Breaking: Britney Spears Loses Kids To Federline Due To Drugs & Alcohol

Spears Ordered To Relinquish Child Custody Effective Wednesday

Britney Spears is a user.

Superior Court Judge Scott M. Gorden says she has participated in "habitual, frequent and continuous use of controlled substances and alcohol." Ms. Spears had been previously ordered to comply with random alcohol and drug testing as well as "parenting coach" meetings.

While Federline and Spears share joint legal custody, the children have been staying with their mother. That changes on Wednesday. This new order followed an unspecified oral motion handed down in a closed-door hearing. All transcripts have been sealed.

Yahoo - omg!

Since Spears became single, her troubles have played out in the tabloids. First she was photographed at various Hollywood hotspots partying hard with Paris Hilton appearing drunk and out-of-control. Some photos captured the pop star without panties. Then Spears shaved her head as paparazzi captured the moment, beat a car with an umbrella and ended up spending a month in rehab.

An MTV Video Music Awards performance last month meant to herald her comeback was universally panned, with Spears appearing spaced-out and lethargic and, in some eyes, less than buff. The following week, Spears' management firm dropped her and her divorce lawyer resigned.

She then was charged with misdemeanor counts of hit-and-run and driving without a valid license for allegedly crashing into a parked car in August.

The driving offenses likely compelled the judge to issue Monday's orders, said New York divorce lawyer Raoul Felder.

"She was driving without a license with a child in the car," he said. "You can put aside the in and out of rehab, the shaving her head. But this? When a judge went out on a limb for her? There's no going back."

Los Angeles divorce lawyer Connolly Oyler said he's surprised the children weren't taken from Spears sooner. Judges typically remove youngsters from households where parents are ordered to undergo drug testing, he said.

Observers note this decision isn't necessarily final. It's simply final for now. Before -- if -- the Judge will ever give Ms. Spears her children back even on a limited basis, she's going to have to clean up her act. Without any bullshit.

"In the child's best interest" is the standard used in child custody. It's a hell of a world when a Judge orders children given to Kevin Federline as being in their best interest... and it's so obviously a correct decision that all I can wonder is, why didn't it happen sooner?

This is what happens to a kid when you:

• give them unlimited money,
• more and more power,
• fail to educate them,
• don't teach them to be even slightly curious about others & the world around them,
• inoculate them with an sense of absolute & utter entitlement,
• put them in a bubble surrounded with "yes" men,
• never let anyone ever tell them "no",
• never hold them responsible for their mistakes, and
• cover up the trail of failure and destruction they leave behind.

• While the kid is massively loaded on drugs and alcohol.

You get...

A fucking train wreck.

Played out on a world stage with real lives.

Thank Kālī it's just show business.

There's more...

Puget Sound - "Power Over Pain” Advocacy Day - Olympia, September 28th

Comic Dan Collins Cartoons (click for full size)

Pain Advocacy Day at the Washington State Capital

Pain, pain, pain... PAIN!

The largest lobbying event for pain suffers in Washington State history will be held Friday, September 28, at the State Capital in Olympia.

• This is personal to me.
• I'm a chronic pain patient.
• Without access to adequate pain control, I can NOT function.
• With adequate pain control, most of the time -- key word..."most" -- I lead a life which appears -- key word... "appears" -- to be normal.
• Practically speaking, with adequate pain control, most of the time I can work, live my life, spend time with my family, be in the world like everyone. Except when there is "break-through pain." (A technical term.) ...Then, things, and by things I mean me, stop working.

Here are some stats, some numbers.

After a page or so of the facts, I'll get back to giving you what this means in my life, how pain truly IMPACTS a person day-to-day, how desperately fucked up life can get when you live with pain month after month, year after year. Stick around... it's a bad-ass story. But first, the facts...

Here's what the American Pain Foundation says.

Seventy-five million Americans suffer from pain. Most fail to receive adequate treatment.

Highlights from the National Center for Health Statistics Report: Health, United States, 2006, Special Feature on Pain

More than one-quarter of Americans (26%) age 20 years and over - or, an estimated 76.5 million Americans - report that they have had a problem with pain of any sort that persisted for more than 24 hours in duration. [NOTE: this number does not account for acute pain]

Adults age 45-64 years were the most likely to report pain lasting more than 24 hours (30%). Twenty-five percent (25%) of young adults age 20-44 reported pain, and adults age 65 and over were the least likely to report pain (21%).

More women (27.1%) than men (24.4%) reported that they were in pain.

Non-Hispanic white adults reported pain more often than adults of other races and ethnicities (27.8% vs. 22.1% Black only or 15.3% Mexican).

Adults living in families with income less than twice the poverty level reported pain more often than higher income adult.

Adults 20 years of age and over who report pain said that it lasted:

• Less than one month – 32%
• One to three months – 12%
• Three months to one year – 14%
• Longer than one year – 42%

The Burden of Pain on Every Day Life

• The annual cost of chronic pain in the United States, including healthcare expenses, lost income, and lost productivity, is estimated to be $100 billion.²
• More than half of all hospitalized patients experienced pain in the last days of their lives³ and although therapies are present to alleviate most pain for those dying of cancer, research shows that 50-75% of patients die in moderate to severe pain.⁴
• An estimated 20% of American adults (42 million people) report that pain or physical discomfort disrupts their sleep a few nights a week or more.⁵

Commonly-Reported Pain Conditions

• When asked about four common types of pain, respondents of a National Institute of Health Statistics survey indicated that low back pain was the most common (27%), followed by severe headache or migraine pain (15%), neck pain (15%) and facial ache or pain (4%).⁶
• Back pain is the leading cause of disability in Americans under 45 years old. More than 26 million Americans between the ages of 20-64 experience frequent back pain.⁷
• Adults with low back pain are often in worse physical and mental health than people who do not have low back pain: 28% of adults with low back pain report limited activity due to a chronic condition, as compared to 10% of adults who do not have low back pain. Also, adults reporting low back pain were three times as likely to be in fair or poor health and more than four times as likely to experience serious psychological distress as people without low back pain.⁸
• An estimated 70% of those with cancer experience significant pain during their illness, yet fewer than half receive adequate treatment for their pain.⁹
• Painful knees and hips are common symptoms among older adults, with about 30% of adults 65 years of age and over reporting knee pain or stiffness in the past 30 days and 15% reporting hip pain or stiffness.

Disparities in Pain Care

• African Americans and Hispanics are affected by racial profiling for diversion and under-treatment by some physicians. This is compounded by a lack of research on pain across racial and ethnic differences,¹⁷ as well as cultural attitudes toward pain care. In one study, more than 80% of African American patients and 80% of Hispanic patients waited until their pain severity was a 10 on a 10-point scale before calling their health care provider or oncology clinic for assistance with pain management.¹⁸
• Elders are among the most undertreated for pain.¹⁹ Of the community-dwelling elder population, 25-50% can expect to suffer pain.²⁰ Among institutionalized elders, 71-83% report at least one pain problem.²¹
• Unfortunately, under-treatment of pain in the pediatric population is worse than that for adults, including elders. Only recently has the FDA required new medications be evaluated for efficacy and safety in the pediatric population. In one study, 65% of children younger than 2 years old went without pain medications compared to 48% of older children up to 10 years.²²
• Gender is also a bias in pain assessment and treatment. Women seek help for pain more frequently than men, but are less likely to receive treatment. Physicians often assume either that women can handle more pain or that they are exaggerating the level of pain they experience.²³ Women are more likely to be given sedatives for their pain while men are more likely to be given analgesics.²⁴
• Historically, the medical literature has portrayed women as hysterical and oversensitive. By extension, physicians often view women’s statements as emotional, rather than objective. In one study of patients with chronic pain, female patients were more likely than their male counterparts to be diagnosed with histrionic disorder, excessive emotionality, and attention-seeking behavior.²⁵
• Studies of VA patients show that the pain of veterans is significantly worse than that of the general public.^26,27 A higher incidence of pain in veterans was anticipated compared with the general public because of the greater exposure to trauma and psychological stress,²⁸ both of which increase pain and compound therapy.

Please click here for references.

So...

What does it mean?

What do all these statistics and study results mean? That's what bloggers do, right? Take something vast and make it personal.

Yeah. In a moment perhaps. First, if you've ever been in real pain, even for a little bit, you don't need me to tell you how you Just.Wanted.It.To.STOP.

Now imagine that round the clock. Waking you up. Unable to work. Unable to bend over and tie your shoes or put on a shirt? Sit up in bed without help? Unable to even wipe your own ass because you can't twist around without screaming from the freaking pain. How you like your quality of life now?

Welcome to chronic pain. Now say hello to pain medications; they are your friend.

Jesse's Story

With pain meds, I live a normal life. Ride my bike, drive my car, go to work (most days), and sleep through the night only waking up twice to take more pain meds (instead of 4-5 times a night, yelping.) I have a life.

My doctors and I worked for over seven years to get the precise set of medicines I use, correct. Along the way I went so far round the bend on some of the poorly adjusted drugs, the person in my body, based on reactions to improperly set meds and my own deep-triggered patterns, acted out behaviors so inappropriate I could have been jailed.

The drugs used to treat chronic pain act directly on the brain and biology at the core of one's self. They not only knock out pain receptors, but in the case of the supporting medications, they alter who we are as human beings. Who I am was changed for years because of the meds I was on.

Eventually I and my therapist figured out I wasn't the same person I'd been before he'd ever met me. I'd lost track years before and to say "I'd lost track" is misleading -- it was no longer "I" talking or knowing, but a different self created by the combination of medication and emotional & physical triggering loaded in my body and living my life; beat that shit with a stick. My own children knew something was "wrong with Daddy" but even they didn't fully grasp how badly I was off and neither did I. All I knew was how much I hurt. I didn't know I wasn't "me," even though I was doing things I hadn't done in 20-30 years. To say I wasn't myself... yeah, literally I wasn't myself or in control of my own body for about five years. I didn't even know I wasn't along for the ride till the first four years has passed.

Now there was more going on with me in the beginning than just poorly adjusted medications. But there usually is in chronic pain patients. That's why we're chronic pain patients. I was drinking heavily because the pain meds I was on weren't enough to handle how much I hurt, in every sense of the word. In Dec 2001 I had neurosurgery, leaving me physically in agony for close to a year. In May 2003 was the suicide attempt and its aftermath. In Nov 2003 I was in a major car accident, which still hurts every day still. All these confused the issue and left my doctors and I playing catch up.

Therapy resolved the issues with my past. I stopped drinking as we got some control over the physical and emotional pain. Eventually, as we lowered the dosage on the pain meds and the fog lifted, it slowly, painfully, over many months became clear that my actions for the last years had been massively inconsistent with the self I'd always known myself to be before the original work injury in 1999; that that "me" I'd been being was just off, and not in a good way. And further, that neither I or anyone around me had known.

It took a year, start to finish. First we had to find the right pain management doctor, an experienced physician specializing in pain management, in order to make a difference. Then I had to get on his schedule, which took months; there aren't many of them and their schedules are always full. Then more and more months; careful, painstaking, session after session, back-stopped by a clinical psychologist who knows me to my core.

After seven years of suffering, we changed my med package. My pain drugs, not just the narcotics, but the supporting medicines which allow both the narcotic and non-narcotic pain drugs to achieve their best impact, the sequencing, dosages, types and loading of these medications were changed, along with new meds being added. It took an entire goddamn year.

Changing my medicine package changed who I was and am. And surprise -- Jesse came back for the first time in almost five years. This all in the last year.

You think you know who Jesse "Doc" Wendel is? Listen... I don't even know some of the time. If I have an off day or week with my meds, I am not the same guy. Just under three years ago I passed a car between the HOV lane and the jersey barrier at 110 mph with six inches on either side screaming incoherent obscenities. My then 11 year-old son David was strapped in the front seat. Why was I angry? He just pissed me off; I don't know. This weaving through rush hour on Interstate-405 leaving Bellevue. A State Trooper pulled me over half a mile later as flat-out angry as I've ever seen a Trooper. Gave me the maximum possible non-criminal citation possible ($532 if I remember correctly, plus my insurance tripled for three years) and that only because I played the "I'm a paramedic" card. Originally the Trooper was going to jail me for reckless driving.

This is, by the standards of the last years, a tame story; I might have gone to jail for only 90 days. It was the Effexor we were trying; bad reaction. Effexor causes massive rage in me. How you like them apples? I stopped the Effexor within 48 hours; two days later I was fine. My point is there were many hit and miss attempts for years getting things right. Enough clearly messed with who I was, while others worked or seemed to maybe work, that over time we got much of the pain under control. More importantly, we eventually got to where my medical team and I sniffed just a whiff that perhaps the "I" who is Jesse wasn't really who I should be. That the drugs I was taking were altering me in some subtle way above mere pain control. That's when the conversation got interesting; my care required someone who knew precisely what pain management and they were about; a genuine specialist.

I love my primary care physician and the rest of my medical team. They are good, caring, talented people, quite literally the best doctors in their field in Puget Sound, in many cases, in the western United States. I'm not an amateur at picking talented people and in the field of medicine I know what I'm looking for. I have amazing people working to keep me healthy. None the less, it took an authentic specialist in this new discipline of pain management. A physician whose only practice is pain management to fix what was happening with me. We don't ask family practice doctor's to perform neurosurgery and we don't ask neurosurgeons to treat children for well-baby checks and back-t0-school physicals.

Pain management requires monthly care (or more) from a physician at the top of their game. It's that simple.

Pain Doesn't Have To Happen Any More

Pain drugs are a miracle. They save lives as surely as CPR, surgeons, cancer checkups, vaccinations and paramedics. And for enormously less cost in the long run as a body which hurts continues to break down physically and emotionally, and fails to be able to contribute to society. I haven't even mentioned the cost on the families of chronic pain patients.

By any objective standard, treating pain is by far the least expensive option possible.

Pain treatment just makes sense, not to mention being humane. We wouldn't let a puppy suffer like the State lets old people, children and the hurting suffer day and night, week and month and years. Yet in the name of a few bucks, the State of Washington wants to let people you know have their lives be destroyed in bitter agony. It simply isn't right.

Pain is a horrible monster. To be trapped in a body that hurts...

In their blindness, the politicians and administrators of the State of Washington are attempting to balance part of their budget on the backs of people on pain control. This is not just stupid. It's mean.

Last week I interviewed Dr. John Baumeister, D.O., Founding President, Washington Academy of Pain Management and widely considered one of the leading specialists in pain management in Puget Sound. (Disclosure: Dr. Baumeister in my pain management physician. He's the doctor who finally nailed my meds and along with my therapist, brought me back to being me.)

Dr. Baumeister

The State Legislature told the State Agencies to cut costs by "coordinating medical care."

Their first and primary effort has been to produce a guideline outlining efforts to cut costs by addressing the prescribing of narcotics for pain.

The Chair of the Agency Medical Director's Group, Gary Franklin, MD, MPH, and Governor Chris Gregoire have failed to listen to physician concerns over this new guideline.

By the committee's own report, 6,800 chronic pain patients will be required to obtain annual consults from pain management physicians. There are few pain management practices in the state and their practices are full. Thus the guideline represents constructive denial of care.

It will cause people pain.

Pain is a disease.

Pain works through causing your nerves to reorganize themselves, like plastic under a heat lamp, the plasticity of the organism flowing to allow new nervous pathways to form. These new pathways are not necessarily optimal for you, the patient. They are designed to let your body survive the injury and communicate "Hey, this hurts," long after the actual injury is gone.

In 1980 when I was training as a paramedic, pain management didn't exist. It is a new discipline. The federal and state governments -- like most people in power -- received their training of what works and what doesn't, long ago and aren't keeping up with current technique. They come from a time when people were expected to just "tough it up" and "be a man."

Except this is precisely the exactly wrong approach to pain management. In a burn, the very first step in burn management is, "Stop the burning process" which is often going on under the skin hours after the apparent heat is gone. The first rule of pain management is, "Stop the pain."

Pain begets pain in a vicious circle. Stopping pain allows people to heal.

If you're in Washington State or near, I encourage you to show up in Olympia at the State Capital on Friday, September 28 and help fight for effective pain control.

Further information on Pain Advocacy Day Friday, September 28 in Olympia is available from Dionetta Hudzinski, RN, MN (HCP) or (509) 966-1986.

Help stop the pain. Fight ignorance.

There's more...

Breaking: Landis Stripped of Tour de France Title

Landis Doping Ban Upheld
Two Year Competition Ban For Doping

From the Group News Blog Sports Desk

A 3 person U.S. Anti-Doping Agency arbitration panel stripped upheld a test showing Floyd Landis, the 2006 Tour de France champion, used synthetic testosterone on Stage 17 of the Tour.

Landis forfeits his Tour title and is baned from competing for two years, retroactive to January 30, 2007.

Landis may appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

AP

According to documents obtained by AP, the vote was 2-1 to uphold the results, with lead arbitrator Patrice Brunet and Richard McLaren in the majority and Christopher Campbell dissenting.

It's a devastating loss for Landis, who has steadfastly insisted that cheating went against everything he was all about and said he was merely a pawn in the anti-doping system's all-consuming effort to find cheaters and keep money flowing to its labs and agencies.

Landis didn't hide from the scrutiny — invited it, in fact — and now has been found guilty by the closest thing to a fair trial any accused athlete will get.

Landis, who has a month to file his appeal, is still weighing his legal options, according to a statement released by his legal team.

"This ruling is a blow to athletes and cyclists everywhere" Landis said. "For the Panel to find in favor of USADA when, with respect to so many issues, USADA did not manage to prove even the most basic parts of their case shows that this system is fundamentally flawed. I am innocent, and we proved I am innocent."

Despite the result, it's hard to see this as a total victory for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which prosecuted the case. This was a costly affair for the agency, and it exposed flaws in the system.

In its 84-page decision, the majority found the initial screening test to measure Landis' testosterone levels — the testosterone-to-epitestosterone test — was not done according to World Anti-Doping Agency rules.

But the more precise and expensive carbon-isotope ration analysis (IRMS), performed after a positive T-E test is recorded, was accurate, the arbitrators said, meaning "an anti-doping rule violation is established."

"As has been held in several cases, even where the T-E ratio has been held to be unreliable ... the IRMS analysis may still be applied," the majority wrote. "It has also been held that the IRMS analysis may stand alone as the basis" of a positive test for steroids.

The decision comes more than a year after Landis' stunning comeback in Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour, one that many people said couldn't be done without some kind of outside help. Flying to the lead near the start of a grueling Alpine stage, Landis regained nearly eight minutes against the leader, and went on to win the three-week race.

"Well, all I can say is that justice has been done, and that this is what the UCI felt was correct all along," Pat McQuaid, leader of cycling's world governing body, told The Associated Press by telephone. "We now await and see if he does appeal to CAS.

"It's not a great surprise considering how events have evolved. He got a highly qualified legal team who tried to baffle everybody with science and public relations. And in the end the facts stood up."

Spanish rider Oscar Pereiro, who finished second to Landis in the 2006 Tour, said he hadn't officially heard the news yet.

"You never want to win a competition like that," he said. "But after a year and a half of all of this I'm just glad it's over."

Landis insisted on a public hearing not only to prove his innocence, but to shine a spotlight on USADA and the rules it enforces and also establish a pattern of incompetence at the French lab where his urine was tested.

Although the panel rejected Landis' argument of a "conspiracy" at the Chatenay-Malabry lab, it did find areas of concern. They dealt with chain of command in controlling the urine sample, the way the tests were run on the machine, the way the machine was prepared and the "forensic corrections" done on the lab paperwork.

"... the Panel finds that the practises of the Lab in training its employees appears to lack the vigor the Panel would expect in the circumstances given the enormous consequences to athletes" of an adverse analytical finding, the decision said.

The majority repeatedly wrote that any mistakes made at the lab were not enough to dismiss the positive test, but also sent a warning.

"If such practises continue, it may well be that in the future, an error like this could result in the dismissal" of a positive finding by the lab.

In Campbell's opinion, Landis' case should have been one of those cases.

"In many instances, Mr. Landis sustained his burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt," Campbell wrote. "The documents supplied by LNDD are so filled with errors that they do not support an Adverse Analytical Finding. Mr. Landis should be found innocent."

And in at least one respect, Landis, who spent an estimated $2 million on his defense, was exonerated because the panel dismissed the T-E test. But in the arbitration process, a procedural flaw in the first test doesn't negate a positive result in follow-up tests.

"An arbitration panel is entitled to rely entirely on the IRMS analysis as an independent and sufficient basis for finding that an anti-doping rule violation has occurred," the decision said.

In his dissent, Campbell latched onto the T-E ratio test, among other things, as proof that the French lab couldn't be trusted.

"Also, the T-E ratio test is acknowledged as a simple test to run. The IRMS test is universally acknowledged as a very complicated test to run, requiring much skill. If the LNDD couldn't get the T-E ratio test right, how can a person have any confidence that LNDD got the much more complicated IRMS test correct?"

It was confusion like this that led to the system receiving the harsh review Landis was hoping for during a nine-day hearing in Malibu, Calif., in May.

But Landis also took his share of abuse, and ultimately, USADA still improved to 35-0 in cases it has brought before arbitration panels since it was founded in 2000.

This was a nasty contest waged on both sides, with USADA attorneys going after Landis' character and taking liberties in evidence discovery that wouldn't be permitted in a regular court of law. And Landis accused USADA of using a win-at-all-costs strategy and prosecuting him only to get him to turn on seven-time winner Lance Armstrong, who has long fought doping allegations that have never been proven.

Cyclingnews

Campell's decision complained that the LNDD laboratory had "cherry picked" the data in order to find the adverse result, and stated, "From the perspective of 'safeguarding the interest of athletes,' any anti-doping system must be held accountable, like the athletes. If there are flaws in procedures for testing, as evidenced above, those flaws should be immediately disclosed [...] Drug testing agencies should not be playing hide the ball when athletes' careers are on the line."

VeloNews

Landis's case was argued in a public hearing in May, and a ruling had initially been expected prior to this year's Tour. Landis spokeswoman Pearl Piatt told Agence France Presse that he has not decided whether to press his case before CAS.

"We're still digesting the report," she said. "They are still reading the opinion closely and looking at it."

At one stage, Landis had said the cost of making such a fight might be more than he could afford, although he has maintained his innocence throughout the doping fight.

One of his lawyers, Maurice Suh, called the ruling "a miscarriage of justice."

"The majority panel's decision is a disappointment, but particularly so because it failed to address the joint impact of the many errors that the AFLD laboratory committed in rendering this false positive," Suh said.

"To take each of these errors singly is to ignore the total falsity of the result. The majority panel has disregarded the testimony of Mr. Landis' experts, who are pre-eminent in their respective fields, without analyzing the impact of the errors on the final result."

The USADA full decision is available to read.

This final selection is from people I personally believe have the best coverage of the Landis case. I trust their judgment enormously. They are fair and careful journalists of the Landis case.

Trust but Verify will continue to update their report ongoingly -- I am quoting from their breaking coverage. Check back later for more in depth reporting. Quite simply, TBV has the best and least biased reporting on Landis anywhere.

Trust but Verify

Hue's View
INITIAL REACTION

I have said it before, in a "real" court, in Europe or in North America, the flaws identitfied by all 3 Panel members would cause the case to be dismissed before the fact finder would apply the standard of proof.Sad day for justice. Great day (and vindiction) for WADA, the Federations and USADA.

The decision is very technical and makes decisions on the science. The majority did not find the testimony of Joe Papp "helpful in determining the issues before it..." and held Papp's testimony "...in no regard ..."

Panel finds Landis's testimony on his conversation with Lemond did not constitute an admission of guilt. Calls Lemond's testimony "incohate" when he refused to answer questions the Panel determined to be proper. Panel accepts the statement and explaination of Mr Landis and rejects the testimony of Lemond to the extent he claimed Landis confessed to him.

Campbell says Landis not only proved his case by a preponderance of the evidence but in many ways, "beyond a reasonable doubt". Says LNDD has not "been trustworthy from the beginning". Finds LNDD violated International standards, fails legal and ethical standards and should not be "entrusted with Landis' career."

The Panel ordered USOC to pay its fees and Dr Botre's.

The decision is very technical and makes decisions on the science. The majority did not find the testimony of Joe Papp "helpful in determining the issues before it..." and held Papp's testimony "...in no regard ..."

Panel finds Landis's testimony on his conversation with Lemond did not constitute an admission of guilt. Calls Lemond's testimony "incohate" when he refused to answer questions the Panel determined to be proper. Panel accepts the statement and explaination of Mr Landis and rejects the testimony of Lemond to the extent he claimed Landis confessed to him.

Campbell says Landis not only proved his case by a preponderance of the evidence but in many ways, "beyond a reasonable doubt". Says LNDD has not "been trustworthy from the beginning". Finds LNDD violated International standards, fails legal and ethical standards and should not be "entrusted with Landis' career."

"62. Because everyone assumes an athlete who is alleged to have tested positive is guilty, it is not fashionable to argue that laboratories should comply with strict rules. However, if you are going to hold athletes strictly liable with virtually no possibility of overcoming a rcported alleged positive test even in the face of substantial and numerous laboratory errors, fairness and human decency dictates that strict rules be applied to laboratories as well. To do otherwise d doesn't safeguard the interest of athlctes."

63. WADA should be writing rules that mandate the highest scientific stantiards rather than writing rule for a race to the bottom of scientific reliability so convictions can be easily obtained, as this cased demonstrates. Givcn the plethora of laboratory errors in this case, there was certainly no reliable scientific evidence introduccd to find that Mr. Landis committcd a doping offense."

From paragraph 52:
"When you consider all the errors and ISL violations in this case, the fact that the results also do not comport with known science is dispositive. I cannot be comfortable satisfied that LNDD’s results are correct."

From footnote 13:

13. I was very concerned with my evaluation of the errors associated with Mr. Landis’ tests. To confirm that there was a problem with cherry picked of data I asked the Panel’s expert, Dr. Botrè to review my concerns. His response was that he could not figure out where the data came from. While this is certainly not evidence in the case, Dr. Botrè’s response is in accord with what both parties agreed, that the Panel could have an expert to explain complicated scientific information. His response confirmed my suspicion of the problem.

My view...

This is absolute bullshit.

Campbell, Hue, even the two panel members who voted against Landis, all have clearly identified sufficient grounds that as has been said over and over again, in any court of LAW, the so-called evidence would have been thrown out as hopelessly contaminated, the laboratory records as so confused and possibly forged as unusable and potentially perjured.

No District Attorney or Federal Prosecutor in a criminal case (or their equivalent in west Europe), no matter how reckless or desperate their need to win, would ever use this evidence (or would be allowed to by the Judge. And Gods help them if they tried. The Defense Attorney would ask to have them disbarred and thrown in jail on contempt charges; the Judge would do it.)

All the Landis evidence in any real court (not this rigged "guilty until proven otherwise and we can change all the rules on the fly till we get the verdict we want, plus we'll just freaking ignore anything that doesn't work for us", and no, sorry, I'm actually not kidding) would be:

A) Thrown out.

B) Used to impeach the prosecutor's case.

C) Just the fact that the flawed tests and lab procedures existed at all for anyone, would be a massive, truly fucking massive strike against the prosecution's case against anyone, as forensic screw ups strike at the heart and soul, the fundamental integrity and credibility of the laboratory giving the tests for anyone.

D) Jammed up the ass of anyone stupid enough to have not hidden it far, far away from the prosecutor who now is forced to disclose the results to the defense, thus screwing her case completely and setting the defendant free, as I've just spelled out above.

E) Of course an ethical prosecutor interested in Justice, not her conviction record, would want to know about the problem so she could disclose it. And pigs might fly out my ass.

But all this only in a Court Of Law.

What Floyd Landis got was not a Court of Law. He got a 3 person U.S. Anti-Doping Agency arbitration panel. They voted 2-1 to uphold the evidence against him, even if they had to bend, break, and fucking torque with a crowbar the rule book to get the man they simply knew in their gut to be Guilty, Guilty, Guilty!

We can not say Floyd Landis is innocent.
But we sure as shit can not say he is guilty.

Except perhaps, of actually trusting that "the system" might be trusted. Or that panel arbitrators might put truth and honesty before voting their paychecks.

This verdict is a travesty. It is injustice.

From now on, every time you hear of an athlete who "is a doper", think of Floyd Landis and know... you truly do not know.

The system is rigged.

This has been a breaking news report and editorial comment LIVE from the Group News Blog Sports Desk, Jesse Wendel reporting. Good Day.

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A Fan's Notes— 2.0

The Picture Says It All. Sports Sucks Now. Big Time.

Good day from the GNB Sports Desk! Or maybe..not so good day. LowerManhattanite here, with Part One of a Two Part "White Paper" report.

You will find no bigger sports fan than me. I grew up in a house with four boys, and a dad who threw a wicked four-seam fastball and a Doug Williams-tight spiral well into his fifties.

I remember the day I fell in love with baseball—July 13th 1971—watching Reggie Jackson launch that career-making mortar off the transformer atop the right-field roof of Tiger Stadium. It was a Tuesday afternoon. Saw it with my dad at his restaurant. I'll never forget it. Reggie was my idol. But I couldn't follow A's games 3000 miles away, so I lavished my love on the then-horriffic Yankees. Reggie came to the Bronx in '77. How happy do you think I was? :)

Football entranced me—particularly the-just-about-over-the-hill Joe Willie Namath (even in that cool, old L.A. Rams "uni"), and my mid-seventies Steelers, which was extremely difficult as I was in a house full of Dallas Cowboys fans, but I persevered. And found I could just fall in love with watching a great player for another team—namely, the Oilers' Earl Campbell—in spite of his being on a bitter Steelers' division rival—he was simply the most awe-inspiring, punishing runner I've ever seen.

A sublime, indelible NBA memory is of seeing the gentle giant Willis Reed in glorious Black & White TV, uncharacteristically go down the length of the old Baltimore Bullet bench, caving in the grilles of every player who dared remain sitting in a wild, courtside brawl—and a few of the standees in an old WOR free-TV game. Yes, they fought like hell in the olden days of the NBA too, folks. I personally harangued the Rockets' Moses Malone into missing all three shots of a "three-to-make-two" in the waning seconds of a Knicks game, from my near-courtside seat in a two-thirds empty Madison Square Garden in the early 80's.

The Olympics? I remember Tommie Smith, and John Carlos, and Bob Beamon, and Ludmilla Turischeva (who I liked much more than Olga Korbut), and Dave Wottle and Steve Prefontaine.

I lived sports. Breathed sports. Played sports—excelled at Baseball (Pitched and played center), and Football (Wide-Out, Halfback and Safety/Rover). Live and die with my beloved Yankees. My Steelers. Am still in my wishing ill-will on my Knicks until ownership changes (as I did with the Yanks for their unceremonious ditching of Reggie)

I. AM. A. SPORTS. FAN. OF. THE. FIRST. ORDER.

Which drives the divinely fucked-up confluence of every single sport seeming to go into the shitter at once to something beyond just painful for a "fanatic" like me.

It's actually numbing. I never thought—in my life ever—that I could be moved to the point where "Sports" per se would begin to lose me...but I'll be damned...

...it's happening. :(

Doc Wendel wrote a post a couple of days ago, stepping away from his strong, derailleur-to-derailleur coverage of the Tour de France, to handle—dead-on—the burgeoning doping scandal that threatened to (pun not intended) derail the tour. He ended it , saying "This is today's doping story. Talk among yourselves. We'll be back tomorrow for Stage 16. If anyone is still left to ride."

"If anyone is still left to ride."

That's a hell of a statement. I could hear the This-is-fucked-chest-kick in Jesse's words. He loves cycling. The way many of us love baseball. And football. And basketball. Now granted, many people are NOT sports fans—and are probably chortling up their sleeves at the seeming total collapse of integrity in sports going on right now, but dammit—there are MILLIONS of Americans, and BILLIONS of world citizens who are sports fans, and the news in recent days—after months and years of building to this point—are just axe-struck by it all. Nearly 80 million people attended Major League Baseball last year. 22 million went to NFL games. Another 22 mil checked out NBA contests. And that's just in-arena viewership—it doesn't include TV and radio fans. I wouldn't even hazard a guess at the number of soccer (football) fans worldwide who dug hard on the World Cup, or the folks like Jesse who live for le Tour. Countless millions...frankly, billions of semi-to-very involved fans—and many of 'em are flat-out-disgusted and heartbroken, very much the way you can "hear" it in Jesse's online voice.

It matters. It just does.

It's an outlet, an oasis and refuge in our lives, and has been forever. And as busy and distracted as people are in this multi-tasking age, sports' ability to make us slow down for those few hours a week to enjoy it, is not a small deal. We find ourselves now, with these awful, and confidence-draining stories rendering those few hours an utter waste of time. How did we get here—At this five-way intersection of sports, with all the cars piled up, —flames and steaming effluent shooting everywhichway?

Where to begin? Where it all ends, of course. MONEY. Now, here's the part where Ira from Maspeth calls in from his mom's basement, railing at the sports talk show host about the players' salaries. "It's a freakin' game! I played it for free when I was a kid, and if I could play it now, I'd do it for a tenth of what these spoiled blah-blah-blabbity-blah-blah, please shut the fuck UP, Ira!

It's actually a lot more complicated than just "those overpaid jerks" you like to call in about when you're not calling in to propose some half-ass trade.

In the olden days of sports—an era which you can place at around pre-1965 or so, teams were owned by involved, sports-loving families of means, or involved sports-loving/business-owning families. Jacob Ruppert owned the Yanks. The Payson family owned the Mets. The Yawkeys owned the Red Sox. And the Wrigleys and Buschs owned the Cubbies and Cards, respectively. The same held true for NBA (The Celtics' Walter Brown, the Pistons' Fred Zollner) and NFL (The Giants Maras, the Steelers' Rooneys) franchises. Note that I use the caveat involved in my description of these family ownerships. What changed post-'65 was the acquisition of teams by outside conglomerates and the neglect of the clubs that weren't, by family businesses that would grow into conglomerates. The expansion of the busineses or corporations owning these teams would break down the fragile command and control structures that ran the teams. The further removed the one-time hands-on ownership was from the running of the teams proper, the worse things became overall. This was manifest most directly in Baseball and Basketball—less so in Football, as the clubby nature of ownership and the macho "Leaders of Men" ethos remains in large part to this day. Those owners are still men, though, tangible human beings for whom the team is an odd extension of themselves. What would damage Football is the monstrous—and I do mean monstrous TV contracts, which turned the rough-and-tumble, almost "outlaw" NFL of the mid 60's into an mega-entertainment venture not unlike a theme park or Las Vegas casino. We saw the birth of NFL Films, The "Super" Bowl, Monday Night Football—hyper-marketing to the Nth degree.

The new, crazy money—via corporatization of ownership, and the tremendous broadcast contracts for the vast majority of teams broke the close bond between team and boss, putting layer upon layer of bureaucracy in between—unlike the ways of the age of Ownership-As-Benevolent-God. In those days of yore, players went almost year-to-year insofar as contracts. A huge year could raise your salary a bit. Another one, maybe a bit more. But have an off year, and you could be taken back to your pre-good two years rate. Free agency for players didn't exist, so you took what the owners gave you. Your salary was LOW, in comparison to what owners made off of your play. You had to have an off-season job—not as a sportscaster or post-season analyst like nowadays, because the press still controlled that, then.

No, you worked on a farm. You coached high-school kids. Ran a dairy, or a cleaners, or a restaurant. You worked a fishing boat. Maybe managed a beverage distributor.

And when you were done...when the fastball would overwhelm you, or the nerves in your knees knifed you with every stride downfield—you were retired by the team. As a parting gift, you got a couple of hunting dogs, a gold watch and a nice rifle in a box. A couple of cows for your farm, perhaps, and a framed plaque with your jersey under glass. That's if you were a good player. Were you a journeyman, you got a ticket home, your last check, and a handshake. Players tired of being nickel and dimed by millionaire owners now fat with huge broadcast money, or untold capital after being bought out by AcmeCo or whoever. So they fought for salary freedom and the opportunity to make the maximum they could get. Now is where the big salaries come into play, Ira, from Maspeth, calling from your mom's basement. All those million and billion-dollar numbers bandied about over owners' capital, set images of fat, dollar signs dancing in their eyes after many decades of being taken advantage of. And after a few lawsuits (Curt Flood's) and victories like Andy Messersmith's over Baseball's reserve clause, the dam broke, and athletes followed their Hollywood acting counterparts in ending their own version of the studio system—controlling their own destinies for the very first time,

Of course...like how not every owner went greed crazy and wrecked things, not every player did either.

But enough did. Guys coming off one career year, signed jaw-dropping (for their time) contracts when they entered the free-agent market. Decent players like Rennie Stennett (Baseball), Chuck Muncie (Football), and Allan Houston signed monstrous contracts, far in excess of their reasonable but grossly overrated talents. But...owners paid them. Why? Because rather than open their books and expose the obscene profits, the bosses simply paid up—hoping to snag the best players, roll those turnstiles and increase those profits further.

So now everybody's out for self. Owners would now move a team on a whim, to more favorable locales to make ever more money. Teams with huge and faithful fan bases like the Cleveland Browns would just up and leave a town where the team history was rich and deeply ingrained. The Baltimore Colts, a legendary franchise, would sneakily book from a historic home, in the dead of night, in a row of moving trucks—lock, stock and barrel—enticed by Benjamins waved around by a beckoning city, craving a ready-made team. The hell with waiting for a chance to snag an expansion franchise. New stadia please, publicly-financed, thank you, or we leave your town, too! Greed...was good. And then the players got in on it, big time—agents negotiating with multiple teams to drive the bidding up, pitting team against team, owner against owner, even player against player. Get the absolute maximum! (And I get my 10%,—partner). The use of statistical formulas rose, often flawed, always skewed—comparing the player being shopped to all-time greats of yesteryear—using odd snap-shotted numbers.

"Hey....you don't want my guy? No problem Owner X in Megatown does. Ooooh! He's your division rival, ain't he? Fans won't like it when they beat you out for the post-season."

Cha-ching!

Over a barrel, with flames licking from the hole. Got your ass, boss.

And then Ladies and Gentlemen...the wheels come off at Koyaanisqatsi-on-crack speed. Hang on!

a.) Team owners want to "young-up" the talent pool, to decrease the salaries as younger players cost less, and can be signed for long-term, lock-in contracts.

b.) Ultimate controllers of the talent pool—agents, parents of the younger, future stars, and the schools where these stars are now being scouted and touted earlier than ever, realize there's ridiculous money to be made off that younger talent. So, the NCAA changes its rules, letting players leave earlier—many after two years, too many after one year. The days of players staying for degrees or at least three years, ends. The schools reap the benefits of a back-scratch via increased TV contract money facilitated by their professional sport benefactor/pimps. Baseball exploits a signing loophole and harvests super-talented kids from Central America and the Caribbean at the age of 16. The NBA phases out its "hardship" rule—the rare allowance for an underaged/un-colleged player to enter the league, to where all a player has to do is complete high school to be eligible for league play. The NFL walks away from the idea of student-athletes, and encouraging red-shirting in College ball—where players would stay on for extended runs in school to max out full eligibility for collegiate play. A player could be in school five years playing. No more. The pros would like those extra, prime playing years for themselves, thank you very much.

c.) Said schools and parents, realizing the worth of their cash-calves, defer to that "talent"—relaxing one-time rules and tenets of player development to keep the kids happy. Discipline begins to break down. High school and college coaches go from being people-shapers, and teachers, to being baby-sitters and minders—until a kid is ready to "go pro". No one dares piss these hormonal, still-developing "investments" off. They're allowed to behave like children far longer than their predecessors—as long as they excel athletically. Ruh-roh!

d.) The now-absentee ownership, without the old-school command and control structures in place, has two things in mind. MAXIMIZE PROFITS, and WIN. In that order. They stockpile young athletes, getting them "cheap" (but still lucrative for parents and schools), while ditching grumpy, old-school veterans who might "upset" the kids with their views on the game and "archaic" ways. Leadership is attritioned away, leaving a load of kids—rudderless in terms of "respect for the game". The salary gap closes, overlaps, and then races the other way, as pro coaches find themselves making FAR, FAR less than their young, coddled charges. The "old-school veterans" in these ranks are also attritioned away, lest they piss off the kids. The ones that do can be fired with but a word from the player's agent to management. Baby-sitters fill those ranks too.

e.) Now, as salaries ramp up, young players no longer need to "work" in the off-season. The idea of "responsibility" fritters away. Mom, and dad, and school haven't stressed the idea—they're focused on creating millionaire superstars younger and younger. Kids...or rather, immature adults who no one has told "no" since their early teens, now have free off-seasons and increasing amounts of money to spend. Smaaaaaaart.

f.) These "kids" eat better, and have access to better training than any athletes before them. They jump higher, run faster, grow bigger than ever. But the biggest money's out there for the superstars. They have to be better than the next player. Nature, and capitalism abhors a vacuum. Drugs—performance enhancing drugs had long been a part of the game, in terms of keeping players pepped-up, and wakeful for performance after cross-country trips. But now, as science advances along with everything else on the planet, new drugs come down the pike—drugs that can make these already bigger, stronger, faster athletes that much more of all of those things—in combination with better access to fitness equipment to build those bodies. Performance increases—along with the salaries again. With the performance increases, records are eclipsed. Superstars abound. Ownership knows what's going on, but the click-click-click of the tumstiles means ka-ching-ching-ching.

The cycle is on, ya'll, and going into third gear.

g.) Salaries go through the roof, and all that big money doesn't attract the best of folk. Hangers-on, and money-grubbers with selfish, ill-will in mind, hover about the new stars—like blinged-out moths to a flame. These people will never say "no" to the athlete either—and indulge his every whim—while getting fat off their "boy". Family won't say "no" either. 'Cause they're livin' large too. Team bosses look the other way at indulgences—can't antagonize that star! The women? Stardom and money does what stardom and money does, kids. Already fawned over in youth, this new breed of athlete—essentially millionaires in-waiting, get even more ass thrown at them than their counterparts of a mere two decades ago. And there are shady dudes who will supply women as a "honey-pot" strategy to hook a rich, fat, "fish". The sex is easy to get—for the big prospects, from high school on. Fame and future stardom'll draw that. Relationships come cheap as hell. Women are interchangeable. Props and objects to be used. No sense of responsibility to anyone, especially "significant others." The situation just gets better and better.

h.) The pool of potential pro athletes widens and deepens as it becomes evident that there are millions and millions to be made. It draws more people from dire circumstances, looking for the big payday. Kids are groomed and scouted as early as middle school by colleges and pros, and pimped just as early by those crazy parents again. More dysfunctional, albeit talented athletes are in the fray—given over to "mentors" and "handlers" who manage the talent, and hide the dysfunction, and anti-social behaviors exacerbated by that justified feeling of "I can do no wrong".

i.) Ownership/The Leagues push the superficial—the stuff that marketers drool over as fan draws. Home runs. Crazier dunks. Higher scoring, The stuff that lights up the scoreboard and sets the flashbulbs in the stands a' poppin'—and blows the Nielsen boxes to fucking smithereens. So...they skew the game rules—change stuff up. The pitcher's mound is lowered to help the hitters out, and penalize the pitcher—they get rid of the hand-check, and limit tough defense in B-Ball, while promo-ing the wild, solo act that is the slam-dunk competition—and rule in football on things like the "in the grasp" rule, to save QBs, and add the "pass interference" rule to help receivers and juice the scoring. It becomes as Rick James said, "A celebration, bitches!" The triumph of the individual is on. Teamwork as we've known it, dies off. The focus of the game shifts to stats and highlight reels. This stuff gets used by agents in representing their players come contract time. Everybody's Babe Ruth, now. "Everybody...is a sta-aaaaaaar... One big circle going round and round." Hello, Wheaties box. Hello, Nike, Hanes and the automaker of the week. We have a new promotional tool to hype players—and by extension their teams. Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle got $100,000 for wearing idiotic bonnets and promoting margarine in the late 60's. The endorsement money we're talking about now is waaaaaay beyond mere margarine grease. It's the real stuff. True C.R.E.A.M. And worst of all...everybody, and I do mean, everybody—ownership, players, agents—everybody—is out for themselves.

So all of this sits, and festers. It grows mold like an experiment run wild, in the back of a lab and neglected for years. Twenty-five years, actually. A generation goes by and this stuff goes from a fungus on sports, to an integral part of sports—under the skin, and in the muscle and very bone of it. Symptoms are noted. Pains and aches and the occasional numbness, but they...no, we let it slide. We did. The fans are included. We paid lip service to the purism of "the game" and derided in the most superficial way possible, the obscene changes noted above, while not-so-blindly cheering on the eye-and-psyche-pleasing results of said obscene changes. We're all to blame for what's gone on in the last 25 years in sports—every pain, and ache, and bout of numbness.

Until it metastasized. That's what we're looking at now.

All that came before, leads to now. Bonds and the 'roids. Vick and the disgusting criminality. Donaghy and his destruction of faith in the play of the game. In order of heinousness—bad, to worse, to worst of fucking all. The drugs you can test for. You can see the changes in the players using. Brady Anderson's and Luis Gonzales freak, fifty-homer seasons and the swelling of their bodies speak volumes for their puffed-up, number-inflated brethren. That we can fix. Vick and his fellow travelers in recklessness, and criminal stupidity can be brought to heel with stiff sanctions for bad behavior.

Donaghy's misdeeds may actually be the worst of all, because it plays to the worst fears and darkest thoughts of the most cynical sports fan—that the "fix is in". That what you see in the arenas and on your TVs is being manipulated by unseen forces for the personal gain of a very few. That's when it becomes the WWE. A titillating, scripted joke.

And you lose everyone who cares...including even a nut like me.

Lose me, you lose it all. And just for thr record, sports? You're well on your way there.

Wanna know how to fix it? Check back here in a couple of days for the follow-up and some solutions.

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