Here are some things that have always been issues, except for when they haven't been an issue at all. I'd first like to show the google timeline that I'm using is a generally good representation of what's important at a given time.
The search I did was for 'War' You can pick out the major wars on this ol' graph. Bigger bars mean more was written about it at the time. A bar twice as big is twice as written about. The bars don't scale to the same height, so what might be a blip on one graph, if plotted on another graph would be massive.
Interestingly, we're less interested in war these days than we were back in WW1 and WW2. Then again, in the WWs, the whole country was effectively mobilized to fight it.
Here's something that was a major point of contention in the 2000 election, but no one talks about anymore.
Here's something from the 2000 election that has periodically cropped up, but is mostly ignored between long stretches of the US nationally fixating on it.
I cropped all these timelines so they covered 1900 to today, but it's interesting to know that the last one was also a major issue periodically in the 1800s. Somehow, the nation avoided collapse then.
Here's something that was major in the 2008 election, that we were told was a brand spanking new issue that we must tackle now. Does the 80s count as new?
And here are two issues that I've been told have always been important, and people have always cared deeply about it, and they must be addressed now.
And here's Hanging Chad. The most important thing of its time, and something we really don't care about now.
And here's a pet rock.
Not a very scientific analysis, but I guess what I'm saying is that there sure is a lot of what looks like fads in politics. Most of which never reach any form of resolution. And yet the world doesn't come quite to an end, like the politicians predicted if we didn't do what they wanted to do, right that moment..
... Paul could have tried to set up shop in Ester. That's my attitude towards the Goldstream General Store. About two years ago, you may recall there was a stink about the employees going on strike. The store used to be owned by some nice folks who decided to sell it quietly. So quietly that almost no one knew about it until it was done. The problem was the new owner had strong opinions about tattoos, religion, politics, and just about everything else. And they were 100% to the right of right. And he was rather vocal about them. Well, that's fine - that's anyone's right - but you have to question the business savvy of starting an outwardly conservative business in what's basically a valley full of hippies, dilettante dog mushers, unwashed students and university staff. The valley isn't as liberal as Ester, but it's pretty close.
The problem, and the reason this is back in the news, was because the new owner tended to talk to his employees about religion. A lot. In a hostile manner. Leaving aside the wisdom of talking about religion at work (there's a time and place, and that's neither), the employees thought the content of the conversation amounted to harassment at the least. Things to the effect of `Catholics are the root of all evil` and how they would go to hell. At least two employees have sued over this, and thus far, one has won. I'm surprised it's taken two years for the case to worm its way through the courts - this was about as open and shut as it gets, given the amount of evidence that Paul was saying those things. Getting redress for being obviously wronged through the courts is an incredibly slow process. I might have just said `forget it` and dropped the case myself.
What really gets me is the guy's business plan. It's terrible, to be blunt. This is Goldstream we're talking about here, no one wants to buy stuff they picked up at safeway, brought to the general store and slapped a mark-up on. You want to make bank in the area, open a store that sells local foods, or organic food, or anything of that sort. Make it a pick up location for those organic farm distributors that are so popular on campus. Sell to the clientele you can get, not the one you wish you had. If they had even a little bit of local goods there, they would have many more customers than they actually do.
Campbell saw no scenario where Miller would concede before the hand count. Lawyers are on their way to Alaska to help Miller battle over the numbers, he said.
Three predictions. 1) This will be tied up in litigation for at least 4 months. 2) The state supreme court will have to step in at some point to arbitrate what "the intent of the voter" actually means. 3) We're all going to be really tired of the election fight in less than 2 months.
It's that time of year again, when we scribble in bits of paper and then complain about how other people scribbled in their bits of paper for the next two years. Yes, it's time to vote! Alaska's had a wild and crazy senate race which most people are sick to death of at this point, but all signs point to it not being over. If Lisa comes close to the percents she's polling at, she'll be tired up in court for the next decade as Miller and McAdams sue eachother silly. Much like Minnesota spent eons wrangling over votes, except with the extra joy of write in ballots.
apply for low-income resident hunting licenses that they aren't qualified for,
want to abolish the federal minimum wage,
apply for medicare money, which they're vehemently against,
accept farm subsidies which they're vehemently against,
and who think that the 17th amendment was just a crummy idea because really, what to voters know anyhow?
Well, that and Lisa Murkowski, who should really have her name legally changed to something like "Lisa Smith" for her write in campaign, if she wants any chance in heck. But let's be honest, how boring is that? There's no style. It's just boring old rank-hypocrisy from a self-important group of blowhards who lust after power like I lust after a big bowl of ice cream. There's nothing new or exciting there. We have Palin going around talking about Death Panels, and other forms of verbal diarrhoea, but she's pretty much gone national now. She's the 'States' problem now (sorry guys). Oh, and I've heard rumours we got some other guy running, too.
But Delaware? They have candidates who say that although they dabbled in witch-craft once upon a time, that honestly, they've stopped being a witch. She also denies evolution, and has a strange obsession with... well... topics that are really none of her business. And honestly, that makes our craziest candidates look sane and well adjusted. I guess when people say we should go back to the root of what makes this country great, they mean going back to the 1600s:
Friday, 17 September 2010
What happens when someone performs an act that's entirely legal in a majority of countries including the one they're in, causing no material harm to any person, through making an artistic political statement?
They have to change their identity and hide from death. That's exactly what happened to Molly Norris, of Draw Mohammed Day. Now, I won't pretend like the situation is not a bit more complex than a cut and dry instance of freedom of speech trumping all, but dangit it shouldn't be. Even granting that it is an "insult" just for a moment, well adjusted human beings should not react to insults with murder. This whole thing is like Salman Rushdie all over again.
There's probably a reason why in English, "Fishing" also means blindly searching for something.
While I was in the field, enjoying bright sunny days in Southeast, I was necessarily away from news outlets and the like. So it came as a bit of a surprise when I got back at the end of the fieldwork and found out that Ted Stevens had died. Immediately, I asked some people near me (I was using a tourist internet connection) if they knew any details, since I'd just found out. Apparently they didn't live in Alaska full-time because their first question was "Who is Ted Stevens?"
It's one of those questions an Alaskan wouldn't need to ask. If you've lived here a year, or a hundred, you know Ted Stevens. There's a good chance you've met him in the flesh. One of my friends is repeatedly on record as saying that he owed his first job to Ted Stevens, when he funnelled some money this way. Obviously, Ted Stevens was not without his detractors. There are arguments for and against him, and one could debate in circles whether he was for good or ill. In fact, our skipper (who got the news on the sideband, but failed to share it with anyone since we were all ashore) launched into a heated debate with some other folks about Stevens' goodness (or lack thereof). I'm not sure this is the time to decide a legacy - when it comes to politicians, it's difficult to gauge legacy until time has passed just a bit. And I won't try to argue one way or the other just yet. But one thing I think we could all agree on is that Ted Stevens was a massive figure in our state.
There's been an article making the rounds at various news sources, and I think it's worth linking here: Are Cameras the New Guns? I very strongly encourage you to read it.
The problem is simple. With cameras being everywhere now, it's becoming easier and easier to record people doing things they shouldn't. People catch pickpockets and shame them on YouTube, or record those teens on their lawn to hand over to the police. No one seems to mind those... But the problem arises when people record the police themselves. You see, people have been using videos to show that, well, not all police officers follow the law. Some of them outright lie about how events transpired, and presumably have been doing so for years. But now, people can show this with video. Naturally, Police don't like this. At all. And they're fighting back to make recording their doings a crime.
Police are like everyone else. It's easy to fall into saccharine sophism and talk about how they're doing their patriotic duty, and all that nonsense, but honestly, police officers are like everyone else. There's many good, and many bad individuals. It's irrational to think that the police force is immune to the same mix of competence and incompetence that other places suffer from. No one denies not all shop clerks are helpful, polite, or will give you a fair deal. Why would we insist that all police are any of those things? Humans are inherently a mix of good, bad and ugly.
But. We shouldn't tolerate the ugly.
Alaska needs a law that says that people can be recorded in places where they don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy. In your home, you have an expectation of privacy. At work, too. That's fairly reasonable. But it seems unreasonable that making a recording outside on the road would be illegal. After all, nothing prohibits there being a second person there, who would see the whole event. The officer has no expectation of privacy there. The effect, either in recording or having a third party observer, would be the same.
I like oil. It makes my snowmachine run, which lets me have fun, get food, and go trap. This is very important to me, and running a dog team is not an option for me. This picture makes me re-think offshore oil in the Arctic, though:
As bad as this disaster is, I can't imagine floating chunks of ice would make it any less worse. I love our home too much to want this to happen to us.
There, I've got the politics out of me for the month.
I don't know why people send me these links. Maybe I have too-low faith in humanity already.
"You know, a couple of days after the health care bill had been signed into law, Obama ran around all over the country saying, "Hey, you know, I'm looking around. The earth hadn't opened up. No Armageddon out there. The birds are still chirping." I think the earth has opened up. God may have replied. This volcano in Iceland has grounded more airplanes -- airspace has been more affected than even after 9/11 because of this plume, because of this ash cloud over Northern and Western Europe. ... It's got everybody just in a shutdown. Earth has opened up. I don't know whether it's a rebirth or armageddon. Hopefully it's a rebirth, God speaking."
Rush Limbaugh on the European volcano problems.
So, by that logic, God really hates Alaska, given all the volcanoes he puts here.
Someone unearthed a copy of the contract Sarah Palin makes people sign to book her for a speaking engagement. Among the requirements are
[...] one of the many requirements that must be met for the former vice presidential hopeful: two unopened bottles of still water and "bendable straws" must be waiting on a wooden lectern.
Bendy straws. Because she's a woman of the people. And then there's her airplane and hotel requirements... Read the whole thing here. She's definitely gone Hollywood. If she's just your average hockey Mom, I'm the king of Spain.
It's shocking to think this is 2010. I heard a comedian say "This is the most futuristic date in the history of all dates!" which is about spot on. Honestly, we have iPod touches, you can fly from Fairbanks to Germany without dying of scurvy along the way, and we have people living full-time in space. I'm a huge fan of the future, because it brings advancements that my grandparents wouldn't have even dreamt possible. Even if we don't get personal flying cars, I'm looking forward what Detroit invents 20 or 30 years from now. Maybe it'll be a hover-car, like Star Wars. I can live with a Hover Car.
Yet despite how neat the future is, there seems to be a group of people who are dead set on disparaging it by pointing to it and saying times are bad, and wrong, and we need to go back in time. This is topic on here frequently, since I do not like this rosy retrospective. It washes history, making it clean, palatable. An acquaintance of mine made the claim that there wasn't murder in the village before white people showed up. This is an insane claim that even half-way listening to stories would disprove. And even if we had no more stories ever again, the archaeological signs of conflict and strife are there for us to find. There's also Texas writing Jefferson out of the history books because he disagrees with their politics, and a general fetishization of the "Founding Fathers" to almost god-like figures. Goldman-Animation made a great short video about the so-called "Golden Age."
I say this, because nationally, there seems to be a form of this going on in the south. People are ignoring parts of the civil war which don't support their modern ethics, and only thinking about the parts that do. There's a revisionist attitude about that leads people to say that the Civil War wasn't about Slavery. You see this in the recent proclamation of Confederate History Month, and other things of that sort. I've heard people on call in shows on the Radio talk about how the new Tea Party movement is like the Confederates of old, fighting against large government. I have to keep from groaning and holding my head, when I hear this - I've cut back my radioshow diet because of these crazy statements.
In this great article in The Atlantic, they lay, flat out, that the Civil War was about Slavery. Full stop. But the urge to feel irrational shame over that is no better in having irrational joy about having a King or Queen as a great-great-grand-whatever. It's irrational. To be mindful of history is a good thing. To try and wrap ourselves in it, claiming it as our own, as if we'd somehow done something to earn events that happened long before we were born is a little arrogant. And if someone living in the south really, really wants to do that anyhow? Well, there's plenty of heroic figures from the ex-CSA that could be lionized for being generally good, moral, upstanding people without washing history clean of slavery and race. I'd strongly recommend that essay. But I'd add to the end of it that we carry on in the spirit of our ancestors, but without being our predecessors. After all, when we make our own try at life, we'll have iPods.
And that's in the states. Here in AK, there's almost no energy savings even possible unless you live deep in the Southeast. Southeast AK has some of the best access to power.
I check my traffic with regularity, so I can shamelessly pander to my audience. I was checking the last couple days traffic, when I noticed this visitor to my post about Begich and the Toyota...
Typically, you expect wiretapping laws to exist to protect us from unreasonable police procedures. My hat is off to the Boston Police Department, who is thinking outside the box - they've decided that wiretapping laws exist to protect the police from citizens with cellphones. You know, the sort who has the nasty tendency to video record police brutality.
There's a free video up at Hulu called "Split: A divided America." It was interesting, although off point in many places. For example, they cite Thomas Jefferson edited a bible as evidence for his religosity. That was true, Jefferson wrote the Jefferson Bible. However, the Jefferson Bible was notable because it removed every single last supernatural reference from the Bible, leaving just the philosophy. Jefferson had beliefs far outside the norm of Christianity, and would be best described as a Deist.
I also don't think you can discuss the issue without thinking about in-group/out-group psychology.
Anyhow, I think the movie's worth a watch and think. Even if the production values aren't that great.
Parnell's office was kind enough to write a personal response to a letter vetting my earlier concerns about the thrust of their proposal. It's obvious that the staffer read, and understood my comments, so I'll share his reply without any editorial. Dear [Twoyaks]:
Thank you for writing to Governor Sean Parnell. I have been assigned to provide a response. It is very important to hear from the public on such important an issue as combatting sexual assault and domestic violence.
The legislation introduced by the Governor is very important. Among several changes, the bill would close loopholes in current law that allow convicted sex offenders to move to Alaska and avoid registration in certain instances.
As to increasing penalties for sexual assault or domestic violence, there is another effect, physically isolating the offender from the victim and society in general by putting the person in jail. Such seperation gives the victim and society protection from an individual who has been found guilty by a jury of his or her peers of hurting another person.
I would also assure you that we are looking at all options for reducing sexual assault and domestic violence, and are not solely focused on punishment. Prevention is just as important. The Governor's proposed budget proposes spending millions of dollars for substance abuse, anger management, treatment, job training efforts, etc., for all Alaskans.
Sincerely,
Randy Ruaro
Deputy Chief of Staff
Office of the Governor
A bill proposed by Gov. Sean Parnell would prohibit suspended sentences for Alaskans convicted of human trafficking, possession of child pornography or distribution of indecent materials to minors.
Sigh. Are we physically incapable of learning from other states? Who does distribution laws and child pornography laws tend to hurt more than anyone else? Teens. There's a hysteria around Sexting, which is using cellphones to send explicit material to girl/boyfriends.
But even if you disagree with the practice, there's no denying that kids end up as sex offenders in other states for these kinds of laws.
Adding 14 yearolds to a sex offender registry for having nude pictures of themselves or their SO is not effective in combatting the real and dangerous problem of domestic abuse in our state. Instead, we're focusing on the much lesser, and generally over-blown (in scope) issue of Child Pornography. And as discussed before, the remainder of the bill isn't going to do much for making a dent in domestic violence because deterrence doesn't work on crimes of passion.
Is anyone else thinking about the latest version of Fell Acres hysteria? Except the law would have us lock up teens instead of grandmoms.
Sigh. It's just frustrating. Parnell should know better, honestly.
The Alaska Legislature is paying for a conference and public relations campaign to persuade Congress to limit the Endangered Species Act.
The argument goes "Polar Bears cost us money as an endangered species. So, we should have them unlisted as endangered species." If you can't spot the numerous non-sequitors in there, give it another read. Since apparently it needs said, Polar Bears are very probably endangered by habitat loss.
I'm disappointed by this - it's nothing more than politicization of Science - but I'm not surprised by it. There's a phrase we hear often that goes "We need more science." That means, "We need more people who agree with us." It's one of the things you realize early on in the critter management field. If you're unscrupulous, it also means you found a willing payer to revisit some topic.
I've finished my week long sprint to the finish line, yesterday, and I was so burnt out I loitered around drinking Moose Drool and doodling while watching TV for the rest of the day. A friend of mine told me I look like hell, which means I probably look positively monstrous to the public at large (since my friend is not exactly the `most polished` of people...). Still, it's done, which means I can go back to normal life for a week, before the holidays strike. :)
Enough about me! Was Alaska worth it? To the states, that is. Arctic Economics makes a great point:
An annual gross state product of over $40 billion is not the appropriate benefit measure. That's gross, not net. Moreover, $40 billion - or whatever the right benefit figure is - would have been heavily discounted in 1867. Still more - Alaska costs a lot to maintain; the $7.2 million was a start; we had to defend it from the Japanese, rebuild it after the 1964 earthquake, and pay the heavy costs of governing in this large, remote, and often hostile environment.
Instead, they argue, you need to look at the differences between the outcomes if the US had bought Alaska (what we have today) and what would happen if it hadn't. It's hard to quantify things such as the benefit of having a military base near the far east (apparently it's at least worth Eielson Airforce Base's operational budget), but Dave Barker at the University of Iowa takes a crack at it.
Of course, the more ego-centric question is "Is Alaska better off having been bought by the US?" That's harder to quantify. If we were to assume Alaska would be bought by England (and ended up part of Canada), politically it would depend on whether Alaska ended up acquiring provincial status. Given the comparably large population of AK, I think it might have (~600k is larger than the population of Newfoundland and Labrador) - it's my gut feeling that Candian Provinces enjoy slightly greater autonomy than American States. Definitely the Alaska would have better representation - Somewhat better than 3% representation, compared to our <<2% representation currently. While whether Eskimo have done better living under US law than their counterparts living under Canadian law is highly debatable (there's a Ph.D. dissertation for Rural Development somewhere in that topic!), the fact that NWT spun off Nunavut as a separate territory and Quebec is granting areal autonomy to Nunavik definitely speaks somewhat better of modern outcomes.
It would be very interesting to quantify each outcome, but it appears at least politically, Alaska drew the short straw!
I don't have an appropriate picture to go with this post, so here is a random fox:
