State Politicians Cheer as Feds Choose Alaska as Drone Testing Site

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

By Associated Press. The Federal Aviation Administration announced six states on Monday that will develop test sites for drones, a critical next step for the unmanned aircraft’s march into U.S. skies.

The agency said Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas and Virginia as states that will host research sites.

Drones have been mainly used by the military, but governments, businesses, farmers and others are making plans to join the market. Many universities are starting or expanding drone programs.

“These test sites will give us valuable information about how best to ensure the safe introduction of this advanced technology into our nation’s skies,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement.

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State Political Leaders Welcome Drones to Alaska

By News Editor. The Miami Herald reported yesterday that, “News that Alaska has been chosen as a test site for the integration of drones into U.S. airspace is being welcomed by state political leaders.”

The article goes on to cite Senator Mark Begich and Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell as champions of the program with Begich praising the drone program’s jobs and its “new mission to the University of Alaska system.” The University of Alaska was apparently selected as a test site operator for the Alaska drone program.

Alaska’s Chill Arriving in Time for Green Bay – Chicago Football Game

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Photo Credit: NOAA/NWS

Photo Credit: NOAA/NWS

On Christmas morning, Chicken, AK (yes, that’s the name of the place) stood frozen in time at -58 degrees. Chicken is located in far eastern interior Alaska. According to the National Weather Service (NWS), other locales nearby were almost as cold (-40 and lower). Figure 1 (from Facebook) shows some of the frigid readings.

Greg Fishel, a TV meteorologist from Raleigh, NC, couldn’t resist the opportunity to pun, “Fowl weather indeed.”

Brian Brettschneider noted that he, “liked how the Chicken daily summary is listed as ‘Chicken COOP’ as is Chicken COOPerative Station. CQNA2 : CHICKEN COOP : -53 / -58 / 0.00 / 0.0/ 20

Well, while Alaska shivered, south Florida basked in seasonally tropical warmth. Just ask the pink flamingos, decked out in their holiday finery, shown here (Fig. 2).

All kidding aside, this air mass is already affecting the northern Plains and will be the first of the next in a series of brutal arctic invasions. Longer range computer and human projections indicate that temperatures from eastern Montana across the northern tier into New England are likely to be well below average for much, if not all, of the next two weeks (Fig. 3 and Fig. 4). Some of this cold air will spill southward, but not even close to the extent that our northern states and Canada will experience.

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Fukushima? Strange Flu Hitting Pilots, Attendants at Alaska Airlines (+video)

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Photo Credit: Free Patriot

Photo Credit: Free Patriot

A strange illness has been attacking flight attendants and pilots employed by Alaska Airlines. On December 23 and 24th, twenty four flights were cancelled due to a lack of personnel. Bobbie Egan, spokesman for Alaska Airlines, stated a “very unusual” cold and flu season hit the airline’s Pacific Northwest hub, and the entire region was affected.” The outage affected 270 passengers.

While the airline is calling it a flu, there is some speculation that the story is a cover for something else. There is a mysterious flu hitting the southeast and Texas, but there didn’t seem to be a “companion” statement from the Center for Disease Control that often follows the diagnosis of that flu. It would seem that if the Alaska Airlines flight crews were struck with the mysterious flu of the Southeast, the CDC would have issued a statement as they have in other instances.

What could be going on? This has certainly been an odd year for Alaska Airlines flight crews!

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Pioneering Alaska Doctor M. Marcell Jackson Passes Away at 84

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Photo Credit: Yahoo

Photo Credit: Yahoo

Friends and colleagues will gather January 19th in Anchorage to celebrate the life of family practioner Dr. M. Marcell Jackson, who passed away at the age of 84 on December 8th.

Despite contracting polio at the age of 2 (around the time her mother died) and having her spine fused when a teen, necessitating the use of a back brace, M. Marcell Jackson went on to become one of the first women doctors in Alaska, and delivered more than 1,000 babies, including one while she was in labor, herself.

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Alaska, Lagging in Oil Production, Looks to Bring Back Boom (+video)

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Photo Credit: Kiskadee 3

Photo Credit: Kiskadee 3

The U.S. is on its way to becoming the world’s top oil producer. The Energy Department believes American output will soar to 9.6 million barrels a day by the year 2016. But surprisingly, Alaska, one of the country’s top oil suppliers, is being left in the dust.

Paul Hughes owns a snowmobile shop near Anchorage. He says there’s one day each year every Alaskan looks forward to: the day the state announces the oil dividend. He said this year it’s almost $900.

Every man woman and child in Alaska gets a check, their share of the state’s vast oil revenues. Hughes told CBS News’ Ben Tracy some people spend the money on snowmobiles and he used one of his kids’ checks to buy a new stove.

However, those annual oil checks are getting smaller because Alaska is producing less oil. Production on the North Slope peaked at 2 million barrels per day in 1988 but has dropped to less than 500,000 barrels currently. There’s so little oil flowing through the 800-mile Trans-Alaskan Pipeline that some state leaders say it may freeze and shutdown.

The problem isn’t that they’re running out of oil in Alaska — the oil industry says there’s still billions of barrels of oil in the North Slope alone. But they say the problem is taxes.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska Supreme Court Denies Permanent Fund Dividend To Soldier Deployed To Iraq (+video)

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Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

The 172nd Infantry Brigade, the Arctic Wolves, had an extra long deployment in support of Operation Iraqui Freedom. They were supposed to go for a year, but the year turned into 16 months, with some of the brigade’s soldiers unexpectedly going back to Iraq after arriving home in Alaska. The deployment went from August 2005 to November 2006. The brigade received the Valorous Unit Award for its time in Iraq. There were soldiers killed and wounded and the separation, unexpectedly extended, was surely hard on families.

Perhaps the extra penalty suffered by Richard Heller is not that large a matter. Still it bugged him and it bugs me.

If Richard Heller had spent those 16 months at Fort Wainwright, then the home of the 178th Infantry Brigade, the Alaska Department of Revenue would have sent him a check for $1,106.96. That would be the Permanent Fund Dividend paid in 2007 to eligible Alaska residents. (As far as I know Alaska is the only state with a division of its Revenue Department dedicated to sending money to all its residents). Richard Heller arrived in Alaska on June 17, 2005, assigned to the Headquarters Company of the 172nd Stryker Brigade. He promptly registered to vote, obtained an Alaska driver’s license and changed his military records to indicate Alaska residency.

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Alaska Cop Sexted 12-Year-Old Girl While Drunk on Duty

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Photo Credit: PRESSUREUA/GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

Photo Credit: PRESSUREUA/GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

A small town Alaska cop sexted a 12-year-old girl repeatedly during a drunken, on-duty bender, authorities say.

Leon Outwater, 21, sent 20 messages from his work cell phone before the girl’s mother caught on and called Alaska state police, troopers said.

“He was sending the text messages to her, and then deleting them,” state police spokeswoman Beth Ipsen told the Daily News.

The calls took place over a 24-hour period in November in the tiny village of Kobuk in northwestern Alaska, authorities said.

“I was drunk,” Outwater, 21, told troopers, according to court documents obtained by the Anchorage Daily News.

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Palin: Read My Lipstick- No New Taxes

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

No one can argue with the fact that Paul Ryan’s compromise budget bill raises taxes and increases spending. Show me one Republican who got elected on that platform. Spare America the Orwellian word games. If the government is taking money out of your pocket to fund its growing Big Brother operations, it’s a tax. Whether money is taken from you via your phone bill, your airline ticket, or your income, it’s a tax. If politicians can’t be honest about this, it’s time to go home.

The TEA Party’s very acronym stands for “Taxed Enough Already.” We sent these politicians to Congress in an historic landslide election in 2010 with a mandate to stop the runaway spending train bankrupting our nation, not to wave to it from the station or – heaven forbid – increase its speed. And yet, here we are still pretending that there are no real world consequences to running up near trillion dollar deficits year after year with no end in sight.

So, where does this leave us? We can sit back and accept the increased spending “Compromised Plan” with increases in taxes and spending, or we can charge ahead to at least preserve the very modest Sequester cuts American workers already fought for. If we go with the first option, we simply kick the can down the road yet again and wait for the inevitable real world consequences of bankruptcy (see Detroit for an example of what’s in store). Or we can go with the second option and probably get clobbered by the media (so what’s new?!).

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Will Airships Revolutionize Development of Alaska?

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Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

Commercial development of the Arctic’s natural resources has so far been near to impossible, but transportation throughout the inhospitable region may soon be revolutionized.

U.S.-based airship company Aeros and Icelandic airline Icelandair Cargo, say they have signed an agreement with hopes of establishing a partnership to develop new air freight service across the Arctic region.

Together they are hoping to deliver standard cargo containers via Iceland to regions with little infrastructure, such as Siberia, Alaska, Greenland and northern Canada.

“It’s a project representing the future of solving the problems of today,” Aeros’ CEO Igor Pasternak told CNN. “The distribution in the Arctic Circle as it is right now is inefficient and not logical.”

Managing Director with Icelandair Cargo, Gunnar Sigurfinnsson, said in a press release that he believes Aeros will help transform Arctic transportation forever.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sarah Palin Reacts to Bashir Resignation (+video)

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Screen shot 2013-12-06 at 1.24.32 AMSarah Palin on Thursday dismissed the attacks of former MSNBC host Martin Bashir, saying in her first comments since his resignation that she’s “used to it.”

“At this point, I’m used to it. That’s kind of a sad state of affairs to have to admit that I am used to it,” Palin said on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.”

Bashir quit on Wednesday for comments he made on his Nov. 15 broadcast during which he called Sarah Palin “a world class idiot” and referenced a diary of a former plantation manager who forced a slave to defecate in another slave’s mouth, adding Palin would be an “outstanding candidate” for such treatment.

However, Palin praised the media for criticizing Bashir’s remarks.
“It was refreshing to see though, that many in the media did come out and say, ‘Look our standards have got to be higher than this,’”

Palin said. “Those with that platform, with a microphone, a camera in their face, they have to have some more responsibility taken.”

Read more from this post HERE.