Light. More light.

Today was the darkest day of the year, with the sun rising at 10:15am and setting at 3:43pm. Oddly it's also the most hopeful day of the year -- just knowing that the darkest days are behind us, and each day will bring more light than the last, is a boost to everyone's spirits. It's a comforting feeling: Tomorrow will be better.

As I mentioned last year, it's the end of Dark Winter and the beginning of Light Winter. It's also the beginning of fun winter. November and December have all the cold and dark, but not much else. January is still cold and dark, but there's more snow and better skiing. February brings the craziness of Fur Rondy and the beginning of sled-dog season, and March brings the Iditarod. And light. Always more light.

Your Alaska news update

Six feet of snow in Valdez over a couple days. Enough to sink a boat.

The State of Alaska is hiring a PR firm and spending $1.5 million to convince congress to stop placing animals such as the polar bear on the Endangered Species list. Good thing my troublemaking roommate is on the case. By the way, I'm tiring of the canard that polar bears aren't endangered and their numbers are increasing. People like Sen. Grasser like to point out that there are more bears now than there were in the 1960s. That's like saying a person who gets both legs amputated is taller than he was when he was a baby: it's true, but it misses the point. The bear population was low in the 1960s because over-hunting almost drove them to extinction. Hunting regulations helped save the bear and increase its population to healthier levels. But now, over the last couple decades, the polar bear population is falling again because of melting sea ice. The comparison to the 1960s is misleading.

Watch out for frogs in Christmas trees.

Sun!

10 days later, it's back. For about 15 minutes, at least.

The horrible fog lingered until Monday, when the clouds lifted enough to start snowing. I was starting to worry that my majestic tan might start to fade, but then--look there!--the sun peaked out from behind a cloud. It's barely above the horizon, and the light is almost completely flat, but whatever. It's actual sunlight. I'll take it.

The Heisman

Toby Gerhart finished second in Heisman Trophy voting, in the closest vote in the history of the award. As predicted, Alabama's Mark Ingram won. Even though I didn't think Ingram deserved to win over Gerhart, his acceptance speech was phenomenal and he seems like an authentically good guy. How can I hate on someone from Flint, Michigan?

The fact that Gerhart was so close was truly a feat in itself. He had no preseason hype, and even as the season went along he declined Stanford's proposal to launch a coordinated hype campaign. He nearly overcame regional biases against west coast football (including the fact that the "west" region in Heisman voting has 17% of the votes despite 21% of the population). He almost overcame the fact that so many voters' only criterion is to vote for the best player (Ingram) on the best team (Alabama). He almost overcame the demonstrably false assumption that SEC defenses are tougher than Pac-10 defenses. It's encouraging that a person can come that close to winning when his candidacy is based purely on his own on-field performance -- not his hype, not his conference, and not his team's record. Congrats Toby, looking forward to rooting for you one more time in the Sun Bowl.

ADDED: Everything wrong with the Heisman voting, encapsulated by one voter.

Stewing

I haven't seen the sun since last Monday. For five straight days (and counting), we've been stuck in a stubbornly oppressive, dense, freezing fog. It's just sitting here. And I might be going a little crazy because of it. I think I'm turning into Gollum.

We don't get much light anyway -- only a bit more than 5 hours a day -- but right now there's no actual sunlight... just varying levels of gray gloom.

Alyeska ski resort is open now, and I may go tomorrow for no other reason than to get above the fog and see the sun again.

A victorious wager

As noted in the comments in the prior post, I am now ensured of winning my wager with Florida Frank. Florida can win no more than 13 games, and I've already gained 13 victories between the 8-4 Cardinal and the 5-7 Wolverines. I win in the event of a tie, so that's the ballgame. Some fresh New Mexico salsa should be headed my way soon. I'm still waiting for a humble concession from Frank; presumably he has been weeping like Tim Tebow since Saturday night.

Toby for Heisman

Much thanks to this blog, Toby Gerhart is a Heisman finalist. That's pretty awesome, for a guy whom no one was talking about midway through the season, and coming from a team that usually sucks. I hope he wins. I think it's between him and Alabama's Mark Ingram.

Meanwhile, Stanford's in the Sun Bowl against Oklahoma after Cal reverted to midseason form and laid an egg against Washington. I guess we'll have to label Cal's performance in the Big Game as purely a fluke, eh?

Troubling news about the Sun Bowl, with QB Andrew Luck undergoing surgery on a broken finger, perhaps forcing him to miss the game. If he's out, Stanford is toast. OU will put 9 in the box to stop Gerhart, and it'll be up to Tavita Pritchard to win the game. I don't like our chances. So, let's go Andrew Luck's finger. Heal quickly.

Last but not least, Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh is giving me hourly heart attacks with all the reports that he's meeting with Notre Dame. Latest reports deny those rumors, though. Stay put, Jim. And if you must leave, make it Michigan.

"Who does he think he is, Earl Campbell?"

Toby for Heisman.

"Az Alpokban egy idény alatt annyi vizet ágyúznak el, amennyi egy világvárosnak elég"

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Somehow, one of my photos ended up on a Hungarian snowboarding blog.

Back to the darkness

Just returned from a fun Thanksgiving weekend in Seattle with the family and special guests she-who-prefers-not-to-be-named, and her sister-who-hasn't-said-either-way-so-I'll-take-the-safe-route. We cooked a 30-pound turkey, which required some creativity just to fit it in the oven. Happily the Seattle weather let up from its November storms, giving us some dry days to walk around the city.

Throw in some quality time with my three nieces, and it was a great time. Sorry to my Seattle friends whom I didn't see, but I'll be back in a few weeks.

Here in Anchorage it's snowy and dark. The sun is up between about 9:45am and 3:50pm, and we're still three weeks away from the solstice.

Rotten Saturday

Depressingly, it's happened 5 of the 7 years since I started rooting for Michigan: both Michigan and Stanford lose to their biggest rivals on the same day. If I didn't have so much practice, Saturday would have been brutal.

Michigan really had no hope winning its game, which says a lot about the sad state of affairs in Ann Arbor. This loss ensures that there will be no bowl again this year, and it ends the worst 2-year stretch in the Michigan football history. The defense played reasonably well, but four interceptions and a fumble by the Michigan quarterback made it impossible to win. RichRod, ever classy, blamed Lloyd Carr.

Stanford, for whatever reason, played a different style of offense than what had been so successful the last couple weeks. Instead of pounding the ball with their Heisman trophy candidate, they kept the ball with Andrew Luck, who looked jittery all game. I'll never understand why they weren't running when they had the ball at the Cal 12 with 1:45 left -- they needed to work the clock down anyway to avoid letting its defense give up the inevitable last-minute scoring drive. Still shaking my head at the playcalling. To its credit Cal played its best game of the season -- the defense was a lot tougher than it had been all year. (Cal fans have to be wondering where that was all year, right?)

I started to get real nervous about this game once Stanford football found its way into the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, etc., by midweek. That is never a good sign.

The good news is this: (1) we don't have to watch Michigan any more this season, which means a whole 9 months without yelling at Rich Rodriguez; (2) perhaps the poor coaching will take Jim Harbaugh out of the running with Notre Dame and various NFL teams; (3) Stanford still has two games left. If they win both, I win my bet with Florida Frank. Let's go team.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Sorry Dad's college football team is going to lose this weekend.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Sorry your college football team is going to lose this weekend.

-2

The temperature this morning. Hello winter!

Attack of the Palin

For those who will try, she's going to make it really hard to ignore her for the next couple weeks. She's already everywhere.

I continue to be amazed that she is still considered a viable 2012 candidate, despite quitting on Alaska for no publicly explicable reason. The Wall Street Journal still thinks it can happen, but with political analysis like this, I wouldn't hold me breath:

Could Ms. Palin follow Reagan's example? Maybe. She'd need to return to her 2006 playbook.

In Alaska, Ms. Palin didn't run as a culture warrior. She focused on issues with overwhelming public support: ethics reform, a revised oil tax, and more competition and transparency in the effort to build a natural gas pipeline. She took the conservative vote for granted and focused on winning independents and even some Democrats.

True, in 2006 she wasn't a culture warrior. But, (a) she won the Republican nomination because everyone despised incumbent Frank Murkowski, and (b) she won the general election because this state is 65% Republican.

Plus, the author seems to think that appealing to independents and Democrats is just a simple choice to act: "I'm going to walk to the dog now." "I'm going to make a sandwich now." "I'm going to appeal to indpendents and Democrats now." Obviously it's not that simple, especially in today's purge-happy Republican party. Appealing to independents and Democrats requires taking moderate positions on a handful of issues, and we've seen where that took Dede Scozzafava, and where it's taking Olympia Snowe and Charlie Crist. So how, exactly, is Palin going to "[take] the conservative vote for granted" and "focus[] on winning independents and ... Democrats"? Conservatives are in a great mood to be "taken for granted" right now.

I think I'm probably putting too much thought into this. The fascination with Palin has never been built on reality so much as perception and image anyway. And, just in time for holiday shopping, the cultivation of that image is going to be everywhere for the next couple weeks.

McGee of the Day

The leaderboard for Humpy's Pub Quiz:

It wasn't my idea to name the team that, but I didn't exactly resist. We like it. But not everyone does: I was walking past another table last night when our name was announced and overheard someone exclaim: "That's the worst team name I've ever heard!"

Snowy

I got back from a weekend in Chicago to find the season's first few inches of snow on the ground. Snowytime in Anchorage has begun -- or, as I call it, the time when people just drive wherever the feel like because they can't see any traffic lines on the streets. See you next April, medians and crosswalks.

Wager update

Stanford's biggest win of the decade gives me a sliver of hope in winning the wager. Michigan's inability to kick an extra point has made it a tough task, though. Florida just keeps winning (the SEC is awful this year).

Stanford sits at 6-3, and now is bowl eligible. Michigan is 5-5, and likely won't win any more games this year. Florida is 9-0 with three more cupcakes in their regular season, before playing Alabama and a bowl game. Odds are that I'm going to need Stanford to win at least 2 more games this year if this is going to work out. If I can scratch out 3 wins between Stanford and Michigan, I win.

Obama coming to Anchorage next week

There ya go! All it took was a little taunting on a seldom-read blog. Presto.

"The only thing I do want to make sure you understand is that when I do visit Alaska, it’s going to be during the summer."

Come on, Barack. Don't be a wuss.

"I just don't want to go back to Alaska"

Ouch, Sarah. But I guess the whole quitting thing makes more sense now.

Busy fall

It's been a busy fall -- I was in Michigan 10 days ago for a craptastic football game against Penn State, and a great Octoberfest celebration with folks in Harsen's Island, MI; then I was back in the AK to throw a Halloween party this weekend. And I'll be off again to Chicago this weekend. I'm all over the place.

Meanwhile, it's real cold here now. It was 17 degrees today. But still no snow... for now.

Some images from the last couple weeks.

Michigan Law School, it was nice to be back:

Oh, what a terrible team:

Harsen's Island, along the St. Clair River:

A couple leaves left on the trees in the moonlight:

Chicken:

Happy Halloween!

McGee of the Day

Captured by Jason, who is always alert for McGee-related accoutrements:

Poll: Fewer Americans See Solid Evidence of Global Warming

Those Americans should move to Alaska.

Here's the poll, and there are a lot of surprising findings inside it. Only two years ago, 86% of Democrats, 78% of Independents, and 62% of Republicans "saw solid evidence of global warming." Now, those numbers are 75, 53, and 35. It's a head-scratcher... what has changed in two years?

Part of it could be the phasing -- "solid evidence" may not exist everywhere in the country. It's appropriate for people not to conflate weather with climate, and so it makes sense if folks look around the place where they live and, whether it's warm or cold, not make the assumption that whatever they see is evidence (or not) of a warming planet. But that was the case two years ago too. It doesn't answer the question why opinions changed.

My guess is that (a) the question has become increasingly politicized, and (b) global-warming skeptics are getting their message across. The town hall debate might have been dominated by "An Inconvenient Truth" two years ago, and now the hall has more voices. And if the question is politicized, that means some people will want there to be a particular answer, regardless of objective data. All you have to do is wait for a day that's unseasonably cool, point outside and say "See, Al Gore's all wrong," and you've got another convert.

There are only a few places where you can really look outside and be fairly confident that you're seeing "solid evidence" of global warming, and Alaska's Arctic coast is one of them. The ice is melting, and fast. Today, the Obama administration (following the footsteps of the Bush administration) designated 200,000 miles of Alaska's northern coast as "critical habitat" for polar bears. It's a start. But it won't do much for the poll numbers.

This email received no response

From: David McGee
To: kbolton@ktbytv.com; nelmore@ktbytv.com; smartin@ktbytv.com; kkeller@ktbytv.com; mdoyle@ktbytv.com
Sent: Sun, October 18, 2009 1:05:06 PM
Subject: NFL Sunday failure

Dear FOX 4,

All week long, and still as I type this, your TV schedule has indicated that you would show the Arizona-Seattle football game today. I depended on the information that you provided, and made my Sunday plans accordingly. Yet for some reason you have switched games, instead showing an earlier game and not showing the SEA-AZ game. It seems like it's not too much to ask that FOX know in advance which game it intends to show, and that it competently convey that information to its viewers. Now I can only conclude that your listings are wholly unreliable, and the fact that you list a certain game during the week -- and on gameday itself -- is not actually predictive of any future performance on your part. In fact, I suppose the only predictable outcome is that the game listed will not be shown, so that does narrow things down a little.

Tonight on FOX apparently your schedule indicates that you will be showing The Simpsons and Family Guy. I can't wait for your broadcast instead of America's Funniest Home Videos, or whatever else you decide to show without telling your viewers first.

Yes, I'm irritated, and it makes me feel better to write this.

Sincerely,
Dave McGee

Free Speech and the Free Market

Rush Limbaugh has been dropped by a group of prospective owners seeking to buy the NFL's St. Louis Rams. The response, by Limbaugh and others on the right, has been to call the affair the doings of "thought police," and a violation of free speech. It couldn't be farther from the truth.

Rush Limbaugh is a living, breathing example of the strength and importance of the First Amendment right to free speech. He has made millions of dollars exercising that right by engaging in intentionally controversial speech, and the First Amendment protects him from being muzzled by the government. But now he is also an example of what the First Amendment doesn't do: it doesn't protect the speaker from the natural repercussions of provocative speech. And this is where the free market takes over -- your speech can earn you money, and it can cost you money. There's nothing more American than that.

The NFL is not a political entity. It doesn't care about right/left, conservative/liberal. It only cares about dollars... bones, or clams, or whatever you call them. It knows that Limbaugh is a divisive figure, reviled by a large section of the American public. (The cable news and blogosphere debate has devolved into whether Limbaugh is a racist, which isn't really the point. The point is that he engages in divisive speech -- although yes, sometimes racially divisive.) Divisive speech, while protected from government action, has its consequences. The NFL correctly perceives a risk that Limbaugh's involvement may hit it where it hurts: in the wallet. It's a risk the NFL's not willing to take on.

This is how it works. Limbaugh can play the victim now if he wants (because really, it will only make him more popular with his audience), but he shouldn't be surprised.

No one is telling him to stop saying what he says. But speech has consequences, good and bad. It's the American way.

UPDATE: In a predictable next step, Limbaugh relishes his martyrdom in this WSJ piece, of course never mentioning that it simply makes economic sense for a business to avoid involvement with such a controversial figure.

Still more environmental news about destructive bears

Fairbanks is apparently plagued by enormous sports-hating, rampaging bears. This one has a pickaxe.

Extra Autumn

Fall usually lasts just a few weeks, and the snow usually can't wait to get here. We thought we we'd be getting snow in town soon, but unseasonably warm weather has extended our fall into mid October. It's 50 degrees outside, and the snow in the Chugach mountains has mostly all melted. Which is great -- I wasn't ready for snow yet, and in the meantime we're having a real midwest-style fall. Leaves everywhere, crisp mornings, drizzle, sunbreaks... good stuff.

Some scenes of fall from a recent hike to Eklutna Lake just outside Anchorage (including the photo at the top of the page):

Bad weekend for the wager

I took a beating this weekend in my wager with Florida Frank, with Michigan and Stanford both losing winnable games, and Florida winning a losable game. Could be a critical turn of events.

More Alaskan weirdness

As noted by Katy in the comments below... this is a headline in the ADN today: Mystery carcass found on roof of Midtown office building.

Police responding to a report of a mutilated body with a severed head Wednesday afternoon were left wondering how the carcass of an ungulate landed itself on the roof of a Midtown office building.

The carcass consisted of a severed spinal column and some ribs that likely belonged to a moose, police Lt. Dave Parker said.

As usual, random wildlife disposal is your problem:

The building maintenance personnel would be responsible for clearing it away, Parker said.

So the lesson this year: if in self defense you kill a bear that wants to eat you, or if you find mysterious skinned ungulate spinal parts on the roof of your office building, the cleanup is yours. It's just part of our cost of living.

Your daily reminder that Alaska is weird

Down on the Kenai Peninsula:

For hours Saturday, passers-by had been stopping to watch a grizzly
casually going about its business along the Sterling Highway near Cooper
Landing. A pair of troopers stopped by to direct traffic. Then two hunters
arrived in camouflage clothing and, after the bear crossed the road into a legal
hunting zone, shot and killed it.

I... uh... hmm.

UPDATE: Follow-up on the story is interesting... state officials think everything was fine, but the hunters have been cited by the federal Fish & Game Department.

Autumn

Leaves and moose.

Moose calves.

In other environmental news

If you want to visit Anchorage, you might want to do it soon... because apparently we have been targeted by enormous intergalactic space bears.

The walrus and melting ice

In case the connection between melting sea ice and its harm to walruses is unclear, here's one example of the real world effects of global warming: trampling. Walruses like to hang out on sea ice during the summer, but with the ice increasingly melted, they are forced to congregate in large numbers on the shore. If they get spooked by a polar bear or hunter, young walruses get trampled. Baby walruses, people!

UPDATE: The ADN article on the walrus deaths now features a quote from the troublemaking roommate. She's everywhere.

The psychology of the debate

I've always been curious about a phenomenon prevalent in sports fans: the way their passionate rooting interest changes their perception and processing of visual stimuli. For example, two fans can watch a replay of a controversial play, looking to determine if action x occurred -- let's say, whether a player stepped out of bounds or whether the ball hit the ground -- and sometimes each can come away believing with 100% certainty that the result that most benefits their team is what actually happened. If you watch enough sports with enough people, you see this all the time.

And it's the same phenomenon that colors people's perceptions of the president's actions and proposals. I'm thinking about it this morning because of this Q&A with psychologist Johnathan Haidt, who explains how moral roots shape our perception and reasoning, particularly in the health care debate. Among the many interesting passages:

While it is useful to rebut charges and get your arguments out in circulation, you have to understand that arguments and evidence have little impact on people as long as their feelings tilt them against you. You've got to create trust and liking first, and then people will be willing to listen. People can believe pretty much whatever they want to believe about moral and political issues, as long as some other people near them believe it, so you have to focus on indirect methods to change what people want to believe. You have to get them to the point where they ask themselves "can I believe it?" about your claims, rather than about your opponents' claims. The time to establish that trust and liking was months ago, and perhaps some of it was burned up in the giant bailouts and coziness with Wall Street. I'm not a political scientist; I can't say why his poll numbers went down. But as a moral psychologist I can say that there's now little that can be done to win over or calm down the town-hall protesters. They've formed a new gang, a new heroic moral identity of resistance.

As a post script, I'll note that the major difference between sports-debates and politics-debates is that sports fans are more than willing to admit that their team sucks. I can, and often without invitation will, tell you every little reason why the Seahawks and Mariners are miserable. But I'll be a little more resistent to admitting the flaws in my politics and politicians. And that makes sense, because the crappiness of my sports teams says very little about me personally, while admitting flaws in politics might actually force me to change.

As a second post script, Haidt's lecture -- though a little off-topic -- is also interesting, and he mentions this quote from Buddhist philosopher Sent-ts'an: "If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease." So there.

Termination

It's officially the first day of autumn, but we've been autumnal up here for a few weeks now. Leaves started falling off the birch trees in the front yard in mid-August, and now the lawn is covered in yellow and gold.

Unfortunately our falls are always too short, as already termination dust has coated the tops of Chugach mountains east of town. Snow is on its way, and we'll probably have a layer in town in a couple weeks. By November it will be full-on winter, dark and cold.

Anchorage, Alaska... where in September we're already wondering where our skis are.

Coolest thing

This is the coolest thing I'll see today.

Old Old Old!

My cousin Jordan arrived at Stanford as a freshman yesterday, which brought back a flood of nostalgia about my first day on the Farm. I still remember that day vividly, me in my zebra tie and jeans shorts.

It then occurred to me that, on that day 15 years ago, Jordan was 3 years old. Holy crap.

The wager, updated

So far so good, as far as my wager against Frank the Florida fan goes. Florida rolls along at 2-0, but the upstart Michigan Wolverines are now 2-0 as well after their dramatic late win against the hated Notre Dame. Stanford would have joined them if they hadn't laid an egg in the second half against Wake Forest.

So where we sit: Stanford + Michigan: 3, Florida 2.

Another debate with Foley

With the recent release of the Beatles Rock Band video game, Foley and I enter the fray to debate Rock Band: good or bad? It started with a heads up about a compelling NY Times Magazine article about the game, and went from there (reprinted here without permission, hopefully he doesn't mind...).

To Dave
From Foley

Yeah, you know I saw that last night and it was a pretty interesting read. Those NY Times magazine pieces are usually worthwhile.

And you know (not surprisingly?), I've probably been one of those snobby typesthe article identifies as "real musicians who find themselves offended by rock band." I've been a broadband hater, though, what with my extreme dislike of karaoke for similar reasons.

Still, McCartney made what may have been the most insightful point when he talked about so many things start out as simplistic nonsense, and then get turned in to important art forms with more substance later.

I admit it would be interesting to hear that game just for the remixes. I haven't heard the music from the "Love" show, but remember reading the NYT article on that back when that was coming out, and that does sound like it would be a pretty cool thing to check out on a surround sound system.

Addendum:

This is the only karaoke/lip synching thing I can get behind. We all have exceptions? But not everybody can be as awesome as this guy. Him and Ferris Bueller. The only two that can pull it off.

To Foley
From Dave

That's the most horrible thing I've seen in a while. He kinda has your facial expressions at the beginning. Like he's hearing the bells of an approaching meat trolley, and the rest is pure glee once he knows there's brisket.

As you could guess I'm a Rock Band fan. This part felt right:

“Everyone comes into the world with this innate desire to make music,” Rigopulos said, “and almost everyone tries to learn an instrument at some point. And the overwhelming majority of these people quit after a few months or a few years because it is just too damn difficult. They spend the rest of their lives loving music, and listening to music, and playing a lot of air guitar, but not having any outlet for that innate urge they feel.”

To Dave
From Foley

Yeah. I mean there's a more interesting digression to go in to from that Rigopulos quote, and it's one that the article didn't take.

It would kind of be it's own long article, but the basic gist of it would have to do with the idea that for most of human history (and pre-history), music has been something that everybody participated in. Literally everybody. One of my former profs Dan Levitin tells an anecdote in his book "This Is Your Brain On Music" about western anthropologists who will visit some remote tribe, and the people are shocked when the anthropologist says he "can't play music." Even in this country, music was for a good long time something that people did in their living rooms and was a community activity. We're certainly biologically wired to do it-- it may have developed earlier than or hand-in-hand with language. Enough studies show that spending time doing it is really all it takes to be a good musician, not any special genius. I guess because I grew up playing a lot of that traditional American folk music, I can tell you it's not all that hard to play. Plenty of other music, including a lot of rock and pop is pretty simple, too. If all else fails you've got punk rock, which you could be a drooling idiot and play. The hours a lot of people spend playing Rock Band might make someone a half decent musician.

The problem isn't that music is difficult, so I guess I disagree. The bigger picture is that, in western culture anyway, there's been a shift towards the notion that it's something to watch experts or rock stars do while "untalented" people watch and admire. This was always there a bit with classical music being differentiated from "regular people's music", ie the kind that the majority of people played. But when in the 20th century when music became something to be consumed, that shift went through a massive acceleration. Stop playing, start paying? There's nothing wrong with watching great musicians play. But there is something a little sad about an entire culture being that it's only worth doing yourself if you play air guitar. The superficial strutting is promoted, but it's all shine and no substance.

Now, as it related to Rock Band, the interesting discussion might be if instead of being something to look down upon, it actually fosters the idea that music is something fun that everybody can participate in. It puts it back in the living room. Even if the music is "music", in some odd simulacrum. Maybe?

But with Rock Band, the implicit value system is that people should go through the motions of imitating, but not creating. It's like with improv; so many people are convinced that "oh, I'm not creative." But little do they know, everyone can learn to improvise. Yes, I know it's just a game ... and that part of the NYT article made some semi-persuasive points along the lines of "chill out, people are just having fun." But even so, does it only fuel the cultural idea that music is for rockstars, and the best you can ever do is fake it. Even if the game itself is just game, it still promotes that trend.

Huzzah!

Clearly I need something better to do.

To Foley
From Dave

First, let me note that the Mercer Island, WA little league team just put the smackdown on the Salem, OR little league team to advance to the Little League World Series. Suck it, Salem!

Okay then. I understand where you're coming from but I don't think Rock Band will have any negative impact on creativity or the number of people who choose to be musicians. I would wager that it's the other way around, actually, that people are reinvigorated by the accessibility of Rock Band and become more interested in music. Not saying everyone will, but I'm wagering it'll be a net positive. For me, it's not like I was going to start playing guitar in my free time anyway, and now that I have Rock Band I'm scratching that idea and starting a fake band called Wild Simulacrum. If anything, the game has piqued my interest in learning some guitar chords so someday I can wander around downtown playing Peter Paul & Mary songs and singing in falsetto. I'm dreaming the dream.

It's way too early to know what effect Rock Band will have on music creation, but I think pretending to be a rock star makes people think they can actually be musicians, instead of thinking that there's a gap between rock stars and regular people that will never be bridged.

Finally, apropos of nothing, thought you might like a quick video of me taken shortly after a bee stung me on my face.

My roommate is a newsworthy troublemaker

Out there saving the walrus.

The great cabbage

This year's Alaska State Fair brings you a world record cabbage: 125.9 pounds. Shattering the previous record by 2 pounds. Alaska owns you again, Wales (United Kingdom).

The main attraction is always the pumpkins. Check these suckers out. The winner: 594 pounds.

Still fishless, continued

The summer is nearly over, and I'm still fishless. But guess who isn't, after spending a whopping 60 minutes in the river (this was a few weeks ago... I'm just late in posting it).

That's my friend Dave, on the right, delighting in the fact that she did so easily what I have utterly failed to do. But joke's on him, the guy trying to "teach" me to fish this summer. He's obviously a very talented instructor.

There's a problem at Michigan, but it's not permanent

Although some friends are having a good time heckling me about Michigan's problems with potential NCAA violations -- current and former players are alleging that the team has forced the players to practice more than the maximum 20 hours per week -- most everyone concedes that the alleged violations themselves are not a big problem. While yes, breaking rules is bad and no team should do it, in the spectrum of rulebreaking this is more like jaywalking than murder. The fact that every other Division 1 football team breaks the same rule -- including Ohio State -- is not a defense, but it does minimize the outrage.

The real problem here is that there are apparently quite a few players who detest Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez. Anyone willing to allege NCAA violations against his own coach must truly hate him. So I'm going to guess that these are Lloyd Carr's recruits who are spilling the beans, and as these players graduate the team will become a harmonious family again. BUT, it's a failure on Rodriguez's part that he has been so unable to get Lloyd's players to buy into his system. That's part of the job, as a new coach, and clearly Rodriguez hasn't done it.

This is what happens when a team goes 3-9. An 8-4 season this year will go a long way toward making grumpy players happy. So practice hard, kids! Put in those extra hours!

Nobody ever told me that.

The other night I went out for sushi with some friends, and as I've done since I was a kid and first started eating sushi, I ordered uni (sea urchin). It's one of my favorites, not only because of its deliciousness but also because of the displays of disgust that come from the other people at the table. Chill out, I always tell them, it's just the sea urchin roe. Not gross at all. Or so I thought, until this interaction:

Justin: You know what that is, don't you?

Me: Yeah, it's the roe. The eggs. Like salmon roe. But more delicious.

Justin: No, dude. It's the gonads.

Me: . . . No. Can't be. That's impossible. Oh, no.

Turns out, it's true: "While colloquially referred to as the roe (eggs), uni is actually the animal's gonads (which produce the milt or roe). Uni ranges in color from rich gold to light yellow, and has a creamy consistency that some love and is off-putting to others."

The hell? I've been eating gonads all these years?

Well, whatever. If the gonads are the tastiest part of the sea urchin, so be it. The real bonus here? The displays of disgust around the table will be even better now. So, really, in the end this gonad revelation is a net positive.

The wager

Michigan + Stanford > Florida

That's the bet I have with a Florida grad (and former co-clerk) who somehow escaped Gainesville to have a productive life. I'm betting him that the total wins between Stanford and Michigan will be greater than or equal to Florida's wins this year. If I win, he'll send me some fresh salsa from his current home, Albuquerque. If he wins, I send him some wild Alaska salmon.

I think it's a good bet. Stanford and Michigan should each be in the 5-7 win range, while Florida will probably be in the 11-14 win range. If it's a tie, I win.

Can you tell I'm getting excited for football season?

"Moose ugly, but healthy"

Today's headline about moose warts.

Cordova

Have I posted my pictures from my Cordova trip yet? No? Shame on me. (Cordova is located here, accessible only by boat or plane.)

DNA evidence can be fabricated

This is a worrisome development in the world of criminal justice and DNA analysis:

The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.

“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”

It'll be interesting to see how courts -- and organizations like the Innocence Project -- respond to this. Sure, it'll take a chemist to fabricate evidence and engineer a crime scene, so it's not like everybody will be running around framing people. But the thing about advanced DNA analysis has been its lock-solid accuracy, leaving little room for doubt. Now, there's doubt.

It's worth noting, though, that the "test to tell if a sample has been fabricated relies on the fact that amplified DNA — which would be used in either deception — is not methylated, meaning it lacks certain molecules that are attached to the DNA at specific points, usually to inactivate genes." So, for now at least, it looks like you can still distinguish fabricated DNA from real DNA.

We'll just keep on discriminating, thank you

The big political drama in Anchorage this summer has been a proposed ordinance that would amend the city's anti-discrimination law to include discrimination based on sexual orientation. It already includes race, sex, marital status, etc. The ordinance had a special carve-out for religious institutions -- they wouldn't have to follow the ordinance if it violated their beliefs. You'd think it would be a no-brainer to add sexual orientation to a non-discrimination ordinance, but not in Anchorage, where the right to discriminate against gays is apparently something to treasure.

The city assembly held several special sessions this summer to allow public testimony on the issue. A couple Anchorage churches were well-organized, even busing in opponents from outside Anchorage, and they outnumbered supporters of the ordinance by about 3-1. Their arguments were difficult to understand, but boiled down to a couple ideas: the ordinance would give gays "special rights" (whatever that means), the ordinance is unnecessary because they've never witnessed discrimination against gays, the ordinance would impede the people's right to discriminate against gays (yes they said it so bluntly), and the ordinance would lead to cross-dressers scaring little girls in public restrooms (yes this argument was made repeatedly).

At the end of the day, the assembly voted and the ordinance actually passed by a vote of 7-4. One vote short of a veto-proof majority. Today, newly-elected mayor Dan Sullivan vetoed the ordinance, stating that 1) he had seen no evidence of discrimination in Anchorage, and 2) lots of people called and said to veto it. Indeed, he vetoed the ordinance because a majority of people said a minority's rights didn't need protection. Okay then. So that's how it works.

So that's where we are here in Anchorage... proudly discriminating for 50 years.

No sympathy

He gets charged by a bear, gets lucky enough to shoot it before it mauls him, and he barely escapes with his life. He will get no sympathy from the state of Alaska.

The encounter left the fishing guide, in his words, "a wreck -- dry heaving and hyperventilating, with some abdominal cramping."

It also left him with a problem. After state troopers came out to check the bear and determine that the shooting was legitimately in defense of life and property, Brush had to deal with the carcass. The law requires a shooter to skin the animal or take it to a taxidermist.

"So here I am with my wife and with a 10-foot brown bear on the edge of the road."

We've all been there, haven't we?

The money problem, continued

ADN columnist Julia O'Malley helpfully gives us a column today highlighting the inconsistencies I mentioned yesterday. She talked to some of people protesting the legislature's override of Sarah Palin's veto of federal stimulus funds (which are aimed to help with energy costs).

Seneca told me she didn’t like President Obama’s “take you under my wing and take care of you” style. There was a time when she and her husband could barely make rent and he had to sell one of his guns. She had to look for change in the couch to buy the kids ice cream at McDonald’s. They didn’t take anything from anybody. They worked their way to stability. Alaska, she said, should be similarly independent.

But, I asked her, weren’t like a third of jobs in the state somehow related to federal funding? Highways and the military and health care and schools. How do you decide which federal funding was good and which wasn’t? She thought about it. The state should reject the kind with strings attached, she told me. “I’m just worried about my kids, you know?” she said.

Ah, "strings attached." This is one of the myths propogated by Palin when she decided that Alaska, the coldest state with the most expensive energy, should be the only state to reject federal aid to promote energy efficiency. She said, and continues to say, that accepting the money would require towns to change their building codes. The claim is demonstrably false -- evidenced by a letter from the US Department of Energy -- but that doesn't stop the myths.

Back outside, the protesters were clearing out. I ran into Cora Hoff who was having a cigarette. She came in from Big Lake in part because she was worried about the building codes, but also because she has a problem with federal spending.

She didn’t like handouts, food stamps and welfare and free health insurance for pregnant women who don’t work. The government should stay out of people’s lives and leave states alone and teach personal responsibility, she told me.

But what would Alaska’s economy look like without federal funds? She was getting a little frustrated with me.

“Like it did in the old days,” she said finally.

Oy.

Alaska's money problem

This summer we've seen a scary increase in traffic accidents and fatalities on the Seward Highway, the winding road along Turnagain Arm that connects Anchorage to Girdwood and the Kenai Peninsula. There have been 8 fatalities this summer, and people are trying to figure out what to do about it. Which brings up Alaska's complicated relationship with the federal government.

DOT officials agree that a four-lane divided highway would be the ideal solution but say federal funding has been declining in recent years and there just isn't the cash for it. And Rep. John Harris, R-Valdez, said if the feds won't help it won't work.

"I hear people talking about, 'Let's tax ourselves,' " Harris said. "We have 700,000 people in the state of Alaska. If you all want to be broke and you all want to buy a new road down here in Seward, then by God we could probably do it over a 30-year period. That's about how long it will take to raise that kind of money without federal help."

Which reminds me of a debate the state government had earlier this summer, about reinstating a tax on gasoline. Alaska is currently the only state without a gas tax. Obviously that's popular with the people, but it presents another problem:

Stedman said it hurts Alaska if it is the only state that doesn't have its own gas tax but tells Congress that it needs federal money to help with roads.

"That makes it harder for our delegation in Washington, D.C., to argue for our fair share of highway funds," said Stedman, a Republican from Sitka.

That's the position of Alaska Rep. Don Young, a U.S. House Transportation Committee member who narrowly defeated Parnell in a bruising congressional Republican primary race last year. "It would hurt the delegation's effectiveness in securing federal highway money," said Young's spokeswoman, Meredith Kenny.

Alaska's two U.S. senators did not seem as sure.

"If Alaska waived it, we would be the only state without one, but I don't know how that would affect our ability to get federal highway money, because the federal highway fund is funded only by the federal gas tax," said Michael Brumas, spokesman for Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

All this is going on at the same time we have protesters outside a special session of the Alaska legislature which was called to override former Gov. Palin's veto of federal stimulus funds for energy cost relief. It makes for a knot of mixed messages, without any articulable principle behind it. We like free money, except when we don't. We want federal help, except when we don't.

Peru

Finally, a month later, a recap of the trip to Peru and Machu Picchu last month. We left Chicago on Saturday, July 4, heading for Lima. We had heard that the parts of Lima that are worth visiting -- and are safe to stay in -- are at least 45 minutes from the airport. So, since we arrived around 11:00pm and were flying out the next morning at around 11:00am, we just stayed at the hotel in the airport parking lot. No fraudulent taxi drivers to deal with, no worries about being late for the flight the next morning... very convenient.

It was a bit disconcerting that every airport and hotel employee was wearing a face mask. They were protecting against the swine flu, one presumes, but it sketched me out a bit. Like I was putting my life on the line by just being there.

We flew into Cusco the next morning, and moved into the Loki Hostel. Our lodging had been arranged by a member of the group who got sick on the day he was supposed to leave the States. He wanted a hostel with a night life. Had he been there, he would have gotten exactly what he wanted. The place was nice and quiet during the day:

But at night, the bar revved up and there was music, dancing and singing until well past 2:00am. Not exactly what a group of would-be hikers, who needed to rest and get up early, were looking for. It didn't help that our rooms were directly below the bar. Oh well.

Cusco itself was fun, when we weren't being accosted over and over by street urchins hawking post cards, dolls, and paintings. Key phrase when you're in Cusco: "no gracias." Especially in the Plaza des Armas.

Its elevation is about 3700 meters, over 12,000 feet. For the first day or so, we would get winded just walking around town.

Just outside of town is Sacsayhuaman, and old Incan ruin. Worth visiting, though crowded.

Day 1 of the Inca Trail started on Tuesday. A bus picked us up at 6:15am and after 2-3 hours we headed down a crazy one-lane road, past Ollantaytambo, to the start of the Inca Trail. Our full group assembled, led by our guide Eloy (left):

We hiked about 7 miles along a mostly flat route following a river. We were surrounded by steep rocky peaks above us, and cactus around us. Along the way we passed other old Incan ruins.

It was a nice, easy introduction to the trail. I didn't sleep too much that night, though, because our campsite was surrounded by roosters. They started squawking before dawn, I swear. I hated those chickens. The guide group was great. We had a guide, a chef, and 11 porters who carried the food, tents, and other supplies (include a 25 kilo tank of propane). The food was cooked at camp, and served to us in a nice comfy tent.

The second day was not so nice. We went up, up, up. Hundreds, nay, thousands of stairs.

Hours later we reached Dead Woman's Pass, which was up over 14,000 feet. Going was slow. The stairs never stopped, and we were very easily winded. But the top was sweet relief.

But the day wasn't over yet, and we had to go back down on more Incan stairs. A brief rainshower made the stone trail very slippery. Each step was a mental puzzle, as we tried to find the right place to step to avoid falling. We couldn't get to camp fast enough. After a 10-mile day, we were there.

I should mention the toilets. There are bathrooms along the way -- most of which are porcelain pits in the ground that require a power squat. If you're lucky enough to find a flush toilet -- which was rare -- you would not find a toilet seat. So again with the power squatting. I made a vow never to take a toilet seat for granted ever again.

Anyway, the view from campsite 2 was awesome.

The third day was the longest, 12 miles. We passed lots of ruins on our way to our final campsite.

Finally, from the ruins at Puyupatamarca, we see Machu Picchu mountain (in the middle, below). On the other side of the mountain are the famous ruins.

We only needed to descend 3,000 steps first, and then cross through the archeological terraces of Intipata.

And campsite number 3, our last night on the trail. We woke up at 4:30 the next morning to make sure we were able to reach Machu Picchu before sunrise. Finally, after a quick 3 miles, we passed through the Sun Gate and saw Machu Picchu. After 30 miles, it was a great feeling of relief and accomplishment. The group was thrilled.

And Machu Picchu itself, wow. A huge site, with amazing views at every turn. The "Incan Face" (turn your head to the right):

Gardeners:

An great time, and awesome experience. More pics here.

We topped off the trip with a meal in Aguas Calientes, where we dined on local delicacy, cuy. Also known as guinea pig.

Not good. Don't eat it. We had one more night in Cusco before we flew home. By Sunday night, I was back in the AK.

It was a great time. I highly recommend it.

Ouch

A bee decided to sting me just below my lower lip as I was riding my bike last night. It started swelling immediately, and within a half hour I looked like this:

The swelling went down in a couple hours, but my cheeks are still a bit swollen now. I'm sporting some nice jowels right now.

Never leave, Felix

The Seattle Times has a couple posts about the future of Felix Hernandez with the Mariners -- one about how the team was involved in trade talks, and another about what kind of contract it will take to keep him when he's a free agent in two years.

In two years.

I was not remotely ready to start thinking about life without Felix. And all the talks about trading him that will surely happen in the interim. The Mariners always lose in this situation, where they have a superstar in the making. Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez... they always leave. Only Ichiro and Edgar, who didn't quite have Felix's star potential, have stayed. You gotta say the smart money is on Felix leaving whenever he's able, and so the smart thing to do is to trade him while you still can. The thought is more sadness than I can take.

Never leave, Felix. I'll offer free legal work if you stay.

Sundries

I've been a bad blogger lately -- sorry 'bout that. It's been a busy summer.

Spent the weekend in the south Puget Sound with family, but got out before the blazing heat came. Fun times on Hartstine Island for the annual family reunion. Pictures of adorable children will be coming soon.

The summer ultimate league is done for another year. My team started off 0-4, but won 4 in a row and lost 12-10 in the semifinals. It was a fun year, especially as the team got better with each game. Unfortunately I pulled my right calf muscle in the last game so I'm hobbling around this week, threatening my other summer sport...

Ninjustice softball is going well. We are 6-3, in second place in the spirited Coed E Division D with three games to go. I haven't pitched very often this year, preferring to try other positions. I think I like first base, actually. And third base.

Oh, I just remembered that I still owe a Peru recap. Okay, it's on the list.

What else. Can't help but become discouraged when I see the country focused on the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates when you've got so many serious issues to worry about. For the record, Obama was right that the Cambridge police acted stupidly. The man was arrested for disorderly conduct -- which by definition must occur in public -- in his own house. I don't doubt that Gates acted stupidly as well, but that's not a crime. How this became a big issue, I have no idea.

And, I almost forgot: we are now Palin-free. I don't know why she quit -- I certainly don't believe her braintwisting rationale that she's doing it for Alaska. But I do know this: her quitting actually is good for Alaska. Sean Parnell and I don't agree on much, but I'm confident he's focused on governing the state, not fighting tabloid wars or twittering about Ashley Judd. She's done with Alaska politics, which is great news for Alaskans. Unfortunately (or happily, maybe) for those of you in the lower 48, you're about to see a lot more of her.

"What are you two buttheads doing in my house?" To that, apparently, one of the young men said, "Who are you calling buttheads?"

Yep, another Alaska crime that makes the front page of the ADN.

Let's run through the checklist:

• Is there a gun involved? Check. Two, in fact. Bonus points for surprise concealed Glocks.
• Alcohol? Check. Bonus points for an astounding .418 blood alcohol level.
• Young hooligans? Check. Bonus points for buttheads.
• Was the whole fracas over home furnishings? Check. But I'm sure it was a lovely ceiling fan.
  

Ding ding ding! This crime qualifies as front page news!

Match made in heaven

You know I take every chance I get to poke fun at my soon-to-be-former governor. You also know that I am a grammar dork who loves ruthless copy editing. That's why this is awesome.

Peru pics

At long last the pictures are up. The slideshow is below (warning: it's 230 pics long), descriptions still to come. . .

The Blob

There's some kind of weird organic goo floating off the northern coast of Alaska. No one knows what it is, but apparently it eats geese.

"From the air it looks brownish with some sheen, but when you get close and put it up on the ice and in the bucket, it's kind of blackish stuff ... (and) has hairy strands on it."

Whoa.

Back in the USA

My trip to Peru (the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu) is over, and it'll take a couple days to sort through the pictures... but they're coming. It was an awesome time.

While I was gone you might have noticed that my governor quit. This is great for Alaska, because since she returned from the campaign trail she has been less focused on governing and more focused on... other things. As a consequence she has been an ineffective leader, and if that was the best she had to give to the state, she's right that it's best for Alaska that she move on. I've never heard a politician admit before that she isn't good at her job, so she'll just quit; it's refreshing. And mavericky. I actually wish more politicians would quit once they realized they weren't good at it.

She'll reap immediate benefits by earning big bucks from her book deal, speaking engagements, and probably a TV show, all without the pesky task of governing. I can't fault her for the choice. But if she thinks quitting mid-term qualifies her to run for higher office, well, I guess I'd like to see her try.

A little break

I'm heading out into the world for a week, so there probably won't me much happening here for a little while. Hopefully when I'm back I'll have some good stories and pictures.

Happy Fourth, everyone.

Grrrrrr.

From Sarah Palin's Twitter feed:

AKGovSarahPalin Our asst AGs had KEY role in protecting rights as a state vs 9th Circuit in cases re: DNA evidence & Kensington Mine development/new jobs
about 4 hours ago from TwitterBerry

I'm getting the feeling she didn't read the opinion.

Vanity Fair does AK

Today's big Vanity Fair profile on Sarah Palin is long but worth the read. It seems to understand something about Alaska that other lower-48 columns don't quite get: AK is weirder than you think.

The first thing McCain could have learned about Palin is what it means that she is from Alaska. More than 30 years ago, John McPhee wrote, “Alaska is a foreign country significantly populated with Americans. Its languages extend to English. Its nature is its own. Nothing seems so unexpected as the boxes marked ‘U.S. Mail.’” That description still fits. The state capital, Juneau, is 600 miles from the principal city, Anchorage, and is reachable only by air or sea. Alaskan politicians list the length of their residency in the state (if they were not born there) at the top of their biographies, and are careful to specify whether they like hunting, fishing, or both. There is little sense of government as an enduring institution: when the annual 90-day legislative session is over, the legislators pack up their offices, files, and computers, and take everything home. Alaska’s largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News, maintains no full-time bureau in Juneau to cover the statehouse. As in any resource-rich developing country with weak institutions and woeful oversight, corruption and official misconduct go easily unchecked. Scrutiny is not welcome, and Alaskans of every age and station, of every race and political stripe, unself-consciously refer to every other place on earth with a single word: Outside.

So, of all the puzzling things that Sarah Palin told the American public last fall, perhaps the most puzzling was this: “Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.”

Believe me, it is not.

True, especially that part about "Outside." It's not even "the Outside," as in: "she's from the outside." Instead it's "she's from Outside." That's somehow weirder.

Also, from the VF column: "'In Alaska,' Ross told me, 'a liberal is someone who carries a .357 or smaller.'" Untrue, but funny.

I know I harp on this a lot. But it's a unique, awesomely weird place. It produces weird people.

5!

Happy birthday to my niece, Madelyn, who turns five (!) today.

Still fishless

This is the summer of fish. There are a million fish in the rivers, and I'm going to catch one. But, not just yet. I went down to the Kenai River this weekend, along with hundreds of other hopeful fishermen, and although sockeyes were brimming out of the river, I caught none. My friend Dave, standing right next to me the whole time, caught five. My friend Jeff also caught none, so I wasn't alone in my ineptitude. But as a group, hey, five fish!

We were able to avoid some of the combat fishing because Dave has a raft, and we were able to float past some of the more populated areas.

When we were done we headed to Moose Pass where our friends Jack and Lea were getting married. We cooked up a couple of those salmon for dinner. An awesome Alaskan weekend. And fish... don't get too comfortable. I'll be back.

More pics here:

We lost a coin flip.

The "coin" being Justice Anthony Kennedy. As explained here by Walter Dellinger, there were two recent Supreme Court decisions relating to the establishment of a new due process right: Osborne, and Caperton v. Massey Coal. In one case, the Court found there was a right, and in the other, not. And only Anthony Kennedy believed that both cases were decided correctly. In Caperton:

The facts are notorious. Caperton won a $50 million damage judgment against Massey Coal. While Massey Coal's appeal was pending in the West Virginia Supreme Court, Massey's chairman spent more than $3 million getting a new justice elected to that court—a justice who cast the deciding vote in Massey's favor, overturning Caperton's trial court victory.

That's pretty awful, and Caperton won. You already know the facts in Osborne. As Dellinger explains, Chief Justice Roberts's dissenting opinion in Caperton is basically the same as his majority opinion in Osborne. And in both cases, he has Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito on his side. Also in each case, Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Souter vote together (although Souter's dissenting vote in Osborne is a little hard to characterize). The only difference is Justice Kennedy, and the reasoning for his shifting votes goes unexplained. Dellinger:

As I said at the outset, four justices would have recognized due process claims in both cases, and four would have rejected the claims in both. If you are going to distinguish between the two, Osborne's due process claim to his DNA test seemed to me less problematic than Caperton's due process claim for federal review of state recusal decisions. Kennedy saw it the opposite way. And what he sees is law.

Chalk it up to bad luck?

Earthquake!

My sixth-floor office just swayed for 20-30 seconds.

UPDATE: Preliminary magnitude of 5.3, epicenter 30 miles SW of Talkeetna.

Osborne thoughts

I can’t claim that my analysis of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Third Judicial District v. Osborne can or will be unbiased; I obviously have a vested interest in the outcome of the case. At the same time, although I’d like to editorialize about the quality of the opinion, I don’t think it’s prudent to do so right now. And even though I’d like to blame the Court’s logic on ideological predispositions instead of principled legal reasoning, but I’ll try to avoid doing that, and just let the opinion speak for itself.

Some background: William Osborne was convicted of rape in 1993. A DNA test taken at the time showed that he was among 15% of black men who could have produced the DNA sample. His lawyer then chose not to take another DNA test, which would have reduced the probability to 8%. Years later, after his conviction, he is seeking access to the evidence to test the DNA under a procedure that will show definitively if he is the person who produced the sample. He has offered to test the sample at his own cost, but the state of Alaska has denied him access to the evidence. The state has provided no reason for denying him access, but they admit that the test could establish his innocence. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that his rights to due process have been violated.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, in which five justices agreed that Osborne has no right to access the evidence. I thought the Court would have problems with some of the technical procedure involved in the case – i.e., whether §1983 was the proper avenue for bringing this claim – but the Court decided not to examine that issue and instead it dealt directly with the constitutional question.

The Court held that there was no due process problem because Alaska already has sufficient procedure allowing postconviction DNA access. This is news to everybody in Alaska, as there is no statute allowing access and no one has ever successfully gained postconviction access to DNA evidence. The Court heavily relies on an unpublished Alaska state court opinion which did not actually result in anyone gaining access to DNA evidence. The Court avoids the traditional Mathews v. Eldridge test for determining proper procedure, mostly because if it had, Osborne would have won. The Court doesn’t explain why Mathews doesn’t apply.

The Court also rejected a freestanding constitutional right to postconviction DNA access. Roberts says: “There is no long history of such a right, and ‘[t]he mere novelty of such a claim is reason enough to doubt that ‘substantive due process’ sustains it.’ Reno v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292, 303 (1993).” In other words, if only DNA testing were invented earlier. If Ben Franklin had stopped monkeying with his eyeglasses for one second so he could invent Short Tandem Repeat and Mitochondrial DNA analysis, Osborne would have a case.

Roberts also notes that 46 states have already devised statutes allowing access to DNA evidence. We (the Osborne camp) had used that fact as a reason why a new constitutional rule would not rock any boats; instead it would simply reinforce what’s already happening everywhere but Alaska. Roberts, though, is afraid the court would “short circuit” these other states by announcing a new rule. It isn’t clear how this will happen, though. The Court could easily draft a baseline rule that is so easy to pass that every state’s statute will be unaffected by the constitutional rule. Such a rule would basically only apply to states like Alaska that have no statute.

Justice Alito’s concurrence is a head-scratcher. Among his many rationales in denying Osborne is that testing DNA evidence risks tainting the evidence. So, apparently, evidence should simply be left alone and go untested, lest it become spoiled and untestable. I don’t even know where to begin with that one.

Justice Stevens’s dissent is spot on, and should have been the majority opinion. He explains the flaws in the majority’s opinion better than I ever could, so pages 39-55 are worth the read. Short story: the State’s actions have been arbitrary and unfair, as it costs the state nothing to provide access. Logic, precedent, and justice require access for Osborne.

Again, I’m trying to avoid engaging in a discussion of the bigger things I think are at work in this opinion, such as the politics of judicial philosophy, although this case is a prime example of the differences between the “conservative” and “liberal” sides of the Court. I’ll just say that the fight isn’t over; Osborne’s case will go on.

Fathers and sun

Happy Fathers Day to my Dad and brother, and all the other dads out there.

It's also solstice, and here in Anchorage the sun rose at 4:20am and will set at 11:43pm, for a cool 19.5 hours of sunlight.

A little more on Osborne

I'm hoping to muster the energy to thoroughly discuss Chief Justice Roberts's craptastic opinion in Osborne... perhaps this weekend. For now, yet another example of DNA evidence helping to serve justice, one bear attack at a time.

Crap.

We lost. Opinion here. More later.

Stop the presses

Sarah Palin's nominee for Alaska Attorney General appears extremely qualified. Good job, Sarah. (It's been a while since I've said that.)

Last in the series

I had three left, and I know how wildly (un)popular this series has been, so no need dragging it out any longer. So at long last, the final three stained glass windows from Hutchins Hall.

Military:

Robbery:

Larceny:

"Robbery" is most often defined as a taking of property by intimidation or violence. If there's anything these windows has taught me, it's to watch out for those damned children.

Okay, it's over.

Chicago is lovely this time of year

Especially for a wedding. And prior to the wedding, what could be nicer than an amazing meal at Moto with she-who-prefers-not-to-be-named-on-the-Internet?

Moto offered one of the cooler meals I've ever had. An instant risotto that you mix on your plate; a mole "cannoli" filled with duck; an eye-dropper of liquid that tasted exactly like a greek salad; a piece of edible paper that tasted exactly like buffalo wings; a chocolate cheeseburger for dessert... everything delicious. My favorite, the "cuban cigar" -- collard greens filled with pork shoulder, with "ashes" made of bread crumbs and toasted seeds:

Good times.