Lance, yet again.

As many of you know, I am a huge Lance Armstrong fan. He is the only person, in my opinion, who can make the Tour exciting. When he doesn't race, I can understand everyone else's opinion about bike racing being like watching paint dry. But when he races, I'll get out of bed at the crack of dawn to watch a stage where he is going to make a move, go flying up a climb, and fight past people to cross the line first.

The most recent issue of Sports Illustrated had two separate articles about Lance, the first basically talking about how Lance is a giant hypocrite for not admitting that he dopes. It talked about how many people dope, about how in Europe its pretty much agreed upon that all of them dope, and that Europeans don't care that much, get caught, serve a supspension, all is forgiven. It hammers Lance for pages about how ridiculous it is for him to think that anyone would believe that he could be that much better, and not dope. The second article talks about the following commercial.



The person who wrote the second article took Lance to task for what she saw as almost unforgivable arrogance in trying to tie criticisms of him to the fight against cancer. She argued that he was making it impossible to critique him without coming off as being an opponent of what he stood for. Finally she finished with saying that he should be less forceful in his tone about his critics.

Thats a load of crap.

In the same magazine that she spouted that tripe, her editors felt the need to put in pages denouncing Lance as a fraud, and a doper, and a hypocrite. His tone seems to be right on the money to me.

There are many who claim there is no way he could be as good as he is, so automatically assign him to be a doper and a cheat. I find it amazing that the same label is not automatically put on Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Lebron or Kobe. No one claims that Barry Sanders must have been a juicer to run like he did, especially with the sieve of an offensive line that the Lions had. No one says you must be blind and naive to think that Joe Montana, or Steve Young must have been cheating to have the success that they saw.

You want hypocrites, look to the people who, because cycling isn't America's pasttime, are so quick to denounce someone who dominates the sport when they don't hold their sports heroes up to the same standard.

Is it possible that Lance has taken some performance enhancing drugs, of course. Of course it is possible that he has access to drugs that are impossible to detect over literally thousands of tests given at completely random times with more scrutiny that any other athlete in the history of the world....its possible. But it is out of the realm of logic to make the claim that because doping exists, that because people in his sport have doped, and because he has beaten those same people consistently for years, that he too must be guilty absent any and all evidence to back it up.

I'll still be excited to watch him win the Tour this year, and make no mistake, when they finish in Paris he'll be wearing the Yellow Jersey. The critics can continue to say whatever they want, this guy actually makes it exciting to watch men race bikes for hours at a time, tell me one other professional athlete with that kind of charisma.

Me and the BSA are gonna have a fight.

I couldn't be more enraged by the stupidity of this new BSA policy. Story here.

Apparently the BSA thinks its a grand idea to say that any scout or leader who is overweight, as decided by the BMI scale, will be banned from participating in many activities. It seems the rule is that if one is overweight you cannot participate in any activity that would take you more than 30 minutes from emergency medical help.

I have more than one problem with this. First, the BSA already required a physical to go to scout camp etc.. If someone were unable to safely participate the doctor would not clear them. Second, with the state of health in the youth of the country, is banning them really the good option here. But, if these were the only problems, I would just be annoyed, what enrages me is the use of the BMI to label kids and leaders.

I hate the BMI, I hate how it makes its blanket labels with no real differentiation between body type, or variables.

Now, I am the first to admit that I am overweight, and I am currently working on losing weight. But, I would direct you to this BMI website. It will tell you what weight you need to be to be considered not overweight according to them. For me? I would need to lose 78 pounds to finally drop into 'normal' weight. I would have to weigh 191 lbs. If this rule were actually enforced, I would have never been allowed to go to scout camp, work at scout camp, go rock climbing, etc.. I would have been unable to take my Varsity scouts down the Snake river a couple years ago.

It is hard enough to find adults who are willing and able to help out with scouting, if this is actually enforced, it would really be the death of any sort of outdoor/high adventure scouting.

I couldn't be more enraged at the BSA.

Already getting excited.

Granted, all these guys are still seniors this next year, but its always exciting to see future good news. ESPN story here.

The top QB prospect in the country decided to commit to BYU, with him came one of the top WR prospects (decommitted from Texas, committed to BYU), and a top linebacker from California.

For those who are BYU football fans, its always good news to get the big name Mormon recruits (no all you BYU haters, not because they 'should' come to BYU, but if we can't get big name recruits with the BYU/mormon thing going for us, how are we ever going to get big name non-mormons.)

And, as I always do, I hope these guys choose missions, I'd rather wait an extra two years to see them succeed on the field.

Troubled by Judge Sotomayor

I always hate to have even close to the same opinion as people like Ann Coulter, but I do have some serious reservations about Pres. Obama's nomination for Supreme Court Justice.

Judge Sotomayor has said, and I quote,

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,"

Now, some of Obama's supporters have given explanations such as this,

"Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a Harvard law professor and an adviser to Mr. Obama, said Judge Sotomayor’s remarks were appropriate. Professor Ogletree said it was “obvious that people’s life experiences will inform their judgments in life as lawyers and judges” because law is more than “a technical exercise,” citing Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s famous aphorism: “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.”

I do not disagree with Mr. Ogletree at all. I do think that people's life experiences will to some extent affect their judgements, however, nothing he says seems to go to the heart of her comment. She says, and feel free to disagree or point out where I am misunderstanding her statement, that one judge would 'more often than not' rule better from the bench, or be a better judge if they were a) hispanic and b) female. At least, they would make a better judge than a white male, I guess we cannot extrapolate where a black man/woman, white woman, hispanic man, etc. etc. etc. fall on her scale of who makes the best decisions.

As much as I feel that this process has become too obstructionist, I would have to oppose her confirmation, if it were up to me.

Things I don't get; heavy bass.

So I was running an errand yesterday, and behind me, at a stoplight, was some moron with his bass pumping. I don't get the bass thing, I don't get why it makes you 'cool'. I find it nauseating, literally, whatever it is doing to my inner ear or insides is incredibly uncomfortable. When I get stuck by someone blasting their bass away I get the urge to take a baseball bat to their sound equipment.

My Anniversary

I know, 4 posts in a row, but I was thinking about it, and had to post a bit.

So, on May 18th Alisa and I had our 7th anniversary. For some of you that's small beans, but then you're old so.... Anyway. I find it kind of odd, on the one hand it seems like only yesterday and its wierd to think that its been 7 whole years, but on the other hand, I can hardly remember my life without her. Alisa is amazing. I am so grateful for her.

Star Trek

To follow up on the post a few inches down, I went and saw this movie with Alisa, it was awesome. I give it *** 1/2 stars, and I am quite confident it will be just as good the second time around. Probably one worth owning. Go see it.