Time to Walk Back all the Floyd Landis Happy Feeling

Thank you Floyd Landis. Thank you for deepening the wound that the "performance enhancing" culture in sports has opened in the sports following population.


This is a wound that will cast a doubt upon all great performances in any sport.

I withdraw all statements I made about Floyd Landis being an inspiration. He is an abomination. Not a person to be looked up to in admiration, but a person to be looked down upon in anger. He is a disgrace to the sport of cycling, to america, and to himself.

Another Great Performance in the Tour de France

An amazing sporting event story is happening right now. It unfortunately is being overshadowed by the news of the tumultuous events in the Eastern Mediterranean.

I am talking about Floyd Landis. For the uninformed (for us in the states, that's most of us) Floyd has been the number two to Lance Armstrong; and lances may be the only story in cycling more inspirational and powerful than Mr. Landis'.

Tomorrow, Floyd Landis will inherit the title Champion of the Tour de France from 7 consecutive tour winner Armstrong. This will keep the title with an American rider, sure to annoy countries where they actually follow cycling. (The U.S. seems to be genuinely apathetic to the sport, sans any Lance Armstrong story.)

What makes his ride notable, aside from winning the tour, is that in the very near future, Floyd Landis will need a hip replacement, similar to the one that effectively ended Bo Jackson's sporting career. When I say 'near future', I mean it. It has been reported that he will be getting it soon after completing the race.

This is a man that when he walks, it hurts; when he runs, well, it hurts. Yet on a cycle he has a lead in the most prestigious cycling event in the world. To be fair, his accomplishment still pales next to recovery from testicular cancer that has spread virtually throughout Lance Armstrong's body, but it is still an amazing feat nevertheless. A feat worthy of more coverage especially in a time where the media is fixated on the unrest in the Mideast.

Stupid Terrorists

Sometimes you have to wonder why the terrorist organizations are still as strong as they are. Some of the people they recruit are just stupid. Take those guys they contained in Miami a few weeks ago. If i remember correctly, they called themselves "Peaceful Soldiers of Allah" and later claimed they study Bible Scripture daily. They obviously werent very well organized, obviously not too bright, and weren't even sure of what radical religious readings they followed.

More recently, yesterday a plot to blow up the tunnels leading onto Manhattan was uncovered and spoiled. Now, that in itself is a significant because it showed there was cooperation between the US and Labanon in uncovering and arresting the people responsible for the planning of this attack.
But lets talk about what they thought was going to happen if they were to succeed in blowing up the tunnels. They are reported as saying they thought flooding the tunnels would flood manhattan island. Theres a some problems with this:
Manhattan is above sealevel (unlike New Orleans)
Manhattan Island's bedrock is some of the hardest and most stable there is in the world. It would be way more likely that the sea level rising would cause the flooding, as opposed to manhattan sinking. It is why manahattan is able to physically support the massive construction they have without sinking (unlike cities such as Venice, New Orleans, Mexico D.F., etc)
These folks obviously didnt do their homework.

Thankfully, they were caught before enacting their plan, and kudos to the Lebanese and US intelligence workers that are resposible for foiling the plot; it would have still cause major headaches for the millions of people working on Manhattan, but it would have been attack that we are capable of overcoming.

A few quickies today

If Kim Jong Il was really smart, he would release a statement claiming he was trying to get into the spirit of celebrating the independence of the United States.

You have to love a governor who has a pair of brass ones big enough to shut down Atlantic City gambling.

Why does it seem like we are running about Iraq just reacting to the latest loud noise? Seems to me it might be a better idea to just continue expanding the green zone. Do it feet at a time. If we can expand the green zone making it progressively larger, while keeping the zone itself clear and safe, eventually we can expand the zone to the borders of iraq.

How'd it work out that for all the controversy that seemed to surround Lance Armstong and performance enhancing drugs, he NEVER TESTED POSITIVE. Now, with Lance not riding in this summer's Tour d'France three of the top favorites this year ALL got banned from the event for testing positive for performance enhancements.

I think the first news cast from space will be by journalist Miles OBrien of CNN... he knows more about the shuttle than a lot of people that work on it i bet.

a third option?

Something that has been bothering me about all the rhetoric flying back and forth about the immigration issue. Why are we talking about only 1) deporting illegals or 2) granting the illegals citizenship. I believe there is a third option: work visas. If they have been federal paying income taxes for some time (many claim they have), taxes which we have used in other endeavors, we should allow for these taxes to be used towards the fees required for a worker to pay for a work visa. Another thing we could do is make it easier to companies to sponsor foreign employees (ie, make it cheaper).

All the aforementioned options are moot however, if we do not figure out a way to decrease the time waiting for applications for work visas (or any other visa) enter this country.

The status of these workers, who at times I envy for reasons I won't discuss here, is a secondary topic to the debate really though.

If we have sufficient funding for the US Border Patrol, perhaps a loosening of the requirements to actually become a border patrol agent would help. Making the pay look good compared to a job at the local walmart would be a step in the right direction also. Border Patrol agents should get all the benefits we give to National Guardsmen or other members of the Armed Forces. This includes housing, education, health, and family benifits given to the other forces charged with the safety AND security of the country.

Manpower, be it literally on the border, or reporting to outposts that are controlling unmanned aerial vehicles or aiming the night vision cameras so the patrols that are on the ground know where to aprehend those that are crossing the border illegally. We also need to cut back on spending that goes towards holding the fence jumpers (be they mexican, guatemalan, canadian, cuban, etc) while we figure out where to send them.

We need to send them back over the fence. operating a few C-17's to shuttle people back over the border (the same border they just crossed) will be cheaper than having thousands of immigrants living in prisons on our side of the fence. Let the country that they were trying to leave figure out if they belong there, or somewhere else. It will force our neighbors to patrol their own borders/ports/etc more thoroughly than they do now as well.

That said, I'm going to go see if I can poke Lou Dobbs off the ceiling so I can pull his panties out of of where ever they are bunched on this subject.

New blog, about current things

I have an opinion. I think other people might like to hear it. That is what this blog will be. My opinion on things I have seen in the news. Some of this stuff will be serious, some will be off the wall tongue in cheek. i invite you to comment; however, I will be screening comments (mostly to keep out beligerent trolls). I won't delete/disapprove your comments if they hold an opposiing view from my own though.