June 2011 archive

So a couple of weekends ago I talked about Lime Rock and I mentioned then that Sport Car racing is a little bit different from most other kinds of motor sports.

One of the differences is the length of the races.  Many of the events are timed rather than a fixed distance and some last quite a while.  This weekend is the Grand Prix of Endurance and Efficiency commonly known as Le Mans.

It’s run on the Circuit de la Sarthe which at 8.5 miles is one of the longest still used for racing.  The Ligne Droite des Hunaudières (better known as the Mulsanne Straight) is 3.7 miles long though they added 2 chicanes in the ’90s when the FIA decided that no straight section of track over 2 kilometers would continue to be allowed.

Other safety changes include not letting any driver do a shift of over 4 hours or drive more than 14 hours in total.  You must have a team of at least 3 drivers.  The top 2 classes are Le Mans Prototypes 1 & 2 and the other 2 classes are GT 2s and GT 1s (for the last year) and GT AMs (their successor).

It really is an endurance race.  Cars are required to turn off their engines in the pits so there’s always the question of if you can start them up again.  It’s very hot which is tough on tires and the high speeds (over 200 mph in many sections of the track) put a lot of strain on the brakes when you want to change direction (say for a corner or something trivial like that).

Just as in the iconic movie Le Mans, interesting things can happen at any time, though in fact they rarely do.  Speed will have 18 hours of live coverage starting at 8:30 am with breaks for the Turn Left Pocono 500, Qualifying at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve (at 2 pm), and Motorcycle racing from Mt. Morris.

This year they’ll be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the 1991 Mazda win and the 44th of Dan Gurney and A.J. Foyt spraying Henry Ford II and Carroll Shelby with champagne instead of drinking it starting the tradition of wasting good wine.

If anything actually exciting occurs feel free to make note of it below.

Update:  Now with Grid positions.

Hopes are low as Afghanistan’s Karzai visits Pakistan

Analysts say they see little hope of progress on forging a truce with militants. Separately, CIA chief Leon Panetta, picked to be the next U.S. Defense secretary, meets with Pakistan’s army and intelligence heads.  

By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times

June 11, 2011  

Reporting from Karachi, Pakistan- Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in Islamabad on Friday for a two-day summit with his Pakistani counterparts that is expected to focus on efforts to forge a truce with the Taliban after years of militant violence in both countries.

But analysts said they saw little hope of concrete progress from his meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, given lingering distrust and security problems on their shared lawless border.

“I don’t expect anything substantive to come out of this,” said Mahmood Shah, a Pakistani analyst and retired brigadier. “Both sides have an interest in reintegrating the Taliban, but I don’t see anything much.”

Regular Features-

• Late Night Karaoke by mishima
• Muse in the Morning by Robyn
• Six In The Morning by mishima
• Cartnoon by ek hornbeck

Featured Essays for June 10, 2011-

• The Rules of the Road in NYC by TheMomCat
• Mo’ Meta, Mo’ Betta by ek hornbeck
• Gingrich Goes Galt by ek hornbeck
• Profiles in Failure by TheMomCat
• Out in America/Out in New York by Robyn
• Random Japan by mishima

DocuDharma

This shall complete our discussion of Tommy, the seminal record album by The Who from early in 1969.  We had an excellent discussion last week, and hope to have an equally good, if not even better one tonight.  I was particularly interested that there was a range of thoughts about it, from some who just hated it to those who just loved it.  That is fine.  That is just personal taste.

I should go on record to say that my mum liked Overture.  She was pretty reserved about music other than the Swing Era kind, since she came of age then, but allowed to me that she really liked the French horn.  I was pretty dumb at the time that we were listening to, on the radio, one of the most important bands that ever existed.

With no more ado, here is the second disk (the third side) of Tommy.  Please comment profusely.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 28 Top Stories.

1 25 killed in Syria as US, Turkey slam regime

AFP

1 hr 38 mins ago

Last month Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) celebrated its 25th Anniversary. It held an event in Manhattan on May 11th with four of the most well known voices of the the left and advocates for fairness, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Amy Goodman and Glen Greenwald. Glenn’s 30 minute speech is now available on You Tube. The DVD of the entire night is available for sale at FAIR’s website.

Coming Soon To A Town Near You

There is nothing quite like a summer scandal (Note: your Bloguero hesitates to call it “a sex scandal”).  The temperature and humidity are both in the mid-90’s in New York.  The air is fetid.  Movies that are heavily air conditioned are expensive.  The subway is a complete Schwitz.  And as if all of that weren’t miserable enough, there’s the quease-inducing idea of a 46-year old Congressman sexting with mid-20 year old women (are there more than six?) whom he has never met in person and who either like or do not like receiving such digital “stimulation.” (Note: your Bloguero cannot resist such puns.  The heat made him do it.)  In the midst of all this folly, that pinnacle of human garbage, Andrew Breitbart, got a public apology from the Weiner.  And MSNBC is now writing about how Democratic women aren’t screaming for Weiner’s resignation, let alone consulting with Lorena Bobbitt about appropriate sanctions. My father-in-law often said of that old the promotion, “New York is a Summer Festival,” “Yeah, New York is a summer vegetable.”  How very true and prescient.

On Tuesday, your Bloguero was incensed by the kidnapping of Syrian blogger Amina Abdallah, and he wrote Free Amina.  Amina had to be crazy, your Bloguero figured, writing from Damascus, being an out lesbian in a country where that is illegal, and criticizing the current despot, who appears to believe in armed violence against all protesters.  But crazy or not, your Bloguero was outraged that Amina was targeted and whisked off the streets by armed goons and disappeared.  What is this, your Bloguero shouted, do they think Syria is Videla’s Argentina or Pinochet’s Chile?  Your Bloguero promptly withdrew the remark: evidently Syria is cut from exactly the same fabric.

And then, cold water was immediately thrown on your Bloguero’s outrage.  It turns out that the entire story might be a hoax or fabrication or disinformation of some kind.  How Many “L’s” Are There In “Gullible” detailed the many problems.  Your Bloguero notes that as of Friday afternoon, there are no new entries at A Gay Girl In Damascus, which your Bloguero reads as confirmation of a hoax of some kind.

Weiner: Make Me One With Everything was a rant about Weiner’s public apology to Andrew Breitbart.  Your Bloguero is not holding his breath until Andrew Breitbart apologizes to anyone, much less Shirley Sharrod, for being a piece of barnyard excrement and for the mischief he has made.

On June 6, 2011, your Bloguero noted the anniversary of the assassination of Bobby Kennedy.

Your Bloguero is a football (as in futbol, as in soccer) fanatic.  This may be because other ball sports give unfair premiums to big or tall persons, and your Bloguero is neither.  It may be because your Bloguero loves to play the game.  So your Bloguero’s hall of fame is filled with people like him, of small stature who are the wizards of futbol skills. Two of these: Lionel Messi, who is your Bloguero’s size, and Diego Maradona, who ever so slightly smallter at 5’5″.  Both are from Argentina.  Diego Maradona Pwns FIFA noted that Maradona had spoken the truth about the governing powers of futbol, FIFA, calling them out as corrupt and saying that they should step down so that former players could run and preserve the game.  Your Bloguero agrees 100%.

Meanwhile, in Chile, Puyehue volcano erupted, dropping ash in Chile and Argentina and forcing evacuations.

And in a dramatic highwire act without a net, Visualizing That Tightrope, Part 2 your Bloguero celebrated the feat of Nik and Delilah Wallenda, his mother, in safely completely the very stunt that killed Karl Wallenda.  Your Bloguero is in awe of this kind of daring.

Your Bloguero notes that this Digest is a weekly feature. Your Bloguero, though needs encouragement.  From you.  It’s easy to give him that.  If you read this Digest, please click the “encouragement jar” in the comments.  That’s the only way your Bloguero will know that you visited.  Hasta pronto.

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: Rule by Rentiers

The latest economic data have dashed any hope of a quick end to America’s job drought, which has already gone on so long that the average unemployed American has been out of work for almost 40 weeks. Yet there is no political will to do anything about the situation. Far from being ready to spend more on job creation, both parties agree that it’s time to slash spending – destroying jobs in the process – with the only difference being one of degree.

Nor is the Federal Reserve riding to the rescue. On Tuesday, Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, acknowledged the grimness of the economic picture but indicated that he will do nothing about it.

And debt relief for homeowners – which could have done a lot to promote overall economic recovery – has simply dropped off the agenda. The existing program for mortgage relief has been a bust, spending only a tiny fraction of the funds allocated, but there seems to be no interest in revamping and restarting the effort.

Dean Baker: Political Advice to Republicans on Medicare

The Republicans are very upset that their vote for Representative Ryan’s plan to end Medicare is being used against them. The loss of an upstate New York Congressional seat that they held for 50 years was quite a shock. Furthermore, groups are already using this vote in attack ads around the country to threaten incumbents.

This could be really bad news for their election prospects in 2012 since Medicare is a hugely popular program. Polls consistently show that the program has enormous public support among all political and demographic groups. Not only do Democrats and independents overwhelmingly support the Medicare program, even Republicans overwhelmingly approve of Medicare. Even Tea Party Republicans overwhelming approve of Medicare.

The same story holds by age group. Of course, Medicare has the greatest support among the over-65 age group that currently depends on it, but the program even draws large majority support among young voters who hope to be able to rely on the program in their retirement. Republicans could try to extend the vote to ten-year-olds, but this route probably does not hold much promise.

The deadly deadly out break of food poisoning in Germany has supposedly been traced to its source, bean sprouts that were grown at an organic farm in Germany. Over 3000 people have been sickened, many of them seriously, and 31 one deaths have been attributed to this contamination. According to the article in the NYT, even though there has been no harmful bacteria found in the sprouts, Reinhard Burger, the head of the country’s disease control agency said:

investigations centering on interviews with patients and even the chefs at restaurants where they had eaten showed that people who had consumed bean sprouts were nine times more likely to become infected than those who had not.

Even though Germany has lifted the advisory about eating fresh produce and sealed off the organic farm that was the source of the sprouts, the damage has been done with consumers all over Europe still not buying fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and other frsh produce from Spain. Meanwhile, Spain has refused to accept the compensation that was offered for the losses to farmers as too little. From the Guardian:

The European commission on Tuesday promised to pay more than €150m (£134m) to farmers hit by the E coli crisis, following robust lobbying by Spain and France.

The agriculture commissioner, Dacian Ciolos, proposed sharing out to farmers affected by falling sales amid the public health panic the sum of €150m, equating to payments worth about 30% of the average market price for the unsold crops.

But at the meeting of agriculture ministers in Luxembourg, representatives from several member states demanded more help.

Spain immediately warned the €150m would not be enough. Spain has suffered disproportionately from the economic impact of the outbreak, in part because it grows a significant share of Europe’s salad produce but also because blame for the bacteria outbreak at first was attributed to its cucumber crop.

The German health ministry was too quick to make a conclusion and should have been more diligent in their investigation.