A Google+ forecast, a UFC shocker and time in a Russian gulag

- Google+ may not be anywhere close to overtaking Facebook or even Twitter in terms of popularity, but Google’s attempt to break in to the social networking world is going well enough if you believe Microsoft co-founder and to Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen, who calls himself the "unofficial statistician" of Google+. Allen said this week that the Google+ social network has topped 60 million users and predicted that that it would reach 400 million users by the end of 2012. Allen runs hundreds of queries on various surnames on Google+ every week (rich people tend to have a lot of free time on their hands) and has been tracking those names since Google first announced that Google+ had reached 10 million users in July. Growth had slowed since then and it took Google+ three months to expand to 40 million users, according to Google's numbers. The company has declined to give an official count since October, but Allen said Tuesday the service now has 62 million users. "It may be the holidays, the TV commercials, celebrity and brand appeal, or positive word of mouth, or a combination of all these factors, but there is no question that the number of new users signing up for Google+ each day has accelerated markedly in the past several weeks," Allen wrote on his own Google+ page. He estimated the service’s rate of growth at 625,000 new users per day. For Allen’s prognostication of 400 million users by the end of 2012 (assuming the world doesn’t end before then, of course), that rate would have to go up significantly. The one fallacy of Allen’s research is that he overlooks the distinction between people who sign up for Google+ and not those who actually use it. To draw in more of those who signed up but have not made use of their account, Google recently redesigned the service’s homepage. Cosmetic changes aside, Google still faces an uphill battle on this one…………

- If members of the Occupy movement are actively seeking someone to punch them in the face, its Charlotte-area contingent is well on its way to making that happen. Occupy kooks have tried anything and everything they can think of to garner attention for their cause - however unspecific it may be - and while occupying the Manhattan set of one of the 15,000,000 “Law & Order” franchises is pretty damn impressive, nothing infuriates the “America, love it or leave it” crowd of uber-right wing, red-blooded, gun-toting conservatives quite like setting fire to an American flag. That tactic was utilized by members of Occupy Charlotte at a mini-demonstration on Friday. "Those were actions taken on my behalf," Occupy Charlotte member Alex Tyler said. "I did it to display my utter contempt for American greed, not (the military)." Oh, OK. No one will have a problem with it in that case. Never mind that Tyler and fellow Occupy members Jason Bargert, Michael Berle and Stephen Morris set fire to American flags and triggered a fire that spread to woods in the area of tents that previously housed members of the local Occupy movement because they were in no way showing disrespect to anyone other than the soulless corporate bastards who are ruining this country. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police may have charged Tyler and three other men with arson, but they will undoubtedly drop those charges once they hear Tyler’s side of the story. In a truly hilarious twist, Bargert has been listed on Occupy Charlotte press releases as a spokesman for the group. Clearly, Occupy Charlotte has some top-notch thinkers among its leadership group. Sparking a wildfire that Smokey the Bear could have helped them avert doesn’t exactly scream intelligence, does it? But no sooner than news of the arson became public, Occupy Charlotte released a statement saying the group is no long affiliated with the camp where the fire broke out and that the burning of the flag doesn't reflect its members or its message. According to Tyler, the flag burning was also meant to wake up the Occupy movement because he feels its members have been slacking. "I've seen this group lose its activism and become lazy," Tyler said, adding that he and his fellow IQ-deprived pals wanted to "give Occupy Charlotte a wake-up call." If nothing else, they have awakened us all to the fact that there are more idiots among us than we ever realized…………

- Guns N’ Roses have lived to tease but ultimately disappoint for more than a decade. While the blame for that trend belongs more on egomaniacal frontman Axl Rose than on the rest of the iconic metal band’s original lineup, GNR fans and music fans in general grew weary of waiting for the much-anticipated “Chinese Democracy” album that ultimately turned out to be Rose and whoever he could convince to work with him to finish it. Now that GNR has been selected for induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame (a truly dubious “honor”), hype around the band is once again building - albeit for a different reason. Since the announcement that GNR would be inducted along with The Faces/The Small Faces, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Beastie Boys inducted at a ceremony in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 14, 2012, rumors have circulated that the original GNR lineup may reunite for the occasion. Former guitarist Slash was asked about that possibility and said that while he is not eager to revisit all of the drama between he and Rose, he does want to resolve the lingering tension between the two of them. Slash explained that the split between the two of them originally happened very quietly, only to mushroom into something much bigger as time passed. "The split between Axl and I was a quiet one. But because there was so much attention on the break-up - and are we going to get back together - it got built up into this monster that led to a kind of animosity that wasn't the focus for me. Neither one of us wants to be down each other's throats for no reason. At this point, I'm trying to put it to rest," Slash said. Putting all of the bad feelings to rest with the bombastic, arrogant Rose won’t be easy. Performing with the current incarnation of GNR, Rose is still showing up late for shows, berating fans and acting like he’s still one of the biggest rock stars in the world and not some bloated, flabby version of his former rock star self. Even so, Slash said he still takes pride in what he accomplished as a member of the band. "When I see footage of Guns N' Roses, I see that f**king hunger and attitude. You could not f**k with those five guys. It was just raw. It was this lean, hungry thing on its way up. It was as sincere as any rock 'n' roll that I've ever heard, and I'm proud of that,” he proclaimed………….

- Not that resolutions for the new year are anything other than a ginormous waste of time, but if the Russian government is in the habit of making them then a good one might be improving security at facilities where military technology is manufactured or stored. Keeping that resolution could prevent incidents like bloggers sneaking in to unguarded strategic military rocket motor factories near Moscow on five separate occasions and roaming around snapping pictures for more than an hour. Blogger Lana Sator and her friends exposed this glaring lack of security by visiting around state rocket-maker Energomash's plant five times over the past few months and posting nearly almost 100 pictures of decrepit-looking hardware ranging from the plant’s control room to its roof and most everything in between. Sator claimed she and her friends did not encounter a single employee or security guard during any of their visits and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin did not seem happy to hear that news. Rogozin vowed Thursday to punish "sleepy" security officials for their poor performance and other defense officials compared the incident to German pilot Mathias Rust's brazen Cessna flight under Soviet radar to land on Red Square in 1987. During in a televised meeting with Roskosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin, Rogozin characterized said the security failure as "unacceptable," warning that "sleepy cats" who failed to maintain security at strategic defense sites face punishment. Enjoy spending the rest of your natural life at the gulag in Siberia, V. Popovkin…………

- Two 265-pound mountains of muscle met in Las Vegas inside an octagon of chain-link fencing and proceeded to pummel each other for about three minutes. Someone was going to get destroyed and odds are, it wouldn’t take long for either Brock Lesnar or Alistair Overeem to get the better of the other in the headline but of UFC 141. Sure enough, Overeem stopped Lesnar with a brutal vicious kick to the body at 2:26 of the first round and not only ended the fight, but apparently Lesnar’s mixed-martial arts career. The former collegiate and WWE wrestler, who also tried out for the Minnesota Vikings after leaving WWE, became a rising star in UFC thanks to his massive physique and wrestling skills, coupled with a surly, prickly demeanor that made him polarizing among fans. He talked big beat Randy Couture in 2008 to win the heavyweight title, defending it twice before losing the belt to Cain Velasquez last year. Since then, he has battled a lower-intestinal ailment known as diverticulitis that nearly killed him. He returned from a 14-month absence that included surgery to address his condition and was promptly demolished by Overeem. Once the fight was over, Lesnar wasted no time waving the white flag on his career. "This is the last time you'll see me in the octagon," Lesnar said. "I've had a really difficult couple of years with my disease, and I'm going to officially say tonight is the last time. I promised my wife and my kids if I won this fight, I would get a title shot, and that would be my last fight. But if I lost tonight ... you've been great.” If he actually does stick with retirement, Lesnar will walk away from the sport with a 5-3 record. UFC President Dana White admitted he did not know about Lesnar’s announcement prior to the fight, but insisted he was not stunned by it. "I had no idea he would do that, (but) am I surprised? No,” the loquacious White said. "Brock Lesnar has made a lot of money in his career and has achieved a lot of things. ... He brought a lot of excitement to the heavyweight division. What he accomplished in a short amount of time is amazing, but I get it. It doesn't shock me." With the win in his first UFC bout, Overeem will get the next shot at UFC heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos, who watched the fight from a seat near the octagon……………