Drama and Lewis Hamilton have gone together for three consecutive years at the Brazilian Grand Prix, for highly different reasons on each occasion. In 2010, the McLaren driver hopes to seal a strong and clear-cut result in order to take the challenge for a second Drivers’ Championship to Abu Dhabi one week later. “I always seem to have a unique experience at Brazil,” says the Stevenage driver. “In my first year in Formula 1, I battled past a load of cars but could only finish seventh, losing out on the World Championship. Copyright. 2010. F1Update.com All Rights Reserved
Hamilton: We may not have the fastest car
Unlike title rivals Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button, scoring at Interlagos is not an absolute necessity for Hamilton if he is to stay in the title race; however, the quest could come to an early end, should Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber’s results suffice in comparison to those of the 2008 Champion. 
“The following year, I had another tricky race but managed to take fifth position on the final lap to win the world title. Last year, we got qualifying wrong, I started 17th and used KERS to boost my way up to third in one of the best races of my career. I guess what I’m saying is that I’d like a nice, straightforward race this year!
“We go to Brazil knowing that we may not have the fastest car, but we’ll have a decent package that should work well. We have a strong engine and good straight line speed, so I think we’ll still be quick – crucially, that combination should give us the opportunity to pass into the first corner, which is probably the best overtaking spot on the track.
“I know the World Championship is figuring in everybody’s thoughts at the moment, but I’m not thinking about it too much: I need to get a good result in Brazil to take the fight to Abu Dhabi, so that’s my priority. Whatever happens, it’s going to be a very tight battle.”
See also:
Two to go: The championship situation
Month: October 2010
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Hamilton: We may not have the fastest car
São Paulo 2009: Hamilton storms through the field after a disastrous qualifying session -
Berlusconi amid scandal: ‘I love women’
By ALESSANDRA RIZZO
Associated PressROME (AP) – Premier Silvio Berlusconi issued an unapologetic defense of his lifestyle Friday amid the latest scandal involving his personal life, admitting that he intervened to secure the release from police custody of a 17-year-old Moroccan girl who had previously been at his villa.
Berlusconi, 74, denied that he had done anything inappropriate in securing the release of the Moroccan runaway nicknamed Ruby, and scoffed at press reports that portrayed their interaction as improper.
The disclosure comes at a difficult time for Berlusconi, who is grappling with street protests in Naples over his failure to stop a trash crisis there, a weakened government coalition and his declining popularity in the polls.
Saying “I love life, I love women,” the Italian leader insisted he was proud of his lifestyle, which has come under scrutiny for his purported dalliances with young women and an encounter with a prostitute unveiled last year.
Without citing sources, several newspapers have reported that Ruby told prosecutors she attended dinners at Berlusconi’s villa in Arcore, outside Milan, although she has denied having sex with the premier. Berlusconi has dismissed the scandal as “media trash.”
“I’ve got nothing to clarify,” Berlusconi said Friday. “I’m a playful person, full of life. I love life, I love women.”
“Nobody can make me, at my age, change my lifestyle, of which I am absolutely proud,” the 74-year-old told reporters in Brussels.
Il Fatto Quotidiano, a left-leaning newspaper that is frequently critical of Berlusconi, first reported this week that Milan prosecutors were looking into Ruby’s story after police discovered her without documents and reported her to social workers. She reportedly admitted she had lied about being over 18.
According to Il Fatto Quotidiano, Ruby’s story is full of contradictions and even prosecutors are wary of her claims.
Berlusconi did not deny Friday that the girl was at his home, but declined to provide any more details beyond what Ruby has already said. Berlusconi’s close friend and confidante Emilio Fede was quoted as saying by Corriere della Sera on Friday that he has seen the girl at the villa “a couple of times.”
Ruby was quoted as saying in another Italian daily, La Stampa, that she has been to Berlusconi’s villa once and the premier thought she was 24. When Berlusconi found out she was a minor, he did not want to see her again, Ruby was quoted as saying.
Political analysts said the latest setbacks might take their toll on an already embattled premier. Berlusconi has been facing rebellion from a breakaway ally and his coalition is having a difficult time hammering out legislation to shield the premier from his legal woes.
Professor Franco Pavoncello of John Cabot University in Rome said “it’s like chipping away at a stone.”
While some in the opposition are raising questions over the lifestyle and decorum that are required from a public figure, a lot of the controversy is centering on whether Berlusconi intervened to get Ruby out of trouble when she had been reportedly picked up by Milan police.
Berlusconi said Friday that he did help her, but denied he misused his office.
“I have not influenced anybody,” Berlusconi said. He said the intervention was aimed at informing Milan police that somebody available to act as the girl’s guardian was going to the police station where she was being held.
“Since this person (Ruby) had depicted a tragic life situation to me, I have decided to help her,” he said.
Last year, a high-end escort Patrizia D’Addario claimed she had spent a night with the premier and had tape recorded their encounter. The conservative Italian leader has said he has never paid anyone for sex. Prosecutors have said Berlusconi was not under investigation.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Copyright 2010. yahoo.com All Rights Reserved
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Very Uncertain Economic Prospects in U.S.A
Josh Haner/The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman
Can’t Keep a Bad Idea Down By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
I confess, I find it dispiriting to read the polls and see candidates, mostly Republicans, leading in various midterm races while promoting many of the very same ideas that got us into this mess. Am I hearing right?
Let’s have more tax cuts, unlinked to any specific spending cuts and while we’re still fighting two wars — because that worked so well during the Bush years to make our economy strong and our deficit small. Let’s immediately cut government spending, instead of phasing cuts in gradually, while we’re still mired in a recession — because that worked so well in the Great Depression. Let’s roll back financial regulation — because we’ve learned from experience that Wall Street can police itself and average Americans will never have to bail it out.
Let’s have no limits on corporate campaign spending so oil and coal companies can more easily and anonymously strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its powers to limit pollution in the air our kids breathe. Let’s discriminate against gays and lesbians who want to join the military and fight for their country. Let’s restrict immigration, because, after all, we don’t live in a world where America’s most important competitive advantage is its ability to attract the world’s best brains. Let’s repeal our limited health care reform rather than see what works and then fix it. Let’s oppose the free-trade system that made us rich.
Let’s kowtow even more to public service unions so they’ll make even more money than private sector workers, so they’ll give even more money to Democrats who will give them even more generous pensions, so not only California and New York will go bankrupt but every other state too. Let’s pay for more tax cuts by uncovering waste I can’t identify, fraud I haven’t found and abuse that I’ll get back to you on later.
All that’s missing is any realistic diagnosis of where we are as a country and what we need to get back to sustainable growth. Actually, such a diagnosis has been done. A nonpartisan group of America’s most distinguished engineers, scientists, educators and industrialists unveiled just such a study in the midst of this campaign.
Here is the story: In 2005 our National Academies responded to a call from a bipartisan group of senators to recommend 10 actions the federal government could take to enhance science and technology so America could successfully compete in the 21st century. Their response was published in a study, spearheaded by the industrialist Norman Augustine, titled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.”
Charles M. Vest, the former M.I.T. president, worked on the study and noted in a speech recently that “Gathering Storm,” together with work by the Council on Competitiveness, led to the America Competes Act of 2007, which increased funding for the basic science research that underlies our industrial economy. Other recommendations, like improving K-12 science education, were not substantively addressed.
So, on Sept. 23, the same group released a follow-up report: “Rising Above the Gathering Storm Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5.” “The subtitle, ‘Rapidly Approaching Category 5,’ says it all,” noted Vest. “The committee’s conclusion is that ‘in spite of the efforts of both those in government and the private sector, the outlook for America to compete for quality jobs has further deteriorated over the past five years.’ ”
But I thought: “We’re number 1!”
“Here is a little dose of reality about where we actually rank today,” says Vest: sixth in global innovation-based competitiveness, but 40th in rate of change over the last decade; 11th among industrialized nations in the fraction of 25- to 34-year-olds who have graduated from high school; 16th in college completion rate; 22nd in broadband Internet access; 24th in life expectancy at birth; 27th among developed nations in the proportion of college students receiving degrees in science or engineering; 48th in quality of K-12 math and science education; and 29th in the number of mobile phones per 100 people.
“This is not a pretty picture, and it cannot be wished away,” said Vest. The study recommended a series of steps — some that President Obama has already initiated, some that still need Congress’s support — designed to increase America’s talent pool by vastly improving K-12 science and mathematics education, to reinforce long-term basic research, and to create the right tax and policy incentives so we can develop, recruit and retain the best and brightest students, scientists and engineers in the world. The goal is to make America the premier place to innovate and invest in innovation to create high-paying jobs.
You’ll have to Google it, though. The report hasn’t received 1/100th of the attention given to Juan Williams’s remarks on Muslims.
A dysfunctional political system is one that knows the right answers but can’t even discuss them rationally, let alone act on them, and one that devotes vastly more attention to cable TV preachers than to recommendations by its best scientists and engineers.
Copyright. 2010 New York Times
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Keith Richards A Consumate Gentleman
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Maureen Dowd
When a Pirate Is the Voice of Chivalry By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
It’s the Year of the Woman, all right. In a bad way. Some of the women running in high-profile races are not my cup of Tea. And some of the male candidates could be part of the Little Rascals’ He-Man, Woman-Haters Club.
The misogyny reached its zenith outside a Rand Paul debate in Lexington, Ky., on Monday night when a group of Tea Party toughs roughed up a woman from MoveOn.org because she wouldn’t move on.
One man, wearing a “Don’t Tread on Me” button, ripped off her wig and wrestled her to the ground with the help of another man, and a third Paul volunteer stamped his foot on her shoulder when she was down.
In a campaign season when many men — and women — are taking harsh stances that could hurt women, a chivalrous voice has at last arrived.
Oddly enough, it belongs to a renegade pirate whose motto is “Keep it dark”: Keith Richards.
You’d think that an only child whose mother killed all the pets he kept as companions would not grow up to be so positive about women.
“I put a note on her bedroom door, with a drawing of a cat, that said ‘Murderer,’ ” Richards writes in “Life,” his new memoir. “I never forgave her for that.”
His mom, Doris, who didn’t like the muss and fuss, reacted nonchalantly: “Shut up. Don’t be soft.”
But the first thing he did when he began making money with a little band called the Rolling Stones was buy Mum a house.
His reaction when the Stones started to attract hordes of “feral, body-snatching girls” was not titillation but terror. “I was never more in fear for my life than I was from teenage girls,” he writes. “The ones that choked me, tore me to shreds, if you got caught in a frenzied crowd of them — it’s hard to express how frightening they could be. You’d rather be in a trench fighting the enemy than to be faced with this unstoppable killer wave of lust and desire, or whatever it is — it’s unknown even to them.”
He continues: “The problem is if they get their hands on you, they don’t know what to do with you. They nearly strangled me with a necklace, one grabbed one side of it, the other grabbed the other, and they’re going, ‘Keith, Keith,’ and meanwhile they’re choking me.”
The shy English Boy Scout and choirboy who started out with “no chick in the world” describes the women he was involved with — from road flings to his manager to his ex, Anita Pallenberg — with candor but generosity.
Even groupies are accorded respect. “You could look upon them more like the Red Cross,” he says. “They’d wash your clothes, they’d bathe you and stuff.”
Learning that there’s a blind girl who loyally follows the band, he arranges for her to get rides from the group’s truck drivers.
“I’ve been saved by chicks more times than by guys,” he writes. “Sometimes just that little hug and kiss and nothing else happens. Just keep me warm for the night, just hold on to each other when times are hard, times are rough.”
The Prince of Darkness who got in trouble with feminists for “Under My Thumb” is, it turns out, a cuddler who loves strong, high-spirited women.
He had the “unlikely role of consoler” for Mick’s girlfriends when Jagger cheated. “The tears that have been on this shoulder from Jerry Hall, from Bianca, from Marianne, Chrissie Shrimpton … They’ve ruined so many shirts of mine.” Including when Jerry found a note from one of Mick’s girlfriends written backward that said, “I’ll be your mistress forever.”
“Really good code, Mick!” Richards chides.
The guitarist explained in an interview with NPR’s Terry Gross that the band’s so-called “anti-girl” songs could just as easily be about guys.
“Under My Thumb,” he said, could’ve been about a guy under a woman’s thumb and “you’re just trying to fight back.” Besides, he says, he didn’t write the lyrics — Jagger did.
In the book, he explains: “The songs also came from a lot of frustration from our point of view. You go on the road for a month, you come back, and she’s with somebody else.”
The biggest “seductress” in his life was heroin, he writes, which he relied on to anesthetize him from the “blah blah blah” of show business, something he did not enjoy as much as Jagger.
He said he never collected women, like Jagger and Bill Wyman, or “paid for it,” or indulged women who collected rock stars.
“I’ve never been able to go to bed with a woman just for sex,” writes the author, happily married for decades to the former model Patti Hansen, whom he is supporting through bladder cancer. “I’ve no interest in that. I want to hug you and kiss you and make you feel good and protect you. And get a nice note the next day, stay in touch.”
The consummate gentleman. Who knew?
Copyright. New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved. 2010
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Revelations in Iraq
A daily look at war, sports, and everything in between, by Amy Davidson.
- October 24, 2010
Going into the WikiLeaks archive is like entering a room with many windows; you hardly know where to look. (As Steve Coll writes, “It’s a little like asking what the National Archives reveal about the history of the United States.”) One set of windows gives us a panoramic view of our war in Iraq, as it unfolded on the ground; another has a more distant prospect, all the way to Afghanistan, where lessons we learned or mislearned in Iraq are being applied; and one is more like a mirror, in which we don’t look very good.
The Times, which, like Der Spiegel, the Guardian, and Le Monde, had prior access to the archive, writes in its introduction,
The Iraq documents provide no earthshaking revelations, but they offer insight, texture, and context from the people actually fighting the war.
In an accompanying piece, after saying that the archive seems to support casualty numbers assembled by groups like Iraq Body Count, which the Bush Administration derided as “producing inflated numbers,” the Times notes,
In a statement on Friday, Iraq Body Count, which did a preliminary analysis of the archive, estimated that it listed 15,000 deaths that had not been previously disclosed anywhere.
How many thousands of deaths does it take for a revelation to be “earthshaking,” rather than a provider of “insight, texture, and context”? (The tally in the archive is a hundred and nine thousand deaths, sixty-six thousand of them thought to be non-combatants.) It is as if this were still about drawing a portrait of General Petraeus, only a better one, now, because we’ve added background figures.
Then there is Fragmentary Order, or Frago 242. Five or six years ago, it seems, our troops were ordered that, if they saw apparent violations of the laws of war that didn’t directly involve coalition forces, they should describe them but not make any further investigation unless otherwise ordered. In other words: move on. The Guardian has put together a short video on this aspect of the archive, and wrote this:
Hundreds of the leaked war logs reflect the fertile imagination of the torturer faced with the entirely helpless victim—bound, gagged, blindfolded, and isolated—who is whipped by men in uniforms using wire cables, metal rods, rubber hoses, wooden stakes, TV antennae, plastic water pipes, engine fan belts, or chains. At the torturer’s whim, the logs reveal, the victim can be hung by his wrists or by his ankles; knotted up in stress positions; sexually molested or raped; tormented with hot peppers, cigarettes, acid, pliers, or boiling water—and always with little fear of retribution.
If this is just what they stumbled across, what would our soldiers have found if they did investigate further? The Times notes that, at times, the torture would stop when an American soldier walked in. That might be good for the soul of that particular soldier. But the torturers were people we were going on patrols with, part of a government we kept in power, backed by a military we armed and trained. The archive has many instances in which we turned over people we captured to the Iraqis for questioning. Can we really say that coalition forces weren’t involved, just because they weren’t the ones holding the wire cables?
And it wasn’t just the Iraqis who caused problems. The Times counted “many previously unreported instances in which American soldiers killed civilians—at checkpoints, from helicopters, in operations.” And we brought into Iraq not only American soldiers in uniform, but tens of thousands of private contractors who, in the archive, behave very badly. Their signature mode, as seen in the archive, is not wire cables in a closed room but shooting indiscriminately from an open car. (They even shoot each other, according to the documents.) It is no less awful. As an American, it might be more so, because these guys undeniably work for us. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, they still do.
Much of this, it’s true, shouldn’t be a revelation, if you’ve been following Iraq and reading all the reporting and books. But even among those who have, a certain amnesia had set in, to which these documents are a corrective. There has been, lately, a vague idea that the war was a bit rough in the beginning—what with the looting—but it all worked out in the end. (“End” being an odd phrase, as we still have fifty thousand troops there, Shiite-Sunni tensions are increasing, and the March elections have yet to produce a new government; in the months since, Iraq’s parliament has met for only twenty minutes.) It’s good to be reminded of what came in between, and at what cost.
That is not just a question for historians. There was a smug satisfaction about the surge in certain quarters, which did not serve the debate about our plans for Afghanistan well. But what do we talk about when we talk about the surge? It had about a half a dozen elements in Iraq; an increase in the number of young Americans on the ground; Moqtada al-Sadr’s self-declared ceasefire; the Sunni Awakening, which was part a wake-up and part a purchase of services; and certain battles had been bloodily played out, communities ethnically cleansed, hundreds of thousands made refugees. Is this a model? The first, obvious point, is that Afghanistan a very different country. It’s not just a matter of adding troops, finding tribal leaders to bribe, and stirring constantly. “Each war has had its own alchemy,” Sabrina Tavernise wrote in the Times, in a piece that argued that one precondition for the surge was a level of killing and violence that just wore everyone out. She quotes, from the WikiLeaks archive, a report that “noted that a discovery of six bodies at a sewage treatment plant in Baghdad was the third such episode at the same plant in recent weeks.”
And the surge and its aftermath have their own brutality; the WikiLeaks documents extend through 2009. That leaves Tavernise wondering, in effect, if Afghanistan is violent enough yet for something like the surge to work. (That does not mean the violence is desired, but that something other than a simplistic application of the surge is.) Perhaps the surge was practice for supporting a corrupt and increasingly illegitimate government, as we keep being told is our best option in Afghanistan. But that leads to another question, also raised by the WikiLeaks archive: even if we could replicate the surge in Afghanistan, would we want to?
For all that the Pentagon talks about how the documents’ release compromises security, the conduct of the war in Iraq has deeply, deeply compromised us, both morally and, ultimately, in terms of our own security. What are the children of people who have been tortured in Iraq in the American years, and of women who have been raped by men to whom we gave guns, or of the mother who was killed when a private contractor we hired fired randomly into her car, going to grow up thinking of us?
More on this to follow; there is a lot to read. One wonders, by the way, in whose service these documents were secret. We are making decisions, deploying more troops, giving out more contracts, on the basis of things we think we know about Iraq but have glimpsed only indirectly, or not at all. We need to take a hard look. What we see in the archive is bad, but very good to know.
And one more question: Why was it, again, that we went to war in Iraq?
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2010/10/revelations-in-iraq.html#ixzz13YDjTrSKCopyright. New Yorker Magazine 2010. All Rights Reserved
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Close of Wikileaks website raises free speech concerns
A US judge’s move to close the dissident site Wikileaks only showed the limits of enforcing national laws in cyberspace.Oakland, Calif. —Internet activists this week gave a Swiss bank and a San Francisco judge a powerful demonstration of the “Streisand Effect.”
That’s Internet jargon for any effort to suppress online information that backfires by drawing much wider publicity.
In this case, the Julius Baer Bank sought an injunction against Wikileaks, a website that anonymously publishes whistleblower documents, for posting papers purporting to show money laundering and tax evasion schemes at the bank’s Cayman Islands branch. A federal district judge late last week took the unusual step of shutting down the entire site instead of removing just the bank’s documents.
What followed was an explosion of interest in the relatively obscure website, with many online activists helping to redirect curious eyes to alternative sites where the content had been reinstated.
The Wikileaks case points to the difficulty of enforcing national norms on a global, decentralized Internet. Having weathered the first ruling, it’s now unclear if Wikileaks’s elusive representatives will even bother to mount a defense at the next court hearing.
“I think we are seeing the limits of a jurisdiction-based judicial system as it faces a relatively borderless Internet,” says David Ardia, director of the Citizen Media Law Project, a Harvard-linked group advocating for free speech.
The court orders are stunningly broad, he says, and suggest a lack of seriousness about the First Amendment. Rather than addressing just the handful of bank documents brought up by the case, Judge Jeffrey White tried to shut down the entire Wikileaks site, which claims to have received over 1.2 million documents “from dissident communities and anonymous sources.”
If this kind of order had been given in the 1971 Pentagon Papers case, says Mr. Ardia, the court would be ordering the Teamsters to park their trucks and permanently refuse to deliver any copies of The New York Times.
The decision was taken without Wikileaks representatives at the hearing, perhaps because Wikileaks failed to give the bank contact information to serve papers. The bank tracked down Dynadot, the California-based company that registered the site’s domain name, and which was ordered by the judge to disable the Web address.
The judge may have taken a stronger stance against Dynadot because Wikileaks’s proprietors weren’t present, suggests Steven Aftergood, head of the Project on Government Secrecy in Washington.
Nevertheless, disabling the site was a “disproportionate response,” that has heightened free speech concerns, he says. First Amendment law carves out boundaries for personal privacy, and the court could have used that to target just the confidential banking records.
But Wikileaks also seems to have an “absolutist” stance on free speech, says Aftergood. “Apparently censorship [to them] means any restriction on disclosure of information regardless of the laws of any particular nation.” That stance may lock them into a position of defiance, he notes.
Efforts to contact Wikileaks failed, but in a press release, the company stated that “given the level of suppression … [it will] step up publication of documents pertaining to illegal or unethical banking practices.”
In the past, Wikileaks has posted documents on US policy at Gauntánamo and in Iraq.
When contacted, Bank Julius Baers spokesman Martin Somogyi emphasized that the bank brought the suit on defamation grounds, not protection of trade secrets.
The Wikileaks case is part of a larger cat-and-mouse game being played between file-sharing sites and dissidents on the one hand, and corporations and governments on the other. As Napster has shown, lawsuits have their effect, but “I don’t know that the end result was any different,” says Ben Gross, an expert at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“Essentially things are redesigned in reaction to censorship,” he says.
Copyright. Christian Science Monitor. 2010. All Rights Reserved
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Fernando Alonso Drives to Ferrari Victory in Korean Grand Prix
Red Bull loses grip on title in Korea
Racing series F1 Date 2010-10-26 By Berthold Bouman – Motorsport.com
Korean Grand Prix – Red Bull loses grip on title in inaugural rain-filled eventFernando Alonso wasn’t bluffing when he three months ago said he was confident he would win this year’s title. At the time he was almost 50 points behind the leaders, and many had already written off the season for the Spaniard and his Ferrari team. Not Alonso, he kept the faith, and after last weekend’s Grand Prix he is now in command of the championship, while his nearest rivals, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel, went home without scoring any points. Felipe Massa did what his team expected him to do: he took third position and scored 15 points for Ferrari who are still in the race for the Constructors’ Championship. Lewis Hamilton scored valuable points to safeguard his title bid, but his team colleague Jenson Button had his worst race weekend so far this season. Both Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg were fast in the rain, but only Schumacher would finish the race.
Treatcherous conditions determined the result of the Korean Grand Prix. Copyright. Motorsport.com 2010.All Rights Reserved
Drivers were impressed with the layout of the Korea International Circuit and also praised the organization for reacting quickly on the requests of the drivers to make a few last-minute changes to the track. However, there were some comments about the fading daylight, as the race had been red-flagged due to the rain and the many safety car periods had further delayed the race, it therefore ended 15 minutes after sunset. During the race Vettel complained about the poor visibility to his team, and after the race Rubens Barrichello, who is the chairman of the GPDA (Grand Prix Drivers’ Association), said it was unsafe and thought the race should have been stopped. “I think the race should have stopped five or six laps before — I couldn’t see. I had a clear visor,” the Brazilian said.
Three wins out of four races for Alonso
Alonso managed to win three out of the last four races, a truly amazing performance, perhaps he was lucky his main rivals didn’t score one single point in Korea, but in the end, the result is what counts. Alonso added another 25 points to his tally last weekend, enough to give him an eleven points lead in the championship. Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said, “This has been a fantastic day, in which we have turned around the situation in the Drivers’ Championship and also, albeit partially, put us back in a stronger position in the Constructors’ classification.”
Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo was equally happy with the result: “What I am most pleased about is that we have shown that with determination, hard work, level headedness and the will to win, we can get out of the most difficult situations. We are a team that never gives up and we showed that yet again today.” And it is true, Ferrari and Alonso never gave up, and now they are leading the championship. But Montezemolo remains cautious about Ferrari’s title chances, “The championship is still very open and we know we are up against very strong opponents. We will have to tackle the final two races with even higher levels of concentration, paying attention to every little detail.”
Red Bull leaves Korea empty-handed
If Red Bull Racing had scored yet another one-two victory in Korea, they would still be leading the Drivers’ Championship, but instead they went home empty-handed. After Webber had retired, it became apparent the other four title contenders, Vettel, Alonso, Hamilton and Button, had now one aim: finish the race and score as many points as possible now that the leader of the championship was out of the race. Vettel was comfortably leading the race until on lap 45 his Renault engine went up in smoke and parts of the engine flew around the track.
An unexpected end of the race for Vettel. Photo by Copyright.2010.Motorsport.com. All Rights ReservedVettel was of course disappointed about his retirement, but remained upbeat, “There are still fifty points available in the Drivers’ Championship, it would have been easier if we had won today and the engine hadn’t have broken, but that’s life and how it goes sometimes.” But he also knew it was just bad luck, “To be at the front of the field for the whole race, controlling it and looking after the tyres, I think there’s nothing more we could have done.” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner added, “Some days motor racing can be cruel and for Red Bull today it was unfortunately one of those days.”
With all engines now at the end of their working life, more engine problems can be expected, but next time it could be a Mercedes or Ferrari engine that ‘pops’, as Vettel put it after the race. Bad luck or not, the fact remains the conditions on the track and the allocation of eight engines per season are the same for every team, but unfortunately for Red Bull, the slippery circuit caught Webber by surprise, and an engine failure caught Vettel by surprise. Such is the life of a Grand Prix racing team, one weekend you win it all, the next weekend you lose everything again.
Crash fiesta in the rain
Ahead of the Korean Grand Prix circuit designer Hermann Tilke said the slippery track would improve the show, but not even in his wildest dreams could he have predicted the crash fiesta which took place at the brand-new Yeongam circuit. The combination of rain and the still slippery asphalt provided a breathtaking spectacle, for drivers, team principals and spectators alike. After the race had been red-flagged at the end of the first three laps, it was restarted again behind the safety car, which left the track on lap 17, allowing the first green flag to truly start the race. Because of the treacherous track conditions, the big question was: who of the top five drivers will be the first to make a mistake? Webber provided the answer to that question, he spun on lap 19 and pirouetted back onto the circuit, collecting the Mercedes of Rosberg, both had to retire from the race.
Webber, who just went too far over the kerbs said, “I crashed at the exit of Turn 12. I lost the rear of the car on a kerb; I thought I’d managed to catch it, but I lost the car and made contact with the wall, nothing too heavy, but it was enough to bring the car back to the other side of the track and then Rosberg hit me, it was 100 percent my fault and that’s the end of it. Today didn’t help me with the championship, but I can absolutely still win it; this was only my second non-finish of the year.”
Rosberg, who just had overtaken Hamilton, was caught by surprise and tried to avoid Webber, but to no avail. “It’s a big shame that my race was ended early. It was really difficult to judge which way Webber’s car would go and I took the decision to go left but he spun more and more that way and I just couldn’t avoid him. It’s a real shame as we could have had a great result today,” he commented.
The accident forced the safety car back on track, Renault’s Vitaly Petrov and Sauber driver Kamui Kobayashi used the opportunity to pit and changed from full wets to the intermediate tyres. After the safety car left the track again, Jarno Trulli and Bruno Senna collided, the Lotus of Trulli lost its front wing and not much later he retired from the race. Another victim was Virgin driver Lucas di Grassi, who had already missed his breaking point several times before he finally ended up in the tyre stack and retired.
Buemi retires after he collided with Glock. Photo by Copyright.2010 Motorsport.com All Rights ReservedToro Rosso driver Sebastien Buemi was next, first he hit Heikki Kovalainen in his Lotus, and two laps later, when he tried to overtake Timo Glock, he braked too late and slammed into the side of the Virgin. Buemi, who was later penalized by the stewards said, “We lost the chance to score some real points today. I braked late and locked the front wheels, so I could not turn and ended up going straight on and hitting Timo. I am sorry for him.” Glock wasn’t happy at all with Buemi’s action, “We had quite good pace in the first part of the race and were clearly the quickest of the new teams. It’s just a huge shame that we couldn’t finish the race and all because of the mistake made by Buemi.”
The safety car came out again, and most of the top ten pitted immediately to chance the Bridgestone intermediates, except Vettel and Alonso, who made their stop one lap later. During Alonso’s stop a mechanic lost the wheel nut of the right front tyre, it slipped out of the wheel gun, and he lost valuable seconds in the pit lane and thus lost one place when he rejoined the race in third place behind Hamilton. Robert Kubica had a bad pit stop as well, he drove off before his lollypop man gave him the signal, and almost collided with Sutil who just came in for his stop. When the safety car left the track, the entire field was close together again, but during the restart Hamilton ran wide and lost his second place to Alonso, again.
The biggest crash of the race can be attributed to Petrov, when he entered the last corner before the start-finish straight the Russian lost control and slid very hard into the tyre wall which lines the pit lane entrance, totally destroying his Renault. Petrov, “I was still pushing to keep in front of the guys behind me, and I lost the car on the penultimate corner and had a big crash — but I’m okay.” He added, “This was my first experience of such extreme conditions in Formula One, and I think the FIA did a good job to let us run behind the safety car and understand the [conditions on the] circuit before starting the race.”
Meanwhile, Sutil in his Force India was also entertaining the spectators with his many successful, and sometimes not so successful, overtaking maneuvers. He finally retired on lap 46, when he hit the Sauber of Kobayashi on the start-finish straight. “There were a lot of times I was off the circuit, or locked up, and then got past a driver and went off the road. In the end I tried to overtake Kobayashi but lost the car on a patch that was a bit more wet than I expected and went into the side of him,” a disappointed Sutil said. He was later penalized for causing an avoidable accident.
At the end of the race the worn out Bridgestone intermediates lost their grip, and again many cars were seen slipping and sliding on and off the circuit. Hamilton ran wide several times on his almost bald rear tyres, Button made a pirouette but managed to recover, and also Barrichello and Toro Rosso driver Jaime Alguersuari ran wide during the closing stages of the race. After the race had finished, it was fair to say the Korean Grand Prix had been a true crash festival in the rain, and an event which has contributed to the already thrilling 2010 Formula One season, and last but not least, the rain again reshuffled the cards in the Drivers’ Championship table.
FIA Stewards Report
On Friday Hispania was fined $5,000 after Sakon Yamamoto had left his garage with a tyre warmer still attached to his rear wheel, and were also reprimanded because two mechanics tried to recover it from the pit lane exit. On Saturday during qualifying Adrian Sutil was fined 1,800 Euro for speeding in the pit lane, and Schumacher was reprimanded for impeding Barrichello. The Stewards also investigated claims Rosberg and Kubica had been impeding other drivers, but decided not to take further action. On Sunday, the Stewards investigated the incident involving Trulli and Senna, but ruled it was a race incident. Kovalainen was given a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane, and both Sutil and Buemi were penalized for causing an avoidable collision, and were handed a five-place grid penalty for the next event.
Hamilton happy to finish and score valuable points
Hamilton had a good race, although his McLaren was certainly not the fastest car on the track. “I was losing a lot of time to Alonso, particularly in the final sector,” the 2008 World Champion said. “It was very tricky out there, particularly at the end. It was pitch black, I couldn’t see much and my tyres were finished. It was a big surprise to see both Red Bulls go out. Alonso drove really well, but I’m very happy to have scored some points after a couple of disappointing races.” But he certainly hasn’t given up on winning this year’s title, “We’ve got two races ahead of us, we have more coming for the car, and the guys back at the factory are doing a great job. Everyone is really enthusiastic and is pushing as hard as they can. The championship definitely isn’t out of reach, we can still do this.”
Button: from bad to worse
Button’s performance was far under par, and with now 41 points behind the leader, his title aspirations are effectively over. He still has a mathematical chance to win the championship, but in reality, all other contenders will have to encounter major problems and not score points for Button to still have a chance to win this year’s title. Button, who was by the end of the race pretty much the slowest driver on the track, encountered several problems in Korea. “I just didn’t have enough grip today. I was really struggling with locking fronts as soon as I touched the brakes; every time I braked for a corner, I went straight on because I couldn’t stop the car,” the current World Champion said.
Although Button himself hasn’t given up the title chase, others believe it is now time he should back his team mate Hamilton. “For us, the strategy is clear. We don’t really have to say anything to our drivers,” McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said. “Jenson will offer his help to Hamilton voluntarily, because he knows that we have treated him fairly throughout the year.” But on Monday Button said he wasn’t yet quite ready to help Hamilton, “You don’t win world championships by conceding defeat before it is all over. You have seen today how things can change. If mathematically I couldn’t win the championship then, yes, I would help Lewis.”
Mercedes: fast in the rain
Schumacher scored his best result of the season, Mercedes had already said after qualifying they wouldn’t mind a wet race. Rosberg and Schumacher started in fifth and ninth position respectively, and before he was taken out by Webber, Rosberg had overtaken Hamilton and was in fourth position, and had a fair chance to land a podium position, as he was just 1.4 seconds behind Alonso. Team principal Ross Brawn about the race, “The team did an excellent job this weekend and have been rewarded with a very good result for Michael today. He took all of his opportunities and drove sensibly in the tricky conditions. It could have been even better as Nico was in a strong position and obviously we are disappointed that he was taken out of the race.”
Mercedes, very fast in the rain. Photo by Copyright 2010.Motorsport.com. All Rights ReservedSchumacher had climbed up to fifth place when he, on lap 31, made his pit stop. He rejoined the race without losing his fifth position, and after Vettel had blown up his Renault engine, he was in fourth position. With a podium position now in reach he then tried the best he could to gain on Massa ahead of him, but his worn out intermediate tyres forced him to settle for fourth place. Schumacher, “I am sure that the spectators had a lot of fun here today at this first Korean race. The FIA did very well to start the race behind the safety car as it absolutely would not have been possible to have a racing start. I am pretty happy with today’s race and I have to say thank you to my team who guided me perfectly through the afternoon.”
Who gained, who lost?
Obviously Alonso made the most progress last weekend, as he is now leading the championship. Instead of being 14 points behind the leader, he is now 11 points ahead of his nearest rival Webber, who is now second instead of first. Vettel lost his third position and is now fourth with 25 points, or one race win, behind Alonso and still 14 points behind his team mate Webber. Hamilton has slightly increased his chances to win the title, he is now third instead of fourth in the championship, 21 points instead of 28 points behind the leader. Button was worst off, and although he passed the finish line unscathed, like Vettel and Webber he did not score any points, and is still fifth in the championship, now with 42 instead of 31 points behind the leader.
For the penultimate round of this year’s championship, Formula One will now travel to the Interlagos circuit in Brazil, the home Grand Prix for Massa, Barrichello, Senna and Di Grassi. Theoretically Alonso could take the title in Brazil, visit Motorsport.com for all the action ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix on November 7.
See also: Korean GP: Race results
See also: Standings after Korean GPCopyright 2010. motorsportmagazine.com All Rights Reserved
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Bad Judgement and Clarence Thomas
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Maureen Dowd
Supremely Bad Judgment By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
In the wacky coda to one of the most searing chapters in American history, everyone remained true to form.
Anita Hill reacted with starchy disgust.
Ginni Thomas came across like a spiritually addled nut.
Clarence Thomas was mute, no doubt privately raging about the trouble women have caused him.
And now into the circus comes Lillian McEwen, an old girlfriend of Thomas’s.
Looking to shop a memoir, the 65-year-old McEwen used the occasion of Ginni’s weird phone message to Anita — asking her to “consider an apology” and “pray about this” and “O.K., have a good day!” — to open up to reporters.
If “the real Clarence” had been revealed at the time, he probably wouldn’t have ascended to the court, McEwen told The Times’s Ashley Parker. Especially since the real Clarence denied ever using the “grotesque” argot of the porn movies he regularly rented at a D.C. video store.
In her interviews, McEwen confirmed Thomas’s obsession with women with “huge, huge breasts,” with scouting the women he worked with as possible partners, and with talking about porn at work — while he was head of the federal agency that polices sexual harassment.
Years later, some of the Democrats on that all-male, all-white Senate Judiciary Committee told me they assumed there must have been a consensual romance between the boss and his subordinate. McEwen assumed so, too, because Clarence took Anita with him when he changed agencies. Hill has made it clear she felt no reciprocal attraction.
Joe Biden, the senator who ran those hearings, was leery of the liberal groups eager to use Hill as a pawn to checkmate Thomas. He circumscribed the testimony of women who could have corroborated Hill’s unappetizing portrait of a power-abusing predator.
For the written record, Biden allowed negative accounts only from women who had worked with Thomas. He also ruled out testimony from women who simply had personal relationships with Thomas, and did not respond to a note from McEwen — a former assistant U.S. attorney who had once worked as a counsel for Biden’s committee — reminding him of her long relationship with Thomas.
It’s too late to relitigate the shameful Thomas-Hill hearings. We’re stuck with a justice-for-life who lied his way onto the bench with the help of bullying Republicans and cowed Democrats.
We don’t know why Ginni Thomas, who was once in the thrall of a cultish self-help group called Lifespring, made that odd call to Hill at 7:30 on a Saturday morning. But we do know that the Thomases show supremely bad judgment. Mrs. Thomas, a queen of the Tea Party, is the founder of a new nonprofit group, Liberty Central, which she boasts will be bigger than the Tea Party. She sports and sells those foam Statue of Liberty-style crowns as she makes her case against the “tyranny” of President Obama and Congressional Democrats, who, she charges, are hurting the “core founding principles” of America.
As The Times’s Jackie Calmes wrote, Mrs. Thomas started her nonprofit in late 2009 with two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000, and additional sums this year that we don’t know about yet. She does not have to disclose the donors, whose money makes possible the compensation she brings into the Thomas household.
There is no way to tell if her donors have cases before the Supreme Court or whether her husband knows their identities. And she never would have to disclose them if her husband had his way.
The 5-to-4 Citizens United decision last January gave corporations, foreign contributors, unions, Big Energy, Big Oil and superrich conservatives a green light to surreptitiously funnel in as much money as they want, whenever they want to elect or unelect candidates. As if that weren’t enough to breed corruption, Thomas was the only justice — in a rare case of detaching his hip from Antonin Scalia’s — to write a separate opinion calling for an end to donor disclosures.
In Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court chose the Republican president. In Citizens United, the court may return Republicans to control of Congress. So much for conservatives’ professed disdain of judicial activism. And so much for the public’s long-held trust in the impartiality of the nation’s highest court.
Justice Stephen Breyer recently rejected the image of the high court as “nine junior varsity politicians.” But it’s even worse than that. The court has gone beyond mere politicization. Its liberals are moderate and reasonable, while the conservatives are dug in, guzzling Tea.
Thomas and Scalia have flouted ethics rules by attending seminars sponsored by Koch Industries, an energy and manufacturing conglomerate run by billionaire brothers that has donated more than $100 million to far-right causes.
Christine O’Donnell may not believe in the separation of church and state, but the Supreme Court does not believe in the separation of powers.
O.K., have a good day!
Copyright. 2010. The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved
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Red Bull disaster as Alonso wins in rain
Sun, 24 Oct 09:02:00 2010Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso is the new World Championship leader after winning a heavily weather-affected South Korean Grand Prix which saw neither Red Bull driver finish.
The Spanish double world champion capitalised on Mark Webber crashing out on a drying track and Sebastian Vettel, who led from the start, being forced out with an engine problem.
Briton Lewis Hamilton finished second ahead of Felipe Massa and now stands third in the driver’s table with 210 points, while Webber has 220 and Alonso 231 after his 25-point haul.
There are two races remaining in the season.
The inaugural Korean GP, already controversial due to delays in construction which saw it almost scrapped from the calendar, was frustrating early on but delivered high drama by its conclusion.
Those delays had been due to torrential rains which have deeply affected Korea’s economy – and it was rain again which threatened to ruin raceday for the huge number of fans who turned out in the wasteland setting of Yeongam.
First of all the light, continuous downpour which began in the lead-up to the race caused a 10-minute delay as race director Charlie Whiting pondered whether to start the race under normal or safety car conditions.
Opting for the latter, his choice was shown to be a wise one as the drivers complained of a complete lack of visibility as the newly-laid tarmac held surface water which produced a massive amount of spray.
The cars tiptoed around three laps before a red flag signalled that conditions were too dangerous to continue and the grid lined up again to await an improvement.
After a delay of over 45 minutes – with the race clock stopped around seven minutes in – they pulled away a second time, but the safety car did not come in for another 13 laps. Hamilton could not understand the hesitancy, but the majority of drivers had reservations.
Ironically, once they did begin Hamilton was passed by Nico Rosberg for fourth.
There were some minor offs before Webber turned his Red Bull around and smashed it into the barriers. Alonso came through before the Australian’s car slowly slipped backwards across the circuit, collecting Rosberg.
Vettel had been flying at the front but saw his lead wiped out by the safety car, with Ferrari’s Massa, Jenson Button and an attacking Michael Schumacher following Alonso and Hamilton.
The seven-times world champion slipstreamed Button for fifth three laps after racing conditions were resumed.
There were retirements down the field, with Sebastien Buemi at fault in sideswiping Timo Glock, which brought out further safety cars – but Vettel never looked in danger of relinquishing his lead having started from pole.
With 23 laps remaining, and sunset as much a concern as the two-hour time limit, Alonso lost a place to Hamilton after a mechanic dropped a wheel nut. Vettel and the Briton had also both pitted with the safety car just out.
When it came in Hamilton ran wide to allow the Spaniard through, and suddenly had Massa all over his back end instead; however he fended the Brazilian off and pulled away over the following laps.
Button lost three places and stood 15th after Adrian Sutil took advantage of a pair of fighting cars ahead of them to force the Englishman off the track.
Vitaly Petrov, seeking to impress his bosses at Renault and earn a new deal, crashed into the tyre barriers from 11th position with 14 laps left.
Five laps later the Korean crowd were left gasping when Vettel, leading Alonso down the straight, suddenly lost power and his engine began to billow smoke.
He looked as disconsolate as team-mate Webber had before him when returning to the pits, perhaps visualising the title slipping away.
Alonso, who had been majestic throughout, took full advantage to see out the race without incident despite the darkness descending upon Yeongam – building a healthy lead over Hamilton who had concerns over his front tyres with the championship also still there for him.
He too guided his car home, but McLaren team-mate Button is not expected to defend his title any longer after finishing a disappointing 12th. He has 189 points, behind Vettel who has 206.
Finishing outside the podium but in the points were Schumacher, Robert Kubica, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Rubens Barrichello, Kamui Kobayashi, Nick Heidfeld and Nico Hulkenberg.
Nine drivers failed to finish: Rosberg, Webber, Buemi, Petrov, Vettel, Sutil, Glock, Lucas di Grassi and Jarno Trulli.
. All Rights Reserved -
Case sheds light on LV, Israeli mob
Oct. 19, 2010
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Case sheds light on LV, Israeli mobThe federal extortion indictment of a Southern California man has led to the disclosure of new details about the stepped-up activities of the Israeli mob in Las Vegas.
Lior Zaken, 38, is the fifth defendant charged in a plot to extort thousands of dollars from two Israeli-born businessmen, Moshe “Moshiko” Ozana and Moshe “Chiko” Karmi, who run small electronics and cosmetics kiosks at local outlet malls.
The others charged earlier this year are Israeli citizens Moshe Barmuha, 37, and Yakov Cohen, 24, and two Russian-born brothers, Ruslan Magomedgadzhiev, 30, and Murad Magomedgadzhiev, 26. Cohen lives in Las Vegas, and the other three men live in Southern California. All are in federal custody.
Dave Logue, a Las Vegas police intelligence lieutenant, said the extortion scheme shows that the Israeli mob is “every bit as sophisticated and active” as other organized crime groups here.
“They try to keep a lower profile than some of the other groups, but they’re very opportunistic,” Logue said. “They have strong ties to Southern California.”
At a detention hearing for Zaken last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly Frayn said Barmuha, the lead defendant in the extortion case, has a lengthy criminal record in Israel and is “known to be affiliated with a very powerful organized crime family.” His right arm was amputated below the elbow after a pipe bomb he planted underneath a rival’s car prematurely exploded.
In arguing to keep Zaken behind bars while he awaits trial, Frayn told U.S. Magistrate Lawrence Leavitt that the Israeli citizen was intimately involved in the extortion scheme and alleged that he had plotted with Barmuha during recorded jail conversations to obstruct justice in the case. The two men also were overheard discussing another unrelated extortion plot, Frayn said.
Frayn said Zaken, who has been described as “muscle” for Barmuha, runs his business, Express Moving & Storage, out of the first floor of Barmuha’s Southern California home. The company’s license is suspended, according to records on file with the California secretary of state.
Las Vegas police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents uncovered the extortion plot a year ago, first bringing to light the Israeli mob’s renewed presence here.
Israeli mobsters are involved in traditional rackets such as loan-sharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution and illegal gambling, authorities say. Their activities in Las Vegas revolve around lucrative illegal trafficking in Ecstasy, a popular drug on the Las Vegas nightclub scene.
Earlier this year, a federal judge refused to release Cohen from custody after prosecutors made public excerpts from FBI wiretaps of Cohen allegedly threatening violence against Ozana and Karmi and bragging about his connections to the Israeli mob. Authorities alleged Cohen was trying to muscle in on the kiosk operations of the two businessmen.
Frayn alleged in court that Zaken recruited the Magomedgadzhiev brothers on Barmuha’s behalf to physically harm Karmi in the extortion scheme. Ruslan Magomedgadzhiev worked for Zaken’s moving company.
In the Las Vegas attack, which occurred near Karmi’s home, Karmi was thrown so hard against his car that it left a large dent, Frayn said. Karmi was able to pull out a handgun during the attack and fire off some shots, one of which struck Ruslan Magomedgadzhiev in the buttocks as the brothers were fleeing.
When federal agents searched Barmuha’s car in Southern California in April, Frayn said, they found hospital bills for treatment the wounded assailant had received.
Frayn said investigators overheard Barmuha and Zaken during a June 30 jailhouse conversation discussing a scheme to influence witnesses in the case. Barmuha told Zaken he needed to “make sure he keeps these people in line,” Frayn alleged.
Zaken filed for bankruptcy in California in August 2009 and failed to make mortgage payments on his home for a year before his bank foreclosed on it, Frayn said.
Yet after Zaken was assigned a court-appointed lawyer in the criminal case, records show, he opted to hire high-priced defense attorney John Momot, who has represented local mob figures over the years.
In a courtroom plea to obtain Zaken’s release last Thursday, Momot contended that his client has no felony record and no ties to any organized crime figures.
Momot portrayed Zaken as a “hardworking” businessman, struggling to provide for his wife and two young children in tough economic times.
Zaken, standing off to the side of the courtroom in jail garb and chains, pulled out a tissue and appeared to wipe away tears, as Momot showed Leavitt a photo of his two children. Zaken’s wife sat sobbing in the gallery on the other side of the courtroom.
On Friday, after reading a transcript of the recorded June 30 conversation between Zaken and Barmuha, Leavitt said it wasn’t clear to him whether the two men were conspiring to obstruct justice in the extortion case.
Leavitt ordered Zaken released on $50,000 bail, but because the magistrate said he still considered him a flight risk, the judge imposed several restrictions, including electronic monitoring and confining his travel between Southern California and Las Vegas for court appearances only.
If Zaken posts bail, prosecutors will be able to ask for a hearing to determine the source of the funds, Leavitt said.
Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135 or read more courts coverage at lvlegalnews.com.
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