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The legend of the Alaskan bush pilot is infused with feats accomplished in aircraft that are rarely seen anywhere else. We have all seen the videos of pilots landing on sand bars and in tight tree-lined mountainous areas. Each year at the Valdez Fly-In and Air Show they celebrate the tradition and skill of the bush pilot with the Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) competition.

The bodies of the four young men were discovered early on Sunday, hung upside down by their feet from a bridge near a wealthy area of Cuernavaca, a leafy city about an hour outside Mexico City, where many of the nation's elite own homes. The victims' genitals, index fingers and heads had been cut off, according to a statement from the attorney general's office in Morelos state, which includes Cuernavaca. Their heads and genitals were found nearby, along with a handmade sign, the statement said. "This will happen to everyone that helps the traitor Edgar Valdes," the placard read, referring...

Several have sent word that a YouTube video of recently assassinated lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg has sent Guatemala into a tailspin. The video of Rosenberg claims that if you are watching, he has been murdered by President Alvaro Colom with help from presidential secretary Gustavo Alejos. "The video spread across the Internet after family members handed it out during Rosenberg's funeral on Monday. In the 18-minute tape, a seemingly calm Rosenberg, sitting behind a desk and microphone, alleges that Colom, the First Lady and two associates were involved in murder, corruption and money laundering. The group, he says, filtered public funds...

COVINGTON, La. – An untested procedure to plug the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico seemed to be working, officials said Thursday, but new estimates showed the spill has already surpassed the Exxon Valdez as the worst in U.S. history. A team of scientists trying to determine how much oil has been flowing since the offshore rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 and sank two days later found the rate was more than twice and possibly up to five times as high as previously thought. The fallout from the spill has stretched all the way to Washington, where...

The disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill pushed into the Mississippi River Delta yesterday with high winds and rough seas complicating efforts to slow the toxic sludge's spread, as the first oil-slicked animals were found amid fears of an environmental nightmare. Experts prepared for the worst as choppy seas threatened to force the goop deep into the marshlands along Louisiana's southern coast over the weekend and push oily water over the booms put in place to contain it. "It's of grave concern," said David Kennedy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "I am frightened. This is a very, very...

Go ahead, grumble about the snowstorm that socked the Anchorage area this week. Depending on your side of town, and not counting the Hillside, the official tally is between 5.5 and 20 inches. Now, put your ear to your freshly shoveled driveway, and you'll hear Valdez residents laughing. "My God, our people don't even get out of bed for that, and I'm not kiddin' ya," said longtime resident Tom McAlister. Snow started falling in Valdez early Monday morning and continued to fall like crazy. At one point on Tuesday, 4.8 inches fell in an hour. By Wednesday, 68.2 inches had...

ScienceDaily (May 18, 2009) — Twenty years ago, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez was exiting Alaska's Prince William Sound when it struck a reef in the middle of the night. What happened next is considered one of the nation's worst environmental disasters: 10.8 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the pristine Alaskan waters, eventually covering 11,000 square miles of ocean. Now, imagine 8 to 80 times the amount of oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez accident. According to new research by scientists from UC Santa Barbara and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), that's how much oil has made...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. Supreme Court, in a fractured ruling, said punitive damages are allowed in a lawsuit over the 1989 Valdez oil spill but that lower courts should reduce the $2.5 billion award. Justice David Souter, in the court's majority opinion, said the punitive damages award should be brought into line with $287 million in compensatory damages awarded against Exxon in the lawsuit. "The award here should be limited to an amount equal to compensatory damages," Souter wrote. The high court otherwise split evenly 4-4 on an important maritime law question in the case but concluded that federal...

An Al-Qaeda suicide plot to hijack several passenger jets simultaneously — including a British Airways flight — and crash them into high-profile American targets has been uncovered by the security services. The American capital and nuclear power stations on the country’s East Coast are said to have been among the terrorists’ potential targets. The September 11-style plot explains the grounding of 10 US-bound flights across the world over the seasonal break. According to a senior intelligence source, an informant tipped off authorities the weekend before Christmas. He claimed that Islamic extremists intended to hijack flights operated by BA, Air France...

U.S. COURT CUTS EXXON VALDEZ PUNITIVE DAMAGES TO $2.5 BLN FROM $4.5 BLN

-snip- Robinson explains that before they left the area his team convinced Alaska state authorities to set up nine locations that were not cleaned up, so they could monitor whatever long-term improvements were observed. “For a period of years,” John says, “those locations [that were left alone] were in much better shape than the locations that had been aggressively cleaned up. “The very aggressive way we went about it - I have to fault myself on this, because I’m the one that directed it, turned out to be a much more serious problem than the oil was. We were killing...

Okay, Tony Valdez is on now. Tune in and make comments. He has on three viewers who made comments on his phone line. Hey, he didn't call me back.

ORIGINAL THREAD John and Ken have just read an email that was received by a KFI listener from KTTV. Apparently, KTTV has been bombarded with complaints about the racist comments made by newscaster Tony Valdez --- "You took this country. You killed people to take this country for yourselves." According to the email, Valdez will apologize on his Sunday television show. In Los Angeles, it is at 9am on channel 11 following FOX NEWS SUNDAY. After posting the number, I have a feeling that many FReepers made complaints. I left a message on Valdez's machine demanding an apology and...

LISTEN TO JOHN AND KEN ONLINE HERE IS YESTERDAY'S THREAD. KTTV NEWSMAN TONY VALDEZ ATTACKS JOHN AND KEN WITH AZTLAN DIATRIBE. Coming up at 3:30 pm, Pacific, John and Ken will play the entire segment with KTTV from yesterday's Illegal Alien Celebration Day. This has been all over the blogs. Valdez needs to publicly apologize and/or be fired.

Terrorists are threatening to blow up Alaska oil pipelines. Via Foxnews Alert. Fox said they were going to take guns and shoot them?

VALDEZ, Alaska (AP) - This is a busy commercial and sportfishing town, and it normally smells a little ripe in late summer as unharvested pink salmon spawn and then die. But this year, residents and tourists have been holding their noses a little tighter. Millions more pink salmon than expected, most of them born at the local Solomon Gulch hatchery, migrated in from the ocean this season, overwhelming commercial seiners and processing plants.

An ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) spokesman on Wednesday responded to comments made in Alaska's Senate race referencing a punitive damages case resulting from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The comments stem from criticism embattled Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has received for referring to the spill, which dumped 10.9 million gallons of crude oil into the waters of Prince Puget Sound, as "that little issue." Alaskans are still upset about the spill, and ExxonMobil's continuing efforts to appeal the $4.5 billion in punitive damages for Alaska natives, Cordova fishermen and other harmed Alaskans. A new radio campaign from Murkowski's opponent...

A new radio commercial from Democrat Tony Knowles blasts opponent U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski for a remark she made last week, calling the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound "that little issue." The ad, which started airing statewide Monday, uses a sound bite from a press conference Murkowski held in Washington, D.C. She used an Exxon Mobil gas station as a backdrop for the conference. But when reminded by an aide about Exxon's Alaska oil spill, Murkowski said with a laugh to Sen. George Allen, R-Va., "We've got that little issue, remember?"

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com The U.S. Coast Guard, responding to elevated threats of terror from the sea – threats first reported in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin – has closed one of the world's largest oil tanker terminals on Alaska's south shore. Tanker loading at Valdez, the southern terminus of the trans-Alaska pipeline, was shut off Tuesday night. The facility remains closed indefinitely. The 800-mile pipeline carries 17 percent of the nation's oil supply from the Prudoe Bay oil fields off Alaska's northern slope. Security in the sound area was tightened last week after U.S. officials said the terminals could be a target of...

<p>Valdez tanker port shut down SECURITY: Coast Guard abruptly closes terminal, orders tankers to leave area.</p> <p>A Coast Guard spokesman would only say that the order was part of a "further extension of prudent maritime security measures."</p> <p>Air Force fighter jets, meanwhile, have been flying patrols around Valdez in recent days, and federal authorities have placed restrictions on private planes in a 25-mile radius around the town, home to the sprawling marine terminal at the end of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.</p>

With the nation on an elevated terror alert, the oil tanker terminal in Valdez, Alaska has been temporarily closed at the request of the U-S Coast Guard. Alyeska Service Pipeline Company spokesman Mike Heatwole says tanker loading was suspended Tuesday night and remained closed yesterday. Tankers load Prudhoe Bay oil destined for Valdez, the end of the 800-mile pipeline, which carries 17 percent of the nation's domestic oil supply. Last week, security was beefed up in the Prince William Sound community after federal officials said al-Qaida operatives could target remote sites such as oil facilities in Alaska. Officials also said...

<p>MEXICO CITY (AP) - A former Mexican consul to Lebanon has been arrested on charges of helping a smuggling ring move Arab migrants into the United States from Mexico, federal agents said Thursday. Imelda Ortiz, detained late Wednesday in Mexico City, is the fourth alleged member of the ring captured in three days.</p>

Friday December 6, 9:55 pm ET IRVING, Texas (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's biggest publicly traded oil company, said on Friday a federal court in Alaska has decided it should pay $4 billion in punitive damages for the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Exxon Mobil, which argues that it should pay no more than $40 million for the 1989 tanker accident, said it planned to appeal the order. The decision was handed down by the federal court in Anchorage and reduced to $4 billion from $5 billion the amount of punitive damages awarded last year in connection with...