!@#dammit, Rebellin, You !@#$wad!

Aiiigggghhhhh!: okay, two cyclists are poz for drugs from the Olympics, and if my hopes already hadn't been crushed enough by this filthy disgusting cesspool of a sport by Iban and Roberto, from which I am distinctly still recovering and was just yesterday thinking how Heras' situation was all Denis Menchov's fault, now it's !@##$ing allegedly Classics god/aging-well Davide Rebellin down the tubes. Frankly, I don't care who the hell Scumbag No. 2 is, although if Valverde finally gets busted I suppose it'd be a glorious irony and if it's Samuel Sanchez perhaps that will send me quite over the edge, but I am extremely irked if for no other reason that someone who was buried in the peloton for the entirety of its prime doping years ought at least to have figured out how to do this !@#$ without screwing it up. What's far worse, this is just in time to completely jack over we-still-love-and-I-don't-give-a-crap-if-he-pimps-his-own-grandma-for-banned-substances-twenty-times-a-freakin'-day Gilberto Simoni for the Giro d'Italia. You moron, couldn't you have just stuck with the coke and X at the disco like everyone else?!

Gila Monster: of course, the big headline at the fawning princes of denial over at Gazzetta dello Sport is that, despite prohibitions against Pro Tour teams at such events, Armstrong is riding the Tour of the Gila, which, as long as we're exempting Armstrong from any rules whatsoever in order to kiss maximum cash-cow !@# we might as well just do with regard to everything else, including doping tests, the SATs, traffic laws, the criminal code, and the law of gravity while we're at it. I mean, I'm happy to see Levi and Horner ride, but man, can we act like there are *any* other riders left on Earth? Y'know, I'd like to suggest that the rules be similarly waived for, say, Floyd Landis so he can ride in Europe this season, but somehow I'm suspecting that suggestion wouldn't get quite the same reception....

I Wonder/I Wah-Wah-Wah-Wah-Wonder: why Liquigas, despite the formidable performance of St. Ivan of Varese in last week's Giro del Trentino, is still trumpeting Basso and golden-locked babe-muffin Franco Pellizotti as "co-captains" in the Giro? Just bluffing? Fear that a clean Basso of 2009 isn't quite the certainly-equally-clean Basso of 2006? Pellizotti threatening to sue their pants off for breach of contract? No, perhaps the two of 'em were given joint leadership to mollify 'em like tantruming tots when they were squabbling over preening time at the mirror in the team bus...

CSC What Happens When You Hose Wee Little Sastre?: yep, saving the Schlecks for the Grand Boucle, Bjarne's announced Saxo Bank's Giro squad, and though there's no GC contender in sight there is, thank goodness, Jens to randomly slap the field silly on the attack at will, JJ Haedo for the sprints, and Cancellara to hopefully herd the team to a time trial win. I know, I'll be rooting for the Italians in every other stage, cut me some slack--forza Jens!