Obama passing new law to allow searching of PC's, Laptops, and media devices

More fun huh?

Terror inmates may be released in US: intel chief

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.18e9e5692442aa61d7510553b5ffc14e.e01&show_article=1

not sure about this

Real Ghost Captured on Video

of shoes and feet

Finding the right pair of shoes has always been hard for me
because of my odd shaped feet. I have a very narrow heel, with the rest
of my foot being wide but relatively
flat on top. In fact, my feet are shaped a lot like a set of diving
fins. If you stand another guy next to me, with the same shoes on, same
size 10, it will look like a completely different pair of shoes on my
feet. My feet actually deform the shoes. Not to mention the fact that
each shoe will fit each of my feet differently, one foot being bigger
(which everyone has, mine just seems to be the opposing foot), one
shaped a little different here or there. It's just irritating.

For many years I just dealt with it, and shoved my foot into whatever was
available or affordable to me at the time, and rolled with the blisters
and calluses, forcing some of the most hellishly designed shoes in the
world to fit my foot rather than taking the time to find shoes that fit
me. Maybe it builds character, who knows.

When I was a kid, I didn't have much choice in what shoes I got. My parents would take us to payless, or some other discounter that was around at the time, and we ended up
with off brand shoes. Back then while still growing, this didn't matter
much. I was outgrowing the shoes too fast to wear them for long
anyways, and much of the time I didn't even wear shoes.


My first pair of good shoes that I remember getting was a pair of white leather Nikes
with a red swoosh on the sides, not something I would get under normal
circumstances. These came with a full wardrobe of school clothes from
Montgomery Ward my grandmother bought me one year when things were
tight. This was my grandmother from my fathers side, who had not seem
me in years because of an estrangement between her and my mother. When
I was allowed to start going around her, she would give me just about anything I wanted.

Those shoes lasted a good long time, and I was hard on shoes as most boys
were at that age. They were even a little big so I could "grow into
them" which was taken full advantage of.

I remember around 5th and 6th grade, when we were all developing style awareness (I think they start younger now, but I think this has more to do with the parents
influence), Reebok had become very popular. The most shocking thing
about these shoes was that they averaged around $50 at the time. Nobody
could believe that someone would pay that much for shoes, but anyone
who was anyone had them of course. At around that time, I think my
shoes averaged $3-$5 dollars, including the slip on Vans I had that
were being sold at Fashion Emporium in Lemon Grove.

I remember My uncle had given my older sister a pair of black high top Reeboks. Needless to say, I was jealous. After a lot of prodding in the 6th grade, I finally got my parents to buy me a pair that I had found at Mervyns
on sale for around $25 bucks. When I wore them to school, I got made
fun of by some of the kids, because they weren't the right kind, a non
leather running shoe style.

My first pair of what I would consider really good shoes, I paid for
myself with the money from my paper route. They were a pair of white
all leather British Knights. They were made well, fit my foot better
than most shoes did, and were also very "IN" at the time. They were the
ones at bottom center in this ad.

http://www.britishknights.com/article.php?id=1

I took good care of these shoes and wore them for the better part of 2
years. Obviously since I had paid for them myself, I had a greaterappreciation
for the money that had been spent, and the work that went into earning
that money. This is something that kids just don't seem to be learning
these days.

The funny thing about this whole incident in my history, is that after seeing that these shoes lasted a long time, and I took care of them, my parents decided that they were worth the money, and my next two pairs of shoes wereBK's which they happily shelled out the money for. It was, and is, very unusual that my parents have ever
decided something was worth the money when there was a cheaper alternative.

After that I went back to wearing Vans. Which at the time, was a cheap but respectable shoe, worn almost exclusively by skateboarders. Now they are just like any other shoe company out there, which is unfortunate.

As I got older, and my tastes changed, and I rejected convention more and
more, I switched up to Doc Martins. Not the fancy ones you see now
days, but the old 10 hole, work boots. These things were tanks, made of
thick leather, and a honeycombed oilresistant rubber sole, complete with yellow stitching.


Everyone always said, "You can
have new soles put on." but I don't remember anyone ever doing
that....... In fact, it seemed to me, that the older and more worn out
they got, the better they were. Of course, they fit my feet better the
older they got too.

I went through multiple pairs of these
boots, most I got second hand from friends, only ever buying 2 pair new
I think. At one point I think I even got a used pair offebay in 2000. In fact they are sitting right outside my back door right now, the last pair I wore.

The funny thing is, these shoes never fit me right, they would kill my feet
for up to a month before I could wear them without any problems, and I
would always end up with a thick patch of skin on the back on my heel,
and on my little toe. All part of mydedication to my brand I guess...

Since then I have become more practical. I don't care so much about what my
shoes look like, or if they are the current style. My feet hurt, and I
want them to NOT HURT.

My first real venture into his came
with New Balance. In my opinion, if you can find the right pair for
you, they are well worth the money. I had a pair that I liked so much,
I got a second pair a few days later so I would have a backup. They
didn't fit perfect, still being a little on the tight side, but they
worked wonders for my back and legs.

After I wore those out, I couldn't find another pair of New Balance that fit me right, so went in search of something else. This brought me back to skateboarding shoes. DC and Sneaux.
Very comfortable for my feet, no real complaints about them, with the
exception that the inner soles wear out very fast. But over all they
are a good sturdy shoe.

My Sneaux were getting worn out, and my feet were starting to suffer again, so I started wearing a pair of Retro looking New balance shoes I picked up on sale one day on a whim, that I had only worn a few times. Big mistake.... I realized after a
couple hours that they were making me miserable....

So my latest venture into shoe hunting took me to Famous Footwear. I tried on
several pairs of shoes, DC, Doc martins, Sketchers etc... then I
noticed something new.... They were nowcarring a good variety of wide
width shoes. Now, that doesn't mean they had a lot of them, but more
than I had ever seen before, and in theame styles as the regular width shoes. All athletic or running shoes of course, but wtf, my feet hurt, and I need shoes.

My problem with wide width shoes up to this point has been that they were hard to find, usually expensive, and only came in the ugliest of "old man" styles. They looked like grandpa shoes, or something that required a prescription.
Suddenly, this one store has them. New Balance has had wide shoes
forever, but you could never actually find any of them in any stores.
But there they had them. Nike, NB,Asics etc....

I went for the new balance first, found a pair that was very nice, good fit, nice
cushioning and all that. I held on to the box while I tried on more.
TheAsics , were interesting, they actually seemed very odd on my feet,
and the heel was too wide, which is something I had run into before
with wide shoes. They seemed wearable, but Iknow I would pay for a lose heel later.

The next pair I tried were Sketchers and the heel was way too wide. I'm not
sure who they made these for, but they must have massive heels. I swear
the heel was as wide as the rest of the shoe.

Next were the Nike ACG trail shoes, which I may go back and buy after trying them on a second time and loosening the laces, they seemed a good fit, something I can
do some hiking in or something...

Then I saw another pair. Not a brand I would ever normally consider, but not unknown, Avia. I tried these things on not expecting much, but giving the benefit of
the doubt, and I'm glad I did. These ones actually fit me better than
all the other shoes, and my feet almost instantly stopped hurting. If
they had had another pair in my size, I may have gotten them. The best
part, was that these were the least expensive of all the shoes I tried
on that day. They aren't pretty, but they don't look like old man shoes
either, but I am well past the point where I will sacrifice style for
comfort. After all, I did tryCrocs, which just didn't work out....


I hope I can find something that works well for me, doesn't break the
bank, (though I don't mind paying for quality) and will last longer
than a couple months....



Long live my feet!!!

Hmmm

I have a few things to blame on people, but for the moment it is going to have to wait.

Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.

QUOTE OF THE YEAR!!! (so far anyways)

So true so true so true, in more than one area as far as education goes too.......

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/18/banking-useconomy


"The low-hanging fruit, ie idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking," he wrote. "These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government," he said.

"All of this behaviour supporting the aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America."

Todays news..... (UPDATED)

People are always so surprised that I am "NOT" on the bandwagon.....

Here is something interesting....

yes, an almost exact correlation" between climate fluctuations and solar energy, with almost no correlation at all with Co2.... All you have to do is go look at the fucking data...

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/10/20/lorne-gunter-thirty-years-of-warmer-temperatures-go-poof.aspx


Hmmm, commented on this asshole already...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081020/D93TUV100.html


As if.... sheesh....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081020/od_afp/britainmilitarydefenceufooffbeat_081020121039
and
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081020/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_britain_ufo;_ylt=AnVAm9F1RrSHyGlkY4jgwMms0NUE

As UN-PC as it is, I have long been against allowing tards to run the street without a leash, so to speak. I admit I don't know everything there is to know about this tards form of autism (I do know a little), but I do know that tards are responsible for a high number of child molestations, and rapes every year that go unanswered, and unaccounted for. For the most part they simply let the tards go about business as usual. I am all for keeping them locked away from public contact, not out of spite, just out of concern for public safety.
These days all you ever hear about is how tards are so loving and innocent and gentle, while the darker side is ignored. Tards can just as easily be unpredictable and violent.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1077808/How-Muslim-convert-set-bombs-error-open-toilet-door.html

Just have to update this with a new link.... this is how fucking ridiculous things get...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4734844a11.html

Quotes of the day...

The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system—and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny

...observe that in all the propaganda of the ecologists—amidst all their appeals to nature and pleas for 'harmony with nature'—there is no discussion of man's needs and the requirements of his survival. Man is treated as if he were an unnatural phenomenon. Man cannot survive in the kind of state of nature that the ecologists envision—i.e., on the level of sea urchins or polar bears...

A crime is the violation of the right(s) of other men by force (or fraud). It is only the initiation of physical force against others- i.e., the recourse to violence- that can be classified as a crime in a free society (as distinguished from a civil wrong). Ideas, in a free society, are not a crime- and neither can they serve as the justification of a crime.

Contrary to the ecologists, nature does not stand still and does not maintain the kind of equilibrium that guarantees the survival of any particular species - least of all the survival of her greatest and most fragile product: man.

Let no man posture as an advocate of peace if he proposes or supports any social system that initiates the use of force against individual men, in any form.

For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors - between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.

The goal of the “liberals”—as it emerges from the record of the past decades—was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus, statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot—by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli.

America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to “the common good,” but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance—and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.

Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals—that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government—that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen’s protection against the government.

There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).




Ayn Rand

Crack down... (should have been much bigger)

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D92Q6K480&show_article=1

Nearly 600 detained.....

Good, now go get the rest... These high profile crack downs are fine and all, but this should be happening multiple times a day, every day of the week... Lets also start handing out fines and jail time to the people in charge of the companies that hire these people.

They really are like an infestation....

It appears that there were illegals from Brazil, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, and Peru....

Pretty good mix, and no it's not about race, it's about LAW plain and simple.


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080827/D92QIKFG0.html

Look at the slant in this one... heh...

Traumatic for the families huh... They brought it on themselves...

I have absolutely no sympathy for any of these people. All of them knowingly broke our countries laws, several times over in most of the cases, and the ones who have dragged their families into it should also be held accountable for that. And as far as the children go, they only have their own parents to blame.

Amnesty is bullshit, anyone who is here illegally, should automatically lose the prospect of ever becoming a legal resident, or citizen for that matter.

Furthermore, anyone wishing to immigrate to the US should meet some rigid requirements.

1. No criminal history, including those who are under age (juvenile offenders).
2. No disease carriers, and I mean any disease, not just AIDS or Hep.
3. Speak fluent English, or at the very least be in the process of learning.
4. Mandatory military service. (this alone would go a long way)
5. Anyone with links to communist or socialist organizations should be automatically excluded. (we already have enough of that trash in our schools, colleges, and universities)


I'm sure I can think of more.... give it time...

Oops

Someone took my cool banner....

Oh well, time to make a new one I guess.....

Computer down for the count

Knew it was coming, just a matter of time. It's about time to upgrade as it is...

Special thanks go out to Eric for the original build on that machine. It came with customized cardboard slats (breathes better than metal) and special "blue masking tape" security fasteners.
Also came pre-installed with Hemi-Sync Gateway, some strange episode of The Simpsons, as well as an entire season of Ghost in the shell, and for some reason Tool, Avenged, and some other band I've never heard of. I guess I should also mention that I had no idea this stuff was even on it till a couple years after I had the thing.... heh....

Now I hunt for a new machine.

Slow Down

Why is it, that the bigger the truck or SUV someone drives, the more of an asshole they instantly become? (this goes for both male and female) Is it really necessary to do 90+ MPH in one of these things? (Suburbans, Hummers, Expeditions etc..)

Just about every day that I am on the road, I encounter these people driving these huge hunks of shit way too fast. To top it of, they get an attitude if they happen to be behind you, and you are only doing around 70 MPH. Obviously, they are more important than everyone else......

If you are driving a vehicle this large, you should not be going that fast, in fact you shouldn't even be going over 55 MPH on the highway. If you do this, then you should be beaten in public, 6 strikes with wet rattan for the first offense, and the amount of strikes increasing by a factor of 3 for every offense after that.

Another issue here, for all you assholes out there driving lifted trucks, (including those who simply put giant fucking rims on their vehicles) when you put bigger rims and tires on that huge hunk of shit you drive , it throws your fucking speedometer off. So while you're behind me, in a fit of road rage, know that your speedometer is anywhere from 15 - 20% off, and you are going faster than you think you are. Stop flashing your headlights, I'm not going to move, deal with it.
BTW, the last guy who followed me off the freeway into a gas station, and jumped out of his truck in a rage, ripping off his shirt, in a move that I can only guess was meant to impress me with his rippling muscles, didn't walk away.

Don't assume the deck is stacked in your favor just because someone is driving a smaller car than you are. I know the instant ego boost of driving a giant vehicle can be hard to manage, but it is worth your time and effort to counter this effect.

Recently, with the out of control gas prices, I have adopted a new driving style. To and from work, as well as around town, I drive 55 MPH highway, and usually stay behind big trucks if any are around. This increases my gas mileage by a rather large amount, and I already get great mileage to begin with, in the range of 40+ in a non-hybrid. I'm spending about 40% less on gas than I was driving between 65 - 75 MPH.

This can work for you too, it's simple, slow down, save money. Allow yourself a little more time to get where you are going, make a few adjustments in your schedule and all that, and give it a go. The adjustment really shouldn't be too hard for those of you who don't live a ridiculous distance from work.

The unfortunate result of this, is that even driving in the "slow" lane, I get even more assholes behind me flashing their lights and going into a rage than I did in the fast lane. If you happen to be one of these people, then may you be greeted by my special message of the day ,,!,

And may a whole pineapple find it's way into your rectum.

Online RV games ...............

Online RV games
RV online games
Online RV
Online remote viewing
and a few different combinations, all keep appearing as search terms in my counter, which of course brings up my online RV drinking game post. Of course, what these people seem to be looking for, I really wouldn't classify as games, but whatever..... (unless for some reason they are looking for something about the kind you drive)

So to get past some confusion here I will post the best online psi / RV practice sites out there.

http://dojopsi.com/tkr

This is hands down the best hands on RV (Remote Viewing) site out there. Free login required, but you will get no spam, so don't worry. You can practice your RV, as well as see other peoples work.

http://rvtargets.com

Exactly what it says, kind of bare bones, but effective.

Some other fun sites to take a look at.... Some of these are more in the game category......

http://www.gotpsi.org

This site has lots of fun "psi test" type stuff.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/rpkp/experiments/

Retro PK online, This is one of my favs.

http://www.mdani.demon.co.uk/para/parapsy.htm

Also lots of good stuff here.

hmmmm

Al Gore causes "Global Warming" - Political constipation - SUPER CEREAL!!!!

The possibility that all the hype about Global Warming (now labeled climate change) could be wrong seems like such a hard thing for many people to grasp. All we hear about in the media is GLOBAL WARMING, CO2, GLOBAL WARMING, CO2 yada yada yada - blah blah blah.
Many people will believe just about anything if someone who looks important screams it long enough. And the fact that the media seems to report according to political leanings (In this case those that support the man made effect idea) means that any dissenting voice is easily drowned out. Add to this the political entrenchment of the issue and you have a situation where a lot of people have a personal investment in this whole thing being REAL.

Now, I have to admit, that for a long enough time, I was of the opinion that Global Warming probably was man made. Most of this is because I listened to what was going on in the media and never bothered to actually take a look at the subject until more recent years. I do urge everyone to actually take at least a couple hours and look at what is going on. AT this point, the truth of the matter, is that the population of not only the US but of much of the world is being duped. To this date, there exists no scientific evidence that conclusively proves that CO2 emissions are the driving factor behind global warming or climate change. The fact is, that the scientific evidence suggests that it has more to do with nature than anything else.

Don't be fooled into thinking that the debate is over, that Man Made Global Warming has been proven, far from it. You hear a lot about consensus among scientists, and this is used to bolster the MMGW position. There is no consensus, in fact more and more scientists who were once on the MMGW bandwagon are reversing their positions. This information can be found all over the web, but it is being ignored by the MSM, people like Al Gore are still being given an open mic, though the whole foundation of what they are preaching has been debunked over and over again. It's only real purpose is it's use for political leverage on a global scale.

Here is just another piece of information that I was looking at recently. I will quote part of this directly.

"Over the years, as I have learned more about the data and procedures of the IPCC I have found increasing opposition by them to providing explanations, until I have been forced to the conclusion that for significant parts of the work of the IPCC, the data collection and scientific methods employed are unsound. Resistance to all efforts to try and discuss or rectify these problems has convinced me that normal scientific procedures are not only rejected by the IPCC, but that this practice is endemic, and was part of the organisation from the very beginning. I therefore consider that the IPCC is fundamentally corrupt. The only "reform" I could envisage, would be its abolition."

This is a letter from Dr. Vincent Gray, a member of the UN IPCC expert reviewers panel.
Here is a link to the whole thing, read it all.

http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=155&Itemid=1

I encourage people to really start looking into both sides of the argument, you may be surprised by what you find. It's not just a bunch of right wing religious nuts in denial about what is happening. It's not just research funded by oil companies. Something is wrong with this whole picture and it's about time people started recognizing that.

Something is wrong when 19,000 scientists in the US alone are being ignored. And yes, that is NINETEEN THOUSAND. They even have their own peer reviewed paper on the subject online for everyone to see.

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

Or, how about what was buried here about the findings from NASA's Aqua satellite... Look up Roy Spencer, and NASA's Aqua satellite too.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html

Hmmmm..... At the very least that should make you question the credibility of the MMGW proponents. At the very least........ Since you know...... it kind of destroys anything they have to say.......

Here is a quote:

Duffy: "Can you tell us about NASA's Aqua satellite, because I understand some of the data we're now getting is quite important in our understanding of how climate works?"

Marohasy: "That's right. The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you've got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you're going to get a positive feedback. That's what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite ... (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they're actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you're getting a negative rather than a positive feedback."

Here is a little of what some scientists that have changed their minds had to say.......

Geophysicist Dr. Claude Allegre, a top geophysicist and French Socialist who has authored more than 100 scientific articles and written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States, converted from climate alarmist to skeptic in 2006. Allegre, who was one of the first scientists to sound global warming fears 20 years ago, now says the cause of climate change is "unknown" and accused the “prophets of doom of global warming” of being motivated by money, noting that "the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!" “Glaciers’ chronicles or historical archives point to the fact that climate is a capricious phenomena. This fact is confirmed by mathematical meteorological theories. So, let us be cautious,” Allegre explained in a September 21, 2006 article in the French newspaper L'EXPRESS. The National Post in Canada also profiled Allegre on March 2, 2007, noting “Allegre has the highest environmental credentials. The author of early environmental books, he fought successful battles to protect the ozone layer from CFCs and public health from lead pollution.” Allegre now calls fears of a climate disaster "simplistic and obscuring the true dangers” mocks "the greenhouse-gas fanatics whose proclamations consist in denouncing man's role on the climate without doing anything about it except organizing conferences and preparing protocols that become dead letters." Allegre, a member of both the French and U.S. Academy of Sciences, had previously expressed concern about manmade global warming. "By burning fossil fuels, man enhanced the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century," Allegre wrote 20 years ago. In addition, Allegre was one of 1500 scientists who signed a November 18, 1992 letter titled “World Scientists' Warning to Humanity” in which the scientists warned that global warming’s “potential risks are very great.”

Geologist Bruno Wiskel of the University of Alberta recently reversed his view of man-made climate change and instead became a global warming skeptic. Wiskel was once such a big believer in man-made global warming that he set out to build a “Kyoto house” in honor of the UN sanctioned Kyoto Protocol which was signed in 1997. Wiskel wanted to prove that the Kyoto Protocol’s goals were achievable by people making small changes in their lives. But after further examining the science behind Kyoto, Wiskel reversed his scientific views completely and became such a strong skeptic, that he recently wrote a book titled “The Emperor's New Climate: Debunking the Myth of Global Warming.” A November 15, 2006 Edmonton Sun article explains Wiskel’s conversion while building his “Kyoto house”: “Instead, he said he realized global warming theory was full of holes and ‘red flags,’ and became convinced that humans are not responsible for rising temperatures.” Wiskel now says “the truth has to start somewhere.” Noting that the Earth has been warming for 18,000 years, Wiskel told the Canadian newspaper, “If this happened once and we were the cause of it, that would be cause for concern. But glaciers have been coming and going for billions of years." Wiskel also said that global warming has gone "from a science to a religion” and noted that research money is being funneled into promoting climate alarmism instead of funding areas he considers more worthy. "If you funnel money into things that can't be changed, the money is not going into the places that it is needed,” he said.

Astrophysicist Dr. Nir Shaviv, one of Israel's top young award winning scientists, recanted his belief that manmade emissions were driving climate change. ""Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media. In fact, there is much more than meets the eye,” Shaviv said in February 2, 2007 Canadian National Post article. According to Shaviv, the C02 temperature link is only “incriminating circumstantial evidence.” "Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming" and "it is unlikely that [the solar climate link] does not exist,” Shaviv noted pointing to the impact cosmic- rays have on the atmosphere. According to the National Post, Shaviv believes that even a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2100 "will not dramatically increase the global temperature." “Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant,” Shaviv explained. Shaviv also wrote on August 18, 2006 that a colleague of his believed that “CO2 should have a large effect on climate” so “he set out to reconstruct the phanerozoic temperature. He wanted to find the CO2 signature in the data, but since there was none, he slowly had to change his views.” Shaviv believes there will be more scientists converting to man-made global warming skepticism as they discover the dearth of evidence. “I think this is common to many of the scientists who think like us (that is, that CO2 is a secondary climate driver). Each one of us was working in his or her own niche. While working there, each one of us realized that things just don't add up to support the AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) picture. So many had to change their views,” he wrote.

Mathematician & engineer Dr. David Evans, who did carbon accounting for the Australian Government, recently detailed his conversion to a skeptic. “I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause. I am now skeptical,” Evans wrote in an April 30, 2007 blog. “But after 2000 the evidence for carbon emissions gradually got weaker -- better temperature data for the last century, more detailed ice core data, then laboratory evidence that cosmic rays precipitate low clouds,” Evans wrote. “As Lord Keynes famously said, ‘When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’” he added. Evans noted how he benefited from climate fears as a scientist. “And the political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990's, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn't believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; and there were international conferences full of such people. And we had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet! But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence outlined above fell away or reversed,” Evans wrote. “The pre-2000 ice core data was the central evidence for believing that atmospheric carbon caused temperature increases. The new ice core data shows that past warmings were *not* initially caused by rises in atmospheric carbon, and says nothing about the strength of any amplification. This piece of evidence casts reasonable doubt that atmospheric carbon had any role in past warmings, while still allowing the possibility that it had a supporting role,” he added. “Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. The science of global warming has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly supports carbon emissions as the cause of global warming, to the point of sometimes rubbishing or silencing critics,” he concluded. (Evans bio link )

Climate researcher Dr. Tad Murty, former Senior Research Scientist for Fisheries and Oceans in Canada, also reversed himself from believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. “I stated with a firm belief about global warming, until I started working on it myself,” Murty explained on August 17, 2006. “I switched to the other side in the early 1990's when Fisheries and Oceans Canada asked me to prepare a position paper and I started to look into the problem seriously,” Murty explained. Murty was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, "If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.”

Botanist Dr. David Bellamy, a famed UK environmental campaigner, former lecturer at Durham University and host of a popular UK TV series on wildlife, recently converted into a skeptic after reviewing the science and now calls global warming fears "poppycock." According to a May 15, 2005 article in the UK Sunday Times, Bellamy said “global warming is largely a natural phenomenon. The world is wasting stupendous amounts of money on trying to fix something that can’t be fixed.” “The climate-change people have no proof for their claims. They have computer models which do not prove anything,” Bellamy added. Bellamy’s conversion on global warming did not come without a sacrifice as several environmental groups have ended their association with him because of his views on climate change. The severing of relations came despite Bellamy’s long activism for green campaigns. The UK Times reported Bellamy “won respect from hardline environmentalists with his campaigns to save Britain’s peat bogs and other endangered habitats. In Tasmania he was arrested when he tried to prevent loggers cutting down a rainforest.”

Climate scientist Dr. Chris de Freitas of The University of Auckland, N.Z., also converted from a believer in man-made global warming to a skeptic. “At first I accepted that increases in human caused additions of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere would trigger changes in water vapor etc. and lead to dangerous ‘global warming,’ But with time and with the results of research, I formed the view that, although it makes for a good story, it is unlikely that the man-made changes are drivers of significant climate variation.” de Freitas wrote on August 17, 2006. “I accept there may be small changes. But I see the risk of anything serious to be minute,” he added. “One could reasonably argue that lack of evidence is not a good reason for complacency. But I believe the billions of dollars committed to GW research and lobbying for GW and for Kyoto treaties etc could be better spent on uncontroversial and very real environmental problems (such as air pollution, poor sanitation, provision of clean water and improved health services) that we know affect tens of millions of people,” de Freitas concluded. de Freitas was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, “Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases.”

Meteorologist Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at University of Wisconsin (now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, was pivotal in promoting the coming ice age scare of the 1970’s ( See Time Magazine’s 1974 article “Another Ice Age” citing Bryson: & see Newsweek’s 1975 article “The Cooling World” citing Bryson) has now converted into a leading global warming skeptic. In February 8, 2007 Bryson dismissed what he terms "sky is falling" man-made global warming fears. Bryson, was on the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?” Bryson told the May 2007 issue of Energy Cooperative News. “All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd. Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air,” Bryson said. “You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide,” he added. “We cannot say what part of that warming was due to mankind's addition of ‘greenhouse gases’ until we consider the other possible factors, such as aerosols. The aerosol content of the atmosphere was measured during the past century, but to my knowledge this data was never used. We can say that the question of anthropogenic modification of the climate is an important question -- too important to ignore. However, it has now become a media free-for-all and a political issue more than a scientific problem,” Bryson explained in 2005.

Global warming author and economist Hans H.J. Labohm started out as a man-made global warming believer but he later switched his view after conducting climate research. Labohm wrote on August 19, 2006, “I started as a anthropogenic global warming believer, then I read the [UN’s IPCC] Summary for Policymakers and the research of prominent skeptics.” “After that, I changed my mind,” Labohn explained. Labohn co-authored the 2004 book “Man-Made Global Warming: Unraveling a Dogma,” with chemical engineer Dick Thoenes who was the former chairman of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society. Labohm was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, “’Climate change is real’ is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural ‘noise.’”

Paleoclimatologist Tim Patterson, of Carlton University in Ottawa converted from believer in C02 driving the climate change to a skeptic. “I taught my students that CO2 was the prime driver of climate change,” Patterson wrote on April 30, 2007. Patterson said his “conversion” happened following his research on “the nature of paleo-commercial fish populations in the NE Pacific.” “[My conversion from believer to climate skeptic] came about approximately 5-6 years ago when results began to come in from a major NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) Strategic Project Grant where I was PI (principle investigator),” Patterson explained. “Over the course of about a year, I switched allegiances,” he wrote. “As the proxy results began to come in, we were astounded to find that paleoclimatic and paleoproductivity records were full of cycles that corresponded to various sun-spot cycles. About that time, [geochemist] Jan Veizer and others began to publish reasonable hypotheses as to how solar signals could be amplified and control climate,” Patterson noted. Patterson says his conversion “probably cost me a lot of grant money. However, as a scientist I go where the science takes me and not were activists want me to go.” Patterson now asserts that more and more scientists are converting to climate skeptics. "When I go to a scientific meeting, there's lots of opinion out there, there's lots of discussion (about climate change). I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority,” Patterson told the Winnipeg Sun on February 13, 2007. Patterson, who believes the sun is responsible for the recent warm up of the Earth, ridiculed the environmentalists and the media for not reporting the truth. "But if you listen to [Canadian environmental activist David] Suzuki and the media, it's like a tiger chasing its tail. They try to outdo each other and all the while proclaiming that the debate is over but it isn't -- come out to a scientific meeting sometime,” Patterson said. In a separate interview on April 26, 2007 with a Canadian newspaper, Patterson explained that the scientific proof favors skeptics. “I think the proof in the pudding, based on what (media and governments) are saying, (is) we're about three quarters of the way (to disaster) with the doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere," he said. “The world should be heating up like crazy by now, and it's not. The temperatures match very closely with the solar cycles."

Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw, took a scientific journey from a believer of man-made climate change in the form of global cooling in the 1970’s all the way to converting to a skeptic of current predictions of catastrophic man-made global warming. “At the beginning of the 1970s I believed in man-made climate cooling, and therefore I started a study on the effects of industrial pollution on the global atmosphere, using glaciers as a history book on this pollution,” Dr. Jaworowski, wrote on August 17, 2006. “With the advent of man-made warming political correctness in the beginning of 1980s, I already had a lot of experience with polar and high altitude ice, and I have serious problems in accepting the reliability of ice core CO2 studies,” Jaworowski added. Jaworowski, who has published many papers on climate with a focus on CO2 measurements in ice cores, also dismissed the UN IPCC summary and questioned what the actual level of C02 was in the atmosphere in a March 16, 2007 report in EIR science entitled “CO2: The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time.” “We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels,” Jaworowski wrote. “For the past three decades, these well-known direct CO2 measurements, recently compiled and analyzed by Ernst-Georg Beck (Beck 2006a, Beck 2006b, Beck 2007), were completely ignored by climatologists—and not because they were wrong. Indeed, these measurements were made by several Nobel Prize winners, using the techniques that are standard textbook procedures in chemistry, biochemistry, botany, hygiene, medicine, nutrition, and ecology. The only reason for rejection was that these measurements did not fit the hypothesis of anthropogenic climatic warming. I regard this as perhaps the greatest scientific scandal of our time,” Jaworowski wrote. “The hypothesis, in vogue in the 1970s, stating that emissions of industrial dust will soon induce the new Ice Age, seem now to be a conceited anthropocentric exaggeration, bringing into discredit the science of that time. The same fate awaits the present,” he added. Jaworowski believes that cosmic rays and solar activity are major drivers of the Earth’s climate. Jaworowski was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part: "It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth's climate system. Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases."

Paleoclimatologist Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor of the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Ottawa, reversed his views on man-made climate change after further examining the evidence. “I used to agree with these dramatic warnings of climate disaster. I taught my students that most of the increase in temperature of the past century was due to human contribution of C02. The association seemed so clear and simple. Increases of greenhouse gases were driving us towards a climate catastrophe,” Clark said in a 2005 documentary "Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change.” “However, a few years ago, I decided to look more closely at the science and it astonished me. In fact there is no evidence of humans being the cause. There is, however, overwhelming evidence of natural causes such as changes in the output of the sun. This has completely reversed my views on the Kyoto protocol,” Clark explained. “Actually, many other leading climate researchers also have serious concerns about the science underlying the [Kyoto] Protocol,” he added.
Environmental geochemist Dr. Jan Veizer, professor emeritus of University of Ottawa, converted from believer to skeptic after conducting scientific studies of climate history. “I simply accepted the (global warming) theory as given,” Veizer wrote on April 30, 2007 about predictions that increasing C02 in the atmosphere was leading to a climate catastrophe. “The final conversion came when I realized that the solar/cosmic ray connection gave far more consistent picture with climate, over many time scales, than did the CO2 scenario,” Veizer wrote. “It was the results of my work on past records, on geological time scales, that led me to realize the discrepancies with empirical observations. Trying to understand the background issues of modeling led to realization of the assumptions and uncertainties involved,” Veizer explained. “The past record strongly favors the solar/cosmic alternative as the principal climate driver,” he added. Veizer acknowledgez the Earth has been warming and he believes in the scientific value of climate modeling. “The major point where I diverge from the IPCC scenario is my belief that it underestimates the role of natural variability by proclaiming CO2 to be the only reasonable source of additional energy in the planetary balance. Such additional energy is needed to drive the climate. The point is that most of the temperature, in both nature and models, arises from the greenhouse of water vapor (model language ‘positive water vapor feedback’,) Veizer wrote. “Thus to get more temperature, more water vapor is needed. This is achieved by speeding up the water cycle by inputting more energy into the system,” he continued. “Note that it is not CO2 that is in the models but its presumed energy equivalent (model language ‘prescribed CO2’). Yet, the models (and climate) would generate a more or less similar outcome regardless where this additional energy is coming from. This is why the solar/cosmic connection is so strongly opposed, because it can influence the global energy budget which, in turn, diminishes the need for an energy input from the CO2 greenhouse,” he wrote.

WAKE UP!!!

morning coffee - dream recall - things that go bump in the news

As I was sitting here with my morning coffee, I began to remember a strange dream that I had last night. In this dream I was hanging out with Barack Oblahblah, you know, the charming looking guy who talks a lot but says nothing... Anyways, we were sitting on this couch and having a decent chat about nothing in particular, as guys tend to do. After a while, he gets up to leave because of a meeting he has to attend, something about the plight of the iguanas or something. He is outside waving to people, about to board his plane, when it explodes.

Oblahblah survives the explosion with minor cuts and burns, but his kids are in critical condition (no idea where his wife was). The scene is pure chaos as you would imagine, reporters everywhere, emergency workers etc. I am sitting down on the ground next to one of the kids, and she is telling me that she saw something strange before the explosion. At this point Oblahblah comes walking up to me, shifting between his teenage self and his current self. He asks me to help him, he is crying and confused. I touch his kids head and get an image of someone inside the plane pointing at something under a seat while talking to the pilot, like they had just discovered something strange. From the position I was seeing this from, I could see some kind of device.

Anyways, I woke up at some point, and forgot about it till just now.

I really do wish there was a viable candidate, but there just isn't one. We have a commie )a very dangerous one), a guy who doesn't seem to realize that he's a commie (which makes him just as dangerous), and doesn't seem to know much else either, and then this old kook who spent a little too long as a pow or me to be comfortable with him (wonder what ideas he picked up while in captivity, seems like a closet commie). None of these people are good or America.

Billary wants to immediately start redistributing the wealth. Of course this also involves the redistribution of the poor and working class wealth too, because everyone is equal, lets start garnishing wages!!! (ever notice how anyone with too much inside info about the Clintons seems to die? (unless Drudge gets there first) Ok the "list" was considered a joke, but something strange is still going on with these people)
Oblahblah wants "change" (talks a lot, says nothing, and has yet to actually do anything) This guy may as well be standing on a street corner with a styrofoam cup muttering, "change," to everyone who walks by hoping they don't take him up on his offer to"work for food." Hmmmm, free money or people who don't work.... Signs of things to come? The fact that he is NOT Al Sharpton, or Jesse Jackson is probably the only real credibility he has.
McCain may in fact be suffering from some sort of dementia. Sad thing is, it came down to him and Huckleberry, and I think people started to realize that Huckle was being propped up by the media because they thought he would be easier for the Dems to beat. After all nobody wants a religious nut in office, and they knew a Mormon would have no chance.

I think that for the most part, From Gen-X on down (especially college students) will be pressured to vote for Billary or Oblahblah (whichever one finally wins, hahaha), out of fear of being labeled a racist, or a sexist. From there it can only get all the more ridiculous as they take on McCain the Republicrat. Regardless of how that goes, remember, there are no real winners in the Special Olympics.

Which brings me to the next news item I was looking at while on my second cup of coffee.
You know, it takes minds of pure genius to have China host the Olympics. These Olympics will truly be "special." Did anyone NOT see the big flaw in this idea? Do I really have to explain the metaphoric shithole that China is to everyone? Do the Americans out there still think China is our friend? Get a grip on reality people.

On another topic, it appears the worlds biggest retailer is "tweaking" it's stores to better serve the Middle Eastern shoppers in the Detroit area. Hmmmm......
Now, some of these Middle Eastern people in that area probably own their own stores that cater to this population. Regardless of the real cause, when one of these places, or many of these places go out of business, who is going to get the blame? And when does the beheading and suicide bombing start?

The news is lacking of anything really interesting right now....

Tarot to come - a bit of this and that - stuff

I have the outline and some parts of my Tarot book completed already, but I have been sitting on it for what seems like at least a couple years now.

One of the problems I am having is deciding which direction to go with it. Do I want to submit it for publication, keep it in .pdf and just give it out over the internet, or simply turn it into an online manual which was my original idea ( http://firedocs.com/joesmouse ). BTW, that is a page that I was slapped together in 2006, long after I started working on the manuscript. I still plan on using the page, but I am trying to decide a direction for that as well. Feedback on the parts of the MS that others have seen has so far been positive, and received with excitement.

One thing that I decided on a while back is that the final drat would be a full Tarot training manual, instead of a Tarot-RV specific primer. That part will still be in there, but it will be a component of the over all training system. The core component of course will be the "Downbuilding Process" which I will cover in more detail than I have in previous demos. This is an important thing to learn for anyone who would like to use the Tarot in any advanced form beyond simple memorization of card meanings.

Recently, I have also given some consideration to doing readings again on a private contact basis. I don't really have any desire to jump back into doing public work again, but hey, you never know. If I do this I will probably charge around $200 per hour session.

Another thing I am seriously considering right now is throwing my hat back into the academic ring. If I can produce the funding, then I will probably do this. Now let's hope that I can keep my mouth shut long enough to get some results. If this comes to pass, I will do my best not to call my instructors morons, or crucify their leftist agendas, this seems to upset them. We will see what happens here, because on the down side, this would mean having to start from ground zero, which is the one thing I'm not too keen on.

Just a few things I'm reformulating right now.

Thanks for the cool sticker Larry!!!!

Fun with knives and shrubs (And the ever popular "I Would Have Done This" Syndrome)

Let me first state, that I have been on both the giving, and receiving end of knives. So all that I ask here, is that you suspend your disbelief for a moment, and accept the fact that I may have some idea what I am talking about. With that said, we can begin........

Now, something I have noticed recently, is that even with the proliferation of decent information out there concerning the realities of knife attacks (and knife fighting in general), that there are still a ton of people out there (mainly in Martial Arts Schools) that are teaching a load of crap in regards to defense relative to knife attacks.

Not too long ago, I had an urge for a late night snack, so I went down to the local convienience store. When I got there, the clerk (a young guy about 19 - 21) was outside waving a knife around in the air. When I asked him what he was doing, he told me that, "the best way to learn to defend yourself from a knife is to learn to use one." This is something I have heard countless times, even from some of my own instructors when I was younger.

I stood back and observed his movements for a couple minutes. Nice smooth strokes turning into backhand slashes. Altogether pretty cool looking stuff. Apparently he had invested a lot of time into what he was doing, and money evident by the $400 Cold Steel knife he was using.

I decided to ask him exactly how he would go about defending himself from a knife attack. The first words out of his mouth were, "If someone comes at me with a knife." followed by a demonstration of his tactical stance complete with thumbs tucked in and palms facing inward. He went on to explain that he would much rather take a cut to the back of the hand or arm, and of course that you should expect to get cut so it doesn't come as a shock to you. He then went further handing me his knife and showing me move by move how he would gain control of the weapon hand and immobilize me.

I asked him to hold on for a moment and went inside to grab a candy bar. I then told him, this is my knife, and I am going to attack you. I even let him get into his ready stance..

What happened from there, looked a lot like this.



(no this is not me in the video, in fact I don't even know these people. I would usually use some prison footage for this, but this was ready and at hand.)

Now, this is done, while the defender is ready, and knows what's coming. Now imagine this attack done while your back is turned, or your attention is elsewhere. It happens.

This isn't the best footage, or the best demonstration, but it is fair enough to illustrate my point.

This is the note attached to this video:

READ ALL OF THIS BEFORE COMMENTING!!!

How a knife fight really looks. There are 4 different classes of observing a violent incident. Two of them identify with the Victim. The other two identify with the knife man. Read below and recognize the danger in observing this video the way you do (and judging from the comments you've probably failed already and are seeing it from class III)

IV: The socialized individual that identifies with the victim. This observation is focused completely on the realization that a man has been stabbed 13+ times... and it could easily be them. This is a common perspective, held by most people. It is exploitable, and precisely the reason that people succumb to intimidation.

III: The socially-trained fighter that recognizes the failure on the victim's part. This observation is hallmarked by comments such as "I would have done this.." or "He totally could have blocked that if he knew...".
This level of observation focuses on 'training to not be victimized'. This viewpoint is less common, but starts with self-evident failure and then tries to rectify it.

II: The socio- or psychopath. This person identifies with the knife man. They recognize success (e.g. killing a man), and will use footage or anecdotes as data to improve their own performance. As an example: http://youtube.com/watch?v=jAjB43duq4A
Stabs Blackmon 67 times. The Medical Examiner stated that 2 of those injuries were fatal. The violence-minded would watch that and see themselves as Troy Kell. Thankfully, a jury would watch that and see themselves being savaged by Kell. The sports combatant might see that and see themselves fending off Kell's accomplice and taking the knife from Kell.

I: Goal-oriented... identifying the successful person in this incident (read: stabber, not stabbee), and looking to improve upon their performance. Your goal is to see the video on the left (or in the link) and see yourself as the knife man. How can you best accomplish what they did. How can you do it better? Can you beat a 32.5:1 ratio of lethal injuries. How would you go about that? What is the goal? What is superfluous? Observing in this manner makes footage from prison riots and the nightly news informative. It provides concrete examples of successful violence, and provides a foundation to work from— a foundation that focuses on successfully using violence as a tool.


Take note first of #3 there. This is the, "I would have done this or that" guy. And we all know this guy. It's real easy to analyze something and see all the flaws when you are not the one in the situation. This is the same guy who does one of three things when confronted with a real situation: (these are just my personal observations on the matter, and I have sen it many times)

1. Stands there confidently (Because running away would mean he is a pussy, and after all he is a highly trained fighting machine) then panics when what he was trained to do doesn't work the way it was supposed to. This may lead to wild flailing of the arms, and usually results in massive blood loss, disfigurement, and possible death.
2. Immediate freeze up. Sometimes it takes a moment to comprehend exactly what is happening, other times, the shock of seeing this coming at you is enough to make you shit yourself. This may or may not result in wild flailing of arms, or falling into a fetal position. But, it usually does lead to massive blood loss, disfigurement, and possible death.
   
3. Fight or Flight response. Sometimes these people can do an amazing amount of damage, but even so, it usually leads to massive blood loss, disfigurement, and possible death. Unless of course they run, which changes the whole situation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight-or-flight_response

Now, more than one guy has responded with this: "If you run you leave your back exposed and they could throw a knife at you."
This is fantasy, it's not easy to make a knife stick into someone who is moving in an unpredictable pattern, at a variable rate of speed, and well, it's not easy. I am sure you can dig up someone who can in fact do this, but the chance of running into that guy is slim. This is such a low percentage shot that the chance of the blade sinking in the full length like in the movies is way less then 50%.
And not that people aren't stupid, but it would be stupid of the guy to throw his major advantage away, more so with the possibility of you picking it up. I can go on and on about this, but you should be able to grasp the idea here. Lets just say that this applies to pretty much everyone, including those of you out there who fancy yourselves being super ninja blade throwers.

Now take a look at #2 and #1 from that note there. This is more like me, this is how I trained. After a specific point in my life, my sole purpose of training was aimed at the victimization of others. Everything I learned was subjected to predatory testing on the population around me. Maybe I should clarify that most o this population consisted of gangsters, wannabes, drunks, or in general anyone who has as bad an attitude as I had. I went out looking for trouble with the full intent of testing my skills, that being when I wasn't out to make a profit for myself.

Think about this or a moment. There is an ever growing population out there in prison with nothing but time on their hands, and chances are they are in prison or a reason. Even those non-violent offenders come out hardened and ready to fight or victimize at the drop of a hat. Many of them view life through a much different scope than you do. Many of them have grown up with the multifaceted influence of victimization (remind me to go more into this at some point) hanging over them, and have had no other example set for them other than to take advantage of any-one and any-thing. At some point, many these people get released back into society.

Let me make this absolutely clear. There are people out there who are training upwards of 7 days a week, 16 hrs a day with the aim of victimizing you in some way, and often times this includes a high degree of violence.

As for knives, the best way to learn to defend yourself from a knife attack is to have someone attack you with one every day for a few months, preferable someone who has spent a bit of time in prison. Obviously nobody wants to do that.

So what would be my advice?

It all comes down to a couple different things here, because obviously there are situations where, barring health reasons, running is not an option.

The first scenario you should be concerned with, has to do with protecting your loved ones. This is an ugly question, but it is a question you must ask yourself.

Are you willing to sacrifice your life to protect your loved ones?

Most people will instantly answer yes, but believe it or not, some people have a higher sense of self preservation than you, or even they would assume. I've seen guys leave their wives and kids standing there in the face of an attack while they hotfoot it out of there.

Another related scenario has to do with mothers and their children. And I have seen women fight with absolute ferocity or their kids.

The other classic scenario is where you are cornered and have nowhere to immediately run.

One tactic I have seen, and used where I was about to be attacked, meaning the knife was out, involves crossing your arms over your chest and tucking your chin down and running. You can try a feint here, but expect to plow through your attacker if necessary and keep running. This is not a pretty tactic, and you may trip. You will probably loose some blood, but if the guy isn't ready for it, you may just survive. Be careful not to trip. If this fails you fall back on Plan B.

Now, if someone is waving a knife in your face, and not in the process of actually stabbing you, you may be able to gain control of the weapon arm. However, this usually means a robbery, and it is probably just better to give them what they want rather than take an unnecessary risk. Some people advise carrying a money clip or decoy wallet and tossing it and running while they are distracted. I have had people do this to me, and I have taken action, and let me tell you something, it was a bloody and violent affair, and I could have easily died. I am not advising anyone to take a specific action in this situation, that is up to you to either live or die with. There is always a chance that even having given the attacker what they want, they still try to kill you, it happens..... Don't assume that just because they are waving a knife in your face that they have no intention or willingness to use it.

Another obvious, is, if you can arm yourself, then do so. It may even be enough to even things out, or even stop the attack and turn it into a duel where you can maneuver yourself into an opening to run. Weirder things have happened, but don't depend on it. All of this is assuming you have enough time decide on any kind of action.

There is also a lot to be said for staying off the attackers center line. This is where your body positioning comes in handy, and working on it can have a dramatic effect in just about any situation. In this case move around toe opposing side of the weapon. This may even open up a chance to run.

In some cases if an opening presents itself, you can use a full body mug to keep the attacker from getting a well leveraged thrust or slash in. But this will be bloody business in most cases. Part of the problem here, is the attacker may not be alone, if they are alone let's hope you can hang on long enough for someone to come and help you.

Now, this is about all I can say in a blog post without having to produce my own documentary on the subject.

Plan B

Plan B is the ugliest thing there is, mainly because there is no secret trick to it. This is where you fight with everything you have. You meet an attack with your own attack with full intent on doing as much damage as you can. You are literally trying to kill with your bear hands, this is how intense you have to make that attack. I know some of you think you are prepared for this, but you're not, even if you survive there is a price you pay that I can't even begin to explain to you. If by chance you see an opening to run you take it. You may win, you may lose, you may get away, you may die. These are the simple facts.

No amount of training can really prepare you for this. To be honest, even stress conditioning falls short.

This is all heavy on assumption and the hypothetical.

To be ultra-realistic here, if someone really wants to kill you, and has the means to do it, there is little you can do to stop them. What can you do when you don't see it coming? No amount of scenario based training is going to stop someone from stabbing you when your back is turned, or cutting you from ear to ear. No amount of training is going to help you if you are asleep. This is the ugly truth, if someone wants you dead, they can kill you and there isn't much you can do about it once the process has started.

There are some seriously warped people out there. And you never know what they are capable of.

Look what you know who did to Ron and Nicole.... And the forensic evidence said they did fight back. Ron was in pretty good shape too.

I use the word "win" in a rather loose way. It's about survival, and when your back is truly to the wall, the only way to increase your chances no matter how small, is to attack with everything you've got.

lame copy from someones tv? but still a good song ( Le vent nous portera )

Le vent nous portera