The first teams are more that 50 miles from the re-start at Willow moving at around 10mph through the 28°F temperature that has been prevalent up to Rainy Pass. The temperature is 20 degrees less on the other side of the Pass.

The mushers are required to take two 8-hour breaks and one 24-hour break on the trail, but they will probably push on if the dogs want to run, stopping only to provide food and water. Water is vital after Rainy Pass because the colder temperature mean drier air and dehydration is a major problem in the Arctic, even as you are surrounded by ice and snow. The dehydration will really weaken you and cloud your judgment, if you ever had a hangover you understand dehydration because that’s the largest part of the problem.

If you’re into that sort of thing, a PDF of the official rules is available on-line. In addition to everything else, you have to come up with $3K to enter this race, so these are some serious people who really want to do this.

These are the flags of Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. They are similar because, at one time, they were part of a single country. They now have troops facing each other on their borders, and, of course, this is an excuse to raise the price of oil.

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The BBC chronicles the stupidity: Abbas breaks contact with Israel

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has suspended contact with Israel in protest at an assault on Gaza which has killed about 100 people, an aide says.

The suspension came amid demonstrations in Gaza and fresh clashes with Israeli troops in the West Bank.

Israeli PM Ehud Olmert vowed to carry on the assault, which came in response to militant rocket attacks on Israel.

Olmert wins nothing. He is a disaster for Israelis and is doing real damage to the country’s military with his refusal to deal with reality. If he keeps this up, the other Arab countries will be forced by their populations to respond. The Knesset had better do something quickly to end this, or there will be a major war in the region and not just an intifada which Olmert’s actions have certainly guaranteed.

The real race has begun in Willow, with teams signing out at recorded times to provide space along the trail. It started at 2PM Alaska Standard Time which is -9 UTC, or 3 hours earlier than my time. You have to check the Official Race Site to find out who is winning because it is based on actual times for team, not their place on the trail and there are mandatory 8 and 24-hour layovers during the race. There is 10 and a half hours of sunlight with sunrise at 8AM, but the teams will gain about 6 minutes a day during the race, and the moon is waning from the last quarter, so it’s no help.

The Weather Underground has a special page for Iditarod Weather, which has a map where you can see the current weather at the check points when you put your cursor on them, and the distance between the points when you put your cursor on a trail segment. Currently there is light snow falling at the beginning of the course.

The USGS has an Alaska earthquake map for the current week, and Alaska constantly has earthquakes, but most of then are small.

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The BBC reports that water is wet: Medvedev ‘heading for clear win’

Vladimir Putin’s chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev, is set to win Russia’s presidential election by a wide margin, exit polls indicate.

The state-owned pollster VTsIOM showed Mr Medvedev with 69.6% of the vote.

And early results, with 15% of votes counted, put him on 64.5%. His nearest rival was Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, on nearly 20%.

I see they are limiting his win to below 70% so that he doesn’t outshine his boss, Vladimir. I feel certain that the pages have already been printed for the newspapers, including the final results.

After being installed Medvedev will discover that to make Russia more “democratic” it is necessary to transfer many of the powers of the presidency to the prime minister who is – Vladimir Putin. There’s something comfortable about knowing exactly what the Soviet …er… Russia will do.

Proposed Florida License Plate

While Sinfonian has a visceral reaction to this proposed new Florida plate, I take personal umbrage at the historical frauds it perpetuates – the only things that are “authentic” and actually deal with the “heritage” of Florida are the buttons on the bottom of the graphic.
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