On-line Opinion Magazine…OK, it's a blog

You could come down and get rowdy, and drink yourself stupid, or you could take advantage of an opportunity to make some money while helping the environment.

The state is just opened an invasive species hunt in the Everglades from today until to April 17.

For a $26 permit you get to take all of the Burmese, Indian, and African rock pythons, green anacondas, and Nile monitor lizards you can find. Local tanners pay between $5 to $10 per foot for the skins, so a single green anaconda could bring in up to $200 [or more in a few cases].

Just think, you could be supplying the leather for Paris Hilton’s next pair of Pradas.

Sure, some of the these reptiles can kill and eat you, but that’s why the state wants them gone.

The leaders are beyond Rainy Pass and everyone is beyond Skwentna. Next up is the descent to Rohn and then the stumps and moose on the Burn into Nikolai. The most current standings [11:30PM CST] are:

At Rohn
1 Sebastian Schnuelle (35)
2 John Baker (8)

Beyond Rainy Pass
3 Warren Palfrey (27)
4 Ray Redington, Jr (9)
5 Zack Steer (47)
6 Paul Gebhardt (7)
7 Sven Haltmann (42)
8 Hugh Neff (56)
9 Jeff King (15)
10 Mitch Seavey (41)
11 William “Middie” Johnson (16)^R
12 Hans Gatt (20)
13 Gerry Willomitzer (55)
14 Lance Mackey (49)
15 Cim Smyth (3)
16 Linwood Fiedler (2)
17 Aliy Zirkle (50)
18 Ryan Redington (25)
19 Martin Buser (37)
20 Dallas Seavey (19)
21 Jessie Royer (6)
22 Ken Anderson (51)
23 Sonny Lindner (44)
24 Thomas Lesatz (62)
25 Jim Lanier (43)

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I just realized I haven’t provided the trail distances between checkpoints.

Willow – Start
Yentna Station – 52 miles [84 km]
Skwentna – 34 miles [55 km]
Finger Lake – 45 miles [72 km]
Rainy Pass – 30 miles [48 km]
Rohn – 48 miles [77 km]
Nikolai – 75 miles [121 km]
McGrath – 54 miles [87 km]
Takotna – 18 miles [29 km]
Ophir – 25 miles [40 km]
Cripple – 59 miles [95 km]
Ruby – 112 miles [180 km]
Galena – 52 miles [84 km]
Nulato – 52 miles [84 km]
Kaltag – 42 miles [68 km]
Unalakleet – 90 miles [145 km]
Shaktoolik – 42 miles [68 km]
Koyuk – 48 miles [77 km]
Elim – 48 miles [77 km]
Golovin – 28 miles [45 km]
White Mountain – 18 miles [29 km]
Safety – 55 miles [88 km]
Nome – 22 miles [35 km]

The distance is from the previous checkpoint. Some teams in the early going will travel at 12 mph [20kph] or better with all 16 dogs eager to go.

Jo Becker and Ron Nixon have a nice little article in the New York Times about patriotic American corporations: U.S. enriches firms doing business with Iran

The federal government has awarded more than $107 billion in contract payments, grants and other benefits over the past decade to foreign and multinational American companies while they were doing business in Iran, despite Washington’s efforts to discourage investment there, records show.

That includes nearly $15 billion paid to companies that defied American sanctions law by making large investments that helped Iran develop its vast oil and gas reserves.

So, ACORN get a few million Federal bucks and is set up to look bad in a doctored video created by youthful offender, and Congress passes an unconstitutional bill of attainder to defund it, but US corporations are given billions in government business after having violated US trade sanction policies and laws.

Why don’t we send the board of Halliburton et al. to the same Federal prison as the people whose charities were supplying medical supplies to the Gaza Strip? The Supreme Court said they were people, and people go to prison for this sort of thing. If that’s too tough, why not just stop doing business with them?

The teams left Willow starting at 5:00PM CST [2PM local AKST] with Linwood Fiedler (2) and finishing at 7:20PM CST with Judy Currier (72). That means that Judy with have a mandatory 24-hour layover, while Linwood will have to stay 26 hours and 20 minutes.

The temperatures have been trending a bit lower, and there has been some light snow, but it still looks like a warmer than normal, rough course on both sides of Rainy Pass.

There will be a traffic jam on the trail to Yentna as the pace-setters move to the front and the rookies try to get out of the way. This something that has to take place early as the opportunities become limited once the teams encounter the mountains.

The first position changes won’t be official until the Yentna checkpoint.

Note: This post will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.

All posts on the Iditarod can be seen by selecting “Iditarod” from the Category box on the right sidebar.

The Local Puppy Trainer reports that a Democrat enters District 4 state House race

A Democrat has thrown her hat and a monkey wrench into the ring in the special election for the District 4 state House.

Navarre resident Jan Fernald paid her qualifying fee Friday to join the five Republican men campaigning for the job. Friday was the last day to qualify to run.

Because she is a Democrat, Fernald’s entry in the race closes the March 23 primary and extends the special election calendar to April 13, when a general election will be held.

Because of the way the district boundaries were created after the 2000 Census, the party primaries have become the de facto election in many areas of Florida, including the Panhandle. As a result of a lot of pressure the election law was changed so that if the primary will determine the seat, the primary is open, i.e. everyone can vote in it.

That happened in one election cycle following the introduction of the law. After that, magically someone appears to run for the office, so the primary can be closed. I have never heard of Ms Fernald, and so I don’t want anyone to assume that I’m saying that this is anything other than a coincidence that she should decide to run at the last possible date. It’s just another one of those strange coincidences that seems to occur in the Florida electoral system… in every election.

All 71 teams managed to stay in line for the 11 mile parade through Anchorage to the Campbell Airstrip, where dogs and sleds were loaded back onto trucks and taken the 50 miles to Willow, where the real racing begins.

The big news was apparently the Scots who were supporters of their laddies in the race showing up in kilts. Apparently few Alaskans know what the weather is like in the Highlands.

There has been light snow along the route, but nothing like the deep pack of last year.

Update: I forgot to mention that this year they are going to do drug testing of the mushers as well as the dogs. That should be interesting…

I don’t think so. As predictable as buzzards returning to Hinckley, Ohio, the
Florida House speaker promises no new taxes. He also promised no fee increases. This must mean they have found a new things to call fees.

They used the stimulus money that all good Florida Republican Congresscritters voted against to plug some of the gaping holes in this year’s budget, and that money is gone, so the new budget will be even deeper in the red.

The state depends on the sales tax and property taxes to fund government. They have cut the property tax at the same time the assessed valuation of property is in the tank, and sales tax revenue has fallen over the cliff. There is a real possibility that the population of the state has fallen for the first time anyone can remember, so the census will probably reduce Federal payments.

The state lost millions in its money market fund when Lehman Brothers crashed and burned, and they have been raiding other funds to cover the shortfalls cause by their ill-advised tax policies. All of their fiscal incompetence is going to be on display in this budget and the “free market fairy” is not going to wave a wand and make it better.

OK, so tomorrow is really a parade of the mushers from Anchorage to Campbell Airstrip, and the real racing starts on Sunday from Willow.

There has been a noticeable lack of substantial snowfall on the southern half of the course, which will make for some rough riding and problems steering. So far things have gotten a little colder than last week, but heat will still be a concern when the dogs would prefer temperatures below 20°F [-7°C].

Teams leave Willow at two minute intervals, with the time difference adjusted at the 24-hour stop, i.e. the team that left Willow last can leave after 24 hours, but the team that left first will have over 2 hours added to their stop.

In addition to the 24-hour stop, the teams must make an 8-hour stop on the Yukon, and everyone has an 8-hour stop at White Mountain. The stops have to be at checkpoints, and they can’t be combined.

The trail around Rainy Pass through the Alaska Range is probably the hardest on sleds and mushers, as the climb and descent involve a lot of switch-backs and mountain hugging. With a snow deficit, it will be nastier than normal.

If the wind kicks up around the Norton Sound, blizzard conditions and wind chills below -40°[same in F & C] are quite common.

The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Iditarod, the numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers, and the small “R” indicates a rookie.

The Iditarod posts will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.

All posts on the Iditarod can be seen by selecting “Iditarod” from the Category box on the right sidebar.

Below the fold is the starting grid:

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A Tourist

Nom..Nom..Nom.

[Editor: This fluffy orange tabby tom showed up for a nosh. He's been here a couple of days. The feral females won't let another female hang around, but the toms don't care as long as new toms don't get in a dominance battle.]

Friday Ark

I just noticed that my BBC history widget has this:

1770: British troops kill three members of a mob in the ‘Boston Massacre’ – a propaganda coup for the colonials.

They are still sore about out little disagreement. Come on, you could have had the Shrubbery as your Prime Minister, not that Tony Blair was a major improvement. Hmm, Reagan – Thatcher, then Bush – Blair… pretty scary, actually.

[Note, it is already March 5 in Britain; it changes at 6PM CST]

One of the first things on the Florida legislature’s agenda is to put off the automatic increase in the unemployment insurance premium that kicked in when the unemployment rate went above 10%. Since they don’t ever want to be accused of raising taxes, the Republicans insert “triggers” into bills, automatic increases that don’t require a vote. Being Republicans, they never imagined that the trigger would actually be pulled.

They have the trigger backwards, but they will never understand why. Republicans have never understood the concept of storing up during good times, so you have the resources you need during bad times. If there is extra revenue in a year, they either spend it or cut another tax. They don’t understand that the fiscally conservative thing to do would be to put it in the “rainy day fund”, so that when hard times hit, they don’t have to make drastic cuts or increase “fees”.

Everyone is probably familiar with the fable, attributed to Aesop, of The Ant and the Grasshopper. Republicans claim to be “Ants”, but that’s absurd on its face. Ants are social creatures who work for the good of their community, while Grasshoppers are only concerned with themselves. Ants are concerned with the future, while Grasshoppers can’t see beyond the current quarter. Ants go about the business of life, while Grasshoppers jump around and make a lot noise. Ants build societies, while Grasshoppers build nothing.