Oz Report
Volume 12, Number 198Monday, October 6 2008
Boise Riverside RV Park, Boise, Idaho, USA
https://OzReport.com
"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."
- In this issue:
Rob's truck sold instantly 2008 Team Challenge, Day 5 Biden paragliding nude? Risk, we are not human calculators Furnace Creek 508 Corruption, at the top?
Rob's truck sold instantly
Fri, Oct 3 2008, 9:06:44 am MDT(Wills Wing Factory, California, USA)
Mike Meier|Walter White
Mike Meier «Mike» writes:
I wanted to let you know that we did sell Rob's truck, to Walter Whiteside, a hang glider pilot from the San Francisco area. He called us as soon as he saw the story in the Oz Report, and then followed the link to our news item. He flew down today and picked it up, and is now on his way back to the Bay Area. The Oz Report really works!
2 topics in this article: Mike Meier, Walter White
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2008 Team Challenge, Day 5
Fri, Oct 3 2008, 9:08:33 am MDTDennis Pagen|Jim Lamb|Lucas Ridley|Mike Barber|Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge 2008|Terry Presley
http://lucasridley.blogspot.com/
Today was a later day, as usual for this NW facing site. My team was able to launch around 3 after about 20 other gliders. The day was called to be a good, albeit blue, day with the inversion rising to 6,500'-7,000', which is good for this site and 500 avg fpm climbs.
Lucas Ridley «lucasridley» writes:
Yesterday was a fun blue day. It was tough though. There was only 9 competitors that made their goals. The task was called for everyone (A, B, and C pilots) to land in the same field and there were just different turn around waypoints for the B's and A's and that field was the only waypoint for the C's. There was a big gaggle of pilots over launch and many C pilots it was there first time to thermal with a number of other gliders. As I type Dennis Pagen, Jim Lamb, and Mike Barber are going over rules of the sky with everyone because there were some close calls with the less experienced pilots. I'm sure they and everyone are learning a lot with every experience at this meet, I know I am. For example, there were seven happy pilots who raised their hands this morning that had their first xc flights yesterday.
I have a lot of respect for what Mike Barber does at Wallaby when he flies with someone to teach them. It is quite difficult and adds an interesting dynamic for the A pilots for their priority of this meet is to fly and stay with less experienced pilots. I landed at the goal field, without having completed my task because I was spending my time helping someone else, but I had a keg to look forward to that was kindly donated to help raise money to buy a landing field, as well as the pork butt and chicken that was cooked all day which was another donation to raise lz money.
Thanks to Terry Presley for taking Eric Donaldsons place on our team for yesterday which he was able to get our C pilot and himself to complete their task (2 of the 9 were on my team!), which has kept us in first. After dinner Terry conducted a seminar on restricted landing field approaches and landing.
Today is a triangle task for the A's and the B and C's get dropped off at the second and first vertex of the triangle. Hopefully, it should be a better day than yesterday with it being a little hotter of a day, but it will be blue. Here are the team scores with the new scoring system that I think we'll be adopting, where the biggest changes lay in normalizing the points for making goal for all pilots. Now everyone gets a flat 100 points for making goal, then a multiplier for their wing type and then a set amount of bonus points (instead of another multiplier) for escorting another pilot, relights, and landing at the goal LZ:
1- 1,922 - Thermal Underwear 2- 1,727 - Team Ohio 3- 1,715 - E Team 4- 1,433 - B'Low Me Again 5- 1,371 - Comp Concepts 6- 1,236 - The Pale Gliders 7- 1,131 - Team Colorado 8- 1,011 - The Leftovers 9- 916 - Mountaineers 10- 825 - Air Hogs
Since the Mountaineers have been dropping in scores because they only have A pilots, The Leftovers were in last place. The E Team has dropped from a solid second to being in 3rd by only 12 points though. Dennis' team jumped from 7th to 4th as well, but I don't think he is going to be flying today. He has offered to measure sprogs today and tomorrow which I am looking forward to since I bought my Litespeed used.
There is only one more day of competition after today and tomorrow night there is a pizza place bringing in their trailer to make hand tossed pizzas at launch with a couple kegs of beer that is on the Tree Toppers! But I know there will be plenty of donations for the lz fund.
6 topics in this article: Dennis Pagen, Jim Lamb, Lucas Ridley, Mike Barber, Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge 2008, Terry Presley
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Biden paragliding nude?
Fri, Oct 3 2008, 9:13:01 am MDT(by the Boise River, Boise, ID, USA)
politics
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95326343
Political coverage leading up to the debate had focused so squarely on Palin that Biden would have had to paraglide nude onto the White House grounds while plagiarizing passages of the Communist Manifesto in order to get full-blown gaffe coverage.
1 topic in this article: politics
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Risk, we are not human calculators
Fri, Oct 3 2008, 10:44:12 pm MDTpsychology
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13389
The magazine Psychology Today had an article about how we don't estimate modern risks very well.
Our brains are still worried about snakes, spiders, and lions.
1 topic in this article: psychology
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Furnace Creek 508
Fri, Oct 3 2008, 10:44:26 pm MDTEric Troili
Eric Troili «airwreck» writes:
http://www.the508.com/2008web/index.html
Check out the webcast for the 508 starting with the race preparations at noon Friday. The 508 begins Saturday at 7:00 AM..
I'm not doing the race this year. After my successful 508 completion in 2007, I'm taking this year a bit easier (going to Maui instead). Next year I'll apply for participation in the 2009 FC508 as a 50+ Solo.
1 topic in this article: Eric Troili
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Corruption, at the top?
Sat, Oct 4 2008, 11:33:15 am MDTCIVL|corruption
I point out two cases lately where our betters seem to be our lessers. As I recall from a recent article trust in government was high (85%) through the early sixties and has been for the most part quite low since. This is not just an issue in the US, but in Europe (at least ) also. Trust in institutions is low across the board relative to what society experienced when your parents or grandparents were "young."
This effects us as we rely on institutions such as CIVL, WADA, etc. in our sport. Mostly we have a very distance relationship with these institutions (unless you organize a World Championships). When will the trust return?
http://trustbut.blogspot.com/2008/10/corruption-and-incompetency.html
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.racing/msg/9f79ed77d23a7345?hl=en&pli=1
3. CAS is an extremely corrupt system and the lawyers in the CAS pool are basically white-collar criminals running their own court syndicate where one hand washes the other. It's a pay-to-play system. But I already knew that years ago because the IOC controls CAS and WADA and it's only about protecting their money interests and TV image with sponsors. It has little to do with justice for athletes.
The sections in the brief that show almost outright corruption and egregious incompetency and Rules violations are on pages 24-26, 32-33, and 61-64.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/health/policy/04drug.html?hp
One of the nation’s most influential psychiatrists earned more than $2.8 million in consulting arrangements with drug makers from 2000 to 2007, failed to report at least $1.2 million of that income to his university and violated federal research rules, according to documents provided to Congressional investigators.
2 topics in this article: CIVL, corruption
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