Contador Clenbuterol

I have to admit, before today I had never heard of clenbuterol, yet another drug on the list of prohibited PEDs in pro cycling. So did Alberto Contador use the stuff to help him win the 2010 Tour de France? Was he blood doping, as has been reported by some German news sources? Was it an accidental contamination from eating tainted meat as Contador claims?
-
Who knows. All I know is that yet again we're getting all tied up in the convoluted governance of pro cycling. Discovered in an amount so small that most WADA labs would never have detected it, Contador had the bad luck of having his sample tested in a German lab that was actually set up to detect such infinitesimal amounts. And now Contador's national governing body will make a determination on whether he doped or was the victim of a Spanish beef steak that just happened to have trace amounts of the drug in it. What Spain decides may be completely different from what Italy, Germany, or United States cycling authorities would decide. How can that be fair?
-
So once again I'll make the point that a professional sport like cycling should not be run by the hodge podge of national Olympic committees. Cycling needs to have a governing body made up of three different groups. 1.) Representatives of the various race organizers. 2.) A committee representing team owners and sponsors. 3.) And most importantly, a genuine cyclists union empowered to negotiate working standards, minimum contracts and guarantees. And as the only reasonable and fair doping control, an agreement of all three groups on just what drugs and practices are legal, and which are not. Guidelines on what amounts can be argued as accidental exposure. And absolutely no test results made public until all investigations are complete. I don't really have an opinion on whether Alberto Contador doped or not, but if it was an accidental ingestion of a drug amount so small that there was no performance enhancement at all, why should his reputation be ruined?
-
And one other thing. It's time for cycling to stop pretending that the sport wasn't rife with doping. I'm not saying that every cyclist was shooting up, but I am saying that we can never be sure about any rider during the doping era of the last twenty or so years. It's time to declare a general amnesty and then say that after a certain date any one caught gets the book thrown at them. And that means restoring all titles and race results for everyone from that era, including Floyd Landis' TdF victory.
-
If Spanish cycling authorities buy the accidental contamination theory, then every other rider who can make a similar and reasonable case who have been banned should be reinstated. I can think of at least two, Tom Zirbel and Li Fuyu.

Little Meg Answers Her Critics

The Mexican did it! The Mexican did it!

Little Meg and the Housekeeper

Forget about the boarder. If you want to do something about illegal immigration, arrest those who hire the undocumented. Hmmmmm, where should we start? Here's an idea, how about Republican pornographer, little Meg Whitman. Yes, it seems that our favorite wealthy political dilettante, little Meg had an illegal alien on her household staff. Wow, what a bombshell. It seems that little Meg, just like every other Repug that runs for office, is quick to criticize their liberal opponents (Well let's be honest and make that more liberal. After all, many things are comparative.) for an elastic sense of right and wrong, when they themselves are quick to break the law when it's in the good cause of supporting America's ever expanding plutocracy. (Look it up if you don't know what it means. And for goodness sake, use a paper dictionary!) And what's doubly exciting for little Meg is that she's not just a defender of the plutocrats, she is one!
-
Hey, but seriously folks. There is only one real reason to hire an illegal immigrant to work as a housekeeper, and that's because they work for a lot less money than a legal resident of the United States. So why isn't anyone asking the obvious question; What kind of billionaire is so cheap that they're comfortable with exploiting the poor and desperate? I'd be willing to bet that if pay was divided by hours worked, little Meg wasn't even paying the lady minimum wage.
-
I rest my case. To be a successful CEO, one has to be a sociopath. The other great example in Cal politics is political dilettante, Carly Girl Fiorina. Let's see, fire thousands of American workers from a profitable company to increase profits by going for the super cheap labor in China. It's a good thing for the Carly Girls of the world that they shoot labor leaders in China.

Reggie Bush, Contrite but Not Apologetic...

....whatever the hell that means.
-
Here in southern California, there seems to be an obsession among sports broadcasters that Reggie Bush should apologize for enriching himself while at USC. Well, why should he? There isn't a sports organization, pro, college, or high school that wouldn't kick an athlete to the curb if that organization perceived it to be in their best interests. NCAA scholarships can be cancelled at the end of a season. An athlete can do everything that's asked of him. He can attend every meeting, every practice, and be ready to play in every game; he can live up to the stated ideal of the NCAA and be a true scholar athlete. And then at the end of the season, if coach finds some junior college transfer who scored 450 on his SATs and barely eeked out Cs at such and such community college, but can catch a pass or run to daylight, scholar athlete, who played by the rules can get kicked off the squad, and if not rich, kicked out of school. Coach can go to one of his players, let's say a pre-med major, and tell him, "Hey, I know you've got a 150 IQ, and you want to cure cancer, but you need to spend more time in the weight room. How about becoming a physical education major instead." And if that player says, "Sorry coach, I care more about academics than athletics." it's bye-bye.
-
Colleges want their athletes to mix with boosters. After all, boosters donate money to the school. Colleges want their athletes to go to the parties, carry the school colors, and glad hand with anyone with a check book and large bank balance. Colleges are allowed to take donations, but athletes are in violation of the rules if they accept anything at all. Colleges can make millions selling jerseys of their star athletes, but the athlete sees nothing from the exploitation of his name and likeness. The NCAA is a racket, all wrapped up in mom and apple pie imagery.

New Hostages

We've all been hearing a lot about the pastor Terry Jones and his weird Koran fetish. The commanding general in Afghanistan, the Secretary of State and Defence have gone on national television to ask him not to go through with his plan. Even President Obama has weighed in on the inadvisability of his actions. With the latest twist in this ongoing saga, a willingness not to strike the match in return for the moving of the so called ground zero mosque, Jones may have found a way to avoid all the trouble his actions will cause with the lose of only a bit of face. Of course, if the Imam in New York City (Sorry, I'm too lazy to look up the spelling of the name.) refuses to meet with Jones, and he'd be smart not to let himself get dragged into this insanity, tomorrows bonfire might go on anyway.
-
In everything I've read and heard about this lunatic, I've yet to hear anyone make this pretty basic point: Do we face a future of being held hostage by any nut with a computer and Internet access? Twenty or thirty years ago Jones would have been nothing more than a local story worthy of two minutes at the bottom of the local news cast. And at that, the story would have probably been more about a fool starting a bonfire with out a permit. Pastor Terry Jones is a man with, at most, 50 followers. His claim of nation wide support has netted him donations of about 200 Korans for his strange little incineration ceremony. Hardly a sign of an American nation wishing to see the Muslim holy text going up in flame. But thanks to the world wide web, if Jones does strike the match, we will very likely see riots, violence, and the deaths of hundreds, thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands of people, because some jackass from Florida knows how to type and click on "publish post."
-
Meanwhile back on the narcissist front, pathetic billionaire Donald Trump has offered to buy the sight of the ground zero mosque.