Free Republic

Eni has achieved the important production goal of 25,000 barrels of oil per day at the Nikaitchuq field, in which the company is operator with a 100% interest. The field, located offshore the North Slope of Alaska in a water depth of 3 meters, holds reserves estimated at 200 million barrels of crude oil. Nikaitchuq production, which began in January 2011, is the first operated by Eni in the Arctic. Development of Nikaitchuq includes the drilling of wells and the construction of facilities both on land and on an artificial island built by Eni in the Beaufort Sea. The location's...

GCI celebrated the launch of 3G data service in Bethel by flying in 6,000 McDonald’s cheeseburgers. The Friday lunchtime crowd stretched out and around the parking lot of the Long House Hotel. Standing over 100 people in line for burgers, GCI’s Vice President for Wireless Services, Dan Boyette, says crews are continuing to tweak the network, but it appears to be functioning as intended. “All of those things that people really had trouble doing before like browsing the internet or sending pictures..that sort of thing will work fine now with the 3G speed, while it’s tough with the 2G or...

A moderate earthquake shook northwest Alaska on Monday, the fifth temblor of the same magnitude since April in an area with otherwise little activity, seismologists said. The magnitude-5.7 quake struck at 4:01 a.m. Monday northeast of the village of Noatak, the Alaska Earthquake Center reported. As with other temblors in the earthquake swarm, the quake was felt in Noatak, an Inupiat Eskimo community of 560 people. […] The series of earthquakes has scientists puzzled about activity that is considered very unusual in the area. “At this point, we don’t really understand the nature of these earthquakes,” (earthquake center seismologist Natasha)...

Power Players He once worked for Sarah Palin and has been dubbed a “protégé” of Condoleezza Rice. Now Dan Sullivan is fighting to become a high-profile conservative brand name of his own, trying to unseat Democratic Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska in one of the most closely watched political races of the year. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin appointed Sullivan attorney general in 2009. Before that he worked within President George W. Bush’s inner circle as a senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Now, Sullivan has the task of convincing GOP primary voters that he is Alaskan enough,...

This isn't related to the core enumerated powers questions in Bond but struck me as sufficiently interesting that it was worth posting about separately. In his post about Bond, Mark Tushnet writes: This isn't Justice Thomas's problem but James Madison's [but] Justice Thomas quotes Madison to the effect that treaty cannot "dismember the empire." Really? Suppose Vladimir Putin lets the United States know that he's going to bomb the bejeezus out of the "red" states of the United States unless we negotiate a treaty returning Alaska to Russia. Work out the scenario as you wish, but I doubt that it's...

ANCHORAGE — A big part of being an Alaskan is harboring a suspicion of all things Lower 48. It’s an inclination that runs so deep that locals have a proper noun to describe everywhere else — Outside. So, naturally, there is quite a bit of alarm here over the state’s newest political distinction. Alaska has unwillingly become a giant receptacle for money from “super PACs” and other out-of-state groups fighting over control of the United States Senate. In no other state have so many ads about a Senate race run so far; in no place else has more money been...

This speech was presented by Willes K. Lee, Vice President Western Region, National Federation of Republican Assemblies at the Alaska Republican Assembly State Convention and Straw Poll on May 24, 2014, in Menard Sports Center, Wasilla, Alaska.Aloha. Good morning. Thank you for that generous introduction. Thank you [organizers, hosts, officials], President Angle, conservatives. Thank you, Adele. We are blessed with your music. I am having so much fun being with Alaska conservatives. Are we among friends? Are there any liberals here? It is Memorial Day weekend. We’ve already met our veterans who are present. I suggest that sometime this weekend,...

A young California mother attacked by a grizzly bear while running along a remote road through the woods at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson says she was at one point sure she was going to die. In a video interview with military officials 12 days after the attack, Jessica Gamboa, wife of a soldier on the base and mother of a 4-year-old son, said she thought her life was over after the bear knocked her to the ground, picked her up by her backside, carried her across the road, dropped her to the ground, and worked her over twice more before finally...

It’s only a small matter of time until the Obama administration finally, rapturously releases what its hopes will be the crown jewel of its rise-of-the-oceans-slowing climate-change agenda: Regulations capping the emissions from existing power plants, a.k.a., stamping out coal plants across the country. This set of regs is going to be even more complicated and controversial than the regulations for only new power plants the administration released last year, and as the AP obliquely explains, we’re likely to start seeing those “necessarily skyrocketing” energy prices Obama once mentioned pretty quickly here: Electricity prices are probably on their way up...

Challengers see themselves in the Texas senator, even in races where their odds of an upset are considered steeper than Cruz’s surprise victory over a GOP establishment figure two years ago. He’s made endorsements in the Oklahoma and Nebraska Senate races, plus the Nebraska gubernatorial race, and sent almost $26,000 to federal candidates through his leadership PAC. “Ted Cruz would be extremely helpful as an endorser and a fundraiser,” said C. Edmund Wright, a consultant to longshot South Carolina Senate hopeful Lee Bright, in an email. “Rand Paul and Mike Lee would be great also.” But, he said, “the reason...

China is considering building an 8,000-mile high-speed rail link to America that would take less than two days to travel. Travelling at around 217mph, the train would leave the north east of the country, run through Siberia and enter a 125-mile tunnel under the Bering Strait, the shortest crossing between Russia and Alaska. It would then resurface and head south through Canada, before reaching its destination in the US. It is unclear whether the American, Canadian or Russian governments have agreed to the proposals. But engineers claim it would provide a viable alternative to air travel, according to China Daily....

In case you’re wondering, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has some gift-giving advice: Give them an AR-15. In a tweet, she wrote: “Innovation found only in the USA! You know, an AR-15 makes a great gift — what more says, “I love you”? Eh, you …” and then she included a link to her new Sportsman Channel show, “Amazing America with Sarah Palin,” airing Thursdays at 8 p.m. Predictably perhaps, social media took to trouncing her tweet. Someone with the handle Monkey Bear Dinosaur wrote: “@SarahPalinUSA You are a terrible person.” Jeff Mandell wrote, The Blaze found: “@SarahPalinUSA you’re a...

Paco, a 2-year-old Chihuahua-pug mix, was killed and eaten by a brown bear as Sitka resident Paula Myers watched in horror just a few feet away on Monday. Paula Myers never imagined that her first bear encounter would occur just a few feet from her Sitka home, and that her dog, 2-year-old Chihuahua-pug mix Paco, would be killed and consumed by a brown bear right in front of her eyes. Myers and her husband, Brad Langdorf, moved to Sitka in January to work at Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. Coming to Alaska was a new adventure for the couple, Myers...

Apparently they seek to lower the cost of dominating our markets while keeping a tight leash on a rudderless debtor and efficiently extracting benefits/wealth from Chinese properties (and powerful traitors) in the USA.  Maybe you 2x Obama voters didn't expect hopenchange to include being sold into economic slavery, yet here we are... thanks, idiots! A Bering Strait tunnel and/or bridge has been actually been proposed at various times, going back to 1892, and most often by the Russians. Moscow says they are still currently planning a bridge project for $65B, yet experts doubt that their conventional rail approach -if ever actualized- would be able...

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin defended as fair and commonsense the oil tax structure she championed while in office, a system that has been dismantled by state lawmakers and her successor, fellow Republican Sean Parnell... (please see full article to continue)

Is it possible to be the anti-establishment candidate in a Republican primary for the U.S. Senate and be the choice of the Republican establishment in your state at the same time? By definition, this would seem impossible. Yet, State Senator Joni Ernst has managed to be the establishment backed, anti-establishment candidate in Iowa’s Republican U.S. Senate primary. Iowa’s Lt. Governor Kim Reynolds was an early endorser of Ernst’s campaign, and Governor Terry Branstad has reportedly been helpful behind the scenes, especially in the fundraising department. Ernst has also been backed by national Republican establishment figures like Mitt Romney, Sen. John...

Leon Merkes a World War II era paratrooper.....waiting to board an Alaska Airlines flight to Portland and then on to Washington DC to visit the World War II memorial.Alaska Airlines is providing free air fare for the vets.

Wind gusts on Monday afternoon blew a Wasilla pilot off course at takeoff from a rural airstrip in the Matanuska Valley — and stuck him and his plane into a tree 40 feet off the ground.

Hillary Clinton is running for President. Oh, sure, she hasnÂ’t announced it yet. But all the signs are there: speeches to certain groups, third-party money-raising apparatus, little hints dropped by Bill Clinton on Twitter. Hillary can play coy, but no one in the Democrat Party believes for a second that she did not walk out of the offices of Secretary of State and right into a campaign meeting. But what about the other big female name in American politics? No, not Elizabeth Warren. She is going to run with Hillary for the VP job. WeÂ’re talking about Sarah Palin. Ever...