the racing union implicitly, through the supreme wisdom of our guiding principles, seeks to eliminate negative social and economic forces that adversely affect cycling.  we've talked a lot about doping.  we've offered proposals to catch people who cheat.  and i have personally gone out of my way to mock people who made lame and highly improbably excuses for why landis was not guilty. 

but i did not realize until this morning, when i happened to come across this article, that i had overlooked somethign considerable.  read it once or twice and really let the idea sink in.  i have obviously neglected to pursue other options that were and are available.  we don't need expensive testing regimens and we certainly don't need cumbersome legislative or judicial processes.  we just need to call people dopers and suspend them from racing.  problm solved, and seriously, what could be easier?

i frankly don't know why this did not occur to me earlier.  maybe it's because i spend so much time in the streets, fighting the man.  i am basically skeptical about using the man's system to do what the people need done.  but i hear it all the time, especially down at hains:so-and-so is a doper or you-know-who is on the juice.  i ask them if they are really certain (i mean really, really, really, super-really certain) and they always say yes and then go on at length about how obvious it is.  well then the answer is just right there.  mabra needs a new department of doping adjudication.  we'll just bypass the whole wada/usada** process and post their names as dopers after some sort of simple adminstrative process.  heck, we could probably just modify the mabra web site to allow you to enter the names of people you know are dopers.  sweet.  if anyone knows anything about who's doping or about modifying php coding so we can get cracking on the mabra site modifications right away, you know where to reach me. 

- - - posted by scott

** i really love the fact that when i pulled both of these web sites up, there were pictures of cyclists on both.  it turns out that this is not so funny as i first thought, as the pages have a rotating stock of photos that you can scroll through by reloading.  but check out the mtb cycling shot on the wada page.  it's not even a racer, just some guy in a yellow jacket riding a trail somewhere.  that tells you how damned prevalent doping is, if even the freds are juiced to the gills and in need of attention from wada...