Half the world away, they're revving the engines. There'll be one more brief practice Saturday before the qualifiers, but the first two practice sessions have already gone down in the books.
In both sessions. returning seven-times champion Michael Schumacher was trumped in the timesheets by Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg though they were able to compete for the top places, unlike their early session where they finished eighth and 10th respectively. Lewis Hamilton was half a second off the top spot while teamate and reigning champion Jenson Button was 0.2s further back to complete a top four of Mercedes-powered cars.
But the times offer little insight into possible performance for the qualifying session, since most teams concentrated on long stints, testing a race's worth of fuel being onboard like the conditions for the beginning of Sunday's race.
On paper, Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso disappointed for Ferrari before improving late on to take seventh and ninth respectively, though they were getting their heavy running out of the way early. On the other end of the times, Jarno Trulli lost some bodywork off his Lotus before going on to finish 19th behind teammate Heikki Kovalainen. the duo of Timo Glock and Lucas Di Grassi from Virgin Racing as well as Bruno Senna in the struggling HRT predictably following. Senna's colleague Karun Chandhok had been hopeful of making it out, but a technical issue put the Indian's rookie season in F1 on hold.
It was also disappointing for Red Bull, who - despite seeing him finish in fifth - endured brake problems in Sebastian Vettel's car, while a driveshaft issue forced Mark Webber to 17th. Their other team Toro Rosso were also plagued by problems, as Sebastien Buemi was sidelined throughout by a technical fault while Jaime Alguersuari, topping out at 16th, almost found the barriers with a spinout.
Renault made steady progress with Vitaly Petrov eighth and Robert Kubica 15th behind Vitantonio Liuzzi of Force India; his teammate Adrian Sutil was 12th with Rubens Barrichello between them. The Saubers of Pedro de la Rosa and Kamui Kobayashi sat 10th and 11th once all laps were completed.
You can download practice sessions one and two to get you in the mood for the quallies and race.
Best of the week: Thanks to the help of some activists that worked with Louis Psihoyos on his Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, a Santa Monica sushi restaurant was busted for selling endangered whale meat. The irony is that the restaurant was called “The Hump.”
According to a search warrant, marine mammal activists were served whale during three separate visits to the restaurant. Federal labs confirmed the meat came from a Sei whale, an endangered species protected by international treaties.
In October, two activists posing as customers went to The Hump and ordered “omakase,” which means they let the chef choose the choicest fresh fish. They also requested whale and pocketed a sample. The young women worked with Psihoyos to record the meal with a hidden camera and microphone. During the October restaurant visit, Crystal Galbraith and a friend who spoke fluent Japanese racked up a bill of $600, feasting on increasingly exotic dishes to gain the confidence of the waiters and chef.
A waitress brought out a dish of whale sushi, identifying the whale in English and Japanese, court documents said. The dish was listed as whale on the check and cost $85. Agents interviewed Kiyoshiro Yamamoto, the chef at The Hump for the past seven years, and he admitted serving whale to two young women. If convicted, Yamamoto could face a year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000. Galbraith, a vegan, said “It was heartbreaking to eat an endangered animal, but I knew that I was doing it to save” the whales. “We were there eating for four hours. I felt so full and sick.” I can't stand vegans and all the smug activist types, but if you can grind sushi for hours for your cause, then I applaud that. I once did the same thing, just to satisfy the sake demon that lives within.
Plus: WWTDD isn't letting Sean Penn off the hook this week either for his boastful bullshit.
Sean Penn has done tons of interviews lately to let people know that he doesn’t want attention for his charity work in Haiti, and to his credit he mostly talks about himself as part of a team. The only story that has come out about him specifically involved his rescue of two people from a collapsed building, a story with no evidence that it ever happened, or at least happened the way he said it did.
That part is kind of important because Penn has a history of exaggerating or just outright lying when reality doesn’t match his extremely high opinion of himself. That’s what he did after Katrina, and that might be what he’s doing with Haiti. I’ve now talked to two people who were both in Haiti as volunteers the same time Penn was, although he might not have noticed because it would be hard to see them from his gilded perch, high above all the real work being done.
After Penn did an interview with Anderson Cooper, CNN wrote, “Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn spent three weeks in Haiti following the January earthquake, living in a tent and witnessing first-hand the devastation.” According to one person I spoke to, this must mean he set up a tent in his Miami hotel room. “His camp tent had A/C, and he flew back every few days to Miami.”
When asked why he’s doing so much for Haiti, Penn told CBS… “…the first person served by service is the server … there’s no time that you’re over there, there’s not something to do to lend a hand.”
“Lend a hand” must mean “taunt people”…
“He took an old women from where I was working then said she couldn’t stay at his camp because it was “military” but he would show it to her, give her some blankets, then drop her off in a Haitian tent city. ASSHOLE. Why show someone something they can’t have.”
Penn told Larry King about the camp he lives in: “When the deputy secretary of the Haitian mission Kim Bolduc came, it was declared the most dangerous camp in Haiti.” It must be dangerous because of the sandtraps and dogleg par 5.
“Him and his friends were staying on / right next to the US military base on top of the hill, in the rich areas. Technically, at a country club (with a golf course).” And if those troops need any backup, they’ll be happy to know that Penn was strapped. Just like he was in New Orleans. For some reason.
“He was also packing heat (or appeared to - he had the handle of a revolver sticking out one of his front pockets)” You can actually see the handle of his gun in the beginning of this CNN video. But as much as I’d love for this entire thing to point out what a dickhead he is, to be fair, both people I talked to stressed that all the people who aren’t Sean Penn are doing an excellent job.
“The people around him, though, were absolutely great. They were treating patients, day in, day out, seemed to be doing a really good job for all i could tell. And quite frankly, that’s what counts.”
That is what counts but it’s also offensive as hell that this delusional prick would go on TV again and again, likening himself to the real volunteers. Those people are down in the mud, in the piles of bodies, helping the sick and scared, and they only do it because they want to help. They don’t have air conditioning and armed guards. They don’t get weekends off. They’re not on TV being told how amazing they are, and they didn’t spend today in DC dining at a 5 star restaurant with Haiti picking up the bill. Those people are better than Penn. They’re not the same. They are selfless. He is a narcissistic dickhead who doesn’t do anything without turning the spotlight on himself. Speaking of which, did someone put a Handsome Potion in my exfoliating face wash or did I get even better looking over night? Or was it both? Oh I wish everyone could see this. I think it might be both.
Also: Marc Delphine was fond of the logo a volunteer had designed for his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in Oregon: a silver star wrapped in a star-spangled banner that his designer told him evoked the letter 'D' for branding purposes. It certainly was a memorable symbol - it was already being used by the NHL's Columbus Blue Jackets.
The Blue Jackets PR staff was alerted by fans over Twitter of the trademark infringement, and passed the matter along to their legal department and then to the NHL. Delphine said he received a phone call from The Oregonian newspaper about misuse of the logo, followed by "30 consecutive emails" from around the country about it.
"They were all like, 'What are you doing with their logo?' and I was like, 'I didn't make the logo!' and we pulled it immediately," said Delphine, a Libertarian candidate making history as the first openly homosexual man to run for the U.S. Senate in Oregon. "I'm not interested in any kind of infringement. We don't even need a logo," he was like.
Delphine said a volunteer associated with his Web site developer created the logo and donated it to the campaign. As you can see, the Blue Jackets' current logo (right) was simply flipped from left to right and the red circle synonymous with the Ohio state flag was removed. Instead of a 'D' the logo actually makes a 'C' for Columbus.
Sometimes you get what you pay for, according to Delphine. "I don't know if you know anything about Libertarian candidates, but they typically don't have a lot of money coming in. I was thinking this was so nice, but it was too good to be true," said Delphine, a self-professed "huge sports fan" but not a hockey fan. "It's not very original." The logo was removed from the candidate's official Web site, though it remained on Delphine's Facebook page. He said he hoped his candidacy wouldn't become synonymous with this logo foul-up. "If anything, I hope this raises awareness for the Columbus Blue Jackets," said Delphine.
And: One of the world's largest studies of the contraceptive pill has found that women who have taken it can expect longer lives and are less likely to die from any cause, including cancer and heart disease. Oh yeah, and no babies!
British researchers said their study should reassure many millions of women across the world who take oral birth control pills. They found no link between the drugs and an increased long-term risk of dying sooner.
The research, published in the British Medical Journal, followed 46,000 women for nearly 40 years, creating "more than a million woman-years" of observation. The results showed that in the longer term, women who used oral contraception had a significantly lower rate of death from any cause, including heart disease and all cancers, compared with women who had never taken it. But the scientists said their findings may only be true for women who have taken older-style pills rather than those on more modern types of drugs, since their study began in 1968.
"Many women, especially those who used the first generation of oral contraceptives many years ago, are likely to be reassured by our results." Around 12 million women in the United States and some 3 million women in Britain take the pill. While the newest data also showed a slightly higher risk in women under 45 who are current or recent users of the pill, the researchers said the effects in younger women disappear after about 10 years and the benefits in older women outweigh the risks in younger women.
Best picture of the week:
there's no reason for Katy Perry to be at the Oscars, but I'm glad she went
Best bonus links:
• Thrashers Recall 48-Year-Old D Chelios - It's nice to see Chelly get back up to the majors after spending most of the season under the radar in the AHL. Welcome back, Gramps. You've still got it.
• Light Drinking Might Help Keep Women Slim - And make me more attractive to them. Though I don't know how long they'll stay slim - gals who get a little of that social lube in them may end up on their backs more often than not, and you know where that leads...
• No .XXX Yet: Internet Agency Delays Porn Decision - They were too busy reviewing the websites that might get the .xxx suffix to make their recommendation. It was exhausting...and required cleaning after.
• Archaeologists Identify Oldest Part Of China’s Great Wall - It was at the bottom, for those who were wondering.
• Panel: Women Need Chance To Avoid Repeat C-Section - The panel also recommended women not getting pregnant as the best way to keep away from the need to cut a baby out of your stomach.
• Pro Football Hall Of Famer Merlin Olsen Dies At 69 - And the appropriate response would be to send an FTD condolence bouquet.
• Seal Meat To Be On Menu At Canadian Parliament - Will Louis Psihoyos be there? It must be cheaper than moose and more tasty than caribou. Or there's some Indian tribes who they need to get some votes from.
• Nurses' Union: Care Does Not Include Sex - But we shared that intimate moment where you changed my bedpan and gave me a sponge bath so I wouldn't get bed sores. After shaving my privates and the catheter, I think we're comfortable enough to admit I wasn't the only one who enjoyed it.
• U.S. Sitting On Mother Lode Of Rare Tech-Crucial Minerals - All I had to read was "light rare earths include the minerals ranging from lanthanum to gadolinium on the periodic table of elements, while heavy rare earths range from terbium to lutetium" to know it was true.
• Fishermen's Fear: Public's 'Right To Fish' Shifting Under Obama? - Once again, those Washington fat cats are getting in the way a man's chance to get his pole and sit over a hole.
• Court Upholds 'Under God' In Pledge Of Allegiance - Indivisible, apparently in jurisprudence circles.
• Appetite May Be Partly Linked To Germs In The Gut -But still overwhelmingly linked to the tapeworm that live there who hungers for bacon and doughnuts. Daryl, my little buddy, I won't let you starve.
• Heidi Montag Hires A Psychic As Manager - I see failure in your future. Same as in your past.
• The Void Between Protons and Electrons Makes Us All Phantoms - In a matter of speaking. But there is a lot of space between our atoms. Let's hope we don't have any free radicals and quarks getting inside us.
• Brazil's Silva Quits Smoking After 50 Years - And will be able to feel better about stopping cancer in it's tracks. Those tracks are an insterstate freeway after five decades.
• Chinese Zoo Blamed For Death Of 11 Siberian Tigers - To be technically correct, it was really the snack bar next to the tiger den. Or you can blame the teriyaki tiger beef bowl lunch special.
• Norway Doomsday Seed Vault Hits 1/2 Million Mark -Unfortunately, I don't think that any of those seeds are kind bud. Dude, if the world goes to shit, you're going to want some indica strains to go along with your mustard seed and corriander.
Worst of the week: Two of the oldest people in the world have died on the same day.
Mary Josephine Ray, who was certified as the oldest person living in the United States, died Sunday at age 114 years, 294 days. She died at a nursing home in Westmoreland but was active until about two weeks before her death, her granddaughter Katherine Ray said. So, what...the last two weeks she was just laying there dying?
"She just enjoyed life. She never thought of dying at all," Ray said. "She was planning for her birthday party." At 114, she should have maybe thought it was a possibility.
Ray died just hours before Daisey Bailey, who was 113 years, 342 days, said L. Stephen Coles, a director of the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks and studies old people and certifies those 110 or older, called supercentenarians. It's fascinating, but I'm against them tagging and tracking them. "It's very rare that two of our supercentenarians die on the same day," he said. No shit?
Bailey, who was born March 30, 1896, died in Detroit. At least le live a long life, because the minute you move to Detroit, you might as well die. She had suffered from dementia, said her family, surprising no one.
Ray, even with her recent decline, managed an interview with a reporter last week. She was the oldest person in the United States and the second-oldest in the world. Bailey was also recorded as the oldest person ever to live in New Hampshire, which I'm sure she tops by leaps and bounds.
Ray was born May 17, 1895, in Bloomfield, Prince Edward Island, Canada. She moved to the United States at age 3. Ray's husband, Walter, died in 1967. Survivors include two sons, eight grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren.
The oldest living American is now Neva Morris, of Ames, Iowa, at age 114 years, 216 days. The oldest person in the world is Japan's Kama Chinen at age 114 years, 301 days. Watch your back, Chinen!
Plus: Lindsay Lohan is a goddamn moron. The chronically unemployable failure is suing financial company E-Trade for $100 million for using her name in its latest commercial about a boyfriend-stealing "milkaholic" baby. Her first name. That millions of other people have.
In the ad, which debuted during this year's Super Bowl, a baby boy apologizes to his girlfriend for not calling her the night before. "And that milkaholic Lindsay wasn't over?" the baby girl asks before another baby girl pops into the screen saying, "Milk-a-whaaat?" And somehow, she thinks that applies to her.
"Many celebrities are known by one name only, and E-Trade is using that knowledge to profit," Lohan's lawyer, Stephanie Ovadia, said in a statement. "They're using her name as a parody of her life. Why didn't they use the name Susan? This is a subliminal message. Everybody's talking about it and saying it's Lindsay Lohan." No, you ambulance chaser, only you are. This is the only time anyone - ever - made that connection.
The spokesperson for Grey Group, which produced the "milkaholic" commercial, said that they "just used a popular baby name that happened to be the name of someone on the account team."
Also: 50-year mystery over the ‘cursed bread’ of Pont-Saint-Esprit, which left residents suffering hallucinations, has been solved after a writer discovered the US had spiked the bread with LSD as part of an experiment.
In 1951, a quiet, picturesque village in southern France was suddenly and mysteriously struck down with mass insanity and hallucinations. At least five people died, dozens were interned in asylums and hundreds afflicted. For decades it was assumed that the local bread had been unwittingly poisoned with a psychedelic mould. Now, however, an American investigative journalist has uncovered evidence suggesting the CIA peppered local food with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of a mind control experiment at the height of the Cold War.
On August 16, 1951, the inhabitants were suddenly racked with frightful hallucinations of terrifying beasts and fire. One man tried to drown himself, screaming that his belly was being eaten by snakes. An 11-year-old tried to strangle his grandmother. Another man shouted: “I am a plane”, before jumping out of a second-floor window, breaking his legs. He then got up and carried on for 50 yards. Another saw his heart escaping through his feet and begged a doctor to put it back. Many were taken to the local asylum in strait jackets. Time magazine wrote at the time: “Among the stricken, delirium rose: patients thrashed wildly on their beds, screaming that red flowers were blossoming from their bodies, that their heads had turned to molten lead.”
Eventually, it was determined that the best-known local baker had unwittingly contaminated his flour with ergot, a hallucinogenic mould that infects rye grain. Another theory was the bread had been poisoned with organic mercury. However, H P Albarelli Jr., an investigative journalist, claims the outbreak resulted from a covert experiment directed by the CIA and the US Army’s top-secret Special Operations Division (SOD) at Fort Detrick, Maryland. The scientists who produced both alternative explanations, he writes, worked for the Swiss-based Sandoz Pharmaceutical Company, which was then secretly supplying both the Army and CIA with LSD.
Albarelli came across CIA documents while investigating the suspicious suicide of Frank Olson, a biochemist working for the SOD who "fell" from a 13th floor window two years after the Cursed Bread incident. One note transcribes a conversation between a CIA agent and a Sandoz official who mentions the “secret of Pont-Saint-Esprit” and explains that it was not “at all” caused by mould but by diethylamide, the D in LSD.
And: "Due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events, the Itawamba County School District has decided not to host a prom Itawamba Agricultural High School this year. It is our hope that private citizens will organize an event for the juniors and seniors. However, at this time, we feel that it is in the best interest of the Itawamba County School District, after taking into consideration the education, safety and well being of our students, that the Itawamba County School District not host a junior/senior prom... We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this causes anyone."
That's the response to whether or not a lesbian student could attend prom with her female date. Once again, the south proves it's anything but deep.
Worst picture of the week:
could have been the best of the week, except that fright mask from the neck up
Worst bonus links:
• Minority Births On Track To Outnumber White Births - Oh. Shit.
• Tom Delay: People Are Unemployed Because They Want To Be - And you're a fucking idiot because you want to be too. Should we be worried that this comes from somebody in our government, or that he's talking with the conviction that he think's he's speaking for Americans? Ask the unemployed what they think.
• AP News Break: California Murder Suspect Broke Parole - Especially the part about not killing anyone while on parole. Good thing AP news got to the bottom of that mental puzzle.
• Rocker Billy Corgan Rips Into John Mayer - You can deny rumors you're banging Jessica Simpson by not answering questions about it, but when you take on her blabbermouth ex, you're confirming it. Get back to making good music, not having a bitchfight with a douchebag.
• Hoped-For Drop In Childbirth Deaths Not Happening - I was actually hoping for a drop in childbirths - not like we need to overpopulate or anything. But taking out the source works just the same...
• State Sen. Roy Ashburn Says He's Homosexual - We covered his DUI arrest coming from a gay bar in last weekend's edition. And what do you know - the stanuch anti-gay politician was a self-loathing, closeted gay himself.
• God Helps With Personal Decisions, Most Americans Say - all you need to know about this is in the first sentance: Most Americans believe God is involved in their everyday lives and concerned with their personal well-being, though the well-educated and higher earners are less likely than their counterparts to believe in such divine intervention, a new study suggests.
• Harry Smith Colonoscopy To Air On `Early Show' / Samsung, Panasonic Start Selling 3-D TVs This Week - The timing is impecable.
• Georgia Man Who Posted 'Elton John Must Die' Arrested - I was totally unaware that posting a video of yourself on the interweb holding a sign that says "Elton John must die" is the same as making terroristic threats. America must be destroyed.
• Woman Sells Two Souls For $1,983 - Amazing that it didn't get yanked from eBay, since human souls normally don't meet the reserve.
• Justin Timberlake's Clothing Line Is Fur-Free - Sorry, but when you have a men's line, it better fucking be fur and pelt free. And the fact that you have fur-tinged goods, well...
• Vienna Boys Choir Admits Possible Sexual Abuses - Most of them occured when they were checking to see who was a soprano. I love they're willing to admit "possile" sexual abuses, as if they're not sure that molesting underage boys constitutes abuse.
• Palin Crossed Border For Canadian Health Care - Queen of the right-wing hypocrites. The more she keeps putting the spotlight on herself, the more different ways she finds to shut them off. That's the dim leading the dimming.
• Chief Exorcist Says The Devil Is In The Vatican, Blames Pedophilia Scandal On Satan - How totally convenient is it that your moral enemy is responsible for the misdeeds in your house? But it's hard to tell which is more ridiculous - that Satan is being blamed in all seriousness, or that they have a position for chief exorcist.
• Jessica Simpson: "I Don't Brush My Teeth!" - I think she's used up all of her hot girl karma. She films ear candling, yo-yos here weight, and now has a dirty mouth. Keep your nastiness to yourself. It's official, you're a pig Jessica Simpson.
• GOP Leader's Skinny-Dip Confession Stuns Utah - And more surprising was that it wasn't with any of his multiple wives. They ought to give him credit for taking off his magic Mormon golden underpants and not getting them wet.
• Authorities: No Illegal Drugs Found In Haim Case - Just like that stash of "non-illegal" drugs that took down Brittany Murphy. Then again, most people only think that illegal drugs are the only ones that get abused.
