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Keith Olbermann confronts Bush’s lies, slander, and rejection of reality.
Part 1:

Part 2:

Why don’t we hear Democrats speaking with this force and passion? Are they not doing so? Or is it simply not being covered? Part of the party’s perceived weakness on national security issues stems from their reluctance to appear bold even on the campaign trail.
Stand tall and speak as though your words are coming from your heart, rather than being read from a focus group report.

This afternoon I had a medical appointment in Maryville. Since I was headed down there anyway, I loaded up my bike in hopes of getting a Blount County ride in afterwards.
Turn out to be a great call; the weather was fantastic (temperatures in the upper 70s). I had downloaded the cuesheet for this ride (my first time), and headed to the Hubbard school.
The first five miles was a nice warm up featuring a few flat stretches amid gently rolling hills. I should say the first seven miles, because I took the wrong entrance to Butterfly Gap Loop Road and thus had bonus riding. Along the way I saw an interesting mixture of some nice (and not so nice) country homes.
Then I turned into the woods and hit what a presume is the basis for the name “The Wall”: Butterfly Gap Road. That’s a bugger of a climb; probably the steepest prolonged one I’ve done. I don’t know what the grade is, but it’s noticeably steeper than the Foothills Parkway. To make matters worse, much of it resembles a staircase, with short “landings” between sharp rises. The landings aren’t nearly long enough to catch your breath, what they do is prevent you from developing any sense of a rhythm.
I had to stop twice to catch my breath during the climb. It’s not unusual for me to stop when going up a mountain, but most of the time it’s because I’m sweating or want to give my legs a break. Here, I stopped because I was winded. There’s clearly room for improvement on that road next time I’m looking for a challenge.
Much of the way, Butterfly Gap Road (then Flatt Road) is a narrow ribbon of pavement through the woods (incidentally, fall colors are emerging on the mountain). But about 3/4s(?) of the way up, it goes through the “Top of the World Estates” area. Oddly, though I’ve traveled the Foothills Parkway many times, I’ve never been up the back way before. There’s a “hidden” lake, a retreat, and an assortment of houses and cabins. One can discover neat things while cycling!
I finally made it to the Parkway at the intersection with the campground. Since I had done all that climbing, I decided a short trip down the other side to the overlook was warranted. It was worth the extra time. I’m not good at flowery descriptions, but suffice it to say it was beautiful. The sinking “late summer” sun lit up the mountains to the east, while casting an orange-tinted shadows over the hazy ridges to the south. It’s one of those sights I wish I could save in a bottle; sadly, I only had about 10 minutes.
Funny thing happened while I was standing there. A pair of motorcyclists drove in and parked in the parking lot. A couple minutes later the guy walks up and asks if I would briefly leave so his female partner could go to her bathroom spot, right by the overlook (apparently, they’d done this before).
I said, “OK” (what else am I going to say?). As she is strolling up, he made a comment about there not being female facilities around. I told him of the bathroom at the picnic area (about a mile away).
“Yeah,” he acknowledged, as she proceeded to walk to the overlook and do her business. You’d think if they didn’t want to take five mintues to drive over to the bathroom she could at least go in the woods, away from where people stand to enjoy the view. But no, she had to go right there. Weird.
The ride down the parkway was fun. Approximately six of the seven miles is downhill, most of which I cruised at 33-35 mph. I passed five cyclists who were making an evening climb. With less than half an hour until sunset, it seemed a little late for that, but perhaps a night ride was in the works. Along the way, I caught glimpses of a half moon rising over the mountains. It was a great evening to be outside.
At the bottom, I took a left. And after a short (but thrilling) stretch on 321, I exited onto Old Walland Highway. An easy spin along the Little River was the perfect cool down from the afternoon climb.
All in all, another great ride.
Ride stats:
33 miles
15.7 MPH average
2:05:30 riding time

No one could ever have imagined that a National Security Advisor would forget a CIA briefing like this:

One official who helped to prepare the briefing, which included a PowerPoint presentation, described it as a “10 on a scale of 1 to 10″ that “connected the dots” in earlier intelligence reports to present a stark warning that al-Qaida, which had already killed Americans in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and East Africa, was poised to strike again…
“The briefing was intended to `connect the dots’ contained in other intelligence reports and paint a very clear picture of the threat posed by bin Laden,” said the official, who described the tone of the report as “scary.”

Actually, we don’t have to imagine that, because it actually happened.
Why is it that Rice has one of the top posts in government? Oh, that’s right–all those diplomatic achievements we’ve seen in Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Darfur, Lebanon, and elsewhere. It’s been a golden age at the State Department.

I generally don’t try to read too much into events such as yesterday’s killings at an Amish school. But one point here is obvious: if a “Christian” father of three can walk into an Amish school and kill several students, “senseless” tragedy can occur anywhere.
I sometimes see bad stories on the news and think, “Good thing stuff like that doesn’t happen around here.” It’s true it’s highly unlikely I will ever witness a tragedy like that. But there’s certainly nothing inherent to shield me from it. No one is completely safe.