin reveals a huge scar around his neck and recalls his brother choking him and saying "It's your fault!", it doesn't seem Shin is interested in surviving. It's also looking like his brother's brain is one of those Shepherds.
Lena's struggle to bring justice and dignity to the 86 seemed quaint and woefully insufficient before we learned the Republic are actually massive underdogs in this war, which won't end when they expect it. With all this new information, it almost seems like Lena attending that party with Annette and getting blackout drunk would be equally as productive as anything else she could do.
Maybe that's why Annette warned Lena not to get too close to the 86: because she too knows the truth (or a measure of it), and that there's nothing left for them to do but enjoy life while the living's good.
Author braveradePosted on Sun, 9 May 2021 Categories 86, Anime Reviews, Spring 2021Tags action, annette, black sheep, brother, communication, connection, conscience, eighty six, father, flashback, futility, ghosts, handler, hypocrisy, ideals, kaie, lena, para-raid, party, shin, shinei nouzen, shourei nouzen, stupid, the truth, theo, undertaker, vladilena mirize, voices, war
86 – 04 – Your Names.
After Theo lays into Lena for her hypocrisy, Raiden asks that she cut the connection for now. While Theo went too far, no one is in the mood for another "friendly chat" with her. Theo ends up regretting his rant for "tainting" Kaie's death, making him no different from the white pigs.
After Anju, Kurena and Rekka grab Theo and mend his jacket button, he heads to the hangar to ask Shin what the "Fox commander" would have said to the Handler, a white pig who thinks she's a saint for getting all buddy-buddy with them. As he secures a scrap of Kaie's Juggernaut, Shin simply says the commander wouldn't have said that.
While Theo's comrades help him to process his grief and rage, all Lena's "best friend" Annette has for her is pudding and platitudes. I'm not here to say Annette is a coward or a monster—it's not that simple—but she is an unapologetic cog in a monstrous machine, believes there's "nothing she can do" to change that, and strongly suggests Lena give up on the 86, and join her at the lab.
It also seems like her patience with Lena's idealism is wearing thin. Even if she's not a true believer and sees the injustice in their world, she resents Lena's continued insistence the worlds can and should be bridged. "There's pudding here, and not there" is as chillingly banal a defense of slavery ethnic cleansing as I've ever heard.
Not satisfied to eat away her pain, the evening light from the windows of HQ calls to Lena's mind a memory of riding with her father in a helicopter over the 86 concentration camps. She doesn't remember much of what happened afterwards, but we can see the chopper was shot down and he tried to protect her from an attacking Legion mecha.
Lena tells her uncle about that memory, and how it allowed her to hold the ideals that the Republic threw away (as she says this, we see the statue of the gorgeous Wagnerian Valkyrie representing those ideals, while the fountain below is fouled with empty bottles and trash. 86's visuals are rarely subtle, but they are damned effective!
Her uncle dispenses with the pudding analogies and tells Lena straight up that her father was a kind man and a good father, but at the end of the day he was doing nothing more than watching and talking about making it a better place. All he ended up achieving was getting himself killed and planting a potentially equally fatal seed of idealism in Lena. Her uncle probably wishes his niece wasn't so intent on making those ideals real, as her father was, because the whole point of ideals are that they are unattainable, and trying to achieve the impossible is "foolish and cowardly."
Still, she refuses to step down as Spearhead's Handler. Her talks with Annette and her uncle leave her as frustrated as ever, and as she overhears another propaganda report on the public monitor, she hears Theo's truer words over the reporter's, reaches a breaking point, and initializes synchronization with Undertaker.
Lena runs to the War Casualties Cemetery, where not a single one of the 86 who have fallen has a grave. She begins by apologizing to Undertaker, then asking if she can learn the names of the members of Spearhead. Shin assures her that what Theo said wasn't what they all thought, and they realize she didn't create this world and can't fix it on her own, so she doesn't have to blame herself for "not doing the impossible".
He continues by asserting that callsigns are used and Processor files locked so that Handlers won't get too attached to them, or become overwhelmed by all the inevitable loss. But Lena doesn't care; she doesn't want to be a coward anymore. She asks again for their names, and writes them down as Shin gives them to her.
Then she hears him carving into the scrap of metal for Kaie, and he explains his duty of ensuring those who have been lost are remembered through the ritual, which is partly how he got the name "Undertaker". He tells her Kaie was the 561st person for whom he's carved a name, meaning he's faced each and every one of the people who died beside him. Lena laments having never faced the deaths that occurred under her watch—only felt vaguely bad about them.
Lena then asks for Shin to broadcast her to everyone in the unit so she can apologize to them for not treating them as humans and not even realizing it. She learns from Theo that the previous Laughing Fox was an Alba like her. He was one of them, but as long as she's inside the walls, they'll never accept her as one of theirs. Raiden adds that while they're sorry for thinking she was a "wannabie saint" and "hypocrite pig", he still doesn't think she's cut out to be a Handler.
In a private chat with Shin later, Lena gets his name: Shinei Nouzen, and asks him if he knew a Shourei Nouzen, AKA Dullahan. Shin's memories of Shourei (with his face scratched out) flood his head, leading him to crack an exceedingly rare smile as he tells her he was his brother.
Throughout all of this, we see the past structure of the series begin to break down, with far more cuts back and forth between Lena and Shin's worlds. Now that she knows the real names of her unit, she's rejected the cold complicity of her so-called best friend and jaded uncle.
They told her to extricate herself from this mess, but she decided to dive in deeper, and the more frequent cuts between the worlds is a sign of that fresh devotion to living a more honest life and not giving up on the ideals everyone else has. This episode lacked any battle action and was essentially a simple sequence of discussions.
Despite that, I was never once bored by the visuals that accompanied those talks, which more often than not were arresting both in the reality of the images presented and the interplay between them and the subject matter. I said last week Lena would have to do more to reconcile her ideals and actions, and she took the first steps here. A hard road lies ahead, but as her father's daughter she's determined to walk it. She's had enough of pudding.
Author braveradePosted on Sun, 2 May 2021 Sun, 2 May 2021 Categories 86, Anime Reviews, Spring 2021Tags action, anju, annette, apologies, brother, communication, connection, conscience, coward, different worlds, eighty six, father, handler, hypocrisy, ideals, in too deep, kaie, lena, names, sci-fi, shin, shinei nouzen, shourei nouzen, spearhead, stupid, the truth, theo, undertaker, vaclav, vladilena mirize1 Comment on 86 – 04 – Your Names.
86 – 03 – The Bitter Truth
The third episode of Eighty Six begins ominously, with Lena apologizing for the loss of Kirschblüte, and another pilot looking ready to explode into a tirade. But before we hear that we're sent back to happier times, with the female members of Spearhead bathing and having fun in the river
In a scenario typical of high school camping trip, three lads try to catch a glimpse of "heaven on earth", only the women they're peeping on happen to be ready to switch from laughing and playing to having their weapons drawn and trained on them in no time.
During the bathing scene we learn that Kurena likes Shin, and is also jealous and angry that Shin is always talking with Handler One. When she storms off in the middle of a group chat with Lena, Daiya chases her down, and when she says she hates her and wants Shin to "break" her like the others, Daiya asks her if that's really what she wants Shin to think she truly believes.
Kurena comes back to join the rest of the group, who are describing a recent meteor shower to Lena, who doesn't get to see the stars due to the lights of the city. Kirschblüte, AKA Kaie, admits to Lena that she doesn't believe all Alba are bad, just as not all Eighty Six are good. She just has one question for Lena.
Before we hear what Kaie's question is, we go back a bit to before the conversation, this time in Lena's world as she searches for maps to help her unit. While Spearhead are all gathered in the common room of their dingy makeshift barracks, Lena is all alone at her desk in her immaculate and ornate bedchamber. Even so, it feels like she's remotely enjoying their company, reacting and laughing along with them.
That's when Kaie asks: Why do you care about us so much? Lena answers: she was saved on the battlefield by a Processor, who told her they were members of the Republic, born and raised. For him it was an honor to serve that Republic. Since then, she's made a point to live up to the example set by his words. Kaie first calls her an idealist virgin, then assures her she's not a bad person, which is why she believes Lena isn't cut out to be a Handler. She warns her not to get too involved with them.
Still, Lena has her code of honor, and she continues to follow it, making immediate use of the maps she found to aid Shin and Spearhead during their next engagement. Then it becomes clear we're about to arrive at the foreboding moment in the cold open, as Kirschblüte ends up immobilized by an unexpected bog, where she becomes easy prey to a Legion unit.
Kaie's last words are No. I don't want to die, but what's so haunting is how she says them. I'd describe her tone as…miffed? Frustrated, not panicked. It's a harrowing, claustrophobic moment, and it's heartwrenching to watch Lena squirm in her seat, forced to watch the inevitable unfold via sterile, abstract graphics on a glowing monitor, powerless to stop it.
The mission ends in success, but the loss of Kirschblüte hangs heavily on Lena's conscience. But Theo, the pissed-off kid who unloads on her, doesn't have time for her act. Not when he just lost his comrade. He makes it clear to her that not a single one of them has time to deal with her hypocrisy, sending them out to fight and die against their will from her warm safe place. Lena's face contorts with reactions to his words, which are, by the way, absolutely correct.
Lena is a hypocrite. At the end of the day, she wears the uniform of a nation that treats the Eighty Six as inhuman chattel. Just because she's nice to them doesn't change that. Her empathy and good intentions aren't enough to bridge the gap between them.
If she truly wants to live up to the ideals of the Processor who saved her, Major Vladilena Mirizé will have to reject them, because they were false. She can either let Theo's harsh words break her, or she can hear them, accept them, and start to do more—much more—to fight against the intolerable injustice.
Author braveradePosted on Sat, 24 Apr 2021 Categories 86, Anime Reviews, Spring 2021Tags action, anju, communication, conscience, daiya, eighty six, handler, haruto, hypocrisy, kaie, kurena, legion, lena, maps, mecha, names, peeping tom, rapport, san magnolia, sawano hiroyuki, sci-fi, shin, spearhead, the truth, theo, undertaker, vladilena mirize1 Comment on 86 – 03 – The Bitter Truth
86 – 02 – The Two Decisions
Aldrecht, Spearhead's Juggernaut engineer and mechanic, scolds Shin once again for being so reckless with a piece of equipment for which there are no spare parts…except those from the Juggernauts of fallen soldiers. But relying on such parts isn't a problem for someone with the callsign Undertaker, who has an entire chest full of names of the dead under his command.
In this 86th district where Shin and his comrades are stuck having to fight for an uncaring republic and oblivious public, the skies are blue and bright, and the grass and trees as green and lush as the other 85 districts of Magnolia, but all that matters is fighting the next battle and coming out of it in one piece.
No doubt used to taking the initiative due to incompetent or disinterested Handlers, Shin deploys Spearhead well before Lena gives the initial order to sortie, and establishes a different kill zone different from the one she chose. Lena trusts an elite processor's instincts, and the battle commences as a cloud of tiny radar-jamming machines darken the sky.
They provide cover to a host of menacing, gleaming chrome Legion machines, a stark contrast to the rusty, old-fashioned, and very manned—Republic Juggernauts. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if there are people inside the Legion machines too, but I don't think 86 is going in that particular direction.
Instead we get a bad-ass battle sequence scored by the Sawano Hiroyuki, whose reliably epic orchestral bombast calls to mind both greats like Attack on Titan and not-so-greats like Aldnoah.Zero. I'm on record as being down with anything for which this guy does the music; he always elevates it.
That said, the battle is more than awesome music. Despite being outnumbered, outgunned, and outteched, Shin and Spearhead prove to be a formidable match for the contingent of unfeeling autonomous machines. The battle is won without any casualties.
86 establishes its structural template of spending one half with Lena and half with Shin, only the reverse of the first episode. Lena's half follows Shin's, and we see how calm, quiet, and sterile her experience of the battle is compared to Shin and the other soldiers.
It's also nice to see her exchange with Shin repeated so we can catch her facial expressions; particularly her reaction to her data transmission snafu she made. By not cutting back and forth between the two in real time, the distance between their experiences is amplified. Pressing the point that Lena's experience is all theory and Shin's is all practical, Lena pays a visit to a lecture hall at the academy.
Lena explicitly asked to address the future Handlers, and she starts by debunking many of the lies their professor was spouting. To her, the 86 are in fact human, even if they don't have silver hair and blue eyes—the Alba clearly being an analogue to the "superior" Aryan race espoused by the Nazis.
Lena is confident her uncle will bail her out of any potential punishment for speaking the truth, but more troubling is that none of the youths seems to share her concerns, while Annette would clearly prefer her friend keep her head down. Lena is spitting in the wind.
She returns to her room and engages in enthusiastic conversation with Shin, and later his entire unit. Many of them still aren't quite sure what to make of this Handler with a conscience, only that despite being the same age she seems hopelessly young and naïve.
Judging from some of their downcast expressions, it's almost rubbing salt in the wound that she's being so nice to them, considering she's working for the system forcing them to fight and die while denying their status as human beings.
Still…Lena is nice, and kind, and wants to understand and help in any way she can. Just as her nation made the two decisions to create 85 districts for the Alba and one for the 86, she made two decisions as well: first, to be Spearhead's Handler, and second, to treat them like human beings. She even hopes Shin reaches his combat term limit so he can regain his citizenship and get to do something or go somewhere fun.
I don't know if Shin smirks because what she said genuinely raised his spirits, or if it's a grim scoff, as if to say "would you listen to this kid?" All I know is he's already more interesting than Inaho, and any dialogue with a Handler with ideals and morals must be a pleasant surprise in a world where most surprises aren't.
Author braveradePosted on Sat, 17 Apr 2021 Sun, 18 Apr 2021 Categories 86, Anime Reviews, Spring 2021Tags academy, action, battle, communication, conscience, drones, eighty six, elite, giadian empire, handler, haves and have nots, legion, lena, mecha, propaganda, san magnolia, sawano hiroyuki, sci-fi, shin, speaking out, spearhead, supremacists, the truth, undertaker, vladilena mirize
86 – 01 (First Impressions) – There but for the Grace of God Go I
Here's a little story about the term "86" that I looked up after the title of this series piqued my interest: back in the 30s during prohibition there was a speakeasy on 86 Bedford Street in NYC, and when the cops arrived, its patrons would "86"—quickly flee—from the premises using various hidden exits. Since then, 86ing has also developed as a term to reject, discard, or cancel—86ing an idea, and such.
The second and now more common definition applies to the eponymous military unit of discarded humans in the 86th District of the Republic of San Magnolia. Despite national propaganda in the other districts that assures the public that war is now fought by bloodless drones, that's just a lie: the 86 are very much flesh-and-blood, and they're dying for a nation that doesn't know they exist.
The 86 units are led by Processors, who answer to Handlers operating from the safety of San Magnolia's luxurious military HQ. Major Vladilena Mirizé is one such Handler—and also one of the only ones with a conscience and who feels the weight of the lives at her fingertips. Much of HQ is a den of hedonism, with drunk and carousing Handlers either unaware their decisions cost human lives, or worse: they're well aware and don't care.
Lena cares, however. She tries to keep an open and cordial dialogue with her Processors on the battlefield, who thank her sarcastically. In between operations, she hangs out with her researcher friend Annette, who like Lena is following in her late father's footsteps. One day, Lena is reassigned by her commanding general, who is also her uncle, to command of Defense Line 1 in Eastern Defense Line Combat District 1, AKA the Spearhead Squadron.
Warning his niece—the youngest person ever to rise to the rank of Major—that feigning modesty will make unwanted enemies, the General also informs her that the Processor who leads Spearhead is called Undertaker, AKA Reaper, which is notorious for destroying Handlers, either by forcing them to retire or change units or, in some cases, commit suicide. Lena, insistent she's no coward, takes the assignment, but not without a generous helping of dread.
From there the perspective shifts to Processor Shin and the 86, of whom we caught a brief glimpse prior to the title card, fighting a battle that was a chaotic storm of smoke, metal, fire, and blood. But during their downtime, the unit of "grizzled veterans" is nothing more than a bunch of kids. Iron-blooded orphans, if you will, seeking fun and joy and love where they can, but also carrying the scars of their ordeal and their lot in life on their sleeves.
The 86 are mustered for a sortie, and one of them ends up seriously injured inside his spider-like mecha. There are no medics, but Shin the "Reaper" puts his comrade out of his misery with a single bullet, cutting a scrap of metal out of the mecha and later carving his name on it—a grim ritual for a leader tortured by loss and the futility of their shared struggle.
That night after dinner when the 86ers are cleaning up and preparing to go down for the night, Shin and the others receive a message in their ears from their new Handler, Major Vladilena Mirizé, cheerfully introducing herself and looking forward to working with them. Shin answers cordially, while one of his soldiers sketches a caricature of the woman he hears: an aristocratic pig in a frilly dress.
It is in this horrifically unbalanced world of haves, have-nots, and One Big Lie that a young man and young woman from different sides are introduced. Will the rumored "voices of the dead" that caused Lena's predecessors to go mad have a different effect on her, due to her commitment to regarding the 86 as actual living, breathing people?
Will Lena, in turn, show the perennially abused and oppressed child soldiers that not all Handlers are sadistic scum who deserve a fate worse than death? Follow the visually impressive and thematically compelling 86 along with me, and ye shall find out.
Author braveradePosted on Sat, 10 Apr 2021 Sat, 10 Apr 2021 Categories 86, Anime Reviews, Spring 2021Tags a-1 pictures, action, big lie, cannon fodder, caste system, command and control, conscience, drones, giadian empire, handler, haves and have nots, legion, lena, mecha, military, propaganda, san magnolia, sawano hiroyuki, sci-fi, shinn, spearhead, undertaker, vladilena mirize, war
RABUJOI – An Anime Blog Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.


A twenty-eight year old man is charged with murder in connection with the Christchurch mosque shootings. The New Zealand Prime Minister, says gun laws will be overhauled. We look into the spread of white supremacist ideology. Also: An international agreement has been reached to cut single-use plastics over the coming decade.


I think we pissed off the weather gods with all our complaining about the cold spring we've been having because it responded with a little mini heat wave over the weekend. It's completely weird to be in sweaters one day and sunscreen and sundresses the next. I'd forgotten what it feels like to have that tight, itchy skin from being outside for most of the day, despite copious amounts of sunscreen slathered on. It was that hot. Mark was busy this weekend with the Flea and prepping for a catering gig for Monday, so aside from a family trip to Ikea and Fairway in Red Hook, the girls were with me. Hot days are best spent getting mint iced tea at the Farmers Market and lying on a blanket in the shade in Prospect Park, our first real picnic of the year. Both the girls were ecstatic to put on summer dresses for the first time this season. They kept admiring themselves in the mirror while Claudine repeatedly whispered with a heavy sigh, "wow. These are very fancy dresses".
Hot weather here in on our end of the street also marks the return of impromptu stoop and sidewalk parties with our neighbors. Sprinklers are put out to cool down, sidewalks are colored with chalk mud, watergun fights and scooter races ensue, and beer, wine and pizza is shared by all. It can be a bit of a zoo with all the kids and water flying around and I have a feeling that our block is getting a reputation as the most annoying block to walk on during the summertime in our neighborhood, but this is urban living. Kind of like how I grew up playing kick the can and spud, except our parents were inside while all the kids from the block played on the street. Times have changed in that regard, but the spirit is the same.
Hehehe I love Claudine's comment about the dresses.
That sounds so 'Do The Right Thing' 🙂 In London it was been deliciously warm as well!
On the street, playing with a dog, eating pizza, sprinklers, etc. Sounds like a very nice day.
It's been hot here, too. I responded by ordering popsicle molds. Gotta be prepared, right?
all sounds lovely (and fancy) 😉 . . . your sense of community there sure pretty cool. good neighbors are a gift, aren't they?!
I just finished drooling over your etsy shop so I thought I would pop over and check out your blog. I love your blog too! Your girls are cuties! We had one hot day here in Morocco and now we are back to the cold.
Kick the Can and Spud!! Me too.


First » Soham Whispers But Loudly !!!
Hurray...I too started Blogging !!!!!!!!!!
How and Why I started Blogging?
What will I be carving in my blog?
Well, as such till now I have not thought what I will be writing on my blog but may be one can expect my thoughts on current affairs especially in 'Indian Politics' and 'Cricket' , Some out-of-ordinary things happening in my routine life, about some happy moments I go thru, may be movie reviews some time and, some boring random thoughts which will rush out from my perplexed mind…And yeah, sometimes I may come up with new technology talks and some cool new softwares which I found and used recently…So it will be a bag of mix chocolates…I hope you enjoy them !!!!


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text:
Japan Tobacco Inc. (JTI) results of its Japan Smoking Rate Survey..
October 23, 2008 - JTI today, 10/23/2008 announced the results of its Japan Smoking Rate Survey, a study that has been carried out annually since 1965. Based on official population figures from the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications that in April 2008 put Japan's total population at 104.22 million, including 50.23 million men and 53.99 million women, Japan's smoking population is 25.7 per cent of the total population, down from 26.0 per cent last year. Japan has about 26.80 million smokers, down from 27.00 million last year, according to a survey carried out in May by Japan Tobacco Inc, which has been conducting annual surveys since 1965.
The number of male smokers was down from 20.16 million last year to 19.84 million this year, while the number of female smokers was up from 6.84 million to 6.96 million. According to the survey, 39.5 percent of men are smokers, down from 40.2 per cent last year, while 12.9 percent of women smoke, up from 12.7 per cent.
In 2007, JTI had a 66.2 percent cigarette market share, followed by Philip Morris International with 24.3 percent and British American Tobacco (BAT) with 8.4 percent.
Reference: JT's Annual Survey Finds 25.7 percent of Japanese Adults Are Smokers..
50% of JTI is owned by the Japanese government.
Posted by tobaccowatch.org Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 8:52 AM
Bloomberg Grant: Tobacco Reforms in Pakistan..
Nigeria House Passes Anti-smoking Bill...
In Process - UST, Inc. posted lower third-quarter...
Philip Morris USA request stop in San Francisco's...
No Downturn for Tobacco in Tough Economic Times - ...
In Process - Altria Reports 2008 Third-Quarter Res...
U.S. - Panel Calls for Adult Smokers to Get Pneumo...
Japan Tobacco Inc. (JTI) results of its Japan Smok...
RAI 2008 3rd quarter - cigarette volume down, Conw...
Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI) Reports 200...
Nearly 40 million tobacco deaths since October 25,...
Japanese tobacco giants focus on point-of-sales ci...
Gallaher criticized for marketing cigarettes at yo...
Gallaher targets teenage girls with 'super slim' S...
Saudi court set to hear tobacco compensation case....
Egypt, CAPMAS Study Graphic Photos on Cigarette P...
San Francisco - cigarette sales rise sharply in c-...
Women Smokers Prone to Dangerous Blood Vessel Cond...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS — All it took was one sentence from Dwyane Wade to stir up the fireworks for this 4th of July weekend long before the actual fireworks show was supposed to begin.
"Things are getting very interesting," Wade said, after exiting his second meeting with the Chicago Bulls, his hometown team.
Of course, the Bulls have to meet with LeBron James today. And I'd imagine a commitment from James would change things for all involved.
But while we wait, there is now a growing sentiment that perhaps Wade, and maybe even Chris Bosh, could be the Bulls' biggest targets in this free agent frenzy rather than James.
Again, everything could change this afternoon, after the Bulls meet with James, who also has a meeting with the Cleveland Cavaliers on his schedule.
The Bulls clearly don't intend to leave the summer without adding at least one of the marquee names joining Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah in the house Michael Jordan built.
For the longest time we were convinced here at the hideout that it would be James first and then maybe Joe Johnson or even young Rudy Gay if the first option didn't work out. But with both Gay (who has agreed to terms with the Grizzlies) and Johnson (who has yet to agree to a maximum deal offered by the Hawks) seemingly out of the picture, things are indeed getting very interesting for all involved.
Since the start of NBA free agency, the Miami Heat expected Dwyane Wade to do what free agents do: talk.
Until Friday, there barely was a hint of what free agents also could do: walk.
With Wade meeting with the Chicago Bulls for the second time in as many days since the start of the free-agency period, concerns have grown somewhat elevated about the future of the All-Star guard who has called South Florida home for all seven of his NBA seasons.
Summoned for a second meeting by his hometown Bulls, Wade apparently finds himself part of a second plot to place three of the leading free agents in the same landing spot, similar to the Miami Thrice approach the Heat is hoping to work with Wade, Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James and Toronto Raptors forward Chris Bosh.
The difference is the Bulls literally have all their ducks in order, with Friday's meeting with Wade followed by a late-night presentation to Bosh in Chicago and then a Saturday presentation to James in Cleveland.
The Heat met Friday with James in Cleveland, after meeting Thursday with Bosh in Chicago.
While Friday's meeting with the Bulls in the offices of Wade's Chicago-based agent Henry Thomas heightened concern about Wade's future, Heat President Pat Riley downplayed any doomsday scenario.
"We feel very strongly about our commitment to Dwyane and our fans," Riley said.
Riley doesn't sound like a worried man. But until this thing shakes out, folks in Chicago, Cleveland and Miami remain anxious about who will land in their cities.
Now that the news of Bosh heading and Wade staying in Miami is announced.
1) The biggest loser in decision 2010 is NJ. NY at least got Amar'e.
2) Even if LBJ goes to Miami, and that is a big IF, they still need a decent Center.
But with only minimum contracts left I doubt they can sign a center at the level of Haywood.
Thus, even if the triffid is made all three must be healthy ALL SEASON LONG.
Which is a harder task for the triffid then winning a Championship.
3) Like "LAKESHOW" said the result of decision 2010 will eventually be result to 4 "good" teams, but no "great" team in the east.
4) Chemistry-wise, with no disrespect to the Thunders, the Thunders will have better chemistry then the newly assembled Heats.
5) Last but not least, if LA gets Haywood with out lossing the starting 5. They will threepeat.
LOL… Told you WG… dream world.
Wade and Bosh are signing to Miami, check the news.
LBJ will not go to the Bulls, he will stay in Cleveland, and NEVER win a championship, joining the Charles Barkleys and John Stocktons.
The only thing the Bulls can hope for is picking up roll players, someone like Boozer, Miller, ect…and pray they can somehow swing Carmelo Anthony from the Nuggets next year… but that wont happen cause of the CBA… and Melo is expected to sign w/ Denver.
And your last comment, do I think Kobe is better then MJ, NO… No comparison… MJ is the greatest SG the NBA has, and will ever see, but I will argue against anyone if KB isn't #2. That is coming from someone who is born and raised in LA, bleeds purple and gold. I give props where its due, and MJ is the greatest SG.
All in all… The east will now have 4 "good" teams, but no one "great" team.
Miami, Orlando, Boston, and wherever LBJ signs, which should be Cleveland.
Chicago will make an early exit in the playoffs AGAIN.
The way things are looking right now, if the Lakers roster can get healthy and stay healthy, they will 3-peat, again.
This goes to believers that Kobe was the best player in NBA today..
I think Wade and Bosh is just waiting for LBJ to sign..
One thing for sure, WADE and LBJ will not be together..
and as I read the news about CLE this morning, LBJ was watery eyed after the CLE fans pitched for him.. plus the addition of Byron Scott as a coach, which gave LBJ another reason to stay.
I think if LBJ and Wade's gonna stay, Bosh will be playing with Wade in MIA. And if Bosh will be playing with LBJ, Wade goes to CHI..
these players is just waiting on each others decision.. Which gave us a very interesting and very cloudy conclusion as of this moment.. I really cant say until the BIG NEWS comes up.. But I would like to see LBJ and Bosh (any team) together and Wade in Chicago.. This is a tough season for Lakers… Coz every decisions of these superstars will take will change the their NBA Championship Dynasty. Kobe's 6th ring will be tough to achieve this season. Its like a reboot.
Amar'e has an interest going to NY, and these stars might be tempted to play with him and just as the news said NY and NJ has a lots of $$$$ which can sign 2 players at max deal.
Dont forget the other talents as well.. Like Lee,Boozer,Pierce etc..
let's just sit back and wait.. peace!
All im gonna say is that Wade is staying, Bosh is going to Miami, and Lakers watch ouy nexy year.
Lebron's best option is to go to the NJ Nets. They have a strong supporting cast of good players, but not stars, which would assure he would get all of the attention and the advertisements. They also have the ability to add another free agent. In addition, their owner will globalize Lebron if he comes which means more money. In New Jersey he can win, get money, and be the only star.
Oh and to Roy 7700 the new Cleveland Coach Byron Scott won 3 titles as a player with the Lakers & 2 Eastern Conference titles as a Coach with New Jersey Nets, and NJ has not been the same since either!
– Bynum vs. Noah – Both rising stars. Role Player. should break even.
– Bosh vs. Gasol – Bosh with advantage of youth. Gasol with experience.
– Deng vs. Artest – Deng, offensively. Artest, defensively.
– Wade vs. Kobe – BREAK EVEN!!
– Rose vs. Fish – Rose is the PG of today.
I had to copy and paste the above comments, I'm scratching my head you are matching players 'one on one' as though they play streetball??? This is the NBA and it is all about 'TEAM BALL' the right combination of stats from each player, there has to be a rebound for a basket, a person has got to be willing to see the floor to a player who is open and in a better position to score a basket. I can go on but you get it!
I going to move past the NBA to the FIRST year that the US came in 3rd place in the preliminaries for the Olympics, it had these "superstar players' Wade, James, Carmelo, Bosch… For the first time in Olympic History the U.S. DID NOT Finish first in Basketball(yes they have grown some from that, but there is still somemore growing to do). The only adjustments that was made the following year is they added KOBE BRYANT and Jason Kidd to the roster. Kobe IN THEIR OWN WORDS (I will share the video link of Road to Redemption by Nike) , taught them about discipline, and how to play team ball! They WON!!! Smart Basketball at it's finest, I believe they will all get there, but they ARE NOT there yet! They will have to earn that best player title it should not be giving because of their potential.
All im gonna say is that Dwyane Wade is staying and watch out lakers.
I'm trying to follow the comments but I am lost in the confusion whoever posted about the Lakers three-peat most agreed. First it will take some time for ANY new team to gel. Meanwhile the Lakers young players are getting more experienced and stonger, and when they get the away game fright under raps they are going to be a team to be reckoned with. YES, Kobe is being groomed to be an MJ, remember he still has alot of years to play, ahead of him. He has become a smarter player learning how to share the ball and trust his team–a weaker team than the Chicago players you mentioned earlier (MJ's old team)…but still getting it done with less talent, he gets my respect for that. The Key being when he needs to get it done for the W he does, other than that he trusted the team to deliver, and they have!
Lakers=2010 Champs= current team to beat, all other combinations…we will have to just wait and see! I agree It's more that just the points on the board, it's the passing game, rebounds, the defense (smart B-ball) If that was not the case the Carmelo, Iverson combination in Denver shoulda worked!!!
WHICH TEAM DO YOU THINK WILL FAVOR THESE FREE AGENCY?
WHICH COMBINATION DO YOU PREFER?
WHICH EVER IS WHICH, I THINK THE LAST PAIR WILL NOT BE A THING IN THE NBA.
FOR THE PLAYERS, PLAY FOR THE FANS NOT JUST FOR THE MONEY.
the bulls are already a playoff team with D. rose.
WG.. Your an idiot. Kobe is the best playing in the NBA today. Kobe or any other player will ever be as great as Jordan was. But comparing Wade to Kobe is a waste of time. Don't get me wrong, Wade is an excellent player, full of heart and determination. But nobody can compete to Bryant's level.
Artest – Probably the best defender in the league. Anyone from the Bulls put up against Artest, and he will stop them.
Kobe- Will get around, shoot over, or make who ever is guarding him to commit a foul.
Los Angeles Lakers will 3peat!!
When Wade said there is more to his decison then just money……..I hope he was talking about his kids! They live in Chicago! Just bring the trifecta to Chicago and sit back and watch the excitment! Let's go Bulls!
WG, are you kidding me?
Blow the Lakers away? LMFAO…. Now that was funny.
The Bulls aint sh*t now, and have not been close to a ring since Jordan left.
By adding 2 all-stars you think the bulls are just going to magically mesh and be unstoppable and conquer the east?
Just to set the record straight… because ANYONE who follows basketball would most likely agree with what I am about to say….
PF- P Gasol / Bosh, pretty much even, I would give the edge to Gasol..
SG- K Bryant… need I say more?
PG – Fisher/Blake would be the only "weak" link vs D Rose, if you were to call it that.
So by that comparison, I can hardly see the LAKERS being blown out.
You are living in a dream buddy… come the 7th, it will be time to wake up!
LAKERS ARE DONE IF AN ALREADY TALENTED TEAM GETS 2 OR 3 BIG NAMES FROM THE FREE AGENCY.
Dwayne Wade is a Champion MVP..
What r u guys smoking? I'm a Lakers and Bulls fan but be realistic if the Bulls get Wade,James and Bosh or any of the two yes they will win it all. Ok if you haven't figured it out I'm talking to you mostly Lakeshow.Kobe is the best player in the league but don't be so quick to rule out wade when matched against each other.When comparing please remember Wade can't stop Kobe but Kobe can't stop wade either and if you think different i suggest you watch when they are defending each other head up not to mention I was at a game in chicago when Kobe decided to stick d rose and rose blew right by him.I love Kobe but we're not talking about micheal jordan here.
i think lebron will move to the bulls and wade will stay to the heat and bosh will be either of those two teams.
IM GUESSING YOUR A SMALL PETTY MINDED GUY WHO WOULD HAVE JUMPED ON THAT AS YOU WOULD HAVE NO INTELLIGENT COMEBACK, SO I THOUGHT ID POST THIS COMMENT AND WASTE 30SECONDS I WONT GET BACK.
I GUESS YOU THINK KOBE IS BETTER THAN JORDAN TOO RIGHT????
LAKESHOW HAS A GREAT POINT. AS A MATTER OF FACT HE IS 100% RIGHT!
all those people who think james, bosh, and wade will land on the same team QUIT DREAMING! it aint gonna happen wade stays in miamai james goes to chicago or cleveland and bosh joins james in chaicgo or bosh gets traded to the lakers in a sign and trade or even traded to the bulls. they cant ened up on the heat because bc will not want to see bosh leave for nothing!
chris is going to chicago with lebron and dwayne stays in miami so look at this!
forget about playoffs bulls fans talk about TITLES!
CAN ANYBODY BEAT THIS 5 MEN?
I agree with the starting 5 noah deng bosh wade n rose.
n here is y your wrong lakeshow. rose can blow by blake n fisher n when he does that someone needs to step up to stop roses dribble. so when they do that rose kicks it out n u have a wide open man. if they dont step up rose is unstoppable on the run. he either gets fouled n goes to the line or he makes a layup. n once u start the drive n kick the defense will not be able to handle that because when u have a defender running full speed to contest a 3 pt shot the offensive player would just pump fake n drive in.
The Bulls can't afford Bosh/Wade and keep everyone else unless Wade and Bosh are willing to take less. As it is the Bull need to trade Deng if those guys both want Max. Its a great starting line-up to be sure, but there is no bench, you have no cap room left and will have to wait another year before you are true competitors.
At least with the Knicks they can do something similar, still have Curry's expiring, and 4 million to spare. I say Bosh and James to NY =better team as it has more flexibility.
All along I thought Bosh to Miami to join Wade. With the issues surrounding Wade's children & the ex based in Chicago, he may decide to go to Chicago, at which point Bosh will join him. LBJ stays in Cleveland. Just my take.
This is my prediction… Bulls and Heat got the edge this season..
Wade and LBJ will not be together..
It now depends on the $$$$$ in the table for these guys… Its either Miami or Chicago!
Wade is considering Chicago not just for the game but his personal life.. his ex-wife just moved back there and even though he was awarded custody of his young kids in the last few months, the youngest is under 3 years old and he maybe thinking of the best interest of them is being close to Siouvaughn–that is the Bulls selling point, besides they have a better Roster than Miami and having a high salary cap. Mark my words, he is not meeting with Chicago twice for intrigue, I believe he is strongly considering it, and will not be suprise if at the end of the day he ends of there! Besides Bulls Management knows a little better than Miami how to put a team/coach together to capture a ring and the ultimate goal of any NBA player in NBA Championship. I think this will be a very good one. But the Lakers is still my winning combination for 2011. Nothing like Kobe, Gasol, Odom, Fisher & the growing more & more experienced younger players.
is it true that allen iverson will sign by riley to heat?.
for the health of the franchises and the league we should all hope the top three dont end up together in one place. i would hate to see cleveland without lbj and to without bosh and miami without wade. they all have unfinished business in there own cities. glad to see dirk stay in dallas. if lbj goes i cant wait to see the seasson ticket holders bail !!!
Doesn't anybody remember the Lakers signing Shaq, Kobe, Carl Malone and Gary Payton. That four couldn't get it done, what makes you guys think that a team of Lebron, Wade and Bosh could make it work together. I just don't see the three of them on one team. It works with the Celtics because Garnett is defensively focussed.
BTW, Bosh smokes Gasol anytime they are on the same floor. Gasol has game, but Chris is smoother and quicker to the spot.
Finally, the most underratted center in the league right now is Kendrick Perkins. He handled Shaq in Cleveland, Howard in Orlando and until the 7th game when he sat out with a knee injury had Bynum, also injured at the time, to modest effectiveness.
Colalngelo should ship Turk to anybody, anywhere. Talking about lunch bag, letdown.
Gary Payton and Karl Malone were way past their prime in LA. That's totally different.
Why? Miami put up a fire sale and now have no backup plan if they don't get their big three. Even if they do land those guys, they have no supporting cast to complete their roster. Wade has been killing himself for years and suffering from back problems from playing such heavy minutes. He's had no one to take the pressure off of him and the organization has taken that effort for granted.
Lakers will become 2011 champions. Bosh and wade no match to gasol and bryant. the only way to defeat lakers is the combination of james, wade and bosh.
Ok ….Im sorry but if Bosh is a considered a high profile player…what does that truly say about the quality of big men in the league? Trash….Yeah i said it.
ummmm, 24.0 ppg and 11 rpg thats trash?
I agree with "s.paul" bosh numbers are phony as Charles Barkley height.
it's all getting very interesting for Bulls, Cavs & Heat fans eh?
All this speculation is no doubt going to raise expectations & excitement levels (especially for Bulls fans) but until July 8th it's not worth getting too worked up.
Having said that, is it just me, or does Bosh + Wade going to Chicago seem like an infinitely better move than trying to get Lebron to Chicago?
I am excited, same time not convinced that wade really wants to come to chicago, ya he has been to two meetings with them but i think that has alot to do with trying to scare miami into really doing something this freeagency… however the bulls do have more to offer to any of the top free agents, to most of those teams in persuit of Labron, wade, bosh or boozer… we already have a good young cast playoff battle ready we just need a boost to get to the top, with any of those free agents or two the bulls will not only be able to compete but perhaps even win the weak east, maybe be the front runner to defeat Lakers. I guess we will all have to wait and see.
@ WG, replace deng with lebron and you have a championship winning team right there.
I can see the chemistry vividly.
July 8th is not a deadline. It is the first day free agents can sign their contracts..
roy7700, WTF is wrong with you? Riley would NEVER agree on a sign and trade for Wade, to help the Bull get 3 mega stars, after promising starting a dinasty for the Heat. Besides, who would want Deng and Gibson to fill about 20mi of cap? Be real!
New york Kickcs fans are the greatest fans in the World. Madison Square Garden is the Temple for Basket Ball,the Meca. With Stoudemire ,Joe Jonhson,Gallinari,Chandler and Tracy McGrady,and may be an other great Veteran ,New York Fans would be happy. We have a grear coach and a great organization. We wish good luck to Lebron,Wade,Bosh.Boozer .Let each of them fight for a spotlight. This is our team for 2010-2011 until the deadline next february,when we will complete the team and with those five we will already win almost thirty five games to ensure us a high place in the playoff pool. We are in the right direction. We need to be patient.
roy7700 .. what are you talking about? The Nets won 12 games last year with that wonderful core of players you mentioned. I think that's plenty of reason for FA players not to go there. Brook Lopez is the brightest start on that team, but that's all they've got going for them. James should stay in Cleveland, and probably will. Wade should go to Chicago along with Bosh and actually have a solid lineup, just as WG has listed. It doesn't matter if Lopez has a better offensive game than Noah. Rose, Wade, Bosh, and Deng are more than enough to put points on the board. Noah is a good defender and a tough rebounder. If DWade doesn't go to Chicago, I don't know where he'll end up. I can't see anyone going to Miami. They have no roster right now. To win a championship, you need a dependable bench to give you quality minutes. Both Boston and LA showed that the past few years. Chalmers, Wade, Beasley, Bosh, and ??? is not all that impressive of a lineup. If any of these guys go to the Knicks, it will be only for the money, and have nothing to do with Basketball. The Knicks are not a good team. Amare seems to be chasing dollar signs. He's a good player, but his production will drop noticeably without Steve Nash that beautiful pick n' pop game the two of them play together. I think, as a whole, one of the worst things about all this free agent frenzy is that the East has become so weak over the past couple years. Those teams who come up empty handed this offseason, will take some time to rebuild and wait for future FA, such as Melo.
I been hopin 4 this for a while.
none of this is gonna happen because the knicks are getting LBJ and D-Wade so forget about it everyone else!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can see the chemistry already.
So you think in that example that Kobe will run over D Wade?! What are YOU smoking?! Ron Artest will need advice from his Psycho therapist just to get through the game. You will need more than Fish and Baker together to guard D Rose and Andrew Bynum won't be in the game long enough to take Noah off the boards. And don't give Gasol that much credit, Bosh is more than a handful for him. You have to be realistic dude. D Wade or D Rose can take over a game anytime they want.
Kobe is good but he can't try and stop D Rose or D Wade and still try and score at will on the other end. He will be too tired, then who do you have that can step up and take on the scoring? Hmmm!
That 5 would be scary. And to think the Bulls now have a really good coach in Thibodeaux. Who would want to play those guys?
impossible bryan colangel[raptors gm] will not give chris for nothing so if bc packages bosh to chicago in a sign and trade scenario then i beleive pooibly luol deng will have to be traded to the raptors but if what you think will happen happens then those chicago bulls will be a championship team no doubt!
i do not think that this lineup will be very effective, because in order for an offense to work on the NBA level you need shooters to space the floor so that your paint and driving players can operate and play towards the basket. now rose, wade, james and deng, good though they may be (a massive understatement of course), are not shooters. neither are noah and bosh (teams like utah and dallas MAY conceivably play successfully without shooting point and wing players because their bigs are 'stretch bigs' who can play on the perimeter). this means that the paint and driving lanes will be constricted as games go on and as coaches and defensive lineups make adjustments. so no, i do not think that these lineups can be effective, at least on the offensive end.
The two fantasy team you posted both looks very appealing. However, both lacks height.
If you look at the history of the NBA, most if not all, teams that won titles had (a) dominating BIG(s).
Noah is listed 6-11 (But looks more like a 6-10, compare with shaq) and Bosh is listed and looks like a 6-10.
Kevin Garnett though listed as 6-11 is well known as a 7-0.
Dwight Howard listed as 6-11 but has the physique that can only be match with shaq.
Unless the bulls builds the second fantasy team (with LBJ) it would be hard to match up with those BIGs when they are healthy and motivated.
That is if they can pull out any on the fantasy teams mentioned above.
J-Noah couldn't stop Poppa Shaq in the playoffs. And Shaq is way slower then he used to be. Do you really think he could stop a healthy Bynum?
Bosh is a good power forward, but check out the level of intensity that Pau brings to the game. Garnett plays a lot better than Bosh, and even him couldn't stop Pau on a regular basis.
Wade is a great player, younger and faster then Kobe. But Lakers don't need 30 points from Bryant each night to get the win. Thay are a better team and the missmatches in the low post will determine the game. Th lakers can survive a 45 points night from Wade.
Rose is better then Fish.
These Bulls will have no chemistry and no bigs and no show stoppers. They would have to relay on both Wade and Rose. The problem is they both need the ball.
No way they could stop the Celts..and u are talking about wining it all.
So to prove my point avery johnson orchestated a championship run in dallas with a team notorious for not playing defense. For nj to get their trifecta bosh would have to sign and trade to nj for derick favors, courtney lee, tony battie and 2 future draft picks. lebron and wade can sign as free agents, (although joe johnson fits better).
i still think that lebron and bosh should go to nj because they have coach who won a championship as a player and coach a team to the championship in avery johnson, dallas has yet to return remotely close to that since. also brook lopez is more offensively polished then noah. i wouldn't think twice about it why would the free agents?????
If da bulls try to do the impossible and get a trifecta, miami would have to agree on a sign and trade for wade. it would probably involve deng gibson and a draft pick to miami, unless colangelo on toronto wants to do the same for bosh. Its interesting but someone has to bend for this to happen.
Wade stays in Miami, Lebron stays in Cleveland and Bosh is the only free agent up for grabs as July 8th deadline approaches!


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Our neighbor's male peacock, Jay Jay
Showing off his vibrant colors during mating season.
"The Blessings of Integrity"
"At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent" (Daniel 6:4).
Several weeks ago I was talking to Don, a friend of mine who runs a small plumbing business. Like many businesses his has had some struggles lately and he is seeking new business opportunities. He told me a story of going to a very wealthy home that had an expensive water heating system that the owner had noticed was rusting around the top. The owner called Don and was prepared to replace the system, which would have been a three thousand dollar job.
But Don noted that the problem was a valve above the system that had been leaking and all that he needed to do was replace the valve to stop the leak and otherwise the water heating system was fine. He replaced the valve and the owner paid a fraction of the cost of a new system. As we were talking Don shared how "easy" it would have been to persuade the owner they needed a new system and in the process make a lot more money on the job. In fact he felt many of his competitors would have done just that.
I want to write a word of encouragement today to those seeking to maintain integrity in their personal life and in their workplace. The daily verse speaks of the integrity of Daniel in his service in the secular world. Read the rest of the chapter and you will see that this very demonstration of character landed him in the lion's den. Similarly our commitment to character may be the actual cause of a trial or, as in the case of Don, making far less money on a job than we would have otherwise. It may be easier and more profitable in the short run to just go along with the downward flow.
Many years earlier Daniel had developed this admirable character in his resolve to be faithful to God's commands (Daniel 1:8). In the long run and particularly having an eternal, God-centered perspective in view, we will be blessed as we maintain our character and integrity. We may see the fruit of our blessing on this side, or we may not. But we will certainly see them on the inside and on the other side.
Let us resolve, in regard to the business of life, that we will act with integrity. Accept this promise today: "The faithless will be fully repaid for their ways, and the good man rewarded for his" (Proverbs 14:14).
Daily Prayer: Father, I consider the extremely difficult choice Job made not to sin by charging You with wrongdoing. I consider Joseph who withstood tremendous temptation by resisting the seduction of Potiphar's wife. And I consider Daniel who refused to stop the custom of praying to his Father in heaven though he knew it would land him in the lions' den. These three, among scores of other godly brothers and sisters throughout the centuries, chose to do the right thing knowing that doing so would cause them great suffering, terrible injustice, or martyrdom. The ultimate example is Jesus, Your Son, who died in our stead though He was wholly innocent of sin. Help me not to look for that which is easy, quick, or that which will avoid consequence. I choose to deal with the consequence of obedience to You; whether or not it works out for my good in the short term. May my greatest concern be for that which works for my good internally and eternally. In the name of Jesus I pray. Amen.
Joe Sherer is a local pastor friend of ours. Several years ago he shared a very specific integrity checklist that he had prepared. He gives a lot of food for thought!
Yesterday afternoon, and well into the night, they harvested the hay across the road from us. Then for several more hours we heard the loud hum of some type of machine that I assume was putting it into the silos even though they are over a mile away. This brought a recollection of my youth when I would work for local farmers in southern Missouri during hay time. At that time the baler would make small square bales and then we would pitch (buck) them up on a trailer or wagon and then load them into the barn. Several times I did this into the early morning and came home to my new bride tired to the bone. I don't suppose I could do that anymore!
As we were on our walk last night Jason, our neighbor's son, met us on the trail riding on an old Ferguson tractor. We are blessed by the work ethic instilled in these young people.
Daily Encouragement Net Reader Survey Please take a few minutes to help us improve this ministry by taking an online survey. Your response is completely anonymous. To take the survey click here. (Thanks to all of you who already took a few minutes to fill this survey out this week. I will compile the results and share them next week.)
Today's Suggested Music
and Supplemental Resources
"Give Us Clean Hands" Video
"Man After Your Own Heart" Audio Kristian Walker and his wife Shannon are a couple located right here in central Pennsylvania with a music ministry.
"Father" Video The Oslo Gospel Choir. I recently discovered this choir and sure appreciate their vibrant songs. I am also always blessed to see God at work in His people all over the world including Scandinavia.
Please note: Observant readers who regularly use these music links may have noticed that I have been using more videos lately. Many place up songs on Youtube or Godtube along with PowerPoint type photos or video. Usually the sound is as good as an audio link. It is actually easier to find songs related to the message using the search engine on these sites than it was using previous methods. I have also been embedding these videos on a separate page on my site.


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