What would it take to convince you Armstrong is clean?



Whoa, this topic changed course...

Moving it back...

One would need a bottle of Jack Daniels, pack of smokes, two hookers, and some love lube.

Lol. I'm just playin'
 
homeycheese said:
Wrap or rap?


OK. OK. Whooooooaaaaa. Talk about changing course? First we're rapping about Iraq, now you're talking about rapping peters. :rolleyes: What was the original question here again? Something about Lance?
 
craigstanton said:
OK. OK. Whooooooaaaaa. Talk about changing course? First we're rapping about Iraq, now you're talking about rapping peters. :rolleyes: What was the original question here again? Something about Lance?
The answer to the main question is still and always should be, in the face of clear cut evidence, leave the speculations, personal bias and enuendo out of it.

Given the amount of scrutiny and testing he has endured, Lance is clean, until proven otherwise. Period, end of story!

Leave my peter out of it as well!!
 
homeycheese said:
The answer to the main question is still and always should be, in the face of clear cut evidence, leave the speculations, personal bias and enuendo out of it.

Given the amount of scrutiny and testing he has endured, Lance is clean, until proven otherwise. Period, end of story!

Leave my peter out of it as well!!

Hey Homey, we agree then. Especially on the last point.
 
homeycheese said:
The answer to the main question is still and always should be, in the face of clear cut evidence, leave the speculations, personal bias and enuendo out of it.

Given the amount of scrutiny and testing he has endured, Lance is clean, until proven otherwise. Period, end of story!

Leave my peter out of it as well!!
The UCI administered a blood test to Armstrong, Tyler Hamilton, and 3 other riders after stage 10 of this years TdF. Thats proof enough for me. :D
 
Check out my new thread about the other side of the coin.

What would it take to convince you Armstrong is doping?
 
limerickman said:
I think we've reached a place where you and logic are not mixing. But that doesn't mean that some points don't need to be addressed.
1) Media outlets do indeed tailor what news they carry. But you weren't aware of what news was being carried, obviously, as the stories being carried were EU governmental reports of hate crime statistics, statements by Chirac about the problem of anti-semitism (it is a proper term, Lim), and news reports of attacks not just in the Jewish press but in American and British news sources. Unless you believe there is some great conspiracy of Jewish-run media or Jews are the primary target for all mainstream news media reporting, your knee-jerk reaction to imply that the Jewish press must automatically be distorting the news and creating a false impression of a climate of anti-semitism in France cannot hold.
2) No one would condone attacks by one religious group against another? While I would love to hold this utopian viewpoint, history has told the Jews that this situation rarely holds for very long, and it tells conscientious students that it rarely even holds when non-Jews are involved. It wasn't so long ago that Catholics were attacked in the US for being Catholic, for example, and Muslim and Hindi fight each other in the Indian sub-continent today. Clearly, some people *do* condone such actions. Some of these people clearly live in France, based on the hundreds of anti-semitic attacks that have occurred there over just the first half of 2004.
3) The argument that in a given region the sheer volume of attacks against a group say nothing about the propensity of people within that region to attack said group is ridiculous prime facie. The fact that more than half of hate crimes in France are against Jews, and that France has roughly a 600% greater likelihood per capita to have an anti-semitic attack than the US (and an even greater likelihood by several hundred percent than Germany, Belgium, Spain, the UK, or any of the other surrounding countries) indeed allows one to make the claim that France has a greater problem with anti-semitism than most every other country, and thus Hellon's original statement and my concurrance that France is the most anti-semitic country in Europe cannot be anything but true. The statistics prove it out--the volume of attacks are simply too much greater year after year to attribute it to mere chance.
4) To suggest that your reporter friend is correct about France merely being anti-religious, and that the French really don't have a problem with anti-semitism in particular, you would have to find a way to argue away the fact that there are roughly 59.4m non-Jews in France, and only 600k Jews, and yet more than half of all religiously-motivated hate crimes in France are targeted against the Jews. Perhaps the French do hate all religions, but they clearly hate Jews most of all. Organized religion can and will be attacked in France, to be sure, but Jewish targets despite being among the hardest to find, are successfully sought out in a hugely disproportionate manner.
You can believe what you want--at this point, I hardly believe I can convince you what is reported on almost a daily basis even half-way around the globe here in my back yard is the case at this point. All I will say is that in my experience, both anecdotally through relatives and through all manners of news sources suggest that your reporter friend and perhaps you are almost uniquely insensitive to anti-semitism going on around the world for whatever reason, which is certainly your perogative. But the reports are pretty clear where anti-semitism is a big issue, and France is absolutely the biggest issue at the moment.
 
Beastt said:
Of course the topic makes an assumption that Armstrong is clean but I've read so many accusations that Armstrong is using some kind of banned substance to enhance his cycling ability and so many comments as to the unreliability of drug testing, I have to wonder. What exactly would those who are convinced he is doping require before they believed he wasn't?

I think a related question should be: "what would it take to convince you that cycling/international sport is clean?"

I do not have a lot of faith in the view that cycling is a clean sport, but believe that the Armstrong question has become rather tiresome and that he has become an unfortunate scapegoat for a much bigger problem. What is clear is that it is possible to cheat the dope tests and therefore it is very difficult to prove that someone is doping. Therefore the issue with Armstrong is simple, you either believe him or you don't.

I want to believe in Armstrong and think that his post cancer weight loss combined with his high cadence riding style has much to do with his success and ability to recuperate between stages. I am a little perplexed as to how cycling and sporting performance has progressed over the last decade but perhaps that is ignorance on my part.

Perhaps the only way to convince us all that athletes are clean is to take the large amounts of money out of the sport (how you do this I don't know) and see how many cyclists/athletes would result to doping without the financial rewards of success.

I am a firm believer of innocent until proven guilty but we should not be afraid to ask questions when we witness exceptional performances. However, these questions should be focused on sport as a whole and not be used as justification for a witch hunt against one man.
 
mojomarc said:
I think we've reached a place where you and logic are not mixing. But that doesn't mean that some points don't need to be addressed.
1) Media outlets do indeed tailor what news they carry. But you weren't aware of what news was being carried, obviously, as the stories being carried were EU governmental reports of hate crime statistics, statements by Chirac about the problem of anti-semitism (it is a proper term, Lim), and news reports of attacks not just in the Jewish press but in American and British news sources. Unless you believe there is some great conspiracy of Jewish-run media or Jews are the primary target for all mainstream news media reporting, your knee-jerk reaction to imply that the Jewish press must automatically be distorting the news and creating a false impression of a climate of anti-semitism in France cannot hold.
2) No one would condone attacks by one religious group against another? While I would love to hold this utopian viewpoint, history has told the Jews that this situation rarely holds for very long, and it tells conscientious students that it rarely even holds when non-Jews are involved. It wasn't so long ago that Catholics were attacked in the US for being Catholic, for example, and Muslim and Hindi fight each other in the Indian sub-continent today. Clearly, some people *do* condone such actions. Some of these people clearly live in France, based on the hundreds of anti-semitic attacks that have occurred there over just the first half of 2004.
3) The argument that in a given region the sheer volume of attacks against a group say nothing about the propensity of people within that region to attack said group is ridiculous prime facie. The fact that more than half of hate crimes in France are against Jews, and that France has roughly a 600% greater likelihood per capita to have an anti-semitic attack than the US (and an even greater likelihood by several hundred percent than Germany, Belgium, Spain, the UK, or any of the other surrounding countries) indeed allows one to make the claim that France has a greater problem with anti-semitism than most every other country, and thus Hellon's original statement and my concurrance that France is the most anti-semitic country in Europe cannot be anything but true. The statistics prove it out--the volume of attacks are simply too much greater year after year to attribute it to mere chance.
4) To suggest that your reporter friend is correct about France merely being anti-religious, and that the French really don't have a problem with anti-semitism in particular, you would have to find a way to argue away the fact that there are roughly 59.4m non-Jews in France, and only 600k Jews, and yet more than half of all religiously-motivated hate crimes in France are targeted against the Jews. Perhaps the French do hate all religions, but they clearly hate Jews most of all. Organized religion can and will be attacked in France, to be sure, but Jewish targets despite being among the hardest to find, are successfully sought out in a hugely disproportionate manner.
You can believe what you want--at this point, I hardly believe I can convince you what is reported on almost a daily basis even half-way around the globe here in my back yard is the case at this point. All I will say is that in my experience, both anecdotally through relatives and through all manners of news sources suggest that your reporter friend and perhaps you are almost uniquely insensitive to anti-semitism going on around the world for whatever reason, which is certainly your perogative. But the reports are pretty clear where anti-semitism is a big issue, and France is absolutely the biggest issue at the moment.

You obviously believe that the jews are being singled out for attack in France.
That's far enough.
It is my belief that all three major religious groupsing are being attacked.

I think we should leave this discussion at that because you're not going to convince me otherwise and neither can I persuade you of my case.

Incidentally, semitic refers to not only Judaism it refers Aramaic, Arabic,
Phoenicians : all ancient tribes referred to what we Christians refer to as the
Old and New Testaments in the Bible.
 
Boo hoo! Every group has been oppressed at some time. Quite your whining and talk about cycling!
 
limerickman said:
You obviously believe that the jews are being singled out for attack in France.
That's far enough.
It is my belief that all three major religious groupsing are being attacked.
That may be, but only one group is being attacked at a proportion greater than their representation in society (more than 50x that representation, actually), while every other group is underrepresented. You can believe all you want that all three groups are being attacked and justify treating them as if the same thing is happening to all, but that is clearly not the case.

Incidentally, semitic refers to not only Judaism it refers Aramaic, Arabic,
Phoenicians : all ancient tribes referred to what we Christians refer to as the
Old and New Testaments in the Bible.
You can make that argument, to be sure, but the term was coined to mean only hatred of Jews, and that was the only definition of the term for it's first 100 years, give or take. It has only been people in recent years who have taken a pedantic assessment of who the Semites were and attempted to redefine it, often as a way to excuse themselves from charges of anti-semitism. As I believe you are actually curious about such things, here is an excellent reference: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Anti-Semitism.

Regards....
 
mojomarc said:
While she is ignoring your demand to retract it, I'll back her up on it. It's pretty well known that France is the home to the most anti-semitic attacks currently in the Western World, and it has been this way for at least the last four years, if not longer. Right now, the rate of anti-semitic incidents in France is at almost three per day, and that's only reported incidents. That, Dermo, qualifies as "rampant" by any standards not including those of the Nazi years.

In other words, I would suggest doing a slight amount of research before saying a statement is "****ing cretinous."


What would you say is the equivalent in America. No doubt the Ku Klux Klan still attack Jewish people. Therefore by definition the USA is anti-semetic. Where do you get your figures for France - unquoted of course.

There is nothing worse than the hysterical argument that Europe is under the grasp of "rampant anti-semitism". Yes there are incidents but no more than in the US http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASUS_12/4243_12.asp .

But you say Europe is rampant. Looks like France is a healthier place than the US.

You bring nothing to the table but your own ignorance
 
Something about..
"Armstrong being clean." Or...
what it would take to convince

...evidence...
*grumble* *grumble*

doping?

*scratch*

...if he is clean *burp*

*murmer* *murmur*
 
Let's see how many of the topics in this thread I can touch on with one post. I'm new here, so this will give you more experienced members some feeling for what I'm like if I stick around and continue to post.

As far as LA or any other athlete doping, innocent until proven guilty. If they are proven guilty they should be banned for life from their sport, stripped of any titles, and have their name stricken from any record books. The authorities should do as much as possible to ensure that testing is accurate and fair without being overly intrusive. After all, how many of us would agree to 24/7/365 monitoring just to verify that we were all the wonderful people we want to world to think we are?

Yanks is just like any other term that applies to a nationality or ethnic group. Whether it's derogatory or not depends on who's using it and how they're using it. ;)

France (militarily): They've certainly had their ups and downs. But those of us "Yanks" who keep harping on our rescuing France from Germany should remember that without France we'd still be English colonists. We should also remember that unlike France, we thankfully did not share a border with Germany during the world wars.

France (anti-jewish): It's true that there have been a disproportianate number of attacks against jewish people/culture in France during recent years, but it's not fair to use a few years worth of statistical data to label a country with a long history of tolerance as anti-jewish. Statistics can be skewed to mean just about anything.

I may have missed one or two of the topics in the thread. If so, and if anybody wants my opinion, please tap me on the shoulder and let me know. ;)
 
Dermo said:
What would you say is the equivalent in America. No doubt the Ku Klux Klan still attack Jewish people. Therefore by definition the USA is anti-semetic. Where do you get your figures for France - unquoted of course.
If they attacked Jews on a consistent basis by firebombing synagogues, stoning Jewish school buses, abusing Jewish people in the streets to the point where they didn't feel safe to wear the vestiges of the religion, then I would absolutely, postitively say that that the US had a problem, especially if the rate of these were five times higher per capita than today. That's exactly why I say there's a problem in France.

Figures of various sorts have been reported in several places, including by the EU, the French government, Jewish news sources, gentile news sources and by the Israeli government. Here is just a sample (based on attacks, not incidents): "Natan Sharansky, an Israeli minister, said on Sunday: "Last year the number of anti-Semitic incidents in France doubled and 47 per cent of all anti-Semitic attacks in western Europe occurred there." (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/29/wsemit29.xml). Would you say that this is indicative that France, more than any other European country, has an issue? I say so, and have said so consistently. Furthermore, from the same article: "He said that between 2002 and 2003 anti-Semitic incidents around the world fell from 1,979 to 983; in France they rose from 77 to 141." Also, an indication that France itself has a problem disproportionate to the size of the country or to their Jewish population. Those attacks doubled again in the first half of 2004: "More than 300 anti-Semitic attacks have been reported in France so far this year, which is more than in all of 2003." (http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07/19/france.sharon/). In case you're losing count, that's roughly 1 attack for every 2000 Jews in all of France. But no, there is no problem there. How about "The latest French Interior Ministry figures show 510 anti-Jewish acts or threats in the first six months of 2004" (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/world/main632610.shtml), which assuming no increase puts France on pace for 1224 hate crimes against Jews for this year, which will only be slightly lower than the US's pace, which should end up about where it did last year based on the trend. This rate, once population figures are equalized, puts France in the same sort of state as if the US had more than 6000 incidents.

There is nothing worse than the hysterical argument that Europe is under the grasp of "rampant anti-semitism". Yes there are incidents but no more than in the US http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASUS_12/4243_12.asp .
France has 1/5th the population of the US, and and 1/10th the Jews, but by your own admission, the same number of attacks. There is nothing hysterical at all to say that makes for a very much worse problem with anti-semitism than the US.

But you say Europe is rampant. Looks like France is a healthier place than the US.
How do you figure? When was the last time that a bus full of Jewish schoolchildren was stoned in the US?

You bring nothing to the table but your own ignorance
I would suggest investigating the meaning of the term "ignorance" and then re-evaluation of the last sentence. Considering you only brought a single report, now two years data while France has been on a major upswing in anti-semitic incidents, it would suggest that you either were unaware that the statistics of 2002 were no longer representative for France (cursory searching would have told you that) or deliberately trying to mislead. I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you just didn't know as well as Chirac, who has publically admitted the problem, and actually seems to be trying to do something about it, although with obviously mixed results. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/17/1069027055312.html?from=storyrhs&oneclick=true
 
Shreklookalike said:
France (anti-jewish): It's true that there have been a disproportianate number of attacks against jewish people/culture in France during recent years, but it's not fair to use a few years worth of statistical data to label a country with a long history of tolerance as anti-jewish. Statistics can be skewed to mean just about anything.
I'm not labeling France as anti-Jewish. I'm rather labeling France as the most anti-semitic country in Europe. In terms of the number of violent attacks, attacks per capita, etc., France fits that description.

As far as the history of French tolerance, that's all well and good, but it doesn't help my cousin and his family right now as they are emigrating due to fears for their current safety. Statistics or no, they've had enough.
 

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