Rebuttal

I generally don’t bother arguing with goofball commenters, but a comment to the post below, by “TheTruth” merits it. Apparently, TehTroof's gig involves going around and pissing on people about their low quality lives, bike racing, and blogging. He was happy to stop by here and share his wisdom with us, with some excellent put-downs of my non-excellent blog & brain, so I feel it's necessary to marshal both brain cells in response.

Dude, first off you put Tom Boonen on there who's only positive test came from cocaine in an out-of-competition test. Therefore he is not penalized by WADA or the UCI.

Well, it's true that he *probably* won’t be punished by WADA or the UCI per se. He may still be punished by Belgium’s cycling sanctioning body or anti-doping body because punishment isn’t entirely foreclosed by the WADA Code, so national bodies can impose stricter standards. Cocaine is on the prohibited substances list, but not the "in competition" portion of the list, so it's in a sort of never-never land. There is also the matter of illegal possession of drugs to deal with. It's amazing how dimly sanctioning bodies view illegal drug use, and alleged dealing. The alleged dealing, er, excuse me, "providing," is why Boonen was targeted for an out-of-competition test by the national sanctioning body *and police* in the first place. In the shady, low-due-process world of anti-doping, Boonen isn’t safe from disciplinary action. The national anti-doping and sanctioning bodies are the ones to watch, but in an Olympic year, a "message" suspension from the UCI & WADA wouldn't shock me at all, even though initial comments indicate he probably won't face suspension.

Your retarded.

Nice spelling. Stooping to correct people’s spelling on teh intarwebs is usually bad form, but in this case I’m going to point out that you opened the door by insulting my intelligence. You meant to say, "you are retarded." You probably want to employ a contraction of "you are" (you're) rather than "your," which is merely the possessive form of the second person personal pronoun. I'll use both words in a sentence to help you see the difference: "If you say a bad word about illegal drug use, you're going to draw retarded people to your comment section." See? It's pretty easy. I'd also like to make the peripheral point that many individuals with cognitive impairments find the term "retarded" offensive.

Second, it's poor taste to have Pantani on there as he died from a drug overdose, obviously he was facing some demons. Not to be poked fun of.

Really? I figured that somebody who was caught twice in races with over-the-limit hematocrit levels, one time with a level (60) that isn't exactly achievable without help, merits mention. Yep, nobody proved anything, but I brought him up precisely because his off-the-bike drug of choice is the same as Boonen's. Does it matter that Pantani's depression apparently stemmed from getting thrown out of the Giro for blowing his hematocrit test? Or was he just really f***in’ gifted when he tested with a 60 hematocrit in 1996, and they didn't have tests to detect the presence of EPO? The larger point I'm trying to make is that destroying your life getting caught using EPO isn't a lot different from turning yourself into a coke addict, and seeing Pantani suffering from both problems sort of brought that home for me. Sorry if you find it tasteless; I find the spectacle of people who have everything throwing it all away on drugs to be the tasteless part, a senseless, heartbreaking loss, and I find not speaking up about it to be kind of cowardly. Guess we'll just have to disagree on that.

Then you bust on people who have tested positive or been accused of using drugs and go out of their way to clean up their acts later in their careers- millar, bjarne.

So Bjarne’s cool in your book? I guess he went back in time to award palmares to the racers whose wins he ripped off with his doping, making it all better now?

Not to mention your picking on the best team the US has to offer- slipstream.

First of all, you mis-spell "you're" yet again, and "Slipstream" should be capitalized since it's a proper noun. Seriously, check out Strunk & White's. I wouldn't be picking on you here but isnce you decided to call me various names, some centered on my intellect, well, you sort of asked for it. Second, on the merits, most people would probably say Team High Road - now Team Columbia - is the best U.S. team. Third, how do you figure I’m picking on Slipstream? I’ve got Millar circled, nobody else, and I’m asking a question about whether he's a doping loser at that. Picking on Slipstream would be claiming that their program is a sham or something like that – a statement I’ve not made but which you seem to impute to me. In fact I think Slipstream is doing a great job on and off the bike and wish them all the success in the world. But if Millar and Riis are such friggin’ heroes, why didn’t they fess up before getting busted by the cops and before having their names named by other dopers (in Riis’ case)? You want to see somebody who earns my respect? It will be the first big time pro who realizes what he's doing is wrong, goes public, repents, names names, and walks away from the sport because he feels he's betrayed it, or maybe sticks around like Millar and tries to fix it. *That* will earn my respect. Saying "I'm sorry for taking the cookies" after you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar doesn't cut it. Yeah, I have some more respect for Millar than if he was unrepentant. But I still have a lot of reservations about the guy.

Your not doing the sport any good.

Really? Am I violating the conspiracy of silence here? Seems to me we owe it to the sport to stigmatize the dopers, create peer pressure to encourage them to stop, to let the teams know we fans are sick of them pressuring their riders into doping – yeah, I don’t think it’s a purely individual choice, not from what I’ve heard. You really think the riders and the sport served by our silence? How 'bout the 16 year-old kids on Italian pro developmental teams? You think they're served by fan silence? That’s like keeping quiet when you know a kid in your family is being abused, for fear that reporting the abuse to the cops will only make the abuse worse. I suppose there’s an internal logic there that works in a twisted sort of way but you’re only buying temporary amelioration, in exchange for eventually receiving long term destruction. But hey, if you think it's more honest or in the interests of the sport to remain silent, well, I'll shut up, just like everybody Lance has sued. Y'know. For the good of the sport.

The best part is, at the end of the day,

Yes, at the end of the day… What are you, Michael Ball’s Escalade polisher? That’s the only sports cliché he knows, based on how often he says it. You paying tribute to the guy who hired all the known & suspected dopers? Or are you being unintentionally ironic? 'Cuz that would be funnnn-y.

your still just yet another faget with a blog.

Yes, I am. And you’re just another guy who repeatedly fails to use "you're," employ remotely proper grammar, or spell your anti-gay slurs correctly.

I'll repeat my advice: Strunk & White's. It will totally fix up your major usage problems. I got nothin' for your other problems though.