44,000 (NYE) at Alaska Women Against Palin Demonstration

NYE is a device to help New Yorkers and other big city folks put things into a scale they can understand. It means New York Equivalency. A little more than one-half of one percent (1,400 people) of Anchorage's population demonstrated today.

That would be like having 44,000 people rally in New York City, 20,800 in LA, or 15,350 in Chicago. (Numbers based on 2005 population numbers from Infoplease and Anchorage population of 260,000.)




You haven't seen any pictures here for a week because my camera went missing last Saturday. The withdrawal symptoms have been severe. So today when Jeremy called to say I should come to Loussac Library I took my Pentax with me.




But I only had two or three pictures left on the film and there wasn't any more film.


Sometimes whining pays off. Scott took out his digital camera and gave it to me so you could see that not all Alaskans are enamored by the idea of our governor becoming the vice president. Thanks Scott.



But two of the pictures are from my Pentax. Can you tell which ones? I think the quality of those two is significantly better, but I also know which ones they were so I can't tell if I was just biased.




Afterward, we went to Costco to develop the film and to get a new digital camera. I got a Canon Power Shot SD790IS. (The old one was a 550). They've changed the controls and it's driving me crazy. The symbols are on the screen, but I can't always figure out how to get to them. It's like being just on the other side of the window. I can see the mango and sticky rice, but I can't reach it. But I'll learn.

If you've ever been on the Lanie Fleischer bike trail (the sign's by Goose Lake), well it was named after this woman who helped get our great bike trail system from dream to reality. A savvy Alaskan woman who knows how to make things happen, against the odds, (not someone who was at the right place at the right time). But as much as I admire her, I don't think she's qualified to be Vice President either. But if Obama had picked her as his VP, she would be speaking her words to the media and wouldn't be locked away from all but one or two chosen outlets. If they tried to change her into Obama's attack dog, she'd have told them to take a hike.(bike?)

This sign might not make sense to people not up on all the Palin trivia. This is not about giving rapists free kits. But rather rape victims, free medical kits. This was the state of things in Alaska before Sarah Palin was elected Mayor of Wasilla. After, the budget for helping rape victims was cut and they were billed for the rape kits used for testing. The state legislature had to pass a new law making free kits mandatory, yet Palin's newly appointed police chief still moaned and groaned that the City shouldn't have to pay.









Obviously, McCain's pick of Palin has had the great benefit for McCain of moving the attention from McCain and from the issues and onto Palin. Why do we have to have a demonstration against a vice presidential candidate? We should be demonstrating for fair health care. For intelligent foreign policy that promotes freedom and prosperity. For protecting the environment. For good schools, energy sustainability, and civility and peace at home as well as abroad. But McCain now has his sideshow attraction that brings in the crowds so he can stand in the background.

I'm waiting for the announcement that McCain and Palin are going to switch places on the Republican ticket to reflect their true popularity among the so-called Republican base.

[Sunday, September 14 update: Philip at Progressive Alaska has more pictures and links to several other blogs with pictures. Below are two more pictures that I accidentally cut out yesterday.]






















I asked these guys about Palin's foreign policy experience and suggested that she'd never met with a foreign leader or even spoke another language. They told me she speaks AMERICAN and that's all she needs.

Landlines and Cell Phones and Poll Bias - Deeper Look

Synopsis:

Overview

• ISER take on Landlines and Cell Only in surveys
  
• There are differences, but one study says not for general surveys

CDC's NHIS Findings - Demographics of cell only vs. landline households

PEW Findings - Implications for surveyors - generally no difference, but significant for some populations.


Overview
A fair number of people have googled their way my post Land-Lines, Cell Phones, and Poll Bias. I really didn't have any hard data when I wrote that post and thought I should see if I could get some. So yesterday I called Virgene Hanna at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She runs lots of the polling and survey work there. I asked her if there were studies about the differences between people who use cell phones only (no landlines) and landline users and, if there is, what if anything they do about it.

She said that there are differences. Cell phone only users, for example, tend to be:

• younger
• in better health
• and more likely to rent

While there are some significant differences between cell only and landline households, one study (see PEW below) found that in general surveys, these differences had no impact.

So far, she hasn't changed how they do their survey research for a number of reasons:

1. Things are changing so rapidly, it's hard to get clear cut answers on how to adjust.
2. Studies of the 2004 election said it didn’t make a difference in the overall outcomes, but use of cell phones only has grown a lot since then.
3. It's really expensive to reach cell phone only people
4. Methodologically more difficult to calculate who falls into their sample design when you include cell phone only users
   
5. Takes longer to reach them

Then she pointed me to a couple of studies that have looked at this.

The CDC (Center for Disease Control) does its National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).

For many years, NHIS has included questions on residential telephone numbers to permit re-contact of survey participants. Starting in 2003, additional questions determined whether the family's telephone number was a landline telephone. All survey respondents were also asked whether "you or anyone in your family has a working cellular telephone." (from Blumberg)

So, Blumberg and Luke, in "Wireless Substitution: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, July-December 2007" have taken this data to look at related characteristics of the cell only population. While there is important demographic information, the focus here is on health.

Preliminary results from the July-December 2007 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) indicate that nearly one out of every six American homes (15.8%) had only wireless telephones during the second half of 2007. In addition, more than one out of every eight American homes (13.1%) received all or almost all calls on wireless telephones despite having a landline telephone in the home. This report presents the most up-to-date estimates available from the federal government concerning the size and characteristics of these populations. Specific findings:

Cell Only Population

In the last 6 months of 2007, nearly one out of every six households (15.8%) did not have a landline telephone, but did have at least one wireless telephone (Table 1). Approximately 14.5% of all adults-more than 32 million adults-lived in households with only wireless telephones; 14.4% of all children-more than 10 million children-lived in households with only wireless telephones...
Approximately 2.2% of households had no telephone service (neither wireless nor landline). Approximately 4 million adults (1.9%) and 1.5 million children (2.1%) lived in these households.

Demographics

The percentage of U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized adults living in wireless-only households is shown by selected demographic characteristics and by survey time period in Table 2. For the period July through December 2007:

• More than one-half of all adults living with unrelated roommates (56.9%) lived in households with only wireless telephones. This is the highest prevalence rate among the population subgroups examined.
• Adults renting their home (30.9%) were more likely than adults owning their home (7.3%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
• More than one in three adults aged 25-29 years (34.5%) lived in households with only wireless telephones. Nearly 31% of adults aged 18-24 years lived in households with only wireless telephones.
• As age increased, the percentage of adults living in households with only wireless telephones decreased: 15.5% for adults aged 30-44 years; 8.0% for adults aged 45-64 years; and 2.2% for adults aged 65 years and over.
• Men (15.9%) were more likely than women (13.2%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
• Adults living in poverty (27.4%) were more likely than higher income adults to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
• Adults living in the South (17.1%) and Midwest (15.3%) were more likely than adults living in the Northeast (10.0%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
• Non-Hispanic white adults (12.9%) were less likely than Hispanic adults (19.3%) or non-Hispanic black adults (18.3%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.

Wireless Mostly Households

Among households with both landline and cellular telephones, 22.3% received all or almost all calls on the cellular telephones, based on data for the period July through December 2007. These wireless-mostly households make up 13.1% of all households. ..
Approximately 31 million adults (14.0%) lived in wireless-mostly households during the last 6 months of 2007, an increase from 28 million (12.6%) during the first 6 months of 2007. Table 3 presents the percentage of adults living in wireless-mostly households by selected demographic characteristics and by survey time period. For the period July through December 2007:

• Non-Hispanic Asian adults (20.3%) were more likely than Hispanic adults (14.5%), non-Hispanic white adults (13.2%), or non-Hispanic black adults (15.1%) to be living in wireless-mostly households.

• Adults with college degrees (16.2%) were more likely to be living in wireless-mostly households than were high school graduates (12.7%) or adults with less education (8.7%).

• Adults living in poverty (8.6%) and adults living near poverty (11.4%) were less likely than higher income adults (15.9%) to be living in wireless-mostly households.

• Adults living in metropolitan areas (14.7%) were more likely to be living in wireless-mostly households than were adults living in more rural areas (10.9%).

PEW Study

A Pew study presented in a May 2007 paper, "What’s Missing from National RDD Surveys? The Impact of the Growing Cell-Only Population" by Scott Keeter, Courtney Kennedy, April Clark of the Pew Research Center and Trevor Tompson, Mike Mokrzycki of The Associated Press concluded

Analysis of all four studies produce the same conclusion: Although cell-only respondents are different from landline respondents in important ways, they were neither numerous enough nor different enough on the key dependent variables to produce a significant change in overall general population survey estimates when included with the landline samples and weighted according to U.S. Census parameters on basic demographic characteristics. However, certain survey topics and sampling frames may be vulnerable to significant, even dramatic, noncoverage bias if they exclude respondents who only can be reached by cell. This paper concludes with evidence regarding the potential for bias in survey estimates for certain variables among young people.

The four studies were:



The Pew comparison findings were summarized in this chart:


Here are some specific health characteristics of cell only and landline households that the PEW study highlighted:

• The prevalence of binge drinking (i.e., having five or more alcoholic drinks in 1 day during the past year) among wireless-only adults (37.3%) was twice as high as the prevalence among adults living in landline households (17.7%). Wireless-only adults were also more likely to be current smokers.
• Compared with adults living in landline households, wireless-only adults were more likely to report that their health status was excellent or very good, and they were more likely to engage in regular leisure-time physical activity.
• The percentage without health insurance coverage at the time of the interview among wireless-only adults (28.7%) was twice as high as the percentage among adults living in landline households (13.7%).
• Compared with adults living in landline households, wireless-only adults were more likely to have experienced financial barriers to obtaining needed health care, and they were less likely to have a usual place to go for medical care. Wireless-only adults were also less likely to have received an influenza vaccination during the previous year.
• Wireless-only adults (47.6%) were more likely than adults living in landline households (34.7%) to have ever been tested for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

[Update: June 2, 2009: Here's a December 2008 PEW report on cell and landline polling in the 2008 election.

This study describes the differences between estimates of the horse race and other political measures that Pew reported this fall with those that would have been derived from surveys conducted only by landline. It also addresses the difference between supplementing landline surveys with a sample of people who are "cell only" vs. interviewing all cell respondents even if they also have a landline phone. In this regard there is growing concern that some people have come to rely so heavily on a cell phone that even though they still have a landline telephone they are virtually unreachable on it. Finally, this report describes the operational and cost issues raised by the inclusion of cell phones.

Download the complete report]

Would Your Mother Make a Good VP?

I got asked in a telephone poll yesterday whether I viewed Sarah Palin favorably. How do you answer that? Fortunately, the pollster was pretty loose and accepted my non-responsive answer of, Yeah, I'd like her to stay my governor.

You may love your mom and still not think she'd be a good vice president or president.

Rating Palin as a Person

My first personal interaction with Sarah Palin - an early political talk and question and answer session at the University of Alaska Anchorage being the one in which I actually talked to her - left me feeling both impressed and a little skeptical. She was unpretentious, didn't pretend to know things she didn't know - she just said, "I need to learn more about that" or "What do you suggest on that?" I'm generally a pretty good judge of whether people are genuine and if she wasn't that day, she got past my crap detectors. But it also seemed like she had a long way to go to beat the Republican establishment, and then the former Democratic Governor. But she did both. So I'm cautious about underestimating her now.

But it's possible to evaluate someone differently for different roles. The public person I saw was someone I liked. I don't agree with things she believes, but she listened to others and didn't have any of the facade politicians normally have. I realize that people in Wasilla saw a lot more, if not cunning, at least very focused drive to get what she was after.

All in all, I think she's smart, but has been raised in a limited environment where she was overly influenced by fairly narrow religious beliefs. I personally don't think abortion is a good thing, but I think it is morally much more ambiguous than right-to-lifers would have it. The fewer the number of abortions the better, but ultimately, each woman has to make that decision for herself. But someone who truly believes there's a soul from the moment of conception, probably has a moral duty to stop abortion. But teaching creationism alongside evolution? That's just ignorance in my mind. But I think that Sarah is smart enough and curious enough that she could grow beyond her roots on some of the more stifling beliefs.


Rating Palin as a Governor

Running for governor she took on her corrupt party leaders. It didn't hurt her cause that the FBI raided some of their offices and indicted some of them during the campaign. And then she did stand up to the big oil companies in Juneau. First on the petroleum profit tax increase and then on the Alaska Gasline Incentive Act.

In some ways these were ethical stances - the oil companies had done their best to buy the legislature through campaign contributions, trips to Prudhoe Bay, and other junkets, and through Bill Allen (pled guilty) on the PPT bill and the gasline. She had good advisers on this and stood up to the oil companies. But basically, she wants to drill ANWR (no Alaskan politicians think they can oppose drilling and win), and fought protection of polar bears that might threaten offshore oil drilling. And in recent weeks (is it really only weeks ago this came out?) her firing of the head of the troopers was the first public glimpse of another side of Palin.

All in all, while I didn't vote for Palin, I think by standing up to the Republican party and the oil companies, she probably did a lot more good for Alaska than her Democratic opponent would have done. Up til now, she's been a good governor and that's why she's got such high ratings.

Rating Palin as a VP or President

Most people who eventually run for president have had pretty broad life experiences in their college and early post college years a time in their lives when they are still forming their moral understanding of the world. I don't think Palin had those kinds of experiences until she was in her 40s as Governor, an age when it is harder - though not impossible - to change. Only then did she make her first trip outside the US (not counting Canada I assume), did she deal with people outside of Alaska on serious issues. (There could be other experiences I'm unaware of, but I doubt there was much significant interaction with people different from Palin.)

The Republican spin machine is ludicrously calling black, white in their effort to paint Palin as experienced. Despite their claims that being head of the Alaska National Guard gave her commander-in-chief experience and that Alaska's proximity to Russia gives her important international policy experience, any Alaskan who knows anything, knows that's total nonsense. I doubt that Palin could have named more than one or two current Russian leaders before last week, or could have picked out Georgia on a world map. (I'm not sure she could have picked out the state of Georgia on a US map.) Or could tell us about the Russian Revolution, even when it was, let alone who played leading roles. (Most Americans couldn't do that either, but most Americans aren't running for vice president.) When I read Ropi's blog, I'm amazed at what a modern Hungarian high school student studies. In many ways I'd say Ropi's knowledge would make Palin's knowledge of the world embarrassing. That's not to say Ropi is in any way ready to be a US Vice President, but I'd dare say his basic knoweldge about the world, about world history, and even his least favorite subjects like math and biology, are well beyond what Sarah Palin or even most American high school graduates know.


So, as you can see, evaluating Sarah Palin isn't that easy. It depends what you're evaluating her for. I think that socially I'd enjoy her company and conversation at dinner [aside from the fact that she's the VP candidate.] We have different values and beliefs, but she's bright and it would interesting to hear what she has to say about what she believes.

For her performance as governor, I give her high marks so far. The Monehan affair is a sign of her lack of experience in the ethics of organizational protocol, especially governmental organizations, where merit systems are the standard. Whether she would have (under normal circumstances) learned and adjusted in response was one of the things that would have told us whether she was just a fluke who came along at the right time with the right qualities, or whether she had the potential to grow into a serious stateswoman.

As a potential Vice President, and thus a potential President I have to assess her against very different criteria. A gifted ice skater who's sent to the Olympics without a lot of training and competitive experience could do well, but the odds aren't good. Our Olympic tryouts wouldn't let that person in. Palin hasn't tried out. She hasn't competed beyond the Alaska championships. We're a state with fewer than 700,000 people! That means she really hasn't been tested at all in the big leagues. And we're talking about one of the most important jobs in the world. Scary is all I can say.

The Peace Corps, at least when I was in training, had a category called "high risk - high gain." It meant they thought the trainee could either be a super volunteer or a total washout. In Sarah Palin, at this point, I see the high-risk part, but I simply don't see the high-gain part. (Yes if my life was dedicated to fighting abortion and gay rights, and bringing back SUV's, God into schools and government, I could see the high-gain label, but that isn't me.)


What Happened to the Fighter Who Stood Up to Her Corrupt Party Leaders?

One more observation. The one thing most Alaskans would agree on about Sarah Palin is that she stood up to her corrupt party leaders, at a time when that really was risky, and declared her party chair unethical. She resigned saying she simply couldn't continue on the Oil and Gas Commission under the circumstances. That was a gutsy thing to do and bought a lot of credibility for her among Alaskans.

But what happened to that Sarah Palin? Now we see a Sarah Palin who is compromising those brave acts by following the orders of the likes of Karl Rove and his Orwellian soulless-mates. The Palin who spoke of cooperation and who worked with Democrats in Juneau, is now throwing mean, baseless accusations at Obama (Making "community organizing" into an epithet is consistent with the Republican game plan of poisoning every word that describes their opponents.)

The openness that impressed me so much when I first saw her has turned to deception about her record in front of the national audience and a week in hiding from the press. The old Sarah Palin would have giggled at the claim that her position of governor gave her serious commander-in-chief experience or that she was a Russian policy expert. Rudy Ruedrich (the Alaskan Republican Party chair she outed as corrupt) must be wondering how that strong-willed Sarah Palin has turned into the docile, obedient student of the even more corrupt Karl Rove and gang.

One explanation is that Sarah Palin is a superb actress and brilliant strategist and her fight against the Alaskan Republican party was a devious Machiavellian plot, and Lyda Green has pegged Palin right all along. (A great example of Palin's amateur status is her giggling on the radio talk show when the hosts called Lyda Green a bitch (hmmm, I never thought I'd cite Dan Fagan as a reference, but he paints the picture of the audio I heard when it was available) instead of telling them they went way over the line. That YouTube tape now has this message: "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by a third party.")

A more likely explanation is that Palin is absolutely no match for the level of play in national Republican circles and that being on McCain's ticket has her totally compliant to the Rovian team that sold George W. Bush to the American public. Twice.

My Fair Sarah

From the E&P [Editor and Publisher] which I got to through Alaskan Abroad:

We're now into Day 9 of America's Media Held Hostage (i.e., denied any chance to interview or even chat with Sarah Palin). I know this because there is a widget going around that ticks off the days and hours and minutes. It was at 9:12:41 last I checked. Unfortunately we may have to tick off the days here for quite awhile for, as a McCain spokeswoman said on Friday, "who cares?" McCain campaign manager Rick Davis says Palin won't give any interviews until she feels "comfortable" giving one. This morning he added that she wouldn't give any "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference."

What are they doing with our fair Sarah?

In My Fair Lady,[from IMDB]

A misogynistic and snobbish phonetics professor agrees to a wager that he can take a flower girl and make her presentable in high society.

They start from here:



until she finally gets it:



Now imagine Karl Rove as the misogynistic and snobbish professor transforming a freshman Alaskan governor into a credible vice presidential candidate. Imagine him teaching Sarah choice phrases on the politics of the former Soviet Union, the deficit, and health care, and how, when an interviewer strays beyond her new sound bites, to change the subject, attack her opponent, and more important, attack the questioner.

Who is intensively training America's media to ask probingly with respect and deference as they test the new Sarah?

Like Liza, Sarah isn't dumb, she just didn't get raised in the 'right' environment.

In the musical, Higgins wins his bet.

Youtube videos by snicu and AGIntermedic

Unraveling......

[Update midnight: I'm taking down my original post. I heard a story from a person I trust and it was generally confirmed by a second person I trust. The first person said the rumors were on the internet. I found bits and pieces here, here , here , here , here, and here. When I posted this I thought the story was already out there and I was making comments about Palin based on the story. But as I read Philip at Progressive Alaska commenting on the post, I realize that the story isn't out there, just rumors. While I trust my sources, I don't have enough independent information to nail this. So I'll drop my editorial based on this and just offer the basic allegation.

Four high school students were arrested for vandalizing school buses in Wasilla in 2005.

Deryck Harris, 18, and the other three boys - ages 16, 17 and 17 - were each charged with third-degree criminal mischief, first-degree criminal trespass and conspiracy to commit criminal mischief, troopers said. The 16-year-old was also charged with fourth-degree theft and furnishing alcohol to a minor, for allegedly stealing a bottle of vodka from the liquor store at Tesoro 2-Go in Wasilla.

“They stopped at a liquor store where he went in and stole a bottle of vodka and provided it to the others in the group,” Wilkinson said. “Three of the four boys consumed alcohol.”

Troopers did not release names of the juvenile suspects, but David Coon's mother confirmed her son was one of two Burchell High School students involved in the incident. The other two boys are Wasilla High School students.

We also have this story from Detroit's Free Press:

Her oldest son, Track, lived in Portage [Michigan] during most of his senior year in high school. He played junior major hockey. During an interview at the National Governors Association conference in 2007, she told a Free Press reporter that her son went back to Alaska in March to graduate with his class.

Thanks to Lavender Liberal for the previous two links.

The story I was told is that Track Palin was one of them and that he chose to enter the army rather than go to jail (or have a record?).

My original post assumed that this had been confirmed through other sources. I'm assuming the court records of a minor are sealed and that the family doesn't want to discuss this. But a lot of people know about this, including, one would assume, a certain ex-brother-in-law who is a state trooper. But releasing sealed information would surely be grounds for dismissal. Oh this gets curiouser and curiouser.

Discussing politician's children, as Obama has emphasized, should generally be off limits. But if Palin chooses to brag about her son's patriotism joining the military and going to Iraq to make herself a more attractive candidate, then she cannot legitimately say that her children's less flattering behaviors are off limits.

My main source is someone I trust and who is in a position to know something like this. That source discussed this as though it were well known. So I'll leave it at this. Others can pursue it further, but I'm taking down what I originally posted, which assumed this was a certainty.

I apologize to Anonymous (not sure if it was the same Anon twice) for taking down your comments that were based on the original post. Here is part of one of the comments that is Anon's own reflections:

...I have to laugh-- in Anchorage the kids I knew had a high contempt for their parents running for public office, but they all grew up an went to college-- none that I knew actually vandalized anything. We drank in their offices and would sneak wine from their cellars, but this is really classic.

Another later post by (another?) Anon adds documented, factual information and so I'll leave it.]

[UPDATE Sept 21, 2015:  This post today at Immoral Minority claims that yes, Track was part of the group that broke in, but he didn't cut the bus brakes lines.  I knew I'd written a post on this, so I came back here to say that it was reported he wasn't involved in cutting the brakes.  But as I look at this post, there is nothing here that mentions bus brakes.  Instead, this story, if correct, confirms what I wrote seven years ago about Track being part of the group of vandals.  It does not offer evidence of an agreement with the military to avoid jail.]

Nowhere

Dennis Zaki forwarded this picture.



Last night and last Friday she touted how she'd sent the money back to DC and "if we wanted a bridge, we'd build it ourselves." Great politics, and she did make that sort of speech, but late in the process. But I liked her for doing it. It was good for the world to hear our governor rejecting extravagant earmarks.

But then we get this picture. But Dennis, it's all about context. I'm guessing someone in Ketchikan gave her this sweatshirt and as a gracious gift receiver she 'tried it on' right there. I don't know that's the case, but I also don't know it isn't.

I started this post yesterday and wasn't sure that there was really enough here to make a decent post. Until I read the Anchorage Daily News Letters today. They published 11 letters on Palin. One was positive. But more to the point was this one about Palin in Ketchikan:

Having just finished watching the Wednesday evening edition of the Republican National Convention as well as Gov. Palin's speech, I must express my dismay at the nasty, mean-spirited tone and words used by the speakers. There was hypocrisy contained in Palin's claim to have told Washington "Thanks but no thanks for that Bridge to Nowhere," when she went to Ketchikan during her run for governor and told the people there she felt their pain at being told they were nowhere and that she and they would "make a good team as we progress that bridge project." When Congress removed the earmark language for the bridge but left the money, Palin used it elsewhere and has yet to go back to Ketchikan to explain her decision to the people as promised.

Palin is quick to adopt the "slash and burn" tactics employed by her political party in elections. The "outsider" is rapidly working her way "inside."

-- Gwen Burson

Girdwood

Oh, yes, 99901 is Ketchikan.

"The boy whose descendants came on the Mayflower..."

[This is when I turned on the tv]

So last night, Palin blasted Obama. Tonight it sounds like McCain is blasting the Bush administration. For example, he's not going to pass problems on to future generations. He just isn't mentioning any names.

OK, now McCain is going after Obama, in the most simplistic terms possible. "My plan will cut taxes, his plan will raise them."

Part of me would love McCain to win just to see how he's going to handle all the bills coming due from the Bush administration. And those bills are going to make it much harder for an Obama administration as well.

"Immigration is the civil rights issue of this century." And they applauded. Do they know what he said? He's slid into school reform. So what was he trying to say about immigration? School choice, mmmmm. Vouchers. That means the best students can get out of the public school system, leaving the public schools with the kids the private schools won't deal with.

Now he's attacking unions. Didn't Palin proudly say her husband was a union member?

We're going to stop sending money to countries that don't like us very much. Lots of cheering.

We'll produce more energy at home. We'll drill those off shore oil wells now. Lots of cheering.

Nuclear power, clean coal, wind, solar, electric automobiles. (These are things a candidate should have been pushing ten years ago.) Obama says we can do this without nuclear and coal. But Americans know better than that. (Obama's apparently not an American.)

I will do all I can to build the foundations for a stable and enduring peace. (I can support that.)

We need to change the way government does almost everything. (Hmmmm, Bush takes it on the chin here I guess.) We have to catch up to history and change the way we do business in Washington. The constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving the problems isn't the cause, it's a symptom. It's people coming to Washington to serve themselves that's the problem. (This is pretty good.)

I have the scars to prove it. Obama does not. (Is he going to pull open his shirt and show the scars?)

A bi-partisan pitch. (Good. I remember Bush saying he'd do that too. But I believe McCain more than I believed Bush.)

There was a lot of good stuff in the speech - mostly the stuff that called for change in Washington, for working together, going beyond partisanship. Hmmm, sounds familiar. Isn't that what Obama's been talking about all this long campaign?

Meanwhile Democracy Now is reporting that the police state outside the convention is arresting protesters. Last night they said there were broken windows. Given what we've learned about the Bush administration, I wouldn't be surprised if we learned that they also infiltrated the protests and instigated the violence so there would be a good reason to crack down on the protesters. (It's amazing how the Republicans can say how bad government is and come up with all sorts of conspiracy theories, but when Democrats complain they are delusional.)

What we need is a shepherd, not a pitbull

Former Anchorage, current Buffalo, NY rabbi, Harry Rosenfeld, told me he thought what we needed was NOT an attack dog, but a shepherd that watches over the flock and protects it when there's danger.

Shepherd photo source
Pit Bull Photo source 1and source 2

Words of the Day - Duplicitous

From Word-Net Dictionary

Adj. 1. duplicitous - marked by deliberate deceptiveness especially by pretending one set of feelings and acting under the influence of another; "she was a deceitful scheming little thing"- Israel Zangwill; "a double-dealing double agent"; "a double-faced infernal traitor and schemer"- W.M.Thackeray
Synonyms: double-dealing, double-tongued, two-faced, Janus-faced, double-faced, ambidextrous, deceitful

The Republican thought control machine is working hard to turn sins, that they themselves have denounced opponents for, into strengths.

• After non-stop attacks on Obama as lacking the experience to be a President, they have chosen a VP candidate with experience as a mayor of a small town and governor for less than two years.
• Palin's announcement that her 17 year old daughter was unmarried and pregnant, has been turned into 'real demonstration of her pro-life ideals' and 'something we can all identify with.'
  

Consistency is irrelevant. I believe that probably many people generally do not think in abstract principles so that when their ideal is contradicted, they often don't see the contradiction. They don't see that their strong principle in one area has been violated in another area. Others are clearly spinning the truth to favor their position. For example:

Vision America, founded by Pastor Rick Scarborough, posts on its website:

Abstinence education works; condom distribution in the schools is playing Russian roulette with the lives of our children

From Focus on the Family idol James Dobson:

The real reason that teen birthrates are declining is that young people have rediscovered abstinence.

The Heritage Foundation on abstinence education:

Abstinence education programs for youth have been proven to be effective in reducing early sexual activity. Abstinence programs also can provide the foundation for personal responsibility and enduring marital commitment. Therefore, they are vitally important to efforts aimed at reducing out-of-wedlock childbearing among young adult women, improving child well-being, and increasing adult happiness over the long term.[emphasis added]

But after Palin's revelation of her upcoming grandmotherhood, we hear this sort of thing


From the New York Times:

“Families get in trouble all the time,” said Rick Scarborough, a pastor and the founder of the conservative advocacy group Vision America. “From what I see this family is dealing with it honorably. They are going to carry this baby to a full term as a further testimony of their commitment to life.”

“The media is already trying to spin this as evidence that Governor Palin is a hypocrite,” said James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family. “But all it really means is that she and her family are human.”

“I am a high school coach, I interact with 17-year-olds every day,” said Fergus Cullen, the New Hampshire Republican chairman. “And there are a lot of parents out there of 17-year-old high school students. If anything, this is a reminder that Sarah Palin is a real person who has the same experiences that regular Americans do.

From NPR:

"We all have ghosts in our closet," says mortgage banker Reif. . . Hearing the reports that Palin's unmarried daughter Bristol is pregnant, Reif says, "showed me that she is more like us."

I didn't hear anything about ghosts when they pulled out Lewinsky's blue dress.

"More like us"??????????

Unmarried pregnant teenagers are so common that Palin's daughter connects her with the common people???? These are Republicans talking and they aren't talking about their normal poster child for unmarried mothers - African-Americans - they are talking about themselves. This is amazing!!! Does that mean that all the stuff they've been saying about abstinence education is bunk? And that they've known all along it doesn't work?

These are people in serious denial.

I'm sorry that Bristol is pregnant at 17 and unmarried. It's not a moral thing about sex on my part, but rather, at 17, she should be growing up and having fun and studying and preparing to take a responsible role in her community. This is all going to make it much harder for her and Levi not to mention the baby. (I recognize that in past eras, people got married at younger ages, but they also didn't go to college or even finish high school.)

Will anyone of them admit it might have been better if Levi had used a condom? That maybe sex education that reflected the reality of life, that teenage pregnancy is so common that Republican delegates can relate to a candidate with a pregnant daughter? Or does this simply prove that we are all sinners?


This is an example of duplicity. This is not about finding the truth, finding areas we can agree on, 'being Americans not Republicans" as they also said last night. This is about winning at all costs. This is about twisting the truth, stretching our principles, to win. That isn't to say that the Democrats don't do this as well, but I'd like to see more Republicans do what Obama did. He didn't grab this tidbit of Republican duplicity and run with it to his advantage. Instead he said, "Family issues are off limits." That isn't something Republicans are good at.

Guliani and Palin Pandering

I'm afraid our governor has now begun to shill for the worst instincts of the Republican party. Today's speech was full of clever, but meaningless, phrases, nasty distortions, and belittling. The Republicans in the last two elections have found the effectiveness of appealing to fear, and making up their own facts. Giuliani was plain mean and brutish. Palin wasn't much better. When she talked about herself it was one speech, but then she went after Obama and she was just the reader. The belittling of community organizing was just the start. There was no real content, just diatribe against Obama.

One example - I'll let the rest of the blog world take apart most of the speech. She blasted Obama for telling people in one town one thing and in another town something else. But I recall that what she told the people in Juneau about moving the capital was different from what she told the people in Wasilla.

And all this nonsense about having more administrative experience than the whole Democratic ticket is pure make believe. It means nothing. If Palin thinks that being Mayor of the town she grew up in that had issues she's known since childhood prepares her to be Vice President, she's delusional. I've already posted that I think what she did with AGIA was impressive. But her rescue of the failing Dairy was itself a failure. The Monehan firing demonstrates how being small town mayor didn't teach her the rules of the merit system and rule of law.

Some of the rhetorical devices they used included: ad hominem attack, straw man, ciruclar arguments. While you're at it, just look at the whole index of fallacies.

Listen Online to Palin Accept the Nomination

For those who want to watch Sarah Palin talk live at the Republican Convention:
[Update 9/4/08: You can listen to the speech here.]

Free video streaming by Ustream

Oh Dear

As a blogger, I tend to understate things, and to crawl to conclusions. As I wrote in my earlier post on the Palin nomination, when I first heard her campaign for governor, I thought she was in over her head. But her standing up to the oil companies and the passage of AGIA gave her lots of points in my book. That ties to a larger issue of importance for me - the power of large corporation - and whatever her other possible failings, this was, for me, a powerful achievement by an Alaskan politician. It was only the first step, but it was a giant step compared to what other governors did with the oil companies.

My initial posts were an attempt to offer a balance of what she'd done well, with some suggestions that there were also some weaknesses that had come out. My positive marks on her speech were not so much an endorsement of her, but my belief that she had delivered exactly the right message to the target audience. Having underestimated her once before, I was suppressing my original gut reaction, that she was in over her head. I figured what would happen would happen. I thought I had bent over backwards to be fair to her, yet one commenter chided me,

Why not give Palin the time to be vetted fairly and fully as she surely will be, in the court of public opinion?

But others thought I'd gone over to the dark side. Chicago Dyke offered a list of Alaska bloggers for people doing oppo research that was sent to her from an Alaskan contact. It described the blog this way:

What Do I Know — http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/ — Normally Democratic blogger who has been very supportive of Palin and Palin’s pick by McCain. I’d be careful…

[9/2/08 5pm - It was late last night. I would say that I look at the world from a perspective that would be closer to Democratic than Republican, but that this is NOT a Democratic blog in the sense that I only say good things about Dems and bad things about Repubs. I have pointed out that Palin had more to her than I originally thought, but I don't remember posting anything that said I supported her being picked as VP.] I don't know how much being out of state when all this hit affected my coverage. I've been out and about visiting with friends and doing things away from the computer. My drafts are still drafts as I have tried to figure out ways to talk about my misgivings objectively. The jobs duty post was one quick attempt to do that. But I just haven't taken the time to do it right.

In any case, I missed all of today's news visiting with friends and my daughter most of the day. Progressive Alaska suggests that things are starting to unravel quickly. It looks like McCain's Hail Mary pass, as one tv commentator reported it, isn't going to result in a touchdown, and it may well be intercepted.

If that's the case, then McCain's rash decision making will be revealed as a failure. Palin's acceptance of the nomination when she wasn't nearly ready will have cost her dearly. How will this affect the oil companies' ability to scuttle AGIA? How's McCain get out of this mess?

Land-Lines, Cell Phones, and Poll Bias

[Sept. 10 - I've updated this in a new post with actual study data on characteristics of cell-phone only households and links to a couple of studies on this.]

Tons of different things to write about, but I got this email just now and it is relevant to a question I'd had. My question was whether pollsters were calling cell phones. Could they get cell phone numbers? One theory about why pollsters called the Truman/Dewey election wrong in 1948 is that pollsters relied on telephones and people without phones were more likely to vote for Truman. That raises the question about modern-day polls. There aren't any directories I know of for cell phones, and many younger voters have cell phones and no land lines. If younger voters are more likely to vote Obama and older voters more likely to vote McCain, then calling land lines only would bias the polls.

From a discussion on Citydata.com

Most if not all polls use land line phones to conduct the poll. This eliminates many if not all of a major group of voters. McCain's voters tend to be older less mobile groups of people. They are more likely to have land line phones. Obama's supporters are more likely to be younger, many have only mobile phones, never even having land line.

More Americans go for cell phones, drop landlines


The percentage of people who do not land line phones.

25% ages 18 to 29, no landline.
12.4% ages 30 to 44, no landline.
6.1% ages 45 to 64, no landline.
1.9% ages over 65, no landline.
15.8% of all homes, no landline.
22.4% of poor, no land line

All this was stimulated by the email I got today: [see update below, this is apparently a hoax]


REMEMBER: Cell Phone Numbers Go Public today
REMINDER.... all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies tomorrow and you will start to receive sale calls.

.... YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone:
888-382-1222.
It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years. You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked. You cannot call from a different phone number.

HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.. It takes about 20 seconds.
or go to www.donotcall.gov


This seems to confirm my belief that up til now there were no directories of cell phone numbers.

[Update: Sept. 3: After I posted this, I realized that I hadn't checked on the email, something I would normally do before posting something like this. And, sure enough, a reader has sent me the following email:

Hi,
I was alarmed to see on your blog that solicitors might start calling my and my children's cell phones and using up the minutes so I went and listed them with the do not call registry. But then immediately afterward I got suspicious and did a little web search and came up with this page from the FCC that says it is an urban myth that cell phone numbers will be published in a directory and that solicitors will begin calling cell phones. Federal law prohibits solicitors from calling cell phones, and the FCC says cell phone users do not need to register with the do not call registry. The page was last modified in late 2007, but I assume the law hasn't changed since then.
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2005/04/dnc.shtm
Shana Cxxxxxxxxx

One clue is that there is no date - it just says 'today'. Shana, thanks for the heads up.]

President and Vice President Job Duties

There is a lot of discussion about whether Sarah Palin has the experience to be President. Many people seem to be reacting emotionally, based whether they want McCain or Obama to win. They aren't doing what most organizations do when they look at candidates for a job: review all the experience of the candidate against the duties of the job. Of course, Palin has been selected by McCain to be his vice presidential running mate. But for every vice presidential candidate, we must ask if she can also step in as President.

So I decided to look up the job duties of the President and Vice President in the US Constitution . Just looking at the Constitution (see the excerpts below) the President doesn't have all that much to do compared to the Legislature. The Vice President only presides over the Senate and votes when there's a tie.

Based on that Palin is certainly qualified to be Vice President. But so am I and most other Americans.

Oh yes, and there's the part about becoming President. What rereading the Constitution reminded me was how much the Presidents of late have essentially usurped the power of the Legislature. Our real focus should be on recalibrating the power balance between the executive and legislative branches.

I tried to pick out what the Constitution says about the President, Legislature, and Vice President, but I readily admit I may have missed some things. Here's what I did find:


What does the President do?

Article II: The Executive Branch
Section I
Clause 1:

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

Clause 8:

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Section 2

Clause 1:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

Clause 2:

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

Clause 3:

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Section 3

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

That doesn't look like too much. So who's supposed to do all the work? If we look at the Legislative section of the Constitution we see:

Article I: The Legislative Branch

Section 2:
Clause 6:

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.


Section 8

Clause 1:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Clause 2:

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

Clause 3:

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

Clause 4:

To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

Clause 5:

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

Clause 6:

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

Clause 7:

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

Clause 8:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Clause 9:

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

Clause 10:

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

Clause 11:

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

Clause 12:

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

Clause 13:

To provide and maintain a Navy;

Clause 14:

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

Clause 15:

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

Clause 16:

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

Clause 17:

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And

Clause 18:

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

And while we're at it, we should look at the duties of the Vice President.

Section 1

Article I: The Legislative Branch

Clause 6:

In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office,10 the Same shall devolve on the Vice President,

Section 2:

Clause 4:

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

A Day in Portland

We had lunch with Masami and Shpresha and Sharon, people I knew when I was a guest faculty member at Portland State University for six months in 2003-4.




After lunch they put me in my old seminar room to work on a few things and catch up with all the hits coming in about Palin. Like other Alaska blogs, apparently, this was my second highest hit day - 563 right now.








Later we walked around downtown before meeting friends for dinner. The sky was very blue, temps in the low 70s, as we passed the Art Museum.































In a little park area between streets the Oregon Ballet Theatre was practicing in a tent.













A costume store.


























One of the great book shops in the United States. Powell's is room after room after room on several floors or used and new books. A favorite place of our when we lived here.








































































We had dinner here with Gary and Roxanne who we knew from Anchorage and from when we lived here. It was great to see them again.







We checked the tram station near Marty's yesterday. It's about a 20 minute walk home from the end of the line. But both ticket machines at the stop were broken. We turned down Gary and Roxanne's offer of a ride home (way out of their way) and decided to board without tickets. The guy with the beard told us to push the emergency button and tell the driver who said we could ride free then. Then the two Obama canvassers got on. As we were pulling into one station we heard screaming at the other end of the train (about four cars away.) The driver came onto the loudspeaker calling for police. Who boarded immediately as we entered into the station. A young black woman and a young white woman slipped quickly off the train. The police - Wackenhut Security guys - stayed on the train to the end of the line where we got off. At the end we heard the driver reporting the incident - a white guy had been yelling racial epithets at a white girl and black girl sitting together.

Palin's Speech Made Biden's Speech Look Lame

As an Alaskan, I couldn't help but feel good about our Governor's speech accepting the vice presidential nomination. Well, she's only been announced. The nomination comes next week. But she was pure Palin. For those who are wondering, this is real. She's poised, comfortable, and speaks honestly. It was a real contrast to the older man standing next to her with the shit-eating grin on his face.

Palin has become a strong, confident speaker. Her nomination and, even more, her speech will is going to totally change this election. The Republicans did a great job of pointing out all her best points.

The Obama people better be careful when they attack Palin. I'm in a household here in Portland that's got Fox News on. They reported that the Obama people said Palin was in the pocket of big oil. If that's their research, they're in big trouble. She is clearly NOT in the pocket of big oil. But, as I said, I'm getting my news from Fox, so I have no idea if the Obama people really said that.

I did notice that when McCain introduced her and said that she'd stood up to vested interests, he left the oil companies off his list. But Palin didn't leave them off her list. And that has been her biggest coup.

I would say from what we've seen in Alaska, Palin is honest, serious about doing what's right, takes on anyone who she thinks is wrong. And she took on the big oil companies and so far she's won. But the Monehan firing also reveals some lack of experience and lack of sense of the protocol. The video is the first few minutes of this morning's speech.



For another video of Palin, see her introducing a several day workshop for legislators and the public on AGIA (Alaska Gasline Inducement Act).

There will be lots of contradictions in this race. The McCain folks have been blasting Obama for lack of experience. It isn't just about being governor for 18 months, it's also her exposure to different ideas and different people. She spent time outside of Alaska when she went to the University of Idaho. Other than that, I suspect she's spent more time outside of Alaska as Governor than she did since she moved to Alaska as an infant. I don't that she's been outside the US besides Canada. These gaps should cause concern. But who knows what the glamor and the media can do?