Month: March 2009

  • Blogger Files Ethics Complaint Against Palin

    Greyfox saw the story in the paper today, and told me.  I went searching and found details.

    Photo credit:  Al Grillo/AP
     

    The complaint alleges, "a conflict of interest when Governor Palin wore specially designed snow-machine gear advertising her husband Todd's biggest Iron Dog sponsor, Arctic Cat Inc.   She did so while acting in her official capacity as Governor of the State of Alaska and official starter of the Iron Dog Snow Machine Race."

    The governor who will go down in history for saying, "lipstick," has called the complaint frivolous, and characterized it as, "asinine political grandstanding."  She ought to know frivolity and asinine grandstanding when she sees them, but I think her view this time might be biased.

    Palin's unethical behavior has already left her owing about half a million dollars to a law firm in Anchorage... or maybe she will leave them holding the bag for a bunch of billable hours on her behalf... but she is making noises about starting a legal defense fund so her fans can pay her bills for her.  If they are stupid enough to be her fans, they're too dumb to be trusted with money, anyway.

    More at adn.com.

    The following photo comes from the complainant's blog.  She is one of those bloggers who does not believe in attributions for images, etc., so I can't tell you who the photographer was or where it might have been published originally.

     

    I call this one, "how Alaskans feel about their gov."  I recognize the background as Anchorage's Loussac Library, but green grass and the clothing on the demonstrators suggest that it is not a recent photo.  Ms. Biegel seems to be using an old picture to illustrate a call for demonstrators against Palin's rejection of stimulus package funding for education, which gov Sarah has since disavowed -- I mean she said she never said what she said about rejecting the money.  Too bad someone recorded what she said -- both times.

    On Saturday, there was a protest demonstration outside the Legislative Caucus in Anchorage.  It is shown in the photo below by Erik Hill of the Anchorage Daily News.

    Celtic Diva also covered a story about the governor's family that I had let slide because at the time I was busy reporting on the Iditarod.  I know that more of my readers want to hear the dirt about Bristol and Levi than want to hear about the dog race, but in my blog, my own priorities predominate.  It's not too late now to catch up with a few things I skipped before, is it?

    In an entry dated March 11, 2009, Celtic Diva quotes the Associated Press:

    Levi Johnston told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he and Bristol Palin mutually decided "a while ago" to end their relationship. The 19-year-old Johnston declined to elaborate.

    Eighteen-year-old Bristol Palin says in a statement to the AP that she is "devastated."

    The two are the parents of a boy named Tripp, who was born Dec. 27.

    Sarah Palin revealed her daughter's pregnancy days after being named John McCain's running mate on the Republican presidential ticket.
    . . .
    In an interview that aired on Fox News last month, Bristol Palin said her fiance saw the baby every day and described him as a "hands-on" dad.

    But there is another, divergent, version of the story.

  • Hunt and Peck - Iditarod XXXVII - the Final Update

    "Hunt and Peck," does sound like the set-up for a joke, but this is no joke. 

    For much of the duration of the Iditarod this year, rookies Timothy Hunt and Alan Peck were part of the little pack of rookies running at the rear of the race.  For several days, they kept each other company, checking into and out of checkpoints together.  Finally, Dr. Tim Hunt, a veterinarian who had been a trail vet on the Iditarod for years before deciding to run the race, pulled ahead, becoming the last official finisher, in 52nd place, winning the Red Lantern trophy in 15 days, 14 hours, 6 minutes, 22 seconds.  There were half a dozen or so Iditarods when the champions didn't finish that fast.

    Alan Hunt scratched in Shaktoolik.  Below is a notice released on Monday, March 23, 2009, by Race Marshal Mark Nordman:

    Earlier today (at approximately 12 noon AKDT) Iditarod Race officials sent a plane from Nome to Shaktoolik to pick up scratched musher Alan Peck’s dog team.

    On the flight back to Nome the aircraft encountered significant turbulence.  By the time the pilot was able to land in Golovin, it was discovered that one of the dogs (Cirque, a 2 year-old female) was deceased.

    The dogs were in good condition when loaded on the plane.  A necropsy will be conducted to make every attempt to determine the cause of death.

    "Sad" is an inadequate word in this circumstance.  It is horrible, not just for Cirque and Alan Peck, but for the Iditarod Air Force, without whom the race could not exist, and whose most important job -- one they take most seriously -- is transporting the canine athletes.  Iditarod XXXVII is going to be remembered for the pain, havoc, and loss caused by weather.

    For those who have been following, with me, Jen Seavey's rookie performance, here is a shot of her as she's being welcomed to Nome.  She arrived Sunday, just in time for the Finishers' Banquet.  The photographer was not identified.  I found the photo at iditarod.com.

     
    The most likely reason for the bandage across her nose would be frostbite.  There was a lot of that going around this year.

  • Ecological Recovery of Prince William Sound Following the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

    Depending on who one asks, the biota of Prince William Sound continue to display severe or catastrophic effects twenty years after the oil spill, or the ecology is completely recovered, or the facts are something between those extremes.

    Natives, who for generations depended on the sea harvest and what they could forage along the coastline, say that it has become difficult or impossible to subsist there in the old ways.  Commercial fishers point to the total collapse of the herring fishery, and bureaucrats say that there is no proof that it would not have collapsed anyway, even if the spill and cleanup had never occurred.

    Many researchers agree that along the coastline the cleanup had a destructive impact, but there is no consensus on what proportion of the lasting damage is from the spill, as opposed to from the cleanup.

    There was clear evidence that in many cases the clean-up efforts constituted a more significant stressor to shoreline and intertidal biota than the physical and toxicological stressors from the spill.  For example, some of the intertidal cleaning essentially removed all of the macroalgal community from rocky surfaces, extending the time to recovery of those areas by about two years.
    [from a study commissioned by Exxon]

    From 1995 through 1997, the Alaska Department of Fish and Wildlife studied harlequin ducks.  Since there was no baseline data for these ducks in the region, they compared populations in the unoiled eastern part of Prince William Sound with those in the west where the oil came ashore.

    Based on our results and the recovery criteria (Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council 1996), harlequin ducks have not recovered from the effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.  A similar population structure in EPWS (unoiled) and WPWS (oiled) indicates that the population in oiled areas of WPWS has the potential to recover from the effects of the EVOS.  However, our trend analysis indicates that the population in oiled areas is still declining.

    From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Response and Restoration:

    Remaining Impacts

    Although Prince William Sound has proved to be surprisingly resilient, impacts from the spill remain:

        * Deeply penetrated oil continues to visibly leach from a few beaches, as on Smith Island .
        * In some areas, intertidal animals such as mussels are still contaminated by oil.
        * Some rocky sites that were stripped of heavy plant cover by high-pressure, hot-water cleaning remain mostly bare rock.
        * Rich clam beds that suffered high mortalities from oil and extensive beach cleaning have not repopulated to their previous levels.

    While these are mostly isolated examples, they provide a basis for gauging the overall recovery of oiled areas. Prince William Sound has made a remarkable recovery from a severe injury, but it remains an ecosystem in transition.

    The Encyclopedia of Earth has the most comprehensive and authoritative coverage of the spill, cleanup, and recovery of any I have found.  I am happy that my search for data for this post turned up EOEarth.  I have a lot to learn there.

    A 2001 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study surveyed 96 sites along 8,000 miles of coastline.

      The survey distinguished between surface and buried oil. Buried or subsurface oil is of greater concern than surface oil. Subsurface oil can remain dormant for many years before being dispersed and is more liquid, still toxic, and may become biologically available. A disturbance event such as burrowing animals or a severe storm reworks the beach and can reintroduce unweathered oil into the water. Results of the summer shoreline survey showed that the oil remaining on the surface of beaches in Prince William Sound is weathered and mostly hardened into an asphalt-like layer. The toxic components of this type of surface oil are not as readily available to biota, although some softer forms do cause sheens in tide pools.

    The survey indicates a total area of approximately 20 acres of shoreline in Prince William Sound are still contaminated with oil. Oil was found at 58 percent of the 91 sites assessed and is estimated to have the linear equivalent of 5.8 km of contaminated shoreline.

    In addition to the estimated area of remaining oiled beach, several other important points were evident:

       1. Surface oil was determined to be not a good indicator of subsurface oil.
       2. Twenty subsurface pits were classified as heavily oiled. Oil saturated all of the interstitial spaces and was extremely repugnant. These “worst case” pits exhibited an oil mixture that resembled oil encountered in 1989 a few weeks after the spill—highly odiferous, lightly weathered, and very fluid.
       3. Subsurface oil was also found at a lower tide height than expected (between 0 and 6 feet), in contrast to the surface oil, which was found mostly at the highest levels of the beach. This is significant, because the pits with the most oil were found low in the intertidal zone, closest to the zone of biological production, and indicate that the survey estimates are conservative at best.

    If you ask a fisherman from Kodiak Island, a villager from the town of Valdez, an Exxon engineer, or a NOAA biologist, you are likely to receive such different answers that you may wonder if they heard the same question. In particular, disagreements exist between Exxon and government-funded scientists, and unknowns persist, especially in understanding how multiple processes combine to drive observed dynamics.

    Despite this, there are some things known with a high degree of certainty: oil persisted beyond a decade in surprising amounts and in toxic forms, was sufficiently bioavailable to induce chronic biological exposures, and had long-term impacts at the population level. Three major pathways of long-term impacts emerge: (1) chronic persistence of oil, biological exposures, and population impacts to species closely associated with shallow sediments; (2) delayed population impacts of sublethal doses compromising health, growth, and reproduction; and (3) indirect effects of trophic and interaction cascades, all of which transmit impacts well beyond the acute-phase mortality.

  • Just About Halfway According to Plan

    I said earlier today:

    Greyfox plans to take advantage of the hiatus in ashfall to bring up the supplies he had accumulated before yesterday's aborted trip.  He has no space to spare in his little cabin/warehouse, and has to get his stock organized and packed in his van for a show this weekend. 

     I'm goin' to see my darlin' today!

    He got here okay.  Doug woke up, carried the heavy stuff in, and helped with the rest of it.  The dog spent a few minutes beside himself because the pack was all back together again.  Then, because Greyfox had places to be and things to do and, what with all the snow piled up in and around the driveway, his van was blocking the road, he didn't stay long.

    He was gone a few minutes and I was back online working on my Exxon Valdez spill blog, when CallWave took a message from him.  He had gone half a mile or so down the highway and noticed his car was getting hot.  He popped the hood and saw coolant sprayed around the engine compartment.  He got back in the van, called AAA, and is at this moment waiting for the tow.

    He remarked on how lucky it is that he came up here today.  Chances are, otherwise, the problem would have developed on the way to or from the gun show this weekend, which would have been much more inconvenient and probably quite costly.

  • Redoubt Volcano News and Images

    Redoubt had another explosive ash eruption around 8 PM yesterday.  There was ashfall here in the Valley, but the ash advisory had been lifted by the time I woke today.

    All images courtesy of AVO/USGS

    On March 18, Dennis Anderson captured this image from near Homer.  The steam plume has been showing on Redoubt's summit off and on for months.

    In a flyover on March 21, Cyrus Read of the Alaska Volcano Observatory captured this image of the upper vent in the summit crater.

    Then, on March 22, Redoubt eupted.

    John Bailey produced this false color satellite image of the ash cloud drifting toward the Susitna Valley at 5:30 AM March 23, 2009.

    On a flyover March 23, after the initial five explosive ash eruptions, Game McGimsey captured this image of flooding along Drift River.

    Cyrus Read of AVO captured this image of tephra deposits along the flooded Drift River.

    There is a tank farm, an oil transfer terminal, at the mouth of Drift River.  Twenty years ago, when Redoubt erupted --

    After several weeks of growing explosions, a big blast hit the lava dome, oil workers abandoned the scene by helicopter and the oil terminal was swept by a flood that turned the Drift River, briefly, into the largest river in North America.

    Federal, state and industry officials debated for weeks what to do about the [at that time] 900,000 barrels of crude stored in the river's 100-year floodplain. Oil levels were eventually reduced, then the tanks were emptied. For more than a week, that meant shutting down production on 10 Cook Inlet oil platforms, because there was no place to send the oil.

    . . .

    Information on the capacity and current contents of the terminal is classified under the federal Maritime Transportation Safety Act.

     "That's not public information," said Chevron's Roxanne Sinz. "We can't release any numbers."

    State and federal oil spill officials will go a bit further. They say the storage at Drift River is being reduced this week. But they won't say by how much.
    . . .

     The secrecy surrounding Drift River this week was exasperating to Bob Shavelson, executive director of the environmental group Cook Inlet Keeper. What's a bigger danger to the oil terminal, he asked Friday -- the volcano or al-Qaida?

    "It's a perfect example of using terrorism to mask a public concern," Shavelson said. "How do you have an adequate oil spill response if you don't know the volume?"

    A tanker is now at Drift River taking on oil, U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman Sara Francis in Anchorage said Friday. The tanker will carry the product to Nikiski, where Tesoro has a refinery.

    But Francis said she did not know how much oil would be left at the Drift River terminal.

    The oil industry publication, Petroleum News, says "Drift River terminal is ready for anything."  To that, I say, "Yeah, right."
    AVO can't say how long we are going to be watching ashfall advisories even more carefully than we usually watch the weather reports.  No matter what anyone says, nobody can reliably predict how secure the Drift River Terminal is against volcanic activity.   A spokesperson for Cook Inlet Keeper, without saying where the information came from, said that the terminal now stores 5 or 6 million gallons of oil.

    Speaking of oil, and enviromental disasters, since my entry last week about the Exxon Valdez spill, I have been working on another piece, based on research, rather than the personal experience I reported that time.  It still needs work, but will probably be posted today or tomorrow.

  • Designer Clothes from Dumpsters

    This morning, I heard a discussion on public radio of the "culture of poverty."  They talked and talked and failed to reach a conclusion on what that phrase really means.  Some people believe that being born to and growing up in poverty causes a mentality that keeps a person in poverty.  Others believe that families are poor because God made them that way, if God likes them he will give them money, and if they have aspirations above their stations it will be bad for both them and society.  Still others believe that people born to poverty can "better" themselves if given a level playing field.

    As I view reality, opinion A above is demonstrably true in many instances; opinion B is nonsense and I am being kind and generous expressing that in such mild terms; opinion C could be true, but how would we know?  Our society often doesn't even give the poor what they need to survive, much less to thrive or prosper, and still there are individuals who take their disadvantages as challenges and excel.  I would also quibble with the concept that a person is made better by the mere fact of gaining prosperity.

    My attention was caught recently by a featured blog asking if wearing designer clothes really indicates that the wearer is a snob.  Okay, I know it's unfair picking on that.  The blogger is obviously young and naive, culturally disadvantaged through having had a limited range of social contacts and experiences, and probably economically privileged.  I had to comment, anyway.  I denied being a snob, said I wear designer clothes often, and I get them from dumpsters.

    My family lives below the poverty line.  There is no question of that.  But we do it with some style.  We don't struggle... much.  Sometimes we do without some things.  Many things most Americans take for granted, we simply accept are beyond our means, but we have lots of things that people with greater incomes than ours do without.  Some of that is just the result of choices.  A family with marginal resources could cut the food budget so they can afford a better house, or do without an internet connection to afford music lessons.   There are many such differences, based on preferences or values.

    When I go to town, I see people walking around in worn clothing that is clean, but was obviously cheap to begin with and has been washed many times.  Then I see them climb into a shiny new car or truck.  They made a choice, one that is not open to my family because the shiny new vehicle would be way beyond our means.  I have also seen looks of astonishment on some of those faces when they see us, in our designer clothes, crawl into my rusted-out old Subaru.

    I wonder, sometimes, whether those people don't know that they could have designer clothes at no cost, not even what they pay for their WalMart specials, and that they can maintain their wardrobes more cheaply by throwing away their dirty clothes than by washing them at the laundromat.  Is it that they don't know, or is it that they would rather run around raggedy in their shiny truck than dive into a dumpster after designer clothes?  Idle curiosity... I don't need to know.  Here's what I need to know:

    Clothing found in dumpsters is likely to originally have been more expensive, and be in better condition, than most of that found at a Salvation Army or Goodwill store.  Middle- to lower-class people are more likely to donate their castoffs to such organizations than rich people are.  They are also more likely to wear their clothing longer before discarding it, and/or to wear it out and turn it into rags rather than discard it.  Of course, the neighborhood where the dumpster resides has a lot to do with the quality of its contents.

    The neighborhood where Greyfox has his roadside stand in summer, a long strip of cabins and storage units known variously as Felony Flats or Ghetto Lakes, seems unlikely to produce much high class mungo (AKA "scrounge" or "salvage").  We were surprised by the bounty he found there.  Residents tend to be transient.  Many land there fresh from a divorce, or temporarily on their way out of Alaska.  Some land there when they fall on hard times, and when things only get worse they sneak away owing rent and leaving behind things they can't carry -- things that astound us by their variety and value.

    It is true that I could maintain my wardrobe less expensively by tossing out the dirty clothes than by shelling out the $30-$35 it costs for a trip to the laundromat -- and my hoard of dirty clothes would take maybe three or four of those five-load trips to launder them all.  It is not as if there isn't a steady supply of wearable garbage. 

    I have thrown away a few things, one trash bag full in the past year, since I have been both too broke and too ill to do the laundry.  The few things I toss are generally not worth keeping: ragged, moldy, etc.  I'm hoarding dirty clothes.  I have to do something about that.  I could give up my internet connection to pay for one laundromat trip a month, but let's be real here.

    I'm in a bind over this, really.  Greyfox keeps giving me good clothes, but I like my good old clothes too, and I'm strongly programmed against waste.  It is becoming an issue of storage space, too.  If I don't keep the things, I should at least give them to someone who can use them, but it is so infra dig to give somebody dirty clothes.  Donating them to a thrift shop would only cause somebody inconvenience and unpleasantness, and the clothes would be thrown away anyhow -- see my bind?

  • Off the Hook - with Iditarod Update (possibly the last one of 2009)

    Greyfox turned on his phone, got my messages, and decided to stay in Wasilla today.  I called the clinic and canceled our appointments.  The ashfall advisory has been extended to noon, so ours are probably not the only cancellations due to volcano this morning.

    Instead of the fatigue and aggravation of going to the clinic, and probably days of recovery afterward, I can make a fresh batch of gluten-free sugarless muffins (love my bean flour!) today, and there will be plenty of time to find details from yesterday's Iditarod Awards Banquet (image below from iditarod.com) and blog about it.

    UPDATE at 10:41 AM:
    On second thought, if you want to know who won what (it was mostly a sweep by Lance Mackey), you can find the official awards at iditarod.com.  Last time I checked the standings, everyone still on the trail was either out of White Mountain on the way to Nome, or waiting out the mandatory layover in White Mountain.  Heather Siirtola moved out in front of Tim Hunt, and will be eligible to leave White Mountain almost two hours before he is.  Unless I tell you otherwise, you may assume that Dr.Tim gets the Red Lantern.

    I have something else to blog about.

    Later.

  • Winds Have Shifted

    Elmendorf Air Force Base has told all non-essential personnel to stay home, but the Matanuska-Susitna Borough schools are in session.  Air lines have been canceling flights to and from Anchorage, and ashfall was reported early this morning at Talkeetna.  Now the ash cloud from Redoubt Volcano is blowing out toward the Alaska Range, away from population centers.

    I guess we'll go to the clinic after all... not an unmixed blessing. 

    I don't have time now to run down all the Iditarod awards from last night's banquet.  Jen Seavey and her puppy team got to Nome at 3:47, only 17 minutes after the start of the banquet, with a time from White Mountain to Nome of 9 hours 46 minutes, very fast.  The  Leonhard Seppala Humanitarian Award, "based on specific criteria to determine who has best demonstrated outstanding dog care through out the Race while remaining competitive," was awarded to Lance Mackey.

    Five teams remain on the trail.  Alan Peck scratched.  Tim Hunt and Heather Siirtola left Elim a minute apart around midnight.  One of them will probably get the Red Lantern.

    More, later....

  • Redoubt Volcano Has Erupted

    There have been five eruptions reported between 10:30 last night and 4:40 this morning.  The height of the ash cloud (50,000 feet above sea level) and weather patterns, mean that ashfall is expected over the Susitna Valley.  Ashfall has been reported at Skwentna, and is predicted for Talkeenta, Willow, and Cantwell.  I live between Willow and Talkeetna, and the whole family has appointments at the clinic, between here and Talkeetna, this morning.  Greyfox plans to drive up from Wasilla about 8:00.  I hope he listens to his radio or turns on his cell phone so he'll get his voice mail before he leaves.

  • I'm still here... and "here" is still Alaska.

    Can you stand just a little bit of Palin?  She's still here, alas and alack, and as lacking in brain function as ever.

    On Thursday, the idiot who runs this state (when she's not Outside somewhere meddling in some other state's affairs or setting herself up to run for empress of everything) said she, "would accept just 55%," of the stimulus money the state was offered by the federal government.  Reporters questioned her and she expanded on the statement, revealing that part of what she was rejecting was targeted at education, specifically for low income and special needs students.

    Early Friday, the Superintendent of the Anchorage School District, Carol Comeau, expressed her opposition to that decision.  Later on Friday, media reported that the legislature was moving to pick up any money the governor had turned down.  Later still, the barracuda in lipstick said she never said she was rejecting any money.

    I really appreciate the way Alaska's media have turned on her since she showed her true colors as McCain's running mate.  For a while, most of them seemed dazzled by her, for reasons I could never grasp.  Some time ago, after Sarah had been making noises about maybe running for the U.S. Senate, I heard one reporter gleefully, and rather cattily, I thought, especially for a man, say that Senator Lisa Murkowski had warned her to keep her hands off her Senate seat.

    Hey!  It's not so cold today.  The temperature is approximately as far above zero this morning as it was below zero yesterday, about a thirty degree difference.  It feels so warm in here that I didn't bother to put on my hooded sweatshirt this morning.  My feet were cold all day yesterday, and I took a hot water bottle to bed with me last night to help thaw the feet and ease some of the knots in my muscles, put there by the cold.  Then warmer air moved in -- dumped some more snow, of course, but at least my shoulders aren't up around my ears today.

    If you have not yet entered, or nominated anyone el$e, for the gift$ of Premium Xanga I am trying to give away at my other $ite, or if you have already entered but know of $omebody el$e who$e $ite might look better without the ad$, plea$e GO HERE and tell me where to look for conte$tant$.  Rule$ are few and flexible, it co$t$ nothing to enter, and $o far there i$ not a lot of competition.  I way overe$timated the intere$t in thi$.  You guy$ all love ad$?  ...keep them on your $ite$ for the bright color$ and brilliant ad copy, and not becau$e of the co$t of making them go away?

    Doug is scheduled to get on here for some online gaming this afternoon, at the same time that the Iditarod Awards Banquet is scheduled to start in Nome.  Unless his game is canceled, I won't be able to report on the awards until tomorrow, or possibly tonight if I'm up to it when he is finished.

    There is one little story [edit:  okay, two or three and a picture, since I still have the machine for a while and I picked up some news.] I want to share today.  Jen Seavey (here with her husband Dallas), near the back of the pack throughout the race, with a team of pups in training, seems to be making her move to get to Nome to attend the banquet with Dallas (who finished 6th) and her father-in-law Mitch, who finished two positions ahead of Dallas last Thursday.  She dropped one slow pup at Eagle Island four days ago, and immediately picked up the pace.  Yesterday she dropped another one in Koyuk and the team gained about 1 MPH in speed. 

    Jen left White Mountain this morning just before six AM with her remaining 14 fast puppies (they are yearlings, but "puppy" sounds sweeter, is the common musher term, and I'd bet they still are eating rich puppy rations).  Can she make it to Nome in time for today's banquet, which starts in about five and a half hours from now, nine and a half hours from when she left White Mountain?  She would need some flying puppies for that, I think.  Average time White Mountain to Nome for the top 3 finishers (Mackey, Schunelle, and Baker) was ten hours, five minutes.  Average time on that run for the latest three finishers yesterday (Karin Hendricson, Cindy Gallea and Mike Williams) was 12 hours 53 minutes.

    I don't know what her puppies can do, and I don't think she does, either, because she would not be pushing them.  That wouldn't be a prudent strategy at this stage of their careers.  She will let them run.  I'm guessing that whenever they get to Nome there will be a large and distinguished crowd there to greet them.  She is next up, in 43rd position, nobody on the trail between her and the Burled Arch, Tom Thurston's team more than two hours behind, Osmar, Scdoris and Wade Marrs not eligible to leave White Mountain until after the banquet begins, and every team that has finished the 2009 Iditarod, just about everyone who is anyone in distance dog mushing, is in Nome for that banquet today.  I'd be there too, if I could.

     
    Photo above by Al Grillo of AP, shows winning lead dogs Larry, on the right, and Maple, looking sweet as maple surple on the left.  Lance Mackey, their buddy there in the middle, says that Maple is the new star leader of his kennel, after Larry committed several "boner" mistakes this year.

    Info in indented text below is from adn.com.

    David Sawatzky of Healy scratched late Saturday afternoon only a few miles from the finish in Nome. Sawatzky, 56, had about 15 dogs and was walking ahead of the team for several miles after leaving Safety before deciding to call it quits at about 5 p.m., officials said.

    Wow!  So near and yet so far....   Apparently, his dogs weren't enthusiastic about going along with him, and he decided to go along with them.

    Omen and Maynard, the two dogs that died late this week in the Iditarod, had fluid in their lungs, race marshal Mark Nordman reported Saturday.

    Necropsies showed that both dogs had pulmonary edema, possibly because cardiac abnormalities prevented their hearts from moving fluid out of their lungs. Further tests are pending, Nordman reported.

    In light of the latest dog deaths, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals escalated its annual letter-writing campaign to persuade Iditarod sponsors to withdraw their support. More than 2,700 people have participated, according to spokeswoman Desiree Acholla.

    "Racing dogs to their death is indefensible, yet the death toll rises year after year [UNTRUE!] and the race continues with business as usual," she said.

    One vital part of the usual business of everyone involved in the Iditarod is progress -- advancements in veterinary medicine, canine nutrition and the routines of dog care.  People have already learned a great deal in those areas, and continue to do so.  This year the death toll rose over last year's, probably because of extreme weather.  Five deaths is not as many as were suffered in earlier years of the race.  It would be stupid to view this as a trend.

    Nobody in the Iditarod or on the support staff is as callous as PETA tries to make them out to be, or as hypocritical as PETA is in criticizing the few deaths of canine Iditarod athletes, while killing large numbers of unwanted dogs on a regular basis in the shelters they run.

    At least one animal welfare group -- the Humane Society of the United States -- no longer actively campaigns against the Iditarod, although officials aren't endorsing it either.

    They acknowledge, however, the event's significance in commemorating the work of dog teams that were sent on the trail in 1925 to bring diphtheria serum to Nome to combat a deadly outbreak.

    "I would like to see the Iditarod celebrate the history and culture of the event and not be just a timed event, but they're trying to make it as safe as they can for both the animals and humans," said Dave Pauli, the humane society's Western region director.