The balloon shot down over the Yukon Territory remains a former UFO, but the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade fears the Air Force has burst its world-traveling balloon, according to Aviation Week & Space Technology.
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“So the estimated 50 to 100 unsheltered people who live in Fairbanks find ways to survive. They walk all night in bunny boots, trying to stave off frostbite. They crowd into motel rooms 10 at a time. They build forested encampments and dig snow caves. They squat in abandoned houses and sleep in cars.”
If you haven’t done so, read the investigation of homelessness in Fairbanks in the winter by one of Alaska’s top reporters, Michelle Theriault Boots of the Anchorage Daily News.
Read MoreThe Alaska Policy Forum has long peddled the claim that the easy cure-all for public education in Alaska is to spend less money on it and redirect the money so it can be spent on private schools.
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Sen. Dan Sullivan, at his boarding-school whiniest, comes across as if someone took his puppy in his inquisition of Gigi Sohn, nominated by President Biden to the Federal Communications Commission in October 2021 and opposed by all Republicans.
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The problem with these events is not that Dunleavy went to a rodeo in Texas and to a hunting conference in Michigan, but that state employees felt the need to hide this from Alaskans when there were questions about his statement attacking Biden over the balloon affair.
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The Anchorage Daily News says Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson has proven himself to be “unqualified, incompetent and out of his depth” during his year-and-a-half as mayor of the state’s largest city. The newspaper backed this up with a powerful editorial, one of the best I’ve seen in years, which stops short of calling for his resignation.
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I have no doubt that Sen. Cathy Giessel regrets the introduction of Senate Bill 50. I take it as a good sign that she withdrew the week-old bill, which was written at the behest of a single gas company in Cook Inlet.
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One sign of how Dunleavy’s approach created lasting damage is the declining number of students eligible for the Alaska Performance Scholarship who choose to attend school in Alaska. The percentage of top students choosing to remain in Alaska and use this program—which is worth up to $4,755 a year—has been dropping since 2016, down from 39 percent to 22 percent.
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He wouldn’t dare give this speech in Anchorage. But there is little to no awareness in Fairbanks of what is happening in the big city. With all Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson has done to “save” Anchorage—where the streets are paved with snow—it’s hard to imagine what he will tell people who are expecting a political savior from the south.
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Gov. Mike Dunleavy refused to give a straight answer on public radio’s “Talk of Alaska” Tuesday when asked if he would support getting the $100 million needed to match the nearly $300 million in federal grants secured by Sen. Lisa Murkowski to save the ferry system. Dunleavy made his go-to move, saying there will be a “discussion” on the topic.
One of his PR people says he wants to cut an unidentified $100 million elsewhere in the budget. All to try to preserve the Dunleavy fantasy that the state needs no taxes and can afford bigger dividends.
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