Who's Going To Clean Up The North Slope And The Pipeline When The Oil Companies Leave?

 

Like lots of my posts, I have one key points to make, but it seems like I need to give some background to this quote.  

Cold Mountain Path, by Tom Kizzia, is this month's book club selection.  The group also read Tom's Pilgrim's Progress  that told the story of Papa Pilgrim and his large family that turned out to be filled with nasty unpleasantness under the facade of a happy religious family. 

Both books take place largely in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.  This second book expands on unpublished notes from the first book - notes that talked about the history of McCarthy the ghost town like community in the park near the Kennecott copper mine.  

Kizzia has figured out the way to tie lots of stories about the town and people in it, into a fascinating tale.

The particular I quote I'm offering today is part of a section describing John Denver's week in McCarthy as part of his Alaska Wilderness movie tour in 1975.  He writes about how the locals reacted to Denver and vice versa.  But here he's talking about the irony of filming an environmental film in a ghost town of a huge copper mine that made a fortune for the Guggenheim Syndicate before they suddenly pulled out in 1938 just before WWII, leaving everything behind - equipment in the Copper Mill, all the houses and furnishings for the workers, clothes, food, vehicles . . .

"In his book, Denver described Kennecott as "a wild streak of industrial violence" that "just sits there, brooding in the night."  It might seem odd that a movie about preserving Alaska's wilderness would linger amid the frontier ruins of industrial capitalism, but the allegorical setting actually suited the times.  The conservationist's fundamental truth, about the environment winning in the end, presses itself constantly upon a visitor's imagination in the Wrangell, there being no greater illustration than Kennecott itself.  Juxtaposed against the propulsive boosterism of Alaska's modern oil boom, in which Alyeska Pipeline had replaced the Guggenheim Trust, Kennecott's ruins provide an almost religious tableau, a place where spiritual reassurance might be found in the atmosphere of decline and fall, in the inning when nature bats last."

That last sentence led me to the title of this post.  Who is going to clean up the Alaska oil pipeline when the oil companies close up shop and abandon Alaska, like the Guggenheims did?  I don't ever recall hearing about a fund set aside to clean up.  But according to this 2020 LA Times piece, 

"Current bonding levels, the funds put aside by the industry to ensure adequate decommissioning of wells and other infrastructure, barely touch what’s needed for cleaning up what’s been built or drilled to date. . . Operators can hold blanket bonds for their entire operations that may not even cover a single site’s cleanup."

The article is only talking about cleaning up the oil fields and doesn't mention the pipeline. (I'm sure there are people thinking about making it the world's larges water slide.)  How much of what the state of Alaska has earned off the oil will be needed to clean up the mess the oil companies are inevitably going to leave behind.  British Petroleum has left the state after selling its stake to Hillcorp Energy,  a company that specializes in getting the last oil out of the ground on the cheap.  

"Environmental organizations and pipeline experts continue expressing concerns about a secretive Texas petroleum company with a spotty safety record that acquired the largest share of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline last year as thawing permafrost and flooding linked to climate change threatened the massive oil conduit.

The Regulatory Commission of Alaska voted 4-1 in December 2020 to allow Hilcorp Energy Co. to acquire BP’s Alaska oil and gas assets for $5.6 billion, a transaction described as the biggest Alaskan business deal in a generation. It involved one of the state’s most important pieces of economic infrastructure."(Inside Climate News)

Not the kind of company that can or would clean things up.  

Alaska Legislators - as you talk about Alaska oil revenues and taxes - please put the costs of cleaning up the oil fields at the end into any new legislation.  We need a realistic estimate of the costs and a way to get the oil companies to deposit money for the cleanup before they leave.    

Senator Sullivan, you're one of the oil companies' biggest boosters.  Show us you care about Alaska too and get an adequate fund set up to deal with cleaning the oil fields and the pipeline when the oil is gone.  Kennecott is just a blip on the map compared to what the oil companies will leave behind.

 

And for those of you who have never heard of McCarthy or Kennecott, here's a picture and link to some old posts about the area.  

 Here's part of what the old Kennecott Copper Mill looked like when we visited in 2008.  It was at the end of several hours of dirt road.  

ARB Girdwood Challenge Schedule: - Oral Arguments May 12, Findings By May 16

The April 27, 2022  order from the judge says that all documents will be available at theAlaska Courts  most requested cases link.  Google will get you there so you don't have to come here to find the link.  

I'd note until today, the last document posted there was dated 4/27/2022.  They're having trouble keeping up.  That's why I only have this document today.  

There's one really big file that my computer is taking forever to open.  I just realized it's the video of the Board meetings.  That's already available on the Redistricting Board's website.  At least I'm assuming that will be the same content.  That page starts with all the public testimony, so scroll down till you get to April 15, 2022.

For those with visual impairments, whose devices cannot read images:

• Opening Briefs, Wednesday May 4
• Opposition Briefs, Sunday, May 8
• Reply Briefs, Wednesday May 11
• Superior Court to Issue Findings of Fact & Conclusions of Law by Monday, May 16, 2022
• The oral argument shall be held on the 12th day of May, 2022, via Zoom at 10 am

Outlining The Argument That The Redistricting Board Majority's Last Map Is Gerrymandering

 It seems to me there have been several issues raised, that the judge(s) will have to rule on. [Note: when I use district numbers, I'm using numbers from the November plan, because those are the ones that were used through the court hearings and it's less confusing.]

1.  Does the newest map (and basically we're only looking at four Senate districts at this point) meet the constitutional standards?

This would seem cut and dried, and probably is. But perhaps not.  Here's what the Alaska Constitution says:

§ 6. District Boundaries

The Redistricting Board shall establish the size and area of house districts, subject to the limitations of this article. Each house district shall be formed of contiguous and compact territory containing as nearly as practicable a relatively integrated socio-economic area. Each shall contain a population as near as practicable to the quotient obtained by dividing the population of the state by forty. Each senate district shall be composed as near as practicable of two contiguous house districts. Consideration may be given to local government boundaries. Drainage and other geographic features shall be used in describing boundaries wherever possible.

The Court has at points been pretty clear that if the boundaries of two house districts are touching, then they meet the contiguity requirement.  And while the majority Board members used anecdotes to show their new districts are Socio-Economically Integrated  (SEI), that is not one of the criteria.  Neither is compactness.  But 'communities of interest' is a term that has been mentioned, and 'equal protection'' is also a factor in Senate seats. (For example Judge Thomas Matthews decision pp.31-34 and again on 53-55) 

On page 28, Matthews also wrote: 

"The Alaska supreme Court has defined a “contiguous territory” as one which is bordering or touching.  The Court determined that “[a] district may be defined as contiguous if every part of the district is reachable form [sic] every other part without crossing the district boundary (i.e., the district is not divided into two or more discrete pieces of land)."

In practical terms. HD 22 and HD 9 could be considered two discrete pieces of land.  Except by hiking across miles of unpopulated mountains and valleys, you cannot get from one part of the new Senate district without crossing the district boundary.  Yet that is also the case for the Valdez and Matsu pairing which both the Superior and Supreme Court said was constitutional.  

And while people have argued that 'practicable' should mean that an impassable boundary through the mountains isn't practicable, the other side pointed to court  case language that said having to drive through other districts is not a problem.  The new Senate [House] district that both Courts  approved, pairing Valdez and Mat-Su is a case in point.  

I would argue that in an urban area where there are plenty of much easier boundaries to cross, the courts have left a giant loophole for Boards that want to gerrymander. And the Board's majority walked right through that loophole.

In fact Judge Thomas Matthews quotes from the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention that the Redistricting criteria were meant to make it harder to gerrymander. 

“Addressing the appropriate method of drawing districts, the framers believed that the redistricting criteria of compactness, contiguity, and socio-economic integration were necessary to prevent gerrymandering.  The purpose of utilizing watershed boundaries was to keep communities intact, whereas roads cutting through communities should not serve as boundaries.”  [From Thomas Matthews' decision p. 132]

It would seem that this little paragraph offers a lot to attorneys who want to mine it to argue why the 3B boundaries are bad.  

• the criterion of contiguity as used here assists gerrymandering, it doesn't prevent it
• the joining of people across watershed boundaries unites people not naturally a unit instead of uniting those within those boundaries
• Eagle River's two districts are divided by boundaries that cut through roads.  Pairing them would repair rather than exacerbate this use of roads cutting through communities serving as boundaries

 Making the kind of boundary in the new Senate Seat that combines HD 22 and HD7,  that runs through the mountains and makes residents cross multiple House boundaries to actually get to the other House District in their Senate seat,  makes a mockery of the purpose of contiguity and invites the odd pairing that we get in this case.  Which helps people who want to gerrymander.  

At the Supreme Court hearing on the 2021 plan, Justice Warren Matthews asked if the Board's attorney, Matt Singer, was saying that the ruling that all parts of a borough are SEI means that the Court couldn't rule that there was gerrymandering in Anchorage?  The judge did acknowledge that there were different neighborhoods with different interests within the Anchorage bowl.  

I'd also point out that the Court has endorsed different standards for compactness and deviation for rural and urban districts.  It's easier, in areas with  high population density, to create more compact districts and districts with lower deviations.  I would argue that the courts should breathe life into the words "as near as practicable" in urban areas. 

Ultimately, I think the most likely possibility of contiguity playing a role in overturning the Senate pairings, is if contiguity is just one of many other pieces of evidence that points to political gerrymandering.  

2.  Is the final plan the result of partisan gerrymandering?  

This would seem the more likely reason for the Courts to overturn the final map. In the next week I will flesh out this section.  For now let me outline the kinds of evidence that could be used to demonstrate that gerrymandering is what happened.

A.  The results of the new map - NOT pairing the two Eagle River house seats results in an extra Republican seat in the Alaska Senate.  It also pits two Republican incumbents against each other - both of whom have not cooperated with the Governor as much as he would like. 

B.  The makeup and track record of the Board majority that voted for this map over the vocal opposition of the other two members.   Not only were these Board members chosen - unconstitutionally because they were Republicans - they are also actively involved in Republican party politics and on the side of the Governor within the party.  Both the Superior Court and the Supreme Court have found them guilty of political gerrymandering already in the first map, and so there is already a track record.  Furthermore, the map that was approved was drawn by long time Republican redistricting strategist and former State Republican Party leader Randy Ruedrich.  There is no more partisan player in Alaska.  And then you can compare the majority to the two minority Board members who were appointed by people not affiliated with any party and have no past history of party activities.  

The majority Board members also adopted - in November - a plan for determining rotation of Senate seats that mainly favored Republicans who supported the Governor and punished those who didn't.  While the Board members involved insisted they had no idea who the incumbents of the seats were, it has since come out that they had the names from Randy Ruedrich who had apparently devised the plan. They did this insisting it was random.  When the minority members said, "If it's random, then let's switch the order."  The majority refused.  It wasn't random.  

C.  An objective look at the two proposed maps shows that Option 2 made perfectly natural pairings of House Districts.  The proponents of  Option 3B (the one chosen) had to use the most twisted logic  to justify the maps,  an indication that the reasons they did use were simply cover for the real reason they wanted these pairings - gerrymandering.  

D.  The decision-making process used by the majority was a sham. Judge Thomas Matthews pointed out in his remand order, that the Board members were not subject matter experts on Redistricting.  Unlike a Board with doctors or engineers who have subject matter expertise, the Redistricting Board members were essentially lay persons.  While they did hire area experts for the mapping and for working the census data, and also to review the VRA implications, they did not  hire decision making experts to help them determine what was the best pairing of Senate seats.

That is not to say that they couldn't have done this reasonably themselves.  But they never ever made even an attempt to impartially compare the alternative pairings available to them:  HD 22 and HD 24 versus HD 22 and HD 9.  Instead, they declared HD 24 off limits and only used anecdotal and unverified assertions to justify what they wanted (pairing HD 24 with HD 23 and HD22 with HD 9) and to disparage what they didn't want (pairing HD 23 with HD 17).  This was not an objective decision making process.  This was the justification of what they had already decided on.  And that was pairing D24 with D23 to create an extra Republican Senate seat.    I've covered this at length here.

E.  Public testimony was strongly in favor of Option 2.  Testimony for Option 3B was mostly canned phrases while testimony for Option 2 were more personal explanations of why people preferred Option 2 over Option 3B -  The Board's attorney argued in the Supreme Court that weighing public testimony would turn Redistricting into a political process where parties would rally their forces to show up to testify.  That did happen.  The Republican Board members Singer represented did have their allies rally the Republicans troops.  I've preliminarily reviewed the comments.  Most of the comments in favor of Option 3B fall into three sets of comments that are virtually the same. One set - "I support Option 3B" was sent in by about 40 people.  Another set had about 20 or 30 examples.  

The point of Judge Thomas Matthews' comments about public testimony was not that the Board should count the comments and then do what the majority 'voted' for, as  Singer argued, but rather was for the Board to hear the concerns of the people and take them into consideration as they created their maps. Then in their explanation of their decision they could explain why certain requests were not followed.  But the Board majority did what their attorney warned about - treated the public testimony as a vote.  When a slew of testimony came in the first day favoring the Bahnke testimony (which was Option 1 and paired the key Senate districts the same way that Option 2 did) then the Republican party sent out emails and social media messages and drummed up testimony that specifically said "I oppose the Bahnke plan".  There was even call-in testimony from Fairbanks saying they opposed the Bahnke plan but that they really didn't know anything about it so they couldn't answer any questions.

Detailed comments - pages long with very specific data that countered the majority Board members' assertions and preferred plan - were ignored.  Such clearly reasoned and fact based testimony was the noticeable exception for Option 3B.  Testimony by the sitting Senators in the districts involved was ignored.  Testimony by former Senators in the district involved was ignored.  Well, not totally ignored.  They twisted that testimony to 'prove' their decision wasn't partisan gerrymandering. Only testimony that favored their predetermined pairings was attended to.  

F.  The Board listened to what the courts said about how they were supposed to act.   They adopted the appearance of following the courts' orders, but only to cover up their actual intentions.  While I covered some of these issues in the points above - things do overlap - I think this is another key point.  The Courts need to see through the facade of following the Court's orders and of false justifications that merely mask the actual intent - in this case gerrymandering to garner another Republican Senate seat.  

G.  Do modern communications technologies make contiguity moot?  This point was argued to downplay the distance between Eagle River and Girdwood and Whittier.  People no longer need to drive the long distances, they argued, because we now can meet via zoom.  People can talk to their Senator by phone or meet with them and others via Zoom.  Perhaps this should be in the contiguity sections because it came up in those debates.  I have several observations:

• There's a significant difference between online participation and in-person participation.  In person you get to talk to the Senator or Representative one-on-one before and after a meeting.  You can also talk with other participants, exchange contact info, form bonds, and connect human being to human being.  That's much harder online and is much less likely to happen.
• Not everyone has reliable, good enough internet service for meeting this way to be viable.
• People argued this only because the Board created an Anchorage borough Senate seat that stretches the distance of the Borough - 87 miles several people testified - and so this argument came up to say it didn't matter.  Not because it doesn't matter, but to bolster the ridiculous pairing of HD22 and HD9 rather than natural pairing of HD 22 and 24.  If we can substitute online meetings for in person meetings as they claimed, then the criteria of compactness and contiguity could be dropped altogether.  One could argue that certain people who live far apart are communities of shared interest and should be allowed to form House and Senate districts.  

One of the people who argued that the various online meeting technologies made the need for geographic proximity moot was Randy Ruedrich.  He made that argument while physically present at the Anchorage Legislative Information Office.  Walking is a little hard for him these days, yet he made the effort to be at most meetings in person, not online.  Because being there in person does matter.  

Conclusions

I expected that there would be a lot of gaps, and there clearly is room for filling in details. For example in this post I haven't discussed how the majority insists that Senate Seat L is a holy union of military interests and that pairing JBER with downtown is sacrilegious.   Even though the Board must have already committed such sacrilege by creating House District 23, which has already paired most of JBER with a big chunk of downtown. There are many more such examples of duplicity in the Board majority's arguments.  Many of those details are in previous posts.  But I did a better job than I expected of outlining the key points that need to be made to prove gerrymandering.  

While it's possible the Board members' emails will show something more explicit, the circumstantial evidence of gerrymandering is overwhelming.  The Board majority put on a show to develop arguments that fit member Budd Simpson's definition of reasonable:  "Reasonable means they had a reason."  A show for the Court that they were following the Court's orders.  Presenting reasons that were factually or logically faulty, or as I argued in the previous post, that bits of facts were wrapped up in lies, didn't matter to them. 

I will try to add more detail in future posts to further support the points I've raised.  And I'll add links to previous posts.  But consider this an executive summary that these additional posts will refer to and add evidence for.    

Anyone who has immediate needs for examples and details, just email me and I'll try to help you out.  

Bullsh*t Is A New Netflix Quiz Show That's Useful To Describe AK Redistricting Board Majority Justifications Of Latest Plan

 In this show, the contestant has to answer a multiple choice trivia question. They can win up to $1million.  They have to convince a panel of three other contestants that they know the answer.  It's sort of mishmash between Jeopardy and To Tell The Truth.  

Alaska Redistricting Board Is A Contestant Before the
Alaska Superior and Supreme Court

The strategy, when they don't know the answer, seems to be to take some bits of truth and wrap them up in lies.  They may take a story about their childhood or their job, or education, that tells a story about why they know the answer.  So it's lies wrapped up with bits of truth to make it sound plausible.  

I'd like to propose that this is exactly what the Alaska Redistricting Board majority has done to justify its most recent map.  They've talked about their experiences ("I've lived in Eagle River and it's made up mainly of military and veterans and so it is a natural connection to JBER"), they've made assertion based on anecdotal evidence ("Eagle River High School wouldn't exist if it were not for JBER" or "Pairing downtown and JBER would be political gerrymandering").  

Bits of truth wrapped up in lies. Or lies wrapped up in bits of truth.  It's the same thing.  It's how people win up to $1 million on Bullsh*t and it's how the Redistricting Board's majority is hoping to win an extra Republican seat in the Alaska State Senate which ultimately could be worth way more than $1 million.  

In the next week or so I'm going to lay out the arguments of why I think this is true and how the Board majority have taken two perfectly natural pairings (the two Eagle River house districts (HD22 & HD24 together and JBER/Government Hill (HD 23 and downtown HD 17) and substituted two far less natural and less compatible districts (HD 22 and HD 7 - Hillside to Whittier) and HD 24 with HD 23.  [Note:  I'm using the district numbers in the November 8 plan because these are the numbers that were used in the Board meetings.  Some numbers were changed in the April 13 plan.]

Judge Thomas Matthews - the Superior Court judge who presided over the challenges to the November Proclamation Plan - and the Supreme Court justices who heard the appeal, all called out the majority Board members for gerrymandering in the first plan, which is why they had to revise the map.  

But in the lead up to the first plan, the majority didn't even try to justify their decision.  Political Gerrymandering had never been a reason for a court to reject a previous redistricting plan in Alaska.  They didn't think they had to justify what they were doing.  All they needed was a majority vote.  We even had Board member Marcum say clearly that the plan would give Eagle River an extra Senate seat. 

This time around, they've heard the courts' admonitions and have created elaborate (ie Bullsh*t) explanations to justify their new map.  

Let's pause here and look at where we are in the process now.

Judge Matthews remanded the plan back to the Board and told it to make changes to specific districts.  The Board did that - with a highly vocal minority disagreeing with the majority.  Judge Matthews now has to decide whether to accept the changes.  The original East Anchorage plaintiffs have filed objections to the judge arguing why he should not accept the remanded map.  

In addition, three residents of Girdwood, who have been put into a district with Eagle River in the newest map, have challenged the new plan.  

I know it's confusing.  

• East Anchorage is trying to influence the judge's decision about the remand itself.  
• The Girdwood folks are instead challenging the new plan.  The two are on different timelines.

The judge had originally hoped to get out a decision on the remand by this past Thursday, April 28.  If he agreed with the East Anchorage plaintiffs, then the Girdwood challenge would be moot because he would have disallowed the Eagle River with South Anchorage (including Girdwood.)

Instead of making a decision about the remand on Thursday, the judge offered a time line for people who want to challenge the new maps - he expedited the deadline so there would be time for a decision by the Supreme Court before the June 1 deadline for candidates to file to run for office.

He also ordered the Redistricting Board to give the Girdwood plaintiffs all the Board's emails.  

One possibility is that the Judge wanted something more concrete than the East Anchorage plaintiffs gave him, before ruling gerrymandering again.  It's clear the judge believes the Board majority is capable of gerrymandering, because he ruled they did the first time.  Asking for the emails may be a sign that he's hoping there will be something more explicit that he can base his ruling on.  Meanwhile, he's trying to figure out how to decide.  

I've been following the Board since December 2020.  I've followed all their meetings since then either remotely or in person. I've read the documents, the court cases, the past Supreme Court cases. I've written (not counting this post) 120 posts about this 2020 round of Alaska Redistricting.  (You can see an annotated index of the posts here.  It's also among the tabs at the top of the blog.)  

In the next week or two, I will try to make the argument why I think the Board majority's explanations are Bullsh*t.  Much of the groundwork is already up in previous posts.  I plan to explore the idea of Contiguity briefly.  It's not part of the Bullsh*t claim, but it's something the Courts should think about.  I'll also look at what any non-partisan, objective reviewer would call "natural" in terms of the pairing choices that Board had in remand.  I will look at the arguments made by the majority Board members and show why they don't hold up.  

I'll look at how they used assertions based on bits of truth and puffs of hot air to justify their blatant gerrymandering decisions.  How they didn't make any kind of serious comparisons between competing options, they only used 'arguments' (anecdotes mostly) that supported what they wanted or disparaged what they didn't want.  

And I'll look at the party credentials of the majorityBoard members and the map maker (Randy Ruedrich) whose map was used.  

The Netflix description of Bullsh*t is:

"Contestants strive to correctly answer difficult trivia questions.  And when they can't, they simply move to plan B, lying through their teeth."

That's a pretty good descriptor of the Board's majority:  the strive to justify their new map as fair and not political.  And when they can't, they simply move to plan B, lying through their teeth.

Bullsh*tting goes back at least as far as the Serpent in the Garden of Eden.  The Emperor's New Clothes tells the story of how people can doubt what their own eyes tell them.  The man who tried to overturn the last US presidential election has made the art of deception a key part of the Republican Party.  

Even if the emails don't show us the same sort of explicit evidence that Mark Meadows' text messages are revealing, the circumstantial evidence in this case is more than overwhelming.  

A final note.  People who know me well and people who know me because they read the blog regularly, know that I rarely declare something true or false as baldly as I am doing here.  I only do so when I have reviewed something thoroughly.  When I've looked at all the plausible alternative explanations.  And even then I leave an escape hatch just in case I've overlooked something and it turns out I'm wrong.  I'm sticking my neck out here because I don't see a shred of believable evidence that I'm wrong.  The only concession I'll make is that the majority Board members - particularly Marcum - actually believe the stories they have concocted.  But that doesn't make them true.  

Redistricting Board Press Release Cutting Time To Appeal Remand Decision

 Don't feel bad if you're wondering what exactly is going on with the Redistricting Board's latest plan.  I've been following it closely and I'm scratching my head about it too.  

I'm working on a tea leaf reading post, but in the meantime, here's a press release that came out yesterday and a link to the judge's order.

Press Release

Alaska Court System, 820 W. 4^th Avenue, Anchorage, AK 99501

 

Contact: Rebecca Koford, Public Information Officer, rkoford@akcourts.gov

 

Deadline for Challenges to Amended Alaska Redistricting Board Plan Due by May 3, 2022

Anchorage, AK:  On April 27, 2022, Anchorage Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews issued an order establishing expedited deadlines for any qualified voter to file a new challenge to the Redistricting Board’s Amended Proclamation Plan that has not yet been filed. Any complaint or other applications to compel the Redistricting Board to correct any error in redistricting must be made by May 3, 2022.

 

The court has expedited the process and shortened deadlines to allow sufficient time for the Superior Court to hear and decide the merits of any challenge to the Amended Plan, and the Supreme Court if there is an appeal. The expedited process and accelerated deadline for any further challenges to the Amended Plan is necessary because of the June 1, 2022 deadline for legislative candidates to file for the 2022 elections.

 

The expedited process and shortened deadlines provide a reasonable but expeditious period of time for a voter to file a challenge. A copy of the order is attached to this press release. Copies of all filings and orders can be found on the Most Requested Cases page. Hearings in the case can be livestreamed on the Trial Court Video Hearings page on Judge Thomas Matthews’ channel.

###

 

Below was a link to the Judge's order.

I hope that satisfies your curiosity for the time being while I scanning the tea leaves.

I'd also note, that when the Supreme Court ruled on the Redistricting case on March 25, 2022, it only issued a brief decision on each of the cases.  There was no detailed explanation of the Court's thinking.  Without that explanation, it's hard to know what the Supreme Court might do when this new plan gets to them.  That explanation, I hope, will address some unanswered questions that were raised - such as whether ANCSA,boundaries can be considered in drawing maps  and what their thinking is about determining political gerrymandering claims.  I expect that longer explanation will come eventually.

[I have to say, the Alaska Court System's website has lots of information, but it's also like a complicated maze with lots of dead ends.  I had just downloaded the Supreme Court's decision and went back to get the link to put in here and had to spend ten minutes finding the right path back to the link.  You'd think it was in the Motions and Orders page, (It is titled "Disposition Order") but it's not.  It's on the Docket page.  I'm sure it makes sense to the lawyers, but not to me.]

WORDLE Words For March - Update On February WORDLE Post

In early March I speculated about the balance of luck and strategy in WORDLE.  You can see that here.  In this post I'm just going to update the stats for how often each letter was used in March.  

If you go back to to the March post (about February) you can see the details of the February numbers to compare to the March totals.  Just remember there were three more days in March, so that adds 15 letters (five a day.)

Last time I posted my overall stats for the end of February.  I realize now I didn't save a screenshot of those for the end of March.  But my numbers improved - another 2, and a lot more 3s than 4's and a few 5s and 6s.  (Things got much worse in April, but that's for another post.)  

So here are the words for March* 

*I had screen shots of most of them, but some were missing.  This site lists them all.

If you look for patterns you can probably find what you're looking for.  How many days in a row do they use one or more letters from the previous day's word?   They followed EPOXY with NYMPH!  The lesson:  don't assume anything can't happen.  

Through March, they still haven't used simple plurals that end in S, or simple past tenses that end in ED.  

THE DISTRIBUTION OF LETTERS (for February 2022 then March 2022)

Vowels

A = 12 times in 11 different words 

A = 12 times in 11 different words 
E = 12 times in 12 different words 
E = 21 times in 17 different words

I  = 9  times in 7 different words

I =  3 times in 3 different words

O =12 times in 12 different words

O = 14 times in 14 different words

U = 5 times in 5 different words

U = 6 times in 6 different words
Y = 1 time in 1  word

Y = 5 times in 5 different words

Here are some more observations about the vowels (Remember this is just February 2022):

WORDS WITH JUST ONE VOWEL - 6/28

WORDS WITH JUST ONE VOWEL - 7/31

WORDS WITH TWO DIFFERENT VOWELS - 19/28  13/31

WORDS WITH THE SAME VOWEL USED TWICE - 2/28 (ELDER and VIVID)  

-5/31 (RUPEE,  AHEAD, SWEET, TEASE, RENEW)

WORDS WITH THREE VOWELS - 1/28 (ONE DOUBLE) (AROMA)   - 6/31 (FOUR WITH ONE LETTER USED TWICE, LISTED ABOVE)

IF A WORD HAD ONLY ONE VOWEL - IT WAS ALWAYS THE MIDDLE LETTER

IN MARCH THAT WAS NOT TRUE FOR ALL (NASTY, MONTH)

VOWEL IS FIRST LETTER - 6/28   (A=2  E=1  I=0  O=1  U=2)  3/31 (AHEAD, ALLOW, EPOXY)

CONSONANTS (WAS MOST TO LEAST FREQUENT IN FEBRUARY, BUT SEEMED MORE USEFUL TO PUT THE SAME LETTERS NEXT TO EACH OTHER THIS TIME.)  SAME FIVE LETTERS ON TOP, BUT THE ORDER CHANGED.

NOTE:  I did the chart before I did the BLACK=FEBRUARY, RED=MARCH scheme.

• C = 7  5
• D = 5  5
• K = 5  0
• M= 4  5
• N = 4  7
• P = 3   6
• V = 3 (Twice in VIVID)  1
• M = 3 5
• B  = 2 1
• F = 2  1
• G = 1  1
• W = 1 5
• X = 1
• J, Q, X, Z = 0   J,K, Q, Z =0

The earlier post has some thoughts about what I found and some strategies.  It doesn't seem to make sense to repeat it.  For the most part there aren't significant changes in letter frequencies, except for E.  Less so for K and W.  NYMPH was probably the trickiest word, but EPOXY was a close second.  You can go to the previous WORDLE post to see what I wrote if you want.

Grrrrr. My Computer/Internet Couldn't Handle Court's New System

 I even went over to UAA to use their faster internet, but only got snippets here and there and then it would crash.  

BUT, Matt Buxton tweeted the proceeding.    

The hearing is underway with the East Anchorage appeal in the #akredistrict case. East Anchorage argues the board failed to address the court rulings when it put Eagle River w. S. Anchorage. The board argues East Anchorage doesn't have standing.

📺https://t.co/nw7jlgscMi#akleg

— Matt Acuña Buxton (@mattbuxton) April 26, 2022

 You can get the whole thread  here.  

Sounds like:

1.  The judge will decide on the remand. 

2.  The Girdwood motion will be heard separately if it is not answered in the Judge's remand decision.

But read Matt's whole thread for a more precise take.  

Three Girdwood Residents Ask To Intervene In Redistricting Case That Will Be Heard At 3pm Today

 Louis Theiss, Ken Waugh, and Jennifer Wingard ("Girdwood Plaintiffs") have filed a motion to intervene to challenge the April 13, 2022 Redistricting Plan.  

Below is a copy of their motion.  

2022.04.22 Complaint (Girdw... by Steve

To The Folks Who Don't Come Here For Redistricting News

 Let me say I appreciate you all and I'm sorry for my obsession with redistricting.  This may or may not be over soon.  

Here's a post for you.  About other things I've been doing.  

I stopped at Loussac Library after dropping off my taxes at the post office and checked out the new book section.  

Between the Lines  is a bunch of short encounters with people who recommend a favorite book.  Lots of them.  This is probably a good book from which to get ideas for books to read.  

I was going to share the table of contents here, but I think it's too small to read so here are some of the sections:

• Arrivals
• 
  Trees
• Matriarchs
• Legacy Food
• Power
• Reality
• Big Brother
• Character
• Image
• Fabric
• Old New York
• Movement
• Access
• Space
• Time
• History
• Music
• Design
• (True) Colors
• Questions
• Migration
• Love
• Compassion
• Home
• Memories
• Waves
• The End of the Line 

Here's one from the food section.  Jody Scaravella.  It starts out, 

"I own a restaurant on Staten Island where different grandmothers cook every night."  

Imagine!  From all different cultural backgrounds.  I want to go to that restaurant.  

I couldn't get a sense of this book at a glance.  It's recommended by the guy who told us we were at the end of history.   And the use of the word aristocracy raises questions.  Is that good or bad in the author's mind.  There is a lot to be said for the meritocracy, where tests, not family connections, qualify you for college and jobs.  Where the smartest people rise to the top.  But smarts in certain areas don't mean a person is smart in other key areas and when people rise to the top, there are other problems.  Often they use their own rags to riches based on talent story to fault others who haven't made the same rise.  

I haven't read the book, but the reviews online seem to be from places like the Wall Street Journal and other business, right-wing outlets.  

Try this one, for example, from Minding The Campus/Reforming Our Universities:

"From Greta Thunberg to Black Lives Matter, activists are fond of pointing out society’s imperfections, but are completely clueless when it comes to proposing alternatives. Meritocracy—and related concepts, such as IQ—is a case in point. When Michael Young coined the term in his famous 1958 book The Rise of Meritocracy, many people shunned the idea that privileges should be allotted on the basis of merits. And sure enough, “meritocracy” is a word that is all too frequently tossed around to justify the status quo, which is admittedly far from ideal.

But what is the alternative? Activists have not considered enough what a world without meritocracy would look like. Adrian Wooldridge’s The Aristocracy of Talent is a powerful reminder that while meritocracy may have its shortcomings, the lack of meritocracy is far worse. Wooldridge looks at the historical record of past civilizations and draws a definite conclusion: without meritocracy, injustice runs rampant, and life is miserable for most people. Furthermore, as he sees it, “meritocracy is a golden ticket to prosperity,” even more so than democracy."

There's a definite sense here of dictatorship of the talented.  First he dumps on Greta Thunberg and Black Lives Matter, and then he thinks China is a good example.  

"Last month, Brian Buma, PhD, associate professor of integrative biology, released his first book, The Atlas of a Changing Climate (Timber Press, $35). The 280-page book is filled with more than 100 maps, charts, and infographics to help readers without a science background envision the shifting reality of our imperiled ecosystems. Buma, who is a National Geographic Explorer, covers climate change, shrinking wildlife habitats, rising sea levels, and vanishing species."

The quote is from an interview with the author in CUDenver News. 

I suspect this and the previous book reflect less the Bronson attempted takeover of the Anchorage library system, than the fact that the library has always had a collection of conservative as well as other political viewpoints at the library.  

“Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, ‘Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?’” Esther 4:13-14 (NASB)  From Proverbs31 Ministries.

I'm afraid I saw more than enough her when she defended the disgraced Donald Trump.  But put this under your "know thine enemy" reading list.  

"Throughout America, structural problems are getting worse. Economic inequality is near Gilded Age heights, the healthcare system is a mess, and the climate crisis continues to grow. Yet most ambitious policy proposals that might fix these calamities are dismissed as wastefully expensive by default. From the kitchen table to Congress, debates are punctuated with a familiar refrain: "How are you going to pay for that?"

This question is designed to shut down policy pushes up front, minimizing any interference with the free market. It comes from neoliberalism, an economic ideology that has overtaken both parties. Proponents insist that markets are naturally-occurring and apolitical—and that too much manipulation of the economy will make our society fall apart. Ryan Cooper argues that our society already is falling apart, and the logically preposterous views of neoliberalism are to blame. Most progressives understand this instinctively, but many lack the background knowledge to make effective economic counterarguments.

How Are You Going To Pay For That? is filled with engaging discussions and detailed strategies that policymakers and citizens alike can use to assail even the most entrenched lines of neoliberal logic, and start to undo these long-held misconceptions. Equal parts economic theory, history, and political polemic, this is an essential roadmap for winning the key battles to come."  From Overdrive.

"The political scientist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita also makes bold claims. The title of his book promises that he will explain “The Invention of Power”; his subtitle, more modestly, “The birth of the West”. He sets out his stall in the preface: Western (or European) exceptionalism means the “tolerance, prosperity and freedom” found in the West, and its “foundation” was laid in the Concordat of Worms of 1122.

At first glance, this claim seems highly improbable. The Concordat was an agreement between the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor that regulated the procedure for appointing bishops (similar settlements had been made with the kings of France and England shortly before)."  From TLS.

"The Privatization of Everything chronicles the efforts to turn our public goods—free education, public health, open parks, clean water, and many others—into private profit centers. Ever since Ronald Reagan labeled government a dangerous threat, privatization has touched every aspect of our lives, from water and trash collection to the justice system and the military.

However, citizens can, and are, wresting back what is ours. The Privatization of Everything connects the dots across a broad spectrum of issues and raises larger questions about who controls the public things we all rely on, exposing the hidden crisis of privatization that has been slowly unfolding over the last fifty years and giving us a road map for taking our country back."

This quote comes from the book's website, so read it with that in mind.

Besides the library, I've baked some bread.  The sourdough starter is a much less demanding pet than a dog.

And as part of my moving into to spring and summer activities, I'm nurturing a couple of trays of seedlings.  The pansies got planted early and have been doing nicely.    The broccoli (left) just got planted and the sprouts were up in two days.  There are more still waiting to sprout.  

Outside, the tulip greens are up and the daffodils (left) have poked up this week.  Bleeding hearts and one of the lilies are poking out of the ground too. 

I've been biking.  Last summer's mental trip was Chiang Mai to Bangkok.  I'm trying to work out a trip for my Anchorage riding that goes roughly from Istanbul to, I'm not sure where.  Kyiv?  Or just through Turkey.  Last summer I did about 750 kilometers, so the goal is a little further than that.  I've got about 50 k done already.  Here is Campbell Creek, awakening from winter.  

And a hairy woodpecker - well there were actually two - visited this week.  We've got a number of dead trees on the ground, presumably full of insects.  This is my bird feeder.  

Some of the smaller aspen have been woodpecker targets for a while and have died out.  This one got tangled in the phone and the electric wires going to the house.    I did call Alaska Communications but after a week, I got out the clippers on the pole and cut off the parts that were making it hard to get it untangled and now it too is grounded woodpecker feeder.  

So that's just some of what I've been doing instead of sitting at the computer.  And, I also spotted these license plates this last week.  

So that's it for now.  

Here's A Copy Of The East Anchorage Plaintiffs' Motion Challenging The AK Redistricting Board's Amended Plan

 I've read through the motion quickly.  I need to sleep on it. 

Basically it says  the Board continued with its unconstitutional gerrymandering by not pairing the two Eagle River districts as ordered.  The new plan still results in Eagle River getting two Senate seats.  It argues that the Board majority is mocking the judge by disobeying his order.  The motion emphasizes this contempt by reminding the judge that Board chair John Binkley voted against the other change - the Cantwell cutout, saying he believed the Court's decision was wrong.  

"Board Chair Binkley’s acknowledgement of the court order regarding the “Cantwell Appendage” and then his express refusal to vote in compliance with that order was extremely concerning."

It also mentions that once again the overwhelming public testimony was for Option 2.  Footnote 13 elaborates:

"See Exhibit A attached hereto, all written comments submitted in favor of pairing the two Eagle River house districts together. These comments total 206. But see Exhibit B, all written comments submitted in support of fragmenting the Eagle River community of interest, totaling 111. The majority of comments in support of fragmenting the Eagle River community of interest appear to have been submitted in response to an April 6, 2022 publication by Must Read Alaska blogger Suzanne Downing entitled 'Conservatives needed to support Redistricting Board as it considers two maps of Senate pairings for Anchorage,”  

I tracked several pages of the public testimony submitted via the online form.  I didn't get to that high a number, but I did notice there were several times when there was a flurry of pro-3B comments. 

• Please DO NOT ADOPT THE BAHNKE PLAN
• I support 3B - (I counted over 40 like this one, Some added a 'thank you.)

On the other hand, the messages from the folks who supported Option 2 had a lot more to say and 

Mtn to Reject Proclamation ... by Steve