July 2011 archive

Limoux to Montpellier 120 miles.

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

So Alberto gives up another 2 Seconds to Andy.  No big deal right?  He’ll make it up in the Time Trial.

Time ticks on filled with wouldas, shouldas, and couldas.

This was Contador’s bread and butter on his home court, there is no reason to expect it gets any better.  Who are the best of the rest?

Smart money is on the two Schlecks even though they’re not the trialers Alberto is reputed to be.  Cadel Evans- Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oy, Oy, Oy!  Basso.  Sammy Sanchez if you simply must root for a Spaniard (you Alonso fans know who you are).  Cunego is not too far behind.

But pretty much everyone else is and though the Alps are not very far away it’s the same legs as the Pyrenees.

A person who could surprise is Voeckler, he is after all actually wearing the maillot jaune and did much better than expected in the High Mountains.  He’s 1:40 clear of the competition and it could be a magical year for the Frenchman even though fairytales are usually found in the fiction section.

Today’s Stage is the last flat before Paris with just one piddly category 4 so you can expect a sprinter show.  The checkpoint is right before the finish and I expect that someone will gun for the double.

Tomorrow is the second rest day, but I’ll be posting on the results and setup for the Alps.  At 2:45 ET the U.S. Women’s Football Team will be competing for the World Cup against Japan on ESPN and unless some kind and more knowledgeable person posts first I’ll be covering that later.

Vs. joins in progress at 8 am.

• Jada Yuan Previews the Hell Out of the Tour de France in the New Yorker, 7/1/11 at 2:00 PM
• Le Tour 2011 official site
• Your The Stars Hollow Gazette Le Tour coverage tags-
• Le Tour
• Le Tour 2010
• Le Tour 2011

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: Guests: Director of the Office of Management and Budget Jacob Lew and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) discuss the stand-off over the debt ceiling in separate interviews.

The Roundtable with George Will, Cokie Roberts, Matt Dowd and senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl, as well as freshman Tea Party member Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) take a stab at the the problem.

Like you’re expecting a rational debate from this group?

The New Yorker’s media columnist Ken Auletta discusses the Murdoch Mess and 1999 World Cup star Brandi Chastain gives an analysis of today’s Women’s World Cup Final between the US and Japan.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer:The guests are Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) is at the negotiating table and brings us the latest from the talks; plus Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) give us their take.

Not a lot of balance there, Bob

The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent, John Heilemann, New York Magazine National Political Correspondent, Joe Klein, TIME Columnist and Gloria Borger, CNN Senior Political Analyst will discuss:

Big Irony: If the GOP Denies Barack Obama A Debt Package, Does It Boost Obama For 2012?

Michele Bachmann and Her Family Clinic’s Therapy For Gays

Meet the Press with David Gregory: Guests are Jacob Lew, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Assistant Majority Leader Sen. Dick Durbin(D-IL).

The roundatable discussion of the obvious with Ohio Governor John Kasich (R); Chairman and CEO of Honeywell, David Cote; former mayor of New Orleans, now president of the National Urban League, Marc Morial; Chief Economist for Mesirow Financial Diane Swonk; and CNBC’s David Faber.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Guest will include a very busy man, Jacob Lew, Sen. Lindsey (don’t trust me, I lie) Graham (R-SC), former New York City mayor Rudy(9/11, 9/11) Giuliani, former Biden chief of staff, Ron Klain, and former GOP Rep. Tom Davis.

Fareed Zakaris: GPS: Guests are Larry (I help create this mess)Summers.

I strongly suggest getting your coffee and breakfast and join us while we Live Blog the 15th Stage of Le Tour de France at 8:00 AM EDT.

When in doubt . . . Wash

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Obama welcomes Dalai Lama to China’s anger

By Shaun Tandon, AFP

1 hr 2 mins ago

GOING DIGITAL

A communications ministry survey revealed that, for the first time in 29 years, the number of landline phone subscriptions fell below 40 million.

At the same time, the “penetration rate” of mobile phones in Japan has reached 96.8 percent.

It was reported that the communications ministry has set up 160 temporary call centers in 44 prefectures around the country to help people deal with the changeover from analog to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting, scheduled for July 24.

Meanwhile, sales of flat-panel TVs are skyrocketing ahead of the changeover. Stores are reporting sales 250 percent higher than a year ago.

Other hot items this summer include electric fans, whose sales have jumped 4.5-fold compared to last year.

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

The season for freshly picked cherries is short, usually no longer than a month. And in most parts of the country, that month is July.

Like other dark red, blue and purple fruits and vegetables, cherries contain anthocyanins, phytonutrients that some experts believe may help reduce inflammation and may have antioxidant properties.

Because cherries are ripe when they’re picked, this is one fruit that will be sweet and juicy whether you buy it at a supermarket or a farmers’ market.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Robert Reich: The Rise of the Wrecking-Ball Right

Recently I debated a conservative Republican who insisted the best way to revive the American economy was to shrink the size of government. When I asked him to explain his logic he said, simply, “government is the source of all our problems.” When I noted government spending had brought the economy out of the previous eight economic downturns, including the Great Depression, he disagreed. “The Depression ended because of World War Two,” he pronounced, as if government had played no part in it.

A few days later I was confronted by another conservative Republican who blamed the nation’s high unemployment rate on the availability of unemployment benefits. “If you pay someone not to work, they won’t,” he said. When I pointed out unemployment benefits couldn’t possibly be the cause of joblessness because there are now about five job seekers for every job opening, he scoffed. “Government always makes things worse.”

Government-haters seem to be everywhere.

Congressional Republicans, now led by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, hate government so much they’re ready to sacrifice the full faith and credit of the United States in order to shrink it.

Fred Branfman: If McCain Had Won

Democrats were united on one issue in the 2008 presidential election: the absolute disaster that a John McCain victory would have produced. And they were right. McCain as president would clearly have produced a long string of catastrophes: He would probably have approved a failed troop surge in Afghanistan, engaged in worldwide extrajudicial assassination and kidnapping, destabilized nuclear-armed Pakistan, failed to bring Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to the negotiating table, expanded prosecution of whistle-blowers, sought to expand executive branch power, failed to close Guantanamo, failed to act on climate change, pushed both nuclear energy and a “nuclear weapons renaissance,” opened new areas to domestic oil drilling, failed to reform the financial sector enough to prevent another financial catastrophe, supported an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich, ignored the poor, and failed to lower the jobless rate.

Nothing reveals the true state of American politics today more, however, than the fact that Democratic President Barack Obama has undertaken all of these actions and, even more significantly, left the Democratic Party far weaker than it would have been had McCain been elected. Few issues are more important than seeing behind the screen of a myth-making mass media, and understanding what this demonstrates about how power in America really works-and what needs to be done to change it.

Saint-Gaudens to Plateau de Beille 105 miles

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

Our last day in the Pyrenees and the last chance for some riders to make a statement.

Not that I’m expecting for Contador to pack it in, just that there are those who will look ahead to the Alps and decide to spare themselves.  We had 4 withdrawals yesterday including Kloden of Radio Shack.

Speaking of surprises, I’m not sure who would have predicted a Hushovd Stage win and Gilbert finished unexpectedly high.  There was a huge group of 54 that tied for twelfth with another 30 riders 15 Seconds behind so you might argue the deltas don’t make a difference.

Today’s Stage is all up and down with a category 3, two category 2s, two category 1s and we finish on an unclassified (though the last 100 yards is pretty flat).

After this we have a flat day (last one except the Champs Elysees finish) and then there is no rest for the wicked though there is for the riders before we attack the Alps and finish with the Individual Time Trial and parade.

Too early coverage on Vs. starts at 6:30 am.

• Jada Yuan Previews the Hell Out of the Tour de France in the New Yorker, 7/1/11 at 2:00 PM
• Le Tour 2011 official site
• Your The Stars Hollow Gazette Le Tour coverage tags-
• Le Tour
• Le Tour 2010
• Le Tour 2011

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on images to enlarge

July 16 is the 197th day of the year (198th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 168 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1945, at 5:29:45 a.m., the Manhattan Project comes to an explosive end as the first atom bomb is successfully tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one…

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Bhagavad Gita

J. Robert Oppenheimer

Plans for the creation of a uranium bomb by the Allies were established as early as 1939, when Italian emigre physicist Enrico Fermi met with U.S. Navy department officials at Columbia University to discuss the use of fissionable materials for military purposes. That same year, Albert Einstein wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt supporting the theory that an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction had great potential as a basis for a weapon of mass destruction. In February 1940, the federal government granted a total of $6,000 for research. But in early 1942, with the United States now at war with the Axis powers, and fear mounting that Germany was working on its own uranium bomb, the War Department took a more active interest, and limits on resources for the project were removed.

Brigadier-General Leslie R. Groves, himself an engineer, was now in complete charge of a project to assemble the greatest minds in science and discover how to harness the power of the atom as a means of bringing the war to a decisive end. The Manhattan Project (so-called because of where the research began) would wind its way through many locations during the early period of theoretical exploration, most importantly, the University of Chicago, where Enrico Fermi successfully set off the first fission chain reaction. But the Project took final form in the desert of New Mexico, where, in 1943, Robert J. Oppenheimer began directing Project Y at a laboratory at Los Alamos, along with such minds as Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, and Fermi. Here theory and practice came together, as the problems of achieving critical mass-a nuclear explosion-and the construction of a deliverable bomb were worked out.

It hardly matters at this point.  Barack Obama has said in so many words that he’s perfectly willing to let the U.S. Government default on our National Debt unless he gets cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Even after the Republicans have capitulated on these issues.

It is no wonder that he loses to ‘generic Republican’ by 8 points.  People who claim to believe in ‘Electoral Victory’ are lying to you.

Obama is ensuring he is a one term failure by rushing to enact his Republican agenda with the complicity of corporatists who wear a D only because it’s convenient.  His highly paid and constantly wrong (2010) consultants contend ‘not as scary as that guy over there’, combined with ‘I’m a blind partisan’ will defeat the truth of ‘I don’t care about you’.

Barack Obama doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you and by the way clap harder for the Confidence Fairy, Invisible Bond Vigilantes, and Tinkerbell, otherwise you’ll die.

And so that’s where I’d have a selling job, Chuck, is trying to sell some of our party that if you are a progressive, you should be concerned about debt and deficit just as much as if you’re a conservative. And the reason is because if the only thing we’re talking about over the next year, two years, five years, is debt and deficits, then it’s very hard to start talking about how do we make investments in community colleges so that our kids are trained, how do we actually rebuild $2 trillion worth of crumbling infrastructure.

If you care about making investments in our kids and making investments in our infrastructure and making investments in basic research, then you should want our fiscal house in order, so that every time we propose a new initiative somebody doesn’t just throw up their hands and say, “Ah, more big spending, more government.”

It would be very helpful for us to be able to say to the American people, our fiscal house is in order. And so now the question is what should we be doing to win the future and make ourselves more competitive and create more jobs, and what aspects of what government is doing are a waste and we should eliminate. And that’s the kind of debate that I’d like to have.

It’s hard to figure out exactly what his motivations are since his policy doesn’t make any kind of sense at all, even for rich people.  When ‘The Great Hair Cut’ takes place it will be all about deleveraging that $600 Trillion of Derivative Notional Value in the Shadow Markets.

Why?  Because there’s no place else to get the ‘money’.  It’s at least 10 times the ‘book value’ of all the World’s goods and services annually.  So while the slave owner may starve and whip his chattel, and force them to sleep naked in the cold, there is only so much blood in the turnip.

Bootlickers think they will somehow survive I suppose, who can have enough jesters and toadies?  Having been Capo di Tutti I’ll tell you they’re the first on the list.  They’ll continue to suck up anyway seeking to worm their way back into favor (see Pavlov).

Frankly it’s co-dependent behavior.  I’ve seen enough abusive relationships to know and I have an opinion- toleration is complicity.

How then to have an impact?

I call you to a life of resistance in the small and easily done things.  Move your money.  Use cash when you can.  Turn off your lights when you leave the room and properly inflate your tires.

I don’t think any amount of complaints will convince the Tsar he has bad councilors, but it’s certainly a minimum.  I do think that only votes get counted and I encourage you to do so early and often.  The thing about shunning is that it’s critically important that it be public and express the clear disapproval of the community.

Their guilty souls can’t stand that, witness the howls of outrage.