Oh Oh pick my

Why did Palin resign? Well I suspect K-Lo is right and it's some personal indistcretion (although it's is pretty awesome how this is always someone else's fault but I digress...). Here are my educated guesses:

1st Douche Todd banging some chick and/or dude
Mini-Sarah preggers again
Finally got the proof that Trig is not the emaculate conception Palin likes to pretend he is.

Ichiro to 3rd in the order

I keep hearing people suggesting Ichiro get moved to 3rd in the order... I suspect his tendency to get hits off infield hits he can run out that might be fielders choices if there were 2 on base might have something to do with it.

Thinking Strategically & UCI

I hope that Thomas Dekker's positive test for EPO was the result of indications that he is doping now and retesting the old samples was just a back door way of nailing him.

That's how I originally read the article but upon rereading I am not so sure:

"The UCI's request is based on two elements of evidence collected within the biological passport programme: Mr Dekker's haematological profile and a laboratory report indicating the detection of recombinant EPO in a urine sample.

"According to a panel of scientific experts, the haematological profile established from blood samples collected from Mr Dekker in 2008 and 2009 demonstrates convincing evidence of the use of the prohibited method of enhancement of oxygen transfer."

It was that suspicion of blood doping that prompted the UCI to have new tests on Dekker's 2007 urine sample.

The 24-year-old Dekker, who was slated to arrive in Monaco on Wednesday for Saturday's opening stage of the Tour, will be replaced on the Silence-Lotto roster by British rider Charley Wigelius.

Team manager Marc Sergeant was quick to point out that the alleged violation did not occur while Dekker was a member of the Silence-Lotto team.

"I am sorry this happened, of course," said Sergeant, "It's important to remember that this occurred when he was a member of Rabobank, but it still doesn't make the news any less disappointing."

Now Sergeant has every reason to try to deflect any responsibility onto Rabobank by trying to parse words. But if the samples examined by the UCI indicated blood doping in 2008 & 2009 then, in fact, the violation was on Lotto's watch.

On the otherhand, the UCI's statement could also mean that suspision was raised because 2007 tests showed significantly different results from 2008 & 2009. IOW, it's unclear whether the UCI is saying the current results indicated blood doping now or current results indicated he was clean now but had doped in the past.

If it is the later, then they have just created a perverse insentive to stay juiced.

I like porn.

Money lines are at 2:59....

PG PORN: High Poon | Girls | SPIKE.com

This may be the funniest thing I've seen in hours....

No one predicted

I wonder if anyone predicted housing prices would drop around 20% based on strict anlysis of historical rent:house price ratios. Oh wait, Paul Krugman did. Suck on that haters.

When's the movie?

Denying reality even when your own guy says your wrong

Apparently the Portland Trailblazers are shopping their product in the Seattle market in a bid to become our new "home team" and scheduled an exhibition game here.

This, predictibly, has re-opened the wound left by the departure of Seattle's own basketball team last year.

As basketball fans begin to relive the arguments of last year and attempt (again) to assign blame or send a message to the NBA I think it's important to keep a few things in mind.

1. The NBA is not basketball.
2. The NBA can have a shitty business model and there can still be a viable market for basketball.
3. Although a city's name is on the jersey, the NBA's stated position is that the team belongs to the owner and that the team has no civic responsibility
4. The NBA's stated position is that because of falling revenues city's need to be willing to subsidize teams on a season to season basis.
5. The NBA's business model is to attract customers, not fans.

I think a lot of the opinions / attitudes / feelings of local basketball fans are driven by a one-way delussion that the NBA actually cares if a team stays in a city. They don't. And the NBA readily admits this.

Eddie Bauer died years ago

Stupid article.

The upshot is that Teh Great Recession has put Eddie Bauer into Bankruptcy.

Eddie Bauer, like Toys R Us, Chrysler and Citibank, are *bad* businesses that have been kept alive for the last 8+ years because of the "free money" era loans/IPO/IPCap and accounting trickery. Teh Great Recession has just meant that the free money era is over and companies can't survive on borrowing. Except maybe Citibank, cause TARP is forever baby!

CNBC's Stupid Hurts My Brain

I don't watch CNBC on anything like a regular basis. So my sample size of programs there is pretty low. But it seems to be on in Bldg 36 24 x 7 and every once in awhile I find myself eating there and.. well I end up amazed by Teh Stupid.

Has anyone on that channel ever taken even a high school math class? I mean it's not just that they don't know what the frack they are talking about at a technical level. But they can barely put together a coherent thought or point from sentence to sentence.

In some ways I actually find it worse than Fox cause at least Fox is a party propoganda machine and does have a coherent world view.

Beyond that, the other thing I noticed is that every tease was marketed with apocolyptic rhetoric:

Iran's election were teased as "Is an Apocolyptic confrontation brewing in the most heavily armed region of the world"? "Will Obama destroy healthcare".

I agree with Yglesias: cable news along with talk radio is a real blight on our discource.

My life sentence is really a court order to let me go...

Both Cyclingnews and Velonews are reporting the results of Vino's appeal of his 2 year suspension by the UCI to CAS.

As I understand it, the case goes something like this:

1. Vinokourov tests positive at Le Tour
2. The Kazakh Federation, were Vino is licensed, issues a 1 year suspension
3. The UCI files an appeal with CAS claiming that the rules require a 2 year suspension
4. CAS rules in favor of the UCI and imposes a 2 year suspension.
5. CAS suspends the 1 year suspension issued by the Kazakh Federation pending review.

So how is this headlined at cyclingnews.com as "Vonokourov cleared to compete by CAS".

Uhh.. no he wasn't. The 2 year suspension was imposed. He can compete when it expires in July. The only way the headline kind of makes sense is if they are trying to say that CAS cut a year off his suspension by adding the UCI's 2 years to the Kazakh Fed's 1 year then subtracting the Kazakh Feds 1 year. But I don't think the argument before CAS was that both should be applied. The issue before them was simply whether the UCI had jurisdiction here. The suspension of the 1 year Kazakh Fed suspension is just housekeeping so that the Kazakh Fed can retract it.

Update I: Looks like cyclingnews reads my blog cause the old post has been disapeared from Teh Intertubes and replaced with a much better version entitle "Vinokourov ban confirmed by CAS"