Netroots Photo Album – Pittsburgh 2009
I had all sorts of grand notions in my head about coming back to the hotel after dinner each night and uploading and sizing pictures, and giving you all a daily wrap up of the Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh as it happened. (Glancing over at the calendar…) Looks like that didn’t happen. But, I did get some great pictures while I was there. There are far too many to post them all, but here are some of my favorite “non business type” shots from the four days in the City of Ketchup and Football. For my first meal in…
The Palin Notification Act.
Please join Governor SARAH PALIN & nationally known conservative STAR PARKER Thursday, August 27th 7:30pm at Change Point Church Anchorage The Alaskans for Parental Rights campaign was developed to return to parents the right to oversee abortion decisions their underage teenage daughters might be unfortunately considering. ******************************** So says the notice from Change Point Church, one of Anchorages 2 mega-churches that will be pushing hard for the Parental Notification act. This announcement has appeared all over the internet, far and wide – state blogs, national blogs, Palin blogs, you name it. I’ve known about this appearance for days now. Apparently…
CRUDE. Another Example of Why You Should Never Ever Trust Chevron.
As if we needed another reason to remind us what big trans-national oil companies will do when they can. Right here in Alaska, Chevron allowed six million gallons of oil to sit unchecked on the shores of Cook Inlet in the path of an erupting volcano. Bob Shavelson of Cook Inletkeeper described it on Mudflats. Despite months of warning, there was no actionable plan in place to address a catastrophic spill from the facility. The spill contingency plan required by laws passed after the Exxon Spill didn’t address a 6 million gallon spill, and it didn’t even envision oil from…
If It’s Good Enough for Them, It’s Good Enough for Us.
The blogosphere is full of tributes to Senator Ted Kennedy today. The left is mourning. Some on the right are not. Ted Kennedy was a consummate negotiator. He never gave up without a fight, and he knew what was right. He lived a life of privilege, fiercely devoted to serving those who did not. I was reading the comments from Sarah Palin’s facebook page, and over on Fox News. I wondered to myself how it was possible that the very people that Kennedy fought for all his life, to give them a living wage, and to give them the…
1 – 2 – 3 … Jump! Entering the Blogosphere.
At Netroots Nation, I attended a lot of panel discussions because I thought they’d be valuable for me, and for Mudflats. But there was one that I looked at and thought… I’m going to this one for YOU. So many of you donated to make the trip possible, and voted for my scholarship, this was my way of saying thank you with some tangible information that will help you make change where you are, whether you’re in Alaska or not. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to start a local blog? Do you have a blog already…
Voices from the Flats – Oil Lust & Dodging Bullets
Bob Shavelson is a reformed attorney with backgrounds in biology, chemistry, and environmental sampling and compliance. He was Editor-in-Chief of the University of Oregon’s Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation, and has considerable experience in toxics, the Clean Water Act, and Right-to-Know issues. Prior to joining Inletkeeper in 1996, Bob worked in the United States Senate, Oregon’s Senate Majority Office, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium, and the University of Oregon’s Ocean & Coastal Law Center. He currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the National Waterkeeper Alliance and the Cook Inlet…
Odds and Ends
Getting Those Damn Rats Out of Alaska No, not those kind of rats. And not really the whole state…but still, it’s a victory. I’m talking about actual four-legged, snaggle-toothed, beady-eyed, bird-killin’ varmints. The ignominiously named “Rat Island” appears to now be completely rat free. I’ve been following this story for a while, so I was glad to hear that the latest news was good. The down side to the rat eradication is that the poisoned pellets used to kill them also killed gulls and bald eagles in the process. Since Rat Island has been infested with rats for 230 years,…
Netroots – Turning Red Districts Blue: Organizing for Change
One of my favorite panels at Netroots Nation was the panel discussion entitled Turning Red Districts Blue: Organizing for Change. Panelists were David Atkins (moderator), Darcy Burner, Adam Lambert, Democracy for America’s Arshad Hasan, Matt Browner Hamlin, and Eden James. Matt Browner Hamlin spoke about his time as Mark Begich’s online communications director in the 2008 campaign. MBH: The challenge in Alaska is how do you get from a population which is only 23% Democratic to a vote of 50% +1. It was a big hurdle. Most Alaskans are registered as Non-Partisan. What helped the Begich campaign was the…