It’s been cold. Really cold. All you have to do is look on Facebook, if you’ve got even a few Alaskan friends, and you’ll see that everyone’s been remarking on the weather in one way or another. With much of Southcentral Alaska in single digits during the day, sub-zero at night, and wind chills from [...]

~An Exxon Valdez oil-filled footprint on a beach in Prince William Sound, known as “The Death Marsh” and “Diesel Beach.” Taken July 4, 2010 – twenty-one years after the spill. (photo by Jeanne Devon) By Prof.  Rick Steiner In what could be the final court showdown regarding environmental damage from the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil [...]

I had great fun hosting Firedoglake’s book salon yesterday. Authors Amanda Coyne and Tony Hopfinger were there to answer questions about their new book/stocking stuffer Crude Awakening – Money, Mavericks and Mayhem in Alaska.  For those of you who weren’t able to make it, below is my introduction with a link to the conversation at [...]

Join me and author Amanda Coyne of Alaska Dispatch today at firedoglake.com for a book salon featuring the new release Crude Awakening – Money, Mavericks and Mayhem in Alaska by Coyne and co-author Tony Hopfinger. Details below. Hope to see you there! [Cross-posted from Alaska Dispatch] Jeanne Devon, AKA AK Muckraker, who runs the popular [...]

  [This is the third installment of Chapter 7, My Home is Now a Strange Place from Greg Palast's Vulture's Picnic. Many thanks to Mr. Palast for providing The Mudflats with an exclusive of this story that is so critical to the state of Alaska, and reveals so much about the corporate interests that still [...]

~Thick and fast they came at last, and more, and more, and more! Enjoy today’s dose of random stuff on the half-shell! Links in the titles. Brrrrrricane Makes Landfall The Bering Sea megastorm that made landfall yesterday on the West Coast of Alaska did damage to buildings, caused massive erosion in some areas, and flooding [...]

[NOAA Satellite image of massive Bering Sea Storm] For those following the megastorm that made landfall in Western Alaska last night, check out the #akstorm hashtag on Twitter. There are at least a few folks out there who are tweeting the latest information from the ground, which is being picked up by news organizations, and [...]

I’ll be hosting the Firedoglake Book Salon this coming Sunday, November 13. The book is Crude Awakening: Money, Mavericks and Mayhem in Alaska, by Amanda Coyne and Tony Hopfinger, both of the Alaska Dispatch. It focuses on three larger-than-life Alaskan politicos – Ted Stevens, Bill Allen and Sarah Palin. Regular readers of The Mudflats will [...]

By Zach Roberts It’s weird where life takes you. In 2006, I started working for Greg Palast. He was one of my heroes. Most people know him for breaking the story of the stolen 2000 election. That was how I was introduced to his work as well, but the story that made me want to [...]

Are we really surprised that Alaska is overrepresented in anything having to do with bizarre politics? No, we are not. Inspired by the very strange Herman Cain ad, in which his campaign manager, as a finale, takes a nice deep drag off a half-smoked cigarette, followed by a cutaway to an extreme closeup of Herman [...]

By Wickersham’s Conscience This post started out as a semi-serious recounting of one of the two documented instances of a cougar – a mountain lion – in Alaska. It seems that back in 1989, an off-grid homesteader outside of Wrangell named Paul Matteoni claimed to have opened his door and have seen two green eyes. [...]

Senator Bill Wielechowski and Rep. Les Gara held a press conference yesterday talking about how corporations attempt to wield their power over the Alaska legislature through the use of the Alaska Business “Report Card.” Let’s listen to what this is all about from Rep. Les Gara. Now, think about corporations for a moment. I have [...]

Many of you know Diane McEachern as the “Occupy the Tundra Lady.” She’s the one who posted a picture of herself attending a solo vigil (plus a few dogs) out near Bethel in rural Western Alaska. The picture rapidly went viral, and Diane has used her 15 minutes of fame to draw attention to an [...]

The Occupy movement has reached Alaska! Occupy Fairbanks photos from Mudflatter “Fairbanksan,” and front page coverage from the Fairbanks Daily News Miner HERE. Armed with megaphones, signs and the power of free speech, Occupy Fairbanks protesters occupied downtown for much of Saturday. The group of more than a hundred people marched from place to place, [...]

  Alaskans are busting their buttons this week. I couldn’t let these wonderful accomplishments pass without a little hat tip to the folks that made their fellow Alaskans proud as peacocks. Brian Schmidt An Australian-based astrophysicist, Brian Schmidt, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics is a product of the Anchorage School District, having graduated [...]