12 Hours of Sebring 2025

by philg

A follow-up to 12 Hours of Sebring, a perfect Florida fly-in destination…

This year, we arrived early to the race, scheduled for International Day to Combat Islamophobia. We traveled by Cirrus, an example of the kind of technology that has enabled all of the world’s religions and cultures to mix on a regular basis. Here’s the old mule at 8:10 am:

I purchased tickets in advance (12 and under free) and we caught a ride from the FBO to within a few steps of the entry gate at the Seven Sebring Hotel, thus giving us plenty of time to catch the 8:50 am grid walk (outdoors, but so crowded that it was sometimes tough to make headway). Computers and telemetry are critical, apparently:

Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing is the safety car:

It would be fun to get one of these just to remind young people that they will never learn how to drive a manual transmission (unfortunately, not available on the cheaper CT5-V, which still has way more than enough horsepower for street driving).

Here’s a different style of Cadillac:

For working class Republicans who appreciate the world’s finest screwdrivers, a car sponsored by Wiha:

For Democrats, TDS Racing (also great for pilots: “Fear the TAF” (terminal area forecast)):

Crowdstrike, the DEI-committed company that is famous for having reduced the U.S. economy to a crawl, sponsors a 180+ mph LMP2 car:

The Iron Dames Porsche was branded this year as “Women Driven by Dreams” and the car, to be driven only by people identifying as “women”, was covered in painted-on Post-It-style notes.

“Break Barriers and Spread” is perhaps a truncation?

Check out “I want to get a car” at the top of the tire below:

Also note the “To never change for anyone” dream. Wouldn’t most humans be improved with at least some amount of change?

Here’s my favorite dream:

Ford had a pavilion right next to the grid and anyone who registered got a free baseball hat (confiscated by my 15-year-old daughter) and the right to use their top deck:

Here’s the view from the top deck, just as the race was getting underway. I was still recovering from my disappointment that nobody nearby agreed to take a knee with me during the National Anthem (sung beautifully by a Sebring local whose name I didn’t catch).

iPhone 5X works pretty well from this deck:

There are no drinks or bathrooms on the Ford viewing deck so we departed after 45 minutes. A small museum is next door and displays a 26 horsepower Crosley Hot Shot that won the first race at the track, in 1951, because of engine size-adjusted scoring.

The Corvette pavilion featured a cutaway ZR1 (1064 horsepower to get you to Publix at 233 mph, but you lose the front trunk so there is no place to put the groceries as there would be on a regular Corvette (194 mph) or Z06 (195 mph)) and cutaway twin-turbo ZR1 engine:

A 1/5th the price of previous title holders, this is the fastest production car around some of the world’s racetracks (example), but I still wouldn’t want a ZR1 due to the lack of storage space. A street car needs to serve a transportation function, in my opinion. (The ZR1 can’t function as a Sebring competitor; it has twice as much horsepower as allowed in the GT Daytona classes.)

Here are a couple of Corvettes going underneath the Corvette bridge:

Some folks doing the race right…

A potential clue as to why nobody would kneel with me during “The Star-Spangled Banner”: a Deplorable flies a custom “DOGE” flag:

The fan guide distributed at the entrance suggests turn 13 for pictures with the airport in the background, but that would work only if you were on top of an RV or a top of some kind. The grandstands at Turn 3 have a pretty good view:

One of the best views is from a bridge near Turn 5. The non-sidewalk side faces the track. You’re not supposed to stand there because you’re at the edge of a somewhat busy road, but people do anyway. The Iron Dames perhaps forgot to include a dream of “stay on the track” and, therefore, the proudly all-female-driven Porsche made an off-track excursion. This was the only off-track driving that I personally saw. The Iron Dames finished #11 in their class, more or less in the middle (still an occasion for celebration, though, under Are women the new children?):

Another photo from this bridge, with an Oshkosh-sponsored Corvette in the lead:

(Sponsored by the U.S. government contractor, Oshkosh Corporation, selected despite an apparent lack of experience to build the next generation USPS delivery truck ($6 billion project, started in 2015, that has thus far yielded 93 trucks)).

We left before the 10:10 pm end of the race, but it seems that the Corvette team isn’t doing well compared to previous years. Porsche won 1st place in the GTD Pro race, while the Corvette factory team finished 7th and 9th (some electrical system problems were apparently to blame). The independent teams racing Corvettes didn’t finish higher than 8 in the GTD class (won by a Mercedes-AMG car). Porsche won the GTP (fastest purpose-built race car class), both 1 and 2 spots, while Cadillac managed 4.

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Replacement Theory is false, New York City edition

by philg

Back in 2023, the New York Times did a story on how Black residents of NYC were gone and immigrants had moved in via a process of non-replacement (see Great Replacement Theory for Black Americans (from the NYT)).

Here’s the latest evidence that Replacement Theory is false (“debunked” according to Wokipedia), but this time expanded to people of all races… “After Pandemic Exodus, New York City’s Population Is Growing Again” (NYT, March 13, 2025):

Fewer people leaving the city and more foreign newcomers have helped erase pandemic losses, new census data shows.

In the depths of the coronavirus pandemic, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers packed up and fled, raising the possibility that the ravaged city had entered a long-term slide.

New York’s population has yet to fully recover, but new census data released on Thursday reveals that it is finally growing again after a steep drop. It reached 8.48 million in July 2024, up from 8.39 million in July 2023.

The city grew by about 1 percent, gaining 87,184 residents between 2023 and 2024 — largely because of a steady increase in newcomers from other countries — while at the same time fewer residents left for elsewhere, according to the census data.

Native-born Americans on net are continuing to leave New York City. Via a non-replacement process (since Replacement Theory has been proven false), their places have been taken by migrants.

Separately, trust the government’s numbers, unless you prefer some other numbers:

City officials had challenged [official U.S. Census Bureau] figures, saying the number of migrants and other people living in group settings like shelters had been underestimated. More than 200,000 migrants have passed though the city’s shelters since the spring of 2022.

From the NYT, August 2023:

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Progress in aviation as measured by the Robinson R88

by philg

Robinson has figured out that the big money in helicopters is government and medevac (also government, since Medicare and Medicaid pay). Consequently, they’ve released the R88, a machine big enough to serve as an air ambulance (government pays) or firefighter (government pays) or police (government, obviously, and oftentimes air taxi for bureaucrats). Here’s what it looks like:

The turbine powerplant is made in an Islamic country and generates 950 hp. Rumor has it that the new helicopter will cost $3.3 million so let’s call that $4 million in today’s dollars by the time it goes out the door with useful equipment.

My summary to a pilot group:

Never in the history of humanity has there been a single-engine helicopter that could carry two pilots and 8 passengers underneath a two-blade rotor system.

Let’s have a look at the Bell UH-1 (“Huey”), which first flew in 1956 and of which more than 16,000 were built. The Huey had…

  • two pilots
  • seats for 11 passengers
  • a single engine (700 hp in the prototype; 1100 hp by 1960)
  • a two-blade rotor system

What did the first Hueys cost? $250,000 (source). Adjusted from 1960 into today’s mini-dollars… that’s $2.7 million.

The Robinson R88 is surely an improvement over the Bell in many respects. There are LCD screens in front and a modern autopilot to “pitch in” (so to speak). It may also be more reliable and cheaper to maintain (I hope!). But it’s kind of interesting that there hasn’t been more of an improvement in specs or cost after nearly 70 years.

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Update on the American Heart Association

by philg

As you observe International Day to Combat Islamophobia and work on your taxes (one month to go!) and contemplate your charitable contributions, check out this post from two years ago… Our first grader learns about the non-profit world (American Heart Association):

The CEO earned $2.44 million in 2020,

How’s this lady with a bachelor’s degree doing more recently? For 2023, her compensation is up to about $4.15 million (source):

The organization’s revenue went up 32 percent from $700 million to $926 million while her compensation went up by 70 percent.

(Our local public school is still enlisting children to help raise money for the American Heart Association.)

Just as in 2023, the American Heart Association’s giant medical brains recommend that babies get their first COVID-19 shot at age 6 months. Contrast to the Science-denying Trump-worshipping fools who run the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (previously an exemplar of what government and health care could be) who say that baby’s first COVID-19 shot is at age 75.

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Have Americans of color been enjoying a cleaner environment?

by philg

“E.P.A. Plans to Close All Environmental Justice Offices” (NYT):

An internal memo directs the closure of offices designed to ease the heavy pollution faced by poor and minority communities.

Mr. Zeldin’s move effectively ends three decades of work at the E.P.A. to try to ease the pollution that burdens poor and minority communities, which are frequently located near highways, power plants, industrial plants and other polluting facilities. Studies have shown that people who live in those communities have higher rates of asthma, heart disease and other health problems, compared with the national average.

Last month, Mr. Zeldin placed 168 employees who work on environmental justice on leave, but this week a federal judge forced him to rehire dozens of them after finding that the action had no legal basis. Several E.P.A. employees said they were bracing for many of those people to again be eliminated, as the agency and others prepared for widespread reductions in force.

As president, Mr. Biden emphasized the need to address the unequal burden that people of color carry from exposure to environmental hazards. He created the White House Office of Environmental Justice and directed federal agencies to deliver 40 percent of the benefits of environmental programs to marginalized communities that face a disproportionate amount of pollution. The E.P.A.’s Office of Environmental Justice, which was created by the Clinton administration, significantly expanded under Mr. Biden.

The Trump administration has now erased all of that.

The EPA spends $11 billion every year. Apparently, roughly 40 percent of that has been going to government-identified “marginalized communities” (there are experts assigned to determine which communities have been marginalized?). There are hundreds of EPA employees, at least, working on “environmental justice”. Yet the New York Times journalist couldn’t find any evidence to cite regarding Americans of color (e.g., a lavishly paid Chinese-American school superintendent in the Boston exurbs who claims to be “a person of color”) experiencing any benefit as a consequence of this huge effort.

Is there any evidence that Americans are experiencing more environmental justice as a result of 10+ years of government effort in this direction? If one aspect of the environment is not being crowded, I would think that urban Americans have experienced less environmental now that low-skill migrants have been dumped into their neighborhoods (never into the neighborhoods of the elite advocates for open borders).

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Columbia says that it hates inequality and also that it wants more federal money

by philg

There is one thing that students and faculty at Columbia say that they hate more than than the state of Israel: inequality. The flip side is that there is one thing that students and faculty at Columbia love more than the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”), UNRWA, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad: equality. Columbia has accumulated $15 billion in profits (its endowment) and, therefore, is near the top of the top 1% of the richest colleges in the U.S. (list; there are about 4,000 colleges and universities total in the U.S).

One would think thank these inequality-haters would be delighted that the Trump administration had decided to redirect money from their rich school, thus freeing up funds to be distributed to comparatively poor schools. Yet instead we learn that folks at Columbia are upset. Example video: “Columbia University staff, students aren’t pleased with $400M cut in funds”.

From the student newspaper:

From the article:

“The AAUP is actively working with our members across the nation in preparation to resist these draconian policies that severely undermine the academic freedom and freedom of speech and expression that are fundamental to higher education,” the statement from [union leader Todd] Wolfson reads.

An elite academic is truly free only if he/she/ze/they is receiving an unconditional paycheck from working class taxpayers? In a now-deleted tweet, a Columbia grad student wrote that her F31 grant was worth only $100,000 per year in salary and tuition and that this was “pennies”, serenely unaware at the time that quite a few taxpayers would consider $100,000/year to be actual money. (the BLS says that median wage in Q4 2024 for a full-time worker was $1,185/week = $61,620/year)

(Same question about Californians. They say that they hate inequality and then they complain that California purportedly pays more in federal taxes than it receives in federal spending. (Much if not most of this is due, I think, to Californians paying into Social Security and Medicare while working in California and then receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits in retirement after moving to other states.) Californians want money extracted from taxpayers in Mississippi for their gold-plated high-speed rail system, for example, when that is completely inconsistent with their philosophy of promoting equality.)

Another question about Columbia… most of the academics I know who get federal money said that they would leave the U.S. in the event of a second Nakba (Trump victory). Nearly all should be living in Canada or Europe by now. Why are there enough of these folks still at Columbia to soak up so much federal money?

Separately, how is the noble enricher Mahmoud Khalil doing?

Loosely related, a couple of official White House tweets, Shalom Columbia and Shalom, Mahmoud:

Related:

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California white savior gets arrested

by philg

A few screen shots from joesanberg.com before it gets taken down…

His X profile consists of just a single quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and shows no white people other than himself:

Here here says that he wants to give money extracted from native-born taxpayers to “low-wage, undocumented workers” (via a state EITC analogous to the federal cash hand-out program). He’s also proud that, if “single motherhood” occurred in the manner convention for white Jews, mom sued dad. I appreciate that every photo of Californians includes at least some Followers of Fauci:

A big donor to the Democrats, he was considering running for President in 2020 (Atlantic):

Wall Street Journal, Sustainable Business Section, 2022 (sponsored by the accounting experts at Deloitte):

Since it is Women’s History Month, one of Sanberg’s tweets regarding this most noble of gender IDs:

More recently… “Joseph Sanberg, Co-Founder of Aspiration Partners, Arrested for Conspiring to Defraud an Investment Fund of at Least $145 Million” (U.S. Department of Justice):

Ibrahim Ameen AlHusseini Pleads Guilty to Scheming with Sanberg

SANTA ANA, California – Joseph Neal Sanberg, 45, of Orange, the co-founder and largest shareholder of the financial and sustainability services company Aspiration Partners, Inc., was arrested today on a federal criminal complaint alleging that he conspired to defraud two investor funds of at least $145 million.

Sanberg’s coconspirator, Ibrahim Ameen AlHusseini, 51, of Venice, pleaded guilty today to an information charging him with wire fraud for falsifying documents and information to assist Sanberg. According to his plea agreement, signed on February 7, 2025, and unsealed today, AlHusseini personally received approximately $12.3 million in payments from the scheme. AlHusseini is scheduled for sentencing on September 29, 2025. … AlHusseini was arrested on a criminal complaint on October 7, 2024, and has been released on bond since November 13, 2024.

I can’t figure out what Mr. Sanberg allegedly did with the $145 million? Spent it on 8 Mar-a-Lago’s (using the New York judiciary’s estimated value of $18 million)? Used it in some business where he was the primary shareholder? I guess it is at least fair to say that Sanberg was telling the truth when he tweeted out “We need Court reform. Now.”

Flash back to 2023, when Mr. Sanberg tweeted “Justice, justice shall you pursue!”

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An old guy is #4 in the Iditarod right now

by philg

The Iditarod leaders should cross the finish line within the next 24 hours. The leader, from Alabama(!), has just 73 miles to go.

As with aerobatics and endurance flying (see Department of Old Guys can Fly: nonstop cross-country at 1,100 lbs gross weight: “EAA keeps saying that their mission is to inspire young people, but if you look at the ages of the airshow performers, the round-the-world and over-the-poles pilots, and achievers such as Ebneter, maybe what EAA is actually doing is inspiring the elderly!”), it seems that the most inspiring story from the Iditarod is likely to be Mitch Seavey’s finish. The current #4 musher’s bio says “At 65 years of age, I’m running the Iditarod because it’s hard.” He won the race, which requires a lot of physical effort by both mushers and dogs, in 2004, 2013, and 2017.

It’s too bad that Donald Trump has gutted NIH funding, at least to the Queers for Palestine League. I would love to see a Columbia University study on the heritability of dog mushing prowess. (Mitch Seavey’s son Dallas Seavey has won the Iditarod six times.)

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Learn to Code

by philg

I don’t know if Joe Biden is dead or alive right now, but I have fond memories of his 2019 career advice to coal miners:

Suppose that a high school student took Joe Biden’s advice in 2019 but skipped the coal mining phase. He/she/ze/they will graduate from college in 3 months with a CS degree. We randomly selected this person so he/she/ze/they will have median skills as an entry-level computer programmer (“coder”).

Let’s hear from an LLM expert to get some insight into what the demand for a median-skilled programmer is likely to be…

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Five-year anniversary of the first U.S. lockdown order

by philg

According to “Statewide COVID‐19 Stay‐at‐Home Orders and Population Mobility in the United States” (2020), today is the five-year anniversary of the first American lockdown order:

In the United States, the first coronavirus‐related activity restrictions were issued on March 12, 2020, when a community within New Rochelle, New York, was declared to be a “containment area.” A traditional quarantine order would require individuals presumed to be exposed to stay at home. This containment order was not intended to limit individual movement. Instead, it mandated the closure of schools and large gathering places within the zone, including religious buildings (Chappell, 2020). Residents were allowed to enter and leave the containment zone, but they were not allowed to gather in large groups within the designated geographic area.

On March 16, 2020, a “shelter‐in‐place” order was issued for six counties in the San Francisco Bay Area (Allday, 2020). Shelter in place was a term many Californians were familiar with due to its use during wildfires and other natural disasters, active shooter drills, and other short‐term emergency situations. In those contexts, “shelter in place” means “stay where you are,” but that was not what the COVID‐19 orders were asking residents to do. The order did not require individuals to stay where they happened to be located when the order was released. Residents were allowed to leave home for essential purposes, including food, medical care, and outdoor exercise, and people working at businesses deemed to be “essential”—such as grocery stores, hospitals, pharmacies, veterinary clinics, utilities, hardware stores, auto repair shops, funeral homes, and warehouses and distribution facilities—were allowed to continue onsite work.

Related:

  • “COVID-19 Lockdowns Unleashed a Wave of Murder” (Reason, December 2024): “In 2020, the average U.S. city experienced a surge in its homicide rate of almost 30%—the fastest spike ever recorded in the country,” write Rohit Acharya and Rhett Morris in a research review for the Brookings Institution published this week. “Across the nation, more than 24,000 people were killed compared to around 19,000 the year before.”
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