What Caught My Eye Today

Space Shuttle - A picture is worth a thousand words. You did the nation proud, Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour. Well done. Well done, indeed.

Debt Ceiling - House Speaker John Boehner predicted that a majority of House Republicans will end up supporting some kind of compromise to avoid a government default. My first reaction was, "like they have a choice," followed almost immediately by, "I'll believe it when I see it." Several media outlets reported that President Barack Obama and Boehner were near an agreement on a grand bargain trading $3 trillion or so in spending cuts and a promise of $1 trillion in tax revenues through a later overhaul of the tax code as part of a deal to extend the government's borrowing authority. Sounds promising, doesnt' it...until you read this. "We're not close to a deal," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "While we are keeping the lines of communication open, there is no 'deal' and no progress to report," Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said. Officially, the president continued to push for a big compromise that would cut the nation's budget deficit and extend the government's tapped-out borrowing power above the current $14.3 trillion cap, but he relented slighted saying he would back a short-term deal to prevent a disastrous financial default on August 2 but only if a larger and still elusive deficit-cutting agreement was essentially in place. I'm all for getting a deal done to avoid the end of the world as we know it on August 2, but we've been down this road before. There is something to be said for the urgency of the moment providing the motivation one needs to act. Congress really needs to work "stuff" out now before silly season (also known as the 2012 Presidential election) descends upon us.

Soccer - Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that the FIFA Women's World Cup came to a close this past weekend...and if you are a fan of the underdog, you were not disappointed. Japan beat a heavily favored U.S.A. squad 3 to 1 in penalty kicks after drawing 1-1 in regulation and 2-2 after extra time. As for me, I should have stopped my predictions after the semifinals. I blew both the third place game (Sweden over France) and the Final. And it is really hard not to applaud achievement of the Japanese women and its affect on the nation...not after the year they've had to endure. Overall, I picked 12 out of 16 teams correctly (7 out of 8 in group play, 3 out of 4 in the quarters, 2 out of 2 in the semis, and... well, you know). And now, we can all relax for a bit as we enjoy the build up to the 2011 Rugby World Cup, just 50 days from now.

Cycling - With 18 stages down and 3 to go in this year's edition of the Tour de France, French sports fans must be going out of their minds. Frenchman Thomas Voeckler has confounded pretty much everyone who claims to know anything about professional bike racing by remaining the overall race leader for a tenth consecutive day. And if you happen to be a Norwegian, it has been a pretty good day at the office for you as well. With all of 2 riders participating in this year's event, Thor Hushovd and Edvald Boasson Hagen have each won 2 stages apiece, double what Spain has managed with its 20 riders and 4 more than France, which has no stage victories. Pre-race favorite, Alberto Contador, fell out of contention after today's stage. The smart money (say the experts) now lies with Cadel Evans of Australia or Andy Schleck of Luxembourg. If you ask me, until someone can wrestle the maillot jaune (yellow jersey) from Voeckler, who has a 15 second lead over Schleck, I say, "vont Thomas Voeckler. Vive le français. Vive le tour".