"Never climb a tree or fence, or do anything awkward with a loaded firearm."

And other things I learned checking out this ad in the Saturday morning's Alaska Dispatch News.  It fell out as I pulled the paper out of the plastic bag.  [The quote in the title is from the safety chart below.]


The back side of the flier has stuff about Anchorage  and shows the engraving on the right (Petroleum Industry) and left (Fur Traders) cylinders and says

"Only 100 will be made in the edition."

If layaway starts at $200, what's the total price?

So I called and got a recording.  I looked on line.  There was a safety page and that got me to thinking - if this is a fancy 'heritage' revolver, wouldn't I want to display it?  How could I do that and be safe at the same time.  While I was mulling that over, the phone rang and it was a guy from American Legacy Firearms.

I asked about the price.  The full price, he said . . . it's gold plated and engraved, is $2495, but there's a special promotion, $300 off.  So it's $2195.  And only 100 will be made.

Then I asked about how one would safely display such a gun, since one is buying it because it is a special beautiful piece.  Well, they don't actually advise on that - was I thinking of a wall display, a display case?  A glass case, with a lock is possible, but it could be broken and the gun stolen.  We've had some customers who got really high quality glass that couldn't be broken and cemented it in - really elaborate.  It would be unloaded, of course.  You could put on a gun lock, but a big burly lock wouldn't look very good.  You could have a gun smith remove the firing pin, but then you wouldn't be able to use it.

I asked how long the discount would be in place.  There will be only 100, so when they are sold it's over.  25 have been ordered already and we hope to have them sold by the end of the year.


I looked further on line to see what safety storage options there might be.  The Kruger website sent me to the National Shooting Sports Foundation site where I found this from Project ChildSafe (from the National Shooting Sports Foundation):

"The decision to maintain a firearm in the home for self-protection is a serious, personal matter. Unlike passive safety devices, such as alarm systems, firearms used for home protection require significantly more involvement by the owner. Any added safety benefit that may be derived from a firearm depends in large measure on the owner’s commitment to appropriate training and a clear understanding of safe handling and storage rules. Are your security concerns realistic and consistent with local crime rates? Do other adults in your household support the decision to maintain a gun in the home? If they will have access to the firearm, will they join you in a firearms training and safety program? What precautions will be practiced to safeguard children? Do risk factors such as drug and alcohol abuse exist within your household? In addition, issues such as individual temperament, reaction to emergency situations, and specific family circumstances should also enter in the decision.

If you must have quick access to a loaded firearm in your home, you need to take special safety measures. Keeping a gun to defend your family makes no sense if that same gun puts your family members or visitors to your home at risk. Home firearms accidents can occur when unauthorized individuals – often visitors – discover loaded firearms that were carelessly left out in the open.

If you choose to keep a firearm for home security, your objective should be to create a situation in which the firearm is readily available to you, yet inaccessible or inoperative to others. Special lockable cases that can be quickly opened only by authorized individuals are options to consider.

You must exercise full control and supervision over a loaded gun at all times. This means the gun must be unloaded and placed in secure storage whenever you leave the gun in your home or elsewhere. Secure ammunition separately.

Your most important responsibility is ensuring that unsupervised children cannot encounter loaded firearms. The precautions you take must be completely effective. Anything less invites tragedy and is a serious violation of your responsibility as a gun owner."

I looked for safe storage.  Number 3 below is

"Firearms should be unloaded and securely stored when not in use."  But how exactly?

Here are basic safety rules from Ruger.

Click to enlarge and focus

These are all very reasonable and logical in the abstract, but, for example, will the person who's had a few drinks heed this kind of advice?

Click to enlarge and focus

I finally found this chart on safe storage (p.16). The commentary lists some of the problems.  There aren't any perfect solutions - especially if you want a gun for self-defense at home at night. The cable can be cut.  Electronic lock boxes won't work if their batteries die.  And all say to keep keys or combinations away from children and unauthorized people.  Easier said than done.

I also wanted to know how much this revolver would cost without the gold plating and the engraving.  I found this auction site that listed this sort of gun.  They ranged, as you can see, from $450 to $679. 

I don't know how many folks are ready to plunk down $2100 for one of these - though I'm guessing a lot more than I imagine.  But someone suggested that with the "petroleum industry" engraving, it might make a great retirement present for oil company employees in Alaska 

"Love is Serious Shit!" - Girl w/ blue cooler

I noticed this sign next to me while waiting for the light, on the way to vote early, so I whipped out my camera.  There are stories everywhere you look, but this one is spelled out a lot more than most.

Did he find her?  I looked for a contact number.  It says to check Craigslist, so I checked Craigslist:

"Fish Creek Man of My Dreams - w4m (Anchorage) It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon at Fish Creek on July 31, 2014. Walking along the bank with a blue cooler, I was looking for my friend who had abandoned my son and I. You passed me by asking if that thing was full and I said no and that I hated mud. I was a little scared of getting stuck so I went to the other side. The last day of the opening, yesterday. It only happens once a year-sometimes years apart. You said you had seen me on the other side of the river before you left like you'd been looking for me to talk to me while I meanwhile stole your fishing spot. I pointed out my son to you and you walked away but you came back. I should have said something but I didn't know what to say. I probably would have jumped in your arms if I wasn't an encrusted mud ball. I know your friend's name is Jack but I don't know yours. You live in Anchorage; I live in Wasilla. I've been looking for you my entire life and I was sad to see you leave the river and walk out of my life forever so now you'll have to find me all over again but I'm trying to help you do just that. Trust me I look better without muddy hip boots and that ugly, brown sweater!

If anyone knows these two who were at Fish Creek on July 31, please let them know the ad is on here so Jack's friend can find me. Please do not contact me if you are not the person I am seeking as I will not respond."

 Anyone know Jack and his friend?  Oh, yeah, the Craigslist link has a picture of the blue cooler too.  

A Hundred Billion Gallons Of Water Exported From Drought Stricken California To China

That caught my eye.  Was there a water pipeline?  Ships carrying water to China?

If so, we'd all know about it I'm sure.  The full claim is this:

"A hundred billion gallons of water per year is being exported in the form of alfalfa from California," argues Professor Robert Glennon from Arizona College of Law.

You can read the details in a February 2014 BBC post.

It seems that focusing on the water use was a good way to get people's attention.

A Las Vegas television station has a long post on this dated May describing how the Chinese demand for alfalfa has caused California farmers to switch to the water intensive crop.  The post raises possible changes in the water agreements.

"Glennon hopes deals can be cut in which cities like Las Vegas pay farmers to use water more efficiently, still grow their hay for export, but leave a little water for everyone else.
“Farmers use just over 80 percent of the water in the country. If you include livestock, it’s 85 percent. If that 85 percent were cut down to 78, say 7 percent, that would double the entire nation's consumption for domestic, commercial, and industrial,” Glennon said.

[I had some trouble understanding the numbers and emailed Professor Glennon.  He replied that municipal and industrial use only comes to between 5 and 10 percent so a 7 percent reduction by agriculture would about double the supply.]
 

Photo from a  recent flight to LA.  I was struck by the contrast between irrigated land and the unirrigated land. Now I'm wondering if the green is alfalfa.

Seeing Water In Alfalfa

Critical for me is the indirect nature of this water transfer.  Stopping farmers from shipping alfalfa to China (to feed cattle there) would seem a violation of the farmers' rights.  But if they were just shipping the water, you know there'd be a giant outcry. 

'Seeing' involves more than noting the obvious.  It requires seeing beyond the superficial.  It requires a brain that asks questions. 

Glennon, Morris K. Udall Professor of Law and Public Policy in the Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona,  is a water specialist and has found a way to catch the public's attention by translating alfalfa into the water needed to grow it.


Pushback

And not everyone is happy about this.   Dan Putnam, Alfalfa & Forage Specialist at UC Davis takes on what he sees as an attack on alfalfa:

Exporting Water a new Angle?  The targeting of exports with regards to water represents a new  shift in the ongoing Mark Twain-ian  water fights over the best use of water (“Whisky’s for  drinking, water’s for fightin’ over”). Do we really want to go there? What about the embodied  ‘water’ in all of the goods (including food)  imported  into the US?
What about exporting water in  the form of silicon chips?  Is exporting ‘water’ in the form of almonds, citrus, wine or alfalfa hay  to consumers in China, Japan, or  Europe, really any different than exporting ‘water’ in the form of California food products to New York, or for that matter, Phoenix or Las Vegas?
What is the  moral or economic issue here?  Farmers depend upon these markets.  Most economists laud the  value of exports to the US economy, and agriculture is one of the bright spots in US exports,  which have struggled  to match the onslaught of imports from (guess where)  -  China.

[Note, this is from an undated pdf file.]

Putnam doesn't seem to totally disagree with the idea of thinking about crops and even manufactured goods in terms of the water used to produce them.  His main concern it seems, and this is reasonable for someone connected with the California Alfalfa Workgroup, is that alfalfa has been singled out from among all the other water users. 

Putnam also notes this trend is simply following the market.

"Alfalfa receives no subsidy  and the crop  mostly follows free market principles  –  so growers seek the best  market for their  crop. These markets represent important economic opportunities for California  farmers." 

Alfalfa crops, per se, may not receive subsidies, but the water allocations in the southwest are not market driven.  They are agreements between governments, old agreements that allocated a huge proportion of the water to agriculture.  Putnam himself acknowledges this indirectly:

The ability to pay has,  and always will,  favor urban  water  use over agricultural use.  But this  is not specific to alfalfa  –  there are virtually no  food-producing  enterprises that can  compete economically with  urban demand for water.  Food takes a lot of water to produce,  whether  its lettuce, walnuts or alfalfa,  either from rain or irrigation.  Questions arise,  though,  about the long-term  consequences of degrading our agricultural capability by moving water from  food production to urban use.

So, there are market forces and government forces involved in what appears to be a paradox in California water use.  By the way, government water allocations to farmers have been cut during the current drought.

Do Not Open This Door Due To The Totem Pole

Lack of planning best demonstrates the benefits of planning.

When I first looked at the sign, I thought they were worried the door would hit the totem pole if it were opened all the way.  Then I looked up.

This is in the lobby of the state court building in downtown Anchorage. [Blogger stuff: Feedburner doesn't seem to be reading this and sending it out to blogrolls, so I'm trying to repost and see if feedburner will catch it. Then I'm reverting the previous post of this back to draft. For those who saw this when I put it up earlier, sorry for the inconvenience.][Update: it worked!]

Common Sense And Cooperation - Passengers Push Train, Free Man Who Didn't Mind The Gap

That's my spin on this one.  Others might label this stupidity, but I know we all could be in this guy's position.  Others might call it leadership, or low tech wins.

[Pictures are screenshots from the station video of the incident, reported at Perth News. (It's winter in Australia.)

Screenshot from Perth News Video

The video shows the train come in, people get off, people get on, then this guy drops as his leg somehow slips into the gap.  [The year in Hong Kong put the warning "Mind the Gap" indelibly into my brain.]  A passenger calls the guy in the orange vest over.
Then the orange vest guys seem to be talking to the man.  A guy with a backpack and a cell phone hovers around.  Is he talking to a friend?  Emergency people?  Train people?

Having no audio lets you imagine who these people are and what they are saying to the men in the orange vests.

There's a woman - I think - who pantomimes pushing the train.  She's in the dark grey coat.

Screenshot from Perth News Video

Does she work for the train system?  Is she just a passenger?  We don't know.  But then she walks down to the next exit and then all the passengers come out. 

Screenshot from Perth News Video

And then they line up and start pushing the train until the passenger is free.

Screenshot from Perth News Video

His getting loose is obscured by all the people.  It appears they put him on the train.  When the crowd thins, he's no longer there. One of the passengers quoted in the Perth News post is quoted:

"The train moved on its suspension enough for the man to get out from the sticky situation.

“He was walking so he was reasonably OK,” Mr Taylor said.

“He seemed to be a bit sheepish, because right where he fell was the ‘mind the gap’ writing.”

This is what people CAN do.  And I'm sure it was out of a desire to help the poor guy whose leg was caught and not just because they wanted the train to get started again.  (No, I don't think I'm a cynic, I just try to think of as many possibilities as I can.)  I think most of us would help willingly and it's a relatively small, but impactful minority, that keeps the suicide bombers active in Iraq and the violence in Gaza going.

You can watch the whole video at the Perth News website.

Shirt Buttons - One More Unnecessary Way of Separating Men And Women

I have a wife and a daughter (and a mother who didn't retire until she was 85) so I'm aware of women's issues.  If I don't notice, they make sure I do.  But even so when I was with my granddaughter at a playground two days in a row - once when she wore pants and a t shirt and the next day in more girly clothes - I posted about how even as babies they are already clearly divided into girls and boys.  And then there was the birthday party at that playground where four year old girls were lined up to beat a woman with sticks.  If any of the parents noticed what was going on, they didn't say anything. 

This isn't so dramatic, but it's one more example of unnecessarily dividing males from females that I noticed when I was getting clothes off the line at my mom's when we were there last.  Buttons!

I decided to take pictures of my mom's and my shirts in case I decided to do a post.

Where does this come from?

There are a number of posts online that all say pretty much the same thing - that it comes from [differing times in the past] when upper middle class women had servants to help them dress and since they buttoned them from the other side, they moved buttons for women over.   Others say men needed access to their weapons and women holding babies on their right arms needed access to their breasts.  Some examples: 

• In the 19th century wealthy women were typically dressed by servants. 
• According to legend, women button right over left because in medieval times they were dressed by their right-handed maids. 
• During the Victorian Era, rich women who could afford servants and expensive clothing would depend on maids to help dress them.
• Buttons on jackets, rather than shirts, started to appear on opposite sides about 1635. The reasons for the switch are obscure.  One theory is that men wanted their right hand free to have immediate access to a weapon, such as a sword . . .
• In medieval times, women were dressed by maids so women's wear was made with buttons on the opposite side.

I was surprised at how many posts there were on this, how much they copied from each other yet transformed the facts,  and how few cited any sources.  I can't believe that people believe this stuff without any historical references. (And some did note that the evidence is sketchy.)  I would note that Queen Victoria was on the throne from 1837 to 1901 (from the term of the 8th US president Martin Van Buren to that of the 25th, William McKinley. So she coincides with the 19th century. But the medieval period ended well before 1635. 

Historical Boys' Clothing has one of the better documented discussions of this and ultimately questions these explanations:

"The historical explanations about the rationale for 'gendered buttons' has me wondering whether the 'rational' explanations that are given in fashion histories (like the one quoted from The Economy of Fashion) are post-hoc explanations, since there are no further sources given. I'm thinking of Norbert Elias' intriguing point about post-hoc explanations of manners that have little to do with the actual origins of a particular behavior."

 I can't tell you where it comes from, but I can hypothesize about why it's still around. Warning:  This strays into pure supposition..  I'm not citing any sources other than my own brain. 

Power 

While women may wear men's clothing, men in our society have been conditioned strongly NOT to wear women's clothing.  I suspect this has to do with the power differential between the genders - it makes sense for women to take on the clothes of those in power (men), but it doesn't make sense (to those who set the standards) for men to take on the clothes of those who are less powerful.  The standard setters think power is the most important possession.  

But as women gain more power in society, we get men doing things traditionally in the domain of women - shaving parts of their bodies beyond their faces, using make-up, spending more time on their hair, even coloring it, and wearing more uni-sexual clothing.

But as soon as you put on a woman's shirt or jacket, as soon as you start to zip or button it, you know - whoops, this is for a woman.

I suspect that much of the rabidly anti-women's autonomy wing of the Republican party comes from the growing power and independence of women in the United States.  If you think they went crazy when a black man became president, wait until a woman takes office.

Profit

There are people who benefit from this - mainly people who sell clothing. 



But the fewer gender barriers we have the more freedom people have to be who they are.  Girls and boys shouldn't be pressured into specific gender roles.  We should be allowed to express ourselves in whatever way feels right to us including clothing. 

I'd note that while googling for this post, the most interesting history on shirts came from a website called Reconstructing History, where you can get a pattern for "18thc Men's Shirts and Drawers." ($26.95 for non-members)  There's a long and very serious description of men's shirts based on historical documents that begins:

"Hot on the heels of the flowing garments of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance ushered in the Golden Age of the tailor's art. Clothing took on impossible shapes and radical forms, all controlled by the skill of these manipulators of fabric. Doublets were padded. Bodices were boned. The human form was hidden by what can most accurately be termed "textile architecture." Western Europeans were sailing around the world and discovering unknown lands. Certainly such beings weren't going to be restricted to traditional clothing shapes. So the clothes got more and more structured as the Age of Discovery went on.
But one element of dress harked back to its medieval antecedents: the shirt. Under the slashes and bones, the pinking and brocading, the shirt was still a very simple garment. Whether embroidered with blackwork or pleated and smocked, the shirt retained a simple elegance and basic shape which changed little between the 16th and 19th centuries."

It mentions buttons four times:

• Two handmade thread buttons on the collar and one on each cuff seems to be a common amount throughout the period.
• In 1731, we receive more information:  “Shirts of Blue and White Checkered linen, to be made at least 40 in. long, and not less than 26 in. broad. The sleeves 20 in. long and 8 in. broad, with 4 buttons substantially sewed. -- 3s 6d.”  And in the final contract we have, 1739-40, it calls for “Shirts of Blue and White Chequered linen, the sleeve 20 inches long and 8 in. broad, with 4 buttons.  40 long, 26 broad at the waist -- 3s 6d.”
• The knees are closed with linen tapes.  The waistband is closed at front with two covered buttons, but the fly is left open, confimring that these are indeed drawers and not meant for wear as breeches.

Nate Silver Has Alaska's US Senate Race 50-50

"Meanwhile, in Alaska – which has a track record of inaccurate polling — some models now perceive a slight advantage for the incumbent, Democratic Sen. Mark Begich. We think the polling is too thin and too inconsistent to warrant that prediction, particularly given that the GOP has not yet held its Aug. 19 primary."

This quote comes at the end of a FiveThirtyEight blog overview of US Senate races for November.  Overall, Silver says

". . . we continue to see Republicans as slightly more likely than not to win a net of six seats this November and control of the Senate. A lot of it is simply reversion to the mean.² This may not be a “wave” election as 2010 was, but Republicans don’t need a wave to take over the Senate.

 But, he's hedging his bets:

However, I also want to advance a cautionary note. It’s still early, and we should not rule out the possibility that one party could win most or all of the competitive races."

Why should we listen to Nate Silver?

For those who can't place the name, Nate Silver was the geeky statistician,  portrayed by Jonah Hill in the movie Moneyball, who helped the money-strapped Oakland A's pick winning ball players.   (The movie was based on Michael Lewis' book Moneyball.)

He took his statistical savvy into politics.  Wikipedia summarizes:

"The accuracy of his November 2008 presidential election predictions—he correctly predicted the winner of 49 of the 50 states—won Silver further attention and commendation. The only state he missed was Indiana, which went for Barack Obama by one percentage point. He correctly predicted the winner of all 35 U.S. Senate races that year. . .

In the 2012 United States presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, he correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.^[11] That same year, Silver's predictions of U.S. Senate races were correct in 31 of 33 states; he predicted Republican victory in North Dakota and Montana, where Democrats won.

Silver's model includes polling data and a linear regression analysis of other factual data about candidates and voters.  From a FiveThirtyEight post in the New York Times (where Silver worked before moving to ESPN) on the methodology:

• A state’s Partisan Voting Index
• The composition of party identification in the state’s electorate (as determined through Gallup polling)
• The sum of individual contributions received by each candidate as of the last F.E.C. reporting period (this variable is omitted if one or both candidates are new to the race and have yet to complete an FEC filing period)
• Incumbency status
• For incumbent Senators, an average of recent approval and favorability ratings
• A variable representing stature, based on the highest elected office that the candidate has held. It takes on the value of 3 for candidates who have been Senators or Governors in the past; 2 for U.S. Representatives, statewide officeholders like Attorneys General, and mayors of cities of at least 300,000 persons; 1 for state senators, state representatives, and other material elected officeholders (like county commissioners or mayors of small cities), and 0 for candidates who have not held a material elected office before.

Silver's election track record has been damn accurate.  But there are also the intangibles that aren't reflected in measurable factors. 

This prediction on the Alaska race comes before the Republican primary (in two weeks) and so we don't even know who Begich's opponent will be. 

But Sen. Begich is a formidable candidate - details of legislation and people slide effortlessly from his memory banks to his lips; he knows how to put the right spin on things; he grew up in Alaska politics and has strong, long-term relationships with people all over the state; and he's a pragmatic politician who makes decisions based on his sense of the what Alaskans want and what will work.  He's also got a very aggressive campaign going - countering every negative ad as soon as it comes out and he's got an army of volunteers around the state going door-to-door.   

Of his potential opponents, Sullivan has the money, but not the Alaska cred.  Treadwell has the Alaska cred, but not the money.   And Joe Miller?  While this video of him literally blasting bullet holes through the Affordable Care Act will win him votes from the fanatical anti-Obama and pro-gun folks, it will sink his campaign among all other voters. 

If Silver has Begich at 50-50 based on the tangibles, I'd bet the intangibles will tip the scales in his favor.

The Origins of Hogwash

This cartoon in today's paper got me wondering exactly where the word 'hogwash' comes from. 

Online references are iffy, so take this with a grain of salt (useful for detecting hogwash).  But I did check a number of sites and the more legit looking ones seemed to agree on this. 


From Word Ancestry:

hogwash, n. [hawg-wosh, hŏg-wŏsh]
-Hogwash is a simple compound noun formed around the mid-15th century from the two English nouns hog 'a type of swine, a pig' and wash 'waste liquid or food refuse from a kitchen.' The wash was often put to use as food for domesticated animals, particularly as swill for pigs. By 1712, hogwash could also be used to describe cheap, poorly made liquor; by 1773, poorly written manuscripts fell under the label of hogwash. In modern English, almost anything that is badly done or ridiculous can be equated with this term for barnyard slop.

That reminded me of the Karen village we visited near Chiengmai (Thailand).  After lunch we helped wash the dishes. 







The water and bits of food left on the dishes went out the drain on the sink to a concrete trough below to the chickens.  You can see the birds below on the right waiting. 


The original post, Sustainable Farming the Old Fashioned way - Karen Village, gives a good picture story of our visit and includes the pigs too.  It's well worth a visit, but then I'm biased, of course, because it takes me back to a wonderful day we had there five years ago. 

"Alaskans should be partners with oil companies, not adversaries" Sounds Like "The lion shall lie down with the lamb"

The first quote is the title of a Mike Dingman editorial in the print version of the Alaska Dispatch News.  Online, the title is "Dingman: Alaskans should not repeal oil tax cuts."  

But near the end, he does write, "I would contend that a partnership much better serves our goal at developing our natural resources for the greatest benefit of all Alaskans."

The market, we are told, over and over again, works because of competition.  When business folks start talking about partnership with government, I get worried.  They rail against government, until they think they can get something from government.

The oil companies' main purpose is NOT to drill for oil, but to maximize profit for their shareholders. It's certainly not to help the people of Alaska.  There's nothing in their mission statements about that.   They're playing a zero-sum game:  the more money the state keeps the less the oil companies get.  The more the oil companies make, the less the state makes.

But now they're talking variable sum:  lower taxes will result in greater production and greater revenue for Alaskans. But like any good salesman or poker player, they're using all the terms that they think will persuade voters, but they're not offering any proof or promises to back up their words.  It's just platitudes. It's theory, not fact.   

Two Alaska Senators challenged the governor to agree to repeal SB 21 if it doesn't result in one barrel or one dollar more than ACES (the previous oil tax) would have brought in by 2018.  They were derided by the governor's friends as gimmicking.  But, if the governor really believed in SB 21's superiority (in terms of long term state revenues) to ACES, he should have readily agreed.  The truth seems to be that the governor isn't really sure.  It's all a poker bluff. 

There is a natural conflict between the state and the oil companies.  Actually there are more than one.

First, the State's job is to maximize Alaska's natural resources for the benefit of the people of Alaska.  As owners of the oil, its the governor and legislature's job to get top dollar for Alaskan oil.  The oil companies' goal is to maximize their shareholders' profits.  Zero-sum game.

Second, the state's job is to monitor the oil companies to make sure they comply with all state laws and regulations and the companies, in their attempts to maximize shareholder profit, are constantly tempted to find ways to cut costs - leading to things like oil spills because they were cutting on maintenance or moving oil rigs into bad weather to avoid taxes. 

In both the above cases, the companies denied what they later pleaded guilty to.  We really can't take them at their word, they've proved that over and over again.  Remember how Exxon dragged out their payments over the Exxon Valdez oil spill for over a quarter century?

The government is already at a disadvantage when negotiating with the oil companies - most state information is available to the public, but the oil companies aren't required to disclose their information.  (Yes, lots must be disclosed to regulators, but they have far more hidden at negotiations than the state does.)

The state and the oil companies are adversaries - a role the founding fathers saw as the way to keep checks and balances by giving different powers to the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.  

There are times when the state and private organizations can work in partnership, but Alaska's ownership over its oil puts it in an adversarial relationship with the oil companies.  We aren't partners.  We're competitors who can sometimes cooperate.  But my confidence in Alaska's ability to bargain aggressively for the people of Alaska is greatly reduced when the head of 'our team' was an attorney and lobbyist for one of the oil companies before becoming governor.  

Saying we should be partners is a noble goal, like the lion lying down with the lamb.  (Or with the wolf as this post says was the original wording.)   I'll let all those opposing Proposition 1 let their lambs sleep with lions and watch what happens, before committing my lamb, or my state, to the lions.  

I'm all for variable sum games.  Looking at the world with a zero-sum lens is short sighted.  But the other side has to really be serious about variable-sum and there's nothing about oil companies that suggests that's their mode.  They may well believe their own rhetoric, but their failure to make any concrete commitments in exchange for SB 21 says lots more than their words. 

"a tiny, but vocal segment' and LA Bike Lanes

A July 17, 2014 (yes, I'm trying to catch up on a backload of unfinished posts)  Los Angeles Times article, chronicled the problems of carrying out the LA bicycle plan. 

Last week, City Councilman Gil Cedillo announced he is halting work indefinitely on northbound and southbound bike lanes planned for a three-mile stretch of North Figueroa Street, despite an aggressive two-year campaign by cycling advocates.
Cedillo said he feared the loss of a single southbound car lane would slow emergency response times of police officers and firefighters on Figueroa, which runs roughly parallel to the 110 Freeway. He dismissed cyclists as a tiny but vocal segment of the population.  [emphasis added]

It's always a 'tiny but vocal segment' that gets things done.  These are the folks who care enough to work hard and get things done through the political process.  It's often these 'tiny, but vocal segment' folks versus the tiny, but rich segment who have the money to influence politicians.  And it's only a "tiny but vocal segment' when they oppose you.  When they are on your side it's "democracy in action.' 







Here's the 'bike lane' I ride on part of my route to Venice Beach when I'm at my mom's.  It doesn't even have a line to separate the bikes from the cars.   If it did, there wouldn't be enough room for the cars.  It's a dance between drivers and riders.  It's only about 3/4 of a mile stretch like this with lots of stop signs so the cars are going slowly. It's the most direct route.  But I have to be constantly watching for car doors that could open in front of me and I pray that the drivers aren't going to clip me.


Here's what it looks like from the bike. 

The article sums up the opposing sides:  

Bicycle advocates have long argued that the addition of dedicated lanes can achieve multiple goals: spurring more people to take up cycling — and reducing the number of cars on the road — while calming traffic in a way that cuts down on accidents and keeps drivers within the speed limit.
Opponents argue that too few bicyclists are on the road to justify the loss of so many car lanes and the suffering that comes with lengthier commutes.

I'd say this was a pretty narrow view of things.  The real problem is that transportation infrastructure in LA (and elsewhere) was created for the automobile.  Trolly tracks in LA were pulled out in the 50's to make more room for cars.

Bikes need to have their own, car-free, paths.  Not simply for recreation, but for transportation.  They do in the Netherlands, and to some extent in Anchorage and Portland and other places.  And along the beach at Venice and Santa Monica.

Below is the dedicated bike lane along Santa Monica beach.  No motorized vehicles.  (Well, that's not completely accurate - people ride rented Segways there too.)  There's a separate path for pedestrians, though there are parts of the path where there are both pedestrians and bikes.  This path is full of bikers of all ages, ethnicities, and economic backgrounds.  People like to bike.  And they will when it's safe.

If there were lanes like this that all over LA (or fill in whatever city) that riders could use to commute, there'd eventually be a lot fewer cars on the road, a lot less space used up for parking, a lot less carbon fuel used, and a lot of people who'd get good exercise on a daily basis.  

Making bike lanes on streets built for and still dominated by cars will always be a poor way to go.  It's a makeshift adjustment that leaves cyclists in mortal danger and pisses off drivers.  In already existing cities, my guess is that eventually some streets will become bike only routes, with a lane restricted to cars that live or deliver on that block.

Without exclusive bike routes, cycling can only grow so much.  Biking in traffic is for those who still believe in their own immortality or are knowingly risking their lives to be pioneers for future generations of non-motorized transportation options.

Not everyone can ride a bike to work.  Not everyone can ride a work every day.  But a lot more people can than do.  Some of the barriers are mental - it's not part of their mental habits to think about biking to work.  But most barriers are bad infrastructure - like sketchy bike lines that suddenly disappear and don't deal with the need for cars to make right turns and don't really separate cars from bikes.