Apparently, she’s resigning the governorship at the end of the month (at a picnic?!) and neither she nor the new Lieutenant Governor who will replace her will run in the next Gubernatorial election.   Nothing about 2012 and the national scene.

• Base-jumping the Burj Dubai. One of these dudes went back and did it again a couple of days later and got caught by the cops; not bright.
• Proportional discussion graph over the WATCHMEN movie.  Strangely, I didn’t think that way, but…
• Killing off a rat-ridden island in the Alaskan Aleutians - or, rather, eliminating the rats that killed everything else off.

Bristol Palin has decided that she’s had enough of Levi Strauss Johnston and chased him off to the Alaskan bush.  Details in the 10 o’clock news.

Hedge funds, no longer magically able to make money from thin air, are laying off tens of thousands of employees.   Give them bonuses!

The UK economy is looking at it’s worst year since 1931.   I assume that includes the war years as well…cripes!

Bernie Madoff may be pleading guilty, but the trust level in the economic wise guys is dropping faster than the Dow Industrial.

Norm Coleman’s entire donor list just had their credit cards hacked, which is always a good way to get more contributions because they trust that you know what you’re doing.

< snark switch turned on >

As a Person of the Illinois Persuasion, I see no reason why we should pay for volcano sensors in Louisiana, or landslide detectors on the Chicago beaches, or hurricane detectors in Alaska.    And protecting polar bears in Florida is just wrong.

I did notice ‘things to do in case there’s an earthquake’ posted in my daughter’s school library last night.  Someone must know something I don’t.

Maybe I need to get volcano insurance from Bobby Jindal.   Any thoughts?

</ snark switch turned off>

• Lobbyists are gnashing their teeth and rending their garments; what are they to do without having a ready-made place to grease palms now that Ted Stevens is leaving the Senate?

To maintain an open line to Mr. Stevens, the association hired Ms. Sutherland, who left Mr. Stevens not long after delivering those warnings to open her own one-woman consulting and lobbying shop, Creative Government Solutions. After working for Mr. Stevens for more than 20 years, virtually her entire career, she has reported nearly $900,000 in lobbying fees over the last 18 months, including more than $200,000 in fees from the broadcasters.

Big story in the Anchorage Daily News on the failings of Alaska education.

• Alaska’s dropout rate, at 8 percent, was double the national average in the 2005-2006 school year, according to the latest figures available from the U.S. Department of Education.

• 38 percent of today’s ninth-graders will have no high school diploma 10 years from now, according to the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education.

• Alaska ranks 50th, or last, in the number of ninth-graders who will likely have a bachelor’s degree in 10 years, according to the commission.

Part of the issue, according to University of Alaska president Mark Hamilton, is cultural. Parents and families are not valuing education. They need to realize even skilled labor fields, like plumbing or construction, require training that depends on knowledge, such as math, learned in high school.

This works for either me or Meredith.  There’s some question as to whether Susan has been in Mexico; if she was, it was to take two steps over the border in Tijuana or something.

This is Mere’s states.  California from when we brought her home, Massachusetts from a trip to the Boston Worldcon, and the rest are family visits of one sort or another.  Consider that she has a sister in Alabama and Susan has major family in South Dakota, plus side trips, and you can dig this.

This is me.  Aside of California, all the rest were covered with my family before I was 20, and mostly when I was small.  California got hit at the San Francisco Worldcon in the mid 1990s, and three more times in mid-2000.  Alaska got picked up in 1971.

And this is Meredith’s ‘places she wants to go’ list.

The AP and others are now declaring Mark Begich, the Mayor of Anchorage (D), has beaten Senator Stevens for the Alaska Senate seat.  The margin is too wide for a free recount, and it’s unlikely that the GOP will pay for it or Stevens can - or that it would make any significant difference.

The recount for the Minnesota Senate seat starts today, with the final before the recount starts - 200-odd vote difference of nearly 3 million votes.

Begich (D) is up 814 votes over Senator Stevens (R), with another 38,000 votes to go - in strong Democratic districts in Alaska.

Alaska Senate: 221,173 votes were already counted; a new estimate shows that the uncounted votes there are around 90,600 - about 30% of the total!  (PDF with the details as to what sort of votes and from where)  And this isn’t complete; absentee votes are still trickling in in the mail.  They’ll start counting these in a few days.

And to settle a discussion on this: No,  Governor Palin does not have the power to select a new Senator in case Stevens is removed from office.  After her crooked predecessor put his daughter into office in similar circumstances, the legislature took that power away from the Governor’s office and gave it to a special election setup (with primaries).

Minnesota Senate: Still waiting for a final certitifaction from Hennepin County (Minneapolis).  The difference is now around 206.   Then they go into the hand recount for the whole state.

Alaska: Still 81,000 uncounted ballots (absentee, some early ballots and the ‘provisional’ ballots) to go to be checked out in the next couple of weeks.  The gap is presently around 3,200 out of 210,000 cast.  (PDF of where the present votes came from)

Minnesota: With a 221 vote gap out of 2,500,000 ish voting, there’s a noted undervote for Senator in a bunch of very Blue districts in the state (apparently, Minnesota’s vote scanners are acting up).  The recount should make sure about all this…

…for a few things to be resolved, elections wise.

The Presidential vote in Missouri and the 2d Congressional district of Nebraska. The former leads a very narrowly for McCain and the latter for Obama.  This would be the first time that the kinky division of electoral votes by Congressional district (which only figures in Maine and Nebraska) comes around for a division from the rest of the state. 

Missouri (vote totals link) is separated by about 6000 votes out of 3 million cast.  My *guess* is that it will go to McCain, but it’s hard to say.

Also waiting on the Senate votes for Alaska, Minnesota and Georgia.  Minnesota (link to the actual count) is going to go for a recount (only 200+ votes out of 3 million cast separate the R and the D), and there’s been scanner problems and some other irregularities.  After being an election judge this year, I saw enough goofy people with ballot problems to realize that spoiled ballots are more common than you’d think.

Alaska and Georgia concern me.

The polls before the election in Alaska showed Stevens and Young going down, due to their legal problems, in a big way.  All of a sudden, they pulled it out at the last second and won?  I dunno.   There’s a lot of  discussion in the news / blogs on this, and they note the huge number of ‘provisional’ uncounted ballots, et cetera.  Basically, either all the pollsters were totally off, or the GOP in Alaska is corrupt (which we knew) and monkeyed with the votes.  If they did, I’d fry their asses.

Georgia - well, something similar to that.  I’m digging for details.  It’s going to go to a runoff in December, and I expect that the major parties will pull out all the stops for that one.

The Republican leader of the Alaska State Senate is incensed at the McCain campaign’s intrusion and efforts to stonewall the Troopergate investigation, and is looking at calling the State Senate back into session to force the matter.  Quotes after the cut:

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Highly recommended blogger: Mudflats

Alaska legislator Les Gara on the McCain campaign’s push to stonewall the Troopergate investigation by the State Legislature.

State Senator Charlie Huggins, (R-Wasilla) was the Republican to vote for the 13 subpoenas against Todd Palin and the state employees over Troopergate.

“I say let’s just get the facts on the table, the sooner the better,” said Sen. Charlie Huggins, a Wasilla Republican who came to the hearing dressed in camouflage, saying he took time out from a moose hunt to attend.

State Senate President Lyda Green, (R) - interviewed on KUDO, an Anchorage station, on the 17th, and tore into the attacks on the investigation:

Meanwhile, Alaska Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican, said she does not believe the investigation will collapse or be delayed by “outside interlopers” trying to protect Palin.

“I see no reason why we need to have infighting over a previously authorized investigation that still has its original purpose,” said Green, a Palin critic.

She said the attempt to block the investigation will lead to closer scrutiny of how Palin and her administration’s stories have changed.

“Go back and compare all the statements of everybody in charge: ‘We’ll be happy to testify, we don’t need any subpoenas, we don’t have anything to hide.’ Now the implication is, ‘We have something to hide,’” Green said.

And it turns out that Palin didn’t actually cut her own salary as Mayor of Wasilla.   They made her take more money, they did.

And reformers can be undone by machines, when they trade their aspirations for power:

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“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities,” - Sarah Palin, at the RNC last week

Well, yeah, you do, and you’re supposed to handle them halfway well.

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“That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay.”  - Sarah Palin, at the RNC.

“You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor and sold it on eBay — made a profit,” John McCain said, introducing Palin.

Palin did place it on eBay, all right.  Alaska had paid $2.7 million for it for her predecessor, and she put it up for $2.5 million.  It didn’t sell.   The state withdrew it, and sold the thing for a $500,000 loss to a private jet broker.  Not at a profit, as per McCain’s story.  Glad he’s on top of things…

If Sarah Palin tries to tell you she did in and refused the money for the bridge-to-nowhere in Alaska, she’s lying to you.  And if she tells you she’s a hardnosed fiscal conservative and as against earmarks as John McCain, she’s lying to you some more.

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In Alaskan politics, you have to remember that the main support of the state revenue system is the tax-on-oil-stuff coming out of the north slope…and that all Alaskans get a cut back from the state of around $1700 a year in ‘reverse taxes’.  So EVERYONE supports drilling in ANWR in Alaskan politics.  Otherwise, they’d have to pay for the state government.

Local towns get their money from some sales or property taxes.  If you want to see stuff on ‘cranky’, Google up “property tax” or “sales tax” in the Alaskan newspapers.   And yes, there are bonds.