I am a doctor. As a doctor, I prescribe medications that are beneficial to the health of my patients. Health does not mean winning championships or medals. Health means longevity without suffering. Health means a sense of well-being, but not the kind that comes from cheating to win.

As a doctor I took an oath once never to give a patient a medication that causes harm. Steroids cause harm. Big time harm. An edge today. Cancer or dialysis or heart failure later. Yes, I remember Marion Jones. I also remember Florence Griffith-Joyner. And Lyle Alzedo. And every time I see a story in the paper about an former NFL athlete dying at age 50 (and there are a lot of them), this crosses my mind.

There are two ways for athletes to get steroids. One is under a doctor's supervision, and the other is without. Under a doctor's supervision, athletes will fool themselves into thinking what they are doing is safe. It is not. And the doctor, by giving medication to a patient that could be very harmful simply so the patient can win a competition, is going against every ethic of medicine.

It the athlete goes it alone, the risk of death is much higher. Without supervision, the athlete will be tempted to experiment, to push it and push it and push it until the breaking point comes. Olympic competitions will turn into one winner and the dead bodies of all the competitors who couldn't do steroids as skillfully. This is no way to compete, and is certainly against everything sporting is about.

What was the matter with sports in the 1950s, and the 40s, before steroids? Jesse Owens not good enough for you? Bruce Jenner? Nadia Comenici? Mark Spitz? What does the sport get out of steroids that makes it better? Sports is about people pushing themselves to their limits, and the glory of this is human, and not found in any combination of drugs.

The only reason people keep bringing this issue up is because steroids can be hard to detect, and therefore, the system rewards the clever who keep ahead of the lab instead of the best athlete. But is the real cost to the player who doesn't juice? Maybe a silver instead of a gold, or a bronze instead a silver, or maybe a spot on the national team. This is called losing. It is something 99.999% of us live with. There is no reason in the world we should compromise medical ethics, or the ethics of sportsmanship, for the benefit of a few elite athletes.

At the end of the day, there is only one gold medal. Whether one person juices or everybody juices, there is still one winner only. Opening the doors to steroids only assures us that everyone will be on drugs, not just a few. And it creates an entirely new problem in sports. Do we want the gold medal to go to the person who is the fastest, or to the one who juices with the greatest skill?

Forget about Obama, forget about McCain. What disappoints me is that the McCain people seem to think it is all right to disparage Obama's supporters as "the Dungeons and Dragons crowd . . . in mom's basement."

When did it become de rigeur to take cheap shots at private citizens? Voters are supposed to be the crowning jewels of democracy. Anyone who has ever spent time in private business knows you never, never, never make fun of your customers. Neither actual, nor potential customers.

What does it mean that McCain believes in writing off citizens in this way? Who did he think he sat in prison for in Vietnam, if not teenagers in their moms' basements?

Talk about elitism.

"I think there is a lot of truth to that. A/C is killing us," the alcoholic said, tipping back the bottle.

I want to pile on too. You say:

"I'm not even going to read the responses. Last time this topic came up, it was just personal insults being hurled at me because no one could come up with a sound discussion. Seems it's much easier for most of you to say I'm racist, I don't care, I'm a *$*#(@* instead of trying to discuss the topic at hand. So throw your middle school "cut downs" me all you want, it'll just prove that requiring insurance of anytype is nonsense, since most of you expect the government to swoop in and rescue those of you who think you are more powerful then mother nature."

Just two points here, okay? Wouldn't want to saddle you with too much reading, you racist pig.

First, if you are not racist, why are you so angry? You didn't live in Louisiana, and weren't affected by Katrina. So what's it to you? Don't bore me with the "it's my tax money" crap. Taxpayer money is being wasted in 50 states, and Iraq, even as we speak. Why is it that when federal money is spent on white people, we call it "job creation," and when it is spent on black people it is "charity?"

You're not angry because Katrina was expensive. You want expensive, wait until the government bails out the mortgage industry. They you will see real money. And where are these bailouts going to occur? Billions and billions will pour into your own home state of Florida. Louisiana has seen very little of the real estate speculation that has plagued other areas of the country.

Secondly: I am tired of the myth that Louisianans had no flood insurance. I lost my home in Katrina and I was insured 100%. The New Orleans Times Picayune did a story on this subject in 2006, and the found that Louisiana has the highest rate of flood insured homes in the nation, higher than any other equally hurricane-prone Gulf Coast state.

Go choke on your lies.