Alaska's VPSO Program safe for another year

Well it seems the Village Public Safety Officer Program dodges a bullet, no pun intended, as the State of Alaska announced its readiness to renew contracts with several Regional Non-Profits.
The issue at hand is, and quite correctly, the indirect rates charged by the non-profits.
Public Safety Commissioner Bill Tandeske said today that the State is looking for an across the board rate that will allow the State to save some money, and put more VPSO's to work.

Good riddance to Arafat

YAHOO Censors Mailing List over DNC Security Concerns

Kill 'em all- Let God sort 'em out!

No Skeeters, No Problem? Not So Fast
By JAMES GORMAN

Published: June 22, 2004
The New York Times

Elizabeth Willott is the kind of professor who gives the ivory tower a good name.

She is an entomologist and environmental ethicist at the University of Arizona, and I called her to ask a simple question: What good are mosquitoes?

Dr. Willott seemed like a good person to call because she has spent some time thinking about these issues. She has an article in the current issue of Restoration Ecology titled "Restoring Nature, Without Mosquitoes?"

In it she notes that in planning wetland restoration, people sometimes fail to give enough thought to one inevitable consequence - more mosquitoes. In the bad old days, not all wetlands were drained to build hotels. Another motivation was the real fear of death and disease, as spread by mosquitoes.

So, I asked, what about mosquitoes? Would everything really collapse if we got rid of them? Well, she said, no. The web of life is not that fragile. "If you take a snip, it won't unravel."
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In fact, she said, there is "quite a bit of ecological research now showing that removal of a species doesn't make a huge difference." If the species of mosquitoes that are intimately connected with human beings were made to disappear, there might be some ecological disturbance, but "you probably could remove them without catastrophe."

Do they do anything of value, then? That depends on your point of view, she said. The philosophical arguments about intrinsic value versus instrumental value can get quite complicated. In essence they ask whether a mosquito, or a tree, or anything, has a value in and of itself, apart from what human beings think.

This is the sort of discussion that may be intriguing in an air-conditioned classroom, but seems absolutely incomprehensible at dusk near a marsh. If there's a chance that our children might get encephalitis, then we're ready to wipe mosquitoes off the face of the earth.

One small step beyond this "me, me, me" approach is to think about the value of any given organism to environmental balance. This is still not intrinsic value, since environmental balance is useful to people, but it is a bit less self-centered. Step outside the anthropocentric view of life and one possible value of mosquitoes is population control. Mosquitoes have historically kept human populations down worldwide, and still do in much of the third world. The problem is that they do this by facilitating pestilence and death, so this is not going to enhance their status, among human beings at least.

Mosquitoes may also keep some other animal populations down by spreading disease - something we might be able to see the value of. And other creatures - some fish, frogs birds and bats - eat them. It's possible that if we were able to wipe out mosquitoes, some other species might either suffer from lack of food, or explode in numbers because the burden of disease was lifted.

Another value of mosquitoes, perverse to some, obvious to others, is that they "keep out the riffraff," meaning human beings. Concentrations of pests offer protection to wilderness areas. The tsetse fly, which causes livestock disease as well as human sleeping sickness, has kept humans away from some wildlife refuges and has been called "Africa's best conservationist." Of course, this view has been described by others as ecological imperialism.

In any case, the reality, said Dr. Willott, is that "we're not going to get rid of the mosquitoes." It's just impossible, particularly if we want to use methods that don't kill off everything else. DDT is very effective at mosquito control, but it can be disastrous for birds of prey.

When I asked Dr. Willott if she thought it was immoral to try to make a species go extinct, assuming you could do it without hurting other organisms, she thought the question was significant enough to require a formal statement. "Striving for the unachievable is not an appropriate use of resources," she said. "If one acknowledges that eradication is highly unlikely to work or might have serious side effects, the moral thing to do would be to find another way." In other words, don't be stupid.

What she suggests is that we take the middle ground and try to kill some of the mosquitoes some of the time.

I mentioned to her at the end of our conversation that although mosquitoes were not that much fun to be around in reality, I shared her fascination with them. As a subject to talk and write about, they are irresistible.

Yes, she said, "and they find us the same."

Alaskans Fighting CAPPS II - Count Me In

Planes Are For Flying, Not Spying.
This isn't communist Russia: we have no 'papers' to show. We walk through metal detectors and put up with TSA security rifling though our stuff, shouldn't that be enough? As long as we don't have anything on us that can cause harm to the plane or our fellow passengers, we should be left alone.

ACLU Was Forced to Revise Release on Patriot Act Suit

Justice Dept. Cited Secrecy Rules

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 13, 2004; Page A27

When a federal judge ruled two weeks ago that the American Civil Liberties Union could finally reveal the existence of a lawsuit challenging the USA Patriot Act, the group issued a news release.

But the next day, according to new documents released yesterday, the ACLU was forced to remove two paragraphs from the release posted on its Web site, after the Justice Department complained that the group had violated court secrecy rules.

One paragraph described the type of information that FBI agents could request under the law, while another merely listed the briefing schedule in the case, according to court documents and the original news release.

The dispute set off a furious round of court filings in a case that serves as both a challenge to, and an illustration of, the far-reaching power of the Patriot Act. Approved by Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the law gives the government greater latitude and secrecy in counterterrorism investigations and includes a provision allowing the FBI to secretly demand customer records from Internet providers and other businesses without a court order.

The ACLU first filed its lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of such demands, known as national security letters, on April 6, but the secrecy rules of the Patriot Act required the challenge to be filed under seal. A ruling April 28 allowed the release of a heavily censored version of the complaint, but the ACLU is still forbidden from revealing many details of the case, including the identity of another plaintiff who has joined in the lawsuit. The law forbids targets of national security letters to disclose that they have received one.

ACLU lawyer Ann Beeson said the court order also means that she "cannot confirm or deny" whether the ACLU is representing the second plaintiff. The group is the only counsel listed in court documents.

The dispute over the ACLU's April 28 news release centered on two paragraphs. The first laid out the court's schedule for receiving legal briefs and noted the name of the New York-based judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero.

The second paragraph read: "The provision under challenge allows an FBI agent to write a letter demanding the disclosure of the name, screen names, addresses, e-mail header information, and other sensitive information held by 'electronic communication service providers.' "

Justice lawyers said that both paragraphs violated a secrecy order and that the ACLU should be required to seek an exemption to publicize the information, court records show. Justice spokesman Charles Miller declined to comment yesterday.

"It simply never occurred to us that this information would be covered by the sealing order, because it's completely non-sensitive, generic information," Beeson said.

The dispute was partly resolved yesterday. Marrero ruled that the briefing schedule could be publicized, along with edited versions of other court filings. But the paragraph describing the information that can be sought remains absent.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

What the FBI can ask for in a National Security Letter

"The provision under challenge allows an FBI agent to write a letter demanding the disclosure of the name, screen names, addresses, e-mail header information, and other sensitive information held by 'electronic communication service providers.' "

This paragraph was removed from filings by the American Civil Liberties Union against the FBI's powers under the USA PATRIOT Act.

Islamic Militants Murder Tower Professional

Nicholas Berg killed and videotaped for the world to see

(Baghdad, Iraq) - May 12, 2004 - Nicholas Berg, a 26-year-old tower and infrastructure professional from Philadelphia, PA was brutally murdered by Islamic fundamentalists this week in a revenge killing that was seen and reported throughout the world.

Mr. Berg, a member of the Tower Pro List Serve and last employed by Prometheus Towers, left the United States for Iraq as an independent contractor. His parents said he was an entrepreneur who left home to jump start his career by taking advantage of the opportunities offered by Iraq's massive reconstruction - although he did not have contract work already lined up. He was also supportive of the administration's mission in Iraq and believed he could help with the reconstruction.

His mother told reporters that all he wanted to do was help rebuild the communications towers and upgrade the communications systems throughout Iraq. That goal ultimately cost Mr. Berg his life.

Islamic militants, with ties al-Qaida network, murdered Mr. Berg and videotaped the gruesome killing. The tape was published and promoted on a website and the murder was said to be in retaliation for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison.

The five killers, covered in shrouds and dressed in black, forced Mr. Berg to state his name, tell where he was from and name his family members shortly before they brutally murdered him. The tape was shown on every major U.S. news network and was edited to end right before Mr. Berg's slaying.

In a final show of humiliation, Mr. Berg's killers put his body on the side of a road in Baghdad where it was discovered by the U.S. military.

Mr. Berg's parents lost contact with their son on March 24, 2004 and did not hear from him again until April 11. He was detained by U.S. officials while he tried to find tower work. It appears that he was captured by his killers shortly after his release from U.S. custody.

The White House immediately condemned the killing of Berg by saying that "it shows the true nature of the enemies of freedom. They have no regard for the lives of innocent men, women and children."

The Berg family was devastated when they received official news and said that their son had visions of building and servicing cell phone towers throughout Iraq.

Wireless Infrastructure News Service

Slaughter

I just watched the video of the beheading of American free-lance technologist Nicholas Berg.
It is horrifying to watch as his executors read, in sing-song Arabic, and he rocks on his ankles, surely unaware that these moments are his last.

Poor Ben Stevens

They giggled at him on the Senate Floor tonight and he had to take a point of personal privelege to complain.
Hey Benny-boy, news flash- everyone is tired of your self-serving whining. You ain't your old man and never will be.
So, get over it.

Anchorage Daily News Letter 'O the Day

"Mike Miller is no true conservative; he's a true 'knee-jerk reactionary'

Now that Mike Miller has drawn his reserves into his fight for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, a clear picture has emerged. With Sarah Palin and Tom Fink having publicly endorsed him, Miller is plainly the chosen instrument of the extreme right of the GOP.

His mailings tout him as a "trusted conservative," and dismiss incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski as "too liberal" and "not sufficiently conservative." It is more accurate to describe Mike Miller as a "knee-jerk reactionary" on every issue discussed in his mailings.

He stands firm against enacting a state income tax, and for lowering federal taxes, without uttering a word on ways to meet our deficits. He stands firmly in defense of "Second Amendment rights," suggesting that Lisa Murkowski opposes these rights. He chafes at "federal restrictions on using public lands," without a word about protecting the environment from despoliation. He argues for parents having "the greatest number of choices" in educating their children, saying nothing about strengthening our public schools.

This man is not a true conservative, a guardian of the best from our past. He is simply a reactionary who cannot stand others who show some independence and flexibility."

-- Alden Todd

Anchorage

The Northern Center perspective on Pogo

The Northern Center perspective on Pogo
By Dan Adams
Apr 28, 2004, 11:30 PST

For every story that is reported by the media, several stories go untold. Here's one story that hasn't made headlines: The Northern Alaska Environmental Center says let's go ahead and build the Pogo mine. Yes, this from the nonprofit organization perhaps best known for campaigns to conserve Alaska's incomparable natural areas.

The NAEC recognizes the need for jobs and a viable economy in Interior Alaska. Any implication that NAEC wants to shut down the Pogo mine is false. Just build it in compliance with the law. That is the very least Alaskans ought to demand from Teck-Cominco, a foreign company that will profit so richly from our gold.

In that light, NAEC has accepted an invitation from Gov. Murkowski to work with state, federal and Teck-Cominco officials to find a solution to the wastewater pollution issues raised in the permit appeal.

The Clean Water Act was enacted more than 30 years ago, for good reasons. We believe that Alaskans, as people everywhere, prefer their rivers and streams free of arsenic and other toxic chemicals--especially those deposited by foreign financial interests who are paying back little or nothing for the privilege of extracting the state's resources. It is simply unacceptable that a mining company is allowed to use a stream as its unregulated private toxic waste dump.

In a recent op-ed piece, an official of the Department of Natural Resources missed the point when he stated, "The project cannot simply be redesigned to address NAEC's concerns. ... A four-year process, in which NAEC was a participant, determined that the current location was environmentally preferred." Our appeal addresses how wastewater from the mine is managed to ensure that the state's rivers are not contaminated, not the location of the mine or its waste-rock facilities.

As the state of Alaska and Teck-Cominco know full well, it is entirely possible to redirect Pogo Mine pollution away from rivers. It is standard mining industry practice to control and regulate the pollution runoff and seepage from mine waste dumps. It is done throughout the western United States, and it can be done here.

From the beginning, NAEC has tried to make sure its appeal would not raise a legal barrier to continued work on the project. When EPA informed us that sewage treatment for construction workers might be affected, we started working with EPA to resolve that problem and allow construction to proceed during the appeal. Why Teck-Cominco stopped all work on the mine while we were in the middle of addressing this problem is puzzling. Teck-Cominco has been operating without a permit (but in anticipation of getting one) since January. All indications are that necessary modifications can be made in the mine design to resolve the appeal. The NAEC is glad now to have the opportunity to discuss with the company and the agencies how we can resolve the wastewater issues and put the disputes behind us.

Properly managing discharges probably will cost money. But let us put things into perspective. Teck-Cominco is a foreign company that plans to extract 5.5 million ounces of gold worth more than $2 billion from the Goodpaster River drainage. Do you know who owns that gold? You do. It's on state land. Do you know how much of that $2 billion will go to help the state of Alaska with its budget troubles? Probably nothing, if past accounting practices from other large mines are any indication.

People get it when it comes to oil: We don't give that stuff away for free. The oil companies have to make a deal with us for our oil. And the state's interests are part of the deal. That's why income from oil accounts for 80 percent of the state's operating budget. And that's why you get a permanent fund dividend check. But somehow, when we talk about mineral extraction, we do not stand firm and demand our share. Instead, all of the proceeds will go directly to Teck-Cominco and its investors.

We at the Northern Alaska Environmental Center can't do much about how the state gives away the public's wealth. But we can keep an eye on the mining companies to make sure that they use some of the profits from developing our resources to comply with our laws. We hope that Teck-Cominco will use this opportunity to make this site a model for environmentally responsible mining.

Dan Adams is president of the board of directors of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center.

© Copyright 2002 by Northern.org

It's Just No Fun being a Kid Anymore

I wonder if they showed him their guns?

Secret Service Questions Washington State Student About Anti-War Drawings
The Associated Press
Published: Apr 26, 2004

PROSSER, Wash. (AP) - Secret Service agents questioned a high school student about anti-war drawings he did for an art class, one of which depicted President Bush's head on a stick.

Another pencil-and-ink drawing portrayed Bush as a devil launching a missile, with a caption reading "End the war - on terrorism."

The 15-year-old boy's art teacher at Prosser High School turned the drawings over to school administrators, who notified police, who called the Secret Service.

"We involve the police anytime we have a concern," Prosser Superintendent Ray Tolcacher told the Tri-City Herald newspaper.

Secret Service agents interviewed the boy last Friday. The student, who was not arrested, has not been identified.

The school district disciplined him, but district officials refused to say what the punishment was. Tolcacher said the boy was not suspended.

The artwork was apparently part of an assignment to keep a notebook of drawings, according to Kevin Cravens, a friend of the boy's family.

The drawing that drew the most notice showed a man in what appeared to be Middle Eastern-style clothing, holding a rifle. He was also holding a stick with an oversize head of the president on it.

The student said the head was enlarged because it was intended to be an effigy, Cravens said. The caption called for an end to the war in Iraq.

A message left by The Associated Press with an after-hours duty officer with the Secret Service in Washington, D.C., was not immediately returned on Monday.

"If this 15-year-old kid in Prosser is perceived as a threat to the president, then we are living in '1984'," Cravens said.

Tolcacher insisted it was not a freedom of speech issue, but a concern over the depiction of violence.

"From what I saw, (school officials) were right to be concerned," Prosser Police Chief Win Taylor said.

AP-ES-04-26-04 2348EDT

Now, THIS Is a Bear Story!

Young man fights off brown bear

By MARY PEMBERTON, Associated Press Writer

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (April 26, 6:20 pm ADT) - A 15-year-old boy on a wilderness expedition for emotionally troubled youths woke up to find a 400-pound brown bear with a bad attitude sitting at his feet.

The Barrow boy thought at first it was a camp counselor rustling around at the foot of his tent Saturday morning on Deer Island in Southeast Alaska. But when he figured out it was a bear, the young man - keeping his wits about him - tried to quietly slip away.

The bear would have none of it.

"It seems that pretty calmly he wriggled his way backward out of the back of the tent as the bear was going over the top of the tent," Alaska State Trooper Adam Benson said Monday. "They kind of met up at the back of the tent. The bear came down, mouth open, toward him."

Benson said the boy put up his right arm to fend off the sow, and she bit his forearm, leaving two puncture wounds.

The boy decided to fight back, a risky approach to take particularly with a brown bear, the trooper said.

"He told me he punched the bear half a dozen times with his left hand," and the bear let him go, Benson said.

When the teenager got up and tried to run, the bear bit him again on the right side of his torso, right below his ribs, this time leaving a half-dozen puncture wounds on his back, Benson said.

The boy punched the bear again a couple of times, and again she let him go.

"He jumped behind a little cluster of trees and kind of played keep away with the bear," Benson said.

During one of the turns around the trees, the young man remembered that he had an air horn in his gear and grabbed it on the run. He blew the horn in the bear's face. The sound woke up the other counselors and boys in the camp, said Steve Prysunka, director of the six-week "Crossing Wilderness Expeditions for Youth" program.

Prysunka asked that the boy not be identified in news reports.

Prysunka said counselor Willy Hollett stepped between the boy and the bear and hit her with some pepper spray. The bear reared up and he sprayed the bear again, and the bear reared up again. In the meantime, another counselor fired a flare at the bear's feet, causing her to finally turn and run.

The boy was taken to the program's floating camp - a barge with a lodge anchored about one-eighth of a mile away. An emergency medical crew arrived by float plane about 30 minutes later to take him to Ketchikan General Hospital where he was treated and released a few hours later, Prysunka said.

Benson said he was at the hospital when the teen was brought in on a stretcher. He was sitting up and looked relaxed.

"He told me it didn't hurt. I would attribute that to a pretty good shot of adrenaline," Benson said.

Late Saturday afternoon, another trooper and a couple of U.S. Forest Service employees returned to the campsite area, found the sow and killed her. There were no signs she had any cubs with her.

Benson said the counselors the evening before had checked on the campers to make sure there was no food left out to attract bears.

The boy had some Rice-A-Roni he wanted to keep.

"He said, 'No, don't take this. I'm going to eat this in a little while.' Apparently he fell asleep before he got it done. There was some food left at the foot of his tent," Benson said.

The boy was being sent home to give his wounds time to heal, Prysunka said.

"I think he is the biggest, baddest thing in the woods. He punched the bear," Prysunka said.

The Tripod Falls, Again

Ice Moves in the Nenana Ice Classic

By Rachel D'oro Associated Press Writer
Published: Apr 24, 2004

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Mother Nature picked the winning numbers for the 88th Nenana Ice Classic on Saturday, melting the ice on the Tanana River enough to move it downstream.

Organizers of the popular yearly game of chance said there were six correct guesses for the winning time of 2:16 p.m. Each $2.50 ticket is worth a sixth of $301,000 jackpot - $50,166.66, or $36,120 once federal taxes are taken out.

A tripod erected on the ice is connected by wire to a clock on shore to detect the ice movement in Nenana, a community of 500 about 55 miles south of Fairbanks.

Organizers did not release the names of winners, but said they bought tickets in Anchorage, Juneau, North Pole and the Fairbanks area.

The jackpot, determined by the number of tickets sold, has reached $300,000 for the last several years. At least 50 percent of gross ticket sales is placed in the jackpot, with the rest going to expenses and to charities or nonprofit organizations in Nenana.

Last year, a pool of 19 winners shared a $301,000 jackpot when the ice went out at 6:22 p.m. on April 29.

The earliest the ice has gone out is April 20, in 1940 and 1998. The latest is May 20, 1964.

AP-ES-04-24-04 2215EDT

Ummm...Wouldn't this be characterized as torture?

"Only after such time as Padilla has perceived that help is not on the way can the United States reasonably expect to obtain all possible intelligence information from Padilla," from a declaration by the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, stating that Mr. Padilla was unlikely to cooperate if he thought a lawyer was trying to free him.
Read the New York Times story on Jose Padilla (remember him? The "dirty bomb" guy?)American Terror Suspect's Path From Streets to Pentagon Brig and form your own conclusions.

Mystery of Marshall crucifix is an article of faith

By Jeffrey Hope
KTUU-TV
Updated: 4:46 a.m. ET April 23, 2004

April 21 - Some say it's a spiritual awakening. Others are calling it a miracle. Ever since an Easter vigil service, things haven't been quite the same in the small Yup'ik village of Marshall. Whatever happened, a statue of the crucified Christ is changing lives.

Marshall, a village of a few hundred year-round residents, sits on a quiet slough of the Yukon River. There are no roads to get to it. The few trucks in town came here by barge. One store serves the entire village, and there are two churches -- a Russian Orthodox church and a Catholic church. That's where things haven't been quite the same since Easter.

"Some people think this is a miracle, which is good," says Angelina Coffee, a Eucharistic minister.

Miracle or not, the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church has become as busy as a post office. A crucifix of Jesus has always been respected, but now it's the talk of the village.

Church members say it started during an Easter vigil service. Someone thought they saw the painted blood on the statue turn to real blood. Most missed it, but, after the service, church members crowded around the crucifix. Even longtime members agreed it looked different.(more)

The Marshall, Alaska Crucifix

Photo courtesy of Sophie Jacob. It was taken on a Sony MVC-CD400 on April 21, 2004 in the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Marshall, Alaska.

I've got GMail

Suckers.

LMMFAO

Borrowed from Slashdot

Many colleges and business's tend to strip the last name down to 6
characters and add the first and last initial to either the beginning or end
to make up an e-mail address..

For example, Mary L. Ferguson = mlfergus or
fergusml. They are just now beginning to realize
the problems that may happen when you have a
large and diverse pool of people to choose from.

Add to that a large database of company/college
Acronyms and you have some very funny addresses.
Probably not funny to the individual involved, however:

Top ten actual E-mail Addresses

10. Hellen Thomas Eatons (Duke University) -
eatonsht@dku.edu mailto:eatonsht@dku.edu

9. Mary Ellen Dickinson (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) -
dickinme@iup.edu mailto:dickinme@iup.edu

8. Francis Kevin Kissinger (Las Verdes University) -
kissinfk@lvu.edu mailto:kissinfk@lvu.edu

7. Amanda Sue Pickering (Purdue University) -
aspicker@pu.edu mailto:aspicker@pu.edu

6. Ida Beatrice Ballinger (Ball State University) -
ibballin@bsu.edu mailto:ibballin@bsu.edu

5. Bradley Thomas Kissering (Brady Electrical,
Northern Division, Overton, Canada) -
btkisser@bendover.com mailto:btkisser@bendover.com

4. Isabelle Haydon Adcock (Toys "R" Us) -
ihadcock@tru.com mailto:ihadcock@tru.com

3. Martha Elizibeth Cummins (Fresno University) -
cumminme@fu.edu mailto:cumminme@fu.edu

2. George David Blowmer (Drop Front Drawers & Cabinets Inc.) -
blowmegd@dropdrawers.com mailto:blowmegd@dropdrawers.com

but at No 1, it had to be...

1. Barbara Joan Beeranger (Myplace Home Decorating) -
beeranbj@myplace.com mailto:beeranbj@myplace.com