Friday, July 16, 2010

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Here's a political party that could make me drop the Democrats in a heartbeat...unless Sheryl Crow personally convinces me to stay.
 
2) Attention DC residents! That rumbling you felt this morning was the Teabaggers suddenly realizing they are irrelevant.
 
3) It was a good week for the President. Perhaps his best since the spring. Two problems he didn't create and somehow was being blamed for are getting make-overs. There is hope they are both fixes, as well, and not just bandaids.
 
4) US satellite? Russian spy plane? Aliens looking for moo shu pork?
 
5) In case you've missed it, Lance Armstrong's attempt to recapture his Tour De France glory has all but ended except for the formalities. Irony number one: he placed third last year while racing in less than optimum conditioning. This year, he was in far better shape and was challenging early on for the yellow jersey. He was undone by a series of crashes on one stage that left him unable to answer the call when his rivals decided to weed the contender field. Irony number two: he may finally be forced to testify in front of Congress about doping in cycling.
 
Congress? BIKING? Since when do Americans give a damn about cycling? This leads me to irony number three: Because the accusations stem from the short-lived tenure of the US Postal Service team, apparently it falls to Congress to look into it...if they want to be a pain in the ass. I don't support Lance's politics (he's more conservative than I), but to investigate a now nearly twenty year old incident because a few people have made accusations seems pretty silly to me. There's plenty of circumstantial evidence to indicate that the team was doping (three other members of that team tested positive after the team disbanded and they joined other, less well-funded teams who might not have been able to cover their tracks as effectively, as an example) but if the sport itself sees no reason to revisit the issue, then perhaps a Congressional investigation is a waste of energy.
 
6) This is a fascinating story. We tend to forget that people have been industrious long before the age of computers. Early New Yorkers added as much as half a mile of width to the island of Manhattan long before there was asphalt and tar and skyscrapers, and it astounds me that two thousand foot high buildings (and now one 1,776 foot high one) were built on yesterday's garbage.
 
7) As if things weren't tough enough for Linda McMahon in Connecticut, her past is coming back to haunt her. She talks about creating jobs, but she's fired more people than most companies have hired.
 
8) The electric car gains momentum.
 
9) Americans will have to grow up a little this fall.