Infinite Monkeys
"...a sparkly blog..." - James Lileks"Read them only with extreme caution."- Hugh Hewitt
Infinite MonkeysWell, H.L. has called me out. My last quiz wasn't "nearly snobby enough." Fine, then. It's still all rock and roll, but I'll throw some snobby at you:
1. Best ZTT and/or Trevor Horn-produced album.
2. Best album by a band with a former Bauhaus member.
3. Best all-covers album by a single band.
4. Best album by a group local to the town you were born/raised.
5. Best album from the Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven family.
6. Best album featuring Robert Fripp where Fripp was not a part of the band.
7. Best album featuring former member(s) of King Crimson.
8. Best Smiths 12" Single.
9. Best cover version of a Smiths song.
10. Best album featuring Johnny Marr OTHER than a Smiths album.
Monkey RobbL's answers:
1. Propaganda - A Secret Wish [runner up: (Who's Afraid Of) The Art Of Noise]
2. Tones On Tail - "Pop"
3. Trip Shakespeare - Volt [runner up: Siouxsie and the Banshees - Through The Looking Glass]
4. Gin Blossoms - New Miserable Experience
5. Camper Van Beethoven - Key Lime Pie [runner up: Monks of Doom - Meridian]
6. David Sylvian - Gone To Earth
7. Bruford - Feels Good To Me
8. Panic (b/w "Vicar In A Tutu" and "The Draize Train")
9. The Dream Academy - "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" [runners-up: Bobby Bare, Jr. - "What Difference Does It Make" and Mikael Erentxun - "Esta Luz Nunca Se Apagara (There Is A Light That Never Goes Out)"]
10. Kirsty MacColl - Kite
1. Favorite Beatles album
2. Favorite Velvet Underground album
3. Favorite Clash album
4. Favorite New Order album
5. Favorite Smiths album
6. Favorite Robyn Hitchcock album
7. Favorite Oingo Boingo album
8. Favorite U2 album
9. Favorite Echo & The Bunnymen album
10. Favorite Pixies (or related) album
Monkey RobbL's choices:
1. Revolver
2. Loaded
3. London Calling
4. Low Life
5. The Queen is Dead
6. Invisible Hitchcock
7. Good For Your Soul
8. Boy
9. Crocodiles
10. Doolittle
Unfortunately, most folks have probably heard more about Tour de France winner Floyd Landis and a preliminary "statistical anomoly" in one urine sample than they heard about the entire three week stage race. Let me see if I can put things in perspective. (I should note that at this time I am still biased pretty heavily in favor of Floyd, spurred by hope and denial, really wanting to believe he is innocent. I felt the same way about Tyler Hamilton until earlier this year. I have since changed my tune on Tyler, who I now really believe to have blood doped. Coincidentally, my team's primary sponsor is a shop called Landis Cyclery though there's no relation. Oddly, though, it was that coincidence that opened a conversation between me and Floyd Landis when I met him before last year's Tour de Tucson. I'll have to write that exchange up in another post. Anyway, obviously, I'm biased. Take it as you will.)
First we need to remember that only the A sample has been tested, and that the B sample still needs to be tested in order to make the accusation of "doping" official. Sadly though, even if it comes back negative, the chances that Landis's reputation and career are damaged irreparably are very high. Everyone knows cycling has an association with doping and a dirty history. And while the sport has been leading all others in taking serious steps to clean itself up and punish offenders (unlike several sports, cough...), it has another reputation. In its new zealotry, cycling has been quick to try those under suspicion through press leaks and preliminary results, sometimes mistakenly, contributing to an environment of mistrust and vague doubt throughout the sport.
While everyone is talking about how Floyd's urine test after winning Stage 17 showed an elevated ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone, most are assuming incorrectly that it means there was a surge of testosterone that needs to be accounted for. While testosterone is not actually a performance enhancer that would make one go faster or farther, riders have been known in the past to use it as a recovery aid at night between race stages. Therefore, many have assumed that the test results indicating a skewed ratio mean that Landis must have used a testosterone patch or cream illegally between stages 16 and 17.
But it seems that Landis's unusual ratio may be due not to an unusually high level of testosterone, but a suppressed level of epitestosterone. Such a low level could lead to a red-flag ratio. But the question is how such a condition could have occurred. To review, Landis had a spectacular crumbling on stage 16, losing nearly 10 minutes to his rivals and seeing his chances of overall victory nearly disappear. (The bookmakers in Belgium, the cycling capital of the world, had dropped his odds to 75-to-1 at that point.) The failure was something of a combination of a bonk (completely running out of glycogen), dehydration, and overheating.
Normally, big-time stage racers employ a battery of recovery techniques that begin the moment they step off the bike to prepare for the next day's effort. It is not at all uncommon, or against the rules, for riders to use sophisticated equipment to check their own blood and urine for electrolyte imbalances and other metrics, and to use IV fluids to speed rehydration. Special diets based not only on composition but also exact timing are employed to keep these athletes in condition to perform the equivalent of a full marathon day after day for three weeks (with two rest/travel days built in). But the report is that after the train-wreck of stage 16, Floyd passed on the normal routine and instead visited a bar and tried to relax with a beer. He also reports that after the bar proved too crowded, he and a few teammates commiserated in adjoining hotel suites over a shot or two of Jack Daniels.
Some have reported that alcohol has been studied inconclusively as an elevator of T:E ratios. Others have pointed out that while the beer story was public as of stage 17, the whiskey didn't get mentioned until after the Tour and the anomolous test. I don't know what to think. The best article I've yet found on the matter is here at cyclingnews.com, who has been the sine qua non of official race and scandal coverage. For the pajamas media style angle, keep your eye on PodiumCafe.com. They've got some excellent links there.
It's a sad affair. Even the best conclusion will still leave a sour taste. The worst could be heartbreaking and crushing for the already troubled sport. What I fear is that we'll never really have the issue resolved. Testing for substances that occur naturally in the human body is problematic. The history of T:E ratio test appeals favors the rider, but I don't know what can now be done to take the tarnish of the 2006 Tour de France, the de facto championship of international stage racing.
What the heck?
Is this just more sour grapes? It seems worse...
If only I knew someone who followed cycling.
You hate it when Lileks writes a Bleat in the second person.
The boys at Fraters, a little late to the party, stumbled over this and just now realized that Monkeys Like Booze.
I'm shocked, shocked I tells ya!
Of course, it is old news by now. On the cutting edge of societal evolution, we is!
Note to Monkey David: This blog is pretty cool. Might want to check it out.
Can someone explain to me what the hell this means:
"War wins nothing, cures nothing, ends nothing . . . in war there are no winners, but all are losers." So said Neville Chamberlain on the eve of the war he had sought desperately to avoid, but which his own blunders would bring about.
Chamberlain was mistaken. War ended Nazi Germany, though the cost was high: the Holocaust, the collapse of the British Empire, the Stalinization of 11 nations of Eastern Europe, 50 million dead and half a century of Cold War.
"War ended Nazi Germany, though the cost was high: the Holocaust, . . . "
The"cost" of ending Nazi Germany was the Holocaust? Is that as insane as I think it is? Or is it un-Christian of me to ask?
1. James Lipton or Elvis Mitchell?
2. Fender or Gibson?
3. Elvis or The Beatles?
4. Batman or Superman?
5. Red or green?
6. Red or white?
7. Irish, Scotch, Bourbon or Rye?
8. San Francisco or New York City?
9. AL or NL?
10. Cable or satellite?
My answers:
1. Elvis Mitchell
2. Fender
3. The Beatles
4. Batman
5. Green and extra spicy
6. Red, preferably from Italy
7. Irish
8. San Francisco
9. NL: If you've got a DH, you're not playing real baseball.
10. Satellite
Five "old" technologies that still amaze and mystify me:
1. Vinyl record players
2. Popcorn
3. Cold reading
4. Language
5. Gravity
Rep. Ron "Dr. No" Paul gives this explanation why he voted against the ridiculous "support Israel" resolution last week. Good for him.
Of course, the loonies in the comments section over at LGF think this makes him an anti-Semite.
Syria's ambassador to the U.S. issues a statement.
Alexandra von Maltzen issues a response.
I'm not the only one who hasn't been writing. Of course, I admit that it's been a terrible mistake.
The End is Near?
Charles at LGF reports that it looks like another Damn Yankee will win the TdeF, thus adding more fuel to the "why do they hate us?" fire.
Fantastic. Landis takes third in the time trial — but Oscar Pereiro (the leader at the start) is now about a minute behind Landis in the overall standings. And that means tomorrow we’ll have an American on the podium at the Tour de France for the eighth year in a row.
Go back to sleep, Monkey Brad, nothing to see here.
I have found the Little Green Footballs of cycling. In a good way.
I have failed you. You readers, checkers in on what goes on here, and fellow Monkeys. I have failed you all.
I have not prepped you on the Tour de France. I have not given you the background. Not set the stage. Not enticed you to check out some of the coverage. Not helped you to get the lay of the land in suuch an epic, yet foreign event. And now my failure is my ruin.
Words fail. Yesterday's stage, the final stage in the Alps was beyond words. Floyd Landis, the Flying Mennonite, now "The Phoenix," did something the likes of which have not been seen in the Tour for 37 years. And he did it in a style unparalleled, unprecedented. Rising from a performance the day before that had almost every aficianado describing his chances at victory as certainly, tragically ruined just 24 hours before, Landis ground his way back into a position of probably overall victory. "Epic" does not begin to describe it. (See, I haven't even given you the background on how Landis is scheduled for hip replacement surgery immediately following the Tour. It's unbelievable. I don't know how I can ever catch you all up adequately.)
I watched the stage yesterday. Then last night, I read the live minute-by-minute report of it with my wife. Then we watched nearly the whole thing again. And we're talking about coverage lasting 3.5+ hours (of a 5 hour 23 minute ride). I was up late.
The accounts online have likely put a drain on the web's supply of superlatives today.
For a taste, see the comments at PodiumCafe. You don't have to know anything about cycling to pick up on just how special the day was. My favorite quote was Koppenberg's: "He's more powerful than language."
It's true. Words fail. Although I'm sure Monkey David will appreciate the headline of the stage report over at Cycling News: Raging Phonak freak turns groupe maillot jaune upside down.
Through the magic of YouTube, it's "The Big Lebowski: The F------ Short Version."
. . . . or at least the New York Times is.
At Powerline and Little Green Footballs you can see a beautiful photograph taken by a brave NY Times photographyer of a terrorist sniper trying to kill American soldiers.
NYT Asst Managing Editor for Photography Michele McNally is all a glow over her photographer's work: “Right there with the Mahdi army. Incredible courage.” But Rocketman says it best:
It would have required courage to hang out with the Mahdi Army, if there were any likelihood that a member of the Iraqi "insurgency" would regard a representative of the New York Times as an enemy.
If this bastard kills someone, do you think the NYTimes will send the family an autographed copy of this photo? Wouldn't that be cool.
Boys and girls, the press is not on our side.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has a couple more fine examples of this Times photographer's opus: In the Company of the Enemy.
Hey, Bradley, I know the TdF is going on now (an event as important and meaningful as the World Cup), but TAKE A COLD SHOWER AND POST SOMETHING for crying out loud.
Honestly, is it any wonder he hates me? Christ, sometimes I get on my own nerves.
Yep. It's after 1:00 in the morning. I can't sleep, and I'm into another bottle of Emilio Moro 2001 Ribera Del Duero, so why not another link to a chick blogger.
Annika of Annika's Journal has apparently sold her soul to Satan and is attending law school. She seems bright and personable. Makes me wonder where her parents went wrong.
Anyway, she's an engaging blogger and does some interesting stuff with her "Journal." I just wish someone would explain Peter Pumpkin to me.
I get a kick out of this Minny Soda blogger: Feisty Republican Whore.
No, RobbL. That's not a link to the Shock Jock's site.
Feisty had a dream about John Kerry and even in her dream recognized him as a pissy little f**k. My kind of Republican Whore.
Those liimp-d**k weasels in the Senate have done it again.
First, the vote to construct a 370 mile fence along a 2000+ mile border.
Ooooooh! That's serious border enforcement.
Not to worry, though. They then voted not to pay for it.
The United States Senate. Making John Kerry look like a man of principle for 20 years.
Senator Bill Frist, you suck.
It's okay, though. Everybody knows.
Oh, and Hugh? Please tell me why we need a Republican Senate? I really need to understand.
A fling of monkey poo to SondraK.
Syd Barrett is dead and "Diamond" David Lee Roth lives. I tell you, there is no justice. And if there is a God, he is a nasty being indeed.
It's a sad day in rock and roll. Syd Barrett, the founder of Pink Floyd, has passed away.
Syd was lost to the public world long ago to mental illness, exacerbated by drug use. But he was the ghost in the machine for Pink Floyd for decades, providing the inspiration for the band's best work, which explored alienation and loss.
Goodbye, you crazy diamond.
That's the headline over at zidane.fr where there's no hiding the fact the Zinedine "Zizou" Zidane made a fool of himself and shamed France with his headbutt of an Italian player in overtime of the World Cup final. He got a red card to leave what he had announced would be his final game, recollecting the great moment in an otherwise average Billy Crystal movie, "Forget Paris," where Crystal plays a basketball referee in a player's final game:
Mickey: You're out of here, Jabbar!It was sweet to see France lose, even if (as I do) you find much of soccer (the fake injuries, the penalty kicks) to be silly. Yes, forget Paris. Farewell, Zizou.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Are you nuts? It's my farewell game.
Mickey: Well then, let me be the first to say farewell.
Well, I'm off to Hawaii for 5 days. For work, of course.
No, really.
Yesterday I was listening to the Indiefeed podcast, and heard this fun song about the place where I bought all of my home office furniture. Lång levande Galant! Lång levande Effectiv!
I will post later of my passionate hatred for this new Townhall.com monstrosity. Right now I'm too frustrated with it to post anything but words that would be removed by Townhall's obscenity filter. I mention it only to say that I FINALLY got part of the podcasting thing to work, and I listened to our pal Hugh's interview with Christopher Hitchens. Hugh spends almost 14 minutes fishing for support on this whole NYT-Swift thing, and Hitch gives him nothing but scraps. I also listened to the Doyle McManus interview, which I had previously read on Radio Blogger, just to see if Hugh's tone was different "in person" than it was "on paper." It wasn't.
Now let's say, just for the sake of argument, that the New York Times WAS wrong to publish information about this program. Even if that was the case, it is completely unfair for Hugh to target the LA Times and completely ignore the Wall Street Journal. The New York Times broke the story. According to Tony Blankley, both the LAT and the WSJ were performing parallel research, and as soon as the NYT announced to the administration that they were going to run with the story, the administration went to BOTH the LAT and the WSJ to make sure they had the full story and published it accurately. Referring to the "Times Two" as jointly responsible for this leak, while leaving the Journal free from criticism, just shows Hugh's shallow and partisan viewpoint.
McManus's interview, if anything, shows that the Los Angeles Times was trying to work with the government in determining the correct balance between national security and the public's right to know. Hugh's continued "quoting" of McManus's "admission" that the story might help terrorists just shows that he's more interested in tarring the Los Angeles Times with the same brush he's using on the New York Times than he is with finding the truth about this story.
Top 10 most recently purchased albums from the iTunes Music Store
1) "American V: A Hundred Highways," Johnny Cash
2) "When the Going Gets Dark," Quasi
3) "Professor Volcanova (17 Custom Surf Cuts)," The Kilaueas
4) "Local Warming," Laika & The Cosmonauts
5) "Devil's Food," Supersuckers
6) "Knockdown South," Jimbo Mathus
7) "I Don't Wanna," Henry Flynt & The Resurrections
8) "Eight Round Knockout," The Mag Seven
9) "The Future is Ours, If You Can Count," The Mag Seven
10) "The Big Boss / Fist of Fury," Peter Thomas Sound Orchester
Top 10 most recently purchased songs from the iTunes Music Store
1) "Sunset (Bird of Prey)," by Fatboy Slim
2) "Dismemberment," by Los Lobotomys
3) "It's the End of the World as We Know It," by the Suicide Machines
4) "The John Birch Society," by the Chad Mitchell Trio
5) "Employee of the Month," by Spongebob Squarepants
6) "Nailed to the Gun," by Fight
7) "No Time to Think," by Bob Dylan
8) "Tears on My Pillow," by Clem Snide
9) "C'Mon, Let's Monkey," by South Filthy
10) "Paint It Black," by Sixth Finger
Top 10 most recently played songs on iTunes
1) "Psycho Killer," by George Hrab
2) "Political Science," by the Duhks
3) "If I Was Young," by the Raveonettes
4) "If You Want My Love," by Cheap Trick
5) "Big Bottom," by Hayseed Dixie
6) "Grease Money," by Brother Jack McDuff
7) "Caliènte," by Supersuckers
8) "Wish You Were Here," by Wyclef Jean
9) "Schizophrenia's Weighted Me Down," by Cat Power
10) "Rio," by Goldfinger
This Month's Top 5 eMusic Album Downloads:
1. Frank Black: Fast Man / Raider Man
2. 50 Foot Wave: Golden Ocean
3. Cracker: Greenland
4. Gone: Let's Get Real, Real Gone For A Change
5. John Coltrane: Soultrane (Remastered)
This Month's Top 3 CD Purchases:
1. XTC: Transistor Blast (Box Set)
2. The Dream Academy: A Different Kind of Weather
3. Matthew Sweet: Altered Beast
Leave it to the L.A. Times to throw a wet blanket on the occasion:
The real American question of our times is how our country in a little over 200 years sank from the great hope to the most backward democracy in the West.
Yeah. Just like Mexico. Or Belize. Well, I hope a bottlerocket exploded near your ear. You savage.
Safe and sane fireworks are legal in my city. For whatever that's worth. But this holiday is not really about safety, is it? The men who pledged their "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" did not choose the safe path. They had larger things to worry about than losing a thumb to an errant firecracker.
So, perhaps fittingly, most of my neighbors have selected the less sane, less safe route. Anything that leaves the ground, I'm told, is illegal. And yet the neighborhood looks like a warzone this day. As it does every Fourth of July. The anarchy here is what attracts me to this place. I don't know -- I sincerely doubt -- whether most of my neighbors care much about the underlying principles of this day. But they fully embrace the spirit.
Most people here gladly risk fines and Lord knows what else -- embarrassment? -- in search of the bigger bang. Law enforcement gets more clever by the year.
But not clever enough. The bombs are bursting at 7:00 in the evening. Love it... I love it. Yes, the scolds say that even the safe fireworks are dangerous. Sparklers burn at 1000 degrees. Screamers explode. But if the price of freedom is an imbeclic child losing a finger or an eye... well, then I say it's a bargain at twice the price.
Unless it's my child. Then somebody is getting sued.
The cops started circling the blocks before dusk. I suppose they were hoping to find that one dumb bastard unlucky enough to light the fuse just as the black-and-white rounded the street corner. But it's worth it. It must be worth it. For liberty.
By 9:00 p.m., the air is thick with smoke and the stench of gunpowder and cordite. Call it the stink of freedom. I do. Skyrockets burst in the night sky. Maybe a brushfire ignites. I doubt it. But if a fire breaks out, it's the fire of freedom. By God.
I didn't have the energy to go see fireworks tonight. I'm living in Phoenix now, and it was too hot and humid (yes, humid--the "monsoon" is early this yet) to go out. Except to do a little barbecue, of course. Twice when I was outside, I heard the wonderful sound of freedom from my childhood, and looked up to see a pair of F-16s in close formation fly directly overhead.
God bless America.
When I was a kid, my father was stationed at Vandenburg Air Force Base in California. I got to see a few missle launches, and they were beautiful. I never have been able to see a shuttle launch, even though Vandenburg was crawling with shuttle engineers when I was there (the hope at that time was that the shuttle could launch from there, much closer to a good landing spot). I was there when the Enterprise flew from the back of a jet...it seemed like the future was so close.
The AP has some beautiful photos of the shuttle launch today, next to an American flag, or across the waters of Florida. Watching the shuttle launch is beautiful, and I hope--fervently, and patriotically--that this is the last launch I will ever see. The program has always been troubled, and it is time to end it. It is unsafe, and is a dead end for human space exploration. Focus the energies elsewhere. Free the engineers for other things. It's time for the future.
The new citizen ceremony is one of the finest, most moving traditions of the Independence Day holiday. Today, about 18,000 newcomers will take their citizenship oaths at 150 ceremonies across the nation. About 75 immigrants last night took the oath aboard the U.S.S. Hornet in Alameda. "Our lifestyles are American. This is where we belong. We are Americans," said Ritu Lodha, who came to the United States from India and took the oath with her husband. Millions of people all over the world, it seems, are "born American, but in the wrong place.
Ronald Reagan in 1984 spoke to the nation on Indepedence Day. His words resonate 22 years later:
America still has so much to celebrate on this day -- unity and affection, prosperity and freedom. Today ... there will be fireworks to commemorate that moment when Francis Scott Key saw through the glare of the rockets that our flag was still there. Somewhere a chorus will sing the old songs of love and affection for our country. Somewhere a family will gather and salute the flag. Somewhere a veteran will be told, 'Thanks for what you did.' And in a courthouse somewhere, some of the newest Americans, the most recent immigrants to our country, will take the oath of citizenship.Maybe today, someone will put his hand on the shoulder of one of those new citizens and say, 'Welcome,' and not just as a courtesy, but to say welcome to a great land, a place of unlimited possibilities. Welcome to the American family.
"The problem today is not that we have too much equality, too much liberty, too many rights. The problem is that we are well along in a process of abandoning equality properly understood, and liberty and rights properly understood," Thomas G. West wrote a decade ago. His words are more relevant now than ever. Remember the Fourth!
An old friend writes: "Maybe this is the death struggle of the American republic. The Supreme Court made at least a gesture to revive the Rule of Law last week... but... Congress may easily be stampeded on this."
I am not quite so certain what the Supreme Court accomplished last week. I'm skeptical that the Kelo justices have suddenly found religion, as it were, on the Constitution.
Rather than buttress my point (which would require digesting a 180-page decision -- no thanks) I am more inclined to let the Mighty Steyn elaborate on my behalf:
In the broader scheme, Justice Stevens and Co., in torturing the language to explain why the international jihad is not "international," have paradoxically conferred quasi-sovereignty on al-Qaida and its affiliates. The obvious question then is: doesn't that also apply to every other "non-state actor" out there? When Hezbollah blew up that Jewish community center and killed 100 people in Buenos Aires in 1994, surely that too was (as Justice Stevens would see it) an "armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting States." In fact, under this definition, what isn't?
What, indeed.
Our favorite shock jock is launching a new and, dare I say, "revolutionary", website on Independence Day. For now there is just the dramatic graphic with a body double standing in for Hughbert.
Let the Revolution Begin?
For your favorite ex-Marine cyclist who may have recently celebrated a birthday, there is this.