The Weight of Insanity

Now that I'm back from the Gulf I no longer wake to the hurricane updates on weather channel, instead have returned to a rhythm of checking CyclingNews and VeloNews - a nice diversion from reality.

This morning I learned two things - one, Fabulous Fabian's Fourth ITT World Championship places alone atop the podium of cycling's greatest time trial greats.

The second, insanity has a weight, exactly 50 "picograms" or 50/1,000,000,000 of a gram. Looking around for a representative of that weight - good luck. Start with a gram and work down. A gram? For all you off-season gram junkies a gram is equal to a medium size paperclip, or a Bic plastic pen cap (only), or one US dollar bill. Now imagine something one trillionth that size, add 49 more and you have it, INSANITY. Yes, that's insanity - the weight of its actions, or reactions, is much weightier, generally devastating in fact, often life changing. The victim of this weighty insanity? - recent Tour de France winner Alberto Contador(read more here on VeloNews).

[The UCI] however, added that only a “very small concentration” of the drug had been found and that the case warranted “further scientific investigation” because the Cologne laboratory that detected the substance is known to be able to detect the tiniest traces of drugs.

“The concentration found by the laboratory was estimated at 50 picograms (50 trillionths of a gram) which is 400 times less than what the antidoping laboratories accredited by WADA (World Anti Doping Agency) must be able to detect,” the UCI said, adding that testing of a second “B” sample taken at the same time confirmed the result.

More on Clenbuterol and why no one knows what they are eating

I also booked my flights back to the Gulf to work on the post-BP spill mess, the hundreds of lives that have been destroyed or tossed on their heads, the environment disrupted for decades, that's an insanity I can measure and has real weight.