Lance Armstrong Redux

There is something odd about this from. Tygart of the USADA:

"[If Armstrong had of] come in and been truthful, then the evidence might have been that the statute [of limitations] should apply."

I am baffled as to how a suspect/defendants behavior changes the existence of a statute of limitations. Laws apply regardless of the horridness or perceived horridness of any specific perpetrator.

Clearly, Armstrong's refusal to continue to litigate the matter means that he is guilty of doping violations but there is something creepy about a regulatory agency flinging rules out the window because they don't like someone's attitude.

Lance Armstrong

His decision to not contest the USADA's case means that he has been or will shortly be found guilty of doping his way to victory, which is just sad. It was not a "witch hunt" because witches didn't exist and doping cyclists do. It may be an unfair process, as Judge Sparks put it "the deficiency of USADA's charging document is of serious constitutional concern." He, however, did not quash the process. Does the USADA have the power to strip Armstrong of his titles and ban him from racing? Not really. They need to prove to the UCI that they have the goods on Armstrong.

So what does it all mean? That some of the finest moments in international sport are now official tainted and that quite possibly the erstwhile greatest tour champion, Eddy is the greatest cyclist of all time, will lose all of his titles.

It is, all in all -- given that George Hincapie is rumored to be implicated in the doping, a very sad day for sport.

Civility

So, I got a Romney fundraiser phone call. I figured I would play along and suggested that while I would vote for the him I had insufficient funds to offer any financial support. In the course of wheedling, or attempting to wheedle, the spandolax out of my wallet, the nice young woman on the phone informed that should we fail to defeat Obama he would "burn this country to the ground."

Obviously, this kind of language isn't an affront to either decency or comity nor yet an example of Romney trying to divide America into those who would vote for him and those who are going to burn the country to the ground, which recent polling suggests divides the country about 50/50. Nope, because if it were it would make mock of all the other bullshit, in the Frankfurtian sense, the Republicans and the Right more generally are flinging about in their increasing desperate attempt to impose the 19th century on an unwilling 21st.

You Tart

Tomato and cheese tart fresh from the garden:

The crust needs some work yet as it is not quite crispy enough but on the whole a nice hot weather dish.

A Debate

The internet and the rest of the world is all in a whirl about Akin's insane notions of human biology; meanwhile the Republicans prove that they don't care if a woman secretes a secretion  during rape that makes fertilization impossible. Or maybe not. After insisting on a Party platform that demands a "personhood" amendment to the US Constitution. In the past these amendments effectively ban abortion for whatever reason by declaring eggs people.

Today, however, the Republicans are trying to deny that they are in fact deranged ideologues on moral matters best left the conscience of our fellow citizens and their medical providers.

The Republicans, in other words, like Mitt Romney on everything and Paul Ryan on most things want to have it both ways. Each opposes something rhetorically but understands that the thing they oppose, mandates, stimulus spending, auto bailouts, etc, is actually good policy and, consequently they rail with the one side of the mouth while the other asks for seconds.

So lets have a debate in this election. The Republicans ought properly stand or fall on their deranged social, economic, and political ideas. Man up boys said loud and proud: I am batshit crazy with only a tangential connection to reality.

Akin did and it looks like he might win.

Surprise

Yesterday morning at about 7 30 am I was rolling down a small  hillock when I saw a brown thingy on the road sitting over a black dealibob. As I got closer what I took to be a cat with its victim became a hawk with a crow grasped in its talons. The hawk rose and flew side by side with the bike for a few feet before dropping the crow and crossing over to perch in a tree. It was an unexpected, or surprising, moment of beauty.

Later that same day I was sitting outside drinking a beer when I looked up to the north and found that I was right on the edge of a thunderstorm. I could hear the thunder and see the lightening but the rain was just over to the other side of the railway tracks. It was an unexpected, or surprising, moment of if not beauty then sublimity.

Early today I read an article in The New Yorker about how liberal millionaires and billionaires aren't giving Obama money because some find super pacs anti democratic, which is true but rather like unilateral disarmament, others, however, pine for the days when Bill Clinton would invite them to private dinners at which, seated in descending order of the size of their contributions, the Clinton would elicit their views on matters of substance and, get this, take notes. Finding this out was an unexpected, or surprising, moment of realizing just how venal Clinton was and just how delusional the riches of these United States are.

Obama, it seems, prefers to get his policy advice from people who know what they are talking about instead of a bunch of riches whose sole virtue is an ability to game a corrupt system. As a result, the article suggests, their feelings are all atwitter and they withhold their ill-gotten gains until such time as Obama, or whomever, decides to grant them once again their unearned ascendency in the halls of power.

What a bunch of assholes.

In Russia the State Punks You

So here is the Pussy Riot video that led to the kerfuffle:




It is insane that the band got 2 years in jail for insulting Putin; the Dixie Chicks only had to go on tv and apologize. U S A U S A  

Two Ways of Thinking About Streets

Last night a motorist try to run me down. A couple of preliminary points. I use quite a few lights, to front lights, which is all that matters here as the motorist could only "see" the front of the bike. I was in a real neighborhood; one in which people jog,  walk dogs, wander to the grocery, and related etc. It was dusk and not pitch black and, because of the multiuser nature of the streets in this quiet area, motorist ought, but don't, drive the speed limit and pay attention.

I was coming up a hill riding toward the center of the lane, when I saw a car backing out of a street without paying attention, by which I mean the motorist clearly hadn't seen me. I rang the bell and slammed on the breaks. Well after the point at which the motorist would have knocked me down had I not been riding responsibly. The dolt saw me.

Like most motorists, the dolt seemed to think that saying "I didn't see you" was exculpatory instead of a condemnation of the dolt's inattentiveness. I said "I could tell."  The dolt responded "I was trying to be nice." To which I asked "How? By trying to hit me."


From my perspective some streets and roads are multiuser from the motorist's perspective all streets are belong to them, as they kids would say. This attitude, as Peter Norton points out, this attitude is the result of going on 100 years of lobbying, opinion buying, and other corrupt practices by the automobile industry. The dolt's implicit claim of motorists' ownership of the roads and idea that I need to get out of motorists' way isn't a natural condition but rather a sing and seal of how money shapes cultural assumptions.

A More Just World

When the issue of economic inequality comes up, this Anatole France quote usually turns up:

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

And a good laugh is had all around. Did you know that in other parts of the world the law actually punishes some crimes on the basis of the perpetrator's wealth? In Switzerland and Finland at least if you are rich and speed your fine is determined by "the severity of the offense and the offender's income level."

One rich driving like a mad man was fine 290k in Switzerland, while the chairman of Nokia faced a 100 odd thousand dollar fine, and one particularly insane rich faces a fine that falls 40,000 dollars short of a million.

So lets do that with, say, property crimes. Poor and shoplift a pair of pants? 60 dollar fine; rich and shop lift a the same kind of pants, 10% of pre-tax income. Rich and embezzle?  50% of total wealth and 10 years in jail.  Poor and steal a neighbors digital camera? Give the camera back or replace and a week in jail.  And so on.

The idea is basically to make the punishment fit the advantages gained by any individual from being  a member of society.

Whose Streets?

I just finished Peter Norton's Fighting Traffic. It is a really fine book that works through in great detail how the Automobile industry and its supporters managed to transform streets for essential public spaces in to expensive and always more crowded preserves of the motorized vehicle.

What struck me about his analysis and narrative was the extent to which the Automobile industry's strategy is the prevalent model for groups dedicated to destroying the vestiges of the welfare state in these United States and abroad. In general the idea is to buy off expert opinion and use leverage with the state to trample popular desires and, as result, create a new culture that is immeasurably less humane than what went before.

It is, however, possible to move back toward a more humanistic vision of your cities, towns, and burgs. As result of the Automobile industry's purchase of the opinions of key traffic engineers in the 1920s in the US streets are designed to maximize "floor space" for automobiles. This take over by private enterprise of the creation and maintenance of a public good without having to pay for meant and means that each year the American tax payer subsidizes the Automobile industry, trucking, and etc. Getting back to a livable city means returning to the older understanding of streets as multiuse public spheres in which cars, as they are least efficient and most dangerous modes of transportation, are relegated to the lower rungs in the ladder of importance.

One way to accomplish this it to insist, as the Dutch do, that streets are "area[s] where people want or need to be."  This formulation reminds us the purpose of cities, towns, streets, and, more generally, humanity in a social situation isn't profit and industrial expansion.

In other words, the neoliberals are wrong about everything because they have both  bought into and promote the economization of all modes of discourse. Bastards.

Ryan as Rorschah

Last night a relative whose name may or may not begin with b insisted that low information voters love Paul Ryan. Other with whom I have spoken repeated the line about how Ryan, who look like a stick figure insect howdy doody fellow, is a sexy beast of a serious wonk, have insisted that the Ryan pick was inspired need to deal with the fact that his policy preferences are hated by most American who refused to believe the Romney would destroy the tattered remains of the safety net in the service o giving people like Romney more money.

In short, in the plutocracy's long held desire to recreate the 19th century, most Americans say no way. This is another data   point that proves that Conservative ideas are not only unpopular but deeply bug shit crazy. It is, furthermore, evidence that both the top and the bottom of the Republican ticket are horrid little men who think that the answer to life's misery is yet  even more misery.

Running Mates

Romney picked Ryan because he is the only other  politician who is running as hard as Romney from his record.

Gear

Often I will buy a thing and then wonder why on earth I bought the thing. This thing

The picture is a bit blurry, but then it is Friday. It's a lightweight version of the Leatherman. I know that this was good idea because the two times I didn't bring it with on a ride I needed it because, no not the cork screw, but rather the

That is right it weighs slightly more than a Swiss Army knife but it has a pliers, albeit a blurry one. I got mine for half of the normal price  and rarely have I been so happy with a thing. It rivals some tires I could mention.

Friday Music Videos

 Some time between 1979 and 1982 I started listening to Tom Waits. I saw him in concert at some point and continued to listen to him religiously for a long time and then listen sporadically although he is still a go to music fella in times of need. Via comes two videos of one interview, which are great for a variety of reason.





This comes from about the time I started paying attention.  Recently, I think yesterday, Waits released a video from his Bad as I Want to Be Album, which I got as a gift. What struck me on seeing it was the fact that it is clearly an anti-War on terror song and, whatismore, one the few that I can think from the present crop of whatsits:



Some of his more recent stuff is too something or another for me but this one seems to be a example of an man and musician trying to make sense of the horrors of permanent war and the misery it inflicts on soldiers.

Enjoy your weekend while you still have one. 

Please Don't

John Banville threatens, I think is the proper term, to "bring back" Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. Why? If he wants to write a hard-boiled bit of noir that takes place in a "slightly surreal, or hyper-real, atmosphere," let him. But why bring Chandler and Marlowe into it? This doesn't sound like the creation of some kind of post-modern fiction built off or around a classic like Sargasso Sea, but rather like a stunt. Banville in both his high and middle brow literature is supposed to be quite the thing, as the kids say, this bit here seems like a waste of time, energy, and talent.

Summer Holiday

I have been a relatively longish one, which is soon to end. But as a way of easing back into the world of words. All the bikes had Bontrager Race Hardcase tires, the bad weather bike has now Continental tourers of some sort and in the winter studded. Why  Hardcase, you ask:

The shredded rubber was over 2/3 of the whole tire. I don't know for how long I rode around on this but it was at least 3 weeks. Plus the  bike sat for a week before I changed the tire today and, get this, when I took it off the bike it was still hard as rock. When you need to get from here to there and back again without worrying about a flat, Hardcases it is.

Also over to Gin and Tacos,  Ed mocks Sarah Palin's bbq cum fundraiser garb and insists that her decision to "dress like the Lord Mayor of MILF Island" rendered her no longer a serious person. Leaving aside the obvious sexist bullshit in the MILF comment, remember when Obama wore a bike helmet or blue jeans some jackasses thought looked like "mom jeans"? 

That kind of "analysis" was stupid, pointless crap then and it is now. You sir are on notice.

Grammar

If Obama did claim that business people didn't build that, then if follows the mega-maniac Andrew McCarthy just accused five GOP senators of being in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood.

But it is Ms. Abedin’s parents and brother who have drawn the attention of the five House GOP members. They all have connections to the Muslim Brotherhood — the organization itself or prominent members thereof.

Given that the clear anticedent of they has to be the nearest collective noun by the laws of grammar and syntax it must be members which means the GOP is infected with the radical Islamist gene and therefore to Gitmo with them.

Cultural Transmission

From alert reader signs of the continuation of traditional German culture:

The Boss

The New Yorker has a really interesting profile of Bruce. Plus some really interesting follow ups.

Where is My Crayon

We all know of the despicable behavior of the administration and Joe Paterno at Penn State. So how is it that the disgraced former president Graham Spanier has now begun to work for the Federal Government in an important position? (via) This is beyond despicable. This is another example of how some pooches are unsrewable.

Opposite Day

I was going to write something about David Brooks', professional idiot, latest monstrosity, but stopped when I realized that his evidence derived from "history Web sites that track such things" as rampage killings is almost assuredly Wikipedia and that all of his actual experience in "read[ing] through the assessments that have been done by the F.B.I., the Secret Service and various psychologists" is slighter than his regard for facts, intellectual honesty, and careful reading. So decided not to.

Instead lets consider the "you didn't build that" controversy.  Obama recently pointed out the obvious about the social nature of personal success and the right went nuts. Madison Wisconsin and other college towns have lower unemployment because bosses and investors know that they can get a highly educated work force. And they did not build the University or the fine public schools, the parks, and recreational infrastructure, etc.

Romney knows this, and I don't mean his remarks on the socialized nature of athletic success.  I don't  mean his borrow 20k from your folks to start a business to start a business notion; although, so one, so far as I know, picks their parents; therefore, those who can borrow succeed because of the luck of the draw.

This last point, I think, explains the virulence of the Right's response to Obama's bland truism. If success is a combination of luck and socialism, in its broadest sense, than failure is a combination of luck and socialism, or its lack, which -- in turn -- vitiates the whole of the Reactionary/Conservative/Neoliberal ideology. This fact of the matter means that the Right would have to disband, which they can't do. So they deny it even as they accept it as true.

Update, of sorts from Fox News more evidence that success grows from the efforts of others and ourselves:

Kilmeade: Clara, how do you feel about the President saying that you needed help to start this business. And just speak from — speak from within. All right, you know what? Let’s switch over to —
Younger sister Eliza yawns. Clara begins to speak.  
Kilmeade: Why don’t you answer that one?
Clara, age 7: I would say that’s rude because we worked very hard to build this business. But we did have help.
Kilmeade: And your help came from?
Clara, age 7: Our help came from our investors, our dad and stepmom, along with other friends and family.

And that says nothing about the roadway without which they would get no foot traffic.

UPDATE:
I just watched The Daily Show in which Louis Black made more or less the same argument. Great minds, or something, think similarly.

Wow

I am not a fan of the pure sprinter, live Cavendish, but that was an absolutely amazing sprint. He slowed, went across the road and then passed the leaders like they were standing still. Also, anybody here believe the Fraenk Schlecht "I was poisoned" theory? In addition, I am glad that Vino failed to win a stage.

Two People It Sucks to Be

Cadel Evans, who really has to be the least lucky man in this or any other Peloton; although, I doubt his stomach virus claims.

And Chris Froome who ought to be leading the Tour. And to those who claim that he will win one day, remember Joseba Beloki.

Don't watch if your a squeamish.

Religious Liberty

Recently the Right has been up in arms about threats to religious liberty. From PJ Media comes  the story of a simple man who just wanted to have family members come by for some bible study only to find the iron heel of the state grinding his religious liberty into a fine powder.

The truth, of course, rather different:

Michael Salman’s dispute with Phoenix dates to at least 2007, when, he claims in a video posted online, the city began harassing him and his wife as they tried to build a 2,000-square-foot game room adjacent to their home on their 1.5-acre property near 35th and Northern avenues.
“The only people who came to our home were family and friends,” Salman said in a video posted online before he reported to jail this week. “Our home was not open to the public; it was private.”
Information presented at Salman’s criminal trial directly contradicted his claim, however. For example, a private investigator testified that he was not acquainted with the Salmans when he attended the church and saw 40 or 50 people in attendance during regular services and 20 or 30 additional worshipers for special occasions such as baptisms.
Salman and his wife have not paid taxes on the property since an inspector from the Maricopa County Assessor’s Office approved Salman’s request to have the property classified as a church in 2008.

What awful things are demanded of the tax free church? That it not be up to code. Really much ado about nothing. How do we know that it really is much ado about nothing? Because I originally read about this grave threat to religious liberty here, the gist of which is still available here.

That's right the NRO realized it had been had and consequently scrubbed the story rather than apologize for trying to turn molehills into mountains.

The Tour

I was watching the Stage today and when Evans went on the attack Paul and Phil immediately hailed it as a "brilliant" maneuver. I check the stage profile and decided that it was a desperate move by a leader and team that recognized they were over matched. It was nearly Vino attacks in its breathtaking optimism. Evans would have had to be strong enough to stay away for the majority of the remaining mountains, he wasn't. Wiggins would have had to panic and tried to cover a deranged move, he didn't. Evans decision was as nearly breath-takingly stupid as Volckler's decision to go with Contrador last year.

What the attack and the stage did, however, show was that the idea that, as Armstrong used to say, that the Tour was an old man's game is false. Both Wiggins and Evans could have and should have been beaten by their younger and stronger teammates.

What happens next is, I think, the reason this largely leaderless tour is going to be so interesting. Also, can anyone explain what Jens' previous two attacks mean in terms of Radio Shacks  "strategy" for the rest of the tour. I would have been glad to see him win but it made no sense.

And also too it look to me like Volckler could hardly walk after his stage victory. Bets on his withdrawal?