Rolling

This is the best video on rolling I've seen...


To which I added my comment...
I've been practicing since 1971, and got my training with the very best students of O Sensei.  This has got to be the best video I have seen of "how to" on rolling.  I've never seen the side roll taught.  My only problem is "who are you?"  There is enough information to suggest this is from the Philippines, but there are a lot of dojos there.  I want to put this on my short list of dojos to visit in my life.  Fess up, who are you?

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How America Works

When the disgraced Admiral Poindexter was resurrected to announce the ill-fated TIA, the idea was shot down.  Shortly thereafter, the CIA set up shop in the Silicon Valley.  It has been backing social network sites ever since.


The big infusion of cash that sent Mark Zuckerberg and his fledgling college enterprise on their way came from Accel Partners, in 2004.
Jim Breyer, head of Accel, attached a $13 million rocket to Facebook, and nothing has ever been the same.
Earlier that same year, a man named Gilman Louie joined the board of the National Venture Capital Association of America (NVCA). The chairman of NVCA? Jim Breyer. Gilman Louie happened to be the first CEO of the important CIA start-up, In-Q-Tel.
In-Q-Tel was founded in 1999, with the express purpose of funding companies that could develop technology the CIA would use to “gather data.”


Now, I really could care less one way or another, except that it is a stunning waste of taxpayers money. In the name of national security, we are all constantly informing on ourselves.  Not that any of this will be used to curb terrorism or prevent crime, only that when the powers that be want to take someone out, they can simply go to their database and pull out enough to destroy him.

Before that, they had to build a false case against you, or assassinate you.  Now, big improvement, they can build an accurate against you.  Against everyone.  It is so much more liberal now.

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Sophie's False Choice & Permission

William Styron had a best seller which turned into a movie called Sophie's Choice, about a Polish woman whose ill-fortne it was to be on the arriving platform at a concentration camp with her 3 yo daughter and 5 yo boy.  A drunk SS captain, desiring to test God, found in Sophie the chance.  The captain told Sophie to choose which child should live and which should die.  Styron makes the whole scene believable, with the terrible argument back and forth, if she did not choose one, both would die, Sophie makes her choice and the doomed child shrieks as it is dragged away.

It was so well written it took me a while to figure out what the problem was.  Sophie did not have permission to make that choice.  She was never given the right to decide who lives and who dies when she was given lives to care for.  When the nazi captain said choose, her answer should have been "I do  not have permission to make such a choice."

The captain would have reminded her both would die.  To which her reply ought to be "If one, both, or neither dies, that is your choice not mine.  I have no power here, only you have the power to decide."

The captain may say he is giving her the power to save one, but her reply should be the ground-shifting "i do not have permission to make such a choice."

Whence permission?  Only from God, He who the captain as testing.  No doubt the drunken captain would have packed both off to die at her conscientious objection, but perhaps he would have reflected on his actions and permission and the God he was wondering about.  And since life went rather downhill from that point for Sophie et fil, the early death of both kids would have been better.

We are all given false choices to consider, but we must be ready to consider whether the power that is given to us is legitimate.  Usually not.  If not, you do not have permission to exercise it.


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Selecting Illegal Immigrants for the Draft

I though this was interesting...

If you are a man ages 18 through 25 and living in the U.S., then you must register with Selective Service.

So if just visiting, you might get snatched for the military?  I guess if you have a visa "document" then no problem...  but working here, a migrant farm labor, you must register.  Yikes!  We used to carry our draft cards lest we be stopped and whisked away until further proof of our status.

ATTENTION, UNDOCUMENTED MALES
& IMMIGRANT SERVICING GROUPS!

Selective Service does not collect any information which would indicate whether or not you are undocumented. You want to protect yourself for future U.S. citizenship and other government benefits and programs by registering with Selective Service. Do it today.

If you are a man ages 18 through 25 and living in the U.S., then you must register with Selective Service. It’s the law. According to law, a man must register with Selective Service within 30 days of his 18th birthday. Selective Service will accept late registrations but not after a man has reached age 26. You may be denied benefits or a job if you have not registered. You can register at any U.S. Post Office and do not need a social security number.When you do obtain a social security number, let Selective Service know. Provide a copy of your new social security number card; being sure to include your complete name, date of birth, Selective Service registration number, and current mailing address; and mail to the Selective Service System, P.O. Box 94636, Palatine, IL 60094-4636.

That word "man" is black in the original...  I guess be eligible for the draft makes you a man.

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Child Sacrifice, USA 2013

Panarchist Micahel Rosen has a nice list of things to which to conscientiously object:

America systematically mistreats its young, a partial list:

1. Burdening them with a monstrous debt

2. Raising them in an environment of perpetual war

3. Inflicting the public school system on them

4. Over-prescribing them with drugs

5. Suppressing masculinity

6. Shifting the fruits of their labor to retirees

7. Raising increasing numbers in single-parent families

8. Forcing mothers out of homes and into the workforce

9. Discouraging work and encouraging profiting from drugs

10. Discouraging saving and a long-term horizon

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Still... Not Drafting Women

Although the Selective Service has plans for all people with any medical skills to be drafted, including 63 yo women gynecologists, the Selective Service clarifies:

Even though the Secretary of Defense has decided to allow women in combat jobs, the law has not been changed to include this. Consequently, only men are currently required to register by law with Selective Service during ages 18 thru 25. Women still do not register. (January 24, 2013)

But Leon Panetta may have changed that:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently announced the administration's intent to eliminate military women's exemptions from direct ground combat battalions. Unless Congress intervenes, a future court will impose Selective Service obligations on unsuspecting civilian women, on the same basis as men, despite findings that point to differences in women's physiology and performance capabilities. This will drive down tough training standards and weaken the military.

The selective service website is moving awfully slow.  Perhaps inquiring minds are alarmed.

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Standing Army

One reason we have trouble in the economy etc is the USA was not designed to have a standing army.   And certainly not one as provincial as a small town.   When a mayor thinks he is not getting enough taxpayer money, he closes the libraries and parks, things people actually use, until they fork over the money for the useless and pointless.

Given that there may be a slight decrease in the rate of growth of USA military spending, a top general is threatening to keep USA soldiers in Afghanistan longer.

Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Friday that he expects the sequester to go into effect March 1, triggering $46 billion in automatic cuts to the overall Pentagon budget through September. "I think it's going to happen," McKeon told reporters. "We have just not been able to get past the politics of it to really focus in on the devastating effects."

Now, given that one prime reason for soldiers killing themselves in Afghanistan is the ennui and horror of being an occupation force, to use them as hostages for more money is pretty appalling.

We were not supposed to have a standing army.  With no standing army, picking a general by political process is fine.  But with a standing army, picking a general by a political process (president nominates, congress approves) just yields more politicians and cash-o-rama.

Time to sequester the money and cut the military back to purely defensive.  At least.

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