Award Winning Websites
The Alaska Press Club announced some awards tonight, among them:
Best Media Website

1st: Alaska.com, Leon Unruh, Tom Twigg, Roger Price, Anchorage Daily News

2nd: ktoo.org, KTOO

3rd: alaskastar.com, Sam Douglas, Alaskan Publications

I watched some of this hearing on Alaska One last night. un-Rep. Anderson claims to have a rebutal to everything said in opposition to video gambling. What a cocky fellow he is.

Last coupla grafs of Capital roiled with gambling debate

The Associated Press

"...Anchorage Democratic Rep. Harry Crawford urged his fellow lawmakers Wednesday to reject video gambling. He predicted that gambling money will come to influence Alaska politics. Crawford, who comes from Louisiana, said he's seen firsthand that the video machines are addictive and can wreck lives.

Anchorage Republican Rep. Tom Anderson, a key backer of video gambling and a former officer in the CHARR group, said in an interview that Crawford's concerns need consideration. But he still believes the gaming proposal has merit if done properly, maybe with money going to education about gambling and programs that help with addiction. He also said 10 machines in each bar might be too much.

"I do not think that this solves our fiscal problem completely," Anderson said. "But it is an example of how we can find sources of revenue other than a tax."...(more)

The Fight has Just Begun
Video Gambling Prospect Darling of Unimaginative, Deluded, Conscience-less House Speaker; Politically Ambitious Anchorage Freshman

The question is simple: Do you TAX sin, or ENCOURAGE it?
Debate over allowing machine gambling in Alaska is about to erupt in open warfare in Juneau. Strong positions have been taken, with lines rady to be drawn- some drawn already.
The Alaska State Legislature quite a few years ago BLEW IT by outlawing Monte Carlo Night's, where charitable gaming licensees were allowed to create one-night casino's. Monte Carlo Night's were classy events that made a lot of money for licensees and operators, and let players get the blackjack bug out of their system for a while. Oftentimes Monte Carlo Night's were hosted by large charities and targeted Alaskans that actually had money in their pockets to spend.
Now, under the cover of a misguided lottery bill, we see the spectre (and a dark, foreboding spectre it is) of video poker machines infesting our State, in the name of revenue.
B... S... The only beneficiaries to video poker games are bar owners (who really ought to do the math before the run willy nilly behind the losing team of Kott and Anderson) and the gambling machinery industry.
Alaskans owe NO loyalty to either CHARR nor the gambling industry. WE OWE THEM NO FAVORS.
Now, lets look at some of the spume from Juneau yesterday, as reported on Channel 2 News last night.
Lawmakers bet on lottery, video gaming for revenues
Anderson insults Rural Alaska when he tells KTUU's reporter that IF there is any addiction to pull tabs, it is probably in Rural Alaska.
Kott in denial: "I don't believe it's an expansion at all" of gambling. In other words, Kott says, "I don't gamble and noone I know does, either."
I'm not here to dictate the morals of the people of Alaska"- Frank on the tee vee tonight
And most astounding of all (and a statement that is sure to haunt him) the Governor says, " "I am not here to dictate the morals of citizens of Alaska. That doesn't go with this job," he said. "
The only ones making sense so far are Representatives Harry Crawford and Cheryl Heinze and Senator Scott Ogan.
Pluheeez
Video poker? Not in MY backyard!
For once I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY with Scott Ogan.

Unhappy Crabbers
Maybe "comprehensive rationalization" isn't so rational
Crab plan draws protests from crab coalition

The Associated Press

ANCHORAGE (April 14, 7:15 p.m. ADT) - A final plan to divide up Alaska's crab fisheries, allocating the amount fishermen may harvest and processors may process drew fire Monday from crab fishermen.

"It pits harvester against harvester and there is no room for a competitive price," said Jake Jacobsen, manager of the Alaska Marketing Association. The Seattle-based group, the collective bargaining arm for Bering Sea crab fishermen, is concerned that the plan gives processors too much power to set price.

Arni Thomson, executive director of the Alaska Crab Coalition, said the plan approved April 5 by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, does not protect the market for fishermen. Under that plan, "a processor can argue that he should pay less because his costs are higher," he said.

Dave Benton, council chairman, last week defended the plan as insurance that independent harvesters of crab would have maximum leverage in negotiating with processors.

"We have adopted a whole sweep of community protection measures and measures to insure that the relationship between processors and harvesters lead to fair negotiations for price," Benton said.(more)

WOW!
Wuerch is O U T
And Rick Mystrom should have learned HIS lesson, too.
Begich wins Anchorage mayoral race
The Associated Press

ANCHORAGE (April 14, 6:30 p.m. ADT) - Former Assemblyman Mark Begich won the race for Anchorage mayor Monday, squeezing out a victory by just 18 votes over Mayor George Wuerch.

After a count of 4,505 absentee and questioned ballots, Begich ended up with 45.03 percent of the vote. Wuerch earned 37.17 percent, while former mayor Rick Mystrom finished with 15.67 percent.(more)

A thought-provoking piece from Indian Country Today
The Biblical basis of federal Indian law & policy

Posted: April 14, 2003 - 11:04am EST
by: Steven Newcomb / Indigenous Research Coordinator / D-Q University at Sycuan

I have often wondered why federal Indian law attorneys dare not mention the crusading tradition of the United States against "heathens" and "infidels," namely, American Indian nations. The Western Shoshone Nation is directly challenging this tradition in court and in the U.S. Congress. Their challenge brings to light the strange and startling fact that U.S. federal Indian law is based on religious prejudice.

As bizarre as it may seem, today’s federal definitions of Indian title and Indian nationhood find their basis in the Old Testament covenant tradition. This tradition is premised on the idea of a "chosen people" who have a covenant (treaty) with their deity to take over and colonize certain lands that the deity promised them, in this case Indian lands.

The history and discourse of the United States is replete with examples of this crusading tradition, which is rooted in the Old Testament of the bible. Even Thomas Jefferson, known for his strong advocacy of a separation of church and state, proposed that the Great Seal of the United States depict the Israelites moving into the "promised land," guided by clouds and fire. (more)

Mmmmm...Roadkill!

Alaska State Troopers report:

MI 1409 AK. HWY.....MVC/I.... ON 4-12-03 AT 2350 HOURS, ALASKA STATE TROOPERS IN DELTA JUNCTION RESPONDED TO A REPORT OF A MOTOR VEHICLE COLLISION BETWEEN A VEHICLE AND THREE BUFFALO AT MILE 1409 OF THE ALASKA HWY. INVESTIGATION FOUND THAT DOUMANIAN ASHOTOVNA, 26 YOA OF CALIFORNIA, WAS TRAVELING EAST ON THE ALASKA HWY IN A 2002 HYUNDAI RENTAL CAR WHEN SHE COLLIDED WITH THREE SEPARATE BUFFALO STANDING IN THE ROADWAY. INVESTIGATION FOUND THAT THE FIRST BUFFALO WAS STRUCK AND ROLLED OVER THE VEHICLE COMING TO REST ON THE FOG LINE. THE SECOND BUFFALO WAS STRUCK APPROXIMATELY TEN YARDS LATER BY THE PASSENGER SIDE FRONT OF THE VEHICLE, ROLLED ONTO THE HOOD, BROKE THE WINDSHIELD, AND BENT THE ROOF BACK AND FELL TO THE FOG LINE. THE THIRD BUFFALO WAS THEN STRUCK, APPROXIMATELY TEN YARDS BEYOND THE SECOND, BY THE DRIVER SIDE FRONT OF THE VEHICLE AND FELL TO THE CENTER LINE APPROXIMATELY 5 FEET IN FRONT OF THE NOW STOPPED VEHICLE. ASHOTOVNA WAS INJURED AND MEDIVACED TO FAIRBANKS BY LOCAL EMS. THE PASSENGER OF THE VEHICLE NATALIA KHOROCHKOVA, 26 OF CALIFORNIA WAS ASLEEP IN THE BACK SEAT AND WAS UNINJURED. SEATBELTS WERE UTILIZED. THE VEHICLE WAS TOTALED. ALCOHOL WAS NOT A FACTOR. (SRL0)

Up here we call them buff's "Alcan Speed Bumps."

Take a look at A Short adventure, a new blog by Hugh Short, of Bethel, Alaska. Hugh is Mayor of the City of Bethel, local Subway owner, and Vice-President, Support Services at Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation.

Bush says, "Syria just needs to cooperate with the United States...and not harbor any Baathist's." Well, I guess he hasn't been briefed that Syria's government is a Baathist Party government. Here's a little history:

Baath Party, formally the Baath Arab Socialist Party. political party and movement influential among Arab communities in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Iraq. The Baath Party was from the beginning a secular Arab nationalist party. Socialism (not Marxism) was quickly adopted as the party’s economic dogma: “Unity [Arab], Freedom [from colonialism], and Socialism” are still the watchwords. From its earliest development, the motivation behind Baathist political thought and its leading supporters was the need to produce a means of reasserting the Arab spirit in the face of foreign domination. Moral and cultural deterioration, it was felt, had so weakened the Arabs that Western supremacy spread throughout the Middle East. Arabs needed a regeneration of the common heritage of people in the region to drive off debilitating external influences.

Articulated as the principle of Arab nationalism, the Baath movement was one of several political groups that drew legitimacy from an essentially reactive ideology. Nevertheless, Baathist ideology spread slowly by educating followers to its intellectual attractions. The three major proponents of early Baathist thought, Zaki al-Arsuzi, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and Michel Aflaq, were middle-class educators whose political thought had been influenced by Western education. During the1930 s Arsuzi, Salah, and Aflaq expounded their vision of Arab nationalism to small audiences in Syria. By the early1940 s Salah and Aflaq had taken the initiative to extend the movement’s operations in Damascus by organizing demonstrations in support of Rashid Ali al-Kailani’s government in Iraq against the British presence there. By 1945 the word baath (Arabic for “resurrection” or “renaissance”) had been applied to what was then officially a party rather than a movement. The official founding of the party may be dated from its first party congress in Damascus on April7 ,1947 , when a constitution was approved and an executive committee established. However, significant expansion beyond Syria’s borders took place only after the war of1948 , when lack of Arab unity was widely perceived as responsible for the loss of Palestine to the new state of Israel. The Iraqi branch of the Baath party was established in 1954 after the merger of the Baath with Akram al-Hurani’s Arab Socialist Party in1952 , to form the Arab Baath Socialist Party. In February 1963 the Baath Party came to power in Iraq and one month later, in March8 , it came to power in Syria after the March Revolution. Inter-party disagreements were one of the major factors that led to the Correction Movement led by Hafez al-Assad, the movement ended years of conflict within the party. A new constitution, approved in1973 , stated that the Baath Party is “leading party in the state and society”. In1972 , the Baath also became the leader of the 7 Syrian parties forming the National Progressive Front NPF. The national committee of the Baath is the effectively the decision making body in Syria. Number of members in Syria exceeds million.

Now CSPAN is showing footage of Bush arriving back at the White House from Camp David. He is greeting staff members in a long line and now I know why they call it the WHITE House. Is Condeleeza Rice the only African American there? Sure as heck were no black faces to be seen in that crowd.

CSPAN is showing a Wednesday debate between Demo candidates for President. Howard Dean and Carol Mosley Braun are the only ones who dont look like tired hacks or punks. Well, Al Sharpton is kind of indefinable, so.....

This afternoon on CNBC- one of Tim Russert's guests, Permanent Fund, he did say that Alaskans all get checks in the mail- he said, if I heard correctly, $8,000. Don't we wish! However, it does appear evident that the Alaska Permament Fund does offer oil rich countries which, ironically enough, don't trickle down the riches to the people. Maybe President Bush should send Governor's Hickel and Hammond to Baghdad to offer them a few tips about running an "Owner State."

OMG! Wolf Blitzer just called Iraq, under it's former dictator, a "Totalitarian Police State." Words we never would have heard out his mouth just a month ago, eh?

A sad story from Russia:
New York Times (Free registration required)

Fire and Silence: Children's Terror in Russia

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

MAKHACHKALA, Russia, April 12 — Sadness and silence hung heavily in the halls of the Children's General Hospital in this southern Russian city the day after the fire. Small groups of worried parents stood in shadowy corners of the worn lobby waiting for news of their children, who were hanging on to life after a night of terror.
The blaze, in the early morning hours on Thursday, tore through a boarding school for the deaf here where 166 students were housed in a second-floor dormitory.
The most seriously hurt are on the sixth floor of the hospital. The emergency ward was quiet but for the metronomic beeping of the electrocardiogram machine tracing the heartbeat of Ibragim Ramazanov, 13. His thin, bare arms lay straight along his sides like a soldier at attention. A breathing machine was hooked to his small face.
"His lungs, his trachea are severely burned," said Zainulabid Abidov, the head doctor in the emergency ward. "We might be losing him."
Arsen Gasanov, who was recovering in another ward with the less severely injured children, was luckier. He was still sleeping when the flames roared into the second-floor room he shared with 14 other boys. They could not hear the shouts of their teachers below or even the sound of the fire. In the dark they ran, frantically looking for a way out. The smallest ones curled up under their beds, hoping to hide from the fire. (more)

And now, on a lighter note, here's to hoping the troops got to keep some of the BOOTY they found HERE!

Safe House in 1960s Style: Troops Discover What They Call a Saddam Hideaway

By Chris Tomlinson Associated Press Writer
Published: Apr 12, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The doors of the town house opened to reveal a playboy's fantasy straight from the 1960s: mirrored bedroom, lamps shaped like women, airbrushed paintings of a topless blonde woman and a mustached hero battling a crocodile.
Troops thought it was the home of Saddam Hussein's mistress, though on the wall and in the bedroom were photos of the Iraqi president and a woman who appeared to be his wife. The company commander suspected they had found one of the Iraqi leader's many safe houses.
"This must have been Saddam's love shack," said Sgt. Spencer Willardson of Logan, Utah. (more)

The Murkowski administration is facing its first real test of credibility with the Juneau press corps over the extreme downplay of the Governor's medivac flight ot Anchorage. Juneau reporters feel lied to, and rightly so. But they weren't the only ones deceived, so were the Alaskan people. When Chief of Staff Jim Clark came out with the initial statement late Wednesday afternoon which said the Governor had become dehydrated on the flight back to Juneau and was feeling "poorly," and that he was going to Anchorage for "routine medical tests," we all assumed Frank was dehydrated and feeling poorly.
I must ask though, where were the reporters when they got this statement? Did John Manly, the Governors Press Secretary take any questions when the statement was handed out? If so, what questions were asked? I can see several that begged asking.
Now, here's the kicker- when John Manly was told, Wednesday evening that the Governor had undergone angioplasty surgery, why didn't he make an effort to immediately notify the press of that fact? Why did he wait until Thursday morning?
We aren't dumping on Manly, though- these questions really must be answered by his boss, the Governor's Comunications Director Dennis Fradley and Chief of Staff Clark. Until some real answers are forthcoming about what truly appears to be a coverup concerning the Governors medical condition, a deliberate effort to mislead and deceive the press and the people, Dennis Fradley is going to have a hard time communicating.

Here's the latest:

Murkowski condition a mystery to aides

By MIKE CHAMBERS, Associated Press Writer

JUNEAU (April 11, 8:00 p.m. ADT) - While Gov. Frank Murkowski was undergoing a medical procedure in Anchorage to open a blocked coronary artery, most in his Juneau office were unaware of the seriousness of the condition, said his press secretary.
Prior to the 20-minute procedure, only chief of staff Jim Clark was informed that a cardiologist was about to perform angioplasty on the governor to clear an artery that was between 95 and 98 percent blocked, said press secretary John Manly.
"At the time he went up there, we didn't know he was going to have that procedure," Manly said, defending the administration's handling of the event.
The administration had issued a statement Wednesday saying the 70-year-old governor was flying to Providence Alaska Medical Center for routine tests after complaining of being dehydrated. ... Manly said the administration informed the public about what they knew at the time of the governor's flight and he didn't see any problem with the choices they made at the time.
"I suppose it would have looked a little strange for us to say he went up for some routine tests and report something else (later). But I think you have to distinguish between reporting what we know and speculating on what we don't know," Manly said.(more)

Federal bird hunting rules won't fly, state agency says
FISH AND GAME: Traditional spring hunt violates Alaska Constitution.

(Published: April 12, 2003)

By JOEL GAY
Anchorage Daily News
Subsistence bird hunters in Western Alaska looking forward to new federal regulations that legalize their traditional hunts will still have to look over their shoulders when geese, ducks and other migratory birds arrive this spring.
Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials surprised many hunters this week by saying the new federal rules violate the state constitution, which mandates equal access to wildlife for all Alaskans. That means Western Alaskans can hunt legally on federal lands, but not on state land, private land or navigable rivers.
The distinction is important because as much as 90 percent of the birds taken in areas such as the Yukon-Kuskowkim Delta are taken on nonfederal land, federal officials said.
But while game wardens say they won't bust hunters on state land except for the most egregious violations, many hunters are disturbed by the announcement. The new conflict in subsistence regulations exacerbates the urban-rural divide, several rural residents said, and creates another set of confusing regulations between state and federal lands, according to managers.
"I'm just disappointed that after all the work a whole bunch of us put into moving this matter forward, it seems like we've run into a philosophical conflict," said Ralph Andersen, vice chairman of the newly created Alaska Migratory Bird Co-management Council.(more)

Now, THAT'S terrorism...
Or does he just need some attention?

Rapper Snoop Dogg Unscathed as Bullets Fly in L.A.
Fri April 11, 2003 03:25 PM ET

By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A gunman in a speeding car opened fire on a motorcade carrying "gangsta" rapper Snoop Dogg and his bodyguards, slightly injuring one person and leaving police on Friday with few clues as to who might be shooting at one of rap's biggest stars.
The sometimes controversial 31-year-old rapper, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, was questioned by Los Angeles police detectives after the Thursday night shooting, an LAPD spokesman said, but was unable to shed much light on the incident.
"We talked to him last night and he was very cooperative," Sgt. John Pasquariello said. "He just doesn't know a lot."
Broadus was riding in a motorcade of five vehicles with eight armed bodyguards -- most of them off-duty police officers -- when one of three men in another car fired multiple rounds from a semi-automatic handgun, Pasquariello said. (more)

Seems ol' Fidel doesn't want to waste the good Cuban peoples money on long, drawn out appeals of capital cases.

Cuba Executes Men Charged in Hijacking

HAVANA (AP) - Three men charged with terrorism in last month's hijacking of a passenger ferry were executed Friday after summary trials this week, the government reported.
The men were prosecuted in summary trials for "very grave acts of terrorism'' on Tuesday and given several days to appeal the sentences, said a statement read on state television.
The death penalty sentence was upheld both by Cuba's Supreme Tribunal and the ruling Council of State and "at dawn today the sanctions were applied", said the statement. (more)

Well, Cuba IS in the south, isn't it"

Here is the longer wire version of the story.

The next time Senator Robin Taylor gets in to mood to push for the death penalty in Alaska, maybe he should have a field
hearing in Havana. Looks like Castro is more of a Republican than we ever imagined!

Steven Den Beste's USS Clueless today posts a very cogent analysis of the results of the US and British campaign for the liberation of the Iraqi people. Among other things, he points up the emergent trend in the US Military to adapt to the environment rather than being straightjacketed into military doctrines which, at their worst, can result in the creation of force structures solely dependent on guidance from the nether reaches of command (say. like the Iraqi "army" or the old Soviet-style forces). If you have any interest at all in military theory or practice, I recommend this piece.