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Thursday, Jul 29, 2004
In Which the AP Goes Bicycling With a Very Manly President
or
Stop that Meme!
Mountain-biker Bush takes fallBy Scott LindlawThe Associated Press |
Gosh Scotty, did you say mountain? Mountain??! I've been in Waco, and I just have to ask, what in the name of sweet Jebus are you talking about? Yes, Scotty, there are mountains in Texas, 450 miles from Waco, which by the way, is located in a geographical feature known as the Great Plains. Perhaps I should take a moment to introduce Scotty, our intrepid reporter, to the incomparable map database at the Perry-Castañeda Library.
And Scotty, we're not done with the maps yet. We'll get back to that topic at the end.
| Crawford, Texas - President Bush charged up punishing climbs and down steep dirt paths on his high-performance bike today, at one point landing flat on his back. |
Flat on his back? What a coincidence, Scotty, just like our economy!
| The president dusted himself off from his fall on a treacherous descent, waved his medics away and kept rolling, a small cut on his knee and dirt on his back the only signs he had wrecked. He allowed that he was a bit shaken up. |
Oh, Scotty, he's so manly. Can you stand it? How do you restrain yourself?
|
Bush's new hobby is a way to get his heart rate up and spend time outdoors without aggravating his achy knees. With an Associated Press reporter riding with him, Bush pedaled to remote corners of his 1,600-acre ranch. |
Ooooo, ooooo, Scotty, is that "reporter" you?! All the other boys must be sooo jealous.
| Bush has been riding the knobby-tired bikes since February, and he rides with abandon. |
With abandon? Just like he wages unnecessary war, Scotty?
|
He takes on dangerous sections that would give veterans pause.
He keeps a cramp-inducing pace on long uphill sections, panting hard by the time he reaches each peak, backing off a little to recover and then attacking the next hill. He pants hard, emitting low "hrrr, hrrr, hrrr" grunts with each stroke of the pedals, his shoulders bobbing up and down. |
Oh Scotty, that is just so manly! The attacking and the panting and the bobbing and the grunting! You must have been beside yourself with manly appreciation for his manliness!
| Over an 18-mile ride that lasted an hour and 20 minutes, ... |
Oh my goodness, Scotty, did you say 13.5 miles per hour? Why that's only slightly less than Lance Armstrong's 25 mph average speed during his 2000 Tour de France victory, which covered 2,200 miles, including several mountain passes in the Pyrenees and the French Alps. Wow, 13.5 mph is really somewhat, ah, ordinary. But manly in its own way nonetheless.
| ... he burns about 1,200 calories and his heart rate reaches 168 beats per minute. That's about four times his resting rate and in the same range as Lance Armstrong's when the six-time Tour de France winner is pedaling hard. |
Gosh, speaking of coincidences, my car has four tires, just like Michael Schumacher's world championship Ferrari! Wow! Our Dear Leader is just like Lance, and I'm just like Michael.
| "At my age, you're more concerned about the cardiovascular" benefits of a workout, the 58-year-old president said. Mountain biking, he said, has a certain "mind-clearing" effect on him, as well. |
"Mind clearing"? Gosh, I just can't imagine.
|
His bike is one of the best in the business: a Trek Fuel 98 made of space-age carbon fiber. The frame is adorned with high-tech components that Bush professes to know little about, including a motorcycle-style front and rear suspension that soaks up big bumps.
List price: about $3,100. He had it specially fitted by a Washington bicycle retailer. "My right knee has finally had it," Bush said. "Running is really a painful experience for me now." "I was looking for a different way to get outside and get exercise," Bush said. "Swimming is outside exercise, but you don't get the feeling of the wind rushing past you, nor can you swim your favorite piece of property." Swimming does not offer countless ways to get injured either. Crashes are routine in mountain biking, and Bush has been baptized with a few wrecks. |
Yes, he crashes because he's manly, not because he's a spaz.
|
On May 22, he lost traction on a dirt road, scraping his chin, upper lip, nose, right hand and both knees. The next day, a Secret Service agent riding behind him slammed onto the ground at high speed on a paved section, breaking his collarbone and three ribs.
Bush approaches steep downhills warily. In the moments before today's crash, he warns his riding party of a sharp drop and a hard left turn ahead. "I'm gonna show you a hill that would choke a mule," he says. |
Mmmm ... choked mule. Maaannnly.
| He hits the brakes and is steadily advancing downhill when his front tire loses its grip amid the loose rocks. His foot gets stuck in a strap that keeps it on the pedal. |
See, Scotty, it wasn't his fault, it was that dastardly strap. Probably French, if you ask me.
|
In the blink of an eye, his rear wheel is in the air, and Bush is flying high over the handlebars, landing on his back with the bike on top of him.
He lies motionless for a few moments. The reporter hoists the bike off him just as his medics arrive to attend to him. |
Gosh Scotty, your heart must have been in your throat. How frightening! I hope you didn't hurt yourself hoisting that carbon-fiber prairie-bike.
|
There are trees and a drop-off nearby, and the road is littered with rocks, but Bush is uninjured.
A reflector has snapped off the bike. He leaves it as a warning marker for next time. Bush straightens out his handlebars, throws a leg over the bike and keeps rolling. "We've got thrills, spills - you name it," he says. But he is tentative descending the remainder of the downhill section, dabbing a foot on the ground as he goes. |
Well, sometimes tentativeness goes before manliness.
|
He jokes that he was leading the "peleton," the rolling swarm of bicyclists in races like the Tour de France - a race he watched regularly this month before Armstrong's victory Sunday.
"I was cautious of my fellow bikemen, I didn't want to cut anybody off and drive them into the canyon," Bush says with a smile. "So I slowed down and because I slowed down, I lost inertia and tumbled." |
Well, that ... um ... makes a lot of sense. When he "slowed down", he lost "inertia." And then our Dear Leader went over the handlebars because he was being careful. Uh, yeah, that's it.
But, wait, Scotty! Don't forget the dastardly French strap of treachery!
| Bush loves showing off his ranch, and he takes his guests - and the Secret Service agents who ride with him, pistols bulging through their shirts - to rarely visited corners of it. |
Oh, Scotty, please don't mention their bulges. That's just too manly to speak of.
|
Today's ride takes his entourage past the new office that contractors are close to finishing, a 2,500-square-foot structure with a stone facade and lots of windows where he says he will probably practice his convention speech next month. He slips at first, saying he will practice his inauguration speech there.
A 50-acre patch of newly turned black earth will serve as the field where Laura Bush cultivates blue stem flowers that she plans to distribute. In one remote section, cattle stare back at him as he rides a path littered with cow dung. |
What's a ranchette without a few cattle?
| Bush is here unwinding during the Democratic National Convention and before the home stretch of his re-election campaign, and he has spent the morning in meetings, some of them concerning the recommendations of the independent Sept. 11 commission. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice arrives today afternoon to talk about it. |
Oh good, because when our Dear Leader and Ms. Rice get together, the country can't help but become safer. Perhaps she's going to read him a nice story, like "Bin Laden Still Determined to Attack Inside the United States, Because You Let Him Get Away in Tora Bora, You Fucking Dipshit!"
|
But the ride is officially a politics-free zone, and Bush doesn't want to talk business. He swats away questions about what his ad man, Mark McKinnon, is doing on the ranch. He declines to talk about the commission.
When the reporter points out that Democrat John Kerry has a $8,000 road bicycle, Bush says, "Who?" |
Wow, Scotty, that certainly was "politics free." There's nothing political at all about manly appreciation of our manly Dear Leader and his manly exertion. By the way Scotty, I promised to show more maps -- topographical this time.
I hate to be the one that bursts your bubble, but this is not what "punishing climbs" look like ...
This is what punishing climbs look like, Scotty boy ...
So Scotty, if you wanted to be punished by a manly man, I'm afraid you've been sold a bill of goods.
Monday, Jul 26, 2004
More on Chapter 8: "The System Was Blinking Red"
| Tenet told us that in his world “the system was blinking red.” By late July, Tenet said, it could not “get any worse.”30 Not everyone was convinced. Some asked whether all these threats might just be deception. On June 30, the SEIB contained an article titled “Bin Ladin Threats Are Real.”Yet Hadley told Tenet in July that Deputy Secretary of Defense PaulWolfowitz questioned the reporting. Perhaps Bin Ladin was trying to study U.S. reactions. Tenet replied that he had already addressed the Defense Department’s questions on this point; the reporting was convincing. |
Studying our reactions, Dr. Paul?
| On August 3, the intelligence community issued an advisory concluding that the threat of impending al Qaeda attacks would likely continue indefinitely. Citing threats in the Arabian Peninsula, Jordan, Israel, and Europe, the advisory suggested that al Qaeda was lying in wait and searching for gaps in security before moving forward with the planned attacks. |
Yes, Dr. Paul, they sure as hell went to school on you and your cohorts in incompetence.
Free Speech Zones
While wandering the UT Austin campus one day circa 1980, I came across a plaque, dated from the late sixties, proclaiming that a particular area, just west of the tower, was a "Free Speech Zone."
I saw it as an historical artifact of a time when students could find more to protest than the clearly illogical configuration of the escalators in the Math and Sciences building. It harkened back to a time when students, en masse, raised their voices about serious national and international issues. Looking at it, I felt something similar to what I felt looking at the old North Church in Boston.
That sepia-toned nostalgia was quickly replaced by outrage. This little patch of pavement is the "Free Speech Zone"? What the fuck is that all about? I thought the whole country was a free speech zone. Hell, this is supposed to be a university. If the entire campus isn't a free speech zone, something is seriously wrong. Perhaps I should have railed about it in one of my occasional letters/op-eds in the Daily Texan. But I didn't.
Now this speech zoning concept seems to have caught up to the rest of the country. Anti-shrub speech is confined to areas that won't offend the shrub. People have been arrested for nothing more than anti-shrub statements on their clothing. The so-called Free Speech Zone at the Democratic convention in Boston is a maximum security detention center.
If this nonsense isn't challenged, it will quickly become established law. Patrick Henry didn't say, "Give me a patch of pavement surrounded by razor wire in which I can hold aloft a banner of some sort, or give me death."
From the Archives at Jesus' General
Duct Tape and Plastic Sheets
OK, I've wrapped my trailer up three times now and each time, I've had to use my survival knife to cut my way back inside. Does anyone know how to effectively secure a trailer against a terrorist attack while still allowing for an entrance?
posted by Gen. JC Christian, Patriot | 11:23 PM
Saturday, Jul 24, 2004
Another Letter the WSJ Won't Publish
Dear Sirs and Manly Men:
I am 100% behind you guys on the Philippines' Reganesque caving to terrorrist demands (Opinion, July 23). Everything was peachy keen in Iraq, and these ingrates have to go Cheney up the whole deal. I've had it with these damn Filipinos and their leaving-Iraq-a-couple-of-weeks-earlier-than-they-would-have-anyway attitude. As you rightly point out, Iraq has turned into a steaming pile of chaos, and it's all their fault. I think the only solution is to re-colonize the Philippines. This "democracy" experiment just isn't working out.
heterosexually yours,
&c.
apologies to Jesus' General for pinching his closing line
more fun with the WSJ
limited government, my ass
Deputy Secretary of What the Fuck?
|
Tenet told us that in his world "the system was blinking red." By late July (2001,) Tenet said, it could not "get any worse." Not everyone was convinced. Some asked whether all these threats might just be deception. On June 30, the SEIB contained an article titled "Bin Ladin Threats Are Real." Yet Hadley told Tenet in July that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz questioned the reporting. Perhaps Bin Ladin was trying to study U.S. reactions. Tenet replied that he had already addressed the Defense Department's questions on this point; the reporting was convincing.
9/11 Commission Report, chapter 8, page 259 |
And for old times sake ...
seen at Sadly, No!
9-11 Commission Final Report
previous in series of Dr. Paul's Words of Wisdom
Friday, Jul 23, 2004
Dr. Dirty Paul
"I don't have any idea of what we're trying to do out here. I don't know what the (goal) is, and I don't think our commanders do either," he said. "I feel deceived personally. I don't trust anything (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld says, and I think (Deputy Defense Secretary Paul) Wolfowitz is even dirtier."read more
Staff Sgt. A.J. Dean
Plagiarism
stolen from Spectre AWOL
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Humor
Some random funny pictures I came across today, in no particular order.
Department of Corrections
It was brought to our attention that there were a couple of typos in the previous post. An exhaustive search of all the postings this calendar year has revealed another unfortunate set of typos. We regret any confusion or invasions caused by this egregious error.
Peace is Bush's new war cry
Reuters via The Age
By Adam Entous
Cedar Rapids
July 22, 2004
After launching two wars in his first term, US President George Bush says he wants to be a "peace president".
Original Posting: Ima ... Ima ... Ima ... 'splain
Wednesday, Jul 21, 2004
Stickers, Bumper, Republican
Cafe Press anyone?
full bleed, before cropping
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Monday, Jul 19, 2004
Well, We Know It's Not JimL ... This Time
Via South Knox Bubba ...
About $40 in chips and $7 in nacho cheese were stolen from the snack bar, police said.
Be Afraid
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Saturday, Jul 17, 2004
In which our author has seen entirely too much rightwing crap, and fires back
So I'm doing some random web browsing, trying to avoid the Freeper sites. I just don't need the aggravation. But I strayed on over to pabaah, and stumbled upon this reader comment ...
proud_american@death-to-liberals.usI'm not sure where to start: the amusingly appalling spelling, the atrocious grammar, the gaping holes in logic? I think the whiny tone is perhaps the most annoying aspect.
I'll tell you how to support a US solider (weather it is in any branch of the service) -- you STOP CRITICIZING OUR COMMANDER IN CHEAF. Let him get the job done that he started, with our blessings. The minute you start criticizing, you start keeping him from being affective. The minute you start being inaffective, the government risks being over thrown by lilberal scum like More.
Okay, Proud Merkin, you don't like the criticism? Try this on for size. You badass, bloodthirsty motherfuckers want to rule the world, yet turn into a bunch of whiny, pathetic brats when faced with tiniest bit of criticism. Just shut the fuck up. Go crawl back under your blankie, you illiterate, puerile rube. Your ignorant Codpiece-in-Chief is going to be tossed in history's junk heap in a couple of months. Deal with it.
Oh, and by the way, George Jr. is affective alright.
af·fec·tive (Greg Woods also came across Proud Merkin's comments, and took a more moderate tone in his response.-f
k
t
v)
adj.
- Concerned with or arousing feelings or emotions; emotional.
- Influenced by or resulting from the emotions, as of a psychological disorder.
Because You Want a Dumbard Who's Sure of Himself
inspired by Hairy Fish Nuts
an alternate view from the Talent Show
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update: What the hell is a bartcop?
Carpool Buds
This morning I woke from an odd dream. I was in a carpool with George Jr. I sat shotgun and Jr. drove. I was doing my best to hold my tongue; after all he was doing the courtesy of giving me a ride to work. But at some point I made a smartass remark ... or perhaps an extended series of smart ass remarks. Not really my style, but sometimes something may slip out.
After we entered the building (Jr. works with me too?!), I could tell he was mad as a hornet ... too mad to spit ... meaner than a dry drunk. Jr. wouldn't even give me eye contact while I mumbled a half-hearted appology for breaking the decorum of the carpool. "Didn't mean to incite a Hollywood Hate Fest in the back of your car." (Was Woopie sittin back there?)
So what was the smartass remark? I'm not sure exactly how it started or what I said, but I think it mighta been the baseball thing. See, I've been working on how to break it down to your average Joe Sixpack about the whole "Isn't eyeROCK better off without SADum?" question. People's eyes kinda glaze over when you get into the Kurds and the Turks and the Shia convergence, and the things that piss people off so much that they form alliances with hated enemies.
So the Joe Sixpack explanation might go something like this: Listen, when you see a batter knock a line drive, you might be thinking "that's a mighty fine drive", but you just don't know if the shortstop is gonna jump up and snag that drive. And you don't know if he'll be able to step on the bag in time to get the second out. And you don't know if maybe, just maybe, he'll run down that runner coming from first to complete the triple. See, you just don't know 'cause the ball's still in play. And that's why you don't know if Iraq is gonna be better or worse without that bad old SADum, 'cause the ball's still in play. And you know the ball's still in play 'cause you're not dumb. You know you're just speculatin if you act like that thing is a done deal.
Now, being an old baseball sort of guy, I figured Jr. would understand what I was gettin at. And that woulda stuck in his craw, got under his skin, been a burr in his hide, or some such thing. Which is why he wouldn't give me the eye contact. He was just doing that head shaking thing he does to indicate disapproval of something he thinks is just plain wrong.
The "Dick Cheney, Go Fuck Yourself" World Headquarters
(By request.)
Stickers, Bumper
over 200 bumpersticker thumbnails
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Dr. Paul's Firm Grasp on Reality
Wolfowitz said Iraq is now on course, albeit a still violent and unsteady one, toward democratic autonomy. In a speech to Omaha business leaders, he said the handover of sovereignty has Iraqis optimistic that their fate is truly their own.
"I think they're starting to believe that we didn't come to get their oil," he said.
By handing over authority two days early to avoid violent disruptions, Wolfowitz said, "we had the unintended effect that they saw that the Americans are so eager to get out. ... That's good."
That's bound to create a new sense of responsibility among rank-and-file Iraqis for the future of their country and less sanctuary for terrorists, he said. Iraqis now feel "they're no longer an occupied country," Wolfowitz said. "I believe that makes a tremendous difference."
More than 150,000 American and other foreign troops currently patrol the country. In talking with reporters after his speech, Wolfowitz said that he might have made an "overstatement" in saying Iraqis did not feel their country was occupied. [Ya think?!]
Kansas City Star, July 9, 2004
Wolfowitz Says Patience Key to Success in War on Terror
Defenselink.mil -- July 10, 2004
Wolfowitz defends invasion of Iraq
Omaha World-Herald -- July 9, 2004
Sticking to their guns, despite Senate report
Independent Online (South Africa) -- July 10, 2004
A Bumper Crop
more bumperstickers on line
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Monday, Jul 12, 2004
Fuckin' A
Found this while scanning my log file.
Rock-a-billy of the Damned
D and I saw the Reverend Horton Heat at the Catalyst last night. A good time was had by all. But I've never seen so many pompadors in a mosh pit.
Made me nastolgic for Big Mike Destiny's Big Guitar Show that used to grace the airwaves of KFJC in the AM on Saturdays.
Bush Explains Away the Senate Intelligence Committee Report
Tailwind
Today was another bike to work day. I'm trying to do this once or twice a week.
We're in some sort of bizzare weather pattern.
We have a wind from the south, which is odd enough. But it's a cool wind. This time of year a wind from the south is usually warm, wet air from the remnants of a tropical storm. But cool air?!
I'm not complaining. I could use a 65 degree, 15 mph tailwind anytime I'm on a bike.
Mindless News
Subject: Bill O'Reilly Headline To: news-feedback@google.com Hi, I'm disturbed that your top headline is from Bill O'Reilly: "Most Liberal Ticket, Ever". In case your algorithm is ignorant, O'Reilly is not now, and has not recently been a news man. He's an opinion dude, a bloviator, a mouthpiece. He's shovelling coal for Satan, not presenting objective news. Please update your algorithm accordingly. -Mark
Most Liberal Ticket Ever
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Fucking Monsters
Norway Reacts to Torture of Children
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Thursday, Jul 01, 2004
Iron Fist in a Latex Glove
"The American asked me why we had beaten the prisoners. I said we beat the prisoners because they are all bad people. But I told him we didn't strip them naked, photograph them or fuck them like you did."Seen at Hullabaloo.
Bumpersticker Generator -- Beta 2
I added a large font. A medium font, and lower case would be nice. (Hmm, how about generating smaller font sizes via php image scaling.)
Bumpersticker Generator -- Beta 2
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Wednesday, Jun 30, 2004
I Can't Stop Saying the "C" Word
Created with the George "Abu Rhubarb" Bush and Dick "Go fuck yourself" Cheney Bumpersticker Generator. Now in beta.
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