A most excellent day of sailing today with friends, and we were able to fly downwind wing-on-wing making 5.5 knots in 12 true; pretty awesome.

"Time spent on the water is not counted against you" - my Dad

News you can use: the best source of business ideas.  Who knew, the Virgin brand began with a trip to the Virgin Islands...  

We are winning bigly at the border.  "The number of apprehensions at the southwest border plummeted from 144,000 in May 2019 to just 42,649 in November."  Not everyone thinks this is good news, but I do. 

Following up on my space-ing out post, check out this video made from 400,000 photos of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.  As you watch, please reminder yourself, this is not a simulation... 

You've probably been following the horrible fires in Australia.  And many think climate change is to blame.  But two things, first, Australia has always had horrible fires; I remember reading The Far Country by Nevil Shute, written in 1950, in which "gum tree" (Eucalyptus)fires play a notable role, and second, nearly 200 people arrested in Australia for deliberately lighting bushfires.  What!  

While I was out not blogging :( the Babylon Bee came to the fore, and my goodness is it great.  Here's a sample: CNN attacks Babylon Bee: 'The internet is only big enough for one fake news site'.  Hehe. 

Speaking of CNN being a fake news site, did you see this? Covington Catholic Student Nick Sandmann Gets Settlement From CNN After $275 Million Lawsuit.  Wow.  I don't think the settlement was $275M, but hopefully it was large enough to make them think twice about being so irresponsible. 

If you've been a regular reader, you know how much I like solar power*, and this is no surprise: Solyndra 2: Boondoggle Boogaloo.  "If you liked Solyndra, you're gonna love the Crescent Dunes solar plant near Tonopah, Nevada.  Thanks to the efforts of Obama energy secretary Steven Chu and then-majority leader Harry Reid, it sucked up $737 million in federal loan guarantees.  Tiny problem: It was obsolete before it ever came online." 

*All solar power plants are obsolete before they come online; the sad truth is that it costs more to make them than they ever save in operating expenses, and they are in no way a replacement for fossil fuels.  Or nuclear power.

Apropos: England giving up on wind power.  "Hugh McNeal, chief executive of the British wind industry’s trade body, has acknowledged that with subsidies at an end, there won't be any more wind turbine projects in England."  And note that most British wind power plants are in the ocean, and they have a lot of wind. 

OTOH, Germany's massive nuclear fusion reactor is actually working.  These data points don't prove overall trends, but they are suggestive. 

Nine Healthcare companies who changed the 2010s.  Epic is #1, of course, and Theranos #2, perhaps also of course but in my view incorrectly.  At the end of all they'll be a footnote, and will not have changed much.  But what about Aperio, which founded Digital Pathology?