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French prosecutors have reportedly launched a preliminary investigation against the Astana cycling team to examine syringes belonging to the squad during this year's Tour de France. L'Equipe newspaper reported Tuesday on its Web site that prosecutors opened the case after "the discovery of several suspicious syringes in a container given by organizers to all the teams in order to collect the medical waste." Tour de France winner Alberto Contador and third-place finisher Lance Armstrong rode with Astana on this year's Tour. The Spaniard is still under contract with the Kazakh-funded team, but the Texan left to launch his own squad,...

Casablanca, Play it Sam...

Lance Armstrong can't remember the last time he raced 65 miles by himself. So strong was Armstrong on Saturday that he left the rest of the field in the mud just 35 miles into the lung-searing Leadville 100 mountain bike race, winning the nation's highest-altitude endurance test in record time. Despite racing through freezing rain... Armstrong was so safely in front of Wiens that he didn't worry when he heard a hissing in his back tire

This updated story corrects an earlier mistranslation of a key quote. - Editor Tour de France winner Alberto Contador on Monday launched a stinging attack on teammate Lance Armstrong, saying relations between the two were tense throughout the race. "My relationship with Lance is zero. He is a great champion and has done a great Tour, but on a personal level I have never had a great admiration for him and I never will," the Spaniard told a news conference in Madrid. Contador won the Tour on Sunday with a comfortable lead over his rivals. His Astana teammate Armstrong, a...

Today is the 40th anniversary of man’s first steps on the surface of the moon. On July 20, 1969, Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended from the lunar module Eagle, with Armstrong uttering these famous first words: “That’s one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind.” A short while later, Aldrin privately added some words to mark the occasion . . . from the Word. On his website author Eric Metaxas shares Aldrin’s little-known story of taking communion on the moon: “In the radio blackout, I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread...

One of the most stupendous days in the history of man! And a great day to be proud of what America and Americans can do! A short two minute video with the late Walter Cronkite bringing us the news: [video at site] Restored moonwalk video montage here.It was hard to believe that we were actually watching live television images from the moon: "One small step for a man. One giant leap for mankind." -- Neil Armstrong, July 20, 1969 from Tranquility Base Photo Tribute:It was only later, after the astronauts returned, that we saw these color images: The Apollo 11...

Forty years ago today the world watched as Apollo 11 touched down on the surface of the moon. Science Fiction and reality had met and the result was mesmerizing. I was 9 years old as I sat on the floor in front of our old 25” console TV and watched anxiously as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon for the first time. I remember thinking, "What if he just blows up" or "evaporates"? Star Trek had been around for a couple of years by then. I know I heard Armstrong utter those words that are now carved...

Never-before seen photo shows Neil Armstrong's face as he first walks across the moon 19th July 2009 An amazing new photograph showing Neil Armstrong's face through his space suit visor has come to light. [Pics in URL] The image was shot by the movie camera mounted on the lunar lander famously called 'Eagle', but the frame lasts for only a fleeting moment. It shows Armstrong's face in clear view as he walks across the lunar surface. Face first: Neil Armstrong has been presented with a copy of the picture He was the first man to walk on the moon, taking...

Forty years ago this week, science fiction writers were media celebrities—at least for a few hours. When Neil Armstrong stepped on to the surface of the moon on July 21, 1969, his “giant leap for mankind” was not just a fulfillment of President Kennedy’s promise of a lunar expedition before decade’s end. It also validated the starry-eyed dreams of a legion of pulp fiction writers. Long before NASA was founded, the ABCs of sci-fi (Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke) and others of their profession had been chronicling the exploration of the universe in works of imaginative fiction. The moon landing was their...

Astronauts Launch New Pro-Life TV Commercial After CNN, NBC Reject Ads Washington, DC -- A pro-life group whose first two television commercials were rejected by NBC and CNN has unveiled a new ads that promote the potential of human life. The ads feature clips of astronaut Neil Armstrong and they have the support of top astronauts Dr. Joseph Kerwin and Gene Krantz. Full story and video of new pro-life ad at: http://www.LifeNews.com/nat5229.html

On Thursday, you can watch online in real time, 40 years later real time, the launch of Apollo 11 and the moonwalk by Michael Jackson....er, I mean Neil Armstrong. http://wechoosethemoon.org/

Today is day one! Armstrong riding. Astana is back! Predictions? Other comments? Does someone have the ping list from last year?

PARIS -- France's anti-doping agency said Friday it will not seek sanctions against cyclist Lance Armstrong over a dispute with a drug tester, ending speculation that he could be barred from the Tour de France. The AFLD agency said in a statement that it "decided to take into consideration the athlete's written explanations" and will not open disciplinary procedures. The anti-doping agency has said the American cyclist did not fully cooperate with a drug tester who showed up at Armstrong's home in France to collect blood, urine and hair samples on March 17. Armstrong had said he feared the agency...

Lance Armstrong will soon have four children to go along with his seven Tour de France titles. Armstrong, 37, and his girlfriend Anna Hansen, 28, have announced they’re expecting a child next year. "Anna and I are thrilled to confirm that we are expecting in June and our families are ecstatic and grateful," Armstrong said via a statement. "We are very much looking forward to what 2009 brings on many fronts. We appreciate respecting our privacy, as we are both eager to celebrate the holidays as a family." The expected child of Armstrong and his girlfriend is via natural pregnancy.

Over at McNamara's Blog, Patrick McNamara has found another surprising bit of Catholic trivia, about one of the great popular jazz artists of the 20th century: According to his own, cherished tradition, Louis Armstrong was an all-American jazz baby, born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on the Fourth of July 1900. He believed this to the end of his days, and so did everyone else, until a baptismal certificate confirming his actual birth date as August 4, 1901, surfaced and in the name of scholarship silenced one of the happiest legends in American popular music. Exactly three weeks after his birth,...

A website launched Friday with the backing of technology industry and Hollywood elite urges people worldwide to help craft a framework for harmony between all religions. The Charter for Compassion project on the Internet at www.charterforcompassion.org springs from a "wish" granted this year to religious scholar Karen Armstrong at a premier Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference in California. "Tedizens" include Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin along with other Internet icons as well as celebrities such as Forest Whittaker and Cameron Diaz. Wishes granted at TED envision ways to better the world and come with a promise that...

Lance Armstrong has confirmed that he will return to professional cycling next year and seek an eighth Tour de France win while promoting a global cancer awareness campaign. "I have decided to race my bicycle again," said Armstrong, 37, a survivor of testicular cancer, as he launched the Live Strong Global Awareness Campaign in New York. "With this campaign we feel that by racing the bicycle all over the world, beginning in Australia, ending in France at the global summit, it is the best way to promote this initiative, it's the best way to get the word out." Earlier, the...

South Texas political legend Anne Legendre Armstrong, 80, died of cancer in a Houston hospice early this morning, her office has confirmed. Armstrong, a former U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain and sitting Kenedy County Commissioner, played a conquering role in Republican politics as a national leader of the party, serving as a cabinet-level adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and an adviser to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush on foreign intelligence. As news of her death spread among close friends and political associates Wednesday morning, Vice President Dick Cheney, a regular visitor to the Armstrong Ranch...

Friendswood physician Robin Armstrong, a former medical missionary in Africa, recently was re-elected vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party, the only black person to serve in one of the state party's top two positions during the 20th and 21st centuries. Q: Affirmative action, what about that? A: I don't think it's a policy that's really necessary, and I think Barack Obama is a good example of that. People generally want to be helpful to minorities and want to see them succeed on their own. Sure, racism is out there, but I don't think that is the majority of people...

JERUSALEM - Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, answered questions from Israeli children Tuesday in his first visit to the Holy Land, showing animation and energy in discussing the feelings and justification for space travel. Armstrong was invited by a local investment company to lecture on the subject of motivation. In the morning, he visited the Space and Technology Museum in Haifa, where he talked to a group of children, museum spokeswoman Ahuva Kfir said. Armstrong, 77, was the first astronaut to walk on the surface of the moon, landing there on July 20, 1969. He has stayed...

MALIBU, Calif. (AP) -A tip for all potential arbitration witnesses out there: Never take the mike after Greg LeMond. The three-time Tour de France winner stole the show at the Floyd Landis hearing Thursday during a short, explosive bit of testimony filled with talk of sexual abuse, blackmail and backstabbing that led to the on-the-spot firing of Landis' business manager. It was Landis who asked for this hearing to be public, though he couldn't have expected a scene like this to break out. And though it's hard to know what impact these blockbusters had on the arbitrators, it will be...

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico — Floyd Landis claims the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's lead attorney approached his lawyer offering "the shortest suspension they'd ever given an athlete" if Landis provided information that implicated Lance Armstrong for doping. At a news conference Thursday to preview his upcoming arbitration hearing, Landis said he made the Armstrong allegations public not because he planned to use it as evidence when testimony begins Monday, but to show the lengths USADA will go to in prosecuting athletes. "It was offensive at best," Landis said. "It speaks to the character of the prosecution." The 2006 Tour de France champion...

DEAD MAN'S HOLE — When Lance Armstrong, the famous cancer-slayer and Tour de France champion, bought a 200-acre ranch in the Texas Hill Country several years ago, his neighbors didn't expect any trouble. Despite his fame, they figured they had something in common with the star cyclist, who was drawn to this countryside about 40 miles west of Austin for the same reasons they all were: the breathtaking landscape, the privacy of the hills and, above all, a shimmering emerald pool hidden deep in the embrace of a fern-draped limestone grotto. Armstrong was so taken with the pool, called Dead...

September 12, 2006 NEW YORK (AP) -- Two of Lance Armstrong's former teammates said they used a performance-enhancing drug when they were getting ready for the 1999 Tour de France, according to a newspaper report. Frankie Andreu, a 39-year-old former team captain, and another teammate who requested anonymity because he still works in cycling, told The New York Times they used EPO in preparation for the 1999 race, when Armstrong won the first of his seven titles in cycling's biggest race.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has misplaced the original recording of the first moon landing, including astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," a NASA spokesman said on Monday.

Posted on Sat, Aug. 05, 2006 In Armstrong's cycling world, paranoia and fear reign The Dallas Morning News By Michael Grabell and Cathy Harasta DALLAS - Lance Armstrong rose to sporting power in a world where paranoia ruled. He had his meals delivered in a blue cooler during his final Tour de France for fear of sabotage. His team drove miles to dump its trash, knowing that the moment it threw something away, someone else would pick through it. And former cyclists still active in the sport were so worried about the power the seven-time tour winner wielded that they...

Tests performed on the cyclist Floyd Landis’s initial urine sample showed that some of the testosterone in his body had come from an external source and was not produced by his system, according to a person at the International Cycling Union with knowledge of the results. That finding contradicts what Landis has claimed in his defense since the disclosure last week that he had tested positive for an elevated ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone during the Tour de France. During a news conference in Madrid on Friday, Landis said, “We will explain to the world why this is not a...

See for example this thread first. Floyd Landis won the maillot jaune What's more, he did it on his own Winning Stage seventeen The best comeback I've seen After Lance, you can still hear France moan

The first men on the Moon had to use a pen to fix a broken switch on their lunar module and return home to Earth, British newspaper the Daily Mirror reported Monday ahead of a new television documentary. Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon, and Buzz Aldrin, his fellow astronaut, accidentally snapped off the switch of a circuit breaker, and found they could not take off without it. Aldrin then jammed a ballpoint pen into the hole where the switch had been, allowing the astronauts' lunar module Eagle to leave the surface of the Moon. According to the...

NASA posted an interesting account from the 1st moon landing for the anniversary of this historic mission on 07/20/1969 + audio link

During a pitcher of beer at the Magnolia Creek Golf Links in League City the conversation quickly turned to local politics. In particular the talked centered on the ongoing saga involving Tom DeLay and his former congressional district. Last week, a federal judge ruled the former House majority leader’s name would have to remain on the ballot despite DeLay’s efforts to move out of the state and a declaration by the state Republican Party he was no longer eligible to remain the party’s nominee in November. It was a victory for Texas Democrats who sued the state Republican Party to...

PARIS -- Lance Armstrong dropped defamation lawsuits in France after winning three legal battles elsewhere over doping accusations. Donald Manasse and Christian Charriere-Bournazel, Armstrong's lawyers in France, said Thursday the seven-time Tour de France champion had instructed them to "dismiss all pending actions." That means a trial set to start in October against the authors of the book "LA Confidential: The Secrets of Lance Armstrong" will not proceed. The book accused Armstrong of using banned substances, a claim he has always denied. "I think we're 10-0 in lawsuits right now," Armstrong said Thursday. "My life is not about that anymore....

June 29, 2006 -- IMAGINE the out rage, especially from the Left, if President Bush were to hire an Internet guru who had a past as a Web shill for a worthless dot-com stock. Nope, Bush hasn't - but "un-Hillary" 2008 Democratic prospect Mark Warner did just that when he hired Jerome Armstrong and has no plans to fire him, despite new revelations about his past. The Post's Roddy Boyd recently reported that after a Securities and Exchange Commission probe, Armstrong agreed to a December 2003 SEC settlement that permanently bans him from stock-touting. ---snip---- Several Dem activists were startled...

Kos - Armstrong Blogola Scandal By James Joyner Dan Riehl has done some digging and found that myDD’s Jerome Armstrong received rather significant payments from his work as a political consultant on Jon Corzine’s successful campaign for NJ governor. While Tim Worstall has a point when he observes that, “with the amount of cash that swills through American politics, they actually look like very small sums,” they’re pretty hefty for amateur consulting services. (A recent MSNBC story has Armstrong describing his role in the Mark Warner campaign as handling “anything that deals with the Internet or technology, especially with the...

We spent Saturday at the Ice Grottos. After a week in Aspen, we're finally acclimated to breathing at 8,000+ feet, so this was a glorious day, the best so far --- we read for hours on the shore of a mountain stream as our daughter played with dolls in the sand. So it wasn't until after dinner that I logged on and saw the David Brooks column that makes Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, proprietor of DailyKos.com, look as smarmy as Karl Rove. My wife, Karen Collins, is a devoted Kossack and a frequent poster on the site's message boards, so I...

Former Tour de France champion Greg LeMond has claimed that he was threatened by fellow American Lance Armstrong for having criticised the seven-time race winner's association with a doctor implicated in doping affairs. LeMond, who won the Tour de France in 1986, 1989, 1990, said that he had come under pressure from Armstrong and his circle of friends after saying in 2001 that he was disappointed at the Texan cyclist's association with Italian sports doctor Michele Ferrari. LeMond said Sunday that the threats continued after 2001. "Lance threatened me. He threatened my wife, my business, my life," LeMond told French...

Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong admitted in 1996 he took banned drugs including EPO when he was receiving cancer treatment, according to a Friday report in the French daily LeMonde. "According to new testimonies gathered from October 2005 to January 2006 by a court in Dallas, the seven-time Tour de France winner told a Indiana University Hospital doctor on October 28, 1996 he had taken performance-enhancing drugs," Le Monde said.

On the right half of the blogosphere, "Kos-ola" is the buzzword of the moment. After reading James Joyner's detailed thoughts, I thought a timeline might be in order. In an effort to cut through the hype, rumors, and whispers, here's how it went down, quoting the central players themselves: DEAN December 2002: Dean Campaign Manager Joe Trippi invites Jerome Armstrong, creator of MyDD.com, to Burlington, Vermont to assist the Dean campaign. (Armstrong's account) January 2003: Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas, creator of Daily Kos, form Armstrong Zuniga, a political consulting firm. June 2003: Trippi hires Moulitsas, and Armstrong, for consulting...

Uh oh. The rumblings about "Kosola" (i.e. Kos's and his friend and collaborator Jerome Armstrong's financial relationships with certain politicians) have migrated from various blog comments sections to Salon to, now, The New York Times, where the Opinionator formerly known as Chris Suellentrop lays them all out (behind the TimesSelect wall, alas). Most significantly, Suellentrop links the work Kos and Armstrong have done hyping Howard Dean, Sherrod Brown, and now Mark Warner (while one or both were on said pol's payroll) to an episode from Armstrong's past. Sullentrop notes that: some people . . . compare the blog boomlet they...

If you are looking for the legacy of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, do not look in the concrete rubble of so-called safe house in Baqubah that became his final resting place. Instead, look less than 10 miles to the west, on the side of the road in the desert town of Hadid, for a pile of cardboard banana boxes. Inside those boxes were nine human heads. Some of the heads still had their blindfolds on. Iraqi police are still attempting to identify the murdered men. Days earlier, in Baquba, Iraqi police found another eight severed heads. One of those heads...

SAN ANTONIO -- Texas Republicans wrapped up their two-day convention in the Alamo City on Saturday by adopting a party platform demanding that a "physical barrier" be built along the Rio Grande. Continuing a theme that emerged from the convention podium Friday, the state's two U.S. senators vowed to resist any effort to grant amnesty to undocumented immigrants. And they blamed the federal government, which has been under full Republican control since the 2002 elections, for neglecting border security. "Make no mistake, this is the responsibility of our federal government," Sen. John Cornyn told the 10,000-plus delegates in the Henry...

SAN ANTONIO - Gov. Rick Perry's forces fended off an effort Saturday at the Texas Republican Convention to call for a repeal of the new business tax that Perry pushed through the Legislature to pay for public school property tax cuts. ''The Texas Republican Party has now had a vigorous debate and endorsed the Legislature's action,'' said Perry. ''I am honored to have the continued trust and support of grassroots Republicans.'' But the contentious nature of the debate and the fact almost 45 percent of the convention voted in favor of a platform plank calling for the business tax's repeal...

SAN ANTONIO - The Republican Party of Texas elected a new vice chairman Saturday, choosing Dr. Robin Armstrong, the first black to hold the position since Reconstruction. Armstrong, an internal medicine doctor from Dickinson, said he grew up in a household of Democrats but became a Republican in 1989 at age 19. His decision was associated with his religious faith, he said, because he became a "born-again believer." "My philosophy is more conservative," Armstrong said, explaining that his opposition to abortion was a key issue in his party choice. He said he has been an active Republican at the local...

LONDON (Reuters) - Seven times Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong will make his marathon debut in the New York City race on November 5, New York Road Runners president Mary Wittenberg said on Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT Armstrong, 34, set his record winning streak after he had been diagnosed with cancer and given less than a 50 percent chance of survival. "I was thrilled to learn late last night of Lance's decision to run the New York City marathon," Wittenberg said in a statement. "A bit like winning the lottery after you thought you had lost. "Lance epitomizes both the American...

Excerpt - "Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed." The words of Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11 commander and the first human to set foot on the moon, told a tense and waiting Earth that humans had finally reached the lunar surface. It was July 20, 1969. With fuel running low and computers sounding alarms, Armstrong had taken manual control of the lunar module Eagle and piloted it past a boulder-strewn field to a safe landing. Now he and his crewmate Buzz Aldrin were sitting on the moon, with Mike Collins orbiting above in the command module. Armstrong's words from...

Armstrong to drive Indy 500 pace car Indianapolis, April 4, 2006 -- Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong will pace the field this year at the 90th Indianapolis 500. Armstrong, who was treated for cancer in Indianapolis before becoming a champion cyclist, will drive the 2006 Chevrolet Corvette to start the race on May 28. "All I can say is that when we got the phone call to ask if I was interested in driving the Pace Car at Indy, it was a very short conversation," said Armstrong. "It was like: 'Are you kidding? Of course.' It is a...

Two prominent Pennsylvania universities, Penn State and Temple, were sued Wednesday by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of PSU student Alfred Joseph (A.J.) Fluehr and Temple student Christian M. DeJohn. Both legal complaints were filed at the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.

What really happened in the brushy South Texas wild that day? How one shot turned a genteel quail hunt into a political crisis? The delicate and the dangerous meet in the ranch lands of South Texas. In the winter, quail gather in the soft gold of prairie sedge, but snakes, scorpions and wild-boar-like javelina lurk too. In 1999 a fourth-generation South Texas rancher named Tobin Armstrong testified before Congress that he sometimes found illegal immigrants dead of dehydration in the unforgiving brush of his 49,300-acre ranch. It was there that Vice President Dick Cheney, out with a hunting party that...

Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow have said all the right things so far as the speculation for their break shifts gears. One tabloid even examines that it may be President George W. Bush's fault as Lance is a Bush fan while Sheryl is a Bush basher. The Star details that a friend of the singer said they knew the bust up was coming. "Sheryl said Lance didn't just support Bush, - he'd go off and fight if the President asked him too. Bush and Armstrong in Aug 2005*** Recall Crow sported a "War is not the answer," tee-shirt last July...

by Mark Finkelstein on February 13, 2006 - 08:06 Good Morning America took took a double-barrelled blast at the Vice President Cheney this morning over his accidental shooting of a quail-hunting companion, suggesting the White House might have tried to cover up the incident, and also calling into question his version of events. GMA did at first describe the accident as having occurred because the victim, attorney Harry Whittington, failed to observe the quail-hunting rule by which hunters remain in a single line as they advance, indicating that the accident occurred after Whittington left the line to retrieve a bird...