Saturday, January 26, 2013

A Gaffe

Is when a politician accidently speaks his mind...  Japanese finance minister says old people should hurry up and die.

Taro Aso, the finance minister, said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to "hurry up and die" to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care.

Suffering has meaning.

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Friday, January 25, 2013

Tohei Sensei and 4 Principles

There are the four principles of Aikido practice that were drilled in to us back in the day, before Tohei Sensei formed shin-shin toitsu aikido (ki-aikido).


  1. Keep One Point
  2. Relax Completely
  3. Keep weight underside
  4. Extend Ki


If you go to the site, they explain these in some detail, and one explanation is surprising to me.

1. Do not feel the lower abdomen

I was taught to tighten the lower abdomen with the view of physically experiencing where this "one point" was, variously described tangibly as 3 inched below the belly button or ones center of gravity, although lower in females for their different physical structure.

I've found it a great centering check in stressful situations, especially in crowds, the consciously tighten the lower abdomen to get centered.

Now maybe this can be clarified as it is ok as a check, but maintaining the check is an error, perhaps as a crutch or some thing.  To be sure, it is only to be a quick centering check, and once centering is obtained, the check is not be be maintained.  Perhaps it is like putting on the parking break to make sure the car is completely stopped, but you need to release it to move again.

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Thursday, January 24, 2013

Peaceful Criticism of Obama

Here a rapper criticized Obama which results in the end of his performance.


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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Is Democracy Legitimate?

I am coming across more and more teachings and writings which seem to reject democracy as a legitimate form of government.  Then I read this, surprised I missed it before:


1 Samuel 15:24-26

Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)
24 And Saul said to Samuel: I have sinned because I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words, fearing the people, and obeying their voice.
25 But now bear, I beseech thee, my sin, and return with me, that I may adore the Lord.
26 And Samuel said to Saul: I will not return with thee, because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel.


Obeying the people is the heart of democracy.

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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Monday, January 21, 2013

Radical Answers to Extremists


The left and right are being played off each other, in a sort of divide and conquer effort.  An excellent example if the risible gun control debate, for which there is no debate, just insult flying past each other.  The left knows quite well every time they "come after guns" sales shoot up.  Every time some "gun law" is passed life gets worse in the inner cities.  Sometimes results reveal intentions.

When observing these follies, keep in mind the continuum:  no king (an+archy) to totalitarianism.

In all time and every place, we see the good, true and beautiful emerge where we are closer to anarchy.  With see men in uniforms destroying all as we emerge toward totalitarianism.   Two classic examples are Qin Shi Huang di whose 1000 year reign lasted but 12, and Shicklgruber's 1000 year reign with lasted 12.  

There is no rational limit on power once you acccept The King.  Both left and right, sadducee and pharisee, guelph and ghibelline, protestant and catholic, they all end in disaster.  

And there is no rational limit to the good the true and the beautiful when you accept no king.

The extremists are on the left and right, whose prescriptions defy reason and experience.  Their game is to present the false dilemma, either with us or against us.  Both say we are for good things and against bad things, if you are not with us, you are for bad things and against good things.  What side you take is largely a matter of aesthetics.

It is quite tedious.  Because we radicals know there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in their philosophy.

Or just ignored by their philosophy, for urges consequential to libido dominandi. (See here and here.)


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Sunday, January 20, 2013

Suganuma Sensei

I look forward to training someday in Fukuoka where Suganuma Sensei has real-deal aikido.


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Saturday, January 19, 2013

Conscientious Objection to Medical Experiments

Thousand of people had to be involved, but none ever said "this is wrong."  When Richard Nixon was elected, only until then did he have the scruples to say "no."


The government sponsored smaller tests, too. In the late 1950s, mentally disabled children at Sonoma State Hospital were fed irradiated milk. None gave consent. In Tennessee, 829 pregnant mothers took a vitamin drink to improve their baby’s health. The mothers weren’t told the “vitamin” was actually radioactive iron. In Massachusetts, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission fed 73 mentally disabled children oatmeal. The secret ingredient? Radioactive calcium. (Officials told the kids that if they ate the porridge, they would join a “science club.”) From 1960 to 1971, the Department of Defense conducted whole body radiation experiments on black cancer patients, who thought they were receiving treatment. Instead, the DOD used the test to calculate how humans reacted to high levels of radiation.

Now nobody hides these things, it goes on with no challenge.  The reason is none of the original perpetrators was ever prosecuted.  Feel Free To Email This To Three Friends.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Famous Gun Free Zone



Of course the police had guns.

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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Ip Man Taught For the Love of It

Bruce Lee was a natural, and was trained under the best, Ip Man to be exact.  His movie can be found here.



Bruce Lee was obliged to move from Hong Kong to Seattle, where he continued his studies.  He is remembered for studying under Old Man Young in the afternoon and teaching what he learned in the evening.

Bruce Lee's first generation students
1961 http://www.wingchundo.com/
I've had the pleasure to train with Jessie Glover (standing left) and James DeMile (kneeling left), I took a log cabin building course from Skip Ellsworth (standing immediate right of Lee), and I must say it was one of the funniest weekends of my life.  Glover still teaches in Seattle's Chinatown, if you can get in.  Taki Kimura could be met anytime behind the counter of his grocery store in First Hill, and he had free classes but few could cut the requirements.  Never had the pleasure of meeting Bruce Lee or the other two.

These people all got good by simply training, over and over, knocked down, get up, and down and up. Can't tell you how many times I wanted to quit, but there is just something that keeps one going.  How often I wondered "Will I ever get better?" and then somehow, something clicks and there is a new plateau.

Also, I could not waterski until I began practicing aikido, and figured out how to not disgrace myself at a dance from aikido.  So those things are side encouragements.  But the key to sticking with it is instructors who teach for the love of it.  I think of Wally Jay and Frank Doran in the Bay Area, Paul Kurose in Seattle as exemplars.  Does your instructor love the art?

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For The Children

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/130734.html

Obama, Hitler, Mao, Stalin
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Saturday, January 12, 2013

Conscientious Objection to Big Pharma

If this psychiatrist is correct and accurate, then many cases of suicide are not suicide at all, but homicide. If drug companies hid relevant data, then those ordering the hiding are guilty of murder, and those following orders are accessories to murder.

 If it is too terrible to contemplate, people will not contemplate it.  That drug companies would hurt their customers is illogical and unthinkable.  But if the drug companies were working under a worldview that decided that the week (those given to sadness) are subhuman and need to be eliminated, or at least can be used for human drug experiments, then what we in fact have makes sense.  And if we understand it, we can move against the activity.  Then it is not too terrible to contemplate, because it can be stopped.

Scientistic racism is alive and well in USA, as is eugenics.  Nobody was punished for the Tuskegee Experiments.  No one will be punished for what is going on, when it is exposed.  That is why it continues.

Drug companies are huge and powerful by political means, not by markets.  We can start by withdrawing welfare for big Pharma.


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Friday, January 11, 2013

If They Set Off Bombs, They Weren't Anarchists

And their note proves it...

In an Internet statement, the anarchist group which goes by the name 'Lovers of Lawlessness' said of the journalists: "While they use a pro-workers rhetoric, they wink mischievously at their political bosses."

People who set off bombs are not anarchists, they are people who want to take over.  Anarchists are not lovers of lawlessness, they just want no king (or state).  The problem with the state is it bring chaos.  There is spontaneous order when there is no Government.

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Saturday, January 5, 2013

War For Oil

The next secretary of defense said

"People say we're not fighting for oil. Of course we are," said the Republican Senator from Nebraska Chuck Hagel to law students of Catholic University last September. "They talk about America's national interest. What the hell do you think they're talking about? We're not there for figs."

The left wants us to understand this and fund windmill energy.

The Neocons want us to deny it and destroy the messenger.

Nobody says war for oil is wrong.

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Friday, January 4, 2013

Anarchy and Government

Our right to form a government is an negative right, allowed only in disobedience to God.  Obey comes from obedere, to listen.  We have governments only because we refuse to listen to God.  See 1 Samuel 8.

Now the Israelites is the first recorded instance of people demanding a king to "fight their battles for them" and the most recent election is the last recorded instance.

Anarchy means an+ archy = no+ king.  It is a positive term in the sense it comports with God's desire, but the state with its minions gave the word an erroneous sense and imbued it with negativity.  When people think of anarchy, they think bomb + thrower.

Now anarchy does not mean no + government.  From God's point of view, no king = trust God, according to the Bible.

We have plenty of government without the state.  We have rules which govern relationships between friends, skiiing, chess, business which have no relation to the state.  In fact almost all of our human interactions are governed by the spontaneous order out of anarchy.

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Thursday, January 3, 2013

Conscientious Objection More Successful Than War

Here is an interesting point from a NYTimes article:

Nonviolent movements continue abroad, most recently in parts of the Middle East. It is not just idealism that drives them to reject force; they also know it works. A study conducted by Erica Chenoweth of Wesleyan University and Maria J. Stephan of American University found that of hundreds of insurgencies from 1900 to 2006, more than 50 percent of nonviolent campaigns worked, while only about 25 percent of violent ones did.

So nonviolent efforts are twice as successful at achieving political ends as violent efforts.  Must find that study, and it needs more study to be science.  But note this...

Some of what the American peace movement fought for has come to pass: there is no draft, there are no special taxes raised to pay for war, the threat of nuclear Armageddon has receded and the country plays a leading, if controversial, role in multilateral institutions. Rooting out terrorists and intervening in civil conflicts, soldiers often do more police work than conventional combat.

Well, no draft does not equate to no war, just no anti-war, since the people dying are volunteers.  "It's a free country" as we used to say.  No special taxes gives the impression the wars cost us nothing, so who cares?  Neither of these results is good.  And then this -

Such complacency has allowed for the possibility of unending war. Because of the nature of intelligence gathering and weapons technology like drones, the government can use deadly force without popular support or approval. The president has claimed — and we have given him — extraordinary powers.

Yes, Hitler proved at Guernica that an all-air-war could lead to costless victory, until that was proven untrue.  When Hitler was confronted with soldiers who could not abide the Final Solution, Hitler shifted to means that no longer required the soldiers. That proved untrue as well.  Yes, we have given  Obama the faculties that Hitler deemed good.

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