Okay, so as some of you may have read in the magazines or on the Internet Victor Conte of BALCO copped a plea as a result of the Congressional Hearings and whatnot, being that BALCO was the scapegoat for this distribution of Anabolic Steroids malarkey. A lot of people are outraged at the leniency of the sentence (which is kind of silly considering they really shouldn't have been on tial in the first-place), which I think is like some minimum security jail-time (one year I believe), house-arrest/probation, and a bunch of fines and whatnot. Basically the thought in the Industry is the sentence reflects just how non-important this whole issue was, considering had it been a cocaine hearing, he'd be unable to cop such a lenient plea.
Some of the people involved in this whole thing who gave testimony at the hearings were very vocal about how betrayed they feel by the Judicial system for being willing to let this slide (this is called covering your Political ASS), one of the most significant statements was that "now the American people will be unsure as to wether or not the athletic performances they have so enjoyed over the years were honorable or not."
Now let's back up a second. How many of you ACTUALLY believed that these World-Class athletes were NOT using performance-enhancing drugs. Hands, anyone? Good, there are no morons present. These athletes (especially the American ones) have been suspected of everything from steroid use to gene-doping for decades. So basically, our ever-so-wise Government spent all this time, money, man-power etc., to NOT confirm what we already suspected, and conclude that what we already suspected, is suspect. Yes, that's basically what they said. "Boo hoo, now we'll never know if they were cheating, even though we think they were." Apparently it takes millions of tax dollars and attention from more important issues (Why is Congress interfering in Professional Sports as opposed to questioning the President about the War, or gas-prices, which I'm sure all of you smell the bullshit on those two issues...?) to NOT confirm what we already thought. Brilliant.
So, being that Conte gets off relatively easy, and is now more famous than ever, and his partners are likely going to cut similar deals, who gets it up-the-ass without the lube or the kiss? You do. The tax-payer who funded this circus sideshow. Think about that next time you're at the pump and it takes you $40 to fill up the car it took you $25 to fill up a couple of months ago.
But Conte is not out of the woods yet. One of the most laughable parts of this ordeal is that before it was cut Conte was compelled to release some of BALCO's records, which contained information about one Marion Jones (
http://www.usatf.org/athletes/bios/Jones_Marion.asp) as a client of BALCO who was doing the dirt. Now, get this...Jones has filed a lawsuit against VICTOR CONTE. Not the Government (whose interference is the direct cause of her records being expunged), not her management, but suing VICTOR for defamation of character and all other kinds of nonsense, alleging that she did not "knowingly" take part in any illegal activity and was falsely named by Victor under testimony.
Think about that for a second. Congress comes down and starts attempting to kick ass and take names, they call for official records of a Company, get names named, and somehow the person who named the names, as opposed to the people that called for it in the first-place, get sued. Awesome. Simply amazing ability to side-step a missile.
EDIT** - Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Those crying parents that testified at the hearings who apparently had NO knowledge their kids were A) bodybuilding and B) "doing drugs"...have also filed suit against Conte. And even further, one particular set of parents (I forget the names, I can find out though) are now pushing to have CREATINE...yes, you read it correctly, banned by the FDA claiming that Creatine was the "gateway drug" into their children's steroid use. Scary part is, enough people are totally mis-educated on supplements that they believe the hogwash.