Fascinating

I'm sure you are aware of the event that those over at Talking Points Memo are calling Cheney's Torture Tour. I do like the new revelation that is coming out about "enhanced interrogation techniques." How's that for a euphemism? Now we are being told that torture stopped before Bush's second term and may have been mainly used to tie Saddam Hussein to Al-Qaeda. A connection that most everyone that pays attention knows was impossible because Iraq was a secular government and Al-Qaeda is a far right nonsecular terrorist group. Now that we know that we have Dick Cheney and his little torture tour and he's claiming that since Obama says we will no longer torture that we are less safe than when Cheney and Bush were torturing people. But if we were so much safer when they tortured, as Josh Marshall asks, why did they stop in 2004?

The NASCAR All Star Race

I usually end up watching the All Star Race every year. I got hooked on it in 1992 when Kyle Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Davey Allison played bumper cars on the last lap. I love when Earnhardt drives Petty into the grass on the back stretch. If memory serves, I believe Davey Allison broke a couple of ribs on the last lap crash. This was the first time I ever jumped out of my chair while watching a sporting event at home. The All Star Race can be something special when it all comes together. You can see the last lap of the 1992 All Star Race below.


This last Saturday night was just as good as 1992. Below is a video clip of part of the last 10 laps. NASCAR made a good decision by announcing that during the last ten laps yellow flag laps would not count. What this gave us was essentially three shootouts in one. Each time they crashed they just did it again. I will say one thing about Kyle Busch, who in this video below you will see causing chaos on the restart, he races these all star races like Dale Earnhardt did. Watching him race recently he reminds me of Dale. He drives to the front as hard as he can. In fact I am going to now call Kyle Busch "Little Earnhardt" or "Little 'E'" for short. A lot of fans hate him now but he's going to be a legend before he is through.

A little over a minute into this video below you will see Ryan Newman take his #39 car to the high side in turn 4 which then puts three cars side by side. Not something you ever really want to do in turn 4 at this track. There's no room for that and you will see what it causes. We had a few friends here that night and we were hootin' and hollerin' at the TV and just carryin' on like fools. There is nothing like watching a classic all star race live. Now that I watch the replay I finally get to hear what the announcers were saying. I had the center channel on my sound system turned way down and all we could hear was the cars. I love being able to do that. Kudos to those drivers and their performance on Saturday night. Nobody got hurt and all those guys drove their asses off. You could feel how hard they were driving. It was beautiful and ballsy