Letter to the editor on GVEA

I posted this as a comment on gvea.blogspot, my verbatim submission to the News-Miner:

I attended the presentation by GVEA staff at Noel Wien Library Nov. 15 about the proposed G&T. We were told that, as GVEA was currently set up, we had to keep $750 on hand for every $1000 loaned to us, but that the G&T would only need to keep $100 on hand, a considerable savings in margins. This is where that $30 million figure comes from. This was stated in Ruralite and in the ballot information (“[GVEA] must collect an additional $750 to satisfy lenders.”) But this isn’t the minimum required, it’s the amount desired: “GVEA chief financial officer John Grubich did say that banks require only $250, but he said GVEA maintains the higher buffer, or margin, to obtain a lower interest rate on debts” (FDNM, Nov. 23). Fine, but this isn’t what GVEA staff told us. They said we MUST have this margin, not that we SHOULD have it. The staff have lied by omission to GVEA’s members.

When members asked why only three public meetings, the staff protested that there had been 12. I wondered why I hadn’t heard anything about them, and the next week asked where they were. It turns out that 7 of the 12 meetings had been for staff, not the public, and the other three apparently for specific groups. This isn’t the same as a public meeting: once again, GVEA was not honest with us.

The final disturbing tactic was the use of emotional arguments: the example of the single mom who couldn’t pay her electric bill, or the framing of the question as whether we trusted the GVEA board. The issue is one of structure, and member control. It is not about our personal relationship with the board. We give thousands in scholarships from unclaimed capital credits every year; surely we could take some of that and provide emergency funds for people who need help with their GVEA bill?

If this was as good a deal as the staff has made out, I don’t think they’d feel the need to twist the facts. I’ve voted no on the G&T.

What is worse is that it was Tom Irwin who presented this information to us, the same Tom Irwin who resigned from Murkowski's administration over an issue of ethics, who resigned because he felt that he could not support unethical behavior. I am disappointed.

The Local Et Cetera rides again!

I am publishing the fourth edition of Ester's community book very very soon, and am up to my eyeballs in updates on the telephone directory, writing up the artists listing, and so forth. It's a lot of work. The Lorax is helping me out this time, though, for which I'm very grateful. Jamie Smith (yay!) is working on the cover illustration (rough draft at left). Going to be an excellent edition, if I do say so myself.

So who's counting the ballots?

Well, apparently it's the GVEA MAC members, three per district with another three alternates for each district. And who are they? Well, my stepfather called to find out about this today, and evidently it's been difficult to get people to serve on the MAC committee. So mostly, when there is a vacancy, the board members will suggest someone they know. I don't recognize any of the names listed for District 2. Right now there are vacancies in the groups for districts 4, 5, 6, and 7. To volunteer for the MAC, contact GVEA at ccw@gvea.com. The meetings are open to the membership.

Evidently, they can use some help with counting the ballots. So if you'd like to help count and verify the ballots on the G&T vote, or just observe, contact GVEA. The ballots will be counted on the 11th of December after the deadline (5 pm, I think, although it doesn't say a time on the website).

And the MAC meeting for October was cancelled--maybe. Dunno about the Nov. 8 meeting--there are apparently no minutes kept, or at least, none posted. The page about this group doesn't list any topics that the MAC reviewed in 2005, although there's a list for 2004. Wonder if they got a look at the G&T proposal?

GVEA's other meetings

At the public meeting at Noel Wien Library on the 15th, people asked why there had been so little notice about the G&T proposal and only three meetings. The staff protested, saying they'd been working on this since 2005 and that there had been twelve meetings. Today I asked Roger Asbury of GVEA what those other meetings were (I didn't have a chance to on the 15th). It turns out that seven of them were meetings for the staff: three in Fairbanks, and one each in Healy, North Pole, Delta, and Nenana. Two others were held in the Salcha Senior Center and the North Pole Senior Center. I'm not sure if those were public meetings or only for the residents there.

Roger also said that three more meetings are planned, again not exactly public (unless the full public is invited): for the IBEW/International Builders Association, the Chamber of Commerce Transportation Committee, and the Fairbanks Rotary. Seems to me that it's a bit silly of GVEA staff to expect that the public would have heard about these meetings when they weren't public nor advertised. I'm not seeing anything on the GVEA website about 'em, at least not as of this writing...

GVEA ballots

arrived in the mail yesterday. No one at the post office or the Eagle later seemed to think that voting for this G&T proposal was a good idea.

It's really amazing to think that 5% plus one of the GVEA membership can determine the outcome of something of this magnitude. That such a tiny minority can determine the direction of the cooperative doesn't seem right.

And where the heck are the minutes to the pertinent meetings?

The ADN's got it in a nutshell

The Anchorage Daily News' editorial today is right on the money:

The power to deem someone an enemy of the state and lock him up without trial or charges is a power claimed by dictators, not democratic leaders....Even when facing the persistent threat of terrorism, the United States must remain a government of laws, not of a single, all-powerful man.

Hear, hear.

More on GVEA interest expense

Per Dermot Cole's column today, the figures of $750 per every $1000 for margins required for GVEA as it currently is constituted (per the bank) came from the consulting firm R.W. Beck. The regulations linked to by Ed Davis and www.savegvea.com indicate that only $250 per every $1000 is required. There may be other factors that raise this amount, but apparently GVEA is only making $300 per $1000 anyway, so we're not achieving the ideal.

However, if the $100 is the minimum for a G&T, shouldn't the minimum for a D&G&T like GVEA be the fair comparison? I suppose now we'll need to take a look at R.W. Beck's report to GVEA to find out where this number came from.

That, or just vote no for right now and clear all this up later.

Apples and oranges and GVEA

The News-Miner's article today, while illuminating a couple of additional issues with the GVEA proposal to transfer assets to a generation & transmission co-op, was, unfortunately, not a good example of examining the validity of claims made. Rather, it was a he-said, they-said sort of thing...

The utility estimates that the switch will save members about $30 million over the next five years, although electric bills will likely continue to increase because of rising fuel prices and other factors.

This claim remains unexamined by the News-Miner. Alas, it looks like the GVEA staff presentation was downright deceptive; I'll be calling them on Monday to see what they have to say for themselves about this.
Here's a rundown (PDF) of the problems with the figure provided of a $30 million savings:

􀂃 The Ruralite mistakenly implies that GVEA currently collects 75% of the interest expense for loans on capital projects.
􀂃 The minimum amount that a distribution cooperative like GVEA is required to collect is 25% of the interest expense.
􀂃 The minimum amount that a generation and transmission cooperative like GVEA G&T would be required to collect is 10% of the interest expense.
􀂃 To minimize interest costs, GVEA would have to collect more than these minimum amounts, regardless of whether the current structure is maintained or the GVEA G&T structure is adopted.
􀂃 A more accurate (i.e., apples and apples) comparison of the savings on a loan with $1,000 of interest expense would compare the minimal amounts that must be collected. This would show a savings of $150 (i.e., 25% minus 10% of a loan with $1,000 in interest costs), rather than the claimed savings of $650 from the Ruralite.
􀂃 GVEA is currently collecting about 30% of the interest expense. Using the actual figures greatly reduces the potential savings.
􀂃 The “savings” claimed by GVEA are from “capital credits” that are ultimately refunded to GVEA Members once the loan has been repaid. This further reduces the potential savings claimed by GVEA.
􀂃 Reference(PDF)

This is from a point-by-point examination of the Ruralite article's claims. More useful source material is available at Common Sense and Comity, Gary Newman's blog, and there will soon be a website just on this issue at www.savegvea.com (should be up by Tuesday, from what I hear).

Somebody wants power

Doing a Google search on "GVEA" netted me this interesting little blog article on NovaGold Resources and Barrick Gold, and a mine on Donlin Creek. These two companies have been working together, and are now embroiled in a hostile takeover struggle. Donlin Creek has one of the largest gold deposits on the continent.

Through its Placer Dome takeover, ABX [Barrick Gold] became a 30% partner and the operator. Barrick has “earn-in” rights to another 40% by meeting certain criteria. Barrick is required to expend $32MM, complete a Bankable Feasibility Study and make a positive decision to construct a mine by November 2007. Barrick has already spent the $32MM drilling the property. Novagold contends that Barrick will not be able to meet its other obligations by the deadline.

The mine that the partners are attempting to build will require 140 megawatts of power, and the nearest utility is GVEA--350 miles away. NovaGold is talking about using wind power, diesel generators, and a giant line to GVEA's grid so they can operate the mine at the capacity they are hoping to get. The article is seriously doubtful that all this is possible:

The current plan calls for a 350 mile 230kV power line to be constructed through the Alaskan wilderness, at a current cost of over $400MM. The power line would take at least 7 years to construct, the first 4 years in permitting alone....The problem is GVEA does not have the extra 140MW of capacity...

While it certainly seems, per this article, that GVEA would be unlikely to have the capacity to handle a monster project like this, it does indicate that there are big companies out there with a serious interest in GVEA's power generation equipment and capacity. Here's the information on Donlin Creek from the Northern Environmental Center. Definitely worth a read: the intertie would connect in near Nenana.

So perhaps this G&T thing isn't only about saving the membership money, but about directing power to those with the financial backing to buy it, or build more power generators, or to simply buy our generators from the G&T. After all, the G&T board of directors would be obligated to consider any transaction that might make financial sense.

GVEA and the G&T

Well, Hans and I went to the Fairbanks-area public meeting on the generation and transmission cooperative proposal that GVEA's staff put on at the Noel Wien library on Wednesday night, and man, I was not impressed. I'd been feeling a little more kindly disposed toward the whole idea after talking a bit with Tom Irwin on the phone, but still rather uneasy as a whole, as expressed in my most recent editorial. But after the presentation? Hoo-boy!

There were around 50 people at the event, and the GVEA staff started things off with a cutesy, condescending little infomercial about GVEA. It was terrible, and not all that informative. And it looked like it cost them a lot of money, too. Set my teeth on edge. Hans couldn't stand it. He got up and left about halfway through it, snorting to himself after he got into the hallway, "Do they think I'm twelve years old?" and startling one of the GVEA staff (probably Corinne Bradish, by his description). Hans and I weren't the only ones gritting our teeth through the stupid thing, though: there were plenty of compressed lips in that audience.

So with that ill-advised beginning, they went on to the presentation. It was fairly informative, but all very positive and cheery about the idea, with no discussion of the possible cons of handing off 60% of GVEA's assets. It was also a bit confusing, as they seemed to describe things slightly differently depending on what their apparent desired effect was on the audience. Sometimes they'd make it sound like the G&T was an independent entity, and other times that it would be under the complete control of the GVEA board and by extension the membership. I found out later that one of the graphs they showed us, depicting the amount of fiscal backup required for a G&T versus a utility like GVEA, was deceptive. It showed that a G&T would only need a 1:1.1 ratio and GVEA needs a 1:1.75 ratio (i.e., $100 margin available per $1000 of loan versus $750 available per $1000). But in fact, they were showing the minimum for the G&T and the desired max for GVEA--the minimum is $250, not $750. Evidently GVEA hasn't been able to achieve the $750 margin. So our supposed savings of $30 million is not so large after all. I don't quite understand the margin thing fully, but this was explained to me later by somebody in a position to know.

Still, the presentation overall, despite the twisting of the financial facts above, was pretty clear. Our protections and guarantees boil down to two contracts that would be made between the G&T and GVEA: a management contract and a power & sales agreement. And those would be worked out by staff and approved by the two boards. They aren't being presented to the membership, and wouldn't be.

It was during the lengthy period of questions and answers after the presentation that some of the more interesting and infuriating things came out. With the very first person to ask a question, Susan Johnson (author of one of McRoy & Blackburn's books, Alaskans Die Young, by the way), the staff blew it. She asked one straightforward question, and one rather rhetorical, sarcastic question: If the banks are the ones determining all the ins and outs of the G&T (apparently it's all their regulations & requirements that are the reason for this whole thing in the first place), why not let the banks run GVEA? I thought it was a pretty funny (and somewhat snide) comment, but the staff took it seriously. They answered her as though she didn't understand that banks aren't electric utilities. I was appalled.

Alex Koponen, who is a lawyer, asked why the one board member who'd voted against the proposal had voted that way. "What were his reasons?" he wanted to know. Tom Irwin hemmed and hawed a bit, and then said he didn't think it was his place to answer that question, and so handed it off to the chair of the board, who went on about how the board had considered all sorts of options and this and that but they ended up deciding on this proposal in the end and... But he never answered the question.

I got pissed. So I marched up there right away and turned toward Tom DeLong, who was the board member who'd voted against the bylaws, and asked him point blank what his reasons were for voting against them. He'd not told me before, and I wanted to know. I was glad Alex had asked about this, because I had the same question, and then when they tried to waffle out of it (not even asking Tom to explain or acknowledging what the differences were), I was outraged. It was an obvious and not very clever bit of attempting to avoid telling us what was going on. Perhaps they thought they were protecting DeLong, but given that he'd been yelled at by the rest of the board for voting this way, I suspect not.

So anyway, DeLong comes up to the mike and proceeds to tell us his reasons, which were: that GVEA seemed to be working fine before this for a good 60 years, and so why make such a profound structural change? And he didn't think that the bylaws gave the members enough control. There was another reason, which I wrote down in my notes, but I can't remember at the moment. I think he also doesn't believe the bylaws are well written.

The evening continued along this way until the building closed. Many people wanted to know what the rush was, and where the comparison between pros and cons was, and exactly how or if the G&T would be answerable to the GVEA board and members. I was dissapointed in Mr. Irwin, who made a couple of appeals to the emotions, bringing up the example of members down on their luck who couldn't pay their bills. He was making the point that the essential effort was to reduce rates, but it seems to me that one can help those in trouble without diminishing the cooperative's control over its own assets.

The other thing that the staff kept saying that bothered me was that voting on this proposal was a matter of whether we trusted the GVEA board. That puts it into the realm of the personal, not the logical. Boards change. Trust is all well and good, but that's a matter of personalities, not the structure of an organization. The G&T board could be made up by as much as 60% of people who are non-GVEA or electric cooperative members--they wouldn't have to be from Alaska, even. They could be "any person" that the G&T board approves. This might be good for getting expertise, but it isn't good for people who feel they have a personal, not just fiduciary, responsibility to GVEA members.

And the current GVEA board seems to have been doing a lot of rubber stamping of things the staff presents. If staff is doing its job right, that's fine, but the board is there to make SURE it's done right. And in this case, I don't think that the board has done a good job. Perhaps the question is whether we trust the staff? From Gary Newman's descriptions, the board seems to go into executive session a lot, which also doesn't seem to me to be all that healthy for GVEA.

One other thing the staff kept saying was that there had been 12 presentations. I'm betting they weren't advertised or open to the full public, maybe only to specific groups (big power users? banking or business types?)--Tom DeLong said he hadn't heard about any more than the three I'd heard about, that were listed on the card that came in the mail.

The presentation and questions are supposed to be posted on the GVEA website. But after this meeting, I am firmly convinced that GVEA members should vote no. It might possibly be worth revisiting sometime down the line, but not in this form, and not now.

GVEA's G&T bylaws mess

The last public hearing/meeting on the G&T proposal is at Noel Wien tomorrow night, Nov. 15, 6:30 pm. Ballots will be sent out Nov. 20. This is being stupidly rushed through with lots of cheering from GVEA's PR department and zippo analysis presented to us, and at this point, I agree with Gary Newman. Vote against this ill-advised plan. We need to take some time on this. Dermot Cole is more neutral about the idea, but while GVEA claims that a G&T cooperative is the industry standard, it is NOT the standard in Hawaii and Alaska, and for good reason. We can't just hook into a different network of power producers the way they can in the Lower 48.

The Ruralite article on it is essentially a glorified advertisement, and is misleading besides. There's no acknowledgement of any possible problems with this G&T setup.

I am very glad that I went through the proposed bylaws for this new G&T that GVEA is trying to sell to the membership. Man, what a mess. Bylaws aren't fun reading, in my book, but even a noneditor is going be astounded by the poorly written mess they've suggested as bylaws for the new G&T (PDF link from GVEA's page, so presumably the current bylaws). They're dated Oct. 6 in the link name, but Oct. 16 in the actual file, and I have heard rumors that they've since been adjusted. If this is true, that means that we, the owners of the utility and the people who have to make a decision on this business, aren't voting with all of the cards on the table. These bylaws haven't been approved by the G&T board (read: GVEA board) since they last met in that capacity, and they could be changed after the G&T is set up. And we, the member/owners of GVEA, would have no say whatsoever.

A neighbor and I went through them item by item last night. There's eleven pages, plus the contents, and they are BAD.

For example, the bylaws give an astounding amount of power to an executive committee of the board of directors of the G&T; i.e., ALL powers. Meetings are not required to have public notice, and meetings of the board of directors only require 24 hours notice to the actual board members themselves. Board members who are on G&T business can participate telephonically if they are not available physically, but the bylaw for this implies that the only exception to participation this way is if they can't attend due to bad weather. If they are on vacation, or not on board business, they apparently can't participate, even telephonically. If they miss two meetings, they can be removed by a majority of those board members who manage to make it to one of these short-notice meetings. Most of the decisions the G&T makes can be made with only a majority of the quorum, which is a simple majority of the G&T board (or a majority of the Executive Committee, remember, which has ALL POWERS of the general board). This is bad, bad organization planning.

The more I hear about this, the less I like it. While Dan Osborn claims that there won't be much of a difference between our current operation and a split into two cooperatives, I think it is a crucial difference. The members are left out of too many of the decisions as it is.

Young as accurate as ever

and the voters, amazingly, elected him AGAIN, only now they've elected a man who won't be a chair on any committees, and who will be in a Democratic Party-controlled House (and quite possibly Senate, too). Really sharp thinking on the part of the voters. We could have elected Diane Benson, a Democrat, who would have been in a Democrat-controlled House, and THEREBY IN A POSITION TO DO SOMETHING FOR ALASKA!

But Don "Bridge to Nowhere" Young is going to be remembered in Congress as the man proud of being a "little oinker", and that isn't going to play very well to Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the House. He's also going to be remembered as a man with connections to Jack Abramoff, and I bet he isn't going to be terribly comfortable on that particular hot seat: the corrupt have gotten slammed by the voters in most of the country, and, judging by Pelosi's victory speech, they're going to get slammed again once the new Congress settles in.

Ralph and Jim out on their rumps

Ralph Seekins, who had decided too late that maybe he did need Ester after all, was tromped by Joe Thomas, who won with a resounding 58% of the vote. Scott Kawasaki did almost as well against Jim Holm, coming in with 56%. And David Guttenberg got a big vote of confidence in his district, coming in with 63%. Well done, gentlemen.

Voter ID requirements by state

The link above takes you to Electionline.org, a great election reform and information site. It has a list of voter ID laws by state as of 10/17/06. Here's what they say about Alaska:

All voters - photo and non-photo ID accepted
An official voter registration card, driver's license, state identification card, current and valid photo identification, birth certificate, passport, or hunting or fishing license; or an original or a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, government check, or other government document; an item exhibited under this paragraph must show the name and current address of the voter. An election official may waive the identification requirement if the election official knows the identity of the voter. The identification requirement may not be waived for voters who are first-time voters who initially registered by mail or by facsimile or other electronic transmission approved by the director under AS 15.07.050, and did not provide identification as required in AS 15.07.060. Source: State law

Democratic bash at the Blue Loon

Hans and I went to a party last night held at the Blue Loon for local Democratic candidates. David Guttenberg, Scott Kawasaki, John Pile, Joe Thomas, and I think Tim Beck (although I didn't see him) were all there, along with Democratic Party activists like John Davies, Don Gray, Elyse Guttenberg, Luke Hopkins, Dave Valentine, and Mahla Strohmeier. We were having a fairly good time until somebody said to Hans that Nader cost Gore the 2000 election.

AAARGH!

WHY will this stupid canard not die? It's amazing to me that anybody would believe this. It's a falsehood that serves only the Republican Party, because it thoroughly distracted (and apparently continues to distract) Democrats from what really happened in that election. So let's look at it.

Statement: "Ralph Nader's campaign cost Al Gore the 2000 presidential election."

Question: Why was it Nader's campaign that did this, and not the estimated 230,000 Florida Democrats who evidently voted Republican? Or the infamous "Jews for Buchanan" (that was a few thousand votes right there)? Or the several thousand votes that went to the Socialist candidate? Or the approximately 173,000 mostly Democratic voters improperly purged from the rolls (91,000 of whom were still unable to vote in the 2004 election, and who are STILL unable to vote)? Why was it not the fact that the Gore campaign chose only to do a recount in selected districts, and not do a statewide recount? What about the fact that the Supreme Court overruled the state court, cut off the recount, and effectively appointed George W. Bush?

Why do these factors somehow not count in the Democratic mind? And why, for Pete's sake, do Democrats uttering this statement fail to miss the basic flaw upon which the statement is predicated, and which renders the whole question moot?

AL GORE WON THE ELECTION.

Nader didn't cost him the election, nor did the Democrats voting Republican, nor the faulty purges, nor the Socialist Party candidate, nor the weirdness with the Buchanan votes. The Gore campaign admitted that Nader did not cost them the election.

AL GORE WON THE ELECTION.

He won the popular and electoral vote in the rest of the country, and he won, as was later found out, the popular election in Florida, and therefore should have won the electoral college vote in Florida. But because the Supreme Court appointed George Bush, and because Al Gore and the Democratic National Committee decided it was more important to concede and not make a fuss, THE DEMOCRATS GAVE THE ELECTION TO THE REPUBLICANS.

This is the truth that the Democratic Party cannot face. It was a crooked, nasty election in many respects, but Al Gore actually did win it. And it is much easier to take out one's emotional reaction to this strategic error on a small party than to try to face the fact of what happened and the monumental mistake and betrayal that the DNC made. Repeating "Nader cost Gore the election" is much more comforting, and intellectually much more lazy, than facing the facts.

Now, having said all that, it is true that at the time the Supreme Court's decision came down, the DNC didn't know that Gore had won. It looked like he had lost by a measly few hundred votes. But the facts have since come out (in 2001), and they know now—but it remains easier to blame Ralph Nader and the Greens for this loss than to accept what really happened. Because of this dishonesty, the Democrats are hampered in their ability to examine what went wrong, and to correct it. Clear evidence of this exists in the 2004 election, where, despite obvious electoral fraud in Ohio, the Kerry campaign refused to fight back. This, despite the fact that they had specifically amassed a $50 million dollar legal reserve supposedly just for the purpose of dealing with fraud. Again, the DEMOCRATS GAVE THE ELECTION AWAY. Kerry won in 2004. It was the Greens and the Libertarians who led the charge on combatting election fraud in Ohio, and later voter rights groups, the local Democratic Party, and John Conyers. The Greens are STILL working on this.

If you let bullies push you around, they will become emboldened, and push you around even more.

Jim Holm's statement that if you're not in the majority, you're nothing, while outrageous, is nothing more than the truth of how Republicans and Democrats play politics when they're in power. And the Democrats, who play exactly the same damn game against Greens as the Republicans are playing against the Democrats, don't look any more savory from my perspective (with certain local exceptions).

Live with it, guys, or clean up your own act. Then maybe you'll get some sympathy on this issue from this Green.

Benson gaining on Young

A new Hays poll puts Diane Benson only 7 percent behind Young. Benson has gained 7 percent and Young has gained 5 percent from the previous poll:

Conducted Nov. 1st & 2nd, the results of the latest poll show the gap between the two continuing to close with Young garnering 48% of those polled to Benson’s 41%. The poll was commissioned by Anne Hays, President and Research Director of Hays Research Group and was not conducted on behalf of any candidate or group.

You go, girl!

GVEA's gag order

GVEA's recent mailing touting the glories of the new G&T proposal, combined with the quickie review period and upcoming vote in November, made me a little suspicious. I haven't really been paying much attention to Gary Newman's blog and his frequent criticisms of GVEA (sorry, Gary, but it's true), but the short turnaround on what is a major vote and a profound change in the nature of our electric utility made me decide to go back there and take a look. One paragraph caught my eye:

An interesting aspect is that, now that the board took a vote in the affirmative, ALL board members are supposed to officially support it. This is in accordance to a board policy that was written to insure that the board appears to be all one big happy family to the public.

I asked Tom DeLong about it at the Eagle last night, and he confirmed that this is true. When the board makes a decision, dissenting board members must support the decision. Tom was the only board member who voted against the G&T transfer. But now he must support it, because the board voted for it. Okay, but he's my representative. He's not the GVEA board's representative. How can he represent me on this if he MUST support it? What if I don't want GVEA to go ahead with the transfer? Or if I want to know what the risks or negative possibilities are?

I don't like the thought that my representative cannot speak his mind to me, his constituent. This is damn fishy. It's not like this is classified military intelligence or something.

I looked on the GVEA website, and at the Ruralite article (PDF), and nowhere do I see balanced information: no list of possible cons to this decision. What's up with that? And where does this $30 million figure come from?

I don't like the idea of selling off our assets, particularly to something that could sell them off to somebody else, and that doesn't answer to the GVEA membership. We have a public utility for good reason, and from what I've seen when public utilities go private, profit becomes the driving force, not the public good. Remember California's artificial electrical crisis and all that price gouging? GVEA's been a public utility for 60 years. We need more time to think about this. A lot more.

Here's the link to the proposed bylaws (PDF) for the G&T cooperative.

Insurgents endorse Benson

So let's see: Insurgent 49 endorses Diane Benson, and The Ester Republic endorses Diane Benson (neither of these periodicals have ever before endorsed a political candidate).

One fish, no fish

The oceans are dying and the fish are disappearing. Why? Pollution and overfishing. Per the Washington Post:

An international group of ecologists and economists warned yesterday that the world will run out of seafood by 2048 if steep declines in marine species continue at current rates, based on a four-year study of catch data and the effects of fisheries collapses.

The paper, published in the journal Science, concludes that overfishing, pollution and other environmental factors are wiping out important species around the globe, hampering the ocean's ability to produce seafood, filter nutrients and resist the spread of disease.

Some scientists disagree with the severity of the extrapolation, and others point out that where fishing limits and other sorts of fisheries management have been implemented, species have rebounded, so it's not yet too late to reverse the trend. But that, of course, depends on whether regulations to protect fisheries are enacted and then enforced.

So perhaps we'd best elect representatives who have an understanding that environmentalism isn't some wacko anti-job conspiracy, but is about saving our collective butts from mondo expense, misery, starvation, and catastrophe. Environmentalism, dear Don, is about protecting our health, safety, and livelihoods, not to mention the survival of our children and grandchildren.

Curtis vs. Feeney

Clint Curtis, the programmer I blogged about back in August, is running for Congress against Tom Feeney, the Florida Republican who hired his company to make a vote-switching program. Curtis, you may recall, was hopping mad about this once he realized what the real reason for the software was, and testified before Congress about it in 2004. Clean and verifiable elections are now one of his major campaign issues.

According to Zogby, Curtis and Feeney are in an extremely tight race. Ah, but Feeney has a secret weapon--well, not so secret anymore now that Curtis has blabbed all about it at that Congressional hearing.

Government to the public: no sex!

Hilzoy over at Obsidian Wings picked up on this ridiculous tidbit: the government is now telling grown men and women (particularly women) that they shouldn't have sex outside of marriage. Or at least, they're telling the states that if they want to use grant money to tell grownups to abstain from sex, no problem! The feds want to encourage celibacy until the age of 30 (oh yeah, and no hanky-panky outside marriage). This isn't the same as saying "don't get pregnant too early, it's bad for you"--this goes way beyond that.

How much of this crap is it going to take before conservatives figure out that THIS ISN'T A CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT? When the government starts spending our tax dollars on campaigns to tell us we aren't supposed to have sex unless we're married, it's a clear signal that the nanny state is here. It's incredibly condescending, and it supports a particular religion's morality with government money (which violates the first amendment). Talk about radical big-government types—the term "Republican" sure doesn't mean what it used to, nossirree.