Performance enhancing drugs used and suspensions follow .. Mitchell report due Thursday

George J Mitchell is mentioned in the last post reporting all those years ago on Israeli settlements .. now he is causing concerns in his report on drug abuse in Baseball ..the report is expected next week.

2 players were suspended yesterday - Jay Gibbons of the Orioles and José Guillén, who played for the Mariners last season and is now with the Royals — they will serve 15-day suspensions at the start of the 2008 season.(Sports Illustrated report)

Neither Gibbons nor Guillén has tested positive for a banned substance. But each was linked, through documentary evidence, to having received human growth hormone and steroids.

Mitchell, who was appointed to conduct his investigation by Commissioner Bud Selig in March 2006, has documentary evidence, but no test results, that ties dozens of players to purchases of drugs from 1995 through 2005.

Mitchell received information from Kirk Radomski, a former Mets clubhouse attendant who pleaded guilty in April to federal charges of steroid distribution.

Between October 2003 and July 2005, Gibbons received six shipments of H.G.H. and two shipments of steroids, SI.com reported in September.

Gibbons said yesterday in a written statement."I am deeply sorry for the mistakes that I have made. I have no excuses and bare sole responsibility for my decisions," the Baltimore outfielder said. "Years ago, I relied on the advice of a doctor, filled a prescription, charged the HGH, (Human Growth Hormone) which is a medication, to my credit card and had only intended to help speed my recovery from my injuries and surgeries."

Michael Weiner, the general counsel for the players union, said Gibbons did not plan to appeal his suspension.

Guillén, according to a report in The San Francisco Chronicle, ordered more than $19,000 worth of H.G.H. and steroids from May 2002 to June 2005. Weiner said Guillén would appeal.

"Colombia is making real progress and what they are doing is having an effect."

Sir Keith Morris, Britain's ambassador to Colombia from 1990 to 1994,was asked his opinion of the campaign of "shared responsibility" launched by Colombia whose local manifestation is 5 Colombian women , survivors of kidnapping, bombs and landmines appearing in London to tell British cocaine users that they are helping to fuel violence and death in Colombia.

The ageing but hard headed ex Ambassador said the campaign would have little effect. He said it failed to address the main cause of the violence: the prohibition of drugs. "This is a sensible initiative, but the real issue is not being addressed," he said.

Elsewhere the ubiquitous, peripatetic, and pathetic Rentagob "Johnny Head in the Air" Howells is, like a manservant in a Goldini stage farce, sent mouthing nonsense on behalf of his modern Foreign Office masters ... "Colombia is making real progress and what they are doing is having an effect."

The utter vacuity of this man and his mouthings beggars belief, lurching round the globe at vast public expense, he seeks one day to get the rioting Bengalis in line, the next he is telling us what a world Statesman Presidente Mushariff is, in settling with the Taliban in Waziristan .. days ahead of the USA predator missile killing 50 kids in a Pakistinian madrassa...last week this figure of fun snuck into the House to upstage his mistress off on a caravan trek to tell the Europeans to get their Constitution together.

Now it is the Colombians turn to benefit from his wit and wisdom.

They might more usefully listen to Danny Kushlick of drugs reform group Transform who said: "The global prohibition of cocaine has effectively gifted one of the largest commodity trades on earth to organised criminal cartels and economically destabilised Colombia and other parts of Latin

Maybe all this constant air travel has disoriented the Welshman , his head is either in the air, stuck in the earth or up his arse.

Who... who will rid us of this meddlesome priest ? .. or at least provide him with a cap and bells, and inflated pigs bladder on a stick.

Perhaps he is not so stupid, when you look at his travels (and travails) - imagine the Air Miles he is clocking up.