Oyster Roundup!
19 06 2009
Thick and fast, they came at last, and more and more and more! – Lewis Carroll
Be There for Health Care
I’ve had a few people ask me where Mark Begich stands on including a public option in the new healthcare plan. The answer is….I’m not sure. But you have an opportunity to raise your voice with the more than 75% of Americans who want a public option. Senator Begich will have a Health Care Reform Town Hall Meeting tomorrow, Saturday, June 20, from 10:30 to noon at the Willa Marston Theatre in the Loussac Library. Grassroots outcry for a public option is happening across the country. This is the time to make it happen, and speak your mind to one of the decision makers.
Got Gas?
With all the hubbub about the gas line, reminders come from all directions that we’ve got a long way to go before there’s an actual pipe with actual gas actually flowing through it. Complications with demand, tax rate, red tape, Canadian tribal lands, and abundance of resources discovered in more convenient places are popping up like mushrooms.
CALGARY, Alberta, June 17 (Reuters) – Billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens said on Wednesday he doubts a $26 billion natural gas pipeline from Alaska will be built any time soon as abundant new shale gas supplies reduce the need for the expensive project.
Pickens, who is promoting a plan to boost investment in wind power and natural gas to cut U.S. oil imports, said at a Calgary appearance that he sees little need for Alaskan gas given massive shale gas discoveries in the Barnett shale play in Texas and elsewhere.
They Walk Among Us
That’s right…the infamous Pete Kott and Vic Kohring are free men, at least for now. The big “do over” is on, and previously convicted corrupt bastards Kott and Kohring have been sprung from prison, and are back in Alaska. No word yet what’s to follow, or whether the ex-lawmakers will be retried.
Here’s what Kott’s attorney had to say about the Bush Department of Justice that colossally botched the prosecution, not only in the case of Ted Stevesn, but also here.
“It is serious and disturbing that the government — the party that was claiming to attack public corruption — was the party that actually withheld these stacks of documents from the defense and the public,” said Sheryl Gordon McCloud, an attorney for Kott.
Lawyers representing other targets of the five-year-long Alaska corruption probe known as “Operation Polar Pen” report receiving hundreds of pages of materials from newly installed prosecutors in recent days.
Operation “Polar Pen?” Hadn’t heard that one before. Kinda funny, actually.
Murkowski Says ‘Yes We Can’
Take the stimulus money, that is…Alaska’s Senior Senator has piped up regarding that elusive $29 million. She’s tried to be diplomatic about Palin, but I’m sure that challenge grows daily. Hitching to the Palin wagon is a teeth-rattling, kidney-busting ride. Looks like she’s getting closer to jumping off.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, however, said despite the objections from Palin, Alaska could use the funds effectively, the Platts news service reports.
“I understand the governor’s issues,” said Murkowski. “But as it was relayed and conveyed, the concerns that she had in terms of strings attached, perhaps there is a way around them.”
Murkowski, speaking on the sidelines of a U.S. energy forum, said the funds could be “well spent” in the Alaskan effort to reduce state energy costs.
And speaking of Lisa Murkowski, she apparently had a good meeting with Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Both women shared a footstool to prop up injured limbs – Murkowski’s left leg from a skiing accident, and Sotomayor’s right ankle.
Climate Change Tour
Sounds like Mark Begich will be leading a Senatorial field trip to Alaska.
“Since the day I arrived in the Senate, my colleagues have been suggesting a trip to Greenland to witness climate change first-hand,” said Senator Mark Begich. “I keep reminding them that Alaska is ground-zero for the impacts of global warming so I’m pleased many are agreeing to visit our state,” Sen. Begich said. “Although our state is huge and senators’ time limited, I’m confident their visit will be an eye-opener and help shape national legislation on this vital issue.”
We don’t know who’s coming when the tour happens this August, but it should be interesting. Hopefully it will give the Senator an opportunity to work his wiles and network about other issues critical to Alaska.
June 19th, 2009 at 4:05 PM
AKPetMom said June 19th, 2009 at 1:01 PM “Hubby and I were laughing this morning about the tour of Alaska regarding global warming and the demise of our glaciers..”
AKPetMom…me too…(sigh)…I’ve been watching Mt. Rainier since I was a kid (50+ years), and every trip we’ve taken up to Paradise Lodge and Visitors Center, to hike or to just have Sunday brunch, I’ve been more and more aghast at how the glaciers on the Mountain have shrunk to practically invisibility. They used to be HUGE. That’s just in 50 years!
June 19th, 2009 at 4:27 PM
@jammer5 # 47:
The Ogalla aquifer goes under parts of eastern Colorado also, and there is an extensive agreement between Kansas and Colorado, and one between Colorado and Nebraska concerning water rights to aquifers and stream flows- to make sure one state doesn’t dry up another. I think if Pickens tried to buy leases, he’d have junior rights, and wouldn’t get much.
Here on the High Plains Desert we tend to watch water use like a hawk, and are very suspicious of “flatlanders” wanting to take a long drink of the liquid gold.
That’s one of the main issues with shale drilling in Colorado- we have huge deposits, but the current technology takes more water than is available, even if it was diverted from agriculture and urban areas.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:00 PM
Anchorage Assembly Chairwoman Debbie Ossiander is going to allow more people to sign up for comments on the anti-discrimination ordinance. You can bet Prevo’s puppets will all sign up in order to delay any passage to such a date that incoming Mayor Dan Sullivan will be able to veto the ordinance.
Pure thuggery by Prevo if anyone asks me.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:04 PM
Why is no one in Alaska asking Lisa Murkowski why she is holding up President’s appointments?
Just wondering.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:17 PM
That move by Ossiander makes her look like a tool.
Sempra in San Diego is getting LNG from Baja. Other firms like BHP Billiton, the largest mining firm in the world got turned down in my neck of the woods for bringing in LNG from Indonesia. They were trying to say we needed it, but I think it was BS. Especially when we have as much sun in So Cal.
Waves from the opening night of the Hollywood Bowl (celebrating my dad’s birthday)!
June 19th, 2009 at 5:34 PM
A lot being discussed here some of it connected some not so much, I will try to resist the temptation to deviate from what I actually know something about except to point to possible links and connections.
Natural gas is a good fuel, not perfect but better than coal, or oil. When it’s burnt it produces water and CO2. It produces minor amounts of other volatiles but by comparsion to other fossil fuels it is clean. The CO2 is problematic,
we need to reduce *release of CO2* into the atmosphere. The water we can use.
Ground water aquifers are nearly ubiquitous. That is there is reasonably pure, often potable water underground nearly everywhere. It is not always possible to get it out in any significant quantity. It is not always pure enough to use as drinking water, it is almost always usable for irrigation but that too can cause problems. They tend to be fairly shallow, i.e. easily reached by vertical drilling, but vary tremendously in their overall volume.
Oil, gas and water occur together almost universally as well. But in much deeper horizons and you wouldn’t want to try drinking the water that comes out of an oil reservoir. By the same token, if you are using water to produce hydrocarbons from an oil or gas horizon, by injecting it to displace the latter, you have to be careful about its chemical composition or you can destroy the productivity of the reservoir rock. Two factors are critically important to the reservoird rock itself. Porosity is one, that is generally the ratio of pore space per unit volume of rock expressed as a percentage. It is an indication of how much fluid the rock can contain. The other is permeability, that is a more complex concept that involves how much connectivity there is between the pores in the rock. Low permeability simply means that no matter how much fluid a rock may contain, it will be difficult to get it out in any sizeable quantity. Other factors also come into play, most important probably is the viscosity of the fluid you want to proudce but that can vary tremendously also and can be “manipulated” in various ways to some extent.
In the case to the so-called shale plays, the nature of the rock is a strongly controlling factor. Shale is made up largely of partially lithified clay particles that are small, thin and flat. They occur as very finely bedded horizons where there can be good permeability between thin laminae but virtually no vertical permability through lower laminae to upper, or lower beds to upper, hence the development of hydraulic fracture. It is intened to increase the vertical permeability of the shales. Water is injected at pressures higher than needed to counter the confining pressures at the depth of the hydrocarbon horizon in order to fracture the laminae and beds within the shale. As mentioned above, the native water that occurs in parallel with hydrocarbons is not “pure” at all, it usually has a fairly high TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) and its composition of TDS can also vary tremendously. Why this is important is simple in concept but extremely complex in reality. The short answer is, if you inject the wrong “kind” of water you will cause chemical reactions that effectively reduce the permeability of the rock and thus choke your ability to produce (mobilize) the hydrocarbons. Not what you want to happen. Particularly if you are spending lots of money to inject said water in the first place.
Having said all that, we can start to think about the relationships between these factors and what motivates producers, what their goals are, and what they have to do to achieve them. Most of Texas and a fair amount of everywhere else, though it has some ground water that is easily produced and marginally potable from aquifers, has no where near enough water to carry on full scale production of natural gas. Remember the volumes we are talking about at trillions of cubic feet of gas. I don’t know because I am not a petroleum engineer, but I suspect that ratio of water required to gas produced is close to 1:1. So, Picken’s e.g. is locking up access to cheap ground water from the Ogallala aquifer so he can inject it into the shale beds and a) produce hydraulic fracturing, and b) displace hydrocarbons, i.e. methane.
Someone above mentioned there were questions about what was being used in the injection water to produce hydraulic fracturing. In a sense that is a red herring because #1 the water that is injected will go to much deeper horizons than any extant aquifers, #2 the already extant problem that there is little if any permeability to shallow horizons from the hydrocarbon horizons, and #3 that although useable irrigation water is being changed into something very much like reservoir water, it is not anything really terrible and dangerous as anyone who has ever spent a weekend in rural W. Va. can testify. The water reeks of sulfur, but you cans still boil decent rice with it. One might well ask, why not use ocean water instead of pure ground water? Well, its much easier to “contaminate” pure water with the particular mix of TDS that you want for your injection project than it is to doctor the interesting contents of ocean water to the same end. Simple economics, it’s a lot cheaper.
All the things said above regarding the superficial economics of NG (natural gas) are more or less true. The one caveat that I think it is important to take into consideration is that none of them operate in isolation, rather the interplay of many factors ultimately will determine what the cost of the resource is. At the risk of straying from my selfconstraining rules of discourse, politics, is one factor that is irrational and nearly impossible to predict with reliability. Especially politics based upon absolute convictions that have no foundation in fact or reality. That said, IMHO, the trans canada deal is a huge negative for Alaska, a zero gain for the US, and a fairly large negative for Canada. The only people who stand to gain from it are the pipeline owners, the politicians who subsidize them with tax money, and the ultimate resource owners, namely the corporations who own, not the gas, but the oil shales. Without the gas the oil shales cannot be produced.
Someone above suggested that the focus should be on developing alternative fuel sources for Alaskan domestic consumption. I agree, the resource is on the N. Slope and currently, it is my understanding that the NG is being pumped back into the depleted reservoir rocks for “storage”. Rather than build a massive continent spanning pipeline from Alaska to the nearest pipeline hub in the lower 48 (I don’t know where that is, but I doubt actually that it would ever get past Calgary anyway), why not build a cheaper smaller scale distribution system to get LNG to the isolated communities of Ak.? If pipelines are not feasible, what about alternatives? USE the gas in Ak.! Obvious counter incentives to that plan come to mind readily such as maximizing profits. Especially if you can get a $500 million downpayment from Alaskans from which they will never see one cubic ft. of NG.
Someone mentioned earthquakes in Texas. It is easy to debunk this claim just go to the USGS earthquake monitoring web site and look up the historical data. Yep, there have been earthquakes, the most recent are just on the threshold of being “felt” if you happen to be sitting on the epicenter and are quietly reading a book at the time they occur. I will add to the alarmism perhaps and mention a web article I saw somewhere that spuriously linked some dubious nuclear underground test to hydraulic fracturing. Accepting at face value that such a test might have been done 20-30 years ago, there is zero evidence that anyone is suggesting using that kind of technique to mobilize NG today. By the same token, very low magnitude earthquakes occur all the time in a whole lot of places. Compare the relative seismicity of S. California to central Texas for some perspective at the USGS site. And recall that their have been two large damaging earthquakes in the LA area within my memory. Nothing like those is likely to occur in Texas. To any skeptics to want to have a discussion, do some research on the New Madrid suture zone and get back to me in this thread, I am not a seismologist either, but I have used the technique so I know a little more than the average bear.
Finally, and discrete from all of the above, I think Begich(sp?) could make his case fairly easily regarding getting the Senate to look at Alaska instead of Greenland for several reasons. Foremost is, Alaska is about 26% smaller than Greenland and has a vastly more developed infrastructure. Second is that a modest effort to obtain and compare satellite imagery from Alaska for the Malaspina ice field from say 1980 and the present would suffice to quantify how much change there has been in the past 29 years. Such data is public domain and readily available. Moreover, there are any number of universities with glaciological specialists who could no doubt provide it in a heart beat.
Glaciers per se, however, are not really the issue. Of much greater importance is the perma frost. For example, and to connect this issue back to the issue of the hydrocarbon things, the Alaska pipeline was built on perma frost and to withstand the changes in perma frost that occur year to year. To my knowledge, it was not engineered to withstand the destruction of the permafrost. Nor were the communities that were built thereon, nor the roads, railroads, bridges, airstrips, etc. etc. Alaska is looking at probably billions of dollars of remedial construction to cope with the effects of global warming and the melting of perma frost. I could mention other environmental effects that might be significant but I have already spent so much time on this post that I have probably fallen very far behind in the thread and missed the attention of a lot of people.
Ultimately, it is up to us. If we want to reduce the adverse effects of oil shale development in Canada, then the most important thing we can do is use less gasoline. I have said it before but it bears repeating, go back to a little Shaker ditty…
Use it up,
Wear it out,
Make it do,
Do without.
Kindest regards to all…
June 19th, 2009 at 5:41 PM
Wouldn’t you love to see a debate between T. Boone PIckens and Sarah Palin?
June 19th, 2009 at 5:57 PM
56 Krubozumo Nyankoye –
Thank you for your insightful post. Now that you pointed out the use of water in injection of shale beds , it looks like T-Boone is going for a “twofer”. Down here , there is talk of him selling water too. sigh….He is one wily guy. Again , thank you for your post.
June 19th, 2009 at 6:02 PM
57 SK from MN Says:
June 19th, 2009 at 5:41 PM
Wouldn’t you love to see a debate between T. Boone PIckens and Sarah Palin?
******************************************************
He would have her chasing her tail in 3 minutes…………
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/23/60minutes/main4541322.shtml
June 19th, 2009 at 6:03 PM
Wouldn’t you love to see a debate between Sarah Palin and Krubozumo Nyankoye?
Thank you for your real-life expertise!
June 19th, 2009 at 6:14 PM
Krubozumo Nyankoye WOW!. Thanks! That was pretty awesome. What’s your take on mountaintop removal, clean coal, etc??? I’ve cut & pasted your post onto a word doc. just so I can go back and read over & over. Wow.
June 19th, 2009 at 6:18 PM
Re: Healthcare…. Please have a look at this video posted on dKos. Watching CEO’s get grilled on denial of coverage is a real trip……
We need 10 million views of this YouTube by next week.
Rep. Stupak Questions Witnesses On Rescission Triggers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_29CCVI1ao4
Here is a link to the diary….time is awasting. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/19/744559/-We-need-10-million-views-of-this-YouTube-by-next-week
June 19th, 2009 at 6:32 PM
I’m sitting on top of the barnett shale field down here in Texas and this thing is huge, but’s it’s only a small portion of gas that has been discovered down here in the lower 48 in the past couple of years!
If her gasline gets built, it won’t be based on supply/demand issues, it will be strictly politics and/or financial incentives.
Kinda like TransCanada getting 500 Million and now Exxon jumps on board so they can get some of that 500 Million.
Exxon is a company that just keeps on taking!
June 19th, 2009 at 6:47 PM
Greytdog,
I am basically opposed to MT mining. It is too destructive and counter environmental responsibility. Clean coal is just a myth. But it needs to be discussed in terms of reality. I would like to write a good essay about it with the appropriate citations but time is a major constraint for me. I will see what I can come up with in a summary fashion.
the problem child:
I am afraid such a thing could never happen, after all, she is the foremost expert on energy in the US. I on the other hand am just a geologist with 35 years of experience. And I am not very photogenic.
austintx
You are correct of course, if he can sell water that costs him $0.02 per gallon for $0.50 per pint, he will do it.
There is an underlying theme here that I failed to address in my previous post and that is who “owns” these resources. Some people asked about whether they could get a portion of the leases etc.
Well, in my opinion, we all own these resources. The Federal and State governments auction off leases to mineral rights and the public is mostly unaware of these events. Once again, this gets into the realm of politics which I am reluctant to discuss because my personal experience is so biased and tends to accuse our elected representatives of being corrupt. Unfortunately, I think that the evidence will bear out that they are in fact corrupt and act not in the interest of their consituents, but of themselves.
It is up to us, the consituents, to correct this.
I will check back again for further comments. Thank you for your generous response to my post.
June 19th, 2009 at 6:48 PM
I third the recommendations of “Cadillac Desert” and “When the Rivers Run Dry.” (Sorry for not using italics.) Last week I finished re-reading CD and appreciated it even more than I had almost a decade ago. I have spent the day reading Susan Strasser’s “Never Done: A History of American Housework.” What continually hit me as I read was how much a respect for resources at a particular point in time and space could be seen in housework. Her chapter “Fetch a Pail of Water” shows historically both the role and respect for water as seen in the home. While the first two books may make it easy to distance ourselves from the blame of wasting water, Strasser tends to bring it literally home. I started reading this in a hotel, but it really made a lot more sense reading it in my own home. Not that I am into housework, but because I could so easily compare what she wrote about to my own experiences.
And, I must say, there are sure some hella smart Mudpups doing some posting. I was feeling a bit guilty for getting back on the computer, only to read some very educational posts on the very topics I was pondering. Thanks to all for the great resource and trade information!
June 19th, 2009 at 7:04 PM
Climate Change Tour–
the Grand Tour of Alaska is always–
always come during fishing season
fly to Bethel on jet
quick boat ride to nearest Village
look at boardwalk
step in mud
act appalled at honeybucket
mention how friendly natives are
back to Bethel for lunch at restricted YKHC boardroom
fly out on jet
then get on with the fishing!
June 19th, 2009 at 7:30 PM
Heard on Letterman-
Gay Pride week is coming up here in NYC. I love it. Where else can you see 300 gay guys dressed like Sarah Palin?
June 19th, 2009 at 7:59 PM
67 DrChill Says:
June 19th, 2009 at 7:30 PM
Heard on Letterman-
Gay Pride week is coming up here in NYC. I love it. Where else can you see 300 gay guys dressed like Sarah Palin?
*********************
Sarah will be so envious they are wearing nicer clothes than her. lol
June 19th, 2009 at 8:25 PM
Thank you, Krubozumo Nyankoye-
Awesome information. Fracturing is a big issue in Colorado, as drilling companies do not want to divulge the chemicals used- and there have been noticeable increases in cancers and other major health issue clustered near drilling sites. This has not been resolved, even in the new drilling regulations; companies do not like environmentalists, ranchers, state officials having a say in approving new leases-
June 19th, 2009 at 8:43 PM
@Dr.Chill#67 I hope that they buy their makeup at Bloomingdales, and wear those sexy red platform sandals!
June 19th, 2009 at 8:50 PM
I have not heard anyone mention the subject of ground subsidence from the pumping of oil in Alaska. I know that there has been talk of how villagers are having problems with rising water and having to move to higher ground, but no one that I have heard has mentioned this as a possible consequence from all the pumping. Also in Texas, I know ground subsidence has occured from the pumping of oil, but has anyone mentioned that subsidence being a cause or contributing factor to the mild earthquakes. Maybe they have and I wasn’t paying attention, (not unusal). I also agree that the natural gas could be better used in state, but it seems no one is fighting for that to occur instead of pumping it out of state at a huge cost and gamble. And since the citizens own the gas, I would think it would be at a reasonable cost. But hey, I have been known to have my head up my a**, just ask my wife. After last winter, I would have thought that would have been the number one priority. Someone please educate this moron on the keyboard. Thanks.
June 19th, 2009 at 9:02 PM
On healthcare:
My mom was born in Alaska in 1925. She can’t find a doctor in Southcentral Alaska who’d agree to take a medicare patient.
Anyone know a doctor?
Why do we hang our old Alaskans out to dry?
June 19th, 2009 at 9:43 PM
About the subsidence – this isn’t exactly the same, but I think it relates.
Back in the 60s, the Rocky Flats Nuclear Arsenal was pumping waste water into the ground. When this started, Denver wasn’t considered a risk for earthquakes.
Within a few years of the water pumping, Denver started having earthquakes occasionally, then more and more often, until someone figured things out and they quit forcing the stuff underground. Gradually, the earthquakes diminished in number & frequency until things were as they had been.
As I said, it’s not exactly the same thing, but it’s related in that it alters the – a geologist would have the word, but I don’t. It alters the structure of the ground beneath our feet. I imagine there could be subsidence (think about all those sinkholes in Kansas and Nebraska, from all the aquifers “drying up.”)
just my 2 cents
Nan
June 19th, 2009 at 9:56 PM
Silly Rabbit; Wally Hickel, our governor from a few years ago, of the Alaska Independence Party (TP’s party) had the great idea to haul icebergs from here to California – I don’t recall now why he didn’t get popular support at the time but it may be time to revisit.
#28, June 19th, 2009 at 2:05 PM, bubbles Says: Alaska has plenty water in the form of ice and snow and rain… Why not put that water in the aquifers of the south west?
June 19th, 2009 at 10:11 PM
“Climate Change Tour–
the Grand Tour of Alaska is always–
always come during fishing season
fly to Bethel on jet
quick boat ride to nearest Village
look at boardwalk
step in mud
act appalled at honeybucket
mention how friendly natives are
back to Bethel for lunch at restricted YKHC boardroom
fly out on jet
then get on with the fishing!”
— if only it weren’t true…
June 19th, 2009 at 10:17 PM
Re: the Glacier tour.
I hope they provide time-line pictures of the glaciers…before and now. I saw the Mendenhall glacier 2 years ago and was struck by by time-line pics of how it looked 50 years before. I actually saw it back in 1978 and was amazed how much it had receded in that time.
I have watched the glaciers on Mt. Rainier shrink and it is definitely noticeable. I’m sure whomever goes on this trip will be amazed and hopefully alarmed.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:34 AM
On Healthcare : I sit nice and pretty in Europe, Germany. One of the reasons for thinking twice about going to the States – Health Care. I need a doctor here – I go. And we patients are fighting for coverage of alternative therapies and there have been successes on that side too (slowly, slowly).
I was really shocked months back, when a contributor from the States said he couldn`t afford basic health checks for his baby!! That is unimaginable here. So much health can be preserved and problems minimised (and with that the costs) by routine checks. Investing in a healthy nation must be a must for a government!
June 20th, 2009 at 2:37 AM
lettersfromeurope Says:
June 20th, 2009 at 12:34 AM
So much health can be preserved and problems minimised (and with that the costs) by routine checks. Investing in a healthy nation must be a must for a government!
___________________________________________
Almost a year ago, I had the misfortune of having my business downsized by Bush’s economy. Then, it took me 7 months to find a job, and since it is not in my field, I am considerably underemployed, which means I am, like so many Americans, struggling to make ends meet. I have not had health insurance for approximately 7 years because it is too expensive, and my new employer provides no benefits. I have been putting off basic health exams because I cannot afford them, and I deal with health issues (or not) as they emerge. I have new problems with my eyes that I cannot afford to investigate. This system that we have in this country is vile. We need a single-payer system or at least a public option which will help make health care affordable for all. I watched the video avahome posted, and it just made me ill. These bleeping insurance companies, along with the AMA, are fighting tooth and nail to keep the status quo, and their rescission practices are unconscionable. I have really appreciated the commenters on this and other threads who are trying to get people involved in the health-care debate. There are many of us out here who cannot wait much longer for affordable health care.
June 20th, 2009 at 4:04 AM
67 DrChill Says:
June 19th, 2009 at 7:30 PM
Heard on Letterman-
Gay Pride week is coming up here in NYC. I love it. Where else can you see 300 gay guys dressed like Sarah Palin?
Oh snap!
June 20th, 2009 at 6:28 AM
79 LiladyNY Says:
June 20th, 2009 at 4:04 AM
67 DrChill Says:
June 19th, 2009 at 7:30 PM
Heard on Letterman-
Gay Pride week is coming up here in NYC. I love it. Where else can you see 300 gay guys dressed like Sarah Palin?
Oh snap!
**************************************************
Oh Boy !! The best would be if Letterman did a “Man in the Street” segment and filmed the “sarah squad”. I’m laughing just thinking about it……
June 20th, 2009 at 9:32 AM
deist Says:
June 19th, 2009 at 9:02 PM
On healthcare:
My mom was born in Alaska in 1925. She can’t find a doctor in Southcentral Alaska who’d agree to take a medicare patient.
Anyone know a doctor?
Why do we hang our old Alaskans out to dry?
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Why do you think the AMA is against a single payer system. I worked in a hospital and doctors avoid Medicare and medical patients all the time. They would choose another patient first for surgery and make the other wait until the next shift. The big money doctors are just another corporation. Single payer does not mean single provider. You just have to work within the system.
June 20th, 2009 at 11:24 AM
Kohring and Kott need to be remembered not as some heros returning back to Alaska, but as enemies of the people in this state, willing to take bribes to steal from them by reducing the taxes on the obscenely profitable oil industry here. There are others in high places as well. Our representatives are supposed to represent the people, not the corporates, be it oil, or healthcare…and need to be reminded BY the people, constantly. Whenever I made comment on anything with Kohring, he was only interested in making sure the ‘big boys’ got what they wanted first.
June 20th, 2009 at 6:06 PM
Apologies to all mudflatters, the excess amount of widgets added to the site prevent me from posting anything of subtance in reply to previous messages.
June 21st, 2009 at 11:10 AM
CO almost native,
True to a certain extent. I know there has been an ongoing feud between Colorado and Kansas over water rights, with Kansas winning the last round. But that was over river water. The aquifer extends under six states, and, according to geologists who have studied the situation, it would take two thousand years, with no water pumped out, to bring the aquifer back to historic levels.
T. Boone’s objective is to own as much of the water rights to the aquifer as possible. The Kansas government wants to buy the water rights from as many Western farmers as it can. My fear is they will sell those rights to T Boone if the price is right. My opinion is the water is way too valuable to be playing games with. Once gone, it’s gone. We’re now wasting it on corn for methanol, and will be wasting more on the coal-fired energy plants approved for Holcomb, Ks, of which Colorado will be getting the bulk of the energy produced. Believe me, it’s got plenty of Kansans up in arms.