Why would you pay 20,000$ just for a uni softmodem driver, I'm not sure I understand, that's a lot of money, it goes without saying you could buy a lot of hardware modems with that much money.. What's your motivation?
The fucking Democrats? You're a nutter, those fools were attempting to pass laws a few years ago banning children playing with plastic guns because it encourages violent impulses, outlawing paintball because it could be used as an outlet for violent fantasies, amongst other things, the Democrats are about as far from libertarian as you can possibly get.
Simple fact is that the closest thing to the libertarian party in Australia would have to be either One Nation or the Liberals, both of which are a far fucking cry away.
It's kinda ironic actually cause I think the "don't fuck with my life and I won't fuck with your life" is quite heavily entrenched in modern Australian life, it's just that kinda puts one on the path to staying the hell out of politics altogether.
That leads us to the far left leaning greens and democrats trying to implement their draconian policies on the majority of the apathetic denizens of the country, or the slightly left leaning labour party or slightly right leaning wannabe republican conservative liberal party. (I don't think anyone really takes Hanson seriously, her aboriginal cannibal stories and economic policies with hallmarks like "let's print more money" are best left estranged and trapped in the land that time forgot, far northern queensland.)
May they all meet painful ends afaic.
-- The yanks may sing and move their hands in funny ways and make funny hand signals and ask people to put their hands in the air and wave em like they just don't care, but down here, we really just don't care, couldn't be fucked raising our hands, and certainly couldn't be bothered figuring out digital origami patterns to demonstrate that we have nothing to demonstrate.
1) it doesn't rust. (maybe stainless steel, but not real steel)
2) in a fit of rage it is not possible to punch through steel (even stainless), it is possible to do this to a PC case.
Cheers
Genj
Collateral Damage vs Military Casualties
on
Globalization
·
· Score: 1
Something that strikes me as quite peculiar in relation to the current uproar over collateral damage and Afghani civilian casualties in the air campaign over Afghanistan is that there seems to be no acknowledgement from those that wish to move to the ground war phase without further aerial raids that the likely outcome of such an action is to be immense casualties in US Military ground personnel. (see Vietnam)
Civilian casualties are a terrible thing, of course, there is no denying this, the vaunted technology of long range precision guided weapons is not perfect and there will be mistakes and collateral damage, this cannot be avoided, only minimised. I find it interesting on this particular note that much fuss is made of the mistakes with the precision guided weapons, but very little is ever said about their intended effects, how effective is the campaign in this fashion? is this information being made available?
The "fog of war" in any dramatic modern situation results in large amounts of misinformation from both parties. The US Military is likely to want to exaggerate about the effect of their strikes and the Taleban is likely to want to exaggerate about their lack of effect whilst simultaneously playing up the collateral damage angle. Perhaps in hindsight it would be useful to examine former situations with similiar tactics and terrain, does anyone know now that Kosovo is no longer such a publically visible issue what the real effectiveness of the Allied airstrikes on Serbian military assets on the ground was? Afghan and Yugoslavian terrain aren't terribly far removed from one another and the complexity involved in the operations should be comparable.
Anyway, back to the original topic, it seems awfully lacking of intestinal fortitude to suggest that US Service people should put themselves in the undeniably infinitely more dangerous situation of engaging the Taleban and Al-Qaeda ground forces in order to minimise what so far appears to be not a huge amount of error on the part of the Allied airstrikes. I have watched the issue quite closely, and whilst I realise that it's one thing to belittle the problems that the civilian population of Afghanistan is having on the ground over there from 16,000km away, and entirely another to remark on it while there are cruise missiles landing nearby, I still have faith in the ability of the US military to do the job that they were sent to do in the best way possible.
I am not even a resident / citizen of the US, and still I would be far more accepting of collateral damages to the civilian population of Afghanistan than Military Casualties from the volunteers in the Allied forces.
It just seems it's being ignored, that we can just send in the ground troops and the taleban will stick it's tail between it's legs and hand over Bin Laden, this is not likely to happen. The combination of largely, but not entirely, effective allied air power with precision strikes from special forces groups may not be the kindest to the people of Afghanistan compared with sending in an overwhelming ground based force but it appears to be the best way to minimise damage to the Allied armed forces.
If you've got a rusty scalpel, and a sick person infected with a contagious cancerous growth, you may need to use the tools at your disposal to do the job, even if they're not perfect. I think everyone agrees that it's gotten past the point where it's sensible to adopt the role of the pacifist in the situation.
It all just seems very one sided, I realise there are a lot of angles to the issue, I don't for one minute believe that in any fashion the citizens of the USA bought the events of September 11 upon themselves. US Foreign policy in certain areas of the world has been self serving, this is true, there have been wars fought largely for no other reason than it was in the US' best interests economically speaking to do so, the CIA and various other branches of the US government have taken part in some terrible snafus throughout modern history, etc etc etc, No amount of evil perpetrated by the US government or it's agents can justify direct, purposeful attacks designed to inflict the maximum attrition possible on civilians. There's simply no way around that fact. I can think of no rationale, modus operandi, or political ideology that can justify such a heinous crime.
The ironic thing about the entire event is, well.. I'm going to ask you all to think back, does anyone remember a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, the release of a movie called "Independence Day".
This movie sucked ass, it was pathetic, it was so crap it could not possibly have been worse if it was filmed with the art directory of a red/green 3d film specialist in charge of production. This movie was hyped, hyped big time, by the time it came around, everyone knew about it and everyone went and saw it pretty quick. The first release of this that I saw was a handicam taped version from a US theatre, there's a scene in the movie where an alien spaceship absolutely annihilates the white house, the entire audience *cheered* when this happened. These were American people, residents of the US, watching a piece of blatantly nationalist film, and they applauded at the destruction of a symbol which before september 11 had been pretty much synonymous with corruption and greed.
With the recent actions in New York and Washington the US government appears to have scored itself a major propaganda coup, outraged commentators across the country were speaking of the perpetrators "damning their cause" (assumedly anything vaguely related to modification of American foreign policy in the middle east) and Flag waving patriotism and national anthem recitals became the norm.
Personally, if the attacks on september 11 had been on just one target, say the whitehouse, I think the response would have been pretty close to this, before the events of the past month took place. There was a lot of dislike and distrust for the government of the USA, now it appears as if all this has evaporated into a vague, slightly disconcerting patriotic mist. Guess nothing unifies a group of people like another group of people trying to kill them.
Is it just me, or is it weird that W. shrub JR has not provided concrete evidence to the public at large of Al-Qaeda's involvement in the September 11 Attacks? Is it also really weird that on the FBI's most wanted page he is wanted for involvement *only* for the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, with no mention of the S11 attacks?
Therein lies the class system of old - poorly educated peasants, rich people running the system without much of a clue (not cost effective to get a real education, just go to school to network) and a motivated educated middle class. Having a nationwide education system lets people look at things from a similar cultural standpoint and gives everyone a chance, it means that the girl at the supermarket checkout can add and read labels for a start.
I just don't believe that if the resources for self education are made available to people then they will not utilise them, my own personal experience speaks out against this, I don't think peasants enjoy being peasants, and rich old boys networks are worth nothing without at least some brains at the wheel.
In some cases the cause is simply an evil greedy bastard that wants to hurt people. In other cases it is no easy task to get to the cause.
In the case of the evil greedy bastard, he ought to be severely demotivated from his chosen behavioural path.
What do others who are less capable of defending themselves do? I don't like the idea of the rule of the strong over the weak.
Better the strong over the weak than the weak over the strong, but better altogether that everyone rule themselves and noone else. if 1 of a group of 50 people attack another in the group, and the remaining 49 people retaliate, it is pretty easy to spot that the violent one won't attempt that again and will come out the worse for it in the event that he does.
The odds that a cop in a democratic country will shoot you to take your shoes are very low.
The odds that a citizen will shoot you and take your shoes are similiarily low. The odds that a citizen will shoot you are in fact lower than the odds a cop will shoot you.
Let's not teach each other how to lie with statistics.
The cop also has to answer to someone that is ultimately dependant upon the will of the people to stay in power.
Ultimately dependant on the will of the lowest common denominator.
A leader with no support at all is either out of work, exiled, jailed or dead.
or not adept enough at moulding public opinion to fit into his policies, more like.
1/ The government is seperated from the process - it is being dealt with by the court. Under the principle of separation of powers the government sets a law, and the courts decide how to implement it without interferance from the government. If the government wants to interfere they set mandatory sentances, but once a case is going they have to keep out.
The courts are corrupt, as is the government, the seperation of powers is useless, the only thing that works is to obliterate the powers entirely.
2/ A dictatorship is a word in the dictionary with a specific meaning. If what you are describing doesn't mean that use another word.
The government has absolute power because it has the power of violence to back up what it wants. Therefore it is a dictatorship, regardless of all the PR fluff around this fact.
I'd better get back to playing the ball and not the man.
No I don't mean government as metaphoric guy with gun. I mean absolute guy with gun. There are guys with guns who work for the government, but none of them have pointed them at me. Government is supposed to protect us from the absolute guy with gun and the fact that I haven't seen one yet suggests they're doing an alright job.
Never seen a cop?
If they weren't, I'd guess that some guy with a gun would be taking ALL my money and threatening my freedoms. I would suggest the difference between these two states is rather broad.
The guy with the gun wants maximum return from the person he's pointing it at with minimum investment in effort. In response to the difference between the two states, I would suggest that the difference is not only not rather broad, it is in fact entirely illusory aside from the fact that the government is far more adept at it's disgusting trade than your average moronic mugger.
As for my personal views on government and it's role ;
Let me start by saying I don't have all the answers, I entered this thread only to point out that Australia wasn't *nearly* a dictatorship, it was, in fact, a dictatorship.
Now to discount what I said above, aside from not having all the answers, there are just some things that smack royally of blatant dictatorship, compulsory voting is one of these things, although I can tell already you disagree, compulsory *anything* is one of those things, and yes, I include education there. I can do this reasonably easy because I think we have a really pathetic education system which is good for just about nothing. But even in the event that we did have quite a decent one, I would still say that it is up to the guardian of the child to make this decision for their child, it is not up to the policymakers in canberra.
The costs of maintaining an adequate military defense from foreign invasion and maintaining an adequate police force to enforce a minimal set of laws which directly promote the wellbeing of the members of society and do not impinge on freedom or require laws to be created in support of them which verge nigh on the police state is quite significantly less than the total amount of funds the government currently extorts from it's citizens.
Typically IIRC a military budget is less than a two digit figure of the GNP, a policing budget is even less. In my opinion education should not be provided by the government, it should be the responsibility of the guardian of the child to decide in which fashion their child is educated, if anything government intervention in education should be restricted to making the widest amount of information possible to it's citizenry so that they may independantly pursue their educations and that of their children to whatever degree they feel that they have to.
Lack of education does not necessarily count for lack of opportunity, I acknowledge that sometimes this is the case but I also put forward that compulsory education will earn you nothing but resentment from those that you subject to it that wish to have no part of it, I shall use myself as an example. I left school before Year 10 even started, (Typically it is recommended that you finish year 10, year 12, and some university schooling, although after year 10 it is no longer compulsory, you cannot leave school legally without your guardians approval before year 10) I learned more from my own studies in subjects which interested me outside of school than I ever learned about any of the subjects inside of school. The public library was an invaluable tool and I would've given several thousand public educational institutes for a better library.
You should never let your schooling get in the way of your education.
Further on the subject of policing, the causes of crime should be targeted rather than the symptoms, one does not treat an illness by it's symptoms, but by it's causes. People driven to crime through nothing but poverty ought to be dealt with in a fashion that gives them a preferable option. People who engage in organised crime simply because they feel it will give them a better life, the "crime pays" sect, we shall call them, should be given the least possible breadth to operate in, and should be dealt with with maximum severity in order to change their minds in relation to whether crime pays or not when they are apprehended.
Lastly, the general public needs to grow a fucking backbone and stop expecting that all their needs will be taken care of, countless personal freedoms have been sacrificed at the altar of crime prevention and yet still every day throughout the world it takes place and the victims scream at their governments to stop it from happening rather than taking steps to defend themselves. I have been mugged, at knifepoint and at gunpoint, being a hotheaded and generally angry person this merely resulted in immense pain for the mugger in question. If this were the rule rather than the exception it is far less likely that such behaviour would continue.
And of course it is extremely unlikely that an expat would read this and decide to respond, because such an individual would have no interest at all in their native country...
That is complete rubbish. A$60,000 per year is *well* above the poverty line in Australia. The poverty line would be from A$10K-20K. Is the A$40k difference "not far" in your words?
in reply to
(that's about 30k USD, which is probably not far above the poverty line over there).
I can see what's happened here, you've assumed that I was saying that over there was Australia, in fact, I was saying over there was the USA. I can forgive that.
I apologise for the lack of clarity, consider this a clarification.
From your comments, you feel it is your "right" to respond in any way (including violence) to any laws you disagree with.
I never said "any laws you disagree with" There is a big difference from laws restricting you from doing things and laws requiring you to do things, in fact these two things are completely diametrically opposed, there are very few (none that I can think of off the top of my head but I am not going to try really hard) laws that require you to do things that could be considered fair. Fair being that you can choose to leave them to their way and they can leave you to your own.
Of course the government has a right to kill you if you become violent (though Australia does not have the death penalty generally speaking)
By this logic, if the government becomes violent, the responding party also has the right to kill them, which is in fact the case in the example that you're responding to. And it isn't "generally speaking" it's "not at all" as far as the legal system alone is concerned.
What country in the world doesn't do that? What society/community in the world doesn't do that?
Once again we come back to this idea that if everything in the world is fucked it cannot possibly be unfucked in just one situation, this is what causes things to stay fucked. Once again you're putting the onus on the government as the retalliatory party, the government is not the retalliatory party, it is the initiating party, it is the thug, not the defender. Can I make this any clearer?
Ditto relating to fines. If you refuse to pay your fines and repeatedly refuse to do so, what should the government do? Continue to let you break laws which incurs fines?
Perhaps they should not construct laws which would incur fines for actions which fundamentally harm noone, if I do not wish to participate in a government or political system I view as flawed, this harms noone.
The fact that you were fined in relation to not crossing your name off at the voting booth is incidental.
No, it's not incidental, it's the only issue at hand, do you really think that if I were fined for fraud I would be protesting the lack of justice in the system? Don't be a fool.
Australia isn't perfect. I doubt it is the best country in the world. I don't know which country is the best, but I'm not arrogant enough to believe Australia is. Calling Australia a dictatorship is extreme. If Australia is a dictatorship, tell me a single country in the world which isn't a dictatorship?
So tell me where this wonderful, perfect democracy is, buddy. Where? THE WORLD IS NOT A PERFECT PLACE. THe Australian system is not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than a lot of places - take the USA for example.
I didn't say democracy was wonderful, or perfect, in fact, I said it was a flawed concept, not just a farcical implementation of a good concept. By admitting that the Australian system is not perfect, you're simply serving to back me up on this.
Australia is more democratic than USA because of:
Excuse me? I don't remember saying that the USA was the last bastion of freedom, hang on, oh, that's because I *DIDN'T*, *WOW*, that flame on at the beginning of this post was so not wrong, you obviously haven't taken any time at all to actually read what I said rather than blindly supporting your pathetic status quo.
The government makes you do stuff. Well tough shit. Every single government in the world makes you do stuff. They take money from you as taxes, they make you do military service in wars, and you people are getting in a snit because Australia asks it's citizens to give an opinion every three years?
Four years, man, you are incredibly dense. On that same issue, just because a practice is widely accepted does not necessarily make it "right" or "ok". You would do well to remember that in Victorian times thirteen year old girls were a sexual delicacy for the affluent classes of society, this does not necessarily make it "right".
Well, gee, I'm emigrating to the USA right now, so I have the right to sit and whine about how terrible the government is without having to accept any responsibility for it.
Why the fuck should I accept responsibility for a government that I loathe? and why are you so obsessed with the USA? Did you even take the time to check whether I was from the USA? It doesn't take much of a genius to figure out that I am not, and at no point did I ever hold the USA up as an example of perfection of even near perfection.
Go talk to some people in Afghanistan, find out what a REAL dictatorship is, and STOP WHINING!
I'm sure that an individual displaying such obvious intelligence as yourself of course has in fact visited Afghanistan, is well aware of the history of the country and it's involvement with the soviet union. Is totally up to date on Taliban and northern alliance balances of power and government policy, and is in fact in a totally perfect position to comment on this state of affairs and point out how they fuck *everything* up and the wonderful Australian status quo is the personification of perfection.
*Fuck Wad*
So any government that forces it's citizens to do stuff is extortionate? How about ANY government then? Government's tell you to do stuff - that's what they're for. If the government wasn't there, it'd just be some guy with a gun telling you what to do, and frankly, I'd take government any time.
You fucking ignoramous, the government *IS* the guy with the gun telling you what to do, do you want the sky to be aqua or pale blue? Definitely pale blue. Infinitely better than that terrible and obviously diametrically opposed aqua.
Well I make about $36,000 before tax. I have my own new car, I live in a high-quality inner-city suburb and go out to dinner most weekends. There's a little thing called 'cost of living' - a hell of a lot smaller here than there.
Well I make about 150,000$ before tax, I have my own new car, I live in a high quality northern inner city suburb and go out for dinner or whatever the hell I want whenever the hell I want, yet the government still shafts me on a regular basis and I would be infinitely better off without their pathetic far left socialist tax policies.
And you ignore that as an Australian citizen, I am entitled to a quality school education for less than $200 a year, an interest-free loan for all of college, and adequate government health-care. That money does acutally go toward something, you know.
Quality school education? Man, your intelligence demonstrates that fact to the nth degree, methinks I should contact Mr Aqualina and ask him to get in touch with you so you can be a placard carrier for the effectiveness of the Australian education system. And yes, I do in fact know that that money goes toward something, the 354 million dollars per year from "public" coffers propping up our bloated parliament, do the math on 6.9% unemployed of 22 million people with an average benefit of less than 180 $ per week and realise that the roughly 150 members of parliament are taking more resources than all those people combined.
Man you're stupid. Stunning, If you don't mind, I'm going to use you as *my* poster boy example of the state of the Australian public and why democracy as a perfect ideal is fundamentally flawed.
actually, even if you mind, I'll still use you.
I don't like some of the Australian government's decisions. I'm sure it could be improved. But to assume anything compulsory results in a dictatorship is a naive viewpoint that appears to be based on very little knowledge of the Australian political system, or any political system for that matter.
And you've of course repetitively demonstrated your massive knowledge of world sociopolitical reality.
Considering that the secret ballot is in fact known as the 'Australian Ballot', since we invented the thing, and that Australians are generally part of UN election-monitring groups, I'd suggest that the general world view is that we know a thing or two about free elections.
And because of the above you're also infinitely qualified to make statements about what the world thinks of Australia. I'm sure you're extremely well travelled.
And I'd suggest if you want to accuse anywhere in the world of being a dictatorship, pick somewhere were the most wealthy 5% pick the leader, rather than somewhere where 100% pick the leader.
Once again you're simply saying that because more flagrant examples of dictatorships exist, this automatically disqualifies Australia as an example of one, By that logic one who lives with their shit piled in a corner does not live in an unhygenic environment based on the fact that some people live in sewers.
In what way does requiring you to attend a polling booth inhibits you
"freely express[ing] your will"?
Your will might be that they have absolutely no control of you, your will might be that there be no foolish patriarchy to establish ludicrous laws that enroach daily further and further on individual freedom, in this case, forcing you to attend a polling booth on the assumption that you will vote (which is indeed what is assumed, the fine notice which you recieve is for "not voting" not "not having your name marked off on the electoral role" the secondary is merely a clever circumvention of the intent of the law to begin with. I know this, I got one of these fines)
In case of the above it becomes rather clear why such a law is inhibiting you from expressing your will.
3) "...the fact that the parliament demands that you be somewhere on a
chosen election day, under threat of fine or jail, demonstrates that they
demand your obedience with menaces. That is not freedom that is
dictatorship."
Define "freedom" and "dictatorship".
freedom in this example would be fairly obvious, the freedom to not attend some ridiculous farcical attempt at an emulation of the flawed ideal of democracy.
Dictatorship in this particular context of course is that terms are being dictated to you that you are obliged under threat of fine or gaol or violence or death to comply with, (if you refuse to pay the fine, they throw you in gaol, if you resist, they use violence, if you use it back, they will kill you if they cannot subdue you)
Kids within a certain age bracket have to attend school or face getting
dragged there willy-nilly by the local truant officer. Why is that
different from grownups being required to attend a polling booth?
It's no different, but as you try to make your example validate the previous instance, it in fact invalidates this specific instance, what right should the government have to appoint truant officers to throw children back in inefficient and fatally flawed compulsory education systems?
The right, of course, is that is the government and it may do as it chooses, because it is in fact a dictatorship with smoke and mirrors in tow.
If you earn over a certain income threshold you are required to pay income
tax. You might be able to reduce the amount you pay by making use of
various deductions, tax shelters, and so forth, but if the tax office
issues you with an assessment which requires you to pay a tax bill you
have to pay that bill or risk court action--not to mention fines which are
a good deal heftier and more onerous than the $20 fine you get from the
AEC for not voting.
And once again you do not validate your claims by this example, you simply point out another example of blatant government extortion, the government of Australia taxes it's citizens at 48.5 percent over the minescule rate of 60,000$ per annum (that's about 30k USD, which is probably not far above the poverty line over there).
It is blatantly extortionate, no better than an organised criminal syndicate involved in racketeering where you get to choose the wiseguy with the best pinstripe suit to fuck you over on a regular basis.
AFAIK there are no gaol terms for not attending.
The Fines act 1996 gives the government the authority to suspend drivers license in the event of non payment of any fines, *including* no vote fines, after six months they have the right to force community service, if you fail to participate they have the right to sentence you to gaol, if you resist, they will use violence to subdue you, if you use violence to respond, they will kill you. Being a sheep is not an option unless you would also be willing to submit your safety to a mugger in the street, the government has no more validity than that.
BTW, the fine for not voting in federal elections is $20 ($50 if you get
taken to court). If the threat of a $20 fine makes Australia a
"dictatorship" you clearly have no idea what a real dictatorship is!:)
Your information is inaccurate, the fine is 50$, if the SDRO is required to enforce the fine it is a further 50$, if further action is required as outlined in the above examples it is more money at each step along the garden path.
It is a dictatorship, mild or otherwise, it doesn't matter, being shot with a 9mm or being shot with a 7.62mm bullet is still being shot.
even if in this particular instance, the government of Australia does not deem it fit to bill the family of the deceased the cost of the bullet used to slay them.;)
Tell us about America from an Australian Expat perspective, I have heard good things, and I have heard bad things.
As far as I can see, it's just not worth going to the trouble of moving when it's debatable as to whether one country is better than another (as far as the first world countries in Western Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas go, anyway) and with the politicians of every country continuously trying to one up each other in the interests of restricting the freedom of their citizens, even if the situation is currently better in any given one of these countries, it's hardly guarunteed that it's going to stay that way.
Such a pity..
Well,
Kendo and Kenjutsu are not the only (remaining) traditional sword combat arts.
Also you have to distinguish between battlefield and duell.
Modern Katana, forged after 1650, the beautyfull weapons most of us assiciate with Samurai, are unlike to be used in battle. They are used ceremonical and in combat where you likely have no armor, e.g. in a duell.
Katana were also used in battle, there is nothing in raw iron backed with bamboo and straps of leather (which is what samurai armour was constructed of) which would decisively nullify the use of traditional katana. There is a certain Ryu that I have seen demonstrate use of an extremely large katana with a much thicker blade and longer blade than I have ever seen before and I am told that this is actually designed as an armour splitter.
In battle much bigger swords where used.
As above.
The technique you are describing above as an aikido technique is not called Ikkyo but Shi Ho Nage.
I am a newbie to Aikido, thankyou for the correction, I assumed that other people would be more familiar with Aikido than they were with Kenjutsu or other Japanese sword arts.
You avoid touching the opponents swords at all, you only hit their bodies.
as I mentioned, whenever possible, correct.
The curve of the sword is mainly to let it be drawn quicker. Also it is usefull in cutting enemies(or their weapon or armor), as the point where the target is touched is very smal and so the pressure on the target is maximized in relation to a not curved sword (Tachi).
The Tachi is a curved sword, it's simply a lot bigger than a katana.
And yes: you have to turn the sword by 180 degrees to use the back soft side to deflect a opponents sword.
This is not the way that I have been taught to block and when the springiest part is in the center and it's easier to flick the blade 45 degrees than it is to flick it 180 degrees I don't think this is correct, brittle will chip (edge), soft will deform (spine), springy will deflect (center).
And yes, you *only* practice kendo, so you do not know it: if you do not turn your blade but use it directly to deflect an other sword masters sword, your sword is gone, it is simply cut into two parts.
I don't actually practice kendo at all, I practice a modified form of Hyo ho niten ichi ryu kenjutsu, I have had a little experience also in Tenshin Shin'yo Ryu Kenjutsu and Shinto Ryu Iaido.
It does not stand to reason that the springiest part of the sword would be the part to snap whilst in contact with (as you pointed out earlier) quite a small part of the enemies blade, the possibility of shear seems even smaller as this would necessitate moving the edge through the springier steel and the harder steel as well.
And you are right, after deflecting it you have a mark on the back side. But thats far better than having the mark in the sharp side of the blade.
Imho, no, it's not, you can polish out small marks on the sharpened edge much simpler than you can polish out large deformations to the softer steel on the spine. taking that into account plus the fact that you have to flick the blade 180 degrees to block with the spine I'd have to say in a situation where you could not simply avoid the attack or deflect it with the central springy part I'd definitely be edge blocking.
Remember, you do not use a Katana like an Axe, its not a punch! Its a cut. If one sharp edge of a sword cuts into the sharp edge of the other sword, its only a matter of luck (or call it balance and stance) if you cut straight through it, as the whole cut happends at one single point of the other sword.
a punch is a thrusting technique, katana cuts are cuts, I don't see what you're getting at here?
Your sword looses likely its sharpness, the other sword has a DEEP mark in it or is in two parts.
You've lost me again.;)
Regards,
angel'o'sphere
I took the liberty of reading up on some of your other posts and noticed that you are an Aikido practitioner so I'll take it as correct about shihonage, but in regards to kenjutsu techniques I will have to maintain disagreement with you.
Ok, surprisingly small amount of information on this subject is available, I could find no references to the anatomy of the Dao (Chinese broadsword) but cursory information on dao forms in several different forms of kung fu, basically it was designed as a light weapon to be used to deflect blows and flexibility was key (excuse the pun), meaning that a parry could quickly be turned to an attack by way of the blade flexing out of the way, based on this information it's reasonable to assume the blades were made quite thin, without much thought put into maintaining an extremely sharp edge, it was probably simply sharp enough to do the job rather than insanely sharp like damascene scimitar or katana.
There is quite the wealth of information comparitively in regards to the chinese "sword" (not specific to tai chi after all, this in fact appears to be the basic design of a chinese sword) They were, in fact, forged damascus in situations where it was expected that they would be more than mere "tools". This particular aspect is explored in quite a lot of academic details over here;
http://sevenstarstrading.com/article/08art03.htm l
I am not quite that silly, note I said "documentary".;) I am well aware that what a sword does in a movie is very infrequently what it does in real life.
I don't see a combat advantage in a whipping effect of a blade ( especially seeing as with a large flat blade like that of the chinese broadsword your face of impact would be the flat of the blade with a whipping technique ), but indeed it does seem like at least with the chinese broadsword this was the intention, I am reasonably certain that due to the diamond shaped blade and taper and degree of hardness in a Tai Chi sword they were not designed to flex, they may in fact be entirely just for tai chi. I'll look through my library and see what I can come up with on the subject, I have a few reference books on Chinese martial arts.
Personally, I think given unlimited resources to create a sword class weapon I would go for a single edged industrial diamondite composite lattice material with a long blade (around 30") and a long tsuba ( bout a cubit ) and as much as could be given without compromising the overrall structural stability removed entirely from the centre of the blade.
With a diamond based composite I think it might even be practical to have the center hollow, this would serve the same purpose as a blood groove on a tradition japanese blade, causing a vacuum in the clamp reflex of the human body when the muscle tissue is penetrated so the sword does not get stuck in the target, excuse my grisly detail.
This would add up to an extremely hard edge with a very high degree of flexibility (what to mix with a diamondite composite for the shock absorbing aspect? any suggestions? perhaps an antiballistic material of some sort?) and very low weight, the balance could be adjusted by moving a balancing "flange hook" on the edge up and down between the tsuba and the kissake.
For the mountings a handle made from possibly the same antiballistic material as would be used as the shock absorbing quality above so that the diamond structure of the blade could fade into the ABM material for the hilt and create a single entity. I am paranoid about tradition tang design after being a bit too overzealous during nukitsuke and punching a blade through a nearby wall.;(
All this could be done with suitable advancements in nanotechnology I believe.
Of course the above initial design does not take into account any possible modern advances such as self assembling blades and etc which nanotech would also afford us... Hmmmm...
Cutting a silk scarf in half under it's own weight can be done, I have seen this done with absurdly sharp katana (sharper than you would want them for real tameshigiri practice on heavy bamboo or tatami targets)
I think the article said the ability to cut a falling silk scarf, I could do this with my own katanas which haven't been sharpened for three years and get daily tameshigiri on quite hard targets. That simply becomes a question of speed. (fun to test, but a better test is a vertically suspended piece of reasonably thick fishing line, *extremely* hard to do, the speed you need doing this ensures near perfect technique on success)
I am speaking from less experience on this subject than I was when I was speaking on the kenjutsu counterpart, but I was watching a documentary on Shaolin kungfu last night, the chinese broadsword (the most common chinese sword, looks vaguely like a scimitar) used in shaolin training actually flexed around much like a piece of aluminium foil, I can't imagine based on this that the blade would be very sharp, being that thickness and in order to flex and wobble around at the degree that it did I think it would have to be quite pliable and light.
The only other sword which features reasonably promimently in chinese martial arts is the commonly named "tai chi sword" straight, double edged, single tassle on the pommel, the green destiny dragon whatever the hell movie sword in crouching tiger hidden dragon was based on this design, I believe these were traditionally created by the stock removal process.
if anyone here has a better idea about chinese swordsmanship I'd be rather interested to hear some more about it.
heheh, this reminds me of a friend of mine who is a swordsmith, he makes quite good swords, not as good as the ones you can get from master smiths but much better than the stainless steel stock removal jobs from spanish and taiwanese vendors, anyhow, he makes three swords pretty much identically and from swedish powdered steel stock and chooses cow bone as the test material (extremely hard, will expose the blade to quite a high possibility of a break if it is too brittle or a bend if it is too soft).
He broke two of his blades not knowing the correct cutting technique and got me to test the third one first on one thick leg bone, then two, then three, sheared clean through them each time with nothing but a minor non fatal chip on the very edge on the third attempt with three bones.
I guess when it comes down to it, swords work in the fashion that they are designed to work, swinging a decent katana in the same fashion as a louisville slugger is probably not a good idea to test the strength of the blade.;)
No, a wakazashi is different to a katana, not to mention you'd obviously be doing different things with different hands, I believe the traditional reason for a short companion sword was twofold;
1) it was lighter than the katana and the off hand required less strength to use it.
2) it being shorter meant that it could be passed over around and underneath the katana creating combination moves.
I chose to use two katanas because I am ambidextrous and I think the versatility of being able to switch your leading attack arm without notice is more important than being able to move in close proximity to your original strikes.
My study of metallurgy is entirely based in the realm of it's relativity to swords, and in all the research that I have ever done I have not heard a single mention of cementite, if it's a part of pearlite I guess it was simply never mentioned.
Slashdot Mirror
30 million bucks = big money game.
4.6 / 10 = trashed.
gamespot = big name review site.
I didn't have to think hard at all. Daikatana.
Why would you pay 20,000$ just for a uni softmodem driver, I'm not sure I understand, that's a lot of money, it goes without saying you could buy a lot of hardware modems with that much money.. What's your motivation?
I'm impressed, but curious.
The fucking Democrats? You're a nutter, those fools were attempting to pass laws a few years ago banning children playing with plastic guns because it encourages violent impulses, outlawing paintball because it could be used as an outlet for violent fantasies, amongst other things, the Democrats are about as far from libertarian as you can possibly get.
Simple fact is that the closest thing to the libertarian party in Australia would have to be either One Nation or the Liberals, both of which are a far fucking cry away.
It's kinda ironic actually cause I think the "don't fuck with my life and I won't fuck with your life" is quite heavily entrenched in modern Australian life, it's just that kinda puts one on the path to staying the hell out of politics altogether.
That leads us to the far left leaning greens and democrats trying to implement their draconian policies on the majority of the apathetic denizens of the country, or the slightly left leaning labour party or slightly right leaning wannabe republican conservative liberal party. (I don't think anyone really takes Hanson seriously, her aboriginal cannibal stories and economic policies with hallmarks like "let's print more money" are best left estranged and trapped in the land that time forgot, far northern queensland.)
May they all meet painful ends afaic.
-- The yanks may sing and move their hands in funny ways and make funny hand signals and ask people to put their hands in the air and wave em like they just don't care, but down here, we really just don't care, couldn't be fucked raising our hands, and certainly couldn't be bothered figuring out digital origami patterns to demonstrate that we have nothing to demonstrate.
Steel? That's not steel.
1) it doesn't rust. (maybe stainless steel, but not real steel)
2) in a fit of rage it is not possible to punch through steel (even stainless), it is possible to do this to a PC case.
Cheers
Genj
Civilian casualties are a terrible thing, of course, there is no denying this, the vaunted technology of long range precision guided weapons is not perfect and there will be mistakes and collateral damage, this cannot be avoided, only minimised. I find it interesting on this particular note that much fuss is made of the mistakes with the precision guided weapons, but very little is ever said about their intended effects, how effective is the campaign in this fashion? is this information being made available?
The "fog of war" in any dramatic modern situation results in large amounts of misinformation from both parties. The US Military is likely to want to exaggerate about the effect of their strikes and the Taleban is likely to want to exaggerate about their lack of effect whilst simultaneously playing up the collateral damage angle. Perhaps in hindsight it would be useful to examine former situations with similiar tactics and terrain, does anyone know now that Kosovo is no longer such a publically visible issue what the real effectiveness of the Allied airstrikes on Serbian military assets on the ground was? Afghan and Yugoslavian terrain aren't terribly far removed from one another and the complexity involved in the operations should be comparable.
Anyway, back to the original topic, it seems awfully lacking of intestinal fortitude to suggest that US Service people should put themselves in the undeniably infinitely more dangerous situation of engaging the Taleban and Al-Qaeda ground forces in order to minimise what so far appears to be not a huge amount of error on the part of the Allied airstrikes. I have watched the issue quite closely, and whilst I realise that it's one thing to belittle the problems that the civilian population of Afghanistan is having on the ground over there from 16,000km away, and entirely another to remark on it while there are cruise missiles landing nearby, I still have faith in the ability of the US military to do the job that they were sent to do in the best way possible.
I am not even a resident / citizen of the US, and still I would be far more accepting of collateral damages to the civilian population of Afghanistan than Military Casualties from the volunteers in the Allied forces.
It just seems it's being ignored, that we can just send in the ground troops and the taleban will stick it's tail between it's legs and hand over Bin Laden, this is not likely to happen. The combination of largely, but not entirely, effective allied air power with precision strikes from special forces groups may not be the kindest to the people of Afghanistan compared with sending in an overwhelming ground based force but it appears to be the best way to minimise damage to the Allied armed forces.
If you've got a rusty scalpel, and a sick person infected with a contagious cancerous growth, you may need to use the tools at your disposal to do the job, even if they're not perfect. I think everyone agrees that it's gotten past the point where it's sensible to adopt the role of the pacifist in the situation.
It all just seems very one sided, I realise there are a lot of angles to the issue, I don't for one minute believe that in any fashion the citizens of the USA bought the events of September 11 upon themselves. US Foreign policy in certain areas of the world has been self serving, this is true, there have been wars fought largely for no other reason than it was in the US' best interests economically speaking to do so, the CIA and various other branches of the US government have taken part in some terrible snafus throughout modern history, etc etc etc, No amount of evil perpetrated by the US government or it's agents can justify direct, purposeful attacks designed to inflict the maximum attrition possible on civilians. There's simply no way around that fact. I can think of no rationale, modus operandi, or political ideology that can justify such a heinous crime.
The ironic thing about the entire event is, well.. I'm going to ask you all to think back, does anyone remember a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, the release of a movie called "Independence Day".
This movie sucked ass, it was pathetic, it was so crap it could not possibly have been worse if it was filmed with the art directory of a red/green 3d film specialist in charge of production. This movie was hyped, hyped big time, by the time it came around, everyone knew about it and everyone went and saw it pretty quick. The first release of this that I saw was a handicam taped version from a US theatre, there's a scene in the movie where an alien spaceship absolutely annihilates the white house, the entire audience *cheered* when this happened. These were American people, residents of the US, watching a piece of blatantly nationalist film, and they applauded at the destruction of a symbol which before september 11 had been pretty much synonymous with corruption and greed.
With the recent actions in New York and Washington the US government appears to have scored itself a major propaganda coup, outraged commentators across the country were speaking of the perpetrators "damning their cause" (assumedly anything vaguely related to modification of American foreign policy in the middle east) and Flag waving patriotism and national anthem recitals became the norm.
Personally, if the attacks on september 11 had been on just one target, say the whitehouse, I think the response would have been pretty close to this, before the events of the past month took place. There was a lot of dislike and distrust for the government of the USA, now it appears as if all this has evaporated into a vague, slightly disconcerting patriotic mist. Guess nothing unifies a group of people like another group of people trying to kill them.
Is it just me, or is it weird that W. shrub JR has not provided concrete evidence to the public at large of Al-Qaeda's involvement in the September 11 Attacks? Is it also really weird that on the FBI's most wanted page he is wanted for involvement *only* for the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, with no mention of the S11 attacks?
Therein lies the class system of old - poorly educated peasants, rich people running the system without much of a clue (not cost effective to get a real education, just go to school to network) and a motivated educated middle class. Having a nationwide education system lets people look at things from a similar cultural standpoint and gives everyone a chance, it means that the girl at the supermarket checkout can add and read labels for a start.
I just don't believe that if the resources for self education are made available to people then they will not utilise them, my own personal experience speaks out against this, I don't think peasants enjoy being peasants, and rich old boys networks are worth nothing without at least some brains at the wheel.
In some cases the cause is simply an evil greedy bastard that wants to hurt people. In other cases it is no easy task to get to the cause.
In the case of the evil greedy bastard, he ought to be severely demotivated from his chosen behavioural path.
What do others who are less capable of defending themselves do? I don't like the idea of the rule of the strong over the weak.
Better the strong over the weak than the weak over the strong, but better altogether that everyone rule themselves and noone else. if 1 of a group of 50 people attack another in the group, and the remaining 49 people retaliate, it is pretty easy to spot that the violent one won't attempt that again and will come out the worse for it in the event that he does.
The odds that a cop in a democratic country will shoot you to take your shoes are very low.
The odds that a citizen will shoot you and take your shoes are similiarily low. The odds that a citizen will shoot you are in fact lower than the odds a cop will shoot you.
Let's not teach each other how to lie with statistics.
The cop also has to answer to someone that is ultimately dependant upon the will of the people to stay in power.
Ultimately dependant on the will of the lowest common denominator.
A leader with no support at all is either out of work, exiled, jailed or dead.
or not adept enough at moulding public opinion to fit into his policies, more like.
1/ The government is seperated from the process - it is being dealt with by the court. Under the principle of separation of powers the government sets a law, and the courts decide how to implement it without interferance from the government. If the government wants to interfere they set mandatory sentances, but once a case is going they have to keep out.
The courts are corrupt, as is the government, the seperation of powers is useless, the only thing that works is to obliterate the powers entirely.
2/ A dictatorship is a word in the dictionary with a specific meaning. If what you are describing doesn't mean that use another word.
The government has absolute power because it has the power of violence to back up what it wants. Therefore it is a dictatorship, regardless of all the PR fluff around this fact.
I'd better get back to playing the ball and not the man.
Is this a sig? I don't get it.
No I don't mean government as metaphoric guy with gun. I mean absolute guy with gun. There are guys with guns who work for the government, but none of them have pointed them at me. Government is supposed to protect us from the absolute guy with gun and the fact that I haven't seen one yet suggests they're doing an alright job.
2 33 588
Never seen a cop?
If they weren't, I'd guess that some guy with a gun would be taking ALL my money and threatening my freedoms. I would suggest the difference between these two states is rather broad.
The guy with the gun wants maximum return from the person he's pointing it at with minimum investment in effort. In response to the difference between the two states, I would suggest that the difference is not only not rather broad, it is in fact entirely illusory aside from the fact that the government is far more adept at it's disgusting trade than your average moronic mugger.
As for my personal views on government and it's role ;
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=21052&cid=2
I apologise for being so harsh on you before, I just don't like being dismissed out of hand.
Let me start by saying I don't have all the answers, I entered this thread only to point out that Australia wasn't *nearly* a dictatorship, it was, in fact, a dictatorship.
Now to discount what I said above, aside from not having all the answers, there are just some things that smack royally of blatant dictatorship, compulsory voting is one of these things, although I can tell already you disagree, compulsory *anything* is one of those things, and yes, I include education there. I can do this reasonably easy because I think we have a really pathetic education system which is good for just about nothing. But even in the event that we did have quite a decent one, I would still say that it is up to the guardian of the child to make this decision for their child, it is not up to the policymakers in canberra.
The costs of maintaining an adequate military defense from foreign invasion and maintaining an adequate police force to enforce a minimal set of laws which directly promote the wellbeing of the members of society and do not impinge on freedom or require laws to be created in support of them which verge nigh on the police state is quite significantly less than the total amount of funds the government currently extorts from it's citizens.
Typically IIRC a military budget is less than a two digit figure of the GNP, a policing budget is even less. In my opinion education should not be provided by the government, it should be the responsibility of the guardian of the child to decide in which fashion their child is educated, if anything government intervention in education should be restricted to making the widest amount of information possible to it's citizenry so that they may independantly pursue their educations and that of their children to whatever degree they feel that they have to.
Lack of education does not necessarily count for lack of opportunity, I acknowledge that sometimes this is the case but I also put forward that compulsory education will earn you nothing but resentment from those that you subject to it that wish to have no part of it, I shall use myself as an example. I left school before Year 10 even started, (Typically it is recommended that you finish year 10, year 12, and some university schooling, although after year 10 it is no longer compulsory, you cannot leave school legally without your guardians approval before year 10) I learned more from my own studies in subjects which interested me outside of school than I ever learned about any of the subjects inside of school. The public library was an invaluable tool and I would've given several thousand public educational institutes for a better library.
You should never let your schooling get in the way of your education.
Further on the subject of policing, the causes of crime should be targeted rather than the symptoms, one does not treat an illness by it's symptoms, but by it's causes. People driven to crime through nothing but poverty ought to be dealt with in a fashion that gives them a preferable option. People who engage in organised crime simply because they feel it will give them a better life, the "crime pays" sect, we shall call them, should be given the least possible breadth to operate in, and should be dealt with with maximum severity in order to change their minds in relation to whether crime pays or not when they are apprehended.
Lastly, the general public needs to grow a fucking backbone and stop expecting that all their needs will be taken care of, countless personal freedoms have been sacrificed at the altar of crime prevention and yet still every day throughout the world it takes place and the victims scream at their governments to stop it from happening rather than taking steps to defend themselves. I have been mugged, at knifepoint and at gunpoint, being a hotheaded and generally angry person this merely resulted in immense pain for the mugger in question. If this were the rule rather than the exception it is far less likely that such behaviour would continue.
And of course it is extremely unlikely that an expat would read this and decide to respond, because such an individual would have no interest at all in their native country...
Ok.
That is complete rubbish. A$60,000 per year is *well* above the poverty line in Australia. The poverty line would be from A$10K-20K. Is the A$40k difference "not far" in your words?
in reply to
(that's about 30k USD, which is probably not far above the poverty line over there).
I can see what's happened here, you've assumed that I was saying that over there was Australia, in fact, I was saying over there was the USA. I can forgive that.
I apologise for the lack of clarity, consider this a clarification.
From your comments, you feel it is your "right" to respond in any way (including violence) to any laws you disagree with.
I never said "any laws you disagree with" There is a big difference from laws restricting you from doing things and laws requiring you to do things, in fact these two things are completely diametrically opposed, there are very few (none that I can think of off the top of my head but I am not going to try really hard) laws that require you to do things that could be considered fair. Fair being that you can choose to leave them to their way and they can leave you to your own.
Of course the government has a right to kill you if you become violent (though Australia does not have the death penalty generally speaking)
By this logic, if the government becomes violent, the responding party also has the right to kill them, which is in fact the case in the example that you're responding to. And it isn't "generally speaking" it's "not at all" as far as the legal system alone is concerned.
What country in the world doesn't do that? What society/community in the world doesn't do that?
Once again we come back to this idea that if everything in the world is fucked it cannot possibly be unfucked in just one situation, this is what causes things to stay fucked. Once again you're putting the onus on the government as the retalliatory party, the government is not the retalliatory party, it is the initiating party, it is the thug, not the defender. Can I make this any clearer?
Ditto relating to fines. If you refuse to pay your fines and repeatedly refuse to do so, what should the government do? Continue to let you break laws which incurs fines?
Perhaps they should not construct laws which would incur fines for actions which fundamentally harm noone, if I do not wish to participate in a government or political system I view as flawed, this harms noone.
The fact that you were fined in relation to not crossing your name off at the voting booth is incidental.
No, it's not incidental, it's the only issue at hand, do you really think that if I were fined for fraud I would be protesting the lack of justice in the system? Don't be a fool.
Australia isn't perfect. I doubt it is the best country in the world. I don't know which country is the best, but I'm not arrogant enough to believe Australia is. Calling Australia a dictatorship is extreme. If Australia is a dictatorship, tell me a single country in the world which isn't a dictatorship?
And there you have it, *EXACTLY* my point.
Thankyou.
Okay.... FLAME ON!!
;) I love it.
You call that a flame? *this* is a flame.
So tell me where this wonderful, perfect democracy is, buddy. Where? THE WORLD IS NOT A PERFECT PLACE. THe Australian system is not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than a lot of places - take the USA for example.
I didn't say democracy was wonderful, or perfect, in fact, I said it was a flawed concept, not just a farcical implementation of a good concept. By admitting that the Australian system is not perfect, you're simply serving to back me up on this.
Australia is more democratic than USA because of:
Excuse me? I don't remember saying that the USA was the last bastion of freedom, hang on, oh, that's because I *DIDN'T*, *WOW*, that flame on at the beginning of this post was so not wrong, you obviously haven't taken any time at all to actually read what I said rather than blindly supporting your pathetic status quo.
The government makes you do stuff. Well tough shit. Every single government in the world makes you do stuff. They take money from you as taxes, they make you do military service in wars, and you people are getting in a snit because Australia asks it's citizens to give an opinion every three years?
Four years, man, you are incredibly dense. On that same issue, just because a practice is widely accepted does not necessarily make it "right" or "ok". You would do well to remember that in Victorian times thirteen year old girls were a sexual delicacy for the affluent classes of society, this does not necessarily make it "right".
Well, gee, I'm emigrating to the USA right now, so I have the right to sit and whine about how terrible the government is without having to accept any responsibility for it.
Why the fuck should I accept responsibility for a government that I loathe? and why are you so obsessed with the USA? Did you even take the time to check whether I was from the USA? It doesn't take much of a genius to figure out that I am not, and at no point did I ever hold the USA up as an example of perfection of even near perfection.
Go talk to some people in Afghanistan, find out what a REAL dictatorship is, and STOP WHINING!
I'm sure that an individual displaying such obvious intelligence as yourself of course has in fact visited Afghanistan, is well aware of the history of the country and it's involvement with the soviet union. Is totally up to date on Taliban and northern alliance balances of power and government policy, and is in fact in a totally perfect position to comment on this state of affairs and point out how they fuck *everything* up and the wonderful Australian status quo is the personification of perfection.
*Fuck Wad*
So any government that forces it's citizens to do stuff is extortionate? How about ANY government then? Government's tell you to do stuff - that's what they're for. If the government wasn't there, it'd just be some guy with a gun telling you what to do, and frankly, I'd take government any time.
You fucking ignoramous, the government *IS* the guy with the gun telling you what to do, do you want the sky to be aqua or pale blue? Definitely pale blue. Infinitely better than that terrible and obviously diametrically opposed aqua.
Well I make about $36,000 before tax. I have my own new car, I live in a high-quality inner-city suburb and go out to dinner most weekends. There's a little thing called 'cost of living' - a hell of a lot smaller here than there.
Well I make about 150,000$ before tax, I have my own new car, I live in a high quality northern inner city suburb and go out for dinner or whatever the hell I want whenever the hell I want, yet the government still shafts me on a regular basis and I would be infinitely better off without their pathetic far left socialist tax policies.
And you ignore that as an Australian citizen, I am entitled to a quality school education for less than $200 a year, an interest-free loan for all of college, and adequate government health-care. That money does acutally go toward something, you know.
Quality school education? Man, your intelligence demonstrates that fact to the nth degree, methinks I should contact Mr Aqualina and ask him to get in touch with you so you can be a placard carrier for the effectiveness of the Australian education system. And yes, I do in fact know that that money goes toward something, the 354 million dollars per year from "public" coffers propping up our bloated parliament, do the math on 6.9% unemployed of 22 million people with an average benefit of less than 180 $ per week and realise that the roughly 150 members of parliament are taking more resources than all those people combined.
Man you're stupid. Stunning, If you don't mind, I'm going to use you as *my* poster boy example of the state of the Australian public and why democracy as a perfect ideal is fundamentally flawed.
actually, even if you mind, I'll still use you.
I don't like some of the Australian government's decisions. I'm sure it could be improved. But to assume anything compulsory results in a dictatorship is a naive viewpoint that appears to be based on very little knowledge of the Australian political system, or any political system for that matter.
And you've of course repetitively demonstrated your massive knowledge of world sociopolitical reality.
Considering that the secret ballot is in fact known as the 'Australian Ballot', since we invented the thing, and that Australians are generally part of UN election-monitring groups, I'd suggest that the general world view is that we know a thing or two about free elections.
And because of the above you're also infinitely qualified to make statements about what the world thinks of Australia. I'm sure you're extremely well travelled.
And I'd suggest if you want to accuse anywhere in the world of being a dictatorship, pick somewhere were the most wealthy 5% pick the leader, rather than somewhere where 100% pick the leader.
Once again you're simply saying that because more flagrant examples of dictatorships exist, this automatically disqualifies Australia as an example of one, By that logic one who lives with their shit piled in a corner does not live in an unhygenic environment based on the fact that some people live in sewers.
You're fucking brilliant.
Doesn't work like that genius boy, I never registered, I got fined.
In what way does requiring you to attend a polling booth inhibits you
:)
;)
"freely express[ing] your will"?
Your will might be that they have absolutely no control of you, your will might be that there be no foolish patriarchy to establish ludicrous laws that enroach daily further and further on individual freedom, in this case, forcing you to attend a polling booth on the assumption that you will vote (which is indeed what is assumed, the fine notice which you recieve is for "not voting" not "not having your name marked off on the electoral role" the secondary is merely a clever circumvention of the intent of the law to begin with. I know this, I got one of these fines)
In case of the above it becomes rather clear why such a law is inhibiting you from expressing your will.
3) "...the fact that the parliament demands that you be somewhere on a
chosen election day, under threat of fine or jail, demonstrates that they
demand your obedience with menaces. That is not freedom that is
dictatorship."
Define "freedom" and "dictatorship".
freedom in this example would be fairly obvious, the freedom to not attend some ridiculous farcical attempt at an emulation of the flawed ideal of democracy.
Dictatorship in this particular context of course is that terms are being dictated to you that you are obliged under threat of fine or gaol or violence or death to comply with, (if you refuse to pay the fine, they throw you in gaol, if you resist, they use violence, if you use it back, they will kill you if they cannot subdue you)
Kids within a certain age bracket have to attend school or face getting
dragged there willy-nilly by the local truant officer. Why is that
different from grownups being required to attend a polling booth?
It's no different, but as you try to make your example validate the previous instance, it in fact invalidates this specific instance, what right should the government have to appoint truant officers to throw children back in inefficient and fatally flawed compulsory education systems?
The right, of course, is that is the government and it may do as it chooses, because it is in fact a dictatorship with smoke and mirrors in tow.
If you earn over a certain income threshold you are required to pay income
tax. You might be able to reduce the amount you pay by making use of
various deductions, tax shelters, and so forth, but if the tax office
issues you with an assessment which requires you to pay a tax bill you
have to pay that bill or risk court action--not to mention fines which are
a good deal heftier and more onerous than the $20 fine you get from the
AEC for not voting.
And once again you do not validate your claims by this example, you simply point out another example of blatant government extortion, the government of Australia taxes it's citizens at 48.5 percent over the minescule rate of 60,000$ per annum (that's about 30k USD, which is probably not far above the poverty line over there).
It is blatantly extortionate, no better than an organised criminal syndicate involved in racketeering where you get to choose the wiseguy with the best pinstripe suit to fuck you over on a regular basis.
AFAIK there are no gaol terms for not attending.
The Fines act 1996 gives the government the authority to suspend drivers license in the event of non payment of any fines, *including* no vote fines, after six months they have the right to force community service, if you fail to participate they have the right to sentence you to gaol, if you resist, they will use violence to subdue you, if you use violence to respond, they will kill you. Being a sheep is not an option unless you would also be willing to submit your safety to a mugger in the street, the government has no more validity than that.
BTW, the fine for not voting in federal elections is $20 ($50 if you get
taken to court). If the threat of a $20 fine makes Australia a
"dictatorship" you clearly have no idea what a real dictatorship is!
Your information is inaccurate, the fine is 50$, if the SDRO is required to enforce the fine it is a further 50$, if further action is required as outlined in the above examples it is more money at each step along the garden path.
It is a dictatorship, mild or otherwise, it doesn't matter, being shot with a 9mm or being shot with a 7.62mm bullet is still being shot.
even if in this particular instance, the government of Australia does not deem it fit to bill the family of the deceased the cost of the bullet used to slay them.
Tell us about America from an Australian Expat perspective, I have heard good things, and I have heard bad things.
As far as I can see, it's just not worth going to the trouble of moving when it's debatable as to whether one country is better than another (as far as the first world countries in Western Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas go, anyway) and with the politicians of every country continuously trying to one up each other in the interests of restricting the freedom of their citizens, even if the situation is currently better in any given one of these countries, it's hardly guarunteed that it's going to stay that way.
Such a pity..
http://www.redshadow.ath.cx
Well,
;)
Kendo and Kenjutsu are not the only (remaining) traditional sword combat arts.
Also you have to distinguish between battlefield and duell.
Modern Katana, forged after 1650, the beautyfull weapons most of us assiciate with Samurai, are unlike to be used in battle. They are used ceremonical and in combat where you likely have no armor, e.g. in a duell.
Katana were also used in battle, there is nothing in raw iron backed with bamboo and straps of leather (which is what samurai armour was constructed of) which would decisively nullify the use of traditional katana. There is a certain Ryu that I have seen demonstrate use of an extremely large katana with a much thicker blade and longer blade than I have ever seen before and I am told that this is actually designed as an armour splitter.
In battle much bigger swords where used.
As above.
The technique you are describing above as an aikido technique is not called Ikkyo but Shi Ho Nage.
I am a newbie to Aikido, thankyou for the correction, I assumed that other people would be more familiar with Aikido than they were with Kenjutsu or other Japanese sword arts.
You avoid touching the opponents swords at all, you only hit their bodies.
as I mentioned, whenever possible, correct.
The curve of the sword is mainly to let it be drawn quicker. Also it is usefull in cutting enemies(or their weapon or armor), as the point where the target is touched is very smal and so the pressure on the target is maximized in relation to a not curved sword (Tachi).
The Tachi is a curved sword, it's simply a lot bigger than a katana.
And yes: you have to turn the sword by 180 degrees to use the back soft side to deflect a opponents sword.
This is not the way that I have been taught to block and when the springiest part is in the center and it's easier to flick the blade 45 degrees than it is to flick it 180 degrees I don't think this is correct, brittle will chip (edge), soft will deform (spine), springy will deflect (center).
And yes, you *only* practice kendo, so you do not know it: if you do not turn your blade but use it directly to deflect an other sword masters sword, your sword is gone, it is simply cut into two parts.
I don't actually practice kendo at all, I practice a modified form of Hyo ho niten ichi ryu kenjutsu, I have had a little experience also in Tenshin Shin'yo Ryu Kenjutsu and Shinto Ryu Iaido.
It does not stand to reason that the springiest part of the sword would be the part to snap whilst in contact with (as you pointed out earlier) quite a small part of the enemies blade, the possibility of shear seems even smaller as this would necessitate moving the edge through the springier steel and the harder steel as well.
And you are right, after deflecting it you have a mark on the back side. But thats far better than having the mark in the sharp side of the blade.
Imho, no, it's not, you can polish out small marks on the sharpened edge much simpler than you can polish out large deformations to the softer steel on the spine. taking that into account plus the fact that you have to flick the blade 180 degrees to block with the spine I'd have to say in a situation where you could not simply avoid the attack or deflect it with the central springy part I'd definitely be edge blocking.
Remember, you do not use a Katana like an Axe, its not a punch! Its a cut. If one sharp edge of a sword cuts into the sharp edge of the other sword, its only a matter of luck (or call it balance and stance) if you cut straight through it, as the whole cut happends at one single point of the other sword.
a punch is a thrusting technique, katana cuts are cuts, I don't see what you're getting at here?
Your sword looses likely its sharpness, the other sword has a DEEP mark in it or is in two parts.
You've lost me again.;)
Regards,
angel'o'sphere
I took the liberty of reading up on some of your other posts and noticed that you are an Aikido practitioner so I'll take it as correct about shihonage, but in regards to kenjutsu techniques I will have to maintain disagreement with you.
Regardless, thankyou for the correction.
Ok, surprisingly small amount of information on this subject is available, I could find no references to the anatomy of the Dao (Chinese broadsword) but cursory information on dao forms in several different forms of kung fu, basically it was designed as a light weapon to be used to deflect blows and flexibility was key (excuse the pun), meaning that a parry could quickly be turned to an attack by way of the blade flexing out of the way, based on this information it's reasonable to assume the blades were made quite thin, without much thought put into maintaining an extremely sharp edge, it was probably simply sharp enough to do the job rather than insanely sharp like damascene scimitar or katana.
m l
There is quite the wealth of information comparitively in regards to the chinese "sword" (not specific to tai chi after all, this in fact appears to be the basic design of a chinese sword) They were, in fact, forged damascus in situations where it was expected that they would be more than mere "tools". This particular aspect is explored in quite a lot of academic details over here;
http://sevenstarstrading.com/article/08art03.ht
Hope that satisfies your curiosity.
I am not quite that silly, note I said "documentary". ;) I am well aware that what a sword does in a movie is very infrequently what it does in real life.
I don't see a combat advantage in a whipping effect of a blade ( especially seeing as with a large flat blade like that of the chinese broadsword your face of impact would be the flat of the blade with a whipping technique ), but indeed it does seem like at least with the chinese broadsword this was the intention, I am reasonably certain that due to the diamond shaped blade and taper and degree of hardness in a Tai Chi sword they were not designed to flex, they may in fact be entirely just for tai chi. I'll look through my library and see what I can come up with on the subject, I have a few reference books on Chinese martial arts.
Personally, I think given unlimited resources to create a sword class weapon I would go for a single edged industrial diamondite composite lattice material with a long blade (around 30") and a long tsuba ( bout a cubit ) and as much as could be given without compromising the overrall structural stability removed entirely from the centre of the blade.
;(
;)
With a diamond based composite I think it might even be practical to have the center hollow, this would serve the same purpose as a blood groove on a tradition japanese blade, causing a vacuum in the clamp reflex of the human body when the muscle tissue is penetrated so the sword does not get stuck in the target, excuse my grisly detail.
This would add up to an extremely hard edge with a very high degree of flexibility (what to mix with a diamondite composite for the shock absorbing aspect? any suggestions? perhaps an antiballistic material of some sort?) and very low weight, the balance could be adjusted by moving a balancing "flange hook" on the edge up and down between the tsuba and the kissake.
For the mountings a handle made from possibly the same antiballistic material as would be used as the shock absorbing quality above so that the diamond structure of the blade could fade into the ABM material for the hilt and create a single entity. I am paranoid about tradition tang design after being a bit too overzealous during nukitsuke and punching a blade through a nearby wall.
All this could be done with suitable advancements in nanotechnology I believe.
Of course the above initial design does not take into account any possible modern advances such as self assembling blades and etc which nanotech would also afford us... Hmmmm...
Cutting a silk scarf in half under it's own weight can be done, I have seen this done with absurdly sharp katana (sharper than you would want them for real tameshigiri practice on heavy bamboo or tatami targets)
I think the article said the ability to cut a falling silk scarf, I could do this with my own katanas which haven't been sharpened for three years and get daily tameshigiri on quite hard targets. That simply becomes a question of speed. (fun to test, but a better test is a vertically suspended piece of reasonably thick fishing line, *extremely* hard to do, the speed you need doing this ensures near perfect technique on success)
Thankyou for that, I was beginning to think my perverse imagination had merely created that lurid detail for it's own self abasing amusement.
;)
I am speaking from less experience on this subject than I was when I was speaking on the kenjutsu counterpart, but I was watching a documentary on Shaolin kungfu last night, the chinese broadsword (the most common chinese sword, looks vaguely like a scimitar) used in shaolin training actually flexed around much like a piece of aluminium foil, I can't imagine based on this that the blade would be very sharp, being that thickness and in order to flex and wobble around at the degree that it did I think it would have to be quite pliable and light.
The only other sword which features reasonably promimently in chinese martial arts is the commonly named "tai chi sword" straight, double edged, single tassle on the pommel, the green destiny dragon whatever the hell movie sword in crouching tiger hidden dragon was based on this design, I believe these were traditionally created by the stock removal process.
if anyone here has a better idea about chinese swordsmanship I'd be rather interested to hear some more about it.
heheh, this reminds me of a friend of mine who is a swordsmith, he makes quite good swords, not as good as the ones you can get from master smiths but much better than the stainless steel stock removal jobs from spanish and taiwanese vendors, anyhow, he makes three swords pretty much identically and from swedish powdered steel stock and chooses cow bone as the test material (extremely hard, will expose the blade to quite a high possibility of a break if it is too brittle or a bend if it is too soft).
;)
He broke two of his blades not knowing the correct cutting technique and got me to test the third one first on one thick leg bone, then two, then three, sheared clean through them each time with nothing but a minor non fatal chip on the very edge on the third attempt with three bones.
I guess when it comes down to it, swords work in the fashion that they are designed to work, swinging a decent katana in the same fashion as a louisville slugger is probably not a good idea to test the strength of the blade.
No, a wakazashi is different to a katana, not to mention you'd obviously be doing different things with different hands, I believe the traditional reason for a short companion sword was twofold;
1) it was lighter than the katana and the off hand required less strength to use it.
2) it being shorter meant that it could be passed over around and underneath the katana creating combination moves.
I chose to use two katanas because I am ambidextrous and I think the versatility of being able to switch your leading attack arm without notice is more important than being able to move in close proximity to your original strikes.
My study of metallurgy is entirely based in the realm of it's relativity to swords, and in all the research that I have ever done I have not heard a single mention of cementite, if it's a part of pearlite I guess it was simply never mentioned.
;)
Not a metallurgist, just a martial artist.