kimmy

There it is, really. All the stuff about safety is just crap. The objections all boil down to some notion of chivalry, and that's all it is. Some notion about how gentlemen act. Combat sports aren't for gentlemen, they are for sportsmen. Sportsmen understand the rules, agree to the rules, follow the rules during the competition, and shake their opponent's hand when it's over. That's true whether it's pool or tennis or boxing or MMA. As for grappling... scoff if you wish, but it's about the most effective thing a human can do in a fight (ask James Toney...) and a vital part of understanding self defense. Do people watch MMA for grappling? That would be overstating the case. But consider this: the mid-sized town I live in now has more Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu studios than boxing schools. That's a direct result of UFC. People see it and suddenly realize: "that's how you can protect yourself if somebody has you down!" "that's how you can protect yourself from somebody bigger and stronger!" "I need to learn how to do that." -k

I bet you're a huge Dungeons and Dragons guy, aren't you. -k

Getting on top of a competent MMA fighter isn't cowardly. It takes gonads of steel, because it's one of the most dangerous things you can do in a fight. You're putting yourself in a situation where one mistake is going to get you in a choke hold or arm lock. I think the guy who thinks that only immigrants would attack a guy when he's down has probably never been in a real fight, or even seen one. There are certainly those who don't understand what's going on and just want to see a couple of mooks pounding each other's heads in. I suspect that viewers who want to see that end up disappointed and don't stick with MMA for long. Fans who stick with the sport are ones who have the patience to watch long grappling sequences and try to understand the intricacies of grappling. I think that grappling tends to turn fans with short attention spans away from the sport quickly, and frankly that's for the best. I think people who are new to the sport are inevitably shocked at how powerful grappling actually is. People who come in expecting kung-fu kicks and elbow-smashes and flying knees watch a few fights, see how effective plain-old-amateur wrestling is, and go "wtf!" and see some jiu-jitsu submissions and have no idea what even happened. Some people will see that and decide they'd rather go watch kung-fu movies or WWF, and other people see that and decide they want to know how that guy did that thing with the other guy's arm. I love the diversity of techniques that are used in MMA. I think it's amazing to see a guy like Demian Maya or Dustin Hazelett win a fight without throwing a single punch or leaving a mark on their opponent, by applying a jiu-jitsu hold that nobody sees coming. Of course, Hazelett and Maya have both been knocked out by dangerous strikers. Then again, the strikers that knocked them out both got dominated by powerful wrestlers. Then again, those wrestlers have been submitted by jiu-jitsu experts. I love the clash of styles, and the strategies they use to try to make the fight play to their strength instead of their opponent's. And the unpredictability is the other thing that makes it really interesting. Sometimes somebody screws up and you get a very short fight as a result. Sometimes a guy has something that the other guy just doesn't have any answer to. Sometimes you can see it coming a mile away and other times it's a complete shock. Sometimes you get a 3 (or 5) round war, and other times it's over in a minute or less. There's all kinds of ways fights can end, and it's often something completely different from what you expect. -k

yep there's a shocker -k

Teenager experimented with alternative spirituality? OH NOES! The only people I can imagine caring about something like that are ultra-conservative religious kooks... too bad for her, that probably describes 90% of her supporters. Oh well. But is this being presented as serious criticism of her? I can't see it. If you're not checking stuff out when you're a teenager, you're just not doing it right. Like, I even went goth for a couple of weeks. But if she was into Dungeons and Dragons, that's different. Those guys are just too weird. -k

lemme guess: Wiccan M seeks Wiccan F to join in sky-clad fertility rites. amirite? -k

That our courts do appear to discuss arguments made in other jurisdiction is a far reach from proving your original assertion: We can't do that really. Sometimes, common law systems have to reach outside themselves (our's often looks to the UK, US, and Australia) when precedent doesn't exist within our own system. They may even refer to international law. Examining the merits of decisions made elsewhere is a far reach from saying we have to look at other systems of law because our own doesn't know what to do. -k

Cowardly AND gutless! It seems to me that this whole argument of it being "gutless" is based on the premise that the guy on the bottom is defenseless, and that's simply false. I don't know... maybe you guys see promo-clips that Sports-Net puts together showing guys throwing punches from a mount position and assume that that is what happens when the fight goes to the mat. And the promo-clip doesn't show you that the referee stops the fight right then, or that attaining that mount position was the result of several minutes of complicated grappling, or that the usual outcome of a fight going to the mat isn't a mount and a flurry of punches anyway. -k

It wasn't cowardly of Duran or Holmes to push for the finish against stunned opponents. It isn't cowardly for an MMA fighter to push for the finish against a downed opponent either. Both sports rely on the referee to intervene to protect the fighters. I think that anybody who has seen a significant amount of both sports would agree with me that referees in MMA are more assertive in stopping fights than those in boxing. In MMA, it tends to be very apparent when a fighter needs to be protected. In boxing there's always that tendency to think "well, Paulie is still on his feet, he could still land that big punch and turn it around... he still has a chance..." -k

If you wish to argue that Moore or Frazier were still defending themselves in the videos we're discussing, we'll have to agree to disagree. An MMA fighter working off of his back remains extremely dangerous as well. But you're too ignorant of the sport to remotely grasp that. Let's have a look at what you posted earlier: First off, I already posted the rule and explained how athletics commissions in North America interprets it, but you completely ignored that and continued to spout crap anyway. As already explained, the referee has a mandate to stop the fight when a fighter is no longer defending himself. Contrary to what you're trying to suggest, that doesn't require him to be knocked out or give up. It's the referee's judgment, and MMA referees do not a fighter tee off unopposed from a mount position for more than a few seconds before stopping the fight. MMA referees are very assertive in stopping fights to protect fighters. Far more so than in boxing. Said it before, and will repeat: if Duran-Moore was an MMA fight, Duran would have mounted Moore after that knockdown and started punching, and the referee would have stopped it before he landed 3 punches. Since it was a boxing match, Moore gets time to get back to his feet, too shaky to box effectively, and takes another dozen power-shots to the head before the referee decides Moore has to be protected. So which sport is really the barbaric one? -k

But if Sainz is the 'ho here, then the guys in the locker-room, and the NFL, and TV Azteca, are the pimps. And the guy at home in front of his television is the John. Present company excluded, of course. -k

Isn't that also proportional to air resistance, though? If the air on Mars is 1% as dense, it should take far less power to achieve a given speed than it would in earth's atmosphere. Anyway, just saw this and thought you guys might get a kick out of it: -k

I am plenty aware. And again, watch the videos: they were no longer able to defend themselves. They were, to borrow your phrase from earlier, "pooched". They were not sufficiently alert or mobile to employ "sweet science" to avoid punches anymore. Clearly you have no problem with wailing away on a defenseless fighter, provided he's still standing. -k

This Washington Post reporter has clears up some misconceptions about locker-rooms and privacy: -k

Canadian and American networks are a little less transparent about what they're selling, but things are apparently a little different in Mexico. What it comes down to is this: TV Azteca, and the NFL, and the men in that locker-room all benefit from Ines Sainz using her ass to market their product. She is helping pay their rent. If they have a problem with it, they should revise their policies accordingly. If not, they should thank the lady and let her do her job. Sure. And Canadian and American networks tend to at least have their eye-candy dress like grown-ups when they're on the job. I dunno. I don't think it's terribly mystifying what's going on. Sara Orlesky wears more clothes, but do people really think she's TSN's sidelines reporter because of her football insight and crafty interviewing skills? That Ines Sainz and women like her are handed opportunities that the rest of us don't have is hardly news to most women. -k

It's more that as far as I can tell both the NFL and her employer are entirely OK with the way she dresses, so I don't see how it's "bad behavior". I think it would be interesting to see what her employer would say if she decided to start wearing Republican housewife dresses to work. -k

I have no idea what you're talking about. Nobody is talking about striking down portions of our laws that are similar to Sharia. What people are talking about is refusing to accept portions of Sharia that are in conflict with our laws. The case American Woman cited is an example of what people don't want to happen here. -k

If Canada is bound to honor international law in specific cases, what of it? That has nothing to do with the issue being discussed. And Dick, while it doesn't surprise me to learn that courts in Canada look at arguments and decisions made in other jurisdictions, I'd be very surprised to hear that these decisions have any sort of standing in Canada. -k

Her dress was clearly acceptable to her employer, and as far as I can tell the NFL has no quarrel with how she was dressed either. The NFL could institute a dress code for reporters, but they won't, and we both know why. The NFL does, on the other hand, have a policy regarding conduct towards members of the media. They went through this 20 years ago when Zeke Mowatt came up to Lisa Olson in a locker room and started stroking his Zeke Mowatt at her. -k

There is a key difference between some beer league jocks and NFL athletes: the NFL guys were at work. -k

Your claim was: "A fighter who is still on his feet hasn't submitted and can still defend himself by moving away." Well, the Holmes vs Frazier and Duran vs Moore videos that Jack posted showed two fighters who are still on their feet but are clearly unable to defend themselves anymore. Remaining on his feet is clearly not a sufficient requirement for a boxer to defend himself. So your claim is false. -k

I call BS on that. I don't think you can find any instance where our courts have looked to the US or Australia or international law for precedents, and when our courts examine British law for precedents it is because British Common Law is the *foundation* of our legal system. And I don't think you could even invent for me a situation where a court might say "ok, we don't know how to decide this. Let's see what international law (or Australia, or Sharia) says about it." It's inane. -k

The video in the original post says that the permission slip states that students would observe the mid-day prayer but makes no mention of participating. The video claims that the boys were "asked" to stay in the prayer area while the girls and women were herded away. One of the chaperones claims the boys who prayed did so of their own accord: I don't think it's reasonable to expect children in that situation to assert their right to say no with confidence. For children I think causing offense to their hosts would have probably been a stronger influence than the philosophical considerations. Like when you go to a hockey game and everybody around you stands for the anthem... if you don't stand too, you stick out, and kids don't like to stick out. I suspect that they probably participated in the prayer because they felt more comfortable participating than they would have by standing there just watching. I don't know if there were any male chaperones or teachers on this trip. If the boys were separated from all of the chaparones, I think that's where negligence occurred. I also personally don't think it's that big a deal. I understand that religious people probably feel differently, but to me actually participating in the prayer is a meaningless gesture. Was participating in the prayer itself such an awesome experience that those boys are going to convert? I doubt it. Overall I think it's great that the girls got to find out first-hand how they fit in under Islam. I suspect that the experience will be one they remember. -k

It's common for MMA fighters to submit. You can get into trouble that there's just no way out of other than to concede. There's nothing to be gained from attempting to continue except for a serious injury. On the odd occasion when a fighter really is too stupid to submit, you get something like this... (for the record, I believe that remains the most serious injury ever to occur in a UFC fight. And another example of how the guy on the bottom is able to protect himself from the guy on top, btw.) -k {"Oh SNAP!" }

I recently read "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman. It is a work of fantasy set mostly in present-day small-town middle America. The premise is that gods exist as long as people believe in them. These range from figures from old folklore and superstition and mythology to "new gods": technology is personified as a snivelling fat teenager and media as a smarmy blonde, for example. The story follows a man named Shadow as he helps an elderly con-man named Mr Wednesday. Mr Wednesday is -- quite obviously -- an incarnation of Odin, and he's attempting to rally the other "old gods" together to make one last stand against "the new gods" before they all fade out of memory completely. The story itself is pretty fanciful. I enjoyed the depiction of the mythological figures and their reminisces and reflections on history. Mixed in with Shadow's adventures are some vignettes that I found quite thought-provoking. I also enjoyed the depiction of the small town that Shadow spends much of the story in: a little oasis, almost. -k