FEDOR EMELIANENKO

If there ever was a mythical warrior of our time it would have to be Fedor Emelianenko. Forget the Hollywood myths like Rocky and Gladiator. Fedor is the real deal. He is a Russian mixed martial arts fighter who has risen to the top of his game. He has been unanimously labelled the best pound for pound fighter in the world. He height is six feet and he weighs just over 200 pounds but he has the uncanny ability to "bear" handle opponents who are double his size. Anyone of equal size is nothing more than childs play for him. Now one would assume he looks like a bad ass but what confounds most people is that he looks rather pudgy and boyish looking. He doesn't seem to show any degree of emotion when he fights. He could be landing a devestating flurry of punches and look bored doing it. Outside the ring he has a pleasant and almost shy disposition. He has none of the qualities that we in the west were taught would make a tough guy. He shatters our myths and makes us rethink "the tough guy" persona. I personally think he is a legend in the making. A sort of Achilles if you will. No one but the Gods know his real weakness.

As for how he does it. I have analyzed him enough that I think I know what makes him so great. I listed my ten reasons below.

1. He has an endomorphic body type with wide neck, shoulders, hips and feet. With this structure, his center of mass is well balanced and difficult to offset and he knows how to effectively shift his mass for leveraging various positions.
2. He is exceptionally flexible, wiry and springy for his body type. He moves 220 lbs around like he is a 150 pounder.
3. He knows how to effectively pace and conserve energy, invariably to the oppenent he is fighting.
4. He doesn't show any fear or intimidation about exchanging face punches with an opponent. Most fighters worry about having their faces beaten in. This isn't a concern for Fedor and he exploits his opponents fear of this by confidently taking the surprise initiative and causing his opponents to be opened up to his devestating bombs.
5. His submission skills are almost artful. He has a background in a russian fighting style called Sambo and intuitively knows how to expose vulnerable submission opportunities.
6. His durability by way of his genetics must be exceptional. Noone knows if he has a larger than average cardiovascular system. His brothers are larger than he is, so he could be a compact energy machine. The racing horse Secretariat was given an autopsy to determine why it was more powerful than other race horses and they found that his heart was 1.5 times bigger than average. Fedor not only possesses excellent endurance, his constitution for how long he can endure a beating is unique as well.
7. His early influences in life may have had an effect on his overall mental philosophy and how he navigates a fight. Mentally he may have a greater edge over his opponents. Experts say that 80 percent of winning all sports is mental.
8. His training methods are more diverse and natural. He's not the hamster in a cage running a treadwheel. He is literally out in the field where the oxygen is fresher.
9. He was said to be an extremely hard worker in training. His will and intesity was comparitively unique.
10. His family, friends and support group are a strong foundation for his psychological well being. My guess is that he is extremely centered having no inner demons to distract him.

Madeleine McCann tragedy could devolve into symbol of ongoing class war in Britain

By now anyone who has been following the media has heard something about the McCann case. On the eve of May 3^rd 2007, a three year old British girl named Madeleine McCann disappeared from her family’s vacation resort in Portugal. Allegedly this occurred around the same time her parents Gerry and Kate McCann were dining at a restaurant a hundred yards away. Kate McCann immediately reacted with the assertion that Madeleine had been abducted. Both parents have steadfastly maintained this assertion . The Portuguese police on the other hand, after following misguided leads early on in the investigation are now convinced from evidence collected by a British forensics team that the parents are in someway responsible for Madeleine’s death and disappearance. The case of Madeleine McCann may have been overlooked by the media as one of many child disappearance cases that occur each year but the McCann family engaged in an ambitious crusade to bring their plight to the attention of the world’s media and British elite. For the McCann parents, supporting local, national or international police efforts to find Madeleine was not so much a priority as focusing on the sympathy from world media figures, politicians and celebrities. In fact their crusade was so important to them that they left their two younger children in the care of other family members while they campaigned around the world. It was only after they were named suspects by Portuguese police, did they return to Britain. A poll conducted of British citizens asked whether or not the parents were guilty. Only twenty percent of respondents believed the McCann’s were innocent, yet the British media has maintained an uncanny support for the McCann parents. Even celebrities and wealthy elites have sided with the McCann’s in their claim of innocence. In fact the billionaire Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Enterprises recently donated a hundred thousand pounds to the McCann’s to defend themselves in court and multi-millionaire Brian Kennedy is paying Britain's top lawyers to win the case for the McCanns. It seems the McCann’s may have wittingly or unwittingly sided with a powerful force. It is clear that the British elite need to demonstrate divine righteousness in order to maintain power. If the wealthy supported the McCann’s kidnapping assertion from the beginning, they would certainly need to protect any association ever linking them to a guilty party. Has certain wealthy elites also projected a belief that they see themselves as the McCanns and sympathize with their idealized struggle against a mob of affluenent hating lower class commoners? Could this be the real reason for their support? And is this also a symbolic gesture for the wealthy to win overt the middle class in Britain. If they can prove that their wealth and power can turn the tide against a public justice system, they can also prove to the middle class that it is in their best interests to side with them against their lower class foes.

The One Man Band

If you're like me and you at some point in your life decided to become a hobby recording artist then I have some tips for you. The one man band is a thrilling concept because as an artist you are completely in control of all your production, post production and delivery. It is truly a control freaks art form, whereas film making or other art forms tend to be collaborative. Mind you the sculptor and painter also have this same sense of empowerment however they are somewhat limited in the tools they use and their latitude of expression. (This is just my opinion)

So what does a hobby recording artist need to get started. First and foremost is talent.
Ask yourself three questions. Can you sing and keep in tune? This is very important. If you can't I suggest taking up another hobby because you will be limited. Secondly do you know how to play at a basic level either guitar or piano. Having the chops in these two areas helps out a great deal because then you understand progression and chord structure. Thirdly do you know how to write music. This is a skill that matures over time. Noone truly has inate songwriting skills. Nonetheless, it is something you should work on.

Now on to the tools for being that one man band. What you will need is the following:

A computer with at least 1.5 Ghz power, half a gig of RAM and a DVD burner.
A Digital XLR stereo input 96 Khz 24 bit sound card.
A MIDI keyboard controller
A Digital Audio sequencing application ( Cubase SX3 is my favorite)
A sample playback plugin with sound library
A few virtual synth plugins
A few virtual effect plugins
A DSP processing card (there are three good ones out there)
A large diaphragm condenser microphone with pop screen
An outboard pre-amp/ compressor with digital out
An external Firewire 800 Hard Drive
Imaging software ( Norton Ghost)
A set of headphones and pre-amped monitor speakers
A monitor/ dual monitors are nice but you will need a dual port video card
And lastly your instruments like a guitar.

The cost for all this ranges anywhere between $5,000 and $10,000. (I didn't say it was a cheap hobby)

Now that you have all the tools you need you can begin writing that great song. Of course you will need to learn how to use your DAW ( digital audio workstation) but it would be too much for me to cover in one article. Colleges teach this in a two year program so it is a lot to digest. But you can learn it on your own and save a few thousand in tuition costs.

I hope this was a good start for anyone who might be contemplating this as a hobby. I have been dabbling with DAW writing for over twelve years so I have seen a lot and learned a lot.

Fitness and diet for the everyday man

A billion dollar + industry. Everyone seems to have the magic solution. But is fitness and diet over rated? Of course it is. The solution to a good healthy weight loss diet is simple. The trick is to stick with it.

I decided to create a diet and fitness routine that will ultimately keep the waist line trim and the body fit.

Let's start with diet. What should one eat? The answer is very small meals extended over time with glasses of water in between. Ideally a thousand calories per day should be enough to maintain normal body functions while helping one lose weight. The example diet plan I give below is based on a vegetarian diet because meat type diets are taxing on the digestive system and one's energy levels need to be sustainable throughout the day.

For breakfast

1- Hardboiled egg, 1/4 slice avacado, 1/4 Lg. tomatoe

For mid morning

1- apple

For lunch

1- bowl of vegetable soup and slice of bread

For mid day

1- banana

For dinner

1- 4 handfuls of rice, half yam, 1/4 avacodo, 1/4 tomatoe

(REMEMBER NOT TO EAT BEYOND 6:00PM and stay away from processed grain, pastries, sugar, dairy products, alcohols and pasta)

THAT's IT! Some would say this would be crazy and hardly enough for a full days food intake.
Actually if you sit at a desk job all day which most of us do, this is all you really need. Now if you went to the gym and did a full weight training then you would need to compensate by supplementing with protein. Maybe a small can of chicken, tuna or ham or maybe microwaving a frozen peice of salmon or chicken but this would be all you would need to supplement this diet.

As for exercise I created a weekly routine that should help burn the calories.

Day 1 - 20 minutes treadmill, 20 minutes exercise bike, ( ) pushups, 20 minutes stair master, ( ) situps
Day 2 - Upper body work out (2 sets of 10) - seated curls, bench press, military press, french curls, flys, backwards flys, lat pull downs, seated rows, 30 situps
Day 3 - Lowerbody work out (2 sets of 10) - Squats, lunges, leg press, calve extensions, hamstring curls, scissor presses, situps
Day 4 - Lane swimming - crawl 20 minutes
Day 5 - Outside jogging - 150 meter feild length 20 times with sprint on the last length, crunches threes sets of 50 plus 50 russian twists
Day 6 - Any one of the above again
Day 7 - Rest

Now with the weight training there will be a need for a protein intake but for cardio the same diet should apply. There are protein powder shakes you can take

In one month if you were to stick to this regiment you would lose 15 - 20 pounds depending on your metabolism. NOT BAD !

Please Note: If you have already a high fat and sugar diet, switching to this diet could be upsetting since you will go through withdrawl symptoms. Fat and sugar are addictive substances not unlike caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. It may take you two discomforting weeks to adjust to my recommended diet.

Lou Dobbs- Champion of the people?

The outsourcing of American jobs does smell fishy. If it bleeds it reads and if it smells it sells.
Enter Lou "Superman" Dobbs to the rescue with his book "Exporting America". Personally I know how to read off a computer screen just as easily as I can from a paperback. In fact most public libraries now have computers on the net. I could save myself $25 if Mr. Dobbs put his book online for free. But no folks, this is America where everything is for sale, including so called "American values". Let me clear away the haze of American mythology for one moment.
America is not built on the backs of equal living but on the backs of slaves. Call it democracy, call it freedom, but know it for what it is. America is an imperialistic slave colony that the minority known as the wealthy possess. But don't blame them. The American system made it this way.

Stock market baren Warren Buffet anounced recently that America is more and more looking like a cropshare society. I believe it was always a cropshare society. It is just that now the land owners are no longer American. When slavery was abolished in America landowners came up with a new form of slavery called the cropshare. Low income white and black people were given tools and a small portion of land that they hoped would oneday be bought back from their owners. However the interest was so high that they never did. This was the so called "cropshare". But with mechanization and unionized labor the cropshare days were postponed temporarily. However the greed wasn't. Slaves could be found in other countries. Hence America's outsourcing.
Why are the borders open today? C'mon who's gonna turn away a hardworking wage slave. Now some may ask what has happened to the middle class? I believe computer and robotic automation, border jumpin wage slaves, outsourcing and a foreign policy cash cow government has killed the middle class. 8 out of 10 Americans won't be able to save a dime this century. So what should we 80 percenters do?
The answer is blowin in the wind. Empower yourelf and organize within your local community. Purchase at local mom and pop stores or local farmers markets. Don't buy on credit. Organize into buying co-ops for land and real estate. Don't buy at any of the corporate outposts like McDonalds, Starbucks or Walmart. Save your money through carpooling and local transit, find your movie entertainment at the local library, make you own lunches, get involved in community business events. Think local power. Remote distribution is a middleclass killer.
Cable televsion isn't your salvation. It only perpetuates the myth that people of fame, money and power are all that is relavant in the world. Are you a somebody if you are not an American Idol, a rich bachelor or a celebrity. By golly if you aren't then you should be in tears because you had your chance. I know it is has become a lonely world in the west. Seeing people on television has become a social outlet for our culture. It is addictive this way. People need to get out of the house and nourish the social needs with the community around them.

Real advice is free, critical and constructive. Lou "Superman" Dobbs is only critical with a money grubbin hand in your pocket. Hey Lou, careful of my *** when you reach down there.