Uncle Ted's excellent indictment - July 30, 2008
For those of you who haven't picked up the Washington Post or New York Times today, a scandal is rocking the US political scene. Alaskan senator Ted Stevens, the Senate's longest-serving Republican ever, has been indicted on seven counts of perjury for taking over $250,000 in undisclosed gifts from Veco Oil.
The gifts apparently include a new first floor for his house (which was added, extravagantly, by lifting the entire house off the ground), and a Viking range grill, which any American will tell you is a very nice grill indeed.
A good BBQ set may have been one reason why the 84-year-old senator campaigned relentlessly (and ultimately in vain) to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. He was much hated by environmentalists, although he had recently begun supporting one version of climate change legislation that has been circulating congress over the past year or so.
But "Uncle Ted" is really famous for funneling US tax dollars up north. Most memorably, Stevens pushed hard for a $400 million "bridge to nowhere" that would have connected the city of Ketchican Ketchikan to nearby Garvina Island. But he was also a capricious funder of science… so long as it was in the great State of Alaska.
We've written about a few of his pet projects: a massive, $120 million dollar study of stellar steller sea-lions that yielded little, and a giant antenna known as the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), which is studying the aurora. A lot of people, though, suspected it was some kind of government mind-control project.
Interestingly enough, one of those people is Nick Begich, the brother of Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (Democrat), who might win Steven's seat in the Senate if he resigns. If that were to happen, it could spell big trouble for HAARP.
Comments
I am a little confused what this post is doing in a Nature blog. I live in New Jersey which is the most corrupt and most polluted state in the nation. We have more Superfund sites than you can shake a stick at. We have hyperdermic needles on our beaches and recently a welder accidentally set the 'dirt' on fire it was so polluted.
We have politicians who are jailed almost monthly for the same thing Stevens is now accused of. I don't recall ever seeing a post here about that before? Why is that?
Perhaps it is because... the most polluted and most corrupt state in the nation is exempt from your criticism because it is a Democrat stronghold and you only criticize Republicans?
Naturally... the Democrats are friends of the environment... move to Jersey and tell me if that is really true.
Posted by: Jeff Sullivan | July 31, 2008 01:32 AM
I would have more confidence in your opinions if you got your background data straight. It's Ketchikan, not Ketchican, and Steller Sea Lion, not Stellar.
Posted by: Lewis Austin | July 31, 2008 05:29 PM