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Pavan Mishra
Stretching from Sindh province, Northwest Frontier and into the Punjab, the Islamic invasions had led to many Hindus in these provinces living as second class citizens who could not practise ancient Dharmic rituals as this was seen as blasphemy by the Muslim tyrants, often leading to inhumane torture and persecution if caught, while other Hindus in these areas had been converted to Islam forcefully. Islam prescribed a death penalty for Murtee worship and many Hindus had been put to death in this region. However, while the Rajputs, Marathas, Ahom kings and many other Hindu warriors fought countrywide across the length and breadth of India against Islamic tyranny, there evolved alongside a spiritual and Dharmic rennaisance spurred by several Hindu saints and Akhara sadhus which became to be known as the Bhakti movement. Saints of the South such as Tyagaraja, from Mewar Rajasthan such as Meerabai to Tulsidas, Surdas, Kabir , Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, RaviDas in the North, all strived to rejuvenate Sanatan Dharmic philosophies through composing hymns and Bhajan Kirtans in praise of the Hindu pantheon of Gods such as Lord Rama and Lord Krishna, all echoing the message of the Vedas and Upanishads . They stressed devotion over theology.They travelled countrywide as poets or bards with their own groups of devotees and followers singing the greatness of the Supreme Being Shri Hari, a brave response of defiance against the Islamic onslaught, by involving local people therefore keeping the Dharmic tradition alive. In Haridwar, Kashi , Ayodhya and in the Himalayas, centres or ashrams of spiritual learning began to flourish and groups of sages known as Shiva Akharas, Vishnu Akharas, Vairagis, Nagas , Siddhas and Yogis known as Udasis roamed the forests keeping the Dharmic spirit alive.
In Punjab, Guru Nanak Dev, born in a Vaishnava family, founded a Bhakti movement or Panth which was based on Advaitic ( literally non-duality) principles, a branch of the Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy, found mainly in the Upanishads as well as other traditions of Hindu Dharma. Some authentic accounts prove he may have belonged to a Brahmin family i.e. the fictional story of his rejection on wearing the sacred thread which could possibly have been concocted by the British 'historian' Max Macauliffe in an attempt to colour Brahminism with shades of superstition and arrogance since the so called Sikh history has been proven to be replete with later edited versions, which have been designed by those secularists with vested interests, as I will explain here. However, this new movement required none of the ritualistic worship of Hindu Dharmic traditions, though keeping in line with Vedantic thought, and instead flourished more in this region due to the fact that places of Hindu worship had been ransacked and ritual practises had been banned by the Muslim rulers. Soon several Hindus flocked to Guru Nanak and welcomed this new resurgent Dharmic movement as a way out of their oppressed and much downtrodden lives and in due course this, like many other offshoots of Hindu Dharma, crystallized into a distinctive sect later on during the 19th century, known as Sanatan Sikhism, while followers of this movement came to be known as Sikhs or Shishyas ( Disciples). Guru Nanak Dev had remained a Hindu throughout his life, while spending most of his time for spiritual quest in the company of sadhus such as Sant Gorakhnath and other great spiritual Yogis of Kashi. His elder son Shri Chand had become a Sanyasi and had set up the Udasi Sant order, with thousands of his own followers.
|Baba Shri Chand
This Hindu tradition of associating with Brahmins and sadhus for spiritual guidance had continued upto the last tenth Guru, Shri Gobind Rai who was a self professed protector of Hindu Dharma:
Sakal jagat main Khalsa Panth gaje Jage dharam Hindu sakal bhand bhaje ~
Guru Govind Singh :''The Khalsa sect will roar around the world. We will awaken Hindu Dharma so that its enemies will flee''His father Guru Teg Bahadur had maintained company of several Brahmins such as Mati Das, Pandit Sati Das as well as Dayal Das and also ensured Gobind Rai a good education in Vedas and Sanskrit as well as Persian languages under the guidance of a Kashmiri Brahmin teacher known as Pandit Kripa Ram, who was also a trained warrior belonging to the military Brahmin class. All the ten Gurus had lived as Hindus and married according to the traditional Sanatan Dharmic ceremony of walking around the sacred fires under the guidance of the Brahmin priests.
Historic portraits of Guru Nanak Dev painted during his time show Nanak Dev sporting a sandalwood tilak on his forehead, wearing a Seli Topi ( a loosely woven cap) and wearing the Rudraksha mala typical of a Hindu saint of the medievel period and engaged in discussions with many Hindu saints and yogis of the time. However, by the end of the 19th century an Islamised version of portraits of NanakDev would take over the earlier images of this great saint.
Within a span of a century, the movement had gained momentum and spread from Punjab to North West Frontier during and after Guru Nanak Dev's time and Gurudvaras were constructed in several places. This was an opportunity for the Hindus of these regions to install Murtees of the Hindu pantheon of Gods in these Gurudvaras which served as centres of gathering and worship in an otherwise hostile environment that had been imposed upon them by the Islamic rulers. Those Hindus who had already joined this sect as well as those Hindus who had chosen to remain within the traditional Dharmic fold, worshipped together at these centres. The fourth Guru, Shri Ram Das, had stumbled upon an ancient Vishnu tank, a very popular pilgrimage site for Hindu worship during the time of Emperor Ikshvaku, the ancestor of Lord Rama and it is a well known fact that Lord Buddha had also performed auterities at this very place when he renounced all material ties with his Kingdom and family members. Guru Ram Das excavated the tank and laid the first stone for foundation for a grande structure known as Hari-Mandir or Hari meaning Vishnu's temple. The site became to be known as AmritSar ( Pool of Nectar) and HariMandir soon became the centre for Hindu and Sikh worship, later on to be known as the Golden Temple. Here the compilations of writings of the Gurus known as Adi Granth was placed along with Murtees of Hindu Gods such as Goddess Durga, Lord Shiva, Lord Vishnu as well as a life size murtee of the sixth Guru Shri HarGovind, later to be removed by separatist Sikhs, some of them who had been converted to Christianity, belonging to the Tat Khalsa Singh Sabha movement during the end of the 19th century,which had been engineered and fostered by the British Regime occupying India at the time. This was a ploy to plant the seeds of establishing a separate Sikh identity from its parent Sanatan Dharmic heritage , and the Singh Sabhias collaborated with the Colonial forces as their stooges and were launched as a movement towards the end of the 19th century. The Tat Khalsa began to radically change and rewrite 'Sikh' history, conveniently expunging all signs of Hindu philosophy and historical accounts which had been initially propogated by all the ten Gurus of this Hindu sect. Heavy tones of blatant anti Hindu as well as anti Brahminical sentiments replaced the earlier authentic records of the great history of this region. The leading figure of the Tat Khalsa was headed by the 'historian' Max Macauliffe, an Irishman whom the neo Sikhs of today regard as a great scholar and historian and an authority on the history of Sikhism and Punjab. In a systematic attempt to turn the Sikh soldiers against the Indian freedom movements, the colonial forces ensured great minority privileges for Sikhs in order to make governing of the Indian sub continent an easy task, and they began a massive drive to convert many Sikhs to Christianity whilst at the same time taking over the running of HariMandir at Amritsar. Their aim : To Christianise Sanatan Sikh heritage and to make HariMandir a place of Christian worship by drawing plans to turn the site into a Church complex.
In 1882, Macauliffe achieved the position of Deputy Commissioner in Punjab. With the help of Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha of the Tat Khalsa Singh Sabha, Macauliffe wrote the popular Tat Khalsa Singh Sabha-sanctioned text that outlined Sikh history according to the views of the Tat Khalsa scholars of the time. In it, he states the reasons for writing his extensive work on the Sikhs:
"It is admitted that a knowledge of the religions of the people of India is a desideratum for the British officials who administer its affairs and indirectly for the people who are governed by them so that mutual sympathy may be produced. It seems, at any rate politic to place before the Sikh soldiery their Guru's prophecies in favor of the English and the texts of their sacred writings which foster their loyalty."
- - - The Sikh Religion',1909, M.A. Macauliffe, Preface xxii
This highly encouraged several Sikh scholars of the time to rewrite Sikh history in the manner that the British preferred, therefore promoting a sense of contempt towards anything remotely that sounded Hindu, especially Hindu bravery against Islamic hordes. In an attempt to Christianise and de-Hinduise the Adi Granth, additions were made to several instances of Gurus' lives which were obvious copies of myths from Abrahamaic scriptures and many contortions crept in. HariMandir was replaced with Arabic/Persian words like Darbar Sahib. Myths of a sufi saint Mir Mian supposedly having laid the founding stone for HariMandir were circulated and widely promoted by the Tat Khalsa. Words of the great Gurus such as Tegh Bahadur were manipulated in an attempt to give them a somewhat 'Sikh' appearance. The incident of the ninth Guru having died for Kashmiri Brahmins showed further contradictions present in Sikh historical accounts, in his statement to Aurangzeb before his execution:
Tin te sun Sri Tegh Bahadur / Dharam nibaahan bikhe Bahadur Uttar bhaniyo, dharam hum Hindu
Atipriya ko kin karen nikandu
Ise tayage pramar soi Hindu dharam rakhe jag mahin / Tumre kare bin se it nahin
Guru Tegh Bahadur's reply to Aurangzeb's ordering him to embrace Islam:
(In response, Shri Tegh Bahadur says, My religion is Hindu and how can I abandon what is so dear to me? This religion helps you in this world and that, and only a fool would abandon it. God himself is the protector of this religion and no one can destroy it.)
According to his son Guru Govind Rai , his father had sacrificed his life for his belief in the preservation as well as protection of 'sacred tilak and thread' therefore affirming his strong belief in the Hindu Dharma. Along with Tegh Bahadur, Mati Das, Pandit Sati Das and Dayal Das, all of whom were Brahmins died through torture for not embracing Islam. Neo Sikh scholars have clouded this particular information by carefully mentioning the sacrifices of the Brahmins as 'Sikhs' who died alongside their 'Sikh' Guru, replacing this episode with a highly debatable and unconfirmed incident of some 500 Kashmiri Pandits having approached the Guru for help and for protection for which he nominated himself supposedly to be executed by Aurangzeb. Mati Das, Sati Das and Dayal Das have been described in the annals of the new Sikh historical accounts, as having died as brave 'Sikhs' instead of brave Brahmins who gave up their lives for Punjab and Vedic Dharma.
The promotion of such fraud and deception is a trademark of the Tat Khalsa Singh Sabha authorised scholars and historians. One such fraud and deception promoted by the Tat Khalsa Singh Sabha is of the great bravery of a Hindu Dharmic warrior who was born in Rajauri Kashmir to a poor Brahmin known as RamDev Bharadwaj in the year 1670 AD. He was born as Lakshman Dev Bharadwaj as recorded in authentic accounts of the literary works Chhowen Rattan and as mentioned severally in local folklore of Jammu, a place where he had built his place. Eminent and well known authors such as Dr Nanak Singh as well as P.N Bali , have also acknowledged Lakshman Dev's family name as Bharadwaj, a lineage of Brahmins belonging to military traditions. After painstaking research, it has become evident to me that there were several authentic accounts of Kashmiri Brahmins known as Mohyal and Chibber Brahmins who had given a good fight against the Islamic oppressors in Punjab during this turbulent time alongside of the Kshatriya forces organised by Guru Govind Rai whom he would later call 'Khalsa'. Lakshman Dev Bharadwaj was one of them. His name has been played down by neo Sikh scholars as Lacchman DAS, Lacchman DEV, Lakhman DEV and more recently GurBaksh Singh, and have continued to portray him as a poor Rajput's son who later on would become a Sikh to protect the Hindus of Punjab. His family name had been conveniently left out by the Tat Khalsa 's anti Brahmin stance as they rewrote Sikh history to the wishes of the British, and in their blind haste to prove that he was a Rajput, they even overlooked the most important fact that all Rajput names end with the name Singh.
Bharadwaj is a Brahmin Gotra of Kashmiri Brahmins originating from the lineage of Guru Dronacharya, which has produced several great Hindu Kings who fought bravely against the invading Muslim hordes. However, the bitter truth is, like so many brave Hindu warriors of the time, whether a Rajput Kshatriya, Shudra or a Brahmin, it took a Hindu warrior to organise the Khalsa and to establish the first Khalsa kingdom in Punjab, who was brave enough to continue after the tenth Sikh Guru Govind Singh's passing away, with a daring approach on tactics and assaults when it came to confronting the Islamic tyrants on many a battlefield. The participation of several Brahmins alongside the Khalsa during their struggle against Islamic tyranny is nowhere mentioned by neo Sikhs who have succeeded in supressing all historical facts, at the same time brainwashing Sikh youth into following an anti Hindu Talibanised version of ancient Sanatan Sikhi traditions. Instead of acknowledging the fact that Hindus saved the Khalsa in order to uphold Hindu Dharma, we are constantly fed on a diet of how 'Sikhs saved Hindus' and when a lie is circulated over a thousand times, it almost tends to become 'true'. No doubt the struggle of the Gurus against Islamic fascism at the time was a struggle to keep Hindu Dharma alive which firmly puts the Sikhs within the same camp as the Hindus.
Not much has been recorded about Lakshman Dev's early life but there are a few folk stories/myths and some may appear to be highly exagerated since most have been sung as oral traditions which tend to be passed down from one generation to another. According to Gyani Budh Singh, as a child Lakshman Dev was a recluse who was more interested in training in martial arts combats, weaponry, horse riding and meditation. His family was extremely poor due to the fact that Brahmins and other Hindus of this region had been denied basic human rights by the Islamic Governors of the time and were a downtrodden people who were forced to live under humiliation and tyranny. It is believed as he grew up, Lakshman Dev left Rajauri to join the wondering Vaishnava saints known as Vairagi Akharas and travelled to Haridwar and later on to Nanded, Maharashtra. Janaki Das, his guru named him Madhav Das.
The period of 20 years (1688-1708) of Vairag, that Lakshman Dev spent before settling down at Nanded, situated on the bank of the river Godavari, has been taken as a dark period with no available historical account. He spent these years amongst the various Akharas or sects such as Nagas, Sanyasis, Yogis, Gosains, Dasnamis, Dadupanthis and many other sects with their Akharas under charge of their own mahants. Akharas were mostly founded to defend Hindu temples from the Muslim invaders at the beginning of the second millennium CE. By Mughal Emperor Akbar's time, there were already large numbers of armed ascetics all over India. Some of the Vairagis had become mercenaries fighting large scale battles, while some had become land owners, cultivating their lands to provide food for the rest of these saint warriors. Madhav Das learned from them training of mind and body and battle strategy. The Vairagi Akharas of the time were highly organised whereby peasants, farmers, Brahmins, shudras, kshatriyas, including orphans even could be hardened into effective, disciplined soldiers and had a good reputation as fierce fighters and loyal soldiers. Their weaponry was state-of-the-art and included musketry and artillery, materials for mounting sieges against well fortified locations as well as camel guns.They also possessed horses, elephants and other pack animals required to transport heavy equipment. The Kumbh Melas served as the staging ground for the mobilization, recruitment, and mercenary employment for the Akharas which sometimes expanded in numbers over 10,000 recruits to fight for Dharma against any foreign occupation.
Madhav Das soon had over the years, earned himself a notorious reputation with an army of thousands of armed followers of his own. News of this had reached the tenth Sikh Guru Gobind Singh, who arleady had heard of Madhav Das and his command over a strong army of Vaishnava saint warriors and decided to meet Madhav Das at Haridwar, and later on again at Nanded where Madhav Das had set up his own ashram ( hermitage). The Guru spent a year with Madhav Das, watching and studying the battle tactics of the Vairagis and requested the Vairagi to assist him in freeing Punjab from the Muslim oppressors. The meeting between Guru Govind and Madhav Das is described in many literatures in various ways and there are many contortions that have crept in over the years especially within Sikh historical accounts which were edited during the 19th century by the Tat Khalsa under the guidance of Macauliffe. Bhai Santokh Singh in his literature 'Suraj Prakash' describes Madhav Das as nearly 7 feet tall with athletic build and one who knew the art of warfare very well. The dialogue between the Guru and Madhav Das was, as Dr Nanak Singh (historian and scholar) describes this as ' similar to the dialogue of Lord Krishna and Arjun on the battlefield of Kurukshetra'. The Guru it seems had lost everything in the past few years including all four of his sons, while his wife Mata Sundari had been left behind in Delhi at the Moghul headquarters. It was a wake up call for Madhav Das to stand up and liberate his land which was being ravaged and plundered by the Islamic barbarians; at a time when Hindus were being tortured and persecuted endlessly, it was time for Dharma to be re-established.
According to many distortions in various Sikh literatures, it is widely believed that Madhav Das had taken 'amrit' or become baptized into Sikhism but Bhai Santokh Singh and various other authentic sources have proved that this was simply not the case, since the Vairagi remained a Vaishnava and Sikhism as it is known now had not come into existence even at the time. Guru Govind Singh, had sent him along with the rest of the Vaishnava saints to Punjab to fight fierce wars with the Muslim forces of Wazir Khan- the Guru named the fearless Vairagi, Veer Banda Bahadur.
In September 1708 Banda Bahadur set out towards Punjab with the help of Guru Govind Singh's men - he would enter Punjab like a tornado and through his expertise of guerilla warfare, organise the Hindus/Sikhs into a military machine that would eventually establish the first Khalsa kingdom.
(Part 2 to be followed)
Copyright Trinetra 2011 .


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WHYTO optimize your Facebook Page?
Digital Vidya Editorial Team 3 Min Read
Nowadays, almost all the organizations have adopted digital marketing, showing less attention to traditional marketing methods, which is considered to be expensive and time taking. However, if you are selling online, if would be insane to leave out Facebook as one of the media to reach out to your potential buyers.
Therefore, if you had not been paying much attention to your Facebook Page, it's time to optimize it as this page can help you drive more and more traffic to your website.
Today in this post, we will discuss some strategies that you can apply to your Facebook page to generate profitable results out of the same.
Design informative cover and profile image
Cover or profile image is the first thing that your visitors see when they land on your Facebook Page. Therefore, it is very important that you design these two images with a good understanding of what your audience will like when they visit your page. Some of the main benefits of creating an informative cover page are:
- Builds your brand
- Influence fans and friends
- Engage with existing customers
- Reach new audience
In fact, you can also add your company URL on your FB cover image, which encourages visitors to also check your website. Overall, your FB cover image should precisely convey to your Facebook users what the brand is all about.
Featured Photos
Any photo that you upload on your company page, becomes a featured photo feed in which a set of 5 images keep rotating when a visitor lands your page. There are various companies that are utilizing this space for branding. But, since you have to account for pictures changing order whenever the page is refreshed, you might have to come up with branding imagery, which remains consistent no matter in whichever order it is viewed.
Since every image that you upload go on the strip, therefore the only way to remove these images is manually delete them from the strip as and when you see them appear. However, you do not have to worry as this process will not remove the photos from the album, but only from the top of your profile.
By simply optimizing the images on strip and selecting the ones which give close-up views of your product or services will give you a new opportunity to engage your visiting users.
Left-Side Links Panel
In addition to the images strip, every Facebook page also has a panel of links on the left side navigation, which when clicked opens the application in Tab view.
Every fan page comes with 3 default applications – info, wall and photos of which only photos is removable and wall and info are mandatory to maintain a page.
Therefore, you can install as many applications that you want to your page of which most of them would be third party applications. Since users can see only 8 applications at a time, it is important to display the most important tabs above the fold.
Rolling Feedback
When you log in your page as an administrator, Facebook displays feedbacks on every post that you create. This makes it easy for you understand the trends of interaction on your page. Further, it also makes it easier for you to assess how you are doing over the time. However, these feedbacks can be viewed only after certain hours of your post.
These feedbacks will help you understand about the kind of posts that create greater engagement and visits to your page.

subset: commoncrawl


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Nick Gravenites
Nick Gravenites -- singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer -- grew up on the south side of Chicago in the late '50s, and soon fell in with future members of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band Michael Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop and Paul Butterfield. He wrote the classic 'Born In Chicago' for Butterfield, as well as hits for Janis Joplin, Big Brother and The Holding Company and The Electric Flag. He continues to tour and record as a solo artist and as a member of Chicago Blues Reunion.


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Black & White - Walkthrough [Walkthrough]
5-03-2016, 22:48 | Views: 88 0
Black & White - Walkthrough
Von: "Elliott" <email@example.com> INDEX 1. Version History 2. Introduction 3.Doesn"t exist 4. The Basic Gameplay 4.1 Playing Good 4.2 Playing Evil 5. Creature Training 5.1 Basic knowledge 5.2 Basic behaviour 5.3 Basic learning 5.4 Specific creature actions 5.4.1 The urges of feeding and sleeping 5.4.2 The eating of villagers 5.4.3 The art of throwing objects 5.4.4 The assisting in village duties 5.4.5 The importance of housekeeping 6. Village Management 7. Island specific tips and secrets 7.1 The first island 7.2 The second island 7.3 The third island 7.4 The fourth island 7.5 The fifth island 8. Silver scroll solutions 8.1 Quests on the first island 8.1.1 Throwing Stones 8.1.2 The Savior 8.1.3 The Lost Flock 8.1.4 The Singing Stones (1) 8.1.5 The Explorers 8.1.6 The Pied Piper 8.1.7 The Hermit 8.1.8 The Ogre 8.1.9 Mushroom cooking quest 8.2 Quests on the second island 8.2.1 The Plague 8.2.2 The Sacrifice 8.2.3 The Sea 8.2.4 The Singing Stones (2) 8.2.5 The Beach Temple Puzzle 8.2.6 The Greedy Farmer 8.2.7 The Idol 8.2.8 The Slavers 8.2.9 The Riddles 9. General Questions 9.1 Where can I find Easter eggs in the game? 9.2 How does one use miracle dispensers? 9.3 What makes the creature grow faster? 9.4 What do I need to do to unlock all the creatures? 9.5 How can I backup my creature? 10. Final Notes 11. Credits 2. INTRODUCTION 3. Yip , like i said (don"t exist) 4. THE BASIC GAMEPLAY First of all, there is no way to skip the tutorial. By watching the Forums and various IRC channels, I"d say that this is a very good feature (the manual is rather weak anyway). Second, read the signs. Third, read the signs. Always read the friggin" signs! Signs next to houses contains valuable information about what"s in the house and how to operate it. Signs in the terrain can contain valuable information on how to properly train your creature, or small gameplay tricks, or even hints on how to accomplish certain goals. The game teaches you the basic gameplay very well, if you"ll just have the patience to look, and it will be much easier than reading a tutorial (and if you are intelligent enough to appreciate a long detailed tutorial, you have probably learned your basic gameplay already, so I won"t waste space writing about it). I will say this for a reminder, though: Leaving your hand on an object is Very useful (for example over a construction site where you"ll find out the exact amount of wood needed for completition or over a village totem to find out how many people your village has room for). The sections below will go into a bit more detail. Note that these sections try to cover both extremes. That is, if you want a white, or even rainbow colored creature or hand, read how to play good. If you want a black creature with horns, and a red hand, read how to play evil. If you just want to stay neutral, mix in a little of both. 4.1 PLAYING GOOD Now this is a challenge. Here you will need to spend a lot of time managing your villages, which is an utter pain. But you cannot neglect your creature either, if you want it to be good aligned too, and performing the two together can initially be extremely difficult. If you train your creature well though, you might be able to leave it on it"s own for an extended period of time, while you are away managing your villages. Staying good means that you must have the flags of a village storage raised as low as possible, or even not raised at all. This is an enormous task in itself. But not only that, you will have to carefully watch all your worshippers at the temple shrines so they don"t starve and die, which even Blackie disapproves of! You must also act passive, and avoid any killing whatsoever. This means that taking full control of an island will be done by sending missionaries, traders, yourself and your creature to enemy villages to assist and impress them with miracles, food and wood. The Flying Creatures miracle and Heal also work fine to generate lots of belief. It is unconfirmed though, that casting lots of heal on villagers will cause them to live longer, and thus, in the long run, increase faster in numbers since less people die and disappear. You can train your creature to only heal sick villagers, though. Zoom in far and listen to pain sounds or watch for crawling villagers, then target a heal miracle on them and have the creature watch with the Learning Rope. This may take time, though, since it"s not often villagers get sick. Also, don"t overfeed your villagers, since with lots of food comes the desire to breed, and with the desire to breed comes the desire to expand, and soon enough there won"t be any empty spots on the island to expand upon (much less any forests left). As a good player, you can also sacrifice at the temple shrines to get Prayer power, if you want. A shrubbery and any other plant will work fine. Never try to sacrifice a stone, though. It will cause damage to your shrine and scatter your worshippers! And even if you get attacked by an enemy, you cannot fight back! Use the shield miracles to protect your villagers, and try not to have your creature attack another creature unless it"s wreaking havoc in one of your village. Your creature may get provoked into a fight as it is. So if it is so frustrating to play good, what are the rewards? Well, if you don"t know the answer to that, my bet is that your creature won"t turn rainbow coloured anytime soon. Some of the visual effects of playing good are: a white temple, white hand, white creature, clear skies, longer days, shorter nights and a rainbow over your temple. 4.2 PLAYING EVIL First of all, evil isn"t stupid and it isn"t nasty. It"s sinister and devious. If you kill for fun, sure you are evil, but you are mainly being blunt, and there"s much worse you can do than that. Try torturing people with fire instead, starve them, wreck their homes, play catch with your creature using villagers or just leave the creature with the Aggression Leash on in one of your own villages... Be creative. Since you can do pretty much anything while being evil, I won"t dig deep into the details here. I will try to give out a few usefully tips, though. Being evil will finally let you ignore feeding the worshippers at your shrines. There are much better ways of gaining miracle power than dancing. Sacrificing new born children for example, is much more effective. Sacrificing your dead does also work. If you want to wipe out a village, or atleast cause serious damage, you can taint a food storage by throwing a toadstool or poop in it. Some of the visual effects of playing evil are: a black temple with spikes, red hand with long nails, black creature which grows horns, red skies, and everlasting nights. 5. CREATURE TRAINING Be aware that you can only have ONE creature for each player profile and that creature will be constant in ALL games you play using it. It will grow older and remember everything you have done, no matter how much you load the game or if you pause your campaign to play a skirmish or multiplayer game. The only way to reset a creature is to restart your game. Your creature does not have to be of the same alignment as you do. The creature can be so good it glows white, while at the same time, your Castle is growing spikes. Also note that initially the Creature Help doesn"t show up in the game, even if you have it activated in the Options. The first time it will show up is after you have activated the final golden scroll on the first island, but it will stay activated after that, even if you restart a new game or load an earlier save. If you start an online game or a skirmish game though, the creature help will also get activated and stay so, at least until a part of the tutorial kicks in again, whereupon it will become deactivated (so just save, start skirmish and then load, to get it back). 5.1 BASIC KNOWLEDGE In order to develop a healthy creature, you need to know about it"s vital statistics. Those are the stats which can be seen when you focus a creature, and are also the only stats which can kill it. The vital stats are Damage, Hunger and Tiredness. In order to develop a well trained creature, you also need to know about a number of other statistics. These can be found in the Creature Cave, and though they are not vital, they still represents some sort of basic need for the creature. Those stats which are non-vital are Exhaustion, Dehydration, Strength, Fatness and Poop. In addition to this, there are a number of trivial stats, which isn"t really important to the creature, but which may be important to you. These stats are Alignment and Growth. Further, the creature uses Energy in order to cast it"s own miracles. All of these stats should be kept as low as possible, with Energy as the only exception. Energy gets lower when the creature casts a miracle. When Energy runs out, it won"t be able to cast miracles any more and must feed in order to raise the stat again. Illness and Warmth will be explained at a later point. When a vital stat gets maxed out, your creature will collapse and Regenerate back in it"s pen at your Temple. The stat will still remain high after that, so you need to take care of your creature in order to prevent it from collapsing again. Have your creature collapse too much, and it will shrink noticeably in size (although it will grow back in size over time). Note that when a creature collapses, you may still have a few seconds to try to fix the situation (heal or feed it), if you are lucky. Also, the creature will over time forget things, and may have to relearn it. The same goes for strength. It will need constant exercise in order to keep itself fit and keep it"s strength up. 5.2 BASIC BEHAVIOUR You should know that the creature knows a number of actions by instinct. These actions are mostly those it uses to stay alive, like sleeping, eating, drinking and pooping. But encouraging or discouraging these actions may have several different outcomes, which will be explained in a later section. The creature can also learn a few new actions, either on it"s own or by copying you. However, the amount of these actions are not that important. The thing which is important are the variations of these actions. The creature does not simply observe you doing something. It observs exactly what you did, what you used and to what or whom you did it! It can also learn whole series of actions in a later stage. Training a creature is accomplished by encouraging and discouraging Different variations of actions by either stroking or slapping the creature accordigly. The way the creature carries out it"s actions also determines (or may be determined by) it"s mental state. The creature may show you how it is feeling if you focus on it and you can also read alot about what is going on in it"s mind in the Creature Cave. If you want your creature to like you more, pay more attention to you or show you it"s feeling more, just stroke it when it asks for attention or wants to mess around (but not too much, since that will only cause the creature to get distracted and stop to look at you when your hand is near it). Keep in mind that the creature"s AI is very short- sighted and not very reflective. It does not understand alot of effects of it"s actions so if there is a bad side-effect on a particular action (either by accident or all the time) only slap it if you do not want it to continue doing that action anymore. For example, the creature always throws an object over it"s shoulder when it doesn"t know what to do with it. If that object damages anything (stone on a house) or becomes damaged (villager down a cliff) the creature don"t know how to associate that event with what it just did. So there is no way to punish it for that, as it doesn"t count as an action (neither can you slap the creature for noticing either, since that is a separate action). You simply have to wait until the creature has learned to properly deal with the object, whereupon it will pick up and put down the object properly. 5.3 BASIC LEARNING If you want the perfect creature, hang around on the tutorial island Until it has learned every possible thing to be learned there (some spells will be unavailable as well as certain methods for helping villagers). Your villages on the tutorial island won"t have any high demands (since you can"t build anything) and as long as you don"t active the final golden scroll, there is no time limit. Note that it is rather hard to become immensely good during the tutorial islands. This is probably due to not all features being activated yet. For those of you interested in AI, the game supports both supervised and unsupervised learning, as well as reinforcement learning. A decision tree is also used to select which action a creature will perform. The first method of learning is simply to show your creature what to do. Leash it with the Learning Rope and carry out the exact action you want it to perform. Make sure that it is watching you, or your actions will have little effect. Note that you shouldn"t stroke the creature for simply noticing what you Just did (it will point in the direction of your action, and then look at you). The real reward should come first after it has properly copied your action. Sometimes the creature will understand immediately and copy you, sometimes, it takes forever to get it to do the same thing as you. A second method of learning is to let the creature find things out by itself. But, if you let the creature wander around and it accidently manages to learn something you didn"t want it to know about, you will have to spend a lot of time supressing that behaviour, since nothing can be "unlearned" once found out. In order to properly control a creature"s behaviour you need to catch it at a precise moment in order to get a precise response out of it. If you are too late in praising or punishing your creature, you may affect a whole different action. This means that you may need to anticipate what your creature is going to do. Get to know your creature! This is the only way to be safe. You sometimes also have to plan ahead. When you start out, the creature will only perform basic stuff. Later on, you will want it to carry out more complex series of actions, and if you haven"t taught it the basic stuff properly, it can be too late when one of the basic things it got wrong is a part of a more complex series of actions (for example, when picking up a tree is a part of the being generous to villagers action in order to resupply the storage). Though the game says that handing the creature a one-shot miracle will cause it to instantly cast it, it has to be trained to cast those too (you will have to slap it for eating or loosing the miracles). Note that your creature may see more detail than you are aware of. If you cast, for example, heal on healthy villagers and water on grown trees, the creature may do so too. A better way is to only cast heal on unhealthy villagers and tiny trees. All of the above applies for fighting too. Tell your creature to move around a lot, and it will do it by itself after awhile. The same goes for concentrating attacks on special body parts (note which targeted body part carries out the different attacks you want it to perform more). 5.4 SPECIFIC CREATURE ACTIONS The previous sections were meant to be very general. Anything you read in Those sections can be applied to any action no matter what creature you have. And if you can"t get your creature to do what you want, try again until it grasps the concept or change your method of teaching. Please don"t mail me simply stating that you can"t get your creature to do what you want it to. It"s not the creature who hasn"t tried it"s best, it"s you. 5.4.1 THE URGES OF FEEDING AND SLEEPING ***************** BUG WARNING!***************************** When the creature eats fish by itself, it will lower that creature"s alignment! I do hope that this is a bug which will be fixed, since fish is the absolutely best source of food (and you cannot make diciple herders on your own in order to make sure proper meat doesn"t run out). Your creature also seems to get hungrier whenever it eats fish, which is fishy... ************************************************************ First of all, getting it to eat and sleep on it"s own is rather easy. However, trying to control how fast it gets hungry and how fast it gets tired can be a nightmare. Sometimes, the effects of slapping and stroking can seem to be totally at random. In this section, you will find some helpful tips, although you should still be very careful, since they will not always work. Only slap or stroke your creature a little bit a time, in order to minimize the damage of a wrong outcome. Since the creature will initially eat anything, sleep anywhere and poop everywhere, basic training goal of basic training will mostly be to control these behaviours. You may have noticed that discouraging the creature from being just generally tired may either make it sleep less, lie down less on that location or become less tired. The outcome may seem to be selected totally at random. Careful consideration is a must before punishing or praising the creature. For example, when it sleeps you have to factor in several things. How sleepy was it? Was the creature exhausted or low on energy? When did it go to sleep and where did it lie down? Your creature will also initially eat any moveable object. However, it has a built in learning factor here, since it will puke up anything that isn"t good for it (grain which isn"t ripe, for example). The creature can also eat on by it"s own initiative or by command (rubbing the belly when given food). But before you slap or stroke the creature for eating, there are a also number of factors you must consider. Consider what it is eating. Is it a food source which is good for him or not? Does the source replenish itself fast or slow? Is it stealing from someone? Is it eating because of hunger or greed? To get a creature to eat more of a certain type of food, just hand feed it with the food you want to increase it"s apetite for and stroke the creature after it has finished eating. This will always make it appreciate that type of food more (note that this isn"t an exception to the above rule since you carry out the action here and then reward the creature for the effect). And yes, overfeeding will cause it to poop more and get fat. To get it thinner again, just keep it hungry a bit longer and don"t feed it as much for a period of time, and it"s weight will go down. Water is lacking a graph in the creature info (although you can read it"s dehydration level in the Creature Cave), but it is not that important since the creature always knows how to drink and will do so when thirsty (and since it"s not that often, you shouldn"t need to adjust it"s drinking habits if you don"t feel you simply have to). There doesn"t seem to be any way to bring a creature water. Finally, fish would be the recommended food for any creature, since fish regenerate well without any care and it won"t be considered stealing from the village. Cattle and other animals regenerate much slower and can run out if you"re not careful (and though herders help, there is a strange lack of a herding disciple in the game). 5.4.2 THE EATING OF VILLAGERS This can be considered a special case of feeding. Now you either want to Or don"t want to have the creature eat villagers, depending on you alignment. An untrained creature, even if it is a Cow or a Sheep, will sooner or later eat a villager if you have it wander the village hungry. Initially, this can work to your advantage if you keep a close eye on your creature. When the creature picks up a village, immediately focus it. If it shows you that it is hungry, slap it silly. If it doesn"t show you it"s intentions, unfocus and quickly click on the ground next to it to make it drop the villager. Stroke it for that action, if you wish. You can also slap the creature after it has eaten a villager, but only if you get the a Help Text saying that "your creature will eat more of that stuff" (if you slap it without that text appearing, you may affect another action). Also, stroke the creature if you want it to continue eating villagers. Although, remember that an empty village belongs to nobody, and that strength comes in numbers. And note that even if you have taught your creature not to eat people From YOUR villages, there is nothing which stops it from eating people from other, neutral or enemy owned, villages. You"ll have to teach it how to behave to other villagers separately. 5.4.3 THE ART OF THROWING OBJECTS --------------- REQUEST FOR INFORMATION! ------------------- You can give, or throw (if you have taught it to catch) the creature a much larger object than it can normally be commanded to pick up by itself. Does anyone know why this is? Throwing (as with kicking) seems to be an aggressive action, so if you want a passive creature, slap it for throwing stuff. The exception is when it is throwing trees or food into the village storage, which doesn"t beem to count neither as a throw or an aggressive action (same goes for when it"s playful). The biggest question seems to be how to get the creature to throw stones. But if you are looking to increase the strength of the creature, remember that the sign said that the creature needed only to be carrying stones. To exercise it, simply give your creature a stone and action click on a piece of ground away from it and walk or run it around the island for a hile. The creature"s strength will increase over time because of this. Anyway, if your creature can copy you throwing stones, all is well, and it should be praised for it. Note that the creature will take notice of where you aim your stone and even if you fetch the stone back or not. If the creature refuses to copy your actions, things may get more complicated. Action clicking on an object with a leashed creature is tated to be the command of getting it to pick the object up. However, his doesn"t always work with stones. A reason of this may be that the stone is too large. But if you crush the stone into smaller pieces while the creature is watching, it may very well copy that action instead the next time it is told to pick up a stone, so be careful. A better course of action is to crush a number of stones far away from the creature and have it travel there only after they are the appropriate size. I personally can"t see any use in throwing an object other than a stone, so when the creature tries that, just slap it to keep it from doing that again. Also, don"t make the mistake of praising it too early. f you want it to throw a rock, don"t praise it immediately after it"s picked the rock up, since it will most definitely eat the rock instead. The creature can also be trained to catch stones (and other objects... Such as fireballs). Have it in a playfull mode and practice with the beach ball. Just hrow the ball at it at the appropriate height and it should try to catch it after awhile. Then move on to other objects you want it to catch. Sometimes, double-clicking on a spot on the ground when the creature is holding a stone will make it throw the stone there, but I haven"t nailed down the details around this yet, as it may run to that spot also. 5.4.4 THE ASSISTING IN VILLAGE DUTIES ---------------------- REQUEST FOR INFORMATION! ------------ Is it just me, or does the creature always seem to forget how to use the village store? ------------------------------------------------------------ ******* BUG WARNING!******************************** If your creature picks up a villager who has just died and turned into a skeleton, the skeleton will come to life and walk around the village! This may be a side-effect of the healing effect being picked up by a creature instills, but it"s still a bug. And if your creature decides to eat a Dead villager, it will count asHaving killed a person! Also, some people do say that the creature can make diciples other than breeders, but I have seen NO evidence of this. The creature always seem to create a diciple breeder if it cuddles a villager (even if there is nobody around to "mate" with, and even if there is, action clicking on the ground to make the creature drop the villager will NOT produce a breeder). It must be a bug, or have a really weird explanation. If you play the game by micromanaging your villages, you will almost certainly spend such a large amount of time doing it that the creature automatically will adapt your actions over time. However, if you do have trouble teaching it to help villagers, have the creature leashed to you using the Learning Rope, while you perform the actions you want it to adopt. Performing the same actions in different ways may also help. For example, the food storage can be filled by either dropping, for example, rain on it or by casting a food miracle on it. Note that having a creature leashed to a building won"t automatically make thecreature interact with the building unless you have taught it what to do. In fact, it seems to be a rather poor use of the leash (except for a well trained creature, but even then, unrestricting it"s area of movement will most definitely have it moving out of the village sooner or later). And, if you do have your creature leashed to a building in the village, make sure you unleash it when it needs food and sleep, which it otherwise might not prioritise. An area of trouble seems to be if you want to have your creature deliver food to the worshippers at your temple. This is very hard for it to copy, since there doesn"t seem to be a clear distinction between the different parts of the temple to your creature (it seems to regard the tower, the surrounding shrines and it"s pen as one and the same). If you have taught your creature the Food miracle, however, the best way Is simply to leash it to the food desire flag on a temple shrine and have It figure out by itself that it should cast a miracle on the worshippers. Remember to stroke the creature when it gets it right. This method is very effective. Also, if your creature is kind to the villagers, it may pick one up from time to time, pat the villager a little and then put it back down. That villager will then have a very high chance of turning into a diciple breeder! This can happen very often with a creature which is kind to villagers, so be watchful of your creature so your villagers won"t cause overbreeding which is a nightmare. So, if you want your creature to continue being nice to villagers, but not create that many breeders, leash it the moment it picks up a villager. Then action click by it"s feet to make it put the villager down and make the creature do something more usefull instead. The best thing is to assign all diciples yourself. Remember which villagers you put to work far from your village, and seek them out when you have your creature leashed to the Learning Rope. Diciples who work far from home have to travel great distances and will have less time to go to the storage for food or go home and sleep very often and because of this, their health will deteriorate. So, cast Heal miracles on these villagers and make sure your creature notices it. Then give it a big reward when it casts Heal on a villager itself. The deaths in the village will get lower over time if your creature learns this well. 5.4.5 THE IMPORTANCE OF HOUSEKEEPING ********************* BUG WARNING! ************************* People in the forums are suggesting that crapping is evil (you can"t imagine how hard it was to type that sentence... my mouth hurts from laughing). It sounds like another alignment bug to me. ************************************************************ An untrained creature will have a rather high urge to poop anytime and anywhere. It is uncertain how the villagers react to having poop all over The place, but I suspect that they might not approve. You can actually teach your creature to stop pooping entirely. To do this, slap it immediately when you first witness the creature pooping against something. Hopefully, the creature will still need to poop, and will show you this By farting. Slap it again, but this time give it a good go. Sometimes, this is enough to have it give up ever wanting to poop again. (Though it"s unknown if this will have any damaging effect on the creature.) Although it has been suggested that you should train your creature to poop in the fields, it seems to be of little use. Personally, I"d rather use the Water miracle, as it is much more effective and pleasant. 6. VILLAGE MANAGEMENT ***************** BUG WARNING! **************************** If you drop too much food in a temple shrine, the ENTIRE PILE will be Gobbled up a second the next time a worshipper decides to eat. Since you don"t get any Prayer Energy for this, a sacrifice of the leftover food hasn"t been made, so it would seem that this indeed is a bug! The expand desire flag is also unreliable. Once you create a construction Site for a building, the flag will slide down and disappear completely, but once the building is finished, it will pop right up to the top again! A similar behaviour can be seen on some fields, if you empty all food and sometimes when you water them (field height will then jump up and down). Seems like some graphical bugs to me, but still... ************************************************************ Though handling the creature might be a large part of the game, next to managing a village, getting a creature trained is a piece of cake. If you Want to play really good, satisfying all the needs of the villagers will Become so time consuming that you might find it"s suddenly all you do. Now, I always knew that this was true in the real world, but it"s nice to Find that they accurately portrayed this in Black & White too: Animals are smarter than people! Humans are the most annoying thing in the game. They are never satisfied, always want more, they devour natural resources in seconds, breed like rabbits and spread like locust. I will complain a lot about expanding and breeding desires below, and since it is vital to expand in order to gain more influence and power, you might be puzzled as to why it"s so bad. Well, the thing is that if you are unlucky, villagers will want to expand until there is no more room on the entire island, not even for forests! And forests are life. Without them, you will die. A tip to keep easier track of all the villagers is to use the "S" key, as described in the manual, to activate small information bubbles above each villager. And note that villagers, although seemingly originating from primitive cultures, may live until they are well over eighty years old. Also understand that villagers have their own unique personalities and attributes. If you notice alot of people in your village "chilling out", you may have a problem. Put these villagers to work immediately, to prevent disillusion. Good diciples for these kind of villagers would be fishermen, foresters or traders, since they would have to walk alot, and not have time to sit down much. Do monitor the health of people who work far away from the village storage though, as lack of food and sleep will affect their well being. And be aware that breeding one lazy villager with another may produce an even lazier offspring. Now the manual fails to highlight alot of things about how demanding the villagers really are. In fact, there is a whole evil circle involved in managing villages. First of all, villagers will need food to survive. But too much food will induce a desire for breeding, and satisfying breeding will induce a desire for expanding from the offspring, which in turn will require wood and thus raise the desire for that. And after all the new villagers has new homes, they must feed again and so the food desire once again goes up. This, if not countered, will spiral your way towards your doom. The first problem you encounter is usually that your initial village has a maximum expansion desire. Now, to expand, you will need wood, and you can"t just keep giving the villagers wood forever, since they will become disillusioned. You will need forests near your village, and a lot of them. Training your creature to water trees is a very good idea as a couple of disciple foresters in a village with a high forest desire can devour a huge forest in no time. Another problem with trees is that the stupid villagers cut down the smallest trees first, which won"t yield as much wood and which will prevent the forest from growing at it"s fastest rate. Always water the small trees to counter this! Also note that since the buildings you construct vary depending on the current needs of the villagers and the location your are trying to place it, you can sometimes get a better building by trying a couple of different places (this can be important with bigger houses, since they all cost two scaffolds, but house different amounts of villagers). The workshop is a very good target for the wood miracle, with no risk of disillusion, since the villagers won"t deliver wood to it by themselves unless you assign disciple craftsmen to it (which you definetly should do). Construction sites are also equally good targets. This leads to the second problem. The villagers won"t deliver food to your temple shrines no matter what you do! This is a vertiable management nightmare since the shrines are the source of your Prayer Energy. Temple shrines don"t work like the village storage either. You cannot dump a large amount of food on a shrine and expect it to last. A large amount of food dumped in a shrine will last nearly exactly as long as a small amount of food. Instead, keep your deliveries regular and don"t concentrate on the amount of food, but rather on whether the flag is up or not. The food desire flag on a shrine should NEVER even be visible! You can get the creature to deliver for you, but it can only carry small amounts initially so it"s a rather ineffective use of your creature. Teach it to use the Food miracle instead and leash it do the food desire flag on a shrine. This way, the creature will automatically try to lower the flag using what it has learnt. Note that leashing the creature to the shrine altar won"t accomplish Anything (except if you have an evil creature, in which case it may start Sacrificing villagers). Worshippers produce Prayer Energy by draining their own lives, so they will also need healing from time to time, or they will die at the site (even if the flag which indicates the need for sleep isn"t visible at all). Next up is breeding. This is the worst thing that can happen, since when villagers decide they want to breed, it will affect all other desires too, as mentioned above. Breeding doesn"t cost you anything to fix though, but the consequences of too much offspring will. Note that male breeders will impregnate more than one woman. A female breeder will only produce offspring once every 9 months (about one real minute). Select the gender of the breeder according to your expanding plans for your village and your current needs. Finally we have food. This is the least of the problems, yet it still is A problem, since even though you can have one field per ten villagers, a Couple of diciple fishermen and a good supply of grain coming into the storage regularly, if the storage isn"t extremely well loaded, the villagers will complain. Food miracles cast on the storage by either you or your creature in addition to many fields will remedy the situation, though. But be careful, overfeeding will cause the desire to breed to increase, and you"ll soon get worse problems than just disillusion on your hands. Civic building desire is the only thing which isn"t a problem, since only three kinds exist, and after you"ve built them, the villagers will be satisfied. The crйche, which keeps children in one location, can also serve another purpose. Usually, the kids just run around after their mothers until they grow up, but if you drop a couple of rocks outside the building there is a large chance that they will start dancing around them and make Artefacts out of them. The Artefacts can then be used to convert other villages by dumping them There instead (after they have started glowing and showing your symbol). A balance between expansion and breeding can be achieved though, but you Will probably sweat and swear a lot before you find it. One way to do it is to acommodate all needs but breeding. The villagers will then die without leaving any families behind, and houses will start to empty. When that happens, you can put a couple of breeders to work without having to expand or watch out for other increasing desires until the houses are filled up again. Check when the amount of children in the crйche roughly matches the number of empty positions in your houses and convert all (or most) of the disciple breeders to something else then. Note that the amount of people the village can hold, as shown by the Totem will NOT be the same as the number of empty rooms in the houses. The houses only show how many adults they can house! The children capacity of a building can"t be seen. Villagers can ask for more homes even if there seems to be enough space, since there can be a child who is homeless. Also, a building can be moved as long as the scaffold is visible. If you want to change the location of a building, damage is badly enough, and the scaffold will appear and be moveable again. Placing buildings too close can also have the effect that your creature won"t be able to reach certain areas, since it can"t fit between the houses! (Until it gets so large that it can walk over houses, that is.) Reduce or Enlarge Creature spells can temporarily counter the situation, though. Note that if you need help with a certain desire in the village, you can actually leash your creature to an individual desire flag, and it will try to assist in the best possible way it knows. Finally, the scroll in your Temple which contains village statistics only displays the total of all your villages. To see statistics like availible space and diciples for a single village, you will have to run around to every village the knock on houses and look at Totems yourself. 7. ISLAND SPECIFIC TIPS AND SECRETS Below I will try to give a general overview of the islands, with some strategy tips and some tips on how conquer each island. There will also be notes about gold scrolls and solutions to secret island quests (those without scrolls). Note that I will write the general tips first, and only dig into the secret stuff in the last couple of paragraphs, so there should be minimal spoilers on the first couple of lines on each island. 7.1 THE FIRST ISLAND *********************** BUG WARNING!*********************** After a while on island one, Whitey will always say that you killed someone! This happens when an Actor turned Vagrant Start dies (press "S" to see their titles). Usually, it is the Singing Stone guy who dies of old age after some time, but all the other Actors eventually die too if you wait long enough (except the Stone Cutter, it seems). Naturally, you shouldn"t have to take the blame for this, so it"s considered a bug for now. *********************************************************** Since this is the tutorial island, all the features of the game aren"t accessible. But on the other hand, the demands placed on you here areExtremely low, so it is a very good place to hone your creature training skills and also teach the creature every miracle on the island. There is no time limit on how long you can stay here. But, there"s also a drawback. Since not everything in the game can be accessed yet, you may not be able to teach your creature everything you want. You can, however, save the game and play a skirmish for awhile, and then load and take your creature back to the island with all it"s new gained knowledge. You will have to do certain gold scroll quests in order to get a creature, but don"t do the last one (the one the Guide creature warns you about) if you Want to hang out on the island. Note that no quest should be of any trouble here, since the camera will always zoom to show you any important places of the quest, and both Whitey and Blackie will give you hints and tips. Also, the best way to help the farmer woman is to simply drop the sick brother by her. Wrecking her house is evil, but you can do better than that! Kill the brother and then drop the corpse by her. Or even worse, trash the house, kill the sister and drop her corpse by him (he"ll then die of shock). When you decide to activate the last gold scroll, make sure you stack up on one-shot miracles (by picking them off the dispensers and dropping them) and anything else you want to take with you, since you can drop it all in the vortex when it opens and it will be there on the next island. Remember to bring all your villagers too! Note that the natural way to complete the Ogre quest would be after the Piper quest, but if you do it the other way around, the improved miracle Dispenser you get as a reward will be given after the Piper instead. When you finally leave the island, make sure your creature is trained And ready to handle itself, since you may not have much time to spend with it on island two (the demands of the villagers there are bound to keep you busy for long periods of time). 7.2 THE SECOND ISLAND ****************** BUG WARNING! **************************** You can focus and feed (for example) other creatures than your own! This may be another of those very strange design decisions, but one I can"t figure out at all. This also reveals an embarrassing fact about the enemy AI in the game: Creatures belonging to other gods have 100% hunger and thirst without collapsing! Also, the time (and thus distance) an AI god can reach out and act outside it"s area of influence might also be questionable... ************************************************************ Note that the tutorial isn"t quite over when you first arrive on island two. You still can"t construct buildings yet, even though your villagers will want them. Be patient, though, since you will soon be taught how to. In the meantime, it would be wise to teach your creature how to water forests, since they are so scarce on this island that BOTH of the other gods will steal trees from you! Also, you are probably meant to learn how to micromanage villages on this island, since you absolutely have to! The stupid villagers won"t lift a finger except for doing massive breeding and devastation of forests. In fact, the closest primaeval forest to the village will usually be devoured in a matter of minutes, and there is no way to get it back. Use the Water miracle on the surviving trees quickly, in order to regenerate as much trees as possible, and get your creature to help you! Also, once small trees pop up, target them instead of the larger trees and your forest will grow even faster. Once you do get a workshop and the ability to construct buildings, note that you will need to expand initially to get all the villagers from island one into houses. It is also alright to expand a bit further, since it will give you more power, but watch out so you don"t run out of space to build new homes (it can happen, if you don"t take control over their desires). If your expansion does get out of control, do everything in your power to keep forests growing, since without them you will be doomed. Also, when you have managed to house all the villagers you brought with you from the first island, you will get the knowledge of the Forest miracle. Because of all the lazy villagers on this island, you will have to keep a steady amount of diciples to get anything done. To be able to do this, you will need a good memory and a keen eye. Because, when a diciple dies, they won"t transfer their knowledge over to their offspring, and thus, when you notice that the diciple count is dwindling on the scroll in your Temple, you must zoom around over every village to find out where it was that one of your diciples died. In order to be able to cast your own miracles and start using the Totem in your village center, activate the first couple of golden scroll as soon as possible. When you reach the right golden scroll (the one where you get taught how to use the gestures), Khazar will want to you impress a village. Note that you do not have to take over the village, you only have to impress them until the point where Khazar leaves. You can then go back to your first village again, and continue managing that until you feel comfortable with it. You do not have to worry so much about breeding initially in the first village, since the food levels will be low and you can keep them that way by constantly taking food from the storage to supply your temple shrines with (or divert the villagers to other duties instead). Khazar will also urge you to conquer Lethys" villages far too soon, in My opinion. Make sure your own villages are well balanced first! So, this is the first island where you have to take over other villages. Depending on whether you are playing good or evil, choose your desired method of converting the other villages, but it won"t require much belief on this island... it"s harder to keep them satisfied (if you are evil, you only need to keep them, which is easier). However, there is a hidden quest near Lethys" first village. It"s a tree puzzle, which will grant you a Flying Creatures miracle dispenser if it"s solved, which in turn will make it much easier to impress the village. (To solve the puzzle, note that each moved tree changes all trees around it. So, work your way around the edges and have it so your last move it to change the middle tree.) Note the amount of lazy people in the village closest to your first one. When you take over that village, deal with them in a way you feel is appropriate. There is also an unclaimed Greek village near Khazar"s realm, where there Will be a person sacrificing children in order to keep the villagers constantly youthfull. He will curse if you pick him up, and if you do kill him, all the people in that village will die. Once you take over the first village from the enemy god, Lethys, you are on your own. Lethys will rarely attack you, though, he will mainly cast protection on his own villages if you try to convert them. He will, however attack your creature with his arsenal of miracles if it gets too near a village of his. Make sure your creature can both cast Water AND Heal on itself (this may actually have to be taught during an attack). Also note that you cannot damage or destroy his temple until ALL of his villages are either neutral or under your control. And for disposing temples, throwing flaming boulders (heated with fireballs) are very effective. Casting a Teleport miracle outside far away villages and next to your Temple is also a very good idea, to save people the long walk to and from the worship sites (especially during the time that they are being built). 7.3 THE THIRD ISLAND ******************* BUG WARNING! *************************** Some people have complained about huge saving and loading times when They reach the third island (or play a very long skirmish game). Well, hopefully this will be optimised in a patch by Lionhead, but in the meantime, if you have an additional 200mb of disk space, copy the Audio folder from the CD to it"s corresponding folder on your hard drive. Note that you do this on your own risk! There is no guarantee that your game will work 100% after doing this. ************************************************************ This island is a bit trickier, since it requires a lot of belief to convert villages, and they are quite far apart. Your initial area of influence is also rather small, but it will as usual grow with more belief. The main problem here seems to be a pack of wolves which attacks your second village. There are, however, several method of disposing them. Lightning and fire miracles work if you want to target practice. You can also set fire to the forest they run through, if you aim carefully. This will take care of most of the wolves. But you can also use your godly powers to freeze time (ehm... "pause" that is) and pick each wolf up and use it for food for villagers by dropping them in a village storage. (Alt+1 and Alt+2 also works for slowing or speeding up the game.) Also, don"t underestimate your enemy, even though he is down to his last village. He will sacrifice everything in sight to get Prayer Energy! 7.4 THE FOURTH ISLAND ----------------------- IMPORTANT NOTICE! ------------------ I personally haven"t got this far in the game since I want to find out everything there is about the other islands first, so this section is purely made out of contributions and small information nuggets I dug out of forums. ------------------------------------------------------------ The fourth island is actually the first island, but everything has been shot to hell. Nemesis cursed the land with thunder storms, fireballs and a blood red sky. All is guarded by three Gardian Stones, each one assigned to power one of the island"s curses. The most imposing problem here is that you are being bombarded by fireballs. Note that these can be temporarily avoided using shields around your village or by catching them (one tactic is to catch a fireball in your hand and then simply absorb any other incoming ones). Note that shields require alot of Prayer Energy to stay up (if you run out, they will dissapear, just as the Forest miracle), but there is a Spiritual Shield miracle dispenser near your Temple. These one-shot miracles can also be activated, and then shaken off in order to transfer their inherent power to your Temple instead! To stop the fireballs permanently, you need to solve a puzzle. This puzzle must be unlocked by conquering one of the villages first (it"s the Japanese village next to the Gardian Stone with the physical and spiritual shield around it). A good tactic here is to bring a couple of Artefacts from previous islands to drop in the village for a good amount of belief. The bell puzzle itself is very simple and it"s always the same one so even if you fail the first few times, you can always try again. After that, you probably want to stop the thunder storms. That stone is Guarded by the ogre named Sleg (remember him?) and this time, a fight is unavoidable. Defeat him and the thunder storms will stop. The last thing to fix is the blood red sky. You have to bring a woman to a Nemesis believer named Adam. The woman is named Keiko (although it will only say Actor if you press "S") and is his wife. Nemesis said that she would die if her husband would stop beleiving in him, though you can also kill her to solve the quest. Regarding the cursed village with the Skeleton tribe, you need to raise The buried village Totems (yes, there are two of them) to their full height. To do this, you need extend your area of influence over the village and have your creature raise one of the Totems AT THE SAME TIME as you raise the other! If your creature knows how to use Totems, this shouldn"t be too hard. Note that the Skeleton tribe will die out cause of old age, which may (or may not) seem strange, but it does not make any difference in completing the quest. 7.5 THE FIFTH ISLAND ******************** BUG WARNING! ************************** Many people have reported this bug: If you complete the game, the curse On your creature will still be in effect and there is no way to make it go away! Your creature"s alignment will reverse and it will constantly shrink in all network, internet and skirmish games afterwards! Until the issue has been cleared or a patch is out, I recommend people NOT to venture into the fifth island! Play skirmish or on the internet and train your creature in the meantime. ************************************************************ 8. SILVER SCROLL SOLUTIONS The silver scrolls are the mini-quests of Black & White. They"re not essential to finishing the game, but they may grant rewards if they are solved properly. Most quests have good and evil solutions to them. Below, both ways and their rewards will be described as detailed as possible. Note that I write more or less abstract tips in the first couple of paragraphs, and then I become increasingly detailed in my descriptions. This is to reduce spoilers for those who just want some basic tips. Some of the scrolls must also be activated before they show up on the islands. The triggers for these are usually when you take over a certain village or when you reach a certain point on an island, so they are not worth mentioning here. 8.1 QUESTS ON THE FIRST ISLAND The first island is the tutorial island, and thus, it"s quests don"t have time limits and you get very good tips on how to complete them. Miracle dispensers are the most common reward here. 8.1.1 THROWING STONES Location: Near the mountain, next to the shore near your temple. Good Solution ------------- Do as Whitey and Blackie suggests and throw a bunch of stones at the rock lying on top of the pillar. Just watch out so you don"t hit the house which lies in the same area, or it"s inhabitant for that matter. If you are lucky, having your creature leashed to you with the Learning Rope while trying to score a hit might actually learn him how to throw stones into the water or on land and trees, which will make it grow stronger. Note that on other islands, stones won"t be limitless as in this quest, so it might be a good idea to return the stones to their original position, and hope the creature copies this course of action too. There is also a secret to this quest! If you keep throwing stones on the pillar, it will drop Water mircales. You can keep this up for some time before it stops (note that the limitless stone supply will end once you started doing other qusts). Good Reward: Chest with a Beach Ball (and secret one-shot Water miracles). Evil Solution ************* You can, of course, have your creature leashed to you with the aggressive leash too. In that case, when you throw stones at the pillar, the creature will more likely aim at the house, it"s inhabitant or at some trees. If you do destroy the hut, you can rebuild it to get a rather hefty belief award. Naturally, throwing villagers to try to knock the stone off the pillar will also work. Evil Reward: Chest with a Beach Ball (and secret one-shot Water miracles). 8.1.2 THE SAVIOR Location: By the shore with the fishing spots near your temple. Good Solution ------------- Simply do as Whitey says and have your creature pick them up. This is easily accomplished by leashing it with the compassion leash and action clicking on the drowning men. When the creature has reached the men and picked one up, quickly click on the beach next to the woman who gave you the quest. Hopefully, your creature will drop the fisherman and wait. If you have an inexperienced creature, the danger here is that he will either throw or eat the fishermen if you take too long time between the pickup and destination drop commands. Good Reward: Creature Strength miracle dispenser. Evil Solution ************* Letting them drown, or even throwing in the farmer woman who gave you The quest is are sure evil way of finishing off this task. The fishermen will Also be excellent food for your creature. Evil Reward: Creature Strength miracle dispenser. 8.1.3 THE LOST FLOCK Location: In the village near the crйche. Good Solution ------------- This is the first tricky quest in the game. In order to return the sheep To the farmer, you have to find them. This isn"t easy at first, since they are very small, and you have to look closely to the ground to spot them. However, you can also listen carefully when you search the land. When you are close to a sheep, you will hear it, sometimes before you see it. The farmer requires five sheep, but there are more than that on the island... And if you do return all the sheep, he will reward you by letting you select a Sheep as your own creature! The locations of all the sheep are the following: * Next to the stone sculptor"s house. * Behind the huge gate. * Fenced in with some pigs in a farm outside the village. * On a mountaintop, close to the hermit. * Amongst some trees, close to the hermit (where the sick man was). * Near a singing stone by the sea, close to the fishing spots. * By the pillar where you practice stone throwing. * Under some palm trees next to the beach where you started. * On the mountainside near the palm trees where you started. Good Reward: Stack of Food (and the Sheep creature if you return ALL sheep!) Evil Solution ************* Kill the sheep, feed them to your creature, kill the farmer, wreck his house... Use your sinister little imagination. Evil Reward: Nothing! 8.1.4 THE SINGING STONES (1) Location: Near the shore outside the second village. Good Solution ------------- Not only will you need to find the singing stones here, but you will need To find the CORRECT stones and place them in the right order. (The singing stones are the teardrop shaped rocks with a rune on.) The right order is simply a musical scale, going from the lower tones to The higher. Action click the a singing stone to hear it"s tone, and then Place it on one of the dark spots to have it to join in the playing of the scale with the other stones. You can pick up and rearrange any of the stones you find, but note that The three stones which are already in place cannot be moved, but also doesn"t need to, since they already are in the right spot. There also exists three false stones on the island. They are recognized By their low pitch tones, which doesn"t belong to the scale. The locations for the correct stones are the following: * Next to the circle of the singing stones. * Behind the graveyard in the village. * In the hermit"s quarry. * Amongst some trees, close to the hermit (where the sick man was). * In the mountain backside, close to the starting beach. Good Reward: Food micracle dispenser. Evil Solution ************* Well, I don"t know if the stones can be destroyed, and not doing anything In this case won"t complete the quest. I guess you could try to destroy the hut of the caretaker of the stones, if you feel that it will accomplish something. Evil Reward: Nothing! 8.1.5 THE EXPLORERS Location: By the shore behind the huge gates. Good Solution ------------- First of all, it has been said that taking food out of a village storage may be an evil act, but for this mission, it seems to be overlooked. Whitey"s comment upon completing the quest might also imply that he wanted them to stay (he says that he "hates goodbyes"...) but it"s the only way to get rewarded in this quest. So, you need to supply them with what they want. Trees will do you no good, as they need "prepared wood". This has to be taken from the storage or from any stack of wood. Next, they want grain. A field or storage will provide that. Note that it may be evil to take food from villagers and use it on anything outside the village. If you don"t want to risk that, use fish instead, since fish transforms into grain when you pick it up. Finally, they need meat. There are several options for the meat, but if you drop a sheep by them, they will say that it has "a lot of uses", which the don"t say if you drop any other animal. Note that I have had several kinky references to syphilis on that above Sheep comment. Has nobody considered the fact that you get wool from a sheep? Just make sure you have completed the sheep farmer"s quest before you give away a sheep, or you won"t be able to finish it perfectly. A cow is a good substitute for a sheep. You can also drop a woman by them when they ask for "meat". Since it sounds like they have good intentions, I believe this is a good bonus. You can also give them additional men as crew or a child for scrubbing the decks. (If you accidently kill one of them, you can also drop a male villager by them to replace the dead crewmember.) Being kind to the emigrants will also let you help them on island five, where you will receive an extra village and the Polar Bear creature if you help them again. Good Reward: Water miracle dispenser. Evil Solution ************* Since you will have no means of torching the ship when you get this quest, the only evil option left is to kill the sailors. Evil Reward: Nothing! (Except for a comic scene after the killing.) 8.1.6 THE PIED PIPER Location: By the village crйche and the cave in the mountain beside it. Good Solution ------------- As Whitey says, the key to rescuing the children alive is to somehow get The piper to release them. Since you can"t
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Hammered Copper Frutera Bowl stands high on its pedestal of luxuriance holding a cornucopia of colorful things. The brilliance of the hammered facets and curves of this shiny copper centerpiece compliment the fruits of Mother Earth! This bowl is perfect for Fruit, Chilled Custards and Chocolate Mousse. The pedestal bowl offers stunning service for freshly shucked oysters and cold seafood platters too!
– Pedestal Display Bowl or Centerpiece.
– Hammered Copper Bowl with Integrated Stand. Its pure elegance will elevate any display
– 10 inches wide, 3 inches deep, 6 inch base, 5 1/2 inches tall including base
- – Heavy gauge, Pure copper from 100% recycled sources for a healthier Environment
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This is Phase II of Boyette Oaks in Wesley Chapel on Cedar Waxwing Drive. There are 24 acres on Lakefront for a Residential Development with a FLU of Res 3.
Significant engineering and related work is completed, including a survey, geotech exploration, conceptual site plan, topographic map, tree survey, soils, etc.; all available upon request.
As part of a prior MPUD (Phase II of Boyette Oaks) with approximately 15 acres of uplands, a beautiful lakefront development of single family homes may be approved. The MPUD has expired and needs to be renewed with a current proposed site plan.
With 15 acres of uplands along a lake, this property lends itself to a community facility or gazebo with kayak launch and fishing dock. The remaining 9 acres of wetlands (rather dry) may be used for horse riding or other community use.
This potential lifestyle is enhanced by the convenient location in the booming area of Tampa Bay; just off the I-75 and SR 54 interchange in Wesley Chapel; as the area offers an incredible amount and variety of excellent shopping, dining, entertainment, school choices, golfing and medical care.
Aerials & Documents
Property Details
Status: For Sale
Last Verified: 02/2/2017
Property Type: Development, Lakefront, Land, Residential
Price: $495,000
Location: Cedar Waxwing Drive, Wesley Chapel, FL, 33545
County: Pasco
Size: 24.08
Type: Acres
Frontage: Cedar Waxwing Drive, large property lake frontage
Description: Utilities: Utilities available off of Cedar Waxwing Drive ***Uplands/Wetlands: 15.44 +/- acres uplands, 8.64 +/- acres wetlands ***Zoning/FLU: Res 3 MPUD ***Planning/Permits: MPUD approved but expired; significant planning and engineering available
Driving Directions: From I-75 in Pasco County, take exit 279 (SR 54), go east to Vandine Road ***Go north on Vandine Rd. and it becomes Boyette Rd. ***Turn left onto Boyette Oaks Place, turn right onto Water Thrush Lane, and left onto Cedar Waxwing Drive where it dead-ends into the property, marked by 3 traffic ends signs and our Saunders For Sale sign


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Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure
Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure
ISBN: 978-0-631-21238-6 May 1999 Wiley-Blackwell 344 Pages
Table of contents
Nationalism and Transnationalism.
Cirassian Encounters: The Self as Other and the Production of the Homeland in the North Caucasus. (Seteney Shami).
Transnationalism in the Era of Nation-States: China, 1900-1945. (Prasenjit Duara).
The French Colonial Policy of Assimilation and the Civility of the Originaires of the Four Communes (Senegal): A Nineteenth Century Globalization Project. (Mamadou Diouf).
Enforcing the Human Rights of Citizens and Non-Citizens in the Era of Maastricht: Some Reflections on the Importance of States. (Jacqueline Bhabha).
Commodities and Fantasies.
Small Product, Big Issues: Value Contestations and Cultural Identities in Cross-Border Commodity Networks.
Commodities and the Power of Prayer: Pentecostalist Attitudes Towards Consumption in Contemporary Ghana. (Birgit Meyer).
Domesticating Diamonds and Dollars: Identity, Expenditure and Sharing in Southwestern Zaire (1984-1997). (Filip De Boeck).
Globalization and the Power of Indeterminate Meaning: Witchcraft and Spirit Cults in Africa and East Asia. (Peter Geschiere).
Theoretical Reflections.
Time and the Global: Against the Homogeneous, Empty Communities in Contemporary Social Theory. John D. Kelly.
Globalization and Virtuality: Analytical Problems Posed by the Contemporary Transformation of African Societies. (Wim van Binsbergen).
Dead Certainty: Ethnic Violence in the Era of Globalization. (Arjun Appadurai).
Epilogue: On Some Reports from a Free Space. (Ulf Hannerz).
Notes on Contributors.
"The immense merit of this volume to readers who are not steeped in the debates about globalization is that it makes the subject relevant to concerns widely shared in the world today. It is also easily comprehensible, with its, on the whole, enlightening case-studies." Patrick Chabal, International Affairs
" With a rich confluence of diverse empirical material with social theory, the writers in this volume have made a strong and timely anthology for those interested in globalization or identity studies" Matthew Kurtz, University of Alaska Anchorage


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County Home => Technology Services => Committees => 800 MHz Users Committee
The Washoe County Commission and other government agencies entered into an agreement to establish the Washoe County Regional Communication System (WCRCS). The agreement establishes a Joint Operating Committee and a Users Committee to provide a structure that enables administrative and fiscal review of the operating and maintenance of the WCRCS by the participating agencies. The Regional Communication System Fund was established in October 2006 to provide improved managerial accounting of WCRCS resources and disbursements.
Meeting Information
Held the third Thursday of every other month at 10:00 a.m.,
at the Regional Emergency Operations Center, 5195 Spectrum Blvd, Reno.


text:
We have taken the time to give you a list of most, if not all, animal shelters and animal control offices in Alabama in hopes that you will use it to help animals in your county. Please contact them with your questions regarding strays, surrenders or adoptions. These shelters and animal control officers are there to provide a service to their communities so please don't hesitate to consult them regarding your needs.
Barbour County Humane Society (Clayton); 334-775-7477


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By Sunaina Sharma / Bangalore
Results to the Assembly Election in Karnataka are along predictable lines. Congress has emerged as the winner, BJP has been demolished and Janata Dal (Secular) refuses to be written off.
Despite this very foreseeable outcome – even most exit polls got it right this time – there is a sobering reality underlining it. First, there is no sweeping sentiment; Congress has won by a slim margin in the 224-seat house and that is therefore no endorsement of its brave assertion of 'we survive everything'.
Second, national issues had little bearing, and like most states Karnataka voted on the basis of factors that affect the daily lives of the people – things like governance and civic amenities.
Third, even if Congress would have us believe it, the elections cannot be seen as a victory of Rahul Gandhi, who took some time out to campaign in the state. In the same vein, the results should also be viewed as a wake-up call for Narendra Modi for he has a long way to go before he is accepted as a national leader. Even though he campaigned only briefly, the BJP fared poorly in all the regions he visited like central and coastal Karnataka or Bangalore.
Salman Khurshid lost no time in saying, "Message for Modi is that there is no Modi." That may be an overstatement but not entirely out of place.
A big setback for the BJP, which tied at second place, is also that its Deputy CM K S Eshwarappa has lost in Shimoga, stamping loss of confidence of the people in the incumbent leadership.
Amidst all this, one factor has remained a constant over the decades. The fox of Karnataka politics HD Devegowda remains pertinent to state even in his loss and his legacy is being carried forward by his younger son HD Kumaraswamy. Devegowda has always amazed with his hunger for power - after all how many will accept being chief minister after having been the prime minister once – and with his instinct to remain relevant.
But the joker of the elections this time was clearly BJP rebel BS Yeddyurappa, whose breakaway Karnataka Janata Paksha, was possibly one of the main factors for BJP's terrible showing. Yeddyurappa ate away at the party's roots after having singlehandedly won the first southern bastion for the BJP and also significantly fragmented the Lingayat votebank, even if he managed no significant political victory for the KJP. In a sense, except taking comfort from sweet revenge, he did more harm to others than good to himself.
What Yeddyurappa did to the BJP, JD(S) has done to some extent to the Congress. It has nibbled away at its votebank in areas like Mysore where the electorate had punished it earlier for its betrayal of the BJP. While the Congress has won by 2:1 ration in urban cities, JD(S) damaged it in rural parts.
As far as regionwise outcomes were concerned, Congress made small gains in Bangalore where it managed under 50% of the seats, while JD(S) has gained significantly. Mumbai Karnataka has possibly been the best success story of the Congress. This is obviously where Yeddyurappa has had maximum impact on the prospects of the BJP. The Congress has also regained in the northern region of Hyderabad Karnataka, but has fared worst in the Southern part of the state where JD(S) has made most gains. The 2008 results got swapped in the western and coastal regions, where Congress wrested most of the seats BJP had won last time.
Interestingly, while an indicted Yeddyurappa, who also bears the ignominy of being the first chief minister of India to go to jail, had the ability to dent his former party, the tainted Reddy brothers have received a drubbing in Bellary.
Also while Lakshman Savadi, who was one of the three MLAs caught watching pornography in the Assembly, won, his co-accused colleagues CC Patil and Krishna Palemar thankfully lost.
Considering the mixed fate of these tainted politicos there can be no certain verdict on how the moral question pans out. But it is precisely moral high ground that BJP chose to take after the picture from down south became clear.
Ravi Shankar Prasad said the party had been faced with the choice between principle and power in the run up to the elections. They had failed today, but not buckled under the bullying tactics of their former CM or compromised on corruption.
Meanwhile, the race for chief ministership has picked pace. Sonia Gandhi's supposed favourite and Karnataka Congress chief G Parameshwara – who was confident of getting 120 plus seats in the morning today, has lost his own seat.
This would open the gates for Leader of Opposition Siddaramiah or someone like Union Minister Veerappa Moily, who is an ethnic Tuluva and was the CM in 1992-94, or even Mallikarjuna Kharge. Kharge has the advantage of having won every election till date and is also a Dalit. If we stretch, installing a Dalit may be seen as a foil by the Congress against the BSP in General Elections. On the other hand, Siddaramaiah, who rightly sees himself as a frontrunner, cannot be sure of his being nominated as CM because he is not perceived as a 10 Janpath confidant or loyalist.
As far as SM Krishna is concerned, he was reduced to a non-entity in the state even before ballots were cast. When he was moved out of the Centre there was speculation that he was being readied for state role, but it was not to be. Not only were his handpicked candidates not given preference for tickets, film star-turned-politician Ambareesh whom he was opposing has won from Mandya seat.
Overall, despite the victory, Congress should ideally not be in a celebratory mood and there is no reason for them to gloat about their triumph in the south. What they must accept is that Karnataka elections are neither a positive verdict on the scam soiled government at the Centre nor a defeat of the BJP ideology, as asserted by PM Manmohan Singh.
If anything Karnataka elections are about what factionalism can do to a corruption riddled party, which cares little for governance issues.
And if that is the reading, Congress better watch the wall for results in 2014.


text:
Throw warning message if leaving Timesheet without saving
Reported by timo.haberkern (at timehive) | March 14th, 2011 @ 03:16 PM | in 1.3 (closed)
Comments and changes to this ticket
timo.haberkern (at timehive) March 16th, 2011 @ 08:26 AM
- State changed from open to resolved
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