You Get What You Pay For

I'm paralyzed - there are so many things to write about I don't know where to start. I'll  never catch up.   But the genius of being an unpaid blogger is that if I don't post today, my readers can't cut my pay. 

Here are some things I'm not ready to post about:

Kid's Count Report - headline on the email:

No Child Left Behind—Except 73 Percent of Alaska’s 4^th Graders

Shocking New Numbers Rank Alaska 45^th in Nation for 4^th Grade Reading Proficiency; Show Troubling Racial Disparities in Learning Outcomes

Ervin Kaplan, artist

• Some art exhibit pics still from LA.  Here are the museum custodians playing tic tac toe on the Mondrian at jna gallery in Santa Monica.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Thoughts on the ADN's new sections on Science, Technology, Health; some of their headlines;  and the end of the Ear and what Amanda Coyne has done with its reincarnation, or as Hollis French might say, "pourquoi?"
  
• Book club meeting on Tom Kizzia's Pilgrim's Wilderness. 
  
• The Coast Guard's Kulluk report which seems to support the frustration this blog had with their press releases last year which tended to say how great Shell was doing and withhold everything else. 
• Impact of the Koch "dump Begich" campaign.
  
   
• Easternization and Confucius Meets Feminism -  followup from the Philosophy conference last weekend.

Or how nice a day it is today and why I should go out and enjoy the sun and snow and ice free surfaces (including in front of my house, but not yet everywhere.)

Bloomberg Says: Putin Wouldn't Dare Take Alaska

Bloomberg also reports that the Mayor of Yakutsk, Russia, has 

"petitioned President Vladimir Putin, the heads of both chambers of the Russian Parliament, and the Russian Foreign Minister requesting the return of Spruce Island to the church.”

He claims documents found in Juneau by a Russian who fled the Revolution in 1917 show the island was given to the Russian Orthodox Church when Russia sold Alaska to the US.
Bloomberg disputes this claim.

But NPR reported (on April 1, but claiming it was not an April Fool's Joke):

A recent petition written in clunky English on the official White House Website seeks Alaska seeks Alaska's secession and return to Russia.
So far, it has generated more than 37,000 signatures — or more than a third of the 100,000 needed to get the Obama administration to formally respond.

While the Alaska Independence Party has long called for Alaska's independence from the US, there's nothing on their website about being annexed by Russia, and even they aren't so detached from reality to exchange the US for Russia.  

A Moscow Times article, which gives a long history and quotes a Kenai College history professor, says they didn't get a response from our governor on this issue.

Alaska's official policy regarding Russian claims on the state remains unclear — the offices of the current Alaska Governor Sean Parnell and former Governor Palin did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.

 I'm pretty sure the governor's position is very clear.  I think annexation to Russia is one thing both Republicans and Democrats would unite against.  And I suspect that the US military presence in Alaska is a wee bit stronger than the Ukrainian force in the Crimea. 

Bad Survey Design

I got an email survey about a Credit Union I have an account in.  Here's the first question:

I haven't used any of them in the last 30 days, so I clicked on the 'next' button and got this:

So, my choices are to 1.  click here and go back to the first page or just quit.  I have no option to say, "I haven't used any of them in the last 30 days."   Perhaps they are only interested in the last 30 days, but then there should be an option to say, "None" and then they could thank me and say the survey is done and not left me in a catch-22 loop.  And if the survey has more general questions than just the last 30 days, they've lost my input. 

Spanish (U.S.)

Sitemeter tells me many things about the people who visit here.  One line in each report says Language.  It's the language the computer is set at.  There are lots of different English settings, for example:

Language         English (Australia)
                         en-au
Language         English (U.S.)
                         en-us
Language         English (U.K.)
                         en-gb
Language         English (Ireland)
                         en-ie
Language         English (New Zealand)
                         en-nz
Language         English (Canada)
                         en-ca

Not to be confused with

Language         French (Canada)
                         fr-ca

And the same is true for Spanish. Most common for me is Spain (España), but South and Central American countries show up too.  Each has its own Spanish designation:

Language         Spanish (España)
                         es
Language         Spanish (Unknown) [the location said Venezuela]
                         es-41
Language         Spanish (Mexico)
                         es-mx
Going back a few days I found a couple from Columbia and one from Argentina, but they were just the plain Spain Spanish - es.  I've been guessing that when something like that happens (or a US English from Turkey) it's because someone is traveling with his computer set to his home country's language.  Like this one from Columbia:

Language         Spanish (Argentina)
                         es-ar

But today I saw one I hadn't noticed before:

Language         Spanish (U.S.)
                         es-us



Maybe this has been around a while and I just never noticed.  But it's probably an acknowledgement that something has changed.  There now is something called Spanish - US. I know that Spanish language television networks are doing well in the US and Hispanics are regularly hailed as the important new voters in national elections.  And now I see that someone who can do these things on the internet has recognized something called Spanish (U.S.)

If you click on the Sitemeter numbers in the right hand column (below "Blogs of Friends and Acquaintances" and above "Labels"), you should be able to see the reports and see the kinds of information Sitemeter reports.  I leave that publicly available because I believe in transparency. 

Another National Retailer's Security Breached By Credit Card Hackers

At least that's the story that Visa is telling me explaining why I can't see my new bill on line, why it says I didn't pay my last bill, why they sent new cards yesterday.  But we're leaving town again Monday when the cards are due here, and while our houseguest will get the mail, I don't want to be traveling without a working credit card.

They won't tell me who was breached, only that it's a major national company and they found out in the last 48 hours.

It's taken me a while to figure out the online payment system.  For a while I'd press pay and think I was done, but they required I hit another confirm button. I only learned that when I got the next bill with late payment and interest fees when I thought I'd paid.  They would take the charges off when I called, and I did figure out the problem.

I've got that down now and just pay as soon as it comes up online.  Fortunately, they let you schedule the payment date.  And I've learned to take a screen shot when it says "Payment Successfully Scheduled" with the date and amount.  That was very helpful today.  I could tell them exactly how much I paid, when it was scheduled, and it even had a confirmation number.  It probably has all that in the email confirmations they send, but I know exactly where I save these screenshots. 

They're FedExing our new cards so we get them before we leave.  And she's transferring me to the Fraud division to find out which retailer was breached. .  .  . The Fraud folks, it turns out, take care of several different credit cards and she said she didn't know which vendor it was.   They said someone called us, but there's nothing on either the land line answering machine or the cell phone.  I only called them because the online bill wasn't working.  Not sure how many people were affected.  Maybe not enough for us to hear about it in the media.

[UPDATE:  This came in an email last night (4/3/14) with an 11:38pm time:

We have learned that your xxxxxxxxxxx® credit card information may have been compromised at an undisclosed merchant or service provider. This does not mean fraud has or will occur on your account, but we are taking precautionary steps to help protect your account.]
 

Conservative Intellectual Yoga

Rooster Pose image from Martin Brading

It seems to me that some conservatives seem to be incredibly adept at intellectual yoga, in which they can twist their logic and the facts into very bizarre ways in order to support their  logically contradictory positions.



Point 1:  Hobby Lobby objects to paying for health insurance for employees that includes contraceptive coverage for women, saying the business owner's religious beliefs should trump a woman's right to non-discrimination, privacy.  Basically, they are saying they should not have to pay for a woman's contraception through their health care.  What about paying for treatment of STD's resulting from an employee's adultery?  Will women have to research company owners' religious beliefs before applying for a job to be sure the health care will cover her reproductive health needs?
And what about the company money paid to an employee that the employee uses to buy reproductive health care?  That's the company's money used for the same thing, just not through insurance.  Will companies be allowed to not hire women if they use contraceptives or might possibly have an abortion in the future and would spend part of the salary to pay for it?

Point 2:  The Georgia legislature passed a law that would allow gun owners to carry their weapons into bars and churches.   In this case, it seems that the rights of owners and churches who are pacifists for religious reasons would be superseded by gun owners' rights to bear arms.

So the same people (business owners and churches) whose rights are asserted in point one are ignored in point two for the higher right of bear tools designed to kill other human beings.  

Original yoga image from CNTV

It seems they are getting closer and closer to merging their heads and their nether parts.

A Mother Jones report shows how truly twisted things get:

Documents filed with the Department of Labor and dated December 2012—three months after the company's owners filed their lawsuit—show that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions. Hobby Lobby makes large matching contributions to this company-sponsored 401(k).

And under the 'be careful what you wish for' category,  Mike Papantonio raises the question of whether the giving the religious belief of the owner import here would threaten the legal separation of the owner from the corporation opening owners to lawsuits for misdeeds of the corporation. 

At the heart of this, what you have is, you have Hobby Lobby saying, “We’re a corporation but we’re a devout Christian corporation. … If you follow that rationale, the separateness that usually distinguishes the owner of the corporation from the corporation [itself] is then destroyed. …

[Note:  I modified both images in Photoshop.  I also used Google's search by image to try to get to the original source of the photos.]

Election Mechanics At City Hall Go Smoothly As Assembly Power Appears To Have Shifted

Last year I worked in a polling place for the Municipal election and reported on the election from that perspective.  Things went fairly well until we tried to take the ballots to city hall where things were terribly backed up.  This year I worked at city hall.  Things went much more smoothly.

Station one was at the guard's desk - people signed in (and were marked off on a master list of precincts) and got a checklist that they took to the other stations.

Station 1 near entrance from parking lot

I think this is the first precinct to arrive - Elmendorf's Mt. Spur.  They're fairly close to downtown and they said they didn't have many voters.  They were there about 8:30 pm - 30 minutes after the polls closed.








Station 2 was at the other end of the lobby in City Hall.  Last year there were people lined up outside in the cold waiting to get in (see picture here).
  This year there was much more room inside the building to go to Station 2 where they cut off the metal seals from the Accu-Voter machines and removed the card with the data on it.  The workers wrote down the number of the seal on the checklist and initialed that they'd been checked in.
 

The picture shows them setting up with Station 2 by the third elevator bay.  From there they take their cart back and down a long hallway - which kept things from backing up outside.

Station 3 was the door to the room where the contents of the bags were checked.  I think they took the black bags with the voted ballots and got them stacked up. 

Station 4 was right at that point as well.  At 4 they took the box with the unused ballots.

Finally Station 5 was where they checked and sorted the contents of the big blue bags and the green and red bags inside.  This included things like the tally of the number of voters, number of ballots used, any spoiled ballots, and left over ballots.  All the numbers are supposed to match.  The people at the desks were not asked to check all the math, but to see that things were filled out.  Other items included payroll sheets for poll workers and miscellaneous items like death certificates for people who needed to be purged from the rolls.  (I saw that one had been brought in by someone.)

Station 5 getting ready

Station 5 once things began

Station 5 when things got busier

I worked mainly in the room with Station 5.  There were five desks (two workers per desk) where people could check in their materials. A sixth desk was opened when it got crowded.  But even then I don't think anyone had to wait more than 30 seconds to 45 seconds.  The flow was pretty fast.  None of the long lines from last year.  People were in a good mood, though some were clearly tired from having worked since about 7am.

By about 10:15pm there were only six precincts still out - mostly from the Hillside.  The Alaska Zoo was one.  I think Rabbit Creek was the last one in.  Aside from being far from city hall, they had seven or eight different ballots for people in different road and other districts.  So counting through all their stuff took longer.  By the time I went home - about 10:45pm, all the precincts were in.  All the ballots in the black bags had been moved to the vault upstairs.  All the white boxes with unused ballots had been transferred into the downstairs 'vault.'

It all went smoothly.  There were no rumors about precincts running out of ballots.  No long lines.  That doesn't mean all the paper work is actually correct, but there were no signs of problems that emerged, and I'm guessing there won't be any serious issues.  

And The Results?

While we were busy, we had no news about how the election was going.  It wasn't until I got home that I heard some results.  Even now, a little after 1am, I am only getting results marked 10:23pm.  It says 122 precincts reporting out of 124 (98%).  [UPDATE 6pm: I need to check with the election folks on how to read these reports.  Nathaniel Herz in the ADN reports there were only 122 precincts altogether.  And that there are 6000 outstanding early and absentee votes to count.] Of the two Assembly seats that seemed to be in play, Pete Petersen is ahead of incumbent Adam Trombley by about 300 votes and Bill Evans was about 200 votes ahead of Bruce Dougherty in the south Anchorage seat.  You can see all the Assembly and School District results details here.   For the propositions, you can look here.   If the numbers hold, the conservative 6-5 edge over liberals would be flipped to a 6-5 liberal edge. 

Everything seems to have passed except Proposition 3 which would have fixed the steps and entrance to Loussac Library and done work around Mulcahy stadium.  That was behind by about 300 votes.  It would have added just under $2 per $100,000 property value per year.  The library was packaged with the sports complex at Chester Creek and improvements to the Anchorage golf course. 

Conservative v. Liberal Battle For Anchorage Assembly

There's a one seat conservative edge on the present Anchorage Assembly.  Liberal hopes of changing that lie in districts 5 and 6.  But it's uncertain how things will turn out.  People need to vote.  Non-mayoral municipal elections tend to have very low turnout.  10%-20%.  Just a few people can make a difference.  Changing the majority will mean that developers won't get an automatic pass for everything they want.  The shrink government crowd will have to work harder.  People who ride buses will do better and anyone who is having trouble making ends meet in this economy.  Vote.

Assembly:

District 1 – Seat B – Downtown: Patrick Flynn (L-ish), Mark Martinson (?)

District 2 – Seat C – Eagle River/Chugiak: Bill Starr (C), Sharon Gibbons (L-ish option)

District 3 – Seat E – West Anchorage: Tim Steele (L), Phil Isley (? probably C-ish check for yourself.)

District 4 – Seat G – Midtown Anchorage: Elvi Gray-Jackson (L)

District 5 – Seat I – East Anchorage: Pete Petersen (L), Adam Trombley (C), Mao Tosi (?)

District 6 – Seat K – South Anchorage: Bill Evans (C), Pete Nolan (C) , Bruce Dougherty(L)

 

 

School Board:

Seat C: Liz Ross, Pat Higgins, Dean Williams

Seat D: Don Smith*, Kameron Perez-Verdia

 

*Smith is the candidate who last week blamed all the school district's problems on immigrants, whom he called "imports" as though these people were simply commodities.  He doesn't seem to remember his history since immigrants have flooded this country since, well, before it was a country.  

All the bond issues seem reasonable.

There are bonds for schools, public transit, parks and trails, fire and police, roads and drainage.  You can see them all at the Muni site or the League of Women voters.

Mississippi Is State With Highest Percent of Same-Sex Couples With Kids

I was looking for a good April Fool's story, but I don't think I could beat this real one. 

From a Washington Post story "Helping the black family through gay marriage" came some surprising statistics.

Table From Washington Post

Note:  Nearly all these states have passed constitutional amendments banning same sex marriage, and in some cases, civil unions as well.  Some were overturned by the courts.

Information for the chart below is from Wikipedia.

State	Same Sex Marriage Ban	Same Sex Marriage & Civil Union Ban	Ban Overturned by Court
Mississippi	√
Wyoming
Alaska	√
Arkansas		√
Texas			√
Louisiana		√
Oklahoma			√
Kansas		√
Alabama		√
Montana	√
South Dakota		√
South Carolina		√

The article  mainly focuses on black same sex couples.  It also challenges the belief that gay couples tend to be wealthier than straight couples.  You can read the whole piece here.

Anchorage Spring

Spring doesn't necessarily mean that robins are pulling worms out of warm soil and that green leaves are sprouting all over.

In Anchorage it means that the sun is high enough on the horizon that you can feel its heat and that every day gains five or six minutes of daylight (13 hours and 16 minutes today.)  Sun both melts and evaporates snow, ice art forms again at night.  Here's what it looked like today near Campbell Airstrip.

Cottonwoods reaching skyward, basking in the sun's warmth, 

waking their sweet smelling sticky buds.

 








Campbell Creek still mostly covered by snow below the bridge.

 

The birch sending out its own Morse code messages.  

I'm sure it's profound; if I could only read it.