Ashenden’s view on Armstrong doping allegations

Calls for investigation into alleged corruption involving UCI, lab and rider

Daniel Benson  CN...

Dr. Michael Ashenden, an independent member of the UCI's panel of experts that reviews the blood passport data of professional cyclists, has welcomed possible investigations into alleged corruption within the sport’s governing body. These surround allegations in which the UCI is accused of covering up a positive EPO test from Lance Armstrong during the 2001 Tour de Suisse.

The allegations were first made by Floyd Landis in 2010 but resurfaced last week when Tyler Hamilton, another ex-teammate of Armstrong, backed Landis' allegations. The UCI is currently taking legal proceedings against Landis and have called his allegations "scandalous and mischievous."

However, last week Hamilton talked to "60 Minutes" reporter Scott Pelley and said, "I know he's [Armstrong] had a positive test before...for EPO [at the] Tour of Switzerland, 2001."

Asked how he knew of the incident, Hamilton said "He [Lance Armstrong] told me. He was so relaxed about it and he kind of said it off the cuff and laughed it off."

"People took care of it," Hamilton told "60 Minutes". "I don't know all the exact details but I know that Lance's people and the people from the other side, the governing body of the sport (UCI), figured out a way to make it go away.

"I was told this...by Lance.”

Hamilton has testified in front of a grand jury in the US, and could face imprisonment if it’s found that he has lied about any of the information he has provided them with during his career.

Armstrong has denied both using performance enhancing drugs and being involved in a covered up dope test at the Tour de Suisse. He has claimed that Landis and Hamilton are both discredited and have tarnished reputations having lied about their doping practices until recently. Landis and Hamilton have both lied about their past drug use but admitted their guilt at different points since May 2010.

Ashenden, who has gone on the record in the past with claims that Armstrong used EPO in the 1999 Tour de France, believes that a thorough investigation must be carried out in order for full transparency to be respected.

"The 60 Minutes story suggests that investigations are under way. So it’s reasonable to conclude that there is at least some basis for them to investigate whether it happened. Is it feasible or possible that a cover up could ever happen? If nothing else, the fact that there’s an investigation suggests that it is,” Ashenden told Cyclingnews.

Lance Armstrong made two donations to the UCI during his racing career. The seven-time Tour de France winner signed a personal cheque for $25,000 in 2002 and then his management company Capital Sports and Entertainment made a second payment of $100,000 in 2005.

The "60 Minutes" exposé also brought to light a letter reportedly from USADA which purports the Swiss lab which tested Armstrong at the 2001 Tour de Suisse considered Armstrong's sample "suspicious" and "consistent with EPO use". The CBS news program learned that the director of the Swiss lab had met with both Lance Armstrong and team director Johan Bruyneel concerning the test from the Tour de Suisse at the time.

...fyi - Refer to this prior post...http://red-pill-blue-pill.blogspot.com/2011/02/la-and-epo.html

Albert Edwards of Soc Gen - S&P 400 and Bond Yields 2% - Deflation 1st, Inflation 2nd

Today’s quote du jour comes from across the pond from uber-bearish Albert Edwards, strategist at Societe Generale. A few key aspects of Albert’s thoughts are shared below.

On the global economy

“Recent weaker-than-expected economic data around the world concur with our analysis that the current downturn in the change in analyst optimism is suggestive of weaker economic data just around the corner.”

On bonds

“Amid the equity market enjoying yet another Fed induced mega-rally, many commentators have been left grasping (gasping?) for explanations for the continued low level of global bond yields despite the ruination of the public sector balance sheet. Most have latched onto QE2 as the explanation and hence expect a sharp rise in yields from June onwards as the Fed’s buying programme ends. We expect new lows in bond yields.

“Despite fully acknowledging the ruination of the government balance sheets as years of excess private sector debt are transferred to the public sector, we still expect to suffer another deflationary bust that will take government bond yields to new lows BEFORE government profligacy and the Fed’s printing presses take us back to both double-digit inflation and bond yields. For now, we remain heavily overweight government bonds.”

On equities

“Many think I am mad. But I am not the only commentator expecting a deflationary bust – the sort of bust that will take the S&P down to 400 from the current 1300. I recently watched John Authers of the FT Lex and Long View columns interview Russell Napier, formally of CSLA and a leading stockmarket historian. Russell’s views are as interesting as ever and well worth 11 minutes of watching time. His views are similar to mine, although he articulates his thoughts far more clearly than I. Click here for the video.

Source: Albert Edwards, Societe Generale Cross Asset Research, May 25, 2011.

The 60 Minutes Interview with Tyler Hamilton

BMW Museum

Mediatecture for the BMW Museum, Munich 2008 from ART+COM on Vimeo.


...chapeau FE

Lance Armstrong Denounces 60 Minutes

by Howard Kurtz

As the CBS program accuses him of illegal doping, the cycling champion tells Howard Kurtz the show is treating him unfairly. A look at the allegations and the behind-the-scenes war over Armstrong’s reputation.

Lance Armstrong and 60 Minutes are on a collision course, with the cycling champion accusing the CBS program of unfair tactics in an upcoming broadcast about allegations of illegal doping by Armstrong.

The show has “basically reneged” on promises made to him, Armstrong told me Thursday night, and “everyone would be frustrated” by such treatment. He said of the producer on the story, “I would not call him a straight shooter… My version of events has never changed on this, and won’t.”

CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager, who is also executive producer of 60 Minutes, dismissed the complaints. “We have been so thorough and fair to Lance Armstrong,” Fager said, adding: “We have shared with them every single allegation in our story… This is a PR game. Our reporters have done a first-class job.”

Negotiations over whether Armstrong would grant an interview for Sunday’s program broke down this week amid accusations of bad faith.

Federal authorities are looking into allegations that Armstrong, a seven-time Tour de France champion, improperly used performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong, who has never failed a drug test, has consistently denied taking banned substances.

The forthcoming story amounts to a high-stakes clash between two brand names, one being one of the most famous and successful athletes in history, the other the most celebrated news magazine in television.

A clip from the report by Scott Pelley, who will take over as the network’s anchor next month, aired on Thursday’s CBS Evening News. In the excerpt, a former cycling teammate, Tyler Hamilton, said Armstrong had used a banned substance called EPO as long ago as 1999, the first year he won the French race, and to prepare for subsequent contests.

Lance Armstrong. Credit: Christophe Ena / AP Photo

“I saw it in his refrigerator. I saw him inject it, more than one time,” Hamilton told Pelley.

Hamilton was accused of doping in the 2004 Olympic Games and later suspended for two years by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Another former cyclist who has madeaccusations against Armstrong, Floyd Landis, was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title after failing a drug test.

In a letter to Fager, two of Armstrong’s lawyers, Robert Luskin and Ted Herman, said that 60 Minutes was engaged in “disgraceful journalism” and “a serious breach of the most fundamental journalistic principles.”

CBS' Fager said that after every conversation with Armstrong’s lawyers, “they would guess who it was in our story and try to assassinate their character. They would say, ‘If so-and-so’s in it, we’re not going to participate.’… They just want to tear that person apart in public.”

Luskin said in an interview that he had repeatedly informed CBS that “if you want us to respond meaningfully beyond a simple denial, you need to tell us who the witnesses are.” He said some of the allegations were nearly 15 years old and that some of the accusers could be “people in the Lance-hater category who have made sworn statements at odds with what they’re telling 60 Minutes now.”

Without the names of the witnesses, said Luskin, “we’re not going to set him up for an ambush.”

Armstrong, who spoke to me after returning from a five-hour bike ride, said: “I’ve been a fan of the program for a long time. I was certainly willing to participate, especially early on when they said we have some guys saying X, Y, and Z and they would share that with us.” Those assurances soon evaporated, he said.

But CBS’ Fager said the discussions with producer Michael Radutzky were more complicated. After every conversation with Armstrong’s lawyers, “they would guess who it was in our story and try to assassinate their character. They would say, ‘If so-and-so’s in it, we’re not going to participate.’… They just want to tear that person apart in public.”

The Armstrong team provided the program’s staff with “all kinds of negative things” about the suspected witnesses, including their “dark motivation,” Fager said. “They ratcheted it up. We’ve bent over backward to share this information with them.”

But Armstrong’s side sees itself as rebutting witnesses of questionable credibility—and concluded that putting him on camera would only boost the program’s ratings.

Armstrong strategist Mark Fabiani, who represented Bill Clinton during Whitewater and was a top aide in Al Gore’s presidential campaign, said in a statement: “We have every right to know which cyclists are going to be on camera, making allegations, and to tell the public how these new allegations completely contradict what these cyclists have said for years, how these cyclists are motivated now by the desire to get famous on 60 Minutes and maybe find publishers and make money, and how these cyclists have a long history of dissembling.” Fabiani's team has launched a website, www.facts4lance.com, to help make its case.

Armstrong echoed this point in our conversation, saying, “When people have sworn under oath several times and their story keeps changing, which one’s the truth and which one’s a lie?” As for Hamilton, Armstrong said: “His version has changed so much.”

Millions of viewers will decide for themselves Sunday when the broadcast airs—without an appearance by Armstrong.

“It’s unfortunate they won’t do an interview with us,” Fager said. “If he never did anything, fine, come on 60 Minutes and tell us.”

Howard Kurtz is The Daily Beast and Newsweek's Washington bureau chief, and writes the Spin Cycle blog. He also hosts CNN's weekly media program Reliable Sources on Sundays at 11 a.m. ET. The longtime media reporter and columnist for The Washington Post, Kurtz is the author of five books.

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

We are out of money, but we can pay you in fish

"The only people I saw in Iceland who were concerned about the banking crisis were foreign bankers holed up in the local Hilton."...from DailyBail.com

IPad’s ‘Buzz Saw’ Success Cuts Into PC Sales

By Aaron Ricadela and Dina Bass - May 17, 2011 11:09 PM CT

The iPad is wreaking havoc on the personal-computer market.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ)’s consumer PC sales plunged 23 percent last quarter, and the company lopped $1 billion off its annual sales forecast. And while rival Dell Inc. (DELL) beat analysts’ estimates because of corporate demand, its sales to consumers slumped 7.5 percent. More than 70 million tablets like the Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPad will be sold in 2011, a total that will balloon to 246 million in three years, Jefferies & Co. said yesterday.

“You’re walking into a buzz saw,” Jane Snorek, a seniorresearch analyst at Nuveen Asset Management in Milwaukee, said of the iPad. Her firm manages more than $200 billion in assets. “The tablet is going to replace at least the home computer.”

At 7.3-inches across with a color screen and an array of popular downloadable games like “Angry Birds,” applications for watching movies and reading magazines, and software for word processing and spreadsheets, the iPad has siphoned off more PC sales than analysts and executives predicted.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, and run by Steve Jobs, sold 4.69 million iPads last quarter, for a total of about 20 million since the April 2010 debut.

The PC market, by contrast, declined last quarter. Global shipments fell 3.2 percent, hurt in part because some consumers bought tablets instead, research firm IDC reported last month.

While rivals including Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM), Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. have begun selling tablets, the devices have yet to gain wide traction.

Microsoft, Intel Impact

The lack of viable competitors was felt across the PC industry in the first quarter. Microsoft Windows sales fell 4.4 percent to $4.45 billion. Its net income of $5.23 billion was eclipsed by the $5.99 billion reported by Apple, which topped its rival in that measure for the first time in 20 years.

At Intel, whose processors run more than 80 percent of the world’s personal computers, growth in the PC-chip division came mainly from emerging markets and corporate sales.

Hewlett-Packard, the top PC maker, yesterday cleaved 20 cents a share from its annual earnings forecast, to $5, excluding items. The revised outlook sent the shares tumbling 7.3 percent on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday and left the stock down 12 percent since the last business day before Nov. 1, when Leo Apotheker took over as chief executive officer.

“Leo comes in just as the tablet is taking off, and the consumer PC market is waning,” Snorek said.

‘Bifurcated Market’

In a conference call yesterday, Apotheker bemoaned a “bifurcated” PC market, where companies are spending and consumers aren’t. Sales in the company’s personal systems group fell 5.4 percent to $9.42 billion last quarter.

At Hewlett-Packard, full-year sales will be $129 billion to $130 billion. In February, HP had predicted full-year sales of $130 billion to $131.5 billion and earnings of at least $5.20 a share. Third-quarter forecasts from HP also missed analysts’ estimates.

Dell was able to top analysts’ estimates with its quarterly results yesterday because of demand from businesses. Its sales to consumers fell partly due to competition with the iPad and other tablets, said Brian Gladden, chief financial officer of the Round Rock, Texas-based company.

“It’s clearly a topic of discussion and it’s a factor that’s impacting the weak consumer demand,” he said in an interview.

The success of the iPad, along with the iPhone and new versions of the Mac, helped Apple supplant Microsoft as the world’s most valuable technology company last year.

Apple’s Gains

“In terms of the rise of tablets and Apple doing extremely well, that clearly impacts all the stakeholders in the space,” said Abhey Lamba, an analyst at International Strategy & Investment Group in New York.

Hewlett-Packard plans to deliver a tablet called the TouchPad this summer. The device will run the WebOS operating system, which the company acquired when it bought Palm Inc. last year. WebOS also runs on smartphones and will appear on Hewlett- Packard PCs next year.

Intel is redesigning its chips to use less power and work better with tablets, the company told analysts yesterday.

CEO Paul Otellini said the company will design future products to make its chips more appealing for use in smartphones and tablets. He’s trying to lessen his company’s dependence on the PC market and have it profit more directly from demand for tablets and phones, a market where Intel’s chips have lost out to rival designs.

Microsoft plans to release version of Windows optimized for touch-screen tablets next year.

Companies that aren’t selling tablets risk getting left behind, said Tony Ursillo, an analyst at Loomis Sayles & Co.

“Most of the growth is going to come on the tablet side,” he said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Aaron Ricadela in San Francisco ataricadela@bloomberg.net; Dina Bass in Seattle at dbass2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-18/apple-ipad-s-buzz-saw-success-cuts-into-pc-sales-at-hp-dell.html