Another doper, busted today, or well, not so much today, but sometime last year with the case finally being decided today. Story can be found here at cyclingnews.com.
Turns out that the tattooed warrior of bike racing actually did take a few drugs while trying to race Superweek (and who the hell else knows what other races he was doped up to race). Also in the failing equation, I think we have to toss one Michael “I make jeans for a living” Ball. Why? He stuck up for Leogrande last year when doping allegations were made against him by Suzanne Sonye after he had admitted taking EPO and a bunch of other stuff (see the story for more details about the drugs he was popping during races). What did Ball do in his quest to battle doping in sport? Instead of bouncing his ass back to his tattoo shop, he suspended Leogrande for 2 weeks, and then reinstated him back to the team, and then let him race again, pending the results of his doping test. Sure, he hadn’t been busted yet, but he had admitted, to the team soigneur Sonye, which in my assertion, is pretty damning. The best part of this story, is that I only can give praise to Frankie Andreau and Sonye for asserting that he did dope, and they wanted him fired. I think Andreau and Sonye did the right thing. Who was in the wrong? Yes, Mr. Ball. I mean, with a team of former, and possibly current dopers that he has, you’d think he would have fired him, taken back his bikes, smashed them in front of his house, burned his ugly kits (OK, I still kind of like the kits just because they ARE ugly, but let’s face it, they’re ugly), shredded the jeans that he undoubtedly got from Ball, and then made him leave LA permanently, sort of like how Marsellus Wallace told Butch Coolidge that he had lost all of his LA privileges in Pulp Fiction (look it up, it happened). Way to represent the sport, and your team Kayle you freakin’ doper. I’m sure we’ll hear some tired assed excuse about what “really” happened, and how you’re innocent.
Anyway, another day, another doper. It’s pro cycling. It’s going to keep happening and never end, and that’s just too bad. Thing is, I still love the sport. I can’t help myself. As cynical as I am, and can be, I still love it.
Moving on now, moving…
From the news today, what does our current President George W. Bush regret the most about invading Iraq? Turns out, he regrets the intelligence failures about WMD and Iraq. The problem with that, and the problem with the story about what he said about the intelligence failures, is the total ineptitude of our media (and the world media in general) to call his ass out on this stuff. Why? Mostly because the Bush administration culled the data and intelligence that they wanted, and excluded the data and intelligence that they wanted to of course, make the case that they wanted. And as we all know now, the case that they wanted to make was to go to war for Iraq. I still maintain he wanted to go to you know, try and do something that his Dad couldn’t achieve. Silly reason maybe? But why else would he go? All pertinent information and intelligence was telling us that there were NO WMDs in Iraq, and Saddam was bottled up, and isolated, and withering away in the desert. Of course, Bush, and his cronies, totally and completely ignored this information, and then we had the spectacle of Powell at the UN to sell the case for war. Sad, sad event in history. And our media in the US let this douchebag get away with it is what kills me. Of course, Congress had something to do with that as well, so there is plenty of blame to go around.
The other thing that kills me in his interview in the link in the above paragraph, is that this guy, has the gall, the temerity I might add, to suggest, no, actually to straight out say that the economic failure we’re looking at now, is the result of decisions that go back a decade or more. Talk about passing the buck. Let’s see George, isn’t the Republican party supposed to be about “personal responsibility” and this is the personal responsibility. See, jerkwater, what you’re trying to do is blame this mess, yes, here it comes, on Clinton. Except that, up until the bottom fell out of the market, and banks started failing (as bad as Leogrande), he was out there telling us that everything was fine. Nothing to see here, move along folks, the economy is fine. What a dick.
He of course goes on to talk about how he’s happy to have history judge what he did while he’s in office. Of course he’s happy to have history “judge” him, because in his Presidential Library, he’s going to have a staff of researchers to spin, and wash his image, and to “promote the President’s views”. In other words, he’ll have more folks lying about what he did when he was in office, instead of, you know, actually showing us what he actually did. Little rundown of what they want to do, is here. Read it and weep, no, you’ll probably weep, or get really angry, hopefully the latter.
I can’t wait for that guy to leave. We can definitely put him in the “FAIL” column.
Man…I could understand Leogrande if was weed or blow but performance enhancing drugs? WTF?
Regarding our current president; I wouldn’t be so swift in saying he was a failure. Sure he sold us a big pile of steamy warm shit that far too many ate up and gave, or resold, it to their friends, but I don’t think he was a total failure.
If you had stock in the Carlyle Group, Big Oil, Goldman Sachs or some of his other hommies this guy did more then possibly any other president in history to make you money.
I am sure somewhere, this president will have a fucking shrine made in his honor and his father probably gets all misty eyed at how great his son played the game.
Amen Brother, I couldn’t have said it any better. It just kills me that he’s still talking shit when he should be in prison. The worst President in the 61 yrs I’ve been on Earth.
GWB = Fail = eliminated a tyrannical mass murderer in Saddam Hussein?
Bad intelligence, personal motive for going into Iraq? Joe Public will never know the truth.
If you were a Kurd or oppressed person in Iraq, would you still say the world is worse off with Saddam not in it?
You probably never stop to help a brother out in a race, do you? Wait, you do? So, help a brother out = good. Help a race of fellow human beings escape oppression and death from a dictator = bad?
Eliminating Hitler = good, eliminating Saddam = bad?
What?
Bush was probably the worst president in history. He made a lot of mistakes, and deliberately took advantage of the American people. He has a lot to do with the financial mess – deregulation of the wrong regulations, supporting further lowering of the interest rates at the expense of the currency value, way too much spending on war, and foreign policy that reduces desire to deal with the US.
However, the mess was well underway before he took office. Housing prices were already unrealistically high due to greed and poor fiscal decisions on behalf of the home buyers, mortgage lenders, and mortgage backed security sellers and buyers, compounded by policy requiring mortgage lenders to lend to “underprivileged” people who could not afford the mortgages which pushed up prices in cities, which in turn pushed up prices in suburbs. (And when the houses in the cities started getting defaulted on and repossessed, more people tried to move out of the cities, further pushing up prices in the suburbs and hurting the cities’ tax revenue.) The stock market was already overvalued before he took office. The country as a whole was already in too much debt when he took office.
The blame also goes to Clinton, Reagan, probably Carter, and both parties in both houses of Congress for the past two decades. It also goes to the people who got into too much debt, and the lenders who lent them too much money. It goes to everyone who played financial games they did not understand with other people’s money. And to the American voters who keep voting for these greedy, power-hungry career politicians, and to the Americans who should be voting but aren’t.
was saddam an evil motherfucker? yes. there’s no fucking question about that. does that mean that the citizens of a country deserve to have their intelligence and moral standing supremely insulted by not telling us the truth? fuck no, it doesn’t. all of the opinions and justifications that surface as a result of the truth coming out are ridiculous. you are just continuing to downplay your intelligence and right to information by comparing the actions we took against hussein to those rallied against hitler. don’t get shit twisted, smart people. if you’ve got the necessary smarts required to put together a semi-well-written paragraph or two on a drunkcyclist comment column, you also possess those required to differentiate between the truth and the evening news. joe public does know the truth, and so do you, and it’s okay to be mad about the fact that while all publicly available information was evidence to the fact that the whole WMD facade was bullshit, our heads of state went on with their happy war-making to quash our pain in the wake of 9/11. so many people are tired of the blind idiots who still stand behind that shit. and if you were a brother of mine in a race i’d fully fucking help you, but if i catch your hand in my beer cooler afterwards, i’ll shit in your handlebars.
Just read the article on the Library and all I got was “Blah, Blah, Blah” sort of like listening to Bush talk. It’s just a bunch of new crap with a bigger shovel.
Dear Contender
You can’t defend the indefensible.
And never use “Hitler” to prove a point. It demeans your argument if you can’t make your point without resorting to going ‘Hitler-lear’. (that sorta works).
Taking Saddam out was the pretext. They thought we could be bought off by their removing a very bad man from office. But that wasn’t the actual objective. Now that they have botched it so badly, the harm to the US will be long and hard to undo, especially the torturing of our prisoners.
Peace out
Stephen,
Don’t forget Bush I…
Two points:
1) I do own a modest position in “energy” stocks like Conoco-Phillips. They are in the tank. Blaming Big Oil for the currentmess either in the middle east or the equity markets is ignorant and lazy.
2) I paid for my house. I paid for my ski condo. Whose house am I paying for now? Guys like me who are fiscally responsible and mid-pack journeyman investors are getting fucked, and that’s a shame.
Mikey
Contender: Bringing up Hitler to make a point = Fail
Guys-
Bringing up Hitler during a discussion of despotic dictators makes a lot of sense. Why would you dismiss that as a “fail”?
Mikey
Mikey,
Look up Godwin’s Law. Using Hitler is a last ditch effort in any discussion (with rare exceptions). If you have to bring up Hitler to win an argument, you lose. I’m not so sure it deserved GL, but it was in poor form, if not just a lazy way to make a point. For as evil as Saddam was, he was no Hitler.
I’m calling it: Using the name of Adolf Hitler inappropriately or prematurely on a message board should be called either a Failter or a Hightail.
el jefe-
Let me get this straight… citing Hitler as an example of a despotic dictator is a “fail” because… it’s too true?
Should we refrain from any mention of the Khmer Rouge? The French revolution? Hiroshima? AIDS? The Exxon Valdez? The Rwandan genocide? Little Big Horn? Jonestown? This could be confusing. Please provide a comprehensive list of too-true references that shall be avoided.
Mikey
Mikey,
Did I say any of that? No. Read what I wrote, and look up Godwin’s Law. It’ll take you all of about 5 minutes. I said there were exceptions, and that I didn’t know if it deserved to have Godwin’s Law invoked. People don’t talk about the Khmer Rouge when they are making a last gasp effort at winning an argument. Almost without fail, they will cite Hitler or the Nazi’s. Therefore, it has become widely accepted that citing Hitler or the Nazi’s means you have no argument left, you are going for the easy way out, and you automatically lose. I didn’t make this up. I was answering your question, and I’m just the messenger. Sorry you didn’t like the answer. Someone who has the knowledge to talk about the Khmer Rouge in a discussion about despotic regimes, probably has the mental ability win an argument. (Khmer Rouge and Saddam IS a reasonable comparison…) It is invoked ONLY with Hitler. If you are confused by it, that’s your problem. Contender made a weak point, and was called out on it.
el heff – mikey’s the fat dude that gets picked last in kickball. kind of like hitler. oops. my bad. you get it, though, right? i’m starting to think the only thing i’d help him with in a race would be using some patch glue to give him a teddy bear cholla hitler stache. oops. would you help me with it, or do you think it’d be too Little Big Horn for his fat kickball ass?
well, I guess I’d better limit my despotic-regime references to the Khmer. Thank you for clarifying. By the way, I think the Khmer did a poorer job of running Cambodia than either the examples of Saddam Hussein or GWB.
Mikey
…sheesh…we went through all this only a few months ago…someone (mikey, was that you dammit ???) tried to use the ‘adolf defense’ & while i don’t recall for sure, i’m bettin’ saddam & gwb’s names were involved…
..el jefe invoked ‘godwin law’ w/ a simple but clear explanation but here we are again, this time w/ ‘contender’…
…come on guys, attila the hun maybe or even nero…nero, like george w bush, fiddled while rome burned…even pol pot, if ya need ‘im but the ol’ schicklgruber reference is always considered poor form & a definite discussion ender…
Bush was not a failure!
He was put in power by a select group who had clear and specific goals to make a lot of money and to change the direction of this country and the world for the next 20-50 years.
By that metric, he is a resounding success.
The problem is, the guy and his entire regime had no intentions to aid in the needs of the US citizen. They didn’t pay to put him in power and they aren’t gonna pay him for the rest of his life.
The guy is not a complete screw up.
This was planned and executed very well.
When will you just admit you got played?