Dr John Dee

Hope it's better than the Sonos thing I got a while ago. I can still hear Duhwayne no matter what I do.

Best of luck to all those bravely venturing out today. I won't get any further than where I left the remote last night. But here are a few things you might like to try on the way to the G (inspired by Old Dee's many references to wet tram tickets):

Dank's qualifications are a bit of a mystery to say the least and as subject to mythologising as anything else to do with this whole saga. A while ago I came across some Essendonian claiming that he (Dank) has 50 published biochemistry papers so I went to Google Scholar and did a search. Nothing. Not by Dank anyway (although I did give up after about five pages). A few papers mentioning Dank and the Cronulla/Essendon cases, but that was all. Still, he tells us he's the expert and who are we to disagree.

Although I probably should have added that it's a bit disconcerting to realise that every time I buy a packet of Panadeine from the chemist, and without testing each and every tablet, I can only ever have the confidence of believing it's Panadeine. Lucky we have the placebo effect to keep all those drugs working.

Thanks Bing. It's pretty much as Jack has been saying all along, though the article also provides plenty of other things to think about.

If it ends here '2014, I suspect the clamour from other sports will become a din, which is why you're probably right about WADA taking on the case. It's certainly about much more than 34 players now.

I'd love to BBO if I had the time although I haven't done a lecture on Barthes for years. Besides, if you can quote him and get to the end of the sentence with your thoughts intact I suspect you understand more than you're letting on.

Sorry Saty, you need more than simple (simple-minded) contradiction to produce anything like humour. Unless of course you want us to believe that every solecism, every absurdity in expression, every sentence of yours disappearing up its own fundament in all these threads is actually a brilliantly constructed and sustained act of comic genius. Why didn't you let us in on the joke before now? Dr Phil, I understand, is a psychologist. Why you think he'd have any understanding of demotic expression that might be used as a comparative I have no idea ... whoops, of course, it was a joke, you're just pretending to look stupid and not making some shallow effort at sarcasm at all. Must pay attention. Nor did you explain the first point in your chain of contradictions, but obviously that's just the prerogative of the true wit.

Yeah, sure Saty, nothing to do with your slippery grasp on the English language. Of course if it was 'meant to be funny' you'd be able to explain why but curiously you haven't bothered. Spell it out for us Saty so that all us dullards can have a good if belated laugh.

?? I hope Brayshaw plays with more coherence than this. Not that it would be too hard.

Yes, I don't recall his having such an unconditional view of responsibility when he was belted by Middleton and then the Full Bench of the Federal Court.

I'm not either but no it shouldn't be a concern since nothing to do with Essendon has yet to get to CAS's door. You might check the WADA site, but even then I doubt there'd be much yet.

Since about the same time they started using 'gotten' and all sorts of other Americanisms. It's too late ...

Haven't you got your bifocals on, OD (the clue is in the thread title)?

Of course, it's easy enough to edit the title, but I couldn't help myself. I'm not sure that there's any point to this thread anyway. Unless there's some scintillating contribution in the next half hour I think it should go.

Grines? How easily we forget.

Agree ('supposed to be'). It will be interesting to see what weight was or was not given to what if the judgement is ever made fully public ... But the implications of CAS's capacity also to treat evidence in whatever manner they see fit presumably throws everything wide open again if WADA appeals.

On quotes and things, Jack, I'd be interested in what you think about this (from the Davies paper): "CAS has also made it clear that ‘oth the initial arbitration panel (as with the initial decision maker) and the appeal arbitration panel are not bound by the rules of evidence and may inform themselves in such manner as the arbitrators think fit’." (2012: 6)

From Australian Sports Anti-Doping Act 2006 (Part 9) 78 Protection from civil actions (1) Each of the following: (a) an ASADA member; (b) a member of the ASADA staff; © an individual whose services are made available to the ASADA under section 50; (d) an individual appointed as a chaperone, or as a drug testing official, under the NAD scheme; is not liable to an action or other proceeding for damages for or in relation to an act done or omitted to be done in good faith: (e) in the performance or purported performance of any function of the ASADA; or (f) in the exercise or purported exercise of any power of the ASADA. (2) An ASDMAC member is not liable to an action or other proceeding for damages for or in relation to an act done or omitted to be done in good faith: (a) in the performance or purported performance of any function of the ASDMAC; or (b) in the exercise or purported exercise of any power of the ASDMAC. (3) Civil proceedings do not lie against the ASADA or the Commonwealth in respect of loss, damage or injury of any kind suffered by another person because of a publication or disclosure in good faith: (a) in the performance or purported performance of any function of the ASADA; or (b) in the exercise or purported exercise of any power of the ASADA. (4) Civil proceedings do not lie against a person in respect of loss, damage or injury of any kind suffered by another person because of any of the following acts done in good faith: (a) the making of a statement to, or the giving of a document or information to, the ASADA or the ASDMAC alleging a possible violation of an anti-doping rule; (b) the making of a statement to, or the giving of a document or information to, the ASADA or the ASDMAC in connection with an investigation under the NAD scheme; © the making of a statement to, or the giving of a document or information to, the ASADA or the ASDMAC that may be capable of supporting an allegation of a possible violation of an anti-doping rule; (d) the making of a statement to, or the giving of a document or information to, the ASADA in connection with the performance by the ASADA of any of its functions under the NAD scheme; (e) the making of a statement to, or the giving of a document or information to, the ASDMAC in connection with the performance by the ASDMAC of any of its functions under the NAD scheme. Good luck with that Steve.

History rewritten already. It was a wet tram ticket (number unspecified) ... although Old Dee has used the lettuce leaf before. Maybe it transmogrified somewhere along the line.

Not questioning any of this Mr Leg but where are these findings reported? Has a full judgement been leaked and summarised somewhere?

Yep. This is from the paper WJ referred to earlier. … in Woolmington v Director of Public Prosecutions, it was stated that ‘throughout the web of English Criminal Law one golden thread is always to be seen, that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner’s guilt’. There are exceptions to this, however, and the evidential burden, for instance, rests with the accused if he or she raises the defence of provocation, duress, self-defence, automatism, honest or reasonable mistake. (Davies 2012: 2) So it's not just an issue for sports tribunals.

Ahh, I wondered which taxpayer it was.

So you've seen the tribunal's full decision? And you've conducted this sort of investigation ... so frequently that you don't even need to sift through the material evidence of what ASADA did to reach your conclusion? Oh, and for someone who's bored by all this you're still throwing in more than your two bob's worth.

Thanks Jack I think you're right that the real issue here is the comfortable satisfaction test and it looks to me like dismissing a player's statement as having no evidentiary value might suggest that at least one judge's thinking was complicated by a leaning towards reasonable doubt (I assume it was regarded as 'hearsay' but that's exactly the point about what constitutes evidence and how it can be treated that comfortable satisfaction raises). I also thought that, at the time Charter and Alavi refused to appear, ASADA were happy to proceed on the basis that signed/sworn testimony from the two was available. The Age article refers only to correspondence so maybe you're right. We won't know until the full judgement is available ... if it is. That it's not is highly questionable and certainly gets in the way of any conclusions about the tribunal's approach, especially to what it deemed it would be comfortably satisfied with or not. It's all well and good or the tribunal to hide behind the anti-doping rules on this but since any names referred to can be redacted that's just a furphy, especially as they've decided that the anti-doping rules don't apply to any of the players concerned (whose names we don't 'know' anyway). I've got other things to do but now you've thrown it in the path I know I'll end up distracting myself with the Davies article today. On the first couple of pages I find remarkable the difference in language and thinking compared to someone like, oh I don't know, that Hardie fellow. You wouldn't know they were in the same trade.