Slashdot Mirror

Neither can US, for the same geographical reasons as Canada:
https://www.adn.com/rural-alas...

No new coal plants are under construction or planned anywhere in America.

Actually, no.

Nowhere can I save that amount of money from the energy saved :\

Unless you live in Hawaii, where the sun is brighter and power costs 4 times the mainland rate.

Or - believe it or not - rural Alaska. Many villages get their power from diesel generators, the most expensive large scale generation there is. (note some use wind power as well) In the Winter, running out of diesel can be a matter of life and death. https://www.adn.com/arctic/art... https://www.adn.com/arctic/art... https://solarpowerrocks.com/al...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

http://www.limesolar.com/

And if that doesn't suit slash dotters, Let's ROLL COAL!

http://dailycaller.com/2014/07...

Nowhere can I save that amount of money from the energy saved :\

Unless you live in Hawaii, where the sun is brighter and power costs 4 times the mainland rate.

Or - believe it or not - rural Alaska. Many villages get their power from diesel generators, the most expensive large scale generation there is. (note some use wind power as well) In the Winter, running out of diesel can be a matter of life and death. https://www.adn.com/arctic/art... https://www.adn.com/arctic/art... https://solarpowerrocks.com/al...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

http://www.limesolar.com/

And if that doesn't suit slash dotters, Let's ROLL COAL!

http://dailycaller.com/2014/07...

Cold War explosives are becoming unstable and they tend to explode on their own, especially when there is insufficient money to maintain proper storage.

You know what else is becoming unstable? Vladimir Putin's political enemies and journalists. They're dropping like flies, literally. Earlier this week, one mysteriously flew out a fifth floor window.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/mikeh...

And just yesterday, one was mysteriously gunned down in Kiev.

https://www.adn.com/nation-wor...

Since the election, we've had nine prominent opponents of Vladimir Putin become unstable and expire mysteriously. Such coincidence!

There seems to be a non-paywalled version of the article on "Alaska Dispatch News", for what it's worth:
http://www.adn.com/nation-world/2016/08/31/how-russia-often-benefits-when-julian-assange-reveals-the-wests-secrets/

she clearly has been experimenting with something

I am pretty sure it is limited to different methods of ingesting ethanol, which we all know is God's Drug, and perfectly wholesome and sinless to imbide. And if someone throws a few punches at someone else after a few, whose counting, (or even remembers the next day)?

Meet Binky, the famous polar bear of the Anchorage Zoo, who (tried to) eat an Australian tourist and a local High School student in the same month. Never happened before, never happened again. But both of them scaled a 10' fence to get closer to a live polar bear. Poor Binky got a terrible stomach ache from it.

Video here

I thought that about carabou but info on it seems to be mixed on an ideological basis.

Here's some links on it.
Government
http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/ind...
Herds have declined a lot.

Hunters
http://www.adn.com/article/201...
Herds have declined a lot.

Liberals
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2...
Disaster! Woe is me! Caribous going extinct!

Conservatives
http://www.mrc.org/news/alaska...
One herd has increased!

Conservatives
http://www.heritage.org/resear...
Mmmm. Pipelines good! Jobs jobs jobs! Pipelines good!

The MRC seems to paint a good picture but then you see it has cherry picked one particular herd, the Central Arctic caribou herd, and ignored a huge decline in other carabou herds!

"In 1977, as the Prudhoe region started delivering oil to America's southern 48 states, the Central Arctic caribou herd numbered 6,000; it has since grown to 27,128. "

It seems to me that the pipeline's benefit to carabou is a conservative fiction. Grrr. I used to be very conservative from 1980 to 1992. It upsets me that so many religious people lie by commission or omission on the conservative side.

You know what would "blow my mind"? No "state" taxes, free money every year from government oil revenues and massive subsidies from the US government. "Less access to alternative foodstuffs"? Try again, here's a grocery store in Barrow. Stop the BS, these aren't some sort of impoverished people living in igloos, they're perfectly modern people, just like we are. Here's their football field for example - isn't "Whalers" such a nice touch? :P

And again: are the whales any less dead because they're killed in Alaska?

It's such rank hypocrisy.

The weight of the passengers shouldn't matter by a very wide safety margin.

And you base your claim on your extensive knowledge of the engineering of aircraft or flight experience?

Seems that you would be wrong. Dead wrong.

I guess you slept through that election if you think Romney outspent Obama.

It was pretty much a draw, though Obama directly controlled more of his spending.

Try and find a single case in which a drunk driver or hit and run driver who has killed someone gets 18 years in jail.

Nailed it!

http://www.adn.com/article/201...
http://www.kokomotribune.com/n...

And. For the bonus point
http://www.9news.com/story/new...

We've got a two party system where both sides are just as corrupt as the other. For some reason most people are convinced that any third party candidate would be a wasted vote.

The major parties in the states build their coalitions internally until they have a winning combination ---

and there is no such thing as party discipline as the Canadian or the European would understand it, which means that the winning combination is constantly changing, a moving target.

Republican resistance to gay marriage is dwindling and gray

The American third party is generally defined by a charismatic leader and a single hot-button issue and when either depart the scene, the party collapses.

Possibly up here... http://www.adn.com/article/201... Independent gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker held a slim lead over incumbent Republican Gov. Sean Parnell in Tuesday’s general election, but the outcome was far from certain even as the last of the state’s far-flung precincts reported their tallies. ..... If Walker holds his lead, he and Mallott would make Alaska history by becoming the first nonpartisan ticket elected to the state’s top executive offices.

He couldn't drive a car, but was legal to thread the needle with a tanker?

Yes, actually. They're separate licenses, from entirely separate agencies. Apparently the Coast Guard requires disclosure of such things during renewal, but that only happens every five years. I guess the Coast Guard's also negligent for not keeping up with every certification of every sailor.

Exxon did.

If Exxon itself, the collective entity, was the only entity that knew the whole risk in sending the ship out, then the next issue is responsibility. That requires a conscious decision to cause harm. Are you also going to assert that Exxon is conscious?

Why is everything couched as if it's either; a tiny pittance of responsibility or "they go out of business -- JOBS - OMG!!!"? That was a rhetorical question. It's advantageous to companies like Exxon that the argument always be; Free Enterprise vs. No Enterprise.

Exxon got the contract to extract the oil from the Inuit because they PROMISED to have radar and warning systems set in place and not crash their tankers. The "big lie" is that a one drunk captain crashed the ship -- and he went along with it. There are more than one person driving that tanker and warning alarms should have gone off -- if they had not powered down their expensive warning system to save money.

After all the stalling and court cases -- Exxon still saved more money than if they had made good on their original deal. And a lot of Inuit lost their only source of income and died bankrupt while asking Exxon to pay up for their cost cutting catastrophe.

The Exxon Valdez was preventable pretty much like the BP oil gusher under the Gulf was preventable -- but actuarial science says it's much cheaper to do nothing and argue in court -- and spend money on lobbyists and a-holes to champion Torte reform.

It's amazing that the information is readily available on the TRUE CAUSES:
http://www.adn.com/evos/storie... >> they skimped on staff and not following requirements for double-hulled vessels.
http://www.evostc.state.ak.us/... >> The Radar didn't work because they didn't MAINTAIN IT -- not because of design flaws; Government negligence in oversight is a direct result of company influence on them.

-- criminal negligence by the company and lax supervision by the regulators (who were known to not only sleep with the corporate reps, but have meth filled orgies with the corporate reps). (no really, not kidding; http://www.motherjones.com/blu... )

The media of course, doesn't bother to investigate crap if they already have a great story to tell about one drunk sea captain -- truth be damned.

http://www.adn.com/2011/09/29/2095361/wood-stove-smoke-scrubber-gets.html

That solution doesn't quite solve the problem, plus it costs more than a lot of poor people will be able to afford.

http://www.adn.com/2011/09/29/2095361/wood-stove-smoke-scrubber-gets.html

Looks like they cost around $3,000 and Fairbanks already tried it. The results were "mixed" and the scrubber by itself didn't resolve the issue completely.

Apparently, here in Alaska, all of our stores will continue to stay open and operating under the Blockbuster name.

http://www.adn.com/2013/11/06/3161547/blockbuster-closes-hundreds-of.html

No one is going to prison here either. They're being sued in civil court and made to pay damages and stop making a product. Why do you think that doesn't happen to any other product maker? Gun manufacturers were being sued so often (and in most cases so frivolously) that Congress passed a law in 2005 immunizing them from many types of suits. Knife manufacturers are sued too.

Is that true for most public entities, and this one in particular? The state of Alaska, on highway projects for example, simply publishes bids for any comer. There is no list of qualified bidders, though for design work, you need an appropriate person with an Alaska PE. Here's an advertisement for airport facilities in Northway, AK, if you're interested. (The preceding link probably broke sometime after 15 November, 2012, if you're reading this later.)

You do know the suicide rate is high in Finland (in particular, above the Arctic circle) mainly due to the long periods darkness 6 months out of every year, right?

The Finland rate is 17.6 per 100k people. 10 points higher for men.
The US rate is 11.8 per 100k, and again 8 points higher for men.
Canada 11.3. Canada has a significant population above the Arctic Circle.
Figures from Here

Alaska Suicide rate is the highest in the nation, at over 27. Per here.

However, One study found that the average annual suicide rate among Alaska Natives was 40.4 per 100,000 people, compared with 17.7 per 100,000 people in the non-Native population. But if you subtract out 20-something Alaskan Native Males, (155.3 per 100,000) even the native rate is not that much higher than the rest of the population's rate.
Rates in Canadian Aboriginal populations are much similarly higher, at 56.3 per 100,000 for males, and 11.8 per 100,000 for females (of all ages)

That 17.7 percent for non-native Alaskans looks surprisingly like the Finnish number.

But on the other hand the this seems as likely to be a Racial/Cultural issue when you take everything into account, Alaska, Canada, and even Finland because northern finland has some related population groups.

What did it cost you to move you and your family from the continental US to Alaska?

  - Not much.

  How much energy was required?

  - Quite a bit.

And what's different about the area around what's now your home since you took up residence there?

  - http://www.adn.com/2011/12/20/2226475/deaths-of-alaska-ringed-seals.html
  - http://www.adn.com/2012/04/07/2411798/city-inches-closer-to-the-seasonal.html
  - The cost of living is outrageous.
  - Still don't need an air conditioner!

Now multiply that by 7 billion. Well... you did say *everyone* should migrate, right?

  - No, I didn't suggest "everyone" migrate, that was your assumption.
  - Things change.
  - You either adapt, die with dignity or die crying about it.
  - You don't like the heat, move.
  - You don't have easy access to food, water and jobs - move to where it isn't so hard to compete for resources.
  - Don't sabotage a future generation.

What did it cost you to move you and your family from the continental US to Alaska?

  - Not much.

  How much energy was required?

  - Quite a bit.

And what's different about the area around what's now your home since you took up residence there?

  - http://www.adn.com/2011/12/20/2226475/deaths-of-alaska-ringed-seals.html
  - http://www.adn.com/2012/04/07/2411798/city-inches-closer-to-the-seasonal.html
  - The cost of living is outrageous.
  - Still don't need an air conditioner!

Now multiply that by 7 billion. Well... you did say *everyone* should migrate, right?

  - No, I didn't suggest "everyone" migrate, that was your assumption.
  - Things change.
  - You either adapt, die with dignity or die crying about it.
  - You don't like the heat, move.
  - You don't have easy access to food, water and jobs - move to where it isn't so hard to compete for resources.
  - Don't sabotage a future generation.

You're right. Competition must not be hindered by regulators.

It must be encouraged by giving the regulators teeth to fight stagnation and collusion.

Exactly.

Sitting on bandwidth licenses without using them is simply sequestering public airwaves for private use, by paying a license, but then failing to develop the resource entrusted to you. The FCC should perform a survey of idle licenses, and demand they be developed and marketed.

Hording or Failing to deploy should be (and probably is) a violation of the bandwidth license. (As precedent, Alaska canceled several North Slope Oil/Gas leases when the oil companies failed to develop the fields.) After all, a public resource was entrusted to these carriers to use for all of our benefit. Sitting on them while raising prices is not an acceptable outcome.

I could have sworn that, in previous cases (not involving a US Senator), people were told that, if the scan found something odd, you could either accept the pat-down or be arrested...I wonder what would happen if a non-Congressfolk tried doing exactly what Rand Paul did. Would they be arrested for refusing the pat down? Would they be kicked out of the airport with a police escort?

You can stop wondering:
Alaska State Legislature member refuses pat-down.
John "Don't touch my junk!" Tyner refuses pat-down.
56-year old rape victim refuses pat-down.

YMMV. IIRC, TSA dropped charges against Tyner, but I don't believe the woman in Austin, TX was quite as lucky. To date, there are no politicians who have refused to allow themselves to be molested, excuse me, I mean "groped", err..."searched"...by TSA who have even had charges filed against them, much less who have actually been prosecuted. I guess the quote is true: "You know the score, Deckard. If you ain't cop, you're little people."

I have traveled to many seemingly "worse" places on earth (Russia, China, Cambodia and other south east asian countries, Africa) and NOWHERE I have experienced stuff like that....Stuff like this is why I don't even want to travel to US.

Then please don't. I don't mean that the way it might sound; I'm hoping if enough people boycott travel to the U.S., enough companies (airlines, travel agencies, Disneyworld, etc.) will start to feel the pinch and will lobby Congress to back off on the security theatre. I've already written my Senators and Representative and was basically blown off. Fortunately, a local lawmaker with more clout than I had a run-in with TSA recently, and now Sen.'s Begich and Murkowski have started to take notice.

In the US your parents pay it, so you can take it more relaxed, have fun and drink beer. A dream for many Europeans, who usually actually have to study, learn and work hard.

Don't believe everything that you see on T.V. "Porky's" is not a documentary. I paid my own way through college, as has my step-daughter, and so will my daughter when she is old enough. There certainly are party schools here in the U.S., but there are plenty of others that actually require you to work.

And don't get me wrong - there's lots of innovation in the US, but generally (and in the internet) it feels like US people just don't know much.

Again, be very careful with stereotypes. They are wrong just about as often as they are right. It seems like the ignorant spout off louder and more frequently than the wise, but that may be a skewed sample. Perhaps, the ignorant get more airtime because it's fun to laugh at some of the absurd things they will say. Maybe it's just that the wise understand that arguing with a fool makes it difficult to tell who is who. Or, you could be right and there really aren't as many intelligent people in the U.S. But remember the /. mantra: "the plural of anecdote is not data." Don't jump to conclusions based upon a sample set gathered from random posts on the Internet.

But innovation can be made more easy if you drink alcohol and take drugs - the ideas just come to your head.

Holy crap...you really think that getting stoned is the key to innovation?!?! I've avoided drugs like the plague because I saw what they did to friends of mine in high school. I'll take Edison's advice ("Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration") over yours every single time.

That's why I think US is the number one country in the world regarding innovation.

Pot...kettle...black? Cough..."Amsterdam"...cough (at risk of invoking stereotypes myself).

Latest estimate is $3 billion dollars for the Fairbanks to Nome road:

http://www.adn.com/2010/01/26/1111745/nome-road-could-cost-27-billion.html

"The road would pass through an estimated 65 miles of mountains, 185 miles of wetlands and require the construction of a new Yukon River crossing."

I think that $5 million per mile estimate is way, WAY low. There are highways in the US that cost $100 million per mile, and the conditions are far, far worse in Alaska. And then you need the railroad between Alaska and the US. Alaska, Canada and the US did a feasibility study in 2007:

http://alaskacanadarail.com/index.html

The Phase I report there refers to a "Nominal US$11 billion investment", and there hasn't been any news about it since.

The future of energy in the north is still natural gas and to a lesser extent, oil.

Projections for a natural gas pipeline in the state of Alaska foresees 100%-500% income over the oil pipeline.

http://www.adn.com/2011/08/22/2026719/report-shows-value-of-all-alaska.html

Siberia, the Russian Far East, Alaska and northern Canada are all rich with natural gas. And no one knows what is out in the Arctic Ocean.

First, yes, I understand California v California. "Curtilage" is the point you are missing. My understanding is that the object when found was well within the perimeter of the museum, thereby being within the "curtiage" of the building. That would make it private property. It would stay private property until loaded onto a truck and driven outside this perimeter. There is no indication FTFA that the debris was placed in "an area particularly suited for public inspection".

Second, there is a lot more to the story than is in TFA.

For instance -

Guthienz and Riker weren't the only ones searching for Alaska's moon rocks. Alaska State Museum curator Steve Henrikson had been looking for them on and off since he was hired 21 years ago in Juneau. The story he pieced together didn't match Anderson's.

The last people to see the plaque, Henrikson said, were two museum employees who walked through the building after the fire. According to them, the moon rocks were intact, in a glass case. After that, museum staff discussed taking the plaque out of the burned-out area and putting it in a more secure part of the museum.

A few days later, a museum employee noticed it wasn't in the case. Instead there was just a clean square in the ash and dust where it had been sitting. She assumed Phil Redden, a museum curator, took it home for safe-keeping. But later, when he was asked, Redden denied it.

Shortly after the fire, the museum lost its funding and all the employees were let go, Henrikson said. That left the cleanup and inventory of the artifacts to employees in Juneau. It took them three years to go through everything. They kept expecting to find the moon rock plaque but they never did, Henrikson said.

"The museum staff didn't know who did what with it," Henrikson said. "There was just a lot of confusion around at the time, there was just a lot of mystery."

It was never reported stolen.

After the complaint was filed, Henrikson did some more digging and discovered two surprising facts. First, Arthur C. Anderson goes by Coleman Anderson. Coleman Anderson was a skipper of a Dutch Harbor fishing boat featured on the first season of Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch." Second, a man named Coleman Anderson is listed in the obituary for the transportation museum's last curator, Phil Redden. It says that Anderson was Redden's foster son.

See http://community.adn.com/adn/node/157506

Imagine my house burns down. Imagine that I take everything I can find of value from the rubble and then call in garbage trucks. If you go rooting around through the rubble /before/ it is loaded on the trucks, it's theft of my property regardless of whether or not it looks like all the remaining rubble is going to get thrown away. If you want to lay claim to anything I missed from going through the rubble, you have to ask my permission.

I don't think things change just because the state of Alaska was the owner rather than a private citizen.

Moreover, Alaska Daily News gives the state's version of events alongside Anderson's narrative. It isn't clear that Anderson's story is the correct one.

There are two different issues at work here.

The first is the question of ownership. It would seem, on the surface, that the "good will" moon rocks now belong to the nations and US states to which the federal government gave them.

But there is another issue: right to sell. Regardless of whether the nations and states that now own the rocks do, in fact, own the rocks, it is still against the law to sell the rocks. They are all designated as "national treasures." Regardless of who owns them, it is illegal to sell them.

I suspect that Anderson's lawsuit was intended to establish clear title so that he could turn around and sell the moon rocks. But even if he is successful on establishing clear title, he may not be able to legally sell them.

Moreover, if you read the coverage of Alaska Daily News, it becomes clear that there may not be a clear title. The state's version of events is that the moon rocks were accounted for after the fire and subsequently went missing.

The state's side of the story:

Guthienz and Riker weren't the only ones searching for Alaska's moon rocks. Alaska State Museum curator Steve Henrikson had been looking for them on and off since he was hired 21 years ago in Juneau. The story he pieced together didn't match Anderson's.

The last people to see the plaque, Henrikson said, were two museum employees who walked through the building after the fire. According to them, the moon rocks were intact, in a glass case. After that, museum staff discussed taking the plaque out of the burned-out area and putting it in a more secure part of the museum.

A few days later, a museum employee noticed it wasn't in the case. Instead there was just a clean square in the ash and dust where it had been sitting. She assumed Phil Redden, a museum curator, took it home for safe-keeping. But later, when he was asked, Redden denied it.

Shortly after the fire, the museum lost its funding and all the employees were let go, Henrikson said. That left the cleanup and inventory of the artifacts to employees in Juneau. It took them three years to go through everything. They kept expecting to find the moon rock plaque but they never did, Henrikson said.

From Alaska News Daily.

But if as the state alleges, the moon rocks were accounted for after the fire and then they just went missing from the building, then they probably didn't toss it and someone is probably a looter at best or an outright thief at worst.

According to Alaska Daily News, the state's side of the story is significantly different. That they aren't alleging outright theft is only because the statute of limitations has run out.

I may need to revise my estimation of the state as acting like a petty bully. If their story holds water, this may be a cut and dried case of looting.

From a different article:

Second, a man named Coleman Anderson is listed in the obituary for the transportation museum's last curator, Phil Redden. It says that Anderson was Redden's foster son.

So it was his literal father. IE we have to believe that Phil Redden never noticed his foster son had the missing moon rocks in his bedroom. http://community.adn.com/adn/node/157506#ixzz1RpF9Xh2B

The last people to see the plaque, Henrikson said, were two museum employees who walked through the building after the fire. According to them, the moon rocks were intact, in a glass case. After that, museum staff discussed taking the plaque out of the burned-out area and putting it in a more secure part of the museum. A few days later, a museum employee noticed it wasn't in the case. Instead there was just a clean square in the ash and dust where it had been sitting. She assumed Phil Redden, a museum curator, took it home for safe-keeping. But later, when he was asked, Redden denied it.

a man named Coleman Anderson is listed in the obituary for the transportation museum's last curator, Phil Redden.

Coleman Anderson has the rock. http://community.adn.com/adn/node/157506

Sad to see more and more comments about greed and problems in Japan, too. :-( Like this one:
    "Reports: Lax oversight, 'greed' preceded Japan nuclear crisis"
    http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0316/Reports-Lax-oversight-greed-preceded-Japan-nuclear-crisis

Or this:
    "As Japan nuclear crisis unfolds, a small town questions government reassurances"
    http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0316/As-Japan-nuclear-crisis-unfolds-a-small-town-questions-government-reassurances

Now workers are having to abandon a plant, although return:
    http://www.adn.com/2011/03/16/1756438/radiation-level-soars-after-japan.html

And the plant design was said to be unsafe:
    "JAPAN DISASTER: GE engineer says he quit over unsafe reactor design"
    http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2011/03/17/2003498413

Basically, it would seem like any reactor design that requires active cooling is unsafe and should be mothballed? Passive cooling ones like Hyperion or stuff like TRIGA is better.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIGA
    http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter10.html

In the robot capital of the globe as Japan is, where are the robots for nuclear cleanup? I helped a tiny bit with the Workhorse project for TMI (helping make a model mockup that helped get the contract):
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=three-mile-island-robots

Do they have stuff like Workhorse for nuclear disasters in Japan? If not, that is indeed lack of planning.

Other comments by me and someone else related to this thread are here:
    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2036928&cid=35486070

So, it seems like Japan is struggling with issues about corruption and incomplete planning too? Even if so far, overall, they still seem to be doing better than the USA after Katrina under Bush... Or even now? Especially as the USA now is seemingly expanding its torture policies to torturing US soldiers going down a slippery slope as is suggested here (in response to someone probably concerned about wrongdoing by his country):
    http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/2011310153040668605.html

Pictures of the Japan devastation:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/powerful-quake-aftershocks-rattle-tokyo/2011/03/11/ABX65lQ_gallery.html

Very sad to see so much disaster. I can hope for the best for everyone there. "Never send to know for whom the bell tolls..."

Sigh.

$10 says she uses this as a club to try to quell speech that she doesn't like.

[Citation Needed] as I have seen nothing to imply that Sarah Palin wants to user violence to quell speech.

as others have noted, "club" is figurative, not literal. one cannot club another with a trademark.
 
regardless, among palin's first goals as mayor of wasilla was to set up a system of banning books from the library
 
didn't go anywhere, of course. the image of a politician that has an eye on silencing speech that is troublesome to her agenda, though, has persisted
 
citation needed? Palin Pressured Wasilla Librarian .

step off.

But nowhere have I seen any evidence whatsoever that Sarah Palin, or anyone else on the right wants to use force to "quell speech that she doesn't like".

It's amazing what you can manage to not see when you keep your eyes shut, isn't it?

Palin has suggested violence against Julian Assange, saying "Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?". Several others pundits -- mostly on the right, though I wouldn't be surprised if hear the same nonsense were to come from one or two people on the left -- has made similar calls for violence against Assange, but Palin's is particularly delicious because she then went on to make use of the leaked data to criticize the Obama administration's policy towards Iran.

Also, "Back in 1996, when she first became mayor, Sarah Palin asked the city librarian if she would be all right with censoring library books should she be asked to do so." -- Anchorage Daily News

And when you broaden it to "anyone else on the right", it would be pretty amazing if you hadn't heard about the mass arrests at the 2004 Republican convention. Or about Rand Paul supporters stomping a protester's head.

Eh. You don't really get to complain about ethics suits against you when you've even filed one against yourself.

He shouldn't have been doing "this kind of stuff". This isn't white-hat/grey-hat stuff, this is cracking an account with bad intentions and result.

Palin lost the privacy rights of her personal e-mail account when she tried to use it to conduct official business, in order to circumvent the openness requirements of official records. This was ham-fisted and poorly done, but it was white- or grey-hat work.

No he didn't. That was already known.

No, the "ease of break-in" doesn't make a difference, except where you have *contracted* to take certain precautions against theft as a risk mitigation factor, and then you fail to fulfill your obligations under that contract.

The police don't let a thief go because he took stuff from an unlocked house. The ease with which the thief broke in has no bearing on whether or not he committed a crime.

And in response to your P.S.: http://www.adn.com/2010/01/22/1106051/judge-sides-with-state-palin-in.html

A judge has ruled that she did nothing "illegal" in using personal email as she did. Is it sloppy? Sure. Is it a gray area? Sure. Is it something where she complied with the letter, but not the obvious spirit of the law? You betcha. Could she have shown better judgement? Absolutely. But when a judge issues a ruling that she didn't do anything illegal, and you continue calling her actions "illegal," well... it just suggests that you're blinded by partisan hatred for the woman, rather than an objective assessment of the facts.

And let's be clear about one other thing: as governor of Alaska, Ms. Palin is subject to the ALASKA state laws that govern email retention. If she had been elected to federal office as our Vice President, *then* she would have been subject to FEDERAL email retention requirements.

By casting it in that light, no victim-initiated contact with an aggressor is defensive.

A woman kicking a rapist in the junk is not defending herself.

The guy in Alaska who killed a charging brown bear in '09 with his sidearm was not defending himself.

Someone using the closest club-like weapon against a mugger armed with a knife is not defending themselves.

Interesting re-definition of "defense."

And what position would that be? 1/2 term governor of the least populated (and least educated http://www.adn.com/2008/05/06/398390/alaskas-bent-learning-curve.html) states in the union, or mayor of Wasilla?

Well, excuuuuuse me! Move over Einstein.

Yea, plane went down at the end of the east/west runway and hit a house and small business in June.

http://www.adn.com/2010/06/01/1303320/five-hurt-as-plane-hits-car-dealership.html

And there was one in '08

"The crash was the second fatal plane wreck near Merrill Field in less than two years. On Oct. 1, 2008, another Cessna 206 lost power shortly after lifting off from Merrill Field and crashed into a nearby commercial building, killing two people."

General and commercial aviation is awesome to watch in Anchorage. The An-226 was here in June overnight, I got pictures of it in the evening, just happened to be at the airport to pick someone up, their flight was late so I was driving around the airport.

I live in east Anchorage, so I see/hear Merrill Field all the time and am under the flight path for the N/S runway at Elmendorf, see C-17s nightly and see F-22s 2-3 times a week

And yet it's been raining from Anchorage to Barrow in Alaska.

They will do it from (now)ex GOP senate leader Murkowski (I live in Anchorage) down. You too can become one, just cross someone that is an angry right-wing voice, it's easy and free [as in beer], I did it last winter [on a very minor and obscure subset of wacko's]. It matters not what the truth is.