White space above post

I would like to minmize the amount of white space above the beginning of a page. For an example at http://www.point-of-view.ca/marker-point-2/ I want the first line of text on the page to be at the same level as "Of Special Interest" on the side bar. I've looked around but can't find out how to do this. Also how do I get rid of hyphenation on the entire site? I don't want the text to be hyphenated at the end of the lines of text. thank you!