May 2011 archive

Well this is it, Rapture Day, and yet you’re all still here.  Shame on you.  It’s still early enough though that you can go outside and if you find a pile of clothes on your neighbor’s lawn and the car in the driveway you can acquire a new ride.  They won’t need it.

To the more mundane.  Williams has gotten off to it’s slowest start ever and has already announced changes to it’s technical team, director Sam Michael leaves at the end of the season.  Adrian Sutil is under investigation for getting into a fight with someone from Renault at a bar in Shanghai and stabbing him in the neck with a champagne glass.  Then there is Formula One: Texas Subsidy Style where Rick Perry fires 100,000 teachers and gives Bernie Ecclestone $250 million to subsidize the new race.

Oh, you want racing news.

Lots of technical changes at Circuit de Catalunya.  It’s one of the off season testing tracks and in recent years has been extremely uncompetitive and boring.  F1 officials are hoping all the new rules, the tear away Pirellis, the KERS kinetic energy recovery system, and the DFR down force reducer will change that.  In particular they’re hoping the DFR will finally have an impact and are activating it over the longest section of track yet this season.  Everyone has once again tweaked their aero bits.

What will probably have the greatest impact though is the new Pirelli Super Hard tires.  The Drivers hate them.  They’re 2 seconds slower and don’t last any longer than the softs.  You only get 3 sets of softs for both racing and qualifying and as Alonso puts it, “It’s difficult to think about going in Q1 with the hard tyre, so I think 95 per cent of the people will try to use one soft unfortunately in Q1. We’ll see if anyone takes the risk.”

Speaking of Scuderia Marlboro UPC and how Formula One kisses their ass at every opportunity, there is the blown diffuser controversy.  Red Bull and McLaren along with some of the other teams are using engine management (mapping) to keep the amount of forward moving engine exhaust over their under car diffusers constant regardless of throttle position.  Just before this race and without any time to design or test new systems for the next 3 races (Monaco is next week and Canada shortly after) they decided it violated the movable aerodynamic parts rule they decided to ban it.

While you may argue about whether this disadvantages McLaren or Red Bull more, there is no doubt at all which team in the top three doesn’t use it because their engineers have been too stupid for the last two years to make it work.  Oh, and the rumors about booting Massa and replacing him with Hamilton are apparently true, though Hamilton would have to be an idiot to transfer to a team with third rate equipment like Scuderia Marlboro.

Fortunately they’re delaying a final decision until a regularly scheduled review next month.

But apparently flexible wings are just fine even though nobody has been able to duplicate them yet despite seeing the dangly wires after Vettel’s practice crash in Turkey.

My Dad has requested I mention today is Indianapolis 500 Pole Day.  This is the 100th anniversary of the race.  TV coverage is from noon to 2 pm on ESPN2 and from 3 to 6 pm on ABC with post qualifying coverage from 6 to 8 pm again on ESPN2.

Speed coverage of Formula One starts with the Debrief at 7 am and Qualifying at 8 am.  Tomorrow GP2 starts at 6 am with the race at 7:30 am.

As usual any surprising developments below.

Al-Qaida eyed oil tankers as bombing targets

Bin Laden documents show the idea had reached group’s upper echelons

By EILEEN SULLIVAN, MATT APUZZO

  Osama bin Laden’s personal files revealed a brazen idea to hijack oil tankers and blow them up at sea last summer, creating explosions he hoped would rattle the world’s economy and send oil prices skyrocketing, the U.S. said Friday.

The newly disclosed plot showed that while bin Laden was always scheming for the next big strike that would kill thousands of Americans, he also believed a relatively simpler attack on the oil industry could create a worldwide panic that would hurt Westerners every time they gassed up their cars.

Loosen your belts and check your blood sugar. I plan on trying this recipe with the chocolate version of chocolate chip cookies.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter

• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

• 1 cup granulated sugar

• 2 large eggs

• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

• 3 1/2 cups flour

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

• 1 package Double Stuff Oreo cookies

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, cream butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together with a mixer until well combined.  Beat in eggs and vanilla.

In medium bowl mix the flour, salt, and baking soda.  Slowly add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips until just combined.

With a cookie scoop, form balls with the dough.

Place one ball on top of an Oreo cookie, and another ball on the bottom. Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo cookie is fully enclosed with dough.

Place onto parchment or silpat lined baking sheets and bake cookies for approximately 13 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Makes 24 gigantic cookies

Prep: 25 minutes

Cook: 13 minutes

from Amandeleine, originally from Picky Palate

The world is suppose to end today. I would guess we’ll find out sooner or later but as one late night comedian said, “it would be a shame if we only lived three weeks longer than Osama bin Laden”.

So in case the world ends sometime tomorrow, or even if it doesn’t, Rachel Maddow has a drink that will bring some cheer called the “Last Word” from the Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle, WA where the drink was “reborn”.

Equal parts:

   gin

   fresh lime juice

   maraschino liqueur (Rachel recommends Luxardo brand)

   green Chartreuse

Shake well with ice for longer than you think you need to, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, gave an hour long speech before the National Press Club that sent a message the Democratic Party that if candidates for office want union members votes and money, they had better start standing up for labor and mean it:

“It doesn’t matter if candidates and parties are controlling the wrecking ball or simply standing aside to let it happen,” Trumka said. “The outcome is the same either way. If leaders aren’t blocking the wrecking ball and advancing working families’ interests, then working people will not support them.”

The AFL-CIO’s executive council is considering a plan that could spend less on congressional races and more on fighting state battles like those in Wisconsin and Ohio, where lawmakers want to weaken collective bargaining rights and reduce union clout.

But Trumka made clear the federation had no plan to follow the lead of the nation’s largest firefighters union, which announced last month that it would halt all political donations to members of Congress because they are not fighting hard enough for union rights. The move has won praise in many corners of the labor movement, where union activists have openly grumbled about House and Senate Democrats being too quiet while unions are getting pummeled in dozens of states.

“We’ve spent money where we have friends and we will continue to do that,” he said.

Leon Fink, a labor historian at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said unions are tired of being taken for granted and discouraged that their influence with moderate and conservative Democrats has been limited.

“Spending a lot of money electing conservative Democrats in marginal districts had no legislative payoff for unions,” Fink said. “They don’t seem to have the capacity to impose their will on the party.”

Damon Silvers of the AFL-CIO joined Cenk Uygur to discuss the issue

Mr. Trumka did not mention President Obama but was incensed about the tax deal the White House cut with Senate Republicans last year and curtly reminded the Democrats that aren’t assured of union support: “Remember Blanch Lincoln”. Ouch

I am assuming that tomorrow will not be the end of the world, as the Camping followers believe, so did not write about The Who for the last time tonight.  This piece proves the point that I do not always write about things that I really like.  This was not really a bad band, but in my opinion were not that important creatively.  Some, perhaps many, will beg to differ me, and that is fine.  I do not really dislike them, but they would not make it into my “stranded on a desert isle” box of music.

They actually had quite a few hits that charted well, a TeeVee show, and of course laid the groundwork for the later solo career of Kenny Rogers.  He moved towards country and out of rock later, and this post only includes treatment of The First Edition material.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 At least 27 killed in protests across Syria

AFP

45 mins ago

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Paul Krugman: Making Things in America

Some years ago, one of my neighbors, an émigré Russian engineer, offered an observation about his adopted country. “America seems very rich,” he said, “but I never see anyone actually making anything.”

That was a bit unfair, but not completely – and as time went by it became increasingly accurate. By the middle years of the last decade, I used to joke that Americans made a living by selling each other houses, which they paid for with money borrowed from China. Manufacturing, once America’s greatest strength, seemed to be in terminal decline.

But that may be changing. Manufacturing is one of the bright spots of a generally disappointing recovery, and there are signs – preliminary, but hopeful, nonetheless – that a sustained comeback may be under way.

Dahlia Lithwick: Extraordinary Hypocrisy

How Republican senators justified their decision to kill the nomination of Goodwin Liu.

It was a hall of mirrors of hypocrisy at Thursday’s Senate vote on the nomination of Goodwin Liu to be a judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. At least 60 senators had to agree to allow the Senate to give Liu a straight up-or-down vote. Didn’t happen. Liu, a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley, is the first judicial nominee to be filibustered since 2005.

First, there are the most obvious failures of intellectual consistency: Republicans who once claimed that filibustering judicial nominees is “offensive to our nation’s constitutional design” (Sen. John Cornyn, 2004) and flat-out “unconstitutional” (Sen. Lindsey Graham, 2005) voted against Liu. Even the Republican who said he “will vote to support a vote, up or down, on every nominee-understanding that, were I in the minority party and the issues reversed, I would take exactly the same position because this document, our Constitution, does not equivocate”-even that guy (Sen. Johnny Isakson, 2005) voted against Liu.

Our idiot Washington political “elite”-

Democrats’ New Tactic: Praising 2012 Republicans

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR, The New York Times

May 20, 2011, 7:27 am

Here’s how the strategy could work, according to several Democratic advisers involved in implementing it:

1. Convincing conservative voters that Republican candidates like Mr. Romney or Mr. Huntsman hold similar views to Mr. Obama might make them unacceptable in a Republican primary dominated by Tea Party activists.

…

2. If Republican candidates like Mr. Romney or Mr. Huntsman push back against the Democratic praise, they run the risk of looking like they are flip-flopping on positions they once proudly held.

…

3. Finally, if one of the Republicans emerges as the party’s nominee despite the Democratic plaudits, it may be tougher for that candidate to draw distinctions with Mr. Obama on those issues where they have seemed to agree.

Will this work?  C’mon, we’re talking D.C. strategists here.  Even they don’t expect it to work-

“None of us think that the Democratic party can dictate the outcome of the Republican nomination fight,” said one strategist. “But we can have some fun.”

Or it could just be that Obama is actually a Republican, implementing Republican policies.