When Gunfire Interrupts Coffee

I had no idea there has been a spate of shootings in Seattle.

There was a big one yesterday I just found out this morning, from Drudge.

Immediate questions...

1. How come no one in the coffee shop was armed?  If you believe it is right to meet violence with violence, and if you believe in cops, and you do, and when seconds counts the cops will be there in minutes, why are you not armed?

2. How is it no one has noted the shooter is an outstanding, expert shot?  If he got 5 out of 6 dead, one critical, he is an exceptional, well trained shooter. Killing someone with a pistol with one shot is really quite difficult, near impossible if they are all moving.  Trained by whom (I am guessing military?)  In a time when more soldiers are dying from suicide than combat, what's going on?

Mayor McGlinn promises to work with the community to address the coincidence of several shootings.

For my part, thou shalt not kill.  Just because someone is shooting up a cafe does not mean that person should die.  In aikido we train to go straight at an attacker.  If someone starts shooting, game on.

Although I have no problem with people arming themselves, a second shooter in a cafe can be very confusing, even if shooter #2 is defending himself and the other patrons.  Much better defenders are unarmed, which is the case with aikido.

We train to not get hurt, but when there is a shooter, going straight at him, you are likely to get shot, no matter what your fighting system.  But going at a shooter, and being in control of yourself, at least you have some say so in whether a hit is lethal or not.  Not so the dead people who ducked.

Aikido is a martial art because it is designed for a combat situation.  It substitutes non-lethal response for lethal response.  An aikidoist like any other martial artist responds to threats.

We are told the problem is guns, when in fact it is failed state policies, which are backed by ... guns.  Obama put a 17 year old girl on his secret kill list.  What goes around comes around.

What we need is more people objecting conscientiously to violence and ready to meet it, even at a coffee break.

Peregrinations of a Master

One of my instructors, Lau Sensei, has taken on yet another life, this time in Chile.  I had spent eight years helping him write a book, which he managed to get out.  

Here we are, circa 1982 in his private dojo, he hosting a seminar by Terada Sensei.

Upon inquiring as to his well-being, he replied, in part:

"Best thing you ever did for me John was to tell me to take a hike -!-

Many thanks -!!!- What are friends for after all -!- Ja Ja -!-

b..."

We do what we can.

Ukrainian MPs Discuss Language

On the topic of language, specifically as to whether Russian will gain official status, some Ukrainian politicians decided to let their fists to their talking.  The fellow with the yellow and blue scarf is applying a pin in which pressure is applied to the nerves coming through holes in the jaw.  He is a little high, but in a fluid fight it is hard to apply.  Nice try though.  Later in the fight the larger fellow, when not so many hands are on him, delivers some pay back.

USA Foreign Policy

Here is a video on US Foreign Policy...

Its outline of the outrages is very good, its condemnation of free markets mistaken.  There is no "free market" in the teachings of Milton Friedman, since he believes in the supremacy of the state ultimately.  this is about 90 minutes long.

Just Following Orders/ Love it or Leave It

Those who love the state have two arguments in extremis:

1. I was just following orders.

2. If you don't like it, just leave.

The problem with these two comments is as follows:

1. "I was just following orders."  This begs the question, "Whose orders?"   Who had the authority to order you, and how come they came by such authority?  They had the authority because you pledged allegiance.  You willingly gave your consent to be governed, and then you just followed orders.  Those who wield power may absolve you for being just a soldier following orders, but will your Maker do so?

Some will object to evil in the face of orders.  Often if that question is asked, for example, at Abu Ghraib or Treblinka, the answer is clear or, often as not, the superior giving the evil order will reply,  "don't worry, I will take responsibility."  

Well no human being has the right (the power yes, but not the right) to pass off to another the blame for his own evil actions.  If you follow the order, you alone are guilty.

Now the funny thing is, any soldier can ask for orders in writing.  The worst that can happen is they will be transferred out.  Soldiers can be shot for failing to follow orders, but not for asking the orders to be in writing.

2.  If you do not like it, just leave (love it or leave it.)  Those who objected to the Vietnam war were told to love America or leave it.  Very strange.  But in natural law, one has property rights, and human action in natural law is superior to state prescriptive law.  If you own a home in a USA, "leaving" is hardly an option.  It is the ones who propose war, a lower level human activity, who ought to leave, to advance their agenda, in another country.

Our love for others is concrete and superior to "love of state."

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

War and Student Loans

We've crossed the line when the majority of the unemployed also have college education.  And it is accelerating, because the community colleges are packing them in, and forming waiting lists.  So it is a simple fact that in the majority of cases and education equals unemployment.

The disaster is systemic because courses offered in a community college mean more debt for the taxpayers.  You see, no matter what a student pays, the majority of the cost is covered by the taxpayers. And state institutions, being what they are, concentrate on teaching java coders to be roofers, and roofers to be java coders.  Now go be unemployed, but you cannot bankrupt your student loan.  And the congress is now working on legislation where you cannot get a passport if you owe the government money.  So if you fall behind on your student loan to become a java coder or roofer, and they need java coder or roofers badly overseas, the only way you are going overseas is if you carry a rifle and wear a uniform.  Oorah!  We already have a rule that banks cannot foreclose on active duty military, so save the house, join the army.  Semper fi to the politicians abusing you and the generals unworthy to lead you!

This downward spiral will get us to the point when our elders express a collective sigh of relief when the mass of unemployed young go off to war.  Human sacrifice to appease the gods.  There is an alternative path, but you have to think like a conscientious objector.

Medicine as Violence

Here is a paper, a part of a growing effort, in which 35 people decide that the other 350 million citizens should have injected into them.  This is a leverage of 1 over ten million.  Training in conscientious objection is not limited to war.  It's about comprehensive conscientious objection.

Two of the twenty Jewish children used formedical experiments.

rrz.uni-hamburg.de