Anchorage Daily News

“America’s Hottest Governor.” If you haven’t had your fill yet of that characterization, it’s coming at you again on the cover of February’s Alaska magazine. “Wildly popular, she’s more than just a pretty face,” the cover headline continues beside a crossed-arm pose of our chief executive, Sarah Palin.

The cover shot — and the photos accompanying the story, which you’ll have to buy the magazine to see — were taken by the operator of Chugach Peaks blog, who says in a blog posting that he shot the pictures during a “secret shoot” in November. “In case anyone is wondering,” he writes, “she is very nice, easy to work with and seemed very down to earth.”

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“Rebels to the Pebble.” A bunch of Dillingham school kids are rising up in opposition to the prospect of a Pebble Mine, apparently disturbed at what they see as the potential environmental impact of such a project, according to a National Public Radio story. Characterizing the kids as “a dogged and creative activist corps,” the story says they have been organizing committees and panel groups and have been holding demonstrations.

“There's no such thing as a clean mine, and that's what they're proposing,” the story quotes one student at a rally. “I'm just completely against the mines. It’s basically just going to, in my opinion, ruin a lot of our wildlife.”

The story quotes a Pebble spokesman saying the developers plan an environmentally sensitive operation that could create as many as 1,000 full-time jobs.

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The making of a piano. “Every piano is a little different,” a Chicago Tribune story quotes a tone inspector saying of Steinway products. But the story — which is actually a review of a movie about the making of a Steinway — notes that they all begin “in tall timber that’s cut down to size in a mill in Sitka, Alaska.”

The story notes that that first step in the making of a Steinway in Sitka involves “a company wood technologist” evaluating the wood for length, width and quality. “From there the action moves to Queens, N.Y., where a veritable United Nations of craftsmen and women carry on the 19th-century trade of hand-tooling pianos.”

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Think you’re paying a lot for heating oil? A story in The Tundra Drums gets precise about the hefty cost of heating oil in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta area: It’s now lingering around $6 a gallon in some communities.

“It’s hurting our pocketbooks,” said Pilot Station resident Albert Beans in what has got to be the winter’s understatement.

The price is stirring some to try to get away from heating oil and capitalize on the wood available, according to the story. “There's a few of us who use wood all year long. There's always enough,” Pilot Station’s mayor and postmaster Abe Martin said. “They may go further but they still get their wood.”

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Nothing but wolves. APRN’s weekly program “AK” devoted pretty much its entire hour over the weekend to wolves and other hairy subjects. The story ranges from the state’s controversial predator control programs to the story of the “Hairy Man” and similar legendary tales from Southwest Alaska.

The program also dipped into a review of some of the wolf-on-dog attacks that have occurred in the Fairbanks and Anchorage areas in recent weeks.

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Legislators pick up the pace. An APRN story has put the stopwatch on this year’s Legislature, which has been in session a week, and finds it moving at a more rapid pace than in past years. The story attributes the velocity to the voter imposed 90-day limit this year — down from 120 — and to the desire to clear the decks early to leave time for the major issues likely to come up later in the session.

Further, lawmakers are getting some work done on a proposed gas line even before they have a formal recommendation on a plan from the governor. “The idea is to get the early homework done,” said reporter Dave Donaldson, “so they can kind of whip through the formal proposal as quickly as possible.”

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Funny money turning up in Valley. Police tell the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman that counterfeit $100 bills are turning up at businesses in the Valley. Most of them have appeared in Wasilla and Palmer, and mostly at fast-food restaurants and gas stations late at night.

“If you take the time to look at them, they’re fairly obvious,” Wasilla Lt. Craig Robinson told the paper. “… In the morning, somebody who’s a little more awake ... kind of realizes that it’s no good.”

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Earmarks are your friend. Sen. Ted Stevens stopped in Ketchikan for a speech to the chamber there, and the Ketchikan Daily News reports he got his most favorable response when speaking about congressional earmarks. Spending on such projects has proven controversial in some quarters but money spent on water and sewer projects in Ketchikan has been welcomed.

“I won't argue with anyone, including the governor. I just want to say that that's my job,” Stevens said. “Now you can criticize the process if you want, but I don't think you should criticize us for doing our jobs.”

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Crash ends Arctic expedition. An Arctic expedition designed to measure the thickness of the ice pack ended before it got off the ground in Paris, according to a Reuters story. The expedition, which was due to cover, among other places, the Beaufort Sea before reaching Alaska this spring, ended when the airship was torn from its moorings by high winds and smashed into a house.

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McKinley effort turned back. A KTUU Channel 2 story reports that solo climber Artur Testov has been turned back in his bid to make a winter climb of Mount McKinley via Wickersham Wall. Testov told the station he was exhausted from two weeks of slogging through deep snow to make it to the base of the mountain. He says he might try again next year.

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The local angle. The Daily Times of Pryor, Okla., takes pride in the fact that the son of a local woman was the pilot of the helicopter involved in the final stages of CBS’ “The Amazing Race,” which ended in Girdwood. (The Associated Press story that ran in today’s ADN on the race’s conclusion is here.)

The story records that pilot Danny Brewer’s mom, Shirley Shook, “was excited to see her son on the national program Sunday,” which was the day the finish was broadcast.

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An uncyclopedic look at Alaska. Don’t look in on Uncyclopedia web site’s Alaska entry unless you’re willing to spend some time with the tonnage of trivia there, which will also give you more than a few laughs. The site has fun with everything from the state’s history to its climate to its state flower:

History: “It was obtained from the Vikings in 1867 after the American government agreed to let the Vikings relocate to the comparatively tropical land of Minnesota.”

Climate: “While the southern part of the state might reach temperatures as high as borderline uncomfortable, survivors of the northernmost areas have reported temperatures dropping to 15 degrees below absolute zero.”

State flower: “Cannabis.”

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