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

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

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

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

 But, he's hedging his bets:

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

Why should we listen to Nate Silver?

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

He took his statistical savvy into politics.  Wikipedia summarizes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Origins of Hogwash

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

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


From Word Ancestry:

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

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







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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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







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


Here's what it looks like from the bike. 

The article sums up the opposing sides:  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why I Live Here - Giving Guests A Great Meal And A Near Moose

We had some out of town guests - up on a cruise - to entertain for the evening.  We decided on Kincaid Grill because it's near Kincaid Park, and maybe we could find them a moose.  They seemed very pleased with the meal and I was too. 

This was my salmon - one of the evening's specials.






But we couldn't find them a moose at Kincaid.  But Glen Alps was the next destination.  We walked to Powerline trail and I did find them a couple of moose grazing way, way out in the distance that you could see in the binoculars.  Not great, but the view was spectacular along Powerline Pass and there were two moose.




And then on our way back to drop them off at their hotel, we passed a moose on the side of the road and they got as close to a moose as they could reasonably want to be.

Generally, I try to confirm people's beliefs that Anchorage is the frozen wasteland year round.  But a great dinner followed by a walk in the mountains and a near moose is one of the reasons I still live here.

I don't usually have two "Why I Live Here" posts in a row, but sometimes I just can't help myself.  

Why I Live Here - Salmon, Politics, and Food

It's another beautiful sunny Anchorage day.  Mid 70s, blue skies, like yesterday when I went for a bike ride to stretch my muscles a bit.  There were salmon coming up Campbell Creek. I didn't get a good picture with fish, but here's the creek, looking toward Lake Otis Blvd from one of the bridges. People are in the water in the background.

Then, not too far away, a group of folks were holding signs for Russ Millette who's running for governor as a Tea Party Republican.  I'd talked to Russ on the phone when I posted about his signs being defaced and this was the first time I got to meet him.  It was very cordial.  I'm convinced that if you meet the right way - and that includes being respectful - you can have decent relationships with people even if you disagree with them politically.  A lot of the acrimony today, I'm sure, is from people feeling unrespected as a human being.  And that leads to returning disrepect.  Until things are much harder to repair. 

I even suggested to Russ that his name was too small on those signs for drivers to catch as they go by.  He agreed and said Governor needed to be bigger too.  Russ in in the red and white plaid shirt.

And then, just a minute or two down the block, I stopped at Namaste, which has changed hands, to get some take out 'Himalyan' food.  

The prices might look a bit steep, but the food was delicious and the portions enough for another meal - for us anyway. 

If it looks like I'm giving Millette a lot of attention here, it's not intentional.  A lot of times I simply post what I happen to see along my path. 

The Alaska (in name only) Film Awards Shrinking List Of Winners

The 2014 'winners' are now listed for this 'Awards' scheme.  I've written about this ripoff of the name Alaska film event at length and been threatened by their attorney.

Their only link to Alaska was a "suite" at a commercial mail forwarding company in Anchorage, some of the photos on their website (and I'm not sure of their Alaska authenticity), and the names of some of their awards.

There is no festival (they did change their name to 'awards') and no showing of films.  They do tell film makers there is no festival, but the Alaska name is highly misleading and confuses people who think they are sending films to the legitimate Anchorage International Film Festival.  (To be completely transparent, I'll mention that I cover the AIFF on the blog here, the festival links to my blog, and they give me a pass to the festival.)

Below is a list of the Film Awards winners.  Note:  there is a total of eleven winners in the film competition and four in the screenplay competition.  This is a sharp decline from their 47 film awards and 15 screenplay awards in 2010.

I'd like to think this reflects more awareness among filmmakers that this is really a vanity film festival where people can pay for awards.  But it's hard to tell, since there is no list of films that were submitted.  We don't know if every film submitted got an award or not.

 

Film Competition

Grand Jury Award: A Frenchman in Barrow directed by Paul Peterson
Special Jury Award: Parallel Maze directed by Ya Hua
Kodiak Award: Slushamed directed by Marisa McInnes-Taylor and Mara De La Rosa
Denali Award: Reestablishment directed by Shi Qin
Best Narrative Feature: Let's Play Ghost directed by Damien Dematra
Best Documentary Feature: God Has Arrived directed by John Urich-Sass
Best Director: Deep Water directed by Daniel Zagaevsky
Best Narrative Short: Roulette directed by Christine Kelly
Best Student Film: Shtax'heen Kwaan: A Rededication directed by Kristin Galla
Best Music Video: Fade Away directed by Jethro Rothe-Kushel
Best of Alaska Award: The Meaning of Wild directed by Ben Hamilton

Screenplay Competition

1st Place Screenplay - "Grace" written by Lynda Lemberg and Jeffrey Allen Russel
2nd Place Screenplay - "Taco Day in Heaven" written by Paul Peterson
3rd Place Screenplay - "Polar Bear" written by Alexander Norton
4th Place Screenplay - "Zoo" written by Annemarie Lawless

I've contacted some of the winners listed here and they've confirmed that, again, this year, in order to get their prizes they have to pay for them - not a practice of legitimate film festivals.  One of the directors listed said he didn't even know his film had been submitted, let alone that it won, though he allowed that someone else involved may have submitted it.

My hope is, as I mentioned above, that the declining number of winners means film makers are more aware of scam film events and aren't submitting to them.  If you look at the film that won the Grand Jury prize, you'll see that the quality of films isn't great.  (It's apparently a student film from Barrow and as such is fine, but it's hardly a Grand Jury prize winner.  And one might ask the Alaska International Film Awards folks who exactly makes us their Grand Jury?  And even if there is a Grand Jury?  Or is that just some fancy name with no actual Grand Jury?

Some of the other winners do seem to be serious films that have won prizes at legitimate festivals and would have been accepted in the serious Anchorage International Film Festival.  A number of these films have Alaskan themes and were purposely submitted to what they thought was an Alaska based film festival.  Deep Water was filmed in Alaska as were a couple of others.    These are films that would have been submitted to the Anchorage International Film Festival where people in Anchorage would actually have been able to see them.

I should note that there are also some other, smaller, legitimate Alaska film festivals such as the Indigenous World Film Festival.

Back Into Anchorage

We flew in a little after midnight.  It's nearly the end of July, over a month past the solstice,  but it was still early twilight.  The bump on the horizon in the middle is Denali.  Anchorage is the foreground - most of Anchorage is actually to the right of the actual picture.  The 'lights' in the Matanuska Valley across the inlet from Anchorage, in the background,  are small bodies of water reflecting the sky.

A little earlier, we were over Prince William Sound and Denali and Foraker (to the left) were more visible. 

My better camera was in the overhead, so I had to make do with my Canon Powershot. It's a little grainy, but you get a sense of the magical view I had.

I'm starting to feel like my life is one continuous departure, but it was good to see my mom and, on the way home, my daughter and granddaughter and the rest of their family.

Blogging Payoffs - Getting Help On Details Of Anchorage Ice Sculpture For French Book On Carl Nesjar

I've learned that blogs can get bits of information out into the world where others can find them.  I don't have to write a book, I can just post tidbits that others sometimes find useful.

Yesterday I got an email from Dr. Thierry Kozak in Paris.  He said he is writing a catalog of Carl Nesjar - who is now 94 - ice fountains and he found my pictures and brief description of the Anchorage ice sculpture and asked for help getting more documentation.

Nesjar Fountain Anchorage - Winter

So, I'm posting this in hopes that others who know about the sculpture and its origins and history might email me to make contact with Dr. Kozak.

The book will have two parts:

Part 1:  An overview of all of the 20 Nesjar fountains in the world.  (Four are in the United States.)

Part 2:  A history of each individual fountain.  (This will be the bulk of the book.)

For Anchorage, he only has, so far, my 2009 blog post.  Below I've paraphrased some of the things he'd like to know from us about the Anchorage sculpture:

If there are:

• drawings
• preparatory studies
• maquettes (Carl often made little models of his fountains)

Also: 

• the name of the owner of the fountain [I think the Municipality owns it]
• the name of the agency who commissioned the work
• the sizes of the fountain
• the dates (commission, completion, inauguration, restoration of the monument...)
• official letters between Nesjar and the organization
• list of the authors who have written about the work

In my original post, artist Catherine Senungetuk mentioned in a comment that she met Carl Nesjar when he was in Anchorage working on the sculpture because her friend Robert Pfitzenmeier helped Nesjar build the fountain.  Unfortunately, Catherine is no longer with us, but I'm trying to contact Pfitzenmeier.

Nesjar Fountain Anchorage - Summer

I'm sure there are people in Anchorage - at Loussac Library, the Municipality, the 1% for the Arts program, the museum, other artists, the group that raised funds to restore the fountain - who can offer bits and pieces of information that would be helpful to Kozak.








Here's a bit of video with Carl Nesjar, some of his fountains, and there's even a bit with Dr. Kozak. Don't worry about it being in French. They don't say much. It's got lots of
pictures. 

 


I'm hoping people reading this will alert them about this so they can respond.  This is good for Nesjar, for awareness of northern art, and for Anchorage too.  People travel for many different reasons - to see famous sights, to see birds, to climb mountains, etc.  I imagine that there will be people who come to Anchorage to see the Nesjar sculpture when the read about it in Kozak's book.  At least it will be one of the reasons they come here instead of somewhere else.



It's always rewarding to learn that someone, somewhere finds the scraps I'm posting to be useful. 

Blogging Payoffs - Getting Help On Details Of Anchorage Ice Sculpture For French Book On Carl Nesjar

I've learned that blogs can get bits of information out into the world where others can find them.  I don't have to write a book, I can just post tidbits that others sometimes find useful.

Yesterday I got an email from Dr. Thierry Kozak in Paris.  He said he is writing a catalog of Carl Nesjar - who is now 94 - ice fountains and he found my pictures and brief description of the Anchorage ice sculpture and asked for help getting more documentation.

Nesjar Fountain Anchorage - Winter

So, I'm posting this in hopes that others who know about the sculpture and its origins and history might email me to make contact with Dr. Kozak.

The book will have two parts:

Part 1:  An overview of all of the 20 Nesjar fountains in the world.  (Four are in the United States.)

Part 2:  A history of each individual fountain.  (This will be the bulk of the book.)

For Anchorage, he only has, so far, my 2009 blog post.  Below I've paraphrased some of the things he'd like to know from us about the Anchorage sculpture:

If there are:

• drawings
• preparatory studies
• maquettes (Carl often made little models of his fountains)

Also: 

• the name of the owner of the fountain [I think the Municipality owns it]
• the name of the agency who commissioned the work
• the sizes of the fountain
• the dates (commission, completion, inauguration, restoration of the monument...)
• official letters between Nesjar and the organization
• list of the authors who have written about the work

In my original post, artist Catherine Senungetuk mentioned in a comment that she met Carl Nesjar when he was in Anchorage working on the sculpture because her friend Robert Pfitzenmeier helped Nesjar build the fountain.  Unfortunately, Catherine is no longer with us, but I'm trying to contact Pfitzenmeier.

Nesjar Fountain Anchorage - Summer

I'm sure there are people in Anchorage - at Loussac Library, the Municipality, the 1% for the Arts program, the museum, other artists, the group that raised funds to restore the fountain - who can offer bits and pieces of information that would be helpful to Kozak.

I'm hoping people reading this will alert them about this so they can respond.  This is good for Nesjar, for awareness of northern art, and for Anchorage too.  People travel for many different reasons - to see famous sights, to see birds, to climb mountains, etc.  I imagine that there will be people who come to Anchorage to see the Nesjar sculpture when the read about it in Kozak's book.  At least it will be one of the reasons they come here instead of somewhere else. 

It's always rewarding to learn that someone, somewhere finds the scraps I'm posting to be useful.