Adolpho Birch. Assfuck of the week.

Adolpho Birch, NFL vice president for law and labor policy.

I love reading this shit right before I take off to go fishing for a week. Regarding the Williams' dudes from the Minnesota Vikings and their ongoing hassle with the NFL - read the full story here. In a nutshell the Pat and Kevin Williams may have to serve a 4-game suspension at the start of the 2010-11 NFL football season. Not for sure though - they are appealing the judge's decision. It's bullshit.

Get this. As stated on The Daily Norseman, in his ruling yesterday, Judge Gary Larson determined:

...that NFL drug policy administrators knew of positive tests among players for Bumetanide in 2005 and 2006 and linked the substance to StarCaps. Larson found that Adolpho Birch, NFL vice president for law and labor policy, had been warned by NFL drug policy administrators that StarCaps contained a "secret" banned substance, Bumetanide.

But Birch made a "conscious decision" not to inform the federal Food and Drug Administration or any other agency. He also declined to disclose the presence of the substance to teams or players, Larson said.

Before 2007, players who tested positive for Bumetanide weren't disciplined. Birch, however, then directed drug administrators to start disciplining players who tested positive for Bumetanide even though he knew their use of it was inadvertent, Larson wrote.

"Birch was playing a game of gotcha," the judge said.
Let me put it in terms that non-football enthusiasts can appreciate. You work at Microsoft, let's say. Have been for 5 years. You pack your own lunch. Every day. You're an avid baker and you like to make molasses cookies - and you include 3 molasses cookies in your lunch. The company does drug testing. You're called into HR one day. "We have to write up a formal complaint on you, Mr. Ircink. You tested positive for a banned substance." "What!?" I yell. "That can't be!" "Mr. Ircink, you eat molasses cookies, don't you?" "Yes I do." "Well, Mr. Ircink, there's a substance in the ground ginger you use to put in your cookie that's illegal. It's on our illegal substance list." "But no one ever said anything to me about it. I didn't know." "We never made a big deal about it before but we're changing things up here. You're suspended from work for a week with no pay."

Oh yeah - and Microsoft KNEW for 5 years that the ginger in my molasses cookies contained a banned substance but refrained from telling me. Get it? And don't tell me it's not the same thing. Read what the judge said in his ruling.