Cleaning Out the In-Box

WC accumulates a lot of stuff that is too short for a full blog post but to good to pass by. Some is from WC’s in-box; some from comments; some from Mrs. WC. At very irregular intervals, all that miscellany gets lumped into a post like this.

After going down in flames in the Beluga Whale endangered species lawsuit, and being kicked all over the courtroom in its other endangered species litigation, the State of Alaska, Department of Law has decided it is time to recruit an assistant attorney general with knowledge of the Endangered Species Act. Wouldn’t this have been a great idea, say, 18 months ago?

For at least the last 25 years, the State of Alaska has been working on widening Illinois Street on the north side of the Chena River here in Fairbanks. Probably longer than that. So far, that effort has gotten us a bridge across the river that is fenced so no one can use it, a lot of vacant lots and some partially relocated power lines. And the State still doesn’t have all of the right of way it needs to award the contract. Highway construction is paid for mostly with U.S. Department of Transportation funds, which are mostly the federal gasoline tax. The feds won’t let contracts be awarded until all of the land has been acquired. (Which proves they are smarter than the former Mayor of Wasilla.) Oopsie.

This isn’t original to WC but as WC traces it, but Eye of Newt is using his two daughters from his first marriage to attack his wife from his second marriage for claiming Gingrich wanted an open marriage so he could continue his adultery with the woman who is his third wife. That’s family values for you.

Speaking of bad water, it appears that the $50 million Ruth Burnett Fish Hatchery will start hatching fish this year, more than 18 months behind schedule. The problem has indeed been the water, and issue that’s the responsibility CH2M Hill. You remember them; they are the successor to Bill Allen’s VECO, having purchased VECO after Allen’s bust. Bad karma in the water, perhaps? WC has been looking forward to seeing more Arctic Grayling in interior streams, but at the rate this is going, he’ll be too old to fly fish by the time the fish are stocked.

To all of the obscure Asian companies who continue to solicit WC’s help collecting a judgment: can’t you dream up a new scam? This con is getting as old and tired as the Nigerians’ stupid pitch.

This cheerful tweet from Scott Simon: If you could thaw out Captain Scott at the South Pole, 100 years after he died, the Cubs still wouldn’t have won the World Series.

Alaska Airlines is eliminating prayer cards from its first class food service trays. A reader wants to know if this is a sign of the Apocalypse. The reader is posting her question to the wrong blog.

WC gets a lot of emails complaining he writes about _______ too often. You can fill in the blank. Recent complaints have included the Cubs, Republicans, nature photography, the Cubs, global warming and the Cubs. And writers have complained the WC is a liberal, a Commie, a libertarian, a Democrat, a fisherman, a nazi, a tree-hugger, arrogant and, worst of all, “uses big words.”

Whatever.

WC writes about what attracts his magpie sensibilities. Whatever bright, shiny issue appeals at the moment. WC follows Mark Twain’s abjuration, appearing in the frontispiece to  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

A writer wants to know how much of the stuff WC writes about is real and how much is made up. Yes.

The rest of the stuff is too vulgar for even WC’s blog and will be used as digital mulch.

About these ads