NOT Made in Alaska – DC Dan Buys from New Zealand
Earlier this week Jeanne Devon documented the hilariously unfortunate copy and paste job of Dan Sullivan’s website. “Carpetbagging Republican Senate candidate Dan Sullivan (OH->DC->AK) is running against incumbent Senator Mark Begich (D-AK) this fall. When serious and professional candidates run for office, they usually hire someone to develop a website for their candidacy.” The Mudflats has now uncovered some new issues on his site. This time they’re not just from out of state, they’re from the other side of the planet. New Zealand, in fact. Most Alaskan politicos have their own stock of photography from their years in Alaska –…
Lizz Winstead Takes on Hobby Lobby
From the Daily Show and Air America’s Lizz Winstead: So the Green family, billionaire owners of Hobby Lobby, a Christian Craft store (whatever THAT means), don’t want to cover certain birth control options in their employee healthcare plan because Jesus, or something. In fact, this brood are so rich they just paid millions to take their fight to keep ignoring science all the way to the Supreme Court. Yep, this is what passes for democracy in 2014. Today, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear Hobby Lobby v. Sebilius, and these dangerous religious gajillionaires will argue their corporation…
Lemmings of Wall St and the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon
Ok kids, let’s play a new game it’s called, “fact checking with statistics!” So today we’ll be fact checking the growing story of the suicidal bankers. In case you haven’t heard, there’s a kerfuffle within the edges of journalism (Daily Mail, NY Post, RT to name a few). People are flipping out that 12 bankers have killed themselves recently. And by recently, I mean in since the beginning of 2014. This from the Daily Mail. So, let’s play this game. Without knowing anything other than what I told you, does that seem odd? Sure. Twelve people involved in the same business kill…
Walking With the Ghosts of Exxon
It’s 5 a.m. on the 4th of July, and the alarm goes off. I open one eye and think surely I must have set it for the wrong time, but then I remember. Today I’m heading to Prince William Sound with Shannyn Moore and Zach Roberts. Our goal is to document the lingering effects of oil, still present in the Sound after the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in the spring of 1989. It’s 2010, and a child born then would be 21 years old now. It’s hard to believe. I was not in Alaska back then. I,…
Exxon Valdez – Lessons Learned & Lost
In recognition of today’s 25-year anniversary of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska (March 24), this seems a good time to reflect on lessons learned, and lessons lost. 1. Oil spill “cleanup” is a myth: Once oil has spilled, the battle is lost — it is impossible to effectively contain, recover, and cleanup. Exxon spent more than $2 billion trying to clean up its Alaska spill, but recovered less than 7 percent. BP spent $14 billiontrying to clean up its 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, and although they collected some at the wellhead, burned and dispersed some (with toxic chemicals), it recovered only 3 percent from the sea…
Exxon Spill – 25 Years of Tears
Time has a strange affect on events in our lives. I feel I’m looking through a glass of water when I look back 25 years to this day, March 24, 1989. I’d left Seattle University and the Ballard Lochs on the M/V Westward heading north through the Inside Passage of British Columbia for the sac roe herring fishery in Sitka. No time in my life is etched as clearly as that spring. There is a certain magic about following Spring to Alaska. Per my not so scientific study, I’ve determined Spring moves at about 9 nautical miles an hour, about…
Sullivan Website Screw-Up Quotes Ron Paul
Carpetbagging Republican Senate candidate Dan Sullivan (OH->DC->AK) is running against incumbent Senator Mark Begich (D-AK) this fall. When serious and professional candidates run for office, they usually hire someone to develop a website for their candidacy. And in the course of developing the design of the website, there’s often something that says this: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum…
GOP Senator – Birth Control Irresponsible
I had a plan to write a column that was going to make the Anchorage municipal elections coming up to be the sexiest most riveting thing you’ve ever read. Then someone did something stupid in Juneau, so you’ll have to wait a week while I sort this doofus out. First, the reporting on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders from Kyle Hopkins and Marc Lester for the Anchorage Daily News has been incredible. Disturbing, and incredibly needed. Two percent of children born in Alaska have FASD. We need solutions and education. Sadly, we have a “think tank” formed by Sen. Pete Kelly…
Bird of the Week – Short-eared Owl
Short-eared Owls don’t usually breed in Interior Alaska, although there was an active nest along the Denali Highway a few years ago. They mostly breed on the north side of the Brooks Range and the North Slope, but pass through here in spring migration. The “ears,” like the “horns” on a Great Horned Owl, are feather tufts. They are “short” in relation to the tufts on its non-Alaska cousin, the Long-eared Owl. Short-eared Owls are among the most widely distributed owls in the Western Hemisphere. WC has seen them in Hawaii, in the Galapagos Islands, on Tierra del Fuego at…
White Power, Blue Uniform
“Black people are so disgusting.” When gawking in horror at the internet’s racist underbelly during a bout with insomnia, one comes across jarring pronouncements like that one. The comment was one among a long list of similar sentiments under a Facebook meme denouncing biracial relationships. “Who says something like that in the year 2014?” I wondered while clicking through to the commenter’s profile. Well, it turns out US Army Police Officer (!) Troy Roberts of Ft. Stewart, Georgia does. He’s a big fan of a Facebook page called American White History Month, publisher of the now-removed meme. Roberts’ stated employer…