Anchorage Daily News

Knowles, Murkowski spent more

After reading your article "Palin to reimburse state for family travel" today, I was driven by curiosity to review the PDF of governors' travel expenses since 1999.

I wonder: Where was the watchdog Frank Gwartney when Knowles and Murkowski were racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars more in travel expenses than Palin has even come close to amassing? Shouldn't Mr. Gwartney's next logical move be a formal complaint filed with the attorney general against the previous two governors?

-- Deanna Katsuki

Eagle River

Murkowski rebuke states obvious

Sen. Lisa Murkowski's rebuke on behalf of her party of the economic recovery legislation/stimulus plan would have us believe that the economy has tanked because of the collapse of house prices (Feb. 22). Really? This is like the truck driver explaining the death of the pedestrian he just ran over as due to the fellow's heart having stopped. Please. -- Jan Konigsberg

Anchorage

Urge Juneau to vote no on HB 9

I urge your readers to contact their representatives and senators to vote against HB 9, the death penalty bill. I have contacted my representative Les Gara and he responded immediately. He states he was also against the death penalty.

It is far more expensive for the state to impose a death penalty than a life-without-parole sentence. There have been many innocent people put to death and often minority races are targeted. According to statistics, the death penalty does not deter a crime.

-- Marian M. Wagers

Anchorage

Palin needs to get priorities right

Have we got our priorities right -- a million dollars for a study for a road to Nome when there are cold and hungry people in the villages?

-- Marie Heinrichs

Girdwood

Tok-area wolf control creates game farm, not hunting in wild

This week, the Board of Game and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game are reviewing proposals to scale up wolf control near Tok. Proposals include allowing private citizens in helicopters to shoot wolves, killing pups in dens, and allowing citizens to shoot wolves without recovering the bodies. As a lifelong Alaskan and hunter, I strongly oppose these plans.

Wolf control is not effective unless 50 percent to 70 percent of area wolves are killed each year. Although wolf control has been ongoing in the Tok region for about five years, moose and caribou populations have failed to rise, while calf birth weights have remained low, suggesting that population growth is limited by habitat, not by predation. Furthermore, human hunting pressure on the area is heavy.

Moose populations near Tok are sufficient to meet local subsistence needs. Wolf control in this region is an attempt to artificially boost game animal numbers at the expense of maintaining a healthy ecosystem. In effect, this management plan creates a game farm, not a functioning wilderness.

Since healthy moose and caribou populations already exist, I do not see a need to boost game animal numbers for road hunters around Tok. Most hunters and trappers I know are opposed to indiscriminate wolf "control." I'd rather have wolves and no meat in the freezer than an empty land without wolf song.

-- Rosemary McGuire

Cordova

Eruption on desk might impede scientist's ability to do his job

I just read the caption of the photo of Tom Murray, scientist-in-chief for the Alaska Volcano Observatory ("Redoubt's every move tracked from above and below," Feb. 23). It looks like Mount Redoubt had already gone off -- at least in his office. A word from one slob -- there comes a point when the mess on your desk impacts your ability to do your job. I would say Mr. Murray has reached this level.

For our sake, the taxpayers, I say please clean up your work area so we know that you are doing your job to the best of your ability and so that we feel safe knowing that you may be able to help warn us about the imminent danger of Mount Redoubt.

-- Jean Poulsen

Anchorage

Claman's trip irresponsible

Does anyone else out there think it odd that our Acting Mayor Matt Claman went to Washington, D.C., on our dime when our city is experiencing a $17 million deficit? Just how can he justify that, especially since he hasn't been elected to that position? No matter what the cost to send him there, it was too much. What has happened to being responsible?

-- Theresa Holland

Anchorage

Radio mouths pin baloney meter

Regarding Paul Jenkins' column Sunday defending radio commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mike Savage:

These guys have one purpose and that is to pit one group of citizens against another for political gain. I believe that demonizing half the population is the main cause of many of the economic and social ills the country suffers today. It's keeping us from working together.

The thing I find most disturbing, however, is the depth of their acceptance. Anyone that listens to these guys for more than a few minutes and isn't either laughing or crying has lost the ability to think critically. When someone tells you that everything group "A" does is good, and everything group "B" does is bad, and in fact, every problem the country faces is due to group "B" ... shouldn't the baloney meter be ringing off the hook? Here's the test: Listen to Rush talk, and every time he says "liberal," you say "Jew." Sound familiar?

-- Tom Mitchell

Anchorage

Murkowski listened to Alaskans

Sen. Lisa Murkowski had some serious concerns (rightly so) about how this stimulus bill was transforming. Sen. Mark Begich acknowledges that while he agreed with most of his e-mails, he felt it was a good bill overall. Just who is falling in line here? The senators work for the constituents of their state, not the president. Obviously, the constituents in this state do not like this bill. Thanks, Sen. Murkowski, for standing up for us. -- Rebecca Monaghan

Wasilla

Permanent Fund managers failed to protect Alaska's huge assets

Chancellor Fran Ulmer, moderator of the recent Permanent Fund presentation at UAA, stated that the 1970s group of prominent Alaska leaders who created the Permanent Fund were Alaska's greatest generation. She's probably right, because the current generation has failed abysmally at protecting the fund. Its value has plummeted close to $10 billion. That's $15,000 per Alaskan.

By last summer the evidence of an impending stock market meltdown was overwhelming. Yet the Permanent Fund board of directors continued to adhere to the "long-term asset management" concept, irrespective of evidence of disaster, because -- well -- that's what the rules they adopted said they should do.

That's not leadership. At least one of the directors or managers should have sounded the warning bell in the night and demanded an emergency board meeting to consider dumping the fund's stocks.

If they had been wrong, no harm except to their reputation. If right, they would have saved the $10 billion.

I suggest that the board form an Alaskan Permanent Fund Citizen's Advisory Council whose mission would be to provide real-time, real-life input to board policy-making. Council composition would consist of independent-minded Alaskans who think outside the box, the box being the fiscally dangerous belief that limitless deficit spending and grossly manipulating the money supply promotes prosperity. Look where it's leading us.

Maybe then we can avoid more losses when the second shoe drops.

-- Larry Slone

Anchorage

Fairness Doctrine hysteria is figment of Jenkins' imagination

Paul Jenkins spends an entire column responding to his belief that Democrats are attempting to revive the Fairness Doctrine (Feb. 22). As evidence to support his concerns, he cites an ex-president with no political power, notes that Obama has been consistently against reviving the Fairness Doctrine, and then points to Obama's mundane and obviously true observation that Republican congressmen can't govern effectively while taking their cues from Rush "I hope Obama fails" Limbaugh. So we have two fairly inconsequential quotes and one that directly contradicts the point Jenkins is trying to make.

Right-wing blogs and talk radio have been pushing this Fairness Doctrine "controversy" since the November elections even though every major Democrat in Congress has made it clear that they aren't in favor of addressing the Fairness Doctrine any time in the foreseeable future. Many of them, like Obama, have stated that they are actively opposed to reinstating it.

Yet the right wing keeps fear-mongering, insisting that this demon of their paranoid hysteria is an actual threat. Jenkins and those like him might want to think twice before accusing others of smoking crack based only on evidence produced by their own hallucinatory fever dreams.

-- Brett M. Gilland

Anchorage

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