capriccioso

Lille are going to win, led by their number 8 who'll top score in France this year.

Dalglish and Comolli are gone, so that's the end of stupidly high fees from Liverpool. Also he has a year to run on his contract and reportedly wants stupid money.

And here come the American corporations, who want to ruin it all. The suits are locked around the negotiation table trying to sign, in secret, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. The TPPA will make it illegal to upload or view any copyrighted material. Masquerading as a free trade agreement, the TPPA would replace copyright laws in nine countries currently signed onto the negotiations, including the US, Japan, New Zealand and Australia (all of whom have very low trade barriers already). But the plan is to spread its reach over time and establish a global standard for Internet regulation, replicating the worst aspects of previous legislative proposals, like SOPA and PIPA. Nobody outside the talks are even permitted to have a copy of the text, so no one really knows the full content, and governments are keeping the press and public completely cut out of the debate. While more than 600 corporate lobbyists have had a free hand to create the agreement that will govern all of our Internet use, our elected members of parliament have no idea what is being negotiated. http://www.guardian....free-trade-deal

But the rape-ee does not enjoy the rape. It was not you I attacked, therefore you were not the rape-ee, therefore you enjoyed it!

I've missed the last week, so I'll guess that Choulo kept up his excellence throughout and vote for him.

Following on from that list, here are the last 15 years for the other two Grand Tours of cycling, the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana: Giro: 1996: Pavel Tonkov (Russia) 1997: Ivan Gotti (Italy) 1998: Marco Pantani (Italy) 1999: Ivan Gotti (Italy) 2000: Stefano Grazelli (Italy) 2001: Gilberto Simoni (Italy) 2002: Paolo Savoldelli (Italy) 2003: Gilberto Simoni (Italy) 2004: Damiano Cunego (Italy) 2005: Paolo Savoldelli (Italy) 2006: Ivan Basso (Italy) 2007: Danilo Di Luca (Italy) 2008: Alberto Contador (Spain) 2009: Denis Menchov (Russia) 2010: Ivan Basso (Italy) 2011: Alberto Contador (Spain) 2012: Ryder Hesjedal (Canada) Vuelta 1996: Alex Zülle (Switzerland) 1997: Alex Zülle (Switzerland) 1998: Abraham Olano (Spain) 1999: Jan Ullrich (Germany) 2000: Roberto Heras (Spain) 2001: Ángel Casero (Spain) 2002: Aitor González (Spain) 2003: Roberto Heras (Spain) 2004: Roberto Heras (Spain) 2005: Denis Menchov (Russia) 2006: Alexandre Vinokourov (Kazakhstan) 2007: Denis Menchov (Russia) 2008: Alberto Contador (Spain) 2009: Alejandro Valverde (Spain) 2010: Vincenzo Nibali (Italy) 2011: Juan José Cobo (Spain) 2012: In Progress.

Don't say you didn't enjoy it at the time.

15-20 million is a great deal. I'd take it, personally. All he's shown to us so far is that he had one great year in 2011- at Bolton and with us. That's not enough to justify 20 million, if we can wring that, it would be great. All we have to do is recall Lukaku/make a Pizarro style signing and we're set. Moses can play as a striker as well.

Had to Google that. Outstanding theory

The point is that just because someone had a couple of good points, doesn't mean they aren't scum.

It's a fucking travesty if they award those titles at all. Records should just be annulled, if they must be redistributed, these should be the winners: 1999: Fernando Escartin (Spain), originally placed third. 2000: Fernando Escartin (Spain), originally placed eight. 2001: Andrey Kilivev (Kazakhstan), originally placed third. 2002: Jose Azvedo (Portugal), originally placed sixth. 2003: Haimar Zubeldia (Spain), originally placed fifth. 2004: Carlos Sastre (Spain), originally placed eight. 2005: Cadel Evans (Australia), originally placed eight. Instead we'll end up with Zulle, Ullrich, Ullrich, Vinokourov, Ullrich, Kloden, Basso. Also this list really is a bit lol, it shows the last 30 winners of the race. Red indicates convicted doper. A struck-out name indicates that they were stripped of the title. Black indicates that they are under suspicion; and green, that they are clean. 1982: Bernard Hinault (France) 1983: Laurent Fignon (France) 1984: Laurent Fignon (France) 1985: Bernard Hinault (France) 1986: Greg LeMond (USA) 1987: Stephen Roche (Ireland) 1988: Pedro Delgado (Spain) 1989: Greg LeMond (USA) 1990: Greg LeMond (USA) 1991: Miguel Indurain (Spain) 1992: Miguel Indurain (Spain) 1993: Miguel Indurain (Spain) 1994: Miguel Indurain (Spain) 1995: Miguel Indurain (Spain) 1996: Bjarne Riis (Denmark) 1997: Jan Ullrich (Germany) 1998: Marco Pantani (Italy) 1999: Lance Armstrong (USA) 2000: Lance Armstrong (USA) 2001: Lance Armstrong (USA) 2002: Lance Armstrong (USA) 2003: Lance Armstrong (USA) 2004: Lance Armstrong (USA) 2005: Lance Armstrong (USA) 2006: Floyd Landis (USA) 2007: Alberto Contador (Spain) 2008: Carlos Sastre (Spain) 2009: Alberto Contador (Spain) 2010: Alberto Contador (Spain) 2011: Cadel Evans (Australia) 2012: Bradley Wiggins (UK) See a pattern? 1988 was when EPO was first widely used. All hail Greg, Sastre and Evans, the only clean winners of the race since 1990. We have an 18 year period between clean winners in LeMond and Sastre.

I wish. Cycling, doping and history aside, I'm a fucking idiot. Funnily enough the three topics bump into each other and complement each other really well

Alright, he inspired a few people. So did Hitler. One good deed does not cancel out a lifetime of evil. Let's not forget that we are dealing with a vicious, cruel, vindictive man here- akin to a mob boss. We're not dealing with a gentleman who took a few products (such as Marco Pantani and Tyler Hamilton)- even if you ignore his doping I don't think anyone can take much inspiration from a bully. The way he treated his own masseuse, Emma O'Reilly, as well as fellow competitors and journalists who denounced doping in general (never used him as an example) is sickening. These people did not have it in for him, and even if they did, that's no excuse to intimidate them and hound them out of the sport. He may have been an inspiration to some but look at all the people he has let down. His fellow competitors, however few of them, which competed clean. Those who sought to bring about an end to doping in the sport. His sponsors, primarily the US Postal Service- who's name has been shamed over something they had no control over. Cancer sufferers who looked up to him as a role model, with the attitude of "If he can do that, we can do anything as well"; he has let them down big time. And of course his own fans and fans of the sport.

We all hate QPR. I don't see the problem. Liverpool aren't our rivals but both sets of fans hate each other with passion.

Welcome to the haemmorhoid club.

The reason communism has not worked is because the only thing anywhere near communism we have seen was Russia between 1917 and 1924- even then, recovering from a crippling World War I, and having to fight a civil war shot the economy to shit; they had to turn to a crude form of capitalism to get it back on its feet. Then Lenin died and the wonderful Stalin won the power-struggle eliminating half a dozen proper communist theorists who would have been brilliant at the helm of the USSR (Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, Tomsky, Bukharin, even Kollontai) and proceeded to set up a totalitarian state with absolutely nothing in common with communism (aside from a state planned economy). Stalin's brand of 'communism' influenced every single communist state and still controls the majority of the policy making. Furthermore, the need for capitalism to build up the economy in a communist state can be easily explained. Communist revolutions have all followed Lenin's path- not Marx's. Lenin's path involved skipping the bourgeois revolution to get rid of the aristocracy and establish a liberal democracy and getting straight down to the proletariat and mounting a working class revolution. Marx's vision was that the bourgeois revolution had to come first, but no one has allowed for that to happen. Under Marx's theory, your economy and society should already be in an acceptable state before you decide to start a revolution, thus eliminating the need for capitalism. On another note, Ecuador took a massive gamble on Assange- they must be glad it paid off. He could easily have fucked them off for another South American banana republic.

Out of curiousity, does the banning system work cumulatively? I.e. did my earlier infractions contributed to the ban, or was it all because of the Kalou thread? If it is cumulative, can we use a points system so we can keep track of how far we are from being banned? I would suggest something like 5 points per official warning, 1 per informal warning (i.e. through PM or in the thread) and a 10 point maximum as the threshold for a ban. And make it viewable to the user concerned, currently it's not very transparent.

Here is a quick list of evidence: -Eyewitness testimony. Fellow team members and convicted dopers, Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis, have admitted under oath, that they have seen Lance Armstrong receive performance enhancing drugs at several points in his career. Landis further testified that he knew of a transaction in 2001 where Lance Armstrong sent a $300,000 bribe to the president of the UCI, Hein Vebruggen, to cover up a positive test. His masseuse, Emma O’Reilly, has testified saying that Lance had on one occasion approached her and asked for makeup to cover up needle marks on his upper arm. She also testified that in 1999, Lance Armstrong tested positive for corticosteroids, which he explained away by getting his doctor at the time, Luis Garcia del Moral, to create a backdated prescription for saddle sores that he never had. The final line of eyewitness testimony are his two doctors over the period, Dr. del Moral and Dr. Ferrari, both of whom have admitted under oath that they administered Armstrong with performance enhancing drugs. They further testified that they were on no less than two occasions given a 20 minute tip off of an impending random drug search. Lance used those twenty minutes to overdose on diuretic drugs (masking agents) so that his urine sample would not show positive and covered his upper arms with makeup to mask needle marks. May I remind you these people have no possible reason to lie (because they are implicating themselves as accessories to the crime, and indeed, all have been sanctioned. Landis and Hamilton have lost their titles and been given life bans, the two doctors are banned from practicing medicine in the USA) and furthermore said these things under oath. - Medical evidence. Lance tested positive 13 times over his career for a variety of banned drugs. He did not, as he asserts, pass 500 tests. He only attempted 236 and failed at least 13. His power data further points to doping, Lance was outputting an average of 6.95 watts per kilogram on many days in the Tour, putting out an average wattage over the weeks of racing, of 500 watts. It is physiologically impossible for humans, even elite level athletes, to put out wattages of greater than 450 watts or 5.5 watts/kg for a prolonged period unless they have an extra 2-3 litres of blood flowing around their bloodstream, and he shattered both barriers with ease. In 1996, Lance’s blood tests revealed that his Testosterone-Epitestosterone ratio was 9 to 1. Normal humans are 1:1 and a ratio >4:1 is evidence of doping. - Circumstantial evidence. Lance repeatedly, clinically ripped to shreds his nearest rivals. He managed this despite his rivals all having been caught at some point in their career as dopers. How can a clean rider with little talent prior to 1999 so comprehensively crush dopers? How can anyone clean beat a doper?

Alright, here I am. First post after my 1 week sojourn in the TalkChelsea State Correctional Facility. For anyone who's interested, I was careful to never drop the soap I would like to remind you all to keep an open mind when you read the below paragraphs. Bear in mind the old adage, 'There are none as blind as those who do not see'. I have no personal agenda here. I'm not out to discredit Wonder Lance for my own personal gain. I've wasted 45 minutes of my life writing this up with nothing personal to gain whatsoever, so don't accuse me of being a witch hunter. To spare you from reading the 1300 word essay, inside the ‘spoiler’, I will post quick list of evidence against him after this: We begin with a quick history lesson. In 1998, the cycling team Festina was caught by French border police in the possession of PED's and materials used to administrate them, during the 1998 Tour de France. They were all booted off the event, the team was disbanded, and France passed legislation that made it illegal on the pain of imprisonment, for any athlete or sports doctor/what have you to possess performance enhancing drugs or materials that can be used to design or deliver PED's into an athlete's system. At the start of the 1999 Tour de France, there was a feel good factor about the professional peloton- riders had had enough with the doping, and with the new legislation, those that were less morally scrupulous were too afraid to chance it. All but one man and the members of his team, Lance Armstrong and the US Postal Service cycling team. He proceeded to absolutely bollock that Tour- winning 4 stages and beating his closest rival by a whopping 7 minutes. It was obvious to the rest of the riders that he was on dope- and even more obvious that the authorities had decided to turn a blind eye to it, regardless of the outcome of the Festina affair that I mentioned earlier. This plunged the sport into a decade long doping arms race. 1999, the year that started with such promise, of a new, dope free era in cycling, instead marked a watershed moment- the start of the most doped up generation in the history of the sport. The ramifications of the Lance era are still felt today. Corrupt governing bodies. Riders still doping. A code of silence amongst riders to not snitch a rival who may be doping. He ended the careers of several whistle-blowers/anti dopers within the pro peloton, hounding 2 young, promising riders out of the sport because they spoke out against doping. I realise that I'm pretty much the only hardcore cycling fan on these forums, so most of this will be new and hard to believe for most of you but as a whole- cycling fans agree this man is not just one bad egg, the catalogue of his crimes make him a dozen bad eggs and more. His entire empire was built almost exactly like a Mafia empire- it was built on a web of drugs, lies, secret payoffs, intimidation, corruption and all sorts of other nefarious activities. And now to answer to some of the questions raised, to save you from reading through that essay up there: @BluesChick: Yes, there is a statute of limitations, 8 years. But because it was systematic and the process was clearly started way before 2004, that has been rendered void and everything up until 1998 is fair game. @Danelka: Yes and no. No, people were not doping to absurd levels during the early part of 1999 when Lance triggered cycling's second drug war. Yes, no one should be awarded the titles over those years- records should just be annulled totally. Also the 'everyone doped' argument is just so fundamentally wrong. Yes, his competitors were not riding au naturale- but there's no restriction to how much dope you can take. Lance pushed himself further down the line of the body's ability to absorb PEDs than anybody else. Also not all dopers are the same. At one end of the scale you have Armstrong with multi million dollar facilities and top notch doctors and access to the highest quality PEDs; at the other, you have Riccardo Riccò performing his own blood transfusions in a hotel room. @milan.cech: I've mostly covered that above, but once again to repeat: He failed 13 tests over a 3 year period- and that's all that's known. Wait for the USADA to release all of their evidence, I can guarantee he would have failed about 25 tests in his career. Furthermore, sport in general, especially cycling, is full of people who doped for years and never got caught with a positive test. Lance's own contemporaries in the sport, such as Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, Alexandre Vinokourov, Alejandro Valverde, George Hincapie- all serve as examples. Moving beyond the world of cycling you have the likes of Marion Jones, Dwayne Chambers, Justin Gatlin, etc. @Justin_3d: Thank you for your support. I was not the instigator. Kojo had been undermining my posts for quite a while before I snapped at him, and even in that thread, he attacked me first. I've put him on my ignore list now, I cannot deal with people like that. @: Lol you should be able to get through this. It isn't science based like my arguments on Wiggins/Froome/Team Sky doping, I'm not using any power data here to support my argument, just what is known commonly. We still haven't seen the full extent of the mountains of evidence against him- the USADA should be releasing that in the near future, and also, Armstrong's former teammate and convicted doper/whistle-blower, Tyler Hamilton, is going to be realising his autobiography soon and given that he denounced Lance in court and publicly, we should see some more juicy stuff in there.

Haha, you've been listening to Burro Banton.

I swear on my family's lives thaf I'm Roman Abramovich. Promises mean nothing. So you admit you do care? That you felt this forum was worth something when you made that thread. Therr you go, you care, so don't act like my prolonged presence on here implies I'm a recluse. You had to turn to,an online forum to be your only source of support, how pathetic is that?

Exactly this. It was the same treatment Kalou got for 6 years, why should Torres, a far shitter player, be given a fair go? Let him inherit scapegoat-in-chief. I remember posts that were disgusted that Kalou scored sgainst Benfica, people were concerned that it would mean a new deal for him.

But you do care you insufferable imbecile. You cared enough to pester the admins for weeks to chanfe your name. Why don't you enlighten us all about your hiladious plea for attention with that homeless story you cooked up? Or how your continued wankfests scared off two great members, Henri and BlueLyon?

Nothing anyone can possibly say can criticise Torres enough. Nothing anyone can say is seeminhly bad enough to Kalou, going off the 'useless n....' example I gave earlier. To say the two get/got anywhere near the same level of criticism is way off the mark.

Aren't you afraid I'll report this post as well? Fuckwit.