31 August 2007

WADA do about ... Corrections!

Hi ZENguys, and ZENdears,

Some astute readers have commented on my last post of late August, and I want to correct the record as much as possible.

Thus, comments included that I didn't have anyone on the UCI on my list: I didn't, this is true, but I don't feel that the UCI per se, is to blame for anyone's problems as of this point.

Head of the USADA, is Travis Tygart, not TAGGART (my apologies, Travis: But that error kept me off your radar screen until this comes through - heh heh)

The Equipe, master of the universe as to leaked cycling information, did not exactly do so as is their usual nefarious modus-operandi: in the Floyd Landis case, news was released from the UCI (perhaps because they knew that the Equipe would do its naughty work in a matter of short hours?)...

Pierre Bordry, is either past president of the LNDD, or current president of the LNDD, or past Minister of Sport and Youth... the French government wouldn't want you to be clear on this, and I will try and determine which is paying him his overly-generous salary, sooner or (yawn....) later!

There are some FONT size problems: I try to fix them but there are risks to reopening and re-editing these posts: basta!

Thanks for your input, to my friends that read these...

Courage, mes amis, amies!


........................................................ ZENmud

29 August 2007

WADA do about THE BIG PICTURE...

[Dear ZENers, this column has been CORRECTED and REVISED, with those actions shown in yellow text Sept. 7 2007]


Dick Pound, Floyd Landis, Patrice Clerc (nom?), Lance Armstrong, Jacques de Ceaurriz, Pierre Bordry, Emile Vrijman, Christian Prudhomme, Travis Tygart...

What do these nine names have in common?

They comprise three Americans, one Canadian, a Dutchman and four French... Two Tour de France victors, six blatantly biased detractors, and one objective investigator...

President of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA: Pound); Winner of the 2006 Tour de France (Landis), President of Amaury Sport Organisation (Clerc), Seven-time Winner of the Tour de France (Armstrong), Directeur of the former Laboratoire nationale du dépistage du dopage (LNDD: de Ceaurriz – LNDD was recently 'Phoenix-ed' into the “Département des analyses”, under the French Anti-doping agency: AFLD), former Minister of the French Ministry for Youth and Sport (Bordry: scroll to EN translation of a FR press release from AFLD), former Director of the Netherlands Centre for Doping Affairs (Vrijman: download the PDF report), Directeur of the Tour de France (Prudhomme), General Counsel for the United States Anti-doping Agency (USADA: Taggart)...

Is it possible that they are a mixed salade: of manipulators, profiteers, victims and a white Knight, all due to the current RAGE against doping in cycling?

A righteous rage gone haywire, an ignoble pursuit of a noble goal, that is currently displaying the dark underbelly of the Anti-doping movement. Unarguably, the cleansing of cycling is overdue: cycling is one of the oldest sports of the modern era, a sport which, all admit, has experienced a long, historic system of doping, through seven generations.

The summer of 2007 fades: it is three months now, since Floyd Landis faced the modern equivalent of a medieval Inquisition against witches and heretics... his hearing for an Adverse Analytical Finding (AAF) 'found' by the French LNDD, pursuant to its tests (in its Châtenay-Malabry labs, a Parisian suburb) on participants of the Tour de France.

Floyd faced this armada of legal talent as David faced Goliath, armed with scientific data and legal analysis, paid for by thousands of believers who have chosen to fund his legal fight for legitimacy towards his victory of 2006.

This hearing was to be a slam-dunk against Landis, in the words of USADA attorney Richard Young, because of their evidence: "The science is solid."

What appeared to have actually happened, could perhaps be better described as a 'farcical comedy', 'charade' or 'fraudulent', perhaps, concerning the Prosecution's case.

Entering a world of anti-doping CODES, evidence and Standards for laboratories, 'aliquots', urinalysis, and the several hundreds of thousands of Euros in testing apparatus, the Prosecution was victim of itself, victim of a legal 'Rope-a-dope'. Only the Landis defense itself was able to do, what the Prosecution claimed they would: offer testimony of cold, hard science that was turned inside out, as the Defense showed time and again that the Châtenay-Malabry lab had failed in its duties to uphold worldwide scientific standards, of competence and confidentiality.

Past readers perhaps can recall this writer's angle on the affair, however it bears to be updated here: that there is a disbelief in certain circles of France, and elsewhere of course, that America could produce, in the talents of Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis, eight consecutive victories in the Tour de France – without recourse to 'le Dopage'. These outstanding results by Landis and Armstrong relegated two national French heros, Jacques Anquetil, and Bernard Hinault, to glorified runners-up as five-time winners of the Tour de France (At least one of whom had admitted in his lifetime to ingesting 'assistance' of a chemical nature).

In the case of Lance Armstrong, the LNDD facility produced a dubious report, citing his alleged 1999 EPO use, concerning his remaining 'B Sample' urine specimens remaining from the 1999 TdF. 'Dubious', in that the testing that was achieved was 'novel', done under the guise of 'research', the use of which (for doping-control purposes) was illegal according to WADA rules and preceding IOC rules (WADA itself became an official entity in 2003: it had no jurisdiction over the 1999 samples that remained in LNDD custody), and of the bright-line separation of 'research testing' from 'doping control testing'.

In subsequent press articles, Dick Pound supported 'his' laboratory, the LNDD (Pound is far from being the most neutral mouth on the planet, as would befit the stature of his post as WADA President, and this Organization that he strove to legitimatize), and argued privately and publicly that the Union Cycliste International (UCI) should take action in light of this incriminating evidence against Armstrong.

Emile Vrijman, noted Netherlands sports law attorney and former Dutch Anti-Doping Agency Director, was mandated by the UCI to draft and produce an independent review of this 'case'.

The LNDD, and the French Ministry which controls LNDD, were never 'transparent' or accommodating, as to requests by Vrijman for documents and data concerning the 2004-2005 testing of the 1999 B Samples they retained. De Ceaurriz and Bordry, in harmonized language, denoted the impossibility of cooperation with an 'independent investigation' (Ie: not supported by a French Court's legal order to comply).

(see Vrijman report, pp. 50 (!), as well as 16, 20-22, 37, 47, 121, 126, 128)

It is not beyond objective suspicion, after publication of Vrijman's UCI-mandated report, or the timing of its release in May, 2006, to link the subsequent backlash by WADA President Dick Pound, due to its overly-negative contents, with certain following events affecting Landis and the TdF.

In apparent eagerness to avenge the Vrijman report, could cycling's heavyweights and the Gods of Anti-doping take barely conceivable steps, of which even the most lax observer could barely believe any of the actual evidence originating from what has become 'L'Affaire Landis'?

Jumping ahead, we pass over the Stage 17 victory by Landis, his epic solo breakaway, a majestic tour of assorted Haute-Savoie cols that ended in Morzine (where this author stood applauding, less than one hundred meters from the finish line).

Remember: Floyd was tested EIGHT times in the Tour, and seven of his A Samples were returned negative (four times prior to Stage 17, and three times afterwards).

We fast-forward past the critical urine test of his Stage 17 A Sample, that resulted in his positive AAF. Unlike other, typically suspicious announcements of TdF testing results being leaked by the French sporting newspaper L'Equipe, Landis' A Sample test result was announced publicly by the UCI, presumably in anticipation of publication in l'Equipe, of information that should have remained confidential until the confirming B Sample examinations had occurred.

Nevertheless, Floyd's test result was announced: apparently revealing an abnormally low level of epitestosterone, which skewed his T/E ratio (Testosterone/Epitestosterone) to 11:1, far beyond WADA's allowable 4:1 ratio.

The witch hunt began... and L'Equipe sold quite a few papers in those slow-sports-news days of August. Oh: you do know, of course, that the company run by Monsieur Clerc. ASO, owns both the Tour de France AND the Equipe journal? Interestingly for past readers, M. Clerc is a past French Tennis champion, and also former Director of the tennis club-stadium Roland-Garros, which was referred to in this column regarding the ITF's dispatch of tournament drug samples to Montreal's anti-doping facility. Read it here...

Hmmmm...

According to Floyd, he was contacted in August or September, 2006, by staff of the USADA, and offered the following 'option'. In return for a simple one-month suspension, atypically far shorter than the WADA CODE-proscribed two-year suspension for a first-time doping offense, Floyd would 'simply' have to help USADA, by turning in former teammate Lance Armstrong for his supposed doping practices, presumably while they were teammates at the formidable US Postal team during his historic streak of TdF victories.

Something in there, smacks of premeditation.

Something in there, tears asunder the threads of logic...

Could a laboratory in France, under its Ministry of Youth and Sport, which had been legally reamed by the Vrijman report only a month or two before the commencement of this 2006 TdF, seek revenge against Lance Armstrong through the person, the reputation, of one Floyd Landis?

The mind boggles... if true.

A simple recap:

1999 – 2005:
Lance wins seven consecutive Tours de France.

NB: Which relegated the five-time winners: two French, one Belgian, and one Spaniard to the new second-place tier...

2004-2005:
LNDD performs 'research' on samples from the 1999 TdF, for EPO, samples that then were five years old.

NB: previously, in 2000, LNDD published the results of similar research it had performed, on retained B Samples from the 1998 TdF. Those results were published in the scientific journal 'NATURE' in June, 2000: no athletes were known to have complained (where 28 of 102 tested anonymous B Samples showed evidence of r-EPO presence of over 0 – 3.7 IU per liter). It remains disturbingly unclear why LNDD did not choose to have its second analysis of the 1999 B Samples also published in NATURE or another scholarly journal: unless this 'research' was not scientifically sound.

23 August, 2005:
French journal l'Equipe published its scathing article entitled (FR) 'Le Mensonge d'Armstrong' (“Armstrong's Lie”), spun out of LNDD and French Ministry information, and pinpointing Lance Armstrong, and no other rider, as being one of six 'authors' of positively-tested 1999 TdF samples.

NB: Which instantly generated a thunderbolt of negative press against Lance, his teammates and his sponsors, one month after his glorious moment in Paris, on the Champes Elysées.

NB TWO: This article is no longer traceable by title on the 'l'EQUIPE website (Title above), but you can read about it here, in FR. Mostly listing reactions to the shock, of their scandalous false "testing".

Autumn, 2005 to Spring 2006:
Based on LNDD 'research' and the incriminations in the disparaging article published by l'Equipe, WADA adamantly suggested that the UCI initiate investigations as to the feasibility of disciplinary hearings against Lance Armstrong. WADA did so, knowing well that its suggestions were reproachable, per its own regulations.

UCI contravened, however, and announced its 'independent investigation' under the mandate issued to Emile Vrijman, attorney from the Hague, and former Director of the Dutch Anti-doping Agency.

WADA, LNDD and the French Ministry, who'd thus promoted 'convicting' Lance through the press (l'Equipe), in the intervening months began to withhold cooperation from the UCI-mandated report.

(Entities acting in concert, both together and independently, to trumpet the (Illegal) use of 'research results': See Vrijman, pp. 18, 26, 43, 55, 75, 94, 96, 101, 122, 128, 129)

May – June 2006:
The Vrijman report was published several weeks before the 2006 TdF;
Dick Pound reacted quite strongly in the press.

July 2006:
Floyd wins the TdF this one and only time, following a massive 'bonk' or loss of energy in Stage 16, and a gloriously historic, spectacular solo breakaway in Stage 17, along with a fantastic final Time Trial finish that sealed his lead, and gave him his victory over runner-up Oscar Pereiro.

(TdF trivia: no 'Grand Champion', between Armstrong, Indurain, Hinault, Merckx, Anquetil, EVER won a TdF in a year ending in xxx6)

Late July – early August 2006:
Floyd is pronounced as Positive for an excessive testosterone/epitestosterone ratio, from the Stage 17 A Sample test, a blow which subsequently forced his team, PHONAK (Swiss manufacturer of hearing aids), to withdraw from the cycling-sponsorship business.

September 2006:
Floyd alleged that he was approached by USADA staff, who offered him a 'sweetheart' deal if he turned informant against Lance Armstrong; according to Floyd he emphatically dismissed the idea of squealing.

Fall of 2006 – to Spring of 2007:
Floyd prepared for and submitted, in May 2007, his arguments and evidence before a panel of Arbitrators belonging to the American Arbitration Association, while facing USADA 'evidence' and hearsay testimony by Greg Lemond, also a three-time winner of the Tour de France.

Summer 2007:
Floyd and his supporters, WADA, the AFLD and USADA await a timely, reasoned written decision by the Arbitration Panelists. Once announced as coming out prior to the 2007 TdF, this article is publishing in the last week of August.

+ + + + + +

LNDD, the same lab that failed to conduct proper research, as required under the Declaration of Helsinki and the WADA ISL and IST documents, nevertheless used those results to damn Lance Armstrong in the court of public opinion.

LNDD, which declined to assist in the Vrijman investigation as to how those results became known to the reporter from l'Equipe, is the 'player' that provided the only positive test result against Floyd Landis in his long career, a positive result that, by the testimony of experts in the Arbitration Hearing, had exceptionally disregarded most of the scientific and investigative norms found in the WADA CODE and International Standard for Laboratories.

Is this evidence of a massive State machination, by elements under the Chirac government, to cut down – to surgically remove – from the glorious, illustrious annals of the Tour de France, the greatest living racer of all time (Armstrong)?

Is this evidence of intergovernmental and inter-Agency collusion, feeding on the blind ambitions of prosecuting attorneys and specious public servants? They who, at any cost, and damn the rules and regulations that control such efforts, lusted to create scandal and seed more doubt, in hopes of bringing down these two Americans victors, Lance and Floyd?

Were their hopes restricted to restoring the mythic 'Five Victories' threshold that stood so many years?

Or, conversely, maybe perversely, is this case merely a publicity stunt? A stunt that simultaneously increases awareness and thus financial support for the Anti-doping entities that are growing fat on increasingly available public money, and demeans the efforts of the UCI Federation, through serial victimization of presumptively-innocent, distinguished World Class Cyclists?

Should an Athlete like Floyd Landis, who had to raise legal funds exceeding $2 million to fight a case against a lab result generated by a facility with a litany of seriously egregious errors, be entitled to recuperate those funds in the case where the decision falls towards his innocence of these charges, through laboratory, government or ADO malfeasance?

Questions unanswered, as of yet...

And furthermore, even more incomprehensively, is this:

If in fact Floyd's Positive AAF is reversed by the AAA Arbitrators' decision, he could be forced to face appeals, by virtue of the WADA CODE, that could or would be lodged not only by the prosecuting Agency USADA, but also from:

b– the French AFLD (if WADA CODE Article 13.2.3, which states “...and any other Anti-Doping Organization under whose rules a sanction could have been imposed;...” is the basis under which AFLD has repetitively announced that it awaits the decision of the USADA arbitration before commencing actions against Floyd on its own),

c– the UCI (doubtfully would they enter the case), and

d– WADA.

Is that clear? Here's an imperfect analogy: if your brother is found 'not guilty' in Minnesota for stealing a car, this WADA CODE provision might allow Wisconsin, Manitoba or Mexico to appeal the case to the Swiss Tribune Federal!

WADA, aka Pound, is dripping with vitriol against Armstrong and Landis: what portion of WADA's annual budget would be subverted into chasing the appeal against Landis?

AFLD, as mentioned, remains bloodthirsty for Landis, and has merely 'extended a courtesy' to its American counterpart – USADA – by delaying their own 'prosecution' until the American Arbitration decision: this potentially allows them a supra-legal status: as initiator of a 'double-jeopardy' attack against Floyd, a potential 'Appellant' in the USADA v Landis case, and as potential 'Appellant' in the potential AFLD v Landis case...

Heavy stuff...

This reeks, with the bile of disgust rising in the throats of above-average sporting-litigation observers.

We wait, pensively...

We don't understand the longevity of deliberations that continue to foster tensions, towards an announcement of this decision, now perhaps the equivalent of a seismic event of 9.9 on the open-ended Richter scale...

Changes, chances...

This fall will bring to a motley end, the First Dominion of WADA, as Dick Pound abandons the scepter of power (and benefits: unlimited First Class Travel to EVERY World Class global sporting event, anti-doping seminars, etc., which more than make up for his 'selfless' choice to draw a salary of 1 Canadian dollar/year). Pound leaves the helm of a ship that is decidedly adrift, and losing the moral support of Athletes.

Scheduled this fall are important redrafting sessions for the WADA CODE, to be held in mid-November, in Madrid, Spain. You can download a REDLINE v2 of the revisions document here.

This session will theoretically address the apparent shortcomings of these Inter-Agency documents, hastily implemented in 2003 and 2004, which have created certain innocent victims, while providing initial steps to global harmonization, an as-yet unattained goal. It would be interesting to ascertain how WADA will seek to reduce the Conflicts-of-Interest created as the WADA CODE superseded the IOC Medical Code, and began funneling 'research funds' to the 34 accredited laboratories.

As Dick Pound leaves WADA in November, a bit sullied, rumours abound that Monsieur Lamour, former French Minister of Sport, will 'win election' to replace him.

Dick... Who had himself hoped that, despite his fury, his belligerence, his bellicosity, and his disregard for his WADA CODE, that his stature would make him a natural, victorious candidate for the Presidency of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS/TAS). The news from CAS/TAS this summer, however, was for continuation of the appointment of its Interim President, apparently squashing the hopes of Mr. Pound to continuously inflict the world of Sport with his personal 'duty' to create injustice.

Egos? On the line; every day, everywhere, in each press report...

Winners? Displays of the finest and worst definitions of 'winning'...

Losers? Will we ever really know who actually loses, from the Floyd Landis case outcome?

Consequence(s)????


........................................................ ZENmud


Is USADA in Violation of WADA CODE Article 8?...

Has the USADA violated WADA CODE Article 8 (link to PDF for downloading) in its hearing against Floyd Landis?

Busted” for a positive Adverse Analytical Finding (AAF) from the 17th Stage of the 2006 Tour de France, Floyd and concerned observers await the forthcoming decision to be announced by the panel of three Arbitrators that were mutually appointed, between Floyd and the United States Anti-doping Agency (USADA), to hear his case in May 2007.

This case, an international doping 'scandal' (in what sense we await to know...) is governed by USADA's status as a Signatory to the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA. Under the WADA CODE, Article 8, titled “RIGHT TO A FAIR HEARING”, it is stipulated that any Anti-Doping Organization shall...

SIDEBAR: the use of 'shall' in an English-language legal sense, creates a mandatory obligation, without derogation: 'shall' begets an undeniable duty on the party to whom the clause refers.

I, NAME 1, shall pay you, NAME 2, the sum of $100.00, on Tuesday morning, the 3rd of August 2007, at the xxx County Courthouse, between 10 and 11am.”

Such a sentence is legally unassailable (presuming the entirety of the agreement is a legally binding obligation).

... “shall provide a hearing process for any Person who is asserted to have committed an anti-doping rule violation.... The hearing process shall respect the following principles:”
[.....]

a timely, written, reasoned decision.”

Hearings regarding Floyd Landis' alleged doping in the TdF 2006, were held from May 14 to 20, 2007. Initial indications were that the decision would be announced sometime prior to this year's Tour de France, which debarked on July 7th of this year. The world waited as the decision was being addressed by the Arbitration Panel.

Now, in late August – three months later – no timely, written, reasoned decision has been pronounced. See Environmentalchemist for a good, timely, reasoned article...

Floyd, the USADA, WADA, and Amaury Sport Group (owners of the Tour de France (TdF)) are all waiting. As well, the French Anti-doping Agency (AFLD: link to a French-language page) also waits... they who had announced, no matter the outcome of the USADA case, would also be prosecuting Floyd for his offense as it occurred on French soil.

What's customary or standard, or is this case overly-delayed?

Is USADA, the ADO which brought the case against Floyd, in violation of Article 8?

To know this, we would have to know whether the Arbitrators have been interfered with by USADA pressures, or whether outside influences, from perhaps the French Ministry of Youth and Sport (which oversees the former LNDD, the French Anti-doping Laboratory), or WADA itself, have conducted unlawful ex parte sessions?

The answer my friends, is blowing in the wind, the answer is..."


COURAGE, Floyd, as we stand with you, awaiting your Fate...

ç*”*”*””*ç”*”* ZENmud ”*””*ç*”*”*””*ç”


24 August 2007

ZEN LOGIC: Iraq Iran Vietnam Cambodia

ZENers...



A day of no words... (click on photo for a larger view!)


Courage, fellow planet-sharers...

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç

23 August 2007

Napoleon v Bush.... read the Juan COLE blog...

ZENers,

Only once in a while do I base a post on the writings of others; I'd rather ramble down my own paths, and triangulate premonitions of the future...


Today, however, won't be that kind of day...

I was reading Tomdispatch's daily (nearly) email, and he recommended the
INFORMED COMMENT blog, run/edited/written by Juan Cole.

Yet, the post we're talking about
is here@Tomdispatch.


Napoleon v Bush...


And all
the while we were thinking Bush was a second Hitler, joyfully authorizing torture, playing with the lives of innocent Iraqi children, and loyal, patriotic American troops and their families...

Have you started reading Cole's piece? Here's a taster for you...


French Egypt and American Iraq can be considered bookends on the history of modern imperialism in the Middle East. The Bush administration's already failed version of the conquest of Iraq is, of course, on everyone's mind; while the French conquest of Egypt, now more than two centuries past, is all too little remembered, despite having been led by Napoleon Bonaparte, whose career has otherwise hardly languished in obscurity. There are many eerily familiar resonances between the two misadventures, not least among them that both began with supreme arrogance and ended as fiascoes. Above all, the leaders of both occupations employed the same basic political vocabulary and rhetorical flimflammery, invoking the spirit of liberty, security, and democracy while largely ignoring the substance of these concepts.




Wets your whistle for more?


Here's the link again!

I will add, that as long as a C-student president, Bush the Lesser, remembers nothing of his ancestors (that isn't oil- or wealth-related!), his misAdministration, and the Congress (even this one, that we thought would balance his rages against humanity), will continue to effect error upon tragedy, disaster upon mistake, debt upon bad policies...

And our future generations around the world will pay the heavier price....

Bush v Napoleon...

It is too easy to convince you that America deserves better guidance, than it is given by our so-called 'leaders'... remember: being a Leader means you are willing to follow, based on YOUR OWN ASSESSMENT from the information you have...

Find yourself, yourZENself, a guide: find someone who emulates that which you aspire to, can offer help to assist your acquisition of knowledge, and prepare yourself, and your family, and your friends, to become CAPABLE individuals, whose combined wisdom permits not a lame leader, a foisted sop whose intellect runs between torture, debt-sharing (on taxpayers) with his best friends and supporters, towards destruction of the American government that gave us national Parks, a minimum wage law, and the Hoover Dam...

There is a good way, a better way, a GUIDED way...

But the Leader that can bring you to it isn't running for President in 2008: yet!


Courage, Americans, courage, fellow planet-sharers...

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç




20 August 2007

Top o' the Planet to you...


Hello ZENers...

In the triangulation-theory that dominates the ZENcentral thought-process, it was amazing to see the mass invasion of a pristine territory this late-summer month of August... the Arctic.

As Denmark, Norway, Canada, Russia, the United States and ... (who's left? The EU?) are staking claims, or 'defending claims' or reacting to others claims (Bless Norway for acting to reduce the tension...)

We know what it's all about, no doubt about it: a world in denial, world at risk of upside-down economics as the soaring price of oil forces ALL industries to beseech their governments to 'Take a stand!' on this fiasco...

And ZENcentral wonders: are the complacent and conspiratorial OIL companies, those who have denied global warming, who have sponsored the anti-global-warming propoganda movements, well...

Is the opening Artic Ocean NOW available for oil exploration, extraction, exploitation and exhaustion, due to the lack of substantive global action?

Can YOU read between the lines? Can any oil company profit from the potential vast reserves, cut-off from exploitation as long as sea-ice ruled the winter waters?

Observe a NASA photo, and imagine the impossibility of putting deep-water oil platforms on ice-shields that shifted, cracked, and were impossible to work with.

Yet with a globally-warmed world, petrolists armed with the newest in technological breakthroughs, and with the assurance that we certainly have affected the northern oceans' stability for at least the next twenty to eighty years, may have 'cooked' a financial formula that allows high-priced exploration to become both financially, and meteorologically feasable.

You can tell ZENmud, if this is a good or bad thing...

I advocated 30 years ago, that we should stay out of North Slope oilfields until ALL other oil, mostly in other countries, were fully exhausted.

The fact that this new Arctic zone of exploration has become an INSTANT hot topic (pun intended), makes one wonder if the 'forces that be' (economic), had produced this oily quid-pro-quo...?

Stand by for more yet another OIL war...

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç

14 August 2007

RepubliCANTS 2007 - 2008 Prediction

Another ZEN prediction, but first a preface:

Some of you reading this blog, may actually be, or call yourself,
Republicans.

You are witnessing a world that is much to do with the choices you've been given, as faithful believers in a party that has been extended to its most base level, by the incumbent President, and the members of his family, physical and / or ideological. The REPUBLICANT CULT, I've deemed it.

I am the first to admit, I have beautiful friends, sincere brothers also, that are proud to be
Republicans.

I don't understand, how they sustain it, at all. I am unclear where one sees GOOD, in a world gone downhill, in a war now four years running, that 'Has NOTHING to do with Vietnam...'.

Someday, History will allow us a better window to why we have suffered so much, at the hands of Bush-Media Fascism...


Now, ZENers beware, we come back to the point du jour.


Can anyone possibly be aroused politically, by the choices for Republican Presidential candidates that have heretofore been offered?

Not a Dwight Eisenhower, not a Nelson Rockefeller among them... and it wasn't too damn long ago, when I thought John McCain had the real America in his sight... sigh.

So, with the Tommy Thompsons falling by the wayside, with the McCain campaign on the verge of disappearing, ZENmud asks you Republicans: what's up your sleeve?

Why is Karly Rove on his way out of town?

Are you all prepared to suffer through the 'DRAFT JEB' movement, which ZENmud predicts is going to be occurring between now and this Christmas, at the latest?

CAN you survive another BUSH candidacy? CAN our country, reeling from years of BUSH misAdministration, withstand the onslaught of rights and the ripping, gutting gnawing of anti-infrastructure tax-actions?

I shudder to think of either party's next President: sometimes a house is too badly burned, too badly flooded, for any repairs to be worthwhile...


Courage, Americans,

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç

13 August 2007

On t'aime Cécilia...


"Cecilia, you're breakin' my heart".... (Paul Simon: Simon and Garfunkel)

This short ZENpost, in the midst of worldwide turbulence over stock markets, the Karl Rove resignation
announcement, and the eternal wait for the VERY Important Floyd Landis / Tour de France 2006 doping case, is just a small thought, a genial idea...

I don't think any woman ever, deserves more credit than that which I seek to accord to Madame la femme du President français...

Cécilia, you must be that woman that would incite riots as Helen of Troy, inspire fetishes as Eva Braun, inspire poetry as did Cléopatra...

I promise, as ton fidèle admirateur, que je resterai à tes cotés ...

Courage (mon dieu...)

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç

04 August 2007

Bridges to tragedy...

ZENers

It's as simple as 'guns and butter'...

The classic economics formulation that says with a finite resource base, you cannot buy all the things you want; one has to take a choice:
- eat or defend your territory;
or...
- 'eat or kill' .

You wouldn't know ... without looking up over>>>> there^^^ a bit, that ZENmud was born in Minneapolis, in a blizzard he came home, one fine February day long ago.

But being 10 years older than the 35W bridge,
that sad affair of collapsing steel, concrete and lives... [PHOTO CREDIT: Modesto Bee]

It reminds all of you thinking people that the 'guns and butter' equation shows a simple point that can only be 'spun' in one way...

Others have and will write about the proof of Republican neglect, allowing Our government to starve programs that serve the common good.

Common reports today claim some 70,000 US bridges are seriously neglected, and I assure you that here in Europe, a good many governments are reassuring their citizens that "What happened in the US this week, can't / won't happen here, to our Bridges (Tunnels, Ski Lifts) etc..."

Some may think that it would be a good thing if only Bush-loving Republicans were on that bridge... that would be so unZENly, non?

Read those comments, as many as you can stand.


But remember this: why we are seeing corruption in Iraq-oriented defense procurement, and not in domestic-infrastructure improvements, stems from the simple fact that the leaders of our government, admittedly ideologically radical Republicans, prefer the concentration of corruption in the defense industry.

They prefer GUNS.

It is much more easily controlled, than that which would occur if the TRILLIONS of dollars being wasted under President George W Bush
were to be spread amongst some 10,000 construction companies, rather than say 200 defense contractors.

And guns are lost, destroyed and replaced, updated, researched and refined: an endless Perpetual Military Keynesian spending system, inflating the wrong aspects of US society at the costs of those common good things we prefer to have secured...

We prefer BUTTER.

It won't get better soon, the spiraling effect of deficit Death Toy expenditures must by any angle increase for the next 2 years minimum.
I say that knowing that Bush and Iran are as peaceful and happy as were Bush and Saddam in 2002 and 2003, using President Hussein as a gopher for election results, oil market distortions and control, etc.

So if you like the Bridge across your River, your Highways or your Train tracks... if your airport runways need a bit of tarmac, stop one day, take a picnic even, and check the bridge that carries your children to school or the Mall.

I suggest you take some photos and send them here to store in your trusty ZENvault.


We'll print them, and give you credit.

Brainwashing moment:
"Spend money on infrastructure, not DEATH..."
"Spend money on infrastructure, not DEATH..."
"Spend money on infrastructure, not DEATH..."
"Spend money on infrastructure, not DEATH..."

One could ask Dwight D. ... he knew the difference:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
(From a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953)
Dwight, you were the last clean Republican President... you knew what your followers won't acknowledge.


Courage (sigh)

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç