- It has not been a consistent season for the man who was
apparently on his way to being the most dominant player in men’s tennis just
two years ago. Rafael Nadal, who has fallen to No. 3 in the world behind Roger
Federer and Novak Djokevic, He is 42-6 in singles events in 2012. He won the French Open
title and was runner-up at the Australian Open. However, he has not played
since losing in the second round of Wimbledon to then 100th-ranked Lukas Rosol,
one of the most surprising results in the tournament's history. Now, he has
announced that he has withdrawn from the London Games with an undisclosed
injury and will not defend the gold medal he won in Beijing in 2008. "I am
not in condition to compete in the London Olympics and therefore will not
travel as planned with the Spanish delegation to take part in the Games,"
the third-ranked Spaniard said in a statement. With his decision, the streak of
no Olympic singles gold medalist ever repeating will stay alive. Nadal did not
reference any specific injury, but he canceled a charity match in Madrid on
July 4 because of tendon problems in his left knee and has battled similar
issues in the past. Losing to Rasol, ranked No. 100 in the world, was the
lowest-ranked player Nadal has ever lost to in a Grand Slam tournament and it
was also the earliest Nadal has exited a Grand Slam tournament since 2005. "I
have to think about my companions, I can't be selfish and I have to think of
what's best for Spanish sport, especially tennis and Spanish players, and give fellow sportsmen
with better preparation the chance to compete," he said. "I tried to hurry my preparations and
training to the very last minute, but it was not to be." Not only will
Spain have to replace Nadal on the court, but it will also have to find a new
flag bearer during the opening ceremonies, as Nadal was scheduled to lead their
march into the Olympic Stadium. "(This) is one of the saddest days of my
career as one of my biggest ambitions, that of being Spain's flag bearer in the
opening ceremony of the Games in London, cannot be," Nadal said. "You
can imagine how difficult it was to take this decision." Opportunities
like that definitely don’t come along very often……….
- Greenpeace v. Shell Oil: It’s on. Two ginormous, bureaucratic
foes doing battle over the environment and slinging ugly accusations online. Greenpeace
fired the fist shots earlier this year by teaming with Yes Lab to create a fake Shell
website that encourages supporters to create ads that mock Shell's offshore
drilling effort and to sign an anti-drilling petition. Greenpeace's campaign
against Shell Arctic drilling is a nasty one as the two sides duel over Alaska
oil drilling. The Greenpeace/Yes Lab social media campaign aims to take the
fight to a place where the boundaries are much fuzzier and the lines much
blurrier than in the “real” world, where people can be held accountable more
for what they say. The fake shell ads are fairly amusing: "Unfortunately,
we won't be able to take these icebergs with us to hell. Let's go," one ad
reads. Of course, Shell is livid over the ads and called the campaign a
"scam." However, Greenpeace says it has received no legal action from
Shell nor threats of legal action yet. To launch the campaign, Greenpeace and
Yes Lab staged a fake party at Seattle's Space Needle made to look like a
botched celebration for Shell. Video from the event went viral, leading Shell
to release a scathing statement asserting its total lack of involvement in
anything relating to the event. "Just in case there is any remaining
doubt, Shell did not host, nor participate in an event at the Space
Needle," the oil company said in its statement. "The video does not
involve Shell or any of its employees." Greenpeace spokesman Travis
Nichols believes the site is not libelous because says it's "obviously
satire" intended as "identity correction" of Shell's own
pro-drilling information campaign. "We are taking the facts of what
they're doing and putting it in a straightforward way - obviously using humor," Nichols said. Stay tuned because this battle is far
from over……….
- It’s like a fun revival of the classic kids’ game show “Where in
the World is Carmen San Diego?” The only difference this time is that the
criminal on the move is a murderous, Third World despot whose government is
ruthlessly murdering its own people in a bloody civil war. That despot would be
Syrian dictator President Bashar al-Assad, who showed up in a video aired on Syrian TV
Thursday in the first images broadcast of him since a deadly attack on top
officials a day earlier. In the video, Assad and with newly named Defense
Minister Gen. Fahd Jassem al-Freij, are shown carrying out official business.
However, the video offers no clues about Assad’s whereabouts or a date stamp to
show when it was filmed. It does little to debunk rumors that he may have left
Damascus. Assad has rarely often appeared on television or in public events
during the near 17-month crisis gripping his country, which makes sense when
everyone not in your army or government wants you dead and or removed from
office. As for the explosion, a blast at a government building in Damascus
killed three top officials, one of whom also was the president's
brother-in-law. Also on Thursday, rebel fighters on Thursday managed to gain
control of a Syrian border crossing into Iraq. Another group of rebels, at
least for a time, seized at least part of a compound at the border with Turkey,
according to Col. Malek al-Kurdi, deputy head of the rebel Free Syrian Army. A
video posted on YouTube from inside a border station showed a rebel tearing up
a poster of al- Assad, while another rebel smashed portraits of the president
and his father, Hafez al-Assad, who led the country previously. The violence
will undoubtedly rage on after Russia and China vetoed a new United Nations Security
Council resolution aimed at halting the violence. The two countries are
"failing the people of Syria," said Britain's U.N. ambassador, Mark
Lyall Grant, who was first to speak at the Security Council meeting after the
vote. "The effect of their actions is to protect a brutal regime."
Russia and Syria continue to side with Assad and demand resolutions calling on
both sides to stop the violence even though it is the government waging the war
and murdering its citizens, who are trying to defend themselves and stay alive
while seeking a change in leadership. So to recap, there is a murderous
dictator possibly on the run, two ass-hated U.N. Security Council members
holding up help that is desperately needed by the Syrian people and oh yeah,
some 15,000 Syrians have been murdered by their own government in the past 17
months……………
- Despite all evidence to the contrary and no evidence in support,
David
Hasselhoff is a serious actor - really. He says so himself. Just because he was
on one of the hokiest shows of all-time, “Baywatch,” has one of the most
laughably absurd musical careers ever and showed up on YouTube in 2007 in a
video posted by his daughter of “The Hoff” in an intoxicated state on the floor
of a Vegas hotel room, attempting to eat a cheeseburger. Aside from his lead
role in “Night Rider” more than two decades ago, The Hoff has been a pop
culture punchline for years to the point that Germans in a newly unified nation
after the fall of the Berlin Wall asked for him to perform at a celebratory
concert in what has to be one of the most ironic jokes ever. Still, Hasselhoff
insists he really is a serious actor. “I play off what people think. ‘The Hoff’
I can’t get rid of it, so instead of asking people to call me David Hasselhoff
because I want to be serious actor, I go with it. But I am a serious actor,”
The Hoff said. Oh, and he’s also a judge on a reality talent show, which
screams serious. But let’s allow the man to defend himself. “I’ve done serious
work and I have done huge television shows, I’ve done ‘America’s Got Talent’
and I was on a soap opera for six years. I am singing around the world, and I
am dating a nice girl from Wales, so I am a happy guy,” he proclaimed. So…..”Baywatch,”
reality talent show, soap opera, horrible pop singer…..yup, he’s a serious
actor, all right. The Hoff went on to say that getting divorced from his wife
of 16 years has proven to be immensely beneficial and he at least has a sense
of humor about what a total joke he is to the world. He’s working on an online
video series, along with an online talent search show and plenty of commercials
in places like Germany and Norway. Keep it up, Hoff, the world is laughing at, er, watching you………..
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