A hectic start to September has delayed the August news a few days. September is always busy at ALO with moose hunting and other summer ending outings, but this year it was enhanced by a trial set to start September 16 in Bethel. That trial involves a claim against the local HUD agency for an exploding boiler which badly injured a man in a nearby village. The trial should take two weeks.
Another major trial was avoided in August when an air carrier decided to pay a fair settlement for a fatal crash that happened near Togiak. The plane flew into the side of a mountain in bad weather and the defendant managed to avoid paying the family of a deceased passenger for several years. The final settlement amount would have resulted in a settlement years earlier, and saved everyone involved a lot of time and effort, but many insurance companies just don’t work that way.
August was memorable in Alaska for high heat and little rain. Fires burned all over the state, and smoke often blanketed huge areas for days. This is a somewhat new situation in Alaska, created by higher temperatures, different rainfall patterns and lightning. The resulting impacts are dramatic and alarming. With millions of acres of land it is not possible to fight all the fires that now start each year and the destruction is massive. Excessive heat has caused many issues with fish and wildlife, including many die-offs of fish. The Russian far north is experiencing much of the same. Many people in Alaska have expressed a general unease about the impact of global warming. It actually seems to be advancing at a faster rate than predicted, leaving less time to do anything about it. One of the key figures in the propaganda effort to discredit the notion of global warming left before his legacy could be fully appreciated. David Koch died with an estate worth over $40 billion dollars. He spent hundreds of millions of dollars to discredit the science surrounding global warming, and he was very successful in that effort. He used the same strategy employed by the tobacco industry in selling the notion that cigarettes were safe to pump money into phony science organizations. Those groups then issued statements and scientific journals debunking global warming that many folks gobbled up. His goal was to protect the petroleum industry where his big money came from. He made huge donations to political figures who bought in to the argument. And now as the world heats up he checks out. It's hard to imagine why a guy with that kind of money felt the need to control public opinion as well, but he did. His legacy will be written as global warming advances, and it won’t be a glowing account.
The Hoffman- McDonald clan had a post-Casey’s wedding gathering at the Angstman cabin. During that visit they wanted to check out an old cabin a few miles away. That cabin hosts a few bats under the window covers , and Colin hatched a plan. Here’s the video.
Colin also posted a batch of photos from a later moose hunt on Facebook. Some dandy shots. Val and Doug Bue also visited. Here’s Val’s artistic view of the outhouse.
The heat mentioned above affected Anchorage moose. This month’s mandatory moose found a temporary reprieve. Glenda Bach posts some pretty good cartoons.
Lamont Albertson posted this bit of wisdom.
As a lifetime gun user, it is impossible to ignore the steady run of mass shootings in America. Right now America has a set of gun laws that were passed mostly to appease the NRA. Those laws are supposed to keep Americans safe, mainly by assuring that everyone who wants a gun can have one with a very few exceptions. Every time a bunch of people die, the NRA says more guns would have prevented that from happening. The argument is simple and easy to understand. There is one problem with that theory. It has been around long enough to be tested, and it is abundantly clear it doesn’t work. The NRA’s influence appears to be slipping a bit, along with its funding, and it can’t happen soon enough.