2004/12/31

No Asteroid Hit For 2029
I didn't even know there was a possibe suspect, but here it is:

The world can exhale a collective sigh of relief. A newfound asteroid tagged with the highest warning level ever issued will not strike Earth, scientists said Monday. The giant space rock, named 2004 MN4, was said on Dec. 23 to have an outside shot at hitting the planet on April 13, 2029. The odds climbed as high as 1-in-37, or 2.7 percent, on Monday, Dec. 27.

Researchers had flagged the object as one to monitor very carefully. It was the first asteroid to be ranked 4 on the Torino Scale, a Richter-like measure for potentially threatening space rocks. The asteroid is about a quarter mile (400 meters) wide, large enough to cause considerable local or regional damage were it to hit the planet.

All along, scientists said additional observations would likely reduce the chance of impact to zero for the April 13 scenario, but they did not expect any significant new data to allow such a downgrading for days or weeks. Instead, old observations provided the data necessary to rule out an impact. Several groups were looking for the asteroid in past observations.

Jeff Larsen and Anne Descour of the Spacewatch Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, found very faint images of asteroid 2004 MN4 on archival images dating to March 15 this year. Astronomers already had observations in June and from this month.

"An Earth impact on April 13, 2029 can now be ruled out," read a statement issued Monday evening by asteroid experts Don Yeomans, Steve Chesley and Paul Chodas at NASA 's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.


The good news is it ain't happening as thought. The bad news is, it doesn't rule out other similar events.

- Art Neuro

2004/12/29

A New Tank
NASA have re-designed the fuel tank of the Space Shuttles to eliminate the debris problem that caused the Columbia to disintegrate during re-entry.

Project managers called the step a major advance in returning the U.S. space program to manned flight after the shuttles were grounded when Columbia broke apart over Texas on Feb. 1, 2003.

The first reconfigured tank is to be shipped by Friday from a NASA facility near New Orleans to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as the space agency prepares for shuttle Discovery's launch in May or early June.

"We are very close. We can taste victory here on shipping the tank," said Sandy Coleman, external tank project manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. The changes are aimed at preventing chunks of insulating foam from breaking off the tank during launch and damaging the shuttle.


Well, it's an improvement that reduces the risks of repeating past disasters.

Back To Luna
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has now received its full suite of scientists.

The U.S. Moon probe is the first spacecraft to be built as part of the Vision for Space Exploration, put into motion earlier this year by U.S. President George W. Bush. LRO is slated for a liftoff in the fall of 2008, under the auspices of NASA's Robotic Lunar Exploration Program.

The LRO underpins NASA's interest in replanting human footprints on the Moon. President Bush has called for the space agency to conduct the first extended human expedition to the lunar surface as early as 2015, but no later than the year 2020.

Not only will LRO characterize future robotic and human landing spots, the spacecraft will be equipped to inventory possible resources for human crews to live off the land -- in this case what's available on the crater-pocked Moon. Another key duty of the LRO is to characterize the lunar radiation environment and its impact on humans.


It's going to be mighty, mighty hard to live off the moon but heck, I'm sure there are plenty of good reasons to go back to the moon. :)

- Art Neuro

2004/12/26

Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings And All That
I've been rather slack about this blog lately. Sorry folks.
The demands of December have been rather exacerbated with a wedding and what-not. Still, wishing you all out there all the best.

Cassini Goes to Saturn
Here's the link.

Cassini used springs to gently push the 705-pound probe away late Friday at a rate of one foot per second, sending it on a three-week free-fall toward Titan. Cassini will make a course change next week to avoid following the probe into the moon's atmosphere.

The probe's successful launch from Cassini put smiles on the faces of scientists in the control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "This was a big one partly because we had to do this right or no mission at all," said David Southwood, the European Space Agency's science program director.

A detailed analysis of the release was under way, but there were no indications of any problems, said Earl Maize, the Cassini deputy program manager at JPL. "We are quite confident we had a very clean release," he said.


Best wishes to all Speacefreaks, known and unknown everywhere, whereever you are.

- Art Neuro

2004/12/22

Team America: World Police - F*ck Yeah!
Just watched it. It's a lovely film. I just wish I didn't know all the jokes going in. My fault for lagging behind the curve, but even so, EVERYBODY has been informing me of the minutiae of this film's transcendental funniness. I do wish I saw it fresh, unknowing.

- Art Neuro

2004/12/18

Tropfest Film Update
The amazing thing about computers these days it that I pretty much had the project cut and sound psted in 48 hours. So we shot it on Friday, I assembled it on Saturday morning, went and played baseball, did a fine cut on Saturday night and then did the sound post-production, music and credits on Sunday. All largely painless compared to the weeks of toiling that my previous ultra-short film, 'Pizza Driver' took back in '95-'96. By Thursday, I had an approval for the whole damn thing from the Producer and that was that.
Sure it wasn't on 'proper film' (as film snobs would prefer), but the product was done in the most bloodless, painless way.

Controlling the means of production is going to change film-making forever. In the olden days you'd think up an idea and say, "Okay, let's see if we can raise money to develop it." In the future, people are going to say, "Okay, let's go make it."
This is so good. If you have not been through the development hell and the barrage of idiotic questions people ask, you don't know how good it is to be able to say, "Worse comes to worse, we'll still make it on ultra-low budget."

Key Psycho Update
Sam is working on the dialogue tracks, Terry P is working on sound effects and Sandy is assisting, but may finish up doing the mix. Yesterday, I went and recorded some baseball into glove sounds with Terry P for the punching sounds.
Last I spoke to jim, he's still beavering away composing music.
From what I can gather from my dedicated sound folk, the project is steadily moving along the sound post-production process. By our modified schedule, we're still aiming for a late January finish.

Producer Brenden is cutting a trailer to be sent out to festivals. He's doing it in the 1940s style. This ought to be fun.

- Art Neuro

2004/12/16

Finally A Voice of Reason In The Steroid Scandal
I've written a few times how deplorable it is, how many MLB fans are sitting sedately, coming up with lame excuses why the BALCO scandal doesn't matter.
Well, here' something that indicates not all is lost.
It is right and correct that we, the paying public, be outraged and indignant at this travesty of fair play. We are among the victims of their deception. When we buy our ticket, it is presupposed the competition will be played honorably and by the rules. It is right for us to demand these things, and it is our right to demand that MLB give us the product we want, because it is our interest and dollars that ultimately sustain the enterprise. If we stopped watching and going to games, MLB would soon go away because they could not pay the players and support personnel for their services.
Damn straight, damn right. I applaud The Hardball Times for putting this article up.

- Art Neuro

2004/12/13

Does This Count As Space News?
NASA boss Sean O'Keefe might be resigning soon.

In April, a study of the post-Columbia effort to change NASA's culture found many problems remaining and space agency employees still afraid to speak up abou safety.
"The leadership's got to take it on, starting with me," O'Keefe said then.

More recently, O'Keefe has been under fire for his insistence that it's too risky to send astronauts to repair the popular Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA also is struggling to return its aging shuttles, grounded after the Columbia accident, to spaceflight. The agency has been unable to make crucial improvements recommended by the Columbia accident board.

O'Keefe has embraced a new space effort, envisioned by President Bush, that would send manned missions to the moon and Mars. O'Keefe taught business administration and management at Syracuse and Pennsylvania State universities before becoming secretary of the Navy under the first President Bush. He became deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget under the current President Bush before taking over NASA in January 2002. He is from New Orleans, about an hour's drive from Baton Rouge.


And so it goes.
Hardly news until it happens. :)

- Art Neuro

2004/12/12

Tropfest Film
Amongst the things I vowed I'd never do and now I have done, is the production of a Tropfest film.

Here's my black-hatted-diatribe against Tropfest films. Tropfest promotes the asking of favours large and small. Most of the time, people ask dirty big favours that are in most instances disproportionate to what is owe to to them in order to make their 7-minute-maximum epic. It's essentially a ruse to make professionals work for nothing. It's a crappy little institution that rewards joke films, and so I was damned if I was going to help it out by heaven-forbid producing something for it.

What changed? Well this year, I accumulated some 'favour debts' to actors who kindly gave their time to doing 'Key Psycho' and one of them sincerely wanted to make an entry for this year as an exercise. She asked me to direct her film - and I tell you, I don't turn down directing gigs as a way of paying off favour debts. We developed a script in about a fortnight and went and scouted locations and shot it; and now it's reached the fine-cut.

Years ago, some dickhead told me that if one comes out of AFTRS, one is prone to making 'masturbation movies'. Well screw him, I am indeed a graduate of AFTRS. The Tropfest film is a love story about a woman who can make herself come without touching herself or using any implements; and a man who wanks constantly.

So in case you were wondering why I haven't been posting and what I was doing this week... That's what I've been up to.

- Art Neuro

2004/12/09

Proportionality of Force

Proportionality of force is a protocol that regulates the use of force by police officers, security guards, etc. It's basic principle is that the level of force used must be the minimum required to get the job done. In contrast, military protocol is that the amount of force used should be the maximum possible, so that it is completely overwhelming to the enemy.

Each protocol implies a certain relationship between those that apply the force and those that are subject to it. Proportionality of force applies between people who are basically on the same side, who have a lot of shared interests. Military protocol applies between blood enemies. One of the elements of military protocol is that the life of an enemy has absolutely no value. Military protocol cannot be applied unless the enemy is completely dehumanised.

The US has consistently operated under military protocols in Iraq, most spectacularly in the most recent Fallujah invasion. The force used was indeed overwhelming, the city has been completely destroyed, and it is my expectation that the city will not be a viable place to live until some time after the US departs Iraq.

The immediate military objectives of the attack were accomplished, and from that point of view the operation was a success. The strategic consequences of the battle have yet to be revealed, however, I believe the broad outcome will be quite predictable.

One of the elements of the official, publicly stated US policy in Iraq is the creation of a relationship of partnership between Americans and Iraqis. The unique characteristic of this element, the one thing that separates it from all other official statements of policy, is that it is sincere and it is backed up by efforts on the ground.

The talk of democracy and reconstruction is as cynical as the demonisation of the erstwhile ally Saddam, but the talk of "hearts and minds" is not. There is no way for the US to get out of Iraq unless the Iraqis come to believe that they can cooperate with the Americans. Cooperation can only occur between human beings. It cannot occur between humans and sub-humans. It is the way our minds work and nothing can change this.

Military protocol has been applied in Iraq by the US and it's allies since 1991. It has been applied to relatively small sections of the population for relatively short periods of time. During the ongoing Fallujah operation it has been applied to 300,000 people, for nearly a month. There is no indication of when it is going to end. This is a significant change.

I don't think the military situation in Iraq is going to change significantly as a result of this. Actually, I don't think that many noticable changes will occur. What I think is going to happen is that the US is going to get trapped in military protocol, and it is never going to leave it. The insurgents are not a military force, and cannot be defeated by miltary means. The insurgency is a positive feedback loop, in short, a social problem. The application of military force only feeds a cycle that is very much like the cycle of addiction, every time you use it the problem gets bigger, and the "solution" becomes less effective.

I think that the only way the US can win the war in Iraq is by abandoning military protocol and adopting proportionality of force. I think they are going to lose.

James

2004/12/08

Steroid Decisions
The more one reads the reaction to the Jason Giambi steroid situation, the more I feel dismay that MLB will be able to clean up its act. On the one hand there is a consensus building that the Yankees are somehow wrong to try and terminate Giambi's contract, that they are somehow hypocritical because they must have known and they also have fellow BALCO problem player Gary Sheffield on the roster.

First up, anabolic steroids are illegal substances. Using them is illegal. It's not about whether taking steroids is like cheating with the spit ball or corked bats. There are no laws against emery balls an corked bats. There is not a Corked-Bat-Czar looking to indict Mexican traffickers of corked bats. Folks, anabolic steroids are restricted substances.

In Giambi's case, it's a clear case of substance abuse; and in the case of Giambi's testomony to the Grand Jury, we are clear that not only did he acknowledge he knew the substances provided by BALCO were steroids, he knowingly participated in the use; and that he was a long time user of other illegal substances. He was pretty solidly premeditated in his legal transgressions.
Yes, that's enough to put Daryl Strawberry behind bars for cocaine abuse. If Giambi wasn't covered by the immunity granted to him by the Grand Jury, he would/should/oughta be behind bars.

Yes it would seem hypocritical for the Yankees to have knowingly signed Giambi in spite of the strong suspicions of steroid-use that surrounded him in 2001, the but the point is, the landscape has changed significantly since the 2002 Collective Bargaining Agreement between the Owners and Players Association. If the players and owners are serious about ridding the game of steroid abuse, then this is the chance to make a Shoeless Joe Jackson or a Pete Rose out of Jason Giambi, and they should.
Does the CBA have teeth or not? What is the Commissioner going to do about this?

And Bud Selig should. Why? Because every sport worth its salt is out there trying to weed out performance enhancing substance use from their ranks. For baseball and its fans to claim it's a professional sport that accepts that competitors will got to any lengths to get an edge and that it tacitly approves of this act is plain stupid. Yes, I understand it is professional entertainment however it flies in the face of sportsmanship to be condoning it; and last I checked, it was still a sport. If it isn't a sport there is no value whatsoever in being able to claim a player did well or not because of their statistics. I'm very, very very surprised that the sabermetric community is responding rather laggardly to this point, even if it drew 716 posts for the Giambi news.

The Yankees, for what they represent are right to want to rid this player of their ranks right now. If the Yankees are willing to take a no-tolerance stand to steroid use, even belatedly and in order to get out of an onerous contract, it would still send a strong and correct message to the kids out there; and that itself is very important.

Thirdly, anybody who argues that it is questionable what anabolic steroids do for a baseball player and therefore this is no big deal, has their head in the sand. They should look into what steroid abuse has wrought of East German athletes of the 1970's. It ain't pretty. If you care about your team, your players, then you should care enough to say no to steroid abuse, plain and simple.
Giambi was an idiot to take it and continue to take it for so long. But for the future-idiot-Giambi to come, there should be absolutely clear guidleines to stop him taking that step (over and over as Jason did).

My message is still, "Mr. Steinbrenner and Mr. Cashman, dump Giambi now, whatever it takes. Mr. Selig, kick out Giambi from the sport forever."
It ain't hypocrisy when it's the right thing to do. :)

Some Other Remarks
Somebody asked if we should get upset if we find out a male porn star was on viagra or a porn actress' breasts were 'enhanced'?
My answer is still, "yes, if the stats mean anything and it was meant to be sport."

- Art Neuro

2004/12/07

Fallujah: Now for the Hard Part

Somehow I don't think that the city of Fallujah is going to have a very rosy future:
'Bellon asserted that previous attempts to win trust from Iraqis suspicious of US intentions had telegraphed weakness by asking, " 'What are your needs? What are your emotional needs?' All this Oprah [stuff]," he said. "They want to figure out who the dominant tribe is and say, 'I'm with you.' We need to be the benevolent, dominant tribe.'

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/12/05/returning_fallujans_will_face_clampdown?mode=PF

File this story under "Winning the battle and losing the war".

James

2004/12/06

More Thoughts On The Juice-On-Giambi Steroids Scandal
I never liked the Jason Giambi signing much. It was the first step towards excess in a series of knee-jerk signings that has led to the current Yankee 'decline'. If you can call winnning over 100 games, three years in a row a decline, then it's a heck of a decline to have, but in Steinbrenner-land, we know a year without a World Series Victory is a dead-loss.

Anyway, because I believed in the Yankee NJASDJDH-infield-of-the-future back in 1999 and as late as 2001, I never really thought it was a good idea to sign Jason Giambi and block Nick Johnson. Yes, Jason Giambi was great in both the 2002 & 2003 seasons, plus the 2003 ALCS with those 2 homeruns that set up that dramatic Game 7 come-from-behind-win, but in all honesty, I wanted Nick Johnson to be the man. In a way, it seemed like excess to sign Giambi when one could hand the job to the youngster who was groomed for the spot. They took away the opportunity for Nick Johnson to become the next Lou Gehrig by buying the Juiced One. More so than the A-Rod trade that sent Alfonso Soriano to Texas, the subsequent handling of prospects, rookies and young players by the organisation has been plain wanting.

And now this steroid scandal.
Call me a smartass, but all I can get out of the back fo my mind is 'Told You So'.

There's considerable noise on the BTF boards to the effect that the Yankees are doing something reprehensible by trying to get out of the contract with the Juiced-One, however I feel it is the only honorable thing to do given that they are the custodians of a magnificient, historic franchise. Baseball can take a lot of misbehaviour from its stars; it just can't take the tainting of record books - this specifically means gambling, but it also means steroid abuse.

Addendum: In the aftermath of the ALCS loss to the Bosox, it seemed to me there was no greater target for blame-throwing than Kevin Brown and Tom Gordon, but somehow Juice-on has managed to take away all of that bad karma from those guys; which is sort of unbelievable. It reminds me of that old advertisement where the girl asks, "Does this make my arse look bigger?" to which the boyfriend kindly answers "Well, at least it takes the attention away from your face."
Right now, Keving Brown might be the ugly face (and broken left hand) of the 2004 seaosn, but Jason Giambi is the inflated ass that cannot be hidden.

'Key Psycho' Update
About a week ago, we finished grading the picture. There are some little areas of the picture that need touching up, namely the bits using blue screen, but overall, the picture side of it is now locked off. Hooray.

Head redits and Tail credits have been done. I had to buy a separate programme just to do the tail credit crawl because 'LiveType' simply was too difficult. For people out there struggling with rolling credits, I do recommend they look into the programme 'Rolling Credits' as it does exactly that with minimal fuss.

'Key Psycho' is now going through the painful process known as Sound Post-production.
This is the painful process whereby every clip of sound is inspected closely, checked and matched against every other clip for sonic consistency, and then applied in the sound mix. Believe me, it's not as exciting as lots of other aspects of film-making.

There are some great bits in Sound Post-Production and that is the adding of sound effects. As with all these things, you can pile on a tonne of cool sound effects and it won't rescue a bad picture, but fortunately I think this picture is going to work out fine. :)

Schedule-wise I think we're still about 3 weeks behind schedule, (the same 3 weeks I spent working for that stupid E*** Media and doing a corporate video for IBM) but at least we now have a picture that we could send to festivals early next year.

- Art Neuro

2004/12/03

A Day Later...
I finally got onto BTF to find the Giambi thread had reached deep into the 400's. Half of it was tangential stuff about Alaskan mountains, but it made for an interesting read anyway. Part of the thing seemed to me that the "Is Barry Bonds juicing?"that always comes up in BTF threads have been so hashed out by all parties that nobody seemed to want to go through the motions once again. Reading it was as tiresome as re-reading newspapers from 2-3 years ago, looking for a stat.

I'm already over the initial Pavlov's (newshound) dog rush to find out what people think. They think what they always thought and were not willing to change their minds.

Some will argue that steroids doesn't help you get stronger or increase bat speed. What they miss is that most steroids help with recovery, enabling unnaturally greater cycles of exercise-training and recovery, which leads to putting on large amounts of muscle mass as well as not breaking down. In a 162 game season, the value of steroids is possibly higher than the value for say, a 100m sprinter with 40 meets a year.

As for the notion that the Yankees will void Giambi's contract, it seems unlikely, however my gut instinct tells me they might explore it in secret this winter as insurance against a great decline by Jason Giambi in 2005.

What I have Been Doing
I have been helping out the folks at the Japan Foundation in Sydney with their Japan FIlm Festival. I have been interpretting for their guests when they hit the stage and introdcue their movies. I did it last year and I'll probably do it again next year as it is a lot of fun.

It's sort of funny that at the end of the day, the part of my skill-set which most easily draws money and praise is my bilingual capability. It's funny and sad.

- Art Neuro

2004/12/02

Say It Ain't So, Jason
We've finally got an admission from Jason Giambi that he was on steroids. Well, that does it. Guilty as charged. I wonder what will happen to his contract with the New York Yankees now, because if anything, this could void that dirty big contract handed out before the new Collective Bargain Agreement which enforced a temporary statsis in player salaries. Giambi is a great hitter, but he's not a great fielder, and most certinaly he is a player whose skills are in decline, going forwards.

Apart from that sort of angle, there's the issue of "You lied to me!" (Hit the guy's head with frying pan) . Not many of the fans who argued for the benefit of the doubt are going to feel too great about being made to look like chumps. Then there's the Nw York press gang who took a dislike to Jason Giambi after he begged out and sat in Game 5 of the World Series in 2003. The guys who have been sharpening their posionous pens are going to have a filed day. Heck, it's going to be such a field day, they'll name the field the Jason Giambi Steroidal Memorial Frield and erect a statue of a syringe.

Just for posterity, here's the AP report in full:


December 2, 2004
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- New York Yankees slugger Jason Giambi injected himself with human growth hormone in 2003 and also used steroids for at least three seasons, according to his grand jury testimony reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle. The testimony given in December 2003 to the federal grand jury investigating BALCO contradicts Giambi's public proclamations that he never used performance-enhancing drugs.

Giambi described how he injected human growth hormone in his stomach, testosterone into his buttocks, rubbed an undetectable steroid knows as ``the ream'' on his body and placed drops of another, called ``the clear,'' under his tongue, the Chronicle reported on its Web site Wednesday night.

Giambi testified that he obtained several different steroids from Barry Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, who is one of four men indicted by the grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. He said he got the human growth hormone from a gym in Las Vegas. Anderson's attorney, Tony Serra, declined comment to the Chronicle, citing a court order. Anderson, BALCO founder Victor Conte, vice president James Valente and track coach Remi Korchemny all have pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include steroid distribution.

On Wednesday, a federal judge said she would not immediately dismiss the charges in response to accusations that prosecutors illegally searched BALCO headquarters and Anderson's house and car. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said she may conduct hearings into the matter in January. Giambi was among dozens of elite athletes -- including Bonds, Gary Sheffield and track stars Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones - who answered the grand jury's questions last year. Bonds, Jones and Montgomery deny using illegal drugs, but Sheffield told Sports Illustrated and ESPN earlier this year that he used ``the cream'' and ``the clear'' from BALCO, which he said unknowingly to him contained illegal steroids.

The Chronicle reported in October that on a 9-minute recording it had obtained, a speaker the paper identified as Anderson is heard saying Bonds used an ''undetectable'' performance-enhancing drug during the 2003 season.

Giambi met Anderson when the trainer joined Bonds on an All-Star tour in Japan in November 2002. Giambi said he wanted to know what Bonds' secret for success was. ``So I started to ask him: 'Hey, what are the things you're doing with Barry? He's an incredible player. I want to still be able to work out at that age and keep playing,''' Giambi testified, according to the Chronicle. ``And that's how the conversation first started.''

After returning to the United States, Anderson told Giambi he could provide him with performance-enhancing drugs and suggested he stop taking the steroid Deca Durabolin that he obtained from the Las Vegas gym because it stays in the system too long, the paper reported. Giambi said he started using Deca Durabolin in 2001.

Giambi said Anderson never told him that Bonds used performance-enhancing drugs. ``You know, I assumed because he's Barry's trainer -- you know, Barry -- but he never said one time, 'This is what Barry's taking, this is what Barry's doing,''' Giambi testified. ``He never gave up another name that he was dealing with or doing anything with.'' Prosecutors confronted Giambi with a calendar seized from Anderson's home that detailed Giambi's schedule of drug use. Giambi said he didn't notice a ``huge difference'' in his performance after starting to use illegal drugs.

Giambi came to spring training this year looking noticeably trimmer as baseball began a steroid-testing program that included punishments for the first time. Asked in February whether he had ever taken performance-enhancing drugs, Giambi said:
``Are you talking about steroids? No.'' Giambi won the AL MVP in 2000 for Oakland and signed a $120 million, seven-year free-agent contract with the Yankees after the 2001 season. He hit 155 homers from 1999-2002 and batted over .300 each season, but injuries slowed him down the last two years.

Bothered by a balky knee, Giambi hit just .250 in 2003. Giambi batted .208 and played in only 80 games last season, missing time because of a tumor, which the New York Daily News reported was in his pituitary gland. Medical experts told the Chronicle that Clomid, a drug Giambi said he thought Anderson had given him, can exacerbate a tumor of the pituitary gland.

Giambi's younger brother, Jeremy, who last played in the majors with Boston in 2003, also testified that he used performance-enhancing drugs given to him by Anderson, according to the Chronicle.

*Ugh*.
Makes me sort of sick. You suspected it, but you didn't *know* it in any legally or scientifically adequate way. So you keep dismissing it and play the devil's advocate, but all along, the dope was doping.
I tried to get to the Baseball Think Factory to have a look at the tidal wave of posts but I couldn't get on. I thin there'll be like 500 posts on this topic. I've now tried for 15minutes and I can't even luck onto their server. Wow.

Jason Giambi's argument paraphrased is essentially, "I didn't know what it was specificlly, therefore I thought I had plausible deniability. And it didn't help my performance on the field."
That sucks too. In fact, it's all part of the problem that MLB has long ignored and only recently decided to tackle. If they had been vigilant about steroids years ago, in line with other sports, they wouldn't be in this funk right new where 3 of the top 10 hitters of the last 5 years are identified with a company that supplied illegal setroids.
Clearly, the lack of testing was seen as a tacit approval by some.

Now it's time to ask the question 'What-will-Jesus-do?' except, we're talking about George Steinbrenner instead of Jesus Christ.

- Art Neuro

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