Shooting for Effect

I have no problem with guns.  I just object to anyone in government having access to guns.  Nongovernmental types who have guns please me, especially when they are very skilled shooters.

Happy Halloween!


Feel Free To Email This To Three Friends.

Elections and Dead Ambassadors and Soldiers

Here is a interesting article laying out at least two instances in which USA diplomats and soldiers died as politicians played at politics.

I played a but as a Ron Paul delegate and what I learned is the locus of violence in USA is the political parties.  All evil flows from there.

Feel Free To Email This To Three Friends.

Guess Where This Is.

There are some beautiful places where I would like to practice aikido.  Of course, since aikido is a tolerant art it thrives in tolerant places.  Like here.

Here is practice shot.  And here is more.

Conscientious Objection and Cheese

I bought a $10 4 oz chunk of goat cheese at a San Mateo farmers market Saturday.  I asked if was raw milk cheese, and she said no way, not in California, it is pasteurized.  Sigh.  Even Washington state lets Goats milk go by raw.  She said "well, we could, but... regs, licensing, inspections..." and I don't doubt that.

I also do not doubt that last thing she would allow is any of her customers to get sick.  A friend pointed out that all of these e coli and other disasters come from big houses which cannot control, for sheer volume, for these things.  To do so effectively, the farm has to be small.

I have no science to back this up, but my sense is I eat better nutritionally, although consume less product, when I pay the extra for the better food.  Now, I read recently the science is the benefit claims of "organic" are bogus.  I don't doubt that, but the problem is the definition of "organic" not in the benefit of better food.

I too want to see small farms thrive.  But as Earl Butz said, the ag policy of USA is "get big or get out." And so it seems.  What to do?  States back off in the face of conscientious objection.  it is the state policies that are holding small ag back.  Wouldn't a conscientious objection movement in ag advance food freedom?

Azerbaijani Aikido

This is the sort of practice I recall and love.  It has been a long time since I have seen it.  It is explosive, and I used to be able to do maybe 10 minutes, now I bet no more than 2, but man do I miss it.

We used to do shiho-nage not with the uke's wrist against the uke's shoulder but pulled out and uke had to have the Tohei hop down to get over it.

Anyone in Seattle want to learn to practice like this?   Please?

I have to go to Azerbaijan to practice?

When Will Cheney Be Tried?

Given that Iraq had no connection with 9/11 and possessed no weapons of mass destruction, the Iraq war was a crime of aggression and – under the standards by which Nazi leaders were convicted by the Nuremberg Tribunal – the American leaders who lied us into that war are guilty of war crimes.

Benjamin Ferencz, a former chief prosecutor for the Nuremberg Trials, declared:

A prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity — that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.

How a Conscientious Objector Stands

Have you noticed how people in power and those around them grab their peepees when they get together?




Never do this.  If you feel it is necessary then something is wrong.  You have some feral fear you are acting out, and you must conscientiously object to your own impulse.

If you must do something with your hands, you can cross your arms, but this is a challenge too.  Here are people doing it wrong:


Here is is done right, as a martial artist.  Note the hands are not trapped by the arms.  Each of these people can instantly launch a hand.



With one arm merely lying atop another, hand over elbow, and elbow over hand, and only the outer hand grasping an elbow, the outer hand can launch and strike immediately (see James Demile) and the inner arm can protect the lower body.

Best to just leave your hands at your side. But if you want to keep people wondering, keep one hand in a jacket pocket.



Or to be truly unnerving, keep one hand behind you.



Not sure why anyone would do this...