Seeking all comments to this article. I'd love to hear your opinions. Everyone's! If you're a lurker, it's time to come out of the closet. This was written by an academic in Montana.

Here are some choice excerpts:

"here we go (eye roll)"

"Hey, I am supportive of anyone who can get a PhD while surfing. Pretty interesting argumen ..."

After he's too old to even tow, Laird will go. But the going will be slow on his new Ocean-Rascal

You think about surfing when there's no surf. But what else do you do? Ever thought of tasing yourself, bro? Here's a hilarious entry by a Kiwi surfer about doing just that. To think I'll be committing 8 months to living there next year. Hmm....

"SURFING, with its risk-taking, expanses of taut flesh and sun-bleached hair, has been the coolest sport for more than half a century. To the uninitiated this masks an important truth. Surfing is more akin to fly-fishing or bird-watching than to parachute jumping or alligator wrestling. Waves, more often than not, are no good for riding.

"Back in 1999 Kiwi big wave surfer Doug Young laced up his tramping boots, grabbed his surfboard, and walked for five days along the remote Hollyford Track into deepest darkest Fiordland. He was in search of waves - ideally, some of the biggest monsters to hit the New Zealand coast."

"Who would have thought the humble Kiwi jetboat, first used to help with sheep mustering in the hard-to-get-to places of the high country, would lead to the most glamorous and dangerous form of surfing?"

From Honolulu Advertiser:

"SB 2646 was patterned after a similar concept in Australia, Hemmings said.