British Columbia has lethal roads
I do not know the Torpy family, but when I read this article ("Anchorage couple die in fiery highway crash", March 14) my heart went out to them and I felt sad -- and angry. I have experienced the danger of British Columbia highways.
In 2005, I drove to San Diego with my wife, mother-in-law and my two dogs. It turned out to be the most miserable driving experience of my life. The truckers in British Columbia drive so fast that when they pass (usually downhill), they literally blow smaller vehicles away from them with the force created by their size and speed.
At one point, we were going downhill at about 70 mph when an 18-wheeler passed us so fast that we were blown within inches of the 300-foot-plus cliff on our right side. That's when we realized we had not seen any other police or other emergency vehicles in British Columbia.
As we were headed down to lower elevations, toward Vancouver, we passed an "accident" where a semi truck wiped out nearly 15 cars and about 200 feet of trees.
I knew I would never drive through British Columbia ever again. Had you witnessed us reading the "To USA" border signs, you would have thought we won the lottery. We were so happy to be done with British Columbian roads.
When we returned to Alaska from the Lower 48, we drove through Alberta. The drive was boring by comparison, but we never felt we were in danger like we did driving through British Columbia.
-- Mark L. Jensen
Anchorage
Premature disclosure a bad idea
Although I applaud your stand for the initiative process ("Fewer initiatives?" Feb. 23), I believe that Rep. Johansen is accomplishing what he intended all along. Each one of the sponsors has told me that they are OK with amending the bill right up to the disclosure part (the part they are really aiming for).
In my case, that would mean that Big Oil could intimidate prospective donors that may donate to anything related to the "Gas Pipeline" or "facilities access" or any other case where an initiative deals with corporate interests. In the last reserves tax battle I had a number of oil company employees who donated as well as supported industry companies that believed that the only way to make "Big Oil" actually move was through a reserves tax.
I believe that the reason we have never required disclosure before an initiative is approved for the ballot is that the intimidation factor that powerful corporate interests could wield. When an issue actually becomes a ballot campaign is certainly a proper time to require full disclosure, not when it is in its most fragile early stage.
The people of Alaska will be ill-served by any part of this bill's passage and I appreciate your help in seeing it die a quick death.
-- Rep. Harry Crawford
East Anchorage
No votes for I/M test supporters
Not long ago some Assembly members voted to continue I/M testing in our city. Now they're running for mayor! It's common knowledge that the I/M test does almost nothing to improve our air. It's all the newer, efficient, clean running vehicles that have cleaned up our air in Anchorage; 95 percent of vehicles pass with ease. The rest get a waiver or just get driven illegally. Most of the Valley cars don't get tested at all! The whole thing is just bogus. These useless tests cost each of us a lot of money. It especially hurts us retirees.
Please keep this in mind when you're voting for mayor. The candidates who supported all this I/M craziness should be weeded out! We can't afford their kind of backward thinking in the mayor's office.
-- Raymond Tucker
Anchorage
No 'leader' is indispensable
We elect leaders of the free world, i.e., presidents, every four years. You mean to tell me that the Wall Street "leaders???/AIG executives" are indispensable? That they have to be paid millions in retention pay?
-- Mary Turner
Anchorage
Problem with cruise ship waste is that it's dumped into vital fishery
Cruise ships have nothing to do with local drinking water, on-land treatment plants or economic fear. Foreign cruise ships in Alaska now discharge dissolved copper and concentrated ammonia precisely into salmon migratory and whale feeding areas, along the exact routes to their next ports. Pacific salmon are directly affected by such copper, which distorts their olfactory senses as they migrate to natal streams in Alaska after years at sea.
The suspended copper comes from leaching pipes that connect the 2000 staterooms and water purifiers on each ship, while concentrated ammonia derives from the urine of 3,500 passengers and crew on each of 25 ships stationed in Alaska. Ship passengers eat three to five meals a day as they cruise along, and the 60,000 visitors here daily generate substantial marine waste. At night, that human waste is dumped by ships over Alaska's top fishery and wildlife feeding areas. This is the sole reason for no mobile, mixing-pollution zones in law: their direct, physical impact on fish and marine resources.
The cruise lines are fully responsible for the five months of human and dissolved metallic waste discharged each night on the last, natural salmon spawning runs in North America.
To discount that this waste is dumped precisely over five species of returning salmon and migratory Hawaiian humpback whales in Alaska to feed is perilous ignorance at best.
-- Chip Thoma
Juneau
EDITOR'S NOTE: Chip Thoma was a sponsor of the 2006 Cruise Ship Ballot Initiative that required new pollution discharge standards and taxes.
Parkgoer should thank his stars officer was there to 'bother' him
On March 12, 2009, Bobby Corder complained about a police officer "bothering" him and his wife at Earthquake Park while they were hoping to view the northern lights ("Cops drop in on aurora viewers"). Apparently Corder either isn't aware or chooses to ignore the fact that some areas, including some parks, parking lots, and even downtown street parking are closed during specific times for public safety.
While Earthquake Park is a relatively short distance from neighborhood homes, it becomes somewhat desolate in the late-night, early-morning hours. Numerous crimes, including the horrific murder of a woman who was raped and shot, have occurred there through the years. Without sanctions regarding access, it is a perfect place for the criminal element to congregate and access potential victims. Unfortunately, the world we live in today requires that we be aware that there are predators among us.
Instead of making a snide complaint, Corder should be happy that his tax dollars help to provide for quality officers even in this day of cutbacks and work overloads. They are the kind of officers who take the time to check on questionable or illegal circumstances, and to protect citizens from potential victimization, rather than taking a donut break. And he might be grateful that he only received a warning rather than a citation.
-- L.A. Lenoir
Wasilla
All these bailouts reward failure
The bonuses to the executives of AIG have gathered the attention of a wrathful president. The $165 million in bonuses is certainly a generous reward for utter failure, and rightfully criticized by the public. Yet it is a drop in the bucket compared to the grotesque bailouts. The bonuses account for about one-tenth of 1 percent of the total money that AIG had received from taxpayers. Compared to the ever-growing mountain of government intervention, it is trivial.
President Obama has signed into law two bailout plans that total almost $1.2 trillion. The AIG bonuses are one-hundredth of 1 percent of that massive sum. If the president wants to attack rewarding failure, then the whole bailout plan should be brought into question. Fundamentally, the bailout is about rescuing financial institutions, and businesses linked to them, for making bad loans. The taxpayers are paying for such failures. That President Obama and Congress attack rewarding failure, while at the same time handing out bailouts for failed corporate and personal behavior, is hypocrisy.
-- Luke Duddy
Anchorage
Numbers aren't there to validate Alaska's wolf control program
Alaska's wolf control program does more than worry me. It scares me to think that our government and the people of this great "Last Frontier" seem to think it's OK to "control" (as exterminate would be too harsh, right?) the wolves who get blamed for low numbers of moose/caribou and for problems man has created. Animals and nature have the predator/prey system fine-tuned. The problem is man's need to "manage."
Where are numbers for animals killed by poachers, people who are bored, people who think "they're just animals," or animals killed by trains, cars, weather, sickness, old age, etc.? Fish & Game does not have the manpower or money to come up with figures that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that wolves and wolves alone are responsible for decline in moose and caribou in certain areas.
For those interested in the consequences of actions such as this program, read "Wolf Totem" by Jiang Rong. Don't make the same mistake!
Lastly, there are more important areas, like homes, education, health, homeless folks, that the state can spend money on, especially in these uncertain times. If we are truly the Last Frontier, then do away with programs like wolf killing. It shows no respect and further diminishes our image to people of other states and countries.
-- Jan King
Anchorage