Big Mig - honest, dishonest?
Callistus Valerius
lbs), that he used clinchers, he was an averaged sized guy, using regular
stuff, not superlight crap, always made him my favorite. Dope free also,
makes him one of the few legitimate winners. Also, his exit was dignified,
and he always seemed less arrogant than the other riders who have come on
gone since. I don't think there are any Indurain haters even out there.
Wouldn't it be nice, if those kind of riders were again invited back into
the peloton.
Bob Schwartz
> Dope free also, makes him one of the few legitimate winners.
Dumbass,
Salbutamol, 1994.
Bob Schwartz
Dan Gregory
Bob Schwartz
Gewiss made a ton of progress that year. Just like Telekom would
in following years.
In 1994 I don't believe EPO was a banned substance yet. I'm not
sure when that came, 1996?
Bob Schwartz
VeloM...@gmail.com
wrote:
I always liked the fact that he was closer to ~195 lbs. before his
great transformation into a TdF champ and that he could still climb
very well at that weight. Gave some (false) hope to us fat boys that
climb like bags of cement. Plus, I always admired the fact that he
did his time as a super-domestique in service of Delgado before
becoming a champion.
I too will always think of him as being a dignified patron of the
peleton and-- rightyl or wrongly-- as a clean rider. Perhaps this is
naive but it is how I want to remember him.
hiza...@yahoo.com
wrote:
excel_...@hotmail.com
> peleton and-- rightyl or wrongly-- as a clean rider. Perhaps this is
> naive but it is how I want to remember him.
Yes, this is naive! Big Mig was a doper; he was once described as
'EPO perfected'. I sure as hell hope no one still believes Pantani
was clean! If they take Riis' title, they should take Pantani's as
well. Should Ullrich admit he doped too that would leave...HOLY SHIT
BOBBY JULICH AS THE VIRTUAL TdF champion! Considering the scandal
that year and his meteoric crash, I'd Julich was clean. Oh my god my
head's going to explode...........
Seriously, this is one goddamn mess because if anyone deserves to get
busted it was coke head Pantani.
CH
RonSonic
<excel_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> I too will always think of him as being a dignified patron of the
>> peleton and-- rightyl or wrongly-- as a clean rider. Perhaps this is
>> naive but it is how I want to remember him.
>
>Yes, this is naive! Big Mig was a doper; he was once described as
>'EPO perfected'. I sure as hell hope no one still believes Pantani
>was clean! If they take Riis' title, they should take Pantani's as
>well. Should Ullrich admit he doped too that would leave...HOLY SHIT
>BOBBY JULICH AS THE VIRTUAL TdF champion! Considering the scandal
>that year and his meteoric crash, I'd Julich was clean. Oh my god my
>head's going to explode...........
This is why the entire concept of rewriting results is so stupid. If they take
out Riis, who do they replace him with? Someone who we somehow know to be clean?
Dope or not Indurain was great.
>Seriously, this is one goddamn mess because if anyone deserves to get
>busted it was coke head Pantani.
As I recall he was busted and by a greater authority than cycling can invoke.
Ron
B. Lafferty
"RonSonic" <rons...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote in message
news:i85e53dup9u63f4k9...@4ax.com...
> On 25 May 2007 09:36:57 -0700, "excel_...@hotmail.com"
> <excel_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> I too will always think of him as being a dignified patron of the
>>> peleton and-- rightyl or wrongly-- as a clean rider. Perhaps this is
>>> naive but it is how I want to remember him.
>>
>>Yes, this is naive! Big Mig was a doper; he was once described as
>>'EPO perfected'. I sure as hell hope no one still believes Pantani
>>was clean! If they take Riis' title, they should take Pantani's as
>>well. Should Ullrich admit he doped too that would leave...HOLY SHIT
>>BOBBY JULICH AS THE VIRTUAL TdF champion! Considering the scandal
>>that year and his meteoric crash, I'd Julich was clean. Oh my god my
>>head's going to explode...........
>
> This is why the entire concept of rewriting results is so stupid. If they
> take
> out Riis, who do they replace him with? Someone who we somehow know to be
> clean?
I wonder how you would feel if you raced clean and lost Olympic Gold or the
Tour to a doper. I'd want justice and the medal.
excel_...@hotmail.com
wrote:
> "RonSonic" <ronso...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote in message
>
> news:i85e53dup9u63f4k9...@4ax.com...
>
>
>
> > On 25 May 2007 09:36:57 -0700, "excel_spo...@hotmail.com"
> > <excel_spo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> I too will always think of him as being a dignified patron of the
> >>> peleton and-- rightyl or wrongly-- as a clean rider. Perhaps this is
> >>> naive but it is how I want to remember him.
>
> >>Yes, this is naive! Big Mig was a doper; he was once described as
> >>'EPO perfected'. I sure as hell hope no one still believes Pantani
> >>was clean! If they take Riis' title, they should take Pantani's as
> >>well. Should Ullrich admit he doped too that would leave...HOLY SHIT
> >>BOBBY JULICH AS THE VIRTUAL TdF champion! Considering the scandal
> >>that year and his meteoric crash, I'd Julich was clean. Oh my god my
> >>head's going to explode...........
>
> > This is why the entire concept of rewriting results is so stupid. If they
> > take
> > out Riis, who do they replace him with? Someone who we somehow know to be
> > clean?
>
> I wonder how you would feel if you raced clean and lost Olympic Gold or the
> Tour to a doper. I'd want justice and the medal.
Who can we say was really clean? Eki? Probably. Julich? likely,
too. Hamilton? I think only he and his only mentor still believe.
Sandy
B. Lafferty <blaff...@verizon.nospam.net> a réfléchi, et puis a déclaré :
New rule, proposed long ago - you did nothing wrong? Cast the first stone.
[notes to rule] - check your memory really really closely, first.
dusto...@mac.com
> I wonder how you would feel if you raced clean and lost Olympic Gold or the
> Tour to a doper. I'd want justice and the medal.
I saw Mottet cry on the podium at Worlds in Co. (the story being that
he raced clean and Argentin... maybe didn't?)
All well and good as long as there is no possibility that any food
(water, drinks, whatever) or pills or injections had any trace of
forbidden substances in them.
The obvious question is, how does an athlete know he is "clean"?
The "athlete is totally responsible" clause was another low blow in
the War on People.
========
OK, the dam has burst. Mr. 60% (he who gained weight and turned orange
during the TdF, in addition to winning the thing) has admitted using
EPO and other.
All charges, sanctions for positives, whatever and whoever, are
immediately dropped, for everyone.
Just a drop in the bucket, but that would be at least a sign of an
admission from the Power that they are fundamentally responsible for
the mess-- by making bad rules they could not fairly enforce through
simple testing, which situation caused widespread "cheating".
After all, if you know the guy or team next to you can cop an unfair
advantage with little-to-no fear of being detected, what are your
options?
Remember "Lead us not into temptation"? Makes me wonder if any of
these holy rollin' dope cops ever read the Good Book.
At some point, the world of sport needs to grasp the concept of an
"unsolveable problem", and find a way to play fair. --D-y
Curtis L. Russell
>New rule, proposed long ago - you did nothing wrong? Cast the first stone.
>[notes to rule] - check your memory really really closely, first.
OK, so I did a few things wrong. OTOH, I find as I grow older, I have
better reasons for doing what I did when I was young.
With a little bit of luck and a couple more 7-CD set self-realization
courses from California, I will be fully justified by the time I die.
Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...
Donald Munro
> With a little bit of luck and a couple more 7-CD set self-realization
> courses from California, I will be fully justified by the time I die.
Somebody should have sent some of these Californian CD sets to Sartre.
VeloM...@gmail.com
>
> news:i85e53dup9u63f4k9...@4ax.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 25 May 2007 09:36:57 -0700, "excel_spo...@hotmail.com"
> > <excel_spo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> I too will always think of him as being a dignified patron of the
> >>> peleton and-- rightyl or wrongly-- as a clean rider. Perhaps this is
> >>> naive but it is how I want to remember him.
>
> >>Yes, this is naive! Big Mig was a doper; he was once described as
> >>'EPO perfected'. I sure as hell hope no one still believes Pantani
> >>was clean! If they take Riis' title, they should take Pantani's as
> >>well. Should Ullrich admit he doped too that would leave...HOLY SHIT
> >>BOBBY JULICH AS THE VIRTUAL TdF champion! Considering the scandal
> >>that year and his meteoric crash, I'd Julich was clean. Oh my god my
> >>head's going to explode...........
>
> > This is why the entire concept of rewriting results is so stupid. If they
> > take
> > out Riis, who do they replace him with? Someone who we somehow know to be
> > clean?
>
> I wonder how you would feel if you raced clean and lost Olympic Gold or the
> Tour to a doper. I'd want justice and the medal
Of course I think anyone would feel cheated and would want justice.
Clearly the worst victims of doping are those that are truly clean and
have made the sacrifices their sport demands only to be denied their
just dues. (Not that anybody outside the world of pro cycling
believes that there is a such thing as a "clean" rider anymore). As
others here have asked, how do you re-write the race results in good
concious and without knowing whether you are swapping one cheater for
another? In the case of Riis, Ullrich, and Pantani you're talking
about +/- 10 years ago. Looking at the GC standings of those Tours,
who would you elevate to the top step of the podium?
Donald Munro
> OK, the dam has burst. Mr. 60% (he who gained weight and turned orange
> during the TdF
That would be a nice trick for a Euskatel rider (the orange bit anyway).
> At some point, the world of sport needs to grasp the concept of an
> "unsolveable problem", and find a way to play fair. --D-y
Unfortunately this dumb circle jerk is probably going to result in more
power to dicks like Pound.
Donald Munro
> Who can we say was really clean? Eki? Probably. Julich? likely,
> too. Hamilton? I think only he and his only mentor still believe.
I believe.
Tugboat
PS Could someone turn on the air conditioner.
B. Lafferty
"Sandy" <leu...@frree.fr> wrote in message
news:46572b58$0$9181$426a...@news.free.fr...
Damn Sandy, I could be the virtual TdF champion without having been there.
;-)
B. Lafferty
"Donald Munro" <fat-d...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:465733c0$0$31238$ec3e...@news.usenetmonster.com...
Not even that could have let him die a happy death. (joke intended).
benjo maso
"Bob Schwartz" <bob.sc...@REMOVEsbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:ZCD5i.3990$C96....@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net...
No, 1990
Benjo
Jeff Jones
>
> New rule, proposed long ago - you did nothing wrong? Cast the first stone.
> [notes to rule] - check your memory really really closely, first.
Apply this straightforward rule and you get...a code of silence.
Especially when you have a group of people who need to stick together
to survive, even if they are competitors. It happens in all kinds of
relationships and comes down to normal human behaviour.
There is no easy solution to cheating in a system like professional
sport. Some athletes are always going to cheat. Either you allow
athletes to take whatever they want and sign a death disclaimer (this
penalises the athletes who want to race clean) and concentrate on
policing the rules on the road, or you have a 100 percent bulletproof
system that detects all doping, all the time.
The latter is practically impossible, while the former would annoy a
few people and lead to some deaths. It's not particularly nice.
In the good ol' days, the media had more respect for the omerta and
helped keep a lid on affairs. But it's changed, with cycling being one
of the first targets. I wonder if there's enough money and power to
keep things quiet about some of the bigger sports like football and
tennis?
I remember reading about Telekom's doping program about 10 years ago.
Riis has been pestered by journalists since then, because funnily
enough, they knew about it too. Finding out this sort of information
and getting it out there comes with the territory. It's now at the
stage where reporting on an actual race should be an attention-
grabbing headline, because it doesn't happen that often.
Jeff
Bob Schwartz
Are you sure?
I'm pretty sure one of the reasons Planckaert was willing to admit
to winning the 1990 Paris-Roubaix while on EPO was that at the
time it was OK.
Bob Schwartz
benjo maso
"Bob Schwartz" <bob.sc...@REMOVEsbcglobal.net> wrote in message
Yes, I'm sure. And Eddy Planckaert said that he used Epo only in the last
year of his career, i.e. 1991.
Benjo
Michael Press
"Sandy" <leu...@frree.fr> wrote:
Thanks for the chance to talk about misquotations. No,
you have not misquoted. Following is a quote that is
almost always misquoted.
Matthew 7:2
For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged:
and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to
you again.
--
Michael Press
SLAVE of THE STATE
> [notes to rule] - check your memory really really closely, first.
I remember that I won the tour several times -- not even virtually.
Really!
derF...@gmail.com
> Who can we say was really clean? Eki? Probably.
no way. I can't imagine anyone coming thru any eastern-bloc sports
program being 100% clean.
>Julich? likely, too.
My guess would be he's not clean either.
SLAVE of THE STATE
> Unfortunately this dumb circle jerk is probably going to result in more
> power to dicks like Pound.
It never ceases to amaze me the degree to which people think that
granting power to someone, and then closing one's eyes and hoping for
the best could possibly solve social problems. But yet it is so
prevalant in so many circumstances.
"*They* will figure it out and everything will be a-ok. Don't worry,
be happy." -- bf, 1759
Kurgan Gringioni
Dumbass -
That is such a bunch of wishful BS.
Julich's team that year, Cofidis, was one of the few EPO teams to
avoid getting their stash taken away when Voet got busted. They
finished 3 riders in the top 7. Julich (3rd), Cristophe Rinero (4th),
Roland Meir (7th).
It was a career year for all three of them. After that the French
teams were subject to the extreme anti-doping laws in that nation and
those guys all fell off the face of the earth resultswise.
Julich=dirty (IMHO)
thanks,
K. Gringioni.
Ryan Cousineau
"excel_...@hotmail.com" <excel_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
I think Tugboat believed him to the day he died.
--
Ryan Cousineau rcou...@sfu.ca http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos
Ryan Cousineau
"B. Lafferty" <blaff...@verizon.nospam.net> wrote:
And it pains me to admit it, but Brian's not only right, he's probably
been right about doping prevalence more often than most people in this
group.
About the worst thing you can say about WADA-world is that it's a
McCarthyite witch hunt. Overzealous, willing to transgress the
principles it claims to get to its targets. And like McCarthy, the
witches it's hunting are mostly real.
I can't remember who keeps quoting "it's possible to frame a guilty
man," but all I think of a lot of the time is a quote by Kissinger:
can't they both lose?
My saving grace with the whole "justice and the medal" approach is that,
however proper it would be, moving everyone up a rung is probably
better-than-even odds of just promoting a different doper in a large
number of these cases.
Michael Press
<rcousine-DAD83A...@news.telus.net>,
Ryan Cousineau <rcou...@sfu.ca> wrote:
> And it pains me to admit it, but Brian's not only right, he's probably
> been right about doping prevalence more often than most people in this
> group.
If you count number of posts.
--
Michael Press
Carl Sundquist
"Ryan Cousineau" <rcou...@sfu.ca> wrote in message
news:rcousine-DAD83A...@news.telus.net...
>>
>> I wonder how you would feel if you raced clean and lost Olympic Gold or
>> the
>> Tour to a doper. I'd want justice and the medal.
>
> And it pains me to admit it, but Brian's not only right, he's probably
> been right about doping prevalence more often than most people in this
> group.
>
The situation that made Brian such a focal point of derision was not that he
was necessarily wrong, but that his zealousness was focused on one
individual to the degree of appearing of indifferent about doping throughout
the remainder of peloton.
RonSonic
>In article <VsF5i.18$eO5.14@trndny08>,
> "B. Lafferty" <blaff...@verizon.nospam.net> wrote:
>
>> "RonSonic" <rons...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote in message
>> news:i85e53dup9u63f4k9...@4ax.com...
>> > On 25 May 2007 09:36:57 -0700, "excel_...@hotmail.com"
>> > <excel_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >>> I too will always think of him as being a dignified patron of the
>> >>> peleton and-- rightyl or wrongly-- as a clean rider. Perhaps this is
>> >>> naive but it is how I want to remember him.
>> >>
>> >>Yes, this is naive! Big Mig was a doper; he was once described as
>> >>'EPO perfected'. I sure as hell hope no one still believes Pantani
>> >>was clean! If they take Riis' title, they should take Pantani's as
>> >>well. Should Ullrich admit he doped too that would leave...HOLY SHIT
>> >>BOBBY JULICH AS THE VIRTUAL TdF champion! Considering the scandal
>> >>that year and his meteoric crash, I'd Julich was clean. Oh my god my
>> >>head's going to explode...........
>> >
>> > This is why the entire concept of rewriting results is so stupid. If they
>> > take
>> > out Riis, who do they replace him with? Someone who we somehow know to be
>> > clean?
>>
>> I wonder how you would feel if you raced clean and lost Olympic Gold or the
>> Tour to a doper. I'd want justice and the medal.
I probably would, but it wouldn't be any good for the sport.
>And it pains me to admit it, but Brian's not only right, he's probably
>been right about doping prevalence more often than most people in this
>group.
>
>About the worst thing you can say about WADA-world is that it's a
>McCarthyite witch hunt. Overzealous, willing to transgress the
>principles it claims to get to its targets. And like McCarthy, the
>witches it's hunting are mostly real.
An unfortunately accurate comparison. In a world with witches about the worst
thing you can do is give witch hunting a bad name and McCarthy and Pound have
succeeded.
>I can't remember who keeps quoting "it's possible to frame a guilty
>man," but all I think of a lot of the time is a quote by Kissinger:
>can't they both lose?
>
>My saving grace with the whole "justice and the medal" approach is that,
>however proper it would be, moving everyone up a rung is probably
>better-than-even odds of just promoting a different doper in a large
>number of these cases.
I'm afraid it has been so. In the future, maybe different. But that's the way
it's been. Look at the Riis thread - you gotta dig down a bit to find anyone we
aren't pretty sure was doping.
ROn
Donald Munro
> For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged:
> and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to
> you again.
That Ben Franklin guy's been around for a long time.
Dan Gregory
http://commentateursvelo.blogs.eurosport.fr/
Sandy
Dan Gregory <dangr...@brakes.palaver.freeserve.co.uk> a réfléchi, et puis
a déclaré :
> Spotted Dick asks will they give me back my nine months of
> suspension.. http://commentateursvelo.blogs.eurosport.fr/
Won again. You're runner up.
Dan Gregory
I rode 60 miles before it starts to rain ..
:-))
Barnard Frederick
dum...@hotmail.com says...
> I believe.
>
> Tugboat
>
> PS Could someone turn on the air conditioner.
Tugboat was the pooch who knew too much. That's why the hit was put on
him.
dusto...@mac.com
> The situation that made Brian such a focal point of derision was not that he
> was necessarily wrong, but that his zealousness was focused on one
> individual to the degree of appearing of indifferent about doping throughout
> the remainder of peloton.
I believe Brian stated (and then quoted himself at least once) he was
actually in favor of letting riders use whatever they wanted. Which
made his personal hatred of someone he's never met personally even
more derisionable IMHO.
Well, some people just can't stand others' feeling good about
themselves, you know? Such is life! --D-y
RonSonic
wrote:
>On May 25, 11:36 pm, "Carl Sundquist" <carl...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> The situation that made Brian such a focal point of derision was not that he
>> was necessarily wrong, but that his zealousness was focused on one
>> individual to the degree of appearing of indifferent about doping throughout
>> the remainder of peloton.
>
>I believe Brian stated (and then quoted himself at least once) he was
>actually in favor of letting riders use whatever they wanted. Which
>made his personal hatred of someone he's never met personally even
>more derisionable IMHO.
"Risible." From the Latin "ris" for laugh - the root word of ridicule and
derision.
>Well, some people just can't stand others' feeling good about
>themselves, you know? Such is life! --D-y
It amazes me how some people just inflame haters, you wonder what it is about
them and the hater that provokes. Perhaps there's a paper in this.
Ron
Donald Munro
> And it pains me to admit it, but Brian's not only right, he's probably
> been right about doping prevalence more often than most people in this
> group.
I'm sure many here didn't have any illusions either. Its just that if
everybodies doing it then the race is still mostly about who has the most
ability. And in Armstrong's case it was more the ability to be single
minded and focus everything on winning the TDF than just talent or
physical ability.
Sandy
Dan Gregory <dangr...@brakes.palaver.freeserve.co.uk> a réfléchi, et puis
a déclaré :
> Sandy wrote:
>> Dans le message de news:5bqj1eF...@mid.individual.net,
>> Dan Gregory <dangr...@brakes.palaver.freeserve.co.uk> a réfléchi,
>> et puis a déclaré :
>>> Spotted Dick asks will they give me back my nine months of
>>> suspension.. http://commentateursvelo.blogs.eurosport.fr/
>>
>> Won again. You're runner up.
>>
>>
> Mais j'ai fait mes cent bornes ce matin (avant la pluie)
> I rode 60 miles before it starts to rain ..
>
> :-))
Et nous, seulement 85.
dusto...@mac.com
> "Risible." From the Latin "ris" for laugh - the root word of ridicule and
> derision.
Thank you. I knew, as soon as I popped "send", I would be called into
account for leaving the hyphen out, between ision and able.
However, my intent in posting was not based on "laughter" but on
"laffer". Hidden protocols ("get me a positive reader"), personal
vendettas, bad rules, worse enforcement-- none of that is very funny.
Like having an apparent deep and real hatred for someone you've never
met; who, at worst, might only have been doing the same as everyone
else, if being more successful at it... because he saluted too
vigorously when he won some stupid bicycle race? (just guessing,
there) --D-y
Bill C
wrote:
Actually that was one of the options Brian threw out there. I believe
his point was that, at least that way, we'd have an honest system
where everyone knew what was going on, what they were getting into,
and it would allow close medical supervision for practices that are
now underground.
Proabably better for and afer for riders than the current mess where
the majority feel the need to dope to compete, but are having to do it
themselves or with quacks.
Lot's of reasonable thoughts got lost in Brian's crusade against
Lance and everyone who has every even met him.
Bill C
RonSonic
wrote:
>On May 26, 11:45 am, RonSonic <ronso...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>> "Risible." From the Latin "ris" for laugh - the root word of ridicule and
>> derision.
>
>Thank you. I knew, as soon as I popped "send", I would be called into
>account for leaving the hyphen out, between ision and able.
Oh, it certainly was clear without a hyphen.
>However, my intent in posting was not based on "laughter" but on
>"laffer". Hidden protocols ("get me a positive reader"), personal
>vendettas, bad rules, worse enforcement-- none of that is very funny.
>Like having an apparent deep and real hatred for someone you've never
>met; who, at worst, might only have been doing the same as everyone
>else, if being more successful at it... because he saluted too
>vigorously when he won some stupid bicycle race? (just guessing,
>there) --D-y
Risible is good for that. While it just means laughable it doesn't mean funny as
much as that it should be laughed at as ridiculous and bordering on
contemptable. A sort of one snort laugh. You know like the guys who say you can
tell the dopers by either their super human consistency or by their super human
recovery from having a bad day.
Ron
ST
MPG.20c1f2aa1...@newsgroups.comcast.net, "Barnard Frederick"
<loco...@spamcast.net> wrote:
He screwed the pooch on that one???
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
> "B. Lafferty" <blaffer...@verizon.nospam.net> wrote:
>
> > I wonder how you would feel if you raced clean and lost Olympic Gold or the
> > Tour to a doper. I'd want justice and the medal.
>
> And it pains me to admit it, but Brian's not only right, he's probably
> been right about doping prevalence more often than most people in this
> group.
>
> About the worst thing you can say about WADA-world is that it's a
> McCarthyite witch hunt. Overzealous, willing to transgress the
> principles it claims to get to its targets. And like McCarthy, the
> witches it's hunting are mostly real.
>
> I can't remember who keeps quoting "it's possible to frame a guilty
> man," but all I think of a lot of the time is a quote by Kissinger:
> can't they both lose?
>
> My saving grace with the whole "justice and the medal" approach is that,
> however proper it would be, moving everyone up a rung is probably
> better-than-even odds of just promoting a different doper in a large
> number of these cases.
Dumbass,
I said "Even a guilty man can be framed." I'll take
credit for coining the phrase, unless of course I
unconsciously cribbed it from somewhere. If it makes
you happy, I originally said it about Alger Hiss, who
was almost certainly guilty but not proven beyond a
reasonable doubt until many years after the fact.
However, you're 98% wrong about Joe McCarthy, as most
of the people that McCarthy went after were not actually
spies, but guilty only of having belonged to a disfavored
political group - Army dentists, China experts, and the
like, many of whom hadn't even been CPUSA members.
This also goes for other people caught up in the Red
Scare, targeted by HUAC and every Podunk witch-hunter,
not just McCarthy.
Back to cycling, Brian is right for the wrong reasons,
in the way a stopped clock is right. It's always been a
damn good bet that there is plenty of doping going on
that we don't know about. Saying that some rider or team
is doping can't ever be proven wrong, and sometimes the
passage of time will prove you right. Kunich argues
that Brian is just wrong, which I think is naive. More
reasonable people argue that we may think there's doping
but we don't know it, and you can't usually prove it by
looking at race results and power outputs. (I'll make an
exception for farcical race results like the Gewiss-Ballan
3-man breakaway, or disappearing acts like Berzin; many
people accept those as evidence of doping.) Brian _knows_
certain people are on the hot sauce. The rest of us
don't know for sure, even if we expect it.
I think the open question is whether doping is still a
team-organized activity as it was in the pre-Festina days,
which the latest Telekom scandal is reminding us of.
Even if not, it's not clear that any amount of UCI, WADA,
public confessionals, and testing of riders will clean
up the sport while all the DSes, soigneurs, and doctors
are the same. The sponsors want no embarrassments, but
they also want results.
Sure, if I raced clean and lost a medal to someone I
knew was doping, I would want it myself. Who wouldn't?
But at the same time, 10 years later, I hope I wouldn't
still be obsessing over it and waiting for a press
conference confessional and my medal to come in the mail.
Longtime bitterness eats away and owns you.
My guess is that riders who race without doping have
made a choice and mostly accept that they may win fewer
races. In non-racing life, you could cheat on
your taxes, swindle people at business, or climb your
way to the top while stepping on people. Most of us
don't, whether out of the fear of getting caught or
some kind of ethics. We accept that we make less money
or have less power than people who cheat or are assholes.
It may not be very fair; cycling is a game with rules
and is supposed to be fair, but still you make your
choices and then you live with them. Or you can go
on muttering about it years after the fact and
turn into a street crazy. From there, it's a short
step to posting to RBR.
Ben
hiza...@yahoo.com
was a tdf winner ergo he was doper.. I find this baseless character
assassination to be very despicable to say the very least.
On May 25, 9:36 am, "excel_spo...@hotmail.com"
<excel_spo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > I too will always think of him as being a dignified patron of the
> > peleton and-- rightyl or wrongly-- as a clean rider. Perhaps this is
> > naive but it is how I want to remember him.
>
> Yes, this is naive! Big Mig was a doper; he was once described as
> 'EPO perfected'. I sure as hell hope no one still believes Pantani
> was clean! If they take Riis' title, they should take Pantani's as
> well. Should Ullrich admit he doped too that would leave...HOLY SHIT
> BOBBY JULICH AS THE VIRTUAL TdF champion! Considering the scandal
> that year and his meteoric crash, I'd Julich was clean. Oh my god my
> head's going to explode...........
>
> Seriously, this is one goddamn mess because if anyone deserves to get
> busted it was coke head Pantani.
>
> CH
Bill C
>
> - Show quoted text -
It's pretty sad, but if you happen to be standing in a crackhouse with
a fistful of cash when the cops raid it, even if you don't happen to
be doing anything at that moment it's a pretty good bet that it was
just your lucky moment, not that you are pure and innocent.
Can't say he did, or didn't, but it's very reasonable to question his
performances. When you've got a guy who weighs 40 lbs more dropping
people on steep climbs all day long, or lightweights smoking TTs then
you've really got to wonder.
Bill C
rechungR...@gmail.com
wrote:
> On May 25, 7:02 pm, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca> wrote:
> > And it pains me to admit it, but Brian's not only right, he's probably
> > been right about doping prevalence more often than most people in this
> > group.
>
> Dumbass,
>
> Back to cycling, Brian is right for the wrong reasons,
> in the way a stopped clock is right. It's always been a
> damn good bet that there is plenty of doping going on
> that we don't know about. Saying that some rider or team
> is doping can't ever be proven wrong, and sometimes the
> passage of time will prove you right.
Dumbass,
I was a kid when the Four Color Problem was first solved. You may know
that it was one of the first of the algorithmic proofs that was done
by exhaustive computer checking and wasn't hand-checkable. I had a
friend whose father was a topologist. Every few months my friend's
father would get a letter from someone claiming to have proved the
Four Color Problem. He'd glance through the proof and then pull out a
form letter that said something like, "Dear Sir, I've received your
proof of ______. Your first error is on page ____, line ____." Then
he'd fill in the blanks and send it off. After Appel and Haken
presented their proof, he got several letters from guys saying, "Hey,
asshole, I was right."
Ryan Cousineau
"b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org> wrote:
Dumberass:
Benjamin Franklin, DUH!
More seriously, a quick google suggests your phrasing may be unique, but
the thought may not be.
Here's a link to a 2004 article about the Rosenbergs titled "framed but
guilty?"
http://www.workersliberty.org/node/3408
[as an OT aside, the article seriously argues in one place that the case
was an example of anti-semitism, as evidenced by the fact that the
judge, prosecutor, and defence attorney were all Jewish. I have no
words...]
> It may not be very fair; cycling is a game with rules
> and is supposed to be fair, but still you make your
> choices and then you live with them. Or you can go
> on muttering about it years after the fact and
> turn into a street crazy. From there, it's a short
> step to posting to RBR.
>
> Ben
The two things that drive me nuts about doping cycling are the fairness
and, for what it's worth, the children.
I have a reasonably strong connection to the children, despite not
having any myself. My club runs a substantial and effective
youth-development program (dEVo): we've got a lot of kids going through
this program, including ones that are national-level riders in this age
group. I'm not directly involved with the dEVos except for seeing them
on rides and working for them in races when possible, but I'm proud of
the work our club does.
I don't want to developing these kids and pushing them into high levels
of competition in a sport in which at some point the rule becomes "to
win at the next level, you must cheat the rules." That's not a
gamesmanship thing. Whether one agrees with it or not, cycling's doping
sanctions position doping as among the most serious transgressions you
can commit against the sport. Get caught even once, and your career is
brutally carved up, at a minimum.
Further, I'm pretty doubtful the answer is to let the pros dope. First,
I suspect a trickle-down effect to Fatty Masters, amateurs, and the
aforementioned kids. Second, I don't trust the pros to do it well or
safely, given that once "safe" doping programs are established, the
temptation will remain to push the legal limits to the edge of
detectability without much regard for safety. Just like today!
Finally, I think there may be an argument to be made about what the
limits are and what the line is between "fair" performance enhancement
(motorpacing, altitude tents) and "unfair" performance enhancement (EPO,
deka, autologous blood transfusions). This debate is ongoing, as seen by
the near-miss with altitude tents and the moving caffeine limits, among
other things. I think that's fairly healthy, and I also think that to
the extent I agree or disagree with current WADA proscriptions, they're
probably reasonably to the best answers right now.
The dark background to all of cycling's doping scandals has two parts:
the culture of doping, and the ease of cheating. Interestingly, a severe
weakness in either part would be enough to unravel the current
prevalence of doping.
If we could detect the cheating better, this argument wouldn't be
happening because nobody could cheat. It would be like the rules
governing safe finishing sprints: debatable moments, a few
controversies, but mostly no news because most riders know that if you
deliberately impede another rider in a sprint, you'll get relegated.
Of course, if cake had no calories, I could eat cake without getting
fat. Maybe WADA could work on that too.
As to the culture of doping, I have more hope here, and despite the
"cycling is over!" pronouncements, stories like Riis coming clean are
probably steps in the right direction. Maybe only in a "heighten the
contradictions" way, but if riders start getting the idea that Omerta is
dead, that everyone now thinks, whatever Riis did, that it was wrong and
is wrong, then we might have ourselves a new culture.
Back on topic, that stage today sounds wonderful. I can't wait to check
out the highlights. Anyone else looking forward to the finish atop Monte
Zoncolan on Wednesday?
Donald Munro
> I was a kid when the Four Color Problem was first solved. You may know
> that it was one of the first of the algorithmic proofs that was done
> by exhaustive computer checking and wasn't hand-checkable. I had a
> friend whose father was a topologist. Every few months my friend's
> father would get a letter from someone claiming to have proved the
> Four Color Problem. He'd glance through the proof and then pull out a
> form letter that said something like, "Dear Sir, I've received your
> proof of ______. Your first error is on page ____, line ____." Then
> he'd fill in the blanks and send it off. After Appel and Haken
> presented their proof, he got several letters from guys saying, "Hey,
> asshole, I was right."
Perhaps they should have tried the Erdos program.
rechungR...@gmail.com
> The two things that drive me nuts about doping cycling are the fairness
> and, for what it's worth, the children.
Dumbass,
It only drives you nuts because you think sports are important.
They're not.
Dan Gregory
> Back on topic, that stage today sounds wonderful. I can't wait to check
> out the highlights. Anyone else looking forward to the finish atop Monte
> Zoncolan on Wednesday?
>
Yes I'm really enjoying the Giro.
Why wait for the highlights watch it live!
http://www.media.rai.it/mpelenco/0,,Sport%5E32643,00.html
Bob Schwartz
With respect to the 'for the kids' argument, my kid (12 years
old) asked me about Floyd Landis the other day. I told her I
thought he did something, but that I didn't know for sure
and we would likely never know for sure. The point I stressed
was that while I thought bike racing was a fun hobby, being
a professional athlete was not an acceptable career choice.
Ryan, professional cycling is what it is. In spite of the
recent revelations it has always been what it is. Other
endurance sports are no different.
If you have people in your club that are encouraging young
riders to pursue cycling at a high level under the premise that
competition in endurance sports at high levels is something
other than what it is, that is a problem that is within your
power to address. Your club owes them honesty above all else.
Bob Schwartz
Ryan Cousineau
Bob Schwartz <bob.sc...@REMOVEsbcglobal.net> wrote:
> rechungR...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On May 27, 7:11 am, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca> wrote:
> >> The two things that drive me nuts about doping cycling are the fairness
> >> and, for what it's worth, the children.
> >
> > Dumbass,
> >
> > It only drives you nuts because you think sports are important.
> > They're not.
>
> With respect to the 'for the kids' argument, my kid (12 years
> old) asked me about Floyd Landis the other day. I told her I
> thought he did something, but that I didn't know for sure
> and we would likely never know for sure. The point I stressed
> was that while I thought bike racing was a fun hobby, being
> a professional athlete was not an acceptable career choice.
Bien sur. And most of our dEVos go on to be just kids with surprisingly
low BF% and good memories.
But at least three of the current members of Symmetrics did their first
road riding as dEVo kids in our club. Symmetrics is not ProTour, of
course: some of their riders are full-time pros, some are riding with
them while they finish school, and so forth. But "how far is too far?"
would be the other question.
Do Div III teams in the US routinely dope? Is there any point in a fast,
clean Cat I signing to ride at that level? Not a trivial question.
> Ryan, professional cycling is what it is. In spite of the
> recent revelations it has always been what it is. Other
> endurance sports are no different.
> If you have people in your club that are encouraging young
> riders to pursue cycling at a high level under the premise that
> competition in endurance sports at high levels is something
> other than what it is, that is a problem that is within your
> power to address. Your club owes them honesty above all else.
Well, this is the problem. Even at the amateur level, I don't want
cycling to be a sport where one has to say "good, you have shown ability
enough to get this far. Now retire, because to go further is to
compromise your ethics and reputation."
Because sure, there's going to be kids who through sheer will drive
themselves to high levels of achievement. But there's also going to be
kids who just come out, shoot through every level of competition
available, and through no fault of their own, are naturals to go to
Europe at age 20 and join up with a neo-pro team.
At that point do you say "now stop: go get a degree or a trade, and if
you like you can still race the Tuesday Nighters and the Tour de
Gastown."
Seems kinda sad.
rechungR...@gmail.com
> But "how far is too far?"
How far is too far with alcohol?
> Well, this is the problem. Even at the amateur level, I don't want
> cycling to be a sport where one has to say "good, you have shown ability
> enough to get this far. Now retire, because to go further is to
> compromise your ethics and reputation."
Why would going further compromise ethics?
> Because sure, there's going to be kids who through sheer will drive
> themselves to high levels of achievement. But there's also going to be
> kids who just come out, shoot through every level of competition
> available, and through no fault of their own, are naturals to go to
> Europe at age 20 and join up with a neo-pro team.
>
> At that point do you say "now stop: go get a degree or a trade, and if
> you like you can still race the Tuesday Nighters and the Tour de
> Gastown."
>
> Seems kinda sad.
It only seems sad because you think sports are important.
Dumbass, doping among airline pilots, bus drivers, nuclear power plant
operators, and the guy who does my taxes is important. Hitting
baseballs over fences, kicking a ball into a net, and riding a bike
fast isn't important -- what's more, the dope they take enhances
performance, not degrades it. If there was a magic elixir that made
airline pilots more alert and better able to perform their job (and
made mathematicians able to produce more and better theorems), would
you suspend them if they used it?
Donald Munro
> If there was a magic elixir that made airline pilots more alert and
> better able to perform their job (and made mathematicians able to
> produce more and better theorems), would you suspend them if they used
> it?
We haven't seen a ChungChart for ages. What PEDs are good for
statisticians ?
amit....@gmail.com
> If there was a magic elixir that made
> airline pilots more alert and better able to perform their job (and
> made mathematicians able to produce more and better theorems), would
> you suspend them if they used it?
dumbass,
there is. uppers. military pilots are given uppers to stay alert and
offset the effects of airsickness medication (i was part of a study
that looked at this). and everyone on rbr knows about erdos and
uppers.
Dan Gregory
> there is. uppers. military pilots are given uppers to stay alert and
> offset the effects of airsickness medication (i was part of a study
> that looked at this)
>
Is colour blindness one of the side effects?
rechungR...@gmail.com
wrote:
Dumbass,
Yeah, I know -- that's why I used those two examples.
Ewoud Dronkert
> How far is too far with alcohol?
I always forget, and remember again the next morning.
--
E. Dronkert
Ryan Cousineau
rechungR...@gmail.com wrote:
> On May 27, 6:59 pm, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca> wrote:
> > But "how far is too far?"
>
> How far is too far with alcohol?
>
> > Well, this is the problem. Even at the amateur level, I don't want
> > cycling to be a sport where one has to say "good, you have shown ability
> > enough to get this far. Now retire, because to go further is to
> > compromise your ethics and reputation."
>
> Why would going further compromise ethics?
Well, the key case I envision is where the kid shows enough talent to
enter the pro or Div-III ranks, but finds that there is tremendous
pressure from teammates and DSes to "maximize his potential" so to speak.
I mean, the reason drugs are widespread, despite huge penalties for use,
is because they work.
> > Because sure, there's going to be kids who through sheer will drive
> > themselves to high levels of achievement. But there's also going to be
> > kids who just come out, shoot through every level of competition
> > available, and through no fault of their own, are naturals to go to
> > Europe at age 20 and join up with a neo-pro team.
> >
> > At that point do you say "now stop: go get a degree or a trade, and if
> > you like you can still race the Tuesday Nighters and the Tour de
> > Gastown."
> >
> > Seems kinda sad.
>
> It only seems sad because you think sports are important.
Sports are important. I took up cycling very late (commuter at age 28,
racer at age 30) and I think it has added immensely to my life. What is
important if not being healthy, generating endorphins, and creating
excuses to have the aprés-race beers?
Pro sports are entertainment, for sure, and not important in and of
themselves. The problem is that any sport or game, whether pro or
amateur, is primarily interesting because of the shared rules. This
allows us to work within the context of the game, and the rules (at
least for well-structured games) are there primarily to keep the game
fun and from being too serious.
> Dumbass, doping among airline pilots, bus drivers, nuclear power plant
> operators, and the guy who does my taxes is important. Hitting
> baseballs over fences, kicking a ball into a net, and riding a bike
> fast isn't important -- what's more, the dope they take enhances
> performance, not degrades it. If there was a magic elixir that made
> airline pilots more alert and better able to perform their job (and
> made mathematicians able to produce more and better theorems), would
> you suspend them if they used it?
I'd force 'em to use it.
But as I've pointed out before, maybe we got better work from Erdös
because he was on uppers. Maybe. But we don't get better sport because
the top riders are on EPO, especially if part of the reason they're the
top twenty is because ten of them are replacing the five riders who
won't dope and the five riders who died in their sleep from getting
their EPO dosages wrong.
But more importantly, it doesn't "enhance" competition, which is what we
really want. This is how people get to arguing in favour of the "libre"
peloton, but the trouble is that they probably don't realize how many
crazy performance-enhancing drugs are off the "program" only because
they can be detected so easily there's no point in even trying.
Amusingly, cycling has, arguably, only one prestigious "performance"
record (as opposed to "competition" records, like how many Giros you
have won): the Athlete's Hour. A handful of other performance records
are kept (200m sprint, Kilo, the hotly debated Ventoux timings...) and
contested. I don't think these are the core of the sport, even the Hour.
Well, maybe the hour. But there the UCI has tried harder to level the
field than anywhere else, what with banning...everything after the year
1972.
The actual racing isn't really helped by drugs, or at least not helped
enough. What are we talking about, a 1-2 km/h improvement in typical
racing speeds? You can't see that, it doesn't make the racing better,
and for that matter, the faster the race speed the harder it is for a
breakaway to succeed, for aerodynamic reasons.
If we really wanted the speeds higher, screw drugs: we need to get those
boys into faired recumbents. How about 100+ km/h sprint finishes?
Shall we look to the shining example of pro bodybuilding for our
sporting example?
There's a lot of schizophrenia in cycling (and more generally, in
sports) right now. Doping is widespread, part of the culture, and
absolutely forbidden by extremely strict penalties. I understand the
temptation to suggest that it's the last part that we should get rid of,
but I would caution that just because the lid of Pandora's Box is easy
to open, doesn't mean that's a good idea.
Michael Press
<0bch53llri56ke7ki...@4ax.com>,
RonSonic <rons...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
They laughed at Hitler too.
--
Michael Press
Michael Press
<1180215218....@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
Bill C <trito...@verizon.net> wrote:
Where the reasonable thoughts got lost is in Brian's refusal to acknowledge
that people actually agreed with him regularly. It had to be a
one man crusade.
--
Michael Press
rechungR...@gmail.com
> But as I've pointed out before, maybe we got better work from Erdös
> because he was on uppers. Maybe. But we don't get better sport because
> the top riders are on EPO
If you think that, then you're saying performance doesn't enhance
sports. How odd.
> especially if part of the reason they're the
> top twenty is because ten of them are replacing the five riders who
> won't dope and the five riders who died in their sleep from getting
> their EPO dosages wrong.
That's an argument for safety, not against performance enhancement.
Donald Munro
>> How far is too far with alcohol?
Ewoud Dronkert wrote:
> I always forget, and remember again the next morning.
According to the LIVEDRUNK philosophy you're not supposed to remember
anything the next morning, not even the name of the entity you wake up
next to.
Michael Press
<1180241816.1...@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com>
> Can't say he did, or didn't, but it's very reasonable to question his
> performances. When you've got a guy who weighs 40 lbs more dropping
> people on steep climbs all day long, or lightweights smoking TTs then
> you've really got to wonder.
No, I do not have to wonder. I watch and enjoy the
race. There is no PED for good strategy, tactics, or
bike handling. The riders do not suffer less when
using a PED, they just go faster; and faster is way
down on my list of things to watch for. In fact
lanterne rouge is more important to me than speed. I
cannot tell the difference unless I look at the
statistics.
--
Michael Press
Bob Schwartz
> Well, the key case I envision is where the kid shows enough talent to
> enter the pro or Div-III ranks, but finds that there is tremendous
> pressure from teammates and DSes to "maximize his potential" so to speak.
This is only a problem if the kid thinks sport is important. It's
not. Div-III pros live like shit. Kids that walk away from it take
jobs that pay more for less work. If the kid views sport in the
proper perspective they'll make the right decision, regardless
of which way they go.
Bob Schwartz
Ryan Cousineau
rechungR...@gmail.com wrote:
> On May 27, 9:51 pm, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca> wrote:
> > But as I've pointed out before, maybe we got better work from Erdös
> > because he was on uppers. Maybe. But we don't get better sport because
> > the top riders are on EPO
>
> If you think that, then you're saying performance doesn't enhance
> sports. How odd.
It doesn't change the relative performance. I want to see the best
riders against the best riders in the best events. If some dope and some
don't, there's an obfuscating asymmetry. If nobody dopes, it's just a
competition. If everybody dopes, it's a competition where maybe one or
two riders didn't make it to the start because the doping killed them.
> > especially if part of the reason they're the
> > top twenty is because ten of them are replacing the five riders who
> > won't dope and the five riders who died in their sleep from getting
> > their EPO dosages wrong.
>
> That's an argument for safety, not against performance enhancement.
Well, I'll take that. The question you seem to be asking is "what does
doping take away from the sport?" The question I ask is "what does it
add?"
The interesting question is also what qualifies as normal training.
Honestly, if I thought the riders would stay at orange juice doses of
EPO, I would be more sanguine (except for the long-term RBC production
problems it will probably cause...), but I think they'd end up on wacky
loads of amphetamines instead. And I think they'd create a norm that
would be a model for fattie masters and amateurs: we're already
vulnerable to buying overpriced carbon goodies because the pros have
them; now we can buy the same drugs they use, too!
Sure, they may have done that already, but I don't want it to be worse.
Back to the "performance doesn't enhance sports" argument, we're always
operating within the constraints of the rules. If we let the pros use
libre bicycles, there would be 4 kg bikes going up the hillclimbs, and
Varna Diablos would be the standard TT machine. We don't, for some
pretty good reasons.
I think of drugs as in the same category as 4 kg road bikes: not a good
plan.
rechungR...@gmail.com
>
> If some dope and some
> don't, there's an obfuscating asymmetry.
Yup. But that's always been the case. You just didn't know it before.
> Well, I'll take that. The question you seem to be asking is "what does
> doping take away from the sport?" The question I ask is "what does it
> add?"
You mean, besides informational asymmetry? I'm not sure -- in part,
because I don't know who dopes and with what level of effectiveness.
But then, I don't know who trains hardest, or who sleeps in an
altitude tent, or who has naturally high hematocrit, or who's been
reading Coggan's book. All of those things are potentially performance
enhancing
> If we let the pros use
> libre bicycles, there would be 4 kg bikes going up the hillclimbs, and
> Varna Diablos would be the standard TT machine. We don't, for some
> pretty good reasons.
>
> I think of drugs as in the same category as 4 kg road bikes: not a good
> plan.
Hmmm. The 6.8kg limit on UCI bikes is crazy: it was intended to
prevent stupid light bikes that are unsafe. A better standard is one
that would ensure safety, and let bike manufacturers do whatever they
need to do to be safe.
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
> rechungREMOVET...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On May 27, 6:59 pm, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca> wrote:
> > > But "how far is too far?"
>
> > How far is too far with alcohol?
>
> > > Well, this is the problem. Even at the amateur level, I don't want
> > > cycling to be a sport where one has to say "good, you have shown ability
> > > enough to get this far. Now retire, because to go further is to
> > > compromise your ethics and reputation."
>
> > Why would going further compromise ethics?
>
> Well, the key case I envision is where the kid shows enough talent to
> enter the pro or Div-III ranks, but finds that there is tremendous
> pressure from teammates and DSes to "maximize his potential" so to speak.
>
> I mean, the reason drugs are widespread, despite huge penalties for use,
> is because they work.
Would you encourage a kid to study mathematics,
knowing that math is hard, that not many of the
people who study it make it to a PhD, not many
of those become practicing academic mathematicians,
and that the path to becoming successful may eventually
require personal, professional, and ethical compromises
that a naive youth would not anticipate on opening
her first calculus textbook?
Plus, although there's relatively little physical
danger, you might turn out a total geek. Look at
Chung.
> Sports are important. I took up cycling very late (commuter at age 28,
> racer at age 30) and I think it has added immensely to my life. What is
> important if not being healthy, generating endorphins, and creating
> excuses to have the aprés-race beers?
>
> Pro sports are entertainment, for sure, and not important in and of
> themselves. The problem is that any sport or game, whether pro or
> amateur, is primarily interesting because of the shared rules. This
> allows us to work within the context of the game, and the rules (at
> least for well-structured games) are there primarily to keep the game
> fun and from being too serious.
> There's a lot of schizophrenia in cycling (and more generally, in
> sports) right now. Doping is widespread, part of the culture, and
> absolutely forbidden by extremely strict penalties. I understand the
> temptation to suggest that it's the last part that we should get rid of,
> but I would caution that just because the lid of Pandora's Box is easy
> to open, doesn't mean that's a good idea.
I'm not a fan of doping. I'm more not a fan of very
naive ideas about getting rid of doping, though. I
think the present extremely strict penalties are
an expression of naive ideas. As Bart v.H. pointed
out once, criminologists will tell you that strictness
of penalty is not nearly as big a deterrent against
crime as the likelihood of getting caught (and, I think,
the uniformity of catching and penalization). What
we have now are haphazardly applied infrequent strict
penalties, which are the worst possible case. The
strictness is one of the reasons we have rampant hypocrisy
and omerta. The tendency has been to make the penalties
stricter (2+2 year suspensions from ProTour) and I
don't think it is helping.
Ben
No amount of dope can turn a mathematician into
a racehorse.
amit....@gmail.com
wrote:
> I'm not a fan of doping. I'm more not a fan of very
> naive ideas about getting rid of doping, though. I
> think the present extremely strict penalties are
> an expression of naive ideas. As Bart v.H. pointed
> out once, criminologists will tell you that strictness
> of penalty is not nearly as big a deterrent against
> crime as the likelihood of getting caught (and, I think,
> the uniformity of catching and penalization). What
> we have now are haphazardly applied infrequent strict
> penalties, which are the worst possible case. The
> strictness is one of the reasons we have rampant hypocrisy
> and omerta. The tendency has been to make the penalties
> stricter (2+2 year suspensions from ProTour) and I
> don't think it is helping.
dumbass,
that seems true. one thing i got out of the joe papp testimony was the
fatalistic attitude he had towards doping. if you're caught you deny,
deny, deny (or even 'fess up) and take your lumps and either leave the
sport or serve a suspension. but you probably got further in the sport
than you would have otherwise.
Cathy Kearns
<b...@mambo.ucolick.org> wrote in message
news:1180311857.9...@g37g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>Would you encourage a kid to study mathematics,
>knowing that math is hard, that not many of the
>people who study it make it to a PhD, not many
>of those become practicing academic mathematicians,
>and that the path to becoming successful may eventually
>require personal, professional, and ethical compromises
>that a naive youth would not anticipate on opening
>her first calculus textbook?
>Plus, although there's relatively little physical
>danger, you might turn out a total geek. Look at
>Chung.
Interesting analogy. My husband swears his UCBerkeley roommate was turned
on to dropping acid by his Math Teaching Assistant, who told him there was
no way to see the fourth dimension without pharmiceutical help.
Michael Press
<rcousine-E00606...@news.telus.net>,
Ryan Cousineau <rcou...@sfu.ca> wrote:
> The actual racing isn't really helped by drugs, or at least not helped
> enough. What are we talking about, a 1-2 km/h improvement in typical
> racing speeds? You can't see that, it doesn't make the racing better,
> and for that matter, the faster the race speed the harder it is for a
> breakaway to succeed, for aerodynamic reasons.
As you say we cannot see speed until we read the timed
results. The fun of watching races is in strategy and
tactics. So let's stop chasing dopers. Only enforce
against the drugs with extremely high detection rates,
and minuscule false positive rates. Let's test most
riders all the time. Dozens every day. Three month
suspensions and no record rewriting.
--
Michael Press
Michael Press
<1180311857.9...@g37g2000prf.googlegroups.com>
,
"b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org>
wrote:
> Would you encourage a kid to study mathematics,
> knowing that math is hard, that not many of the
> people who study it make it to a PhD, not many
> of those become practicing academic mathematicians,
> and that the path to becoming successful may eventually
> require personal, professional, and ethical compromises
> that a naive youth would not anticipate on opening
> her first calculus textbook?
The thing about a mathematics degree is the number of
high paying jobs the degree holder can step into. In
college I knew an unwashed guy in the dormitory whose
room was utterly rank take a bachelor's mathematics
degree directly into a programmer's job for a high
priced government contractor at a ten-year veteran's
salary.
A doctorate in mathematics is often parlayed into
extremely high salaries these days. Academics is not
the only option.
--
Michael Press
Ryan Cousineau
rechungR...@gmail.com wrote:
> On May 27, 11:13 pm, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca> wrote:
> >
> > If some dope and some
> > don't, there's an obfuscating asymmetry.
>
> Yup. But that's always been the case. You just didn't know it before.
What I mean is that a peloton a deux vitesses is because it is a peloton
avec deux reglements (apologies for butchering the language of nos
ancêtres, les Gaulois).
> > Well, I'll take that. The question you seem to be asking is "what does
> > doping take away from the sport?" The question I ask is "what does it
> > add?"
>
> You mean, besides informational asymmetry? I'm not sure -- in part,
> because I don't know who dopes and with what level of effectiveness.
> But then, I don't know who trains hardest, or who sleeps in an
> altitude tent, or who has naturally high hematocrit, or who's been
> reading Coggan's book. All of those things are potentially performance
> enhancing
Yes. But we don't worry about enforcing things that are allowed. At the
risk of dragging those bloody children into this argument again [there
should be a special text colour to set off my rhetorical cheap
shots...], I don't think I'd be worried if generic talented junior
trained had a good hematocrit and was reading Coggan and doing his
intervals. As the theoretical parent of this theoretical talent, I'd be
the one responsible for making sure he didn't overtrain, or neglect his
homework, or use non-junior gears and blow his knees out early. The
altitude tent? No way the kid gets one of those, but that's only because
I'm cheap, and the worst that will happen if he's shorted on altitude
training before the age of 19 is that he'll just get way faster all of a
sudden when he goes and enrols at CU Boulder ("come to Boulder: a
natural high!").
Basically, I consider all of the above things that bike racing tests
for. If you're lazy and don't do your training, then you're an inferior
bike racer, and you will lose. If you're bad at tactics and pull your
opponent to the finish line like Young Lance did a few times, then
you're a dumb bike racer, and you will lose. If you keep listening to
your dumb coach who has you doing pointless junk miles or sign up with
CTS, then you're a dumb bike racer and you will not maximize your
potential with that training, and you will lose.
Of course, if you do everything else right but picked your parents
badly, as so many of us have, you will also lose. Aerobic performance
sports are a harsh mistress, and it's nice that we amateurs can at least
resort to categorized races where we get dumped in with a bunch of
riders at the same level of inability.
Right, doping: I think I've articulated how I think doping differs from
bread, water, intervals, and even altitude tents, but I'm willing to
express it explicitly and at great length if necessary. As to the
question of what to do when you have a hard-to-detect proscription, um,
anti-dopers and their fellow travelers (which includes me) don't get a
free pass on that question. The best answers I can give amount to
"transform the culture, improve the documentation, do everything
possible to make it easier to not cheat, and keep competitor safety at
the forefront of all principles of anti-doping."
Is that too weaselly?
> > If we let the pros use
> > libre bicycles, there would be 4 kg bikes going up the hillclimbs, and
> > Varna Diablos would be the standard TT machine. We don't, for some
> > pretty good reasons.
> >
> > I think of drugs as in the same category as 4 kg road bikes: not a good
> > plan.
>
> Hmmm. The 6.8kg limit on UCI bikes is crazy: it was intended to
> prevent stupid light bikes that are unsafe. A better standard is one
> that would ensure safety, and let bike manufacturers do whatever they
> need to do to be safe.
Aha! But the 6.8 kilo limit is an _easily enforceable_ safety standard.
It makes the bikes so heavy that, given current technology, they're
within the margins of non-craziness. There's no incentive to mess around.
The apt comparison is to the fancy-wheel "burst test", which some
makers, while changing their wheels to conform, have criticized for
testing for the wrong thing in the wrong way, and generally having
little effect on wheel safety either way. That wasn't so much a useful
line as a complex test that would be easy to cheat if anyone could
figure out a reason they needed to cheat it. In practice, it was about
as functional as the locally beloved no-knee-warmers regulation.
There's another, non-safety reason for that limit: it tends to keep the
bikes out of the realm of stupid-boutique components like aluminum
cassettes, which are available, are very light, and have a service life
in the high hundreds of kilometres. The advantage to that is that the
pros really are racing on bikes that are very "normal": I would have no
problem with taking any frame from a pro that was 52cm and riding it to
work on a routine basis.
http://www.kultbike.com/shop/cnc-shim10.html
~120g, "...perfect for race day use."
Well, I might have to change the stem on the pro bike.
I
Kurgan Gringioni
> But it's changed, with cycling being one
> of the first targets. I wonder if there's enough money and power to
> keep things quiet about some of the bigger sports like football and
> tennis?
Dumbass -
I think it will stay quiet in the bigger sports.
There are powerful entities that will lose $$$$ if there are big
doping controversies. What powerful entities will gain dollars from
big doping controversies? Newspapers? Doubtful, they can't afford to
alienate the big advertisers.
Prediction: it will not disappear, but it will be "contained", at
least from a publicity standpoint in the major sports.
The way cycling has handled it illustrates the incompetence of the
UCI. There is more talk of the doping soap opera than there is about
the actual racing.
thanks,
K. Gringioni.
Ryan Cousineau
"b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org> wrote:
> On May 27, 12:51 pm, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca> wrote:
> > rechungREMOVET...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > On May 27, 6:59 pm, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca> wrote:
> > > > But "how far is too far?"
> >
> > > How far is too far with alcohol?
> >
> > > > Well, this is the problem. Even at the amateur level, I don't want
> > > > cycling to be a sport where one has to say "good, you have shown ability
> > > > enough to get this far. Now retire, because to go further is to
> > > > compromise your ethics and reputation."
> >
> > > Why would going further compromise ethics?
> >
> > Well, the key case I envision is where the kid shows enough talent to
> > enter the pro or Div-III ranks, but finds that there is tremendous
> > pressure from teammates and DSes to "maximize his potential" so to speak.
> >
> > I mean, the reason drugs are widespread, despite huge penalties for use,
> > is because they work.
>
> Would you encourage a kid to study mathematics,
> knowing that math is hard, that not many of the
> people who study it make it to a PhD, not many
> of those become practicing academic mathematicians,
> and that the path to becoming successful may eventually
> require personal, professional, and ethical compromises
> that a naive youth would not anticipate on opening
> her first calculus textbook?
I would say that while it is possible to be an ethically compromised
mathematician, it is quite easy to enter the realm of the successful
mathematical career without um, cheating the rules of mathematics. Or of
the profession.
I should say this is not theoretical, though. If math is generally less
susceptible to academic fraud (harder to fake and obfuscate your data
like those naughty soft-science academics occasionally do), I did once
work for a math-research group where a disgruntled member of the group
publicly accused the director and another mathematician of improperly
taking credit for his work (long boring story: the three were listed as
co-authors, disgruntled mathematician now claims the other two added
almost nothing to his original work, and went and hogged all the
credit). And there were also behind-the-scenes intrigues that I only
have half-heard rumors of, so there you go.
But that's about as bad as math gets, it's the kind of story that is
considered bad form (though the problem of marginal co-authors and
credit haunts all of academia), but it's considered an unusual case, not
the norm. The great mathematicians the discipline are almost never
heralded for disputed work: for all I know there are
credit-and-attribution whispers about one or two of Erdös' papers, but
nobody disputes that he did a ton of good mathematics.
Math doesn't seem to have an inverse relationship between the number of
ethical shortcuts a mathematician takes and the success of their career.
Indeed, in math if you cut corners once too often you're likely to find
your job offers dry up and nobody wants to write papers with you or
publish your stuff.
Math is also a broader, more useful, and bigger field than pro cycling.
Lots of people do undergrad math studies which don't lead to a math
degree, but do lead to satisfying and useful careers. Many more
successful careers than the semi-pros and not-quites who become coaches,
DSes, or bike shop owners. There are surely more tenured math jobs
globally than there are pro cyclists making as much as a tenured math
prof.
Also, the best mathematicians make way, way more money than the best pro
cyclists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harris_Simons
Jim Simons, multi-billionaire. Suck it, Lance.
I also don't think there's a lot of moral hazards in grad school that
lead to unnatural deaths. Well, maybe frat hazings, but a major in
mathematics is almost invincible proof against that danger.
> Plus, although there's relatively little physical
> danger, you might turn out a total geek. Look at
> Chung.
That's not the goal?
> Ben
> No amount of dope can turn a mathematician into
> a racehorse.
There is that. But if it could (and eventually, it probably will...) we
may have an ethical dilemma on our hands.
This isn't entirely theoretical, either. Virtually every person I know
is convinced I have ADHD (drug ads work!). I've never sought a formal
diagnosis. Somehow, I've managed to hold down a job, not kill my dog,
and not been smothered in my sleep by my wife, so I guess the coping
strategies work.
But damn, every time I read about Ritalin or Adderall, they sure sound
like kick-ass drugs. The thought of being able to just finish what I
start as if I had a natural instinct for doing so (as my wife does...)
is really tempting.
And yet I don't. Partly because that is some serious shit with serious
side effects, and I don't want to toy with those unless it becomes clear
I can't live a normal life. The trade-off seems unreasonable.
Moreover, even if I had a script, I don't think I would be tempted to
use it during a race, any more than I'm tempted to try to cheat the
free-lap rule in a crit or draft during a TT. It's Cat 4: who would I be
cheating? What would I win? What would be the point?
Now, that may reflect as much the fact that for me, cycling is basically
an especially masochistic hobby. Pros do id for a living, and while I
love to pretend that I'm so all "honest in small things, honest in great
things" that I don't cheat, if some rider is right on the margins of
being sent home to get a job at the box factory and the opportunity to
get an advantage outside of the rules presents itself, well, one could
sympathize with a cheater even as one could condemn them.
Ryan Cousineau
"Cathy Kearns" <cathy_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Cathy, that's ridiculous.
Amphetamines are the drug of choice for mathematicians.
rechungR...@gmail.com
> Yes. But we don't worry about enforcing things that are allowed.
Hmmm. Don't you see the circularity there? (In addition, it appears
many people didn't much worry about enforcing disallowed things as
long as they didn't know about them).
> At the
> risk of dragging those bloody children into this argument again [there
> should be a special text colour to set off my rhetorical cheap
> shots...], I don't think I'd be worried if generic talented junior
> trained had a good hematocrit and was reading Coggan and doing his
> intervals.
Why not? What if you were wealthy and could afford wind-tunnel time,
while other kids couldn't? Which performance-enhancing substances,
devices, training, and knowledge should be allowed, and which
shouldn't?
> Right, doping: I think I've articulated how I think doping differs from
> bread, water, intervals, and even altitude tents, but I'm willing to
> express it explicitly and at great length if necessary.
Perhaps you have, but I missed it. Is it necessary?
> Aha! But the 6.8 kilo limit is an _easily enforceable_ safety standard.
> It makes the bikes so heavy that, given current technology, they're
> within the margins of non-craziness. There's no incentive to mess around.
Dude, they're building bikes lighter than that and then adding weights
to bring them up to 6.8kg.
rechungR...@gmail.com
wrote:
> Would you encourage a kid to study mathematics,
> knowing that math is hard, that not many of the
> people who study it make it to a PhD, not many
> of those become practicing academic mathematicians,
> and that the path to becoming successful may eventually
> require personal, professional, and ethical compromises
> that a naive youth would not anticipate on opening
> her first calculus textbook?
Been there, done that:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.racing/msg/3e37ef4bd5676eba
Howard Kveck
> The actual racing isn't really helped by drugs, or at least not helped
> enough. What are we talking about, a 1-2 km/h improvement in typical
> racing speeds? You can't see that, it doesn't make the racing better,
> and for that matter, the faster the race speed the harder it is for a
> breakaway to succeed, for aerodynamic reasons.
I completely agree with you that the actual racing isn't made better by the drugs,
particularly from the spectator's standpoint. It probably isn't made better for the
participants either; however, they may (okay, probably *do*) think that it does,
simply because of the suspicion that the other riders may be using. So if rider A
doesn't use, he may think he'll never win, therefore he won't get a good contract,
and so on. In the long run, that aspect is also of value to the DS, the manager, the
team owner and the sponsor (whichis why I get annoyed when those characters get all
indignant when a rider gets caught). Of course, if everyone (more or less) is using,
then the overall picture hasn't really changed, except that the whole bunch is going
faster.
--
tanx,
Howard
Never take a tenant with a monkey.
remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
> In article
> <1180311857.981832.256...@g37g2000prf.googlegroups.com>
Yes. There was a deliberate parallel - namely that
relatively few people "succeed" if success is defined
strictly as becoming a math professor or a ProTour pro.
However, there's no dishonor in going to grad school
or training as an amateur bike racer, and then
chucking the academic rat race or the $12K rat race
and saying "I did it, I liked it while I was doing it,
and now I'm done."
I know people who went to grad school and got off the
Research-1 university track or bailed out of the
professoriate or out of academia, and they're all harried
in the middle-class way, especially the ones with kids,
but the ones that bailed aren't bitter like Lafferty.
If anything, they're happier than the ones that are
still in.
Of course, college and math grad school nominally better
prepare you for other careers than does being a U23 racer.
In that sense, it's rather irresponsible to encourage kids
to take up sports with the allure of turning pro, but
this has nothing to do with doping and is true of all
the major sports. At least in the US, collegiate bike
racing is sufficiently amateur that it hasn't been
effectively professionalized, and some kid can go to
college and race a bike while still actually getting an
education. It may not be optimal preparation for bike
racing, but it's probably better preparation for life.
Ben
rechungR...@gmail.com
wrote:
> However, there's no dishonor in going to grad school
Hmmm. I think I said something very similar to this when I didn't get
tenure. I said it several thousand times.
Ryan Cousineau
rechungR...@gmail.com wrote:
> On May 28, 6:00 am, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca> wrote:
>
> > Yes. But we don't worry about enforcing things that are allowed.
>
> Hmmm. Don't you see the circularity there? (In addition, it appears
> many people didn't much worry about enforcing disallowed things as
> long as they didn't know about them).
Heh. I missed that the first time. Another way to say it is that the UCI
is mostly enforcing the right things.
> > At the
> > risk of dragging those bloody children into this argument again [there
> > should be a special text colour to set off my rhetorical cheap
> > shots...], I don't think I'd be worried if generic talented junior
> > trained had a good hematocrit and was reading Coggan and doing his
> > intervals.
>
> Why not? What if you were wealthy and could afford wind-tunnel time,
> while other kids couldn't? Which performance-enhancing substances,
> devices, training, and knowledge should be allowed, and which
> shouldn't?
I think rider health and safety has to be the first principle. At some
point in my hypothetical example, the problem is we're just talking
about a kid: the main goal of youth-dev programs is not to make the kids
fast right away, it's to find the ones who will be fast. The chance that
a wind tunnel will take Junior from also-ran to next David Millar
(er...) is not great.
Back to drugs, I'll answer in a moment...
> > Right, doping: I think I've articulated how I think doping differs from
> > bread, water, intervals, and even altitude tents, but I'm willing to
> > express it explicitly and at great length if necessary.
>
> Perhaps you have, but I missed it. Is it necessary?
I don't know.
But briefly and bluntly, I don't much want to watch racing where the
riders are driven into quasi-experimental (quasi- because it's not very
scientific in many cases...) drug practices that might get them dead or
badly hurt.
If I come up with some dumbass new training technique like super-low
cadence, the most likely problem I'll give myself is a use injury and
bad results. Life goes on. If I mess with roids or EPO and do it badly,
I box my liver, or die, or experience exciting long-term effects.
The libre-drugs proposal skirts the issue that right now, even our
"useless" drug-enforcement system actually forces a lot of drugs out of
the sport. You can't use most steroids at all, because they show up too
easily. You can't use speed for the same reason. You can only use EPO in
small, circumspect doses, lest you get caught over either the 50% HCT or
by a drug test.
HgH? Not so good yet. Testosterone? I thought it was well-screened, but
now that I've been talking to Floyd...
All this makes doping both less effective and less dangerous, for the
most part. There are some perverse effects with steroids, where it's
likely that the ones least likely to mess with your body are avoided
because they can be seen on tests, but on the whole I'd say there are
substantially fewer drugs in the system because of testing, and they're
used in smaller quantities, than there would be in any plausible "drugs
are acceptable" system.
> > Aha! But the 6.8 kilo limit is an _easily enforceable_ safety standard.
> > It makes the bikes so heavy that, given current technology, they're
> > within the margins of non-craziness. There's no incentive to mess around.
>
> Dude, they're building bikes lighter than that and then adding weights
> to bring them up to 6.8kg.
Some of them, but a surprising number of pro bikes that actually get
weighed are 7+ kg. The "high" weight limit (note to weight-weenies: I
will buy your useless and outmoded 7.5 kg bike!) has driven innovation
into aerodynamics, where it belongs. Deep wheels, aero frames...I see
Cervélo as the obvious vision of the future.
That said, I would not object to a weight limit that gradually dropped.
If, by mutual agreement, the bike companies told the UCI they could
safely build, say, 6.3 kg bikes, then go for it.
Same goes for drugs, by the way. After messing with the caffeine limits
for years, these days WADA basically says, "ah, forget it," and allows
quantities that are clearly performance-enhancing but not obviously
unsafe, and not outside the realm of consumption experienced by a great
many office workers who hardly even think of their morning cup as a
drug-delivery mechanism.
I think we should expect to see this trend continue, and the questions
will get harder, not easier. I still think the right answers in terms of
proscription (if not enforcement) are closer to WADA's answers than the
libre answers.
Still thinking about that bodybuilder whose body seized up while posing,
Michael Press
<1180334808.4...@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
rechungR...@gmail.com wrote:
Sounds like you did not chuck it, rather you were up-chucked.
--
Michael Press
John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
>Let's test most
>riders all the time. Dozens every day. Three month
>suspensions and no record rewriting.
This makes a lot of sense except for the problem of the tests costing
money.
--
JT
****************************
Remove "remove" to reply
Visit http://www.jt10000.com
****************************
rechungR...@gmail.com
> > > However, there's no dishonor in going to grad school
> > > [...] and then chucking the academic rat race
>
> > Hmmm. I think I said something very similar to this when I didn't get
> > tenure. I said it several thousand times.
>
> Sounds like you did not chuck it, rather you were up-chucked.
It's worse than that. I jumped on the first chance I had to get back.
Michael Press
<fsal53920vh228gt9...@4ax.com>,
John Forrest Tomlinson <usenet...@jt10000.com>
wrote:
> On Sun, 27 May 2007 20:20:47 -0700, Michael Press <rub...@pacbell.net>
> wrote:
>
> >Let's test most
> >riders all the time. Dozens every day. Three month
> >suspensions and no record rewriting.
>
> This makes a lot of sense except for the problem of the tests costing
> money.
Not my problem. Until the testing program changes in
the way outlined we will not have an equable test
process that can reduce doping. Only when many, many
instances of doping are detected will the incidence of
doping decline. The current scheme does not work
because riders' utility computation is mostly
determined by probability of being caught. Do not win a
stage when you know you will test positive.
--
Michael Press
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
Dumbass,
You're supposed to chuck the rat race before getting
that far into the experiment. Although, I slightly knew
someone who got denied tenure at Caltech, and now
works here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies
and I hear he's a lot happier. Also, he makes bank.
It's okay though. You did the equivalent of washing
out of your ProTour tryout. I'm the academic 12K dreamer,
or maybe the academic Joe Papp.
Ben
William Asher
news:1180386513....@r19g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
<snip>
> It's okay though. You did the equivalent of washing
> out of your ProTour tryout. I'm the academic 12K dreamer,
> or maybe the academic Joe Papp.
Just be thankful you're not the academic Jure Robic.
--
Bill Asher
b...@mambo.ucolick.org
> "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org> wrote:
Dumbass,
I digress from cheating in bike racing for a moment
and talk about being a bastard in the refined and
civilized academic pursuits.
Math is a less collaborative discipline than many other
fields and so it has slightly fewer opportunities for
screwing people over, but as your example showed, it
might happen anyway. Do not assume that faking
data is confined to naughty soft-scientists. Quite a
few of the most prominent recent fraud scandals have
been in hard sciences (materials, physics). However,
I suspect that unethical treatment of colleagues is
far more common than actual faking of results. I don't
see being an evil jerk to your underlings as a less
serious problem than doping in sports, but maybe that's
because dopers aren't stealing $5k from me at Superweek.
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-11/p42.html
39% of junior members of the American Physical Society
claimed knowledge of ethical violations, mostly credit
or publication disputes, not faking data. Few of the
department chairs responded and only 10% of them knew
about any problems.
It may be that mathematicians are more solitary than
other disciplines and have less opportunity to mess
with people. But in academia, where part of success
is convincing other people that you're smart, one
tried and tested method is ruthlessly stepping on
people who don't know as much or aren't as verbally
agile. I think every department has an "educator"
who regularly makes some poor grad student feel like
an idiot. There's hardly ever negative consequences
for this type of behavior.
It's not any different in the rest of the world,
or people wouldn't think "The Office" is funny.
(It is funny, right? I mean, funny for a documentary.)
Ben
rechungR...@gmail.com
wrote:
> 39% of junior members of the American Physical Society
> claimed knowledge of ethical violations, mostly credit
> or publication disputes, not faking data. Few of the
> department chairs responded and only 10% of them knew
> about any problems.
A few years ago my wife was asked to review a new book that had just
been published on a topic related to her field. Part way through the
first chapter, she read a sentence that sounded familiar. The next
sentence, too. She went to her file cabinet, pulled out an article
she'd written a few years before and started comparing sentence after
sentence, paragraph after paragraph, page after page. The guy who was
the nominal author of that chapter was shocked, shocked to discover
this and said he, too, was a victim. He'd trusted that the stuff he'd
taken from his research assistant was original.
Donald Munro
> He'd trusted that the stuff he'd taken from his research assistant was original.
Perhaps the research assistants do injections too.
Donald Munro
> It's okay though. You did the equivalent of washing
> out of your ProTour tryout. I'm the academic 12K dreamer,
> or maybe the academic Joe Papp.
Time to get a decent program then.
SLAVE of THE STATE
wrote:
> I wonder how you would feel if you raced clean and lost Olympic Gold or the
> Tour to a doper.
For any race I've ever done, I really didn't care if the competition
was doping.
> I'd want justice and the medal.
I'd just pick another career if I didn't like the environment.
Michael Press
<465be0fa$0$27219$ec3e...@news.usenetmonster.com>,
Donald Munro <fat-d...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Research assistants carry the can.
--
Michael Press
Bob Schwartz
> I wonder how you would feel if you raced clean and lost Olympic Gold or the
Laff, you're a retard.
I don't have a long list of palmares. I do have a bronze medal in the
Team Pursuit at 2001 Nationals. Let me tell you about that.
One thing about track racing in the US is that thanks to the
mismanagement at USAC it's a pretty grim career track. So because of
that and because so many fast people retire after the Olympics to
take jobs that pay better for less work, there are opportunities
for fat old guys.
I'm not going to pound my chest about what I did to prepare in a
climate where it snows in May. But I can tell you that you can read
stories to your kid at bedtime and still get in a couple of hours
before midnight. It might take a little edge off of your job
performance, so I can tell you it helps with the guilt if your
workplace sucks. I can tell you that if I had kept it up for the
rest of the season after Nationals I probably wouldn't still be
married today, or at least not to the same woman. I can tell you
that it totally sucks ass to look at a radar loop thinking you've
got two hours before the snowstorm hits only to find out an hour
and a half later that you were wrong.
So it's a couple of days before the event and people that can wind
it up to 30+ mph and handle TP exchanges don't grow on trees, let me
tell you. One of the guys that can do that is Doug Beck, the Chemical
Anarchist. As I'm sure you know, Doug is the kind of guy that
non-randomly gets selected as the randomly selected rider to be
tested. They didn't ask us for samples but if they had I would bet the
house that he would have come back negative because he's done that. He
takes the letter from the lab that says he's negative, frames it and
puts it up on the wall.
One of the guys on the team that finished second came up positive for
EPO in an event in a subsequent season.
If anyone is expecting me to start wetting the bed like I've gotten
fucked over at Superweek or something they've got a long wait coming.
One of the reasons is... I have no confidence at all in the validity
of the test. I really don't know if he did it or not. They had a test
that they knew had problems but they didn't want to withdraw it, so
they accepted a certain number of false positives as acceptable
collateral damage. And then there's Doug and his wall decorations.
But the big reason is... it just isn't that important. Really, it's
not. No one other than the people entered even remember who won. There
were six guys on the winning team and I couldn't name them all, I'd
have to look it up.
I decided long before the event what my goals were and they didn't
have anything to do with anyone else. I really don't care what anyone
else might have been taking for their preparation. And when your spouse
starts screaming at you about the amount of time you've been pouring
down that rathole, you figure things out. It just isn't that important.
If you visit the elementary school that my kid attended, you might see
a room with plastic bins full of things like winter coats and other
clothing in a variety of sizes. The social worker used to have packages
of underwear, but they have to make some cuts so I'm not sure how much
she's there anymore. But kids show up all the time without basic
clothing, so they have this stuff laying around. This is something
that is important. Bike racing is not important.
I think that if Joe Papp wanted to travel and see the world he should
have gotten a job and made some money and gone to see the world without
jabbing his ass full of junk to win some race that no one even knew
existed. If he would have had a grip on how inconsequential bike racing
is he might not have done that and would still have his self respect
today.
Only retards think bike racing is important.
Bob Schwartz
Donald Munro
>> > He'd trusted that the stuff he'd taken from his research assistant was original.
Donald Munro wrote:
>> Perhaps the research assistants do injections too.
Michael Press wrote:
> Research assistants carry the can.
And the blue cooler box.