Friday, June 23, 2006

Please tell me they weren't wearing bicycling shorts during the test


The Chicago Tribune reports today that competitive bicyclists who take The Little Blue Pill can improve their cycling performance on mountain roads by close to 50 percent.

Some cyclists have more trouble than others in sustaining high levels of exertion at mountainous elevations, wrote reporter Miriah Meyer.

"For these cyclists, taking Viagra improved their performance up to 45 percent, which would allow a cyclist racing in the high Rocky Mountains to cover a stretch of road in 39 minutes that would otherwise take an hour."

"'The participants told us that while they were riding the bike they didn't know whether they were on the drug or not,' said [one of the scientists who led the study]. 'However, what they did say was that in the showers afterward they pretty much knew which pill they had been given.'"


Insert your own joke about gearshifts, sticking it to the competition, crossing the finish line first, etc., etc. here.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Talk about "Darn Dangerous!"



Did he just realize that there has been no "plan" for more than five years?

From The Scotsman
6/15/06

Bush declares wish to close Guantanamo

US PRESIDENT George Bush said yesterday he wanted to close the Guantanamo military prison but first needed a plan to deal with the "darn dangerous" prisoners held there.

Mr Bush acknowledged that the camp, which has drawn international condemnation, gave some "an excuse" to criticise the United States for failing to uphold the values it espoused.

Two Saudis and a Yemeni hanged themselves with clothes and sheets at the prison for foreign terrorism suspects on Saturday, the first prisoners to die at Guantanamo since the US began sending suspected al-Qaeda and Taleban captives there in 2002.

"I'd like to close Guantanamo, but we're holding some people there that are darn dangerous and we'd better have a plan to deal with them in our courts," Mr Bush said.
An Afghan delegation, returning from a ten-day visit to the Cuban jail, said yesterday conditions were "humane".

The head of the delegation, Abdul Jabar Sabhet, of the interior ministry, said the group spoke freely with all 96 Afghan prisoners about their living conditions and that there were "only one or two" complaints


From the RSA's Dispatch Online
6/15/06

In February the five [U.N. Human Rights advocates] released a highly critical report accusing the US of violating a host of international human rights rules and called for the immediate closure of the facility and the trial or release of the 460 or so inmates held in legal limbo.

Only 10 of the 460 people held there as “enemy combatants” have been formally charged since the camp opened in early 2002 at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. None has gone on trial.

Washington says many of the other inmates are highly dangerous suspected al-Qaeda members or Taliban fighters. It does not acknowledge that they are prisoners of war or entitled to the full protection of the Geneva Conventions.