Not having children of my own yet, the article I am about to mention is not in my realm of experience being a parent. However, — and that’s a big however — this article really got me aggravated at the author, how she treats her kids and thinks they are “boring”. I’m too steamed about this to write much more in this post other than to say she needs prayer and a reality check. Read it and be shocked at the selfishness wrought from a post-modern worldview of parenting.

I try to keep tabs on the Tour de France every year and it didn’t just start with the Lance Armstrong bandwagon. I remember as a child watching Greg LeMond become the first American to win the Tour and it’s coveted yellow jersey. This year, the American riders in the tour were expected to do well even with Armstrong’s retirement. Some of the favorites like Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso were caught up in a doping scandal and banned. This left the door wide open for anyone to win this year.

Today American Floyd Landis did well enough in the time trial to cement himself with a 59 second lead and essentially a victory lap in tomorrow’s final stage. This makes him the 8th American in a row to win the Tour de France. But the story just begins there.

For a few years Landis was Armstrong’s teammate and helped Armstrong win a few Tours. In this tour, Landis was one of the favorites. He started steady and strong, wore the yellow jersey, lost it, won it back and then lost it dramatically. In cycling terms he “bonked” in Stage 16, slipplng from the lead to 8 minutes 8 seconds back in one shattering day. This time difference is essentially impossible to overcome, especially so late in the tour.

However the next day in Stage 17, he rode one of the most epic stages ever in the long storied history of the Tour de France. He broke away from the peleton early which is usually a futile move. The peleton almost always catches such an early breakaway, but not that day. He not only broke away, he obliterated the field winning the stage all alone and making the impossible move from over 8 minutes behind to only 30 seconds behind overall. Oh did I mention he is doing all of this with an arthritic hip that will be replaced in a few weeks?

Sadly, this amazing sporting feat was overshadowed by the press sitting around waiting for a possible indictment of Barry Bonds. Sometimes here in America, we have no clue about what sporting events are important. It’s all about hype. Unfortunately Floyd Landis is not the focus of the sports hype machine here since he isn’t Lance Armstrong.

With his time trial today, in the span of 4 stages Landis went from buried and defeated to back in the yellow jersey and about to make history as the 3rd American (8th consecutive) to win the Tour de France.

Ok I’m tired of Direct TV. Really tired. I have been a long standing customer, and really had no problems with their service until last December. I will spare you the gory details, lets just say it took over 12 calls to Direct TV, 3 calls to the local Direct TV technicians, over 11 hours of time on the phone/hold (including one time waiting 2 hours on hold with a Direct TV rep trying to call the local technicians), Escalated 4 times, 2 visits from the installers (who’s boss lied to me 3 times), 1.5 wasted vacation days from work, all over a month span to just get an upgraded satellite dish installed with HD receiver.

After all of that, it took 4 more calls and 3 more hours of time on the phone/hold to request a simple receipt for this transaction since it does not appear on my bill. Each time I was told they don’t give receipts and my request was “unusual”. Umm… for a simple receipt? I was promised one and never received one to this day. I gave up. Not sure what businesses do not provide a receipts if requested by a customer.

6 months have passed and now the HD receiver they gave me in this debacle, does not work, it is junk now. It took 3 calls to tech support, to finally get them to send a technician out. They had to nerve to try and charge me 70 bucks for the technician. Mind you the problem was not one that a technician needed to be sent. He arrived, looked at it for a minute and said “your box is kaput, call them to get a replacement.” Hmmm… um ok I told them that 3 times on the phone. What was the point of him coming out? Especially since he is not allowed to bring a replacement! So now a fourth call to tech support, They send out a new one. I get the new one tonight, hook it all up, press the power button and… (more…)

A Canadian blogger named Kyle MacDonald decided one day that he wanted to play a real world game of “Bigger and Better”. You know, that game you may have played as a child where you start with a practically worthless object and compete against other friends to trade it for some thing bigger and better. Then turn around and trade it again for something even better, and so on. The person with the biggest/best thing at the end wins.

Well this is the ultimate version of this game. Starting with a single red paperclip, this guy wants to end up with a house, by bartering for it. At first I thought, he would never come close but wouldn’t you know it as of 2 days ago he met his goal 1 year and just 14 trades later. The journey across the U.S. and Canada for these trades is much more entertaining than it sounds. His blog was the epicenter of the trades and he keeps a great journal of this wild story. It’s one of those “I wish I would have thought of that” ideas that was just crazy enough to work!

I have intentionally not posted on Iraq because I’m not interested in getting into that much on this blog. From time to time however, I like to share an article covering facts that seem to be skimmed over or ignored by the media.

Read this article in World Magazine titled “On Borrowed Time: Captured memo shows terrorist leaders realize they are fighting against the clock.” By John Dawson. I have quoted the article below:

“While Washington lawmakers were debating an exit strategy for the United States’ prolonged engagement in Iraq, terrorist leaders may well have been cheering them on. That’s because when it comes to measuring the insurgency’s success in war-torn Iraq, enemy leaders and many American politicians don’t seem to see eye to eye.

Documents found during a raid on a former safe house of super terrorist Abu Masab al-Zarqawi and released after his June 7 death suggest the terror leader didn’t think the insurgency was as strong as some Washington pols say it is. Instead, the letter, penned by Zarqawi himself or someone close to him, reveals an insurgency nerve center worried about a prolonged engagement and the rise of the Iraqi National Guard.

The prevailing wisdom among administration critics on Capitol Hill maintains that time has worked against coalition forces in Iraq. Prolonged conflict, they say, gives insurgents an edge as continued casualties eventually will turn the American public against the war effort and the Shiite majority against the new Iraqi government.

After House Republicans pushed through an early June resolution rejecting an “arbitrary date” for withdrawal, Senate Democrats tried to pass a nonbinding resolution calling on President Bush to set a timetable for removing all U.S. forces from the Iraq theater.

“The administration’s policy to date—that we’ll be there for as long as Iraq needs us—will result in Iraq’s depending upon us longer,” said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, during a Senate debate on setting a timetable for withdrawal. “Three and a half years into the conflict, we should tell the Iraqis that the American security blanket is not permanent.”

Terror leaders inside Iraq apparently see things differently. In the preamble of what appeared to be a strategy memo composed by Zarqawi’s organization, the terrorist leaders of the Iraqi insurgency declared time to be working against them.

“As an overall picture, time has been an element in affecting negatively the forces of the occupying countries, due to the losses they sustain economically in human lives, which are increasing with time. However, here in Iraq, time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance,” the seized document stated. In particular, the memo pegged the mass arrests of insurgents and the freezing of terrorists’ assets as prime reasons insurgency leaders believe they are failing.

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Happy Independence Day to the good ol’ U.S. of A! Thanks to our soldiers stationed across the world who defend our liberty and this great nation’s interests.

The Space Shuttle Discovery embarked on STS-121 today. It was fun to watch the launch live on HDNet in stunning High Definition TV. From the reports, the launch went without any incident to be concern about. Good news indeed.

It’s always fun to watch these launches for me as I took one of the “insider” tours at Cape Canaveral that bring you literally to the base of the launch pads. It gives a better perspective as to how big the orbiter, external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters are in relation to pad and tower. It looks much bigger in person thats for sure.

Godspeed to the crew of STS-121.

Photo Credits: Bobby Coker, Jacob Langston - Orlando Sentinel

Contrary to notorious alarmists like Al Gore and his ilk, junk science is just not cutting it in the global warming debate. To me this debate really has little to do with political partisanship as some people on both sides of the aisle believe the myth that according to Gore “the debate in the scientific community is over.” The debate is far from over in the scientific community Mr Gore. Just because those that agree with Gore speak louder and are never really questioned by the media does not mean the debate is over. In fact it is just the opposite. Of course like any of these issues some “scientists” have their agendas on both sides of the argument. However many scientists try to stay as far away from that and rely on the unbiased scientific evidence. Based on this, many of Gore’s claims are refuted easily.

Read this article from the Op-Ed section of this past Sunday’s Wall Street Journal by Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.

I take the position that we are very far away from knowing the full truth on this subject and to ignore the other side of the argument as Gore and many do is scientifically irresponsible. It seems many have this belief that we know almost all there is to know about how this planet that God created works. When the truth of the matter is we really only know a fraction of it.