An anthem for #PalinBrawl: The Anchorage brawl that launched Sarah Palin back into national headlines, got one witness fired from his job and spawned a trending hashtag has also inspired a tribute song from Florida singer-songwriter James Rustad, who adapted the tune from the Beastie Boys' "Fight for Your Right (to Party!)" to create "Fight at the Palin Party!" The adaptation is simple enough, but it shows -- as a Washington Post blog post on Palin and fighting puts it "how deeply this incident penetrated the American consciousness over the weekend." For another musical parody on the subject we humbly offer you this take on theme to "Beverly Hillbillies" from our own Craig Medred.
Anchorage residents better educated than you might think: Anchorage might not be the Cambridge of the north, but it's not exactly a community of nitwits, either. WalletHub.com, a metric-crunching website, has just ranked the city 18th in its list of the country's "Most Educated Metro Areas.'' Anchorage scored in the top half in all categories ranking 150 urban areas across the U.S. It's lowest score was 62nd for "percent of workers with jobs in computer, engineering and science fields.'' It's best scores were ninth for percentage of citizens with high school diplomas and 17th for percentage with college or associate degrees. Overall, the city lagged behind Seattle at number six, but easily outscored such major urban areas as Portland, 24; Denver, 28; Chicago, 31; Minneapolis, 38; and Los Angeles, 79. Ann Arbor, Mich. -- an old-fashioned college town -- led the list. Beaumont, Texas, anchored the bottom, though McAllen and Brownsville in Texas claimed the most uneducated residents.
Even in other states, marijuana tax revenue is anyone's guess: Others states have done revenue predicting how much tax revenue could be made off of recreational marijuana sales in their states, but even those predictions are best guesses according to a report from the Pew Charitable Trusts. The organization notes that it's often difficult to forecast marijuana revenue, since there's very little information on much marijuana is -- or could be -- legally sold. Alaska voters will decide whether or not to support ballot measure 2, an initiative which would legalize recreational marijuana use for adults 21 years of age and older, as well as taxing the substance at $50 per ounce wholesale. The state of Alaska has conducted a cost estimate, which is required of all ballot initiatives, however the estimate did not take in to account potential costs savings or revenue generated by the tax. The governor has said he has no plans to conduct a revenue forecast.
Russia says offshore Arctic oil won't be affected by sanctions: Russia's Prirazlomnoye oil field -- that nation's first offshore field to come into production -- will continue to produce, despite U.S. and E.U. sanctions that target operator Gazprom's partnership with Western companies, according to a report from Reuters (republished in The Moscow Times). A company deputy CEO said Gazprom was working on plans to get equipment "from alternative sources or producing it by Russian or Asian companies." The news comes as the field, which went online last fall, produced its millionth barrel of oil, according to a report from industry site Rigzone.
Unease over a the prospect of a Franklin expedition tourism boom: The discovery of one of the two ships of the lost Franklin expedition could spur a new wave of tourism to Canada's Far North, according to a report from the Toronto Star. But that's not necessarily an unmixed blessing, the paper reports. "Tourism is important to Nunavut, but so is its cultural heritage," the Star writes. "The territory requires cruise ship operators to get permits to bring passengers ashore at heritage sites." Still, archeologists are uneasy at the prospect of hundreds more visitors at remote sites -- such as the grave of a few of the expedition's sailors on Beechey Islands, or as yet unexcavated sites elsewhere in the Arctic. Looting has been a problem in the past, and some significant archeological sites may be vulnerable to visitors who don't recognize them as such.