Formula One world championship contender Kimi Raikonnen, in his blazing qualifying lap for the Monaco Grand Prix two years ago, roars through the streets of Monte Carlo.
** MONACO GRAND PRIX. A light day of politics, needless to say. The Formula One circuit hit Monaco this weekend, running the Grand Prix of Monaco through the colorful streets of Monte Carlo. The video above gives you a sense of the view. Reigning world champion Fernando Alonso of Spain led from start to finish through all the twists and turns, beating his British teammate Lewis Hamilton with the British McLaren-Mercedes team by four seconds. Brazil’s Felipe Massa was a distant third for Italy’s Ferrarri team. Finland’s Kimi Raikonnen, now racing for Ferrarri, had engine trouble and finished eighth. Alonso and Hamilton, a 22-year old rookie, are tied after five races in the hunt for the F1 world title. The globe-spanning F1 circuit hits North America in the next few weeks, with the Canadian and US Grand Prixs.
** BIG CALIFORNIA PENSION FUND JOINS COALITION PRESSURING EXXON MOBIL. California’s massive Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS), has joined the coalition of two dozen institutional investors pressing Exxon Mobil to regulate its greenhouse gas emissions, invest more in renewable energy, and remove Stanford economist (and chief economic advisor to Republican presidential frontrunner Rudy Giuliani) from the Exxon Mobil board. As chairman of Exxon Mobil’s Public Issues committee, say the investors and their environmentalist allies, Boskin has refused to meet to discuss climate change.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. A 16th day of searching by thousands of US troops south of Baghdad for the two remaining American soldiers captured in an ambush by Al Qaeda is nearing a close. The prisoners have still not been located.
** “CRAZY” RUDY. There’s been some chatter, including in the NWN forum, about Ronald Reagan calling Rudy Giuliani “crazy” in his diaries. It turns out that Reagan wrote the comment when he learned that Giuliani was proposing to indict Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who many believed looted his country.
Reagan: Jim Kelly NSC came in to report Philippine legis. is giving us trouble on renewing our mil. bases there. And Giuliani (U.S. Attorney) is talking of drawing up an indictment against Marcos. I think he’s crazy.
That kind of puts a different spin on things, don’t you think? Giuliani successfully prosecuted Michael Milken and other corporate takeover artists of the 1980s.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum.
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| Comments (34) |
What a beautiful race course. It puts the NASCAR courses to shame.
Oh Oui!
Isn’t the Indy 500 today? What kind of American patriot are you, Bill?
The kind who only has time to watch one race today.
Oh, that kind. lol
I have a group of young Israelis visiting tour US …they will attend F1 in IN ..hang out at IU for a few days before going to NY and Cape Cod then home to army duty….
Mr. Giuliani did take on some good prosecutions as United States Attorney for New York.
The PERS move against Boskin means he is going to be big political fodder in the campaign.
Dr. Hemlock, Giuliani had quite a colorful prosecution record. He’s not talking about it now.
Barbara, that’s a very interesting tour. Are these folks in the Israeli army on a regular basis, or is this just a tour of duty?
The other pension-fund news I heard, today, was that the teachers’ pension fund is something like 13% short of the levels it needs to be at to meet its commitments over the next decade.
The shorting of pensions and other benefit funds is a pervasive problem — from corporations; to gov’t agencies at the ederal, state, and local levels; to bizarre places like the Catholic Church, which is having problems with some dioceses having radically underfunded pension funds for retiring priests, and in some places dealing with Detroit-like problems — a “customer” base that has shrunk, supporting a previous generation of “workers” who served a larger population of more devout Catholics.
RM…
Here’s a link to a Sac Bee story dealing with CalSTRS funding…
http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/194586.html
the 2 older mid twenties and are brothers and are officers in reserves and obligated to apprx r months of reserve duty until their late 40s their 18 yr old cousin is going in for 3 yr mandatory service …the oldest brother is here with his gorgeous girlfriend who is 20 a model and just finished her 2 year service in army …she immigrated at age 4 from Russia with her parents and brother…
should read approx 2 months of reserve…which every Israeli is obligated to do..not just officers…last night we stayed up and watched Blood Diamond which is actually a very good film…their father (and uncle) is deceased was one hell of a soldier and had several dangerous missions into africa…
RM, isn’t there another way to put the state’s burgeoning public pension/benefits problem?
That the public sector, influenced by public employee unions, has taken on commitments that it can’t sustain?
It’s interesting how few vets, relatively speaking, and certainly increasingly true of the political class, there are in America and how many there are in Israel.
A 20-year old Russian model? He might have his hands full. Though if she came to israel at age 4, and is only 20, she missed most of the stuff at home that went along with the fall of the Soviet Union.
Incidentally, I heard that Ashley Judd’s husband won the Indy 500.
Probably due to us not having a draft…as I once more move for the obvious.
Yes, he did win a rain shortened Indy 500. Ms. Patrick finished 8th.
I think there is a lot to be said for national service.
It doesn’t have to be in the Armed Forces.
It could be in the Peace Corps, VISTA, Americorps, things like that.
It tends to develop a sense of a bigger picture.
Bill,
Here’s a shocker for you…we are in complete agreement on that issue.
I’ve belived in some form of national service ever since I read A Nation of Sheep in the early 1960′s.
I can’t look it up right now. Who wrote that book?
The book was written by William J. Lederer, who also wrote the Ugly American.
Just looked it up on Amazon…it was first published in 1961.
Ah. Clearly a Communist then.
No…not me. I had already read and rejected Marx. Never was my cup of tea.
However, Lederer’s book may have been a one of the motivating factors in my going in the Army.
Actually, I meant the author. Anyone who writes a book called The Ugly American clearly hates America …
Not true…it was quite a good book. They actually made it into a movie which starred Marlon Brando.
As I recall the book, and it is a distant memory, it dealt with how our foreign policy tended to garner us enemies. Author didn’t come across as hating this country.
Like I say, I remember it to be a very good book and an eye-opener for someone in the 11th grade.
The movie focused on our actions in Southeast Asia and was produced in 1963, while the book was first published in 1958 (thanks Google).
Finally, yes…I misread you comments.
As a follow-up, here’s a blurb from the Norton site about the book:
“First published in 1958, The Ugly American became a runaway national bestseller for its slashing exposé of American arrogance, incompetence, and corruption in Southeast Asia. Based on fact, the book’s eye-opening stories and sketches drew a devastating picture of how the United States was losing the struggle with Communism in Asia. Combining gripping storytelling with an urgent call to action, the book prompted President Eisenhower to launch a study of our military aid program that led the way to much-needed reform.”
http://www2.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall98/uglyamerican.htm
Chat with you tomorrow…reading calls and then need some sleep. Feeble minded old guy has a 5K in the morning.
May everyone have a good Memorial Day.
she was born in russia . but she is an israeli model..all 5ft 11 of her. she is very sweet does not appear all that ambitious…she has an interview with a major agency in ny…she is wrapped up in her guy…which is understandable…they were all teens during ome of the worse terrorist attacks Israel hs ever suffered. she lost a 17 cousin in the infamous tel aviv disco attack. her uncle committed suicide afterwards…they are all very cynical about israeli politics …they are too young to be so cynical but they are…beautful tough and cynical… their father was very very tough and very beautiful but not cynical…he was one of the great romantics…he would have loved this years james bond …he would have just loved it.
Bill, you and I are in agreement about pensions. The unions negotiated agreements with weak public officials that we cannot sustain in the long run. There must be a correction….
Didn’t Marlon Brando hate America too? lol
The problem of arrogance is not unique to the US alone. All large states face the same issues with smaller neighbours. Only, in case of the US it has global implications!
I would say there are two important aspects to this:
One – We will go it alone! Villepin put it quite nicely here
http://www.thenewsroom.com/details/128370?c_id=turk
Two – Democracy within the US NEEDS autocrats and dictators elsewhere. Notice how Musharraf has the US blessings and has totally lost it within Pakistan.
Net net – the effect of US intervention is usually quite the opposite of what the American public is fed by the leadership of the day. The truth comes out much later!
Something of an exaggeration, I think, needless to say.
>Net net – the effect of US intervention is usually quite the opposite of what the American public is fed by the leadership of the day. The truth comes out much later!
I think there is a lot to be said for national service.
Hear hear.
That was one of the features of Warner’s stump speech, before he aborted the presidential run that was in the works… Sigh.
Solon: I think Bill is pulling your leg, with the “hates America” talk. I can’t imagine him saying that Faux News line with a straight face. *g*
Re: pensions — sure, you can cast it as the state making commitments larger than it can reasonably meet. And clearly the system they entered into during the dot-com madness, where overfunding from cap-gains would be passed into beneficiaries’ guaranteed income levels, even if assets subsequently declined again, was crazy.
Nonetheless, given that this problem is, as I said, pervasive, I think we need to find a way to make it harder for large organizations, whether governmental, corporate, or other (see, again, the Catholic Church) to use future benefits promises (including ones that are clearly not possible to keep) as a bargaining chip in current negotiations. The problem is that with the mentality that managers all seem to have — “Must make this month’s/quarter’s/year’s numbers at all costs!” — it becomes far too tempting to promise the world, as long as it can be delivered, uh, later. It’s a way for the managers to hide costs from their managers, and ultimately from shareholders / voters / stakeholders.
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