Andreas Kloden is Scr!#$d!

Supa Dupa Domestique: yes, just as Armstrong bailed on Discovery hosing dozens of faithful serfs the second the cameras left his face the team embarrassed him in the '06 Tour and his pretty-boy protege Basso hit the skids, Johan Bruyneel's come out of his bull!@# 10-second retirement to take over the reins at Astana, not only guaranteeing that Levi Leipheimer gets completely treated like crap *again* for a second straight year (though at least that's Levi's choice presumably), but also taking the utterly helpless Andreas Kloden, bound to the team for another year, down with him. Can the boy's luck get any worse? First, he barely escapes T-Mobile's Jan Ullrich no-drugs purge (and we all know how well that worked out, good work T-Mobile!); next, his own likely Tour win is completely blown in the useless service of colossal selfish hypocrite wank Alexander "Everyone At Liberty Seguros is a Doping Skank Except Me" Vinokorouv; now, Kloden gets to look forward to his dwindling hopes for a well-earned and let's face it highly likely winning Tour getting completely stomped into the losing history books under the cleats of twinkling little star Alberto Contador as Bruyneel continues Discovery's winning strategy of jacking potentially stratospheric talents in favor of one anointed chosen king. Oh well Andreas--I assume Bruyneel'll let you and Leipheimer slug it out for a second-rate roster at one of the other Grand Tours! Can no-one get away unscathed from the career-crushing orbit of that ill-fated black hole of a squad?

The Beat Goes On (and On, and On, and...): and, as we still love Roberto Heras so shut the hell up (in no small part because of how that dirtbag Manolo Saiz sold him down the river) considers his return to the peloton, while not hesitating to decry the "barbarism" that is the four-year Pro Tour ban (hell, given the Spanish teams' comment last year that "we do not dope; we simply give our riders medicine like every other team," he at least ought to get points for relative openness), and Iban Mayo still wastes away waiting for his inevitable B-sample poz, I see that St. David "I Only Confessed Because You Found It In My Hotel Room" Millar gets rewarded yet again for his hasty yet surely sincere change of heart by getting tix to the upcoming WADA antidoping summit. Well, he sure sets a good example for the rest of the peloton for how to conduct yourself when you get busted for optimum sympathy, if that counts as the fight against doping!

Crappy Birthday(s): finally, speaking of Discovery refugees who've been totally unjustifiably guillotined, I see thanks to the fine folks over at trustbutverify that it's Floyd Landis' birthday today, and let's just hope that, given the lurid circus that passed itself off as a trial just past, last year's Annus Horribilus is replaced by a smashing win at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the corresponding monstrous and entirely deserved humiliation of the soulless goons who took his Tour away on the lamest and most flawed evidence this side of the Salem witch trials. Don't celebrate your birthday too hard Floyd--you can still get back in shape in time for next year!