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Alaska

26
58-59
67-76
24
27
26
29-30
94-97
94-95
30-33
37-39
10-16
28-31
85-102
98-107
44-50
95-97
16-22
20
60-67
19
72-77
79-81
252-259
558-569
492
83-113
113-125
497-509
721-730
38-48
821-837
979
335-344
230-239
22-24
497-505
801-816
795-805
41-44
252-257
158-159
589-602
Oct 2006 Amount the Alaska Zoo paid last year to build a treadmill for its 8,000-pound elephant: $150,000



Number of times the elephant has used the treadmill so far: 0
Source:

Alaska Zoo (Anchorage)

Jan 2005Estimated number of different languages spoken at home by Alaskan schoolchildren : 110
Source:

Alaska Department of Education & Early Development (Juneau)

Jan 2004Days in 1970 that northern Alaska was cold enough to operate oil-drilling machinery without damaging the tundra : 213
Source:

Alaska Department of Natural Resources (Anchorage)

Jan 2004Days in 2002 that it was cold enough : 106
Source:

Alaska Department of Natural Resources (Anchorage)

Nov 2001Hours after the September 11 attack that an Alaska congressman speculated that it may have been committed by "eco-terrorists": 9
Source:

Anchorage Daily News

Aug 2001Number of 21 cruise ships tested by Alaska last summer whose wastewater met federal sewage-treatment standards: 1
Source:

Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (Juneau)

Apr 2001Gallons per day that the proposed drilling of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is projected to yield: 42,000,000
Source:

The White House

Aug 2000Miles of new roads that the ban on forest-road construction would allow in Alaska's Tongass National Forest: 500
Source:

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Jan 1999Percentage of the funds spent fighting Alaska's gay-marriage initiative last year that came from the Mormon Church: 79
Source:

Alaska Public Offices Commission (Anchorage)

Sep 1998Percentage of U.S. National Park Service land that is in Alaska: 65
Source:

National Park Service (Washington)

Jun 1998Number of jars of Exxon Valdez oil sludge sold by the state of Alaska since last November to help pay cleanup costs: 850
Source:

Department of Environmental Conservation (Juneau)

May 6, 2008Yup'ik-speaking voters in Alaska demanded better bilingual election materials, citing a 2002 ballot in which “natural gas” had been rendered as “this gas in the stomach.”
Source:

Anchorage Daily News

February 12, 2008A moose fell from a 150-foot cliff in Alaska, just missing state trooper Howard Peterson. Peterson thought the moose might have been lonely, as the area is populated mostly by sheep, but state wildlife biologist Rick Sinnott disagreed. “They occasionally have bad days,” he said of moose, “like the rest of us.”
Source:

Anchorage Daily News

December 3, 2007A hundred-ton pile of horse manure mysteriously appeared in an empty lot in Anchorage, Alaska.
Source:

Anchorage Daily News

August 1, 2007 Congressman Don Young of Alaska apologized for threatening to bite Congressman Scott Garrett of New Jersey.
Source:

TPMmuckraker

June 28, 2007“Is it a surprise to anybody in this room that if you don’t have any money, you don’t get any justice?” asked Alaska Senator Mike Gravel at the third debate of the Democratic presidential candidates. Gravel called for the abolition of the income tax and the war on drugs, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich called for the abolition of NAFTA and the WTO, and Hillary Clinton predicted that global warming would create jobs for millions of Americans. Joseph Biden and Barack Obama reminisced about getting tested for HIV.
Source:

New York Times

December 13, 2006The governor of Alaska announced she would sell a private jet that had been used for state business on eBay.
Source:

Bloomberg

October 16, 2006The first Eskimo was killed in the Iraq war; it took 20 men a full day to dig his grave through the permafrost in a town 350 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
Source:

New York Times

May 17, 2006In Alaska an elephant named Maggie was refusing to use her $100,000 treadmill.
Source:

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

April 26, 2006President George W. Bush pointed out that not drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was depriving the United States of one million barrels of oil per day, and it was reported that Iraq's oil production had dropped by one million barrels per day since the U.S. invasion.
Source 1:

The New York Times

Source 2:

Beat the Press

March 21, 2006A ruptured British Petroleum oil pipeline in Alaska had leaked over 240,000 gallons of oil, much of it into the Arctic Ocean.
Source:

The Independent via Commondreams

September 15, 2005In Alaska a 20-foot-long treadmill was installed at a zoo to help an elephant named Maggie lose a few hundred pounds.
Source:

Reuters

July 13, 2005A native Alaskan was sentenced to seven years in federal prison for killing six walruses.
Source:

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

June 30, 2005Lightning struck a sleeping child's mattress in Kansas, sparked a wildfire in Alaska's interior, shocked a boy in New Hampshire through his video-game controller, killed both a golfer and a prisoner in Ohio, and struck the offices of the National Weather Service in Iowa.
Source 1:



Source 2:

KTUU.com

Source 3:

The Boston Channel

Source 4:

WBNSTV

Source 5:

TheIowaChannel.com

March 16, 2005The Senate passed a resolution that will permit drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Source:

The New York Times

December 28, 2004Scientists were concerned about rats overrunning Alaska.
Source:

New York Times

June 11, 2004In Alaska, a college radio DJ was fired for celebrating Ronald Reagan's death on the air.
Source:

Associated Press

April 9, 2004A chicken farmer in Alaska injected eggs with dye to produce orange, red, green, purple, pink, and blue chicks. Colored ducklings were also available.
Source:

BBC

October 16, 2001 President Bush was still trying to exploit the terrorist attacks as an excuse to drill for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.
October 16, 2001A commuter plane crashed in Alaska, killing nine people.
October 9, 2001A drunk in Alaska shot a hole in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, spilling 150,000 gallons of oil onto the tundra.
October 2, 2001 Republicans were arguing that drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was now a matter of national security.
September 4, 2001It nonetheless authorized the clearing of 135 acres in Alaska for an antimissile base.
June 5, 2001Some brown bears started a wildfire in Alaska.
April 24, 2001An oil pipe broke on Alaska's North Slope spilling 92,400 gallons of “produced water,” a mixture of salt water and oil, onto the tundra, making it the largest tundra spill on the North Slope to date.
January 23, 2001Several people in the Alaskan village of Manokotak apparently were infected with botulism after eating fermented beaver tails and feet, a traditional delicacy made by burying the beaver parts and letting them rot.
January 2, 2001There were wildfires in Florida and California and on the Alaskan tundra.
July 25, 2000A bear killed and partially ate a man in Alaska.

MAY 2008

NUMBERS RACKET
Why the Economy Is Worse Than We Know
By Kevin Phillips

MY LOBBY, MYSELF
How John McCain's Hypocrisy Is Laundered As Reform
By Ken Silverstein

THE NEXT THING
A story by Steven Millhauser

Also: Patrick Symmes, Wendell Berry