Well, lo and behold, only a couple of days after the ship kite posting, I ran across another article about kites designed for electricity production. One experiment was able to get 10kW of power (enough for 10 homes) out of a 10 square meter (about 10 square yard) kite. The kites also work better than windmills because they take advantage of the fact that the wind is stronger up at higher altitudes than it is right at ground level.

Link is here:
Energy Kites

Saw another couple of interesting columns by Pat Buchanan. While some of his stuff is is a little off the wall, he does have some decent ideas on more than one occasion. So while I don’t always agree with everything he says, I will give him credit for some of the stuff he comes up with. The first link is to an article he wrote about Obama and Afghanistan, which looks at whether we should increase troops in Afghanistan. Currently most of the mainstream news is pushing more troops to Afghanistan without examining consequences.

PatBuchananObama

The second article was one he did about the US Empire. Interesting fact in one of the responses at the bottom of the blog was that the US has over 800 bases in 140 countries. Sort of gets your attention that we are going broke defending the world.

Link is below:
PatBuchanan US Empire

A related article in the Asia Times details the US pushing Iraq to keep the US there, even though Iraq wants the US out. This ties in to why Iraq was supportive of Obama’s timetable last week (or two weeks ago?).

AsiaTimes Iraq

Could you help save the planet by flying a kite? That’s the idea behind Sky Sails, a system that lets freighters use a kite to cut down on their fuel consumption. The maiden voyage from Europe to South America was this past January, and it appears that the results were on par with expectations.

The initial sail size is 160 square meters. This size can supposedly develop up to 5 tons of power, and help the ship save somewhere between 10% and 35% of the fuel costs, which in one case was about $1000 per day. Plans are in the works to deploy 320 square meter kites and later up to 600 square meter kites. One of the case studies showed the crew to be able to throttle back from 11.6 to 10.0 knots when the kite was deployed. In addition to fuel savings, the kite also helps reduce ship emissions, which must be reduced by 2020 according to newer regulations.

The kite is deployed when the wind conditions are favorable. This might mean a few minutes a day or up to 8 hours a day, according to what I’ve seen on the website. So it’s not up all the time, which makes sense.

Sky Sails website:
Sky Sails

Autobloggreen had some video, posts, and info:
Autobloggreen

While I was googling the Wisconsin Supreme Court to look into one of their rulings regarding the definition of practice of law, (for yesterday’s blog post), I ran across their decision on necrophelia, and the bizarre story of some kids digging up a corpse. Sounded like the kind of thing these kids are going to look back on in the future and say, “Well, we thought it was a good idea at the time”.

The link is below, you have to read it to appreciate it:

WisconsinNecrophelia

One of the groups that I contribute to is HALT (Help Abolish Legal Tyranny). This group was founded in 1978, and is dedicated to fighting for consumer rights in the legal field. Given the significant amounts of money and power that are lined up to protect lawyers and judges, this group has done relatively well fighting for the little guy. They help push for public access to discipline hearings and results against lawyers and judges, as well as fighting against the always present “unauthorized practice of law”.

The “unauthorized practice of law” rules are unfortunately designed more to protect a legal monopoly than to serve the public interest. One of the latest examples is from March, when the Wisconsin State Bar submitted a proposal to further restrict the definition, and force consumers to hire lawyers for mundane things that otherwise could be done by a real estate agent, an income tax preparer, or a legal document assistant. The Bar claimed (as usual) it was to protect the public from scam artists that claim to be attorneys. However, after two years of beating the bushes, they could produce only six complaints by consumers about non-lawyers.

This stands in contrast to the over 2000 complaints Wisconsin consumers filed against Wisconsin lawyers. That statistic just about says it all.

After testimony from HALT and from Wisconsin businesses and others, the State Bar asked the Court to put a hold on any decision. I wouldn’t be surprised if the proposal surfaces again when the Bar thinks things have cooled down.

One new website that HALT profiled in their recent newsletter is Avvo. This is a website that is bringing consumer reviews of lawyers to the public, as well as providing answers to legal questions. The answers are by attorneys. I think this website is an idea that is long overdue. Given the secretive nature of lawyer discipline and the lack of public information, this may be the future route to put more power in the consumer’s hands and truly protect the public.

Avvo

HALT