Alaska Newsreader

Alaska Ranger owners invoke 1851 law to limit liability. The Liability Limitations Act would allow Fishing Co. of Alaska to limit the amount of money it owes in 21 personal injury and two wrongful death lawsuits to the value of the Alaska Ranger and its cargo "at the end of the voyage."

In this case, points out the Seattle Times, the voyage ended on the bottom of the Bering Sea, and the boat is worth nothing.

"If they're successful, then all these seamen get is what lies in a thousand feet of water," said Seattle maritime attorney George Knowles, who represents eight surviving crewmen who have sued. "Under maritime law, they would be entitled to a share of the boat as it is, where it is." KTUU also has this story.

***

OPEC ministers, oil execs say high prices are here to stay. With oil prices at $143 today, a meeting in Madrid, Spain, among producers and government officials did little to alleviate worries over skyrocketing prices, reports the Associated Press.

BP CEO Tony Hayward warned against hopes that present high prices are a bubble that will burst the same way that they did in the 1970s, saying the supply and demand picture had changed since them.

"The era of cheap energy is probably over at least for the medium term," he said.

"The last time oil prices surged to this level, new production from the North Sea and Alaska helped bring prices down," but now there are no new sources of "easy oil" to compensate, he said. Instead, said Hayward, OPEC production fell by 350,000 barrels a day last year - although demand has grown for five consecutive years - and in Russia, "production has started to decline."

While agreeing with Hayward that there was enough crude in the ground, Shell chief Jerome van der Veer acknowledged it was time to focus more on "difficult oil" - unconventional methods of recovery that are costlier and more complicated than the normal drilling process - to meet growing demand.

Speculation and increasing demand from developing nations were also listed as causes for the increase.

***

Ted Nugent and brother John bag some bears in Alaska. Writing in the Waco-Tribune Sunday, Nugent gave some love to Alaska and its black bears.

We boarded the 58-foot fishing trawler, The Eldorado, for a week of isolation and soul-cleansing brotherly love smack dab in the lap of God.

Oh, yeah, and we fully expected to procure a pair of handsome black bear rugs and salami out of the deal too. Black bear hunting in Alaska. Perfect.

John's beauty weighed in around 250 pounds with a rich, luxurious rug, while my luck runneth over bringing a true giant of the North country of over 600 pounds into bow range for an instant kill."

***

Palin-for-VP watch gets Sunday talk-show attention. Media Matters reports that on Fox News Sunday, New York Times columnist Bill Kristol chastised Democrats for the "horrible sexism and misogyny" that Democratic voters delivered to Hillary Clinton, saying the Republican Party is much more comfortable with "strong women."

Then Kristol went on to endorse Sarah Palin over his previous favorite, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

She's fantastic, yeah. You know, she was the point guard on the Alaska state championship high school basketball team in 1982. She could take Obama one-on-one on the court. Be fantastic.

Anyway, I do think, I actually think Sarah Palin would be a great vice presidential pick, and it would be interesting to actually have a woman on the Republican ticket after Hillary Clinton has come so close and failed on the Democratic side.

Alaska blogger Mudflats weighed in: "Bill Kristol's drooling, over-the-top endorsement should be enough to dampen Sarah mania for supporters in the political center and left."

Watch the Kristol video here and find another Palin for VP ad on YouTube here, pointed out by blogger Iowa Political Alert, who calls it "fascinating."

***

Thrift shops in Fairbanks say business spikes with gas prices. "Save cash for gas. Shop here." That's the sign outside the Value Village in Fairbanks, reports the Fairbanks Daily News Miner.

Sales receipts are up more than 30 percent from a year ago at Value Village, and customer foot traffic is paralleling that ascent, says store manager Joelle DeMunno. Consignment shops report similar business increases.

***

Will we be swimming at the North Pole this summer? News late last week that the ice at the North Pole might melt this summer gets a careful close look from Andrew Revkin of Dot Earth, The New York Times.

One of the coolest things you'll see is an animated map that shows the North Pole ice not so much melting as flushing out during the 1990s. You can watch it flush right before your eyes.

Revkin includes plenty of good links on the topic including realclimate.org's criticism from scientists on how the media handles the emerging story and how many variables are at play in the story. There's even a 24-second video depicting the moving ice leading up to last summer's "vanishing act" here.

***

Alaska's Statehood party gets attention from around the U.S. It began first thing Monday with a 5-minute piece from Susan Stamberg on NPR about Alaska and what makes an Alaskan.

Alaskans are individualists. And sometimes they're second-chancers.

They don't like to be bothered with rules and other people's restrictions. But in Alaska, among these loners, there's a real sense of community.

"We go our own ways; we come together," said former Juneau mayor Sally Smith. "And there's a sense of, I think, maybe of building something. So each of our talents will be pooled with another independent person's talents, and we grow something we couldn't have as individuals."

The Seattle Times has a Monday essay by Alaska-born retired travel editor Stanton Patty highlighting his personal Alaska heroes, among them territorial governor Ernest Gruening, Anchorage Times editor Bob Atwood and grocer Bill Egan.

Even Canton, Ohio, got in on the act. Cantonrep.com recalled its own headline 50 years ago: "Welcome Alaska" and a story:" And on this grand and glorious day, congratulations on a grand and glorious event that foreshadows a new state two and one-half times the size of Texas." Ah, the birth of the rivalry.

KTUU talked with former Mayor Jack Roderick and state Sen. Arliss Sturgulewski. The Fairbanks Daily News Miner featured a look at a new history book, third in a series, that focuses on Anchorage and its early history and how it got started as a "company town." The Depression-era Matanuska Colony and the personal tales of Z.J. Loussac, Austin Lathrop, and William Mulcahy are included in "Aunt Phil's Trunk, Vol 3," among others.

The Juneau Empire also marks June 30 with a look back at the history.

In other headlines of interest to Alaskans:

> Exxon protesters forced out of CBS live shot (KTUU)

> Pilots may find work in Alaska (Alaska Journal of Commerce)

> Eielson Visitor Center a model of "green" engineering (Fairbanks Daily News Miner)

> Researchers, politicians converge at permafrost conference (Fairbanks Daily News Miner)

> $700,000 gift to produce more Native PhD.s (Dutch Harbor Fisherman)

> NOAA partners with UAF Arctic research group (Fairbanks Daily News Miner)

> Polls say Obama could take Alaska (KTUU)