Jacob Christensen

Yesterday Floyd Landis exploded, had un jour sans, died, lost any – any! – chance of winning this year’s Tour de France. In terms of the TdF ’06, Landis was a has-been.

And today he tore the race apart and won the stage. Emphatically.

Is it because of the doping raids which eliminated all of the favourites that this year’s Tour de France is the most exciting since 1996?

This July hasn’t seen too much action in terms of the usual summer test balloons. With regard to Sweden the most obvious explanation is that all parties are saving their forces for the electoral campaign which is due to start in earnest sometime during August. And maybe the heat and the draught has something to do with it as well.

In Denmark, the biggest piece of news so far is that Social Liberal MP Naser Khader in a radio interview called for a vote among all members of the party when the next political leader of the party is elected. Marianne Jelved has no known plans to retire but she has made her support for the former party chairman and minister of education Margrethe Vestager clear.

One problem for Khader is that the Social Liberal Party always has divided political and organisational offices: The parliamentary group has chosen – in a more or less formal way – the political leader while the annual party conference has elected the party chairman. On the other hand, Khader may be able to benefit from a conflict within the party with regard to what parliamentary strategy – stay close to the Social Democrats or act independently – the party should follow.

In Germany, there is a really fascinating story about attempts by Chancellor Angela Merkel to persuade the Prime Minister of Hesse, Roland Koch, to exchange his present post in favour of the post as federal Minister for Trade and Industry. Koch would be slated to replace CSU’s Michel Glos who is being described as the German government’s problem bear.

Koch is one of Germany’s shrewdest politicians and while it is easy to see why Merkel – to quote the former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson – would prefer having Koch inside the tent pissing out instead of outside the tent pissing in, I have a hard time seeing Koch moving to Berlin for any other reason than to become Federal Chancellor.

A modern classic: Are boys falling behind in the modern educational system?The Education Sector has a skeptical analysis based on U.S. data. The basic message is: No, both sexes are progressing but girls have advanced more than boys.Some of the fall-out can be followed through a post on the Education Sector’s blog – The Boys and Girls Debate Rages On – and a thread on Crooked Timber – The Truth about Boys and Girls.One noteworthy quote from the Education Sector site:

There’s no doubt that some groups of boys�particularly Hispanic and black boys and boys from low-income homes�are in real trouble. But the predominant issues for them are race and class, not gender. Closing racial and economic gaps would help poor and minority boys more than closing gender gaps, and focusing on gender gaps may distract attention from the bigger problems facing these youngsters.

So, it’s back to class.