Alaska Dispatch

AS IT HAPPENS



A Shameless Happy Holiday from mayoral candidate Paul Honeman Print E-mail
December 31, 2008

Hello to ALL!

I hope that this e-mail finds you and yours healthy and happy. I am sending this message as a reminder and call for help.

I know - SHAMELESS, huh?

Well - I tried to leave most of you alone through the holidays - but we now have 98 days from election day!

 
Bristol Palin due to give birth Saturday Print E-mail
December 17, 2008

Those who have followed Gov. Sarah Palin’s Cinderella story over the past few months may recall that her daughter Bristol and fiancée Levi Johnston are expecting a baby. The due date is Saturday, Dec. 20. In an interview with Grandparents.com, Chuck Heath, the governor’s father, says Bristol is expecting a boy. He says the family has been showered with cards and gifts from around the world.

 
Juneau Empire makes 'modifications' Print E-mail
December 10, 2008

The Juneau Empire started Wednesday to make what it calls “modifications” to its paper. That means scaling back the print edition. The modifications come as the paper has “experienced a reduction in our newsroom staff, with some jobs being eliminated through attrition and others through layoffs,” according to a Juneau Empire story Wednesday.

 
Alaska Dispatch: Where do we go from here? Print E-mail
December 10, 2008

By Tony Hopfinger

It’s a different world since we launched AlaskaDispatch.com almost four months ago. Little did we know that Gov. Sarah Palin would become the most widely recognized politician in state history. Or that Ted Stevens would lose his trial and then his Senate seat. Or that oil prices would plummet a hundred bucks.

 
Pipedream takes step forward Print E-mail
December 05, 2008

In what the Palin administration described as a “major milestone in state history” Friday, the governor and two of her commissioners signed the TransCanada license, a complex deal worth up to $500 million in state subsidies that Palin hopes will jumpstart construction on the fabled natural-gas pipeline.

 
Palin returns to Juneau Print E-mail
December 02, 2008

By Tony Hopfinger

Sarah Palin is returning next Tuesday to the state capital, her first trip back to Juneau since August. Palin will host a Christmas open house on Dec. 9 at the Governor’s Mansion (her administration calls it the “Governor’s House”), replete with 20,000 cookies and local entertainers.

 
The Palin Bunch are 'power players' Print E-mail
December 01, 2008

The Palin family, dubbed "The Palin Bunch", ranked No. 5 in a countdown of the 40 biggest "power players" of 2008. In its December issue, Details pays tribute to the Palins and other power players who shaped the country this year. In honoring the Palins, Details writes:

“The entire world follows the U.S presidential races, and even though the Palin double-wide didn't make it all the way to the White House lawn, the damage is done.”

 
Weyhrauch loses ruling, paving way for corruption trial Print E-mail
November 26, 2008
By Tony Hopfinger

Bruce Weyhrauch, the former Alaska state representative facing trial on corruption charges, can't block prosecutors from claiming he allegedly concealed a conflict of interest in seeking a job with an oil contractor, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

 
Snowmachiner kills man on dog sled Print E-mail
November 20, 2008
An Anchorage man was killed Wednesday when a snowmachine crashed into the dog sled he was riding outside the town of Kotzebue, according to Alaska State Troopers.
 
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Talk of the Tundra

Could nuclear reactors solve the energy crunch in rural Alaska?

By Mark Clayton

Hundreds of miles from the nearest power plant, the roughly 700 residents of Galena, Alaska, depend on costly generator-supplied electricity for their homes. But now, they want to go nuclear.

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Happy New Year, Tripp

By Amanda Coyne

It’s 9 a.m. right now. The sun’s already high in the clear blue sky—the kind we only see a few times a year in Alaska. The rolling mountains covered in a soft white and deep green.

In a café in Santa Fe, NM, I look at what the bloggers have to say about Tripp and his mother, but I don’t have the stomach for it. People out there can be mighty mean. Santa Fe seeps into me. On New Year’s Eve, I want to say enough to the meanness and pettiness plaguing Alaska.

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America’s economic crisis: learning from Alaska’s bust

By Ray Metcalfe

The economic collapse our nation is experiencing today was experienced before by the oil producing states when the price of oil fell below $10 per barrel in 1986.

Louisiana and Texas were hit hard but Alaska was the state hit the hardest. On average, between 1986 and 1990, real property across Alaska fell to less than half of its former value. Rental properties fell by two-thirds. Some condos fell to 20 percent of their original cost.

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Death knell sounding for print papers

By Tom Brennan

"Icy blast cancels global warming rally." Headlines like that will always be with us, but the days when they are delivered to your door (or thrown into your hedges) are sharply numbered.

Print newspapers are having a difficult time surviving and some are dropping all or part of their print editions. For the most part, it's not the result of their sins, however significant. Technology has simply made them obsolete and awarded the race to broadcast and online news outlets.

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Snowmen picket City Hall

A group of disgruntled snowmen spent Christmas protesting in front of Anchorage City Hall. The snowmen were upset with the city’s threats to hurt Snowzilla, the most famous snowman in Alaska. The city used its heated sidewalks to disperse the snowmen. The ACLU is investigating the alleged unfair treatment of Alaska snowmen.

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A whistleblower’s gift

By Cliff Groh

Ted Stevens just got the biggest Christmas present he will receive this year. An FBI agent who has worked on the Alaska public corruption investigation has alleged that at least two members of the prosecution team against Sen. Stevens engaged in various acts of misconduct.

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Alaska Press Club renames award in honor of influential journalists

By Susan B. Andrews and John Creed

KOTZEBUE—Alaska’s largest press association has renamed its esteemed First Amendment Award after two crusading journalists who changed the course of state history in the latter half of the Twentieth Century.

In 1962, Tom Snapp and Howard Rock started a modest statewide newspaper, Tundra Times, which would prove central to the run-up and then passage nine years later of the largest Native American land claims in U.S. history.

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What did I know about an alleged plot to kill Bill Allen's nephew?

By Tony Hopfinger

U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted almost two months ago in federal court, but it seems nearly every day a new allegation of misconduct is leveled against the government’s handling of the case.

The latest came on Tuesday when Stevens’ lawyers filed a motion for a hearing to explore allegations by Dave Anderson, the nephew of Bill Allen, who insists in a letter that the government promised him, his family and friends immunity in exchange for him testifying at Stevens’ trial.

In the letter, Anderson mentions yours truly, saying I was aware of a plot by Allen and his son to have Anderson murdered.
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FBI whistleblower alleges misconduct in Feds' Alaska corruption probe

By Amanda Coyne

An FBI agent-turned whistleblower has cast suspicion on the Feds’ political corruption investigation in Alaska, alleging that another agent broke agency rules and committed “possible criminal violations” in the FBI’s pursuit of Sen. Ted Stevens.

The whistleblower revealed in a complaint made public Monday by a federal judge that the corruption probe has at times been run much like Alaska at its most corrupt: Inappropriate relationships with key witnesses, reporters and others; exchanges of inside FBI information with witnesses; gifts and artwork allegedly given to an FBI agent by a witness or source. Along the way, evidence and witnesses were mishandled and suppressed, all of which, if true, could have impacted Stevens’ right to a fair trial.

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A Canadian-American-Pakistani in Alaska

By Iqbal Ahmed

Who am I? Am I a Pakistani-Canadian-American, an American-Canadian-Pakistani, or a Canadian-American-Pakistani? Maybe a Canmeristani. Actually, I am none of these. Broad labels can tell you very little about a person. I am Iqbal Ahmed, born in Pakistan, raised in Canada, now living in Alaska. I am a culmination of the past, the future, and the present. 

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