Mt. Redoubt:
Updates, Photos, WebCams,
Puff Ash Cloud Predictions, etc.
Category: Alaska Page 24 of 25
From: Anchorage Daily News
DINGY: Snow went from ‘white to gray’ in matter of minutes, observers in Anchorage report.
Anchorage finally got a taste and smell of Redoubt volcano Saturday afternoon when the sky darkened and ash began to drift from a massive, menacing cloud that rose up from the south and slowly enveloped the city.
It was only a light ash fall, posing little risk to healthy people or most machines.
But the sulfurous air unmistakably said volcano. So did the raspy feeling in throats and eyes all over town and from a wide swath of Southcentral Alaska from the Mat-Su Borough to Valdez. Nikiski, on the Kenai Peninsula, was also affected.
The ash cloud emerged from an eruption at 3:29 p.m., the second on Saturday afternoon, and caught the express to Anchorage. With a wind advisory also in effect, it took only about an hour before people were phoning in reports of ash from South Anchorage and the Hillside, less than 100 miles northeast of the Cook Inlet volcano.
By 7 p.m., most of the ash cloud had passed on from the city to the Mat-Su Borough to the north….
Dramatic new pictures taken overnight from across Cook Inlet show the explosive power of Redoubt volcano’s latest eruption. The volcano erupted four times in eight hours starting late Friday afternoon, with the most recent explosion at 1:20 a.m. today. Ash is moving north and west, and isn’t expected in Anchorage.
Update: Ash is right now falling all over Anchorage.
From: WorldNetDaily
A new study indicates the states with the most freedom are South Dakota, New Hampshire and Colorado, while Americans see the most complete government control of their personal lives in New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, California and Maryland.
“On personal freedom alone, Alaska is the clear winner, while Maryland brings up the rear. As for freedom in the different regions of the country, the Mountain and West North Central regions are the freest overall while the Middle Atlantic lags far behind on both economic and personal freedom,” said the study, Freedom in the 50 States: Index of Personal and Economic Freedom.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNy9jTeolUk]
Twin baby moose and mother playing in sprinkler in Anchorage, AK. June 2008
From: Juneau Empire [the article is not dated; though, this is our capitol’s main newspaper]
Parnell trashes petition for Alaska’s independence
By Gregg Erickson
The union of Alaska with the United States is again safe, thanks to the vigilance of Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell and the Alaska Supreme Court. Earlier this month Parnell refused to certify an initiative petition that would have asked Alaska voters whether the state should “seek changes in existing law and constitutional provisions to authorize … independence from the United States.”
Certification would have meant the group could try to gather the roughly 35,000 signatures needed to get their proposition on the ballot. I think they’d have about zero chance of that; but according to Parnell, seeking changes in the U.S. and Alaska constitutions to allow independence is itself unconstitutional, and therefore something that Alaskans can’t be allowed to vote on, or even sign up for.
The petition Parnell trashed was submitted by Scott Kohlhass and 242 others, including Lynette Clark, the chair of the Alaska Independence Party and a disciple of the late Alaska independence advocate Joe Vogler. …
In 2003 Parnell’s predecessor, Loren Leman, threw out a similar petition. Kohlhass sued, taking his case to the Alaska Supreme Court. The justices wrapped themselves in Old Glory before coming down on Kohlhass like a Mt. Roberts avalanche….
The logic of the court’s opinion goes like this: Kohlhass wants Alaska independence; independence is the same as secession, which is unconstitutional; therefore the Kohlhass initiative is unconstitutional. The full opinion uses the words “secede” and “secession” 26 times; read it yourself on the web at www.state.ak.us/courts/ops/sp-6087.pdf.
The hole in the court’s logic is that the initiative does not seek secession; indeed, the proposition Kohlhass wishes to gather signatures for never uses that word. Secession is a unilateral act, like South Carolina’s 1860 withdrawal from the Union. What Kohlhass and his associates seek is a constitutional change, so Alaska – with the consent of the people of Alaska and the U.S. – can become independent.
Related:
Chuck Baldwin: Breakup Of U.S. Is Inevitable — State secession is the last best option
Ben Swann: Do States Actually Have The Right To Secede?
Why Texas would flourish as an independent Republic based on liberty, not debt (has interesting comments)
From: Anchorage Daily News
Anchorage residents are burning through record levels of energy to keep their homes and businesses warm and lit during the long cold snap.
Cook Inlet natural gas supplies most of our energy needs, and on Saturday we used more of it than ever before.
Total gas flow to area customers that day totaled 234 million cubic feet, said Curtis Thayer, spokesman for local utility Enstar Natural Gas Co. The previous record was 227 million cubic feet set on Jan. 9, 2007.
All that gas consumption is going to cost local consumers — maybe more than you realize.
Beginning this month, Enstar bills are increasing by about 22 percent. For the average house, it means an extra $27 per month over the coming year, Thayer said.
Read Entire Article with Chart
Related: No end in sight for bitter cold
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yRzQz0KMyI]
Related: Russian Professor: Crisis to Split USA Into 6 Pieces by 2010?? Alaska Returns to Russia??
Is this a prediction of what will happen, or just what many Russians apparently hope will happen? See “CNN: Russia Embracing…” link, below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS1EO58fp1M]
Russia Today interviews Igor Panarin, a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian foreign affairs ministry, who believes the economic crisis in the US has confirmed his long-held belief that the country is heading for extinction in its present form. source
Related:
Full article at PrisonPlanet: Russian “Infowar” Analyst Says U.S. Will Break Apart (includes US map)
CNN: Russia Embracing Professor’s Idea that U.S. Will Break Up Into Pieces by 2010
From: ABC News
No state is immune from falling into a recession, except for one: oil-rich Alaska.
What started out as a housing problem in a few states has now exploded into a full-fledged recession, with a majority of states now in or dangerously close to recession.
At the end of September, 30 states were in recession, according to Moody’s Economy.com. Back in March, only five states were in recession: Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada.
Even in the last month, the picture has grown more dire. At the end of August, 27 states were in recession and a few were still expanding. But now, Moody’s has determined that Hawaii, Minnesota and Utah have fallen into recession.
Colorado, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire and Texas are also no longer classified as expanding economies. They now are at risk of falling into recession.
The just leaves one part of the country — Alaska — with a still-expanding economy.
From: Prison Planet
Plans to implement a worldwide carbon tax in the name of saving the planet from global warming have taken another blow after it was revealed that Alaskan glaciers have grown for the first time in 250 years after an abnormally cool summer.
Now that the planet has naturally exited a warming trend and is hading towards a new “big chill,” as evidenced by the near complete halt in sunspot activity, the glaciers are expanding once again.
Temperatures 3 degrees below average caused winter snow to remain for longer, prompting the increase in glacial mass, reports the Daily Tech.
“Since 1946, the USGS has maintained a research project measuring the state of Alaskan glaciers. This year saw records broken for most snow buildup. It was also the first time since any records began being that the glaciers did not shrink during the summer months,” according to the report.
The biggest shrinkage witnessed in the region occurred between 1741 and 1900, during which the glaciers lost about 15 per cent of their total mass as the earth began to exit the climatological period coined the Little Ice Age.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but CO2 spewing cars and jumbo jets were not too prevalent in the 18th and 19th centuries.
And now that the planet has naturally exited a warming trend and is heading towards a new “big chill,” as evidenced by the near complete halt in sunspot activity, the glaciers are expanding once again.
Years more growth in the Alaskan glaciers “might mark the beginning of another Little Ice Age,” notes the report.
The expansion of the glaciers follows a similar occurrence in the Arctic, which has undergone an ice cover growth twice the size of Germany in the past year, a gain of about thirteen percent following a colder than usual year.
Man-made global warming adherents have attempted to downplay such instances as aberrations that defy a wider warming trend, but in reality no global warming has been observed since at least 1999 or even 1995, as University of Finland professor Jarl R. Ahlbeck maintains.
Evidence that the planet is tip-toeing towards the onset of a new mini ice age continues to present itself following unprecedented ice storms in Kenya as well as Sydney experiencing its coldest August for 60 years.
The cold snap arrives on the back of the Sun reaching a milestone not observed in nearly 100 years – the entire month of August passed without a single sunspot being noted.
Lack of solar activity in 2008 has coincided with evidence of a cooling trend across the world.
Earlier this year, China experienced its coldest winter in 100 years while northeast America was hit by record snow levels and Britain suffered its coldest Easter in decades as late-blooming daffodils were pounded with hail and snow on an almost daily basis. The British summer also left many yearning for global warming, with temperatures in June and July rarely struggling to get over 16 degrees and on one occasion even dropping as low as 9 degrees in the middle of the afternoon.
Related:
Anchorage Daily News: Bad weather was good for Alaska glaciers which grew in mass
Anchorage, Alaska’s ‘Summer’ of 2008 Record: Only 2 Days Above 69 Degrees
Sun’s Power Hits New Low, May Endanger Earth?
New Sunspots Suggest “We are Not Stuck in a Permanent Solar Minimum”
From: Anchorage Daily News
Two hundred years of glacial shrinkage in Alaska, and then came the winter and summer of 2007-2008.
Unusually large amounts of winter snow were followed by unusually chill temperatures in June, July and August. …
Never before in the history of a research project dating back to 1946 had the Juneau Icefield witnessed the kind of snow buildup that came this year. It was similar on a lot of other glaciers too.
“It’s been a long time on most glaciers where they’ve actually had positive mass balance,” Molnia said.
That’s the way a scientist says the glaciers got thicker in the middle. …
During the Little Ice Age — roughly the 16th century to the 19th — Muir Glacier filled Glacier Bay and the people of Europe struggled to survive because of difficult conditions for agriculture. Some of them fled for America in the first wave of white immigration.
The Pilgrims established the Plymouth Colony in December 1620. By spring, a bitterly cold winter had played a key role in helping kill half of them. Hindered by a chilly climate, the white colonization of North America through the 1600s and 1700s was slow. …
The difference in temperature between the Little Ice Age and these heady days of American expansion?
About three or four degrees, Molnia said.
The difference in temperature between this summer in Anchorage — the third coldest on record — and the norm?
About three degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
Related:
Global Cooling: Alaskan Glaciers Grow For First Time In 250 Years
Anchorage, Alaska’s ‘Summer’ of 2008 Record: Only 2 Days Above 69 Degrees
Sun’s Power Hits New Low, May Endanger Earth?
New Sunspots Suggest “We are Not Stuck in a Permanent Solar Minimum”
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6885660799673369164]
Alex talks with Dr. Nick Begich, Executive Director of The Lay Institute on Technology and author of Angels Don’t Play This HAARP. Begich discusses attempts to regulate, control and censor the Internet, as well as the true agenda behind HAARP and other mind control weapons systems.
From: Anchorage Daily News
You can glimpse it from all over town, glowing above a stand of trees in Valley of the Moon, looming over the parking lot of the Midtown Applebee’s, from high on the Hillside, undulating blue-green against the hazy sky like a little slice of northern lights.
It’s a four-story light installation, a sculpture of sorts, on top of the new JL Tower, an office building off C Street near 36th Avenue.
As autumn darkness descends, it’s emerging as a luminescent landmark in the city’s developing professional district….
Transcribed by Jeff Fenske from Alaska: Big America on the History Channel
Narrator: In 1964, one of the most devastating earthquakes ever recorded struck Anchorage….
Narrator: Here at All Saints Episcopal Church [showing footage of the church in downtown Anchorage], the Reverend Norman Elliott was preparing his service.
Norman Elliott: On every Friday at Lent, it was the custom, here, to have the service of the stations of the cross, and we would begin at 5:15.
Narrator: Back in Anchorage, the Reverend Elliott was reciting a prophetic Biblical verse.
Norman Elliott: “And behold the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook and the rocks were split“ [Mt. 27:51]. And the earth quaked [he said, looking into the interviewer’s eye]
Narrator: At that moment, 5:36 pm, the largest earthquake in North America was unleashed on Anchorage, Alaska.
From: News with Views
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin gave her first exclusive interview as John McCain’s Vice Presidential running mate to ABC’s Charles Gibson last week. Her answers were very troubling, especially to those of us who believe in constitutional government. On foreign policy, especially, Palin reveals herself to be just another neocon; one who would enthusiastically promote Bush’s preemptive war doctrine.
Speaking of the Bush doctrine, it was extremely enlightening that Sarah Palin demonstrated surprising ignorance as to what the Bush Doctrine is. Gibson asked: “Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?” Palin’s response: “In what respect, Charlie?” Continued questions revealed that Sarah Palin was totally ignorant of the Bush doctrine.
When Gibson properly defined the Bush doctrine as being the determination of President Bush to unilaterally, preemptively launch anticipatory military attacks and invasions against foreign countries (without a Declaration of War from Congress, I might add), Palin said the President “has the obligation, the duty” to launch such attacks. No wonder John McCain likes her so much.
Palin went on to make further statements that must have made John McCain proud. When asked if she would be willing to take America to war with Russia in order to defend Georgia, she responded by saying, “Perhaps so.”
Egad! Do John McCain and Sarah Palin envision–even desire–war with Russia? John McCain is already on record as supporting sending troops to Georgia; now Sarah Palin suggests that even war with Russia is a possibility. Over what? Has Russia deployed troops along our borders? Has Russia threatened to invade the United States? Are McCain and Palin truly willing to launch a war with a nation that has thousands of ICBMs in its nuclear arsenal, when our own security has not been threatened? And just how many other countries are McCain and Palin willing to defend with American toil and blood? All of Europe? …
Many people familiar with John McCain have tried to warn the American people about the warmongering, hot-tempered senator. To quote one of McCain’s fellow POWs, Phillip Butler (who was a POW for 8 years, 2 1/2 years longer than McCain), “I can verify that John [McCain] has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly, that is not the finger I want next to that red button.” …
From: Anchorage Daily News
Summer is officially over in Alaska, and if you got out in the sun to enjoy both days of it you were lucky.
Those were the two July days the temperature at the offices of the National Weather Service in Anchorage hit 70 degrees or better.
“Those temperatures occurred at the beginning of the month (of July) and were immediately followed by a long stretch of cool and wet weather.
“With only two days above 70 degrees this year, that sets a new record for the fewest days to reach 70,” the weather-watching agency reported Friday.
Add to the lack of heat and sunshine what the agency calls “an astonishing 77%” of days colder than normal, and you get the picture.
This summer was every bit as bad as you thought it was.
Gardens didn’t grow. Salmon returned late. Bees didn’t make honey. Swallows didn’t breed.
And the sunbathing, well, what sunbathing?
On average, Anchorage sees 16 days that hit 70 or better. …
Overall, the weather service ranks the summer of 2008 as having the third coolest average high temperatures since record keeping began. Only the summers of 1973 and 1971 were worse. In overall average daily temperatures, 2008 ranked 11th place.
Global Cooling: Alaskan Glaciers Grow For First Time In 250 Years
From: Anchorage Daily News
Enstar Natural Gas Co. plans to raise its rates for heating homes by at least 22 percent starting in January to pay for soaring fuel costs, one of its largest one-time rate increases in a decade.
The company will file its new prices with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska for approval when its final numbers are in next month, said company spokesman Curtis Thayer.
Enstar, which serves about 128,000 homes and businesses statewide, including nearly all of Anchorage, will raise a typical resident’s bill from $125 to $153 a month on average.
“This is a concern,” said Ann Secrest, spokeswoman for AARP Alaska, which has more than 90,000 members. “You don’t want an older Alaskan to have to turn off their heat and possibly put themselves in harm’s way.” …
Two years ago, a similar spike in oil prices sent Enstar natural gas rates soaring to a 30 percent increase.
Even with the latest increase, though, Enstar customers will have one of the lowest prices of natural gas in the country, Thayer said.
From: IBD Editorials
There are great misconceptions about the developments up here. Take ANWR. The misperception is that this is a huge swath of pristine land, full of mountains and rivers and wildlife. Those are the pictures seen on TV. But what we’re talking about with ANWR is a 2,000-acre plot of land that is a smaller footprint than LAX or big airports outside Alaska.
It’s not mountainous, and there aren’t rivers flowing through it. So even the perception of what ANWR would entail is wrong, and we need to correct that.
Power to the peaceful,
Love to the peaceful.
That’s the easy part.
Power to the peaceful;
Love to the peaceful.
Now here’s the hard part:
Power to the peaceful;
Love to the hateful!
__________
This album is dedicated to the great state of Alaska,
its people and its natural abundance.
May they work together forever.
– Michael Franti
Transcribed by Jeff Fenske from:
Michael Franti and Spearhead : Live : Alaska
Bomb the World
Recorded Live on
June 2 & 3, 2005
At The Beartooth
Anchorage, Alaska
From: Anchorage Daily News, Gloomy summer headed toward infamy — CHILLY: Anchorage could hit 65 degrees for fewest days on record, July 24th, 2008
The coldest summer ever? You might be looking at it, weather folks say.
Right now the so-called summer of ’08 is on pace to produce the fewest days ever recorded in which the temperature in Anchorage managed to reach 65 degrees.
That unhappy record was set in 1970, when we only made it to the 65-degree mark, which many Alaskans consider a nice temperature, 16 days out of 365.
This year, however — with the summer more than half over — there have been only seven 65-degree days so far. …
In the Matanuska Valley on Wednesday snow dusted the Chugach. On the Kenai Peninsula, rain was raising Six-Mile River to flood levels and rafting trips had to be canceled. …
Unless we get 10 more days of 60-degree or warmer temperatures, we’re going to break the dismal 1971 record of only 46 such days, a possibility too awful to contemplate. …
• 70-degree days. So far this summer there have been two. Usually there are 15. Last year there were 21. In 2004 there were 49.
• 75-degree days. So far this summer there’ve been zero. Usually there are four. It may be hard to remember, but last year there were 21. In 2004 there were 23.
Read Entire Article with Chart
Related: Global Cooling: Alaskan Glaciers Grow For First Time In 250 Years
From: The Register
Just a few weeks ago, predictions of Arctic ice collapse were buzzing all over the internet. Some scientists were predicting that the “North Pole may be ice-free for first time this summer”. Others predicted that the entire “polar ice cap would disappear this summer”.
The Arctic melt season is nearly done for this year. The sun is now very low above the horizon and will set for the winter at the North Pole in five weeks. And none of these dire predictions have come to pass. Yet there is, however, something odd going on with the ice data.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado released an alarming graph on August 11, showing that Arctic ice was rapidly disappearing, back towards last year’s record minimum. Their data shows Arctic sea ice extent only 10 per cent greater than this date in 2007, and the second lowest on record. Here’s a smaller version of the graph:
[…]
The problem is that this graph does not appear to be correct. Other data sources show Arctic ice having made a nice recovery this summer. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center data shows 2008 ice nearly identical to 2002, 2005 and 2006. Maps of Arctic ice extent are readily available from several sources, including the University of Illinois, which keeps a daily archive for the last 30 years. A comparison of these maps (derived from NSIDC data) below shows that Arctic ice extent was 30 per cent greater on August 11, 2008 than it was on the August 12, 2007. (2008 is a leap year, so the dates are offset by one.)
From: The International Forecaster, 7/26/08
Lindsey Williams, who has been an ordained Baptist minister for 28 years, went to Alaska in 1971 as a missionary. The Transalaska oil pipeline began its construction phase in 1974, and because of his concern for the spiritual welfare of the “pipeliners,” Mr. Williams volunteered to serve as Chaplain on the pipeline, with the subsequent full support of the Alyeska Pipeline Company. Because of the executive status accorded to him as Chaplain, he was given access to the information that is documented in his book, “The Energy Non-Crisis,” which shows that peak oil is a scam because our domestic reserves in the North Slope of Alaska alone are at least as large as those in Saudi Arabia and are potentially large enough to power the US with domestic oil for two centuries. Recently this year, due to the sensitive nature of his book, Mr. Williams’ life was threatened and he was forced to shut down his web-site and stop selling his books and CDs. At the urging of Dr. Stanley Monteith of Radio Liberty, he called back the same oil executive who had warned him about the danger he would be in if he continued to disseminate certain information to ask if in fact there was any information that he could in fact convey to the public without upsetting the powers that be. The oil executive, who Mr. Williams had known for years, gave Mr. Williams some startling revelations which he could safely reveal to the general public. As you know, the Illuminati are arrogant enough to reveal some of their plans because they believe there is nothing we can do about it.
Basically, Mr. Williams was told that over the next twelve months, from mid-2008 to mid-2009, (1) news of super giant oil fields, ready to produce, would be announced for two locations, in the Northern Slopes of Russia and in Indonesia, which oil fields would together contain more oil reserves than the entire Middle East; (2) that this news would drive oil prices down to $50/barrel; (3) that OPEC countries, especially in the Middle East, would be bankrupted by this price decrease; (4) that this would cause the financing of our foreign trade and current account deficits through purchases of treasury paper by foreign nations with their surplus oil profits to collapse, leading to the collapse of the dollar; (5) that the collapse of the dollar would cause unprecedented financial strife and turmoil in the US, and that it would take many years for the US to recover from this financial debacle; (6) that they (big oil) support John McCain for President; and (7) that US domestic oil reserves would never be tapped, and that any legislation which might allow domestic reserves to be tapped would not be allowed to pass, leaving the US dependent on foreign oil forever.
News of the Russian oil field has been announced just as predicted, but whether the rest happens as stated above remains to be seen. Nevertheless, many of these revelations seem quite feasible, so we thought we would comment on how these revelations might play out under the current financial scenario.
Related:
Lindsey Williams: The Elite Speak — Dollar to devalue by 30-50% in the next 12 months
Lindsey Williams on Radio Liberty: Lindsey predicts…
Lindsey Williams Returns: Get Ready for $150 Barrel of Oil and Mr. X Revealed!
Lindsey Williams: Deathbed Globalist “Spills Gut” On Plan to Destroy America
[10/23/09] Lindsey Williams: We Have Just 2 Years to Get Our Act Together?
Lindsey Williams’ Book Now Online: “The Energy Non-Crisis”
Skousen: Gas Price Manipulation—Public Needs to Demand Opening of the Gull Island Oil Field (Alaska)
Lindsey Williams: The Energy *Non*-Crisis—Alaska’s ‘Classified’ Oil Reserve Largest on Earth?
Lindsey Williams’ Life Threatened by Tycoon for Speaking Out About the Non-Energy Crisis
“Officials are at a loss to explain why,” the article says. And they don’t even mention vitamin D. Why? What’s up? Is it because it’s not in Big Pharma’s interest because they can’t patent vitamin D?
A Google search for “birth defects” and “vitamin D” results in 300,000 hits!
And it should be common knowledge that most Alaskans have pitiful low vitamin D levels in winter. My hygienist says Alaskans’ teeth are horrendous, compared to Texans’, where she moved from. And all it takes are simple blood tests to find out. The sun doesn’t get high enough in the sky during much of the winter, so the atmosphere shields out the vitamin-D-producing rays.
And wasn’t the traditional diet of Alaska natives high in vitamin D, but now many eat a more Americanized diet, even with fast-foods?
Freedom!
Jeff Fenske
From: Anchorage Daily News
Alaska infants are twice as likely to be born with major birth defects as infants in the U.S. as a whole, according to a new study by the state Department of Health and Social Services — and officials are at a loss to explain why.
All races of Alaskans exceed national rates for “major congenital anomalies,” according to the review of seven years of data (from 1996 through 2002) drawn from the Alaska Birth Defect Registry.
Read Entire Article With Chart
Related:
Low Vitamin D Levels Associated With Death—Majority Deficient
Burka-Wearing Prompts The Return Of In Rickets In Birmingham
From: Anchorage Daily News
At Murderer’s Sentencing, Grieving Fathers Find Unlikely Bond
A story of addiction, death and forgiveness
In a downtown courtroom Friday, Rob Kagel didn’t know what to feel as he looked for the first time on Osaiasi Saafi, the man who’d shot and killed his son.
[…]
Then it was Saafi’s turn. He accepted the decision of the jury, he said quietly. He prayed every day for the family to forgive him. He was sorry for the heartache his actions had caused.
From his seat in the gallery, Kagel believed Saafi was sincere, believed he would be burdened for life by what he’d done.
Suddenly, locking Saafi up for most of his life seemed a waste. Then two young men would be destroyed, Kagel explained later. He knew Josh wouldn’t have wanted it.
Judge Michael Wolverton called a recess. When court reconvened, Kagel asked if he could make one last statement.
He’d changed his mind, he told the judge. Please give Saafi the minimum sentence, he said.
“We do forgive you,” Kagel said to Saafi. “For reasons we don’t understand, we love you; we do.”
Saafi nodded. Behind him, his father Henry Saafi wept.
From: Anchorage Daily News
The Wrangell Mountains had fresh snow Sunday. Friends just back from a couple weeks hiking in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve reported they were snowed on.
Snow left from last winter still blocks the Resurrection Pass Trail in Chugach National Forest. And I have to pull on the fleece in order to sit on my southwest-facing deck and enjoy evening sunshine.
The summer sun, admittedly, feels as good and warm as ever. But the air, well, something is wrong with the air.
The air is cold. As soon as the sun disappears behind a cloud, the temperature starts falling as if it were nighttime in the desert.
A bright sun warming the deck one evening last week actually encouraged to me engage in the foolishness of pulling on shorts and a short-sleeved jersey for an evening mountain bike ride.
After 10 minutes, the sun went under a cloud, the wind started blowing, and I had to beat a retreat toward home to ward off hypothermia.
The weather this summer may even be worse than the skyrocketing price of fuel. After nine months of winter, we’re entitled to a little respite, and then we get this?
Anchorage, according to National Weather Service records, didn’t have a day that hit 70 in June, and the weather service record station is in a warm spot.
There were more days in the 50s than in the 60s. It’s been so cold, the midnight-sun days even feel darker.
Related: Anchorage sets new record for latest high temp day – still waiting for 70
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgkyroPv7HY]
Skousen: Gas Price Manipulation—Public Needs to Demand Opening of the Gull Island Oil Field (Alaska)
World Affairs Brief, May 16, 2008. Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief
MORE ON GAS PRICE MANIPULATION
It’s well and good that Congress vote to stop filling the US Strategic Oil reserve because the US already has billions of barrels in the ground in Alaska–entire oil fields capped and drilled, but kept off the market. The filling of the Strategic Petroleum reserve is merely one more attempt to keep fuel in short supply. I will be blunt. There is a conspiracy to raise fuel prices and it is pernicious. No one is targeting the collusion we see daily between the oil companies.
Fred Cederholm in a Baltimore Blog noted these careful observations during the latest and suspicious run up in gas prices–too rapid and too well coordinated to be a result of natural market demands. “It must have been some pricing strategy by all of the fuel retailers because the spike [of 13 cents a gallon] occurred everywhere, regardless of the company or the brand, at almost the same moment [within 2 hours]… I had already been on-line checking world-wide news and developments when a friend and neighbor stopped at the house to tell me I had better fill up immediately because a price jump was coming. I logged off and topped off my gas supplies for all of my fuel thirsty vehicles and gizmos. I then went back on-line to find out why the spike occurred. I found not one single development, catastrophe, or explanation. I found nothing to justify the jump!” Later, the media will always be fed some event used to justify the increase, just like their servile explanations that “the stock market rose today due to some company performing better than expected.” Nonsense.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147]
Alaska’s Gull Island Oil Fields Could Power U.S. for 200 Years
“Crude oil is the real ‘currency’ of the world,” said Lindsey Williams at a gathering of the Midwest Concerned Citizens group in Kansas City on July 22. But Americans will never hear about huge oil and gas reserves in the United States, which, if ever tapped, would bring today’s fuel prices at least as low as $1.50 per gallon and make America more energy independent.
As a Baptist missionary in the 1970s, Williams said he rubbed elbows with members of the world’s power elite—who boasted of detailed 30-year and 50-year plans to control the flow of oil and information.
A huge quantity of crude oil and natural gas exists under Gull Island, located in the waters of Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, says Williams. He cited key British Petroleum memoranda and related the statements of upper echelon oil officials who told him that Gull Island would be kept under wraps, limiting domestic supplies so Americans would someday see prices hit up to $10 a gallon at the pump.
Lindsey Williams on Alex Jones 7/28/08: The Next 12 Months
Lindsey Williams’ Life Threatened by Tycoon for Speaking Out About the Non-Energy Crisis
Lindsey Williams’ Book Now Online: “The Energy Non-Crisis”
Skousen: Gas Price Manipulation—Public Needs to Demand Opening of the Gull Island Oil Field (Alaska)
From: Anchorage Daily News, Saturday, 4/26/08
Anchorage continues to dig out from a snowfall that set a record for the day and the month.The National Weather Service says 17.2 inches fell at its office just south of Anchorage’s international airport and 22 inches fell in northeast Anchorage on Friday and Saturday.
The heaviest snow fell between 3 and 6 p.m. Friday at a rate of almost two inches per hour.
The monthly total at the weather service office is now 29.7 inches, breaking a record from 1963 when 27.6 inches fell during April.
The 15.5 inches that fell Friday is the third-most for any one day in Anchorage. The record is the 25.7 inches that fell six years ago on March 17, 2002.
From: Anchorage Daily News, 4/27/08
Springtime in Alaska, and the livin’ is beastly
… I should have known the recent warmth wouldn’t last. You just have to notice the signs. On Thursday, I realized there were no buds on the trees and no green shoots of grass had shown. That seemed odd after several days of warm weather.
It was as if the plants knew something was up.
The birds sure didn’t. As the snow continued to fall on Friday, I noticed confused ducks flying around, seemingly looking for a place to land. One duck finally found a slim open lead of water between the slush piling up in a roadside mud puddle. It didn’t look too happy.