There are a couple lucky birds over at the Bird Treatment and Learning Center today. A beautiful golden eagle got his leg caught in a trap, and the story of his rescue is just wonderful.
The efforts that were made to get this guy the care he needs are truly amazing.
Our USF&W agent was in Fairbanks and would travel down and meet me at the Eureka Lodge. His trip was about 5 hours and mine was about 3. We were to meet with an Alaska State Trooper and recover the bird. Because of our travel time, the local trooper recruited some help from the local Bureau of Land Management agent and they traveled about 8 miles by snowmachine in the -10°f mountain area to recover the bird.
We meet them on the roadside and transferred the bird into my truck for a trip back to Anchorage. It’s right leg still had the trap attached just above the foot. The trap and foot were engulfed in ice, so at that time it was impossible to get the trap off.
In my Durango, the bird had a chance to warm up on the 3 hour trip back. As I got back on the highway I called PET ER and gave them a heads up that we were going to be there around 6PM and will need assistance. Dr. Doty who is their best avian DVM was off that day but decided to come in to assist.
When we arrived we got the bird out of the kennel and immediately stated running cold water over the trap and foot to thaw them out. It took two people to open the trap so I could pull the foot out. The wound was cleaned and x-rays were taken.
The x-rays showed the only bone damage was a broken hallux. The large gash above the foot was sutured closed and antibiotics and pain medication was given. Our main concern for the next few days is if there is blood circulation in the foot.
A grateful thank you to the Alaska State Trooper and BLM agent in Eureka, the USF&W Law Enforcement officer from Anchorage but who traveled down from Fairbanks. Their names I won’t post because this might be a criminal case. Those guys went above and beyond in my opinion. Thanks also to PET ER who’s always a big help and Dr. Doty from breaking away during her off time to help tend to this gorgeous bird. Also, thanks to the kind ladies at the Eureka Lodge who kept me entertained and full of coffee while I waited.
Dr. Doty and I checked in on our golden today. It’s more alert and standing on its own, but the injured foot is very cold still.
Here’s hoping that this gorgeous bird will be restored to full health soon. Bird TLC cares for many injured birds that are unable to survive in the wild. The birds become teachers of sorts, traveling around with staff members to schools and events so that people may gain a new level of appreciation for Alaskan birds big and small.
Another eagle at Bird TLC has an amazing story to tell. After being caught in fishing line, this poor bird suffered major damage to its bill. Nothing that a dentist, poster putty and a yellow highlighter couldn’t handle. Catch the video HERE.
Here’s another bald eagle that was used as a teaching bird, and his “person” at an event held in Anchorage a couple years ago.
It’s amazing to see how children react to eagles with a sense of absolute awe. Bird TLC is funded solely from donations, and has a variety of teaching birds available including owls, eagles, ravens, and songbirds. You can check out their website HERE and throw a few pennies in the donation box to help them continue to help Alaska’s wild creatures.
I thought it was kind of funny when Sarah Palin, in her speech to the Tea Party Convention tonight, criticized President Obama (who just did an hour and a half unscripted back-and-forth with Republican leadership) for using a teleprompter, while reading from her own notes. Apparently paper, the low-tech version of the teleprompter, means you’re brilliant, but don’t dare digitize the words lest you look unprepared or stupid.
But when Palin stepped out from behind the lectern and sat for a series of questions, she STILL didn’t need a teleprompter. The answers to the pre-scripted questions seemed to just flow right off her tongue palm.
UPDATE:
A much better picture has showed up on The Huffington Post.
Yes, Americans who want Palin for President, you can sleep well at night knowing your Commander in Chief has America’s priorities right at her fingertips. She’ll never forget that her three priorities as your president are: Energy, Budget Tax Cuts and Lift American Spirits. It’s a good thing she corrected that typo before policy was affected.
I’m still having a hard time believing that she was actually stupid enough to do this. I don’t know what’s stranger – the fact that she could not memorize six words, that she really doesn’t have any idea what her priorities should be without cliff notes, or that she thought she could read the palm of her hand in front of a room full of cameras without anyone noticing she was doing it. And then there’s the fact that she kept showing her palm to the cameras.
I never thought she’d be able to rival the Katie Couric moment, until now.
OK, everyone ready? First, you’ll need to sign in to PJTV.com. That’s Pajamas TV, the conservative live stream host for the Tea Pary Convention featuring the infamous Facebook sensation, Sarah Palin. Or, you can check out the whole thing on Fox.
Once you’ve registered, or tuned in on the TeeVee, pull up your Barca-lounger, pop a cold one, find some salted nuts and strap yourself in. It’s Tea Party time! Everyone’s favorite blogger, Sarah Palin will appear at 5pm Alaska time, 6pm Pacific and 9pm Eastern, and we’ll all get to hear what a $100,000 speech sounds like.
I tuned in yesterday, and decided I’d listen as long as I could possibly stand it – like holding your hand over a candle flame.
But that said, I did manage to learn a few things.
1) I learned that the Tea Partiers have managed to find an African-American woman to run for congress. I have also learned that she, like so many of her fellow TPers is number challenged. She talked about the million man march (to lukewarm applause) and claimed there were actually TWO million people there, despite the claims of the media that there were less than 1 million. I also learned that she is “tired of all the shuckin’ and jivin’” going on in Washington. I have a feeling she’s recently met with Michael Steele.
2) I learned that if you refer to the constitution as a “living document” in front of a room of 500 TPers, they will actually boo.
3) I learned a fun joke to tell at the water cooler on Monday. What do God and Barack Obama have in common? (I pause to let you think) Give up? A birth certificate! No, I’m not kidding.
4) I learned that Jesus, unlike the living constitution, will get applauded wildly by a room of TPers. This may be because he knew that “qualifications were essential to claim his kingship of the Jews” and so he had not one but TWO genealogies, and his birth was WELL documented. One of his genealogies goes back to Abraham and the other one goes back to Adam himself. “Tracing lineage to Adam was a big deal even back then.”
I’m still not sure why that’s a big deal, because if you believe Adam was the first man, then wouldn’t we ALL be able to claim our lineage back to him? A question for another day.
5) I learned that even though they get that there are people in the room of every religion (are there?) that they just want to stop for a minute and talk about “the most important birth in history.” Yes, that would be Jesus again.
6) I learned another great water cooler joke.
At a international medical conference that took place recently, doctors were all sharing their success stories with one another and a French MD says, “You know, medicine in my country is so advanced that we can take a kidney out of one man, put it in another and have him looking for work in six weeks.”
And not to be outdone, the German doctor says, “That is nothing, we can take a lung out of one person, put it in another and have him looking for work in 4 weeks.
And to that the Russia doctor says, “In my country, medicine is so advanced, that we can take half a heart out of a person put it in another and have him looking for work in two weeks.”
Then the American Physician gets up and he says, “You guys are way behind. We recently took a guy with no birth certificate, no brain, and put him in the white house and now half the country is looking for work.”
7. I learned that World Net Daily is the only place I should be visiting online to get my news because they “live in that world of reality every day.” (This is coming from the birth certificate guy)
8. I learned that “the left” who likes to use the phrase “What a long strange trip it’s been” has “taken over Hollywood like it was Cuba or Venezuela.”
9. I learned, on Sarah Palin Tea Pary Eve, that the movement is “proud to have distanced themselves from politicians that want to jump out in front of the parade.”
10. And finally, I learned that I can last about 45 minutes without any kind of artificial support before I have to shut this stuff off. I didn’t time it exactly because by the time I clicked off during a strange and grandiose rant by Andrew Breitbart, I had lost a little cognitive function and I forgot to check the clock.
But I’m ready to dive back in again. Join along if you like, or be secure in knowing I’ll take one for the team if you’d rather be doing something more fun – like shoving bamboo under your nails, or eating glass.
*************************************************
The Palin pre-game show:
Interview with Tea Party Lady:
Sarah Palin is emotionally accessible. Women relate to her emotionally. People relates to her. She field dresses moose. Tea Partiers don’t like Democrats. Joe Biden reminds her of her drunk uncle. Obama doesn’t have star power anymore. This grassroots efforts has more coattails than Obama. Feninists hate her because she’s feminine. She’s like Princess Diana. People drove for two miles. Now you have to have a certain last name and lots of money. She’s not that at all. She’s down to earth and she’s real. She messes up her sentences like everyone else, and I like that.
Guy from Examiner:
This movement is so big because people don’t feel alone. There are lots of people who haven’t drunk the Barack Obama Kool-Aid. This is a Center Right country, not a Barack Obama country. This is the third great awakening in this country and it’s not religious, it’s political. It’s a movement from the bottom up.
1/3 of the people in the country think that socialism is important and 2/3 don’t.
*************Entering the “Hall”*******************
Hmm… The room is not very big. It looks like 5 or 600 people. A lot of cameras.
They are acting amazed and shocked that there are “so many people here.” “And they paid, too!” Ha. The band is the one that played at the 9/12 event. They’re playing the same song they played there. “Musicians can be conservatives too even though it’s not a good career move for them in Hollywood.”
“You’ve got to come out of the closet for people to accept your lifestyle” she says about being conservative.
“What’s amazing is how many people have brought their children here today.”
They keep talking about how many kids are there, pointing out strollers, moms and kids, families, on and on. They’ll all remember Sarah Palin when they grow up. “It looks like the strategy of the right is to outbreed the left.” Christian Conservatives and Muslims are the only groups maintaining or increasing their birth rate, according to the teabag lady.
The left’s organization and intensity has completely faded away and now it’s all on the right. If BO had just had more self-discipline and far-sightedness he could have had a successful presidency and cemented Democratic rule for a decade, but they couldn’t restrain themselves and we got Van Jones and the stimulus bill and Health Care, they’ve gotten their worst nightmare.
They were too arrogant. If they had just been quiet and shoved everything through their second term it would have been a better strategy.
Andrew Breitbart:
Sarah Palin was the first person to tell us about the Death Panel! (cheering)
This person is so great in that she irks the right people the right way. Everyone in this room knows that she’s accountable only to herself. Even the Republican party cannot control her.
Now he’s griping about the political correctness stifling people. Hmmm. Retarded, anyone?
Dissing CNN and The New York Times.
Here she is!
Enter Sarah Palin
All in brown. Super screechy.
God Bless You! Thank you so much x 4. “I AM SO PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN! DO YOU LOVE YOUR FREEDOM?”
Honoring and saluting veterans. She’s still proud to be American. Gosh. Happy Birthday Ronald Reagan. (He’s dead… does she not know?) Home of good country music and southern barbeque. Alaskan version of tea party is “iced tea.” (laughter)
Across the country just knowing that this is the movement….bla bla. Revolution bla bla.
“REAL PEOPLE” I knew she’d say that. “Stand up and speak out for conservative principles.”
Shout out to Scott Brown. (Cheers)
He was just a guy with a truck (and a centerfold) who wanted to do his part.
She actually just said “Chowda Revolution.” Every Democrat in Massachusetts just slammed their heads on the table. Bashing Obama, Pelosi and Emmanuel. Obama found a way to make this all about George Bush. (cheering)
Stop blaming everyone else. (Because nobody blamed Clinton for 8 years, right?)
Advice to the left – Your agenda got you into this mess. Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda will leave us under the thumb of big government. It’s “runnin’ out of time.” Voters are sending a message in “good places” like Nevada, Connecticut, Colorado.
We have big problems. Tired of looking backwards. The future looks good because if there’s hope in Massachusetts, there’s hope everywhere.
“Common sense conservative candidates” in 2010.
Despite what pundiNts want you to think…. (Argh. No N!!!)
Faced five guys in the Alaska primary. We put ideas and experience out there for debate. Healthy process. May the best ideas and candidates win.
They are human. There’s no perfect candidate. They will disappoint. When they do, let them know but don’t sit it out. Put your faith in ideas. It’s a ground up grass roots movement that is forcing both parties to change. It’s bigger than a king or a queen or a charismatic guy with a teleprompter (she says looking at her notes)
(Is this over yet?)
Uneasy about national security. It’s not politicizing security to discuss concerns. If you have to SAY it’s not politicizing…. it’s politicizing. She’s rambling about spinning war terms. You gotta call it like it is. I have no idea what the hell she’s saying. Oh, here we go. Xmas day, the system did not work. Terrorist Hell bent on killing innocent passengers. This terrorist trained in Yemen. Going through the whole story… ” The only thing that stopped him was a “Christmas miracle” and that’s not how the system is supposed to work.” OMG…
He was read his rights, lawyered up and used our constitutional right to remain silent. Ah…it’s like the good old days with pallin around with terrorists. (And isn’t he actually giving us information? Real information? Not the “I’ll tell you anything you want to know if you stop waterboarding me” kind?)
Terrorists destroying constitution. Ooooo. She’s riled up and mad. It’s the nassssty Palin.
Criticizing the mindset of treating these acts as crimes. Afraid for her children because this is war. We’re at war and we need a commander in chief and not a professor of law standing at the lectern. Whoa. (wild applause and standing ovation) It’s that same kind of misguided thinking that’s seen in the administration. He spent a year reaching out to hostile regimes, writing letters to hostile dictators. North Korea did NUKULAR testing.
(War, war, war, drum, drum, drum….)
The administration needs to change course. Peace through strength, Ronald Reagan, bla bla.
It’s really amazing to hear her giving foreign policy advice. It’s almost like she thinks she has foreign policy experience. Oh, that’s right…. Russia. “Time for more than tough talk. Tired of hearing talk, talk, talk. Tired of hearing the talk.” (YES, as a matter of fact, I am)
The problems we face in the “real world” require real solutions. Stop blaming Bush. We can be conquered by ignoring our constitution.
If they had their way, health care, student loans would be taken over by the government. Banks, car companies. Main St. vs. Wall Street.
(I’m taking a break to rub my temples….)
Argh! She’s citing Alaska and the “fat strings” attached to the stimulus money. The strings that DIDN’T EXIST. She rejected a tiny portion of the money and the legislature voted to take the money because it paid for WEATHERIZATION IN ALASKA. Borrowed, printed up invented dollars out of nowhere? Even in Alaska in a Republican controlled legislature, they took it. (I bet the legislature loves THIS! Tomatoes are flying at screens in Juneau.)
“How’s that hopey changey stuff workin’ out for ya?”
Slamming Biden. Stimulus is wasteful.
“Seein’ those checks writte, did YOU feel very stimulated?”
List of broken promises is wrong. Obama promised to end “sweetheart dills” but a Democrat donor got money. “Is that hope? Nope! That’s not hope!” (How many t-shirts will come from this?)
My computer froze for a minute. It was nice.
I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it.
Reagan. Disabled Children. God shedding grace. Best days yet to come. Tea Party Nation. Americans. From the bottom of my heart. Millions and millions and millions of Americans. Power to the people. Applause. God bless you tea partiers and God bless the USA.
Now she’s saying that Todd chooses not to be a member of a party because he’s “too indpendent.” Um. Actually he’s a non-partisan because being a registered secessionist didn’t look good when his wife was running for office.
He’s asked her what the “Palin plan” is. She has no idea. She was totally deer in the headlights. Talkin about nothing, looking for a place to land, talkin, talkin. Aha! She finally landed on “free market principles” and now repeating security stuff. “We win, they lose.” Nice stragegy. The Palin plan. Wow. That was a train wreck of an answer. And by the way, YOU lost. WE won. Just sayin.
Two words that scare liberals – “President Palin.” Make that “Two words that scare sane people.” Now they are chanting “Run Sarah, Run.” And she said “God bless ‘em.”
First three things she’d tackle as President – Energy projects. Spending cuts. Don’t make promises about bipartisanship if they can’t be fulfilled. Don’t fake it and pretend like you want to work with the other party. (Are you listening President Obama?!) The distrust that is built makes us distrust everything coming out of Washington that makes us a less secure nation.
She has to go.
Yay! But first,
“I will die for the people of America.”
She just said that.
And now she’s gone.
I think we just heard the first campaign speech for 2012.
Behold the Shadow Governor. It looks like Todd Palin really did live up to his nickname.
A huge quantity of emails from the State of Alaska have been released – not for the $15 Million originally quoted to MSNBC who made the records request almost a year and a half ago, but for $323.58. Yes, that’s three hundred twenty three dollars and fifty eight cents. Quite a bargain considering the original price.
State law says that public records requests should be addressed within 10 days. 10 days… a year and a half… whatever.
This info dump is chock full of interesting information:
Nearly 3,000 pages of e-mails that Todd Palin exchanged with state officials, which were released to msnbc.com and NBC News by the state of Alaska under its public records law, draw a picture of a Palin administration where the governor’s husband got involved in a judicial appointment, monitored contract negotiations with public employee unions, received background checks on a corporate CEO, added his approval or disapproval to state board appointments and passed financial information marked “confidential” from his oil company employer to a state attorney.While 1,200 separate e-mails were released this week, 243 others were withheld by the state under a claim that executive privilege extends to Todd Palin as an unpaid adviser to the government. Still, just the subject lines of those e-mails provide a glimpse of the ways the Palins divvied up their responsibilities when she became governor in December 2006, less than two years before Republican Sen. John McCain pulled her onto the national political stage by nominating her as his vice presidential candidate.
The still-secret e-mails between Todd Palin and senior officials reach into countless areas of state government and politics: potential board appointees, constituent complaints, use of the state jet, oil and gas production, marine regulation, gas pipeline bids, postsecondary education, wildfires, native Alaskan issues, the state effort to save the Matanuska Maid dairy, budget planning, potential budget vetoes, oil shale leasing, “strategy for responding to media allegations,” staffing at the mansion, pier diem payments to the governor for travel, “strategy for responding to questions about pregnancy,” potential cuts to the governor’s staff, “confidentiality issues,” Bureau of Land Management land transfers and trespass issues and requests to the U.S. transportation secretary.
Also withheld: a discussion of how to reply to “media questions about Todd Palin’s work and potential conflict of interests.”
And that’s only the stuff that was withheld. The released emails including coaching to staff about how to disguise additional electrical work needed to wire her new tanning bed in the governor’s mansion in Juneau, searching for a public event to cover travel costs for her daughter Willow, taking a major Alaska newspaper off the list to receive press releases out of retribution for an unfavorable story, and more. Much more.
This marks the end of a very ugly week for the Palins, and raises questions about the role of the former First Dude in governing the state. Reports of Todd Palin camped out in the corner during official meetings, and his contact with the Commissioner of the Department of Public Safety during the Troopergate scandal had fueled speculation on the degree to which he stepped over the line from private citizen, to political adviser, to Shadow Governor. The release of these emails answers that question to a degree, and raises the possibility that Alaska had it’s very own secessionist version of Dick Cheney in the halls of power.
Another question raised recently addresses the use of Yahoo! email accounts to conduct official state business. The Palin administration frequently used such accounts, and a recent ruling in Alaska Superior Court upheld the legality of such practice.
Alaska Republican Andrée McLeod has filed a lawsuit against the state on this issue. In it, she argues that if one private citizen in the state of Alaska can be privy to all these e-mails about the workings of state government, then the state has waived the privilege.
“If one citizen can see them, Todd Palin, then why can’t every citizen see them?” McLeod said.
Palin’s chief of staff, Michael Nizich, rejected that argument in a denial letter to McLeod’s attorney. Nizich said that Todd Palin was not a third-party outsider, but an insider, “an invited advisor and participant in the actual decision-making protected by the privilege.” It doesn’t matter, the state argues, that Todd Palin’s advice wasn’t paid for; it was still solicited.
“Mr. Palin is a proper advisor to the governor,” Nizich wrote. “There is nothing inappropriate about the spouse of a chief executive playing such a role. The governor is absolutely entitled to involve him in policy matters as an advisor as she sees fit.”
McLeod v. Parnell (Palin), seeks to establish that emails sent or received by a state employee on a private email account when the content includes official state business is a “public record” as defined by the Alaska Public Records Act, and that using private email accounts to transact office state business violates Alaska Statute 40.25.140, which prohibits a state employee from “obstructing” public inspection of “public records.”
The spin on this case has been to frame the issue as being a personal one between McLeod and Palin. Watchdog v. Governor, “Falafel Lady” v. Joan of Arc, Evil v. Good. But in reality, recent rulings on this case should be sounding alarm bells and waving red flags for those who value an open and transparent state government.
McLeod’s attorney Donald Craig Mitchell notes:
The cursory reporting implied that Judge McKay did so because he found that emails sent/received on private email accounts are not “public records.” In fact, while the analytical precision Judge McKay brought to his judging was wanting in several significant respects, what he said, albeit implicitly, was that such emails could be “public records” but only at such time, if at all, that the agency who employs the state employee who sent/received the emails decides to “preserve” the emails. He also implied that a state agency has total discretion to decide to “preserve” or not “preserve,” even if the decision to not “preserve” is made with bad motive (i.e., to prevent the public and the Alaska press from discovering that the emails even exist).
The undefined (by the Alaska Legislature) word “preserved” that Judge McKay defined on his own appears in the generic A.S. 40.25.220(3) definition of the term “public records” in the Alaska Public Records Act.
In other words, Judge McKay’s holding applies to all records that the executive branch of the government of the State of Alaska generates. Not just to emails or to emails sent/received on private email accounts.
Here is the motion for reconsideration that Mitchell filed with Judge McKay that explains why Mitchell believes McKay got the intent wrong, and outlines the consequences we can expect if the motion for reconsideration is denied, and if the Alaska Supreme Court upholds the Judge’s decision.
The three thousand pages that were released are enough to keep Palintologists busy for weeks. And the hundreds that still linger in secrecy will continue to fuel speculation. What do they contain?
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