Local Race Tracks

One of my hobbies recently is to find local race tracks on Google Maps, study the geography, etc. A few of my favorites:

Laguna Seca

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The local legend, and home to the US MotoGP race. Anne and I will be there next weekend.

Infineon Raceway (Sears Point)

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Site of my very first track day, AMA and AFM races, and a great place to watch racing.

Thunderhill Raceway

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Site of most of my track days (including one yesterday), AFM races, and a very fast track.

Reno-Fernley Raceway

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Never been there, but I hear it's epic...too many turns to memorize.

Setting Priorities

This year your highest priority will be your priority.

America's Health Plan: No Mandate, and a Public Option...PLEASE

I've been reading up on Congress' latest attempt at health care reform and I'm a little concerned. So far it looks like it will have a mandate to insure, and there's a nominal public plan in the mix. But there isn't a funding mechanism yet, and such a plan would have to survive the amendment process, where Republicans and corporatist Democrats could strip or water down the public plan.

One thing's clear: mandates do not belong in this or any other bill. Forcing Americans to purchase overpriced insurance plans won't reduce the cost of care, won't achieve universal coverage, and isn't fair. And without a real public option that could cover everyone it's not reform at all.

Mommy's Not A Stripper...I Swear

Getty Brothers Blog About Being Rich

The Chronicle has given two Getty brothers a blog so that they can write about what it's like to be rich. Thanks to SFBG for scooping this so I don't have to link directly to a worthless rag like Chron. You just can't make this stuff up:

...We're more famous for being rich than we really are rich. But we have enough to belong to the leisure class, meaning we get to spend very little of our time doing anything we don't feel like, and we have means to sample, if not to gorge on, pleasures that most people, sad to say, won't likely ever share in -- things like yacht trips and safaris, ludicrously expensive wine, and private jet travel. You can be richer than we are, but you can't live a whole lot better without mere ostentation.

Please tell me this is all just a big joke. Two idiots who inherited an oil fortune, funded the political career of Gavin Newsom, and are generally a drain on society...what is it they have to offer?

The Racetrack...Marin County, CA

Goths in Hot Weather

http://www.gothsinhotweather.com/

Almost as funny as frogs in a blender...

Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny's

Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny's

Medical bills drive majority of U.S. bankruptcies

It's no surprise that more than half of US bankruptcies are caused by medical calamities...at least to those of us in the reality-based community. A new study in the American Journal of Medicine puts it in stark terms:

In 2007, before the current economic downturn, an American family filed for bankruptcy in the aftermath of illness every 90 seconds. Most troubling about this statistic is that three-quarters of them were insured, according to the authors. They also found that the share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 50 percent between 2001 and 2007.

...

The odds that a bankruptcy had a medical cause were 2.38 fold higher in 2007 than in 2001.

And all this data is from before the catastrophic economic downturn of 2008.

I bet the Republicans try to spin this as a massive problem with personal responsibility. Those profligate people shouldn't have contracted all those illnesses!

Bruno Does Christian Rock

Texts From Last Night

My coworker Matt pointed me towards one of the funniest sites I've ever encountered:
http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/

People forward their funny/scandalous/ridiculous text messages to the site. I could spend hours reading this...a few classics:

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(507): drinking colt 45 because lando calrissian told me to

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(805): before i could say "i'm not that kind of girl", i was.

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(413): that girl last night was a 15
(1-413): wait she was 15?
(413): no like black jack not sure if you should hit it

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Oh boy...another time-wasting site.