Flowery Distractions So You Won't Notice My Unwritten Posts

I have a small pile of unwritten posts - the Democratic Unity Dinner last Tuesday, How Exit Glacier introduced me to Salfón, el limpiador de tejados, something on the uniting possibilities of funerals, the Charter College Graduation, and others that will probably slip away as time passes and more current events take priority.

So I was going to post these photos from the botanical garden yesterday just because I thought they were pretty neat.  In one case, I was smart and took a picture of name of the flower so I'd remember. This red one is a masterwort - Astrantia "Ruby Wedding" Apiaceae.

But I got so caught up shooting these two that I forgot to the the name.

I was even going to ride back to the gardens and find out.  A good excuse to get some exercise.  But I had some things to take care of and then it started to rain really hard. 

Hard enough that the drops were actually splashing on our deck table.  And I decided you're going to have to just appreciate the flowers and their insect friends as anonymous visitors to the blog.  But I'm now on the lookout for a good insect field guide, one that allows me to distinguish between different types of flies like the two in the pictures above.





Even though the rain is down to a light drizzle now, my back fender somehow disappeared Saturday when we were out in pretty substantial rain.  You can get a sense from this picture of water in Chester Creek gushing out from under New Seward Highway.

Vote Here To Know God

This is what I saw when I voted last week.  I have no problem visiting a church for someone's wedding.  I visited churches voluntarily when we were in England this summer.  I even went to the Anchorage Baptist Temple for Sen. Ted Stevens' memorial.

But when my right to vote at my local polling place requires me to enter a church, it doesn't feel right to me.

What's your problem Steve?  What's the big deal?  It's just a building.  No one is asking you to pray before you vote.  (Would that help get my candidates elected?) 

As I wrote last year when I voted at the Municipal election, "Would anyone be troubled if they had to vote in a mosque?"  Given the debate over a proposed mosque in Lower Manhattan, I'm guessing there are a few people who might not feel comfortable voting in a mosque.  Then why, in a nation that constitutionally protects freedom of religion for all, should anyone be required, in order to vote, to attend a house of worship?

I think it's about power and equality.  When the vast majority of people actively support the idea that every religion should be treated  with equal esteem and respect before the law, when some religions aren't favored over others, when a significant and politically active segment of the population does not believe its their job to convert everyone to their belief - then we can start talking about being less concerned about celebrating religious holidays in public schools and voting in houses of worship.

It seems to me that as the people who have been traditionally privileged before the law - whites and males (is there anyone who doesn't believe that whites and males have been historically privileged in the US?) - are feeling uncomfortable in the US as the laws are being changed to balance things a bit, starting with abolishing slavery, voting rights for women,  rights for women over property and in marriages, equal access to public accommodation, housing,  education, jobs,  and voting.   Isn't this what moving back to basic American values is all about?  Taking back America?  That discomfort they feel, that's how it feels to vote in a church.


[Note:  I set this up to post Monday morning early but accidentally posted Sunday morning.  Before I could correct this, there was already a comment, so I'm posting the comment in this reposting at the correct time.


Dean has left a new comment on your post "Vote Here To Know God":

Where your polling place is has an enormous psychological impact. Great article on this very topic in this month's Miller-McCune Magazine]

[Update Sept. 3:  A Pakistani friend emailed that in Pakistan they do NOT vote in mosques, only in public schools.]

Arctic Streakers Agility Club

Last Sunday, while on a bike ride we ran into a bunch of tents in the Waldron Park off Tudor Road east of Seward Highway.  We discovered the Arctic Streakers Agility Club.  

Wikipedia seems to have the best description of agility

Dog agility is a dog sport in which a handler directs a dog through an obstacle course in a race for both time and accuracy. Dogs run off-leash with no food or toys as incentives, and the handler can touch neither dog nor obstacles.

Consequently the handler's controls are limited to voice, movement, and various body signals, requiring exceptional training of the animal and coordination of the handler.
In its simplest form, an agility course consists of a set of standard obstacles, laid out by an agility judge in a design of his or her own choosing on a roughly 100 by 100-foot (30 by 30 m) area, with numbers indicating the order in which the dog must complete the obstacles.

Courses are complicated enough that a dog could not complete them correctly without human direction. In competition, the handler must assess the course, decide on handling strategies, and direct the dog through the course, with precision and speed equally important. Many strategies exist to compensate for the inherent difference in human and dog speeds and the strengths and weaknesses of the various dogs and handlers.

The North American Dog Agility Council website tells us:

The North American Dog Agility Council (NADAC) was formed in 1993 to provide North American dogs and their handlers with a fast, safe and enjoyable form of the sport of dog agility. NADAC sanctions agility trials sponsored by affiliated clubs.

The purpose of a NADAC agility trial is to demonstrate the ability of a dog and its handler to work as a smoothly functioning team. With separate class divisions for Veterans and Junior Handlers and a variety of games, NADAC dog agility offers something for everyone!

Looking a little further, I found the United States Association of Dog Agility Clubs.  I wonder what the story is about these two organizations.

As evidence of the pioneering spirit and leadership role of USDAA and its supporters, we count among our accomplishments -

Introduction of the sport to North America in its international form (1986)

• First organization in the world to separate competition into four jumping height divisions, fostering participation among competitors with virtually all sizes of dogs
• First officially sanctioned event in the United States and North America (1986)
• Introduction of the first competitive tournament series in North America - the "Grand Prix of Dog Agility^®" (1988)
• Introduction of the first certification tests in the world in five distinctive classes of competition (1990)
• First U.S. canine sports authority to field teams in "world" competition (FCI World Dog Show, Germany, 1991)
• First championship tournament series on a major national television network when the USDAA Grand Prix of Dog Agility^® Championships was telecast on Animal Planet (1999)

Alaska to be Buried in Virginia

Speaker after speaker told us at Ted Stevens' memorial in Anchorage that, in Lisa Murkowski's words, "Ted was Alaska."


The Anchorage Daily News reports today that Ted is to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.

Blogger Blocks Spam Comments!

When people leave a comment on a post, I get an email notice with the comment.  Yesterday and today I got such emails.  The comments were spam and I was going to delete them, but they weren't posted.  "Did Blogger block them?" I wondered.

Today I checked Blogger settings and there's a new comment category and there's a Spam tab.  And that's where those two messages ended up.  This is a real improvement.

I'm sure there will be some legitimate comments that end up in the spam basket, but we'll be able to let them be posted.  But will I know from the email that it wasn't posted if it isn't spam and I don't go to the post to see the comments there?  I'm not sure.


Here's what blogger says when click the link "more about Blogger's spam filter."

Spam Inbox

Blogger now filters comments that are likely spam comments to a Spam Inbox, much like the spam folder in your email. When someone leaves a comment on your blog, it will be reviewed against our spam detector, and comments that are identified as possible spam will be sent to your blog’s Spam Inbox, found at Comments | Spam.
You can help improve our ability to automatically detect spam comments by checking your Spam Inbox and deleting spam comments and marking real comments that may have been flagged as spam as Not Spam.
We are always seeking feedback on how to improve this feature, so please share your feedback with us by clicking on the Report Spam Filtering Issues.
If you have questions about what constitutes spam on Blogger, please review our Content Policies.

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Papilio canadensis - Time for a Break from Politics

Our neighbor called us to see this strange bug he'd found. 

The closest thing I could think of was a tomato worm, but this was much smaller and didn't have the horns.

The fake eyes, with eye brows even, give it a really strange appearance and makes that section look like the head. 

I suspect the head is really that little fuzzy thing in front.




I checked with the Cooperative Extension and they suggested it was

Papilio canadensis -the caterpillar of the Canadian Tiger Swallow Tail.   With a name, I could check on line.  This appears to be what it is, though the ones I saw online were bright green and this is more brown.  Perhaps it's at a different stage of its life.  The 'eyes' are right and the ones online also have dots along the back of the 'neck.'  And they live in Alaska and they eat birch and aspen among other leaves.

Alaska Election Context 3 - How Vulnerable Was Lisa Murkowski?

In Part 1 I looked at looked at Alaska's registered voter rate (apparently 96%).
In Part 2 I looked at the US Senate race and how the primaries work in Alaska.
In this post I'll look at Sen. Lisa Murkowski's background.

[UPDATE Aug 28:  A reader sent me this link to Anchorage attorney Don Mitchell's Huffington Post piece on the same topic, which has the same gist, but gives much richer detail than do I.]

These are thoughts aimed more at non-Alaskans.  Alaskans know all this and will, no doubt, correct me if I misreported anywhere.

Lisa Murkowski was a Republican state legislators with whom Democrats could live and  Republicans had some problems.  She was for women's rights, if not completely pro-choice, friendly, smart, articulate, and not of her father, Senator Frank Murkowski's, generation.  'Environmental' wasn't an epithet to her. 

She won her 2002 reelection to the State House by only 52 votes in the Republican primary  and then faced no opposition in the general election. 

That same year, her father had deciding to leave the Senate and run for Governor of Alaska.  In a January 2008 post speculating why Murkowski might have decided to leave to the Senate to run for governor I wrote:

The oil controlled state legislature passed a bill that said, in case a US Senate seat becomes vacant, the newly elected governor, not the currently sitting governor, makes the appointment. Everyone knew the purpose was to give Murkowski the power to appoint his successor. If this hadn’t passed, retiring governor Tony Knowles would have appointed the next US Senator. But it did pass assuring that, if Murkowki won, he could appoint his daughter. If he lost, he was still in the Senate.

This was settled before he ran for Governor.  Republicans didn't like the idea of a Democrat appointing Murkowski's successor and, given the reaction when he did appoint his daughter to the position, most people hadn't  anticipated that Frank would appoint Lisa. 

Appointing Lisa to the US Senate was the first seriously unpopular act of the new Governor.  Most people thought it was tacky at best, unethical or even illegal at worst.  Rival Republicans for the position were pissed.  The more conservative Republicans were particularly dismayed, while the moderate Republicans were less upset.  Democrats were ambivalent.  They thought it reeked of nepotism, but of all the Republican contenders, Lisa was probably the best in their eyes.

Gov. Murkowski went on to do a lot of things that got everyone mad from cutting benefits to seniors to buying a private jet - with administrative funds when the legislature said no.  (One of Palin's first acts as governor was to announce she was putting the jet on e-bay.)

Since Palin's run for governor knocked off Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary in 2006, there has been no love lost between the Murkowskis and Palin.  As an Alaskan, if I had to pick between  Sarah Palin and Lisa Murkowski to represent my state to the world, it would be Murkowski hands down.

But, when Lisa Murkowski got to the US Senate, she got into a much less flexible Republican majority where she forgot the words 'global climate change' and probably left the room entirely when abortion came up.  She quickly moved into the party leadership by moving way right.  There had always seemed to be a real ideological difference between Murkowski the elder and Murkowski the younger, but that seems to have mostly evaporated.

There was some question about whether Lisa could get elected on her own, but she had no real primary competition in 2004 when she had to run.  In the general election Republicans saw her as the lesser to two evils and united behind her against former Democratic  Gov. Tony Knowles.  At that point, I think, people thought she'd established herself, even if the Republicans didn't love her.

But Palin knew that Murkowski's Republican support was pretty shallow. And there is still a lot of resentment toward her dad and her original appointment.  There was even talk that Palin might run against her.  But then she'd have to take a pay cut and lose some of her spotlight.   But she probably saw this current race as a good opportunity to settle old scores.  Even if Miller hadn't gotten this close, she would be telling Murkowski to watch her back.

Add to that a primary with 25% turnout and a ballot measure on abortion and she was vulnerable. All Miller needed to do was get about 9% of Alaskan voters to vote for him. 

So while this seems to come as a huge surprise, the conditions were ripe for it to happen if the right factors came into play.  And they did.

Alaska Election Context 2 - US Senate Race

[This is the second post on this topic.  The first post  focused on the problems of determining the actual numbers of registered voters in Alaska which, if compared to the Alaska voting age population, would mean 96% of voting age Alaskans are registered.]

Overview

Few people voted Tuesday.  The winners of the US Senate races got votes from between 3% and 9% of the voting age population.  That means over 90% of the voting age population voted for someone else or didn't vote.  75% of the voting age population didn't vote at all. 


Alaska's Population

The US Census gives the population of Alaska in 2008 as 686,000.
The Alaska Permanent Fund estimates the 2008 population as 679,720 and 2009 population as 692,314.


Registered Voters
That same Census Bureau estimates the voting age population of Alaska as 506,000 in 2008.
The Alaska Division of Voters, as of August 3, 2010, says there are 487,575 registered voters.  As I noted in a previous post, this would mean that Alaska has about 96% of its voter age population registered while the US average is closer to 70%.

How the Alaska Primaries Work

The Republican primary is a semi-closed primary.  That means that only Republicans appear on the ballot and only Republicans and people not registered with another party can vote in the Republican primary.  So, Republicans, independents, and undeclared voters can vote.

The other parties have a blanket primary.  That means the other parties (Libertarian, Democratic, Alaska Independence, etc.) have their candidates all appear on one ballot and anyone, including Republicans, can vote on this ballot. 

There were three ballots.

• ADL - This includes Alaska Independence Party, Democrats, and Libertarians, and both ballot measures.
• R - This is the Republican Ballot, plus both ballot measures.
• M - This is just for ballot measures. There are no candidates.

Each voter had to choose one ballot.
Republicans could choose any ballot.
Undeclared and Independents could choose any ballot.
Democrats, Alaska Independence, and Alaskan Libertarian Party members could choose the ADL ballot or M ballot.

I would guess that most voters probably did not understand all this and it had to be explained by the election workers. 

There were two ballot measures.

• Prop. 1 to severely limit lobbying by public officials and employees and non-profits, but not businesses.  (It lost resoundingly.)
• Prop. 2 to require doctors to notify the parents of girls under 18 before they can have an abortion. (It won 55%-44%)

How many people voted?

ADL Ballot Total votes for statewide races

• Senate - 30,855 (one Libertarian and three or four relatively unknown candidates)
• US House - 33,192 (one candidate, State Rep. Harry Crawford)
• Governor - 39,768 (two high profile Democrats, one Libertarian, one Alaskan Independent)
• Lt. Governor - 37,149 (three Democrats - one got 67% - and one Libertarian)

R Ballot Total votes for statewide races

• Senate - 92,386 (Lisa Murkowski and Joe Miller)
• US House - 62,590 (one candidate, incumbent Don Young)
• Governor - 90,938 (six candidates, including sitting Governor)
• Lt. Governor - 84,928 (seen by many as the most contested election, four candidates, three high profile)

M Ballot- Voters could vote on the ballot measures on all three types of ballots.  So, these vote counts reflect all three ballots and are the highest.  The election results do not distinguish the votes of the different ballots on these measures, or even how many people voted for them on which ballots.

Measure 1 - 134,471
Measure 2 - 134,981


Votes for US Senate Races


ADL Ballot

ADL Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 438 100.0 % Times Counted 41923/487456 8.6 % Total Votes 30855 Haase, Fredrick LIB 4849 15.72% Kern, Jacob Seth DEM 5978 19.37% McAdams, Scott T. DEM 15347 49.74% Vondersaar, Frank J. DEM 4681 15.17%

R Ballot

US SENATOR (R) REP Total Number of Precincts 438 Precincts Reporting 438 100.0 % Times Counted 93170/487456 19.1 % Total Votes 92386 Miller, Joe REP 47027 50.90% Murkowski, Lisa REP 45359 49.10%

The box below shows that overall, 24% of Alaskans of voting age voted in the US Senate race.  The Democratic winner had about 6% of Alaskans of voting age and the two Republicans who were almost tied, each had about 9%.

What does it mean? 

Without good polling to hear from the voters themselves, the numbers leave a lot of unanswered questions.


1.  How many Independents and Undeclared took Republican ballots, Democratic ballots, M ballots?  My guess is they were more likely to take Republican ballots.

2.  How many Independents and Undeclared voters voted for Miller?  And Why?  Clearly some were swayed by the Tea Party rhetoric.  Some, no doubt, we're voting against Murkowski.

3.  If Miller wins, how many of his voters this time will vote for him in the general?  How may others can he attract in November?  If the Tea Party folks were fired up, are there that many left who will vote for him in the Fall?

4.  If Murkowski wins, what will the Miller voters do?  Sit out?  Vote for Murkowski?  Vote for McAdams? Vote for the Libertarian Party candidate?

5.  McAdams is just as unknown today as Miller was three months ago.  Can he get Alaskans excited?  He has a great Alaskan profile - fisherman, small town mayor, but basically a 'real person' rather than a politician.  Will he attract Outside money to counter the money the Tea Party has sent to Miller?

6.  Will Murkowski's close race make her seem more vulnerable even if she wins?

7.  Is Miller so extreme that when his positions are known Alaskans will reject him when more show up to vote?

All these questions and others may or may not be answered in the next few months.  I think the key point here is that really very few people have voted.  That means that so far very little support has been given to anyone.  If the Tea Party really spent half a million dollars on Miller, it means helped get a victory (even if he doesn't win) by spending $10.63 per vote. 

All things being equal, Alaska voters tend to be more conservative.  The key to winning for Democrats is identifying non-voters who can be cajoled at worst and excited at best to come out and vote.  Obama energized a lot of Alaskan liberals to vote in 2008.  But, that said, it's easier said than done.

Scott McAdams Alaska US Senate Candidate - Video

I first met Scott last February in the Capitol hallway in Juneau.  After he told me what he did I realized he would be good on tape and posted a short video of him then.  With the Tea Party putting Joe Miller ahead of Sen. Murkowski, Alaskans as well as Outsiders are now asking, "Who is Scott McAdams."

There was a hint of what he had inside in the February video.  Tonight, at the Democratic Unity Dinner at Kincaid Park, on a spectacularly beautiful evening, Scott ignited those present as people realized that this guy is real, is articulate, has a brain, and could be our next US Senator.

The video shows most of his eleven minute talk.  I cut out some of the applause, but otherwise left it pretty raw.  I'll bet he grows tremendously as he travels the state in this election.

Alaska Election Context 1 - 96% of Alaska Voting Age Population Registered to Vote

It would appear from the data available that somewhere between 94% and 97% of Alaskans of voting age are registered to vote.  The national average is about 70%.   Basically, what I think this means is that the Alaska Division of Elections list of registered voters is carrying a lot of names - I'm guessing about 125,000 or 25% - of people who are no longer Alaskan residents - they've either moved away or died.

OVERVIEW

Registered Alaska Voters = 487,000  - official (Table Y below from Div of Elections)
Voting Age Alaskans  = 506,000 (2008 Census Data) (Table 16 below)
Percent of Voting Age Americans Registered to vote = 68-70% (Table 1 below from 2010 Census Survey)
Percent of Voting Age Alaskans Registered to Vote = somewhere from 94% - 96%
70% of Voting Age Alaskans (if the same as general US rate) = 354,200
Number of Possible Phantom Registered Alaskan Voters = 133,000 (about 27%)



In the rest of this post I'll go through the numbers.  In a follow up post I'll speculate what this means about the Republican primary yesterday that has Joe Miller slightly ahead of incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski.

The Numbers

From the Alaska Division of Elections website, we learn that there are 487,575 registered voters in Alaska. 

(I realize these tables go into the right column, but otherwise the numbers are too small for most and the lost numbers don't matter much.)

TABLE Y		RECOGNIZED POLITICAL PARTIES						POLITICAL GROUPS
STATEWIDE TOTALS	TOTAL	A	D	L	R	N	U	G	M	V
(438 PRECINCTS)	487,575	14,464	74,802	9,392	126,486	78,189	177,219	2,373	2,892	1,758

(These numbers are at the very bottom of the page on the website.  Here's what all those initials mean:

Political Parties:
A – Alaskan Independence Party
D – Alaska Democratic Party
L – Alaska Libertarian Party
R – Alaska Republican Party

Political Groups:
G – Green Party of Alaska
M – Republican Moderate Party Inc.
V – Veterans Party of Alaska

Other:
N – Nonpartisan (no party affiliation)
U – Undeclared (no party declared)

Less than half a million may not seem like much to most US citizens, but according to the 2008 Census data there are only 502,000 Alaskans of voting age.  This number comes from a 2010 US Census Statistical Abstract Resident Population by Age and State: 2008 [Excel 143k] | [PDF 446k]

I got 503,000 by adding up the totals for the age categories over 18.  But that is a 2008 population and this is 2010.  Can we get more up-to-date data?  Well, the Alaska
Department of Revenue Permanent, Fund Dividend Division's Annual Report, estimates the 2009 population at 692,314.  But their 2008 estimate of 679,720 was actually lower than the Census Bureau's 2008 estimate of 686,000.  The Permanent Fund estimates annual population increases between .7% and 1%  for 2005-2008.  From 2008-2009 they estimate a 1.9% increase in population.  If I increase their 2009 estimate by 1% for 2010, I get 699,237.

from 2009 Permanent Fund Dividend Annual Report

Then if I take the percent of the population over 18 from the Census Bureau 2008 population in the chart (Table 16) above,  about 73% of the population is of voting age.  That comes to 506,000 of the 2008 Census population total, and 519,000 using an estimate based on extrapolating from the Permanent Fund numbers. 

I don't suspect that any sort of Chicago shenanigans, that people were voting in the name of any of these phantom voters. (Though if there were a headline that this did happen, I wouldn't be surprised either.)  Alaskans move about a lot more than the average US citizen.  People come and go.  We have a large military population, some unknown number  of which take on Alaska residency because of the Permanent Fund Dividends.  When I spoke to an elections official last spring, I was told they purge the lists on a regular basis (I remember that it was something like four or five years of not voting to get off the list.)  I remember my son was on the list when I would go to vote for a long time after he was no longer a resident.  Perhaps the state should rethink how often the list is purged.  Or at least study whether our phantom number is significantly greater than in other states.

NOTE TO READERS:  Most of you aren't going to go through all the numbers and the math and are going to just trust me.  That's probably a mistake.  I wouldn't intentionally play with the numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised if I made a mistake or two.  My brain is no longer capable of looking at all this and as a blogger I don't have an editor.  And I want to get this out and I have to leave already.  I don't think any possible mistakes will affect my conclusion that we have a lot of people on the voting rolls that aren't Alaskan residents any longer.