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It's about time 5/9/08 |
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Legislative pay raises
would be a good ideaALASKA LEGISLATORS will get pay raises under a bill signed last week by Gov. Sarah Palin. Good. It's about time. Their last raise was two decades or more ago.
The amount has not been decided. The new law will set up a salary commission empowered to set salaries for legislators and 2,500 to 3,000 state employees who are not represented by collective agreements.
Right now base salaries of most legislators are $24,000 plus per diem and expenses that bring the total to $60,000 to $70,000. But most of the travel and expense money is necessarily spent for that purpose, so their real pay is . . .
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Session length 5/9/08 |
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NOTE:OUR POSITION on legislative pay raises has no bearing on The Voice of The Times' attitude on a 90-day session limit or on where the Legislature should meet.
A 90-day session does allow more Alaskans to run and serve, but it also reduces the volume of junk legislation, forces legislators to expedite state business and provides the public more manageable periods for monitoring bill progress.
That makes it easier for voters to track issues and participate on matters in which they have an interest. The same goes for . . .
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Gasoline tax 5/9/08 |
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Don Young
shakes up
CongressTHIS JUST IN from the gasoline front. Reports of Congressman Don Young committing political hari-kari by proposing legislation to substantially increase the gasoline tax were, well, wrong.
“I want to make it perfectly clear, I have not, nor do I have any intention of introducing a bill to increase the gas tax,” Young said today.
He says Congress is paralyzed, and has been since 1973 when it voted to approve the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, and is doing nothing to . . .
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Fishing 5/8/08 |
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Tensions ease
on Kenai RiverKenai River sports fishermen and guides seem to be getting along much better since the state inaugurated a mandatory five-day training academy for the professionals two years ago.
The Peninsula Clarion reports complaints about misbehaving guides and guiding license suspensions have dropped significantly since the program was started in response to complaints about aggressive guides and flaring tempers on the river.
The newspaper said Jack Sinclair, Alaska state parks superintendent for the Kenai-Prince William Sound area, reported . . .
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House race 5/7/08 |
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Metcalfe quits
congressional
election fightDEMOCRAT JAKE METCALFE has pulled the plug on his campaign for the U.S. House seat now held by Don Young.
Metcalfe’s decision follows his becoming embroiled in a controversy involving Web sites aimed at discrediting another Democrat challenger, Ethan Berkowitz. Metcalfe says . . .
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Domestic drilling 5/7/08 |
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Resources Committee
bails on ANWRAT WHAT gas price, reasonable people must wonder, will Democrats wake up and understand that we as a nation must develop our resources?
Today, Democrats lined up to yet again to vote against opening a tiny portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s bleak coastal plain to drilling.
An amendment offered by Rep. Don Young in the House Natural Resources Committee won the vote of every Republican on the panel, and one Democrat. Every other Democrat opted to . . .
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DNR contract 5/7/08 |
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State hires
linked firmsLast week, we talked about the state’s contract with MCB Communications.
We pointed out that the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and a Massachusetts public relations firm have signed a $45,000 contract for “communications consulting” on the proposed gas line after officials sent out a Request for Proposal on April 3.
It’s unclear what the deal is for or who will . . .
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Girdwood fair 5/7/08 |
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A few ruin
a fun
family eventIT IS SAD that the Girdwood Forest Fair, a summer attraction for 32 years, is the victim of rowdyism, drunken partyers and a rising level of misbehavior and violence from unruly crowds.
Sadly, the festival this year, billed as a family event, is history, organizers say, and again, lawbreakers and undesirables have managed to set the agenda for the rest of us.
The fair drew thousands daily and the attendant problems were immense. Fireworks. Underage drinking. Violence. Drug use. Illegal campfires. All of it tipped . . .
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A good question 5/6/08 |
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What do they do?A READER has asked an obvious question about candidates running against Don Young: What do these people do to make money?
Really.
What do Democrats Diane E. Benson, Ethan Berkowitz and Jake Metcalfe, along with Republicans Gabrielle LeDoux and Sean R. Parnell actually do for a living?
OK, we know that . . .
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News pioneer 5/6/08 |
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An Alaskan original
dies in ScottsdaleThe Voice of The Times lost a great friend and favorite columnist on Saturday when Ketchikan newsman Lew M. Williams Jr., died at 83 in Scottsdale, Ariz., his vacation home.
Lew was the retired publisher of the Ketchikan Daily News and active in journalism and Alaska's civic life for more than 60 years. He worked on various newspaper jobs as a youth and began his journalism career on a full-time basis after service as a paratrooper sergeant in World War II.
He first ran the Wrangell Sentinel for his family, worked at the Sitka Sentinel and the old Petersburg Press, and managed the Ketchikan Daily News for 10 years before . . .
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Adult needed 5/5/08 |
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State should overturn
Point Thomson decision IS THERE an adult in the house, someone who can step in and overturn the foolish decision Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Irwin made on ExxonMobil's plan of development for the Point Thomson gas leases?
Irwin's decision cannot be allowed to stand and should be revoked before it seriously jeopardizes any chance Alaska has to build a gas pipeline anytime soon. The Natural Resources chief killed the Exxon plan — despite the fact that it would have employed 200 Alaskans drilling new wells at Point Thomson before the end of the year — saying that he didn't trust the company. Exxon was already mobilizing materials and equipment for the project.
Irwin was not professional enough to set his personal feelings aside and allow a $1.3 billion development plan to proceed. In doing so, he seems certain to have tied up the Point Thomson leases in litigation that could go on for years. And since the 9 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves at Point Thomson will be vital to any gas pipeline, he may have set back construction of a line an equal number of years.
Gov. Sarah Palin seems unlikely to overrule Irwin; he is one of . . .
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Catalino 5/9/08 |
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Krauthammer 5/9/08 |
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Hillary finds her way too late in the gameBy CHARLES KRAUTHAMMERWASHINGTON — By the time Hillary Clinton figured out how to beat Barack Obama, it was too late. When she began the race in 2007 thinking she was in for a coronation, she claimed the center in order to position herself for the real fight, the general election. She simply assumed the party activists and loony left would fall in behind her.  Krauthammer
However, as Obama began to rise, powered by the party's Net-roots activists, she scurried left, particularly with her progressively more explicit renunciation of the Iraq War. It was a fool's errand. She would never be able to erase the stain of her original war vote and she remained unwilling to do an abject John Edwards self-flagellating recantation. It took her weeks even to approximate the apology the left was looking for, and by then it was far too late. The party's activist wing was by then unbreakably betrothed to Obama.
But going left proved disastrous for Clinton. It abolished all significant policy differences between her and Obama, the National Journal's 2007 most liberal senator. On health care, for example, her attempts to turn a minor difference in the definition of universality into a major assault on Obama fell flat. With no important policy differences separating them, the contest became one of character and personality. Matched against this elegant, intellectually nimble, hugely talented newcomer, she had no chance of winning that contest.
She tried everything. Her charges that he was a man of nothing but words came off as a petulant, envious attack on eloquence. The power to inspire may not be sufficient to qualify for the presidency, but it is hardly a liability.
She tried a silly plagiarism charge, then settled for . . .
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Headline News |
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Jenkins 5/8/08 |
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Incredible Shrinking ADN insults conservativesBy PAUL JENKINSWhat’s not to love about newspapers? The good ones have personalities, quirks and style. Love them or hate them, they have something to say. Sports, even coverage of things other than women’s badminton. Comics that are funny. Ads. Columns. News, unless we’re talking about the Incredible Shrinking Newspaper here. Opinion. Feisty letters to the editor. They have it all. Even the lousy ones serve a purpose. Ask a bird.  Jenkins Yet with the exception of just a tiny handful, newspapers across the nation are drying up like raisins in the sun, and editors and publishers cluster at three-martini navel-gazing sessions to ponder: What is going on? It’s the Internet, they say. The public is stupid, they say. Young people do not read, they say. Too bad they never take a moment, scratch their heads and wonder whether the problem could be them. Maybe their newspapers stink.
Our Incredible Shrinking Newspaper is a great example. Its mother ship, California-based McClatchy Co., says in its Securities and Exchange Commission report that the ISN’s circulation is down on weekdays and Sundays, and its revenues are off by more than $5 million. Add to that the siphoning of dough from the ISN to help ease McClatchy financial woes brought on when it devoured the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain for $4 billion. Its stock was selling for 9.46 at one point yesterday. A year ago it was trading for a little more than $30 a share.
Is it possible in these difficult times that the ISN has become so preoccupied, so estranged from its readers that it has lost focus? Can we take what it says seriously anymore? For all intents and purposes, it appears . . .
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Brennan 5/7/08 |
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Watch for toilet-seat political ployBy TOM BRENNANThe good thing about a presidential election year is that you see the nation's leading politicians at their absolute worst. They don't get any lower than this; there's no place place to go but up.  Brennan Whoever wins, and any that want to try again, will present a more realistic face to the world for the next three years — when the next election will be getting closer and it's time to be a jerk again.
I'm not enthralled about any of the three leading candidates for the White House — not even the Republican, John McCain — but I find it downright nauseating to watch all of them pander to the public, trying to say whatever it takes to make people like them.
That's why the candidates talk about high gasoline prices, war, health care and things people hope their president can do something about. It's also why they invoke things that people don't like and present them as dragons to be slain, suggesting that they will be the slayers.
Hillary Clinton seems to be saying "Apply me directly to the forehead." And Barack Obama can legitimately claim "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen" because . . .
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Poor fiscal policy 5/6/08 |
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Blame the Fed for economic messBy GERALD P. O'DRISCOLL JR.The U.S. economy is in the midst of an old-style credit crunch brought on by a combination of bad policies and incredibly lax underwriting standards at financial institutions.  O'Driscoll The biggest policy failure was the decision by Alan Greenspan's Federal Reserve to hold interest rates too low for too long. That led to a tsunami of credit that inundated the economy with cheap money.
Mortgage lenders in particular were flush with funds and searched for deals wherever they could be found. Heretofore unqualified borrowers suddenly "qualified" as underwriting standards relaxed and then disappeared.
Egged on by statements from Chairman Greenspan, market participants came to believe the era of low-interest rates would last indefinitely. But the era did come to an end as the Fed was forced to begin raising interest rates.
Faced with the prospect of paying higher rates on their mortgages in the future, borrowers began defaulting. First, home prices . . .
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Walter Williams 5/5/08 |
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Some smugglers are good guysBy WALTER E. WILLIAMS While it's politically popular to impose confiscatory taxes on America's 40 million tobacco smokers, there are a number of consequences one might consider, but let's start out with a quiz.  Williams If a carton of cigarettes sells for $160 in New York City, and $35 in North Carolina, what do you predict will happen? If you answered tons of cigarettes will be going up I-95 from North Carolina to New York City, go to the head of the class.
Smuggling cigarettes is illegal; so the next quiz question is: Who is most likely to engage in cigarette smuggling? It's a mixed answer, but for the most part, organized smugglers will be people with a high disregard for the law.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has found that Russian, Armenian, Ukrainian, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Middle Eastern (mainly Pakistani, Lebanese, and Syrian) organized crime groups are highly involved in the trafficking of contraband and counterfeit cigarettes.
What's worse is the ATF found that . . .
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Tobin 5/4/08 |
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The joint will be jumping at
UAA's graduation exercisesBy WILLIAM J. TOBINPOMP & CIRCUMSTANCE: There will be a packed house at the Sullivan Arena today, and it won't be because of a rock concert or a hockey or basketball game. But the place indeed will be rocking and filled with cheers — wild applause, for sure, for the more than 2,100 men and women who are members of the 2008 graduation class of University of Alaska Anchorage. Commencement exercises begin at 3 p.m., with Chancellor Fran Ulmer at the podium handing out the honors . . . Two honorary doctorates will be presented — one to an Anchorage attorney and the other to a noted scientist involved with studies of global climate change. Hugh Fleischer will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree, saluting him for many years of local civic service. An honorary doctor of science degree will be conferred on Dr. Robert Corell, program director for the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economic and the Environment in Washington, D.C.  Tobin AT THE UAA COMMENCEMENT, three faculty members will be elevated to emeriti status — recognizing outstanding service to the university over the years. The honors go to two professors of sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences, Sharon Araji and Michael Pajot, and also to Stephen Jackstadt, professor of economics in the College of Business and Public Policy . . . The student speaker will be 22-year-old Umair Iqbal, who will receive a bachelor of science degree in biology. He is headed for medical school after UAA.
WHEN IT COMES to education in the field of medicine and health, UAA is becoming a major player. Its School of Nursing, one of Alaska's true treasures, is doubling the number of annual admissions and is aiming to produce . . .
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Endless war 5/3/08 |
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McCain's Iraq proposal dreadful enoughBy TED GALEN CARPENTERThe Republican National Committee just circulated an outraged e-mail to potential contributors accusing Democrats of distorting John McCain's position on Iraq.  Carpenter McCain gave his political opponents ammunition earlier this year when he encountered a question at a political rally about the possibility that U.S. troops might have to stay in Iraq for 50 years. McCain's flippant response was "make it a century."
Republicans have a point when they charge that critics have taken his comment out of context. The senator made it clear in subsequent remarks that he was not proposing turning the Iraq conflict into the 21st century's version of the Hundred Years War.
Rather, he was suggesting a reduced, long-term U.S. military presence once Iraq became stable and peaceful. His model for that strategy is . . .
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Letters Policy |
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The Voice of The Times welcomes letters to the editor. They may contain criticism, praise or commentary on local, state, national or international issues. We would appreciate letters being kept to 200 words or less. They will generally be featured on a letters page, then moved to our letters archive on Page Two. Please include your phone number and hometown. The number is for verification purposes only and will not be published.
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