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On YouTube’s 5th birthday, a look at the first video uploaded, but which was the first comment?
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This short video was shot at the San Diego Zoo. I thought the background on this landmark first YouTube video looked kind of familiar. I’ve got to go to the Zoo and shoot a few videos there myself. Great sights and sounds at that place.
Putin wins again – NYPOST.com.
Ralphs Peters calls it like he sees it, which is why I enjoy reading his columns on foreign policy and military affairs. His core values are conservative, but he is more than willing to criticize the Republicans, as well as Democrats.
In his latest column Peters explains how Vladimir Putin is the most successful leader on the world stage today. While Peters admires Putin in a sense, he also recognizes that he is dangerous opponent and laments that fact that there does not seem to be anyone in the top tier of our political leadership that can stand as his equal.
The real NBA season starts today and I’m looking forward to some very hard fought battles in the fight for the championship this year. Predicting which teams will end up in the Finals this year is a very tough call in my opinion because the top I think the top seeds, the Lakers and the Cavs, are definitely vulnerable to being upset this year.
I’ve thought it over, I think the LA Lakers will play the Cleveland Cav’s in the Finals. The Cav’s will win and LeBron will earn his first championship rings, although there should be more to follow for him. Earlier in the year I predicted that the Lakers and Magic would meet again in Finals. That could very easily happen, but I think LeBron & Co. now have a little more firepower due to their addition of Antwan Jamison and they will prevail.
I recently rented The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, starring Nicholas Cage and directed by Werner Herzog. This film was quite violent and profane, but also included many moments of genuinely funny dark humor. The film is highlighted by a riveting performance from Cage, who plays the title character, a rogue police officer in post Katrina New Orleans. It was Cage’s best performance in years and I’m surprised it did not earn him a Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. I gave the film a rating of 8/10 on IMDb.
I picked Anderson Silva, BJ Penn and Matt Hughes to win their fights and posted my predictions on Twitter prior to the fights. I went 2 and 1 because BJ Penn lost in a shocking upset. He was a heavy favorite to win over Frankie Edgar.
Anderson Silva won easily, but he damaged his reputation because he did not conduct himself in a professional manner. He taunted and toyed with his opponent, Damien Maia, over the course of 5 rounds when he could have ended the fight in one of the early rounds. UFC President Dana White was disgusted and embarrassed by his antics. I think White should arrange a fight between Silva and Light Heavyweight Jon Jones. I think Jones, with his superior athletic ability and wrestling background would truly challenge Silva.
I recently added a Talkers list to the Links section of my blog. I was originally going to title the section Talk Radio, but that really wouldn’t be accurate because I listen many hosts via the internet and podcasts these days, so I’ll just call it Talkers for now.
My personal politics definitely lean to the right of center and my favorite Talk Show hosts are conservatives, but I do listen to some left of center hosts as well because I find “the other side” interesting and informative sometimes. Moreover, the hosts that I listen to, including those on the left, have a sense of humor and can be funny imo.
I would rank my top five Talk show hosts as follows:
1 – Rush
2 – Savage
3 – Mark Levin
4 – Cenk Uygur
5 – Glen Beck
Also like (in no particular order) Roger Hedgecock and Rick Roberts, both of San Diego, as well as Mike Malloy, Alex Jones, Max Keiser, Bill Cunningham and Jerry Doyle.
Army Report: GIs Outgunned in Afghanistan — Politics Daily.
This is a disturbing article about an internal Army study which has determined that Army combat units are often at a significant disadvantage when engaged in firefights in Afghanistan due to the relatively short effective range of their weapons.
The co-main events were good, but not great. Georges St. Pierre defeated Dan Hardy by unanimous decision. GSP clearly dominated the fight, yet Hardy was impressive in defeat by absorbing a lot of punishment and lasting 5 rounds with the champ. Hardy’s lack of an effective takedown defense was exposed as GSP took him down at will.
The Mir vs. Carwin battle did not last one round as Shane Carwin delivered a devastating barrage of punches that KO’d Mir. The extra weight and muscle that Mir put on did not appear to help him. If anything, Mir looked slower and less agile than he did when he weighed around 240 lbs. Moreover, Mir did not look significantly stronger as Carwin was able to push him up against the fence and control Mir with relative ease. Although I picked Mir to win I did note that Carwin could end the fight quickly with his KO power and that is indeed what happened.
Unfortunately, I missed the Jon Fitch’s victory over Ben Saunders, but the scores indicate he dominated that fight. I think he is deserving of a rematch with GSP at this point.
UFC 111 at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ presents two potentially great fights as the co-main events.
A welterweight title fight featuring the great UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre vs. Dan Hardy, a hard hitting up and comer from the UK. GSP is the heavy favorite and with good reason. GSP has no evident weaknesses in his MMA skill set. He can fight very well on his feet or on the ground and is always in tremendous condition. Hardy has an extensive martial arts background, but we haven’t seen much beside boxing in his UFC fights. Hardy has a puncher’s chance of winning this fight, but I don’t think he will prevail. I think GSP ends this 5 round fight by round 3, with a KO or TKO.
The other main event is a Heavyweight bout between former HW Champ Frank Mir and the undefeated Shane Carwin. Both men weighed in at the HW limit of 265 pounds. Mir was somewhat earlier in his career, but has built up his muscle mass in order to take on behemoths such as Carwin and current UFC HW Champ Brock Lesnar. Of course, Lesnar demolished Mir in when they last met in the Octagon and at that time Mir was 20 to 25 pounds lighter. Lesnar was able to throw Mir around and smother him in that fight. We’ll see if the added bulk helps Mir. This fight is a tough call because both fighters are very capable of ending the fight in round 1. Mir is a very skilled master of submitting opponents. Carwin is built like a tank and has KO power. I’ll go with the more experienced Mir to win, but I won’t be shocked if Carwin puts Mir to sleep.
Another interesting fight on this card pits Welterweights Jon Fitch against Ben Saunders. I’ll take the always formidable Fitch in this fight. If he wins he may get a rematch against GSP, who he lost to when they last fought.
gmf journal 