Bloomberg On JFK Plot: "Stop Worrying, Get A Life"

Ethan Korngold says: "Finally, a politician with a reasonable view of the true risk of terrorism relative to all of the other risks in the world. Refreshing, indeed."

"On Monday, Bloomberg finally weighed in, but his response was not what some would have expected.

"There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life," he said.

That "What, me worry?" attitude pretty much sums up Bloomberg's advice to New Yorkers on the terror plot. As far as he was concerned, the professionals were on it, so New Yorkers shouldn't let it tax their brains.

"You have a much greater danger of being hit by lightning than being struck by a terrorist," he added."

Link

The Best Current Music Artists

My tastes in music are varied. Tastes vary from Dance/Techno to Rock to Classical. The genre of particular interest these days contains artists usually dropped in the "alternative" category (whatever that means). Strangely, these artists are currently all receiving a lot of air-time and chart success.

Here are my favourite 'alternative' artists (alphabetical):
The All-American Rejects
Black Eyed Peas
Blink-182
Bowling for Soup
Coldplay
The Dandy Warhols
Death Cab for Cutie
Duncan Sheik
Fall Out Boy
Foo Fighters
Goo Goo Dolls
Green Day
I-94
Jesse McCartney
Keane
The Killers
Lilly Allen
My Chemical Romance
Relient k
Rihanna
Robbie Williams
Ryan Cabrera
Sean Paul
Semisonic
Snow Patrol
Sugarcult
The Vines
Yellowcard
The Idan Raichel Project

Bests and Worsts of the Giro d'Italia

As Ghisallo notes below, this year's Giro was a smash hit in Italy. I'm guessing a few of us here would agree as well. So while it may take some work to figure out what didn't go over well, the only challenge to listing the good parts is not forgetting anything.

Let's start small:

Five Things to Love About the 90th Giro d'Italia

1. The sprints. There was just about everything you could ask for in the sprinter's program. We were treated to Alessandro Petacchi's emotional comeback, and yet rarely were the sprints as dull as that previous sentence might have implied. Petacchi won five stages, but between his wins were some crazy finales, including the spectacular curves of stage 5 (won by Förster), the crashes on stages 2 and 11, and so forth. Other stages featured great straight-up competition, including Danilo Napolitano's two-day burst of speed which saw him win in Petacchi's hometown. And artful touches, like stage 7's finish on the F-1 track at Mugello, and stage 8's conclusion at the legendary Ferrari test track.

2. The Scenery. The early and transitional stages are usually a chance to tune out the long race for a day or so, but there were few such chances this year. The start in Sardinia was upstaged only slightly by the turn around the Amalfi Coast, a site beautiful enough to make the UNESCO list. Warm-up climbs to Montevergine and Santuario Nostra Signora Della Guardia were beautiful as well. And of course, the Alps and Dolomite stages were postcard-ready too, as usual.

3. An impeccably balanced parcours. From day 1 possession of the maglia rosa was contested. OK, there were a few days off around stage 6-9, but the opening team time trial got things started, and the absolutely brilliant Montevergine stage succeeded in drawing out the competition on day 4. And while everyone knew where the biggest challenges lay, the Tre Cime and Zoncolan stages did NOT overshadow the latter half of the race: stages 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17 and 20 all mattered.

4. The maglia blanca. Often a grand tour will showcase an up-and-coming young talent, but rarely are we treated to talents as young and impressive as Andy Schleck and Riccardo Riccò. Schleck was nearly impervious to the pressure and the demands of either the attention, the competition, and the course. He showed great form on the climbs and time trials alike. Riccò, for his part, could use some ITT practice, but his transition from Classics ace to grand tour climbing stud thrilled the home crowd. Schleck may be bound for France in future years, but Riccò looks like a future maglia rosa for sure.

5. The Winner. Much will be written about Danilo DiLuca's brilliant Giro, but for me, nothing is more significant than this:

Di Luca, from the region of Abruzzo, became the first of the Giro's 64 Italian winners come from south of Tuscany.

The first rider south of Tuscany? There are a lot of Italians south of Tuscany, not to mention some 70% of the land mass, and it took 90 years for one of them to win. This is big.

Thanks Podium Cafe

Tour de France Wild Card Drama

Well, it is now official. Unibet, the Claytons ProTour squad (that’s the ProTour licence you pay for when you are not really getting a ProTour licence), will be sitting out this year’s Tour de France.

It is the announcement that nearly every cycling observer has expected and the one that the Unibet Cycling Team has feared most.

On their official race website, Tour organiser ASO have announced that the 18 ProTour teams pre-selected in December for July’s race, will be joined by three wild cards, of which Unibet is not one.

The invitations have gone to the Swiss registered, very Kazak Astana team, the French registered and very French Agritubel team and the British registered, South African sponsored, but very Italian team, Barloworld.

The 21 teams will each field 9 riders, giving a total of 189 cyclists making their historic lap of London in the prologue time trial on July 7.

Riis and Giro

The past few weeks have seemed like the movie Sparticus with some riders. Instead of everyone saying “I’m Sparticus” we have all the former Telekom riders saying “I’m a doper”. The two confessions that were the biggest surprise because of their current roles are Zabel and Riis. Zabel because he is still racing and there might be pressure to leave him off races like the Tour de France and Worlds. For Riis it is not a surprise that he used drugs I would put his ride in the ’97 Tour as equal to VDB’s Liege win in ’99 or the Gewiss team in the ’94 Fleche Wallone (along with some other ’94 races) as performances that were always the most obvious ones to wonder about. The surprise was that he did not confess. He owns and runs the CSC team so it is not like he could be fired, but he risks loosing and not getting new sponsors. He also risks having his team excluded from the big races as well. Never mind that there is no obvious link between the current CSC team and doping, but they could punish them for Riis’s past.

For current racing the Giro has continued to be the best race since the ’05 Giro. Di Luca has been the only consistent in the race, but we have been treated to lots of other good rides. Garzelli, Ricco, Piepoli have all put in exciting rides. Di Luca chasing down Mazzoleni to limit his loses was great racing. So far the only disappointing stage was the Oropa time trial that only confirmed the strength of Di Luca.

I love the finish that the Giro does in Briancon. Up the narrow streets always brings exciting racing. Whenever the Tour de France goes to this city they go the easier way avoiding the narrower roads. Maybe only the walled city of Avila at the Vuelta is a better finishing city.

Satan Starbucks

I know I shouldn't laugh, but Charles Clover's piece in today's paper regarding the evil Starbucks put a smile on my face.

Too much guilt: are we really what we buy?

Not that I don't agree with him, but it put me in mind of another more notorious critic of the coffee chain: the Reverend Billy, pastor of the Church of Stop Shopping, pictured here being arrested earlier in the year at a Starbucks by the New York Police Department.

The Rev. Billy believes Starbucks to be so evil, he regularly goes about performing 'exorcisms' in them, trying to cleanse those who run and frequent them (well, he is as much performance artist as activist).

A friend of a friend who experienced one such exorcism at a south London Starbucks - complete with a rip-roaring performance by the holy-roller 'Stop Shopping Choir', said it was one of the most extraordinary and wonderful things she had ever seen.

(By the way the Rev Billy will also perform the same service for you on your credit card if you desire).

Anything that makes you laugh and think at the same time can't be bad, but joking apart I wonder whether having to worry about everything from where your morning coffee comes from to the diamond in your engagement ring isn't going to backfire at some point.

How much guilt can one person experience before they tie themselves in knots and give up?

It all used to be so straightforward in my youth: no products from South Africa or Chile and no student at university ever joined Barclay's Bank. Now there are so many things to potentially feel guilty over - the logical conclusion would seem to become a Jainist (the religious people you see in India walking with a cloth over their mouth, lest an insect should fly in and be inadvertently killed).

I am not one given to eco-guilt, but since looking into the details of coffee production, it is something that I think about every morning when I go for caffeine re-fueling after my morning bike ride at the local Starbucks.

Yes, it probably used to be the local baker's shop and is now a big chain, but this coffee shop has also become the hub of our area.

Teenagers can go and meet with friends there, hordes of mums who stay at home looking after their children go for a treat and a chat with mates, to set them up for a day of household duties. Local writers pitch up with lap-tops and at the weekends you'll see plenty of dads taking the kids out, giving mum a well-deserved lie-in.

This isn't to eulogise Starbucks, it's just to say that people are so bombarded with ethical questions these days that I wonder if it isn't all going to become a turn-off, or, whether big businesses will just pay lip service to the demands of consumers by putting labels and certifications on products that have not been thoroughly checked out by independent sources in order to keep people quiet.

I don't feel 'eco-guilt' because I try to do what I can and I also feel that a lot of policy change needs to come from government and big business (although that is not to say there isn't room for improvement by me).

But there is also the wider question of what it actually means to live an 'ethical life', which has nothing to do with responsible consumerism.

My parents passed on to me (and I try to instill the same in my own children) the philosophy of 'do no harm'.

You can try to do no harm to the environment but there is still the question that we are social beings: Are we good neighbours, do we offer to help older people around us? Do we help our family with good grace when they ask? Would our workmates say that we are a generous colleague or team player? Do we give back anything to the community we live in by finding time for even the smallest bit of 'one-off ' voluntary work?

Those are the wider ethical questions I occasionally ask of myself when I'm swigging my 'unethical' coffee.

How Google Gears Will Change Your Life

The announcement of Google's latest development, Google Gears, was met with a lot of excitement over the last few days -- understandably so. The ability of web applications to work even when off-line is a huge step forward for web software, and even if there aren't a lot of apps that can take advantage of this yet, the beta release of Gears signals big changes in coming months.

But how will Google Gears change your online life? In more ways than you might think.

Let me first issue a disclaimer: there's a lot of work that needs to be done on Google Gears, and it will be awhile before enough web apps adopt this feature. It's not going to change the world, but it's a start in a new direction.

How will Gears change things? Here are just a few ways:

• Office domination. For the first time, Microsoft's domination over office suite software will be challenged. Google Apps (currently consisting of word processing, spreadsheets, email and calendar) has been out for awhile but hasn't gone anywhere in terms of widespread adoption. The biggest reason: you can't work when you're off-line. With Gears, this changes. Now, Google Docs and Spreadsheets still won't measure up to Word and Excel, but the appeal of being able to access and work on documents from anywhere is a big plus, and Gmail and Gcal are considered by many to be better at what they do than the Microsoft equivalents. It'll be awhile before there's real competition in this field, but Google took a major step toward being a competitor with the release of Gears.


• Everything online. For the last few decades, computer users have been reliant on an operating system and hard drive storage on their computer. But with online apps getting better and better, and now with the release of Gears, a user is no longer tied to any operating system or hard drive. You can work on your documents anywhere you have an Internet connection -- and soon, the Internet connection won't be necessary. All you'll need is a browser. Even files can be stored online instead of on your hard drive. Of course, you'll still need an operating system and hard drive, but which one you're using won't matter a bit.


• Offline work. This is the obvious one. Those who use online email apps such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail, or any online apps, can currently pretty much only do work while connected to the Internet. But soon you'll be able to do work at any time -- while in the bathroom (assuming you have a laptop), on an airplane, in the remotest areas of the world. This will liberate you from Internet access. Do a load of work somewhere off-line, then go back home or to the office and connect and upload your work.


• Down time won't matter. Another obvious one, but this will make a big difference. Many areas have bad Internet connections, with major down time or up-and-down time. That kind of unreliable connection is a major deterrent for people to use online apps, but now it won't matter. Internet's down -- just work off-line until it's back up. Connect, update, and disconnect. This brings serious online computing to a much wider group of people, worldwide.


• Disconnected offices. A side effect of the growth of online apps will be an acceleration toward an office-less office. Laptops will become king, as you can do work from anywhere, Internet connection or not, an workers will become liberated from the office. Why do I need to be at my desk, as long as I get my work done? In fact, the lack of an office greatly reduces the cost of running a small business, and those businesses who learn that decentralized, disconnected offices are most efficient will have a competitive edge.


• Distraction-free work. This is my personal favorite. Currently, if you use online software such as Google Docs or Gmail to do your work, you have to be connected to the Internet -- which just happens to be the greatest time-waster ever invented. So as you do your work, you've got the constant pull of other Internet sites (beyond the ones needed for productivity), the Siren's call beckoning you at every turn. Eventually, you cave in, and there goes your productivity. With off-line work, you can disconnect from the Internet, only have the apps you need be available off-line, and work without distraction for an hour before connecting and caving in for a little while. Disconnect again for more distraction-free work. Productivity soars, you work less, and soon you're sipping Margaritas on a deserted beach in Baha, work a distant memory.

Get a bicycle. You will not regret it...Oh, and dream a bit

This quote by Amy Webster could make you more paranoid about riding on the street: "The sound of a car door opening in front of you is similar to the sound of a gun being cocked."

This quote by David Perry makes sense if you have ever had a car door open in front of you: "What do you call a cyclist who doesn't wear a helmet? An organ donor."

As much as I love and promote biking (even in Los Angeles), there is nothing more stressful than riding a bike in the street with parked cars on one side and speeding by cars on the other. It's just not fun on some streets, even those with Class II Paths (bike lane on a street)

The shot above is a nice dream though...

Okay, so that picture is from a Kaiser Permanente commercial. And the title is a quote from Mark Twain in Taming the Bicycle

Wear helmets!

This is making the rounds.

As a person who has had his brain on the inside of his skull for twenty-five years and who is in no hurry to reverse that dominant physiological paradigm, I'd also like to point out that the title of the article is "Strange but True", not "Strange but True AND a Good Idea!".

As much as people might lean on the above study to feel better about riding without a helmet, I believe this is all the proof needed to justify wearing one (via Bicycles and Icicles).

StreetFilms.org-The Case for Separated Bike Lanes in NYC

Tour de Cure

I will be riding 100 miles in the Tour de Cure this weekend. If you would like to sponsor me the please do so at my page on the American Diabetes Association fund raising page.

iTunes cracked

The current (?) version of iTunes, 7.1.1 has been cracked by the QTFairUse6 project. Now is the time to uncripple your purchased iTunes tracks (especially those brutally expensive, hard-to-rip audiobooks) before Apple spends more engineering dollars to punish you for wanting to "think different," "switch" and otherwise enjoy the stuff you bought from them. Link (via Digg)

Update: Note that this crack is only for Windows -- Mac users are still punished for buying from Apple.

Macaframa SF Track Bike Promo

Death traps can be graceful, too.

And NO, there will not be any of this in my future. My proximity will not increase my predilection for this type of riding; I can wreck myself just fine on USCF-approved road and CX courses, no need to do it on my morning commute as well.

You, You, You -- you really are special

This is a very amusing article...and somewhat concerning..

Here is the opening text..written by

By Jeffrey Zaslow
From The Wall Street Journal Online

You, You, You -- you really are special, you are! You've got everything going for you. You're attractive, witty, brilliant. "Gifted" is the word that comes to mind.

Childhood in recent decades has been defined by such stroking -- by parents who see their job as building self-esteem, by soccer coaches who give every player a trophy, by schools that used to name one "student of the month" and these days name 40.

Now, as this greatest generation grows up, the culture of praise is reaching deeply into the adult world. Employers are dishing out kudos to workers for little more than showing up.

Lost Delivers

How good was "Lost" last night? Damn!

Unlike many of its critics, I was/am happy with this crazy show meandering and wandering and dragging its feet. I don't need to know why The Others are obsessed with babies. I don't bother myself with details such as why the fat guy hasn't lost a pound on that island despite eating better (less greasy, no fast food) and moving around more. And I don't care that we haven't seen a polar bear in years.

I am very satisfied just seeing these interesting characters move around on the screen and weird shit befalls them. Hell, I even like all the new people they bring on board as if this whole thing is just a parade. Seriously, for a show about an island, the amount of people that have ended up with a credit on Lost has got to be nearing 1,000.

Which is why, I think, they need to kill so many people.

The only problem when you do that though is you don't get to answer any of the questions that those who want answers keep demanding.

Which is part of the beautiful mystery of the Lost "plot", and one of the reasons I like it so much. You seriously never know what is going to happen from one episode to the next.

And if you haven't yet seen last night's episode, go watch it on ABC.com because after the jump I'm going to get into some spoilers that will spoil part of the goodness that went down.

Everything was great last night.

We learned about creepy Ben and how he got on the island and what his parents were like and why everyone bows down to him.

We learned about how The Others began their rule on the island, and what happened to the Dharma Initiative peeps.

We learned about the dead guy with the beer cans in the back of the VW.

And we got to see Locke be the badass that we love. He beat the crap outta eye patch guy, he showed Ben up in front of The Others, and he marched right into the lair of one of the scariest semi-invisible creatures we've seen so far, Jacob.

And then we see him get shot!

But if he actually dies, how will we learn how it was that he was no longer paralyzed?

However, Ben alluded to the fact that Jacob still could "save" Locke, which I'm not so sure I want to see. Because if he is a god the way Ben is presenting him as being - a pissed off, bitter, lo-fi god, then why can't he stop the new moms from dying and why can't he cure Ben's spine?

Fie on you, Superheroes and your limitations!

Television Without Pity has an interesting take:

Turns out that Craphole Island really is the Land of Bad Dads. (Do I see a Disneyland ride in the future?) Ben's craptastic father was so awful that he turned Ben away from the peacenik lovey-dovey ways of the Dharma Initiative and towards the dark side of Otherdom. Ben's chosen path was chockfull of evil doings: he not only killed his Bad Dad (remember Roger? The dead guy with all the beer?), but was actively involved in the Purge of the Dharma Initiative off the Island. The nasty hostiles, lead by a hirsute Richard, gassed those hippies right good! To top off his campaign to be most evil shrimp ever, Ben admits that he lied about being born on the Island and then shoots Locke in the stomach leaving him to die in the mass grave where they left the woebegone Dharma Initiates. Did I mention that he had a Bad Dad who didn't love him enough?

I just want to see more from Ben's daughter now.

Because we haven't learned to love enough characters yet.

Photos via ABC.com

Yetti LA

The Yeti boots are rebelling against me. They have mutated, grown wheels, and are preparing to take over Los Angeles. Take cover people. This is your warning.

Il Giro v. Le Tour

OK, everyone knows Le Tour de France is now and will always be THE race of races. But that doesn't mean we can't find ways to compare No. 2 to No. 1 and see who comes out ahead in other, less meaningful ways. Also, below is a partial list of comparisons; I invite all others to add to the list and make verdicts.

Since things are getting crowded on the main page I'll do this on the Flip:

Competition: Campionissimi v. Galacticos

The only serious note on this post... so the Pro Tour hasn't exactly saved the Giro from the intramural scrum it has been for a decade or two? Once upon a time Tour heroes like Indurain and Hinault and LeMond came to Italy to win. But while the Giro will always fall just short, the comparison could be closer... if Italy weren't producing so many great cyclists. Face it: home teams have big advantages in grand tours, and Italy almost always fields a formidable home team... while French racers have made the Tour available to any foreigner who wishes. If you're Joe International Cyclist, do you want to go take on all of Italy, or wait til July to duke it out with a select handful of outsiders?

Verdict: Le Tour... for now.

Aesthetics: Pink or Yellow?

Kind of a hobson's choice. But the pink has grown on me, and actually looks kinda cool with just about any Pro Tour kit that isn't red.

Verdict: Il Giro

Wine: Chianti or Bordeaux?

As a grandson of Italy, I've tried for a long time to like Italian wine. Ain't happening. Yes, everyone can gin up a nice bottle now and then, but speaking in broad brushstrokes, there's a reason they wrap Italian wines in straw. But don't ask me what it is. Anyway...

Verdict: Le Tour

Crowds: The Nation or the World?

Nobody can top the Tour for crowd size, enthusiasm (albeit largely imported from across the Spanish border), and drunks. The Giro's crowds are smaller and more manageable, though I'm confident it has its share of drunks. Italians are said to harbor the most love for their race... Still, Le Tour has given the world the sport's most intense fan-images, where riders count on the sea of flesh parting just in time to let them turn the pedals again.

Verdict: Le Tour

Scenery: Pyrenees or Dolomites?

The Tour has its monuments, but it also insists on long, flat stages across Normandy, Bordeaux, and the North with nuthin much going on. This may be overly subjective, but almost every inch of Italy looks interesting to me. Look at this year: Sardinia, Salerno (Napoli), Tivoli (Rome), Tuscany, the Riviera... and that's all before the mountain stages. Also, seeing them racing on roads cut through towering snowbanks is awfully dramatic. This year's edition will be non-stop postcards.

Verdict: Il Giro

Randomness: Nature vs. Nurture

Well, the Giro is occasionally undone by foul weather beyond the likes of what the Tour would ever experience. French audiences, however, have a knack for making things interesting, blocking the road, punching Merckx in the kidney, stuff like that. And there's no Italian equivalent of riders sitting down in protest, a decadal event in Le Tour.

Verdict: Le Tour

Cycling Media by some numbers

What is the size of the US cycling market. Here's the results of some googling:

Number of USCF license holders as of 1997: 30,000

USA cycling currently claims 58,000 members on its web site:

Recognized by the U.S. Olympic Committee and the Union Cycliste Internationale, USA Cycling promotes American cycling through its 58,000 members and 2,000 annual events.

Bicycling magazine claimed a circulation of 340,000 in 1989:

James McCullagh, editor and publisher of Bicycling, said the acquisition would increase his magazine's circulation to at least 340,000, from 310,000, after eliminating duplicate subscribers.

I've also seen circulation stats of 400,000 (Sports Illustrated is about 3.2M, Golf Digest is 1.5M)

AMERICANS BUY BIKES

More than 20 million new bikes were sold in 2000, a record high. Throughout the 1990s, sales averaged more than 16 million bikes per year, including more than 11 million “adult” bicycles. The bicycle industry generated sales totaling $5.89 billion in 2000. More than 5,400 specialty bicycle dealers and 1,000 companies are involved in the manufacture, distribution, and sales of bicycles in the United States.

How many hard-core fans of the sport are out there in the USA?

My wild-ass-guess is that it's far short of the 300,000 numbers of Bicycling magazine. Maybe on the order of the USCF membership, somewhere between 30-50,000. A total WAG at how much cash the hardcore cyclists invest in their equipment each year. Assume the average is $1000, and the population is divided up into a normal distribution.

30000 Hard Core US Cyclists

3930 Spend 0-500 per year $982,500

10230 Spend 500-1000 per year $7,672,500

10230 spend 1000-1500 per year $12,787,500

3930 spend 1500-2000 per year $6,877,500

Total $28,320,000

Some sanity checks on dollar figures above: So if the high end folks buy a higher end machine @ $5K a pop only 1200 are sold a year? That seems way low!

Holy Shit

Armstrong's seven Tour de France victories between 1999 and 2005 added jet fuel to the bike boom. In 2000 there were 145,000 high-end road bikes -- averaging about $1,100 -- sold across the country, they made up just 4 percent of the total number of bikes sold and accounted for 11 percent of the retail dollars spent, according to Jay Townley, a bicycle market analyst in Wisconsin.

Dayum, that's $159M clams if 145,000 can be believed.

VS 2006 Tour de France Ratings

Live viewership improved 77 percent from the day before. Overall gross total viewers--the addition of OLN's multiple airings on the day's events--gave the network 1.3 million viewers, some 50 percent higher than the first 19-day average of 809,000 for the event. For the rest of the weekend, OLN made significant viewers gains versus earlier parts of the race. For example, its live telecasts on the final weekend rose 85 percent to 622,000 from the weekend before. All major male demo ratings also climbed significantly--men ages 18-34 were up 93 percent; men 18-49 rose 90 percent; and men 25-54 were 98 percent higher.

Microwave popcorn is the new asbestos

Diacetyl, the buttery-flavored chemical used in microwave popcorn, may be banned in California by 2010. The fumes from it cause terrible lung-disease in people who work around it.

Assemblywoman Sally Lieber (D) has introduced a bill to ban diacetyl use by 2010. The chemical is an artificial butter flavoring most commonly used in microwave popcorn. Numerous study have found links between the chemical used by flavor workers and a rare disease called bronchiolitis obliterans. For those of you who aren’t 2000 yr old Romans, that means that the bronchioles and some of the smaller bronchi are obliterated by masses made up of fiberous tissue. It’s like sticking marbles into the networks of tubes in your lung that connect fresh air to the alveoli, the little sacs where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged with the blood. As you Romans can imagine, that’s haud sanus. According to the WaPo, flavoring manufacturers have paid out more than $100 million due to health lawsuits. An excellent case study and background to this whole mess can be found at Defending Science.

Link

Disney World as a Google Map:

A Walt Disney World enthusiast has placed every ride, shop and restaurant in the park onto a Google Maps mashup! Link (via The Disney Blog)