Petra Treasury from the Siq, originally uploaded by DWinton.

My Dad just got back from Jordan and said it was beautiful. Apparently it is.

Nancy Pelosi, originally uploaded by jessie_shagena.

Nancy Pelosi is great. Her hypocrisy on the environment couldn’t be more obvious. She is in the middle of wrangling to get a large taxpayer provided jet to ferry her and a bunch of staff back and forth across the county. At the same time she apparently tells us that we need a mandatory carbon dioxide cap. We have to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050 she says.

But she she really believes that, why does she want to travel by private jet? Why does she choose to emit many tons more carbon dioxide than she would if she flew commercial aviation. There are two options. 1. She doesn’t care about carbon dioxide or 2. she think other should make sacrifices, but not her.

Come on Nancy, if you really cared about carbon dioxide emissions, you would fly commercial air, or if you really, really, cared, you wouldn’t fly unnecessarily back and forth to San Francisco.

I’m not happy with the French, or at least the French anti-doping agency (AFLD). There is an agreed upon process for dealing with doping charges. Last summer Floyd Landis won the Tour de France, but later had an anomalous doping test. The test found that his testosterone to epitestosterone levels were out of whack. Landis was suspended from racing and the case was referred to the US Anti-Doping Agency for disciplinary action, such as a suspension from racing for two years.

The US Anti-Doping Agency has been taking its sweet time with the Landis case and has yet to have a hearing or come to any decision. As a result, Landis’ race status for 2007 is up in the air. The French Anti-Doping Agency, apparently not wanting to wait for the Americans, decided to have a hearing on Landis’ case. It seems very likely they would have suspended him from racing in France in 2007. But at the last minute, Landis voluntarily agreed not to race in France in 2007 to avoid the ban.

I’m really bummed about this. The French haven’t been happy with Americans winning the last eight consecutive Tours de France and the French couldn’t have been happy with the results of recent doping probes against Ivan Basso and others. Ivan Basso was alleged to have doped, but the Italian anti-doping authorities let him off the hook. I don’t think the French wanted to let the Americans decide Landis’ fate and decided to take preemptive action.

If Landis is cleared by the US Anti-Doping Agency then he could have defended his Tour de France title against Ivan Basso and Alexandre Vinokourov (who missed last year’s Tour because too many people on his team were alleged to be dopers, even though he wasn’t implicated). It could have been a great Tour, but the French didn’t want an American to win their event for the 9th consecutive time.

Via Sina:

pelosi, originally uploaded by gnotalex.

I’m a big fan of Nancy Pelosi because she demonstrates what the Democratic Party is all about–all talk. Because Nancy hails from the seat of environmentalism, one of the first things she did when she became speaker was to create a special committee on climate change. She wanted to show American (or at least her environmentalist supporters) how much she cared. But because she is all talk, that’s as far as her concern for the environment goes. She wants the American taxpayer to provide her with a large plane to ferry her and a few of her aides anywhere. If she really cared about reducing carbon dioxide emissions, she would fly commerical, like the rest of us serfs. But she doesn’t want to do anything that would inconvenience her. Plus, she doesn’t want to fly commercial for “security reasons.” Oh, like what? The only security reason I can think of is that it takes a long time to get through security.

Nancy Pelosi is perfect. She talks a good game, but she demonstrates with her actions that she is another elitist who doesn’t mind if other people are inconvenienced as long as she isn’t.

Entree @ Joe’s Ginger – 25 Pell St, originally uploaded by wEnDaLicious.

General Tso’s Chicken is my favorite “Chinese” dish. I put quotes around “Chinese” because the dish wasn’t created in China, but rather in Taiwan in the 1950s. The dish is pretty much unknown in Hunan, China, but it is very popular in the United States. Here’s the story from the NY Times of how the dish came to be.

I don’t know how else you can characterize Hillary’s views other than she must be a socialist.