When Tyler Hamilton swore up and down that he didn’t use illegal blood doping to help win bicycle races, I believed him. Then he confessed that he did. When Floyd Landis insisted that he didn’t use testosterone to help win the Tour de France, I believed him. Then he confessed that he did.
So I probably should be suspicious that Lance Armstrong still insists he didn’t use drugs or other illegal enhancements to win seven Tours de France. But in this country we have this little thing called “innocent until proven guilty.” And, contrary to popular opinion, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has not proven Armstrong guilty.
Instead, the agency says, it has found that tests of some of his blood samples are “fully consistent” with blood doping. Armstrong, realizing the agency has absolutely no authority over him or the entities that actually awarded him his titles, decided that the agency was little better than a kangaroo court and quit fighting them. They agency says that is an admission of guilt, but all it really is is an admission of their impotence.
What persuades me to side with Armstrong is that phrase: “consistent with.” They didn’t say the blood samples proved doping (which means injecting yourself with blood before a race in order to process more oxygen), just that they were consistent with doping–which implies that they were also consistent with not doping.
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The Antiplanner has heard this phrase several times with respect to recent weather patterns. The recent heat wave and drought that have covered much of the United States is, they say, “consistent with” anthropogenic climate change. Yes, and it is also consistent with Revelations in the bible, but I don’t see climate-change believers suddenly declaring themselves saved by Jesus Christ.
The reality is that the part of the United States that was under the recent heat wave represents only a tiny portion of the surface of the earth–I’ve heard around 2 percent–and most of the rest of the globe has not had an unusual heat wave. So the heat wave is also completely consistent with normal weather fluctuations.
In short, the phrase “consistent with” means “we have no proof but we are going to try to pretend we do anyway.” That’s not scientific and it wouldn’t stand up in a court of law.
Lance Armstrong may very well have used blood doping to win the Tours and we may be experiencing climate change. But we don’t have enough proof of either to rush to judgment, either by condemning Armstrong or by hamstringing our entire economy with costly and possibly unnecessary regulation.
The Antiplanner wrote:
The reality is that the part of the United States that was under the recent heat wave represents only a tiny portion of the surface of the earth–I’ve heard around 2 percent–and most of the rest of the globe has not had an unusual heat wave. So the heat wave is also completely consistent with normal weather fluctuations.
The Nordic nations have had an unusually cool summer this year.
But the real point concerning global climate change is this – we do not need coercive social engineering projects like this in order to reduce carbon emissions. As it turns out, the Great Recession has done a fine job of reducing CO2 emissions anyway.
Reducing the consumption of coal for electric generation by replacing it with generating stations powered by nuclear reactors (which don’t emit anything) will significantly reduce the amount of carbon and other substances, like mercury and sulfur oxides, clearly harmful, that are released into the atmosphere.
What won’t work (at least not in providing the reliable baseload power generation that the North American economy needs) is solar and windpower.
“nuclear reactors (which don’t emit anything)”
Except when there are earth quakes. Tsunamis. Human error.
The next generation of reactors have much more in the way of passive safety systems (to keep the core cool), which will be built-in to their systems to prevent Fukushima-type accidents.
Frank,
Now tell us how many people died from the earth quake/tsunami compared to how many died from the nuclear plant.
And, before you go on about cancers, look up hormosis.
Thanks
JK
“Now tell us how many people died from the earth quake/tsunami compared to how many died from the nuclear plant.”
No. Because that is an attempt to distract away from the point, which is valid unless you can refute it: nuclear power has risks.
One need only look to the Columbia River, the most radioactive river in the world, for evidence of the risks of nuclear power.
I’m surprised any libertarian-leaning thinkers would support nuclear power since it is a product of the state and not a free market.
Or Chernobyl, which will be uninhabitable 20,000 years.
Frank,
Got any credible evidence that the Columbia is hurting anyone?
Did you bother to learn about hormesis?
I wasn’t aware that “the state” owned the nuclear power plants – citation please.
Got a credible citation for that 20,000 year claim?
Thanks
Jk
Chernobyl’s 20,000 year claim is rather unsubstantiated. Plants and animals have been returning to the site again. And while humans probably won’t be seen there for the better part of centuries, life overall will flourish in an area completely devoid of humans. It’s whats called an involuntary park where conditions where humans are absent of an area for environmental or social reasons the land quickly returns to a feral state. The Korean DMZ is a unintended 300 square mile nature reserve and the largest remainging subtropical wilderness in a industrialized nation of the world. Another example is the Rocky Mountain arsenal that bison now roam once again.
Jim, did you bother to refute the central point, that is: nuclear power has risks?
I was too quick to grab a number on Chernobyl. The number I cited was the original estimate by Ukrainian officials. A reliable source titled “Chernobyl 25 years on: a poisoned landscape” shows that “radiation will affect the Chernobyl area for 48,000 years” and that it will take many centuries before it’s safe for humans to return. This does not in anyway refute the central point, that is: nuclear power has risks.
Please don’t distort my statements. Anyone can go back and see what I wrote. I claimed that nuclear power is a “product of the state,” which anyone with even a cursory knowledge of history knows is factual given the Manhattan Project, which included Hanford. I didn’t say that the state “owned” nuclear power plants. (As for government’s current and extensive involvement in nuclear power, Google “Energy Policy Act of 2005”). The requests for citations are a tiresome distraction away from the central premise: nuclear power has risks.
Any evidence that the Columbia is hurting anyone? There is a great amount of evidence that Hanford has harmed people and continues to be a risk. Here’s one piece that you could have plucked out of the sea of evidence with minimal effort.
And as a follow-up, governments do own and operate nuclear plants.:
I’m only on B on the list. Why don’t you take it from here.
Frank, Chernobyl happened in large part for three reasons:
(1) It was an inherently unsafe, Soviet Russian design.
(2) The Chernobyl reactors lacked containment structures.
(3) It was managed and operated by the government of the former Soviet Union.
The fact remains that the externalities of nuclear energy are significant, far greater than natural gas, which is readily available and cheap.
According to the first study on that list,
And we’ve already made a dent in our greenhouse gas emissions; thanks to the natural gas market, CO2 levels are at early 1990s levels. No need to increase the risk of nuclear disaster.
Everyone is operating under the assumption that technical innovations won’t arrise in the forseeable future to remediate radioactive materials. We had a prize offered to anyone who could come up with solutions to the BP spill. And some of them invented machines that speeds up the process of separating oil from water. Let the market find this solution. If someone can invent a method of removing cesium, krypton, uranium, plutonium and other radioactive metals, they’ll be a fat prize waiting to do it with sites both minor and major.
“Everyone is operating under the assumption…”
You lost me at “everyone is” a clear generalization and not a factual statement or a valid argument.
If you had read the article I mentioned, The Externalities of Nuclear Power: First, Assume
We Have a Can Opener . . . , you would have noticed the author’s thesis stated so formulaically and predictably in the intro:
There is already a far cheaper and safer source of energy. It’s called natural gas and North America has enough to last for centuries.
What is performance enhancement nowadays. Swimmers wear suits that have serated edges on the microscopic level to permit water flow and they shave their bodies to reduce surface friction. Runners wear shoes made out of rubber with additives. Carbon fiber boards for skiers and snowboarders. Compound bows for archers. If your a weightlifter, you probably down enough protein that the chickens run in terror at the mention of your name (You ever seen a African American body builder, they joke about this at conventions, they call them turds) But if you are interested in body building, there’s a wonderful product “Eggology-100% pure egg whites” that athletes guzzle like water. I take the advice of actor-comedian Peter Boyle. “Let them have all the steroids they want, I paid to see a great game and I get to keep my balls”.
LazyReader, returning to Lance Armstrong, there is an editorial in Baltimore Sun this morning about Mr. Armstrong and the United States Anti-Doping Agency charges against him here.
Nice don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story hatchet job by the Baltimore Sun that totally ignores evidence of Mr Armstrong’s innocent. He has never failed a drug test.
I don’t know nearly enough about the Armstrong case to draw a conclusion either way.
I know that no matter how good you are at beating the test, you eventually bust a test. Furthermore, if you’ve been accused of doping most of career, then you aren’t going to re-enter racing after retiring a year after Floyd Landis got popped and dope so that your 2009 test is “fully consistent with doping”. Lance has an ego to be sure, but he’s not an freaking idiot.
Neither does the USADA.
Bulgaria is also burning up. 106.7 degrees was the highest new high. Pretty warm.
But it is just a small part of the globe.
And as AGW fanatics will remind anyone referencing the blizzards in places like DC, WEATHER IS NOT CLIMATE.
And the government has been adjusting the data.
If one removes ALL of the adjustments, we have not warmed for decades and are far cooler than the 1930s.
See: http://www.sustainableoregon.com/data_adjustments.html
When Lance voluntarily purchased a USCF-issued license to race bicycles internationally, he signed a contract that states, in relevant part, “I agree to submit to drug testing and to comply with and to be bound by the UCI anti-doping regulations, the World Anti-Doping Code and its International Standards to which the UCI anti-doping regulations refer as well as the anti-doping regulations of other competent instances as foreseen by the UCI Regulations, the World Anti-Doping Code, or the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), provided such regulations comply with the World Anti-Doping Code.”
Lance does not claim that USADA has violated its own regulations, to which he agreed to comply in return for access to the professional bike racing workplace.
In other words, this matter is not about whether Lance doped or not. It is about whether he lives up to his end of a financial contract. He has chosen to unilaterally terminate that contract, rather than abide by its terms. That’s his prerogative. But he shouldn’t expect the other parties to the contract to sit idly by while reaped the contracts benefits while breaking the contract’s rules.
Andy Stahl, thanks for the clear explanation above.
So you have evidence he doped Andy?
Lance refuses to contest USADA’s doping charge through the contractually required arbitration process. It’s not about doping, it’s about the contract.
Oh, well that clears up everything then.
The French might dislike Lance Armstrong, but they far more hate the idea that a US agency thinks it can decide who won the Tour de France. Look for the French to not recognize the US Doping Agency decision.
In short, the phrase “consistent with†means “we have no proof but we are going to try to pretend we do anyway.â€
That is really a sad reach with the weak analogy, even for you Randal. Come now. Surely you can do better than that.
DS
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnndddd! Professor stupidboy strikes with what he believes is a witty comeback, but it’s really just a fart in the wind!
Speaking of American heroes…
RIP Neil Armstrong….
NASA packed my bags last night, pre flight, zero hour, 9 am. And I’m gonna be high as Saturn V will take me then. And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time, till splashdown brings me back again to find, I’m not the man they think I am at home, oh no my bones. I’m a lunar man………………………………Lunar Man, burning hydrazine out there.
Agreed. One of the greatest.