November 2013 archive

Boring.

Yup.  Even more boring than Schumacher.  bmaz says so and I agree.

Let me tell you how it goes.  Vettel grabs the lead at the start and pulls out beyond the DRS margin (1 second) in the first two Laps before DRS is enabled and then drives off to a tire changing delta (15 to 20 seconds) and then there is no race at all.

No Bernie, position changes between back markers don’t count.  Both Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships were clinched last week.  Why watch?

Not that it’s a total excuse for my lack of updates, truth is I’ve just been too busy to do it.

I have a life you know, and after 18 hours of hard work the absolute top item on my priority list is to grab a 3 hour nap and watch (yawn) Formula One because I’m just so into sports and it’s much more entertaining than America’s Cup or Major League Baseball or NCAA Hoopies or the Olympics or the Triple Crown or the Super Bowl or…

Anyway I do a lot of sports coverage and it’s just a grind after a while, especially when they are dull like Le Tour and Formula One turned out to be this year.  Sorry if you think that proves I’m less than serious about my art, I’m really very good at reproducing Elvis playing cards with dogs on black velvet and my prices are quite reasonable.

The big news this week is Kimi Raikkonen’s DQ for car non-compliance after Qualifying, not so much for the position change from 5th to 22nd as for what it reveals about Lotus-Renault’s finances.

You see 4th place and almost 100 points ahead of 5th (and only 24 behind Scuderia Marlboro in 3rd) should imply your program has some kind of credibility.  As it turns out Raikkonen hasn’t gotten a paycheck all season and unless the sponsorship deal comes through Team Lotus is unlikely to attract even a second rate driver like Hulkenberg as a replacement and will have to settle for Maldonado who never saw a crash he couldn’t get involved with.

Well, that’s just how it is if you’re not Red Bull.

I mentioned replacement and it’s old news that Raikkonen has been tapped to follow the ill-fortuned Massa at Scuderia Marlboro (who had the grace to stick with him through his injury, but who has been turning out sucky cars for 4 seasons now).  I wouldn’t read too much into Massa’s recent successes, I think he’s getting a gold watch for loyal service; it would be nice if he ended up with a car, but I don’t see it.  Kimi may even skip the last 2 races with Lotus-Renault to rest up for his new gig.

What really mixes up everything next year is the new blown six power plants and the fact that not only can they and their components break, but weight distribution and aero characteristics will change.  It will go to the teams with the best designers; Vettel is not only not that good a driver, he’s also a total tool who can’t take direction- a diva.  Witness the elevation of the distinctly mediocre Ricciardo as his second.

Of course my Dad (who’s the other reason I watch Formula One, the first being that it’s normally good blog fodder since it’s time predictable and limited) will think I’m missing the lede which to him is Alonso failing to make Q3 because he was sitting in the garage saving tires and then a spin left him without time to put in a hot lap.  I think it’s the remarkable performance of Mercedes with Rosberg and Hamilton and how they will do without Ross Brawn.  I personally think it’s a big mistake even though they’re replacing him with Paddy Lowe, formerly of McLaren, despite Hamilton’s sanguine reaction (remember, Lewis worked with him at McLaren) because if there’s one thing you can count on McLaren to do, it’s screw up race tactics and lose.

Softs and Mediums are on offer.  2 DRS Zones.

• Yas Marina
• Guardian Interactive Track
• Formula One Interactive Track

• Formula One Official Site
• NBC Sports Motor Sports

Pretty Tables below.

Agent provocateur: Inside the secret archives of East Germany’s secret police

Simon Menner spent three years trawling through millions of surveillance images in the archives of the East German secret police. What he found was often laughable. But, he tells Holly Williams, beneath the Austin Powers exterior, there was evidence of a truly disturbing machine that still has the power to break its subjects

HOLLY WILLIAMS  Author Biography   SUNDAY 03 NOVEMBER 2013

While the recent leaking of government-surveillance information hasn’t exactly been welcomed by the secret services behind it, an exception comes in the form of the documents obtained by the spies of the Stasi, the Ministry for State Security run by the former German Democratic Republic (GDR).

After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the vast swathes of material the Stasi gathered about their compatriots was archived, and opened to the public. Now, a new book by the artist Simon Menner brings many of these bizarre but sinister records to light for the first time, from photographic guides on how to apply fake wigs, to coded hand signals and even images of Stasi award ceremonies and parties.

The team of All In with Chris Hayes puts out a daily request on Twitter asking their followers to send them the things they find most interesting on the internet. These are their finds for November 1, 2013.

1. Halloween post-mortem;

2. subway game

3. daylight savings time unmasked.

 Escape the cold this winter in a faceless fleece bodysuit!

Scott R Dixon

Every year as the temperatures drop, Japan finds another creative way to make the cold winter months more bearable. This year, a Japanese outdoor product company has the newest way to keep warm-a full-body fleece suit that turns you into an anonymous humanoid!

The makers of the 4,980 yen (US$50) “Humanoid Fleece” had your best interests in mind when designing garment. When wearing the suit, you will not have to worry about taking it off ever because there are enough zippers, openings and pockets to maneuver around your daily life in full Humanoid Fleece form.

Welcome to the Health and Fitness NewsWelcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

These hearty vegetarian meals in a bowl (or on a plate) are inspired by the Korean dish bibimbap. I call them “Big Bowls” because they are also inspired by a popular food truck I’ve eaten at, in Portland, Ore., whose only offering is called Big Bowl, and is a comforting bowl of brown rice, with black beans, salsa, avocado and queso blanco. The long line of people I observed at this truck confirmed for me the fact that a simple, satisfying meal with grain, protein and terrific vegetables can be worth standing in line for.

“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 thea Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Roger Cohen: A Journalist With a Mission

Glenn Greenwald believes that he faces possible arrest if he returns to the United States but is unbowed.

A young American lawyer comes to Brazil in 2005, falls in love, finds that his gay relationship confers greater legal rights than back home, starts a blog called Unclaimed Territory focusing on illegal warrantless eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, takes a place in the hills of Rio with a bunch of rescue dogs, denounces the cozy compromises of “establishment journalists,” gets hired to write a column by Britain’s Guardian newspaper, is sought out by the N.S.A. whistle-blower Edward J. Snowden, becomes the main chronicler of Snowden’s revelations of global American surveillance, is lionized for work that prompts a far-reaching debate on security and freedom, files repeated thunderbolts from his leafy Brazilian perch, and ends up, in just eight years, as perhaps the most famous journalist of his generation.

These things happen. At least they happen in the empowering digital age, and they happen to Glenn Greenwald. [..]

American society will also benefit from Greenwald’s ongoing revelations about out-of-control surveillance. He has testified before the Brazilian Senate, and should be allowed to testify before the U.S. Senate. He says, “I am definitely going back, I refuse to be exiled for a lie.”

He deserves assurance that he can return to the United States without facing arrest.

Yochai Benkler: Congress should grant Edward Snowden amnesty

The man who sparked the NSA surveillance debate remains in exile. We should thank him for his role and let him come home

Congress has in its power the ability to bring home the man without whom all the abuses, errors, and oversight workarounds would have continued unchecked. Five years ago, when Congress passed the Fisa Amendments Act, the legislature included in that statute a set of provisions that immunized the telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program from civil suits by citizens whose rights had been violated and from states that wanted to investigate or sanction these companies. That provision was roundly criticized by civil liberties advocates, but it does provide a legislative model for what Congress could now do to protect Snowden from criminal or civil liability arising from his disclosures.

Critics say that Snowden broke the law and should pay the price; they argue that facing the consequences is what civil disobedience requires; that is what we learned from Martin Luther King, they say. But do they really believe that ultra-segregationist Bull Connor’s arrests in the civil rights era were justified?

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

November 2 is the 306th day of the year (307th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 59 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1777, the USS Ranger, with a crew of 140 men under the command of John Paul Jones, leaves Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for the naval port at Brest, France, where it will stop before heading toward the Irish Sea to begin raids on British warships. This was the first mission of its kind during the Revolutionary War.

After departing Brest, Jones successfully executed raids on two forts in England’s Whitehaven Harbor, despite a disgruntled crew more interested in “gain than honor.” Jones then continued to his home territory of Kirkcudbright Bay, Scotland, where he intended to abduct the earl of Selkirk and then exchange him for American sailors held captive by Britain. Although he did not find the earl at home, Jones’ crew was able to steal all his silver, including his wife’s teapot, still containing her breakfast tea. From Scotland, Jones sailed across the Irish Sea to Carrickfergus, where the Ranger captured the HMS Drake after delivering fatal wounds to the British ship’s captain and lieutenant.

In September 1779, Jones fought one of the fiercest battles in naval history when he led the USS Bonhomme Richard frigate, named for Benjamin Franklin, in an engagement with the 50-gun British warship HMS Serapis. After the Bonhomme Richard was struck, it began taking on water and caught fire. When the British captain of the Serapis ordered Jones to surrender, he famously replied, “I have not yet begun to fight!” A few hours later, the captain and crew of the Serapis admitted defeat and Jones took command of the British ship.

John Paul Jones (July 6, 1747 – July 18, 1792) was the United States’ first well-known naval fighter in the American Revolutionary War. Although he made enemies among America’s political elites, his actions in British waters during the Revolution earned him an international reputation which persists to this day.

Captain Jones’s is interred at the US Naval Academy in a marble and bronze sarcophagus.

NSA chief Keith Alexander blames diplomats for surveillance requests

Paul Lewis, The Guardian

Thursday 31 October 2013 22.16 EDT

The director of the National Security Agency has blamed US diplomats for requests to place foreign leaders under surveillance, in a surprising intervention that risks a confrontation with the State Department.

General Keith Alexander made the remarks during a pointed exchange with a former US ambassador to Romania, lending more evidence to suggestions of a rift over surveillance between the intelligence community and Barack Obama’s administration.

The NSA chief was challenged by James Carew Rosapepe, who served as an ambassador under the Clinton administration, over the monitoring of the German chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone.

Rosapepe, now a Democratic state senator in Maryland, pressed Alexander to give “a national security justification” for the agency’s use of surveillance tools intended for combating terrorism against “democratically elected leaders and private businesses”.

“We all joke that everyone is spying on everyone,” he said. “But that is not a national security justification.”

Alexander replied: “That is a great question, in fact as an ambassador you have part of the answer. Because we the intelligence agencies don’t come up with the requirements. The policymakers come up with the requirements.”

He went on: “One of those groups would have been, let me think, hold on, oh: ambassadors.”

…

It also risked deepening the division between the Obama administration and the intelligence community, which have been briefing against one another throughout the week

…

Just hours earlier, secretary of state John Kerry appeared to lay the blame at the door of the NSA, when he said certain practices had occurred “on autopilot” without the knowledge of senior officials in the Obama administration.