Check out this great shot of the surf. And check out the rest of this talented photog’s pictures here.

Today’s loss to Ghana in the World Cup was a bummer. Some sports columnists have asked why the US doesn’t like soccer more. The answer is that the US likes winners–and the men’s World Cups teams aren’t winners (though they were decent 4 years ago). Here’s my friend’s responce:

Agreed, and I’m not sure why we’re supposed to care so much about it. Note to self-loathing American sports columnists and Euro elitists, soccer is just another sport and not a sociological statement. Americans have embraced soccer as evidenced by the millions of kids that play it, the decade-old self-sustaining men’s professional league, a number of men’s and women’s college soccer programs, and decent television ratings for professional soccer and world cup. What more can we do? Do we hate gymnastics and track-and-field just because we’re most interested every four years during the Olympics? The fact is that there is tremendous competition for our attention and entertainment dollars, and soccer is just not a first-tier sport in this country as most American sports are not first-tier sports in the countries that bitch about us not humping soccer. Besides, doesn’t the rest of the world resent our dominance in most other sports; would they be happy if we won the World Cup too? Here’s the ultimate trump argument: If soccer is supposed to represent progressive thinking, then why have the U.S. Women’s teams won 2 of the 4 World Cups played since 1991, and finished third in the 2 that they did not win, particularly when most countries aren’t even progressive enough to field women’s teams? You’re so progressive that you don’t even allow women to play sports. Right.

There, I have now dedicated 5 minutes to soccer analysis. In 4 years, maybe it’ll get another 5 minutes.

If a proton fits on a webpage, the electron would be 11 miles away.

The Race Across America is nuts. It is a bicycle race of 3,043 miles from Oceanside, California, to Atlantic City, New Jersey. Some people compete in teams, but others ride the entire race solo. How calorically demanding is the race? Daniel Wyss’ doctor (Wyss was the winner of the traditional solo division), “We can get about 10,000 kilo-calories into Wyss each day, but he burns 17-18,000 kilo-calories. The body must make up this difference by consuming something, and if the fat is not available it will be muscle.” 18,000 calories a day is an amazing amount of energy.

“Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.” — HL Mencken

…or an “How a month and a half on Paxil taught me to love being shy.“

From Peugot.

A Russian web developer went to North Korea and took a good number of quality pictures. Here they are with commentary.

Scientology is bizarre.

Everybody should have his personal sounds to listen for – sounds that will make him exhilarated and alive or quite and calm…. One of the greatest sounds of them all – and to me it is a sound – is utter, complete silence. ~Andre Kostelanetz