On August 3rd, there was a regular meeting of the Municipality Budget Advisory Commission. (You remember, this is the commission that used to be two — the Budget Advisory Commission and the School Budget Advisory Commission. However, when the word “school” made people think twice about the appointment of one of the Mayor’s LGBT-hating wing-nutter [...]

By Rep. Les Gara I’m not a big fan of failure, and not a big fan of spending money on wasted Special Sessions. I’ve now voted three times, including yesterday, to pass the Coastal Zone Management bill that passed the Bi-Partisan Senate Monday, but surprisingly failed by three votes in the House yesterday. Failure to [...]

Synthetic cannabinoids, originally intended to mimic the effects of medical marijuana, have now been criminalized in Alaska with House Bill 7, signed by Governor Sean Parnell. The bill will take effect on July 7.  These products have been changed from Schedule 2A to Schedule 3A controlled substances. Alaskans caught possessing less than 12 grams of [...]

I have a little bit of personal experience with this Palin email thing. However, mine were so redacted, they were no fun at all. So, like many others, I’ve enjoyed making up my own searches of the awesome 2011 Palin Email Database, courtesy of MSNBC and Crivella West. The REAL fun happens when I’m searching [...]

…And Hardly Anybody Knows It Many of us have heard the stories: new Republican Governors and Tea Party majorities in state legislatures across the country have been targeting public employees and their salaries, pensions, health benefits, etc… Along with this, there has been a major push at another budget-cut target — public school systems. Public [...]

By Shannyn Moore I was 8 years old and Frank McMichael was the most curmudgeonly man I’d ever met. He was the first person I’d heard cuss. Oscar the Grouch had Frank McMichael eyebrows. Frank carried a .44 revolver. Instead of a mattress, he slept on stacks of cardboard. At the time, my family was [...]

Redistricting is going on across the country as a result of the 2010 Census. It is the single most important political event happening this year because these are the districts we’ll all be voting in for the next 10 years. Lucky us…the way that Alaska’s Board selection is set up gave us 4 Republicans out [...]

National Oceanic and Aeronautics Organization (NOAA) does regular scientific research all over Alaska but especially in the wildlife and Arctic areas. They frequently use sophisticated underwater recording equipment to gather information on marine mammals: However, on March 11, 2011 off of the coast of the Aleutian Islands, they happened to catch the sound of something [...]

Remember the “Bridge to Nowhere?” Remember the project that was possibly the single biggest contributor to the tainting of the word “earmarks?” That famous title was actually a misnomer. It referred to two Alaska bridges, both funded through the same “earmark” at the time. The actual “Bridge to Nowhere” referred to the Gravina Island Bridge, [...]

Mel Green on her blog Henkimaa did an excellent piece on Governor Parnell’s most recent appointees, with the no-holds-barred title: Is Alaska Governor Sean Parnell a Christian dominionist? And just what is a “Christian dominionist”? Well, it’s a lot like a Christianist. Here’s Wikipedia: In a politico-religious context, dominionism (also called subjectionism) is the tendency [...]

I don’t normally get into the details when it comes to individual candidates and campaigns. I also usually don’t write a lot about candidates that I may happen to be supporting, but this year is really different. Many people are understandably focusing on the Legislative session and the Governor’s religiously crazed appointees. However, there is [...]

We’re hearing that those who believe Alaska should continue to get their fair share of tax on the resource that belongs to us…we the people…MUST CONTACT THE REPRESENTATIVES IMMEDIATELY. As we’ve seen in the news, there has been a HUGE lobbying push by the Governor and the oil companies towards the Alaska House. DON’T LET [...]

THE FIX IS IN! Governor Parnell’s bill to bailout the most profitable multinational corporations in the history of civilization with zero guarantees of new exploration should give every Alaskan pause. The House Finance Committee held an invitation-only hearing at the Legislative Information Office in Anchorage on Tuesday. Sure, it was open to the public, so [...]

I was in an Anchorage Assembly meeting a few weeks ago, and the question came before the body – Should synthetic cannabinoids be illegal? I had never heard of “synthetic cannabinoids” and thought that this sounded like some kind of manufactured drug that had the same effect as marijuana. After a few questions, I found [...]

You may remember that earlier in the month, Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) held several days of workshops so that people could better understand the proposed changes being made to their regulations. The workshops went quite well (I attended them all by teleconference) and I was very pleased not only that APOC had them but [...]