Posted by: rdbrewer at 02:20 PM | Comments (376)
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Today, NASCAR takes it to Phoenix for The Profit 500. NASCAR provides a snapshot of the race HERE.

Key race info:

Race time: Coverage begins at 3:00 EST with the green flag scheduled for 3:15

Distance: 500 km or 312 laps

On the front row: Brad Keselowski, Team Penske, No. 2 Ford (139.384 mph); Joey Logano, Team Penske, No. 22 Ford (139.265 mph)

Daytona 500 follow-up:

[Full disclosure: I had never watched an entire race before last week and I am still SHOCKED at how much I enjoyed it!]

Last week saw the opening of NASCAR's Sprint Cup season with the running of the Daytona 500, and it was one for the record books. Only 45 minutes into the race and with less than 40 laps run, one of those infamous Florida thunderstorms, replete with two tornado warnings, moved in to put a halt to the action. More than six hours later the race was underway again and it was an exciting race indeed. Dale Earnhardt Jr. took the checkered flag, his second win at Daytona, following a losing streak of 55 races. It was also memorable in that he won the race with perhaps the most famous number in racing returning to the track, the #3, which had belonged to Dale Jr's father, himself killed in a seemingly casual crash at Daytona in 2001. BUT.... the return of the #3 car wasn't without controversy as rookie Austin Dillon made the race a game of survival out on the track. In total, Dillon was involved in three accidents, two of which he caused himself, taking out several cars. And, after a short stint of leading the pack, Danica Patrick was involved in a 12-car crash which resulted in an all-too-familiar nose into wall, bringing to mind that wretched day in 2001. It was a tremendous relief when she climbed out of that car under her own power. And for the haters out there: There wasnÂ’t a damn thing she could have done to avoid it.

And, also making their debut to great fanfare, the new Air Titan Track Drying System. Just how effective are they? See for yourself. Also making “news” was Jimmy Johnson’s non-win, as those not paying close enough attention failed to notice that, during the rain delay, Fox replayed the 2013 Daytona 500 in its entirety.

Full coverage of the race can be found HERE, but highlights are shown below.

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:46 AM | Comments (194)
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Here's an open thread to talk about politics.

To get you started, the Great Minds in my state of Utah have been screwing around trying to come up with a primary system that we can all agree on. They seem to have failed and instead have come up with something that no one will like.
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Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:24 AM | Comments (58)
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This morning's open thread for non-book related discussions is brought to you by your great-grandpappy: more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:05 AM | Comments (48)
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"You'll get nothing and like it." ~ Vladimir Putin

Posted by: andy at 03:28 AM | Comments (157)
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"See How Important I Am, Daddy? Daddy? Please Notice Me, Daddy!"

Good morning morons and moronettes and welcome to AoSHQ's prestigious Sunday Morning Book Thread.

The Tyranny of Cool

Greg Gutfeld (author of The Joy of Hate: How to Triumph over Whiners in the Age of Phony Outrage) has a new book coming out: Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You is worthy of purchase based on the title alone.

And the Amazon blurb is even better:

From politics to the personal, from fashion to food, from the campus to the locker room, the desire to be cool has infected all aspects of our lives. At its most harmless, it is annoying. At its worst, it is deadly, on a massive scale. The Cool are the termites of life, infiltrating every nook and cranny and destroying it from within. The Cool report the news, write the scripts, teach our children, run our government—and each day they pass judgment on those who don’t worship at the altar of their coolness. The cool fawn over terrorists, mock the military, and denigrate employers. They are, in short, awful people.

The bad news is that this book isn't available until March 18th. The good news is that it is also available on Kindle.

This is a point I have argued with liberals: "Cool? Of course we're not cool. We're Republicans for crying out loud! We're the adults in the room. We're the ones who wash the dishes and put away the toys after the kids are all in bed. And who get up and go to work the next morning."

First Arab eBookstore Launches, Few Arrests Made

An older (Feb. 7th) GoodEreader news item reports:

With the Cairo Book Fair wrapping up this week–amidst controversy, as journalists were arrested for possessing cameras and video equipment to cover the event–one exciting launch took place with critical support from Vodafone Egypt. The first dedicated Arab ebookstore, Kotobi.com, launched from their stage at the fair, bringing several hundred Arab titles from nearly forty publishers to digital devices.

Why they would stage a public event and then arrest journalists for covering it makes no sense.

I thought this was interesting:

According to the Kotobi website (translated), “Statistics show that readership levels in the Arab World are significantly lower than those among other world populations. And because we believe that reading is a key ingredient for the development of any nation, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to play a role in supporting the Arabic reading ecosystem to the benefit of raising readership levels in the Arabic language.”

This is a noble aspiration, but I wonder if they know what this means? If every Arab citizen down to the humblest peasant and streetsweeper can read, that means that they will be able to read books other than the Koran. Is that what the Kotobi backers want? I'd bet that there's a substantial number of Muslim authorities that absolutely do not want this. Certainly this isn't what the jihadis want. Nor their sympathizers, either, I'd expect.

So I predict that it won't be long before Kotobi comes under some sort of attack, either by cyberspace or by physical threats from the outside, and it won't be from the Great Satan, but by their own brethren.

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:07 AM | Comments (225)
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This thread brought to you by airline stewardesses of the 1960s:

Today is supposed to be a nice one in my neck of the woods (after several days of rain and gloom), so this will be a slapdash Travel and Leisure thread.
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Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:25 AM | Comments (118)
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Don't worry, though -- he got fully briefed by Ambassador Susan Rice, who was so totally up to speed on Benghazi.

Media Culpa: The American Interest notes the legacy media calling this "a crisis that no one anticipated." Ignoring the fact that people not in the legacy media or Obama Administration did anticipate it.

Op-eds from all over the legacy press this week helped explained why. Through the rose tinted lenses of a media community deeply convinced that President Obama and his dovish team are the masters of foreign relations, nothing poor Putin did could possibly derail the stately progress of our genius president. There were, we were told, lots of reasons not to worry about Ukraine. War is too costly for Russia’s weak economy. Trade would suffer, the ruble would take a hit. The 2008 war with Georgia is a bad historical comparison, as Ukraine’s territory, population and military are much larger. Invasion would harm Russia’s international standing. Putin doesn’t want to spoil his upcoming G8 summit, or his good press from Sochi. Putin would rather let the new government in Kiev humiliate itself with incompetence than give it an enemy to rally against. Crimea’s Tartars and other anti-Russian ethnic minorities wouldn’t stand for it. Headlines like “Why Russia Won’t Invade Ukraine,” “No, Russia Will Not Intervene in Ukraine,” and “5 Reasons for Everyone to Calm Down About Crimea” weren’t hard to find in our most eminent publications.

[T]his massive intellectual breakdown has a lot to do with a common American mindset that is especially built into our intellectual and chattering classes. Well educated, successful and reasonably liberal minded Americans find it very hard to believe that other people actually see the world in different ways.... American experts and academics assume that smart people everywhere must want the same things and reach the same conclusions about the way the world works.

How many times did foolishly confident American experts and officials come out with some variant of the phrase “We all share a common interest in a stable and prosperous Ukraine.” We may think that’s true, but Putin doesn’t.

Thanks to @rdbrewer4.

Posted by: Ace at 02:33 PM | Comments (605)
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Here's a thread for all of you non-gardening morons to talk politics.

To give you something to "chew on," the FDA is tinkering with food labeling again.

Meanwhile, this writer at Forbes wants the FLOTUS (is there nothing she can't do?!) to lean on the FDA about their current policy concerning health claims. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:53 PM | Comments (208)
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If you're thinking of seeing the movie Non-Stop, you may want to read this first. It's all spoilers but if it's right, and it appears to be, you'll want to avoid it like the plague.

You think Hollywood can't sink any lower and then you realize how stupid you are for thinking that.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:47 AM | Comments (266)
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