Click, click... BOOM!!!

That was roughly the noise heard today during the Vuelta Espana today when the group split, and Tom Danielson, who has been endlessly promoted as the next big thing in US cycling, exploded when the going got tough. 7 stages into this race, and Mr. Danielson is done, done, done-sky my friends. Yes, the man once promoted as the Lance replacement for Discovery has again blown up, and will not be a factor for the rest of this race, unless he pulls a "Landis" tomorrow, and makes up the 4+ minutes he's behind some of the guys who are supposed to win this race. But, we all know what happened to Landis after that memorable day during le Tour de France. The big revelation though, was the youngster on Disco, the Slovenian, Janez Brajkovic.

He flew out of the group when the final selection was made, and most thought it might be Triki Beltran, or maybe even Danielson finally coming to the fore, but alas, it was Brajkovic, the 22 year old, going up the road with the big hitters. What was the result of this kid's effort? At least one day in gold for him. Yes, he's wearing the leader's jersey of the Vuelta, and now, Danielson is going to be fetching bottles again for a new team leader, because he's just been demoted. Look, when you're Danielson, and you're supposed to be this big bad ass climber, and Stijn Devolder beats you by several minutes on a climb... Man, it's time for you to go and look in the mirror, really close, and decide there and then. Are you going to race your bike or what? Jesus man. We've been waiting for you to get out there and kick some ass, and here we are again, you getting dropped. I'm disappointed. I like the guy. He seems nice. He seems genuine, and seems to have some talent for going uphill, unless it's during a race that matters. Sure, he won Georgia and a few hillclimbs here and there, but it's time to put up or shut up. If I were Johan (his Director Sportif), I'd be having a talk with Mr. Danielson after this year's Vuelta, and it would go a little something like this. "Tom. If you're not going to get results, you're going to have to find a new team to ride for. You're not riding even close to our expectations. You've got one year to get some sort of a result, and then it's the road chief." Maybe he can come back and ride domestically again, or maybe he could take up mountain bike racing again, although, he didn't do all that great at that either. This guy needs to ride, and needs to race his bike. The time for excuses for him is long over. Back when Fassa Bortolo picked him up, they were going to bring him along slowly. And then, end of the season, he got the boot. Wonder why? Then Postal picked him up so he could learn from Lance. And, they were going to bring him along slowly. And now a few years later, they're still bringing him along slowly. Damn man, by the time he's ready to race a bike, he's gonna be 40, and retired. Any slower, and the tortoise is going to pass him up. Maybe he can race the non-sanctioned hillclimb circuit with Tyler Hamilton?

Now, if his young teammate loses out, and doesn't do well for the rest of this race, hey, he's 22. He'll have another year to get better, or actually, a lot more years. Danielson on the other hand. I sure hope he's saving his money. 7 stages into this year's race, and he's done already.

And of course, now, we have this guy. President Bush. He's on the road again, trying to sell the Iraq war to an ever increasing disgruntled public. Now, don't tell me that this guy doesn't look at polling numbers. He's looking, or his handlers are, and they're not liking what they're seeing. What they're seeing is this guy's numbers going down the tubes, and the water is circling the drain ever faster. Pretty much, there are a ton of people in the US now that don't trust this guy. At all. Since we do have mid term elections approaching, he's on the road. Preaching about the terrorists, and how they're coming to get us. How we're fighting them "over there, so we don't have to fight them over here." As if there is some large scale terrorist invasion of the US planned. Hell, if that happened, there are enough rednecks in this country to repel any invaders, I have some faith in that. There are a whole lot of guys with pick up trucks and gun racks who would not let that happen. We wouldn't even have to rely on the Armed Forces for that. Just let the NRA members have at them. Christ almighty, hasn't anyone ever seen Red Dawn? Need I say more? I think not. Anyway, he's back out on the road, trying to scare people into voting republican again in the next election. The way that he's preaching things, once again, you elect some democrats to office, the bad "brown people" also known as terrorists, are going to GET YOU!! Well, still not likely to happen really. But hey, if you want to believe this raving asshat, go ahead. And I never know what he's thinking when he says, "We're fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here." Who are we fighting "over there?" The Iraqis? Because, last time I checked, or looked at it, we have never been attacked by Iraqi terrorists? Never. Now, our time might have been better spent taking out Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, England, and a few other countries where the terrorists who attacked the US actually came from (I guess we could toss in Jordan, the UAE, and a few others, but amazingly, Iraq didn't factor into this). This administration is constantly trying to latch Iraq to 9/11, and no matter how hard they try, that's not fact. Although, they have alluded to it enough that there are lots of people in the US who do believe that Iraq was partially, or completely responsible for 9/11. Sad misinformation coming from our own government.

And here we have him comparing terrorism to Nazi-ism, and once again, trying to draw comparisons between the war we're fighting against terrorists with the big one. Yeah, WWII. They don't even compare. We have a loose group of semi organized lunatics (the terrorists) who are trying to inflict a little bit of harm and death to people to scare them into doing something or, to not do something. We don't have a united national power (like we did with Germany and Japan and Italy) trying to take over the world. The practitioners of radical Islam indeed do want to take over the world, but their numbers aren't nearly large enough for this to even ever come close to happening. Never. Aside from that, there are enough nations and countries in the world who don't want to see this happen, who would completely squash them if they ever really raised an army to try and invade a country, let alone the world. Our President is trying to exert his power by scaring the populace, and I'm happy to say that more and more, it's not working. Unfortunately, I wish that people would have been paying more attention back in 2004 and this jackass wouldn't have gotten re-elected, but hey, he did, and now he's really messing things up. Is everyone paying attention now? I would hope so really. I'm so tired of hearing the same speech fall from his mouth everytime he talks about Iraq. It frustrates me to no end. Because instead of actually hunting down the guy who was most responsible for attacking the US on 9/11 (Bin Laden, remember him?), he's busy invading countries that had nothing to do with it. And now, he's out selling it again. Essentially, here is what is happening. He's comparing the "bad guys" to Nazis. And in turn, this means that if you oppose what he's saying, this must mean that, indeed, you are a Nazi/terrorist sympathizer. And of course, this also makes you un-Patriotic as well. Ah, hell, I don't know anymore, it just makes me nuts basically. I am hoping that indeed, the democrats take over Congress in November, for the only reason that during the last couple years of Bush's tenure in the White House, they can make it ridiculously tough for him to get anything done. Then he might actually have to become a uniter and not a divider, as he once claimed to be.