Reader Tips

This just takes the biscuit, back in the 1990s I think Peter DeSavory had a multihul like that built and it could triple the wind speed in light conditions, the damn unsporting yanks outlawed multihuls to stop it winning, the winning boat crawled round at a snails pace, DeSavories boat would have flown it and made me a rich man, luck save for me eh?

de Savary's multihull wasn't quite "like that", Chris, in the sense that it wasn't twenty stories high and going sixty kilometers per hour. As I mentioned here, that's what I wanted to see, and as I mentioned here, we did see that in Sunday's race. Thus my Hardy Boys quote ;-)

Yep, that was fun to watch. 33 knots out of ten knots windspeed ... amazing.

What happens to these yachts after the Cup is over? Wiki sez they compete in IACC regattas, but how does that work after rule changes like this one allowing multi-hulls?

I think they should be donated to two engineering schools.

yeah, the UofA and...? haha.. good stuff.
I think it would be a better format if some leading contenders fought for the right to challenge, like it was in the past few decades.

I'm ok with that, Marc, yet let's not forget that from the third defense of the Cup in 1876 through to the twentieth defense in 1967, there was always only one challenger and one defender ~ so either way works for me.

Some of you may enjoy this. (Excuse the shameless self promotion.)
http://www.albertalocalnews.com/reddeeradvocate/opinion/Canadas_welfare_state_is_unsustainable_84018202.html?dsq=34238477#comm

Good article, Bill Greenwood.

"While there is generous disagreement about the ills of our public health-care systen, we will never find solutions to its problems unless we are willing, as a people, to handcuff our legislators to the health-care helm they so willingly grasp."

I'm quite certain Kate agrees with you. My issues with the idea have to do with what seems to me the immorality of it - I mean, legally, Danny Williams does have the same rights as everybody else, just a lot more money, the lucky sod - and also with the fact that line-jumping and special treatment are unavoidable in any case for people like him. What he did do actually exposes his hypocrisy more than kid-glove care in Newfoundland could ever have done.

Kate's schnauzers are kicking derriere in Denver, Canadian skiers are taking home the gold, and Vitruvius seems very happy with the boat situation. Go local sports team!

Good article Bill, with a logical conclusion. Well argued. I am am on your side of the fence on this issue (mediocre treatment) - it was a Tommy Douglas's idea and that creep did not have good ideas: at any time or in any place.

Love the boats (er, floating planes). The transformation of the America's Cup from a race for bankers to a race for technologists has been amazing to watch.

I love the old Olin Stephens designs; but the day a wing was attached to a keel that world was dead.

Not that there is anything wrong with Vintage Racing.

Agreed, Jay. Anytime you want to share a Dragon ¶, just let me know ;-)

Meanwhile.....here in sunny Alberta,the "local"access channel and CTV are still running the one tonne challenge ads.I would like to think that the programmer was drunk and got into the wrong archives,but with steady Red Eddie and crew of so-called conservatives in power here,I fear I may be wrong.

Girls on the right are better looking and have talent! I was pleasantly surprised!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtcWU1lyssk&feature=related

Finally back ahead of the Rush.

http://stats.nll.com/stats/statdisplay.php?type=standings

women's hockey and this is an olympic qualifier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQW0LNc6yDo&feature=related

can't see this being a podium event much longer.

AGW = Stinking Don Quixote.

"Five other abandoned wind sites dot the Hawaiian Isles".

"In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills."
...-

"Wind Energy's Ghosts

Bankrupt Europe has a lesson for Congress about wind power.
Wiwo...wiwo...wiwo.

The sound floats on the winds of Ka Le, this southernmost tip of Hawaii's Big Island, where Polynesian colonists first landed some 1,500 years ago.

Some say that Ka Le is haunted -- and it is. But it's haunted not by Hawaii's legendary night marchers. The mysterious sounds are "Na leo o Kamaoa"-- the disembodied voices of 37 skeletal wind turbines abandoned to rust on the hundred-acre site of the former Kamaoa Wind Farm."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2451554/posts

I apologize for going backwards into the Reader's Tips, but...

There was a comment a day or so ago about the (paraphrasing) "devil-horned fiddler in the canoe" and how inappropriate it was.

For those who are confused about this, it is actually a reference to a French-Canadian legend about voyaguers and a deal with the devil.

Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasse-galerie

Bill Greenwood, great article. Too bad there are not more writers in our media exposing the failures of our medical system.

Those sailing boats are beautiful to watch, from dry land. A friend took me for a sail a few decades ago and his rails still have my hand prints embedded in them. Have to hand it to you fellows that enjoy sailing. May the wind be in your favour and fill your sails.

"Not CO2 but the Sun

IPCC Corruption Included Ignoring Facts and Science

Dr. Tim Ball

Phil Jones, disgraced and dismissed Director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), granted BBC reporter Roger Harrabin an interview. Why Harrabin? His reporting has shown bias on all the IPCC and CRU activities. Leaked emails showed the CRU gang used friends in the BBC and that apparently continues. Prevarication, evasion, half-truths continue in Phil Jones’ answers. Despite this there are stunning admissions from Jones. “There is a tendency in the IPCC reports to leave out inconvenient findings, especially in the part(s) most likely to be read by policy makers.”

It’s a deliberate strategy not just a tendency and not only in the Summary for Policymakers (SPM). Many major factors that create weather and can trigger change are ignored in the Scientific Report and computer models. A long report is necessary to itemize problems and what is omitted. The need to ‘prove’ CO2 was the primary culprit was the driving force behind all actions and it peaked in the 2007 Report.

The 2007 Intergovernmental on Climate Change (IPCC) Report says they’re 90% certain global warming of the last 50 years is due to increasing atmospheric CO2. They acknowledge that before 1950 the sun explained over 50% of the temperature increase. As the Summary for Policymakers notes, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations. It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent (except Antarctica).”

Exclusion of Antarctica is a convenient omission and makes a mockery of their claim, because it cooled over the period.Their solar explanation for half the change prior to 1950 uses only one part the sun’s effect on global temperature, namely electromagnetic radiation (ER), (heat and light). They were flummoxed by the decrease of temperature from 2002 while CO2 levels continued to rise. Jones now concedes, “There was no significant warming from 1998-2009” and “Neither the rate nor magnitude of recent warming is exceptional.” He also concedes the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than at present. These statements alone completely destroy all claims about the validity of the science and claims of the IPCC.

The Sun They Ignore

Why did they include ER and ignore major solar factors of the Milankovitch Effect and changes in solar magnetism that cause temperature change? The simple answer was to counteract the claim that the Sun was causing warming."

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/20029

Steyn's/Mcleans harassment by the CHRC redux, Australian-style:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDE1YzlkYjk5OWQ3NWEwZGIwNjJjMTVhZTk1NmE3ZTg=

I see Canada-hating Heather Mallick is up to her usual claptrap again: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/15/canada-olympics-grim-britain#post-area

From Christopher Hitchens' better half, his brother Peter Hitchens:

"Most of them are actually anti-Britishists, hiding their loathing of this country behind a facade of liberal piety, a facade that is sometimes very thin indeed" ...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1250804/Commander-Dizaei-day.html

h/t Kathy Shaidle

The leader of the Saskatchewan Green Party is on John Ghormley right now.

just watching the start of the women's crosscountry. these HD TV's and closeups of their faces gives you the idea that they have an inordinate amount of zits on their faces. these women are usually about 28plus , up to about 39 years old so far. any speculation, is it a sweaty occupation or an indicator of excess testosterone?

O'narcissist: Liberal Iffy's Harvard buddy.

"*This is his sole legacy: a massive post-traumatic stress disorder."

...-

"Barack Obama's challenge: Anger is replacing hope

President Barack Obama won the White House with a campaign message focused on hope. Now he is trying to get himself on the right side of a remarkably different national sentiment these days: anger.

Obama's expansive domestic goals are largely the same, but his message is changing, now constructed around a concession that the public is disillusioned and wanting results. If he cannot show people that he understands their frustration and is working to fix it, the risks are real.

All that angst that Obama wants to harness as a force for change - as he did in his campaign - will turn against him. That means eroding public support for his agenda and potentially big losses for his party in congressional elections in November.

So it was telling when Obama offered this take on Republican Scott Brown's Senate win in Massachusetts last month, one that weakened the Democratic president's hand: "The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office. People are angry, and they're frustrated."

A new White House talking point was born, and it was hardly hope and change.

On that same day of postelection analysis, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs used some description of anger, frustration or both 12 times to describe what people were feeling, including this one: "That anger is now pointed at us, because we're in charge. Rightly so.""

http://www.ottawasun.com/news/world/2010/02/15/12886351-ap.html

*O'narcissist:

http://www.globalpolitician.com/25109-barack-obama-elections

Ken (Kulak) @9:57 - there is one secret to boats, and one secret only: Dramamine.

"The Devil made me do it." (Flip Wilson)

"Bishop, a mother of four children - the youngest a third-grade boy - was a far-left political extremist who was “obsessed” with President Obama to the point of being off-putting."

...-

"‘Oddball’ portrait of Amy Bishop emerges

As authorities searched for clues into what could have sent a University of Alabama neurobiology professor on an alleged killing spree, friends and family yesterday described Braintree native Amy Bishop as an awkward introvert on the brink of losing her teaching job.

Bishop’s husband, James Anderson, told the Herald his wife had been fighting the university for over a year about a tenure denial, and several months ago received a final decision. She was upset, but not overly emotional, approaching her appeal “like a game of chess,” he said.

Police in Huntsville, Ala., charged Bishop, 44, with capital murder after she allegedly opened fire on six colleagues at a faculty meeting Friday, killing three."

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20100215oddball_protrait_emerges_suspects_family_pals_offer_clues/srvc=home&position=0

Down by the O'Bayh'O'zymandias.
...-

"Obama Statue Booted From Jakarta Park

(Newser) – A controversial statue of Barack Obama as a boy has been removed from a Jakarta park after an angry campaign to boot the homage to the American president. The bronze statue of a 10-year-old Barack is being moved nearby to the grounds of an affluent Indonesian school Obama attended."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2451987/posts
(pic included: in colour)
...-

"Obama hit hard as Bayh bows out

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama suffered another setback Monday as a fifth Democratic senator, centrist heavyweight Evan Bayh, decided not to run for re-election in dismay at the bitter political climate.

Obama, who reportedly tried to talk Bayh out of retiring, faces a looming Republican resurgence and risks watching strong majorities in Congress crumble in November mid-term elections, and with them his ambitious reform agenda.

With his tearful wife and two sons at his side, Bayh, 54, expressed disenchantment with excessive partisanship in the Congress as he announced his decision at a press conference in the state capital Indianapolis.

"For some time, I have had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should. There is too much partisanship and not enough progress -- too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving," he said.

"Even at a time of enormous challenge, the peoples? business is not being done."

Democrats expressed shock at the development, seeing it both as the loss of a key consensus builder in the Senate and of a candidate strongly favored to win re-election in Republican-leaning Indiana.

A top White House official said Bayh, who called Obama on Monday morning, was "by nature a governor not a senator."

The New York Times reported that both Obama and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel tried to convince Bayh to run again, but to no avail."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2451971/posts

Hitler on climate change!

This thing never gets old!

I stole it off the Anchoress.

It's late in the day but I'll ask anyway. Where does the technology go in racing? Some I would imagine BMW can use but I would imagine there would be more than that.

Perhaps DeSavories boat was too small, it could not handle rough water, it usualy was recovered with a missing sponson!!
Maybe the fools who make wind farms could use the tech to make a turbine that was actually useful? Actually I woud suggest using the turbines for pumping water uphill to be used in a water turbine, then there would be power when needed.

It's official. More Canadians are lefties. NY Times.

http://tinyurl.com/yb3eeyp