The eagerly anticipated (chuckle) Tour de France kicks off today in, of all places, London. The scandal-plagued sport is trying to erase its image as the biggest collection of drug users outside of the Grateful Dead 1969 tour. I will not be watching this year's tour as I will be too busy watching paint dry to give the Tour the proper attention it deserves.
The Cincinnati challenge to warrantless wiretaps was thrown out of court. The mindbending legal doublespeak was that information was classified, so it would impossible to prove that the claimants were in fact directly being targeted by the top secret program. Only in a court of law could they demonstrate the perfect use of circular logic.
The legal system is getting a workout in New Orleans, with a shortage of public defenders creating a severe backup in the system. The city has been unable to recover from Hurricane Katrina. Defendants sometimes spend a year in jail before speaking with a lawyer. This should probably be the best possible encouragement for you NOT to streak and get in fights at next year's Mardi Gras.
The rumor wheels are turning, with The Business magazine reporting that Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal have been sold to evil media robber baron Rupert Murdoch. The NYTimes' blog Deal Book believes the story may be a leveraging stunt executed by Murdoch and that the deal may not be inked just yet. The countdown for Murdoch to turn the Wall Street Journal into the Fox News Journal has begun.
The Onion spoof on Bush diplomacy is perfect. The picture of Rumsfeld in front of a map of the world marked U.S. and Them may be the funniest thing I've seen in some time. The shoot-first mindset has gotten another ball rolling, with 14 members of Congress signed on in support of impeachment papers for Dick Cheney. Whatever bunker or lair Count Cheney is hiding out in, I hope he's starting to sweat a little bit.
Al Gore is on the road promoting his global warming consciousness music festival Live Earth today. Critics have attacked the event, calling it a ploy to get Gore publicity for a White House run, criticizing the musicians who participated in the event and identifying sponsors who may be part of the root cause of global warming in the first place. It seems to me that poor Al Gore can't really win anything, can he? He puts together a giant concert with every band on the planet and people are still complaining. Unbelievable!
Microsoft took a big hit when the announced an extension of Xbox warranties as part of a repair program for its Xbox 360 game console. The problem is described by owners as "the red ring of death." I don't know what causes it, but any phrase with the suffix "of death" is probably pretty bad.
In more tech news, iTunes is planning to offer special prices for selected new releases in order to drum up sales. This comes on the tail of a negotiation battle with major record label Universal. This news should keep the iPhone enthusiasts sated for the next little while.
The funniest article of the day brings us back to France, where the exercise routine of President Sarkozy has the French up in arms. People are upset by his regular habit of (gasp)...jogging. Only in a country whose national sport involves people riding bikes in the mountains would people get irate about their president running around.
Edmonton residents will be somber this evening after the murder-suicide involving wrestling legend Chris Benoit and his family. This will put a kink in my Chris Benoit Day plans next year. It's too bad nobody got a chance to execute a finishing move like a crippler crossface before Benoit got his finishing move accomplished.
The Washington Post details Dick Cheney's role in establishing the policy of torture at Gitmo. It's good to see somebody in the White House planning something. It's too bad these plans come at the expense of the Geneva Convention and judicial oversight.
After seeing the international success of Cheney's torture policies, other Bush aides are scrambling to get on the same page as Congress on future Iraq policy. The plan is to get the Executive and Legislative branches to perform a duet of the Decemberists song, "We both go down together."
The L.A. Times goes over another kind of school discipline...keeping kids out of the district for living in Mexico. This is another in a long line of issues that have sprung up based upon the don't ask don't tell policy of immigrant labor in the United States. The only way these kids will be able to stay in the country will be if Tim Floyd offers them a scholarship to play basketball at USC in the next decade or so.
Taiwan is losing support in the latest round of United Nations Idol. Everybody is throwing their support behind frontrunner candidate China and leaving Taiwan to fight for itself. Dissent might be Made in Taiwan, but lingering resentment is definitely Made in China.
Salon identifies Mitt Romney's campaign optical illusion that aims to make him look less like a corporate cog and more of a man of the people. However he frames it, he still looks like I don't know what he stands for or supports.
Rupert Murdoch's evil takeover bid for the Wall Street Journal comes closer to fruition each day. Murdoch must agree to editorial protections before his bid will be considered. The Times takes care to detail how Congress kowtowed and changed laws to protect Murdoch's television holdings rather than forcing him to sell off his unfair market share. With friends like that, who needs enemies?
Crazy news stories also made for some interesting reading. The dentist who filed a claim for filling 52 cavities in one mouth at one time either treated the most toxic mouth or pulled the stupidest fraud of all time (probably the latter). If he goes to court, at least the guy who filed a lawsuit for $54 million over his lost pants lost, showing that justice is blind but not completely retarded. They probably followed the logic from my first post on the subject.
Sometimes it's difficult for a guy to make an honest living, even if that guy is in a lion costume. It gets more challenging when the guy is wanted for rape of an underage girl, both in relation to the guy making a living and in relation to his living being honest. I hope they left you in your lion costume for your cell mates to get their first look at you.
Mayhem in Israeli/Palestinian relations continues to whip itself into a frenzy. Mother Jones harps on the damned-if-they-do/damned-if-they-don't puzzle that Abbas is locked in. You know the situation is a debacle when somebody actually recommends that outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair should head a reconciliation effort.
Much like the rest of Iraq, the government is in such disarray that top officials are stepping down. Current Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki is so unpopular that he is approaching Bush popularity levels. (The Onion parodied a new approach to one of Bush's favorite topics...climate change.)
As expected, Bush vetoed newly-proposed embryonic stem cell legislation. Democrats are expected to battle the resistance of President Bush. It will be nice to see the party stand up to something that Bush supports at least once before he is out of office.
Media news shows the bidding options for the Wall Street Journal dwindling, with G.E. and Pearson pulling their hats out of the ring. That leaves neo-con tycoon Rupert Murdoch as one of the last men standing in the bidding war for the influential and respected conservative daily. Unless Mark Cuban is willing to step in and trade Dirk Nowitzki for the newspaper, look for Dr. Evil Murdoch to make the Journal part of the No-Spin Zone.
The effort to save internet radio got their chance to voice their opinion through a concert in the capital city. Crushing royalties rates would leave those sitting in their office cubicle little choice but the vanilla options offered by your friendly Web-casting Clear Channel conglomerate. I'm keeping my support behind a choice of better flavors.
Sports and scandal continue with a newly-minted book leveling the same old charges of cheating at Lance Armstrong. Lance's credibility in situations involving accusations of cheating is equal to Lindsay Lohan's dedication to rehab. At least Lindsay admits to doing coke. Barry, Sammy, Lance and Floyd are still claiming innocence or ignorance.
Finally, Bengals fans sick of being singled out as the only team in the NFL being arrested can thank Sports Illustrated for putting together a photo gallery of arrests from the yet-to-be-played 2007 season. At least the newest remake of "The Longest Yard" won't consist of only players from Cincinnati.
