Anchorage Daily News

RED LIGHT ... True Alaskans hate coming in second for anything. So how embarrassing is it that we placed second in a national ranking of subscribers to online porn sites? Really, d'Ears. This is one we should own, no?

And, to make it even more humiliating, we lost to Utah.

An article by a Harvard professor in the Journal of Economic Perspectives says 5.03 per thousand Alaskans subscribe to dirty Web sites compared with 5.47 Utah residents. If for some strange reason you need to know more, Google a story by Dawn House of the Salt Lake Tribune.

Which state has the least gross-minded people? Montana, with 1.92 per thousand.

Hey, those cowboys have other options.

SPAM ALERT ... OMG. Did someone steal Sen. Lisa Murkowski's e-mail identity and put out a fake press release Friday in her name? The statement enthused about how Interior Alaska will benefit from military construction money in the stimulus package.

But it couldn't really be from Lisa. She very publicly opposed the stimulus package and voted against it. So she wouldn't now be bragging about its benefits to her constituents, right?

If the press release was really from her, she would have thanked the Kid Senator who actually voted for the money, right?

Right.

HUH? ... Some Outside group is reportedly suing our governor because she failed to issue a proclamation for Juneteenth two years ago. Sarah's people say it was just a clerical slip up.

Oddly enough, Ear distinctly remembers a great three-day Juneteenth celebration in 2007, on the Delaney Park Strip and out at UAA. Music. Food. Games. Lots of people. So apparently the paper goof didn't keep the fun from happening.

NEXT ... Sarah's announcement that she will be interviewing applicants for Kim Elton's vacated state Senate seat should have produced long strings of speculation about who was in the running. But all Ear is hearing are the same two names: Gordon Jackson and Tim Grussendorf. Gossip says Jackson has issues, whatever that means, and Grussendorf, a Lyman Hoffman aide who ran unsuccessfully for the House, isn't lighting a fire under anyone. Surely in a highly educated, busybody Democratic town like Juneau, there are some bright stars who want the seat.

Besides Beth Kerttula of course.

TOO MUCH INFORMATION ... An earwig with too much time on his hands stumbled across a Facebook site devoted entirely to Croatian relatives of Sen. Mark Begich. Ear can't tell what it says because, well, it's in Croatian. You can check it out for yourself at adn.com/ear.

FACEBOOK 2 ... Web posts develop a life of their own, and never die. Someone sent Ear a Facebook video of lobbyist Paul Fuhs and piano player Steve Nelson singing "Back in the USSR" to the Soviet Border Guard Military Band in Vladivostok in 1990.

These days Fuhs is in the Juneau band Spank the Dog, along with John Bitney and, when he's available, Tom Anderson.

NO COMMENT ... In honor of the just ended great race, smart-mouths in Juneau are calling Bob Lynn's bestiality bill "the Ididadog bill."

Ear hasn't checked, but believes Bob's bill takes a position against bestiality.

KUDOS ... Joel Neimeyer of Anchorage has been named the Native Americans in Philanthropy 2009 Grantmaker of the Year for his successful work on that dental therapist program the national dentists organization tried to stop. It trains therapists to do relatively minor (unless it's your toothache) dental work in the villages, where teeth are bad and few dentists set up practice.

Compiled by Sheila Toomey. Find Ear online at adn.com/ear. Contact Sheila at stoomey@adn.com.

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