Anchorage Daily News

Law firm threatens suit over polar bears. A conservative Sacramento law firm, Pacific Legal Foundation, plans to join the fray over the fate of polar bears in anticipation of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife decision next week on whether the bears are endangered, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Apparently, no party is arguing that global warming isn't happening, but some disagree on its effect on polar bears. The foundation says the bears are thriving.

"This listing of the polar bear really isn't about the polar bear," said a foundation attorney. "This is a political ploy on the part of activist groups to try to hijack global warming policy from the hands of Congress and to put it into the hands of the courts."

Ridiculous, said the other side. Any claims that polar bears are thriving are "untrue and reprehensible," according to an attorney from the Center for Biological Diversity.

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Check your iPhone coverage here. Enter your address at AT&T's site here, and watch the map morph. I don't have an iPhone yet so I can't test whether the map is accurate. Try it and let us know.

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NBA's Carlos Boozer tells his story in tattoos. He plays power forward for the Utah Jazz, and Utah TV station KUTV recently did an up-close-and-personal with him. Boozer told his story by taking off his shirt and displaying his tattoos.

One relates right back to his hometown of Juneau, where he played hoops at Juneau-Douglas High School. The guy's got a mountain tattooed on one arm - make that Mount Juneau. Also a toothy grizzly bear

He told KUTV: "Being from Alaska, it gave me the idea for the grizzly bear, because even when I was in high school I felt like I turned into some kind of animal on the court."

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U.S., Russia, stake out territory in the Arctic. This sounds so 1850s, but a controversial international treaty called the Law of the Sea would allow countries to stake territory up to 200 miles offshore, with obvious benefits for oil exploration and fisheries. KTUU reports that Sen. Lisa Murkowski gave it a thumb’s up yesterday, noting that U.S. Coast Guard mapping last year suggests the U.S. could grab another 100 miles offshore.

"There's a good chance that Russia's claim to the Arctic is substantial," Murkowski said. "It's about 45 percent of the Arctic Ocean could be recognized (as) cutting into what we believe is our extended continental shelf."

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Shell Oil president gives speech in Second Life. Nods to blogger E-Learning Queen, a learning technology expert, on this one. The event, organized and hosted by the University of Delaware, was part of Global Agenda 2008 - International Politics of Climate Change. The title of John Hofmeister's speech - presented in both the real and online worlds - was "Achieving Energy Security Through Sound Public Policy." The appearance was part of his 50-city public relations speaking tour.

It's a bit thick, but also different. Here's the thing about watching something like this in Second Life. Blogger Susan Smith Nash (the E-Learning Queen) points out that you're not stuck in your seat, passively absorbing the speech. Instead, your avatar can navigate around the speaking arena for different views, post questions, fact-check what you're hearing and challenge the speaker with online questions.

"After Hofmeister finished his speech, questions were presented from the audience. One from Second Life was presented, which addressed the point that Hofmeister made that Americans aren't willing to give up their lifestyles, and thus energy efficiency and increased production must be the goal. The question provoked quite a bit of applause and comment in the real-world setting, which was deeply gratifying to SL audience members."

This gives new meaning to the expression "You had to be there."

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Blogosphere names Kohring's stages of denial. Vic Kohring's sentencing Thursday to three and a half years in prison for taking bribes to help keep Alaska oil taxes from going up lit a fire under bloggers, amateur videographers and other interested citizens.

Posts varied from What Do I Know?'s assessment that Kohring is in stage one, denial, of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief, plus long-running courtroom notes, to a see-and-be-seen snapshot from USA vs. Victor H. Kohring, complete with sightings of local politicos. A favorite was the Andy Griffith mug at Alaska Politics.

But seriously ... this all springs from a corruption investigation that will go long and deep and into our future. There will be more.

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Kodiak inspires brother-artists making a big buzz in Seattle. Conceptual minimalist Oscar Tuazon and glass artist Eli Hanson have shows opening all over Seattle. Seattle Times art critic Sheila Farr laid out their influence in a long piece appearing today. She says they have linked a "neo-'70s Northwest aesthetic that mixes up clean lines and basic form" with what can only be described as blue-tarp/duct-tape Alaska functionality. She says an installation at the Seattle Art Museum, inspired by their trip to Kodiak, has people tearing their hair out, despite its $16,000 price tag as art.

What's the Kodiak connection? A post on the Buckminster Fuller Institute Web site says the two flew to a remote location on Kodiak Island with fiberglass, rope, a chain saw and a mill. They built something and took pictures of it. The Seattle museum installation includes a log, a wall, a handmade plastic window, handmade lanterns and a picture of the Kodiak structure.

"It's a city's interpretation of an outdoor space," Hanson said.

Huh.

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More Northwest fishermen say they may head to Alaska waters. According to The New York Times, fishermen along the California, Oregon and Washington coasts are retooling. Some are using a government handout to modify their fishing boats to catch prawns. Some are selling out. Some are planning to head north..

This is all the result of the shutdown of West Coast salmon fisheries, except for a few isolated locations. "As a producing commodity for salmon, we haven't been there for 20 or 30 years, and it's not going to be there," said Hans Radtke, an economist who analyzes commercial fishing in Oregon.

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If only all scary police blotter items ended this way. From the Unalaska Advertiser cop report:

Missing Person - A 6-year old boy was reported missing but was found a short time later hiding in a cupboard.

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