There’s nothing like that first day after the Tour folds its big yellow tent and life gets back to normal.
I got out early for a two-hour ride northeast on Highway 24 and enjoyed a tailwind to Falcon. The headwind on the homebound leg wasn’t outlandish, and I considered stretching the outing to three hours before remembering that there was nothing to eat in Chez Dog, someone having been a little lackadaisical about grocery-shopping lately.
So I rolled home, made a list and headed north to Whole Paycheck, pissing away a car payment on bits of this and that to keep flesh on the bones. Last night’s “dinner” involved a tin of smoked oysters, cheddar, crackers and a salad, and that’s just not enough to keep a renowned cycling journalist at the top of his game.
Now it’s raining for a second consecutive day, which is excellent. It’s been hotter than the high-flange hubs of Hell around here lately, and this takes the edge off, as does a little effervescent Austrian rosé.
Alas, we may all be reduced to drinking feeble American lager out of red-white-and-blue cans if the “mine is bigger than yours” contest ends badly in DeeCee, as seems increasingly likely.
These overfed, undereducated pustules afflicting the body politic should be compelled at gunpoint to hold their slapfests in small-town bars and beaneries, in the company of the simple folks these rich fucks profess to care about. Maybe after a few vicious beatings administered by work-hardened knuckles they’d realize their cushy gigs are about people, not politics.
• Late update: Kevin Drum sure wasn’t impressed by either Obama or Punkinhead tonight. I listened to the first few minutes of Obama’s bit while cooking dinner and I wasn’t exactly hearing a clarion call to arms. As for Punkinhead, I unplugged his ass before he even had a chance to start lying. My patience has its limits.
Mad Blog Media 
Yep, Washington is not reflective of the populous. Obama was elected to run the country, the House is elected to look after the interests of each of it’s constitutes districts’, not jam it’s agendas down my throat. We only have ourselves and the tea baggers to blame. Their no compromise, we are ignorant of the facts and proud of our ways douche-baggery, will catch up with them soon, especially when Chef Boyardee is the closest thing to gourmet that they can afford to eat. Grow your own might take up a whole new meaning, what with the price of gas and groceries going through the roof. And, of course, the bicycle and feet will have their day.
We can vote out all of the House in the next election, it takes 3 election cycles to turn over the Senate (6 years). Then what start all over again. The US Supreme Court dug the hole so deep I doubt we will ever be able to get out. I can’t comprehend Congress passing laws that will reduce lobbying income to them. The People are no longer part of the represented!
Bikes, wine, politics. C’mon get to the important stuff. Has Mia gutted the dog yet and peed on its remains? Has the Turk “accidentally” (I thought it was you, really, human slave) clawed the bejeezus out of him yet? What’s the update on the critter? Got a name yet?
Long story made short: We’re fucked.
I almost wish the KKK…oops, I mean the Tea Party would get their way and the US default on the debt. Especially if all the negative effects could somehow be limited to these loudmouthed dimwits only. What’s really needed for them to move somewhere they can all be together and then secede from our union — maybe Texas would be a good place for them all? Their big champion is ol’ Ronnie-Ray Guns, who raised taxes as well as the debt limit how many times? These folks are little more than racist morons and it’s amazing to think the Repuglican Party will let this noisy minority take their whole party down the toilet another time.
That’s what I keep saying Larry, if these fucks want to experience less government, move to northern Mexico. Try your luck in near anarchy down there. I’m sure land is dirt cheap.
Well…we have the Republican/Tea Party. A bunch of undereducated folks low on cash, afraid of minorities they are trained to hate, led by right-wing ideologues, and secretly funded by Big Business types that see money to be made. In case anyone hasn’t read William Shirer, this is deja vu all over again.
As I’ve said on this forum before, let’s not forget that when Germany was going down the economic and political toilet in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, enough people (about 33%) voted for Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP that the Nazis took over the government. It took Germany half a century to rise from the ashes of that tragic mistake. I suspect most of us reading this won’t be around for fifty years.
There was nothing special about Germans that made them more likely to swallow mindless crap in the polling booth compared to Americans. But I don’t let the Donks off the hook either. When Kennedy told us to ask what we could do for our country rather than asking what the country could do for us, I don’t think he was talking about Obamacare. Never thought I would see the day that we were thumbing rides into space via the Russians, either.
We really are fucked.
Larry T – – Just a Texas friend signing in…believe me it’s a bizarre deal that’s happening with the Gov. I have never met any single person that likes that guy…no one. How he keeps getting elected is beyond me. The consensus is that he has the right kind of photos on the right kind of people to call the shots. I think it’s like Charley says, the people are no longer a part of the equation.
They say that about Silvio Berlusconi in Italy too. Nobody will admit to voting for him but somehow he’ s still there. I think the people ARE part of the equation, but you know what my wife always says….
Khal’s comparisons with pre-Nazi Germany are chilling…but when people are scared and stupid, who knows what might happen?
I thought we voted to return adult supervision to the White House back in 2008, but Dad seems to have lost control of the numbskull teenagers who make up the rest of our gummint.
The two months or so we have to spend here before escaping back to Italy is beginning to seem like a LONG time now.