UFC: 123 Sleep

Commissioner White was joined on stage by Majority Leader Harry Reid, who took a shot of Jose Cuervo and then dropped a deuce like he was GG Allin.

Kelly vs. O'Brien

O'Brien is here to lose. It is always possible that he wins, but not really. Kelly by GNP TKO in the 2nd.

Parisyan vs. Hallman

One guy who I never thought we would see back takes on another guy that I never asked to see back. Parisyan was one of the most exciting fighters in the sport right before it blew up. But his brain blew up before he could ride the shock-wave to stardom and security. Parisyan is an epic flake. He has put on some of the most watchable fights in history but he lost his grip to panic attacks and pain killers. Hallman has been in the sport since my first year of college. He has two wins over Matt Hughes and a surprsing record for someone no one has ever heard of. If Parisyan is in control of his faculties, I think he wins this on decision. But he isn't someone you can count on anymore. Hallman by boring, boring decision.

Barbosa vs. Lullo

Lullo is here to be a kicking bag for Barbosa, who will take the fight by KO in the 1st.

Davis vs. Boetsch

Boetsch beatdown of David Heath is still epic, and he is a barbarian, but Phil Davis's wrestling is just out of his reach. A big haymaker could end the fight for Davis, but I think his wrestling and Heath's conditioning lead to a TKO in the 3rd.

Griffin vs. Lentz

Both are good fighters. Neither will be champion. I think Griffin's superior wrestling and pace take over and give him the decision.

Foster vs. Brown

I have long discussed my affection for Brown's emergence as a pissy folk legend. I like taking him in fights, but he is infinitely beatable. There is no glaring differences in these two fighters ability levels, but there is a difference in what their abilities are. Foster can out wrestle Brown, and that matters. I would love to see Brown endure and turn this into a real scrap, but I think Foster probably takes him down and holds him there until he gets tired resulting in.....hmmm..a TKO in the 3rd?

Sotiropoulos vs. Lauzon

Now here is a fight I am interested in. This could be one of the better fights you see this season. Neither guy is a gifted athlete but they are both very good fighters. I have Purebred love for Sotiropoulos and I have crazy person respect for Lauzon. Neither look like fighters but they are both out to beat the stew out of each other. In the end, I think Sotiropoulos is just a little bit better and will get the sub in the 3rd. Who knows though.

Harris vs. Goncalves

Goncalves is from Chute Box and has a great record. But in Brazil. Harris has been winning, and winning well on the big stage. I think that carries him through and he gets a TKO in the 1st.

Simpson vs. Munoz

Two wrestlers going out and punching. Both of these guys were super high level collegiate wrestlers but they have been so-so in MMA. I don't have a real dog in this fight. Either can be knocked out. I think Munoz is a little more well rounded now, so let's say he gets the TKO in the 2nd.

Penn vs. Hughes

And now we come down to it. There is no secret here, Penn is one of my favorite fighters of all time and I can't stand Matt Hughes. Both of their previous fights are some of my favorites of all time. How to call this one? I think that Penn has progressed past Hughes but he has also gotten flakier. He can't be counted on. It all depends on his mental and physical condition. Hughes' size is still a bit of an issue, but not exceedingly. Penn's striking is leagues beyond Hughes. I don't think Penn can be taken down that easily. I worry that he is still having training camp with his cronies and not really pushing his boundaries. Hughes seems to be feeling it lately and hasn't regresse as much as I thought he would. If Penn comes in sharp and not completely without a gameplan like in his last fight, I think he out strikes Hughes for a KO in the 2nd.

Jackson vs. Machida

Speaking of flakes, witness Rampage Jackson. I have no faith in his predictability. He has a ton of skills and talent. His submission and striking defense are top notch. Striking defense with the exception of defending leg kicks. He just doesn't do it. He has knock-out power in both hands and covers up well. I just don't think he can compete with a focused Machida. Jackson has already sowed the excuse seeds saying that Machida's movement isn't fighting. Then make him stop moving Rampage. Machida will move in and out and take Rampage's legs away. He will land to the body and get a few trip take downs. I think Jackson tires and gets TKOd in the 3rd. I would like to see five rounds of this one.

I would love to watch this live but I will be playing Arashi covers on the school ground. Boo.

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Conservatives Are Toddlers. Junior High Schoolers at Best.

I went to junior high with this kid named Sonny. He was a dick. A real dick. If it was now me instead of then me, Sonny would have worn a broken nose for graduation, instead then me just shut up and endured him. One day he came up to me at my locker. I was wearing a "49ers: Super Bowl Champions" T-shirt. I apologize, I liked Steve Young. "You know why I hate that shirt?" I was slightly confused but expected some absurdly firm voicing of a sports rivalry inherited from his parents. "Because you're wearing it." Even as a 13 year-old I think I was taken aback at how silly this was. What I was really receiving was an advanced course in conservative politics.

Witness this. I grew up in a conservative house, but what we watched on TV was Cousteau and Cosmos. Nova and National Geographic. Something has changed. The idea of playing for a team, for having a side is more powerful than even your own interests. I mean interests as personal, not just economic or political. The majority of conservatives aren't against doing anything about global climate change because of anything in the science or any fake controversy. They oppose it because it is a Democratic issue.

This is frustrating. Exceedingly frustrating but it is also freeing in a sense that I wish the national party would get. As a teenager, once I realized Sonny was fundamentally deranged, I could go about feeling however I wanted about him. I could act however I wanted because his baseline hate for me was established. No matter who the Democratic nominee for president is, they will be reviled as the most liberal ever. No matter who the nominee is, their past will be questioned without regard to truth. No matter who the Democratic leader is, they will be lambasted as a tyrant and no matter what the Democrats propose, it will be shot down as the vanguard of a progressive takeover. So fuck it. If whoever you nominate is going to be the most liberal, nominate the most liberal. If every bit of legislation is running interference for a new progressive age, let's bring it about. Having an opposition that has already decided to hate you isn't all bad, it is just them showing you their hand.

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David Broder is a Homicidal Maniac

I had been meaning to mention it for a bit. I am late to the party of course. I usually picture David Broder as a borderline dementia adled outpatient crossing his legs in an antique easy chair, smoking an old pipe in his perfectly pressed suit and smiling slightly while he shits his adult diaper as the pundits gathered in his parlour applaud. Now I picture him in smeared clown make-up, holding a butcher's knife while blood drips out the corners of his mouth.

Why? This article. You have probably seen it already. Broder begs for a war, (that he is absolutely in no way advocating, of course but wouldn't it be great) against Iran because it would...and wait for it here....stimulate the economy. However, Mr. Broder isn't a big fan of the stimulus. Now, how would a war help the economy? You got it, by introducing large amounts of government spending to employ the un and underemployed and get them working thereby circulating money back into the larger economy. One might think that a larger stimulus package could do this with out murdering innocent people, funding shifty contractors and killing American service people. Yes, but then you wouldn't be the Dean of the Washington Press Corps and you wouldn't have a stainless steel hard-on for death, destruction and power. In any sane environment Broder would be quickly shuffled into a back room and fed his pap from a wooden spoon and rocked to sleep by paid professionals. In the Washington press corps, he is fellated and hailed. He is a maniac, and homicidal to boot.

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Welfare States

As usual, my apologies for being internetaly non-present. I have been super busy and am working on updating this website. We'll see.

A confluence. In this New York Daily News article, the Right's absurd canard about liberal states being welfare havens is called into question yet again, showing that Sarah Palin's oil rich Alaska takes $1.84 in federal funds for every dollar it puts into federal taxes. This pattern is repeated over and over again in Republican welfare states, while lefty cesspools like New York and California 79 cents and 78 cents respectively.

I first became aware of this phenomena during Senator Kerry's run for president. As he was from the much maligned imaginary state of "Taxachussettes", some brave investigator sought to look up their tax burden. This led to a list of what states paid in federal taxes compared to what they received in federal money. The most recent documentation that I have been able to find is from 2005 and it shows the same patterns. Namely, that liberal states support conservative states who then shout and complain about them. Among southern states, the only two that carry their own weight are Texas and Florida. Florida varies from year to year in these things depending largely on the hurricane season. I would imagine Texas comes in fine due to oil and being really gigantic. But that is just speculation.

If the import of this data doesn't strike you at first just picture the conservative babies in their old fashioned cloth diapers, constantly pooping and crying in their own mess, faces red and arms flailing, until big, liberal mommy comes to change them and they squirm and cry even more, but the adult does the changing that has to be done and the baby goes back to repeat the process.

Which brings us to Emperor Rick Perry of Texas who is making noise about seceding from Medicaid. This is one area where I have definitely seen my political opinion change over the years. Before, I would have argued for the importance of maintaining or national unity. Now, although I acknowledge its dangers, I feel that maybe states should be allowed to go their own way so that we can then stand back and laugh at them. Not that I want to see people in Texas suffer, as they most certainly would without Medicaid, but I feel that the radical conservative agenda is simply not feasible and is only functioning due to the largess of the liberal states. I say we provide an army to defend you from invading countries, help with your interstates and after that Texas...Have at it. One thing the national government could provide was free moving vans for everyone who wanted to leave. This includes South Carolina and Kentucky and every other state that wants to complain about the federal government while sucking it dry for every last cent to keep its failed ideology alive.

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The Tinkerbell Effect

It has been commented on recently, though I suspect the feeling has been around before, that what we are undergoing now is not just a conflict of political differences but rather a competition of divergent realities. I tend to think that I am on the side of the actual world but it is worth reviewing The Tinkerbell Effect and pondering whether what is happening, most notably with the Tea Party revelers, is a refusal to acquiesce to larger systems that the rest of society accepts. I don't pose the question to make them sound heroic. I believe they are very much not. That being said, what happens to our understanding of our society when some of us refuse to even acknowledge its right to exist? Additionally, isn't it great that economics and other social sciences come up with such great terms?

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They Still Won't Get It

Politico have shown themselves the leaders of completely not getting the appeal and the reach of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. They don't set themselves up as completely indignant and dismissive like those on the Right do. However, the status quo media fail to understand The Daily Show because of all of the things that make them fail in general. The Daily Show has for at least a decade now been the best media criticism on TV. While Howard Kurtz was spitting Beltway wisdom and conservative talking points on CNN and Fox was pitting Cal Thomas against Mara Liasson, John Stewart was calling the system out at large for what it is, a product of its own solipsism and a prisoner of its love affair with itself. Politico reveals that they can't see this in any other context than Left versus Right in a battle that is waged for their own entertainment. I don't hail John Stewart as a visionary saviour. In fact I disagree with his emphasis on cordiality, as I insist that rationality is the more important priority. I think that demons should be demonized and there are times to panic. Nevertheless, the media at large can't find a way to take him seriously because he has steadily refused to play their game and worked actively to ruin it for them. What Politico, and others like them, miss is that the vast amounts of people who showed up in D.C. over the weekend are rooting for the demise of this very same media. There is no way that they could run the headline "Hundreds of Thousands Find Us Contemptible." So they talk about the political effect. The don't understand that carrying signs that are a commentary on the banalness of our mainstream political discourse is a way to upbraid them and unravel them at the same time so they treat it as light comedy. As I stated before, I don't necessarily march in lockstep with John Stewart and I think he goes a little heavy on the idea of civility, but the speech that he gave was absolutely right in illustrating everything that the kind of people at Politico get wrong everyday.

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UFC 121: The Sound of Mariachi Bands

UFC comissioner Dana White whizzed to the podium on a broom and began a power point presentation on civilian deaths in Baghdad sporting a Tuf Enuf polo shirt. He cackled and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

I apologize if I have titled another UFC with that name, however. On to the fights.

Yang vs. Camozzi

When I claim lack of evidence and throw my hands up, doesn't lend any less credence to the pick. I will have to throw all of the numbers in a spread sheet at some point and see if they meet statistical significance. I doubt it. Old .05, you shady mother. Who are these people? I have seen one fight, but wasn't moved enough to remember. Yang by being Asian in the 1st.

Yvel vs. Madsen

Yvel has always had some degree of talent, but it was incomplete and came in spells. He is also someone who has never seemed to take his career too seriously. I don't think that much of Madsen either, but Yvel has showed us nothing as of late. Madsen by TKO in the 2nd.

Stout vs. Taylor

There is a lot too like about this fight. Some might favor it because it is as close as one can get to a guarantee of a stand-up battle. That is not my reasoning, but it bears somewhat on it. I like this fight because both Stout and Taylor are technically good at what they do. They are both stand-up specialists, but they specialize there because they are skilled at it. In the end, I think that Stout has the variety of techniques and the creativity of implementation to get him a KO in the 3rd. Should be a good one.

Guymon vs Roberts

I must apologize, but neither guy has ever done it for me. I appreciate Guymon's battle against depression and his openness about the situation, but as a fighter, he has never been impressive. Robert's has a great record against low level guys and a medicore one against medicore guys. Guymon is much of the same. I go with Guymon by decision here, but I don't really care or claim any insight.

Cote vs Lawlor

Lawlor has been more entrance than results lately. Then again, my favorite fighter ever is Sudo Genki, so how can I fault him for that. Cote is a tough guy but is coming off of a serious knee injury. I don't count Cote out of most fights and I don't bet on Lawlor. Somehow though, I can't trust that knee injury and I think Lawlor wrestles for the split decision.

McGee vs. Jensen

This is becoming a theme here, but I don't think much of either guy here. Not personally of course, they are enchanting gentlemen. It is my belief that the last season of TUF, which McGee won, was Nick Ring's to lose, and after he dropped out with an injury, the results were slightly invalid. Not that McGee didn't earn it, I just don't think he is the strongest champion they could have had. Jensen has been fighting for 13 years and has a decent record. He isn't great, but I am picking him here. Why? I am waiting to see McGee in real competition before deciding on who he is as a fighter. Jensen by sub in the 1st.

Schaub vs. Gonzaga

I was a Gonzaga backer. I was sold. I am not asking for a refund, but I am don't believe in the product so much anymore. What you can never predict about a fighter is how he is going to react to getting hit in the face, and Gonzaga doesn't react well. He is insanely talented and has the tools to be a champion, but he is incomplete in a heavy weight division that is improving by the season. I like Schaub. I like that his striking is disciplined and his athleticism isn't theoretical. He can fire a straight jab and a good 1-2. I am picking Schaub by KO in the 1st.

Ortiz vs. Hamill

I never rode the Ortiz hype train. I never rode it either way. I always liked him as a fighter but was neutral on his shenanigans. Some people might forget the way he ran his division not that many years ago. WHen Hamill first showed up on the scene, i thought he was the new Koscheck at 205. He hasn't quite grown into what I expected, but I certainly think he defeated Bisping and I can see him knocking off plenty of other guys. He hits messy, but hard and he can wrestle. He has a tendency to get hurt though, and express it in weird ways. It seems to really take him out of a fight. One advantage I can see Tito having here is on the ground with submissions. If you can remember the nasty triangle/armbar he threw on Machida, at the end of their bought, then you can surely see ways for Hamill to lose. Nevertheless I am taking Hamill by TKO in the 3rd because I no longer trust Tito's health or his mental state.

Thiago vs. Sanchez

Sanchez is back with Greg Jackson, but is he back to being a guy I would never bet against? No. But Thiago is. Yes he is coming of a loss but he has rugged striking and real grappling and I see him as a hard match-up for Sanchez. If Diago is back to being the cardio robot, mentally focused fighter that he used to be, he can scarmble and threaten to get a decision, but I find Thiago to be mentally and physically tough and I think he is just not the right opponent for Sanchez. Thiago by decision.

Shields vs. Kampmann

I hate it when they match-up guys that I usually would pick against anyone else. Shields is finally in the big show and looking for a title run. I was calling for the ascendancy of Kampmann as soon as he came on the scene, but injuries have set him back. Kampmann's calling card has always been that he was a high level striker who could represent on the ground. Of course he was representing against Drew Mcfedries. Shileds has always been a guy that I thought was far better than people gave him credit for. Lately they have been giving him the credit. Now I think he is a fighter who gets just the right amount of credit. I can see Kampmann hanging in on the ground enough to get back up and get in his shots, but Shields has never shown that much of a chin deficiency. After Shields' defeat of Dan Henderson, I think I am going to have to go with him by decision.

Lesnar vs. Velasquez

I should be clear from the outset, I don't want Lesnar to win. I don't like him as a fighter or as a person. He has been less intolerable lately, but it is hard to make up for years of homophobia, attitude and ass-hattery. That shouldn't prejudice my ability to look at the fight, but it definitely colors my tone. Clearly I am not the only one who feels this way and many hard-core fans will strain to find reasons why it is clear that Velasquez will take this one running away. Whether it is his stamina or his heart or his kick-boxing skills. As usual, what people seem to forget about stamina is that it seems to go away quickly when you are getting beat on and hurting from it. If Lesnar can hold Cain down and drill him with his cannonball appendages that I think we might see Velasquez's vaunted stamina wane.

Lesnar is certainly progressing by leaps and bounds as a fighter. We have to be fair and attribute this to the hard work that he has been willing to put in and a very strong drive to maintain as champion. I respect him much more than I used to. What worries me about Lesnar, as a fighter, is something I mentioned in reference to Gonzaga earlier. He seems to have bad reactions to getting punched. It was amazing that he was able to survive Carwin's barrage in his last fight, but he reacted in lots of self defeating ways. Namely by curling up on he ground and waiting.

A strategy I would like to see for Velasquez is just jabbing and taking other punches that come while moving and avoiding take-downs in the first. I would like him to throw leg-kicks, but only at the end of punch combinations. And even then, not ambitious kicks but hard and precise. If he could stay with this in the second, Lesnar's legs might start to go on him and then Cain could be more aggressive with less power in Brock's shots. The big threat for Velasquez is that Lesnar has face-melting power in every punch and an incredible reach so that he can end the fight quickly even from awkward positions.

There is a lot we don't know about how this fight will play out, and that makes it interesting. I am calling a Velasquez TKO victory in the early 4th. Who knows.

Take it to the Dean's office.

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