Congrats to Boonen on #3

I have known about, read about and followed the results of The Paris-Roubaix race for years. Yesterday was the first time I sat down and watched coverage of this classic cycling event on TV.

One word: Insane!

This isn't a race where the peloton cruises down the road all day swallowing up the occasional breakaway. Paris Roubaix is brutal madness. The racers are absolutely hammering down narrow, muddy, cobblestone roads that would make you slow down in your SUV. There were bikes and bodies flying everywhere. This race is nicknamed "The Hell of the North" for good reason.

A couple of pics from years past:
Hincapie wearing the road. I wonder how much of that mud is pigshit.


Yes, that's Bobke in the ditch!

Yesterday Tom Boonen simply powered away from the field in an impressive win. I am sure the folks at Specialized are licking their chops about the ad campaign they are about to unleash.

Finally got a ride in

I managed to kick off my five day weekend with an all day long splitting headache on Friday. Because of the icepick like pain in my noggin, I decided to abandon my plans to take the Enduro out for a spin before taking it over to Q's place to replace a very worn out headset. I guess I can be happy when a part like that lasts for eight years, it only connects the fork to the bike-nothing major.

So around 8 I headed over to Q's tool filled garage and we started our little project (ie-excuse to have a few beers). The install went nice and smooth and the old warhorse now has a nice new Cane Creek headset. Funny thing-after a couple of beers the headache was gone.

Today was another nice Minnesota spring day so I went tooling around St Louis Park, Hopkins and Minnetonka enjoying the sunshine while cursing my lack of stamina caused by a winters worth of hibernation...err...beer drinking.



Took the hounds out for a walk but kept it short because Surly got the old snip snip on Thursday. He seems to be doing fine. It probably hasn't sunk in yet ;)

Italian ArtCrank?

Pic from an artist's show in the Forteza in Montalcino. All of the paintings were cycling related.

Back

Got back from Italy late Friday after about 22 hours of travel. We went from views like this:



To views like this that greeted us this morning:



To say it is a bit of a letdown would be an understatement. I was hoping to get in a bike ride today. I don't think that is going to happen. Soon? Maybe? Please?

Bravo

Obama repeals stem cell research ban

One of many needed steps to get science out of the theocratic jail cell imposed by Bush and his religious whackjob masters.

Watchmen

Saw it. Its good. Go see it!

It’s been a while…

To make up for my lack of posts-which I am sure has my bazillions of readers furious-I figure I’ll just wing it and put something up, even though I have no idea where I am going with this.

Last night the lovely wife and I went and picked over the carcass of the nearest Circuit City. Not much left folks. We walked out with a Samsung digital camera (L100) for $75. Nothing fancy, but I have wanted a “little” camera for a while now. Something a little less obtrusive and obvious. There is hardly anything left in the store. I never liked CC that much, but it is kind of sad seeing a company that employs thousands nationwide go belly up.

I still want a DSLR.

How about that Rush Limbaugh? The Republican Party has always portrayed themselves as the tough guys compared to the wimpy Democrats. With that in mind, it is quite funny watching them quake in fear at the feet of one of the worlds most obnoxious windbags. Over on MNPublius a commenter actually had the gall to defend Rush as an “honorable” man. Of course this commenter’s website loudly proclaims “Whites Only”. I fail to see what is honorable about constant streams of hate, misinformation and outright lies.

I think we just may be seeing a party dying before our very eyes-at least as we know it. The Republican Party’s entire economic philosophy has been shown to be, for lack of a better word, wrong. The concept of supply side economics and trickle down that they have clung to since Reagan started the bankrupting of America has been definitively shown to NOT FRIGGIN WORK. Contrary to their claims, doing everything they could to benefit the wealthy has not helped the middle class at all. Right now the Republicans have nothing to offer except obstruction and America seems to be in on the secret:

Obama’s favorability rating is at 68% (an all-time high in our survey), 67% say they feel more hopeful about his leadership, 60% approve of his job in the White House, and 49% have a positive view of the Democratic Party (which is also near a high). On the other hand, just 26% view the GOP positively (an all-time low in the poll), respondents blame Bush and congressional Republicans for most of the partisanship in DC, 56% think the GOP’s opposition to Obama is based on politics, and Republicans lose by nearly 30 percentage points on the question about which party would do a better job of leading the country out of recession.

NBC/WSJ poll

The party of Reagan has been reduced to groveling to a fat, drug addicted egomaniac. Sweet. Bobby Jindal getting caught in a flat out lie in the party’s response to Obama’s speech didn’t help.

It seems that Republicans have been having a contest to see just who can be the most hypocritical. A couple of fine examples:

• Mitch McConnell criticizes the stimulus bill as a “spending binge” even though it contains over 51 million in earmarks added by some guy named Mitch McConnell.
• Orrin Hatch, Sam Brownback, Chuck Grassley, John Cronyn, Jeff Sessions, James Inhofe, Tom Coburn, and Pat Roberts sign a letter saying they will filibuster judicial nominees not to their liking. These same folks previously said that filibustering judicial nominees was unconstitutional. I guess they meant that filibustering a republican President’s judicial nominees is unconstitutional. If the nomination is made by a Democrat it is TOTALLY DIFFERENT!

How is this for scary? The Bush administration seriously considered suspending the First Amendment. Gotta love the GOP. Massive critics of big Government that have no issues with the government being able monitor, imprison and torture the people at will with no interference from that pesky judicial system.

Congrats to Levi Leipheimer on his third consecutive victory at the Amgen Tour of California. Team Astana had three riders finish in the top ten, including some guy named Lance Armstrong. Impressive.


Evolutionary biologist, author and pain in the ass to religious wingnuts Richard Dawkins is in town tonight at the Northrup. Go check it out if you can.

That’s all for now.