Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 55 Top Stories.

1 Mladic jailed in The Hague to face war crimes charges

by Jan Hennop, AFP

23 mins ago

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 May 30, 2011-

• Do you want to help organize a jailbreak? by jeffroby
• Sunday Train: Why We Fight by BruceMcF
• World economies as a function of energy use by Compound F
• Why Are We Still In Afghanistan? by TheMomCat
• More Lies by ek hornbeck

DocuDharma

In Stars Hollow I live on a 5 street cul-de-sac backed by a protected watershed.  For one day each year, for 2 or 3 hours, we’re entirely cut off from civilization by the Memorial Day Parade.  You can tell it’s coming because they take down the eksmas decorations and put up flags on the phone poles (which we leave until July 4th because we’re thrifty like that).

It’s actually a really big neighborhood holiday, you can’t go anywhere because the streets are blocked and everyone congregates along the parade route and gets a chance to gossip about how the kids are doing.

From the time I was an Indian Guide until I graduated Marching Band I was a part of the show, stepping the 2 mile route from the marshaling area to the Town Hall reviewing stand.  For many years I grieved that my neighborhood seemed to be slighted in the musical department as drum majors preserved their performances.

So, once I was beyond caring or retribution, I sidled down the street a bit and at the appropriate moment used my regulation Lifeguard issue Acme Thunderer to give the 4 rhythmic blasts that triggered a roll off in my former compatriots.  The results were quite satisfactory.

Not that I’m advocating low tech hacking or civil disobedience.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 52 Top Stories.

1 CO2 emissions highest ever in 2010: IEA

AFP

Mon May 30, 12:37 pm ET

Lime Rock Park is the only race I’ve actually been to, as opposed to watching it on TV.  It’s interesting in a couple of respects.

First of all Lime Rock really is a park.  Lakeville is the back end of beyond, many solid miles of 2 lane distant from the highway.  There are a few buildings and a bridge to the infield and that’s it.  Spectators bring a cooler and a blanket and sit on the ground under the trees, some even camp out for the weekend so there are little tents all over the place.  When my Dad and my brother and I went we hung out on ‘the hill’ where you can see the first 4 turns and most of the main straight.

The other thing you notice about it is it’s extremely narrow and it’s hard to imagine any passing goes on, although it happens all the time.

Which brings me to the second interesting thing about Lime Rock, these are Sports Cars and there are 4 different classes of them running on track at the same time with varying speeds (which can make it confusing to watch).

The exotic looking and fastest ones are ‘prototype’ cars and come in 2 flavors, enclosed and open cockpit.  They generally have a seat for a navigator/mechanic (though it’s mostly an anachronism).

Then there are 2 classes of ‘touring (production)’ cars, Corvettes and everyone else.  They look like Porsches and Audis and BMWs and Corvettes (surprise) but they’re not generally street legal.  The touring cars are 20 or 30 miles an hour slower than the prototypes so when I say passing all the time I mean ALL the time, they’re kind of like rolling road blocks.

Speaking of road, as much racing takes place off it as on it and the only penalty is tearing up your undercarriage.  There is also a tendency to spend a lot of time figuring out which direction you are pointing after your last spin.  While there are a lot of bumps and offs surprisingly few of them are race ending.

For a Sports Car race Lime Rock is mercifully short.  The name races- LeMans, Daytona, Sebring are endurance races with several driver changes, to say nothing of tires and fuel.  It’s not uncommon for a badly damaged car to spend several hours in the pits and come back to race competitively, victory margins are measured in hours and minutes rather than seconds.

They don’t race on Sunday because the neighbors complain, but when people talk about Memorial Day being the busiest weekend in motor sports they’re generally including Lime Rock whether they know it or not.

Coverage on Speed starts at 2 pm ET.

Monday Business Edition is an Open Thread

1 Germany to close all nuclear plants by 2022

by Deborah Cole, AFP

57 mins ago

Regular Features-

• Late Night Karaoke by mishima
• Six In The Morning by mishima
• Cartnoon by ek hornbeck

Featured Essays for May 29, 2011-

• Memorial by ek hornbeck
• The Friday Funnies by TheMomCat
• Fiddleheads! by ek hornbeck
• Jobs, Jobs, Jobs???? by TheMomCat
• Hugs by TheMomCat
• Pique the Geek 20110529: Curing Meat for Preservation by Translator

DocuDharma

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 42 Top Stories

1 Karzai gives US ‘last warning’ over civilian deaths

by Sardar Ahmad, AFP

Sun May 29, 10:18 am ET

Have I shared my feelings about Turn Left Racing yet?  Richard, my Dad, will watch anything with an engine in it but I have no use at all for Turn Left.  There is nothing interesting about identical bumper cars screaming in circles for hours on end.

Except for the flaming chunks of twisted metal that type of racing is designed to produce.

If it’s your idea of a good time then you really are no better than a sadistic degenerate Roman howling for your bread and circuses.

Sadly open wheel racing in the U.S. has become more and more like it’s besotted moonshining counterpart with rigid specifications supposedly adopted to ‘showcase driver skills’ and ‘reduce team cost and enhance competitiveness’ but which are in fact crafted to produce more wrecks for the bloodthirsty crowds.  I blame Tony George, owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indianapolis 500, the historic showcase of United States automotive technology for this revolting development.  As a side note, the last time an all U.S. engine and chassis won was in 1977.  Tony is just as greedy and amoral as Bernie Ecclestone but is not nearly as smart or well connected, he’s basically a failure who owns an expensive to maintain white elephant.

In this 100th anniversary edition (95th actual race because of some dark years) we are watching the end of the Cretaceous.  Turn Left’s Coca-Cola 600 (100 extra miles of slow motion boredom) has outdrawn Indy for 9 of the last 10 years (there was a rain out in 2009).  This will probably be pioneering Danica Patrick’s last race at Indianapolis as she is moving full time to Turn Left because that’s where the money is.  As David Newton of ESPN says, “Her absence will strip the 500 of one of the few remaining reasons to tune in to what once was the greatest show in motorsports.”

And don’t expect her to win in her finale, her ride is second rate and she qualified poorly.

There are 3 other women drivers today.  Pippa Mann is suffering severe burns on the back of her hands as the result of a crash in qualifying.  I suppose in the interests of full disclosure I should note that The Stars Hollow Gazette’s domain name was registered using Go Daddy.

I will also mention comb over expert, quitter, and birther conspiracist Donald Trump withdrew as pace car driver because he couldn’t spare the time for training.  He is replaced by 4 time winner A.J. Foyt.

• 2011 Indianapolis 500
• Official site

Starting Grid below.

Surprise!  Hispania Racing Team will start Monaco.  The refs have given them a pass despite Karthikeyan’s suspension problems and Liuzzi’s hard park which prevented them from setting a qualifying time.  The update on Perez is that he has a concussion and a sprained thigh.  The concussion means he can’t race and unlike IndyCar it’s the driver, not the car, that qualifies.

Hamilton got pretty screwed by Perez’s crash since he was saving tires in the pits and was only able to qualify 7th after half an hour of Red Flag while they reset the track.  Then he was penalized down to 9th for blowing off a chicane.

Speaking of tires, when asked why there was so little ‘clag’ or scrubbed off rubber on the track a Pirelli representative laughed and pointed out the dramatically lower speeds at Monaco.  This is significant because the projections are that even the Super Softs are good for 23 laps and it’s only a 78 lap race.  Likewise non-competitive teams like Scuderia Marlboro UPC should suffer less from their lack of downforce and horsepower.

But they will suffer from grid position, it’s practically impossible to pass and anyone looking to make up positions will have to do it in the pits or by avoiding the mistakes of those ahead.  I stand by yesterday’s prediction, “Yet another snooze fest made exciting by flaming chunks of twisted metal which will be made more numerous by the frequent appearance of the safety car.”

Speed’s coverage starts with GP2 at 6 am, pre-race at 7:30, and roll off at 8.  I’ll also be covering the Indianapolis 500 today which starts on ABC at 11 am and tomorrow I might have a word or two about Lime Rock.

• F1: Monaco Qualifying
• Formula One Official Site
• Speed Racecast

Pretty tables below.