Hmmm

Fabian Cancellara repeated as world individual time trial champion yesterday. He stomped on the field. Now, it is the end of the season and so form is generally all over the place. And Cancellara may have prepared specifically for this race while many other riders may not have. That said, he still took over 2 minutes out of Zabriskie, Wiggins and Millar - ITT specialists all (and Zabriskie fresh off of his defence of his US ITT title).

Add this performance to his performances in the TdF and file the whole shebang under "Suspicious".

The Return of Scott Nichol

a.k.a. Chuck Ibis.

Ibis was a high-end bike company in the 90's and early '00's. They made 3 bikes that I absolutely lusted after: a Ti road bike that was beautiful, stiff and very expensive, an innovative full-suspension mountain bike that used the flex in the Ti chainstays as the rear suspension rather than installing a hinge (thus lowering the weight of the bike to about 22 lbs.) and, my favorite, the Hakkalugi cyclocross bike initially only available in "Gang Green".

Nichol sold the original Ibis, the new Ibis went out of business , but now the original Ibis is back in business. It looks like they are now building in carbon fiber rather than Ti or steel. Happy to see them back in business.

Cars

There are three columnists in the WSJ who generally make me scratch my head in confusion, or drop my jaw in awe, when I read them. They are Hollman Jenkins, Daniel Henninger and Joseph White. Today we will focus on White.

White is the automotive columnist for the WSJ and is generally incoherent. His latest column is titled "Seeking a Cure for Automotive Ennui" and yes, prepare to be wowed. Here's how he starts:

New-car sales are sagging in America and car makers are blaming the housing slump or the credit crunch. I suspect something else. I suspect boredom.

Yep. Boredom. Not the housing market going to hell. Not the tightening credit standards that are slowing the ability of people to secure car financing. Nope. It's that consumers are bored. Why are they bored?

Face it. A lot of the cars sold in America are just dull. Whose heart leaps at the thought of firing up a Toyota Corolla? If you took away the logos, who could discern a significant difference among the interiors of any five $35,000 luxury cars? Black plastic, faux wood grain, even "metallic look" plastics -- clichés all. Sport utility vehicles and crossovers? Ho hum.

Under the hood, too many cars sold in America are equally uninspiring. Car makers have done wonderful things improving upon century-old gasoline internal-combustion engine technology. But it's still a century old. It's as if, instead of the iPod, we still got our music from lacquer records that had been refined to hold 100 minutes of songs.

So, what he's looking for is bold design and a successor to the internal combustion engine? Is that all? Is that the cure for automotive ennui? Maybe, maybe not.

If the cars don't bore you, the driving probably will. In most urban areas, getting anywhere now is about as exhilarating as sitting through a PowerPoint talk on the latest revisions to the company 401(k). The latest Urban Mobility Report released by the Texas Transportation Institute finds that urban congestion has intensified to the point that "free-flowing traffic is seen less than one-third of the time in urban areas over 1 million population."

Oh, so the problem is traffic? So people aren't buying new cars because if they do, they are likely to sit in traffic? Well, that makes sense to me. Why would I want to spend $35,000 on a glorified couch? But wait, that's not it either:

Americans -- consumers, car makers and regulators -- have only themselves to blame for automotive ennui.

Ah-ha! It's our fault! So what's the solution? What kind of new technology, new styling will cure us of our self-inflicted ennui? White presents... Euro Civic!

The Euro-diesel Civic is more fun to look at than most American small cars. It has a three-door hatchback profile, but look carefully and you see the car has four side doors. The front and back are decorated with chromey jewelry. The dashboard glows at night with a techno blue light... You start up the Euro Honda by turning the key, then hitting the red "Engine Start" button – like a race car.

THAT'S the cure? A four-door hatchback with an "Engine Start" button? One that is more fun to look at than "most" American small cars? And could someone please tell me why "chromey jewelry" is great design while "metallic look plastics" are a cliche? Is it the increased chromeyness? Are you kidding me? Apparently not. And, it's much, much better than the Prius:

What's most enjoyable is that despite the donkey-hauling performance characteristics, the Euro Civic averaged about 44 miles per gallon (5.3 liters per 100 kilometers.) By comparison, the Toyota Prius's combined mileage rating, under the new, more stringent Environmental Protection Agency labeling system, is just 46 miles per gallon.

Yes, that's right, "just" 46 mpg. The Prius only gets 2 mpg MORE than the Civic. Oh, and the Prius has a start button which doesn't require you to stick the key into anything other than your pocket and is available in the US right now. Honda, meanwhile, has no plans to introduce the Euro Civic into the US.

And what any of this would do to reduce traffic is anyone's guess.

UPDATE:

Re-reading this, I realized I may not have been sufficiently explicit in my criticism of White. In the past, he has gone after Prius purchasers for being irrational since they could buy a Corolla for less than a Prius and the difference in price could not be made up by a savings in gas. In that case, a car purchase is a purely rational decision and purchasers should be entirely rational when they purchase a car. Then he writes a column like this one that basically takes the opposite side - that car purchasers are bored and need chromey goodness to get them all excited and eager to buy. To a certain extent he's only and constantly arguing with himself, but it gets me frustrated all the same.

It's about time

Finally:

The long awaited decision is in, and Floyd Landis has lost his appeal to the American Arbitration Association to overturn the sanction for his positive drug test from the 2006 Tour de France. The three member arbitration panel, led by president Patrice Brunet along with Christopher Campbell and Richard McLaren, was split 2-1 in the guilty verdict, with Campbell dissenting. The decision will likely have some instant effects, with the ASO champing at the bit to remove Landis as the 2006 winner. The next possible steps in the case involve either Landis accepting his sanction from USADA or appealing the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland – with the second much more likely.

It was embarrassing that this took over a year to get done.

Politics

OK, so blogging has been somewhat, um, erratic lately. Hopefully things will turn around and settle down a bit.

Presidential race - although it's too early to make a choice, my preferences are Edwards, Obama then Clinton. I think that Edwards is the most wonkish and has thought through many of the big issues. It also helps that he's been through the process before. My one concern with Edwards, and it is a big one, is that he doesn't appear able to attack, to put his political foes on the defensive. That's a big problem for him and would, I think, doom his presidency.

On the Republican side, I really don't like any of 'em. I'd be willing to bet that Rudy isn't the candidate but really don't care who runs, "R" is going to be a hard letter to overcome in '08.

UPDATE:

Wanted to expand a bit on the post from last night. The thing that dismays me about Edwards is his inability to stick in the shiv. It's necessary in politics and he's been unwilling, or unable, to do it so far. He seems to have outsourced the role of attack-dog to his wife (Ann Coulter, Hilliary Clinton) which only exacerbates the issue. I don't get the feeling that he'd be capable of fighting against a hostile Congress (and if the threshold is 60 votes in the Senate, Congress will remain hostile) to get any of his ideas implemented. His are the ideas I like best right now, but he is not the person I see getting them through.

Which then brings it to Obama or Hilliary. I think that both have shown a level of ruthlessness, and both would be very capable. Selfishly, I'd like Obama simply because I don't want to go through a campaign season reading nothing in the Times and the Post but stories about whether Hilliary and Bill are still knocking boots.

Anyone else with early thoughts on the Dems?

As far as the Republicans, well, the field is a joke. Rudy changes his position on gun control after 9/11? Really? Were the people in Cantor going to pull .38's and shoot the planes out of the sky before they hit the towers? He's a joke and sooner or later someone is going to start slapping him around. Romney? McCain? Really, those are the choices?

Coming into my favorite time of the year

Pumpkin beers are out, other fall and winter brews are coming.

Smuttynose Pumpkinhead, Gearys Autumn both worth drinking. Gritty's Halloween is out, but as of today untried. Ditto with Shipyard Pumpkin.

Waiting for my usual fall favorite, Dogfish Head Punkin'. Stay tuned.

Fine? That's not a fine

From today's NYT:

The National Football League fined New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick $500,000 yesterday, and the team will forfeit its first-round draft pick in 2008 if it makes the playoffs, for violating league rules Sunday when a Patriots staff member was discovered videotaping signals by Jets coaches during the season opener at the Meadowlands. The Patriots will be fined $250,000. If they fail to make the playoffs, they will forfeit their second- and third-round picks in 2008.

Yeah, yeah, big deal. Want to see a fine? Here's a fine:

McLaren Mercedes, the leading team in the Formula One championship, was fined $100 million on Thursday and excluded from the constructors’ title in the spying scandal that has plagued the sport all season. The International Automobile Federation, the sport’s governing body, found the McLaren guilty of cheating by using data obtained from Ferrari, its main rival, to improve its own car, the federation said in a statement issued following a hearing in Paris.

$100 MILLION. That'll change behavior.

Look out!

August jobs data:

Investors were unpleasantly surprised by the Labor Department's report that payrolls fell by 4,000 in August, the first decline since August 2003, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.6 percent as expected.

June and July were also revised downward. Without the ability to extract wealth from their houses, people cannot fund lifestyles that are built upon a negative savings rate. Credit at all levels is evaporating.

At some point corporate profits will have to suffer because at some point people will have to stop buying things. I'd predicted a Q3 '07 recession and I'm becoming more convinced that will be a correct statement.

NAR, it's hacktacular!

Guess who's won More Palaver's "Hack of the Day" award for the second time? Yes, it's Lawrence Yun! Congratulations Mr. Yun for being the first multiple (and so far only) winner of this prestigious award! Here is a link to the first win for Mr. Yun. Here is why he is winning again today:

The National Association of Realtors' index for pending sales of existing homes decreased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 12.2% to 89.9 in July from June's 102.4, the industry group said Wednesday.

[...]

"These temporary problems are primarily with jumbo loans, and there are continuing issues for subprime borrowers, but there are no serious problems for the majority of buyers who qualify for conventional financing or FHA-insured loans," Mr. Yun said. "Some consumer concerns remain, but since mid-August the market has been stabilizing somewhat.

"[S]tabilizing somewhat"?!!! "Some consumer concerns remain"?!! He increasingly looks like the ROTC cadet standing in the middle of the street at the end of Animal House. Sorry, but everything is not going to be OK.