I’ve been busy in real life, and restricted myself to the races, but things may have calmed down.

I missed posting on Queen Elizabeth’s 60^th anniversary of her ascension to the throne, and the bicentennial of Charles Dickens’s birth, as well as the death of the last person to serve in uniform during World War I, Florence Green.

I didn’t comment on the meaningless primary/caucus wins of Rick Santorum, made even more meaningless by the fact that none of the three states [Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota] actually awarded any delegates as a result of the events. I was amazed to hear people actually discussing the Colorado caucuses as if an event with no effect on the nominating process and involving something like 6% of the those eligible to participate was in some way crucial. Get a grip – it was another ‘none of the above’ indicator.

If things continue like this, you have to wonder if anyone will bother to vote in the actual election in November, not just Republicans, but anyone.

The latest thing is the absurdity of the Republican front group that calls itself the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops complaining that religion is under attack because all employers are required to cover contraceptives in the so-called Obamacare law. Since they didn’t say anything about the contraceptives issue during the Hedgemony and the Republican control of Congress, and this requirement has been in place since December, 2000 for all employers with 15 or more employees, it is obviously a partisan political attack which should be ignored … like the deficit.

The Catholic Church deserted the ‘moral high ground’ decades ago and demonstrated its total lack of a ‘conscience’ in its reaction to the pedophilia among the priesthood.

Michael Telpin left Eagle early this morning to climb the American Summit on the way to Dawson [with his GPS tracker working again]. Information gets very sparse for a few days. It is a long run between Eagle and Dawson, but the run from Dawson to Pelly Crossing is over 200 miles. The Quest is a test of winter camping skills.

Update: Hopefully the current Chinook wind will die off so the weather can cool off. The current temperatures in Eagle and Dawson will create problems for working sled dogs and turn the trails to mush. When the trails re-freeze they will be hazardous for dogs’ feet and for sleds. Chinooks are like California’s Santa Ana winds, caused by the interaction with mountain ranges in the interior. While there are also winds called Chinooks along the coast, they are the result of different weather conditions. The interior form are dry, like Santa Anas, while the coastal form is a humid Pacific air mass.

Standings as of 9PM CST:

Beyond Dawson
1 Allen Moore (1)
2 Lance Mackey (16)
3 Hugh Neff (6)
4 Jake Berkowitz (13)^R
5 Brent Sass (10)
At Dawson
6 Sonny Lindner (3)
7 Joar Leifseth Ulsom (17)^R
8 Abbie West (21)
9 Kristy Berington (2)^I
10 David Dalton (4)
11 Kyla Durham (7)
12 Gus Guenther (20)^R
13 Trent Herbst (22)^I
14 Paige Drobny (12)^R
15 Yuka Honda (19)^R
16 Brian Wilmshurst (11)^R
17 Misha Pedersen (5)^R
Beyond Eagle
18 Marcelle Fressineau (15)^R
19 Michael Telpin (24)^R

These are the official standings. That means they are official, not that they are correct. Things jump around a lot as people decide to update the standings. This problem is especially bad in the back of the pack, as no one bothers to update those standings when the lead is changing.

The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Yukon Quest, the numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers, the small “I” indicates a Quest rookie who has competed in the Iditarod, and the small “R” indicates a total rookie.

Note: This post will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.

All posts on the Yukon Quest can be seen by selecting “Yukon Quest” from the Category box on the right sidebar.