Live at the NSC Velodrome!
Thursday, July 5th, 2007Track racing action!
(sent via mobile)
UPDATE 11:19pm – Damn file upload did not work. Sorry!
Archive for July 5th, 2007
Track Stomach!
Thursday, July 5th, 2007
I am 2 kilos heavier than the last time I was up here 3 weeks ago. We’ll see how it affects me tonight.
(sent via mobile)
Childfree
Thursday, July 5th, 2007About a half dozen people sent me a link to this post asking for my comment:
Sometimes when I go there to get my afternoon coffee and work during the day for an hour or two, there seems to be many children there as well. And they aren’t quiet. They scream, they yowl, they sound like tomcats fighting in the back alley. This is especially aggravating on a Sunday morning.
So what I’m wondering is, are there any child-free coffee houses in Minneapolis-St. Paul? Because I would frequent them. I was just pondering last week about the possibility of a child-free restaurant too. I would go there too. I would give them business, just to encourage them to stay in business and let them know they are loved and appreciated. It would be nice to have child-free options for coffee and dining in the city.
My comment? I understand what Sascha is saying here and I am sympathetic.
Before we had kids of our own I can’t say that I gravitated to playgrounds, parks and other locations where wild ass kids would congregate. I did not have a lot of experience with little kids and Mrs. Smithers will tell you that I was not at all comfortable being around kids under the age of, oh, 18 years old. To have kids running around crazy when you are trying to relax in peace, be it at a local coffee house or restaurant, at the movie theater or on an airplane, is totally annoying.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a solution. There are a lot of businesses that are not willing to antagonize parents by telling them that their children are not wanted. Restaurants and coffee shops run pretty close to the bone in regards to profit and a number of them would probably go out of business if parents stopped patronizing them. If there was a demand in the marketplace for childfree public places then you can be sure that some businesses would be successfully offering them to those consumers who are interested.
The banning of cell phone use, smoking, and other optional adult behavior is accepted as adults can generally agree on an appropriate time and a place for these activities to take place. The idea of banning children in a public area is fraught with emotion as parents naturally feel like they are being discriminated against simply for being a family. Make no mistake, as this November 2005 New York Times article points out, parents get pretty uppity when you tell them what they can and can’t do with their kids.
The reality, for those looking for childfree public places, is that for a society to prosper it needs to procreate. The result of that procreation is children. However irritating kids may unfortunately be, in order to take advantage of the benefits from living in a society it is also necessary to have to put up with the corresponding irritations of that society.
2007 Smithers MINNEAPOLIS Tour de France Pool – Final Days!
Thursday, July 5th, 2007
2 days left to enter!
I am extending the entry deadline on Friday, July 6 2007 to 11:59pm CDT. All entries will be posted on Saturday, July 7 at 6:00am CDT.
Here are the people who have signed up to date:
Deisel Jetta
E Fresh L
Seth Meyer
Timmer
DS
Taylor George
Jared Roy
Charlie Anderson
Luke Seemann
Rebecca
Jon Friedell
Joel Wiens
Taylor Olson
Chad Macy
Don’t see your name there? Get your entry in!
Landis verdict comes tomorrow. If he is let off maybe some team will pick him up last minute so he can make his defense of the yellow jersey! Awesome!
Jet Blast
Thursday, July 5th, 2007Mrs. Smithers wondered if that scene in Casino Royale could really happen.
Oh it could happen all right.
Fred Thompson
Thursday, July 5th, 2007
Bombs in New Hampshire.
He looks good onstage, but I don’t know if he has the gravitas. It seems like he’s trying to win over conservatives, but I’m still not sure he has the credentials. I’m worried he’s trying to get by on his celebrity.
I’m telling you, this guy is going to whither once the full glare of the campaign spotlight hits him.
$50 for a 9 minute speech with no mention of Iraq? No mention of this huge immigration debate? What’s he stand for? What does he want to do in office? Why all the excitement about a guy that has not defined a platform and has not even bothered to declare? What makes him any better than McCain, St. Rudy or Romney?
I’ll tell you what makes him worse. Apparently he is in favor of amnesty for a liar, obstructer of justice and convicted felon. Thompson’s history in Congress as a flack for Nixon is not really what the American people are probably going to want to hear either.
Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, “At That Point in Time,” Thompson said he acted with “no authority” in divulging the committee’s knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon’s resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong, who remains upset at Thompson’s actions.
“Thompson was a mole for the White House,” Armstrong said in an interview. “Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was.”
What is it with Thompson and his support for those in Republican administrations who break the law?
