Wish her a happy one.

It would seem that attacks on journalists are increasing. I was looking at a UNESCO site for information about the preservation of cultural artifacts and noticed a UNESCO press release condeming the recent killings of journalists in The Philippines and other regions. So where is our press (U.S.A. & Alaska) – they seem to have missed the story?

Hey girls and guys in the “mainstream press” why don’t you try talking your editors into a story about Layal Najib? The Committee to Protect Journalists reported on July 24, 2006:

“Layal Najib, 23, a freelance photographer for the Lebanese magazine Al-Jaras and Agence France-Presse, became the first journalist to be killed since Israel began attacks on Lebanon in response to a cross-border raid by the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah. Najib was in a taxi yesterday trying to meet up with a convoy of villagers fleeing the Israeli bombardment of south Lebanon when she was hit by shrapnel from a missile on the road between the villages of Sadiqeen and Qana, local media reported. She died at the scene.”

Just a couple of things from the week just ending:

• The Hulk inspires Haiku
• The Seattle PI seems to be the only paper that gets the implications of Dubya’s grope
• And best of all, Skippy notices us.

I can’t speak for my co-conspirators but I’m sorry that it’s been slow here at “The Nest” for the past few days. But heh, it’s summer in Alaska. I’ve been helping a friend put a new spruce deck on his duck cabin out on the Susitna Mud Flats (just west of the “Little Sue”) and I think that Great Grey is off flying around somewhere (isn’t that what Owls do?). I’ve been working on a bunch of things, like “how to read the Anchorage Daily News,” a few interesting tidbits about Don Young and ADN’s coverage of the Nabor’s Industries story and a description of my recent bike ride along the Turnagain Arm, from “Bird to Gird;” all of which will, hopefully, see the “light of day” in the near future. I hope your summer (or winter) is going well; summer always seems much too short.

We hate to do it here, but Dubya has just done it again.

The Ptarmigan Nest is committed to bring you what’s important in Alaska.

But when The President resorts to attempted groping of the leaders of other countries, well, we just can’t sit on our Alaska Nest, now can we?

So, what the hell is this all about? Well, at the G-8 meeting, at the final dinner breakfast, our beloved Dubya tried to cop a feel off of the the German Chancellor, Angelina Merkel. She pretty much told him to “Fuck Off.” Good on her.

Streaming images ( actually a .gif file)
Still images.

Don Young finally found someone to kiss his ear. His name is Dan Aronoff, and he is from Florida.
The Alaska Report brings us the story of how some land developers in Florida held a little fund raiser for Don, pulled in $41,000.
And whaddaya know, soon after $10 million is earmarked for an Interstate exit, adjacent to land owned by the folks that held the funder.

And not one single Florida elected official had asked for any money for that exit, and were told “not to go there” if they tried to use the money for any needed projects.

Atta boy Don, getting all practiced up for the bridge construction?

UPDATE: From Tampa Bay’s Channel 10 News or just suck it down from the Nest. WMV video, about 10 meg.

Well, by now almost everyone except Ossama has heard the Ted Stevens rant about how the Internet works, and even Ossama could give a better explaination. We here at the Nest have been on this since the day after his missive. Email to KTUU on June 29th asking about their lack of coverage went unasnswered (autoresponders don’t count.)

Tonight and this morning though the local media finally took notice of Ted’s Tubes, almost as if they had coordinated their coverage.

First, KTUU ran a fluff piece about the Techno Ted remix Friday night. The killer line is the last on in the short piece, …“the staff director from the Senate Commerce Committee says the senator’s understanding of the process and issues on this complicated piece of legislation is second to none.”

Holy Crap! Second to None, you mean no one understands how to get an internet delivered from their staff any better than Ted? We are doomed.

Then in Saturday’s Anchorage Daily News, we get this on the front page:

While the article does get into a pretty good explaination about what the whole Net Neutrality issue is all about, we do get another gem out of Ted’s spokesperson. It seems Ted was just trying to be hip and show he knows the lingo IT guys use, he meant to say pipes.

Stevens’ staff director on the Commerce Committee, Lisa Sutherland, said the bloggers are making fun of Stevens for a pretty minor mistake — using the “tubes” rather than “pipes.” The latter is common slang in the telecom industry, especially when discussing the Internet carrying capacity of phone lines or cable.

So, we find out finally, 17 days after the Hulk got all concerned about trucks, movies, and personal Internets, that he was just the most knowledgable, hip guy on tubes you could have asked. Way to go KTUU and ADN, late and sucky too.

Unka Ted, ya know him, ya love him, ya just gotta wonder when he is gonna drop dead choking on his bullshit.

Well, we’re just gonna offer up a sample of how the rest of the nation views our Glorious Senior Senator.

Let’s just start with a funny, about a bridge.

And follow that up with a little net neutral music .
Ted Does the Net Neutrality Techno Explaination.

The MP3 file here if you don’t want to read the post.

Yea, Ted, you’re representing us in the best possible light.

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” –George Orwell

Just thinking out loud.

Now that 2500+* U.S. citizens enlisted in the military have died in Iraq and Afghanistan and 10′s of thousands more have been left legless, armless or had their brains scrambled I can’t help but wonder when the “press” will start reporting on defective equipment that has been designed, developed and distributed to our troops by the “corporate elites;” some with family ties to the White House. So far “the press” has been silent despite numerous opportunities to report what’s really happening. What have all those billions of dollars – our tax dollars – really been spent on???? Where is “the press?” Body armor aside (a popular topic for “the press” that only touches the tip of the iceberg), what about ceramic armor on humvees etal. that improperly cured sends a cloud of knife like shards through the body of the vehicle tearing flesh to hamburger when struck by a rocket or an IED? What of the active amour that has zapped the mechanics working on the equipment or more than a few troops, perhaps more dead than those it was intended to protect? Where the “f___” is “the press?” A liberal press my ass; the Fourth Estate is guilty of silence. If history repeats itself, it will be the vets who will expose the corruption and thievery of the procurement birds in the Pentagon.

* And what about the contract employees, the former SF, Delta Force, and SEALs and others with long term or specialized military experience who opted to go with private contractors. Maybe the number of dead U.S. Civilians should be placed closer to 4,000 or even 5,000? D.O.D. has engaged private firms, in part, to keep the US body count low. Mums the press. And don’t think I’ve forgotten about the dead people who used to live in the countries we’ve decided to invade; they out number US casualties, as usual, by a substantial margin.