Nothing like a little French BashingTM to get ya in the holiday spirit...
Having seen Lance Armstrong's convincing victory at this year's Tour and his recent training stint with Discovery Channel in Texas, Johan Bruyneel believes Armstrong could win the Tour at least once more if he wanted to.
There is no doubting Johan Bruyneelâs status as the outstanding directeur sportif of his generation as far as major tours are concerned. After overseeing seven Tour de France victories with Lance Armstrong, a Vuelta a España win with Roberto Heras and this yearâs Giro dâItalia success with Paolo Savoldelli, the Discovery Channel team manager clearly knows a thing or two about what it takes to win a three-week race.
This makes it all the more interesting when the Belgian claims in todayâs edition of Marca that he thinks Armstrong could have won the Tour again in 2006 if he hadnât decided to retire. Having watched Armstrong training with his former team-mates at Discoveryâs recent camp in Austin, Bruyneel said that âphysically he is good enough for another Tour, and perhaps even twoâ, adding: âI am convinced that he had another Tour in his legs.â
However, Bruyneel quickly pointed out that he didnât think there was any chance of Armstrong going back on his decision to retire following this yearâs Tour. âI am sure that he wonât return, although he could. After the Tour this year I spent time analysing the videos and realised the difference between him and the rest. It was bigger than even I thought,â Bruyneel stated.
The Belgian declared himself very proud to have shared Armstrongâs experiences at the Tour, confessing that he did not feel sad when the Texan announced his retirement, âbut happy and grateful from having experienced his victories at close hand and having contributed minimally to his success. I would be lying if I didnât say I am proud of what we have done.â
Of the recent allegations printed in LâEquipe about what are claimed to be Armstrongâs EPO-tainted dope tests from the 1999 Tour, Bruyneel said it had been the paperâs intention simply to damage the seven-time Tour winnerâs reputation. âI canât reveal all that I know, but it is clear that the objective was to damage his reputation in any way,â Bruyneel declared.
He continued: âWe donât know if it was his urine [from the 1999 Tour], but it is clear that if something had been found in his urine it should not have come out in the press, but via an official organisation. And in that case they would have stripped him of the 1999 victory, wouldnât they? This story was not a surprise for us, it was simply one more in a long list of insinuations, criticisms and accusations that had been previously made.â
Satire, I hope, from the Scotsman.
Reindeer-drawn sleds have been slammed as environmentally unfriendly, because the carrot-munching animals produce the greenhouse gas methane in their wind. Now Santa has been urged to ditch his sleigh team and start travelling on public transport to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.
It has been calculated that Santa's team of nine reindeer would emit methane with a global warming impact equivalent to more than 40,600 tonnes of greenhouse gases on the 122 million mile Christmas Eve dash to deliver presents around the world. That would make his marathon sleigh ride almost as environmentally damaging as an aircraft, which would produce approximately 41,500 tonnes of on the Christmas Eve trip.
But Santa, making a personal appearance at the Glasgow branch of John Lewis, in the Buchanan Galleries, hit back at the untimely attack on his traditional Christmas means of transport. He said: "I am very conscious about the environment and conserve energy wherever possible.
"However, it would be very difficult for me to get round all the children in the world on Christmas Eve on a bus due to the fact that, as far as I am aware, there isn't a route that goes past every house in the world."
The methane calculations were made by Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Tom Brake. He said the best Christmas present for the environment would be if Santa took the bus, which would keep his total emissions output down to just 10,980 tonnes of - although he admitted the annual trip might take a bit longer than usual. Mr Brake said: "Boys and girls up and down the country will be eagerly waiting for Father Christmas to arrive with their presents on Christmas morning. What they may not realise however is that Santa would be better off taking public transport."
But he conceded: "At least he isn't taking the plane, which would be worse than the reindeer."
He added: "We realise that it might be a bit late to change things for this year, but hope that Santa will take this research into account when he plans next year's trip."
Scientists warned earlier this year that the wind of large mammals like cows and reindeer was a major contributor to global warming. is by far the biggest contributor to climate change, but methane has 23 times its warming potential, so reducing methane emissions is also considered important by environmentalists. There are 1.4 billion cows worldwide, each producing 500 litres of methane a day and accounting for 14 per cent of all emissions of the gas.
Known for his somewhat whimsical publicity stunts, earlier this week Mr Brake bought journalist and Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson a Christmas present - a bicycle. After delivering the bike to Clarkson's home, he said: "It is important that someone who is as prominent and influential as Jeremy Clarkson should adopt greener modes of transport, such as cycling."
#1
As head of the brotherhood of rangifer
tarandus airborne, we shall take this to the federal courts. Some judge can issue some sort order or another...
#2
... the carrot-munching animals produce the greenhouse gas methane in their wind.
Here's a solution - tie lighters to their asses so they can torch their farts when they come out; you just gotta remember to keep 'em far enough apart so they don't burn each other.
Wait - this'll just contribute to global warming, and it violates Kyoto. Never mind...
I've never thought of the Congolese as being a particularly bright folk, but I'd have been pretty surprised had the majority marked "Chaos" as their preferred outcome. Constitutions are just swell, as long as they're adhered to.
Voters in the Democratic Republic of Congo have overwhelmingly chosen to adopt a new post-war constitution that paves the way for national elections next year, according to referendum results announced on Saturday. With counting completed from nearly three-quarters of polling stations after last Sunday's poll, the "Yes" vote had won 83% and the "No" vote nearly 17%, the Independent Electoral Commission said.
17 percent of Congolese, it turns out, actually do prefer chaos...
The vote on whether to accept the proposed constitution was the first independent election to be held in the Congo for more than 40 years of dictatorship, wars and chaos. Apollinaire Malu Malu, president of the commission, told reporters that the electoral body was still counting the remaining votes and said the Supreme Court would have to certify the final results and deal with any complaints. But as the results stood so far, the "Yes" vote lead seemed unassailable.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/25/2005 00:00 ||
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A church-controlled radio station has apologised for a stunt in which a radio comic posing as Spain's prime minister called Bolivia's future president.
Spain and Bolivia have accepted the apology from Cope radio.
The station's comic, pretending to be Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, telephoned Evo Morales. He implied that Bolivia and Spain would join a left-wing axis involving Cuba and Venezuela.
"We are sincerely happy that you are triumphantly joining the new order that we wish to set up in Spain and Latin America, Evo," the spoof Zapatero said.
He also congratulated Mr Morales on winning last weekend's Bolivian election.
Cope, owned by the Spanish Bishops' Conference, is strongly critical of the policies of Spain's Socialist Government. During the six-minute conversation, later broadcast on Cope, the fake Zapatero also invited Mr Morales to Spain.
When Mr Morales said he had received many congratulatory phone calls, the fake Zapatero said he imagined he had not been called by US President George W Bush.
"He hasn't called me yet either, and I've been in office two years," the fake Zapatero added.
The real Mr Zapatero angered the US by pulling Spanish troops out of Iraq immediately after taking office in 2004.
The hoax phone call angered the Bolivian and Spanish governments and revived tension between Spain and the Catholic Church, which has sharply criticised Spain for policies such as legalising gay marriage. Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, going over the heads of the Catholic bishops who own the radio station, called in the Vatican's envoy to Spain on Thursday.
He asked the envoy to prevent anything similar happening again.
Spain formally apologised to the Bolivian government over the incident on Thursday. Cope, bowing to demands from Spain and Bolivia, issued a second statement on Friday apologising "to the people and institutions affected".
"The board of this station wishes to clarify that it has never been its intention to lack respect for the president-elect of Bolivia, nor hinder the normal development of the international relations of our country," it said. Note that they didn't say what the President of Bolivia's *reply* was to the offer of joining a "left-wing axis".
Posted by: Leon Clavin ||
12/25/2005 20:19 Comments ||
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#5
the mean one - Who's Afraid of Betty Crocker?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/25/2005 20:36 Comments ||
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#6
I wish I could take credit for that but I can't. I think AP came up with it.
Posted by: Phil ||
12/25/2005 22:48 Comments ||
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#7
Radio pranks are serious business in the Spanish-speaking world.
Just after Orson Welles' infamous "War of the Worlds" broadcast in 1939, a station in Quito Ecuador presented the same program in Spanish. It predictably set off a panic. Instead of calling the producer on the carpet and rebuking him in the newspapers, as happened in the US, the locals simply burned the station down.
For Madhu Malti, a woman police inspector in Meerut, it was just another mundane day of duty. But in a flash everything changed and now she finds herself cornered for what she claims "just following a senior's orders."
Malti, now under suspension for thrashing young lovers in Meerut's Gandhi Park Monday in full view of TV cameras, says: "I did not do anything wrong that day. I am being victimised because the seniors have not owned up their responsibilities.
"I was not leading a 25-member team but I am being punished as I do not have any political links like many others in the team to save my job. I am being punished because I am a woman. I need a job to support my family."
Posted by: john ||
12/25/2005 11:09 ||
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#1
You're being punished because you had a Rodney King moment.
The next time you feel in a Taliban mood and want to slap around some girls, don't do it on TV.
Posted by: john ||
12/25/2005 12:36 Comments ||
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MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) - A father, angry that his eldest daughter had married against his wishes, slit her throat as she slept and then killed three of his other daughters in a remote village in eastern Pakistan, police said Saturday. Nazir Ahmad, a laborer in his 40s, feared the younger girls, aged 4, 8, and 12, would follow in their sister's footsteps, police officer Shahzad Gul said.
So he 'had' to kill them. Rat bastard.
Ahmad surrendered to police after the killings late Friday in Burewala, about 70 miles east of Multan, a main city in eastern Punjab province, Gul said. "He (Ahmad) told us today that he has killed his daughters, and we arrested him," he said.
Gul said the man's 25-year-old daughter, Muqadas Bibi, had married the man of her choice against her father's wishes some weeks ago. Ahmad contacted Bibi this week, saying he was ready to forgive her, Gul said. During a visit by Bibi to her parents' house, Ahmad slit her throat as she slept and then killed the other three girls, Gul said. He said police were investigating whether other relatives helped in the killings and were also looking for Bibi's husband to inform him of her death.
Hundreds of women are killed in Pakistan every year, many by male relatives, after they are accused of staining their families' honor by having affairs or marrying for love without family consent.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/25/2005 00:26 ||
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#1
Ahmad contacted Bibi this week, saying he was ready to forgive her, Gul said. During a visit by Bibi to her parents' house, Ahmad slit her throat as she slept and then killed the other three girls, Gul said.
The mother is forfeit, as well, as it must be her fault. Actually anyone will do - anyone but Ahmad, of course, must bear the guilt of this betrayal of his honor. Poor man. I grieve for him, for his many losses in this treachery.
By employing deceit and killing the younger sisters, innocent by any stretch of the imagination, Ahmad proves himself to be a True Lion of Islam. Anything less would have disqualified him.
What a barbaric pestilence to humankind is this Islam.
Survivors and grieving relatives today held ceremonies marking the first anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami. The massive wave swept away at least 216,000 people in one of the world's worst natural disasters in living memory on Boxing Day. Western tourists who returned to the beaches of southern Thailand where they were caught in the disaster were among hundreds of people who launched boats laden with flowers, candles and incense to ward off evil spirits.
Ceremonies in Thailand today were the first of hundreds due to be held to mark the disaster's grim anniversary in the dozen countries hit by the waves last year.
In Indonesia's Aceh province, the tsunami resulted in a cease-fire between the government and separatist guerrillas and thousands of people have moved into new homes built with some of the billions of dollars in foreign aid that poured in after the disaster. But aid agencies say 80 per cent of Indonesians who lost their homes are still waiting for a new one. In Sri Lanka, troops today patrolled the streets of the capital, Colombo, amid boosted security for ceremonies marking the tsunami's anniversary. Disputes over aid delivery and an upsurge in violence blamed on separatist Tamil Tiger rebels have dashed hopes that the tsunami would bring a final end to the country's civil conflict.
Exactly one year ago on Monday, the most powerful earthquake in four decades - measuring 9.0 - ripped apart the ocean floor off Sumatra, displacing millions of tons of water and spawning giant waves that spread in all directions, picking up speed as they neared land. The surging walls of water levelled buildings and swept heavy trucks miles inland. Entire villages in Indonesia and Sri Lanka were swept away and five-star resorts in Thailand were swamped.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Voters in the 
