A federal jury in Anchorage, Alaska, has found former Alaska State Representative Victor H. Kohring guilty of conspiracy, bribery and attempted extortion, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division announced today.
The Department of Justice today asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to remand the cases of former Alaska State Representatives Victor Kohring and Peter Kott, who were convicted on corruption charges in 2007, to the District Court. The Department also asked the Court of Appeals to release the two on personal recognizance, after the Department uncovered material that appears to be information that should have been, but was not, disclosed to the defense prior to trial.
Attorney General Eric Holder also instructed the Department’s Criminal Division to review the Department’s public corruption investigation in Alaska to ensure that all other discovery obligations have been met.
"After a careful review of these cases, I have determined that it appears that the Department did not provide information that should have been disclosed to the defense," Holder said. "Department of Justice prosecutors work hard every day and perform a great service for the American people. But the Department’s mission is to do justice, not just win cases, and when we make mistakes, it is our duty to admit and correct those mistakes. We are committed to doing that."
"The Criminal Division must ensure that defendants receive all appropriate discovery materials, and today’s action demonstrates that commitment to this responsibility," said Lanny A. Breuer, Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division. "We will continue regular discovery training for all Criminal Division prosecutors to make certain that they perform their duties in adherence to the highest ethical standards. Every day, hundreds of career prosecutors work to uphold this Division’s proud tradition of being vigilant, ethical and stellar in the execution of their work. This action is faithful to that tradition."
Kohring was convicted in U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska on Nov. 1, 2007, of bribery and extortion-related charges. He was sentenced on May 9, 2008, to 42 months in prison and two years of supervised release. Kott was convicted on Sept. 25, 2007, of bribery and extortion-related charges and was sentenced on 72 months in prison and three years of supervised release.
In April, after the dismissal of charges against former Sen. Theodore F. Stevens, Attorney General Holder instituted comprehensive steps to enhance the Department’s compliance with rules that require the government to turn over evidence to the defense in criminal cases.
Since the launch of those reforms, the Department has been providing supplemental training to federal prosecutors on discovery obligations and has established a working group of senior prosecutors and Department officials from each component to review discovery practices and the need for additional improvements, resources and training.
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09-550
CARBONATOR
Availible now. Visit our online store to order yours today! You can also find a store near you through our store locator page.
SODA
Being sold now through our online store. You can also find a store near you through our store locator page.
BEER
We finally have our labeling approval from the Feds! Packaging has been ordered, and beer is under production. Boo Ya! Check us out on Facebook to get a sneak peak of what the packets will look like."
Click on the screenshot to go to the website.Unlike other concentrate processes, we do not just make the beer and then "remove" the water afterwards (which is extremely energy inefficient). Instead, our process (patent pending) allows us to start with almost no water, and carefully control the environment of the fermentation. The result... concentrated beer with all the same great taste you're used to in a premium micro brew. All you do is add water, carbonateAnd they haven't quite worked everything out:
We are in the late stages of perfecting our first (of many) commercial production beer concentrate recipes. We are refining it to our (patent pending) brewing technology, for maximum concentration, and maximum delicious goodness. This one is going to blow you away! Others have cautioned us to start with a beer of neutral ground character, but in the spirit of the Alaskan frontier and backcountry adventurer... we're coming out big and bold with this monster. We're sure you'll love it so much that we're guessing a few of you will be setting your tents up in the backyard just to make an excuse to indulge!Has no one ever dehydrated beer before? Will it really be someone from Talkeetna who makes this work first? I started googling. There does seem to be an interest in something like this. Here are a few references to dehydrated beer I found.
04.11.09
Wow! We knew there would be interest in a beer for the backcountry, but the enthusiastic response to our vision has overwhelmed us. Spring has sprung, but, unfortunately, we are not yet ready to outfit your outdoor adventures with Pat's Backcountry Beer. We are aggressively moving our business forward, and our goal remains to get Pat's into your hands as soon as possible. We've recently upgraded our equipment, and we continue to move forward through the elaborate licensing and permitting process. Thank you for your interest and patience.
Pat
The World Intellectual Property Organization lists a description of a method for dehydrating alcoholic beverages. Here's the summary section.
Subject: At last! Dehydrated beer
Taken verbatim from today's San Jose Mercury-News: CONSUMER CORNER
Packaged Beer Lightens The Load PRODUCT: South Hills dehydrated beer.
DESCRIPTION: A beer-flavored, non-alcoholic, carbonated, dry beverage made with maltodextrine, natural and artificial beer and malt flavors, dried beer, and corn syrup solids. It's packaged in5-ounce (150g) packet that must be mixed with 8 fluid ounces (250ml) of cold water for drinking.
PRO: It has a refreshing taste, though a bit sweet, and is best when mixed with extremely cold water. Its taste is remarkably similar to beers produced by micro-breweries. It's a quick source of liquid carbohydrates, and it's easy and light to pack and mix.
CON: The instructions say to wait for the head to subside after mixing, but that takes better than 5 minutes... In very cold water the mix clumps up unless you add water slowly and stir constantly.
COMMENTS: Although it doesn't compare to a fine lager, it suffices quite nicely when your taste buds crave a cold one in the backcountry and you don't fancy carrying a six-pack. The manufacturer mentions one can add clear grain alcohol or vodka to achieve an alcoholic beer.
SUGGESTED RETAIL: $5.95 for 6 packets.
May 20, 2002Someone has bought the domain name dehydrated beer, though it doesn't look too serious. Maybe they hope someone else is and will want the domain name.
Note to journalists: A publication-quality photograph of the students with the freeze-dried beer is available at ftp://ftp.purdue.edu/pub/uns/okos.beer.jpeg. Michelle Kelly and Luke Meyers graduated May 11 and are available via e-mail only.
PURDUE STUDENTS BREW UP IDEA FOR FREEZE-DRIED BEER SPICE
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. ‹ For those who can't get enough of the flavor of beer, two Purdue University students have just the thing: beer spice.
The non-alcoholic, freeze-dried beer isn't intended to make instant beer as simply as instant tea, but rather as an ingredient in foods.
"It could be used for dips, sauces, in breads or batters, or sprinkled on popcorn or potato chips," says co-developer Michelle Kelly.
Kelly, of Westerfield, Ohio, and Luke Meyers, of Fort Wayne, Ind., both 2002 spring graduates, developed the product as their senior research project for the class Agricultural and Biological Engineering 556: "Food Plant Design and Economics."
The course is taught by Martin Okos, professor of agricultural and biological engineering, who says the class is meant to be the capstone experience for students in the food process engineering program.
"The senior project gives the students a chance to bring together all of the things they've learned in their classes here," Okos says. "I tell the students to act as if I were their manager and I asked them to come up with a new product. Then they take it all the way from the concept to actually developing the final product and the process to manufacture it."
Freeze-dried beer has been developed before for non-commercial uses, but this is thought to be the first freeze-dried beer developed as a spice. [link for the rest of the letter.]
Welcome to DehydratedBeer.com - - The future home of Dehydrated Beer
(Dehydrated Beer is "master crafted" using only genuine dehydrated water)
dehydrated beer... almost on 06/06/2007 07:52:36 MDT Print Viewefestivals seems to have a spoof on the idea:
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) -- Dutch students have invented powdered alcohol which they say can be sold legally to minors.
The latest innovation in inebriation, called Booz2Go, is available in 20-gram packets that cost €1-1.5 ($1.35-$2).
Top it up with water and you have a bubbly, lime-colored and -flavored drink with just 3 percent alcohol content.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/06/06/powdered.booze.reut/index.html?section=cnn_latest (I couldn't get the link to work)
Hi people,Let's see if Pat can pull this off.
We think we have perfected a way to dehydrate beer. We have pills that are equivalent to 4 cans of mediocre strength beer. If people are interested in this product please let us know. It would remove the chore of carrying a case of weighty cans into a festival site. Also ecologically sound as there is no waste produced, cans, bottles etc... All that is required is 1 litre of water to rehydrate the tablet in the stomach. The product is being marketed under the brand name " Larrup". Please let us know what you think.
Peace ... Mongabus
In China, important dates are referred to by the number of the month and day. So the anniversary of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen confrontation is called Six-Four, or Liao-Si.
Although 6-4 has been erased as much as possible from the minds of people in China, I do think it is important that we take a moment today to remember what happened. 
This item was in the Anchorage Daily News today. We've known this was going to happen a while and it's probably too late to do anything about it. But we should question the logic of moves like this.
The green on the map is the existing E. 40th Avenue. It starts, as a street at Piper (on the left) and goes to Dale (on the right) with a little extra that dead ends at UAA property and then jogs north along Providence Hospital to Providence Dr. The UAA dorms are in the way of extending E. 4oth to the east and there are houses in the way if someone wanted to later extend E. 40th west of Lake Otis. This is simply providing a street on the south border of Providence and API grounds.
Here's a view from Laurel Street (B on the map above) (another of the new roads going from Tudor to Providence Drive.) We're looking westward toward Lake Otis where the new road will be punched through between the Kidney Dialysis Center and another building. It will be tight to get a two lane road through there with sidewalk and/or biketrail.
Then turning around and looking east, the road will go over (they do have money in there for retaining walls, so maybe they'll just cut through the hill, but then what happens to the buildings on the right of the fence?) this hill and down on the other side along the back of API until it hits the existing couple of blocks of E. 40th.
There has to be some irony when the Mental Health Trust Authority is kicking the homeless off their land and sending them to Brother Francis Shelter. One has to imagine that a number of the homeless have some, at least minor, mental health issues. Is this to get them out of the way of the construction companies due to build the road this summer?
This is the stem with the aphid that I posted the other day. While doing that post, I came across this about ants and aphid.Some species of ants are attracted to and feed on the honeydew. Ants will protect the aphids from natural enemies and will actually carry them to new plants when the food source is depleted. Some ants even go so far as to build small shelters for the aphids or to keeping root-feeding aphids inside their own nests. A few species of aphids have become so dependent on their ants that they won't even excrete honeydew unless stimulated by an ant! However, if aphid numbers get too high the ants will feed a few aphids to their larvae. And the ants are better at protecting their aphid herds from some natural enemies (such as ladybugs) than others (such as lacewings or hover fly larvae). No only do they fight off or kill the predators, but they also remove the eggs of somePerhaps I wiped out this guy's herd and he was looking for strays.
This raises the question for me about how many different flies we have in Alaska and which one this is. But googling flies and Alaska results in webpages of fishing flies. 
What's the difference between dragonflies and damselflies?
Dragonflies and damselflies are very similar insects that belong to the same scientific Order-- Odonata. Dragonflies tend to be larger, with thicker bodies. They sit with their wings spread out to the side. The delicate little damselflies usually fold their wings behind their backs when they rest. Spreadwings are the exception. They are damselflies that usually hold their wings out, like dragonflies.
Both dragonflies and damselflies start out life as aquatic insects, emerging from the water as winged adults. Both spend most of their adult life flying, preying on small insects. They are beneficial at every stage of life, never harmful to humans. They are all fascinating and beautiful critters.
Here's the lamium's yellow flower.
And last night we saw the movie 'Fado' at Bear Tooth. An unusual movie that consisted of one song after another, mostly done in a studio, sung by different singers, accompanied by musicians playing guitars and other mandolin like instruments I wouldn't dare try to name. The picture's blur reflects the slow shutter speed, not the film itself. Here's a YouTube of the preview of the movie.
