Family Time And SF Street Drama Adventure

Today was a family day with our son and daughter-in-law and their two kids.  A ferry ride to Sausalito and just some good time.  I'm slowed down a lot because the heel I thought was now ok, started acting up again.  It was last a short issue last August.  But J got me a small ankle brace and a cane and I was ok.  But we didn't push it.


There was a mystery yacht in the Sausalito harbor.  J found a reference to it as Attessa III or IV.  While it has the general shape of Attessa IV - including the helicopter - Attessa IV has much more sculpted lines.  And Attessa III seems much stubbier.  So it stays a mystery.   You can compare the different Attessas (owned by Montana billionaire Dennis Washington to the ship we saw (below.)

 


We went back by bus in different groups.  I had the last part on my own.  There was a bit of a ruckus at the back of the bus.  One guy was in a slightly different world than the rest of the riders.  He had a new white t-shirt covering his face from his nose down and was physically agitated and another passenger was saying he should get off the bus.  They weren't being aggressive, but it wasn't quiet either.  A woman nearby me was catching it on her iPhone - in case it escalated I guess. They guy came to the front of the bus and sat on the other side of the woman sitting next to me.  She was in her 50s or so and acted as if all was normal.  Some younger women moved to the back.  He went to the back of the bus.  The women came back to the front.  Then got off at the next stop.  At my stop, the woman next to me got off as well as three more younger women.  And the man.  Who crossed the street with all of us.  Then he started talking to one of the women who had pulled back from the cross walk and had gotten behind a bus stop shelter.  I didn't feel any personal threat so I told the woman to just walk with me and we'd go to the small lobby of my hotel just ahead.  She did and he followed and I positioned myself between them.  He asked for money and he'd leave us alone. We kept walking, I talked calmly, and we were getting close to the lobby.  Almost there and a police car pulled up and called him to stop harassing us.  While the officer was talking to him we went to the lobby.  She just needed to get to the end of the block and across the street to pick up her mail at a postal station.  So we walked together while the officer was still there with him.  When we got her mail, the police car was gone and we saw the man ahead at the corner where she needed to get the bus.  But as the next bus left, she saw him on it.  When we got to the corner, he wasn't there and she got her bus.  When I got back to the hotel lobby - it's really a 50s style motor in - the man at the desk said the officer had asked to see the man's id  and then let him go.  I don't think he ever touched the man.  They just talked, and the man did seem aware it was a police officer.

And, apropos nothing other than San Francisco, there was a Ouija Board exhibit at the airport.  It's spelled with an 'a' at the end, but when I was a kid they were called 'ouiji' boards.

House Republicans Pass Bill Just To Say They Passed Bill To Kill Obamacare

That was my impression.  That they would say anything to anyone to get them to change their vote to yes.  What's in the bill was irrelevant.  Whether it was good policy or not was irrelevant.  Whether it made the people of the US better off or not was irrelevant.  Trump and Ryan said Obamacare repeal and replacement was their top priority.  They missed the 100 day mark, but now they got it.  Passed the House anyway.  It was just a symbol.

And as I read today's ADN on why our Rep. Don Young changed his vote to yes, it seems he believes that it was just symbolic.

From Rep. Don Young:

“'This bill we passed today will not become law. It’ll be changed as time goes by. But unless we move it, or move a vehicle, nothing’s going to happen, and that’s not good,' Young said Thursday in an interview after the vote."

He was 'promised' there would be changes to protect Alaska which reports say comes out worst of all states under this legislation.

“I got a commitment from the speaker to take care of the disproportionate cost — we and Illinois are really hurt the worst but we think we can take care of that,” Young said. 

“And I know we have the money, about $19 billion that can be dispersed” to offset costs, he said. “I’ve talked to the Secretary (of Health and Human Services) — Dr. (Tom) Price — and he assures me that (Alaska) will be made whole, if it was to become law.”

I'm not a big Don Young fan, but he is a wily politician and he either knows that this bill won't make it through the Senate as is, or even at all.  Or he believes he'll get what he was promised.  Given this administration, I suspect the former.

And Alaska's US Senator Lisa Murkowski confirms my impression:

"Murkowski said she fears the House “is basically trying to just build the votes rather than build good policy,” and get the “monkey off its back” to pass the bill along to the Senate."

November 2018 is going to be the most interesting and probably the  nastiest mid-term election in a long time.

Is Trump Turning Lemons Into Hotels?

The LA Times had a story yesterday about the lifting of a 16 year old ban on lemons from the north of Argentina.

“We were completely blindsided,” said Joel Nelsen, president of the California Citrus Mutual, an industry advocacy group. “They just flat-out ignored us, and that’s completely unacceptable.”

That doesn't sound like the Trump who was going to protect American business and agriculture from unfair foreign competition.

Meanwhile, a November CNN Money piece talked about Trump and his daughter's post election phone call with the president of Argentina.

"The question is whether Donald Trump and his children are using their newly found political power to push the deal across the finish line. It would raise questions of yet another conflict of interest between Trump's business empire and the White House.
Trump spoke to Argentina's president, Mauricio Macri, on November 14 and Ivanka Trump also briefly came on the call, according to Macri's spokesperson.
The two go back a long way. Macri has a similar background -- his father was a billionaire real estate developer, and the Macri family did a real estate deal with Trump in New York in the 1980s. Macri and Trump were friends at the time, and Macri has known Ivanka since she was a kid."

But maybe we shouldn't jump to conclusions so fast.

The LA Times article on the lemons goes on to say:

"In December, President Obama’s administration said it would lift the ban, which had been imposed after complaints by producers in California that the Argentine lemons carried diseases.
But a month later, Trump’s administration issued a 60-day stay on the decision. That stay had been extended, stalling the return of imports from one of the world’s top lemon producers to its largest market."

So this was something that was already decided by Obama, and Trump stopped it for two months.  OK, at this point, Trump is going against Macri's interests and is with the lemon farmers.  Then it goes on:

“We [the lemon growers] disagreed with the Obama administration, but this rule now belongs to the Trump administration and it flies in the face of the administration’s priorities, which are to protect domestic agriculture, U.S. businesses and U.S. jobs,” Nelsen said. [Nelsen is the spokesperson for the lemon growers]

He [Nelsen] also said serious questions remain about the hazard posed by pests that could hitch a ride on Argentine fruit and damage U.S. groves.

The article mentions that we get lemons from Mexico and Chile.  Do they have better pest inspection and control than Argentina?  Or is this just 'fake news' from the California lemon industry to stop a competitor?  Good questions to pursue.

The CNN article, further down, also raises questions about the relationship between Macri and Trump.

"The two haven't always been close though. Macri threw his support behind Hillary Clinton in September."

So we don't really know all the details and motivations.  It could be that Trump held up Obama's change of policy to retaliate against Macri for supporting Clinton (who, like everyone else at that time, thought she would win.)  And now perhaps they have made up and part of the negotiations included lifting the lemon ban in exchange for hotel approval.  We don't know.

This is why so many of us are angry that Trump ignores legal and ethical standards that he  should divest his business interests and that his kids play such a big role in the business and the administration.

Even if he did everything totally above board - something that is hard to picture - there would still always be the appearance of conflict of interest, and the appearance that Trump is using the presidency to improve his business.

But Trump rejects that.  The November CNN piece ends with this quote from Trump:

"Prior to the election, it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world. Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!"

Trump seems to think he can badmouth anyone, but if anyone turns the tables, it's a lie.  No matter what the real motivations for the lifting of the lemon ban, this man is seriously ill.

Variations On A Rose

The roses where we visited today were a brilliant red.   Here's a close up of one with variations using Photoshop filters.  With each filter I get to see a slightly different aspect of the rose.

Here's the original picture with the blown up portion highlighted.

And here's another rose, whose lower level occupant made me think of these not as flowers, but as dwellings.   This used the posterize filter which highlighted the bug better.

Morning Anchorage Woodpecker, Evening LA Sunset

So much to write about, but things that need some thought and time to get closer to right.  A quick trip to LA to do more work on my mom's house, then to San Francisco for some grandchild time.  The new baby over two months old now, so time to see her and her older brother for a few days.

So, you just get a couple of pictures.




I heard a woodpecker as I was putting stuff into the compost heap yesterday morning before we left.  And then I saw it.  The angle from the deck wasn't as good, but I took it before it flew away.  I think it's a downy woodpecker, but hard for me to tell for sure with these shots.







The flight was uneventful.  I'm trying to read The Camp of the Saints, supposedly one of Bannon's favorite books.  It's hard to get through, but it does help me understand how people could have voted for Trump.  I'm trying to figure out how to convey the sense I get from the book to do a post on it.  Race is a big factor - the need to protect the white race, but it's more than that.  Stay tuned.

We got into LA about 7:30 as the sun was setting.  I was thinking about the 10pm sunset in Anchorage, that gets later each day.

Intercept: NSA Spied On Japanese At Captain Cook Hotel During International Whaling Conference In 2007

An April 24, 2017 article in The Intercept covers various instances of surveillance work related to Japan, based on reports they say they got last week from Edward Snowden.  The end of the article is based on the report they link to, which I've copied below.

It reports on how they spied on the Japanese delegation at the 2007 International Whaling Commission meeting in Anchorage.   It has a strangely school-boy prank "look what we did" quality to it.  And 20 miles from an office on Elmendorf to the Captain Cook Hotel seems a bit far.  Judge for yourself.

"DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
(S//SI//REL) Special-Delivery SIGINT: How NSA Got Reports to US Negotiators In Time for Them
To Be of Value
FROM: ooooooooooooNSA Representative to Department of Commerce (S112)
Run Date: 07/13/2007
(S//SI//REL) Imagine that you represent the US at an international forum. You and your allies from other nations are trying to win a key vote, but the opposition camp is lobbying furiously and it's really coming down to the wire. You would dearly love to obtain some SIGINT that lets you know what the other side is up to, wouldn't you? But if the meetings are being held in a remote location, how can NSA get it to you? 

(S//SI//REL) For scenarios like the above, NSA improvises! Recently I was fortunate to serve as the NSA on-the-ground support to just such an international forum - the meeting of the International Whaling Commission. "The International Whaling Commission?" you ask. The IWC recently held its 59th annual meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, where the 77-member commission voted on several whale conservation measures, which the US government supports. When the meeting ended on 1 June, the anti-whaling camp won, but the outcome was not clear going in. 

(S//SI//REL) Japan again hoped to end the 21-year-old moratorium on commercial whaling, but failing that, lobbied for votes supporting other pro-whaling proposals. New Zealand had the target access, and collected and provided insightful SIGINT that laid out the lobbying efforts of the Japanese and the response of countries whose votes were so coveted. US officials were anxious to receive the latest information during the actual negotiations in Anchorage. But how do you get GCSB* SIGINT to the IWC Chair at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage? 

Japanese

(U) Japanese delegates listen on the opening day of the International Whaling 

Commission meeting in Anchorage, Alaska in this handout photo taken May 28, 2007. (Reuters) 

(S//SI//REL) Everything comes together in the global cryptologic enterprise. We contacted the Alaska Mission Operations Center (AMOC) at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage and were assured that they could accommodate us, even though we would be showing up at work on the Sunday before Memorial Day and working the holiday. Department of Commerce funded the TDY for a Commerce Intelligence Analyst and me, NSA's External Representative to Commerce. I admit to being skeptical that we would get all AMOC had promised - immediate access to NSANet and MAUI. But it was really true! In no time the airmen on duty had me up and running on NSANet with access to MAUI and a working printer. 

(S//SI//REL) The time difference from New Zealand to Alaska worked in our favor, as the very latest collection was ready for distribution first thing in the morning, before the IWC convened. The AMOC is located about 20 miles from the hotel where the IWC meeting took place. I took a 30-minute cab ride to the AMOC daily at 7:00 a.m. in order to retrieve the latest SIGINT products, which I placed in my locked bag. My Commerce colleague picked me up in her rented vehicle and together we couriered the SIGINT to the hotel. The US delegation had a private conference room with a lock. We arranged to have the room emptied at a specific time and then distributed the material to the fully cleared delegates to read in silence. When everyone finished we couriered the material back to the AMOC and shredded it. 

(S//REL) We knew the delegates valued the material simply because they took time from their very hectic schedules to be there and read it. The pointing and nodding was also a good indicator. Two US delegates from Commerce and two from State read, as well as two New Zealand and one Australian delegate. Was the outcome worth the effort? The Australian, New Zealand, and American delegates would all say "yes." I believe the whales would concur. _______________________________________________________________________

(U) Notes:

*GCSB = New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau"

The lead story in the article also has an Anchorage connection.  It's about how a Japanese spy agency recorded the Russian pilots who shot down the Korean Airline passenger jet that briefly strayed into Russian territory in 1983.  That flight, KAL 107, refueled in Anchorage before it was shot down.

[UPDATE 9:30PM:  I should have added this originally.  From Wikipedia:

"Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication (electronic intelligence—abbreviated to ELINT). Signals intelligence is a subset of intelligence collection management."

Why Bad Politicians Hate Good Academics - Mouhcine Guettabi Explaining His Research on Economic Impacts On Two Alaskan Boroughs

There's a war going on against academics as well as against the media.  People who try to uncover the truth are never the favorites of people in power and often they are persecuted.  (See this and this, for example. Journalists are being killed in a number of countries including Trump's role model, Russia.  But first he wants to get rid of the First Amendment.  While that may be just distraction or hyperbole, the trouble with liars is you don't know when they are serious. You get the idea.  Tracking down fake news takes up time that could be better spent.)


Dr. Mouhcine Guettabi's Presentation at ISER

Friday at noon, I went to a display of what good scientists do to get near the truth.  And why bad politicians hate good scientists.

Economics professor and researcher at UAA's Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER,) Mouhcine Guettabi,  gave a talk.

I don't claim to understand all the details of his formuli, but what was so refreshing was listening to how he treated the 'truth.'

He never claimed to have it.  He qualified everything he said.  And, in fact, the whole presentation was a preliminary look at work in process (he even said he didn't think he could say 'in progress') in front of about 25 others, many of whom know the subject and the methodology well.  He wanted them to critique his methodology, to challenge his tentative claims, to help him get closer to the elusive truth.

After hearing so many politicians attack or embrace statistics to 'prove' that their policies are working, regardless of whether the claim has any validity, I found Guettabi's talk to be like a walk in the wilderness.  Instead of the noise of politicians trying to spin everything in their favor, we just heard the pure sound of good minds struggling with the difficulties of really knowing things.


Impacts of Red Dog Mine on NWA Borough and Oil Price Increase on North Slope Borough


These were the issues Guettabi was wrestling with:

1. How did the opening of the Red Dog Mine in the Northwest Arctic Borough impact people in the borough?
2. How did increasing oil prices affect employment in the North Slope Borough?

Of course, in situations like this, you don't really have a control group to measure against.  The big problem was how could he know what each of those boroughs would have looked like if a) there had been no mine or b) there had been no sharp increase in oil prices?   

He attacked that problem by creating hypothetical 'twin' boroughs that he could compare them with on a variety of measures.  He took all the Alaska boroughs and found the handful whose numbers in the years prior to the Red Dog Mine's beginning (and before the oil price spike) and used those 'twins' to compare the 'after' years.  How did the hypothetical 'twin' boroughs do compared to the actual NWA Borough and the NS Borough? So he had different groups of boroughs for different measures (since the ones with the closest matches were not the same for the different statistics he was looking at.)

Here's my transcript of what he says on the video below:

"However, I have all these boroughs that had no mine, so let me use information from those other boroughs in order to construct a unit that looks as much as possible like the Northwest Arctic Borough before the mine was created, and therefore the difference, essentially, between the outcome I actually observe, right?  So this is, for example, employment in the Northwest Arctic Borough in 1992 minus the weighed average of employment in that ‘twin’ would give me, arguably, the effect that I’m interested in, which is what is the actual effect of the  mine itself."

I don't want to go into all the details - well, even if I wanted to, I couldn't get too far.  But I just want to highlight

• how difficult it is to really know how living communities or political subdivisions are impacted by things
• how painstakingly good scientists work to find ways to answer these questions
• how humble good scientists are and how welcoming they are to other experts reviewing and challenging their thoughts and methods
• how different this process is from the way bad politicians 'prove' cause and effect

And while President Trump offers an extreme example of a bad politician* I think you can all find lots of examples of other federal, state, and local politicians who range from careless with numbers to  creating their own totally unjustifiable conclusions from the data they have.

And let me also note, that these are simply attempts to check on the impacts in these boroughs.  Guettabi recognizes that there are many factors that could go wrong and he worked hard to consider them in his model.  Most, if not all, of the data Guettabi is using (this is a work in process as he said) comes from governmental data sources.

And my guess is that this is precisely why some politicians are trying to defund data collection in key agencies.  Without good data, scientists, journalists and others, can't demonstrably refute politicians' false claims.  The NRA's successful campaign to limit the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) gun violence data bases) is a good example of this.

Data sets aren't as photogenic as physical violence, but destroying them is a form of structural violence and in many ways just as important.  It's an assault on how we know things, how we get closer to 'truth.' And whether we have good data to make good policy decisions.  

*"bad politician" here means one whose approach is to highlight whatever makes him look good (whether it's true or not) and attack his opponents or detractors (whether it's true or not) rather than focus on getting everyone together and solve our collective problems.   

Why Don't Ducks' Feet Freeze? And Other Spring Thoughts

The bike trails are now pretty much snow and ice free.  There's sun.  No time to blog, time to be out.

Goose Lake still has ice.

This grebe is riding the waves at a windy Potter Marsh Friday afternoon.

A gull on the final approach to its nest.

Potter Marsh from the boardwalk.

Waiting for the new green to push up through to the sun.

This morning I had ride by Goose Lake again and there were two mallards sleeping on the ice.  If you're wondering, like I was, why their feet don't freeze, Ask a Naturalist explains why:

"It’s all about heat exchange, and the smaller the temperature difference between two objects, the more slowly heat will be exchanged. Ducks, as well as many other birds, have a counter-current heat exchange system between the arteries and veins in their legs. Warm arterial blood flowing to the feet passes close to cold venous blood returning from the feet. The arterial blood warms up the venous blood, dropping in temperature as it does so. This means that the blood that flows through the feet is relatively cool. This keeps the feet supplied with just enough blood to provide tissues with food and oxygen, and just warm enough to avoid frostbite. But by limiting the temperature difference between the feet and the ice, heat loss is greatly reduced. Scientists who measured it calculated that Mallards lost only about 5% of their body heat through their feet at 0o C (32o F)."

What's In A Name? Instead Of Taxes, How About An Alaska Membership Fee?

As our legislature struggles to come up with a way to balance the Alaska state budget, we see the cut expenses camp duke it out with the raise income camp.  Taxes, particularly income taxes, are anathema to key Republicans, like Senate President Pete Kelly.  It seems just the word 'tax' is the biggest obstacle.  So I'd like to repost a piece from last year:  

 Instead Of Taxes, How About An Alaska Membership Fee?

Back in 2008, at his corruption trial, Vic Kohring said that he had signed a 'no taxes' pledge.  He could not vote for any tax.  However, if the tax were called a fee, he might be able to vote for it.

Eight years later we still have legislators who are allergic to the word 'tax' and break out in hives and start hyperventilating when anyone utters the word.  Some key legislators in Juneau are willing to inflict enormous damage to the state of Alaska rather than even consider something like an income tax.

I have a proposal.

The Alaska Membership Fee

Everyone who lives or works  in Alaska is eligible to buy a membership.  Memberships would be sold on a sliding scale based on factors such as net worth, income, location, age, amount of time in Alaska each year, etc.

The biggest attraction of the membership would be:

• eligibility to apply for an Alaska Permanent Fund Check  - it wouldn't guarantee eligibility for the check, but without  an Alaska Membership Card (AMC) one couldn't apply.  

There could be a number of other perks one gets with an AMC such as:

• free public K-12  education
• discounts (or even free pass for higher levels) at state parks, state ferry, state run airports
• access to Pioneer Homes
• discounts and scholarships at University of Alaska campuses
• discounts for driver's license, fishing licenses, hunting licenses, etc.
• use of the Anchorage LIO when legislators aren't there

People who live in rural areas will have different needs from people who live in urban areas.  Age may also lead to different kinds and levels of service.  These can  all be figured out.  Or, the legislature might decide that simplicity may be preferable to complicated pricing and eligibility requirements and choose to use one or two factors, such as income or net worth.  

Alaska Membership would help people realize the different benefits they get from the state that they normally enjoy without even thinking about it.  After all, good government is invisible.  Most people only notice government when it stops working well:

• when diseases break out 
• when potholes aren't repaired
• when traffic lights don't work
• when police abuse citizens
• when foster kids are abused
• when their own kids don't learn at school 
• when garbage piles up and air is polluted 
• when the water is no longer safe to drink
• when state parks are all closed and local park equipment is broken
• when voting machines are hacked
• when gasoline pumps show more gallons than you actually got

When such government services break down, we end up paying more to deal with the consequences:

• higher insurance and repair bills because of poorly engineered and maintained roads, contaminated water and air, and crime
• lost work days and other health costs because of lack of sanitation or access to basic health care
• shortsighted legislators because of poor schooling
• lost work time because of long waits in line at state offices because there aren't enough employees
• higher need for police, courts, and social services because foster kids aren't well supported
• weaker economy because business can't get good employees when government services make Alaska an undesirable place to live

You get the point.  Some of our influential legislators don't.  Their mantra is 'government is bad,'  and  'taxes are worse." 

But we wouldn't have to have an income tax or a sales tax.  Instead we'd all become members of the State of Alaska and our membership fees would go towards all those services that our legislators say are wasteful luxuries, like health care for the working poor, like school teachers for our kids.  

Mostly, the creation of Alaska Membership would remove the key obstacle for those legislators who,  like Kohring,  can't accept the word tax, but could get behind a fee.  And it would be voluntary.  No one would have to join, but they couldn't apply for the Alaska Permanent Fund  check if they didn't.  And they could get basic state services for free (non-members would have to buy guest passes, say for campgrounds or public school) and they could buy Alaska T-shirts and hats at a discount.  

I'd note that plenty of organizations, public and private, already use sliding scale fees for their services.  Here are just a couple of examples: 

Airlines
Health Care
Independent Adoption Center
Golf Clubs and Health Clubs
Private Schools
Universities
Movies
Museums
Hotels

This could set a trend for the rest of the country.  A membership card would prove you were a 'real' Alaskan.  So much cooler than paying an income tax.  

If you agree, then send this post to your legislator.  You can find their contact information here.  http://w3.legis.state.ak.us/docs/pdf/whoswho.pdf

Bread Print, No blue, Remaining Ice [UPDATED]

My bread recipe calls for parchment paper under the loaf.  Here's the bread print on the parchment.







And the bread itself.  (I know, they don't look like they match.  I think if I had turned the bread around it would fit better.)


I've been doing chores inside and outside.  There's one tulip bud and lots of other things are poking up out of the ground.  The irises, some lilies, and other things were exposed as I started raking the mulch off the flower beds and moving it up the compost pile.





Also had some printer problems.  It stopped printing blue.  I checked at Office Depot where we bought it about five years ago and they sent me to Lewis and Lewis on Fireweed where I could buy a new printhead for $65 with no guarantee that it would fix the problem.  And even if it did, the machine was old

by their standards and something else could go wrong.  And new ones that did all the stuff my old one can do - wifi, copy, scan, fax, color, etc. - are now available for a little more than the $65 printhead.

It's the magenta and cyan printhead on the right in the picture there.

He did suggest pulling out the printhead and cleaning it, but that didn't work.

So at Costco today I checked what they had.  The HP's started at $59!  (A whole printer for less than the printhead.  Something about our system seems pretty cockeyed.)  I ended up with one for $119.

It took less than 30 minutes to get it out of the box, plugged in, connected to the wifi and to download the appropriate software for my laptop and print.  I haven't tried anything with blue yet.  So there's now a five year old printer looking for a new home.  The blue doesn't work and other things could start to go wrong any time.  But surely someone can use it.

[UPDATE April 28, 2017:  I tried color on the new printer - picture letters to my grandkids.  It worked.  Then I made an envelope.  But the computer chose the old computer and printed the envelope on a page.  With BLUE.  So, it appears, eventually, the blue got back into the system.]

And yesterday I checked out the bike trail along Campbell Creek, east of Lake Otis.  It's all clear of snow now.  But there is still ice on the creek itself.