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.

The Quiet American

So I went and read The Quiet American. It was one of those books I was always going to read/supposed to read/assigned to read but never read. I figured with the whole Bush kerfuffle now was as good a time as any.

Having read it, I don't think that the White House made a mistake at all equating Bush with Pyle. Pyle is a by-the-book, upfront kind of guy (as evidenced by his dealings with Fowler over Phoung), idealistic and in pursuit of world betterment. Sure he gets used by others for their own purposes (General The), but his heart is in the right place and, most importantly, pure. I'd be willing to bet that that meme plays with a fairly significant part of the country.

Of course, all of this assumes that some critical mass of Americans have actually read (and remember) The Quiet American. If not, this is (just another) an example of geeks yelling at each other over something that nobody cares about.

I really liked the book, by the way, and would recommend it to those of you who've never read it, or who don't remember reading it.

Read the Rudy today, oh boy

If anything, Kaplan was too nice. The article, for those of you interested in reading this piece of shit, is here.

Seriously, Kaplan gives Rudy a BIG pass on some things. Here's one:

America is a nation that loves peace and hates war.

As opposed to whom? Where are the war-loving nations out there? And, for a nation that loves peace, we sure to get ourselves into a whole lot of war. And, just to be clear, I'm not anti-war, but to say that we are a nation that goes around singing "Kumbaya" all day and night is delusional. And it's particularly jarring when Rudy says it because he spends the rest of your essay describing the ass kickings he will dole out as president. But that isn't even the worst sentence in that paragraph:

At the core of all Americans is the belief that all human beings have certain inalienable rights that proceed from God but must be protected by the state.

Which is a curious thing for him to say because I really don't recall him coming out against our policy of sending people down a rathole to be tortured simply because we think they are one of the "bad guys". Oh, and by the way, I am an American and I don't happen to believe that the rights afforded to me in this country (those remaining rights anyway) proceeded from God. But hey, know what? THAT isn't even the worst sentence in that paragraph. This is:

Americans believe that to the extent that nations recognize these rights within their own laws and customs, peace with them is achievable. To the extent that they do not, violence and disorder are much more likely.

If I'm reading this correctly, and I've read it a number of times just to make sure I am, he's saying that we are going to not be at peace (although peace and America are BFF) with any country that does not respect the same inalienable God-given rights that we do. He has just declared that any liberal democracy is going to be treated as a hostile entity under a Rudy presidency. Fan-fucking-tastic!

Let's fast-forward to this little gem:

For diplomacy to succeed, the U.S. government must be united. Adversaries naturally exploit divisions.

Great, then I've got an idea, why don't you stop calling Democrats terrorist appeasers who are going to get everyone killed if they get anywhere near the White House. Because remember, unity begins at home (Mr. Third Marriage). I am so sick of the most divisive people on the planet calling on everyone to be united when it suits their purposes only to later cudgel the slobs stupid enough to go for it. Rudy is a hyper-partisan and whenever you hear him talk about unity, he's really talking about suppressing any type of dissent.

More insanity here:

Defeating the terrorists must be our principal priority in the near future, but we do not have the luxury of focusing on it to the exclusion of other goals. World events unfold whether the United States is engaged or not, and when we are not, they often unfold in ways that are against our interests. The art of managing a large enterprise is to multitask, and so U.S. foreign policy must always be multidimensional.

Claptrap! What is he talking about here? Does he really think that we should have a hand in EVERYTHING that's happening? Good luck with that.

Kaplan mentions this, but I'd like to quote it again for shits and giggles:

U.S. relations with China and Russia will remain complex for the foreseeable future. Americans have no wish to return to the tensions of the Cold War or to launch a new one. We must seek common ground without turning a blind eye to our differences with these two countries. Like America, they have a fundamental stake in the health of the international system. But too often, their governments act shortsightedly, undermining their long-term interest in international norms for the sake of near-term gains. Even as we work with these countries on economic and security issues, the U.S. government should not be silent about their unhelpful behavior or human rights abuses. Washington should also make clear that only if China and Russia move toward democracy, civil liberties, and an open and uncorrupted economy will they benefit from the vast possibilities available in the world today.

This may be one of the most arrogant and paternalistic things I've ever read from Rudy, and boy that's saying something. THEY act shortsightedly? I've got a 4-letter word for Rudy, I-R-A-Q. Some great long-term thinking there. And, to be blunt, China has been kicking our ass in strategic thinking and the judicious use of soft power lately. Lastly, as Kaplan also points out, China and Russia seem to be doing OK in the world without our help (lead paint aside).

He calls for the invasion of Cuba:

But America should take nothing for granted. It must stand ready to help the Cuban people reclaim their liberty and resist any step that allows a decrepit, corrupt regime from consolidating its power under Raúl Castro. Only a commitment to free people and free markets will bring a prosperous future to Cuba and all of Latin America.

And makes absolutely no sense about the UN:

The UN has proved irrelevant to the resolution of almost every major dispute of the last 50 years. Worse, it has failed to combat terrorism and human rights abuses. It has not lived up to the great hopes that inspired its creation. Too often, it has been weak, indecisive, and outright corrupt. The UN's charter and the speeches of its members' leaders have meant little because its members' deeds have frequently fallen short. International law and institutions exist to serve peoples and nations, but many leaders act as if the reverse were true -- that is, as if institutions, not the ends to be achieved, were the important thing. Despite the UN's flaws, however, the great objectives of humanity would become even more difficult to achieve without mechanisms for international discussion.

Got that? The UN is a worthless piece of shit taking up good real estate on the East Side, but hey, it's a worthless piece of shit working towards the "objectives of humanity". To quote Jon Stewart, "WHAAAA?"

Like I said, Kaplan let's him off the hook too often. But I guess that's my point. Everyone, anyone, could read through this piece of garbage and come up with pages and pages of nonsense without overlapping things that were previously pointed out. It's not just bad, it's breathtakingly bad. It's nauseatingly bad.

One final thought - as bad as it is, I'm also amazed at how little it says. Beyond platitudes and generalizations that is. Kaplan is right on that, Rudy doesn't say how he's going to do anything. Well, that's not entirely true, he is going to "give people a hand up rather than a handout". Hey Rudy, the 80's are calling, they have your hair and would like to trade it for their handout statement.

I really, really don't like Rudy Giuliani.

Some perspective please?

Vino:

In cycling nobody respects human rights," said Vinokourov in an exclusive interview with Reuters. "The situation is now worse than any other sport. I hope the truth will be found and I am going to fight for it."
Greeted by his father and about 20 supporting fans who were decked out with flowers and banners, Vino said, "I am not going to end my career like this so we will fight on."
Vino denounced cycling's current anti-doping procedures, calling them "a clear violation of human rights." He added, "You have to say three months in advance where you are planning to be, at what hour and minute. It's not possible."

Vino, stop talking. Now. You cheated and got caught. Want to cheat and not get caught? Go play soccer. Or baseball, they celebrate cheats there.

Not a good day for Rudy

Sick, exaggerating son-of-a-bitch:

A complete record of Mr. Giuliani’s exposure to the site is not available for the chaotic six days after the attack, when he was a frequent visitor. But an exhaustively detailed account from his mayoral archive, revised after the events to account for last-minute changes on scheduled stops, does exist for the period of Sept. 17 to Dec. 16, 2001. It shows he was there for a total of 29 hours in those three months, often for short periods or to visit locations adjacent to the rubble. In that same period, many rescue and recovery workers put in daily 12-hour shifts.

So, maybe he misspoke last week? No:

And in September 2006, The Associated Press quoted him as saying of ground zero, “I spent as much time here as anyone,” and then adding, “I was here five, six times a day for four months. I kind of thought of it as living here.”

That kind of takes the whole, "What I meant was the initial 4 days..." argument. How does his office respond to this information? Like this:

“Hundreds of thousands of people around the country and the world saw Rudy Giuliani’s steadfast and determined leadership firsthand at a time when we needed it most,” the statement said. “In the days surrounding September 11th, the safety and health of all those involved in the search and recovery efforts was Mayor Giuliani’s No. 1 one priority. Make no mistake, it is the very same concern Mayor Giuliani continues to express today when it comes to all those who have made tremendous sacrifices at ground zero.”

For those of you who need a bullshit to English translation, it means (roughly), "Whoa, when the fuck did you start fact-checking shit?"

He is a bad, bad man. I don't care how much the media loves him, his story, his jackboots. I still maintain that there is no way he wins the nomination, and I personally intend to sit around with a great big bowl of popcorn as I watch him go down in flames.

Rudy

I must admit, I'm now interested in reading the FA piece he did. Kaplan's read it. He's not very impressed:

Rudy Giuliani's essay in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, laying out his ideas for a new U.S. foreign policy, is one of the shallowest articles of its kind I've ever read. Had it been written for a freshman course on international relations, it would deserve at best a C-minus (with a concerned note to come see the professor as soon as possible). That it was written by a man who wants to be president—and who recently said that he understands the terrorist threat "better than anyone else running"—is either the stuff of high satire or cause to consider moving to, or out of, the country.

Now that's a lede! In fact, it's my second favorite ever lede about Rudy. This one is my favorite:

On 9/11, all Americans were frightened children, and in a moment of mythic personal heroism, Mayor Giuliani filled the gaping leadership void. The president looked like a petrified chimp; Cheney was spirited to an underground bunker. Only Giuliani could pull himself together sufficiently to get on TV in the midst of the wreckage and show America that a grown-up was still breathing. On that terrible day our reptile brains looked at Rudy Giuliani and said, "We're OK now. Daddy's home."

And we forgot, some for a moment, some permanently, that Daddy was psycho.

Anyway, back to Kaplan. He picks apart Rudy's piece by exerpting a section then ripping it to shreds. Perhaps not the most fair treatment, context and all that does matter sometimes, but it is very entertaining to read. And Kaplan really doesn't hold back:

"Constellations of satellites that can watch arms factories everywhere around the globe, day and night, above- and belowground ... must be part of America's arsenal."

Yes, and while we're at it, let's build anti-gravity machines, mind-reading robots, X-ray-vision telescopes, speed-of-light transporter-beams, time-travel kits, and intercontinental heat-seeking bullets. It's bad enough that so many foreigners believe in the omniscience of U.S. intelligence agencies; it's appalling that a presidential candidate seems to believe such sci-fi fantasies, too.

I'm going to read the FA piece in full. Somehow I don't think that Rudy is saved by context.

Rudy is emerging as a joke, a really dangerous joke, but a joke nonetheless. The more I hear, the more important it becomes to me to make sure this man never gets near the White House.

Why I don't watch much TV

Carpetbagger.

I heard Biden on the original quote and realized that I really dislike Joe Biden. To say that John Kerry was not a religious candidate was to completely, intentionally, not pay attention to the last election.

We all know my views on religion - I'm clearly no fan of the religious posturing that consumes politicians in this country. To somehow state that politicians on either side aren't sufficiently religious is just ridiculous.

This is one example among many where the media is manufacturing a meme out of thin air. They should be called on it more than they are.

More housing

Same article as a prior post.


For those of you without subscriptions to the WSJ, the article profiles a family, the Montes, who bought a house 2 years ago in Fullerton, California. Their credit wasn't that good, and they had a combined income of $90,000/year. They decided they should go and buy a $567,000 house with no money down and a 2/28 interest-only mortgage.


They are going to lose their house. It doesn't say so explicitly in the article, but there is no way they'll be able to keep it. The current payment on the house is $3,200/month in interest, which will reset in December for the remaining 28 years on the note. They estimate that their monthly payments may rise to $4,200/month. That's just the note. On top of that they have taxes, insurance and $700/month in car loans. The article doesn't mention credit card debt, but I'm going to assume that the Montes are like every other American family out there and throw in some of that too. Figure $200/month in credit card debt. That's over $5,000 in debt servicing, a ratio of 66%.


Let me say that again, 2/3 of their GROSS income will go to servicing debt.


They are going to lose their house.


This is where this whole housing mess gets very complicated for me. Clearly, the Montes bought a house that they couldn't afford and have, for the past two years, been living in a house that they shouldn't be living in. I'd usually be inclined to write them off - hey sometimes bad decisions have consequences. But I waver when I read things like this:

Like many people who jumped into the rising housing market in recent years, they had little money for a down payment and chose a loan that would hold their monthly payments down for the first two years, then "reset" to a much higher level. Mr. and Mrs. Montes say their mortgage broker assured them they would be able to refinance in a couple of years to keep their payments affordable.

And this:

The Montes family got their loan through a mortgage broker in Rancho Cucamonga. Using what was then a common formula, the broker offered to arrange for two loans, one to cover about 80% of the home price and the other, a so-called piggyback loan, for the rest. For the first two years, their total monthly mortgage payments are about $3,200. The loans are initially interest-only. Mr. Montes recalls feeling edgy about whether he would be able to afford the higher costs -- about $900 more per month -- due to take effect after two years. But he says the broker assured him he could refinance before those costs kicked in.

paired with this:

Worse for the Monteses, they learned that they faced a $12,000 prepayment penalty if they refinanced within three years of the original mortgages -- something that Mr. Montes says wasn't made clear to him when he took out those loans.

Housing is one place where I really struggle balancing the free market with paternalism. At a minimum, mortgage brokers should have a fiduciary responsibility to the people they arrange mortgages for. I think there are a huge number of people who got talked into something - namely a house they couldn't afford - that they wanted very badly. They got talked into it by a series of people who likely won't get badly hurt if the deal goes bad - the dealmakers will still have a home to live in at least. It just doesn't really seem all that fair to me.

Some interesting housing stats

From today's WSJ:

Being stuck with little or no home equity is no longer a rare situation. Christopher Cagan, director of research at First American CoreLogic, a housing and mortgage data supplier in Santa Ana, recently found that nearly 7% of 32 million U.S. households studied as of December owed more than their homes were worth, based on computer estimates of the property values. An additional 4% had home equity of 5% or less. Since then, house prices have edged down in much of the country, erasing more home equity.

[...]

Partly as a result, foreclosures are surging. Moody's Economy.com, a research firm in West Chester, Pa., projects that lenders will acquire about 760,000 homes through foreclosure this year and 935,000 in 2008, up from an average of about 440,000 a year from 2000 through 2006.

I'm throwing the bullshit flag

On this:

"We couldn't in good conscience ask someone to spend the sort of money that it would require to sponsor the team in the current situation," said Bill Stapleton, general manager of Tailwind Sports. "It's not an environment conducive in our opinion to make an investment."

[...]

"We had a firm commitment for three years. It wasn't signed and sealed, but we were 90 percent there," Armstrong said. "No. 1, this isn't about a lack of a sponsor. If that were the case we would say that in October, not in August. No. 2, it's not a statement. We're just deciding it's a good time to step aside."

[...]

"It's a sad for American cycling," Armstrong said. "The guys at ASO are talking about taking the Tour back to national teams like they did in the olden days. If something like that would happen, someone's $15 million investment is
worth zero. Issues like that are too unknown. It's too risky to ask that kind of money. There are too many questions within the sport."

For crying out loud, just say you couldn't find someone willing to pony up the $45 million in today's market. Boy, it sure is nice that Lance, et. al. are watching out for all those corporations to make sure they don't waste their money on sponsorship.

The reasoning provided is absurd. Do they think that anyone believes it? How dumb do they think we are?

Umm...

Posted without further comment:

Sioux Falls police Tuesday arrested a 60-year-old man for burglary and for what they believe is at least two years worth of video-taped public sex acts. Verle Peter Dills was arrested at his home at 2613 W. Bailey St. after a man who lives in the 1200 block of North Kiwanis Avenue chased Dills out of his yard Monday evening, police spokesman Loren McManus said. The man saw Dills with a video camera and tripod and chased him for a short distance, McManus said. When the man returned home, Dills also returned with his camera and again was chased from the yard. He was seen entering the garage at 2613 W. Bailey St., McManus said. There police found the video camera and a “large amount” of 8mm and VHS video of Dills engaged in masturbation and sex acts with traffic signs near his home, McManus said.

How do I hate Rudy?

Let me count the ways!

Speaking to reporters in Cincinnati, Giuliani said: "I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers. ... I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them."

It could be me, but as I remember it, as I was sitting in my apartment in Brooklyn breathing the stench that blew over from NYC for months after 9/11, or while I was walking from the subway to work, right past the smoldering site, I really don't recall seeing many pictures of Rudy in the pit digging. I do remember some speeches but, and please feel free to correct my faulty memory, I really don't recall the former Mayor pitching in much on the physical side of things. I cannot imagine what those workers went through in clearing up the site and I'd be embarrassed if anyone made any type of comparison between me and them (in a similar vein I get pissed when people talk about how heroic they were to go back to work downtown after the attacks). It takes hubris the size of Cleveland to proclaim yourself one of them because you occasionally went down there for some death tourism and a photo op.

"As often, if not more"?! Those guys worked 60-80 hour weeks down there for months. Jesus Rudy, who do you think you are? Wait, could he actually think he's... Jesus?

He's done enough to finish his campaign three times over already. How he is still campaigning is beyond me.

Shit like this is why I have such a back load in housing posts.