LA - Anchorage 1: Leaving LA

We left the gate at 7:50pm..  Just past the beaches, patterns in water.  Tip of Palos Verdes on the left.

Catalina. 

Cloud island in the sky.

Channel Islands

Sitemeter Out Of Control - UPDATED Again: July 9

[UDATE July 27, 2015:  I've switched to StatCounter,  Hello StatCounter, Goodbye Sitemeter explains why, and has links that show how to do it.]

[UPDATE July 9, 2015:  Sitemeter has been working again for the last two days for me.  It is still going to Vindicosuite and I will be looking at Statcounter as people have recommended when I have a little more time.]

[UPDATE June 30, 2015 10:45pm Alaska Daylight Time:  An hour ago I checked Sitemeter and it was still saying to try back in a few minutes.  But now there is something back up, but it's still whacked.  There are days with way more hits than I ever get and there are days with zero hits.  But it's a sign someone is working on it.

OK, back to the original post.]



I signed up for Sitemeter probably back in 2007.  At that time it was a one man operation and if I had a question I could email him and get a quick personal response signed by David Smith.  It gave me formats for seeing who was visiting my blog that were different from others - more precise and meaningful.  It also revealed to me how much data websites get from visitors - ip address, location, kind of computer in detail, search terms, browser, and much more.  Not everything from every visitor, but more than most realize.

I've voiced praise and frustration with Sitemeter in the past.

Then at some point Sitemeter apparently was bought by MySpace.  Since then things have gone downhill.  Reports about MySpace selling information about  Sitemeter users would come up.  Sitemeter stopped answering any of my help requests or comments.

Recently, something called vindicosuite started showing up and gumming things up.  From a google forum:

Mark Liberman said:

I posted about this on Language Log (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=16345).

x.vindcosuite.com seems to be "passive DNS replicator", which may be performing a genuine function; but apparently buggy software at sitemeter results in pages with sitemeter counting code on them getting redirected there.

I've been seeing intermittent flashes of this sort of thing from sitemeter for over a year, and during that same period of time, the company has failed to respond to repeated questions directed at their "support" team.

As of yesterday evening, the problem was categorical rather than intermittent, so I removed the sitemeter code from the WordPress theme, and the problem went away.

As far as I can tell, this is a symptom of incompetence rather than malice, but in any case, sitemeter is clearly more trouble than it's worth.

Then Sitemeter was down for nearly day and when it returned, it was totally whacked.  It would show the same hit 30 or 40 times in my stats.   My stats are totally crazy.  I'd note that the number of hits Sitemeter tells me I get (generally in the 200 range each day) is wildly different from Google's count of over 1000.  But the Sitemeter info on individual hits tells me more about who visits what pages.  (No, there are no specific names connected to the visitors, but for some repeat visitors I can tell.)

I'd totally get rid of it, but that just adds one more thing to my todo list - finding another good stat counter.  And my todo list is already way too long.  

Is Terrorism A Hate Crime?

The shooting in Charleston, South Carolina is one of many instances in the news this year already where people's stereotypes about race has led to black Americans dying.  Rather than write yet another post on this topic, here are a selected few that look at the topic of racism from different perspectives.  The first one has gotten a lot of hits from google the last couple of days. 


Is Terrorism A Hate Crime?  -  This post examines the contradiction of those politicians and citizens who oppose the idea of 'hate crime'  when it adds to the severity of the penalty, yet strongly support the idea of 'terrorism' charges increasing the penalty.  This is a detailed look at the meaning of both terms and I quote the tortured logic of some of the folks who support or oppose them



Why Is It Hard To Talk About Racism? - This post outlines an approach I've used in workshops on racism to approach the topic in a way that is a little easier to get people talking.  Even so, some people will say it's not hard to talk about it and they have nothing more to say.



Michele Norris Talks About Race At UAA  - This post reports on NPR's Michele Norris' talk at UAA about her Race Card Project, getting people to write and post short cards online about what race means to them.  There's also a bit of video of Norris that evening in January 2014. 

"Like termites, they undermine the structure of any neighborhood in which they creep."  - This post reviews the book Some of My Best Friends Are Black by Tanner Colby, who went to Central High in Birmingham, after 'integration.'   His experience there causes him to first review how desegregation resulted in widespread loss of teaching jobs for black teachers and a resegregation in the schools.

He then goes on to look at how neighborhoods were segregated using federal home loan laws and restrictive covenants.  Here's a short quote from the post (and the book) about a real estate developer who destroyed neighborhoods by scaring white folks out of their city neighborhoods and into buying his suburban white by covenant housing developments. 

"But Nichols's most important contribution to the way we live wasn't something he invented himself.  He just perfected it.  And the thing he perfected was the all-white neighborhood, hardwired with restrictive covenants that dictated not only the size and shape of the house but the color of the people who could live inside.  This idea, the racialization of space, would take root deep in the nation's consciousness, for both whites and blacks alike, becoming so entrenched that all the moral might of the civil right crusade was powerless to dislodge it.  In the South, Jim Crow was just the law.  In Kansas City, J.C. Nichols turned it into a product.  Then he packaged it, commodified it, and sold it.  Whiteness was no longer just an inflated social status.  Now it was worth cash money." [p.82]

And to connect back to the title of this post, here's another quote from the post.

Colby then discusses Nichols' friends, a group of prominent developers from around the country who were the 'brain trust' of National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB). 

"Not by coincidence in 1924 NAREB made racial discrimination official policy, updating its code of ethics to say, 'A Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood members of any race or nationality . . . whose presence will clearly be detrimental to the property values of that neighborhood.  Like termites, they undermine the structure of any neighborhood in which they creep."

[Reposted because of Feedburner problems.]

For A Church To Get Kicked Out Of The Southern Baptist Convention They Have To Stop Sending Money Or Approve Of Homosexuality

The original title for this post was:  " Southern Baptists Declaration Of Defiance Perhaps Reflects Fear For Survival."   But as I kept researching this topic, I came to the startling discovery that there are only two conditions for which the Southern Baptist Convention explicitly says they'll cut off a church.  The post leads you to how I got there.  While the original title is, I think, probably accurate, the second title is, to me, more amazing.


For those media who mention the Southern Baptist Convention's (SBC) in Ohio, the attention seems focused on the statements of defiance of the law if the Supreme Court recognizes same-sex marriage this month (not a sure thing, by the way.) 

I saw a brief note in the Alaska Dispatch (here's a similar article from Herald Online because I can't find a link to the ADN article):

"Southern Baptists: We won’t obey gay marriage decision    COLUMBUS Officials with the Southern Baptist Convention on Wednesday issued a statement saying they will reject any ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that affirms same-sex marriage.    “We will not accept, nor adhere to, any legal redefinition of marriage issued by any political or judicial body including the United States Supreme Court,” said the joint statement by SBC President the Rev. Ronnie Floyd as well as past presidents."

My first reaction was puzzlement.  What exactly does this mean?

They will not accept or adhere to . . .   I don't see a Supreme Court decision for same sex marriage requiring them to do anything.   The ruling wouldn't require any Southern Baptist pastor to marry same sex couples.  It would not require Southern Baptists to marry same sex partners.  They could go on believing same-sex marriage and homosexuality are against God's word and they wouldn't have to participate. 

I looked for the whole statement to see if it would enlighten me.  I found it on other websites, but not the SBC's.  I even checked the SBC resolutions webpage.  I did find a website by Denny Burk who says that Mr. Burk was a co-author of the resolution and posts the whole resolution there.  I've also included it at the bottom of this post.

As I looked for the resolution, I found another page about a panel at the convention that discussed how  SBC  churches should minister to gay parishioners

"Christians should not undervalue the effect of love or the Gospel in relating to gays and lesbians, recognizing, however, that faithfulness to the biblical definition of marriage will prove costly, members of a special panel told messengers at the 2015 Southern Baptist Convention. [that's an exact quote]
During the Wednesday afternoon session (June 17), five panelists answered questions from SBC President Ronnie Floyd about how churches and pastors can minister in an American culture that increasingly approves of homosexuality and same-sex marriage." [emphasis added]

A year ago, I attended Jim Minnery's  "Love Your Gay Neighbor." night at Anchorage's East High.

What I heard at the Anchorage meeting last year, and see signs of in this discussion, are concerns about how the SBC can stay relevant in a society that, as they say in the quote above, "increasingly approves of homosexuality and same-sex marriage."  In Anchorage, visiting speakers argued that while the church embraces and attempts to help all other sinners, gays are simply rejected as irredeemable.  [Is this a tacit acknowledgment that they believe gays can't change?]  Instead, they argued, the church should embrace gays the way they do other sinners and help them fight their temptations  This panel at the SBC convention echoed that:

"Matt Carter, lead pastor of Austin Stone Community Church, said the Texas church is attempting "to train the believers who go to our church to pursue [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender -- LGBT] people with the Gospel in the same way they would pursue anybody with the Gospel."

"We try to help our folks understand: 'These people are not your enemy.' Satan is our enemy. These are people that desperately need the blood and the love of Jesus Christ," Carter told messengers."

What I heard at the panel last year was that there was a need for change, not in the SBC's basic beliefs, but in how they talked about and approached lgbt folks.  I'm taking a leap here, but I'm guessing this statement the media are focused on has something to do with a division in the Convention itself. 

What exactly is a resolution at the Southern Baptist Convention?  From their website:

Resolutions differ from motions in that resolutions are non-binding statements that express the collective opinion of the messengers at a specific SBC annual meeting on a given subject. Covering a wide range of theological, social, and practical topics, resolutions educate our own people about important moral, ethical, and public policy issues; speak to the broader culture about our beliefs; and provide helpful tools for our churches and entities to speak with authority in the public square about the biblical application of timely and timeless matters. All past resolutions can be researched and read in their entirety at www.sbc.net/resolutions.

 In fact, the SBC website says that the SBC really isn't a church.  In their 'About Us' section I found:

"The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is not a church. It is a set of ministries supported by a network of cooperating Baptist churches.
These ministries include international and domestic missions, theological education, advocacy for religious liberty, literature production, insurance and retirement services for pastors and other church workers, and the infrastructure necessary to keep these cooperative efforts operational. Specifically, the Convention was created "to provide a general organization of Baptists in the United States and its territories for the promotion of Christian missions at home and abroad and any other objects such as Christian education, benevolent enterprises, and social services which it may deem proper and advisable for the futherance of the Kingdom of God" (SBC Constitution, Article II)."

The page goes on to discuss the level of autonomy of local churches. 

"Baptists have long held the principles of congregational self-governance, self-support, and selfpropagation. Local churches select their own staff, ordain their own ministers, adopt their own budgets, organize their own ministries, hold legal title to their own properties, and establish their own membership requirements. The Southern Baptist Convention does none of these, for it is not a “church” and it has no authority over the churches. In fact, the SBC “does not claim and will never attempt to exercise authority over any other Baptist body” (SBC Constitution, Article IV, emphasis supplied). The Convention does not ordain ministers, assign staff to churches, levy contributions, choose literature, adopt the church calendar, monitor or maintain church membership lists, or assign persons to churches according to place of residence. These are all local church prerogatives.

So, does the resolution have any power over individual churches?   The statement on Freedom and Flexibility continues:

Within the Body of Christ, there is a great diversity of gifts, temperament, taste and experience. Churches benefit from this range of qualities within their own fellowship and across the Convention. Churches learn from and complement each other. This is not a matter of moral or doctrinal compromise. You cannot believe and do just anything and remain a part of the Southern Baptist fellowship. All Baptist bodies have limits. But within those limits, there is room for significant cooperative diversity.  [Emphasis added.]

What are the limits?  In the FAQ section, they seem to tell us in their answer to the question:

"I believe our pastor (or my church) has acted inappropriately. What will the SBC do about it?

Actually, the Southern Baptist Convention is not in a position to take any disciplinary action regarding pastors or churches. Again, because of the autonomy of the local church, each SBC church is responsible before God to set its own policies regarding pastors or problems in the church. Such policies are entirely up to the individual congregation.
According to our constitution, if a church no longer makes a bona fide contribution to the Convention's work, or if it acts to "affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior," it no longer complies with the Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention and is not permitted to send messengers to the annual meeting. These, however, are the only explicitly stated instances in which the SBC has the prerogative to take action. Failure to remain in "friendly cooperation" would also disqualify a church from sending messengers, and is obviously more of a subjective test.
Most SBC churches would look to their own constitutions and bylaws for the answer to this question, often these documents address this very issue."  [emphasis added.]

Wow, only homosexuality is mentioned here, not even abortion, although it too is mentioned on their position statements page.   (That comes from Article III section 1 of their constitution. )


My guess is that this current statement is aimed more at member churches than the world-at-large.  If the local churches have so much autonomy, and if American attitudes toward homosexuality are changing rapidly, what will happen when local churches decide to accept homosexuality as other churches have done?  Will the SBC lose members and power?

This notion is supported by an article in Ecumenical News, from which I've taken these excerpts:

• With just under 15.5 million members, the Southern Baptist Convention remains the largest Protestant group in the United States. But it has lost about 800,000 members since 2003, when membership peaked at about 16.3 million, Christianity Today reported.
• The number of SBC baptisms has declined in eight of the past 10 years, according to the denomination, The Associated Press reported. In 2014, baptisms declined by more than 5,000 to just over 305,000.
• . . .  a new major survey from the Pew Research Center shows a similar decline for the SBC. In 2007, Pew found that about 6.7 percent of Americans claimed to be Southern Baptists. In 2014, 5.3 percent of Americans were Southern Baptists.
• Pew also found Southern Baptists are aging, with the median age rising from 49 in 2007 to 54 in 2014.

It seems there's some division within the ranks about the cause of the decline (still from the Ecumenical News):

•  "The truth is, we have less people in our churches who are giving less money because we are winning less people to Christ, and we are not training them in the spiritual disciplines of our Lord," [Frank Page, president of the SBC’s Nashville-based executive committee] told Baptist Press.
• Mark Woods wrote in the UK publication Christian Today, "With all due respect to Thom Rainer and Frank Page, it doesn't seem likely that the decline is down to a lack of prayer or effort.  "It may be something rather more fundamental: that the SBC label is associated with a kind of Christianity which is not attractive in the kind of country America is becoming, which is far more socially liberal than many evangelicals are comfortable with."

Thus it seems to me that with this declaration the hardliners on homosexuality are saying that they are still in charge of the SBC.  Others are advocating a softer approach to the lgbt community.  All recognize that their position on homosexuality is less popular with the general population than it was in the past and that this can cost them members, money, and political influence.   But I'm just speculating from the bits and pieces that I'm seeing here and there.  

There is a lot of information on their website.  Here's just one interesting, though not particularly related, tidbit.

The Southern Baptist website lists the number of 'messengers' at the convention in Columbus, Ohio from every state.  Alaska has eight, several states have one (Oregon, Maine, Vermont), and several states (Montana, North Dakota, and Rhode Island) aren't listed at all.  The top three states were host state, Ohio (714 messengers), Tennessee (459), and Kentucky (446).  Guam, Puerto Rico, and Washington DC also sent messengers. 

Here's the resolution posted at  Denny Burk's website.

 

RESOLUTION 5:

ON THE CALL TO PUBLIC WITNESS ON MARRIAGE

WHEREAS, God in His divine wisdom created marriage as the covenanted, conjugal union of one man and one woman (Genesis 2:18– 24; Matthew 19:4–6; Hebrews 13:4); and
WHEREAS, The Baptist Faith & Message (2000) recognizes the biblical definition of marriage as “the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime,” stating further, “It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race”; and
WHEREAS, God ordains government to promote and honor the public good and recognize what is praiseworthy (Romans 13:3–4); and
WHEREAS, The public good requires defining and defending marriage as the covenanted, conjugal union of one man and one woman; and
WHEREAS, Marriage is by nature a public institution that unites man and woman in the common task of bringing forth children; and
WHEREAS, The Supreme Court of the United States will rule in 2015 on whether states shall be required to grant legal recognition as “marriages” to same-sex partnerships; and
WHEREAS, The redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples will continue to weaken the institution of the natural family unit and erode the religious liberty and rights of conscience of all who remain faithful to the idea of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife; and
WHEREAS, The Bible calls us to love our neighbors, including those who disagree with us about the definition of marriage and the public good; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Columbus, Ohio, June 16–17, 2015, prayerfully call on the Supreme Court of the United States to uphold the right of the citizens to define marriage as exclusively the union of one man and one woman; and be it further
RESOLVED, That Southern Baptists recognize that no governing institution has the authority to negate or usurp God’s definition of marriage; and be it further
RESOLVED, No matter how the Supreme Court rules, the Southern Baptist Convention reaffirms its unwavering commitment to its doctrinal and public beliefs concerning marriage; and be it further
RESOLVED, That the religious liberty of individual citizens or institutions should not be infringed as a result of believing or living according to the biblical definition of marriage; and be it further
RESOLVED, That the Southern Baptist Convention calls on Southern Baptists and all Christians to stand firm on the Bible’s witness on the purposes of marriage, among which are to unite man and woman as one flesh and to secure the basis for the flourishing of human civilization; and be it finally
RESOLVED, That Southern Baptists love our neighbors and extend respect in Christ’s name to all people, including those who may disagree with us about the definition of marriage and the public good.

UAA Proposes Shut Down of 24 Certificate, One BA, One MS, 17 Minors

The UAA Provost's office sent out an email today summarizing program cuts and changes pending Board of Regents approval.  This excerpt identifies the cuts.

"Following discussions with the deans and other academic leaders, I concur with the recommended actions brought forward. As a result of the prioritization process, 24 certificate programs, one associate degree program (AAS in Computer Information Systems), one baccalaureate program (BA in Dual Languages) and one master's level degree program (MS in Career and Technical Education) will be eliminated pending approval from the Board of Regents (BOR). In addition, three master's level programs in engineering will be deleted: two of these, MS in Applied Science and Technology and the master's of Applied Environmental Science and Technology to be collapsed into the MS in Civil Engineering, and the other, MS in Science Management, will be collapsed into the MS in Science and Engineering Management. UAA also will eliminate 17 minors.

In addition to these actions, a few programs have plans to transform a major or minor in order to better meet the demands of our students and state. Each program that's been identified for transformation has specific benchmarks that will be used for evaluation during the next few years. Finally, there are a small number of programs that will require additional analysis before a decision is made; we expect that work to be done soon. Each college has a detailed list of programs undergoing transformation; memos describing those changes by college can be found here.

Admission to programs slated for deletion will be suspended soon. Students currently enrolled in these programs will be allowed to finish their course of study before the program is phased out completely. Minors slated for elimination will be dealt with similarly. Typically, it takes two to five years to teach out a program before deletion. Academic policy requires BOR approval for degree program eliminations; UAA will present the BOR with a list of proposed deletions this fall."

Click here for the full letter and details of the programs to be transformed.  

Reasons Why Alaska Legislature Republican Majority Leaders Hate Governor Walker

Alaska's Republican majority leaders have done their best to show their disdain for Governor Walker.  They refused to meet in Juneau despite his calling for the special session to be there.  They've said no to most of what he wants to do.  Why all this antipathy?  

I'm sure readers will think of a lot more reasons, but here are a few I can think of:

1.   He left the Republicans and became an Independent
2.   This let him by-pass the Republican primary
3.   He joined with the Democratic gubernatorial candidate as his Lt. Gov partner
4.   He won the election beating their oil company loyalist sitting governor Parnell
5.   He's acts like an adult
6.   He knows how to think for himself
7.   He understands the economics of Medicaid expansion and thus supports it rather than stick to Republican ideological anti-Obamaism

But I think the most important issue for the Republicans is the fact that

8.  the next governor will be able to appoint two members to the 2020 Alaska Redistricting Board. 

They're doing everything they can to make him look bad, hoping he won't get reelected.  If the letters to the editor are any indication, they're making themselves look bad instead.  And Walker, as I mentioned above, is the one who looks like an adult in all this. 

Speaking of redistricting, it's not too early to start thinking about the next Board and how it will work.  By leaving all the decisions about technology to the Board, things get rather late to do the best job of surveying the technology available.  Mapping technology is getting much more sophisticated and much easier to use.  By the 2020 round there should be better technology to create the initial maps and the public should have access to play with the maps and come up with better alternatives.  Just something to think about. 

Helping Mom

It's grey outside, but warm and muggy here in LA.  Lots to do.  The car battery was dead.  The kitchen sink faucet is leaking all over.  There are two letters from the IRS, one saying she owes money in one, and the other saying she didn't file, but there's a credit.  Well, they can't know she owes money if she didn't file.  I talked to the accountant who said yes, it was filed and it's just a question of the IRS locating the account where the payroll company put the withheld taxes for the caregiver.  I called the IRS and after going through their voice mail, the electronic voice said they are very busy now and to call back later. 

Then there's the picture that fell off the wall.  The screw that held the wire came out of the frame.  I'd rescrewed it in at a different spot, but apparently the wood is no good on that side and it can't hold the weight of the picture.  The picture is big and heavy and was frame about 40 years ago. 

There's always lots to do when I come to visit my mom.  It's ok though.  I'm glad she's still around to visit.  And she so enjoyed skyping with her great-grandkids last night.  But I need to take care of these things before jumping back into my other posts. 

I've been thinking lately about how life is about keeping up with things, not falling too far behind, and sometimes actually moving ahead. 

Leaving Anchorage On A June Night

The last post had the sun peekabooing through the fog bank from the airport last night.

Denali about 11:20pm

Here are some photos after the plane took off about 11:15pm.

The Alaska Range over Cook Inlet as we took off to the north, then looped to the west to fly down Turnagain Arm.

Then we flew over the mountain ridges and over Prince William Sounds.  This was about 11:30pm. 

Anchorage Sun Cools Off In Coastal Fog

Almost 11pm, at the airport, waiting for our flight. The sun dipped into the fog bank. It's almost solstice so despite our 11:10pm departure, the sun was still up.

When Is A Bear Not A Bear? Face Saving Medicaid Review?

From yesterday's Alaska Dispatch:

The Alaska Legislature plans to hire a consultant to help lawmakers separate “fact from fiction” in the debate over expansion and reform of the public Medicaid health care program.
The Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, chaired by Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, on Friday issued a request for proposals for what it called an “independent professional policy resource.”

While I try to step back here and look at things from all sides and present the facts.  But sometimes doing that seems disingenuous.   It's like saying, "There's a large four legged furry animal, bigger than most dogs with sharp teeth that stood up on its hind legs and sniffed the air.  Some say it is a bear and some said they couldn't see it well enough to tell."  The people who can't be sure are generally those who have a vested interest in their not being a bear.  Maybe it's because

• they've always believed there are no bears in the area, so it must really be a big dog.   Or  
• they told you flat out that there are no bears around, and it's hard to admit being wrong.  Or
• they have a vested interest in their being no bears - like they're being paid to keep bears away.

Medicaid expansion is the bear wandering around Alaska.  Republicans have believed it's bad since they first started calling it Obamacare.

• Some believed this through genuine belief that the market is the best way to do everything, despite the fact that the market was leaving millions of Americans uncovered, particularly people who really needed coverage. 
• Some were with Sen. McConnell who declared "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."  Anything the president wants, they oppose it and Obamacare, along with Medicaid expansion, has always been a key target.
• Some, with an eye toward national conservative PAC's that promise money for candidates who vote against Medicaid expansion and to defeat those who vote for it, Republicans (and Democrats) have a vested interest in preventing Medicaid expansion.

The irony is that states who refused to set up their own insurance exchanges are now facing the possibility of losing all federal Medicaid funding.  And they brought it own themselves.  They sued the federal government on a technicality.  The bill says there can be subsidies for people in states with a state exchange and they've argued those without a state exchange, using the federal exchange instead.  Their intent was to end the subsidies and thus kill Obamacare.  But now it's turning out that those states will be cutting off millions of citizens from affordable health care and huge costs will be shifted to those states.

They're charging Obama with not preparing for the possibility that the Supreme Court rules in their favor, which now they see as a catastrophe.  Obama, a constitutional lawyer, is just saying that he can't imagine the court ruling against Obamacare.   I'm sure behind that objective mask, he's got a big smirk as he thinks, "These guys brought this on themselves, let them squirm."

That's all some of the background behind yesterday's headline about the Alaska majority caucuses spending more money that they have repeatedly said we don't have, for a "report."

I'd just remind them that former Republican governor Parnell commissioned a study on Medicaid expansion from a conservative think tank.  He kept that study secret - even though it was paid for with public money - until the very last minute.

He kept is secret with good reason:  The facts contradicted his anti-expansion decision.

"Under our baseline participation assumptions, expanding Medicaid would cost the state $200.6 million more over the 2014 to 2020 period, compared to not expanding Medicaid, for a total increased cost of $240.5 million.  However, the state would receive $2.9 billion in additional federal funds and fewer individuals would remain uninsured.  Additionally, this new cost would comprise only 1.4 percent of total Medicaid costs from 2014 to 2020 (Figure E-4).
 To minimize state costs under expansion, the state could also elect to implement expansion under a number of alternative design scenarios."

 I posted about this study and Parnell's decision on it in detail here.

The legislature doesn't need to spend more time on yet another study.  All they have to do is do their jobs.  Sit down and read the original study.  There are a number of legislators who, I'm sure, would have trouble understanding the study.  But Hawker, who's cited in the article, is a retired CPA.  He should be able to understand that study and know we don't need yet another study.  But he's also the legislator most responsible for the opulent redo of the Anchorage Legislative Information Office that everyone agrees is way above market value. 

The conclusion that makes the most sense to me (which doesn't mean its the right conclusion) is that another study could cite new evidence that would allow the Republicans to let the governor, on his own, expand Medicaid without any serious opposition from the legislators.   And if that is the case, then the already stressed Alaska budget will take another hit so the Republican majority's ego can be massaged.

This is really a bear.  But if that's what it takes to get Medicaid expanded in Alaska and adding health care coverage, many say, to 40,000 people, so be it.  But I hope the people of Alaska - particularly those who have given up on the process and stopped voting - realize how the Republican majority's talk of fiscal carefulness is belied by most of what they do.  The list of the legislators - particularly those from Anchorage and Mat-Su - who took excessive per diem during the special session is just yet one more piece of evidence of their lack of concern for the people of Alaska.

[Feedburner failure repost]