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Jul 13 2011

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Afghan president’s brother assassinated

By Mamoon Durrani, AFP

41 mins ago

Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s younger half-brother, the government’s key powerbroker in the country’s south, was assassinated on Tuesday, depriving NATO of a vital if controversial ally.

Ahmed Wali Karzai was shot dead in his own home by a long-serving commander of his family’s personal protection force, said the police chief for Kandahar province, although the Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing.

The 49-year-old was a shadowy figure, dogged for years by allegations of unsavoury links to the lucrative opium trade and private security firms, but others said he brought control to an otherwise chaotic domain.

Jul 12 2011

Le Tour- Stage 10

Aurillac to Carmaux 99 miles.

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

Doping!

No not Contador, though this is a great example of what happens to a ‘normal’ rider.  Alexandr Kolobnev of Katusha had a urine sample taken after Stage 5 test positive for Hydrochlorothiazide, a diurectic sometimes used to mask other drugs (though not performance enhancing in and of itself).

Since the news was released yesterday, a mere 4 days after the sample, Kolobnev has withdrawn/was booted (accounts disagree) from Le Tour and fired from his team (or not yet, accounts disagree) and is facing a $3 million fine.  Oh, and police tossed his hotel room.

I invite you to compare and contrast.

Today’s Stage has what are called ‘rolling hills’ with 2 category 4 and 2 category 3 climbs.  The sprint checkpoint is pretty early and will happen just before or soon after we join the race.

Hoogerland and Flecha are still with us so far but I’ll note the withdrawal list doesn’t reflect Kolobnev at the moment so perhaps the true toll of Sunday is not yet reflected.  Of course standings haven’t changed since yesterday.

Today’s coverage starts at 8 am.

Jul 12 2011

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 UK hacking scandal widens with Brown, royal claims

By Robin Millard, AFP

3 hrs ago

Britain’s phone hacking scandal spiralled Monday amid reports that former premier Gordon Brown and the royals were targeted, as the government dealt a blow to Rupert Murdoch’s bid for pay-TV giant BSkyB.

In a story taking new twists and turns by the hour and shaking the entire establishment, Brown was reportedly hacked by The Sunday Times and The Sun, both stablemates of Murdoch’s doomed News of the World tabloid.

The royal family were meanwhile allegedly targeted by the News of the World, Britain’s biggest selling weekly newspaper, which Murdoch shut down at the weekend amid allegations of widespread illegal phone hacking.

Jul 11 2011

Bad Policy, Bad Politics- Part 1

Monday Business Edition

Economy Faces a Jolt as Benefit Checks Run Out

By MOTOKO RICH, The New York Times

Published: July 10, 2011

Close to $2 of every $10 that went into Americans’ wallets last year were payments like jobless benefits, food stamps, Social Security and disability, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics. In states hit hard by the downturn, like Arizona, Florida, Michigan and Ohio, residents derived even more of their income from the government.

By the end of this year, however, many of those dollars are going to disappear, with the expiration of extended benefits intended to help people cope with the lingering effects of the recession. Moody’s Analytics estimates $37 billion will be drained from the nation’s pocketbooks this year.

…

“If we don’t get more job growth and gains in wages and salaries, then consumers just aren’t going to have the firepower to spend, and the economy is going to weaken,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, a macroeconomic consulting firm.

Job growth has remained elusive. There are 4.6 unemployed workers for every opening, according to the Labor Department, and Friday’s unemployment report showed that employers added an anemic 18,000 jobs in June.

…

Consumers account for an estimated 60 to 70 percent of the country’s economic activity, but two years into the official recovery, businesses are still complaining that people simply are not spending enough.

…

Because benefit payments tend to be spent right away to cover basic needs like food and rent, they provide a direct boost to consumer spending. In a study for the Labor Department, Wayne Vroman, an economist at the Urban Institute, estimated that every $1 paid in jobless benefits generated as much as $2 in the economy.

Government Aid Dissipating, Damaging Economic Performance

By: David Dayen, Firedog Lake

Monday July 11, 2011 6:55 am

The Times story tells a simple tale, one rooted in elementary macroeconomic theory, and one which has escaped everyone in Washington. If you reduce benefits on those who have the highest propensity to spend money, that money gets taken out of the economy, and GDP suffers. And GDP has a direct bearing on unemployment. Our automatic stabilizers actually worked decently during the Great Recession. In fact, most of the stimulus went to tax cuts and beefing up those stabilizers, through aid to states and expanded benefits (in fact, too much so, as public investment in jobs was barely a sliver of the total stimulus). No doubt Republicans will see this article as some evidence of lazy Americans living on the dole, but it’s a direct result of an intelligently designed system to provide a safety net when the bottom drops out of the economy.

Herr Doktor Professor–

Regular readers of this blog know that I make a big deal of the failure of interest rates to rise despite massive government borrowing. There’s a reason for that: what happens to interest rates is a key indicator of which economic model, and hence which economic policies, are right.

The Very Serious position has been that government borrowing will drive up rates, crowd out private investment, and impede recovery. A Keynes-Hicks analysis, by contrast, says that when you’re in a liquidity trap, even large government borrowing won’t drive up rates – and hence won’t crowd out private investment. In fact, it will promote private investment by raising capacity utilization and giving firms more reason to expand.

…

What we usually get in response to this seemingly decisive data are a series of excuses – most recently, that rates were low because the Fed was buying all the bonds. Well, that program has ended, and interest rates are still low.

More Herr Doktor Professor on excuses–

The fact is, the United States economy has been stuck in a rut for a year and a half.

…

The truth is that creating jobs in a depressed economy is something government could and should be doing.

…

Our failure to create jobs is a choice, not a necessity – a choice rationalized by an ever-shifting set of excuses.

Excuse No. 1: Just around the corner, there’s a rainbow in the sky.

  • Remember “green shoots”? Remember the “summer of recovery”? Policy makers keep declaring that the economy is on the mend – and Lucy keeps snatching the football away. Yet these delusions of recovery have been an excuse for doing nothing as the jobs crisis festers.

Excuse No. 2: Fear the bond market.

  • Two years ago The Wall Street Journal declared that interest rates on United States debt would soon soar unless Washington stopped trying to fight the economic slump. Ever since, warnings about the imminent attack of the “bond vigilantes” have been used to attack any spending on job creation.

    But basic economics said that rates would stay low as long as the economy was depressed – and basic economics was right. The interest rate on 10-year bonds was 3.7 percent when The Wall Street Journal issued that warning; at the end of last week it was 3.03 percent.

Excuse No. 3: It’s the workers’ fault.

  • (I)f there really was a mismatch between the workers we have and the workers we need, workers who do have the right skills, and are therefore able to find jobs, should be getting big wage increases. They aren’t. In fact, average wages actually fell last month.

Excuse No. 4: We tried to stimulate the economy, and it didn’t work.

  • Everybody knows that President Obama tried to stimulate the economy with a huge increase in government spending, and that it didn’t work. But what everyone knows is wrong.

    …

    What happened to the stimulus? Much of it consisted of tax cuts, not spending. Most of the rest consisted either of aid to distressed families or aid to hard-pressed state and local governments. This aid may have mitigated the slump, but it wasn’t the kind of job-creation program we could and should have had. This isn’t 20-20 hindsight: some of us warned from the beginning that tax cuts would be ineffective and that the proposed spending was woefully inadequate. And so it proved.

Neoliberal Economics has as much credibility as Stalinist Genetics.

Jul 11 2011

Le Tour- Rest Day 1

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

What did I say about the wicked?  Oh… yeah.

Yesterday was hit and run day as a chase car plowed into 2 riders but neither one of them were forced to retire.  Yet.  It might have been bigger, new GC leader Voeckler was close enough to get whacked in the leg by Flecha as Flecha spun into a barbed wire fence.

The actual big crash happened earlier on a rain slick descent and took out Vinokourov who was a legitimate contender for Yellow in Paris.  In all 8 riders retired, nearly doubling the list to 18.

On the Stage Sanchez (Louis-Leon) had the victory with Voeckler and Casar close behind.  Almost 4 minutes back was a group including Gilbert, Evans, the 2 Schlecks, Sanchez (Samuel), and Contador.  Hushovd finished tied for 79th on the day, 6:47 behind.

In the General Classification the 2 Medium Mountain days have bubbled up some of the usual suspects-

Rank Name Team ET delta
1 Thomas Voeckler Europcar 38h 35′ 11″
2 Luis-Leon Sanchez Rabo Bank 38h 37′ 00″ + 01′ 49″
3 Cadel Evans BMC 38h 37′ 37″ + 02′ 26″
4 Frank Schleck Leopard Trek 38h 37′ 40″ + 02′ 29″
5 Andy Schleck Leopard Trek 38h 37′ 48″ + 02′ 37″
6 Tony Martin HTC 38h 37′ 49″ + 02′ 38″
7 Peter Velits HTC 38h 37′ 49″ + 02′ 38″
8 Andréas Kloden Radio Shack 38h 37′ 54″ + 02′ 43″
9 Philippe Gilbert Omega Pharma 38h 38′ 06″ + 02′ 55″
10 Jakob Fuglsang Leopard Trek 38h 38′ 19″ + 03′ 08″
…
16 Alberto Contador Saxo Bank 38h 39′ 18″ + 04′ 07″
…
24 Thor Hushovd Garmin 38h 40′ 24″ + 05′ 13″
…
36 Levi Leipheimer Radio Shack 38h 42′ 27″ + 07′ 16″

We have raced 989 miles of 2132 or 46%.

BruceMcF’s assessment–

When the front of the peleton crashes overcooking a corner going 50mph+ downhill, that defines “a mess”. The yellow and green jersey wearers made the decision to neutralize the race until those involved still riding rejoined the peleton ~ despite the fact that it assured the yellow jersey wearer that he would surrender the maillot jeune, though the fact that he had not expected to still be wearing it today may have made the decision easier.

In the race for the Yellow, Voeckler is not considered to be a serious GC threat, so it serves the interests of the main GC contenders for him to be in yellow into the Pyrenees. The three fancied race winners all finished same time, but several podium threats crashed out, while Lulu Sanchez vaulted into second place, so he will have to be taken seriously as long as he holds the time.

In the race for Green, Phillipe Gilbert gained “best of the rest” sprint points at the only part of today’s stage close enough to flat to put a sprint point, and “best of the rest” points at the finish, to add 30 points to his Green Jersey talley ~ one more than the difference between winning a flat stage and finishing 8th. Cadel Evans finished “third best of the rest” to add 15 points to his 5th place in the Green Jersey, and Thor Hushovd picked up 7 points at the intermediate sprint just being near the front of the peleton as his team was still driving in an ultimately futile effort to hold the yellow. Thor goes into the rest day without having to worry about defending yellow, so can start thinking about staging an attack to move up in the Green Jersey competition.

Vs. Rest Day coverage starts at 8 am.

Jul 11 2011

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Australia sets carbon tax to fight climate change

By Madeleine Coorey, AFP

11 hrs ago

Australia announced plans on Sunday to tax carbon pollution at Aus$23 (US$24.74) per tonne to help battle climate change, as it moved towards creating the region’s biggest emissions trading scheme.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said there would be a fixed price on carbon pollution, blamed for global warming, from next year before an emissions trading scheme was introduced in 2015.

“We have had a long debate about climate change in this country,” Gillard said in a rare televised address to the nation.

Jul 10 2011

F1: Silverstone

Scuderia Marlboro UPC has a hissy fit

You know it’s nothing unusual for the boys from Maranello to fail to engineer a competitive car and use their influence with the FIA to change the rules in their favor, but their days of influence may be over.  There’s no doubt at this point that they’re behind the mid season Off Throttle Blown Diffuser rule change and they’re looking pretty sad and pathetic when only Sauber (who uses their engines) supports them.

Things are not happy in the Formula One Teams Association, there’s also the fact the Concorde Agreement has expired and is extended only through a letter, not a contract, through 2012 following a heated dispute that led many teams to threaten to go CART.  While nominally guided by Martin Whitmarsh of McLaren and Ross Brawn of Mercedes the FOTA is widely viewed as a tool of Bernie Ecclestone who has a distinct conflict of interest and a hazy history of influence on the FIA itself with his cozy relationship to Max Mosley the fifth columnist Nazi’s son who got the boot for his sexcapades.

Interestingly enough this was the scoop of the recently deceased and unlamented News of the World who published sick Nazi Sex Orgy by Neville Thurlbeck so who knows what to think?

It’s a small world after all, it’s a small, small world.

Sometimes it helps if you sing.

There will be another meeting before Nürburgring (did I mention I like irony?) which probably won’t help much since the FIA is insisting on unanimous consent.

Oh, car racing.  Haven’t the foggiest.  No spoilers you know.

Eventually I’ll have pretty tables, stay tuned.

Jul 10 2011

Le Tour 2011- Stage 9

Issoire to Saint-Flour 130 miles

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

Well first of all Saint Flour is not for baking.  Yes I need more sleep, coffee or both.

Teams were pretty cautious the first day in the Medium Mountains (only one more to go after today) but given Friday’s crash fest that’s not so surprising.  However time is running out for the ‘punchers’, the not quite climbers, not quite sprinters like Hushovd and Gilbert to make their mark otherwise you’ll have to start rooting on the Schleck brothers and Evans if you’re not a Contador fan.

He’ll be starting his same old 1:42 back from Hushovd who expressed his surprise at being able to hold on as long as he has to the maillot jaune.  It’s a measure of how the field has thinned though that Contador has moved from 82nd to 20th in rank with no change at all in that margin.  On the other hand nobody has been able to put a move on him since Stage 3.

This Stage has 2 category 4 bumps at the end and 3 category 3s and 2s so there are a fair number of ‘King of the Mountain’ climber points available.  The sprint checkpoint is only 19 miles from the end so your guess is as good as mine if the Green Jersey competitors will have caught up by then or been left in the dust.

Whatever happens it will surely be more enlightening than the Sunday Stupid Factory.

Tomorrow is a Rest Day but Vs. will be filling all the regular time slots (8 am, 11:30 am, 3 pm, and 8 pm) with a summary of the action so far.  I’ll be covering today’s results.

Today’s coverage starts at 8 am.

Jul 10 2011

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Pakistan regains control with 95 dead in Karachi

By Hasan Mansoor, AFP

5 hrs ago

Pakistan announced on Saturday its troops had taken back areas of Karachi occupied by armed groups and arrested more than 100 people after political violence across the vast port city claimed 95 lives.

Four days of unrest has been blamed on political and ethnic tensions, with gunmen firing on two buses in the early hours of Friday, killing 12 people including a six-year-old girl, according to security officials.

“Our paramilitary soldiers have secured the troubled localities and hills where armed terrorists were firing on innocent people, and have restored normal life,” interior minister Rehman Malik told reporters.

Jul 09 2011

Le Tour- Stage 8

Aigurande to Super-Besse Sancy 118 miles

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

Flaming chunks of twisted metal.

Bradley Wiggins is entirely out and Team Sky is in bad shape after his crash.  Geraint Thomas forfeited the White (Young Rider) Jersey to fall back and assist Wiggins.  Sportsmanship.

It split the Peloton and left only 80 riders in the zero delta (got the same time as the Stage winner, Mad Manx Cavendish) group including Hushovd, Gilbert, Frank and Andy, Evans, and Contador.  Everyone else added about 3 minutes or more.  Liepheimer of Radio Shack suffered additional indignity with a puncture and Horner finished dead last and barely at that.  Broken nose and concussion, unlikely to start after overnight observation and a morning examination by the team physician.

After the carnage BruceMcF evaluates the GC this way–

Contador, the Schleck brothers, Cadel Evans, Kloden, David Millar, Vinokourov are all in a position where what matters is what will happen when they hit the high mountains, with Sammy Sanchez still looking to make up 2:35 on the highest placed GC contender

This Stage is rated Medium Mountain and the first place where we can expect race changing deltas.

They say you can’t win Le Tour in the first week, but you can sure lose it.  We shall see what we shall see.

Vs. coverage starts at 8 am with your half hour of hype.  I’ll be concentrating on Silverstone and later- napping.

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