No Mellow Johnny for you!

When I saw Cadel Evans start sprinting in todays stage of the tour the first thought I had was : what a dick. He seems to be a few cards short of a full deck; while I applaud his willingness to attack he is certainly not making friends. 1st he pissed off his breakaway companions by trying to push up the gap 2 days earlier and then he sprinted the Yellow jersey group on todays stage.

To the casual observer this may seem savvy. But the thing is he may have gotten a few extra seconds from the break, but the part he doesn't understand is that by getting greedy for time he risked Postal, CSC and everyone else chasing the break down. And after letting Armstrong and Basso do all the work today he just pissed them off by sprinting them for a placing that gave him nothing.

Short term gain? Yes. But the next time Armstrong or Basso attack, they are likely to do it when cadel is going back for food or out of position. Other riders won't work with him. It just isn't smart. And unless you are one of the few like Armstrong or Big Eddy you can't win the tour if people don't want you to win.

Dori Monson: Liar

Still waiting for any actual support for the contention that traffic studies were falsifed. No one, including your own station seems to have published anything on the story. Maybe because it's not true?

Let's be honest with ourselves

Rove won't go. This mock indignation about how he has damaged the integrity of the White House is sad. This White House has no integrity and we know it. That includes it's supporters, who may be engaging in a extensive game of self denial or outright apathy towards it, but are nonetheless deep down aware that the foundation is made of bullshit (in the technical sense).

Let's quit pretending that we are shocked or that we are appealing to some higher standard of morality. Let's just be direct and say that we hope Rove went too far and that the administration needs to be held accountable.

And then let's hope that the Administration's decision not to do anything wakes a few more people up. Which it won't. Because it's not that they don't know what's going on; it's the don't want to know.

Sad

The first thing I noticed about the London attacks is the lack of coverage or buzz. Air America and NPR, those supposedly weak-kneed liberal stations, were giving good coverage. But MSM was giving updates mixed with mostly normal news. And no one was taling about it at the coffee shop.

Maybe I am wrong, but my impression is that when 9-11 happened everyone was in shock around the world. They were aghast and trully felt for America. Of course American's response to someone else's pain is either a lack of concern or repeated recollections of our tragedy.

What I expected.

Based on my experience with the owner's other business venture I agree 100% with Steve Kelley. Specifically, this quote rings true of my last 2 years at The Big S: It is the Sonics who weren't loyal to McMillan. They didn't get him players when he asked for help. They didn't honor his success at the end of this season. They played up his love for Seattle and figured they could lowball him because of that love.'

Prior to that there was a real loyalty in both directions. The pay was lower the market but there was a open knowledge that we recieved many benefits both tangible and intangible to make up for it. In the end though, those benefits shrank but pay didn't increase until SOP became the same as we saw with McMillan. It's sad and is exactly what I expected. The only surprise to me is Ray Allen's resigning.

Why should McMillan stay? If fans are angry they should direct that ire at Howard and ownership. They chose not to show Nate loyalty by resigning him. Maybe he didn't deserve it on the record, but my point is that they made a business decision that showed no special loyalty and expecting him to do differently knowing how they operate is somewhat onesided.

The other issue I have with the argument I've heard that Nate didn't show the ability to coach the Sonics to the playoffs until this year misses the fact that Sonic's management is paid to evaluate talent, Nate included. If they didn't see this as possible then you have to question their ability.

Ooops...

Give him credit for the good he does, but don't let it make up for the questionable antics.

We're going to lose.

I don't just agree with Paul Krugman that we should leave Iraq. We have to leave. This won't be a popular sentiment because so many Republican's live in a fantasy land, but we have to get out of Iraq. Why? Because if we stay we will lose. The bottom line is there is now an insurgency that has real staying power and we don't have the manpower to defeat it.

I supported the war, but learned a valuble lesson. The Bush administartion can be counted on doing 2 things: misleading you about their goals and being incompetent.

The reality on the ground is that a large number of Iraqi's see us as an occupation force. For every good thing we do, our incompetent leadership makes sure there are 2 things to piss the locals off.

If we start pulling out now, we can at least try to leave the impression that we won and that we are leaving Iraq in the hands of the locals. It may even take the steam out some of the insurgency. If we stay, we will only fuel the insurgency and eventually will run out of troops. That will make the world more dangerous.

And before you flame me; I am not the one that got us here. The war was winable; our stated goals attainable. It was the lack of honesty and competency of the Neo-Cons that lost this war, aided and abbetted by moderate republican's who supported these policies out of party loyalty. Good job. Thanks to you our options now are all bad.