Well, today Lance clinched his 5th consecutive Tour de France victory in a dramatic rain-slicked time trial. I hated to see Jan Ullrich go down, but I was happy to see him pop right back up. It wasn't as if Ullrich had eroded so much of the time differential that he would have caught Lance anyway. But, Lance no longer looks super-human and folks like Ullrich and Tyler Hamilton are looing great for the future. I wonder if Lance will bow out now. I think he's pretty set, as far as money and history go.

The sprinter's jersey is still up for grabs, so there will be some drama even tomorrow, on a stage that is usually pretty ceremonial. All the ingredients came together to make the centennial Tour de France one of the most exciting ever.

I wonder if it galls the poor Bushies to know that the French love Texas' own Lance Armstrong, maybe more than the typical American, or to hear him chatting it up in French "over there." Or maybe their feeling is that beating the French in their own race trumps all.

I heard a rumor that Lance had considered not racing the Tour this year, in light of the current wave of Francodysphilia. Sounds like nonsense. Considering that Lance has chosen to specialize his career on the Tour and there's only one way to win 5 consecutive Tours (think about the associated increase in prestige, earning power, and endorsements), I can't imagine him throwing that all away for a bunch of jingoistic smoke and mirrors. Well, either way, we know what happened, and even if the rumors were true, the right decision was made for everyone concerned.

Hey... do you think Odai and Qusai felt a little like Butch and Sundance as the troops massed outside their house?

TNT says "we know drama" in an ad that features Nia Peebles going from one tough situation to the next, coaxing "come on baby..." Well, this 100th Tour de France has seemingly had that level of drama in almost every stage.

If you missed Lance's mishap with a spectator's musette bag a couple of days ago, you missed some of the highest drama yet. The handle of the bag got looped around Lance's right shift lever and yanked his handlebar around violently, bringing the bike out from under Lance. His chain kinked up, and it took a small amount of time to get the chain reseated. Not only did he go down just as he was starting to attack, he didn't clip back into his pedals completely, so that when he put pressure on his right pedal a short while after he'd gotten back in the saddle, his foot popped off, and he almost went down a second time. Jan Ullrich didn't attack while Lance was working to recover, but waited to compete fairly. No sooner had Lance gotten back to the front, than he attacked again, leaving Ullrich and everybody else in the dust. This is the only stage he's won so far on this Tour, but he says he intends to win the final time trial, too.

Impressive as all that is, Tyler Hamilton completely blew my mind today. When he stood on the podium to receive his trophy for winning the stage, it was clear that he was being careful with his right arm – the one most affected by his broken collarbone. The guy pulled off a daring attack early in the race, and held on to a sizeable lead to take the stage. He also moved himself into 6th place in the overall standings. As good as he is in time trials, he stands a chance of taking third place overall by the time the Tour rolls into Paris! What kind of pressure would he have put on Jan and Lance, if he was in top form?

:::

Fascinating that the FCC may not get the deregulatory cake-walk it expected. "Broad bipartisan support" is building for a bill that would overturn some of FCC's recent changes to the rules that govern media ownership. However, an amendment to reverse the ruling allowing conglomerates to own television and newspapers in the same market will not be added, because that might make the bill too vulnerable to veto... NYT story [requires registration.]

:::

Have some fun: twist your tongue. Somebody went and compiled all those tongue-twisters. Go figure.

Tongue-twister :
"A sequence of words, often alliterative, difficult to articulate quickly." (OED)

Shibboleth :
"A word or phrase used as a test for detecting foreigners, or persons from another district, by their pronunciation." (OED)

Battologism :
A phrase or sentence built by (tiresome) repetition of the same words or sounds.