Posts by Tai Moses

Tai Moses is the senior editor at AlterNet.

Monster cookies
Posted by Tai Moses on March 21, 2006 at 6:12 PM.

You know how the cure is often worse than the disease? That's the case with palm oil, which has become a common substitute for artery clogging, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. But palm oil turns out to have its own dangers, both for people and for animals. The wild creatures of Indonesia, Borneo and Sumatra -- elephants, tigers, orangutans and rhinos -- are being driven from the forests by the race to cash in on the palm oil boom.

At the beginning of March, in a remote part of Indonesia, five wild elephants were found poisoned to death, probably by local farmers trying to drive them off so they could slash jungle to grow palm. Massive palm oil plantations already spread across vast tracts of land that used to be rainforest.

What is palm oil used in? One of its most common uses are cookies. It has also found its way into crackers, cereals and microwave popcorn. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has launched a campaign asking consumers to boycott products made with palm oil and to let food manufacturers know that, hell no, it ain't ok to destroy our great wild mammals for chocolate cream sandwich cookies, good as they are. The food industry can make its products with other easily available oils.

Even though CSPI says palm oil is nearly as bad for you as the stuff it's replacing, it's predicted to overtake soybean oil in the next decade as the world's most-used oil. And you know what that means: no more orangutans. The pensive reddish-orange apes (who share 97% of our DNA) are already hanging by a thread. When their forests disappear, so will they.

What to do? First of all, read labels and buy only products that use nonhydrogenated oils: soybean, canola, corn and peanut are all better choices for humans and for apes. CSPI is asking Wal-Mart -- the country's biggest grocery retailer -- to reformulate its house brands that use palm oil. Sign the petition here. Says Michael Jacobson, CSPI's director, "Palm oil should be used as a last resort, by consumers and corporations alike."

We will never run out of Oreos. I wish we could say the same for orangutans.

Sex and Taxxxes
Posted by Tai Moses on December 23, 2005 at 12:21 PM.

Britney Spears is suing Us Weekly for libel (again). On Oct. 17 the gossipy mag ran a story saying that Spears and husband Kevin Federline were worried lest a secret sex tape they'd made get out. Spears said no such tape exists and demanded the magazine retract the story. Us refused, saying it stood by its report. Britney filed a lawsuit.

This happens at AlterNet all the time.

Still, something seems fishy. According to Us, Spears and Federline viewed the sexually explicit tape with their "estate planning lawyers." We consulted AlterNet's legal expert, Michael P. Kerner, about the seeming incongruity.

TM: You specialize in estate planning. Please explain, in ten words or less, what that is.

MPK: Cheating the government out of taxes.

TM: I notice you didn't mention anything about sex.

MPK: Sex is a critical part of estate planning.

TM: Why would a client ask an estate planner to watch a secret sex tape with them?

MPK: It's well accepted that estate planners are the best and the brightest in the legal profession. And in this particular instance, it's perfectly understandable that Britney and Justin --

TM: Kevin.

MPK: --that Britney and Kevin would be meeting with Britney's estate planning counsel. I am sure that Brit, like our president, believes that life begins at conception and it is never too early to begin planning for your children.

TM: What does that have to do with the sex tape?

MPK: Brit no doubt was meeting with her estate planners in order to ensnare a victim like Us and sue for millions of dollars and offset the incredible burden the estate tax is going to impose on her in the future. At the same time she could discuss setting up a trust for the children likely to be produced by the frolicking and get a jump on providing for their college education.

TM: Us claimed that while watching the tape with their lawyers, Spears and Federline allegedly acted "goofy." Goofy behavior in the company of lawyers. It strains credulity, does it not?

MPK: [Throat clearing, followed by silence.]

TM: However, Spears' suit says, "There was no laughter, disgust or goofy behavior while watching the video in the company of lawyers because they did not watch any video, and because there is no such video."

MPK: Estate planning is serious business. Brit knows that. All of us are going to be completely bankrupted if the estate tax is not repealed.

TM: Don't you mean the "death tax"?

MPK: Yeah, the death tax.

TM: Britney's estate planning lawyers have been curiously silent about the matter. In fact, we don't even know who they are. Could you speculate on their identities?

MPK: Actually I've applied for a job with that firm and I really can't discuss it.

TM: How many such tapes do you view on a weekly basis?

MPK: There are certain privileges that go along with our profession. But trust me, you wouldn't want to see most of my estate planning clients in the buff.

TM: Thank you for your time. You have provided comfort to Americans everywhere, and not just pop stars, who worry that their right to watch sex tapes in private with their lawyers may be eroded.

MPK: My pleasure.

Turkmenistan zoo story
Posted by Tai Moses on December 20, 2005 at 2:27 PM.

Like many of you, I fret about Turkmenistan. Not only is the mountainous Central Asian republic isolated from the rest of the world, it's ruled by a dictatorial goofball who grows increasingly eccentric with each year.

In 2002, Turkmenistan's president-for-life, Saparmurat Niyazov, renamed the months and the days of the week. Fair enough. This year he closed the libraries because he claimed his people weren't reading; put a stop to the import of foreign literature; and banned pre-recorded music. Then Turkmenbashi, as he likes to be called ("father of all Turkmen"), ordered his government ministers to learn how to speak English or get canned. "I don't care whether you pay for a teacher or you learn it on your own, but you have to talk English in six months. Anyone not fulfilling my decree will be sacked," declared the Anglophiliac tyrant. The jittery ministers won't be able to calm their nerves with a cigarette, since, after undergoing major heart surgery in 1997, Turkmenbashi quit smoking and demanded his ministers do the same.

Now the president has ordered the construction of an elaborate $21 million zoo that will house, among other animals, an abundance of penguins. It must be said that Turkmenbashi's heart is in the right place, or at least within spitting distance of the right place. He says that global warming is starving the penguins and he aims to save them.

Temperatures get blisteringly hot in this desert nation, but the despot is undeterred. Global warming didn't begin yesterday, Niyazov points out; if they want to be rescued, the penguins will just have to get used to the climate.

Warning: no-irony zone ahead
Posted by Tai Moses on December 15, 2005 at 2:18 PM.

On Sunday morning near the Farallones Islands, which are off the coast of San Francisco, a crab fisherman happened upon a female humpback whale ensnared in about 20 weighted, nylon crab-pot ropes. Attached to the ropes were a dozen 90-pound crab traps. The whole tangled mess was wrapped tightly around the whale and dragging her downward, while she struggled to keep her blowhole above the water. The fisherman alerted the marine mammal rescue people, who called around and assembled a team of divers, who motored out to the site.

It took the divers an hour to free the whale, which "floated passively in the water" while they painstakingly cut through the ropes with curved knives. When the whale was finally liberated, she did not immediately dive beneath the surface and get the hell out of Dodge, like any sensible whale -- or other wild creature -- might do after such an ordeal. Instead, the whale began swimming in circles, approaching each diver and bumping him gently before swimming to the next diver.

What I found so compelling about this story, aside from the fact that it's extraordinary, was its moral clarity and sense of wonder. You rarely find something so effortless in the news biz, which is characterized by more shades of gray than you'll find in a tombstone factory. Not to mention the horror, the cynicism, the attitude, the world-weariness ....the whole schmagirggle that makes up so much journalism.

One diver was eye to eye with the whale the whole time he was cutting her free. A single casual flip of a 50-ton whale's tale can kill a man, but the diver said he never felt he was in danger. The whale just kept looking him in the eye, and he kept looking her in the eye. "It was an epic moment of my life," he said.

All Over But the Dying
Posted by Tai Moses on December 12, 2005 at 4:27 PM.

Stanley Williams has, as they say in the parlance of desperation, exhausted all his appeals.

Just after noon today, Arnold Schwarzenegger denied Williams clemency, declaring bluntly that he did not buy the ex-gang leader's change of heart or claims of innocence. "Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption," wrote the California governor in his five-page statement of decision.

Williams' refusal to apologize for the crimes he has always claimed he did not commit seems to have been the deciding factor in the Governor's decision. "In this case, the one thing that would be the clearest indication of complete remorse and full redemption is the one thing Williams will not do."

Just prior to the release of Schwarzenegger's statement, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the 51-year-old Williams' request for a reprieve. His execution, by lethal injection, is scheduled to take place at 12:01am Tuesday. Reporters are thronging the gates of San Quentin prison, where the California Highway Patrol has beefed up security in anticipation of the thousands of protesters who are expected to gather this evening.

As for Williams himself, by all reports, he remains calm. At 6pm PST, he will eat his last meal in his cell. He will dictate his last words, if he chooses to leave any behind, to the prison warden. As he said recently, "If it's my time to be executed, what's all the ranting and raving going to do?"

On art, truth and brutality
Posted by Tai Moses on December 8, 2005 at 10:53 AM.

Playwright Harold Pinter may be ill, old and frail of body, but the Nobel acceptance speech he delivered by video link Wednesday was an unflinching, ferocious and eloquent attack on U.S. foreign policy. The 75-year-old author, who was too ill to travel to Stockholm to accept the prize, gave his lecture from a wheelchair, in a voice that was hoarse but composed.

He began the speech with a discussion about his own creative process, pondering the mystery of how characters are born and saying that, while truth may be elusive, we must be faithful in its pursuit.

"Language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time. But as I have said, the search for the truth can never stop. It cannot be adjourned, it cannot be postponed. It has to be faced, right there, on the spot."

After a meditation on political language, the dramatist and poet launched into a powerfully detailed elucidation of U.S. war crimes, which he called "systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless...." Neither did his home country go unsinged by his oratory fire. In its slavish devotion to the U.S., Pinter said, Britain is "a bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead."

"The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. ...We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'."

The shape of things to come
Posted by Tai Moses on September 13, 2005 at 5:21 PM.

Can a shape be politicized? Of course it can. In fact, shapes are the latest battleground in America's struggle for dominion over the world. At the center of controversy is the humble crescent -- a shape most of us associate with freshly baked rolls. To Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo, however, the crescent is the symbol of Islamic fanaticism and he wants it removed from the design of a proposed 9/11 memorial honoring the passengers and crew of Flight 93.

The design of the memorial (although not the memorial itself) is called "Crescent of Embrace," and its creators say its shape is simply an organic outgrowth of the topography of the crash site. It has the approval of Flight 93 family members, local residents, officials, and other national figures. Tancredo has sent a letter to the National Park Service saying the crescent is "unsuitable for paying appropriate tribute to the heroes of Flight 93 or the ensuing American struggle against radical Islam." It is not known which shape Tancredo prefers over the crescent or whether he has yet written to NASA to object to the shape of the moon when in its crescent phase.

Getting cozy with Jack and Josie
Posted by Tai Moses on September 12, 2005 at 3:38 PM.

Nothing surprises us anymore. We thought.

True, at first we were disturbed by this paragraph -- the beginning of a news story on today's Senate hearings for Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts:

"John Roberts, nominated to be chief justice of the United States, introduced 5-year-old Josie, in her baby blue party dress and white headband, and 4-year-old Jack, in his blue blazer, bow tie and short gray flannel pants, at the start of his confirmation hearing Monday."

To our highly attuned journalistic ear, the phrase "baby-blue party dress," in connection with the Senate Judiciary Committee struck a discordant tone. After all, as our esteemed colleague Rachel points out below, this is the freaking Supreme Court we're talking about. One wants gravitas, solemnity, showy demonstrations of intellectual rigor. Not tots in frocks.

But okay, so a few crusty senators went gaga over the nominee's adorable towheaded offspring, who were apparently brandished like Molotov cocktails by the nominee's charming and ambitious wife. We decided to overlook it. One does not want to be accused of curmudgeonliness.

Reading further, however, we were given pause -- shaken, really -- by the word, "frolicking," followed in short order by "fidgeting," and then "wiggle," all in connection with the abovementioned tots, who seemed upon closer examination to be entirely dominating the proceedings. And as we read on, groping in vain for the Valium we thought we had hidden in our third-down desk drawer, our forbearance snapped entirely when we came upon the word "snuggle." SNUGGLE. A concept that should never be associated with the Supreme Court in any way, shape or form.

Can the apocalypse be far off?

Oeuf folie a deux
Posted by Tai Moses on July 25, 2005 at 6:44 PM.

Flying to New York over the weekend, I had to listen to my seatmate complain about how hard it was to meet men. This woman had tried online dating, double dating, blind dating, speed dating, slow-motion dating -- she had done it all. Still, she was single. "Why is it so hard?" she wailed.

I laughed. I did not laugh because I was bitter that she had the aisle seat, although that was true. I laughed because I had recently seen a film that made her problems look like a walk in the park.

March of the Penguins depicts a winter in the life of the Emperor penguin. These intrepid birds trek 70 miles across icy terrain to their breeding ground, which resembles an enormous frozen singles bar without Guinness on tap. Somehow they manage to pick the perfect partner out of a crowd of thousands of identical birds. How do they do this? By singing.

After mating they wait around in subzero temperatures until Mrs. P produces a single egg. She passes the egg to Mr. P in an elaborately choreographed routine in which both birds carefully shuffle their hobbit feet back and forth until the egg is on top of the male's feet, protected by his ponderous, downy belly. If the egg touches the ice, it will turn instantly into an Antarctic egg cream.

The exhausted Mrs. P then trudges 70 miles back to the sea to get some food. Meanwhile, Mr. P incubates the egg, freezing and starving through blizzards and surrounded by a few thousand of his closest friends, who are also freezing and starving and anxiously incubating their eggs. Mr. P does this FOR TWO MONTHS.

Finally the chicks hatch, but the doting Mr. P can't rest yet, because if Little P slips off his feet it will quickly become a penguin popsicle. Fortunately, Mrs. P is on the way back to take over childcare duties, so Mr. P -- stiff, cranky, and near death from starvation -- can waddle off 70 miles to get his own dinner.

I related this story to Miss Lonelyhearts. "You think you've got it tough?" I said. "When was the last time you trekked across an ice field to meet a man?" As it happens, she had once climbed a glacier in Alaska for that very purpose. "Well, try doing it in a penguin suit," I said.

"Why do they do all that?" she asked. At least the story had taken her mind off her dating dilemmas.

Some people say they do because instinct tells them to. I think they do it for love.

Paul Hackett wants to go to Washington
Posted by Tai Moses on July 21, 2005 at 10:32 AM.

If Paul Hackett is victorious in Ohio's 2nd District Congressional race on Aug. 2, he will be the first Iraq war veteran elected to public office.

Hackett's attack on the Bush administration has been relentless, focused, and elegant. He's campaigning -- it must be said -- like a soldier. Hackett, a progressive Democrat and a bit of an iconoclast, takes pleasure in showing how different he is from his far-right Republican opponent, the smooth-talking Jean Schmidt (whose style has been likened to that of "an elementary teacher reading to a group of fifth-graders").

"Look, I'm a Marine Corps combat vet," the Ohio native said during a recent debate with Schmidt. "I'm not soft on defense. I'm not soft on terrorism. Hell, I've looked terrorism in the eye, and I've vanquished it. But I'm hard on an administration that has not had the courage to put forth an Iraq terrorism policy that reflects reality."

Many think the Democrats could use just such a balls-out, tough-talking, strong-on-defense candidate to help them with their image problems.

Hackett, a lawyer who just returned from a seven-month tour of duty in Iraq, regularly blasts the Patriot Act, Bush's tax plan and the skyrocketing cost of the Iraq war (now nearing $200 billion). The driver of a hybrid car, he also criticizes the administration's plan to drill for oil in the Arctic Refuge. While he is strongly pro-choice, Hackett says, "I don't know anybody who thinks abortion is a good thing. Let's keep it safe, legal and rare." (Jean Schmidt is the president of a Cincinnati anti-abortion group).

"Ask yourselves these questions," Hackett said to the audience at the debate. "Are you better off in the past five years? Is your job safer? Do you even have a job? Are you paying more for health care? How about gasoline? If you send me down there [to Washington], I'll fight for you."

Parsing the legal matrix
Posted by Tai Moses on July 19, 2005 at 9:26 AM.

Yesterday, President Bush finally commented publicly on the Rove case, saying that anyone who "committed a crime" connected with the disclosure of Valerie Plame's identity would be dismissed from his staff. Previously, Bush had said the individual who had leaked Plame's name to reporters would be fired.

After mulling the subtleties of the statement every which way, we turned to AlterNet's legal expert, Michael P. Kerner. Kerner, a partner with the crack legal team of Janin, Morgan & Brenner, is a nationally renowned specialist in the rules and bylaws of legal obfuscation. He has been closely following the shifting verbal sands of Rove-Plame-Cooper-Miller-Wilson-McClellan.

TAI MOSES: What's your analysis of President Bush's comment yesterday?

MICHAEL P. KERNER: His statement was the most considered comment he's made since he was wired in the first debate. It's absolutely clear the comment was crafted by Bush's brain. It's lawyer talk. He was parsing the legal matrix.

TM: Why do lawyers talk that way?

MPK: Why do dogs lick their balls? Because they can. They're trying to avoid the tremendous legal pitfalls of speaking off the cuff, which is just about the only thing Bush is talented at.

TM: Who do you think coached him?

MPK: A full cadre of highly trained, white-collar criminal lawyers.

TM: You're suggesting that these lawyers are themselves white-collar criminals?

MPK: Yeah, yeah.

TM: Can we expect to hear more from President Bush about Rove-Plame-Cooper-Miller-Wilson-McClellan?

MPK: You can expect to hear the same comment over and over again. His memory bank is limited. Only one comment per week.

TM: It's your belief then, that they've got Karl Rove off the hook.

MPK: They've been working on this project for two years, figuring out how to get Rove off the hook. It's clear they believe they've got him out of the woods, legally.

TM: So, legally he is out of the woods and off the hook. How about politically?

MPK: Politically doesn't matter for Karl Rove; it matters only for George Bush.

TM: Say more.

MPK: Now they have to figure out a way to allow George Bush to keep Karl Rove on the payroll and working at home in his jammies.

TM: Who are these lawyers?

MPK: They're all members of the Federalist Society.

TM: What is this Federalist Society?

MPK: It's a super-conservative group of mostly lawyers who believe in strict construction of the Constitution. They are largely responsible for putting Bush in the White House. They're probably behind the selection of the replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor and they will be behind Rehnquist's eventual replacement.

TM: Thank you for talking with us today.

MPK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TM: 'Wired in the first debate' ... you think?

MPK: It doesn't take a Harvard law degree.

Defending a culture of punctuation
Posted by Tai Moses on July 13, 2005 at 4:35 PM.

Word that President Bush is considering someone who is both a woman and a non-judge to take Sandra Day O'Connor's place on the Supreme Court filled me with anticipation.

"We're considering all kinds of people -- judges, non-judges," the president said. "...the American people can rest assured that I understand the seriousness of this responsibility and I will name someone who will bring dignity to the court, someone who will be able to do the job and someone who will sit on that bench..."

Well, stop right there and start measuring me for that black robe. You see, I am a woman -- and I'm also not a judge! Of course, just because I have those two crucial things going for me does not automatically make me eligible for service on the Supreme Court. I also have to have opinions on a wide variety of topics, argue persuasively and write my decisions down. Hell, I do that all the time.

And I must be able to tell the difference between politics and law, so as not to be thought of as one of those "activist" judges. I understand this distinction perfectly. Politics is about power: how to get it, keep it, use it. Law is the system of rules that governs the getting, keeping and using of power. How hard is that?

The current justices have indicated they would welcome a non-judge to their somewhat stuffy group, and even Senate Judiciary chairman Arlen Specter agreed with Bush that choosing someone from outside the federal court system would inject a breath of fresh air into the often stale proceedings of the nation's highest court.

As a federal judge, Specter said, you "look at records, you read cases, you have very little contact with people. But if they had a little more practical experience and didn't work so much within the footnotes and the semicolons, you might have a little different perspective, and I'd like to see that added to the court."

I could certainly bring a different perspective to the court. Although, I admit, that last statement gives me pause. Semicolons; what could the chairman possibly have against semicolons? The law depends upon their judicious placement; believe me, many a tragedy could have been avoided had some reckless person not used a comma where a semicolon was called for.

I hope this issue doesn't come up in the confirmation process, because it would be hard for me to conceal my radical views on punctuation. Commas, periods and parentheses are not just marks on paper -- they are the underpinnings of civilization, the architecture of reason itself. Were it up to me, and let's hope it will be, there would be rules and regulations governing punctuation in our great land. That way, thoughtless and inattentive individuals couldn't go around deleting semicolons; at least not without prior written permission from a higher grammatical authority.

Pickles, pieholes, and Karl Rove
Posted by Tai Moses on July 11, 2005 at 4:51 PM.

You just gotta love Karl Rove. The man is truly an evil genius. If only we had someone like him on our side!

What makes Rove so diabolically successful is that the playbook where he gets all his dirty tricks is basically the same one we all used when we were kids trying to survive on the playground -- only he brings to bear all the money and power of the Republican Party. Hence, even as the mierda from l'affair d'Plame makes sucking sounds on the soles of his tasseled loafers, Rove has launched a counterattack -- on MoveOn.org!

Doug Ireland reports in his blog Direland, that Monday's issue of the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call has an article about the GOP's new Rove-inspired smear campaign, which attempts to label MoveOn "soft on terror." According to Roll Call,

"These attacks appear to have two purposes: One is to put the group and its Democratic allies on the defensive over support for the war on terror. And the second is to drive a wedge between Democratic candidates and the millions of dollars that MoveOn's supporters have pumped into their campaigns. With MoveOn fast becoming one of the Democratic Party's most important fundraising sources, the second goal may end up being the more important one."

Writes Ireland, Karl Rove is "hoping to hang the successful e-fundraising operation around the necks of Democratic candidates all across the country like a terror-tinged albatross."

This is Rove's way of saying, Hey, I may be a sleazy, treasonous goon, but so what: MoveOn is worse. MoveOn is unpatriotic! (Playground Retort #27: "I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I?")

Meanwhile, the Democrats are lining up to shoot poison spitballs at Rove and demand that he be fired on the basis of Bush's promise two years ago that he would can whoever was responsible for leaking Valerie Plame's identity. (Playground Rebuttal #5: "But, you promised!") The White House, however, has been tightlipped, perhaps following the axiom that if you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all. If only Karl Rove had done the same and kept his piehole shut, he wouldn't be in such a pickle today.

Soon to be a major motion picture
Posted by Tai Moses on July 5, 2005 at 4:00 PM.

What did screenwriter William Goldman say about Hollywood? That nobody knows anything? That is undoubtedly true, but you don't have to know much to know that Marla Ruzicka's life story would make a great movie.

Ruzicka, who was tragically killed in Baghdad on April 16 in a suicide bombing, was already thinking of writing a book about her experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, helping civilian victims of war. Now Paramount has bought the film rights to her story and the movie industry is aflutter with rumors about who will be cast in the role of the courageous aid worker. Reese Witherspoon, Natalie Portman and Kirsten Dunst have been floated as possibilities (no word on whether Angelina Jolie is in the running, even though she plays an aid worker in real life). Marla once joked she'd like Drew Barrymore to play her.

My vote goes to Brittany Murphy, who showed she could do outstanding dramatic work in 8 Mile. Besides, Brittany, like Marla, is cute, but not too sexy (like Dunst); too beautiful (like Portman); or too Legally Blonde (like Witherspoon).

Marla's parents, who struck the deal with Paramount, plan to donate proceeds to the organization their daughter founded, CIVIC Worldwide. Says Marla's sister, Jill, who signed onto the project as executive producer, "We hope this movie will tell the story of a fascinating, kick-ass woman."

Is Lance Armstrong a space alien, or just boring?
Posted by Tai Moses on July 1, 2005 at 11:51 AM.

Don't tell me you haven't wondered the same thing. He has six straight Tour de France victories under his belt; he bounced back like superman after having testicular cancer; he has a rockstar girlfriend (Sheryl Crow) --and all this at the old-man-of-cycling age of 33.

Tomorrow, Armstrong (oh, and the rest of his team) will begin his bid for a seventh Tour de France win. Then he's going to retire. But he says that seven "doesn't hold the cachet that six did." The sixth win was the one that really mattered. This year, it'll just be icing on the cake.

If Lance doesn't find the prospect of winning again a big deal, the folks on the sidelines are even less excited. By all accounts, Armstrong's dominance of the world's most grueling bicycle race (2,240 miles in three weeks) is becoming -- passe. Last year, L'Equipe's Jean-Pierre Bidet said spectators crave "a close race, suspense, and upsets. For several years now, we've been bored."

The race is boring, the number seven is boring; it's all so...oh, I can't stand the ennui any longer. Lance Armstrong -- again?!? Sacre-bleu.