Dana White's UFC 94 Video Blog

Dana White's UFC 94 Video Blog - 1/25/09
Taped on Sunday, Jan. 25th, from San Diego at the WEC event on Versus


Dana White's UFC 94 Video Blog - 1/27/09
Taped on Monday and Tuesday


Dana White's UFC 94 Video Blog - 1/28/09
Taped on Tuesday from Las Vegas. CNBC Interview, Meeting with Spike regarding UFC Prime Time Episode 3.


Dana White's UFC 94 Video Blog - 1/28/09
Taped on 1/28/09 in Las Vegas


Dana White's UFC 94 Video Blog - Bonus Footage

Obama tells Arabic network US is 'not your enemy'

Part 1
Part 2

President Barack Obama chose an Arabic satellite TV network for his first formal television interview as president, part of a concerted effort to repair relations with the Muslim world that were damaged under the previous administration.

Obama cited his Muslim background and relatives, practically a taboo issue during the U.S. presidential campaign, and said in the interview, which aired Tuesday, that one of his main tasks was to communicate to Muslims "that the Americans are not your enemy."

The interview on the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel aired as Obama's new envoy to the region, former Sen. George J. Mitchell, arrived in Egypt on Tuesday for a visit that will also take him to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Obama said the U.S. had made mistakes in the past but "that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that." [via Yahoo! News]

Gigapan: Obama's Inauguration Photo

This is pretty amazing. I mean it is from a weird side angle and I'm not exactly sure the point of it, but it's cool. Make sure you do lots of zooming so you experience how crisp and detailed the photo really is. Here's what the site says:

I made this Gigapan image from the north press platform during President Obama's inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC on January 20, 2009. It's made up of 220 images and the final image size is 59,783 X 24,658 pixels or 1,474 megapixels.

** UPDATE 1/25/09 -- Thank you for the overwhelming enthusiasm for this photo. I am happy to announce that high quality prints will be available shortly. To be notified, send a blank email to: pano@davidbergman.net

Gigapan of Obama's Inauguration

By the way, here's what a Gigapan is:

GigaPan consists of three technological developments: a robotic camera mount for capturing very high-resolution (gigapixel and up) panoramic images using a standard digital camera; custom software for constructing very high-resolution gigapixel panoramas; and, a new type of website for exploring, sharing and commenting on gigapixel panoramas and the detail our users will discover within them. The GigaPan website allows hosting and sharing all kinds of panoramas, and so the robotic GigaPan mount is recommended but is certainly not required to be part of this community.

01/24/09: President Obama's Weekly Address

In his first weekly address since being sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, President Barack Obama discussed how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan will jump-start the economy.

Obamicons Are Here

Well to continue with all the presidential hype surrounding yesterday's inauguration I bring you a new trend Swiffering the nation....Obamicons.

Obamicons? Yes, I understand you are probably confused but it will all make sense once you see one. Remember the Obama "HOPE" poster you saw everywhere?
Well, an Obamicon is basically taking this same design and applying it any and everything. Here is my top 10 favorite Obamicons:

Check out all the other Obamicons HERE

OBAMA

If you missed yesterday's inauguration then you FAIL!

Here's some interesting info from yesterday from Cynopsis Digital:

Combining live television with the interactivity of the web proved to be a powerful lure for two major media and web brands yesterday. CNN.com's live streaming application, which was accompanied by a Facebook widget that allowed members to view comments from their peanut gallery of friends, set web traffic records yesterday serving a total of 18.8 million total online viewers as of 1 pm ET. (This shattered CNN's previous record of 5.3 million streams set on Election Day.) CNN served more than 1.3 million concurrent live streams just as President Obama began his address. This nearly doubled the streaming output of YouTube Live back in November of approximately 700,000 concurrent viewers as measured by Akamai, believed to be the previous industry high water mark. Facebook averaged more than 4,000 status updates per hour Tuesday morning, peaking at 8,500 updates/minute during the President's speech. Meanwhile Twitter, which survived without any major outages, saw 5x its normal tweet rate.

President Barack Obama 2009 Inauguration and Address


Barack and Michelle Obama's "First Dance" at the Neighborhood Ball


Dr. Joseph Lowery delivers Inauguration Benediction for Barack Obama


Interesting Links:
-WhiteHouse.gov - check out the redesigned site
-International Reaction to the Inauguration - Huffington Post
-Hulu's Obama Page

Iraqi Journalist Throws Shoe at Bush

Zaidi's attack was launched with the words "this is a farewell kiss, you dog"

It's that cultural significance that has added real sting to the assault by an Iraqi journalist against US President George W Bush at a Baghdad news conference.

In Arab culture it's considered rude even to display the sole of one's shoe to a fellow human being.

Certainly, crossing one's legs ankle-on-knee style should never be done in a public place for fear of offending the person next to you.

The sensitivity is related to the fact shoes are considered ritually unclean in the Muslim faith.

In addition to ritual ablutions before prayer, Muslims must take off their shoes to pray, and wearing shoes inside a mosque is forbidden.

Shoes should either be left at the door of the mosque, or carried (preferably in the left hand with the soles pressed together).

But beyond the Islamic significance, the dirty and degrading implication of the sole of a shoe crosses all religious boundaries in the Middle East. [BBC News]

The incident begs the question, "Honestly, who throws a shoe?"


It also sparked some imitators online:
Original


Mortal Kombat


Volleyball


Saddam's Head


A Pie

Mr. President

Barack Obama's Victory Speech


John McCain's Concession Speech


World Reactions


Head over to Oldest Living for some more on the election

VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!

Time to perform your civil duty. Record voter turnout is expected in California today.

A record 13.6 million California voters are expected to cast ballots in today's election, a 78.9 percent turnout that would be the largest in more than three decades, a new Field Poll predicted.

The presidential race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain is attracting most of the attention, but a dozen statewide ballot measures, topped by a proposed ban on same-sex marriage, also are boosting turnout.

"That's over a million more voters than we had in 2004, which was the previous record," said Mark DiCamillo, the poll's director. "This is representative democracy in action."

Throughout California, nearly 3.8 million of the state's registered 17.3 million voters had cast ballots by mail or at early voting sites as of Friday. That's a 22 percent turnout, and hundreds of thousands of early ballots are still to be counted. About 53 percent of this year's votes are expected to be cast at the polls today. [SFGate]

Huffington Post Election Coverage

CNN has some pretty solid election coverage to track your races.

Go HERE.

Voting Problems?

Obama All Over

With his 30 minute national TV ad last night and almost double the amount of ads running across the country, presidential candidate Barack Obama is everywhere it seems.

Barack Obama's 30-minute campaign commercial Wednesday night was not merely a tactical decision to carpet-bomb millions of Americans in pursuit of a few thousand undecided voters who can dictate the outcome of the presidential campaign.

Aired on seven network and cable stations, the ad served as a national get-out-the-vote organizing tool for Obama operatives. It offered even the swiftest channel-flipper the chance to see Obama looking presidential, helping to condition voters to that possibility. And once again it proved to John McCain, and everyone else, how Obama's deep pool of campaign cash has allowed him to rewrite the rules of presidential campaigning. [SFGate]

Obama's campaign truly has rewritten the rules on how to campaign for president. He has embraced YouTube and his channel has videos going up everyday. According to Nielsen Media Research an estimated 33.6 million viewers watched Obama's half hour commercial last night. He has done a particularly good job in targeting a younger audience, the video game ads probably helped with that. AdAge even named Barack Obama the Marketer of the Year.

Palin As President

Ever wonder what it would be like if Sarah Palin ended up in the White House? Well you don't have to wonder anymore, you can simply check out PalinasPresident.com and see what it would be like. You should also go over to Digital Two-Footed Tackles and check out his thoughts on the site, since I stole the link from him. Below is a screenshot of the site.

Emo for Obama

This really serves no point but I thought it was funny. I guess if you are an emo kid you can print this out and make a cool button out of it, or you can buy it here.

Sports & Politics

I know, I know, two political related posts in a row but just happened to notice this on ESPN.com and thought it was very interesting. It's an article about who in the sports world has donated to either John McCain or Barack Obama. There is also an interesting article interviewing both candidates on sports-related questions.


Pro sports figures more invested in this presidential campaign

Answers from the presidential candidates to sports-related questions

Sports figures not inclined to talk about their politics