In the wake of the Gabriel Giffords shooting...

I am posting this collection from the blogosphere from Mike Stanfill through P.Z. Meyers (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/). Resonate with you? BTW: Alaska's gun laws are as lax as AZ's. Any 21 year-old moron with a self perceived beef and a history of mental instability can get a Glock 19 just like this mass murderer.

If a Detroit Muslim put a map on the web with crosshairs on 20 pols, then 1 of them got shot, where would he be sitting right now? Just asking. - Michael Moore

A physician cannot treat an illness s/he willfully refuses to diagnose. Violent political rhetoric is not fault of "both sides." - Tom Tomorrow

Inspiring that our media pundits are so quick to reach for "everyone's to blame" when no conservative events have been terrorized by gunmen. - Jeffrey Feldman

Weird: rightwingers say movies, video games affect behavior -- but real world violent rhetoric from leaders & radio talkers have NO impact! - Tom Tomorrow

Jared Lougnner: drug arrests, too crazy for Army or for college or anything else, but getting a legal gun? No problem. - Tom Tomorrow

I find it abhorrent that Sarah Palin would stoke the coals of extremism with dangerous messaging, then delete it when something bad happens. - Jason Pollock

Sure, Sarah Palin didn't pull the trigger. But then, neither did Charles Manson. - auntbeast

Christina Taylor Green was Born on September 11, 2001, and killed today by terrorist fuckheads in Arizona. Irony much? - geeksofdoom

Sarah Palin rummages online frantically erasing her rabble-rousing Tweets like a Stalinist trimming non-persons out of photos. - Roger Ebert

I'll say this, if your first instinct after hearing about a tragedy is to scrub yr websites, you have a problem as a political movement. - digby56

CNN's Dana Bash says "this could be a wake-up call." THIS ... ? The whole Tea Party, carrying guns to rallies WASN'T?? - hololio2

Teaparty asses have been asking for this to happen, and how they're pissed off that we're calling them out on it. - TLW3

STOP SAYING"BOTH PARTIES"!! The Left has not been advocating Violence. @CNN assholes. - YatPundit

[Concludes P.Z.]: Do not sit there cowering, trying to make excuses for teabaggers and violent morons. This is supposed to be the part where you stand up, look at the shouters on the other side, and tell them, "This is wrong, and this is the harm you bring to our country." Instead, I see a rush to postures of submission.

Alaska's governator...

Sean Parnell is getting all uppity over management of federal lands and waters. Here's what I wrote the Anchorage Daily News, which will probably not be published, if recent history is any indication:

So our governor ("Parnell warns of too much federal control," ADN Jan. 8) is getting all Rick Perry (Texas' guv) on the feds. Parnell's (empty, of course) threat: "We want our state back and we will take it back." Is this a small-man's-syndrome thing? Has Parnell been taking lessons from Kim Il Sung? Is his tossing of the "states' rights" card an early reelection gambit? Finally, does Parnell not know that federal lands in this state are held in trust for all Americans, and that neither he, nor I nor any Alaskan has any more say in how those lands (and waters) are managed than a little old lady living in Ohio? Like it or no, that's the way it is, guv. You should concentrate on doing a good job of managing what we already have.
Bill Siedler,
Wasilla

Maybe I'm just getting more mouthy because we plan to leave the "Greatland" soon, but teaching (and learning) Alaska History has shown me that without the federal largess that has flowed in Alaska since 1900, we'd be like Al Capp's "Lower Slobbovia" and still a province of Guggenheim, JP Morgan and the salmon syndicate.

It's "semi-official"...

Looks as though we'll be "restructuring" (some call it retiring) from our respective school district careers at the end of this school year. Gonna move on down to Eugene, Oregon to be closer to family, and escape another Alaskan winter. The last few years, I've noticed that each succeeding winter seems a little colder, a little darker, and a little longer than the one before (global warming models say I'm wrong about the "colder," but it sure feels like it!).

Not only are the winters warmer - if wetter - in Oregon, but the political climate suits wife and I better than "The Land of Sarah." I tire of tilting uber-conservative windmills, and windbags here...but that's a story for later. Suffice it to say that I will miss this place, and nearly every one of it's inhabitants - bipeds included.

But hush! The gestation period of a logistical triumph the likes of which we have never seen (moving) has begun!