I'll start by apologizing for the long reply...
I looked as closely as possible in HD fullscreen and on my computer the head never touched ground. More to the point, the child never reached for his head. Either way the point is moot, the mother never once even glances at the child to determine injury.
I did look closely, down to street view, at the whole park, and what I saw was it seems that in the non-skate areas there is a different texture to the ground (around the pool, playground area, etc.)
From my viewpoint (and I admit I could not read the park rules, I tried from every angle) the rest of the park is built specifically for skating, and has obstacles designed to skate on that have clear marks on them that that's what they are used for. The area you think is the only skate area has ramps in and out to skate on, so perhaps I'm wrong, but the implication of that design is you can skate everywhere. If I'm wrong in that guess, I'm wrong. There's no way to tell for certain from what I can see. That said, I draw the line at the areas designated for skating, and not in the areas designated for other things. As I've repeatedly stated, the skater bears some responsibility for not looking in a public place, but mom bears far more for allowing child to run free in a public skate park, especially when he was headed straight towards the street with no one watching until he screams.
I do admit from what I see this park is not well designed, as there is not a clear separation of the skate area and non-skate area, or a path from one non-skate area to another. If all the areas besides the small rail/bowl area are not for skating, they certainly should not have built it filled with skating obstacles and ramps, knowing that skaters will skate them.
I guess I misunderstood, yes, he was skating towards the picnic tables, but was no where near them at the end of his run, so who's to say he didn't plan on turning left into the rail area or stopping after the kick flip? The child was headed for the street, agreed?
Barrels out from behind an object is what children often do, and why they get hit, they don't know to look first.
Kid's mom is not seen until after the incident, then walking from the pavilion, she was not with or watching her child from every thing I see.
My reaction to blame the mom is because she was not watching her child and went off because that inattentiveness led to an accident, and she was the one responsible for her child's safety, no one else.

second post reply starts here:
OK, that's clearer that you don't excuse her actions. I accept and agree with that.
Expect the parent to be upset, absolutely. Expect them to be aggressive, not really but many people go that way. Expect them to be violent to address their own parental failings, not at all. Expect them to understand they (not the skater) is 70%+ at fault for not supervising a toddler? Never, parents rarely accept their failings and almost always deflect responsibility.
I feel you miss-state the situation. I say he should have hit her to stop her advance, not if she stopped, at the end of the video, she's still attacking. That's self defense, and using the skateboard in that capacity seems fine to me. We may disagree, people are different.
I think you hit the nail on the head in your last paragraph...we just don't see it the same way. I feel like many parents have a natural defense mechanism of responsibility deflection, and I don't accept any responsibility for other's children, and would never expect them to take it for mine. I understand the mindset of parents that believe we all have a responsibility to take care of their children, I just disagree with it.
I also disagree that age is an excuse, if the child is too young to watch out for itself, it's 100% the parent's responsibility in my eyes, not mine.

And then there's the new idea that this discussion is all about a faked video. If true, the parent is still irresponsible for letting their child be run into on concrete where he may well have broken his skull, but maybe not completely out of control crazy violent.
Again, apologies for the long post.

I can't see what you claim at all...in most 'skate parks' you are allowed to skate anywhere in the park...and it certainly looks to me like they have the entire area set up for skating. He was NOT headed towards picnic tables, those are blocks set up for skating. He is running AWAY from the table area straight towards the street (on the map/link eric3579 found, thank you). You can see the tables clearly, they have benches attached. From the pavilion Mom comes from (and we all assume the child too), the child is over 1/2 way to the street, where he may have ended up if the skater didn't stop him. That skater just saved that kids life, and got sucker punched for it!! ;-}
I also completely disagree that under all circumstances it's the older person's responsibility to avoid the free running toddler bolting out from behind an object directly into your path. I don't understand why you give the toddler a free pass just because he's young...that's why he needed supervision. That's why I say it was nearly entirely the MOTHER'S fault, for not watching her child in a dangerous area, then blaming others when something expected happens.
When you say things like 'her reaction was pretty normal' it implies clearly that it's acceptable. It was not acceptable in any way.
edit: A better way to say it might be 'her reaction was unacceptable, but understandable from someone with no self control'.
After the first punch/shove, he should have raised the board as a shield, then swung it like a club when she kept coming. There's no excuse for her behavior.
I am often surprised at the lack of self control many have, and the excuses others want to make for their inexcusable behavior.
If you're the type of irresponsible parent that lets their child run free unattended and unwatched in dangerous public areas where others are doing dangerous things in a manner and place prescribed by law and you get violently angry at others when the predictable happens, I think you're an idiot and should have your child taken from you. That's a typical problem with most parents, reason and responsibility goes out the window when it comes to their child.

To me it's one or the other...either it's justifiable violence or it's crazy to think it's justifiable violence. To me, using violence to answer an obvious accident is just plain crazy.
I watched in full screen and could not see the head touch ground, and never once noticed the child putting it's hands up to it's head, which would be the normal reaction if it's head were hurt. I mentioned it was not bleeding to indicate there didn't seem to be even a superficial skin wound, not to indicate that no blood means no injury.
Well, I indicated race because they were of different races, and sex because they were different sexes, and age because they were different ages, and for some reason it seems you expected different levels of responsibility from them. Perhaps it was not for any of these reasons, but I think they all come into play in your apparent theory that have differing levels of responsibility for their own actions, certainly sex seems to for most people.
Somehow my first post in this thread disappeared, I explained there that I thought they had about a 60/40 split with the larger responsibility going to the adult skater because NEITHER was looking where they were going, perhaps even 70/30. My point is that the child was not looking where it was running either, and was not being supervised by anyone that was watching out either, and it bears SOME responsibility. It could just as easily been hit by a bicycle that likely would have had every right to be there the way it ran diagonally across the open area, and I feel the reaction would have been identical.
I am not surprised that the law is different in many places. In many states, if someone assaults you and you have something in your hands, you may use it to defend yourself. It wouldn't be 'bringing in a weapon' because you had it in hand when attacked. If you pick something up, it would likely be different. In almost every state, if the attacker is still moving towards you (as she was at the end) you may use whatever force needed to stop the attack. In some states, it seems you may arm yourself before being touched and use deadly force to stop the advance if you fear attack. Once the attack/advance is halted, I think that all changes almost everywhere.
On a moral basis, my feeling is if they sucker punch you in the face, you should get one free shot back at them, even if they turn and run. I'm not sexist or ageist and try to not be racist, so none of those things should enter into who hit who.
edit: and you are correct, I just guessed the skater was white based on his appearance, accent, and the fact that he's skating. I may well be wrong about that (and many other things).

Also look up the last famous incident of a guy wielding a knife on a bus in Canada. Only a couple of years ago a guy used a knife to cut off another passengers head. He then stayed in the bus, surrounded by police for several hours, even chewing on the corpse a bit while the police watched without shooting him. The police force was able to take him into custody essentially unharmed for the justice system to serve justice. He was not convicted of manslaughter, but was instead found not criminally responsible for the murder because of mental illness. He is already receiving supervised walks and excursions in public.

The Canadian public has been shouting ever since that incident that a great many would much rather seen the killer shot on that bus, as happened in Toronto here. There is a lot more back story to this and public debate within Canada on just how to handle violent offenders.

I'd take the suspension on principle, and drive without a license for a year on the same principle.

Here's the real: More fatal accidents occur in the U.S. now due primarily to distracted drivers and speeding. I would appreciate a scale of punishment befitting the crime committed based on the frequency and resulting loss-i.e., a distracted motorist causing an accident gets a harder hand-slap for using a cell phone than he/she would for drinking 3 shots of bourbon. and goin' to the store for a six-pack after.

A sobriety test should be quick and painless:
Smell breath-Been drinking
initiate breathalyzer-legally drunk

License suspended for a year, and if caught driving under suspension, complete loss of driving privileges for 2 years.
Caught under suspension after 2 years suspension, 5 years suspension and 180 days of supervised, community service on a dirty state highway during the middle of the summer, rounding-up garbage and carcass.

If a drunk under suspension kills or injures anyone while driving, 5 years on a chain gang whose job it is to walk the entire length of State highway 8-hours-a-day for the duration of their sentences, picking up trash and planting marijuana and indigenous flowering perennials.

Make a spectacle of a repeated drunk offender if there is no rehabilitating him. More so with text-drivers, that shits worse than crack and invariably more dangerous than drunks, who are primarily on the roadways when most peeps are ASLEEEEEP!

Heading back to school for nuclear engineering myself in the next year or so, hopefully to make reactors completely self regulating.

Since no source is mentioned, I assume this to be your comment and therefore applaud and envy you. Most of my passion for a couple of things died somewhere along the way.

Questions, comments or concerns on nuclear or energy in this thread are always welcome (and encouraged!)

Meaningful questions would require a level of knowledge I do not possess, so I'll stick to the layman's reaction: a comment.

Two issues that are not exclusive to the use of nuclear technology make me a strong opponent of nuclear energy in general, aside from technology-specific problems. It's the involvement of people in every stage of the process and centralisation.

Anything run by private entities has to generate a profit. Therefore corners will be cut, regulations will be circumvented. Mistakes will be made, design flaws covered up. The cheapest material will be used by the least paid worker, supervised by a guy on his second job who just wants to go home to his family.

Case in point would be the reactors in Germany, one of the most stricly regulated and controlled markets in the world. Absurd levels of negligence and coverup after coverup have become public over the years, and that's before cost cutting measures became en vogue.

Or take the EPR Olkiluoto 3 in Finland. The reports on the construction process would be hysterically funny if it wasn't a bloody nuclear reactor they're working on.

Google some pictures of "Schachtanlage Asse" to see the reality of "due dilligence" in these matters. If people are involved, bean counters and politicians will run the show, fuck-ups and bad calls are inevitable.

Even if engineers call the shots, they'll overengineer it, they'll make it incompatible with real life conditions. We've seen it time and time again. I could tell you stories about the ICE train, for instance, that'll make your head spin. Incidently, the same company is also involved in the construction of nuclear power plants.

As for centralisation: if energy generation is focused on large scale power plants, it creates monopolies/oligopolies. If a handful corporations, or regionally even just a single corporation, controls the market for something as fundamental as energy, it turns all concepts of a market into a farce. Look at France where EDF basically owns every single plant. Or Germany, where Vattenfall, E.ON, RWE and EnBW control the grid, control the power plants, control the market, control the price, control the politics. It's madness.

Edit: Blimey! This was supposed to be a short comment, yet it turned into another incoherent rant. Sorry.

cause it's Texas>> ^swedishfriend:

She has power like a boss does over their employee. In an uneven power situation someone might get fired or sued but why prison for a teacher and not in other situations of uneven power?
>> ^Trancecoach:
not if the kids are under her academic supervision.>> ^swedishfriend:
How is she in prison? Does a boss who has an affair with a worker also end up in jail? This seems like a civil matter, not a criminal one.

She has power like a boss does over their employee. In an uneven power situation someone might get fired or sued but why prison for a teacher and not in other situations of uneven power?
>> ^Trancecoach:

not if the kids are under her academic supervision.>> ^swedishfriend:
How is she in prison? Does a boss who has an affair with a worker also end up in jail? This seems like a civil matter, not a criminal one.

>> ^Trancecoach:

not if the kids are under her academic supervision.>> ^swedishfriend:
How is she in prison? Does a boss who has an affair with a worker also end up in jail? This seems like a civil matter, not a criminal one.



Then she shouldn't be allowed to be a teacher anymore. That shouldn't be a law.

not if the kids are under her academic supervision.>> ^swedishfriend:

How is she in prison? Does a boss who has an affair with a worker also end up in jail? This seems like a civil matter, not a criminal one.

@renatojj Ah, its nice to be called a socialist for once. Where I come from, they call me a right wing capitalist
Any economic system is as cooperative as the next. That is the definition of an economic system, a system where economic transactions take place, ie cooperation. So capitalism is NOT more (or less) cooperative than other isms. (And mercantilism and corporate capitalism (corporatism right?) are forms of capitalism ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism)

Definition of capitalism:
"an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state" - oxford dictionary
Emphasis is on "for profit". So yes, all capitalist are per definition profit seeking. Relentless is something that follows Darwin. Those who are more relentless get higher profits and have more money to grow, invest, invent, etc. They eventually push out less relentless profit seekers so the relentless ones are the only ones left.
And remember you said them first, not me. I just said that capitalism tries to achieve profit and as competition drives prices down one way to do so is to minimize cost, ie become more efficient. So there is always a drive for efficiency in capitalism.
I am not against profit seeking, I believe that capitalism is the system that pushes the most growth in most regions, be it economic growth, technological progress, etc. That also makes it a rat race, where you continually need to go faster to keep up. As I am getting older I see that running is not the only game in town. And in most cases it detracts from happiness more then other methods in the long run (though it brings more wealth). Given also the finite resource problem and it is a good discussion to have if capitalism is the best and only economic system we should have on this planet. Like I said, for another time.

"The Libor and derivatives markets scandals, are not examples of free markets at all, they're abuses where the bad behavior was encouraged by policy"

What? What policy? The entire idea of over-the-counter (OTT, the largest amount by far) derivatives was that they are traded without any supervision or visibility. Complete free market! That and the inability to value and understand the risk per unit made for instance the Credit Default Swaps so dangerous. These were perfectly legal, and are still in most cases. The market is still unregulated today. You can argue that in the end it wasnt a free market because they got bailed out. Bullshit. They got bailed out because the other option was to let the entire economic system collapse. Letting the system collapse is not free markets, its stupid. The damage would have been catastrophic. The markets wouldnt repair that, they wouldnt exist anymore. That is why people call the derivatives market an example of a free market that should have been more regulated, because they had the power to destroy everything and the incentive to take the risk (for profit).
The way the bailout happened (and is still happening) is total and utter crap, but that is a different story all together.

Which leads again to the same question: if not the (IMHO obvious) derivatives market, name me an example of a free market?

>> ^smooman:

injustice does not a police state make.


No, but having more of your citizens under police supervision than any other nation in the world damned well should. It's not even debatable, it's a matter of public record, our own and international as was sourced from both our own records and international above. How in the world do we figure that the nation with more of its citizens under police supervision than any other in the world isn't a police state?

The term Orwellian comes to mind. It's built slowly over the years so we didn't notice, it's us so we don't want to admit it about ourselves, but that doesn't change the fact that those are the facts.

The idea that they, and many others, have it worse I wouldn't argue for a second. But rather than say that it doesn't apply to us I'd think that we're talking more matters of degree. We've got a larger percentage of our people under direct control of the criminal justice system than any other nation so the term police does seem accurate in that sense. They've got goons that will kill you instead of lock you up. Sure, they get locked up too, but I'm not sure the police as such are their problem so much as the death squads and such are. Terrorist state for them perhaps? Something else in other cases. But for us, sure, police.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

In 2009 some 3.1% of adults were under correctional supervision, in custody, parole or probation. In "2008 more than 1 in 100 adults in the United States were in prison or jail". This has kinda been a pet project of mine since I was a kid, there's no nation out there with more of their people under police supervision. I don't disrespect others at all. I just tend to call it what it is. Perhaps the term police state isn't the right one for them, rather than it being the wrong one for us.

the dudesons are great! they're just like jackass, only without the "done by professionals or under the supervision of professionals," malarkey.