Aug. 19: Russian bombers off Alaska

Condoleezza Rice: Russian bomber patrols off Alaska a "dangerous game." McClatchy, The New York Times and the Russian News & Information Agency all covered the secretary of state's warning Monday that old-style Cold War tactics - flying bombers near Alaska's coast to trigger a response and escort by U.S. warplanes - is bad business. From McClatchy:

Six months ago, administration officials said, Russia began sending cruise missile-capable Tu-95 Bear H bombers near the coast of Alaska. The flights began around the same time that the United States and Europe recognized Kosovo's independence, in defiance of Russia.

Rice said Russia has raised questions about its place in the international community through the invasion and other actions, including the resumption last year for the first time since the 1991 collapse of the former Soviet Union of air patrols near the Alaskan coast by Tu-95 strategic bombers, code-named Bears by NATO.

"We've had Russian strategic aviation challenging in ways they haven't, even along our borders with the United States, which I might note is a very dangerous game and perhaps one that I suggest the Russians want to reconsider. This is not one that is cost-free," Rice said.

Since the flights resumed in August 2007, U.S. and Canadian fighters have intercepted the Russian bombers and escorted them away from the U.S. coast.

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Day One of Jeff King's trial: Where exactly are the boundaries of Denali National Park?

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports this morning that attorneys for the park and the 52-year-old Iditarod champ spent the day looking at available resources that would inform a hunter where the park edges end and legal hunting begins.

Prosecutors entered more than 20 maps and pictures of the park boundary as evidence. Myron Angstman of Bethel, King's attorney, questioned different boundaries and widths of boundaries, and also the metallic marks used the show the border on the ground.

In a taped conversation with investigating ranger John Leonard, aired in court Monday, King said: "I think the bottom line was that I knew it was close. I always knew it was close, but I've never seen a God-damn thing marked."

The trial continues today.

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Congressional Quarterly shifts Alaska's U.S. House race to "Leans Democratic." Monday, Congressional Quarterly changed its view of this race away from "Leans Republican." Citing Ivan Moore's recent poll and the Rasmussen Report from late July, Polltracker spends most of the Alaska conversation on the Begich/Stevens general election race, with plenty of back and forth about voter sentiment surrounding those two politicians. But the bottom line is, Rasmussen says, 44 percent of those polled said Stevens' troubles made it less likely they'd vote for Rep. Don Young.

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An old Fairbanks landmark bites the dust. The Fairview Manor was a large housing complex built more than 50 years ago on what was once the Weeks Field runway, reports the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. As crowds gathered to watch the demolition of the first of four buildings by an "excavator - resembling an angry dinosaur with a giant claw," nostalgic memories surfaced.

Howard Hughes once landed his Lockheed 14 on a 'round-the-world trip at that airfield. The complex was first built as military housing, but as the bases were expanded, it opened to the public as affordable housing. Hundreds of people lived there over the years.

"It was old when I was born," said a tearful Jaclyn Jensen, who was born and raised there.

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Google Gmail hiccup disrupts APTI public radio and TV. Google is a leading provider of "software as a service," or SaaS, reports Macworld.com. The software applications, like Gmail, are hosted on Google's servers so that companies that use them don't have to worry about things like maintenance. This is referred to as the Internet "cloud," designed to make sharing and collaboration among employees easy.

Except when they don't, as in a recent two-hour Gmail crash on the news agency's deadline.

For John Profitt, IT service director at APTI, "...the disruption was pretty damn irritating. Aside from getting kicked out of e-mail I need to do my own job, it also forced me to completely refocus on figuring out what's happening with Gmail and Google Apps."

Prior to the outage, he said, he'd been 90 percent happy with Google Apps, but if similar outages happen, APTI may think of Google Apps as only a backup.

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In the countdown to the primary, here are some useful stories:

> "Welcome to the silly season" (campaign ad watch). (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)

> Don Young: Lipstick on a pig (Seattle P-I)

> Parnell: "A vote for Young is a vote for Berkowitz" (Juneau Empire)

> Wall-to-wall ads, some of what's out there (Alaska Politics blog)

> Don Young interview: "You don't need Captain Zero..." (APRN)

> Ballot Measure 4: hottest, most expensive (KTOO)

> Parting Pebble project waters (Homer Tribune)

> Millions spent on Measure 4 war (Anchorage Daily News)

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Alaska woman joins Obama backstage entourage at next week's convention. The blog Kodiak Konfidential reports receiving an e-mail from the Obama campaign identifying Holly Miowak Stebing of Anchorage as one of 10 supporters who'll join him backstage before his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention.

From the Obama e-mail to supporters:

Holly, a 20-year-old Alaska Native Inupiaq, is spending her summer break from Stanford University at the First Alaskans Organization interviewing Native elders about their experiences with segregation. Holly is passionate about improving health care access for Native Americans and protecting Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from drilling. The 2008 presidential election is Holly's first as a voter. She says: "This was the first campaign I felt I needed to support. I don't have a lot of money, but I donate what I can because I believe in [Obama]." She will attend the convention with her mother, who is the first Native American woman to pass the Alaska bar.

Alaska Real will also be at the convention, blogging on the Celtic Diva convention credentials, as Team Blue Oasis.

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Other headlines of interest to Alaskans:

> Oil industry's influence is shrinking (The New York Times)

> A push to increase icebreakers in the Arctic (The New York Times)

> Palmer asks its fire chief to retire (Frontiersman)

> Petersburg may stop delivering babies (KFSK)

> Department of Safety takes financial cuts (KTVA)

> Coast Guard Rescue 21 towers slowed in Alaska (Cleveland.com)