Silflay Hraka

Disappointing Discovery Channel promise Pyrenees attack - Cycling - Yahoo! Sports

“There will be attacks from the first stage in the Pyrenees. Even if the stage does not end at a summit, there will be a lot of possibilities,” the Belgian added.

Well, I guess that answers that question. The Tour de France enters the mountains for the first time tomorrow, but there was some question that the Discovery Team, a team that suffered in the individual time trial, would hold off on the attacks until Thursday’s stage 11. Tomorrow’s stage 10, while mountainous, doesn’t end atop the last climb. There is plenty of flat land for those who struggled up the hill to catch breakaways before the end of the race. Stage 11 ends at the top of the mountain, leaving those who break climbing the slopes without a chance to regain lost time.

Judging from Discovery Team Manager Johan Bruyneel’s comments, however, we should start seeing fireworks sooner rather than later. T-Mobile rider Serhiy Honchar wears the yellow jersey and is two minutes, ten seconds ahead of the nearest Discovery rider, Paolo Salvoldelli. I suspect Discovery isn’t as worried about him as they are about his teammate Andreas Kloden or Phonak’s Floyd Landis. Landis sits in second and is one minute behind Honchar in the general classification. Kloden is a minute and fifty seconds adrift and sits in 5th place. Both riders are strong threats to win the Tour.

Other riders that Discovery will look to attack include Vladimir Karpets, Cadel Evans, David Zabriskie, Christophe Moreau and Denis Menchov. Gerolsteiner’s Marcus Fothen sits in 9th and could be a threat, but he’s an unknown quantity to me at this point. So is his teammate Sebastian Lang. Carlos Sastre from CSC sits just ahead of Discovery rider George Hincapie and could be trouble too. I wonder if he’ll ride for David Zabriskie since Zabriskie is about 30 seconds ahead of him in the overall standings, however. I didn’t mention several well-placed T-Mobile riders for that reason. I think Michael Rogers and other T-Mo riders will burn themselves out for Kloden.

It should be an interesting stage. Besides watching for Discovery Team attacks, it’ll be interesting to see how Floyd Landis climbs now that he’s revealed he will have his hip replaced after the Tour. The guy has evidently been riding for two-plus years with a dead hip socket. I think that may be the toughest thing I’ve ever heard.

It probably also sets Landis up to win the whole thing. American riders with medical conditions have prospered on the Tour in the past. Greg Lemond recovered from a hunting accident to win his final Tour in 1989. Lance Armstrong recovered from testicular cancer to win seven Tours. It would be fitting for Landis to win the Tour with crushed hip.

The French would probably just accuse him of doping.

This from non-blogging brother and World of Warcraft victim, Black Sheep. Thanks, bro!

TheReligionofPeace.com - Islam: Making a True Difference in the World

God forbid we do so much as look at a Koran wrong, but it’s perfectly ok for Saudi religious police to burn Bible and beat Christians in front of their children.

From last Friday through yesterday, Saudi authorities engaged in a major crackdown involving a joint effort of standard police forces and Muttawa religious police. In the last couple of days the raids have spread from the capital, Riyadh. This is the largest crackdown in a decade by the religiously oppressive country.
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During the latest wave of arrests, Saudi authorities have been ransacking houses and destroying any Bibles found in the victims’ possession.
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On Saturday, May 28. 2005 at 8:30 p.m. Chittirical John Thomas (Passport # A9757690), an Indian national, was pulled from work in Riyadh by Saudi Muttawa authorities, dragged to his home, and beaten in front of his maid and 5 year-old son. The Muttawa gathered his Bible and all religious paraphernalia, and took 37 year-old Thomas to the Shemaissy Detention Center. Thomas’s wife, who is 5 months pregnant, has not heard from her husband since.

The problem isn’t that we have forces in the Middle East. It’s that our forces aren’t in enough of the the Middle East–and that the president would rather hold hands than smack them.

Organic Budweiser

Anheuser-Busch - you heard it right - is test-marketing organic beer.

It’s called Wild Hop Lager, available only in California.

It tastes about like you would expect, apparently.

Even with an open mind this beer is poor. Taking into account the deception that accompanies it onto the shelf this beer is a drain pour.

Yup.

When it comes to “adult beverages,” the unmistakable lesson drilled into kids’ heads is “don’t open the box.” Whatever you do, don’t drink. Period. End of discussion. So after 18 years of being told “no, no, no” under Mom and Dad’s roof, what’s the first thing Little Johnny does when he finally leaves the nest and flies off to college? Party time, baby!! Keg-ger! Keg-ger!

Like the 55 mph speed limit, all the alcohol laws do is make criminals out of millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens, and a good bit of is due to the way we phase-in adulthood over 5 years. License at 16, Draft at 18, alcohol at 21.

I’d split the difference, and make everything kick in at 18, regardless of the effects of alcohol use on the brain prior to the age of 21. The whole point of being an adult is to decide things for yourself, and it’s not like the information isn’t readily avaialble.

Furthermore, I’d legalize the use of alcohol by minors under adult supervision. Sure, some idiot would end up ruining or killing his kids, but a country shouldn’t pass laws restricting the freedom of its citizenry based on what idiots might do. Treat your citizens as if they are idiots, and idiots is what you’ll get.

And in too many cases, people press for these laws becuase it frees them from having to take responsibility for the situation. When confronted with a drunk 9 year old, it’s much easier to push responsibility off onto a nebulous state authority than to do something about it yourself.

Drink enough, and you’ll be blitzkrieged.

See if you can spot the Nazi Salutes.

And yes, it is still available.

At the World Cup.

Despite all the hype that Germany’s brothels would be unable to keep up with the demand, and amid stories that tens of thousands of women were being trafficked from poor countries to make up an apparent shortfall, the World Cup appears to have been a bit of a flop for the sex industry.

Svetlana, a prostitute from Omsk, remarked: “The fans were happier to celebrate with beer than sex.”

Paging Mr. Hendrix…..

How would you like to live your life like Martin Arostegui? The retired Miami-area physician holds the impressive record of landing and registering over 100 world-record fish in one year — 2004 — and also catching and releasing the heaviest fish on a fly tippet, a 385-pound lemon shark.
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All you need is to practice fly-fishing, learn how to cast accurately, then hook a large number of fish to get a feel for the “magic wand,” as some wags describe a fly-rod. When you’re done with that, stop by the nearest hardware store and purchase a deep wheelbarrow. You will need it to transport all the money necessary to chase one record after another.

Something for the boaters among us.

We probably caught 120 flounder for the week, but we had to wade through 10 short fish (under 14 inches) for every keeper that wound up in the frying pan. Most of those “shorts,” Dempsey assured me, would be keepers by the time September and October roll around.

Dempsey likes to fish sloughs with very sharp drop-offs on the sides, and he likes to fish the ones that line up with the prevailing southwest wind and the outgoing tide. That way, he said, you can position your boat along the upcurrent edge of the slough and make a long drift back toward the inlet, keeping your bait in productive water all the time. On days when the winds, tides and current don’t cooperate, you just do the best you can.