Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Guilt by Association with Jeff Prather

Here is another great list of websites and names of people who have associated with Jeff Prather in the past or who continue to do so. Jeff Prather runs the cult called Warriorschool. Many of the people who claim to have trained with Prather in the past may not have known about his problems. But now they are easily discovered with a quick google search.


Thanks to Richard Van Donk Jeff Prather can sell his DVD courses online.

http://www.ninjutsustore.com/store/home.php?cat=137


VH1 lists Prathers film accomplishments

http://www.vh1.com/movies/person/443712/personmain.jhtml?personid=443712

Miracle at Sage Creek a movie with David Carradine.
http://www.vh1.com/movies/movie/273827/moviemain.jhtml

and Christmas Miracle at Sage Creek
http://www.vh1.com/movies/movie/354970/moviemain.jhtml


Also see an old school seminar Prather did in 2000.
http://www.winjutsu.com/seminars/prather_seminar.htm


http://www.fudomyodojo.com/
The Bujinkan Yamaneko

Fudo Myo Dojo

Dojo-Cho: Shihan Jeff Prather, 15th Dan

Shibu-Cho: Domonic Lees, 4th Dan

Mr. Domonic Lees is a true believer, if he is still affilliated with Mr. Prather. They appear to be one of Prather's franchise dojos in Albuquerque.

http://vegasbujinkan.com/DavidEstorga.html
Here is yet another Yamaneko Prather Dojo, but in Las Vegas of all places.

Bujinkan Yamaneko Dojo: Las Vegas Shibu
David Estorga, Yondan, shibucho

Go to the web site to see his happy clappy pictures.


Mr. Estorga is a Warrior and father with 16 Years experience in the martial arts. He has trained in judo and kenpo and has black belt rank in both. He has trained in the Bujinkan for 10 years. In 2006, he earned his Warrior bracelet under benefactor Tim Pinnow. Mr. Estorga is also contracted with Warrior School to help teach Close Quarter Combat to military personel.

Bujinkan Yamaneko Dojo: Las Vegas Shibu is a satelite dojo under Jeffery Prather, Jugodan, dojocho, and his Bujinkan Yamanenko Dojo in Tucson, AZ. Mr. Estorga is a student of Prather Shihan's and teaches with license from Prather Shihan.

E-mail Mr. Estorga: dav.ten@gmail.com

Tim Pinnow is definitely one of Prather's super cult members.




Yet another victim of Prather's indoctrination. I am surprised that these people advertise their affiliation with Mr. Prather. Don't they have access to Google. Don't they know his reputation. I guess they just don't care. Well then, here it is for all the world to see. All in one spot.

http://www.tacticalselfdefense.com/Bujinkan/YorkDojo/instruct.htm

Assistant Instructor - Martin Hucik III, 3rd Dan

Marty has been training in several different martial arts for over ten years. His primary interest has been under the guidance of Greg Stough and the fellow members of the York Bujinkan Dojo. In addition to training regularly at the York Dojo, Marty has trained in Japan with Hatsumi Sensei and many other Japanese Shihan. To continue his training in the warrior arts he has attended many seminars conducted by top Bujinkan Instructors. These instructors include Phil Legare, Mark O'Brien, Ed Martin, Charles Daniel and Jeff Prather to name a few.

In addition to martial arts training Marty has attended a variety of wilderness survival workshops offered by Larry Neubaum and Greg Stough, and he also finished the student version of Warriorship School headed by Jeff Prather, under the tutelage of Phil Legare.

Marty has been a self-employed construction contractor for over 15 years. He is also a certified Shiatsu Therapist. In addition to his martial arts training Marty's hobbies include nature identification, hiking, fishing, just hanging out with friends, and enjoying life.




http://dojo.freeshell.org/bios3.html

About the Instructors

The instructors of the Bujinkan Taka-Seigi Dojo Vancouver hold black-belt ranks of sandan (3rd degree black belt) or higher in the art of Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu and teach according to the philosophies, techniques, and guidelines of Soke Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi, Shihan Phillip Legare, Shidoshi Scott White, and many of the senior Bujinkan Instructors of Japan. In addition to ranks in Budo Taijutsu, all of the instructors have several years of training in other martial arts styles such as kung-fu, karate, kick boxing, etc., which helps them to better bridge and accommodate the previous training of students coming from those styles.

About Paul Mann

Dojo leader Paul Mann , Shidoshi-ho under Shidoshi Scott White, is a registered member of the Bujinkan Shidoshikai (Bujinkan Instructor's Organization) and has been studying the art of Budo Taijutsu since 1997.

Over the past five years, he has made three trips to Japan to go to the "source of Budo". In Japan, he has had the privilege of training under Soke Hatsumi and senior Japanese Shihans such as Nagato, Noguchi, Oguri, Shiraishi, Nagase, and Someya. Each of these Shihan have focused their training on different aspects of Budo Taijutsu and they are all phenomenal!!

In addition to training in Japan, Paul has attended many seminars by respected Bujinkan instructructors such as Phil Legare, Michael Pearce, Jeff Prather, Brin Morgan, Natasha Morgan, Bill Atkins, Ed Martin, Dale Seago, Jeff Mueller, Shawn Gray, Ed Lomex, and Tim Bathurst.

PLEASE CHECK BACK AT A LATER DATE TO see PICTURES & ARTICLES from the various trips.




http://www.freewebs.com/birminghambujinkandojo/shihanjayzimmerman.htm


Jay currently holds the rank of Judan (10th dan) in Budo Taijutsu; with 20 years of Budo training and 9 of them spent studying Budo Taijutsu. Jay has, in the last nine years, attended 55 seminars and TaiKai here in the USA with the likes of Shihan Dick Severance, Shihan Phil Legare, Shihan Joseph Adriance, Shihan Jack Hoban, Shihan Mike Pearce, Shiahn Larry Hamilton, Shihan Ed Martin, Shihan Jeff Prather and more. Jay has made 5 trips to Japan since 2003 and has trained with Soke Hatsumi Sensei, Nagato Sensei, Noguchi Sensei, Seno Sensei, Oguri Sensei and Someya Sensei. Jay and his wife Beth (also Shidoshi) travel to Japan twice a year for training; trying to understand Hatsumi Sensei’s budo. Jay has preformed seminars for the Fort Wayne, Indiana Army National Guard, Bluffton, Indiana Army Air Cavalry National Guard, performs seminars in the United States and host seminars for many high-ranking Shihan. Jay is head teacher at Bujinkan Goshin Budo Dojo in Garrett, Indiana (www.bushindojo.com). Jay is currently employed as an Industrial Maintenance Technician, owner of Midwest Blanks LLC (www.midwestblanks.com), and involved in real estate. Jay is involved with physical fitness via Crossfit (thanks Mike P.) and an avid handgun (trying long-gun) shooter, as well as a drummer.

http://www.bushindojo.com





http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~jmh253/Who%20I%20am.htm

WHO I AM
(A Profile of John-Paul Michael Hodnett)

I've studied Budo Taijitsu, "the divine body arts", for about six years now. The pictures above are from the Bujinkan group I belonged to in Tucson Arizona (I'm third from the right in the back row) which happen to have me in them. This style has taught me much on how to be a better man, a warrior in modern times, and to have a broader awareness of my surroundings (which includes reading people and to walk softly with open eyes). This style, most commonly referred to Ninjitsu, is one of the most extreme fighting styles taught to today. My sensei, Shihan Jeff Prather (above picture: taking on his students. I'm the one facing right in front of him) has been one of my greatest teachers and his influence still is with me today. His discipline and experience harden both mind and body to take on any event in life. The biggest lesson I learned is that there are few true warriors in the world who help the common man. I try to live by the warrior code and help those in need.


More mentions of people training with Prather

http://www.livingvalues.com/archives.html



Jeff Prather Shinkengata
http://www.defend.net/deluxeforums/seminars-events/20400-shinkengata-summit-june-2006-a.html

Default Shinkengata Summit June 2006
The First Annual Shinkengata Summit

Shinkengata (real combat methods) was originally developed by Takamatsu Soke and then refined by Hatsumi Soke. Through Menkyo Kaiden, a Judan in Shinkengata was given to Phil Legare, Jeff Prather, and Michael Pearce for the purpose of further development into Shinken Taijutsu to be a relevant art in the 21st century. Shinken Taijutsu was formed from the Shinken of Shinkengata, the Taijutsu of the Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu and the modern application of many combat methods.

In the spirit of the Bujinkan honoring the tradition established by Dr. Massaki Hatsumi Soke

Featuring Shihans: Jeff Prather, Phil Legare & Michael Pearce
with special guest: Shihan Dick Severance

Saturday, June 24, 2006 & Sunday, June 25, 2006

Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs - Phoenix Arizona
602-866-7500 for lodging and reservations

Registration: 8:00 AM
Training times: 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM & 1:30pm - 4:00pm
Price: $125 - students of featured/guest Shihans (for those registered and PAID by June 10th, 2006)
$150 - all others and at the door
$80 - one day only

For more information, see http://www.bujinkanusa.com/seminars.htm

Jeff Prather Cult Leader Info Compiled By Another Web Page

Here is a clever web site that keeps track of peoples names. It did a really good job of compiling negative data on Jeff Prather.


http://www.isthisyour.name/jeff_prather.htm


Related Videos

These results courtesy the YouTube public videos feed.

* Yamaneko Kids 1
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* Tactical Medicine
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* Active Shooter Response Course - Sharpening the Skills


Related Blog Posts

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Warriorschool - Cult Deception of Jeff Prather: Names associated ...
By: somebody121 on Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:12:00 GMT
Names associated with Jeff Prather and Darin Ashley. Here are three comment responses to an older post. Not sure if it has been prominently displayed before. Can't hurt to do it again. Blogger Kamereon said. ... ->

Warriorschool - Cult Deception of Jeff Prather: Negative Reports ...
By: somebody121 on Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:21:00 GMT
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BULLSHIT Detection Kit for Warriorschoolers
By: somebody121 on Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:58:00 GMT
Here is something I learned about from Shermer's Skeptic Society. Sometimes called the Baloney Detection Kit, here it is the Bullshit detection kit. Read, learn and apply to liberate yourself from Jeff Prathers' Warrior Cult. ... ->

Dr Persinger and the God Helmet and God
By: somebody121 on Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:50:00 GMT
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Science and Reason
By: somebody121 on Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:20:00 GMT
If you want to improve the world and improve yourself then keep these quotes in mind. Russell’s Rule Try to convince people not to believe in things for which there is no evidence. Or It’s better not to believe in things for which there ... ->

Melvin Conner Review of Beyond Belief Lecture
By: somebody121 on Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:09:00 GMT
I highly recommend you watch the video. The link is here. But for those of you who want to copy and paste the best points, look no further. Read, watch and weep at the brilliant analysis of God belief. Jf Prathr if only we had all known ... ->

Warriorschool - Cult Deception of Jeff Prather: Darin Ashley and ...
By: somebody121 on Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:49:00 GMT
If Jeff Prather is removing his bad name from Warriorschool, then Darin Ashley must be the next guy in line to expose. Here is a quick biography of him. Instructor Darin Ashley graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, ... ->

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Around the Web

Results are courtesy of Yahoo!

Jeff Prather
Stunts: Seven Mummies. Visit IMDb for Photos, Filmography, Discussions, Bio, News, Awards, Agent, Fan Sites. ... Jeff Prather has 1 in-development credit available on IMDbPro.com. To view these credits click here. Stunts: Seven Mummies (2006) (stunt coordinator: fights) (stunts) ...
At: www.imdb.com/name/nm0695365 -- last found on 2008/08/31 ->

Staff Bio Bo
Jeff Prather. With decades of experience in the food and wine business, Jeff Prather shares his wealth of knowledge through engaging, and often amusing, wine ... Having been an actor in his earlier years, Jeff is a natural as one of our entertaining tasting class instructors. ...
At: www.fpwm.com/about_us/jeff.html -- last found on 2009/02/24 ->

Elevation of Wine - Program
HOME FORUM PRESS / ARTICLES TRANSCRIPTS PHOTO GALLERY RESEARCH SPONSORS MAP / LODGING REGISTRATION PROGRAM. Jeff Prather. Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant. With decades of experience in the food and wine business, Jeff Prather shares his wealth of knowledge through engaging, and often amusing, wine ...
At: www.theelevationofwine.org/program/jeff_prather.shtml -- last found on 2009/06/12 ->

Jeff Prather: All About Jeff Prather - Moviefone
Jeff Prather - Associate Producer ... Enemies. Shrink. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The Ugly Truth. Up. Jeff Prather ... See All Jeff Prather Filmography. Netflix FREE Trial. Rent as many movies as you want! Start Your FREE Netflix Trial Today. New on Moviefone. Horror Squad ...
At: www.moviefone.com/celebrity/jeff-prather/453312/main -- last found on 2009/08/02 ->

Jeff Prather Filmography - Yahoo! Movies
Jeff Prather : find the latest news, photos, filmography and awards at Yahoo! Movies ... Jeff Prather. Main Page. Biography. Filmography. Photos. Awards & Nominations. Msg Boards & Groups. Web Sites. Often Works With... DJ Perry. Garret Dillahunt ...
At: movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1808905228 -- last found on 2009/08/13 ->

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Science and Reason




If you want to improve the world and improve yourself then keep these quotes in mind.

Russell’s Rule
Try to convince people not to believe in things for which there is no evidence.
Or
It’s better not to believe in things for which there is no evidence.
-Bertrand Russell

Bertolt Brecht
The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set some limit on infinite error
The Life of Gallilleo


Religion is humanities best effort to ease the fears and yearnings that remain after science has done all that it can do.
-Melvin Conner

Melvin Conner Review of Beyond Belief Lecture



I highly recommend you watch the video. The link is here. But for those of you who want to copy and paste the best points, look no further. Read, watch and weep at the brilliant analysis of God belief. Jf Prathr if only we had all known this before we met you. We wouldn't have been such easy victims.


Melvin Conner Beyond Belief 2007
Arguments Against Belief
Thoughts on the God Belief / Lack of Belief


There is almost no evidence to support religious claims, and all testable claims fail.

Science has closed the “gaps”.

What is called the soul is just brain activity.

Religion has evolved just like any other trait.

Religion causes violence, hatred and war.

Religion is “the opium of the people”



God is the product of human yearnings for



A perfect parent

Reward and punishment

Companionship

Meaning

Life after death



And of the human penchants for agency-detection and imagining other minds.




Religion more generally is the product of human yearnings for


Identity

Belonging

A sense of superiority

Blameworthy enemies

Narrative




All sacred texts are characterized by…


Errors and lies

Internal contradictions

Mutual contradictions

“Supernatural” (i.e. highly implausible) origins

Silly or cruel behavior of gods and religious heroes




None of these objections in the slightest way are new

All have been heard or independently thought of by most intelligent people.

None has posed or is likely to pose a serious obstacle to belief in the minds of the vast majority of believers




Once upon a time there were major religious leaders who thought they could explain how the physical world works, they also cared a lot about proofs of God’s existence.

Thanks to Galileo, Newton et al. these people have been in retreat for four centuries.

But most religious people don’t care about proofs…

It is not news to them that religion has caused great harm.

Or that their sacred texts are flawed.

Or that science explains most things.

They have been meeting those objections with aplomb for centuries.

Most don’t care, they will proudly tell you about argument. They don’t care about evidence. They don’t even care that they can’t clearly define “God.”

Most think that all these conversations are silly.

So what do they care about?

Faith

The assurance of things hoped for the assurance of things not seen

Hebrews 11 1


Some aggressive critics of Religion say:

Religious faith forms a kind of perverse cultural singularity a vanishing point beyond which rational discourse proves impossible.
-Sam Harris (author of the controversial book The End of Faith)

Dr. Conner thinks it is futile to tell people not to believe in God and says if you don't understand that fact then....
If you don’t understand it then try this

When you present arguments against religion to a person of faith, you might as well tell her to care as much about other people’s children as about her own…

Or urge her to stop her ears, give up music, and learn sign language…

Or harangue an oenophile about the dangers of alcohol and try to enlist his support for a return to Prohibition.

BULLSHIT Detection Kit for Warriorschoolers


Here is something I learned about from Shermer's Skeptic Society. Sometimes called the Baloney Detection Kit, here it is the Bullshit detection kit. Read, learn and apply to liberate yourself from Jeff Prathers' Warrior Cult.


How does science deal with such subjective biases? How do we
know when a claim is bogus or real? We want to be open-minded
enough to accept radical new ideas when they occasionally come
along, but we don’t want to be so open-minded that our brains
fall out. This problem led us at the Skeptics Society to create an
educational tool called the BULLSHIT Detection Kit, inspired by
Carl Sagan’s discussion of how to detect “BULLSHIT” in his marvelous
book The Demon-Haunted World. In this BULLSHIT Detection
Kit, we suggest ten questions to ask when encountering any
claim that can help us decide if we are being too open-minded in
accepting it or too closed-minded in rejecting it.

1. How reliable is the source of the claim? As Daniel Kevles
showed so effectively in his 1999 book The Baltimore Affair
investigating possible scientific fraud there is a boundary problem
in detecting a fraudulent signal within the background noise
of mistakes and sloppiness that is a normal part of the scientific
process. The investigation of research notes in a laboratory affiliated
with Nobel laureate David Baltimore by an independent
committee established by Congress to investigate potential fraud
revealed a surprising number of mistakes. But science is messier
than most people realize. Baltimore was exonerated when it
became clear that there was no purposeful data manipulation.

2. Does this source often make similar claims? Pseudoscientists
have a habit of going well beyond the facts, so when individuals
make numerous extraordinary claims, they may be more than
just iconoclasts. This is a matter of quantitative scaling, since
some great thinkers often go beyond the data in their creative
speculations. Cornell’s Thomas Gold is notorious for his radical
ideas, but he has been right often enough that other scientists
listen to what he has to say. Gold proposes, for example, that oil
is not a fossil fuel at all, but the by-product of a deep hot biosphere.
Hardly any earth scientists I have spoken with take this
thesis seriously, yet they do not consider Gold a crank. What we
are looking for here is a pattern of fringe thinking that consistently
ignores or distorts data.

3. Have the claims been verified by another source? Typically
pseudoscientists will make statements that are unverified, or
verified by a source within their own belief circle. We must ask
who is checking the claims, and even who is checking the checkers.
The biggest problem with the cold fusion debacle, for example,
was not that scientists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman
were wrong; it was that they announced their spectacular discovery
before it was verified by other laboratories (at a press
conference no less), and, worse, when cold fusion was not replicated,
they continued to cling to their claim.

4. How does the claim fit with what we know about how the
world works? An extraordinary claim must be placed into a
larger context to see how it fits. When people claim that the
pyramids and the Sphinx were built more than ten thousand
years ago by an advanced race of humans, they are not presenting
any context for that earlier civilization. Where are the rest of
the artifacts of those people? Where are their works of art, their
weapons, their clothing, their tools, their trash? This is simply
not how archaeology works.

5. Has anyone gone out of the way to disprove the claim, or has
only confirmatory evidence been sought? This is the confirmation
bias, or the tendency to seek confirmatory evidence and
reject or ignore disconfirmatory evidence. The confirmation bias
is powerful and pervasive and is almost impossible for any of us
to avoid. It is why the methods of science that emphasize checking
and rechecking, verification and replication, and especially
attempts to falsify a claim are so critical.

6. Does the preponderance of evidence converge to the
claimant’s conclusion, or a different one? The theory of evolution,
for example, is proven through a convergence of evidence
from a number of independent lines of inquiry. No one fossil, no
one piece of biological or paleontological evidence has “evolution”
written on it; instead there is a convergence of evidence
from tens of thousands of evidentiary bits that adds up to a
story of the evolution of life. Creationists conveniently ignore
this convergence, focusing instead on trivial anomalies or currently
unexplained phenomena in the history of life.


7. Is the claimant employing the accepted rules of reason and
tools of research, or have these been abandoned in favor of
others that lead to the desired conclusion? UFOlogists suffer
this fallacy in their continued focus on a handful of unexplained
atmospheric anomalies and visual misperceptions by eyewitnesses,
while conveniently ignoring the fact that the vast majority
(90 to 95 percent) of UFO sightings are fully explicable with
prosaic answers.

8. Has the claimant provided a different explanation for the
observed phenomena, or is it strictly a process of denying the
existing explanation? This is a classic debate strategy—criticize
your opponent and never affirm what you believe in order to
avoid criticism. But this stratagem is unacceptable in science. Big
Bang skeptics, for example, ignore the convergence of evidence of
this cosmological model, focus on the few flaws in the accepted
model, and have yet to offer a viable cosmological alternative that
carries a preponderance of evidence in favor of it.

9. If the claimant has proffered a new explanation, does it
account for as many phenomena as the old explanation? The
HIV-AIDS skeptics argue that lifestyle, not HIV, causes AIDS.
Yet, to make this argument they must ignore the convergence of
evidence in support of HIV as the causal vector in AIDS, and
simultaneously ignore such blatant evidence as the significant
correlation between the rise in AIDS among hemophiliacs
shortly after HIV was inadvertently introduced into the blood
supply. On top of this, their alternative theory does not explain
nearly as much of the data as the HIV theory.

10. Do the claimants’ personal beliefs and biases drive the conclusions,
or vice versa? All scientists hold social, political, and
ideological beliefs that could potentially slant their interpretations
of the data, but how do those biases and beliefs affect their
research? At some point, usually during the peer-review system,
such biases and beliefs are rooted out, or the paper or book is
rejected for publication. This is why one should not work in an
intellectual vacuum. If you don’t catch the biases in your
research, someone else will.
There is no definitive set of criteria we can apply in determining
how open-minded we should be when encountering new
claims and ideas, but with mathematical calculations on the
odds of weird things happening and with an analysis of the sorts
of questions we should ask when we encounter weird things, we
have made a start toward coming to grips with our weird and wonderful world.