Voices

OPINION: If recently passed legislation to cut taxes on oil companies doing business in Alaska is not repealed by voters, you can say goodbye to annual Permanent Fund dividends and hello to a state income tax.

The money Senate Bill 21 gives back to BP, ConocoPhillips, and Exxon Mobil Corp. will leave Alaska with about the same amount of income from oil revenues that the state treasury had to spend back in 2002, when voters were choosing a new governor and the primary issue was discontinuation of dividends and resurrection of a state tax on income...

The Susitna River dam is being aggressively pursued by state government with little public knowledge or media coverage. Alaskans who appreciate fiscal responsibility and who treasure the qualities that make our state unique need to become more aware of this project.

It is hugely ironic that Gov. Sean Parnell's administration is attempting to eliminate significant state environmental protection safeguards yet is promoting the Susitna dam as a feel-good, mandatory renewable energy project. The governor and the majority of our legislators care not a whit about renewable energy; they simply desire mega-projects. They do not have the fortitude to recognize fiscal reality and they do not consider the wild lands of the state to have intrinsic value...

Fairly or not, Bangladesh seems to make international news only at moments of tragedy.

Much of the misery that afflicts this teeming South Asian nation has been beyond human control. Since 1980, nearly 200,000 people have been killed in natural disasters, and more than 10 million Bangladeshis are affected by such events on average each year. Tropical Storm Mahasen hit coastal areas earlier today, killing 12 people, destroying thousands of homes, and forcing as many as a million people to flee the area.

But perhaps most tragic of all are the disasters that are wholly preventable: the deaths, maimings, and crushed livelihoods that result from human callousness or indifference...

For all of those planning to saddle up for National Bike to Work Day on Friday, battered cyclist Joe Orr of Anchorage has some advice: Be careful; Be very, very careful. It was one year ago on a Friday afternoon that Orr went pedaling home from his job as a historian at Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson but ended up with a long stay in the intensive care unit of a local hospital.

Orr, the Anchorage Daily News reported at the time, "was riding on the sidewalk on the east side of Muldoon Road around 3 p.m., Lt. Dave Parker, a police spokesman, said. Orr slid under the vehicle, became trapped and had to be extricated, Parker said."...