Monday, October 29, 2012

The 2011 VMAs: A Celebration of Today’s Illuminati Music Industry

hey another mega ritual.             

The 2011 VMAs: A Celebration of Today’s Illuminati Music Industry


MTV’s Video Music Awards give out “Moon Man” trophies to music artists who have had success during the previous year. But there is much more to it than shiny trophies. The VMAs are a celebration of the Illuminati industry, of those who push its agenda and a promotional tool to put the next generation of “initiates” into the spotlight. We’ll look at the 2011 VMAs, the stars that were celebrated and the material that leads them there.


The MTV Video Music Awards are considered to be a few hours of performances and award acceptance speeches mixed with a few shocking moments to generate publicity. But there is more to the award ceremony than meets the eye. This mega-media-event, broadcast around the world, serves several important purposes: First, it is a major promotional tool that allows a select group of artists to gain exposure and recognition while ignoring others; second, it is an almost ritualistic celebration of the Illuminati industry, spotlighting the artists who have pushed its agenda over the previous year. My article on the 2009 VMAs described the ritualistic and symbolic elements that were found throughout the show -  there was a definite occult element underlying the show which reflected the mind state of the industry.
The 2011 VMAs arguably contained less occult ritualistic elements, but was still a tightly choreographed show featuring a very select number of artists. These few actors took turns, performing, presenting and awarding each other Moon Men. In other words, the VMAs can be compared to a burlesque play where a few actors take turns appearing on stage to interact with each others. Sometimes, new characters are introduced while others are “killed off”.
Almost all of the artists who were recognized at the VMAs have been featured in some way on this site (Vigilant Citizen, in case you forgot), which is not surprising as most or all of their work pushes some part of the Illuminati agenda. The main actors of this show were: Lady Gaga (of course), Katy Perry, Jessie-J, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Beyonce and Odd Future. Wearing crazy, outlandish costumes and taking on theatrical personas, many of the artists featured in the award were not themselves, but playing characters. In fact, the show began with a long speech by Lady Gaga playing the role of a greasy Italian dude from the 1950s.
Let’s look at the several “acts” of the 2011 VMA’s and their meaning in the context of the Illuminati industry.

Artists and presenters emerged from a womb-like stage. They were literally coming out of the "belly of the beast".

Lady Gaga’s Alter Persona


Gaga's alter-ego opening the VMAs
The show opens with Gaga’s latest stunt: An male alter-ego that is a greasy annoying New York dude. Many of Gaga’s singles are accompanied with a complicated setup, including characters and theatrical props (remember the horns on her heads?) – all of which get exposure in several media outlets, including TV and magazines.
For her single Yoü And I, Gaga introduced Joe Calderone, a male alter-ego. Like most of Gaga’s other stunts, most people have absolutely no idea why Gaga did what she did. Why was she dressed as an Italian dude to sing a country-rock song? What’s the point? Like most of Gaga’s other stunts, the occult meaning of this whole charade can be found in the music video.
While the video could be the subject of an entire article, I can sum it up in two words: mind control. More specifically, it is about Monarch programming and the creation of alter-egos through the use of trauma-inducing techniques. In the video, Gaga is shown bound and tortured by a cruel handler who subjects her to the most common methods of mind control: Electroshock therapy, sexual abuse, the injection of drugs and physical torture. Yes, all of these things were portrayed in the video, along with the presence the several alter-egos created by the process. (If you have no idea what I am talking about, I suggest you read the article entitled Origins and Techniques of Monarch Mind Control).
So Lady Gaga, who is already an alter-persona of Stefanie Germanotta (the real person) has another level of alter-ego that is pretty much the exact opposite of Lady Gaga: Male, dressed in drab clothes, not glamorous, not famous, etc. In Calderone’s long speech at the beginning of the VMAs, he says that Gaga left him and that he wants to be reunited with her. In occult terms, the union of opposites is called the “Alchemical Wedding” and is often represented by the figure of Baphomet – an androgynous, goat-headed deity. The title Yoü And I represents the union of the two opposite personas, Gaga and Joe Calderone, and, since they are basically same person, this ultimately creates an androgynous entity, not unlike Baphomet. In Kabbalistic lore, androgyny is perceived as the highest level of occult achievement and the concept of duality is strongly instilled in mind control victims. In other words, the presence of Joe Calderone at the VMAs is a big tribute to mind control. Good way to start a show. But Gaga did not stop there. She committed to her persona and played the role of Calderone during the entire show.

Other Alter Personas

Lady Gaga’s alter-persona was heavily featured at the VMAs, but most of the artists that participated in the awards also incorporate alter personas in their acts.

Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj is already a created alter persona, very different from the real person that is Onika Tanya Maraj. The odd, fashion-crazy, surgically-enhanced persona that is Minaj is a made-for-the-music-industry character created to become a star. On top of that alter, there is Roman Zolanski, a male alter-ego that appeared on some songs and that will probably be appearing a lot more in the future. Roman Zolanski is based on Roman Polanski, the movie producer who was charged for rape by use of drugs and lascivious act upon a child under 14 a few years ago.

During the 2011 VMAs, Nicki wore a Harajuku-inspired dress featuring mirror fragments (a Monarch symbol representing the fragmenting of personality). The combination of "kiddie" accessories with the sexiness of the dress' cut (it's "revealing" at the right places) is a little questionable.

Katy Perry

Katy Perry was also all over the VMAs this year as one of the “main characters”. Her latest single titled Last Friday Night introduced Katy’s fans to her odd alter-ego: a nerdy 13 year old girl.

Katy Perry's young alter-ego waking up next to some unknown perv.
To sum up the Last Friday Night video, the awkward teenager gets a make-over from Rebecca Black in order to look like a slut, then gets drunk and has a menage à trois. Great message to girls between ages 10-14!

One of the four outfits worn by Katy Perry featured a big bright cube on her head, as if her thoughts were controlled by it. In fact, it reminded me of the icon you see when selecting a player to control in the Sims video game.

When this greenish shape hovers above a character, you can do pretty much whatever you want with it ... a little like how the industry can do pretty much whatever it wants with its artists.

Odd Tributes

Every award show presents tributes to artists who had an outstanding career and to the greats who left this world. The VMAs are no exception but these tributes are becoming increasingly odd, insincere and dedicated to victims of the industry. In the article on the 2009 VMAs, I described the tribute to Michael Jackson, which was given by Madonna – someone who did not particularly “click” with MJ. The tribute also featured a weird video montage featuring him as zombie  – which is a strange way to honor a dead person.
The 2011 VMAs presented two tributes that were just as weird as they were almost mocking the artist in question.

Britney Spears

Britney was the recipient of  the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award for her “influence in music video and dance”… although she did not direct any of her videos nor devise any of her choreography … but let’s forget this detail. To emphasize the non-sincerity of the tribute and to make sure to point out that “this is all an act”, the award is presented by an imaginary character…Lady Gaga’s Joe Calderone. Britney, who is a true mind control victim of the industry and who has often shown the desire to leave it all, is given an award by an alter-ego that is basically a tribute to mind control.
The tribute then proceeds to show a mix of Britney’s most popular videos whose costumes and choreography were reproduced by young girls.

The tribute to Britney's career was performed by young girls in skimpy outfits, reminding us of Britney's "contribution" to the sexualization of children agenda.
When Britney finally gets on stage to accept her award, an awkward Joe Calderone pretty much steals the show.

Sorry, I'm not doing any transvestite lesbian kissing right now, but thanks for ruining my tribute.
Upon receiving her award, instead of giving acceptance speech and “having her moment”, Britney proceeds to … present Beyonce and goes on with Joe Calderone about how great she is. I am pretty sure that was scripted and forced on her, making this probably the most insincere tribute of all time. Or was it?

Amy Winehouse

Having lost her life a few weeks prior to the awards, it was only fair that Amy Winehouse got a tribute for her great talent. However, as we have seen in the article entitled Amy Winehouse and Club 27, her death might have been the result of a ritual sacrifice and the tribute was at least as odd as the one for Michael Jackson, another great who died in strange circumstances.
Russell Brand was selected to honor Amy Winehouse. He alluded to her great voice but mostly talked about how she was a “crazy person, stinking of booze and wondering around London”. He then went on to say that she was afflicted with a “disease” that affect a lot of people, alcoholism and drug addiction, although no traces of drugs were found in Winehouse nor at her home at the time of the death. Why not focus on the human being and her accomplishments?
The tribute performance that followed featured several images of Amy Winehouse with one eye hidden, which, as readers of this site know, is a symbol of Illuminati control.

In the short video compilation before Bruno Mars' performance, we see Winehouse hiding one eye, then another.

Image of Amy with one eye hidden during the performance

Another image of Amy with an eye that seems to have been photoshopped.

The First Couple and the Big Announcement

Like the last few VMA awards, Jay-Z and Beyonce were pretty much the King and Queen of the 2011 ceremonies. First, Jay-Z and Kanye West performed the first single from their album Watch the Throne. This album opens with a revealing song entitled No Church in the Wild (featuring Odd Future’s Frank Ocean). The song describes a philosophy that is akin to Aleister Crowley’s “Thelema”. Kanye West’s verse goes as follows:
Coke on her black skin made a stripe like a zebra
I call that jungle fever
You will not control the threesome
Just roll the weed up until I get me some
We formed a new religion
No sins as long as there’s permission
And deception is the only felony
So never f-ck nobody wit’out tellin’ me
Aleister Crowley’s motto was “Do What Thou Wilt” which seems to be echoed in Kanye saying “We formed a new religions/No sins as long as there’s permission”. Crowley was also known to have extensively experimented with drugs and sexuality in a spiritual context – another concept reflected by his verse. Later in the song,  Kanye appears to be referring to relations with a Monarch sex kitten.
Thinkin’ ’bout the girl in all-leopard
Who was rubbin’ the wood like Kiki Shepard
Two tattooes, one read “No Apologies”
The other said “Love is cursed by monogamy”
The song therefore echoes similar themes to those communicated by other pop stars (such as Gaga) – which is the philosophy that is promoted by the entertainment industry.
Going back to the show, MTV’s first couple had an important announcement to its loyal  subjects: the first lady is with child and will be giving birth to the successor of the king.

Beyonce in front of the womb-like stage, holding her own womb.
Proving the importance of the couple, this silent pregnancy announcement shattered all previous Twitter records with more than 8,000 tweets a second. This kind of attention reminded me of Jay-Z’s almost prophetic verse in the song New Day, from the album that was released about two weeks prior to the VMAs:
Sorry junior, I already ruined ya
‘Cause you ain’t even alive, paparazzi pursuin’ ya
Sins of a father make yo’ life ten times harder
I just wanna take ya to a barber
Bondin’ on charters, all the shit that I never did
Teach ya good values, so you cherish it
Took me 26 years to find my path
My only job is cuttin’ the time in half
So at 13 we’ll have our first drink together
I would never speak ill of an unborn child. I will just hope that he/she won’t become another Willow Smith.

Presenting the New Generation

The VMAs do not only celebrate current Illuminati artists, it “initiates” a new generation of artists who will carry the Illuminati torch into the future. A couple of new acts stood out in the 2011 VMAs.
Jessie J, who already released a few symbolic music videos (see the article entitled Jessie J’s “Price Tag”: It’s Not About Money, It’s About Mind Control), enjoyed great exposure during that night by occupying the Throne, where she performed about a dozen times.

Jessie J sat on the Throne during the VMAs as a "new initiate".
The artist who obtained the most publicity was however Tyler the Creator from the alternate-rap, shock-rap, lo-fi rap, horrorcore rap, whatever-you-wanna-call-it-rap group Odd Future. Considered to be (by people who know nothing about rap) the “new Wu-Tang Clan”, Odd Future obtained great praise from artists like Kanye West, who deemed Yonkers to be the song of the year, while getting criticized by others, such as Chris Brown, who tweeted: “All this demonic music is wack as shi*! I never claim to be no saint but by no means am I trying to promote death, violence,and destruction with my music!”.
Whatever your opinion is on Tyler the Creator, it is obvious that his theatrical talent, his “anything to shock” attitude, his promotion of self-destruction and his love for inverted crosses will make him a perfect fit in the Illuminati industry. Expect to see a lot more of him in the future.

The video Yonkers has pretty everything needed to shock viewers: Tyler the Creator eats a cockroach, throws up, says things like "Jesus called, he said he's sick of the disses I told him to quit bitching, this isn't a f*cking hotline For a f*cking shrink, sheesh, I already got mine" and ultimately hangs himself. Not unlike other artists at the VMA's, Tyler has an alter-ego named Wolf Haley.

In Conclusion

The VMAs are not simply a show designed to give out awards. They define who’s hot and who’s not. They celebrate in a ritualistic matter the type of “creativity” that is appreciated by the industry – superficial shock value. As we have seen in this article, almost all of the artists who obtained exposure during the VMAs have released albums and videos that were directly in line with the Illuminati agenda which includes: the promotion of mind control, self-destruction, materialism, superficiality, the sexualization of children and the demeaning of religions. Pushing these kinds of messages through lyrics and symbols is a requirement to be in the “good graces” of the industry – which is a giant, controlling machine, that works with codes and rituals and that heavily calculates and filters the messages sent to the masses.
Although many of the artists featured on the show are “eccentric” and “original”, the core message remains the same and is remarkably consistent, regardless of the musical genre. Aspiring artists who dream to obtain this level of celebrity, understand that this is the “mold to fit” in order to obtain success. The VMAs are an artificial creation that artificially promotes artists to create artificial hype. It is a fake show, filled with fake personas who sing with fake voices, wearing fake wigs and cracking fake smiles, giving fake tributes to other fakes who have been fake longer than them. Are there still real, authentic artists who sing from the heart and do not push “industry-approved” messages? Yes, but you won’t find them watching the VMAs. So turn off that TV and see what the real world has to offer.                http://vigilantcitizen.com/musicbusiness/the-2011-vmas-a-celebration-of-todays-illuminati-music-industry/

The CIA wants to spy on you through your TV: Agency director says it will 'transform' surveillance

The CIA wants to spy on you through your TV: Agency director says it will 'transform' surveillance

  • Devices connected to internet leak information
  • CIA director says these gadgets will 'transform clandestine tradecraft'
  • Spies could watch thousands via supercomputers
  • People 'bug' their own homes with web-connected devices
By Rob Waugh
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When people download a film from Netflix to a flatscreen, or turn on web radio, they could be alerting unwanted watchers to exactly what they are doing and where they are.
Spies will no longer have to plant bugs in your home - the rise of 'connected' gadgets controlled by apps will mean that people 'bug' their own homes, says CIA director David Petraeus.
The CIA claims it will be able to 'read' these devices via the internet - and perhaps even via radio waves from outside the home.
A Sony internet TV: The rise of 'connected' devices in the home offers spies a window into people's lives - CIA director David Petraeus says the technologies will 'transform' surveillance
A Sony internet TV: The rise of 'connected' devices in the home offers spies a window into people's lives - CIA director David Petraeus says the technologies will 'transform' surveillance
General David Petraeus, former head of the allied forces in Afghanistan, is sworn in as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency on September 6, 2011 in the White House
General David Petraeus, former head of the allied forces in Afghanistan, is sworn in as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency on September 6, 2011 in the White House
Everything from remote controls to clock radios can now be controlled via apps - and chip company ARM recently unveiled low-powered, cheaper chips which will be used in everything from fridges and ovens to doorbells.
The resultant chorus of 'connected' gadgets will be able to be read like a book - and even remote-controlled, according to CIA CIA Director David Petraeus, according to a recent report by Wired's 'Danger Room' blog.
Petraeus says that web-connected gadgets will 'transform' the art of spying - allowing spies to monitor people automatically without planting bugs, breaking and entering or even donning a tuxedo to infiltrate a dinner party.
'Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,' said Petraeus.
'Particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft. Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters -  all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing.'
Petraeus was speaking to a venture capital firm about new technologies which aim to add processors and web connections to previously  'dumb' home appliances such as fridges, ovens and lighting systems.
This week, one of the world's biggest chip companies, ARM, has unveiled a new processor built to work inside 'connected' white goods.
The ARM chips are smaller, lower-powered and far cheaper than previous processors - and designed to add the internet to almost every kind of electrical appliance.

It's a concept described as the 'internet of things'.
The murderous computer Hal in 2001: But it seems that the danger of computers isn't villainous artificial intelligence - but the information they 'leak' about us
The murderous computer Hal in 2001: But it seems that the danger of computers isn't villainous artificial intelligence - but the information they 'leak' about us

Futurists think that one day 'connected' devices will tell the internet where they are and what they are doing at all times - and will be mapped by computers as precisely as Google Maps charts the physical landscape now.
Privacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation have warned of how information such as geolocation data can be misused - but as more and more devices connect, it's clear that opportunities for surveillance will multiply.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2115871/The-CIA-wants-spy-TV-Agency-director-says-net-connected-gadgets-transform-surveillance.html#ixzz2AhiRcxdS
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SPYING THROUGH SMART PHONES: A NEW PROJECT ECHELON?

SPYING THROUGH SMART PHONES: A NEW PROJECT ECHELON?       http://gizadeathstar.com/2012/10/spying-through-smart-phones-a-new-project-echelon/

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about a security service in Canada offering technologies to visually monitor one’s home while one was away, a technology and “service” that I offered was as much about control of you, than about protecting you. Now, there’s this from MIT’s Technology Review:
PlaceRaider: The Military Smartphone Malware Designed to Steal Your Life
Note this:
“Today Robert Templeman at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana, and a few pals at Indiana University reveal an entirely new class of ‘visual malware’ capable of recording and reconstructing a user’s environment in 3D. This then allows the  theft of virtual objects such as financial information, data on computer screens and identity-related information.
“Templeman and co call their visual malware PlaceRaider and have created it as an app capable of running in the background of any smartphone using the Android 2.3 operating system.”
Obviously, the article is rightly concerned about the use of such software to spy on an individual through their smartphone. With this demonstrated capability, almost anyone could get into this act, from nations, to corporations, independent rogue groups, Mafiosi, drug lords… you name it.
But there’s another possibility here as well, and that is using someone’s phone to spy on a third party with whom the individual is known to associate. Gone are the days of the small “spy camera” and microfilm, all one needs is an infected smart phone. But why stop there? One could build databases of contacts, conversations, key words… in short, one could have a project Echelon with a vengeance: not only mining conversations and emails for keywords, but now also scanning pictures, objects, for information, a pattern of contacts, and suspicious “things.”  (And, trust me folks, DARPA is already working on such things).

Read more: SPYING THROUGH SMART PHONES: A NEW PROJECT ECHELON?
- Giza Death Star Community

PlaceRaider: The Military Smartphone Malware Designed to Steal Your Life


PlaceRaider: The Military Smartphone Malware Designed to Steal Your Life

The US Naval Surface Warfare Center has created an Android app that secretly records your environment and reconstructs it as a 3D virtual model for a malicious user to browse
The power of modern smartphones is one of the technological wonders of our age. These devices carry a suite of sensors capable of monitoring the environment in detail, powerful data processors and the ability to transmit and receive information at high rates.
So it's no surprise that smartphones are increasingly targeted by malware designed to exploit this newfound power. Examples include software that listens for spoken credit card numbers or uses the on-board accelerometers to monitor credit card details entered as keystrokes.
Today Robert Templeman at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana, and a few pals at Indiana University reveal an entirely new class of 'visual malware' capable of recording and reconstructing a user's environment in 3D. This then allows the  theft of virtual objects such as financial information, data on computer screens and identity-related information.
Templeman and co call their visual malware PlaceRaider and have created it as an app capable of running in the background of any smartphone using the Android 2.3 operating system.
Their idea is that the malware would be embedded in a camera app that the user would download and run, a process that would give the malware the permissions it needs to take photos and send them.
PlaceRaider then runs in the background taking photos at random while recording the time, location and orientation of the phone. (The malware mutes the phone as the photos are taken to hide the shutter sound, which would otherwise alert the user.)
The malware then performs some simple image filtering to get rid of blurred or dark images taken inside a pocket for example, and sends the rest to a central server. Here they are reconstructed into a 3D model of the user's space, using additional details such as the orientation and location of the camera.
A malicious user can then browse this space looking for objects worth stealing and sensitive data such as credit card details, identity data or calender details that reveal when the user might  be away.
Templeman and co have carried out detailed tests of the app to see how well it works in realistic situations. They gave their infected phone to 20 individuals who were unaware of the malware and asked them to use it for various ordinary purposes in an office environment.
They then evaluated the resulting photos by asking a group of other users to see how much information they could glean from them. Some of these users studied the raw images while the others studied the 3D models, both groups looking for basic information such as the number of walls in the room as well as more detailed info such as QR codes and personal checks lying around.
Templeman and co say the tests went well. They were able to build detailed models of the room from all the data sets. What's more, the 3D models made it vastly easier for malicious users to steal information from the personal office space than from the raw photos alone.
That's an impressive piece of work that reveals some of the vulnerabilities of these powerful devices.And although the current version of the malware runs only on the Android platform, there is no reason why it couldn't be adapted for other systems. "We implemented on Android for practical reasons, but we expect such malware to generalize to other platforms such as iOS and Windows Phone," say Templeman and co.
They go on to point out various ways that the operating systems could be made more secure. Perhaps the simplest would be to ensure that the shutter sound cannot be muted, so that the user is always aware when the camera is taking a picture.
However that wouldn't prevent the use of video to record data in silence. Templeman and co avoid this because of the huge amount of data it would produce but it's not hard to imagine that this would be less of a problem in the near future.
Another option would be a kind of antivirus app for smartphones which actively looks for potential malware and alerts the user.
The message is clear--this kind of malware is a clear and present danger. It's only a matter of time before this game of cat and mouse becomes more serious.
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1209.5982: PlaceRaider: Virtual Theft in Physical Spaces with Smartphones

"a Massive Fraud Now More Fully Exposed"

October 22, 2012

"a Massive Fraud Now More Fully Exposed"

FOR YEARS, AS HE BECAME THE MOST DOMINANT CYCLIST IN HISTORY, LANCE ARMSTRONG VEHEMENTLY DENIED DOPING. HERE ARE SOME OF HIS MOST STRIDENT ASSERTIONS, ANNOTATED WITH THE NOW UNDENIABLE EVIDENCE THAT ARMSTRONG TOOK PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING DRUGS, PRESSURED HIS TEAMMATES TO DO SO AND BULLIED ANYONE WHO OPPOSED HIM

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What am I on? I'm on my bike, busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?
—Lance Armstrong, 2001 Nike commercial
It was a brazen but brilliant ad, a way for Armstrong to mock anyone inclined to believe the gathering evidence that he had doped his way to his Tour de France titles. At the same time he could burnish his image as a cancer survivor whose journey seemed to place him beyond reproach. As he darted through the most drug-saturated period any sport had ever known, Armstrong defended himself the same way he raced—aggressively and sometimes recklessly. Every cyclist but one who shared the Paris podium with him between 1999 and 2005 would be directly implicated in the use of performance-enhancing drugs, but Armstrong always blustered his way clear, as if faithful domestiques would clean up after him in the courtroom or the lab as they did on the road.
The force of his denials kept his accusers on the defensive—or did until two months ago, when the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced that it would strip Armstrong of his seven Tour titles and ban him from any future involvement in sanctioned sports. Last week, with the release of its "reasoned decision" for doing so, the agency pulled the last thread from the fiction that Armstrong had painstakingly woven: that he had been the lone clean champion during cycling's most corrupt era.
In 164 pages punctuated by chilling detail, and more than 850 pages of addenda and documentary evidence, USADA lays out what it calls "a massive fraud now more fully exposed." During his run of Tour victories, Armstrong was, in fact, on all sorts of things besides his bike. He was on erythropoietin (EPO). He was on testosterone. He was on corticosteroids. He was on transfused blood. More than that, he lobbied other members of his U.S. Postal Service team to use "Edgar" (EPO, after Edgar Allan Poe) or "the oil" (for testosterone mixed with olive oil). He introduced teammates to his notorious doping doctor, Michele Ferrari, and urged them to follow Ferrari's regimen. He insisted Ferrari work with no other Tour contender, and he continued his relationship with the Italian medicine man long after Armstrong testified under oath to have ended it. Sometimes Armstrong himself provided drugs to teammates. And to keep his secrets, he intimidated those who might spill them—one of the "aggravating circumstances" that USADA invoked to reach back beyond the eight-year statute of limitations.
Some 15 cyclists ignored the sport's omertà to cooperate with USADA's investigation, including 11 who rode alongside Armstrong. Of them, 10—Frankie Andreu, Michael Barry, Tom Danielson, Tyler Hamilton, George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer, Floyd Landis, Christian Vande Velde, Jonathan Vaughters and Dave Zabriskie—admitted, some for the first time publicly, to having doped themselves. Documents and sworn testimony also implicate USPS team director Johan Bruyneel; team doctors Pedro Celaya and Luis García del Moral; and José (Pepe) Martí, the trainer who allegedly served as the team's drug courier.
Like Armstrong, del Moral and Ferrari will not go to arbitration, thereby accepting their punishment. Bruyneel, Celaya and Martí will contest USADA's findings. The six active riders who admitted to doping but cooperated will forfeit results and serve six-month suspensions.
It would have been much easier to process last week's news if we were European. Across the Atlantic they have long known the truth about a sport that took root in France at the beginning of the last century. "For Americans, doping is entwined with questions of character, with goodness and evil," Daniel Coyle wrote in his 2005 book, Lance Armstrong's War. "For Europeans, doping is simply something cyclists are known to do.... [It's] the same divergence that occurs when a politician is caught out with a mistress: Americans get outraged—How could he? while, Europeans shrug—But of course." Five-time Tour winner Jacques Anquetil of France, who rode in the 1950s and '60s, once said, "You'd have to be an imbecile or a hypocrite to imagine that a professional cyclist who rides 235 days a year can hold himself together without stimulants."
But then, bike racing in Europe is a way out for working-class kids, who were willing to do almost anything for a place in the peloton. Many of the men who plied the roads of Europe a generation ago run the sport today. Why should they deny their successors the pharmaceutical relief they enjoyed?
In the U.S. bike racing is a way out too: a way out of high school hell for geeky middle-class boys. They take up cycling for the romance or, like Dave the Cutter in the 1979 movie Breaking Away, for the refuge. American pioneers arrived in Europe during the 1980s lashed to this ideal, but they eventually faced a reckoning. You can leave Colorado or California with your water bottles and Clif Bars, but you discover, as Dutch TV journalist Mart Smeets puts it, "if you want to dance, you put on your dancing shoes."
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By 1995, according to former teammates, Lance desperately wanted to dance. So he shrewdly began to broadcast on two frequencies—one within the sport and another to the millions back home who would become deeply invested in the notion of an American winning clean after triumphing over cancer. Within the guild, Armstrong was a but-of-courser to the bone, bullying riders who spoke out against doping. At the same time he was careful to cover his how-could-you flank. If pro cycling is known to the typical Stateside sports fan at all, it's through one event, which to casual followers exists only to supply over-the-top movies of the week like Texan Dominates Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys After Cancer Racks Body. "Once it's entertainment," says U.S. cyclist Andy Hampsten, who retired rather than compete after EPO hit the sport, "do we really want to know that cyclists are on drugs? It would ruin people's fun."
Jeff Novitzky, the investigator with the Food and Drug Administration who built the doping cases against Barry Bonds and Marion Jones, heard a variation on that line—Do we really want to know?—after he launched a federal probe into Armstrong and the U.S. Postal Service team in 2010. The U.S. attorney's office in Southern California chose not to pursue a criminal case against the Texan last February, leaving USADA and its executive director, Travis Tygart, to begin its doping investigation. Tygart invited witnesses to reiterate under oath what they had already told the Feds. After years of keeping secrets, and of what the USADA report calls significant pressure and attacks from the Armstrong camp, the truth-telling came as catharsis. According to a source familiar with the government probe, the investigators' challenge had been less to get Postal riders to talk than to get them to stop crying so they could talk.
Armstrong is silent now, but in the past he has talked plenty. What follows are his own words, with annotations based on SI's reporting, the USADA findings and other publicly available sources. The Texan has chosen not to face the evidence. But we can if we want, if we dare.
As I passed into unconsciousness, my doctors controlled my future. They controlled my ability to sleep, and to reawaken. For that period of time, they were the ultimate beings. My doctors were my Gods.
—It's Not About the Bike, Armstrong's 2000 memoir, on his cancer treatment in 1996
Doctors and drugs helped save Armstrong's life. Doctors and drugs helped him win seven Tours. While he rode under two separate team physicians for the Postal team, del Moral and Celaya, Ferrari remained the one medical constant.
Armstrong's relationship with Ferrari, which began in 1995, became widely public in 2001 with a report by David Walsh in The Sunday Times of London. Until then Armstrong had concealed it, even from some on his own team. After Walsh's report, Armstrong defended the connection, even as Ferrari stood trial in Italy on charges of directing cyclists' doping programs.
In the meantime Armstrong inflated the role of Chris Carmichael, the coach who dated back to his predoping days. But in his book, The Secret Race, Hamilton quotes Vaughters saying, "In two years, I never heard Lance refer to Chris one time." Adds Landis, "Carmichael was a beard."
Michele Ferrari ... was a friend and I went to him for occasional advice on training.... He wasn't one of my major advisers.
—Every Second Counts, Armstrong's 2003 memoir
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Armstrong in fact had no more essential adviser than Ferrari. USADA spoke to 15 cyclists, six of them Armstrong teammates whom Ferrari also served, and each confirmed that the doctor supervised Armstrong's doping program. Financial records show that Armstrong paid Ferrari more than $1 million in consulting fees between 1999 and 2006, during which he won his Tour titles. The USADA report includes so many instances of Armstrong's meetings with Ferrari that it takes nearly a page of footnotes to list all of the relevant citations from witnesses' affidavits.
As a result of today's developments, the USPS team and I have suspended our professional affiliation with Dr. Ferrari.
— Armstrong on Oct. 1, 2004, after Ferrari's conviction in Italy
Ferrari was found guilty of "sporting fraud" and "illegally acting as a pharmacy." While the ruling was later overturned on a statute-of-limitations technicality, Ferrari remains banned from working with Italian cyclists. In 2005, Armstrong testified in a U.S. court case that he had had no professional contact with Ferrari since his public break. But USADA reports that Armstrong paid Ferrari at least $210,000 after claiming to have severed ties and that the relationship continued at least until two years ago, into Armstrong's triathlon preparations.
You made a mistake when you testified against Ferrari and ... when you sued me.... I can destroy you.
—Armstrong to Italian rider Filippo Simeoni at the '04 Tour, according to Simeoni's affidavit
In 2000, Simeoni had testified in an Italian criminal proceeding that Ferrari had supervised his regimen of EPO and testosterone. In a later interview with Le Monde, Armstrong had called Simeoni "an absolute liar." That day at the Tour in 2004, Armstrong, wearing the yellow jersey, chased down Simeoni's breakaway during the 18th stage and reeled him back to the pack, whereupon other riders abused and spat at him. "[Armstrong] was in charge of cycling, and nothing was done," Simeoni told an Italian radio interviewer in August, after USADA first announced its findings. "I paid for things that weren't just. I only told the truth."
People are smart. They will say: "Has Lance Armstrong ever tested positive? No."
—Armstrong to the AP, July 23, 2001
In fact, long before Armstrong became a global brand, his testosterone levels had tested abnormally high. As SI reported last year, a June 4, 1999, letter from UCLA's Olympic Analytical Laboratory to USA Cycling documents eight of Armstrong's testosterone tests from 1991 to '98, with a gap in '97 when he was still recovering from cancer. At that time a ratio of testosterone to the hormone epitestosterone (the "T/E ratio") exceeding 6 to 1 constituted evidence of doping; a normal ratio is 1 to 1. In 2005 the threshold was lowered to 4 to 1. Six of the eight test results reported in the UCLA Olympic lab's letter are higher than 4 to 1, and three are higher than 6 to 1. The highest value is 9 to 1, from a sample taken on June 23, 1993, barely two weeks before Armstrong won his first-ever stage in the Tour. In the letter, lab director Don Catlin says two of the tests that exceeded 6 to 1 couldn't be confirmed. There is no reference to any attempted confirmation of the third. A confirmation failure, Catlin has said, occurred only "once in a blue moon."
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Armstrong's next analytical stumble would coincide with another career milestone, his first overall Tour victory, in 1999. Days after he had seized the yellow jersey by winning the prologue, Postal team staffers learned that Armstrong had tested positive for corticosteroids.
Emma O'Reilly, a soigneuse with the Postal team, had already been in situations that made her uncomfortable—disposing of Armstrong's used syringes, covering his needle marks with makeup, and retrieving pills in Spain to relay to Armstrong in France. She was giving Armstrong a massage when he and team officials decided how they would wriggle out of the positive corticosteroids test. "It was just a couple of staff members and myself in the room," says O'Reilly, who's now a massage therapist in England. "So they decided they actually needed to get a backdated prescription [from del Moral, for therapeutic use of a steroidal cream] and pretend it was something for saddle sores. [Cycling officials] accepted that, even though it breached protocol." Hincapie, Hamilton and Vaughters all told USADA that they believed the cover story to be a sham. Vaughters added that team members told him that Armstrong had in fact received a cortisone injection.
After O'Reilly shared her account with Walsh and The Sunday Times, Armstrong sued her and the paper for libel. (A settlement was reached, but O'Reilly paid no money.) "I did nothing but tell the truth, and got sued," O'Reilly says. "It was just his bully-boy tactics."
The 2002 USPS team was made up of like-minded riders.... Johan and I had spent the previous five years carefully identifying, recruiting and signing the kind of people we wanted to work with.
—Every Second Counts
Armstrong's Postal contract guaranteed him "extensive input into rider and staff composition," but that clause only hints at his power over his teammates. In 2002, after his fourth Tour title, Armstrong summoned Postal rider Christian Vande Velde to his apartment in Girona, Spain, for a meeting with Ferrari in attendance. Armstrong made clear that Vande Velde needed to more faithfully follow Ferrari's program, taking more drugs more often. "I was in the doghouse," Vande Velde's affidavit reads, "and the only way forward with Armstrong's team was to get fully on Dr. Ferrari's doping program."
Dave Zabriskie, who had joined the Postal team in 2001, testifies that at a meeting with Bruyneel and del Moral in Girona in 2003, Bruyneel broached the subject of doping with Zabriskie and teammate Michael Barry. Zabriskie at first balked. Having pursued cycling to help recover from the loss of his father, who died young from drug abuse, he had vowed to ride clean. But he soon found himself in Barry's apartment, where del Moral administered Zabriskie's first EPO injection. That night, back in his room, Zabriskie broke down in tears. But he did what he felt he had to do to fit in. One day on the Postal bus, he serenaded Bruyneel and teammates with a knockoff of Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze: "EPO all in my veins/Lately things just don't seem the same/Actin' funny, but I don't know why/'Scuse me while I pass this guy."
Growing up in a devout Mennonite family in Lancaster, Pa., Floyd Landis decided to become a cyclist, over his parents' objections, after watching Armstrong's first Tour win and reading It's Not About the Bike. A raw and powerful rider, Landis joined the Postal team in 2002. Before that year's Tour, Armstrong gave him testosterone patches; Ferrari, in Armstrong's European apartments, extracted blood to be reintroduced into Landis's body later in the race. Landis left in 2005 to lead his own team, and a year later he would win the Tour himself but be stripped of the title after testing positive for testosterone.
I've practically lived out of the same suitcase with George Hincapie.... He was true-blue, like a brother.
—Every Second Counts
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One rider's testimony carries more weight than the others', and Hincapie is the et tu, Brute figure in this story—the only cyclist to have ridden alongside Armstrong in each of those seven victorious Tours. He told investigators that Armstrong used EPO and testosterone during every one, as well as banned blood transfusions in each Tour beginning in 2001. On two occasions Armstrong provided Hincapie with EPO. It's Hincapie who identified the moment that Armstrong began to advocate for doping: in 1995, when both were members of the U.S.-based Motorola team and on their way back from a poor showing at the Milan--San Remo race. Hincapie testified, "Lance said, in substance, that 'this is bulls---, people are using stuff' and 'we are getting killed.' He said, in substance, that he did not want to get crushed anymore and something needed to be done. I understood that he meant the team needed to get on EPO."
I made myself available around the clock.... Whatever they asked for I provided.
—Armstrong on Aug. 23
If the U.S. Postal case proves anything, it's that the claim "I've never failed a test" is practically meaningless. Clean or dirty, Armstrong shouldn't have failed a test. As Hamilton says in The Secret Race, "It took the drug-testing authorities several years and millions of dollars to develop a test to detect EPO.... It took Ferrari about five minutes to figure out how to evade it."
Postal riders told USADA that Ferrari taught them to inject EPO intravenously, rather than subcutaneously, to make it less detectable. They took to microdosing, to ensure that any trace would disappear quickly; according to Hamilton's affidavit, Ferrari schooled Armstrong in this technique in 2001. With testosterone, a rider would microdose by using a patch, or putting "the oil" under the tongue, and the substance would quickly become undetectable. If taken in the evening, either drug was likely to have "cleared" by morning. Postal riders marveled that at races, team staff often seemed to have up to an hour's notice before testers descended, enough time to use a saline infusion to bring down a high hematocrit, a technique Celaya used on Armstrong at the '98 world championships, according to Vaughters's affidavit.
If all else failed, there was the time-honored low-tech method: hide. If a tester showed up at your home, you simply didn't answer the door.
I have been dealing with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven Tours since 1999.... I know who won those seven Tours, my teammates know who won [them], and everyone I competed against knows who won.
—Armstrong on Aug. 23, declining to contest USADA's findings
It's worth asking: If everybody was on EPO, how could anyone seize an "unfair advantage"?
First, because of biological differences, people respond differently to drugs, be they Tylenol or heroin. Stephen Swart, Armstrong's Motorola teammate during the '95 Tour, told SI that after he took EPO at Armstrong's urging, "straightaway it actually made me perform worse."
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Although no test for EPO existed when the drug began to infest the peloton, the UCI by 1998 set a 50% hematocrit cutoff, above which a rider would be held out of a race to protect his health. The hematocrit is a measure of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Riders with the biggest gap between their natural hematocrit level and the doping limit could realize the greatest relative benefit from EPO. In his book The Secret Race, Hamilton notes that his natural level was 42%, so he could add 19% more red blood cells without worrying about a positive test. "That might be one of the reasons Hamilton's performance increased so rapidly when he started taking EPO," co-author Daniel Coyle writes in a footnote.
O'Reilly, the former Postal soigneuse, showed SI the June 10, 1999, page from her diary, in which she recorded a conversation with Armstrong during the Critérium du Dauphiné Liberé in France: L. was 41 today + when I asked what could he do about that he just laughed + said you know what everybody does. From a hematocrit of 41%, Armstrong could increase his proportion of red blood cells by 22%.
Anyone who thought I would go through four cycles of chemo just to risk my life by taking EPO was crazy.
—Every Second Counts
There's a reason doctors at the Indiana University Medical Center wanted to know from Armstrong—who was in Indianapolis to be treated for stage III testicular cancer in October 1996—whether he had used performance-enhancing drugs: We're still learning precisely how athletes' health is affected by drugs they might have abused. According to affidavits by Frankie and Betsy Andreu, Armstrong told doctors that day that he had used EPO, human growth hormone, cortisone, steroids and testosterone. Apparently even Ferrari wondered about their effects. Landis (far right, with Armstrong) previously told SI, "When we were on a training ride in 2002, Lance told me that Ferrari had been paranoid that he had helped cause the cancer and became more conservative after that."
A 2006 paper in the journal Clinical Endocrinology, cited on Livestrong.com, raises concerns about the use of human growth hormone, which can elevate levels of insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), a substance that has been linked to cancer in lab animals and humans. There's nothing to confirm Ferrari's reported fear that doping actually caused Armstrong's cancer, but IGF-1 and EPO, which is also classified as a growth factor, might well have caused the illness to spread as rapidly as it did. According to Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, both substances may hasten the growth of an existing tumor. In fact, some cancer drugs, known as angiogenesis inhibitors, work by blocking the action of growth factors.
Travis Tygart's unconstitutional witch hunt ... [is] in opposition to all the rules.
—Armstrong on Aug. 23
In fact, in response to Armstrong's legal challenge to USADA's standing to press its case, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks affirmed that the USADA protocol—neutral arbitrators in an open forum, weighing evidence that must meet a standard of "clear and convincing"—conforms to due process. In accepting a license to compete from USA Cycling, Armstrong consented to those very disciplinary procedures. And as an elite triathlete after he retired from cycling, he remained subject to USADA's jurisdiction until Aug. 23, when he was banned.
Back when the FDA and Jeff Novitzky were building a criminal case against him, Armstrong seemed to welcome USADA's scrutiny. As recently as January 2011, after SI ran a story pegged to the FDA probe, Armstrong tweeted, "Great to hear that @usada is investigating some of @si's claims. I look forward to being vindicated." Now that USADA has published its report, Armstrong's attorney Tim Herman last week denigrated its witnesses as "axe-grinders" and "serial perjurers."
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"There will not be a hearing in this case because Lance Armstrong strategically avoided it," the USADA report says. "He voluntarily gave up his right to cross-examine the witnesses against him."
Or as World Anti-Doping Agency president John Fahey puts it, "To refuse the charges can only leave the interpretation that he is a cheat."
Regardless of what Travis Tygart says, there is zero physical evidence to support his ... heinous claims.
—Armstrong on Aug. 23
In fact, there's substantial physical evidence, and USADA cites much of it to corroborate volumes of "nonanalytic" testimony from witnesses. In 2004, using a recently developed test for EPO, the French Anti-Doping Laboratory began a research study on urine samples from the 1999 Tour. The lab found that six of Armstrong's samples from that race tested positive. A year later a Dutch lawyer, appointed by the UCI to investigate those findings, criticized the French lab for its handling of the samples, and cycling's governing body declined to sanction Armstrong. But Andreas Briedbach, former head of the EPO testing group at UCLA's antidoping lab, told SI, "If there was a lab that could test for EPO at that time, it was the Paris lab." And USADA, provided access to lab reports for the samples, declared the test results to be "resoundingly positive."
In 2001, Hamilton and Landis say, Armstrong failed an EPO test during his victory at the Tour of Switzerland. In The Secret Race, Hamilton says Armstrong told him, "I got popped for EPO." Hamilton writes that Armstrong laughed it off: "No worries, dude. It's all taken care of." Landis says Armstrong told him that he and Bruyneel struck a deal with the UCI to conceal the positive test, and last year 60 Minutes reported that a UCI representative had wanted the matter of the suspicious test to go no further. The UCI vigorously denied both stories. It later accepted $125,000 in donations from Armstrong, money that was spent on a youth antidoping initiative and a blood-testing device. Hein Verbruggen, who led the UCI at the time of Armstrong's donations, said, "Lance Armstrong has never used doping. Never, never, never." But the UCI declined to share with USADA its '01 Tour of Switzerland test results. Current UCI president Pat McQuaid told Cyclingnews.com in July 2010 that "Lance does all the tests like everyone else, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with his biological passport."
But in 2009 and '10 Armstrong did have a problem with his biological passport, the program that tracks fluctuations in blood values over time. In '09, for instance, Armstrong posted on Livestrong.com the results of 33 drug tests he had taken from August 2008 to July 2009. No single test suggests a positive finding, but taken as a time line, the results are strongly consistent with blood doping. Blood plasma expands as a cyclist participates in a multiweek race, diluting the proportion of red cells in the bloodstream and lowering hematocrit. Armstrong's hematocrit dropped from 43.5 to 38.2 during the Giro d'Italia. But a few weeks later, during the Tour de France, Armstrong's hematocrit began around 43, hovered around 40 or 41 and then returned to 43, which happens when red blood cells are artificially added.
A second sign suggests that red blood cells are being supplemented from outside the body: Bone marrow will slow down the production of new red cells known as reticulocytes. While Armstrong's reticulocyte count hovered around the normal 1% in most of the tests posted on his site, it dropped to 0.5% after the Tour began. "When Armstrong published his results online, frankly, I couldn't believe it," says Dr. Michael Ashenden, a former member of UCI's biological passport expert panel. Christopher J. Gore, head of physiology at the Australian Institute of Sport, told USADA the chances of Armstrong's low reticulocyte counts occurring naturally were "less than one in a million."
I am sorry for you. I am sorry you can't dream. I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles.
—Armstrong to all his critics from the podium in Paris after winning his seventh and final Tour, in 2005
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How are we to believe? How do we celebrate the next great clean rider if drug tests mean little or nothing? How does the honest cyclist certify his innocence?
If you're the patron of the peloton, as Armstrong was, it's easy. You test clean not just in the lab but also in symbolic, nonanalytic ways: By supporting the Simeonis of the sport in public and in private. By encouraging and cheering the repentant riders, support staff, antidoping officials and journalists who work to expose fraud, rather than ostracizing and intimidating and suing them. And by meeting with the Ferraris as often as necessary, but for one purpose only: to tell them to keep their hands off your sport.
In sport you're always on record for what you've done, for what you've said, the way you've acted.
—Every Second Counts
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