CONTRATS TO MANN U AND SPAIN

MANN U - CHAMPIONS LEAGUE CHAMPIONS

SPAIN - EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS 2008

STEROIDS IN SPORTS?

Everyone is using performance enhancing drugs these days, lower cholesterol, overcoming depression, and hardening penises. If a middle aged man is willing to take a pill to increase his performance in bed and impress his wife/mistress, don't you think a professional baseball player might take a pill to increase his performance at the plate in front of 60,000 fans?

I do not advocate drug use in sports, but as long as we use drugs everywhere else, what chance do we have of eliminating it from the sporting venues?

And what about the Olympics? Brought to you by the Blue Pill...

Tour de France

Great Tour de France this year. Congrats to TEAM CSC, the yellow was truly a team victory this year.

Back to Politics

Barack Hussein Obama for President? There was a gasp from the crowd at Fox News...

Well, now that the Democrats and Republicans have chosen their horses, the gloves have come off. The Republican attack machine took a little while to warm up, and understandably so. You had to be careful attacking Hussein Obama. You might get called a racist, and if such a tag sticks in the 21st century, you are finished.

So the Republicans took a few jabs to see what would fly. The press is OK with: not patriotic,
elitist, presumptuous, inexperienced, untested. Never mind that all of these accusations have racist overtones. Accusing the Republican attack machine of racism would miss the point. The point is to destroy him, by any means necessary. If calling Obama a "racist cracker" would work, they would do it. Certainly the Republicans hope to connect with an unconscious sentiment that this uppity black man is getting too big for his britches. Hence, the suggestion that John McCain is an regular guy, Joe-average. This is simply a play out of the Clinton handbook. Recall that Hillary Clinton, product of an elite private school, former first lady and New York State Senator, was swilling beer and bourbon at the blue collar happy hour by the end of her campaign.

This is where it gets interesting. Anyone watching these days would note how truth is turned completely on its head in American presidential elections. Somehow, the son of a Navy Admiral, and life-time Washington politician and insider, is the Joe-average six-pack.

And the guy who was raised by a single mom, at times on welfare, is elitist.

Oddly, both Republicans and Democrats ought to be relieved that the other sides chose moderate politicians with records of rational decision making. But Republicans in particular have decided that only a scorched earth policy can play this season. They accuse Obama of being the most liberal politician in Washington DC, which is of course, non-sense. This is now simply the mantra of the Republicans before every presidential election. The Democrats could choose Hitler as their candidate and the Republicans would accuse him of being the most liberal Nazi of all time.

The real pity here is that the issues facing the nation are staggering, and a healthy debate of these issues would do wonders for the national psyche. Instead, the Republicans have decided to rely on these curious insinuations: he is presumptuous. Frankly, I am not even sure what that would mean in this context.

Steroids in baseball...no?

OK, who was really surprised to hear that athletes are willing to use performance enhancing drugs in order to earn millions of dollars playing a game? The only surprise here is that there appear to be one or two players who didn't use the drugs. They probably just didn't have the right connections.

In the early 1980's, HGH was popular with body builders because its reputation was that with the right training you could add 25 pounds of muscle mass to your body. The only knock on the drug was that it sometimes caused bones to re-calcify, which could mean your jaw would get bigger, you feet might get bigger, etc. See Tom Potts (1980's body builder and Barry Bonds 1990-2000's base-baller). Hands, feet, jaw, head, don't normally just grow in your thirties. Such growth is typically associated with an infusion of hormones that can have natural causes (pregnancy) and artificial causes (hormone replacement or supplement). Unless Barry and Tom were pregnant, they were probably supplementing body with hormones.

When the heat was applied, a few athletes decided to take the "high" road and admit their use. Jason Giambi was one of the first. Now their are more. And good for them. This doesn't make them heros, it makes them human. But no worries there. You can't be a hero by swinging a baseball bat or catching a football anyway. That is merely entertainment.

Still, in an industry that trades on pseudo-hero worship, we should credit those athletes who are willing to behave like human beings, take responsibility for their actions and move on.

For those who continue to lie in order to protect their pseudo-hero status, I can only hope that their fall from grace is as ignominious as their rise - on the foundation of illegal performance enhancing drugs.

To all the athletes out there, America doesn't really care if you used drugs. But lying to us just insults us, and we don't like to be insulted.

Pakistan

This is a tricky one for the Bush Administration. Pakistan's military dictatorship supports the US war on terror, even if they do give aid and comfort to Islamic Terrorist organizations. The same dictatorship also supports US investment in Pakistan. Although the US would like to see Pakistan become more democratic, they worry that strong support for the democratic movement in Pakistan might lead the dictatorship to further embrace Islamic Extremism. So, to protect their interests, the Bush administration is giving aid and comfort to the military dictatorship that is arresting thousands of Pakistan's citizens, suspending the constitution, and holding the opposition party in confinement.

Bush is not likely to walk away from this one smelling too good.

Immigration?

The senate just killed Bush's immigration package. I think we should all be pleased. Mind you, I support my Spanish speaking brothers from south of the border and welcome them to the USA. I am not sure that we should just open the borders, but neither do I support militarizing the borders.

Either way, I never trust the government to solve these problems. Furthermore, I like the idea of a huge black market economy in the country. Sure, it puts a strain on public services, but so does sending the military to foreign countries to kill people. On the whole, I think it is better to spend the money loving our neighbors than killing them. But hell, that whole love your neighbor thing has never really been taken seriously by anyone, has it?

Bush on Global Warming

President Bush says he plans to address the question of global emissions in an effort to reduce greenhouse gasses. Environmentalists are skeptical, because over the last 6 years Bush's administration has consistently rolled back environmental protection regulation and refused to participate in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

I am willing to give the President a chance on this issue. Perhaps he has had a change of heart on the question. Perhaps his daughters said, "Dad, your environmental policies will result in the destruction of the planet before you see your grandchildren."

Environmentalists distrust President Bush, and so should anyone who likes to breath clean air and drink clean water. But the question isn't President Bush, the question is the environment. If it is the environment hating President Bush that fixes the environment, so be it.

American Injustice

In California, a district attorney decided not to press charges against eight men from a college basketball team who gang raped a 17 year old girl. Though there were two witnessness, the DA decided he didn't have enough evidence.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta, a federal judge sentenced a woman to ten years in prison for stealing soft drink secrets from Coke. Federal Judge Forrester exceeded the prosecutions request for 63-78 month sentence and instead gave her 8 years. Judge Forrester said, "This is the kind of offense that cannot be tolerated in our society."

The Moral of the Story: If you gang rape a 17 year old girl, its OK, but if you steal the secret formula for a soda from international corporation you will do hard time and lots of it. What a great country.

America's Cup Racing

The Italians will tackle the Kiwis to compete for the America's Cup against the Swiss. The Swiss? Aye, the Swiss. Not a nation with a great sailing tradition, but for sure a well financed nation. The Swiss bought the Kiwi team five years ago and staged a curious victory. As there is no salt water in the lovely Swiss countryside, the Swiss decided to let the races occur in Spain.

Andiamo Luna Rossa!

AC Milan slips past Liverpool

AC Milan got some help from the Hand of Maradonna's God and a faulty stopwatch on the wrist of the referee. Still, Inzaghi's second goal was world class and was enough to ensure the Italian side would take home the cup.

No doubt Liverpool fans will wonder why the referee stopped the match about 45 seconds early, or why fan favorite Crouch didn't get into the game until the end, but the English side played a fairly good match, excluding the curious hands in the air defense that took the place of actually marking the players from Milan.

Bush Get's US out of Iraq War

Credit to George Bush for finally figuring a way out of Iraq. It was a stroke of genius, really. I wouldn't have thought him capable. He has insisted on a war budget that the Democrats in congress wont give him. So they will keep sending him budgets, he will veto them, the money will run out and the troops will come home. The Republican's can blame the Democrats for the retreat and failed financing of the war effort. The Democrats can blame the Republicans for failing to finance the war effort. It will be business as usual and Bush should get the credit for managing such a fine exit from the middle east.