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Thursday: Alien Occupation

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Since I missed a Monday post with a movie clip I think I’ll whip out a golden oldie for today’s post.

This movie — especially this particular scene — still gets to me 37 years after it was first released. The ‘chestburster’ as scene is commonly known is the culmination of a body horror trope in Ridley Scott’s science fiction epic, Alien. The horror arises from knowing something happened to the spacecraft Nostromo’s executive officer Kane when a ‘facehugger’ leapt from a pod in an alien ship, eating through his space helmet, leaving him unresponsive as long as the facehugger remained attached to his face. There is a brief sense of relief once the facehugger detaches and Kane returns to consciousness and normal daily functions. But something isn’t right as the subtle extra scrutiny of the science officer Ash foreshadows at the beginning of this scene.

Director Ridley Scott employed a different variant of body horror in his second contribution to the Alien franchise, this time by way of a xenomorph implanted in her mimicking pregnancy in scientist Shaw. She is sterile, and she knows whatever this is growing inside her must be removed and destroyed or it will kill both her and the remaining crew. The clip shared here and others available in YouTube actually don’t convey the complete body horror — immediately before Shaw enters this AI-operated surgical pod she is thwarted by the pod’s programming for a default male patient. In spite of her mounting panic and growing pain she must flail at the program to enter alternative commands which will remove the thing growing inside her.

I suspect the clips available in YouTube were uploaded by men, or they would understand how integral to Shaw’s body horror is the inability to simply and quickly tell this surgical pod GET THIS FUCKING THING OUT OF ME RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.

I don’t know if any man (by which I mean cis-man) can really understand this horror. Oh sure, men can realistically find themselves host to things like tapeworms and ticks and other creatures which they can have removed. But the horror of frustration, being occupied by something that isn’t right, not normal, shouldn’t continue, putting its host at mortal risk — and not being able to simply demand it should be removed, or expect resources to avoid its implantation and occupation in one’s self? No. Cis-men do not know this terror.

Now imagine the dull background terror of young women in this country who must listen to white straight male legislators demand ridiculous and offensive hurdles before they will consider funding birth control to prevent sexual transmission of Zika, or fund abortions of Zika-infected fetuses which put their mothers at risk of maternal mortality while the fetuses may not be viable or result in deformed infants who’ll live short painful lives. Imagine the horror experienced by 84 pregnant women in Florida alone who’ve tested positive for Zika and are now being monitored, who don’t know the long-term outcomes for themselves or their infants should their fetuses be affected by the virus.

Body horror, daily, due to occupation not only by infectious agents alien to a woman’s body, but occupation by patriarchy.

I expect to get pooh-poohed by men in comments to which I preemptively say fuck off. I’ve had a conversation this week about Zika risks with my 20-something daughter; she turned down an invitation this past week to vacation with friends in Miami. It’s a realistic problem for her should she accidentally get pregnant before/during/immediately following her trip there.

We also talked about one of her college-age friend’s experiences with Guillain–Barré syndrome. It’s taken that young woman nearly three years to recover and resume normal function. She didn’t acquire the syndrome from Zika, but Guillain–Barré’s a risk with Zika infections. There’s too little research yet about the magnitude of the risk — this vacation is not worth the gamble.

But imagine those who live there and can’t take adequate precautions against exposure for economic reasons — imagine the low-level dread. Imagine, too, the employment decisions people are beginning to make should job offers pop up in areas with local Zika transmission.

What’s it going to take to get through to legislators — their own experience of body horror? Movies depicting body horror don’t seem to be enough.

Wheels
Put these two stories together — the next question is, “Who at VW ordered the emissions cheat device from Bosch before 2008?”

Pretty strong incentives for Volkswagen to destroy email evidence. I wonder what Bosch did with their emails?

Self-driving electric cars are incredibly close to full commercialization based on these two stories:

  • Michigan’s state senate bill seeks approval of driverless cars (ReadWrite) — Bill would change state’s code to permit “the motor vehicle to be operated without any control or monitoring by a human operator.” Hope a final version ensures human intervention as necessary by brakes and/or steering wheel. I wonder which manufacturer or association helped write this code revision?
  • California now committed to dramatic changes in greenhouse gas emissions (Los Angeles Times) — State had already been on target to achieve serious reductions in emissions by 2020; the new law enacts an even steeper reduction by 2030 in order to slow climate change effects and improve air quality.

I don’t know if I’m ready to see these on the road in Michigan. Hope the closed test track manufacturers are using here will offer realistic snow/sleet/ice experience; if self-driving cars can’t navigate that, I don’t want to be near them. And if Michigan legislators are ready to sign off on self-driving cars, I hope like hell the NHTSAA is way ahead of them — especially since emissions reductions laws like California’s are banking heavily on self-driving electric cars.

Google-y-do

  • Google’s parent Alphabet-ting on burritos from the sky (Bloomberg) — No. No. NO. Not chocolate, not doughnuts, not wine or beer, but Alphabet subsidiary Project Wing is testing drone delivery of Chipotle burritos to Virginia Tech students? Ugh. This has fail all over it. Watch out anyhow, pizza delivery persons, your jobs could be on the bubble if hot burritos by drone succeed.
  • API company Apigee to join Google’s fold (Fortune) — This is part of a big business model shift at Google. My guess is this acquisition was driven by antitrust suits, slowing Google account growth, and fallout from Oracle’s suit against Google over Java APIs. Application programming interfaces (APIs) are discrete programming subroutines which, in a manner of speaking, act like glue between different programs, allowing programmers to obtain resources from one system for use in a different function without requiring the programmer to have more than passing understanding of the resource. An API producer would allow Google’s other systems to access or be used by non-Google systems.
  • Google to facilitate storage of Drive content at cloud service Box (PC World) — Here’s where an API is necessary: a Google Drive user selects Box instead of Drive for storage, and the API routes the Drive documents to Box instead of Drive. Next: imagine other Google services, like YouTube-created/edited videos or Google Photo-edited images, allowing storage or use by other businesses outside of Google.

Longread: Digitalization and its panopticonic effect on society
Columbia’s Edward Mendelson, Lionel Trilling Professor in Humanities and a contributor at PC Magazine, takes a non-technical look at the effect our ever-on, ever-observing, ever-connected technology has on us.

Catch you later!

Monday Morning: Brittle

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The Emperor’s Palace was the most splendid in the world, all made of priceless porcelain, but so brittle and delicate that you had to take great care how you touched it. …

— excerpt, The Nightingale from The Yellow Fair Book by Andrew Lang

Last week I’d observed that Apple’s stock value had fallen by ~7% after its financial report was released. The conventional wisdom is that the devaluation was driven by Apple’s first under-performing quarter of iPhone sales, indicating weaker demand for iPhones going forward. Commenter Ian remarked that Apple’s business model is “brittle.” This perspective ignores the meltdown across the entire stock global market caused by China’s currency devaluation, disproportionately impacting China’s consumption habits. It also ignores great untapped or under-served markets across other continents yet to be developed.

But more importantly, this “wisdom” misses a much bigger story, which chip and PC manufacturers have also reflected in their sales. The video above, now already two years old, explains very neatly that we have fully turned a corner on devices: our smartphones are and have been replacing our desktops.

Granted, most folks don’t go through the hassle of purchasing HDMI+USB connectors to attach larger displays along with keyboards. They continue to work on their phones as much as possible, passing content to and from cloud storage when they need to work from a keyboard attached to a PC. But as desktops and their attached monitors age, they are replaced in a way that supports smartphones as our main computing devices — flatscreen monitors, USB keyboards and mice, more powerful small-footprint external storage.

And ever increasing software-as-a-service (SaaS) combined with cloud storage.

Apple’s business model isn’t and hasn’t been just iPhones. Not since the debut of the iPod in October 2001 has Apple’s business model been solely focused on devices and the operating system required to drive them. Heck, not since the debut of iTunes in January 2001 has that been true.

Is there a finite limit to iPhones’ market? Yeah. Same for competing Android-driven devices. But is Apple’s business just iPhones? Not if iTunes — a SaaS application — is an indicator. As of 2014, there were ~66 million iPhones in the U.S., compared to ~800 million iTunes users. And Apple’s current SaaS offerings have exploded over time; the Apple store offers millions of apps created by more than nine million registered developers.

At least nine million registered developers. That number alone should tell you something about the real business model.

iPhones are a delivery mechanism, as are Android-based phones. The video embedded above shows just how powerful Android mobile devices can be, and the shift long underway is not based on Apple’s platform alone. If any business model is brittle right now, it’s desktop computing and any software businesses that rely solely on desktops. How does that change your worldview about the economy and cybersecurity? Did anyone even notice how little news was generated about the FBI accessing the San Bernardino shooter’s PCs? Was that simply because of the locked Apple iOS account, or was it in part because the case mirrored society’s shift to computing and communications on mobile devices?

File under ‘Stupid Michigan Legislators‘: Life sentences for automotive hackers?
Hey. Maybe you jackasses in Michigan’s state senate ought to deal with the permanent poisoning of nearly 8000 children in Flint before doing something really stupid like making one specific kind of hacking a felony worthy of a life sentence. And maybe you ought to do a little more homework on hacking — it’s incredibly stupid to charge a criminal with a life sentence for a crime as simple as entry permitted by wide-open unlocked doors. Are we going to allocate state money to chase hackers who may not even be in this country? Are we going to pony up funds for social media monitoring to catch hackers talking about breaching wide-open cars? Will this law deter citizen white hats who identify automakers’ vulnerabilities? File this mess, too, under ‘Idiotic Wastes of Taxpayers’ Money Along with Bathroom Legislation by Bigots‘. This kind of stuff makes me wonder why any smart people still live in this state.

File this, too, under ‘Stupid Michigan Legislators‘: Lansing Board of Water and Light hit by ransomware
Guess where the first ransomware attack on a U.S. utility happened? Do I need to spell it out how ridiculous it looks for the electric and water utility for the state’s capitol city to be attacked by ransomware while the state’s legislature is worrying about who’s using the right bathroom? Maybe you jackasses in Lansing ought to look at funding assessment and security improvements for ALL the state’s utilities, including both water safety and electricity continuity.

Venezuela changes clocks to reduce electricity consumption
Drought-stricken Venezuela already reduced its work week a month ago to reduce electricity demand. Now the country has bumped its clocks forward by 30 minutes to make more use of cooler early hour during daylight. The country has also instituted rolling blackouts to cutback on electricity. Cue the right-wing pundits claiming socialism has failed — except that socialism has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of rainfall to fill reservoirs.

Coca Cola suing for water as India’s drought deepens
This is a strong piece, worth a read: Whose Water Is It Anyway?

After a long battle, the UN declared in 2010 that clean water was a fundamental right of all citizens. Easier said than done. The essential, alarming question has become, ‘Who does the groundwater belong to?’ Coca Cola is still fighting a case in Kerala where the farmers rebelled against them for using groundwater for their bottling plants. The paddy fields for miles around dried up as water for Coke or the company’s branded bottled water was extracted and transported to richer urban consumers.

Who did that groundwater belong to? Who do our rivers belong to? To the rich and powerful who can afford the resources to draw water in huge quantities for their industries. Or pollute the rivers with effluent from their industries. Or transport water over huge distances at huge expense to turn it into profit in urban areas.

Justus Rosenberg: One of Hannah Arendt’s rescuers
Ed Walker brought this piece to my attention, a profile of 95-year-old Justus Rosenberg featured in this weekend’s New York Times. I love the last two grafs especially; Miriam Davenport characterized Rosenberg as “a nice, intelligent youngster with no family, no money, no influence, no hope, no fascinating past,” yet he was among those who “…were a symbol of sorts, to me, in those days […] Everyone was moving Heaven and earth to save famous men, anti-fascist intellectuals, etc.” Rosenberg was a superhero without a cape.

That’s our week started. See you tomorrow morning!

See you tomorrow morning!

Thursday Morning: A Little Green Around The Gills

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day to those of you who observe this opportunity to drink beer (tinted green or otherwise) and eat boiled dinner and wear green! We’ll know the hardcore among you tomorrow by your hangovers.

Folks overseas don’t understand how St. Patrick’s Day blew up to the same proportions as other holidays like Halloween, blaming it on American commercialization. But the holiday as observed in the U.S., like Halloween, has roots in immigration. Four to five million Irish immigrated to the U.S.; their descendants here are nearly 40 million today, roughly seven times the number of actual Irish in Ireland now. With this many Irish-Americans, even a tepid observation of St. Patrick’s Day here would be visible abroad.

In addition to all things green, we’ll be watching this week’s second #FlintWaterCrisis hearing. Representatives Chaffetz and Cummings can go all shouty on Michigan’s OneLawyeredUpNerd Governor Rick Snyder and EPA’s Gina McCarthy though I have my doubts anything new will emerge. (And you’ll see me get really angry if Rep. SlackerForMichigan Tim Walberg shows up to merely make face on camera. Useless helicoptering.)

Unlike Tuesday, I hope like hell somebody brings up Legionnaire’s cases and deaths in Flint after the cut-over of Flint’s water to Flint River. Thousands of children may have been permanently poisoned by lead, but people sickened and died because of this complete failure of government-as-a-business.

I can’t stress this enough: There were fatalities in Flint because of the water.

Hearing details – set a reminder now:

Thursday 17-MAR — 9:00 AM — Gov. Snyder (R-MI) & EPA Head McCarthy: House Hearing on Flint, MI Water Crisis (est 3 hours, on C-SPAN3)   Link to House Oversight Committee calendar entry

You can find my timeline on Flint’s water here — as noted Tuesday, it’s a work in progress and still needs more entries.

Moving on…

Apple leaves Amazon for Google’s cloud service
Wait, what?! File under ‘Wow, I didn’t know!’ because I really though Apple housed all its cloud services under its own roof. I mean, I’ve written about data farms before, pointed to a new Apple location. I didn’t know Apple had outsourced some of its iCloud to Amazon.

Which makes Senator Ron Wyden’s remarks about asking the NSA with regard to the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone even more interesting.

No wonder Apple is moving to Google, considering Amazon’s relationship with certain government agencies as a cloud service provider. Some of Apple’s data will remain with Amazon for now; we might wonder if this is content like iTunes versus users’ data. Keep your eyes open for future Apple cloud migrations.

US Navy sailors’ electronic devices combed for data by Iran
Gee, encrypted devices and communications sure are handy when members of the military are taken into custody by other countries. Too bad the Navy’s devices weren’t as secure as desired when Iran’s navy detained an American vessel in January this year. To be fair, we don’t know what all was obtained, if any of the data was usable. But if the devices were fully encrypted, Iran probably wouldn’t have said anything.

American Express’ customers’ data breached — in 2013
Looks like a select number of AmEx customers will receive a data breach notice with this explanation:

We became aware that a third party service provider engaged by numerous merchants experienced unauthorized access to its system. Account information of some of our Card Members, including some of your account information, may have been involved. It is important to note that American Express owned or controlled systems were not compromised by this incident, and we are providing this notice to you as a precautionary measure.

The breach happened on December 7, 2013, well into the Christmas shopping season, but we’re just finding out now? “Third party service” means “not our fault” — which may explain why AmEx shareholders (NASDAQ:AXP) haven’t been notified of a potential risk to stock value as yet. Who/what was the third party service? Where’s their notification to public and shareholders?

I need to brew some coffee and limber up before the hearing on Flint, track down my foam footballs and baseballs to throw at the TV while Gov. Snyder goes on about how sorry he is and how he’s going to fix Flint’s water crisis. Oh, and find an emesis basin. See you here tomorrow morning!

Thursday Morning: Don’t Feel Bad

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While I am sorry a family has lost their father, I can’t mourn the bizarre passing yesterday of Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon.

McClendon had been indicted Tuesday for price fixing on real estate related to natural gas and oil development. Charges against him had been expected since 2012 when the violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act came to light.

But for a Michigander like me, this is not a remote and abstract story. Property over the Collingwood Shale formation in Northern Michigan was included in collusion between McClendon and Encana Oil & Gas executives to “avoid bidding up” prices. Between Chesapeake and Canadian corporation Encana, the two businesses owned nearly a million acres of Michigan — a chunk of land the size of Rhode Island.

Imagine it: two corporations buying a state-sized mass of land at rigged prices within a state. And all of it with underground water connected to a couple of the largest freshwater bodies in the world, much of it earmarked for fracking.

“Energy visionary“? That’s what other resources leeches might call McClendon, who was at the heart of a dispute over Lake Michigan shoreline property. The land had been willed to “the children” of Benton Harbor by former residents J.N. and Carrie Klock, in memory of their daughter Jean, for use as a public park. In dedicating the land, J.N. Klock said, “…See to it that the park is the children’s.”

It was the only such lakefront park for Benton Harbor, a financially-challenged city with 89% African American residents. But the property adjoined the intended development of a Jack Nicklaus golf course, and the McClendon family as well as other notable figures (like Rep. Fred Upton and Whirlpool CEO Jeff Fettig) lived in the neighborhood of both the intended golf course and Jean Klock Park. The dispute caused considerable heartburn for Benton Harbor residents. It still boggles my mind that wealthy parasites like McClendon simply felt they could ignore the intent of the Klocks’ intentions, their proxies arguing the pricey (read: unaffordable to the average Benton Harborite) golf course would meet the standard of public access.

Note also, that Benton Harbor was among the Michigan cities to which an emergency financial manager had been appointed because of its municipal financial crisis — just like Flint, Michigan.

I can only imagine what other parasitic nonsense will emerge in the debris field left by McClendon. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Quick hits

That’s enough damage for now. Be anti-parasitic and do something nice for others today.

Appalachian State Trashnado: The Second One

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Hey there Lugnuts, how the hell you doing? That’s right, Trash Talk is back. Bigger. Better. And more trashy than ever. This ain’t no party. This ain’t no disco. This ain’t no fooling around. There are probably other things this ain’t. But I cannot find David Byrne to tell us. But he obviously would. Cause he would be one of us.

To be honest, there would still be no Trash until the start of the proper NFL season. But for one little thing from Appalachia, i.e. the Mountaineers. And the most glorious September 1, 2007 battle in the Big House where the Mountaineers bathed in the glorious defeat of the hometown Michigan Bo Merlot Wolvereenies. I have been to some outlandishly kick ass monumental college football games, but this one I had to consume by giant TeeVee. Nevertheless, glorious it was. Wiki has an awesome entry on the gig.

And here we are, seven years later, quite nearly to the day. YAY! So, after some concerted badgering by Marcy and Jim, it was unquestionably time to trash the place up. And so we shall.

Before we take a brief look at the weekend’s festivities, let us stop for a second and bow down to Texas A + M. Kevin Sumlin has got something going on down there. And, yeah, I am pretty sure this will draw the Gulf Coast Pirate out of his rum filled Galveston area cove. But truth abides (as does The Dude). Wait. Where was I? Oh yeah, Texas A+M just blew up #5 rated South Carolina, and ‘Ole Ball Coach Steve Spurrier. 55 – 28. Ouch. Wow. Keep your eye on the Aggies and new QB Kenny Hill. Who killed Kenny?? Nobody, Kenny killed Johnny Football. Also on Thursday and Friday, ‘Ole Miss put some hurt on a game Boise State team, ASU held back and still blew out Weber State, and Sparty from that other Michigan School took apart the other Gamecocks, from Jacksonville State. Bad weekend at Black Rock for all things Gamecock it seems.

Okay, yeah, yeah, on Friday night, BYU whipped UConn and Arizona and Rich Rod looks on their way to the same against UNLV. Nevada might be a better match, but UNLV is cannon fodder for the Kitties down here under in teh Old Pueblo.

But Saturday AM brings the Mountaineers back in the Merlot land of Ann Arbor. The scene of such hope and glory past. Can it be the future? Ah, fate has a fickle finger, you never know! Okay, maybe that Emptywheel lady will chafe at all this fond recollection of the glory of 2007, but this is fair and impartial peoples! That’s right, I have an official military man, Col. Morris Davis on my side. (If he flip flops now, he is dead to me!).

So, some other games of interest this weekend include: Ohio State Blecheyes visiting the Navy Midshipmen and their awesome new helmets. Seriously, these Navy helmets are bad ass. After this use, Navy is gonna contribute them to some riot police in a small American hamlet in order to suppress the peoples. Like Ferguson.).

UCLA at Virginia may be a great test for a UCLA team that a few are putting in the National Championship game. I like the Bruins here, but not to get to the big one. The other Mountaineers, of West Virginia, can often hang and play, but Alabama will rock them. Don’t sleep on Rice at Notre Dame. Cause, you know, teh Irish will probably be freaking out obsessed over their fake girlfriends and all. Clemson at Georgia is kind of interesting this early. Both superb programs with a boatload of transition. LSU will take the Badgers from Wisconsin, but it may not be easy. The Seminoles SHOULD take care of the OSU Cowboys. I think. But I also think Jameis Winston is shaky, if not a relentless scofflaw, and who knows? Lastly, the Fresno State Buldogs at USC. I actually think the Trojans win this, but would have no surprise if they did not. USC is a clusterfuck right now, and there is no way around that.

So, have you felt the change around here? It is subtle, but give it a go. In the meantime, get yer ya ya’s out and rip this joint. It is football season once more.

Rumble at the Big House Trash Talk

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[As a reminder, it is fundraising week Chez Emptywheel. Please help support our work if you can.]

[special Live Update From the America’s Cup below]
We are only a week into real football and already there is a blockbuster game on tap. The Fighting Irish are going up the country to visit the Big Blue Bo Merlots at the Big House. Lotta B’s in that sentence, but it is hard to give these two teams A’s! (Thanks, I will be here all week, enjoy the veal). Well, at least this game is not in the ignominious class of the 2007 game, which was a scintillating battle of unvictorious and untied loser teams. So, there is that.

Now, what should we expect when expecting this mammoth matchup? For one thing, some great trash talking! And, man, there has already been some prime trashing going on behind the ESPN Gameday set in Ann Arbor. Check out the sign this guy has to greet the blighted Irish:

Play like your girlfriend is real today

Hahahahaha, oh man my side hurts. As an extra bonus, the Game Day folks were just discussing the Arizona v. UNLV game, and all picked “Rich Rod’s team”. The boos from the Michigan cognoscenti about shook the earth at the mention of Rich Rod. Some bonus trash from the Big Mitten: Michigan coach Brady Hoke slams Johnny Football by saying the reigning Heisman winner wouldn’t even be starting were he on the Big Blue. Whoa! Also, Notre Dame, in apparently the only way they could find to show that they can rock and roll, have added Bon Jovi’s kid as a walk on cornerback on their roster.

Since the NCAA put in their overtime rules, I guess someone has to win this game. My friend Armando (who weekly does a series of picks at Talk Left) has the Domers and the 4 points. Naw, Big Blue all the way baybee! Also on tap today is Jim White and Armando’s Florida Gators hooking up in South Beach with the Miami Hurricanes. This game is far from what it once might would have been, but still could be good. Canes in a big home upset. The other really sweet matchup is South Carolina at Georgia. Clemson clocked the Bulldogs in the first week. Hard to see the Dawgs going 0-2 to start the year, but I am rolling with the ‘Ole Ball Coach and his Cocks.

Well then, off to the NFL we go. The only game of note in the pros is The Cheese versus The Niners. Is san Fran as good as they looked last year? Does Colin Kaepernick have too many weapons now that he has Anquan Boldin to go with Vernon Davis and Frank Gore et. al? Who in the world is playing on Green Bay’s offensive line at this point and what will the Pack do for a QB when Aaron Rodgers gets his clock cleaned because of that porous O-Line? This REALLY pains me to say it, but Niners roll at home.

Couple of other pro games of note, namely the Sunday and Monday Night games. SNF is the Gents at the Owboys. Jerry Jones says he is so excited he has insomnia. Think Good Eli will show up to give Jerry indigestion too? Not me, nope this is early in the season and the Cowboys will dredge up some more usual hollow hope for the hometown. But they play again, and Eli will own that one. On MNF we have teh Iggles at the Skins. The much awaited debut of the Chip Kelly Quack Attack run by Mike Vick in the NFL, and the return of the rebuilt RGIII. This is a very tough call. Slight edge to Skins because they are at home, Kelly needs time to have his offense gel and Philly’s defense is a question mark. If vick stays healthy and productive though, watch out. A real sleeper game is the Cardinals at the Rams. Both teams are WAY improved. Watch out for Larry Fitzgerald now that he has Carson Palmer instead of a string of scrubs throwing to him, and the Card’s defense should be solid once again.

Lastly, this weekend is the Italian Grand Prix. There are a few MUST watch races on the Formula One calendar, and Monza is at the top. It always is, but there may be weather Sunday, which could seriously skew things and turn it into really compelling theatre. I was up for qualifying this morning and am sad to report the Red Bulls, led by Sebastian Vettel, have locked out the front row. Nico Hulkenberg surprisingly got his Sauber into P3, with Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso in P4 and P5 respectively. The buzz everywhere is that this race, at effectively Ferrari’s home track, will likely decide Massa’s future. Out qualifying Fernando is a good start, but the result is what will matter. Massa is almost certainly driving for his future in F1 at all with Kimi Raikkonen’s potential return to Maranello lurking. The one thing in Massa’s favor is that Alonso wants no part of Kimi returning to the fold. Should be an interesting race and it goes off at 8:00 am EST on NBCSports.

THIS JUST IN: SPECIAL LIVE UPDATE FROM THE AMERICA’S CUP RACE!

ACRace 2This is from our very own fearless Emptywheel Roving Reporter Rosalind, hot off the wires!

“Greetings Wheelies! it is I Rosalind, Roving Reporter. The Emptywheel
assignment editor forced me to spend the weekend in San Francisco. Temp in the 80s, clear blue skies, giant boats flying across the water. Good times.

When we last met, I was waxing rhapsodic over the America’s Cup Sailing races finally coming to San Francisco, one of the most perfect natural venues for a sailboat race. Alas, Larry Ellison, Mr. Oracle, as defender of the Cup got to chose the new boat design and went with a radical new approach: giant catamarans with towering fixed wings that can go really really fast – 50 mph fast – but are wickedly unstable in the SF Bay conditions.

ACRace 3Two destroyed boats and one crew member’s death later, the official America’s Cup finals kicked off today, after a summer Challenger series where the only suspense was which boat was gonna break down first. Truthfully. I really wanted to blow off this trip, but you know how stern the EW taskmaster can be. So here I am, in glorious weather surrounded by tourists from around the World and SF citizens from all about and happy happy shopkeepers loving the influx of customers. The races are free to all, just head to the waterfront and pick a spot. Grandstands free for the public are near the Marina Green.

ACRace 4A relative treated me to a reception last night at the St Francis Yacht Club where the Italian engineers responsible for figuring out Computational Flow Dynamics made a lot of sense for why this new Wing technology will have other applications and is a great advancement, but they had an open bar and well, I’ll have to get back to you on that one….

The New Zealand boat looked scary good today, the boat was just flying over the water. The Oracle boat looked off its game from the get go. They lost a crew member over the side per-race, and it went down for, there. They had a rip in their Wing that they patched with Duck Tape (hee…h/t EW)

Races 3 and 4 tomorrow (Sunday).

That is it for this sporting weekend ladies and gents. There are a plethora of games and things to talk about, and let’s get to it in comments. Music this week by, of course, a Michigan man, Bob Seger and his Silver Bullet Band, with the classics Travellin Man and Beautiful Loser. Wonderful tunes if you have not heard them in a while.

Laborious Trash Talk

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It is Labor Day weekend. Shockingly, my dictation program, Nuance Dictate for Mac, has gone beyond its normal complete worthlessness and now exists in the temporal-intellectual worthlessness of time and space. Seriously, for an application that claims to be useful for efficiency for the normal human, they are total crap. I have fought with them for nearly four years, and I am tired. You want to talk to me Nuance, here I am. Otherwise, go blow a goat.

Okay, now that I have gotten a little preliminary issue setting out of the way, let us get down to Trash Talk mofo’s and……

Oooops! Major power outage at Casa de bmaz! Seriously, I have dick for connection, only 3G on my old iPhone (yes, I have been holding out for iPhone5, even my wife is about to kill me).

I am sorry, I Musta Got Lost. And my gmail tells me Marcy is on the warpath. Rightly so, despite monsoon season here. Oddly, the sky looks mostly clear, I have no reason why my AC, much less my DC, has been taken away from me. You laugh, but when it is 106, you need the juice for the air conditioner. Bad. Somewhere below is a picture of the only light there was for a while, the moon. Vaya con dios Neil Armstrong, I thought well of you in the face of the moon tonight. If there was a measure of the childhood of my generation, it was the Moon Shot.

More Trash content will be on the horizon, like the storm front closing in, but not yet here. In the meantime, I am going to buy you all off with the evidence of my entertainment while I had no electricity. When you suddenly have no cable, no internet, no McIntosh, Adcom and B&W stereo; you have to make do. My daughter Jenna is providing the entertainment while all things I know are down.

UPDATE: Okay, I am back for a little bit. Man, lot of no power tonight and during, and after, then there was the tequila issue. What is a poor boy to do? Sing for a rock n’ roll band?

Okay, South Carolina and Michigan State, both closer than expected but not so by me, both won to start the college football season. Nobody should take anything away from Vanderbilt nor Boise State though. Especially Boise. Sparty is good, and at home to open the season? The BCS should never, ever, dock Boise State because they do not try to play a difficult enough schedule. Previously they opened against the Oregon Ducks in Corvallis. Tell me again why they cannot play for a national championship?

But now, the most interesting game of the first weekend is on tap. Yep, the Wolvereenies versus Crimson Tide at JerryJonesBowl. I’ll take Denard Robinson, seen below in a stirring segment, in an upset over the NickSabanDroids. Granted, I am completely sloshed and sitting on my front patio in a cactus patch, but that is my Karl Rove’s Fathers’ Solid Gold Cock Ring Lead Pipe Lock prediction. [All legal disclaimers imaginable applicable]. But wait! There is more! If you call right now we will double the offer! [Okay, not really].

The NFL has played the 4th and final preseason game, the one season ticket holders pay for, but that nobody understands, already. The Jets, Jets, Jets finally scored a touchdown. Yes that is one. But “yay”. There are interesting things going on in baseball, but the best is the return of the Rocket. Even if it is for the Skeeters. These are the young Pujols’s of the next generation and, through four innings, they can’t hit Rocket. Think the jurors from the trial and Reggie Walton are not watching the Rocket? Oh yeah, you bet your butt they are. Clemens will likely throw one more independent league game, likely against the Long Island Ueckers (not really; that was a little high and outside). And then a start for the Astros. Maybe two. Just cause.

But, far more globally important than football, baseball or that nimrod NASCAR, the Circus is coming back to town. Yep, Formula One. And where the spinning wheel stops is…..at Spa! Yes, the circuit that looks like a woman’s reproductive system. Or a Phaser. Whatever. Unlike those candy asses in left turn NASCARland, they run in the wet in F1.

Yes they do and it is wet at Francorchamps. Qualifying will go off not too long after I post this, and the race coverage o Speed TV begins at 7:30am EST and 4:30am PST on Sunday morning. Despite the safetied up new course at Spa, with a bit of wet, it is still a fast, dangerous and interesting layout. Ought to be fun.

There are certain people that have covered F1 forever. One of the best photographers, Paul Henri-Cahier, has been, and is, a friend to this blog. Paul is the, without question, premier F1 photographer in the world and he is second to his father, the legendary Bernard Cahier.Grand Prix does not get the attention it should here in the States. But one who does cover it up close and personal on track is Brad Spurgeon. Here is Brad’s setup for this weekend:

Formula One began the second part of its season after the long, five week summer break in August, with the practice sessions on Friday at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium.

But thanks to the typical Spa weather, and unfortunately for the thousands of spectators who showed up to take a €400 shower, it was as if the holidays had never ended.

The cars may have managed to turn a few laps in the rain in the morning session — although only one car went out during the entire first half of the 1 hour and 30 minute session — but there was no track action at all in the afternoon session until 35 minutes of the same length session remained. And even then, six of the 22 drivers did not take to the track, and of those who did, none drove more than four laps.

Yep. Summer break is over, and it is time to go to Ardennes forest with the lads. With the wet in the picture, Spa will be special.

So, there is Trash Talk for this week. Marcy is probably gonna come along and yammer about Nate Ebner and whatnot. I got one question though. Picture Walt Kowalski talking to an Ikea chair: Should the Cardinals pick up and immediately start Brian Hoyer? Bonus question: Do Watertiger’s precious Jets need Hoyer even worse than the Cardinals?

Boogie the Trash!

Put Down The Ducky Trash

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Is another fine Saturday with a host of great college football games on tap. It’s hard to get anything past the king of sports, ESPN, and they have chosen Autzen Stadium, home of the Oregon Ducks, as the site of their ESPN Gameday. Now there may be a few other college football games going on today, for instance there is a rumor that there is such a game up there in the big mitten of Michigan. But we’ll get to those also-rans in a minute.

The game of the day, in this case actually night, is the University of Oregon versus Arizona State University Sun Devils. Oregon comes into tonight’s game ranked Number 9 in the country and the Sun Devils number 18. I Have said it before, but if you’ve never been to a game at Autzen Stadium, you just don’t know. The place is freaking crazy and loud. They do it right up there in Eugene. The Ducks are the enemy for a Sun Devil fan, but I can honestly say I’ve never been to a more fun, and wild, stadium for college football game. Today, the Ducks have a wounded wing in tailback LaMichael James being out. James is killing this year and had three straight games of over 200 yards rushing going. But today his cleats will likely be filled by super freshman DeAnthony Thomas. The Ducks’ only loss this year is to LSU in the opener, so do not be fooled by their record, they are still big, bad and can flat out fly on the field turf in Autzen.

ASU, so far, has been a curious team. The Devils started the year with absolutely a ton of promise, but have been literally decimated by injuries. The hardest hit has been the secondary, led by stud All Pac-10 corner Omar Bolden. The Devils have an inconsistent ground game, which makes QB Brock Osweiller, who is tall and very good, a target. If the Devils linebackers can contain the Ducks just a bit, and ASU can get a halfway decent running game going, they have a real shot. Those are huge “ifs” though, and I just don’t see it; look for the Quackers to roll. But it would look to be a very entertaining game to watch, and since it is the late national night game on ESPN, everybody in the country can. Go Devils, put those Duckies down!!

Because I need to stay alive for another week in order to turn the Emptywheel blog into ALL BABY JESUS TEBOW, ALL THE TIME, I will also report there appears to be another big rivalry game today; in fact, it just started. That, for those scoring at home (and even if you are alone) would be Michigan/Michigan State. Yep, the Wolvereenies are gonna visit Sparty in Lansing. Big Blue is 6-0 and Sparty 4-1; but Michigan has run into the Green Machine looking good the last few years and gotten taken to the cleaners, thus starting a downhill spiral for the remainder of the season. But the Merlots are helmed by Brady Hoke now, and even though this is in Lansing, it just feels like it is Michigan’s year in this grudge match. The Big Blue defense is gelling a little, although still giving up big points. On the other hand, it is pretty windy, which could turn some of Denard Robinson’s floating passes into sitting ducks. Michigan is also hobbled by Brandon Herron and Marvin Robinson being out for the game on defense. Kirk Cousins is a lot better suited to pass in the wind than Robinson. Close game, but I think the Bo Merlots pull it out and move to 7-0.

I am going to add some more content on NCAA and a pro section in a bit, but this will get folks going for now.

Okay, a few additional NCAA games of interest. Texas A&M is up 24-14 on Read more →

Obama Heads to (?!?!?) Michigan

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Update: Per martha, either Jane and I misheard or MSNBC doesn’t realize that there are GM plants all through the Midwest–Obama is going to Janesville, Wisconsin. And Wisconsin does, in fact, have a presidential primary well before 2012, so it takes no guesswork to figure out why Obama would go to a GM plant in Wisconsin. Thanks martha! And sorry for misleadig you all.

I heard NBC report (and Jane confirms that she heard it too) that Obama will head to Michigan tomorrow to give a speech at GM about the economy. Last I checked, there wasn’t a presidential primary or caucus scheduled in MI anytime before 2012. So what’s going on?

First, understand that I haven’t heard anything about a electoral mulligan from within MI–I’ve seen national reports of such a mulligan, but nothing from inside the MDP (though, of course, I’m in DC, not MI right now). Last week, MDP Chair Mark Brewer met with Obama supporters to explain how the uncommitted delegates will be assigned–so at least as far as has been said publicly, MI will proceed to assign delegates based on the grand clusterfuck.

So why is Obama headed to MI, rather than OH, to talk about the economy?

I’ve got several speculations–I’ll try to find a real answer in the next few days.

Possibility 1, the most likely: this is a bid for Edwards support

Note the timing. Obama was due to go request Edwards’ support yesterday, but then rescheduled. That means this speech at GM will happen before Obama heads to North Carolina to ask for Edwards’ support. Knowing that Edwards’ priority is fighting for the economically disenfranchised, making a big speech on the economy–in the state with the worst economy in the country–is a pretty good way of auditioning.

Possibility 2, just as likely: this is a bid for Edwards’ supporters’ support

As I said, the MDP is working with the assumption that we’re going to assign delegates based on the clusterfuck. That would mean Hillary would get 55% of the delegates, and "uncommitted" would get 40%. Or rather, Hillary would get 55% and Edwards’ and Obama’s supporters would fight over those 40%.

Now I suspect some of those delegates can be tied to specific supporters–"uncommitted" won my county, which has 40,000 students in it, many of them likely Obama supporters. And Conyers was advertising for "uncommitted" in Detroit, in support of Obama. So Obama can probably rightly claim a big chunk of the uncommitted delegates in places where he’s got very strong support. But if Obama has to fight for those 40% of MI’s delegates, he’s got to persuade Edwards’ supporters.

And if you think about it–those MI delegates are one of the very tangible things that Edwards would have to give Obama, if he gave him his support.

Read more →

Definition of a Caucus

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There’s been some discussion of a do-over, an electoral mulligan, for the great clusterfuck of Michigan. And–in the ongoing debate whether Obama’s victories in caucus states are "real"–discussions about caucuses. As those two subjects potentially converge, I wanted to saw a few words about caucuses, in general, and caucuses in Michigan.

I agree with Lambert’s general dissatisfaction with caucuses:

However, the caucus system clearly disenfranchised several classes of people:

1. People who couldn’t get away from work, and since Maine is a state that’s both big, poor, and challenged by the weather in the winter, that’s a larger percentage than you might think;

2. People who have child care issues;

3. People with disabilities;

4. People without cars;

5. People who are elderly and/or sick.

When this season is over, the caucus system should be abolished everywhere, in favor of a system where all votes count equally.

And for all these reasons, I don’t think a caucus state should have first in the country privileges, under any circumstances (though I am sympathetic to the notion that parties ought to organize their primaries or caucuses in such a way as to foster ongoing participation, which is one benefit to traditional caucuses). When canvassing in Iowa in 2004, for example, I ran into a bunch of restaurant workers who would have to forgo an entire night’s wages to caucus. Imposing that kind of poll tax is a terrible message for the Democratic party to send.

That said, not all caucuses are created equal. Michigan’s caucus–at least as it was run in 2004–is a lot closer to NM’s caucus: it’s just an election that the party, as opposed to the state, runs. It’s open for about 8 hours, and once you cast your vote, you’re done, pack the kids back in the car and drive them to their volleyball game. At least as we ran it in 2004, there were fewer caucus locations, so longer lines and longer drives/cab rides/free rides to polls, which is a problem. And the rules for challengers allow for each candidate to have one–but only one–loudmouth standing at the entrance pitching her candidate (this was my role in 2004, one I relished).

In two ways, though, Michigan’s caucus has greater accessibility than your garden variety state-run primary. Read more →