Tongue Depresser in Juneau
Republican fart jokes on the House floor? No prob. But let a Democrat show a little tongue, and the capital screeches to a halt. A crucially important presser was held in the Capitol yesterday. Sure there are bills regarding transportation, energy, oil taxes, finance, education, uteruses… But the Interior Alaska Delegation of the House had some super serious stuff that needed to be dealt with. In the Speaker’s Chambers, belonging at the moment to Mike Chenault, members of the press were gathered – statewide newspapers, TV stations, journals, the Associated Press – all to hear that Rep. Scott Kawasaki stuck…
Senate Votes to Give Big Oil Billions
Here’s your highlight reel from the Senate oil tax debate. Late Wednesday night the Alaska State Senate voted 11-9 to give billions from the state treasury to the oil industry. A 10-10 vote would have killed the bill. Amendments and debate took all day, and went well into the night. The bottom line is that the senate voted to give away the farm, in exchange for nothing. No increased promise of production, exploration, or jobs. It might incentivize them to do something though. Magically. If we’re lucky. That’s the argument of the 11 Senators who voted for this historically bad…
AO37 Testimony Ends, Vote May Be Delayed (VIDEO)
Last night was the last round of scheduled public testimony on Anchorage Ordinance 37, which would take away the rights of municipal unions for binding arbitration, the right to strike, and would restrict annual raises. AO37 would also utilize managed competition to outsource city work done by public employees to private companies. For another five-hour session, city workers and supporters of labor stood on the podium and gave their three-minute testimony. Sadly, their opinions and experiences seemed less interesting to the Mayor than his manicure. Ultimately, police officers, firefighters, city employees, and concerned citizens were left standing in line to…
Parnell Chickens Out – Again
If you squint really hard, and clear your mind, you’ll be able to see a new sign in front of the Governor’s Mansion in Juneau. The author of the legislative fisheries newsletter Laws for the Sea, Bob Tkacz, is one of my favorite reporters in our state’s capital right now. He and several others attended the Governor’s press availability in the Capitol last week. He, like many Alaskans, had watched in dismay as the Governor’s Cruise Ship dumping bill as it sailed through the legislature, despite massive amounts of misinformation. One particular example Tkacz cited in his question for the…
Socialists? Marxists? No – Republicans!
I want to be a Republican and I want a time machine. Oh, I’m not going all Lindsey Holmes on you; I need a time machine to find the Grand Old Party. I have to thank Mayor Dan Sullivan for starting me on this quest. A few weeks ago, at five minutes until closing time, the mayor announced a plan to roll back more than four decades of labor policy in Anchorage. It wasn’t the first shot in his war on working men and women in our town — but this was the nuclear option. I take it as a…
Let’s Play Decode that BS!
Oh, look! Governor Parnell has just tweeted, boys and girls! You know what that means, right? That’s right. Everyone playing along, get out your super duper Captain Zero decoder rings! Ready? OK. Now, remember Captain Zero is talking about how much money the oil companies should be able to get from our piggy bank in exchange for our oil. Let’s see what we get when we decode the tweet… Democratic legislators think Alaskans deserve wine and flowers. (spins ring) The Alaska Oil and Gas Association thinks you should get water boarded. (spins ring again) That lends credibility to the…
Downward Dogma: The Hindu Threat
Islamophobia is so 2010. To meet the more current threat totally not facing our nation, one must travel to the town of Encinitas—located on the California coast between San Diego and Los Angeles. Encinita’s local school district has received a $533,000 grant from a local yoga studio enabling students to learn about healthy eating, cultivating small gardens, and… (*cue shrieking violins from Hitchcock film*) Ashtanga yoga. Elementary school students in the district began taking yoga for 30 minutes, twice per week. Parents can opt their kids out of the program, but only 3 to 4 families at each school have…
Meanwhile, In Shell’s PR Office…
Following the loss of control and subsequent grounding of the Shell drilling rig, Kulluk, that company’s PR team goes to work. Sitting in PR headquarters, mostly silent, members of the PR team wracked their brains trying to find a way to at least mitigate some of the negative publicity being aimed at the corporation. Then it came. One member of the team jumped up and exclaimed, “I’ve got it! Let’s spend some money on Facebook and try to get some extra ‘Likes’ over this whole thing!” And everyone at Shell agreed. The end. ************************************************************************************************* Ryan Marquis lives on Alaska’s…
The Audacity of Failure – She’s Back!
She ran for governor of Georgia in 2010 and lost. Then she took one of the most beloved and successful non-profits on the planet, set it on fire, and shoved it out to sea like a viking funeral pyre, before resigning in disgrace. Then she wrote a book with the painfully prosaic title “Planned Bullyhood,” in which she called members of Planned Parenthood “a bunch of schoolyard thugs.” So, what’s next for Karen Handel, disgraced and ostracized former head of the Susan G. Komen foundation? She’s considering a run for the U.S. Senate, of course. If she ran, she would…
Palin Picker says Rice “Not Very Bright”
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. ~Charles Darwin The reason Great Britain remains a top-tier international economic and political power today is because it did a great job adapting from one reality to another. Seeing the heads of monarchs rolling across Europe, our mother country decided to give this whole parliamentary democracy thing a go, while repurposing the House of Windsor as stately and impotent figureheads and turning Buckingham Palace into Disneyworld. Apple Computer learned some tough lessons at…