(kinda rhymes, doesn't it?)

Unless you've been in a cave somewhere, I'm sure you've heard about a French newspaper claiming Lance Armstrong tested positive for EPO, a performance-enhancing drug, in urine samples from 1999,  the first time he won the Tour de France.

Here's how it goes; in 1999, EPO was a banned drug for the Tour, but there wasn't a test back then to trace it in urine.  For some odd reason, Tour officials decided to keep the urine samples by freezing them, and now with new scientific breakthroughs are able to test for EPO.  They supposedly pulled them out of the freezer, and SURPRISE!  Lance was positive.

There's a lot of reasons to question this sudden "proof" that Lance is guilty.  First off, why would the labs keep Armstrong's sample for over six years?  If that's the case, then have they tested other riders from 1999, and have any of them come up positive?  Also, these were supposedly the backup ("B") samples.  Without the actual samples that were tested in 1999 ("A"), there's really nothing that Armstrong can do to challenge the validity of the samples.

Of course, the firestorm is about Lance because he's the most recognizable name in the Tour de France.  But it's a little too ironic how they kept Lance's samples, which are supposed to be anomyous.  I'm sure a simple DNA check could be done to see whether it's his urine, correct?  I'm not sure.

Besides, the jealousy of Armstrong's success by the French is well known.  Simply put, they don't like him.  He's an American and he's stomping them in their own sport.  Period.  And despite the fact that Armstrong is one of the most drug tested athletes in the world, the French media have been busy spreading rumors that Armstrong has doped before.  L'Equipe, the newspaper that "busted" him, is linked to the Tour and has led the way in criticism of Armstrong in the past. 

According to Armstrong, this wouldn't be the first time that the Tour has engaged in a witchhunt after him:

Armstrong told King that he was tested dozens of times during all his Tours, and was under exceptional scrutiny -- including right before his final race in June.

``Just a day before the start we had a knock on the door, and the minister of sport had sent a crew down there to collect two samples of urine and two samples of blood,'' Armstrong said. ``And we checked around and found out that nobody else in the peloton was tested that day. So I can't say 'witch hunt' loud enough.''

I don't blame him.  They have tested him throughout the Tours in his other victories, hence I don't see them being able to make a case of Armstrong being a doper.  Until they show without a doubt that he is one, I'm siding with Armstrong.

This sums it up:

"Armstrong always told me that he never used doping products," five-time winner Eddy Merckx told Le Monde newspaper. "Choosing between a journalist and Lance's word, I trust Armstrong."

Ditto.  Then again, I'm liable to go against the journalist every time, especially if he's French.

and I'll be done with this topic.

Instead of being the founder of the Christian Coalition, let's say Pat Robertson was a cleric at an Islamic mosque in London.  Would his statements have garnered as much press?

The answer is no.  Why?

1.  Robertson wouldn't be considered a Republican supporter, which is what this is really all about.

2.  This wouldn't be news.  Islamic clerics and terrorists issue fatwas as if they are going out of style.

Now was Robertson wrong for making those statements?  Yes.  But it isn't like he is the first religious figure to ever call for the death of someone.  Anyone remember Salman Rushdie?

Yes, the right has it's nuts as well as the left.  The difference is, we don't make ours the RNC Chairman.

There must have been a lot of behind-the-scenes action over the past couple of days, because Antonio Gates extended that paltry one-year contract to six.

Now the way the Chargers organization and Gates agent tells it, and the way the AP reported it, it was Gates that blinked:

Agent Andre Colona said he thought Gates' market value ``obviously was being one of the top two paid tight ends in the league. But like I said, obviously that was the number I was reaching for. It was going to take a certain resolve to get to that point, and he said, 'You know what, 'Dre, don't worry about that, let's just get what we can get now because I want to be a Charger and end all this stuff.''

Colona refused to say where Gates' deal puts him in the hierarchy of tight ends.

``I will say that he was comfortable with where we were. He didn't want to, I guess, go the road to go where we were really trying to go,'' Colona said.

On Sunday, Chargers general manager A.J. Smith said negotiations, which began 10 months ago, were ``dead in the water.''

On Tuesday, Smith said: ``All of a sudden we got a call and the contract was done. Sometimes deals are struck in a couple of hours, sometimes they take 10 months. I wish it were a lot quicker. It wasn't.''

That sounds about right, correct?

Well here's a little twist, as the guys on OkayPlayers' Sports Board tipped me to KFFL's Sports Wire, with this:

Chargers | Gates Contract Details
Tue, 23 Aug 2005 12:19:47 -0700

Updating earlier stories, ESPNews reports San Diego Chargers TE Antonio Gates received a six-year contract that will pay him approximately $4 million per season with an additional $9.2 million possible through incentives.

I really do hope this is correct, because Gates did deserve to get paid this season; definitely more than the bare 3-year minimum provided by that one-year contract.

Since I did give the Chargers a wee bit of criticism for getting into this mess, I suppose a congratulations on doing the right thing is appropriate at this time as well.

Since this is a topic that's been buzzing in the last week or so, and we have a Chargers fan that is a regular reader to this blog *points to tagboard*  I thought I'd discuss the Antonio Gates/Chargers dispute.

According to the AP, Gates signed a one-year contract worth $380,000.  Considering the guy led the Chargers' receiving corps with 81 catches for 964 years and catching a league-record 13 touchdowns - mindboggling stats for a tight end - he'll make little more than some kickers this season.

Yes, this is the topic I've been trying to avoid for a minute.

It's not because I was wrong about T.O. being able to coexist with the Eagles.  Quite the contrary; I knew he would become a cancer that would ultimately hurt the Eagles franchise.  Looking back at his antics over his NFL career, it's not surprising to see this come about.

Nah; I'm just tired of saying "I told you so."  It's like that girlfriend who sticks around and continues to be abused by her lowlife boyfriend because she thinks she can change his ways.  The Eagles thought they could have a tremendously talented wideout with an ego that is as big as his abilities without that huge baggage that comes with him.  They thought they could control him.  Now, it's more like he controls them.

But let's set T.O.'s antics aside for a minute.  After all; it was a given that this would happen.  The Eagles are as much as fault with this as Owens is. 

After the most productive season by a wide receiver in the franchise's history, the Eagles flat out refused to even talk to Owens and his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, about restructuring the contract.  And while Owens's contract does reach $49 million, that contract was backloaded, where Owens's productivity would go down in his later years and give the Eagles a reason to trade or outright cut him.  Considering the man risked injury again by playing in the Super Bowl for the Eagles, at the very least Jeffrey Lurie could have done was talked to them.

Instead, Lurie flat out refused to talk, and thus you had a player that was thoroughly ticked off.  He knew that he needed a ride-or-die agent to have his back, and that's where Rosenhaus comes into the picture.  Now, you don't see T.O. without seeing Rosenhaus right by his side.  Now the two of them have conspired to create a media firestorm, with the rest of the NFL season being overshadowed by the Eagles drama.

The "my way or the highway" attitude displayed by the Eagles front office has placed them in trouble with two other key pieces to last year's Super Bowl team:  Brian Westbrook and Corey Simon. 

Simon is still holding out, and it looks like the Eagles will have to trade him.  Nobody's even paying attention to him, as the news is all about T.O.  He plans to sign the one-year franchise contract, but only after training camp is over. 

Westbrook has been disgruntled since after the Super Bowl, when the Eagles gave him a one-year deal on the hopes that a multi-year contract could be reached, however, one hasn't been made yet.  I've heard on OkayPlayer that WIP, the sports talk station in Philly, has been reporting an unconfirmed rumor that Westbrook has signed a multi-year deal, but I've heard nothing from ESPN.com nor Fox Sports Radio's Ben Maller, who usually has his ear to the ground on this kind of stuff.  If the Eagles don't ink a deal it only adds to their problems, as Westbrook provided stability for the offense and was a key factor throughout the playoffs while Owens was injured.  The only reason why he didn't hold out of training camp is because it would have prevented him from being an unrestricted free agent next year.

Particularly in the case of Westbrook, the Eagles have no leg to stand on (Westbrook is only being paid $1.4 million this year, a crying shame for one of the more versatile running backs in the league).  They are in danger of losing one of the anchors of their defensive line (who has never been known for run stopping to begin with), a disgruntled second option for McNabb, along with the best wide receiver they've ever had.  And add to that the Pinkston injury.

With all of these things happening, someone should ask what were the Eagles's front office doing during the offseason?  Good question, and Skip Bayless (lord help me if I ever agree with THIS guy again) tells everyone what they should have been doing:

Yet incredibly, the Eagles didn't bother protecting themselves at receiver in the draft or free agency. The Eagles had more draft picks than any other team, yet they failed to trade up in the first round to take a receiver capable of making an impact as a rookie. Reid, who isn't fond of playing rookies, sat tight and took Georgia's Reggie Brown in the second round.

Now it looks like he'll have to play Brown, because he has no receivers left.

I'll say the same thing I told others in another discussion: what if T.O. didn't raise hell, but he had gotten hurt in, say, Week 2.  The Eagles would still be in a bad predicament because the receiver corps fed off of the energy and attention Owens gave, which allowed them to get in some production time.  But a Todd Pinkston/Greg Lewis combo would have them in the same predicament as they were in during the NFC Championship two years ago:  getting jammed at the line by better cornerbacks, which would completely eliminate the passing game other than to Westbrook and TE Chad Lewis.  In other words, Donovan McNabb would be an older and slower version of Michael Vick, all because the Eagles front office didn't provide the necessary depth they need.  After all; we know Owens isn't indestructable.  He can get hurt again.

Now sure, T.O. deserves whatever criticism he gets, but that doesn't mean the Eagles are in the clear whatsoever.  This is an ugly situation, and I'm sure more went down behind the scenes than they're saying (that's why I'm not defending McNabb, as he is their franchise and does have some input with some of the things going on at HQ).  I'm sure the Giants and Cowboys are looking at this drama and are counting the days until they can possibly take advantage of it, which would help them win the NFC East.

It doesn't matter, though.  My Panthers will whup them all anyway.  Ha!

Considering political blogs have been used to make some of the most offensive and pointed remarks and insults you'd probably ever see, I would think you'd have to have a pretty thick skin in order to be one.  This hobby (or for some, business) isn't pretty.

Yet the lengths that some people will go to get back at some of their critics amazes me.  If you email comments from work, you could set yourself up to be fired due to a blogger that wants revenge.  Insult the wrong person on your blog, and your email address, your home and work phone number, and your home address could be subject to a protest campaign by a rival blogger.  One well known blogger was even threatened with legal action with a comment that was obviously taken out of context, yet it was enough to keep him from blogging for about three or four months.

I'm not one to tell a blogger how to operate his/her blog or what to write about (I'm not one who believes in an "organized" blogosphere with rules; that sort of stuff is better left to the gentry), but I would think delving into opinionated writing would take some very thick skin when the critics come around.  It's very telling that a number of the highly popular blogs - particularly on the conservative side - either don't allow comments or have very tightly controlled comment areas.  Some do it because they don't want the headache of maintaining it; others don't because, well, they love the control and would rather ignore and delete the terse remarks rather than confront them, regardless of whether there are concise arguments or just pointless rants.

As for me and this blog, look at the top right of the screen and you should see my tagboard.  If you scroll down, you can see there's a lot of comments that aren't pretty.  That's fine, though, because those types of comments serve a purpose, as they highlight the ignorant nature that some will have towards views and beliefs contrary to their own, especially from the left.  Rather than run from them, I embrace them, because every time a new one pops up (and not from the same person, as I can tell the difference) it tells me I must be doing something right.  There's no need to complain about hate rhetoric either, because it simply comes with the territory (in fact, I tend to laugh when I read other blogs that whine about it, as I've frequented a number of discussion boards and blogs and have been called everything except a child of God).

But there is a big difference between how I and a handful of other bloggers dwell in the blogosphere compared to the rest, and nowadays you'll get a reminder every couple of days.  It could be that phone number a blogger posts to have you call and "tell someone what you think",  Or that email letter writing campaign, or even that IP address that is posted on a blog.  Maybe even someone who gets fired because a rival blogger finds out where he work and decides to harrass his job.

And you think I'm about give out my real name anytime soon?  Pssh...yeah right.

Yes, it's football season.

Even though TO and several others have been making noise, I thought I would simply lay back in the cut and nobody would notice.

Anyway, I'll have a few words on the NFL, Cindy Sheehan, Sharpton and Farrakhan, and the blogosphere in the next few days.  Stay tuned.

Can anyone tell me what is a champion?

The original definition of champion would be to be the best at a given sport.  If you're the champion of the NBA, you're the best team in the league.  You win the NCAA tournament, you're considered the National Champions (Tarheels, baby BAYBAY!)  I think you get my point.

However, I think the relevance of being called champion has changed over the years from being a position of accomplishment to a simple title, almost like calling someone Mr. or Mrs.  Pride goes out of the window, and financial and popularity interests have taken it's place.

In no sport is does this image ring more true than in boxing.  Several boxing writers and analysts have spoken about the problems with the several alphabet organizations that hand out titles as if they were condoms at a free clinic, thus I won't go into details about that problem.  However, now boxing fans are getting into the act, particularly in reaction to Saturday night's fight between Benard Hopkins and new "undisputed" middleweight champion Jermain Taylor.

I haven't seen the fight yet, but all accounts had it as a very close fight, with most of them leaning Taylor's way.  If you think Hopkins won outright, that's fine.  However, my beef is the argument that Hopkins fans have saying that he shouldn't have lost his belts after 20 title defenses due to a split decision, and that Taylor should have had won them through a unaminous decision by more than a couple of rounds.

If you're a champion, and you call yourself the best, then you should be able to win in a fair and properly called fight.  Why should the challenger have the scales tipped against him in the champion's favor?  The whole idea of having a championship fight is to find out who's the better fighter.  If the champion didn't fight better than the challenger, yet is still given the decision, why should he still be considered champ?

If we applied this logic to other sports, NFL teams would have to beat the New England Patriots by at least two scores, or lose the game.  The Spurs would have to fall by double digits; in fact, they would have never won the NBA Title because they would have had to beat the Pistons in six!  This is the sort of logic that these fans are bringing to the table.

Hopkins deserves a rematch, and Taylor's going to give it to him.  Good.  But will the same ones that said Hopkins shouldn't have lost the title on a split decision now say Taylor should be given that same luxury as well?

I doubt it.

When I first heard about Lawrence O'Donnell's claim that Karl Rove was the source that New York Times journalist Michael Cooper was protecting, I took the measure with a grain of salt.  After all, this is the same O'Donnell that made himself look like a raving lunatic during Election 2004 during a head-to-head segment with Swift Boat Vet John O'Neill, calling him a creep and a liar to drown out O'Neill while he was speaking on the show.

Besides, the far left has always seen Rove as the true antichrist, the one who poses as Dubya's right hand man while behind the scenes he runs the whole country.  Thus, he's been the subject of so many conspiracy theories that I couldn't possibly keep count.  If something happens that the left doesn't like, Karl Rove's name pops up.  If you leave it to the left to describe Rove, he is the World's Dangerous Man. 

Thus, you really can't take them seriously once you find out their feelings for Rove.  Once O'Donnell stated Rove was the source, the left immediately screamed bloody murder.  I find it highly ironic that the left would try to vigorously defend Plame although her husband is an outright liar, and was given the investigation in Niger through his wife's connections in the CIA.  Besides the obvious nepotism, the left has never cared about the CIA, and through the 70's called for its demise.  They have the nerve to claim Rove should be tried for treason, yet they conviently ignore some of the outrageous statements and actions they have done that were far more damaging to this country, all to protect and defend a liar and the wife who got him the job in the first place.

This time, however, it seems O'Donnell and the Rovian conspiracy theorists were correct.  Rove was Cooper's source, and Rove's lawyer has now come out and stated he never "outed" Valerie Plame, and the emails will show that he only advised the NYT to be cautious when writing about Wilson's investigation into the Nigerian documents. 

I placed the emphasis on "outed" because Plame really wasn't a covert agent, nor was she trying to be.  The main reason why Novak isn't facing charges is due to the fact that several journalists knew Plame's identity before the Novak column.  Even now, Plame has no problems taking pictures for this month's Vanity Fair.  Just as Wilson's investigation turned out to be a fraud, so does the idea that Plame was "outed" by the White House.

More on this later.

I happened to be awake when the bombing occured, which was approximately around 4am EST (9am London Time) this morning.  I think this is a good time to break my vacation.

Drudge is on the case, as he has posted that Scotland Yard received the threat, and informed Israel of it.  At first it was thought to be a power surge, but officials in London have comfirmed that explosions came from the buses themselves, not from their vicinities, which all but guarantees bombs. 

Sky News, Rupert Murdoch's network, has reported as many as 20 people are dead and 90 injured.  BBC World News has stated that their employees have confirmed as many as five.  The transportation system has been shut down, and oil prices are dropping like a rock.

Tony Blair and London officials are expected to have a press conference in the next 10 minutes.  I will liveblog it the whole way.

7:08:  Blair's speaking.  He said it's "reasonably clear" that these were terrorist attacks.  He plans to leave the G8 to find out the extent of the damage and help coordinate the cleanup and investigation efforts and return to Denmark this evening.  The meeting will continue in his absence.  He calls the terrorism "barbaric" and he believes it was designed to target the opening of the G8 meeting.  Blair did seem kind of shaken at the time.

Video is starting to come in.  I'm watching NBC, and people that have been seriously bandaged up are being helped out of the area.  This isn't pretty.

7:16:  There are people still trapped in the damaged trains.  I don't know if all of the people have been moved from the subway; I'm trying to get confirmation that the subway has been completely cleared.

On NBC, Couric is asking whether Al Qaeda #2 Ayman Al-Zawahiri was referring to this in his last message a few weeks ago.  It is possible.  Drudge is still reporting on the Scotland Yard/Israel story, but there has been no confirmation, link, or any kind of elaboration on his part.

7:30:  Instapundit's awake, and he's got a ton of news.  First, KJ Lopez of NRO's The Corner was awake this morning as well....doh!  That woman never sleeps.  There has been a message on a terrorist website that has been decoded and seems to take responsibility for the attacks, however they're not sure whether it's genuine.

7:40: There's also a UK blogs aggregator, which can give you a number of first-hand accounts of what's going on in the country.

To confirm:  There have been six explosions:  five of them were underground in the subway, and only ONE was on the bus.  My initial report was as many as three buses had been destroyed, but they've confirmed only one.

7:42:  Just as I posted this, Andrew Stuttaford of NRO is getting an email from a friend that as many as three buses could have been bombed.  Edgeware Road in London has been closed off, and it is pandemonium in that area.

7:50:  Let me say this:  more than likely this wasn't in response to the London Olympics.  First, as Couric has said on NBC (and I have to give her props; she's done a helluva job this morning), terrorists have gone after the London subways in the past, and London police broke up a terrorist clique last month that targeted the subways.  Second, this is too coordinated to be planned and executed less than 24 hours after the announcement.  Third, why in the world would someone target the Olympic site six years prior to the actual event?  Makes no sense.

These terrorists were simply in the right place at the right time.  Or, the wrong place at the wrong time, depending on how you look at it.

7:55:  Two things have been confirmed.  First, Drudge's assertion that Israeli officials were contacted by Scotland Yard were repeated by the Associated Press.  As such, former Israeli PR Benjamin Netanyahu has decided against going to an economic conference, which happened to be where one of the buses exploded.

Hold on...one of the Security ministers spoke before the House of Commons.  He is Charles Clarke.  He confirms only four attacks, and he encouraged people to go to their homes and not travel.

The other thing that has been confirmed is the message on a islamic website celebrating the attacks.  Still no word on the actual persons behind it, though.