Intellectuals At Work

Blatant racial hatred is a hoax - and proven such over and over again.   The latest hoax is the claim that the US is among the ten worst nations for women, even though it is the US that fights hardest for actual rights for women. And Intellectual bigotry - the heart of Intellectualism is bigotry because Intellectuals are personal and social failures who lash out in denial - shows again in yet another NY Times piece, this one attacking admissions standards at specialized high schools in the city - all because Asians outperform others in such schools.

Seven Reality Checks On Social Security

There are seven myths about Social Security. Here are the reality checks.


Social Security is an Entitlement - that is a program the government is required to pay whether it finances it or not; those arguing it isn't an entitlement claim it can't be because beneficiaries contributed to it - except that money goes to someone else.


Social Security wasn't robbed by politicians, it went bankrupt precisely by being a money shuffle.


Social Security pays out benefits its beneficiaries did not contribute to - again, because it is nothing but a money shuffle where someone pays for someone else's benefits.


Social Security's insolvency is far earlier than the often-claimed date of 2034.


Social Security never was "self-funed" - government was paying for it from the beginning.


The "rich" can't finance it.


Privatization was never attempted, despite media mythologizing to that effect

The UN As "Theater Of The Absurd"

"It is possible that there is no more misplaced and absurdly titled international body than the United Nations Human Rights Council?"

Probably not, and the UN's hatred of Israel displays this "theater of the absurd."

The New Scandal Language Coverup

Barack Obama's role in Hillary Clinton's email coverup of her giveaways to foreign financiers and Russia involves the FBI's creative use of coverup language.

Phony Border Anger

There's been a lot of sanctimonious fraudulence regarding separation of children from illegal immigrants at the border. This piece shows the truth and the abuses of history and the relationship to larger derangement against Donald Trump on this issue - ignorance of which is shown in Laura Bush's foolish pedantry - are also examined.

The Mixed Bag Of Globalization

Victor Hanson looks at the mixed results of globalization.

Sorry But Iowa Is Not A Cup Track

With Iowa's first Xfinity-Truck series doubleheader of the season the calls for NASCAR to switch a Winston Cup race from an existing track to Iowa Speedway has renewed. And it remains wrong, because Iowa simply does not deserve a Cup date.








The reasons why are addressed by Nick Bromberg. But in essence the case against Iowa as a Cup track comes down to three simple facts -


The market for a track owned by the sanctioning body simply isn't that strong.   
Iowa's seating capacity is some 30,000, and as Andy Hillinberg's failed reopening of Rockingham showed that's not a sustainable model for major league racing, never mind Cup alone.

The racing is overrated.
Yes the battle between Justin Allgaier and Christopher Bell was spirited, but this season has seen terrific racing quite often; Iowa's racing was good but Michigan's racing the previous week was better. Short tracks have aeropush issues just as bigger tracks do and far too much of short track racing at the major league level is about lapped cars rather than a showdown between the leaders. The fact remains the most competitive racing in motorsports is not short tracks (never mind road racing which NASCAR first enters next week), it is superspeedway racing.


Dragging the sport back to the farm is regression.   It bears reminder the Truck Series began as a short track model and found out right away the short track model can't support major league racing between insufficient crowds, lack of sponsor interest, and overrated racing.   The 1995 "test" race at Homestead proved the superspeedways are better racing venues than short tracks, so the evolution away from short tracks began. 

And it bears reminder that the clamor for more short tracks is actually a desire on the part of some fans to lash out at the superspeedways because people are frustrated at the lack of passing on the bigger ovals - ignoring of course the consistently lower incidence of passing that defines short tracks - the number most telling there is the most competitive short track in NASCAR, Bristol, averages thirteen lead changes per race vs. 22 for Michigan, 24 for Pocono, etc. 



The real answer for Iowa and other short tracks is for NASCAR to start switching more of the TV money away from Cup - which takes some 90% of the TV money - and put more into the Xfinity, Truck, K&N/ARCA, and Modified tours.   This was supposedly part of the original goal of the Truck Series, to make it strong enough that it would stand on its own, some smaller tracks could replace their Cup races with Truck dates, and thus free up those dates for bigger tracks and bigger markets.   Making it worth Iowa's while to be a track for Xifnity and Truck races atop local and ARCA dates will stop the ridiculous lobby for Cup to be dragged there.


The sport has begun showing genuine change for the better in recent races and a better TV money distribution can shut up the people who want to sacrifice a better track to give a mid-western short track a Winston Cup date.

2018 Mass Pirates vs Columbus Lions, Week 10

The 6-3 Mass Pirates come out of their first bye week of the NAL season hosting the Columbus Lions, with both teams locked with the Carolina Cobras and Jacksonville Sharks in the NAL playoff race.   The ensuing game gets off to an ugly start for the Pirates but then erupts into a contest with a combined 117 points scored, a host of penalties, and a shocker of a final minute.

Basia - No Heartache and Matteo

New music from jazz great Basia

No Heartache

Matteo

NFL Classics - 1983 Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins

The Antisemitism Of Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter was and is a gang of savages and among its hatreds is its antisemitism.

The Obamacat FBI

The Justice Department's Inspector General report on the FBI's crooked "investigations" pertaining to the 2016 election  - and the Bureau's coverup for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - was elusive, in keeping with hiding the reality the DOJ and FBI were engaged in an illegal character assassination campaign masquerading as a criminal/counterintelligence investigation, and also in keeping with Obama's rampant corruption and dishonesty, shown in ever-more graphic detail in its appeasement of Iran.

Kaz Grala Puts The Lie To Brad Keselowski

Elliott Sadler and a plethora of others battled for the lead in a spirited LTI 250, the latest race to feature NASCAR's restrictor plate-draft duct package



Michigan International Speedway's 2018 season kicked off and immediately NASCAR's new rule sagacity debate took center stage in a Friday presser by Brad Keselowski.   Keselowski's presser concerned NASCAR's new restrictor plate-draft duct package introduced to MIS for the first time, run in the Michigan Xfinity 250.

Keselowski's missive expressed "concern" - aka opposition - to expanded use of the plate-draft duct package by NASCAR, and it included all the usual nonsensical allusions to driving skill and talent and how they are supposedly stifled by this plate package; his missive got endorsement from Mark Martin via social media but also earned sharp rebuke on NASCAR's satellite radio network from Dave Moody.

The focal area of Moody's rebuke was Keselowski's startling claim that "the best drivers" would avoid racing in NASCAR if this package is integrated into more tracks because in such a scenario they would not be able to showcase their skills.


First, as Moody noted right away, Keselowski's breakthrough in the Winston Cup level was in a restrictor plate race.

Second, that drivers from other series have come to NASCAR stems from the series being the strongest in motorsports, and it is worth noting these drivers such as Juan Montoya, Dario Franchitti, Max Papis, Sam Hornish, and Scott Speed did not succeed in NASCAR outside of two Winston Cup road race wins by Montoya.


And finally to Brad Keselowski - just what is the definition of "driver skill and talent," anyway?   It is an old debate and the answer is usually along the lines of "throttle control, braking, and acceleration points."   This begs the question - would Keselowski throttle-control his way to victories if he was still in James Finch's Chevrolet?

But the strongest rebuke to Keselowski comes from Kaz Grala's superb run in the slapped-together Tony Eury  Xfinity car, storming into the top-ten and challenging for the lead in the race.    Far from stifling driving talent, this package by making the draft more important is opening up driving talent.


This is a fact Keselowski seems oblivious to here.    For driving racecars and racing them are not the same thing. Passing and repassing is what brings out true racing talent, and Kaz Grala's wildcard victory bid displayed a talent more impressive than Keselowski's prerace pedantry.

It's Not Gaza's Economy, It's Palestinian Aggression

Gaza'a poverty is blamed in some circles for Palestinian violence. It's actually the other way around.

Pocono And NASCAR's New Rule Sagacity Debate

Here's what you need to know about race drivers as frauds and hypocrites - Kyle Busch griped about the restrictor plate-draft duct package being phased into NASCAR "It's boring as (hell)."   Then in the Pocono 400 he screamed "Can't f---king pass," this with aeroclean bodies and unrestricted power - and resultant superior throttle response.

It is all part of what is becoming the raging rule sagacity debate in the sport - the restrictor plate-draft duct package first used in the 2017 Lillys Xfinity 250 at Indianapolis, then used in the All-Star Race and open at Charlotte, and now debuting at Pocono and later Michigan for the Xfinity series.   The racing with this package has seen a palpable increase in passing with Ontario-style passing and repassing at The Brickyard and at Charlotte there was passing and drafting reminiscent of 1970s-era Charlotte racing as well as reminiscent of circa-1993 Daytona racing.   In its debut at Pocono, the package took a distant back seat to Kyle Busch's annihilation of the field; he routed the field in Stage 1, got a penalty so he had to pass the field while Paul Menard got into an eye-popping two-by-two push-draft slugfest to win Stage 2, then stormed to the lead on the outside of the Tunnel Turn on the ensuing restart and ran off.    He then flunked postrace inspection.

The Paul Menard car-cam view of the Pocono Green 250 - the fight for the lead swelled into an epic in the final lap of Stage 2

The plate package was easily the talk of Saturday and also in prerace for Sunday.   Word has now circulated that NASCAR will run the plate package at more Winston Cup Monster Energy series races in 2018, with scuttlebutt identifying potential sites as Kentucky, New Hampshire, and Indianapolis; also supposedly considered are Pocono's Summer 400 and Michigan's Yankee 400 weekend with both tracks seeing the package used in the Busch/Xfinity series.

NASCAR's Director of Aerodynamics Simulation and Design, Eric Jacuzzi, issued an apology for the perceived failure of the plate package at Pocono (curiously deleted) -

"Disappointing day today (Saturday June 2). Not enough cornering ability to make the package work through One and Three. Was worth a shot. We'll make it up to you at Michigan next week."

Eric Jacuzzi need not be hard on himself, for objectively the plate package did indeed work at Pocono.   The four-car draft battle where all four raced side-by-side all the way around the track - including all the way through the Tunnel Turn, something considered impossible even when in 1995 Tim Steele and Mike Wallace did so for the lead on some three separate laps in the ARCA Syracuse 150 at Pocono - indicated it in fact does work well.   And the more teams work on this package the better they will make it.

Some historical perspective is needed.   In 1990 Dale Earnhardt was in essence unpassable on the plate tracks - indeed the common theme among rival drivers was the draft no longer worked, especially when Earnhardt was out front.   Teams worked on their cars and engines, especially in the November-March open-season on testing allowed by NASCAR back then, while NASCAR made a spoiler enlargement to boost the power of the draft, and in 1991 the plate races erupted in memorable competition in all four races, especially that July's Diehard 500.

Elsewhere commentary on the plate package has been animated and after Pocono came the usual nonsensical criticisms that NASCAR needs to drop these big tracks for "more short tracks," never mind Pocono and other superspeedways are superior venues in competition, market strength, etc.   The gripe has come in some circles that "short tracks don't need aero packages to make good racing," a claim belied by the fact fendered short track racecar classes run downforce-style bodies with big clear-vu spoilers, some form of engine restriction, and bias-ply tires - and even the Modifieds on the Tour as well as local Mods also run some form of engine restriction and bias-ply tires.   In other words short tracks need "special packages" because the model of low-downforce aeroclean bodies with unrestricted power and radial tires simply doesn't work.

Kyle Busch's runaway in the Pocono Green 250 brings to mind his dominance of the 2017 Overtons Truck 150 at Pocono  - a racing vehicle package that is a good approximation of the plate package used in 2018's 250 - until his wreck on a mid-race restart.  It is an indication he's figured out how to engineer his racecars for this track like few others have, though his postrace penalty in 2018 casts some shadow.


There is also the angle of the 400 - what if that race had run the plate-draft duct package?   As it was, Martin Truex's semi-upset win showed Kyle Busch and erstwhile race dominator Kevin Harvick weren't the duopoly this race seemed to have for so long.   One thus suspects the Menard-Custer-Allgaier-Cindric epic in the 250 would have been replicated and then some by the Cup guys in the 400 if that race had run the plate package.

So it's become that for now every race will be some kind of forum on this plate package given its success at opening up passing.   It also is a raging discussion amid a noticeable surge in enthusiasm for the sport in recent races, with widespread fan enthusiam for Martin Truex at Pocono in clear evidence as he surged to the win.

NASCAR thus can see something it has lacked for so long - a positive outlook for the future.

Obama Kisses His Own Ass

And yep, his nitwit bumkissing assistant Ben Rhodes is back with a memoir on his boss that shows how much an idiot he is (and Rhodes as well).

Revisiting the U.S. Role in Three Mideast Crises

Israel, Iran, and other MidEast crises have created a myth about the US role that persists today - the myth of aggression that never happened.

What's Wrong With NASCAR Driver Opposition To Draft Duct Racecar Package

Note: originally published June 2, it has been updated on June 4:

Jeff Gluck spoke to Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman, Ryan Blaney, and Christopher Bell about NASCAR's restrictor plate-draft duct package used at the All Star Race and All Star Open and they expressed "concerns" about greater use of this package.  Their concerns can be summarized thusly - the cars were "easy to drive" and "you want them to be more difficult to drive."

It's an old argument against this kind of racing and it's deeply flawed.   Kaz Grala offered a great perspective -  "We're all just biased because we like to have more control in our hands."   It's an insight into the narrowness of focus by so many drivers. The larger issue - define "more control in our hands."   It is simple fact that the races with the most horsepower and highest level of throttle response, braking, and acceleration have seen the lowest incidence of passing.

The argument made here brings to mind how Carl Edwards forever pushed for lower downforce, and as Gluck notes, his opinion has now been discredited by the racing at Charlotte and Indianapolis.


Matt Weaver of Autoweek expanded the argument before Pocono in a silly missive claiming the sport's identity is "on the line" with expanded use of the plate-draft duct package. He rehashes driver quotes while ignoring the gross hypocrisy showcased in Kyle Busch's post-Pocono "Can't f--king pass!" radio rant during the Pocono 400.

"In a true sporting environment the best teams win.......I think that advocating for the 'All Star package' threatens the very idea of motorsports as a concept."

No, Matt Weaver, it doesn't.   Contrary to Christopher Bell, racing is not about pushing the limit of the tire, it's about pushing your car into the lead and retaking the lead when challenged for it.   Making this package more common to the sport doesn't sacrifice "sporting integrity" - which Weaver doesn't credibly define or seem to understand.   "Does it really want to make over half its races just short of a random number generator?  These are supposed to be the best stock car drivers in the world, not the luckiest or most fortunate."   Yet Weaver cannot cite examples to buttress this argument.

The reality that making the cars underpowered and overgripped relative to everything else and making the draft more important is what increases passing now seems to be sinking into the sport more and more; reading the scuttlebutt the consensus seems clear this package will be integrated into the sport more and more, perhaps beginning at Indianapolis in September with the Xfinity series already running it there and elsewhere.

That some drivers still oppose the concept stems from their own myopia about "having control."   Cars difficult to drive is not the same as difficult to race, and in the two races to date run with the restrictor plate-draft duct package - 2017 Lillys Xfinity 250 at Indianapolis and now the All Star Race B and A-mains - the racing saw prolific passing and drafting, which by any objective competition measure is more, not less, difficult.

The further argument made is that restrictor plate draft/pack racing produces "random results," as though a driver against his will is thrown into the lead by the draft.   Such a scenario of course does not exist, which makes the argument foolish.

In the finish of the decade David Ragan won the 2013 Winston 500 - some think this somehow illegitimate because he hasn't followed up with another win, but that's irrelevant.   The reality as shown here is HE made the moves to win, HE earned the win, there is nothing remotely "random" about it.   That loudmouthed Carl Edwards got outdrafted by Ragan makes it all the more delicious


The bottom line remains the argument against this restrictor plate-draft duct package doesn't work - NASCAR wasted some twenty years fighting against downforce and nowhere did the concept ever succeed - not in 1998, not in  the John Darby era running the garage, not with the ill-advised car Of Tomorrow concept.   What NASCAR would have seen if it had figured out the restrictor plate-draft duct package in 1997 is easy to imagine - far more lead changes and far better racing.

And the argument seems to betray a myopia of history, for what transpired in the two plate-draft duct races run to date was as old-school as one can find -

The racing with the plate-draft duct package brings back the true old-school of NASCAR - the power within what the track and cars can handle and the draft being more important.   This is what built racing in general and NASCAR in particular - and bringing the draft to the other superspeedways is a necessity and thus an opportunity.

UPDATE:  The Pocono Green 250 debuted the package at Pocono and it turned into the most graphic runaway win in a while.   Kyle Busch annihilated the field, breaking the draft with little difficulty, though he had to execute a highside pass into the lead in the Tunnel Turn.   A penalty at the end of Stage One put Busch in the back and the battle for Stage Two was a close chase until on the final lap Paul Menard challenged for the lead and the battle became an eye-popping two-abreast sidedraft war all the way around, including all the way through the Tunnel Turn, something we haven't seen since Mike Wallace and Tim Steele raced all the way through the Tunnel on some three separate laps in the 1995 ARCA Syracuse 150.   

Busch's runaway was curiously seen in some circles as a failure of the package when in reality it showed how well engineered his car was - one also recalls Busch dominating the Pocono Truck 150 (the closest approximation of this package) in 2017 before crashing out at the start of the third stage.  Things got curiouser and curiouser when Busch's #18 flunked postrace - reportedly with an illegally raked left front fender.

A key angle is mentioned in Chase Elliott's postrace comment that the package works better as the cars get wide open, which they struggled to get at Pocono but which we expect the teams to iron out the more they work on the cars with this package.  

Pocono International Raceway At Fifty

The inaugural Schaefer 500, the debut race at Pocono's 2.5-mile triangle, July 3, 1971

Pocono International Raceway is, by both design and circumstance, the most unusual major racing facility in the country. It is virtually a 1,025-acre gravestone to the frenzied superspeedway-building craze of the 1960s.........

So wrote Richard Benyo in SUPERSPEEDWAY: The Story Of NASCAR Grand National Racing in 1977.  2018 marks the 50th season of racing at Pocono International Raceway and the speedway's history has been curiously overlooked in racing history.    It began with the rapid development of the Pocono Mountains region in the 1950s with the expansion of the Interstate Highway system.   Read a 1970 historical outline for the track...........

In the mid-1950s the concept for Pocono International Raceway was born as the product of informal discussions between Pocono Mountain business people.  Each agreed that as racefans they would like to see a major championship racing facility on the East Coast.  Their initial interest led to the formation of Racing Incorporated in 1957 and the resulting plans for Pocono International Raceway

Doctor Joseph Mattoili, a Philadelphia-area dentist, and his wife Rose, a foot doctor, were the prime movers behind Racing Incorporated, but when a 1,025-acre site near Long Pond, a famous duck-hunting stream, was purchased - at $100,000, a strikingly affordable land deal - the company was run by fellow fan David Montgomery, but he faced that he had no one to run the track. He hired short track veterans to help run the company.

The track was built as five tracks in one - a 3/4-mile oval within the main superoval; a 1.8-mile road course and a 3-mile road course, a revolutionary 2.5 mile triangle, and the mammoth frontstretch would serve as a drag-racing strip.   With just three turns, each turn was banked differently, each turn representing another speedway - Trenton for the 14-degree banked Turn One, Indianapolis for the eight-degree second turn, named The Tunnel Turn because it bridges the tunnel entrance to the infield, and Milwaukee for the relatively sweeping 6-degree Turn Three.

The 1975 Schaefer 500

By 1969, however, only the small oval and the mammoth frontstretch was finished, when the very first race was run on May 4.   It was a supermodified race and tragedy struck right away with the death of Troy Ruttman Jr. in the ensuing race.   The track ran week after week as it struggled to finish the superoval.   By 1970 Montgomery was fired and Mattioli was in command with USAC veteran Bill Marvel hired as GM.   Pocono got a five-year agreement for a 500-mile Indycar race for 1971, but to get the 500 Pocono also had to run a 500-miler for USAC's stock car division, something other USAC tracks weren't required to do.

The Schaefer 500 took off in 1971 and despite period rain over the years Pocono drew well.   The USAC stock car race, under ACME Super Saver supermarket sponsorship, first ran in September 1971 but rain interruption led the race after 1971 to run in late July, an off-week for NASCAR's Winston Cup Grand National tour.   Richard Petty and Bobby Allison thus entered the ASS 500 with Petty winning it in 1973.

USAC withdrew its stock car division after a late-April 1975 500 won by Ron Keselowski - he of the now-famous Keselowski NASCAR clan - and NASCAR arrived in August 1974 with Purolator sponsorship.

It was 1975 that NASCAR at Pocono first established itself as compelling competition with controversy over David Pearson's win and a highly competitive affair.    1976 was even more exciting as the lead changed 47 times and Pearson's blown tire with two to go sent Richard Petty to a popular win.

Petty's 1980 crash, which broke his neck, was a fateful turning point for his career.


The decline in Indycar racing hurt Pocono as it continued with the race until 1990; driver complaints about the physical plant were addressed with money freed up from the cancellation of the Indycar race.   NASCAR's rising popularity benefitted Pocono as it did other speedways, with highly competitive racing year after year.

The 1982 Mountain Dew may have been Pocono's greatest race.

Tim Richmond, of Ashland, Ohio, was brought to stock cars in the 1980 Coca Cola 500 and he won four times in the 1982-84 period, but it was hooking up with third-year team owner Rick Hendrick that erupted Richmond's career to legendary heights, with the 1986 Summer 500 Richmond's greatest win.

The track also ran the Modifieds, in the 1970s running them on the 2.5-miler.  By 1980 they'd switched back to the infield short track.

The track saw spirited competition as well in 1990 in an exciting Geoff Bodine win.

Hard crashes have been a reality in Pocono's history.........

.........and when Darrell Waltrip took out rising superstar Davey Allison it became one of the worst.

Davey's death before the 1993 Summer 500 rocked all of racing and his memory permeated postrace reaction.

With the sport's technology arms race the racing was affected, but in the mid-1990s Pocono saw a renaissance of passing.

NASCAR's new Truck Series arrived and in 2010 saw a spirited affair

And in 2017 an even more exciting affair broke out.

Indycars returned in 2015 and the most competitive running ever broke out in 2017.


Happy 50 years, Pocono - keep at it for fifty more, and beyond.