IndyCar – Texas 600: Two-Driver Two-Step

indycar-2014-texas-carpenter-victory-laneWhile it’s certainly and advantage to run week in and week out on the IndyCar circuit, that doesn’t mean you have to run every race to succeed. Since the team owner became a part-time driver, the #20 Ed Carpenter Racing car became a threat with road course specialist Mike Conway handling the races with right turns and Ed driving only on the ovals. The results have seen Conway win at Long Beach and Carpenter start the Indy 500 on pole.

So it should come as much of a surprise that the so far winless driver of the #20 car was able to correct that quite quickly. In only his second start of 2014, Ed Carpenter put in a stellar race to pick up his first win of 2014.

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F1 Canadian Grand Prix: Perfect No More

When previewing the Canadian Grand Prix, I often referred to it as one of the most exciting races on the Formula One calendar. Once again, the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve played host to a race so exciting and so dramatic that you couldn’t pull yourself away because you would certainly miss something. In fact, the action was so continuous and intense that the cameramen and FOM race feed missed a whole pile of it as it was happening because they were too interested in crowd reaction shots.

While Mercedes looked like they could be the first team to sweep a Formula One season, the racing gods decided that this wasn’t their year. Instead, ERS failures on the Mercedes cars resulted in a dramatic final stint in which the field caught but couldn’t pass Nico Rosberg. Well, the field bar Daniel Ricciardo who pulled off an epic pass with two laps to go to win his first Formula One Grand Prix.

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Sunday Link-Off: The Political Machine

jinna-cabrera-fredericks14-01We’re just a few days away from a provincial election in Ontario. Most of the major newspapers are endorsing the Conservatives because they 1) forget the last Ontario PC government; 2) they seem to hate unions, public sector employees, education, social spending and anybody who makes less than $100,000; and 3) they figure that all politicians suck so why not get a new crew in there.

While I agree with #3, I can’t shake the fact that the Conservative job plan’s math is all made up and is based on job-years created rather than jobs. There’s also the commitment to cripple the education system. That’ll do us a lot of good. So I say vote Liberal. People will cry scandal and all that but do you really trust a Conservative team who can’t do basic math and still want to cut education spending. Economic growth starts with good education if you ask me.

Anyway, enough pontificating. It’s time for the links. Let’s start with new model to the blog Jinna Cabrera.

The big news in Canada this week was a shooting in Moncton. Here’s a look at how it came to an end. (The Globe and Mail)

Fixing the American electoral system can be accomplished in one easy stroke: Stop letting the politicians gerrymander the districts. (Washington Post)

The US National Research Council says that a manned mission to Mars will be ungodly expensive but important for the future of the space program. (USA Today)

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Entertainment Link-Off: All in the Stars

emily bluntOver here in Aussieland, it’s the YA novel adaptation The Fault in Our Stars competing against the sci-fi film Edge of Tomorrow at the box office. It might be worth checking out both films, but I am leaning towards anything sci-fi related. It probably helps that Emily Blunt is heavily featured in Edge of Tomorrow.

After the jump, there might be a Gambit standalone film, MPAA doesn’t approve of Eva Green’s boob in the Sin City poster, 50 Cent gets witch or dies trying, a look at Mortal Kombat X and Mark Hamill channels his inner Joker and Luke Skywalker.  Continue reading

Game of Thrones: The Mountain and The Viper Review

game-of-thrones-prince-oberyn-martell-season-four-headerNormally, I try to wedge in a little bit of an intro for these posts before I put in the jump from the home page to the full post. Today, I don’t feel up to doing it. If you watched this episode, you’ll understand why. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch it and come back.

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F1 Power Rankings: Canadian Grand Prix

And so the Formula One World Championship makes its annual summer pilgrimage to North America for the best event on the calendar. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve may not be the most impressive looking track on the calendar but it does provide some of the most impressive racing on the calendar. And Montreal might not be an internationally renowned cultural mecca but that doesn’t stop the teams from claiming this race weekend has the best atmosphere this side of Monza.

So who wants to let the two Mercedes boys loose on F1’s most exciting track?

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Wednesday Link-Off: Countdown to the Cup

anais-pouliot-victoriassecret14-45The Stanley Cup Final starts today which is a pretty big deal in Canada. I suppose that it’s an even bigger deal because this might be the CBC’s last one. Stupid Stephen Harper and his crusade against public broadcasting. He’s already kept funding low enough that they’re among the lowest funded national public broadcasters in the world. Now, he may have killed it.

Sorry, got a bit off-track there. We’re here to do the links after all. Let’s start with Anais Pouliot.

Rob Ford might still be in rehab but that doesn’t mean that he plans on becoming a permanent resident. He’s gearing up for a Canada Day return to campaigning. (Toronto Sun)

Have you ever wanted a look inside the biggest (legal) grow-op in Canada? A company has invigorated little Smiths Falls, Ontario, by converting an old Hershey’s factory into a medical marijuana grow-op. (MacLean’s)

We might perceive America as the top military powerhouse in the world but one retired Colonel says that the actual fighting state of the US Army isn’t what they’d have you believe it is. (Politico)

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IndyCar – Dual in Detroit: A Penske Shootout

indycar-2014-detroit-helio-fence-climbLove ’em or hate ’em, these street course doubleheaders sure end up with some exciting racing. While we usually dread Formula One street course races, IndyCar street races tend to be the more exciting of the events that require right turns in addition to the left turns.

The one recurring theme this weekend was Penske. It’s Roger Penske’s event with the first race led from the pole by Helio Castroneves in a Penske car. Therefore, it was only fitting that Will Power and Castroneves drove to victory in Penske cars at Penske’s race.

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EA Finalizes Settlement in NCAA Video Game Lawsuit

ea-sports-bannerElectronic Arts and the Collegiate Licencing Company have settled a multi-million dollar class action lawsuit over the use of the likenesses of NCAA Division I (and FBS) football and basketball players in EA Sports video games without compensation.

After agreeing to a settlement in principle back in September 2013, the three parties agreed to a settlement worth $40 million for the estimated up to 200,000 players who appeared in the EA Sports NCAA Football and NCAA Basketball / March Madness games since 2003.

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Sunday Link-Off: #ONPoli

chloe-bennet-esquire14-01And so marks the first time that a linkdump has been titled a hashtag. I somehow doubt that this will end up being a trend but it’s fitting considering we have two links about the Ontario provincial election and the Toronto mayoral election. That’s all the Ontario politics that most people would care about. Granted, I don’t expect anyone to really worry too much about Ontario’s politics. I think we’re screwed regardless of who ends up in power.

Anyway, it’s time for us to do the Sunday links. For fun, let’s kick it off with Chloe Bennet of Agents of SHIELD fame.

In something that shouldn’t be news to anyone, there are Russians among the pro-separatist militants causing unrest in Ukraine. Still wouldn’t be shocked if the Russian government was involved in this somehow. (New York Times)

Tim Hudak’s Million Jobs Plan sounds all well and good. The only problem is that the math is so completely broken that they may have overestimated jobs created by a factor of eight, didn’t factor in their own 100,000 public sector job eliminations and failed to mention half of their million jobs are expected to be added to the Ontario economy without their intervention required. (MacLean’s)

And Tim Hudak wants to make a better tomorrow for Ontario by cutting education spending. That’ll help tomorrow’s Ontario. (Toronto Star)

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