Open Thread – Slumber Party!
Post Netroots slumber party with Lizz Winstead, Jeanne Devon and Shannyn Moore. More fun than should be legally allowed. Note the hat trick of No Pebble stickers on our laptops. And Lizz even has one on her hat. Everywhere we go, we talk about the proposed Pebble Project and the disaster it would be to anyone who will listen.
This picture was taken in Brookline, MA, where we attended a reading of Lizz’s new book Lizz Free or Die. It only took about four dozen attempts, and lots of leaping in and out of bed.
Our travels began in Providence, went to Boston, then New York City. We’re talking about making it an annual tradition.
Update on the militia trial: Jury is ready with 15 of 16 verdicts; deadlocked on the other.
The verdicts should be announced later Monday afternoon.
http://www.adn.com/2012/06/18/2510097/militia-jury-deadlocked-on-one.html
Verdicts are coming in . . . looks like a long string of “guilty” verdicts, including conspiracy to commit murder.
http://www.adn.com/2012/06/18/2510097/militia-jury-deadlocked-on-one.html
wow.
thanks slip.
wasn’t sure what the jury would do, seems about right how it shook out.
And here is a graphic from the Anchorage Daily News with a breakdown of verdict / count / person.
It’s complicated . . . but Cox could get life plus 85 years.
http://www.adn.com/cgi-bin/apps/assetDisplay/?ref=http://media.adn.com/smedia/2012/06/18/17/46/XO7Xs.GrLa.7.jpg&summ=&sec=1536&width=531&height=1200
ok- AKM makes fun of her eerily lifelike court room drawings but did you see the prosecutor’s photo in the ADN story?!
she is better than good! I would have recognized the guy on the street!
New story on the verdicts is up. I was able to be there today.
I got such a kick out of your comment, Pi!
the very first drawing in the court series was the judge,i believe. looked to moi like judge lance ito of o j simpson infamy.
rwnj guv terry”pink slime/lead shot” braindead of the great state of iowa used his line item veto pen last month to veto a bi-partisan passed $500 thousand dollar bill to go to the iowa food bank association. guv braindead claims he is worried that the spending would affect the state’s general fund which has about a billion bucks in reserves and cash on hand. iowa is one of 12 states with no state emergency food allocations. braindead apparently believes food is an entitlement and only 383,000 iowans sruggle with food insecurity. a considerably smaller number of extremely wealthy iowans depend on entitlement tax cuts so they don’t go hungry. on a brighter note-guv numbnuts is asking iowans to donate non-perishable food items for the annual yankee doodle pops independence day celebration held at the state capitol grounds on july,3rd. hungry hawkeyes get ready to celebrate your independence from nourishment at guv braindead’s behest. please give generously even if it means you and your children are malnourished.
Ah, an open thread.
My dad passed on in early May. All the sorting is done and I’ve cried enough lately to be out of tears for a while.
But there’s something I’ve got now that I think not even our esteemed bloggers who live in Alaska have.
A slice of Mastodon tusk. It belonged to a great uncle of mine and was sitting on the dresser in the guest room. It comes from Anatuvuk Pass in the Brooks Range. It’s one of those places Google can’t get you to, though it will show it to you on a map. GPS can’t do everything. I suggest taking the Star Trek transporter instead.
Anyway, here I am with a piece of Mastodon tusk, bestowed on the family by one Simon Paneak. The note says he’s an Eskimo of [ripped off].
So I have two questions:
1. Anyone know what tribe Simon Paneak belonged to? Tribes being what they are, I figure if a descendant of his is reading this, they’ll know about him.
2. How the heck should I take care of a slice of Mastodon tusk? Somehow, giving it an occasional dusting just doesn’t seem like all it would need.
Personally, I hope they can one day revive Mastodons with a little forzen DNA and the help of some modern elephants. I’d like the meet the animal that walks around carrying those tusks. My slice is about 6 inches tall and weighs about 8 pounds.
condolences to you and mr.baker’s dozen on the passing of your father. http://spmm.nsb-ihlc.com/ this guy has a museum established in his honor. i didn’t read the whole biograpny, sounds interesting.
Excellent find Mikey!
Anaktuvak Pass is home to the Naqsragmiut Tribe , who are Inupiat/Inupiaq peoples, and a very special place- even if very remote.
I would contact the museum Mikey turned up for care of the mastodon tusk piece and further information about Mr Paneak.
So sorry about your Dad, Bakers Dozen.Sending mud hugs …
((((((((( baker’s dozen and family )))))))) Wow, a slice of mastodon tusk! That’s very precious. When I first met the boyfriend, he gave me a piece of jewelry made of a tiny piece of mastodon tusk. Rare and beautiful.
I can’t help you with the tribe, sorry. Regarding care of the tusk, I’m an avid amateur fossil hunter. If it’s lasted this long, the tusk is pretty tough. Display carefully – you have a great find! – and dusting is fine! Don’t expose to cleaning chemicals, however.
There has been a great deal of new info on mastodons in recent years. The dna has been sequenced, and some hope to clone it. Work has begone on mammoth dna. http://www.helium.com/items/2070602-scientists-to-attempt-cloing-a-mammoth
In other mastodon news: “The researchers, whose findings appear online in PLoS Biology, compared the DNA of modern elephants from Africa and Asia to DNA that they extracted from two extinct species: the woolly mammoth and the mastodon. Not only is this the first time that anyone has generated sequences for the mastodon nuclear genome, but it is also the first time that the Asian elephant, African forest elephant, African savanna elephant, the extinct woolly mammoth, and the extinct American mastodon have been looked at together.
…. According to David Reich, associate professor in the same department, “The surprising finding is that forest and savanna elephants from Africa — which some have argued are the same species — are as distinct from each other as Asian elephants and mammoths.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101221172244.htm
Thanks, everyone. I’m going to try that there museum.
To say that Anatuvuk Pass is remote is a bit of an understatement. Just perzactly how far is the nearest road?
🙂
For most of Alaska our “roads” are the airways and waterways so Anaktuvuk Pass is connected as well anywhere else outside the road/railbelt .
“Airport Operational Statistics
Aircraft operations: avg 69/week *
89% air taxi
11% transient general aviation
* for 12-month period ending 31 December 2005 ”
http://www.airnav.com/airport/AKP
I think cat-trains haul in some too in winter months but air is primary.
Please catch us up on what you learn after talking to the museum folks !
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/104041/pro-life-law-banner-women%E2%80%99s-health more good news for women brought to you by the party that believes whatever galls or pukes women(like medicine) is good for them-body and soul. i’m beginning to believe all rwnj are inbred and related all over america. in case i missed something important-does everyone have to sign in for every comment or is i special?
Speaking of fun photos (and that one is truly fun), I know there are a lot of bird-cam watchers here on the ‘flats. Here’s a time-lapse montage of the hatching of a Pacific loon in beautiful Alaska:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chickadee/7369842978/?utm_source=Cornell+Lab+eNews&utm_campaign=15e6f7b2ec-BirdCams_eNewsletter_Update_+15_June_2012&utm_medium=email
Enjoy!
Hmmmm. This PHOTO is more fun than we Mudflats readers should be legally allowed to have!
Fun.
in order to insure a more perfect mockery of rwnj everywhere please join mikey in an online petition to rename a woman’s hoo-haw pudding so as to be more palatable to offended rw puritans who can’t stomach medically correct and state approved terms for a vagina. by re-naming the offending critter pudding i’m certain doctors and nutter pols will have no objection to inserting probes and will willingly do so in public in front of their chillen and willard romney’s dog. for another far-fetched fable of rwnuttery,iowa 4th or 5th district wingnut steve king is suing obama over the potus’ latest,unconstitutional amnesty attempt aimed at young illegals. king is afraid iowans will discover he can be replaced by a dozen illegals on the cheap and would then have to look for a job his party refuses to help create.
Between the three of you ladies, there’s a lot of smart stuff in that hotel room! 🙂
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mich-lawmaker-silenced-abortion-bill-comments-16579886 Puritans have re-emerged and taken control of Michigan’s statehouse. The fauxknee bustards that claim to believe in the Constitution have denied two female Michigan Congresswomen their first amendment rights to free speech and probably other violations as well. If a grownup can’t refer to a vagina using the medically correct term,what slang term would be less offensive to Michigan rwnj -UNTS? BTW-welcome back Jeanne and Shannyn.
They’re so afraid of their poor, delicate ears being offended by hearing the term, but they’re falling all over each other in their enthusiasm to write endless legislation controlling it.
I swear these disgusting misogynists must be dyslexic – they think it’s the 12th century instead of the 21st.
That goes for the Catholic Bishops and the Pope in Rome too!
Normally Lansing is a pretty boring place. But this story really puts those of us in Michigan on the map! What kind of map, I cannot say.
I am so tired of Republican legislators. Ever since President Obama took office, they have been holding a non-stop filibuster by bringing up all kinds of social issues (actually, anti-woman issues) in order to avoid passing laws that would provide jobs, rein in the banks, and help people generally. A sane person would have thought that, as 2012 unfolded, they would have begun to backtrack a bit on their never-ending temper tantrum resulting from President Obama’s victory in 2008 in order to win back some female votes come November. But then, I remembered how the Republicans wrapped themselves around 9/11 all during the Bush years while refusing to pass legislation to fix the communications problems between and among first responders that had led to so many deaths on that day or to provide health care for those first responders who developed permanent health issues. They are all, simply put, crazy.
At this point, any woman in the country who votes for any Republican is simply insane.
Beaglemom, since 9/11 the feds pumped a LOT of money but ZERO coordination into emergency communications. Departments went out and bought all new equipment without any master plan. The communication problems between first responder departments have gotten worse, not better.
One example: Anchorage Fire Dept radios are UHF; Anchorage Police Dept radios are VHF. A firefighter and a police officer working on the same event cannot talk to each other. Sure, they say they can do a patch back at headquarters, but you know how quickly things go wrong in the field. Every responder in the field should be able to talk directly to the responder 100 yards away, without waiting for somebody back in the shop somewhere to decide to activate a cludge.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
But remember, there’s mucho money to be made in selling gobs of equipment to first responders all over the country.
Not so much money to be made, however, in spending time coordinating systems and training the people to work together.
As long as there’s a profit to be made, Congresscritters are happy to use tax money to help their friends (and, often, themselves) pad their bank accounts.
Do I sound a tad cynical, maybe???
leenie, you sound a tad accurate, maybe.
The homeland security spending after 9/11 was ridiculous, and totally misguided. The boyfriend had a store-bought brace on his hand (I think he injured himself moving things in a storage room), and it set off some kind of chemical alarm in an airport in Kentucky. Who knows how much of our tax money was wasted on that machine.
That mindset has also led to the militarization of police forces all over the country.
Allow me to suggest the term I grew up with: “your, um, you know, down there”. Note that I did not grow up in a happy, healthy family.
Mikey – nice to hear from you. I was beginning to wonder whether you ran off with that scissors-weilding hairdresser.
dear Mag- i only have to win the lottery and then she will consider running off with me.i mainly wanted to see if i could keep opinions to myself for a month without exploding. well.i can’t. too late to run off anyway,i have spuds to eat and lettuce and onions and rabbits to shoot and dragons to slay and i’m too old for her. happy as hell to hear from you.