Where do you ship to?

I was just ranting over on my main blog, Phantascene.com's Journal, about how the National Arbor Day folks won't ship trees to Alaska. It makes me stop and think about all the eBay folks that exclude Alaska and how annoying that is. Alaska is a State too people. If you have a business, then please familiarize yourself with the shipping of things to Alaska and Hawaii. Does it really cost $15 instead of $5 to send a Priority Mail package with a small under 2 pound item to Alaska or Hawaii? Do you really have to charge $1.50 instead of .47 cents (or whatever it is now) to send a letter to Alaska? No. We are the same as anywhere else in the United States. I had a fellow ship me a treadmill from New York city for petes sake. Don't exclude Alaska just because you don't feel like taking a moment to see what it would be to ship the item to Alaska, and please don't inflate the shipping charges out of sight just because you assume that it must cost more - take a moment to check it out, consider double checking actual costs to Alaska and Hawaii part of your preparations to sell things. You might be surprised how many potential customers such a action earns you and I have taken to putting people that will ship to Alaska on my watch list to keep an eye out for things they might have I would gladly buy from them. I'll even pay a little more for something if someone'll ship it to me up here in Alaska for a decent shipping cost rather than inflating their shipping, because I know what it costs to send things here from the Lower 48.