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The mayor of North Pole, Alaska is calling a recent postal service decision an assault on Christmas. For years, the U.S. Postal Service has delivered thousands of letters to Santa Claus in North Pole, Alaska. Now, in the interest of efficiency and security, the post office has changed its policy. It will no longer deliver letters to Santa here, and requests for a North Pole postmark will be filled through its Anchorage office. The decision has angered many residents, most notably the owner of the area’s primary attraction, the Santa Claus house.

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Former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said Thursday he has read Sarah Palin's book and has no regrets about picking her as a running mate. (snip) He also said if Mrs. Palin decides to run for president in 2012 and becomes the Republican Party nominee he would vote for her. "I hope she has every success," Mr. McCain said. "She's still pretty popular."

The U.S. Army now says it will allow media limited access to Sarah Palin's appearance at Fort Bragg. The Associated Press and The Fayetteville Observer objected and the military changed its position slightly on Thursday night. It will grant a pool of reporters restricted access to Monday's appearance. Buckner said the setup will allow reporters their right to access .

While record low temperatures were recorded elsewhere in Interior Alaska, Fairbanks has been an island of relative warmth. That could end tonight or Friday as the low clouds and flurries that have blanketed the area move out, according to the National Weather Service. Lows could drop to 35 below zero Friday night, according to Allura Weimer, hydrological meteorological technician at the National Weather Service. Normal temperatures range from 9 above to 9 below zero. The record low for Thursday is 33 below zero, set in 1969.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Starry-eyed children writing letters to the jolly man at the North Pole this holiday season likely won't get a response from Santa Claus or his helpers. The U.S. Postal Service is dropping a popular national program begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole, where volunteers open and respond to thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. Replies come with North Pole postmarks. Last year, a postal worker in Maryland recognized an Operation Santa volunteer there as a registered sex offender.

It has often been said that today's rank-and-file conservative is "anti-elite." I've always been uncomfortable with that characterization because — in my experience — conservatives are quite respectful of certain kinds of elites, like elite soldiers, elite athletes, and talented musicians and other artists (provided those artists don't believe that their abilities also provide them with unique insight into, say, health-care policy or war strategy). The elite that conservatives tend to disdain is the contemporary intellectual (or academic) elite, not because intellectual excellence isn't obtainable or worth respecting but because we look at what what passes for academic thinking these...

<p>Contact your Senators and let them know what you think!</p> <p>U.S. veterans or subsidies for United Nations (U.N.) bureaucracy.</p>

WASHINGTON — Palin-Beck 2012? Sarah Palin has suggested Fox News firebrand Glenn Beck could be someone she'd consider as a running mate if she makes a bid for the White House in two years. "I can envision a couple of different combinations, if ever I were to be in a position to really even seriously consider running for anything in the future, and I'm not there yet," Palin told the conservative news agency Newsmax as she promoted her memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life." "But Glenn Beck I have great respect for. He's a hoot. He gets his message across...

WASHINGTON, Nov 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Senator John McCain on Wednesday strongly defended the top advisers from his 2008 presidential campaign in the face of sharp criticism from his vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin. McCain, in a telephone interview with Reuters, singled out campaign manager Steve Schmidt and senior adviser Nicolle Wallace for praise after Palin blasted the pair in her memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life." "There's been a lot of dust flying around in the last few days and I just wanted to mention that I have the highest regard for Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace...

The pickings are apparently so slim in the linguistics field that three University of Wisconsin-Madison linguists took on the conundrum of Sarah Palin's speech patterns. That's how it was reported, a conundrum, suggesting that they went off in search of a solution to a problem that didn't exist. Now, it was pretty good fun when Tina Fey took on Palin. There was one episode of "Saturday Night Live'' when Palin was a guest and Fey and Palin were on the set at the same time. I didn't know who was who. There were cards wandering around Foggy Bottom who had...

Depictions ‘took place entirely in her imagination,’ says Wallace. NBC NEWS and NEWS SERVICES NEW YORK - Former McCain campaign senior adviser Nicolle Wallace says Sarah Palin's book "Going Rogue" is "based on fabrications," and that the basis for Palin’s depictions of her and former McCain campaign director Steve Schmidt as villains "took place entirely in her imagination." In a statement to The Rachel Maddow Show, the former McCain spokesperson repeatedly used the word "fiction" to describe Palin's narrative and echoed criticisms by other former McCain staffers. "She [Palin] probably has a legitimate complaint that things could have been better...

Despite the fact that Sarah Palin uses her new book to air her grievances with John McCain's presidential campaign team, McCain reportedly said he enjoyed reading Palin's book. "I hope she sells lots of them," McCain told the Hill newspaper.

The U.S. Obama administration put its mark in the overwhelmingly Republican state of Alaska, asking Alaska pipeline coordinator Drue Pearce to step down, according to U.S. news sources Monday. Vice Admiral Thomas Barrett, USCG (Ret.), the deputy federal coordinator, will be interim coordinator until a permanent replacement is named. Pearce, a former Alaska Senate president, had been appointed federal coordinator of Alaska natural gas transportation projects by former President George W. Bush 2006. A terse statement by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska lamented the move, adding "I regret the loss of Drue's experience and knowledge on this project, but I understand...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who spoke to The Hill Monday evening, denied Sarah Palin's allegation that his campaign stuck her with a $50,000 legal bill to pay for the cost of vetting her as a potential vice presidential candidate. McCain said the bill was for legal work related to allegations that Palin made improper use of her influence as Alaska's governor to press for the dismissal of a state trooper named Mike Wooten. Wooten was embroiled in a custody dispute with Palin's younger sister, Molly McCann. "That was addressed by Trevor Potter," said McCain, "That was over the troopergate." In...

After the New England Patriots disasterous decision Sunday night not to punt on fourth down with the ball on the Indianapolis Colts' 28-yard line, former Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney, had every right to be ticked off. Especially considering that the Pats had the lead with little more than 2 minutes left in the game. Is it possible that the team's supposedly brilliant coach, Bill Belichick, got confused and thought the Manning brother waiting patiently on the opposing sidelines was Eli and not Peyton? Whatever the case, the Colts went on to win the game with 13 seconds left in the...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Fewer than three in 10 Americans think Sarah Palin's qualified to be president, according to a new national poll - the least of any of the five potential candidates included in the survey. But another woman tops that list in the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday: two-thirds of the public thinks that Secretary of State HIllary Clinton's qualified for the Oval Office. That's more than Vice President Joe Biden, who's currently next in line for the presidency. According to the poll, 28 percent of Americans say Palin is qualified to run the White House, with seven...

John McCain has asked his former campaign aides not to speak out against the charges Sarah Palin levels in her book, NBC news reports. This news comes after a number of former staffers anonymously blasted Palin's recount of the 2008 campaign. "John McCain offered her the opportunity of a lifetime, and during the campaign it seems that, for all of her mistakes, she is searching for people to blame," an aide said last week. "We don't need to go through this again." Even as NBC reported McCain's request, they included another swipe at her book from a former campaign aide....

This is one reason why we NEED overall general tort reform. Juan Williams and Bob Schieffer had best stop trying to rewrite history. Both of these guys claim either Gov. Sarah Palin left her position as governor for no reason or she could not handle the job. Both are lies. Both are liars and I’m sick of it. For those of you who refuse to actually read her resignation speech, or completely ignore what was going on in Alaska before, during and after the 2008 campaign, I guess I have to spend some time reminding you.

WASHINGTON - Sarah Palin is embarking on what is likely to be the most commercially successful book tour by a politician since Barack Obama launched The Audacity of Hope three years ago. Obama's book tour spawned a presidential campaign. Will Palin's eventually do the same? Her ultimate ambitions remain a mystery. The opening stage of the tour for her book, Going Rogue, has been marked by the same qualities that have defined the public reaction to her since that morning in Ohio when she was announced as John McCain's choice for vice president: curiosity and controversy. Give Palin credit. She...

When Sarah Palin burst onto the national political stage there was a lot of talk about her distinctive way of talkin', you betcha. Heck, she moved to Alaska when she was too young to speak and grew up in the small town of Wasilla, but doggone it, why did she talk like someone from the movie "Fargo"? Three University of Wisconsin-Madison linguists tackled the conundrum in a research article to be published in the Journal of English Linguistics next month. The answer lies in something that happened in the 1930s. During the presidential campaign, almost every aspect of Palin's life,...

WASHINGTON (CNN) - John McCain's former presidential campaign manager Steve Schmidt is the latest McCain adviser to cry foul over accusations Sarah Palin has penned in her yet to be released memoir "Going Rogue." Excerpts obtained by The Huffington Post characterize Schmidt in an unfavorable light, particularly in reference to the prank phone call Palin received from someone pretending to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "Right away, the phones started ringing," Palin writes. "One of the first calls was Schmidt, and the force of his screaming blew my hair back. 'How can anyone be so stupid?! Why would the president...

A former top adviser and spokeswoman to John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign is pushing back against comments reportedly made by Sarah Palin in her new book. Nicolle Wallace tells CNN that Palin's account of an ill-fated interview with CBS's Katie Couric during the 2008 presidential campaign is not true.

“Going Rogue,” the title of Sarah Palin’s erratic new memoir, comes from a phrase used by a disgruntled McCain aide to describe her going off-message during the campaign: among other things, for breaking with the campaign over its media strategy, its decision to pull out of Michigan and for speaking out about reports that the Republican Party had spent more than $150,000 on fancy designer duds for her and her family. In fact, the most sustained and vehement barbs in this book are directed not at Democrats or liberals or the press, but at the McCain campaign. The very campaign...

Sarah Palin's new book "Going Rogue" is set for release on Nov. 17 and with that will likely come a media blitz of epic proportions. However, based on the cover of the Nov. 23 issue of Newsweek, someone felt a response was warranted. The wizards of smart at Newsweek took an image from a shoot of Palin that originally appeared in Runner's World magazine for the cover and splashed the headlines, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?" and "She's Bad News for the GOP - and For Everybody Else, Too." ...more (with bare-legged Palin cover)...

Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff vowed Friday night to attack the policies of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, saying the Conservative leader's four years in power gives him lots of political ammunition. .... Ignatieff said U.S. President Barack Obama is spending six times more per capita on clean energy than Canada. The Conservatives are spending less per capita on renewable energy than Alaska, he said. "You know who comes from Alaska, don't you," said Ignatieff, drawing a laugh. "So when it comes to clean energy, Stephen Harper isn't just behind Barack Obama, he's behind Sarah Palin."

We Alaskans have a very special relationship to our environment. The land is our back yard. We use it for recreation and subsistence. The land has provided our livelihood, for the people and for the state. Alaska is a land of amazing natural beauty, and the resources that underlie that beauty are what sustains our economy. Responsible development, sustainable yield, and resource stewardship were written into the constitution and statutes when Alaska became a state 50 years ago, and have been part of how we have developed our natural resources ever since. When Alaska Statehood was being debated, a major...

In 1968 the discovery of the giant Prudhoe Bay field, the first field to be discovered on Alaska’s North Slope and among the 20 largest oil fields ever discovered worldwide, triggered a northern Alaska oil industry that now includes 19 producing oil fields, all feeding oil into the trans-Alaska oil pipeline for transportation to the Valdez Marine Terminal 800 miles to the south. In fact, the totality of northern Alaska consists of five distinct geologic regions: the Brooks Range, the Brooks Range foothills (also known as the Arctic foothills), the North Slope (also known as the Arctic coastal plain), the...

The Resource Development Council (RDC) has been at the forefront of efforts to convince the Obama administration to provide for a seamless transition to new oil and gas leasing programs in the future that will expand access to the nation’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). RDC strongly supports access to the OCS, especially in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, and the North Aleutian Basin. The responsible development of potentially immense oil and gas deposits in Alaska would significantly boost the state’s economy, extend the life of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, improve the economic viability of the proposed natural gas pipeline from...

Inhabitants of the self-obsessed Beltway political world already have a beef with Sarah Palin's new memoir, "Going Rogue." Political types in Washington make a show of turning up their noses at actually buying and reading such books, but familiar faces can regularly be spotted in store aisles anyway scanning for their names in the index. Sarah Palin's book won't have an index, denying Beltway habitués the instant gratification of knowing whether they are included. Instead, political and media types who want to know if they figure in accounts of her conflicts with the McCain campaign or with major news media...

Grieving soldiers and families at Fort Hood, Texas, will get a visit from Sarah Palin next month as part of her national book tour, her publisher told Washington Wire.

<p>In her new book, according to the Associated Press, Sarah Palin alleges that the McCain campaign gave her a $500,000 bill to pay for the campaign vetting her for the VP nod. She also makes the charge that the McCain camp said they would have paid all the bills had they won, but since they lost, the bills were her responsibility.</p>

Sarah Palin and her almost-son-in-law Levi Johnston have been in a war of words for months, but the former Alaska governor told Oprah Winfrey in just-released clips of the highly-anticipated interview that he is still "part of the family." While not directly saying whether or not Johnston is invited to Thanksgiving dinner, Palin said her family still has affection for Johnston. "It's lovely to think that he would ever even consider such a thing," Palin told Winfrey. "Because of course you want - he is a part of the family and you want to bring him in the fold and...

Get ready, America. Like her or not, Sarah Palin is coming to a city near you. Last year's Republican vice presidential nominee is starting a book tour next week to promote her memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life." Is it a thinly-veiled bid to test the waters for a possible 2012 Republican presidential bid, or simply an effort to make money and cement her celebrity status?

Nervous and curious McCain-Palin staffers have been buzzing for weeks with speculation about what Sarah Palin has chosen to include in “Going Rogue.” Books have begun being shipped out in advance of the November 17th release date. Last week, some of Palin's associates received copies. Based on discussions with various sources who have seen or been briefed on the book's contents, here's what you can expect from “Going Rogue”: * just five chapters—but they are very, very long. * some score settling with McCain aides she believes ill-served her (names will be named). * a hearty bashing of the national...

<p>ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Suspected swine flu is sweeping a traditional Eskimo whaling village on a remote Alaska island — prompting an urgent medical mission to deliver help.</p> <p>"Diomede is probably the most isolated place in the United States right now," said David Head, a doctor involved in the effort. "We thought it would be better to go out there and just vaccinate people."</p>

A drive for a Personhood Amendment has been launched in Alaska. The proposed amendment would call for recognition of all human beings from the biological beginning of their development. Chris Kurka, who is leading the campaign, talked with television station KTUU. "The state's responsibility is to protect our rights -- and the most fundamental of those rights is the right to life," he explains. "So what we're doing...is asking the people of the state to sign this initiative to get it on the ballot, and then to vote for it so that the unborn will be recognized as a person...

Leadership: As Palin jousts with Biden on energy independence, the government reports that we lead the world in energy reserves. From oil to gas to coal, we are sitting on prosperity. So why are we importing anything? One of the interesting sidelights of the NY-23 race was an exchange on energy independence between Vice President Joe Biden and the former governor of energy-rich Alaska, Sarah Palin. Biden, who came in to campaign for Democrat Bill Owens, was reminded of the issue of energy. "The fact of the matter is that Sarah Palin thinks the answer to energy was 'Drill, baby,...

Stay classy, MSNBC. On the day after the Republican Party showed gains in a few statewide elections and with key health care and cap-and-trade legislation pending, MSNBC went back to the well to do what it does best - attack the character of one of the network' favorite targets, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. On the Nov. 4 broadcast of MSNBC's "Countdown," with fill-in host Lawrence O'Donnell substituting for Keith Olbermann (still MIA since New Jersey gubernatorial race went Republican), Michael Musto, gay columnist for The Village Voice and author of "La Dolce Musto" dressed up as Palin and reenacted...

FAIRBANKS — An 81-year-old man was Tasered during a traffic stop last week. It is the second time since 1998 that police have had to make a show of force during a traffic stop to arrest Glen M. Wilcox, a Fairbanks-based Episcopalian priest and real estate agent. Court documents allege that officers with Eielson Air Force Base’s 354th Security Forces Squadron pulled Wilcox over just after 1 p.m. Wednesday for going 11 miles over the speed limit on the Richardson Highway. An officer, identified as a senior airman in court documents, took Wilcox’s license, registration and proof of insurance and...

Sarah Palin and Fred Thompson had the guts to do what Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and the entire Republican Party would not do. One month ago, Thompson became the first prominent national Republican to endorse Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in the New York District 23 Congressional race. Palin made an even bigger impact by endorsing Hoffman a week and a half ago. In doing so, Palin lived up to her penchant for going against the mainstream and taking on powerbrokers inside her own party. For those who have not heard about this race, local and national Republican...

David Plouffe slammed Sarah Palin on Sunday for her role in the Republican Party and the NY-23 race, saying the GOP was hanging up a sign, “No moderates need apply,” that will marginalize the party for years to come. Plouffe, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, said of Palin on NBC's “Meet the Press,” “I think we should thank John McCain for picking her.” “What’s going on in the special election in N.Y. 23, I think, is a remarkable phenomenon that could affect our politics for years to come," Plouffe said. He added that Palin, who endorsed the conservative candidate over...

WASHINGTON (CNN)– Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who came under fire from some conservatives for endorsing Dede Scozzafava in next week's special Congressional election in New York, is now backing Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.

WASHINGTON The envy of nearly every other first-time author, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's good fortune includes an advance upward of $1.25 million, an appearance on Oprah Winfrey's talk show the day before publication, and a print run of 1.5 million books for a memoir that already sits on bestseller lists. So it's no surprise that in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 17 release date of "Going Rogue: An American Life," there are plenty of other authors hoping that they, too, can sell a few books in Palin's slipstream.

On September 24, former state Representative Beverly Masek was sentenced in federal court for conspiracy to commit bribery at the federal courthouse in Anchorage. Masek admitted to accepting about $4,000 in bribes from Bill Allen, the former CEO of Veco. She also admitted to introducing legislation that would raise oil taxes, then pulling her bill after wringing a cash payment out of Allen—a bit of arm-twisting on a man who was famous for dumping cash into Alaska politics long before an FBI undercover investigation began to uncover Juneau’s Corrupt Bastards Club. U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline gave Masek, a Republican...

Levi Johnston, the estranged father of Sarah Palin's grandson, told CBS in an interview that -- among other things -- Palin had joked about her son Trig, who has Down's Syndrome. Palin has released this statement through her spokesperson Meg Stapleton, which appears to refer to Levi's agreement to pose for Playgirl magazine: We have purposefully ignored the mean spirited, malicious and untrue attacks on our family. We, like many, are appalled at the inflammatory statements being made or implied. Trig is our 'blessed little angel' who knows it and is lovingly called that every day of his life. Even...

On the dirt he has on Sarah Palin: "There are some things that I have that are huge. And I haven't said them because I'm not gonna hurt her that way... I have things that can, you know -- that would get her in trouble, and could hurt her. Will hurt her. But I'm not gonna go that far. You know, I mean, if I really wanted to hurt her, I could, very easily. But there's -- i'm not gonna do it. I'm not going that far." Says he's referring to things Palin did while she was governor of Alaska....

As Alaskans know too well, when Halloween comes around, it usually means we've entered into winter - with nights that are cold, streets that are slippery, and snow that is piling up. That is why this Halloween, Organizing for America is asking every Alaskan who supports President Obama's Health Reform Plan - whether you live in Sitka, Wasilla, North Pole, or Barrow - to join with other Alaskans in a Healthy Halloween Reverse Canvass! Instead of going door-to-door, simply let the people come to you! * Give trick-or-treaters a flier about President Obama's Health Reform Plan and a “Health Reform...

Ecology: The administration creates the mother of all protected habitats for a species whose numbers have increased since Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." It's our hopes for energy independence that are drowning. When filmmaker Phelim McAleer, whose documentary "Not Evil Just Wrong" takes apart the myths of global warming, got to ask Gore a question at the annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists, McAleer brought up the nine critical errors in Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth." A British court two years ago listed them and said they must be righted before the film could be shown in schools...

GUAM - Despite taking some time to adjust to a totally different climate that challenged them to work extra hard to do their best and challenged maintainers to keep aircraft operational, deployed airmen from Alaska's Elmendorf Air Force Base and their fleet of $140 million F-22 Raptors performed above and beyond expectation with their 36th Wing counterparts stationed at Andersen Air Force Base. As Guam News Factor reported on October 5, heavy rains on Guam caused electronics problems on the visiting Raptors during their temporary basing on island. The Air Force Times had reported that crews at Elmendorf Air Force...