Eurosport has a pretty decent rundown on yellow jersey contenders. Intriguing to me is Heras, who dragged Armstrong up the mountains last year, and reportedly was asked to slack off a couple of times.
Read more!
Today’s reason: violence over diplomacy.
In the continuing story of this administration’s culture — that values pride over prudence — pervading the military complex, a senior British officer reported that the US requested an attack on an Iranian incursion on disputed Iraqi territory without considering diplomacy.
The incident began last July when Revolutionary Guards pushed about a kilometre into Iraq to the north and east of Basra in an apparent attempt to reoccupy territory which they claimed belonged to Iran.
…
The Iran-Iraq incident lasted around a week and was resolved by a telephone conversation between Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, and Kamal Kharrazi, his Iranian counterpart, British officials said.
“It did look rather nasty at the time,” one official said. “But we were always confident it was a mistake and could be resolved by diplomatic means. We got in touch with Baghdad and said, ‘Don’t do anything silly; we are talking to the Iranians.’ “
I was waiting to get a handful of shaves under my belt before I spoke my piece about the Mach 3 Power from Gillette©, but Consumer Whore wrote a decent review that summarizes my feelings so I’ll let it speak for me.
Stories of female teachers taking advantage of their male charges are de rigeur these days, but I’d like to hear from the daddy(s) of boys in the group.
- How would you feel about this happening to your boy(s)? Even if she was seriously hot?
- What would you tell your wife you felt?
- What would your wife feel?
From the Washington Post:
An ethics watchdog group asked the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service yesterday to investigate an arrangement between Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign and a charity that he created.
From Salon:
A Washington watchdog group is charging that Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign benefited from “illegal” assistance provided by right-wing organizations — at the behest of his supposed opponents in the Bush-Cheney campaign.
I’m willing to believe both, but it’s interesting to note that Salon (so far) is the only news source to pick up on the GOP / Nader thread.
File under jankowskiboystalkaboutcyclingforamonth.com
OLN is running all Armstrong tonight. Wow. Beautiful. I’m going to bed early, and trying to do the Tour de Jamestown Island before work.
In any case, it’s the 2000 tour right now. What a waste of human capital on display there. David Millar, confessed EPO user, winning the Prologue. The classic battle between Armstrong and Pantani (RIP) up le Ventoux. Armstrong sticking it Ullrich in the last time trial, in Germany, setting the TdF ITT speed record. And lastly, a beaming Lance, Luke, and Kristen on the podium in Paris.
Wow.
2001 – happy, happy story. Wow. “I’d like to continue winning the Tour de France.”
My first reading experience with David Sedaris was Me Talk Pretty One Day and I only read a little way into before boredom set in. It wasn’t until his readings for David Sedaris Live at Carnegie Hall on NPR that I decided I should give it another try. If you’ve followed these links, you realize I still haven’t read a page of DS, it’s all been on audio book. His gritty quiet lisp fills the gap I was feeling seperate his writing from a personal experience.
I’m more than two-thirds done with David Sedaris’s latest collection of essays, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and it is his best writing, yet. Don’t rush out and get it, though, because you need a few warnings first. It is not light reading. He still makes me laugh almost continuously, but several stories in this collection deal with his family and personal life in a more intimate fashion — bearing the kind of weight that only reality can bring. Also, he has brought more details about his life as a homosexual, both as an adult and a child, and anyone suffering from the slightest homophobia will have their mettle tested. Some of it is brutal enough to warrant a comparison to some of Todd Solondz’s work. Better would be to say that if Solondz was able to achieve a measure of balance in his work (instead of outright shock) he might achieve something as wonderfully nuanced as Sedaris’s work.
Buy it at:
An old friend with whom I’d recently caught up again, unexpectedly, split for home. She’s up with a new blog. I read her comments about not being able to go home again, and wished I could have written something similar when departing Texas to head back to Connecticut.
Best of wishes to her.
Since I am always quick to criticize my second-least-favorite justice, I thought that I should be just as quick to praise him when he gets one right (especially when the rest of the court is trying to pussy-foot around the issue).
In the Hamdi decision that came out this morning, Scales stated the obvious; you cannot hold American citizens indefinitely without trial, no matter what crime you think they are contemplating. Furthermore, unless Congress suspends habeus corpus, even in wartime you have to either (i) charge a person of a crime and commence criminal proceedings, or (ii) let him walk.
The most compelling thing that Tony said was the simplest, and the one thing that justice department lawyers should have realized years ago. If you think a US citizen is conspiring with foreign adversaries to do harm to the US (which could be called sabotage as easily as it is called terrorism), you cannot call him an enemy combatant and try to lock him away forever without a trial.
You can, however (and I would argue that you must), try that person for treason.
At least someone on the court is willing to stand up for civil liberties and constitutional protections.
In an effort to lighten the political mood (and after the #1 movie of the weekend, I think we need it) without letting up on the pressure ;o), I present for your listening entertainment The George W Bush Singers.
The statements of the President of the United States of America should be sung with great ardor!
The eloquence of our Chief Executive deserves to be honored and commemorated!
So that we might demonstrate our respect, admiration & reverence, we present to you this unbreakable record — in Sterorigic Sound — devoted solely to making a joyful noise and celebrating the words of our 43rd President.
Allow us to introduce ourselves and please sing along!
Dale Dudley (the local morning DJ) has been slipping in tracks from this soon-to-be-released album and it’s cracking me up. I can’t decide if my favorite is In Tennessee or 4000 Hours.