Why Not Blue Snow?

Imagine there was no snow on earth and some science fiction writer talked about this cold white powder that fell from the sky covering everything.  In the cities it covered a lot of dirt and ugliness.  In the woods is decorated the trees in a mantel of white.


How many of us would be able to picture snow as we know it?  I grew up in Southern California so my neighborhood never got that sort of transformation that still amazes me here in Anchorage, even after 34 years of snow.

So let's push it further.  Imagine that snow doesn't just come in white.  How about blue snow?  Perhaps in another world their god  would send different color snow to signal different situations.  For communities that were welcoming and decent and helped each other out, they might get blue snow to recognize their decency.






Or maybe the colors would be changed now and then for variety, but without any moral significance.  Or it could reflect sadness and sympathy, or the beginning of winter.


People might start betting on what color the next snowfall would be.  And ski clothing companies would sell more because people would want outfits that matched the snow. 

Snow White would be joined by other fairy tale heroes, like Snow Blue, and Snow Pink.

Whatever the reasons, colored snow would be an interesting diversion.

But this morning, my car woke up, slowly, and reluctantly, to normal white snow.  And  I got, once again, to go out and shovel the driveway and around my car.

I did give the Muni credit a while back for how they were scraping our street clear down to pavement this year and managed to keep getting back here despite the every-few-day-snow-falls.  (I can find records for amount of snow in a month or year, but not for frequency of measurable snow.  I have to believe that we have set a record for that.  I sure don't remember a year when it snowed so often.  It's been every few days since October 30.)

Today is Christmas, so I don't begrudge the snow plow folks staying home with their families.  (And I'm sure some were out on the main roads despite the holiday.)  But our street hasn't had the snow berms cleared and they are getting higher and higher and wider and wider.  Parking is getting scarce, or worse, dangerous as people park so that there is only one usable lane left for through traffic. 

And while there is blue sky in this picture from this morning, it's been snowing off and on since then. 


By the way, physicists can explain why snow is white.  There are lots of websites with explanations more or less the same.  But of the dozen or so I saw, ColourLovers was by far the most interesting.  I'll give you a tiny bit, but you'll have to go to the site to see the images and the explanation of why glaciers are blue.  AND it turns out there is a pinkish snow, called watermelon snow.

When white sun light hits snow there are so many pockets of air and ice crystals that it causes a diffuse reflection of the whole spectrum scattering every wave length right back at us, and the combination of all color frequencies appears white.

 Perhaps photographer, color expert, and sometime reader Mark M has a link to a better explanation.   Or his own explanation.

Truthout's 14 Techniques Fox Uses to Brainwash Listeners

Dr. Cynthia Boaz at Truthout nicely identifies 14 techniques Fox News uses to brainwash their listeners.  The link explains each more thoroughly and puts it all into context.

The first step to brain liberation is to recognize the techniques used to slip ideas into your brain. 

1. Panic Mongering. This goes one step beyond simple fear mongering. With panic mongering, there is never a break from the fear. . .

2. Character Assassination/Ad Hominem. Fox does not like to waste time debating the idea. Instead, they prefer a quicker route to dispensing with their opponents: go after the person's credibility, motives, intelligence, character, or, if necessary, sanity. . .

3. Projection/Flipping. . . It involves taking whatever underhanded tactic you're using and then accusing your opponent of doing it to you first. . .

4. Rewriting History. This is another way of saying that propagandists make the facts fit their worldview. . .

5. Scapegoating/Othering. . . The simple idea is that if you can find a group to blame for social or economic problems, you can then go on to a) justify violence/dehumanization of them, and b) subvert responsibility for any harm that may befall them as a result.

6. Conflating Violence With Power and Opposition to Violence With Weakness.

7. Bullying.

8. Confusion. . . The idea is to deliberately confuse the argument, but insist that the logic is airtight and imply that anyone who disagrees is either too dumb or too fanatical to follow along.  . .

9. Populism.  The speakers identifies themselves as one of "the people" and the target of their ire as an enemy of the people. The opponent is always "elitist" or a "bureaucrat" or a "government insider" or some other category that is not the people. . .

10. Invoking the Christian God.

11. Saturation. There are three components to effective saturation: being repetitive, being ubiquitous and being consistent. . .

12. Disparaging Education.

13. Guilt by Association. . . if your cousin's college roommate's uncle's ex-wife attended a dinner party back in 1984 with Gorbachev's niece's ex-boyfriend's sister, then you, by extension are a communist set on destroying America. Period.

14. Diversion. 

  Again, the details are here.

Below is a template you can print out and put on an index cards and hand them out to your Fox watching relatives and acquaintences.  Ask them to read the list and see if they can see these things happening on Fox.  Even if they just read this and recognize one or two of these, it's a step forward. 14 Ways Fox Brainwashes Card

When Was the Last Presidential Nominee Decided At A Convention? Will It Happen Again This Year?

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/pan.6a27874/

On July 14, 1960, a school friend and I sat way up in the highest section (black arrow) of the Los Angeles Sports Arena watching Lyndon B. Johnson get nominated as John F. Kennedy's vice presidential running mate.   Only the day before, had Kennedy clinched the nomination in the first vote with 52% of the votes.

Presidential candidates used to be chosen at conventions. The process for picking them was pretty murky.  From Wikipedia:

Conventions were often heated affairs, playing a vital role in deciding who would be the nominee. The process remained far from democratic or transparent, however. The party convention was a scene of intrigue among political bosses, who appointed and otherwise controlled nearly all of the delegates. Winning a nomination involved intensive negotiations and multiple votes; the 1924 Democratic National Convention required a record 103 ballots to nominate John W. Davis. The term dark horse candidate was coined at the 1844 Democratic National Convention, at which little-known Tennessee politician James K. Polk emerged as the candidate after the failure of the leading candidates - former President Martin Van Buren and Senator Lewis Cass - to secure the necessary two thirds majority.

Primaries didn't replace conventions until recently.

A few, mostly Western states adopted primary elections in the late 19th century and during the Progressive Era, but the catalyst for their widespread adoption came during the election of 1968. The Vietnam War energized a large number of supporters of anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, but they had no say in the matter. Vice President Hubert Humphrey—associated with the unpopular administration of Lyndon B. Johnson—did not compete in a single primary, yet controlled enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination. This proved one of several factors behind rioting which broke out at the convention in Chicago.

Media images of the event—angry mobs facing down police—damaged the image of the Democratic Party, which appointed a commission headed by George McGovern to select a new, less controversial method of choosing nominees. The McGovern–Fraser Commission settled on the primary election, adopted by the Democratic National Committee in 1968. The Republicans adopted the primary as their preferred method in 1972. Henceforth, candidates would be given convention delegates based on their performance in primaries, and these delegates were bound to vote for their candidate.

As a result, the major party presidential nominating convention has lost almost all of its old drama. The last attempt to release delegates from their candidates came in 1980, when Senator Ted Kennedy sought the votes of delegates held by incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter. The last major party convention whose outcome was in doubt was the 1976 Republican National Convention, when former California Governor Ronald Reagan nearly won the nomination away from the incumbent, Gerald Ford.

So, it's only 30 some years since the last time the nomination was decided at a convention.  Recent conventions have been more like coronations for the party nominees and a public relations opportunity for the parties to show their candidates in the best possible light to the world.  1976 convention clips begin this C-Span program which includes discussion with supporters of both Ford and Reagan.



2012 Republican Primary Race

But today the majority of the Republican Party appears decidedly unenthusiastic about any one of its candidates.  There are passionate supporters for some, but not enough for any one candidate.  The more establishment members of the party seem to be reluctantly supporting Mitt Romney, but there's little enthusiasm.  I get the sense that he's the pick only because they see the other candidates as worse but they'd love a sexier candidate.

A few folks have begun to talk about new candidates still coming into the race, which seems to be technically more feasible than in 2008.  The Republican Party changed the rules of the primary last year to make the votes from the early primaries proportionate to how many votes each candidate received.  Only after March 31  can a state have a winner-take-all primary. 

From Wikipedia's page on the Republican Presidential Primaries 2012:

Under this plan, elections for delegates to the national convention were to be divided into three periods:

• February 1 – March 5, 2012: Contests of traditional early states Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina
• March 6 – March 31, 2012: Contests that proportionally allocate delegates
• April 1, 2012 and onward: All other contests including winner-take-all elections

By the fall of 2011, several states scheduled contests contravening this plan, pushing the primary calendar into January. These contests are in violation of RNC rules, with New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Arizona, and Michigan set to be penalized with a loss of half of their delegates. As they are holding non-binding caucuses, Iowa, Colorado, Maine and Minnesota will not be automatically penalized, as their contests to bind national delegates are made later.

 The total number of delegates to the Republican National Convention is about 2282.  I can't find total agreement out there - Sabato says 2282, but Green Papers says 2286.  And the Christian Science Monitor says 2422. The calculation is complicated because states get more delegates if their Senators or Governors, or more than 50% of their Congressional delegation, are Republicans.  If the state legislature is Republican, that also changes the count. [The Green Papers site gives all the details of how this works, plus a link to a pdf of the Republican rules.]

As mentioned above, delegates from states with primaries before April must vote proportionally (no winner-take-all) at the convention.  And states can be penalized with the loss of 50% of their votes for having primaries before March, I think. This gets confusing.  In any case March 6 is the first Tuesday in March 2012, which will be Super Tuesday, with 10 states holding primaries or caucuses.  The point is that they've attempted to use these penalties to keep states from moving to earlier dates on the calendar.  Salon gives Missouri as an example of how this changes things from 2008:

The mathematical implications are stark. Take Missouri, for example, which votes on March 17, 2012, meaning its delegate will be allocated proportionally. Back in 2008, Missouri was winner-take-all. On the GOP side, John McCain edged Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney in a tight three-way contest, 33 percent to 32 percent to 29 percent. Despite the narrow win, McCain took all 58 of Missouri’s delegates.

Fast forward to 2012. If  Mitt Romney performs as well in Missouri as McCain did in 2008, a big if, he would gain fewer than 20 delegates from the state. More to the point, the candidates collectively known as “Not Mitt Romney” would gain 38, making Not Mitt Romney the big winner.

In any case, a winning candidate has to have a majority of committed delegates going into the convention.   From National Review via CBS:

Even if a dark horse couldn't win enough delegates to win the nomination, he could win enough to prevent his competitors from winning. "I think that a contested convention is a distinct possibility," admits Bopp [Committeeman for Indiana.] "I think the RNC is carefully thinking about that prospect and what needs to be done by the RNC to make sure that the convention is successful."

Late entrants into the race are also faced with issues about qualifying for the primary.  Virginia, apparently has  particularly difficult qualifying hurdles.   But a candidate who comes into the race late and does well in a few of the late primaries, and who looks more electable than the other candidates, might be able to start pulling votes from other candidates if no one wins the first ballot.

I'm still not clear to what extent delegates are bound to honor the results of the primary voters. Fair Vote argues:

As set out in the Rules of the Republican Party, delegates have the ability to vote according to the delegates’ preference, even if that is contrary to the outcome of each state’s primary. According to one source, the legal counsel for the Republican National Convention in 2008 stated: “[The] RNC does not recognize a state’s binding of national delegates, but considers each delegate a free agent who can vote for whoever they choose.” Thus, if a delegate were to challenge his or her ability to vote as a free agent, he or she would have grounds under Rule 38.

 Looking in the Rules of the Republican Party I find this:

RULE NO. 38
Unit Rule

No delegate or alternate delegate shall be bound by any attempt of any state or Congressional district to impose the unit rule.

But the National Review via CBS suggests differently:

The RNC no longer allows unpledged delegates, [new Gingrich consultant Craig] Shirley says, but delegates aren't required to vote for their designated candidate beyond the first ballot. If no candidate wins the nomination on the first ballot, the convention would no longer be constrained by the primary results; it could nominate whomever it wanted.

The Democrats had a rough and tumble primary last year, but in the end, Obama gained lots of debate experience for the race against McCain.  The one candidate in 2008 who hadn't been tested by the primaries was the Republican vice presidential nominee.  This might be a lesson for Republicans to heed in 1012 if there are viable convention candidates who were not tested in the primaries.  But could they resist a Jeb Bush candidacy?

Elves Clear Snow - Thank You!

It snowed yet again last night.  It was coming down heavily in very tiny light snow.  And the weather forecast on the radio suggested it had continued all night.  Nine or ten inches they said.


But when I looked out this morning to see how much I had to shovel, I saw that our driveway and street in front had already been cleared.  I'm guessing the elf came in the guise of our neighbor Roy.  So thanks.  I'll go out and look for you today to say it in person. 

Roy and I have seen a lot of each other this year as I'm out shoveling my driveway and he's with his snow blower clearing a long stretch of street where people park across the street.  Ten days ago I got this shot when he came over and cleared in front of my car parked out front after I'd done the driveway and part of the street in front.

Thanks Roy.  It's great having good neighbors.  And great snow.  And if it was someone else, thank you!

Recycle Your Calendar: 1984 = 2012

Somehow we've hoarded a bunch of old calendars, some were used and some not. And I've thought that some of these must work again in future years, but I never worked hard at it.  I guess this is good for recycling and trees, but not so good if you have a capitalist society where spending boosts the economy. 

But knowing that people have put all sorts of information onto the web, and Google helps us get to these places, I checked yesterday to see what year calendar starts on the same day as 2012. This one is tricky, because it's a Leap Year.

I quickly found Time and Date, a website with a number of potentially useful ways to play with time and dates. One page allows you to pick a year and see all the other years that have the same calendar.  Here's the list for 2012 and beyond.

Year	Compared to year 2012	Since last
1928	84 years before
1956	56 years before	+ 28 years
1984	28 years before	+ 28 years
2012	selected year	+ 28 years
2040	28 years after	+ 28 years
2068	56 years after	+ 28 years
2096	84 years after	+ 28 years
2108	96 years after	+ 12 years

Please note that holidays will not match exactly.

So,  we have to go back 28 years to George Orwell's ominous 1984 to find a calendar that will match 2012.  Or, if you have a 1956 calendar, that will do as well. 

So I went downstairs and pulled out all the old calendars I could find.  And I actually had a 1984 calendar.  This was given to me by a relative who knew I had an interest in plants.  It's a Wild Flowers of Chile calendar.  (In Spanish and English.)

This turns out to be an unused diary style calendar.  But I imagine if you have a used calendar, it might be interesting to see what you did in that previous year as you mark down this year's events.  You just have to find a distinctively colored pen for this year.



So, if you have a pile of calendars, here are some of the years that will work for the next five years.

Current Year	Old Matching Calendar Years
2012	1928, 1956, 1984  (Leap Year)
2013	1985, 1991, 2002
2014	1986, 1997, 2003
2015	1987, 1998, 2009
2016	1932, 1960, 1988  (Leap Year)
2017	1989, 1995*, 2006

HTML Tables

*See comments Dec 17, 2016

There are also some interesting patterns.  Leap Years seem to return every 28 years (though after 2096 there's a 12 year bump.)  For the other years, there are lots of 11 and 6 year bumps.

There are a lot of interesting things on Time and Date and they appear to all be free.  Here's some info from their Founder's Page:

About Steffen Thorsen

Steffen Thorsen is the CEO of Time and Date AS, the company that maintains timeanddate.com. Steffen lives in Sandnes, near Stavanger, Norway.

My company

This site is operated by "Time and Date AS" which is a private Norwegian company.
Steffen and his staff can be contacted at: webmaster@timeanddate.com. If you have any queries or comments, email is the preferred way of communication initially.

My intentions with this site

I want this website to be a free, informational, continuously updated and accurate service available all over the world. Over the years, timeanddate.com has gone from a hobby project to my primary occupation, which encompasses enhancing and developing new services, as well as responding to emails from users worldwide. However, these are not my only tasks. I have other responsibilities in proactively ensuring that the company meets its annual goals and objectives. As the company’s leader, I am responsible for utilizing, fostering and expanding our resources and ensuring smooth operations within the company. Ultimately, I want to provide value to the people who use this website. The project originally started in 1995, with the World Clock, Calendar and countdown to year 2000 on my old Unix account, which I used when I was a university student. In 1998 and 1999 the services gradually moved to the timeanddate.com domain, and the services on the old account were eventually discontinued in 1999. On May 24, 2008, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of timeanddate.com. You can read about timeanddate.com’s 10th birthday, which also provides the history of this website. Also see the history behind The World Clock.

Chinese Television - Amazing Acrobats

When we lived in Beijing for 3 months we watched a lot of CCTV (Chinese Central Television). There's even an Engish channel you can listen to. I didn't see a live feed, but there are lots of programs to watch in English. So when this one popped up the CCTV was familiar. This particular example of Chinese acrobatics is pretty exceptional though. Amazing. Trust me on this - just hit the play button and watch 20 seconds before you move on. 




It shows what humans can do if we really put our minds to something. But I also know that these kids led a pretty rigid life practicing mercilessly to be able to do this. The movie Mao's Last Dancer offers a look at kids being groomed to be ballet dancers. The trailer only shows a bit of that training. The movie itself was very worthwhile watching.

Beginning of Winter for Some, But Beginning of More Light for Alaskans

While today is the official first day of winter, for Alaskans it's the end of shortening days and the beginning of more light.  At first it's slow - seconds a day.  But before long we'll be gaining 5 minutes of light a day.   So in a way it's our spring, our turning point. I do have one blooming plant in the house.  This little begonia never quits. 


But even with the begonia, the arrival of a Park Seed catalog the other day was like being at the grocery store after fasting all day.  I want everything.  But I went downstairs and pulled out the seed packs from last year that are still unopened.  I need restraint at the time of the solstice.

The earth is changing its tilt today.  Bad Astronomy puts it this way:

The Earth is tilted about 23 degrees, so that sometimes the North pole is tipped toward the Sun, and other times the South pole is pointed more toward the Sun. From here on the Earth, this means the Sun moves north and south about 46 degrees over the course of the year. In the summer, the Sun is very high in the sky, but in the winter it never gets as high; the difference is that very same 46 degrees (about 1/4 of the way around the visible part of the sky!).

[I'd note that Bad Astronomy seems to be northern centric in the second part since the opposite is true in the Southern Hemisphere.]

I've written about the solstice and Jean Meeus before.  He's the man who determined the way to figure the exact time this change happens.  When I checked a few days ago, it said December 22 this year.  I should have looked more carefully.  It's December 22 at 12:30am - East Coast Time.  So that means it's December 21 for the rest of the US -  specifically 8:30pm Alaska time. 

Enjoy the end of the darkening and know that from now until mid June, each day will be brighter.  Not as dramatically as this far north, but brighter nevertheless. 

Sometimes I Wonder What I'm Doing Here

Intense blogging events like the recent film festival are like going on a busy business trip.  I'm still in Anchorage, but I'm constantly busy watching movies, meeting folks, and posting, and I act as if I'm out of town, passing up all other activities.  But it's over and I have had time to think about where this is all going. 

What To Do With All Those Posts?
But it also makes me wonder where all this blogging is going.  Blogger says I have 3279 published posts.  The clutter war moves out of the closets and onto my blog.  I'm wondering if I should pause a bit and look back at what I have and whether I can do something with it all.

The Blogger label function (that long list of words on the lower right) would be a lot better if there could be a hierarchy of topics.  For instance, I could have a Birds label and if you clicked that you could see Eagles, Ducks, Ravens, etc.   Part of me thinks I should get rid of all the labels that only have one post.  But then I see people finding that one post and linking to it.  And Blogger doesn't listen to me when I suggest fixing labels up a bit. 

I still have room for more pages on the tab bar on top (you can have ten.) I've used the current ones as annotated tables of contents to posts on specific topics - Redistricting and Film Festival.   I thought I might use a few more to offer links to some of my favorite posts now lost somewhere in the 3279.

In a sense the blog has been a journal of what I'm seeing, doing, thinking, and people I'm meeting.  It's been a place to jot notes on topics as the ideas come.  It seems that going through my notes might be a good idea.   Are there some ideas that could be combined into something longer - perhaps an article or two?


The Photos
What about all the photos?  I sometimes make cards with them to send to friends and thought I might offer readers the opportunity to get cards, but would they want the ones I pick and would it be worth my time to let people pick the photos they want?  Probably not.

I've been thinking of making calendars for friends too.  But haven't yet.  I could also make those available to readers.  Then I could make some money off the blog, at least enough to buy a sound cards for my camera once in a while.   But I'm not sure anyone is interested. 

And the film festival has inspired me to try to use the video I've taken over five years of Anchorage International Film Festivals and make a movie for next year's festival. I know it's a bit incestuous, but it doesn't have to be in competition.   I think I need to move up from iMovie to Final Cut for that. And looking at all the people in the credits of even the two minute movies, I'm going to have to reach out to others.  But the film maker workshops let me know those others are out there waiting to do the same.  I have video of Travis Betz' workshop and also Richard Cunningham's and I try to get those up before long. 

Not Becoming Consumed By The Blog
I tend to rationalize that the blog is merely an electronic journal to record things that interest me anyway.  I just take my camera with me when I go places.  And blogging gives me an excuse to talk to folks I might not otherwise talk to.  But it's also a good excuse to avoid other things I need to do.  Longer writing projects mostly, but also liberating a room downstairs and the garage from the clutter monster.

Who Are You All?
Some people who visit here regularly I know because they sign their names when they comment - Jacob (aka Jay), Ropi, Dianne, alaskapi, Tomás, Mark M, m, Iatto, Kathy in KY, and many others now that I think about it.  Some of these folks I've met only via the blog.   But there are 33 followers listed and most of you I don't know.  Or if I do, I don't know you by your blogger ids.  Some folks have sent emails to say hi. (Thanks)  Others leave friendly comments to say they've been by.  Some people tell me when they see me that they read the blog.

Many visitors get to very specific posts via Google.  It's nice to know that someone has found something helpful - like those who google "my linksys router was hijacked"  or "snow leopard causes black screen."  Or, "can you use fluorescent lights with dimmer?"  Or "hiking trail to Doi Suthep." But those folks are coming for one thing and they probably won't be back.

But if you stop here more than once a month, when you feel comfortable, say hi - either in the comments or by email.  (I know the comments aren't always that easy to use.  There's an email link in the upper right side bar.)

And do give me feedback about cards and calendars.  I'd do cards by hand and at cost plus shipping and a small profit.  I'd do calendars through one of the online operations.  It's a bit late for calendars for 2012, but in the future?  Or if you have other ideas, let me know. 

AIFF 2011: Landscape with Duck Filmmakers Patrick and Michele Neary

Screen Shot from Landscape with Duck

One more of the animated films in competition was Landscape with Duck by Portland filmmakers Patrick and Michele Neary.  It's about a duck who missed the flock's departure for the south from (Alaska?) and finds alternative transportation.  There were so many really good animated films, displaying a wide range of techniques.  This was simple (nothing's simple in animation) first rate, hand drawn work. 

I was able to catch Patrick and Michele at the Awards dinner of the Anchorage International Film Festival Sunday Dec. 11.

AIFF 2011 - Peter Pasyk's Dueling Posters in "The Pole"

[The Anchorage Film Film Festival ended Sunday, Dec. 11, followed by three more days of Best of the Fest. I'm trying to put up video I didn't get to during the festival.]

I got to see The Pole as part of the supershorts before the Awards Dinner/Ceremony Sunday Dec. 11. Then I met the director, Peter Pasyk, and got him briefly on camera. I don't know about Peter, but I was getting tired and I used up most of my questions on other folks. Thanks Peter for putting up with my camera in your face with grace and humor and not too big a smirk.



The Pole is a nice super short which shows the competitive spirit of two young men who work putting up posters on Toronto street poles.  I can see it as a case study in a business or public administration class.  It raises lots of questions about free enterprise and government regulation. The fact that I was totally absorbed in the story suggests that he did all the technical stuff just right. I didn't even think about it.


The Pole could also be a nice metaphor for the US Congress today.
 The young men get so caught up in their short term goals, they lose all perspective and start engaging in self-defeating behavior in an attempt to out do each other. They pause and try a little cooperation, but that quickly falls apart too. If I were a better journalist, I would have asked him about whether he had intended this to be lesson for more than pole posters. If I remember correctly, he said this stemmed from personal experience.

Here's a clip of the movie from the YouTube site of the musicians Freres Lumieres.