I disagree QM,

The thing is tax cuts cannot work in the current economic climate. It's just counter productive for economic growth mostly because tax cuts are not effective when people don't have jobs and we live at a time when lending is being slashed. Consumers are also high in personal debt as a whole, so you have saving and debt repayment going on at the same time. This is a halt of all economic activity. You need an external factor to incite economy activity in economy as a whole. This is why there is a stimulus plan.

I agree that the stimulus plan is less then effective, I don't know that there isn't much overwatch in how exactly the money will be applied. I also think it would have been beneficial to start to defund or merge major governmental bodies that have little to no relevance now, specifically the department of education and energy. There needs to be a serious revaluation of DOD spending as a whole. There are far too many projects that are undertaken as matters of national security that are nothing more then R&D by the defense industry, that are then sold back to the government as private products.

However there is alot of ridiculous opposition to alot of things Obama is doing, and he is under pressure to impose a plan right now then later.

The republicans are effectively shooting themselves in the foot, instead of being involved in the process to reduce the government growth and try minimize cost they are fighting against a scheme to help the American people. It will not win them any favors when they talk of saving American jobs but did not help pass this stimulus. This will only further decline their relevancy to the fringe of the US voter public.

Listening to Rush Limbuagh, apologizing to him only makes Rush representative of the GOP as whole to the US. That is being rude, insulting and completely hypocritical without offering any solutions. Instead of actually regrouping and reforming the GOP they are further sliding into irrelevancy.

>> ^SSIops:
I think the melody derived more from inspiration than blatant ripoff. It is possible that the two of them could have came up with the same sound by themselves, but that is rather doubtful. If this guy can sue Coldplay for plagiarism, then the Beatles should be able to sue Vanilla Ice for "Ice, ice, baby" ripping sound from "Under pressure".


Under Pressure was written and performed by David Bowie and Queen. Not the Beatles

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

I think the melody derived more from inspiration than blatant ripoff. It is possible that the two of them could have came up with the same sound by themselves, but that is rather doubtful. If this guy can sue Coldplay for plagiarism, then the Beatles should be able to sue Vanilla Ice for "Ice, ice, baby" ripping sound from "Under pressure".

>> ^chilaxe:
The claims that non-collusive sparring can't be done using Aikido without hurting the opponent too badly can be tested easily against a mixed martial artist willing to risk broken arms, wrists, fingers etc. (he won't think it's much of a risk). I believe this issue is only going to grow, as mixed martial arts is growing rapidly, with viewership of the monthly UFC events eclipsing boxing and sometimes even baseball viewership among the under 40 generation.

This would be ridiculous, because aikido is practiced as a defensive art. Also see my points below. As an anecdote, there was such a duel arranged between one of Osensei's student and an american judo champion for a film on aikido in the 1960's. The judo guy was told not to attack since aikido was a defensive art. So he didn't. But the aikido representative (Akira Tohei), feinted an attack to create an opening and finally got the much bigger American judo guy on the ground. Still afterwards he was scolded by Osensei who said "You should have waited for an attack no matter what!". This is to say that there is no point in fighting if it's not to defend your life (or honor, since for the old Japanese the two are equal).


Isn't it a good cause to encourage Aikido to back up its claims, or to utilize more realistic sparring? UFC champs become millionaires, so there does seem to be ample incentive to participate.

Japanese bushi (samurai) did not participate in "realistic sparring" with their jujutsu techniques, yet the best of them could have probably killed any UFC champ. Why? Because they were ready to die at anytime. At that level, an untrained and sloppy but sudden and unexpected eye poke, for example, can become a lethal tool.

In my eyes, Judo and MMA competitions are much more dance-like than aikido practice. They're "freeform" dances. In judo and MMA you both have freedom from kata, but you lose that freedom because of 1) rules and 2) the "fair duel" setup, i.e. two guys that know when they will be fighting each other and even sometimes know what techniques the other favors. Aikido on the contrary doesn't require a "fair duel" situation to be effective. In fact, many (dan level) techniques are done with two or three opponents. We also practice with 4 or more opponents to make sure our techniques can flow instinctively under pressure. Karate still has kata with many opponent situation but most student don't even know they're fighting more than one "shadow" opponent in their kata. In comparison, in aikido we practice our "kata" (techniques) with a partner. This is because jujutsu is a skin-to-skin contact art, so you have to train your somatic sensations, up to being able to execute a technique in full darkness (this is practiced in many dojo in fact).

On the other hand, what is difficult with both competition and kata practice is to understand that in a non-comptetition or non-practice situation, you do not have to conform to kata or techniques. You execute them when the occasion presents itself, otherwise you try to create, in the heat of the moment, such an occasion (with atemi or some other distraction). In the end, the best teachers are real situations: if you really want to know if you're ready, go catch some criminals or kill some terrorists.

P.S. I know true judo (as done by Kano and Mifune for example) and many of the arts practiced in MMA by themselves don't need the "fair duel" setup to be effective, but the way they train for competitions makes it so (in fact Gracie jujutsu was made for fair duels. That's how they became famous in Brazil, by dueling. Saying that BJJ is good on the street is like saying a rapier is good on a battlefield: complete nonsense).

sam harris is awesome. he is a genuine atheist who speaks under pressure as well as he writes, unlike that hack christopher hitchens. if you listen to hitchen's interviews you can tell hes not really even an atheist hes just making a buck off the books.

letter to a christian nation ftw.

Is it just me, or does no one realize just how hard it is to make a shot like this under pressure? I thought for sure this would get at least a few votes... Interesting.

do you hear him saying "fuck you, retard, and yo momma too?"
no, there's no sound. maybe he said "shit, sorry, sorry, sorry, er, is he ok? hey son, don't hit people". did you see him in court saying "fucking spastic gotta be shown he can't kick my son, beeeehatch"
you have no idea. what you can't see/hear is maybe more important than what you can see.

i see him (in front of my own eyes) using the body language of somebody who just did something instinctively and now kinda regrets it and hopes everything is gonna be ok, knows he did wrong, wants to leave the area so he doesn't get in trouble, but knows he can't just run away, but still feels justified in lashing out to protect his son. that's just a guess though, i wouldn't be as sure as you are about it.

do you see him do anything violent whatsoever after the initial punch?

by the way, i haven't thrown a punch in anger since i was 12 years old, and that was the first one. i am not exactly advocating chaos on the streets. i just think i understand that if someone scary comes near your son and tries to hurt him, you might react differently to how you expect. if you are a policeman you are more expected to keep that in check than if you are a father.




In reply to this comment by SDGundamX:
Do you see him checking to see if the kid is okay after the guy goes down? I sure don't. He's too busy standing over the guy and arguing with the mom.

Amazed at your inability to see things right in front of your eyes.

In reply to this comment by MINK:
amazed at your powers of assumption from a low res silent clip of total strangers with unknown mental problems.

In reply to this comment by SDGundamX:
I believe all people have the responsibility to act calmly under pressure and not resort to immediate violence, regardless of profession. The dad didn't even check to see if the kid was okay--he was much more concerned with teaching the guy a lesson and standing over him even after he was KO'd. For that, he earns nothing but contempt from me.

In reply to this comment by MINK:
>> ^SDGundamX:
I'm willing to bet my life savings that if it were a cop throwing the punch in this vid.....


Oh, you mean a trained professional who knows how to deal with these situations, can act calmy under pressure, is not related to the victim of the attack, and is paid to serve the community...

I see the comparison.

Do you see him checking to see if the kid is okay after the guy goes down? I sure don't. He's too busy standing over the guy and arguing with the mom.

Amazed at your inability to see things right in front of your eyes.

In reply to this comment by MINK:
amazed at your powers of assumption from a low res silent clip of total strangers with unknown mental problems.

In reply to this comment by SDGundamX:
I believe all people have the responsibility to act calmly under pressure and not resort to immediate violence, regardless of profession. The dad didn't even check to see if the kid was okay--he was much more concerned with teaching the guy a lesson and standing over him even after he was KO'd. For that, he earns nothing but contempt from me.

In reply to this comment by MINK:
>> ^SDGundamX:
I'm willing to bet my life savings that if it were a cop throwing the punch in this vid.....


Oh, you mean a trained professional who knows how to deal with these situations, can act calmy under pressure, is not related to the victim of the attack, and is paid to serve the community...

I see the comparison.

amazed at your powers of assumption from a low res silent clip of total strangers with unknown mental problems.

In reply to this comment by SDGundamX:
I believe all people have the responsibility to act calmly under pressure and not resort to immediate violence, regardless of profession. The dad didn't even check to see if the kid was okay--he was much more concerned with teaching the guy a lesson and standing over him even after he was KO'd. For that, he earns nothing but contempt from me.

In reply to this comment by MINK:
>> ^SDGundamX:
I'm willing to bet my life savings that if it were a cop throwing the punch in this vid.....


Oh, you mean a trained professional who knows how to deal with these situations, can act calmy under pressure, is not related to the victim of the attack, and is paid to serve the community...

I see the comparison.

I believe all people have the responsibility to act calmly under pressure and not resort to immediate violence, regardless of profession. The dad didn't even check to see if the kid was okay--he was much more concerned with teaching the guy a lesson and standing over him even after he was KO'd. For that, he earns nothing but contempt from me.

In reply to this comment by MINK:
>> ^SDGundamX:
I'm willing to bet my life savings that if it were a cop throwing the punch in this vid.....


Oh, you mean a trained professional who knows how to deal with these situations, can act calmy under pressure, is not related to the victim of the attack, and is paid to serve the community...

I see the comparison.

>> ^SDGundamX:
I'm willing to bet my life savings that if it were a cop throwing the punch in this vid.....


Oh, you mean a trained professional who knows how to deal with these situations, can act calmy under pressure, is not related to the victim of the attack, and is paid to serve the community...

I see the comparison.

What I really liked about this interview (which sadly, you rarely see these days) is a professional interviewer, handling herself well under "pressure". But most importantly... she let him speak.

Don't be afraid of what someone that disagrees with you is going to say. Let them have a voice and then be prepared to argue your stance.

Nice stuff!

Maddow showing how, when under pressure, how to conduct an interview properly.

My school, under pressure from the Vatican, banned this event from campus.

Taking tests in a skill in and of itself and doesn't accuretly judge if those things were learned or not is what I am saying.

That hypothesis is unfalsifiable by definition. I mean how do you know how well the test results match up with some notion of "real ability", except by comparing those results to the results of some other tests?

Yes, "not everyone learns the same things". But if you put a random sampling of vocabulary on the test, you still can still get a good estimate of a student's vocabulary. The larger the sample, the narrower the confidence interval, of course. Random sampling is a bit more complicated in other subjects, but it still works.

Those "test taking skills" are nothing but elementary deductive reasoning (in the case of multiple choice, and almost all standardized tests are multiple choice). If a student doesn't comprehend that sort of deductive reasoning, that is a deficiency in itself that will have negative effects reaching far beyond test-taking. Likewise the ability to stay calm and think clearly under pressure is a skill that has uses far beyond test-taking and should be considered just as important as mastery of the subject.

Though test taking skills are helpful in getting high scores, they are not sufficient for getting high scores on a test. If you know the subject perfectly, you do not even need to use elimination or reductions on multiple choice questions, and you get a high grade regardless of test-taking skills. If you know test-taking skills perfectly, but don't know the subject, you're still getting a low grade on the test. So the issue you raise doesn't make these tests useless, it just makes them a bit less accurate.

The "tests don't really measure knowledge" mantra is, I think, comforting wishful thinking coming from parents of underachieving students.

There are intangible aspects of education that are difficult to measure directly, but they contribute towards general problem solving and reasoning ability.