Defending Your Freedom To Lie

Seems the military has a problem:

“When pressed for specifics on how they managed, officers tended to dodge the issue with statements such as, ‘You gotta make priorities, we met the intent, or we got creative,’ ” the report said. “Eventually words and phrases such as ‘hand waving, fudging, massaging, or checking the box’ would surface to sugarcoat the hard reality that, in order to satisfy compliance with the surfeit of directed requirements from above, officers resort to evasion and deception.”
“In other words, in the routine performance of their duties as leaders and commanders, U.S. Army officers lie,” the paper concludes.

Thank you for your service?

There is a reason the founders forbid a standing army.

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Cold Water Swimming

There is even an association:

"You know people have done it for thousands of years, even the ancient Greek people knew what the good benefits of cold water are to the human body," says Mariia Yrjö-Koskinen, a Finland native and the president of the International Winter Swimming Association. "It releases the natural endorphins. I have said that it's the best endorphins you can get from the nature."

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Why Ferguson?

John Gibson has a late night talk show devoted to the premise that people of African heritage are inferior, and their problems are all their fault.  But maybe not...

“Yes, all the time. It is something I see a lot of, whether it was from deputies, supervisors or undercovers and even investigators. It’s almost like you have no emotion with it, that they attach the bodies to it, they’re going to be out of jail tomorrow anyway; nothing is going to happen to them anyway. One of the consequences of the war on drugs is that police officers are pressured to make large numbers of arrests, and it’s easy for some of the less honest cops to plant evidence on innocent people. The drug war inevitably leads to crooked policing — and quotas further incentivize such practices. It doesn’t help that your higherups all did the same thing when they were on the road. It’s like a neverending cycle. Like how molested children accept that as okay behavior and begin molesting children themselves.”

Read the article here where the officers note people of African heritage are particularly selected for false arrest.  Abuse people, then blame them.

I've heard these stories about Seattle for the last 40 years.  From cops.

Not nice.

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How Was ISIS Created?

We trained and funded ISIS?



Time to get out now.

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Rules of Aikido

Aikido is unique inasmuch as there are no rules in the techniques themselves.  Everything is aikido, as opposed to all other arts, even MMA, which has some rules too.

Four principles:

Keep One Point

Relax Completely

Keep Weight Underside

Extend Ki

I read an interesting comment:  How come in every aikido video, the uke melts away, never offers a counter to nage?

Well, the reason you see so many 60 year old aikidoka is uke melts away when he knows he has been had.  Taking a hard fall or rolling put of the twist is to avoid the sprain or break of further resistance.

Also, uke is training to roll out, escape damage, and nage knows well when uke rolled even though nage did not throw uke.  Nage screwed up.  But at that point, the art is a different throw, from dynamic to static.  Uke will roll out of a poor execution of a defense against an dynamic attack so nage can have another chance to practice and get it right.  Reps matter.

There is ran dori, where counters are legit, and those can be very interesting, and they do show uke resisting, but it can also look quite awkward (and rather real)...  people don't want to commit such real expression to film record, methinks.  Maybe I will...

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More Misogi

Swimming today, something was wrong.  I swam, enjoyed it much.  Stayed on the dock and went in for a second dip, nothing unusual there.  But then, it was no big deal.  52 degrees weather. So I went in for a 3rd dip.  Swam out to the raft, hanged out there for a few minutes, dove in off the raft, tried to go as long underwater as possible, came up, australian crawl to the ladder, back up on the dock.  Something odd.

Just checked.  The lake has gone from 47 to 48 degrees.  It is warming back up.

There is so much to be experienced in bringing the cold of the lake, that struggle, to the bokto and jo kata.

The lake warming up is like hearing a good dojo is closing down. Pray for a cold snap.

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Ukrainian Selective Service

After investing $5 billion to destabilize a peaceful country and its democratically elected government, the USA is investing another $40 billion to finish it off, via the IMF, whose leaders enjoy sex orgies at taxpayers expense.

Note the brave woman who takes the microphone from the soldier, but also note the soldier lets her go on.   The soldiers don't want this war either.  But it is existential for the USA welfare/warfare regime. When we can no longer steal, we cannot make our payments, then it is over for the banksters/military industrial complex.  Swith on the translation to see what the Ukrainian woman has to say in English...


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