The Lake at the North Pole, How Bad Really Is It?

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Photo Credit: NSF’s North Pole Environmental ObservatoryThe pictures are dramatic — a camera at the North Pole Environmental Observatory, sitting in the middle of what appears to be either a lake or open ocean, at the height of the summer sea ice melt season. Set against the backdrop of the precipitous decline in sea ice cover in recent decades due in large part to global warming, this would seem to be yet another alarming sign of Arctic climate change.

These images have attracted media attention, such as this AtlanticWire post and this Daily Mail story, both of which portray the images as potential signs of an intensifying Arctic meltdown.

But before concluding that Arctic climate change has entered an even more ominous phase, it’s important to examine the context behind these images.

First, the cameras in question, which are attached to instruments that scientists have deposited on the sea ice at the start of each spring since 2002, may have “North Pole” in their name, but they are no longer located at the North Pole. In fact, as this map below shows, they have drifted well south of the North Pole, since they sit atop sea ice floes that move along with ocean currents. Currently, the waterlogged camera is near the prime meridian, at 85 degrees north latitude.

“It’s moved away from the North Pole region and it will eventually exit Fram Strait,” said Mark Serreze, the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo., in an interview. Fram Strait lies between Greenland and Canada, and is one of the main routes for sea ice to get flushed out of the Arctic Ocean.

Read more from this story HERE.

Chaplain Ordered to Remove Religious Essay From Military Website

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Photo Credit: FacebookA chaplain at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska was ordered to remove a religious column he had written titled, “No Atheists in Foxholes: Chaplains Gave all in World War II,” because it allegedly offended atheists serving on the Air Force base.

Col. Brian Duffy, the base commander told Fox News the column was removed “out of respect for those who considered its title offensive.”

“The 673d Air Base Wing does not advocate any particular religion or belief set over another and upon learning of the complaints from some readers, the article was promptly removed,” he said. “We regret any undue attention this article may have brought to any particular group or individuals.”

Lt. Col. Kenneth Reyes confirmed to Fox News that he wrote the original essay that appeared in his “Chaplain’s Corner” column on the base website.

Reyes recounted the origin of the phrase “There is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.” Father William Cummings has largely been credited with uttering the phrase in Bataan during World War II.

Read more from this story HERE.

Eight Charged in Cigarette Tax Scam

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Photo Credit: KTVAEight Anchorage residents are accused of scamming the Municipality of Anchorage out of more than $1.3 million in tax revenue.

Prosecutors say the defendants are owners and operators of retail stores who collectively purchased cigarettes from two wholesale distributors in Anchorage and lied about where they were going to resell the products in order to avoid paying MOA taxes.

Court documents reveal the scheme took place from 2009 until October 2012.

Wholesale distributors rely on merchant customers to be honest about where they plan on reselling cigarettes. Federal prosecutors say the defendants told the wholesalers in Anchorage that the cigarettes were destined for retail stores in Kenai and Sterling, where there are no taxes on tobacco products.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska’s Senators Murkowski and Begich Both Complain that there is “Stubborn Opposition” in US Senate to Law of the Sea Treaty

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Photo Credit: L.C. Smith and S.R. Stephenson, PNASAt a meeting in Washington last week, top U.S. Arctic officials at the Coast Guard, Navy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other agencies acknowledged that the U.S. lags behind other nations in dealing with the rapidly changing Arctic environment. The agencies are facing serious deficiencies in the ability to map the sea floor and develop enforceable environmental policies, as well as construct onshore infrastructure that would be used for search and rescue and oil recovery operations…There is also a big void in diplomacy, and how the U.S. will deal with other countries on issues involving the Arctic.

The U.S. has not ratified the United Nations agreement that irons out how countries make claims to offshore Arctic resources. That’s despite the agreement having the overwhelming support of the military and both political parties.

Ratification of the treaty, which is known as the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS, has been a top priority for national security officials for several years, but it remains stalled in the Senate due to a handful of senators’ concerns that it would compromise U.S. sovereignty…

[US Navy Oceanographer Rear Admiral Jonathan] White and others said the U.S. needs to ratify UNCLOS by 2015, when the U.S. takes over the rotating two-year chairmanship of the Arctic Council. Otherwise, he said, the country will speak with a weaker voice as Council president, since the U.S. is the only Arctic Council member nation that has not ratified the treaty. Such a scenario would be “sort of like driving a bus without a driver’s license,” he said.

Senator Murkowski, and fellow Alaskan, Sen. Mark Begich (D), who also addressed the conference, said they hope to try again to get the treaty through the Senate in the coming year, but that there is still some stubborn Senate opposition to it.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska Needs This: A Patch that Makes Humans Invisible to Mosquitoes (+video)

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Photo Credit: indiegogo[A] technology firm based in California [has invented] a patch which makes the wearer invisible to the insects.

The Kite Patch uses non-toxic compounds that disrupt mosquitoes’ ability to find people through CO2 for up to 48 hours.

The technology was developed by Olfactor Laboratories and the University of California at Riverside, with backing from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes of Health…

‘The Kite Mosquito Patch isn’t just another mosquito product, but a powerful alternative to most products on the market, enabling people to live normal lives with a new level of protection against contracting mosquito-borne diseases,’ said Michelle Brown, the chief scientist and vice president of Olfactor Laboratories, Inc.

Read more from this story HERE.

Murkowski and Other RINO’s Lose Filibuster Fight – Badly

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Photo Credit: APBy Wall Street Journal. Senate Majority Leader Rich Trumka, er, Harry Reid held a gun to the head of Republicans on the filibuster, Republicans blinked, and President Obama and the AFL-CIO will now get their nominees confirmed for the cabinet and especially a legal quorum for the National Labor Relations Board.

Cut through all the procedural blather and that’s the essence of the Senate’s “deal” Tuesday over the 60-vote filibuster rule. While Democrats didn’t formally pull the trigger of the “nuclear option” to allow a mere majority vote to confirm nominees, they have now established a de facto majority-vote rule. Any time Democrats want to do so, they can threaten to pull the majority trigger.

Republicans might as well acknowledge this new reality, even if it means admitting defeat in this round. GOP Senators should state clearly for the record that the next time there is a GOP President and a Democratic Senate minority wants to block an appointment with a filibuster, fuhgedaboutit. Majority rule will prevail.

Otherwise Republicans will be conceding that the filibuster remains the rule—except when Democrats say it isn’t. Democrats would be able to use the filibuster to block confirmation of GOP nominees the way they did John Bolton for U.N. Ambassador during the Bush Presidency, but Republicans couldn’t return the favor. Bottom line: This week Democrats killed the filibuster against executive-branch appointees when the same party holds the White House and Senate.

They did so, moreover, to serve AFL-CIO chief Trumka, who all but ordered Mr. Reid to threaten the nuclear option. Big Labor desperately wants a quorum of at least three National Labor Relations Board nominees to keep issuing pro-union orders that have become the NLRB’s standard operating procedure in the Obama years. Today there are only three board members and Chairman Mark Pearce is set to resign on August 27. Read more from this story HERE.

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Compromise, Senate GOP Style

By Daniel Horowitz. Who could have predicted the outcome of the latest filibuster imbroglio in the Senate? Republicans paid the full ransom. What else is new?

Once again, Mitch McConnell outsourced his leadership position to the McCain-Graham duo. He tapped them, along with Bob Corker and Roger Wicker – all from solid red states – to negotiate a compromise with Reid and Schumer over the filibuster and executive nominations. What could go wrong?

The outcome produced a compromise similar to the deals the Israelis cut with the Palestinians. In other words, it was all one-sided. Republicans agreed to allow Richard Cordray to direct the Consumer Financial Protection Board, even though he was originally appointed illegally. The following senators voted for cloture:

Ayotte (NH)
Blunt (MO)
Chambliss (GA)
Coats (IN)
Collins, S. (ME)
Corker (TN)
Flake (AZ)
Graham, L. (SC)
Hatch (UT)
Hoeven (ND)
Isakson (GA)
Johanns (NE)
Kirk (IL)
McCain (AZ)
Murkowski, L. (AK)
Portman (OH)
Wicker (MS)

Read more from this story HERE.

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Richard Cordray vote a leaves GOP at a loss

By MJ Lee, Kate Davidson and Kevin Cirilli. For almost two years, Senate Republicans have insisted they would block anyone from being confirmed as head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau without major changes in how the agency conducts its business.

On Tuesday, Republicans relented and agreed to allow Richard Cordray to be confirmed as the bureau’s leader. The vote was 66-34.

And in the end, what do Republicans have to show for their two-year fight? Pretty close to nothing — which raises questions about why it took so long to strike a deal and highlighting how poisonous the debates over presidential nominations had become in the Senate leading up to this week.

“This shows the danger of overplaying your hand,” said Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with Guggenheim Partners who has followed the debate closely. “By not dealing when they had a hand to play, the Republicans get nothing out of this.”

Republicans defended their strategy, insisting their effort was not futile because they were able to raise important questions about whether the CFPB, a pillar of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, has too much power. Read more from this story HERE.

Murkowski Votes With Democrats to Advance Bill Forcing Private Employers in 33 States to Hire Homosexual Applicants (ENDA)

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By Daniel Strauss. A Senate panel approved legislation Wednesday in a bipartisan 15-7 vote that would outlaw discrimination in the workplace based on an employee’s gender identity or sexual orientation.

Three Republicans joined 12 Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in approving the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

The GOP votes came from Sens. Orrin Hatch (Utah), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Mark Kirk (Ill.). Hatch voted aye by proxy.

The legislation would outlaw any kind of discrimination based on sexual orientation including both hiring and firing and other employment related matters like salaries and terms of employment.

Federal law currently outlaws employment discrimination centered on age, disability, national origin, race, religion or sex but not gender identity or sexual orientation. ENDA aims to fill the hole in states in the 33 states where there is no separate law against discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. Read more from this story HERE.

[Editor’s note: Murkowski reported to the pro-homosexual publication Metro Weekly that “When I was home over the break, I think it was 1,174 postcards were delivered to my office from Alaskans from around the state in support of ENDA. If you listen to your folks back home this is important to them.”]
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The Alaska Family Council Recommends You Watch this Documentary on the Left’s International LGBT Agenda

A new documentary entitled Cultural Imperialism examines the Obama Administration’s efforts to impose its LGBT values on many third world countries, particularly African nations. And they are pushing back:

Alaska’s Business Climate Continues to Suffer, Ranked 44th out of 50 States

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Photo Credit: Kiskadee 3According to an annual scoring based upon inputs from the National Association of Manufacturers and the Council on Competitiveness, Alaska is ranked seventh from the bottom for competitiveness.

The categories and point values for the scoring this year are:

Cost of Doing Business (450 points)
Economy (375 points)
Infrastructure (350 points)
Workforce (300 points)
Quality of Life (300 points)
Technology & Innovation (300 points)
Business Friendliness (200 points)
Education (150 points)
Cost of Living (50 points)
Access to Capital (25 points)

Alaska received a total score of 1140. The top state, South Dakota, received a score of 1639, while the worst state, Hawaii, scored 924.

From its ranking in 2012, Alaska slipped in the following categories: workforce, quality of life, infrastructure and transportation, economy, and education. It remained the same, 50th in the nation, in technology and innovation. Alaska also retained the same score from 2012 to 2013 in cost of living (49th).

Alaska’s biggest decline was in economy, moving from fourth in the nation in 2012 to 23rd in the nation this year.

Alaska did see improvement in cost of doing business, business friendliness, and access to capital, leading to an overall increase from 47th in nation in 2012 to 44th in nation this year.

Exclusive: Prudhoe Bay Overrun by Red Cross Workers and They Ain’t Askin’ (+video)

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Working in the last frontier often presents numerous challenges but when you are working in the northern most part of the last frontier, the challenges are aplenty. Some people would consider the polar bears the big threat and they occasionally are. But some consider the brown bears a larger errr…. more relevant issue.

Just two days ago I came upon an intersection where several trucks were stopped for no apparent reason. Then the reason became apparent to me. A large brown bear has chased a smaller bear up the road and toward our camp. The brown bear giving chase appeared to notice the audience and, apparently not wanting any witnesses, gave up the chase and slowly turned off the road and headed back to the tundra. This very large brown bear was so close I could see his breath in the cool morning air. A rare up close moment with wildlife, even for a sourdough Alaskan!

But, no, the brown bear doesn’t hold the title of deadliest Alaskan menace either. And unless you are a seal, forget the polar bear. Nope, rabid foxes aren’t it either. Instead, it’s the not-so-little mosquito.

Worldwide, the mosquito holds the record for deadliest animal, if you want to call it that. It’s more likely to be a problem than the bears. Heck, they were so bad in the parking lot this week, I had to take my cap off and fan it around my head, keeping nose and mouth closed with face pointed to ground, just to avoid eating them. Problem with that, it’s difficult to see where you are going and I almost ran right into a steel pole, avoiding it only at the last possible second.

So up here in the oil patch, this time of year it isn’t anything as glorious as avoiding getting attacked by the polar bears or tending to a rig blowing out. Sometimes it’s as simple as watching where we are walking. And in this video taken by a coworker, the mosquitoes demonstrate just how difficult that might be at times.

10 Killed in Alaska Air Taxi Fire (+video)

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All 10 people aboard an air taxi were killed when it crashed and burst into flames at a small airport on southern Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, authorities said.

The single-engine de Havilland DHC-3 Otter “struck the runway and burned” around 11:20 a.m. Sunday at the Soldotna Airport, about 60 miles southwest of Anchorage, the Federal Aviation Administration said, citing local law enforcement officials.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the aircraft was taking off or landing at the time, the FAA said. By the time firefighters and medics arrived, the aircraft was engulfed, Soldotna police said.

“There were 10 souls on the aircraft and all perished,” said Capt. Lesley Quelland with the Central Emergency Services, which serves the Soldotna area.

The flight was supposed to take passengers to Bear Mountain Lodge off Alaska’s Chinitna Bay, about 80 miles southwest of Soldotna, the lodge’s co-owner, Mac McGahan, told CNN on Monday.

Read more from this story HERE.