The Weekend Off – News You Missed
Alaska
ADN.com – Archaeologists rush to save ancient Yup’ik treasures threatened by melting permafrost
QUINHAGAK — On the eroding Bering Sea coast of far Western Alaska, archaeologists from around the world are unearthing remnants of an ancient Yup’ik village frozen in place for hundreds of years.
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – Court agrees to review Alaska Roadless Rule case
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A full federal appeals court will review the decision allowing Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to be exempt from federal restrictions on road-building and timber harvests in “roadless” areas.”
NY Times – Shell Submits a Plan for New Exploration of Alaskan Arctic Oil
Royal Dutch Shell submitted a plan to the federal government on Thursday to try once again to explore for oil in the Alaskan Arctic, following years of legal and logistical setbacks as well as dogged opposition from environmentalists.
National
Vice.com – Liberals Won’t Let the Death Penalty Die
“I personally oppose this terrible, awful, unjust thing that I’m doing,” only really works as a defense of one’s terrible, awful, unjust behavior if the alternative to working at, say, the local cat-skinning factory is starvation. Capitalism requires us all to sacrifice a bit of our moral integrity to put food on the table so, while it’s nice to be pure, it’s also nice to eat. There’s a line, though, which I’d draw at: killing people. You really shouldn’t kill people—and in the case of California’s most powerful elected officials, all liberal Democrats, no one is forcing them to do anything of the sort.
NY Times – Kochs’ Network Wrestles With Expectations for Presidential Primaries
DALLAS — The network overseen by Charles G. and David H. Koch has knocked on the doors of a million voters this year, elbowed aside some of the Republican Party’s top strategists and built one of the biggest fund-raising operations in politics.
The Guardian – Texas Border Patrol agent fires at armed militia member
A Border Patrol agent pursuing a group of migrants in a wooded area near the Texas-Mexico border on Friday fired several shots at an armed man who later identified himself as a militia member.
International
The Guardian – Mount Polley mine spill: a hazard of Canada’s industry-friendly attitude?
The scale of the devastation only became apparent from the air. A dam at a waste pond on the site of a British Columbia open-pit mine had burst, releasing 10m cubic meters of water and 4.5m cubic meters of potentially toxic slurry into virtually untouched forest, lakes and rivers into an area of Canada populated mostly by the indigenous First Nations peoples. Soda Creek First Nations chief Bev Sellars took a helicopter tour to assess the scale of the disaster. “It looked like an avalanche, but avalanches don’t have toxic waste in them,” she said.
IBTimes – Miners Trapped In Nicaragua Gold Mine Risked Their Lives ‘For A Few More Cents’
Freelance miners working for Minero SA of Colombia knew of the dangers of working in El Comal, a gold mining area in northern Nicaragua, the Associated Press reported. However, the miners, 26 of whom became trapped in the mine Thursday morning after a landslide blocked their exit, said they could make slightly better money there.
Al Jazeera – From Gaza with the worst news: Orphaned while at college in America
It was a normal day for Iman Abu Aitah, a Palestinian student going to college in the United States. A rising junior, she had spent the month of Ramadan with her host family in Mason and was making plans to visit her relatives back in Gaza for the first time in two years. But as she did her routine Facebook check of the Gaza Now news feed, she knew something was off.
I am very disappointed in the decision today of Mallott and Walker to join forces and run as an independent ticket. Hollis French got shoved under the bus. He has been an outstanding senator, and a long-term, good, and effective public servant. This looks like a last-chance, hail Mary pass reaction from the Democrats, and I don’t think it will work.
It looks like a murkowski move to me.
could be wrong.
waiting for info of substance.
swearing a lot
it might work but do we want it to?
I am on the cusp of old age, I’ve voted for over 40 years and only missed one municipal election in all that time. I’ve gotten used to losing most of the time. I can live with losses of the usual sort.
Could I /can I live with a win for a conservative R? yet another one? again?
that I had any hand in electing?
Argh!!!!!!!!!!!
This story was on HLN news at 5:36 AM mikey time today.Begich’s political ad blowback was in CNN print today. What was Begich thinking?
http://www.adn.com/article/20140901/walker-mallott-join-forces-governors-race
this , as it unfolded, was what I watched all weekend.
don’t know how I feel about it yet and won’t decide what I think about it until they talk in public about what was actually agreed upon as per social issues , native issues, and the like.
Yikes! I can see why it is hard on you to wade through all this stuff. Not sure I would/could agree to compromise on outside choice,regardless of party affiliations and I can’t begin to imagine how Mr French feels. Betrayed might come close. At least used and disappointed. He does seem to have the right perspective-for the good of all. But,then I’m not personally ambitious enough to be a politician. Hoping for mucho more sunshine for you. 🙂
still waiting for info of substance.
so far all we’re getting is done-deal! and folks’ reactions.
so far I’m not having a reaction beyond “oh, effing Pffftt! on no info of substance!!!!”
(I don’t care how Ds feel right now except Mr French- whom I admire and respect greatly.)
I want to know more about the deal.
I am pretty darn shaky on the idea of voting for Mr Walker- strategy to beat Parnell be damned- at this point.
Since no one is paying attention http://www.naturalnews.com/042950_beaver_butt_natural_flavoring_castoreum.html
Have a safe and FLAVORFUL Labor Day. 🙂
Just a heads up, NaturalNews.com is a site with no ethics whatsoever. Makes up stuff all the time, hides op-eds as actual news stories and tried to terrify everyone with stories about… well, everything.
They continually reprint the lie that Monsanto bought Blackwater and even worse claim that Jeremy Scahill said it… that’s a straight lie.
Thanks for the heads up. I double checked the use of castoreum as a food additive with Snopes,Business Insider,National Geographic,Wiki and at least one other. It is used as a food additive.
Mollie Bloudoff-Indelicato, wh
From Nat Geo.
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/lehmberg-tweet-from-perrys-account-deleted/nhC6s/?google_editors_picks=true
This is so cute. Perry tweeting unretouched twitter pix of his favorite Dem femme with cutesy little captions. Just like wingnuts attempt to bridge the gap with female voters,it was fun for awhile in a peculiarly macho,misoginystic manner.