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New Mountain Goats!! John Darnielle with a full sound on this song from the new album, including a brass instrument -- a horn that sounds like a bugle! This is definitely a different take on the Mountain Goats we have grown to know and love with all our hearts and on his 14th -- yes, 14th -- album I'm more than a little excited to see where the full album takes him. It's called Transcendental Youth and is out October 2nd on Merge. The first track "Cry for Judas" is below.
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Not to get into all the fine details about Mitt Romney's gaffe-fest in Britain or the foreign policy team he's assembling almost exclusively being ex-Bush presidency advisors who led us into Iraq and never captured bin Laden, but for any of your tea party friends who might suggest that our president's role in capturing bin Laden was minor (or as Mitt Romney actually claimed: "launching the raid was a no-brainer"), point them to this interview where the Admiral in charge of the Navy Seals mission is talking with hand puppet/CNN anchor Wolf "Please Don't Look up my Jeopardy Appearance on YouTube" Blitzer:
(emphasis mine)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN: This is the guy who's sitting right here who had the guts to tell the commander in chief we should do it, let's do it. And when you ordered that raid and when you said you think you - you didn't even know for sure that bin Laden was in Abbottabad at that compound about a mile or so away from the West Point of Pakistan, did you?
ADM. WILLIAM MCRAVEN, COMMANDER, U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS: Well, let me make one thing clear. I didn't order the raid.
(LAUGHTER)
BLITZER: But he told the president of the United States that he thought he could do it.
MCRAVEN: I mean, and this is not a small point. The fact of the matter is it was the president of the United States that ordered the raid.
BLITZER: And he deserves an enormous amount of credit for that decision.
MCRAVEN: Absolutely, he does.
(APPLAUSE)
So I will be waking up at 5 am on Saturday to watch the Olympics cycling road race around London and it will likely be the only Olympics I watch with much interest this year (unless my foot turns bad again and I'm stuck inside a lot this August). It's definitely the most exciting event this year and although it will be near impossible to match the drama of 2008's amazing race in Beijing -- when Fabian Cancellara single-handedly bridged a 30-second gap to a 3-man lead group, dragging eventual winner Sammy Sanchez to victory (and himself to bronze) -- it should be way more exciting than the last three weeks around France, and that's pretty much why cycling is the best sport outside of Syracuse playing basketball -- there are so many different great events to get excited for. Anyway, the heavy heavy heavy favorite is defending world champion Mark Cavendish, a Brit on a home course designed with him in mind. If you thought fellow Brit Bradley Wiggins was a heavy favorite going into the Tour de France, that's nothing compared to Cav in these Olympics. And if there were any doubts about his fitness after he did little in the Tour's first 2 weeks, those were crushed when he crushed the field to win sprints on Stages 18 and 20 last weekend. And a fit Cavendish has not been beaten much, or really at all, in the past 4 years of cycling sprints. So if there is a bunch sprint at the end of this race, expect Cav to win it. If Andre Greipel or Matty Goss or Peter Sagan manages to beat him at the line, that would be an upset on order of USA Basketball losing to Angola, even though they are the next 3 best sprinters in the race (the Spain, Argentina, and Croatia? of basketball). But that's the rub in this race -- there is definitely a chance that it will not end in a bunch sprint and every other country besides Great Britain will be doing their best to avoid it.
Stars are releasing a new album called The North, out September 4th, which seems a long time away, particularly when they've already leaked 2 tracks off the CD, the first out a few weeks ago and the second out (streaming only) last week. I didn't particularly care for Stars last album, The Five Ghosts, and I didn't think much of their first leaked track "The Theory of Relativity" but I love love love the new track. It's more expansive and ethereal than anything they've put out in some time I think, and I've always been a fan of their more epic constructions, starting way back with the track that introduced me to them so many years ago, "Your Ex-Lover is Dead." This is not quite at that level but it has me rather excited about the new album.
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So the 2012 edition of the single greatest annual event in European sports is over. Here's a quick little recap.
Winners:
Team Sky
Bradley Wiggins won the yellow jersey. Teammate Chris Froome came in 2nd. The closest non-Sky rider to the top was 3rd place Vincenzo Nibali, a full 6:19 behind, so it wasn't even close. Not remotely close. Mark Cavendish won 3 stages, including Sunday's final stage on the Champs Elysees, becoming the first rider ever to win four times on the final Sunday in Paris and moving to 4th all-time in individual stage wins with 23 overall (passing Lance Armstrong along the way). The team was absolutely dominant throughout, controlling every stage for Wiggins, first on the flats with Christian Knees and Edvald Boassan Hagan (who was an absolute machine throughout), then with Michael Rogers and Richie Porte up the mountains, and then finally when needed (and it was only a few brief moments on a couple stages), Chris Froome was there to chase down any attacks so that Wiggins barely broke a sweat cruising around France to the victory. Yes, Team Sky's dominance ruined my viewing pleasure at this year's event but they were definitely winners.
Great Britain
In the 99-year history of the Tour de France, Wiggins became the first British champion. And Froome became the first to come in 2nd place. Many in Britain are calling this the greatest triumph in British sports since the 1966 World Cup. OK, maybe only Phil Liggett was calling it that while commentating but yes, the nation has to be more than a little proud of its athletes. Even if they all kind of hate Team Sky owner Rupert Murdoch. Oh, and for good measure, this coming Saturday is the Olympics Road Race in London, where Cavendish will be the heavy favorite in a course set up for sprinters so that the Brits can get the Olympic gold medal. And Cav will have Wiggo and Froome as part of his lead out train. So yeah. It likely won't be close. And next Wednesday, Wiggins will be the co-favorite along with defending Olympic champion Fabian Cancellara for the Olympics Time Trial race. Actually, if Wiggins is still on the same form he was on the past three weeks, even Spartacus himself (Cancellara) may not be able to beat him.
So a couple weeks ago, I had a great week -- finally -- after nearly 7 months of nonstop shooting burning pain from the big toe on my right foot, or more specifically, the nerve on said foot, the result of a botched surgery to correct a problem that I can't even remember I had anymore. But anyway, had a great week of bearable pain in Atlantic City and the Blue Claws and a party at my friend's house and a trip to see Moonface at the Bowery Ballroom. My life returned to some semblance of normalcy and fun for the first time in 7 months. Then the day after the Moonface concert a rash that had seemed to be forming on my foot got much much worse and by the following day, I had red seeming welts all over the bad foot. My first thought was that the cream that I was using to quell the nerve pain was causing the problem. Of course, the nerve pain cream was the only thing that made the extreme pain bearable through the day. Not good. I was seeing a new doctor the next day about the nerve problem, he took one look at the massive disaster that was my foot and pretty much ordered me to a dermatologist and to stop using that cream. He scheduled a surgery for the nerve pain -- lumbar sympathetic block (basically an injection in my spine) -- and left me on my own.
At the top of the final climb of the day, defending champion Cadel Evans suffered a flat tire, shouted for teammate (and white jersey holder) Tejay Vangarderen for help, Tejay looked at him, seemed to sense his trouble, but kept riding, then Cadel was literally left alone (the team cars were far behind), hoping for a BMC teammate to arrive to lend him a tire. When Steve Cummings finally came, he had a flat back tire as well! So no help there. By the time the team managed to get him a working rear wheel, Cadel was close to a couple minutes down on the yellow jersey group, who were over 15 minutes behind the leaders of the stage. But the race radios were going crazy with news of flat after flat after flat -- not just Evans and his teammates -- upwards of 30 flat tires on the stage. Cadel had to stop again when he realized his front tire was flat as well, then again when he suffered some other mechanical and/or flat. By that time, Team Sky and leader Wiggins had some idea that something was amiss and ordered his team to sit up, stop racing, and wait for Cadel to catch up. Pierre Rolland, perhaps merely oblivious, took off ahead and had at one point 2 minutes on the yellow jersey group, potentially threatening the placings of Team Lotto's Jurgen Van Den Broeck, and they started chasing him down. Rolland was in 9th overall going in, VDB was in 5th so it was debatable. Eventually, 3rd place Vincenzo Nibali's teammates at Liquigas joined in on the pacemaking, perhaps sensing an opportunity to put some time into 4th place Cadel, but Cadel now had all his teammates at BMC around him (save for Vangarderen, who is 7th overall and did not stop to help, perhaps "unintentionally") and eventually the BMC team closed out the final 45 seconds to catch the yellow jersey group. Word I guess had already gotten to Rolland to come back to the group and he sat up, leaving all the race leaders together as one, with no change in the overall. And as you can see in the picture above, the reason for all the flats is appartently because a spectator threw tacks onto the road right before the leaders got to that point, trying in fact to sabotage the race. Shocking turn of events, this. Crazy, crazy shit.
This is really all you need to know about the Tour de France this year. Here's current yellow jersey holder Bradley Wiggins with his closest (and only) remaining competition for the top prize, Vincenzo Nibali, together at the summit of the final climb of a day of tough climbing. Hugging it out, so to speak, after Wiggins supposedly dishonored Nibali on the previous stage. Now they're "friends" again, no ill will to speak of. And no one is going to beat fucking Wiggins this year.
If you live in a state with a Republican governor, like I do, your governor cares much much more about making an anti-Obama political stand than about (1) you, (2) common sense, (3) cash from the federal government to help you, (4) sick people, (5) poor people, (6) healthy people, (7) hospitals, and (8) did I mention you? Just get a load of this latest story developing after Obamacare was upheld by the Supreme Court except for the part where states would be forced to accept government money to expand Medicaid to insure more citizens.
Ten GOP governors have said definitively that they will not accept the funds, while 19 are still considering other options. Sixteen states, all with Democratic governors, have committed to expanding their programs. Starting in 2014, the Affordable Care will expand Medicaid to families earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) and provide subsidies to those at up to four times the FPL to purchase insurance in state-based exchanges. But:
Not a single Republican governor has pledged to accept the new Medicaid funds and three Democrats are also considering turning down the money. In total, these states would give up $291.4 billion in federal funds and leave 10,297,221 Americans uninsured.
Continue reading "The Republican Brain Explained (Cont'd)" »
