Every Good Thing Attracts The Bad - Fake Blogger Endorsements

Blogs began with a certain level of honesty and innocence.  People listened to blogger recommendations because they were genuine.  And marketers noticed that and started asking bloggers to market their products.  I wrote about this phenomenon two years ago at some length and with links to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Today I got one that went beyond most of the others.  Not only do they want me to talk about their products, they'll even write the post for me, and reward me with a gift certificate.  I would note that when I looked into this in the past, I learned that bloggers who get paid for their recommendations but don't tell their readers, are breaking the law.  (See below for more details.)

So here's the email I got.  (If you sent me a private email in response to something you read on my blog, or because you're a friend, I would not post or share your email without notifying you first and seeing if you have any objections.  But this is an unsolicited email asking me to break the law for their benefit.  There are no reasons why I should keep their correspondence confidential.)

Hi

I work for XXXXXX and wanted to reach out to you. We came across your blog What Do I know? and thought you'd make a great person to work with for a mutually beneficial initiative we've started. We're looking to have a select group of bloggers like yourself pick out their favorite XXXXXXX products and then ideally mention them in a blog post. The product selection is quite varied so I'm sure you'll find something that fits perfectly with your blog. To make this really fast & easy, we've developed a tool that guides you through everything. It even helps generate a blog post title and the actual content once you've chosen your products. You can get started by visiting this url: http://XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (yes I'm sparing you the real url) It should only take a couple minutes, but we would like to offer you a XXXXXX.com gift certificate in exchange for your time if this sounds interesting to you. All the best, Axxxxxxxx

So I followed the link and I had to pick one category from a long list.  Things like holidays, animals, birthdays, trendy, religion, gaming, brands. . .  24 in all.  I picked political and went to step 2.  Pictures of the products.  You'll see they didn't check my blog too carefully.  Here's a screenshot of three of the products.

Mind you there were dozens of choices for political products but they were all anti-Obama.  T shirts, bumper stickers, baseball caps, etc.  I guess these are bargain basement now.

Then I went to the next step to see what the post they were going to give me would look like.

 Let's see, I think this promotion sucks.  It's unethical, illegal, and their politics are all wrong.  Oh wait, I'm not doing a post to push their products, I'm doing a post to warn other bloggers and consumers.

The post they had for me turned out to be very similar to the picture above.  There were three T shirts, but vertical, and with links to buy them.

There was no disclosure that the blogger was getting a gift certificate for posting this.  I don't know how much it was for.  I didn't go that far.

I did go back and check the religion category.  There were cards (Christian and Jewish), bumper stickers and stickers (Buddhist), and T-shirts (Muslim.)  The Jewish cards ranged from ok in a secular way to tacky to offensive. The Muslim T-shirts, I can't tell if any would be acceptable to a Muslim, but some were clearly offensive.


My Blogger Colleagues!  It's illegal to get paid to endorse products without disclosing that relationship to your readers.  This solicitation does not ask me to disclose, nor does it warn me that if I don't disclose I would be breaking the law.  (In the past I even had solicitations that offered to pay me more if I DIDN'T disclose.)


This is from the Federal Trade Commission website, dated June 2010.

"The revised Guides – issued after public comment and consumer research – reflect three basic truth-in-advertising principles:

• Endorsements must be truthful and not misleading;
• If the advertiser doesn’t have proof that the endorser’s experience represents what consumers will achieve by using the product, the ad must clearly and conspicuously disclose the generally expected results in the depicted circumstances; and
• If there’s a connection between the endorser and the marketer of the product that would affect how people evaluate the endorsement, it should be disclosed.

Since the FTC issued the revised Guides, advertisers, ad agencies, bloggers, and others have sent questions to endorsements@ftc.gov. Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions.

About the Endorsement Guides

Are the FTC Endorsement Guides new?

The Guides aren’t new, but they’ve recently been updated. It’s always been the law that if an ad features an endorser who’s a relative or employee of the marketer – or if an endorser has been paid or given something of value to tout the marketer’s product – the ad is misleading unless the connection is made clear. The reason is obvious: Knowing about the connection is important information for anyone evaluating the endorsement. Say you’re planning a vacation. You do some research and find a glowing review on someone’s blog that a certain resort is the most luxurious place they’ve ever stayed. If you found out that the hotel had paid that blogger to say great things about it or that the blogger had stayed there for a week for free, it could affect how much weight you’d give the blogger’s endorsement."

There's a lot more questions and answers at the link. 


Remember the title of this post?  Every Good Thing Attracts The Bad.  In this case I'm giving the example that when blogs started they were new and fresh and honest and people listened to bloggers' endorsements because they were genuine.  And then the marketers moved in to exploit this new source of credibility and trust.

But this happens everywhere.  Legitimate organizations always attract the illegitimate who want to use their good name for their own gain.  We see this in every field, from religion to education and throughout the business world.  Knowing how to tell the genuine from the charlatan is a skill that has been useful since humans first became humans.  It's a skill I encourage on this blog a lot. 

Wolves in Sheeps' Clothing - Appropriation of Frederick Douglass' Name to Push Conservative Agenda

While working on an update on a post on the number of Black Congress members, I came across this website which, for me, has some glaring inconsistencies.

The Frederick Douglass Foundation 

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe." - Frederick Douglass

- We Believe in the Sanctity of Human Life and the Protection of Traditional Marriage

Does anyone else think there's  something wrong here?

First they quote Douglass:

"where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them"

 Then they offer their values which include:

"Protection of Traditional Marriage"

Isn't "protecting traditional marriage" (by preventing same sex marriage) a form of "organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade" gays?

But it's not over yet.

"The Largest Christ-Centered, Multi-Ethnic and Republican Ministry in America"

Founded by Timothy Johnson, Dean Nelson and Troy Rollings, The Frederick Douglass Foundation is a national Christ-centered education and public policy organization with local chapters across the United States which brings the sanctity of free market and limited government ideas to bear on the hardest problems facing our nation. We are a collection of pro-active individuals committed to developing innovative and new approaches to today's problems with the assistance of elected officials, scholars from universities and colleges  and community activist.

"[S]anctity of the free market" was the term that caught my attention here.  And, of course, above, "Republican Ministry."  Do these guys have any idea how similar this is to radical Muslims calling for Sharia law?

Not only is this organization appropriating* Frederick Douglass' name and legacy, they are also appropriating the Bible.

[NOTE:  I'm not linking to their website.  I don't want to help them out with links.  But if you want to go there, you can figure out how to google it.]

The Home Page (but none of the others) does have a disclaimer saying they are not associated with the Frederick Douglass Family Association and links to that organization whose president is the great-great-great grandson of Frederick Douglass.  I tried to contact them to determine how the disclaimer and the link got up, but have not had any responses to my email and phone call yet.

There is a blog about Abolitionist John Brown, by Brown biographer Louis A. DeCarlo Jr..  One post there is about how the Frederick Douglass Foundation appropriates* Douglass' name and legacy and twists the truth to support the agenda to recruit black Republicans.  It includes a description of the blogger's conversation with Kenneth B.Morris, a descendent of Frederick Douglass and president of the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation, a modern anti-slavery organization. NOTE:  The word family here. 

"Among the many points of interesting conversation, Kenneth mentioned his family’s frustration at the appropriation of Frederick Douglass’ name by this new generation of black political conservatives. The Douglass family descendants are particularly disappointed that one group of black conservatives have actually named themselves "The Frederick Douglass Foundation," although their political philosophy is not consistent with the Douglass family’s understanding of the Douglass legacy. While the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation is primarily devoted to opposing all modern forms of slavery going on in the U.S. and worldwide, it is not organizationally indifferent to the historical and political aspects of the Douglass legacy and they do not agree with or support the appropriation of their great forefather’s name by short-sighted, self-interested conservatives, whether black or white.

Before we parted, Kenneth encouraged me to devote some attention to this problem, at least in pointing out the historical inaccuracies underlying the contemporary “Frederick Douglass Republican” rationale. In so doing, I hope this is a salutary contribution in honor of one of the greatest liberators and leaders of the modern era. Of course it goes without saying that in this John Brown blog, there will always be room for anything, great or small, pertaining to Frederick Douglass."

You can see that post - exposing the inaccuracies - here.

My guess, though, is that actually it was put together by white Republicans who then recruited Black Republicans because, well, white guys couldn't be doing this. More on this further down.

Charity Navigator didn't have anything listed for either of these groups.

Guidestar, another website that evaluates non-profits, says that the Frederick Douglass Foundation, registered in Montana,  lost its tax exempt status:

"This organization's exempt status was automatically revoked by the IRS for failure to file a Form 990, 990-EZ, 990-N, or 990-PF for 3 consecutive years. Further investigation and due diligence is warranted."

Here's their page on the organization.

Actually, there is one in Washington DC too,  which has a little more information.  It says the organization was founded in 1988.

Screen shot from Guidestar on Frederic Douglass Foundation**

Yet Tim Johnson, Dean Nelson and Troy Rollings are listed as the founders of the FDFoundation on the Foundation website.  And in a speech he gave on September 29th, 2012 at the Paulding County TEA Party rally, posted on YouTube (@1:45), Johnson says the Foundation was started four years ago.  The whole thing smells of and sounds like the Koch brothers and their conservative buddies to me.  But it makes sense they set up the foundation 24 years ago knowing they would use it one day.  I don't have proof that's the case, but I can speculate until I have hard evidence I'm right or wrong.  There are lots of examples of 'grassroots' organizations like this being set up by wealthy conservative interests.

The Frederick Douglass Family Foundation has a more positive review on Guidestar.

Essentially, from what I can tell, the Frederick Douglass Foundation is a Republican website being used to recruit African-Americans.  It purports to stand for the ideals of Frederick Douglass, but it seems like they are taking the name and then using it in ways that suit them, but do not accurately reflect who Frederick Douglass was and what he stood for. 

But I did look up the leaders listed on their website:  Timothy Johnson, Dean Nelson and Troy Rollings. The Alternet has a long article on Timothy Johnson, vice president of the North Carolina Republican Party. 

It seems that his nomination in 2009 to the NC GOP party leadership didn't sit well with some members and a local television station reported  that Johnson had been convicted in 1996 of a felony domestic violence change.  Alternet reports another domestic violence conviction and questions about the dates of his military service and the authenticity of his Phd.  They say it came from a diploma mill that had no teachers.  Just secretaries who handled the money and the diplomas.

In a rather amazing YouTube video posted with that Alternet piece, Johnson meets with two NCGOP party folks to prove to them the facts of his military service.  It says in the article that it was made and posted by Johnson's friend.  The YouTube description says it shows him proving his military record.

And was the person who posted this really Johnson's friend?  It shows a very irritated Johnson who is clearly annoyed at these white men questioning his documents and asking why no one else has ever had his military service questioned. 


One could argue, had he allowed anyone else a chance to say anything, they could have told him that he's being asked because someone has challenged his record.  But it's also easy to understand a black man's anger here.  And you can see here also the man who was convicted of domestic violence.  This is one of the burdens of racism in the US.  He's served in the military, he's embraced Christ, he's embraced the Republican Party, but he can see that he's still just a black man.


I'm willing to accept the notion that racism might have been behind the challenge to Johnson's credentials.  But there may also be something legitimate.  (And probably there are whites with questionable credentials that aren't challenged.)

I'm all for letting people serve their time (it said he "served 18 months probation") and letting people grow and develop.   I also know it is easier for blacks to be convicted than whites.  But I also believe in trust and verify.  And while I understand the pressure that some people might feel to get their resumes in order,  there's enough here to make one wonder.

A PhD would be a nice thing for the president of an educational foundation that

"is  committed to developing innovative and new approaches to today's problems with the assistance of elected officials, scholars from universities and colleges  and community activist."

But not having a PhD would probably be better than having one from a diploma mill that was shut down by the feds.


In 2011, when the NCGOP chairman resigned, Tim Johnson was defeated in his bid to be Chair by ex-Rep. Robin Hayes.

I haven't had time to research the other two founders.  I'll try to add something on them too, but no promises.  There are so many things to post about.  

*I've posted on cultural appropriation before and it's a topic I want to do more research on.  Basically, it's about stealing cultural images, ideas, identity - ranging from taking actual cultural items (such as the issue of museums taking archeological findings from the country of origin) to taking names and using them for one's own purpose - which seems to be the case here.


**Guidestar requires you register to get more information about an organization such as their IRS 990s.  But registration requires that you agree not to post information on the internet.  So I did not agree and I did not register.  What I have posted from Guidestar comes from the parts of their website that do not require registration.  

Complaint Case #32955829 - BBB Internet Scam?

I got this email today:

November 13, 2012
Owner/Manager
The Better Business Bureau has received the above-referenced complaint from one of your customers regarding their dealings with you. The details of the consumer's concern are included on the reverse. Please review this matter and advise us of your position.
As a neutral third party, the Better Business Bureau can help to resolve the matter. Often complaints are a result of misunderstandings a company wants to know about and correct.
In the interest of time and good customer relations, please provide the BBB with written verification of your position in this matter by November 15, 2012. Your prompt response will allow BBB to be of service to you and your customer in reaching a mutually agreeable resolution. Please inform us if you have contacted your customer directly and already resolved this matter.
The Better Business Bureau develops and maintains Reliability Reports on companies across the United States and Canada . This information is available to the public and is frequently used by potential customers. Your cooperation in responding to this complaint becomes a permanent part of your file with the Better Business Bureau. Failure to promptly give attention to this matter may be reflected in the report we give to consumers about your company.
We encourage you to print this complaint, answer the questions and respond to us. (self-extracting archive, Adobe PDF)
We look forward to your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Better Business Bureau Complaint Department

But there were eight other email address under the TO: section of the email and five more in the CC: section.  Besides, I don't have a business and I don't have customers.  (Ah dear readers, you surely aren't customers.) 

I didn't open the attachment.  But I checked google for Better Business Bureau scams and got their page on the top ten internet scams.  I got frustrated because it's one big image, but they had the code to embed it.  BUT, for blind internet users, the words on images are not readable, so as pretty as this is, they won't know what it says. 

Top Online Scams [Infographic] compliments of Better Business Bureau

 

"what can teens do with hypodermic needles?" "dull sheep" and "silence in wolf hall" - More interesting Google searches

I've been busy all day, so this is a good time to put up this Google search post I've been building up for a while.   These are terms that people have used to get to this blog in the last couple of months. 


how to find a guy that beat you up - This search led to the post on the man who found the priest who'd molested him and his brother many years ago and beat him up.  That's sort of like what the person was looking for.  I'd love to be able to post this person's story.  Maybe I'll write a book of short stories based on google search terms.


what teens can do with hypodermic needles - Is this someone looking for an school art or science fair project? They got to a post on disposing hypodermic needles at airport restrooms.'


i am chairman can't i voice my oposition about something through robert's rules of order - I don't think he got a direct answer, but he did get to a favorite post entitled "Through The Chair" which mentions Roberts' Rules of Order.


could a button mushroom decompose a bald eagle -It got to a post about an Anchorage International Film Festival movie called "Know Your Mushrooms" which included this sentence about the movie:  ". . . lots of information on mushrooms - their contribution to the decomposition on earth, relationship to religion, health aspects, and psychedelic." aspects.  Bald eagle would have shown up on the page too because it's one of the labels listed at the bottom in the right hand column.

easiest bones to break in your foot - Do you suppose this person wants to break the easy ones first before going on to the more difficult ones? Like many others, Easiest Bones got to the post "Life's Little Surprises" about J's broken foot bone.

what do zoologists wear - got to a picture of turkey giblets. This was in a Thanksgiving day post, "Don't Trust The Internet With Your Giblets" which included very funny definitions of giblets (all different) from an internet forum. One commenter wrote:

 The term is culinary usage only; zoologists do not refer to the "giblets" of a bird.

and this was right next to the picture of the giblets, which I guess is why the picture got linked to 'zoologist'.  And, guessing again, the searcher got distracted from zoologists' clothing by a picture of giblets fresh out of the oven.

why can't 'crazy' people vote? - got to another google search post entitled "Can Crazy People Vote In Alaska?"  to which I responded, 

"Yes, and they can run for office.  And they win too."

everytime i kill an animal with my bike it appears on my shirt i don't know why i think the devil does it -Really?!  got to a picture of the title of the movie "Before the devil knows you're dead."  Image searches, as I said above, give people a lot of choices, and they seem to be easily distracted from what they were originally looking for.  But serendipity isn't a bad thing.

is my daughter going to pull a columbine - This is a red flag kind of query. They got to a post called "I was gonna pull a Columbine." I looked to see if it had any sort of answer for them. Not in the text, but there was a video where Brent Scarpo talks about one of his most rewarding experiences. A guy heard him talking and later told him "I was gonna pull a Columbine" until I heard you. Perhaps they watched the video and got inspired to find out more from Brent.

dull sheep - Do I have a post on boring sheep? Then I checked what this person got to. A picture of dall sheep. I'm guessing that might be what they were looking for.

Coincidence or some trick in google's algorithm?  There was this search:

silence in wolf hall - Got to "Words and Silence in Wolf Hall"  a review of the book Wolf Hall.

Then the very next hit (it didn't show what terms they were searching) took someone to an archive* page that started with a post entitled "Code of Silence or Mob Silence?"
I don't think I have very many posts that have silence in the title and blogspot says I have 3822 posts altogether. 
(*An archive page is an old page that has a number of posts on it.)

florida hitchhiker says there will be no election but catastrophe in the west - Two weeks before the election.  Got to a post on the hitchhiker who got picked up by a taxi.



what does copulation mean - a reasonable question that led to a post entitled "Morrie, does copulation mean what I think it means?"  It also led me to write a very short mnemonic poem to help people remember the meaning:  copulation increases population. 


how can muddling through by lindblom be scientific - Great question.  The searcher got to a post on Lindblom's science of muddling through, I don't directly address that question.  Maybe a topic for another post one day.

who does stephen have to know? -  Got them to the blog.  Except that I spell my name with a 'v'. 

how to know if you have dormant vampire genes - Searches like this remind me of how many different subjects I've covered. This person got to my post Dormant Recessive Vampire Genes?  Neckrophelia?

i applied for vote by mail. it unregistered me voting scam - This came on election night.  It got to a post concerned with the potential for abusing voting machines.

why doesn't Alaska vote -  Is someone spreading false rumors about us?  We do vote.  Not always well.  I got two of these the morning after the election.  They got to the post "There are many ways to steal and election."

why do americans think the gb is the greatest country on earth -  This came from someone in Manchester.  So I googled, "why do Brits think Americans think gb is the greatest country on earth?" and got no direct answers but found this great post "50 Things That Changed Cycling."  BTW, the searcher got to my post  Is America The Greatest Nation? The Newsroom's Response.

electronically obscured license plate texas - This searcher's IP address and ISP said California Highway Patrol.  They got to  a picture of license plates for California senators.

The Art of Writing Obituaries - "I feel so lucky. . ."

The obituaries I've written about in the past, like this one  or this one, were ones that raised my eyebrows a bit.  While I understand the urge to say nice things about the recently deceased, the sugarcoating of less than perfect lives seems a feeble attempt to  . . . to do what?  I'm not sure.  Continue to pretend it isn't so?  The human condition is so complex and contradictory, that the truth always seems far more interesting and more cathartic.  Other obituaries tell the interesting stories of the person's life.

Today, I'm pleased to comment on an obituary unlike any I've seen before.  It was in yesterday's ADN and made me smile and wish I'd known Emma Milkeraitis.  It begins:

"I feel so lucky. I get to write my own obituary and make my end-of-life decisions. It is fashionable to go kicking and screaming and fighting for every breath. Not me, I choose grace and dignity.

Several components of my heart failed. Many options were suggested to allow for some normalcy for living. Shortly after that I was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer.

How much effort do I expend to live another day? How many of my assets do I give for that day? I saw my future becoming filled with tests, appointments, and procedures. Whether it is 70 or 100 years - we only live for a flicker of time in relation to this earth. I went home and called a travel agency!"

She goes on to talk about how traveling the world transformed her.

"In my travels I have learned:

Greed and power are insatiable.

Don't leave anything undone. If you always wanted to jump out of an airplane or kiss an elephant - DO IT!

Make your end-of-life choices while you are able, with forward vision.

Support the arts in all forms; it is our communication to future generations. Unlike me, the arts will live forever.

Do not hang on to life; be remembered for the life you lived rather than as a burden in death.

No regrets and no scooter chair for me!"

Read more here: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/adn/obituary.aspx?n=emma-milkeraitis&pid=160968521#storylink=cpy

 This sounds like someone who knew who she was and didn't pussyfoot around the truth.  And while I might want that scooter chair because I still have things left to blog, I respect her decision. 

You can read the whole obituary here.

Read more here: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/adn/obituary.aspx?n=emma-milkeraitis&pid=160968521#storylink=cpy

Why Boehner Is Wrong About Mandate On Taxes

"In a warning to President Obama, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Tuesday night that the reelection of the House Republican majority means that there is “no mandate for raising tax rates” on the American people." [From The Hill]

This seems like a lame attempt to gather some mojo in the coming battle over the so called Fiscal Cliff avoidance.   But it's nonsense.  Here's why.

First, I doubt that the voters were sending any sort of cohesive group message.  Different people voted the way they did for all sorts of different reasons.  But I'm going to focus here on just one tiny aspect -  whether keeping a Republican majority in the House can be interpreted as  the American people rejecting raising tax rates.




First, if any of the races could be considered a mandate on anything nationally, it would be the Presidency.  It's the only race in which all the voters in the US participate.

Second, comes the Senate races.  Each state gets two US Senators.  Every voter in each state can vote for the US Senators.  The district boundaries are the state boundaries.

But, third, when it comes to the House, things change completely.  Except in the lowest population states, like Alaska, which have only one representative, House districts are generally drawn with political intentions.  Each party in each state tries to carve out districts that will give an advantage to their own party. (Don't get me wrong, Alaska does that too, but for state races, not federal.)

We just went through Constitutionally required redistricting using the 2010 Census data so we have new house districts.  And since Republicans held 29 governorships, Republicans had  more control in more states over  how the districts were redrawn.  Given that one could make the argument that if the House stayed the same, it was a mandate against the Republicans.  

Unless there's a wholesale change in the House, as there was in 2010, not much of a message is being sent.  And even then, it's hard to know exactly what the message was.  Besides, in many House races local issues and the personalities of the candidates are often more important than national issues.

Keeping the status quo - keeping the Republican majority in the House - doesn't mean much.  Since the House districts are set up to heavily favor the incumbents,  it's hard not to keep the House the same.


But the House didn't stay the same.  The Republicans lost two seats to the Democrats.

And there are six more seats still too close to call.  In five, the Democrat is ahead. The one Republican who's ahead is only ahead by 36 votes. 

State	District	Numbers	Margin
Arizona UD 11/18 Dem won	2*	Rep:125,223 - 50% Dem:125,187 -50%	36 votes
Arizona [UD11/14: Dem won]	9	Dem:88,331 -48% 104, 506 Rep: 84,236 46% 98,006 - Lib: 11,729 - 6% 13, 835	4,095  6,500
California [UD 11/16: Dem won]	7	Dem:105,245 119,726 Rep: 103,466  115,902	1,779 3,824
California [UD 11/16: Dem won]	52	Dem:110,825 -50% 124,746 Rep: 109,491 -50%  122,086	1,334 2,660
Florida UD 11/18 Dem won	18**	Dem: 166,890 - 50% Rep: 164,448 - 50%	2,442
N. Carolina UD 11/18 Dem won***	7	Dem: 167,590 - 50% Rep: 167,057 - 50%	533 655
*Gabrielle Giffords' old seat     **One of two Black Republican incumbents -found conflicting final numbers in this race, so I'm just leaving these ***Recount still possible

HTML Tables

I put the table together with data from Boston.com's election results.

I said above that House seats districts are drawn up to retain the incumbent.  Let me give you an example.    I've been working on an update of an old post on the number of Black members of Congress .  (I updated for the 2008 election, but somehow missed the 2010 election.)

In going through each Black members' election numbers I was struck by the large majorities.  I knew this was the case, but it always surprises me.  Here are the percentages for each of the winning Black Congress members.  (In some cases there were more than two candidates.)  I've sorted them from the lowest percent win to the highest.

60% -37%-3%
60%-17%-11%-10%-1.6%-.06%
62%-35%-2%
63%-23%-13%
63%-37%
64%-36%
67% - 31%-1-0%
71%-25%-3%
72%-25%-3%
72%-28%
74%-26%
74%-26%
75%-23%-2%
75%-23%-2%
75%-25%
76%-21%-3%
76%-24%
77%-21%-2%
78%-20%-1%-1%
79%-19%-2%
80%-20%
81%-19%
83%-14%-2%-1%
84%-15%
86%-14%
86%-14%
87%-11%-%1-1%
87%-12%-1%
88%-11%
88%-12%
89%-9%-1%
90%-10%-1%
90%-9%-1%
91%-6%-3%
94%-6%
100%
100%

In this case - the African American districts - I can't help but wonder whether they were packed into districts to make the nearby districts easier for Republicans to win.  After all, if you win by 90%, you could trade 40% of the Democrats for Republicans from a neighboring district and probably win that one as well and keep the first one.

And to be sure the African-American districts weren't skewed compared to the rest of the House*, I went through Bostom.com's first of four pages of results:

Under 55% of votes =	24 races
55%-59% of votes =	24 races
60% - 69% of votes =	33 races
70% - 79% of votes =	32 races
80% - 89% of votes =	7 races
Page 1 of Boston.com election results - Alabama - Florida

HTML Tables

So, of 120 races (435 House seats total), only 20% won by less than 55% of the vote.   

Don't believe me?  Here's from a Washington Post story about a FairVote report, Monopoly Politics 2012, on the effect of redistricting on Congress.  They say it will be more partisan because more House seats are solidly Republican or solidly Democratic.

"(A side note: the Fair Vote study also shows the inherent advantage Republicans have in the House, with 195 districts leaning their way, compared with 166 that leans [sic] Democrats’ way. A big part of this is because Democratic voters are more concentrated in urban areas.)"

Not all House races were blowouts.  There were some close ones.  For example,  the six in the table above.  And Michele Bachman  just barely won reelection. 


So maybe, we could take a Presidential vote as a mandate for something if there were a resounding victory for one candidate and the race boiled down to one issue.  The Senate may also tell us something.  The House races are much trickier to use as a barometer of voter intent.

Of course, you can just ask people.   The Associated Press did an exit poll that claims to interpret the message people were sending with their vote.  Here are two short excerpts:

WASHINGTON — The voters have a plan: Consider raising taxes on the wealthy, but not everybody else. Shrink the government. Work harder on creating jobs and holding the line on prices, because economic worries are more important than cutting the deficit right now.  .  .

— Most voters aren’t that focused on taming the deficit. A strong majority say the economy is the most important issue. The deficit was picked by only 15 percent, coming in behind health care but ahead of foreign policy.
— Taxes don’t top the list of people’s financial troubles. The biggies are unemployment and rising prices. Only 14 percent of voters ranked taxes as the biggest economic problem for people like them.
— When the two go head to head, taxes trump the deficit. Sixty-three percent rejected the idea of raising taxes to help cut the nation’s budget deficits, even though they’ve been hitting about $1 trillion per year.

It seems we aren't as concerned about the  deficit as the economy in the short term and that we are okay with taxes, but not to cut the deficit.  I'm reading into that, that we don't want to adversely affect the slowly recovering economy.  A less charitable interpretation might be "we should deal with the deficit, but not in a way that negatively affects me."


On Wednesday, I'd note, Boehner said that "if there was a mandate in yesterday's elections, it was a mandate to find a way to work together on the solutions to the challenges we all face as a nation." [From ABC News.] That's a little more positive. If the first quote above was aimed at the President, probably this one is aimed at this Republican House colleagues.   I'd say his mandate here probably comes from opinion polls more than from the election. 


But the real questions seems to be whether, as another ABC piece ponders,  Boehner can pull his Republican majority members together or whether they will pull him, and the party, apart.  


*The African-American races had considerably higher margins of victory than the cumulative Alabama - Florida races.  No winning African-American  candidate was under 60% and a bunch were in the 90 percent level. 


[Note to myself:  This was supposed to be a quick short post given using data from a different post, but once again I let myself get carried away.  Sorry self.]

Odds and Ends

I've got a backlog of things I want to post.  Here's a preview of what I'm hoping to get up:

Election night I was an observer when they brought the voting machines and materials to election headquarters.  I've got pictures and some video plus comments on how things went.  Generally it seems well organized, but there are lots of places where unscrupulous people could mess with the system if they wanted to.

The Citizens Climate Lobby had its monthly meeting Saturday and heard from Dr Wendy Hill on the health consequences of global climate change.  Then on Thursday I went with CCL Anchorage coordinator Jim Thrall to meet with the news manager and meteorologists at Channel 11 to discuss how they cover climate change issues on the air.  We also had an Alaska climate expert from Fairbanks there by phone.

Chinese class continues to consume lots of time.  I do want to write about some of this.  Particularly how much easier it is to study Chinese in 2012 than it was in just 2003.  Take a look at Yellowbridge.com to see part of the reason. 

I've gotten a new page up on top here for the 2012 Anchorage International Film Festival.  It's a guide to the festival including links to some old posts - FAQ's for the festival and Film Festival for Skeptics.

And Sitemeter is down again.  Not a good sign.  Something is going wrong there and the comments on my recent post about Sitemeter do show that people aren't very tolerant of problems.  It would help if Sitemeter would reach out and let people know what's happening.  They have their users' email addresses.  I'm starting to check with Google Analytics, but I really don't like their layout compared to Sitemeter.  Someone recommended StatCounter in the comments and that looks good.

Oh yeah, I was at UAA earlier this week and was reminded of all the things going on there - particularly speakers who are available to the public.  Here are some posters - two are already over and two are still coming.










Sorry, this one is over already, but I thought I'd put it up anyway.  Same with the next one.

Sorry, this one is a little small (it's just an 8X11 sheet) but it hints at why it's good to have universities around and people researching different options that can help create new energy options and jobs.

Click any of them to enlarge them a little.

This one is coming a week from Monday.  This is through the Confucius Institute at UAA and our Chinese teacher said he's a really great calligrapher.  

And this one is this coming Monday.  Fallows is one of our (the USA) best journalists.  (The link goes to his Atlantic Monthly blog which is very entertaining and this latest post raises similar thoughts to the ones I raised about the Fiscal Cliff.)  He spent a lot of time in Japan and wrote very insightful articles for the Atlantic.  He's also spent time more recently in China.  I have a book club meeting Monday so I'm going to miss this, but it should be outstanding and it's free to the public (free parking too.) 

Deborah Fallows is here too and they will both be at   the UAA bookstore on Monday at noon.




There was one more that I forgot:

Other things I probably won't post about:

Met with some of my new UAA faculty group over lunch and we'll meet again next week with two faculty union reps.

The Alaskan Apple User Group met Wednesday night.

Reviewing a paper for an academic journal.

Trying to help a few people connect with the right people to get out of their jams.

And there are always the clutter wars here at home, though I've generally neglected them lately.  I did clear this morning's snow from the driveway and sidewalk.  And I'm a little sore from taking a spill on the bike this afternoon.  I guess mountain tires aren't enough.  I need to get studs.



UPDATE:  Thanks to reader DH for the editing help.  Sometimes I do get tired and lazy.

50 Things That Changed Cycling

While I was looking up something totally different, I saw this headline and found an interesting long post about 50 things that changed cycling.  While the focus is on the UK, there are a lot of thought provoking items for anyone interested in cycling. 

Below are a few of the 50.  I've left some of the explanatory text where I thought it might not be obvious.  As an enthusiastic, but casual biker, who doesn't hang around with many cyclist types, I find this fills in a few of the big gaps in my understanding of the cycling world.  The whole list is here at Cycling Weekly.

49 The England Football Team
A pretty poor bunch aren't they? They are uninspiring before a match, most of them don't look like they want to be there during it, and they are unconvincing afterwards. They help cyclists look even better, thanks lads.


47 Cartridge Bearings
Before these beauties bikes ran on open bearings; steel balls, either loose or held in a race. They were lubricated with grease, or if you were a brilliant mechanic looking for a performance advantage you could use oil. The thing is water got into them, so did grit, and they needed regular cleaning and even replacement, which was a faff. 

You had to take the component to bits, clean every part and maybe fit new ball bearings. They had to be set in grease, at which point a couple would roll under something, and the whole thing put back together again. Cartridge bearing ended of that and cycling is better because of them.

46 Bad weather
Yeah, bad weather is bad news for cyclists, but look what it's given us. The turbo trainer for a start, which you could say is a machine from Hell, but if cycling performance is your goal then it's one of the most effective tools in you have.


42 Polystyrene
The first modern cycling helmets were made almost entirely from this simple packing material. Helmets are more sophisticated now but polystyrene, or versions of it, still feature in their construction. Polystyrene has saved cyclist's lives and made cycling safer.

41 California
The American state gave us BMX and it gave us mountain bikes, two things that saved the cycle industry in the late 70s and into the 1980s, and became Olympic disciplines.

30 Synthetic chamois 

26 The National LotteryWe have a lot of world-beating bike racers now, far more than at any other time in British cycling history, but they aren't a breed of mutants. There has always been talent in the UK, but there was no real system to develop it. The champions we had just had extraordinary self belief and did it alone.
Now there is a system, a well funded one that is the envy of the world. Talent doesn't get wasted anymore, instead it's nurtured and directed along the right path. This is facilitated by the vision and quality of the coaches and administrators involved in cycling now, but it's only made possible by money from the National Lottery.

25 Modern lights

21 EPOWe didn't say this was all about good changes, but EPO certainly changed cycling. It's slightly delusionary but pros from the pre-EPO era have said that it was a drug that had to be kept secret because it made a difference, where they argue that things like amphetamines and steroids didn't.


16 The compact chainsetThese have changed two things; they mean you don't have to be an absolute racing snake to ride the great mountain climbs of cycling and enjoy them, and they have opened up some spectacular new places for pro racing.


10 Cycle lanes

6 Derailleur gears


2 The internetIt's changed everything. It's changed the way we get news, the way we socialise, the way we shop and the way we spread information. But for once cycling just reflects society in this.
   

Again, the whole list is here.

Anchorage Daily News Map Gives Alaska To Obama

Imagine my surprise when I looked at the newspaper yesterday morning.  I knew that Obama had taken most of the swing states, but I hadn't realized that my RED state had gone for Obama too.

From Alaska Daily News Front Page Nov. 7, 2012

I know newspapers are under the gun these days.  And the map is from the McClatchy mothership.  But still.  This isn't a minor typo.  I have my own share of those, sometimes even in the title.  I know it's hard.  But this is not a misspelled word hidden in a paragraph.  It's not even a verbal mistake.  It's visual.

This is the biggest state in the country, off to the side in the lower left of the US map.  In BLUE.

This one is hard to miss.  Maybe all this is being done by computers now, and they aren't programmed to think "Alaska can't be blue."   Or if it was a human, maybe the person can't distinguish certain colors, like blue.  But I can't imagine anyone - especially someone working for the newspaper - who wouldn't notice if Alaska went Democratic.

So, am I being a jerk here for pointing out mistakes at the ADN?  I hope they don't take it that way.  When I (and other Alaskan bloggers) started out, we liked to poke fun at the ADN if we found mistakes or if we beat them to an important story.  It got a little heated when the ADN sent cease and desist letters to bloggers using their photos.  Particularly so when the ADN started putting up our photos without permission.

But the ADN played a big role in supporting this blog in the beginning.  They put links to my coverage of the political corruption trials and most generously, they included this blog when they got the court to allow journalists to take their computers into the courtroom and in sharing the audio and video tapes of the trial.  Their reporters and columnists were very kind and helpful in guiding me through some of the basics of journalism.

So, I think of this as a friendly jab - something fans of rival sporting teams might do.  Something the Alaska Ear does every Sunday.

Having a newspaper that covers local and state issues is important.  Bloggers can do good stuff, but there really needs to be a full, paid staff of professional reporters monitoring all that's going on.  So this is a friendly razz.  But more seriously, bloggers and mainstream reporters report other people's errors all the time, so it doesn't hurt if ours are called out now and then so we know how it feels.  And if they know someone is still reading the newspaper and might point out their mistakes, maybe they'll be a little more careful. 

Do you think anyone was fooled by the blue Alaska? 

Metaphor of the Day - The Fiscal Cliff, Where Conservative PAC Money Went

You can't listen to any media lately without hearing 'Fiscal Cliff' repeated over and over.

Metaphors, if they are apt, can help us visualize the abstract.  When Winston Churchill called the border between the East and West in post-war Europe the Iron Curtain, he used a metaphor that vividly brought to life what was happening.  It was a metaphor that stuck.

But many metaphors don't capture the situation so cleanly.  Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty was intended to portray the policy as a strong military mobilization to end poverty.  It came from people whose idea of war was World War II, who weren't considering Korea, and who still believed they were going to win in Vietnam.  Even more problematic was figuring out who "the enemy" in this war was.  Some began to think it was the poor people themselves.  There is a similar problem with the other main War metaphor - War on Drugs.  Drugs seem to be thriving, it's the drug users that have been the enemy.  But like war, it swallows up money.

And people can get in trouble when they mix metaphors as in this gem from Examiner:

"failure of the super committee to reach agreement also triggered the fiscal cliff"

I'll let you visualize that yourself.


So, the question is, how good a metaphor is The Fiscal Cliff?

It's a powerful visual image.  But does it accurately portray the situation?  What or who is going over the cliff?  The country?  The money?  The Democrats?  The Republicans?

Maybe it's what conservative PACs threw all their money over during the election.    

Going over a cliff isn't always fatal either.

Everyone seems to agree that our debt is too high. They disagree on how to fix it and on the timing of the solutions.   I would argue that very few of  us actually understand economics in general and the economic situation of the US and the world well enough to actually know.  Of course, that's where a good metaphor comes in - even if we don't understand, we can all picture a car driving toward a cliff.  So we all feel a certain amount of tension.  Is it the tension we feel watching a car in a movie?  Or is it the tension we would feel if we were in the car itself?

Let's look at a different metaphor for a second.  Conservatives regularly talk about 'running government like a business." I can talk a long time why you can't run government like a business, but let's focus on one aspect where the conservatives NEVER quite apply business principles to government:  Accounting.

In business accounting you list the company's debits AND CREDITS.  When they talk about government, they never consider all the assets.  And if we were to add up the government's assets - all the land, all the buildings, all the wealth in terms of art, historical objects, roads, bridges, airports, human capital, and on and on - it would show us comfortably in the black.

No, they only look at the debit column.  What would happen to Wall Street if all we saw in the annual reports were the companies' debts but not their assets?  Government money spent on education and infrastructure is an investment in future assets. Back to cliffs now.

How did we get to the edge of this cliff?

The Republicans, from my perspective, were playing chicken with the US economy.  Under Bush, they cut revenues by cutting taxes and added to expenses with two costly wars.  Additionally, they cut regulations setting up the banking crisis.  There's no question, Democrats helped them.  Those Democrats seemed to accept that Bush was president and should be allowed to try his policy.  Ultimately, the Republicans were the drivers who led our country to the cliff.  Once we went over that cliff at the end of the Bush administration and the Republicans handed the car keys over to Obama, they locked into a game metaphor - and winning was the only option.  Say a game of poker.  They were going to force Obama to fold by refusing to compromise on taxes and refuse anything he wanted.  If they blocked all his initiatives, they could make him look bad and win the election and then they could do what they wanted again.  McConnell even told us that their top priority was defeating President Obama. 


Except now we know the winning the election part didn't work.

Congress passed The Budget Control Act of 2011 as a way to force themselves to make necessary budget cuts.  It set up a joint committee to come up with ways to reign in the debt (another metaphor).  If the committee failed sequestration (automatic cuts) would kick in to reduce the gap between  Congress' cuts and the spending limit:

•  These cuts would apply to mandatory and discretionary spending in the years 2013 to 2021 and be in an amount equal to the difference between $1.2 trillion and the amount of deficit reduction enacted from the joint committee. There would be some exemptions: reductions would apply to Medicare providers, but not to Social Security, Medicaid, civil and military employee pay, or veterans.^[4][5] Medicare benefits would be limited to a 2% reduction.^[7]

As originally envisioned, these caps would equally affect security and non-security programs. Security programs would include the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Nuclear Security Administration, some management functions of the intelligence community and international affairs from the U.S. State Department.^[8] However, because the Joint Select Committee did not report any legislation to Congress, the act reset these caps^{[clarification needed]} to defense (essentially the DOD) and non-defense categories.^{[9]    [from Wikipedia]}

But the Super Committee did fail to agree and now the Budget Act Reductions plus the expiration of the Bush tax cuts are the Fiscal Cliff people are talking about.

Because they lost the election.  Rhe Republicans' bluff (no increase in taxes) has been called and they are left with the worst of both worlds - Bush tax cuts ending and what they believe are unacceptable cuts to the military.  (I really thought that the Fox News predictions of a big Romney win were cynical fodder to get the masses to want to join the winners by voting for Mitt, but it's appearing that they believed their own hype.)


So, now the House and Senate both appear to have gained a few more Democratic members and Obama's still in the White House.

One thing Republicans do understand is winning and losing and on this morning's post election interviews, Republicans weren't even spinning the results.  They were admitting they lost, that Obama won.  They respect winners, even winners they don't like.

They declared war on Obama's reelection and they lost. Unlike the economy, the election outcome is clear and concrete.  They didn't achieve their top priority.  As they examine why, is it possible they might figure out that the American public doesn't like the stalemate (a chess metaphor) in Congress?  It sure seems that Republicans have a lot more to lose by driving over this 'Fiscal Cliff' than the Democrats in terms of priorities.

I suspect, but I'm not sure, that we all stand to lose a lot.  But I don't understand all the details enough to know how much pain we'll suffer collectively, who will suffer more and who less, and whether the short term pain might lead to long term improvement.  Not letting the Budget Control Act go into effect would definitely be smoother.  Not letting all the Bush tax cuts expire during an economic recovery would be smoother.  But if we do go over the cliff, I don't know who will end up dead, who will end up injured, and who will get up and walk away ok.

Meanwhile, on this day after the election, the bottom of Fiscal Cliff could very appropriately describe where conservative PAC billions were thrown during the campaign.

It appears that Citizens United has led to the biggest income transfer from the rich in quite a while.