The following comes from the Wall Street Journal:

Good news out of Iraq is becoming almost a daily event: In just the past week, we learned that U.S. combat fatalities (five) dropped in July to a low for the war, that key leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq have fled to the Pakistani hinterland, that troop deployments will soon be cut to 12 months from 15, and that Washington and Baghdad are close to concluding a status-of-forces agreement.

Now this: Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr plans to announce Friday that he will disarm his Mahdi Army, which was raining mortars on Baghdad’s Green Zone as recently as April. Coupled with the near-total defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq, this means the U.S. no longer faces any significant organized military foe in the country. It also marks a major setback for Iran, which had used the Mahdi Army as one of its primary vehicles for extending its influence in Iraq…

In many respects, the story of the Mahdi Army’s decline follows the same pattern as al Qaeda’s: Not only was it routed militarily, it also made itself noxious to the very Shiite population it purported to represent and defend. It enforced its heavy-handed religious edicts, coupled with mob-like extortion tactics, wherever it assumed effective control. The overwhelming Shiite rejection of this brand of politics is another piece of good news from Iraq, as it means that Iraqis will not tolerate Iranian-style theocratic rule. It is also an indication that Iraqi politics is developing in a healthy way. (emphasis added)

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Nancy Pelosi’s response to House debate domestic drilling for oil on Friday was to turn off the lights & cameras and send everyone home.  The Republicans want to debate the merits of drilling for some of the over 100,000,000,000 barrels of oil sitting discovered, but untouched under federal lands and coastal waters.  The Democrats lacking any real response to such a suggestion opted for a 5 week vacation to avoid the issue.

The unfortunate “secret” is that the Democrats don’t want gas prices to come down.  Either because A) price shock at the pump will encourage ecological ends or because B) they feel that gas prices will be blamed on Bush (and not on the Congress that was elected with reducing fuel costs as a political promise) which will help Obama in November.

Despite the lack of session, several Republicans are making a stand on the floor of the House again today.  Approximatly 30 Republicans will hold an Energy Debate for “as long as it takes” to get Pelosi to start official bipartisan debate.
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After setting all sorts of records opening weekend records with $158M, The Dark Knight had a solid second week rising to a combined $314M.  This means that Batman is currently holding the 23rd position of highest grossing movies of all time - after 2 weeks.  Another week should place it in the top 10 and gunning for the #2 spot (Star Wars $460M) in its first month.  The mighty Titanic still has some breathing room at $600M and it will be interesting to see if DK has the staying power to knock off the “king of the world”.  Here’s hoping.

I’m adding this guide to my site since it apparently doesn’t exist on the web yet (odd as that seems).  .htaccess files are great and handy but the online info about them is sketchy at best.  Everyone seems to have the same 5 examples on their page, copied verbatim from someone else’s site without any extra explanation.

So here was my quandry…

It’s well known how to redirect single pages (note the first option is the page being moved and is a relative location from the main domain directory while the second option is the absolute location to the new file - even if it is the same domain):

Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.domain.com/newpage.html
Redirect 301 /oldpage2.html http://www.domain.com/newpage2.html
Redirect 301 /oldpage3.html http://www.domain.com/dir/
Redirect 301 /oldpage4.html http://www.domain.com/dir/newpage4.html

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Robert “the SPAM King” Soloway is up for sentencing which looks to include jail time  and a hefty fine based on the wasted man-hours cleaning up his mess.  A jail sentence could shift the legal landscape and possibly slow the SPAM tide slightly.

• Judge Puts off ’spam King’ Sentencing

Well after much preparation and with much prayer support against cramping the day is here!  Put up or shut up time.  My goals this race were 1) finish 2) finish without crawling 3) finish sub 4 hrs.  So call it a trifecta!

• 1.5k Swim -  35:25
• Transition 1 - 5:50
• 42k Bike -  1:37:30
• Transition 2 - 3:00 - estimate, split was lost due to equipment failure and was included in run time
• 10k Run - 1:15:41
• TOTAL - 3:37:26

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Today is my last ride before race day.  It was a short course just to keep loose and not lose ground without tearing down.

• Bike 9.76 miles - 41:42 (14mph, 442 cals) Hilly course

Today was my last big ride before the race and the official wet test of my new running shorts.  There are actual tri-unitards that the pros use.  I personally don’t like them A) they run well in excess of $100 B) they have a bike pad in them.  Bike pads are great for biking - not so great for running. I recently added true bike shorts to my workout arsenal.  I have learned that once you cross about 20 miles on a bike, better shorts become more necessary.  So while I use bike shorts for long bike rides, they don’t work well for multisport - at least for me personally.

Anyway my new running shorts featured a very breathable tech short with a pseudo-spandex compression short underneath.  In order to simulate race conditions I thoughly soaked the shorts before my ride today.  They passed with flying colors - by mile 2 they were as dry as my sweating would allow and induced zero chaffing.  They are made by Asics, cost $40, and come in a few colors.  Check your local running shops for them.

I tried several different clothing solutions, but this was by far the best and I wholeheartedly recommend them to tri-beginners not ready for the unitard duck waddle running.  I was glad to find them as my race is only a week away.
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As race day is beginning to loom large, I set out to do another full prep day.  My goal was to average 15mph on the full bike length and see how well my run would stack up after that.  I happily exceeded my bike speed goal and started off the run well.  I was staying just ahead of my virtual partner which I had set at a 12 min mile pace up until mile 4.  At that point I experienced some bad leg cramping that slowed me to a not to fast walk.  After a mile at that pace the last loop of the trail was abandoned.  This cramping incident has me worried about race day as I will also be swimming for 30+ minutes in addition to the bike before the run.  Some walking mixed with the run is fine, but painfully slow walking (ha ha) will really hurt my overall time.

• Bike 26.77 miles - 1:42:36 (15.7mph, 1225cals)
• Run 5.37 miles - 1:15:07 (14min mile pace due to cramping, 536cals)