It’s not so bad, it could be raining.  Oh wait, it is.

Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula One empire is hanging by a thread and really the best thing he could do for the sport right now is pack up his office (under the scrutiny of a Security Officer of course) and head for the parking lot.

Don’t let the door hit you.

First of all Germany is off.  Nürburgring is having financial trouble and can’t meet Bernie’s fees.  Hockenheimring is unwilling to do so because Formula One is unprofitable for them and only drew 52,000 spectators last year (of a potential 120,000).  Bernie is tearing up the contract for the German Grand Prix (or wants to, we’ll see) and ominously threatens that Monza is next.

There goes his vaunted 20 race season, just like his 20 car field, but don’t worry- Bernie is sure it will all pass over.  I’m sure he’ll find another Petro-Emirate with more bucks than brains to fill in.

What it does mean is that Formula One’s reservoir of goodwill in Europe, its traditional heartland and the base of all of its teams, is thin indeed and Bernie’s senile delusions of challenging Football (the kind you play with your feet) are just that.  And, since it would be irresponsible not to speculate, what will it mean for the Fiat (Ferrari) commitment to Formula One going forward to lose its home track or for that matter Mercedes (which has lost it) without whom most cars would be nothing but sculptures?

The Red Bull/Renault dispute continues.  Red Bull’s Team Manager has had some very unflattering things to say and thoughts being bandied about include Red Bull buying out Renault (at least the Formula One Engine part), Renault buying out Red Bull in whole or in part (Toro Rosso), or Red Bull and/or Renault leaving Formula One entirely.

I give the money edge to Renault, They are after all a multi-Billion dollar automotive firm and Red Bull?  Well, it’s a soft drink company.

Why is this important to Bernie?  Because Red Bull puts 4 cars on the track- 20% of the entire field.  Without them you start the math at 16 when counting down to Bernie’s minimum contractual obligation of 14.  Oh, and don’t think Australia isn’t pissed he could only track 18 and finish 11 at Albert Part.

And what about Sauber?  Giedo van der Garde has settled out of court after winning in it, but he got a pot of money for doing so-

There has been a lot of speculation in the media over the past week, so I want to set out clearly that my sponsors paid the sponsorship fee related to the 2015 season in its entirety to Sauber in the first half of 2014.

This was simply in good faith and to help the team deal with its cash problems at the time. Effectively, it was my sponsor’s advanced payments that helped the team survive in 2014.

Sauber’s financial decision-making in this case is bizarre and makes no sense to me. I am not at liberty to discuss details, but Sauber paid significant compensation to avoid honouring the contract they had with me. Only in that respect can I be satisfied that my rights have finally been recognised and that at least some justice has been done.

Monisha Kaltenborn is making the same kind of ‘move along, nothing to see here’ noises Bernie does, but Sauber was a team on the edge financially last year and “there is continued speculation that Colin Kolles, the former principal of Caterham and HRT, wants to take over the team.”

Supposedly ChemChina’s takeover of Pirelli leaves their Formula One commitment “unchanged”, but in this case “unchanged” means that they have a contract through 2016 that they intend to honor and no longer term deal has been reached yet.

Oh BTW, Hards and Mediums.  Three stop strategy unless it rains.  Did I mention rain?  Caused a half hour delay in Qualifying.

Speaking of contracts, Hamilton is looking to ink a long term one with Mercedes.

Speaking of Drivers, Alonso is back but he didn’t get to Q3 by a long shot and doesn’t look the same.  Also he’s in a big dispute with McLaren over whether a ‘gust of wind’ caused his accident or his steering failed.

Speaking of mechanical failure, Hamilton missed two practice sessions because his engine telemetry failed (there may be more to it than that).

All in all it’s shaping up to be another fine season in Formula One because everything is always fine in Formula One.

John Watson: ‘F1 has a major problem but is putting its head in the sand’

by Paul Weaver, The Guardian

Tuesday 24 March 2015 10.01 EDT

“Formula One has a major problem but the sport is putting its head in the sand,” he said. “Two thirds of the grid are struggling, and barely able to make it to the race. Right now F1 needs to have a good look at itself and decide what it is trying to achieve. The product is in need of a massive kickstart.

“What’s going on? Bernie Ecclestone has done a phenomenal job for [owners] CVC but somebody needs to step in because of the dire state the middle and bottom of the grid is in. You can’t have a race with just four big teams. I’m unhappy with the governance from the FIA.”

…

“And then, in the race, there were so many cars and drivers missing. Australia values what the race brings to Melbourne and Victoria. They love their sport there but they will make their views known about that event, and it was not a good grand prix.”

Watson says F1’s efforts to cut costs have created problems of their own. “The regulations do not allow you to produce an entirely new engine this year, so the teams have to make the most of their development token. But that means that Mercedes, who have got everything spot on, are now enjoying complete domination. Another problem has been the reduction in testing time, again to cut costs. And this season teams have only four engines instead of five. So no one wants to do mileage because of the meagre engine allowance. Yet these hybrid engines are so complicated that everybody needs track time. Half the problem is bloody procedures. It’s nuts, total nuts.”

Watson, like many people in Formula One, wants CVC to readdress the amount of money it is taking out of a sport with an annual turnover of £1.5bn, while the majority of the teams struggle for survival. “That’s an area that must be revisited to keep the sport worthy of the money people are paying to watch it, either at the track or on TV.”

Watson also took a sideswipe at Red Bull’s team principal, Christian Horner, who in Australia was outspokenly critical of the Renault engine. “What Christian said about Renault was outrageous,” Watson said. “Has the bloke lost the plot? There were some unnecessarily blunt comments about the Renault power unit. You should keep those remarks for meetings behind closed doors.

“Renault are spending a fortune supporting the technology and the hardware to enable Red Bull to continue the success they have enjoyed. If I was Renault I would feel pissed off that Christian has bit off the hand that’s feeding him. The relationship seems to be disintegrating very rapidly. The public sniping is inappropriate and counterproductive.”

Watson, 68, was also critical of McLaren when he said: “They’ve had two bad years with the Mercedes engine. It’s hard to understand why they didn’t do better when you see how well Williams, Force India and of course Mercedes themselves did.”

And finally, because Bernie is always sooo ready to pamper his pets-

Bernie Ecclestone backs Red Bull’s call to rein in Mercedes’s F1 dominance

Reuters

Monday 16 March 2015 09.07 EDT

Formula One’s commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone has backed Red Bull’s call for action to rein in Mercedes’s engine advantage and make races more competitive after a one-sided start to the season.

…

“They are absolutely 100% right,” Ecclestone said when asked about the Red Bull principal Christian Horner’s statement that the FIA should apply an “equalisation mechanism” to narrow the gap.

…

Ecclestone said it was not a case of doing everything possible to stop Mercedes but simply to allow other manufacturers more flexibility.

“What we should have done was frozen the Mercedes engine and leave everybody else to do what they want so they could have caught up,” he said. “We should support the FIA to make changes.”

And you think Professional Wrestling is fixed.

Yesterday’s Results-

Go Spartans!

Tonight’s Matchups-

Last Night’s Results-

Not a single upset.

Today’s Matchups-

No upsets.  No Cinderellas.

Last Night’s Results-

This Evening’s Matchups-

Results from the 22nd-

Results from the 23rd-

Tonight’s Matchups-

Netanyahu’s Spying Denials Contradicted by Secret NSA Documents

By Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Fishman, The Intercept

25 Mar 2015

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday vehemently denied a Wall Street Journal report, leaked by the Obama White House, that Israel spied on U.S. negotiations with Iran and then fed the intelligence to Congressional Republicans. His office’s denial was categorical and absolute, extending beyond this specific story to U.S.-targeted spying generally, claiming: “The state of Israel does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel’s other allies.”

Israel’s claim is not only incredible on its face. It is also squarely contradicted by top-secret NSA documents, which state that Israel targets the U.S. government for invasive electronic surveillance, and does so more aggressively and threateningly than almost any other country in the world. Indeed, so concerted and aggressive are Israeli efforts against the U.S. that some key U.S. government documents – including the top secret 2013 intelligence budget – list Israel among the U.S.’s most threatening cyber-adversaries and as a “hostile” foreign intelligence service.

…

Previously reported stories on Israeli spying, by themselves, leave no doubt how false Netanyahu’s statement is. A Der Spiegel article from last fall revealed that “Israeli intelligence eavesdropped on US Secretary of State John Kerry during Middle East peace negotiations.” A Le Monde article described how NSA documents strongly suggest that a massive computer hack of the French presidential palace in 2012 was likely carried about by the Israelis. A 2014 article from Newsweek’s Jeff Stein revealed that when it comes to surveillance, “the Jewish state’s primary target” is “America’s industrial and technical secrets” and that “Israel’s espionage activities in America are unrivaled and unseemly.”

All of these stories, along with these new documents, leave no doubt that, at least as the NSA and other parts of the U.S. National Security State see it, Netanyahu’s denials are entirely false: The Israelis engage in active and aggressive espionage against the U.S., even as the U.S. feeds the Israelis billions of dollars every year in U.S. taxpayer funds and protects every Israeli action at the U.N. Because of the U.S. perception of Israel as a “threat” and even a “hostile” foreign intelligence service – facts they discuss only privately, never publicly – the U.S. targets Israel for all sorts of espionage as well.

Word Blerd & Knowledge College

Keep it Sleem-Glorp

The Twitter machine is singularly unhelpful tonight so your guess is as good as mine.

Continuity

Deer Munchies

We are, alas, off next week.

Well, it will give me a chance to rest up and concentrate on Basketball.  Also this weekend, Sepang between 2 and 1 am starting tonight.  It’s been busy for me as I’ve had a lot of appointments and guests and have written more than a few diaries these last few weeks.

As Sam Kinison said, “It never stops.  It just never stops.”

John Hargrove is a former Orca trainer who left the profession in 2012 and was memorably interviewed just a week after his resignation fot the documentary Blackfish.  He thinks Killer Whales are not suitable for captivity.

He’ll be on to talk about his new book, Beneath the Surface.

The real news below.

The big shuffle.  Teams that were playing on Day 1 are now playing on Day 2 and likewise.  Results from both the 21st and 22nd.

I count 5 upsets.

Results from the 21st-

Results from the 22nd-

This Evening’s Matchups-

Cause…

Congress’ Medicare ‘Fix’ Could Leave Seniors Paying More

By David Dayen, The Fiscal Times

March 20, 2015

Washington perpetually laments the loss of bipartisanship in this polarized political environment. But ordinary Americans might want to fear one example of bipartisanship’s return, and what it could mean for their pocketbooks.

John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi have been locked in negotiations to clear two of the biggest hurdles facing Congress this year: the so-called “doc fix” for Medicare reimbursement rates, and an extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). We don’t have all the details, because the negotiations have taken place far from the public eye, with the release of the House and Senate budgets this week affording them cover.

…

The “doc fix” refers to the rate the government pays doctors who see Medicare patients. A 1997 law created something called the “sustainable growth rate” or SGR that governs the level of payments. Since Medicare spending consistently outstrips economic growth, this translates into large reimbursement cuts under the SGR formula. If nothing is done by April 1, the reimbursement rate will fall by 21 percent. More important, doctors claim they would react to pay cuts by prioritizing other patients, making it harder for Medicare beneficiaries to get treatment.

This 21 percent cut should always be accompanied by the phrase “in theory,” because every potentially large rate cut since 2002 has been patched; hence the phrase “doc fix.” On 17 different occasions, Congress has made sure Medicare doctors get their expected paycheck, sometimes even adding a small raise, and often finding money somewhere else in the budget to offset it.

…

Congress appears to want to stop having conversations with angry doctors every year, and have cast about for a permanent “doc fix” that would repeal and replace the old Medicare payment system. Doing this would cost $177 billion over the next decade, but the Boehner-Pelosi negotiations are looking at covering less than half this, around $70 billion in back-ended cuts, and letting the rest add to the budget deficits. To sweeten the pot for liberals, the emerging package would include a two-year, $30 billion extension of CHIP for 8 million children, at the boosted benefit levels under the Affordable Care Act. The tentative plan is for the House to vote next week, and throw it into the Senate’s lap just before the April 1 doc fix deadline.

It’s the other half of the cuts that get problematic. There would reportedly be more means-testing for Medicare beneficiaries, increasing premiums for seniors showing income over $133,000 and couples over $266,000. These seniors would have to pay 65 percent of their total costs under the new plan. This would go up at higher incomes. Means-testing historically dips lower and lower as budgeters try to get more out of beneficiaries, so this continues that ratcheting process for Medicare.

…

But this would raise out-of-pocket expenses on all 9 million seniors with a Medigap plan, including the 86 percent of these beneficiaries who have incomes under $40,000, and almost half with incomes below $20,000. So this cut hits those who can’t really afford it. (This idea, along with the means-testing, was in President Obama’s budget, incidentally.)

The proper term for this is cost-shifting, pushing funding for a public program onto those who get the benefits. Medigap was created to deal with cost-shifting in Medicare, and now Congress may look to shift costs within it as well. And like means-testing, cost-shifting is prime terrain for double-dipping over time.

…

All of this is being done to protect doctor salaries, which are among the highest in the industrialized world. Maybe Medicare doctors shouldn’t endure a 20 percent pay cut, but the idea that they wouldn’t see patients if the cut were 5 or 7 percent doesn’t pencil out. Plus, doctor payment rates are tied to Medicare premiums, as the Congressional Budget Office has explained: “Beneficiaries enrolled in Part B of Medicare pay premiums that offset about 25 percent of the costs of those benefits.” This means that any permanent change to a new doctor payment formula will likely result in a hike to Part B premiums.

Clearly everyone in Congress hates the messy process of annual “doc fix” patches, and the uproar from the hospital lobby that accompanies it. But nobody in Washington has raised the point that higher costs for ordinary patients might not be a great solution to the supposed problem of lower cash flow for doctors.

And Effect-

U.S. Voter Turnout is Low Because There’s Little to Vote For

by Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report

Wed, 03/25/2015

President Obama wants you to believe that the political map of the United States would be transformed – “completely changed,” he says – if citizens were required by law to vote. Obama told a town hall meeting in Cleveland that mandatory voting would “counteract” the influence of money in the U.S. electoral process. That’s a hell of a statement from the guy who wrecked the public campaign finance system by opting out of it in 2008, and outspent his Republican opponents in both of his runs for the presidency. Obama ought to have his picture on a million dollar bill.

But, why does the United States have the lowest voter turnout in the industrialized world, including Russia? It’s not because Americans are happier with the way they’re living than the rest of humanity. The U.S. ranks 17th on the global Happiness index and 23rd on the Satisfaction with Life scale. And, although racial exclusion in voting is very important when comparing Black voter turnout with whites, white Americans also vote in numbers far below almost all of the rest of the developed world.

Americans don’t vote because both major political parties are answerable to the same people: the moneyed classes, the power structures that determine the issues that will be on the political agenda long before the party primaries begin. This is called the hegemony of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the rich.

The corporations and bankers choose the menu; the only option citizens have is whether to select from the pre-packaged list of candidates, or stay home. Almost two out of three chose not to vote in 2014. They were not behaving irrationally. Since both major parties are controlled by the rich, only the most minor tinkering with the way the country is actually run, is tolerated. No matter how many people vote, very little changes, because the U.S. offers the narrowest spectrum of electoral choices in the industrial world – which is why it has the lowest voter turnout.

The Democrats want to keep their lock on the Black vote, but they have no interest in Black people voting their own political agenda, for the simple reason that Blacks are the most left-wing constituency in the country and must, therefore, be kept in check by the Democratic Party machinery. It is the Democrats who have for decades sought to break up concentrations of Black voters, spreading them out across a number of districts. This gives the Democratic Party a better chance to win seats in more districts, but it means that only those Black candidates that can appeal to a substantial segment of white voters can win election. The Black political conversation is left in a state of arrested development. Ultimately, even the Black political landscape turns into a desert, and rational Black people choose not to vote.

What’s so hard to understand about why Congressional approval, indeed our satisfaction with all elected officials from President to Dog Catcher, is in the toilet?

It’s because they toady to the wealthy and not to the voters.