Update October 8th: The number of uncounted ballots (absentee and questioned) is now estimated to be around 1,800.
Post updated November 10th to correct superseded link for election results.
Fairbanks-area voters nearly unseated two elected officials who substituted political correctness for public service during their terms, and forced a third official into a runoff against a more conservative candidate in the Fairbanks-area elections held on October 6th, 2009. There remain over 1,800 absentee and questioned ballots to be counted on October 13th, and the runoff election will be held on November 3rd.
View election results for both the borough and city races HERE.
In the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly Seat F race, incumbent Nadine Winters, who imposed a highly unpopular "plastic bag tax" on the borough, nearly paid the price for her perfidy. As I monitored the election results, I saw that her challenger, Joshua Lott, initially took a commanding 10-point lead. But as results from the Fairbanks city precincts, particularly from those near the University of Alaska-Fairbanks (UAF), began to filter in, the gap steadily closed, and Winters clings to a narrow 189-vote lead. Since more than 1,800 absentee and questioned ballots remain outstanding, there is a chance this outcome could be reversed.
In the Borough Mayor's race, Tammie Wilson and Luke Hopkins immediately broke out of the pack as expected, with Wilson also initially taking a commanding lead. But Hopkins came back, and now is narrowly leading Wilson with 2.4 percent of the vote in the six-candidate race, while Wilson got 31.5 percent. A total of 40 percent or more was needed to avoid a runoff election, which will be held on November 3rd. The bag tax was an issue in this race as well; as Assembly Members, Wilson voted against the tax, while Hopkins voted for it. Amusingly, as the campaign got rougher for Hopkins, he decided to start tap-dancing and publicly backtracked on his vote, filing a motion for a "do-over" on September 24th. Incredibly opportunistic and cynical on his part, and many voters saw through it. But not enough to deny him a runoff spot. Supporters of the other four candidates need to set their rivalries aside and unite behind Tammie Wilson to stop Luke Hopkins.
A newer News-Miner story provides a more specific geographical perspective on this race. Hopkins secured more than 50 percent of the vote in four major precincts north and west of town — Ester, Farmers Loop and the Goldstream Valley’s two precincts. Wilson captured 50 percent or more of the vote in Salcha and the Chena Lakes area and also came out ahead at smaller precincts such as Chatanika, Fox and Two Rivers. Wilson earned more votes in 24 of the borough’s 41 precincts than the other five mayoral candidates combined. Hopkins did the same in 14 precincts and scored big at some larger polling stations, enough for him to finish one percentage point ahead of Wilson.
And finally, in the race for Seat B of the Fairbanks Borough School Board, notorious social engineer Wendy Dominique, who is the incumbent, overcame an early deficit to take a 285-vote lead over conservative challenger Lynette Bergh. Because of the ballots remaining to be counted, Bergh has not conceded defeat yet, and since the school board race is borough-wide, it is possible that the large number of absentees could reverse the result.
An interesting dichotomy: Fairbanks city voters rejected Proposition 2, which would have imposed a 3 percent sales tax within Fairbanks city limits (a sales tax initiative also crashed and burned in the Mat-Su Borough). Yet voters throughout the borough approved a $11.95 million school bond, which will provide money for major maintenance projects in five local schools across the Fairbanks North Star Borough. State debt reimbursement of 70 percent proved to be a good selling point.
The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner also published stories about other races in the area:
-- Voters give Fairbanks borough authority to tackle air quality
-- City, borough split on disclosure rules
-- Stiver, Roberts lead races for Fairbanks City Council seats A, B
-- Isaacson holds nine-vote lead over Jacobson in North Pole mayor race
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Dan Fagan Explains Why The Alaska Standard Website Was Knocked Offline; Outage Is Temporary
Imagine my surprise when on October 7th, 2009, I visited The Alaska Standard website and was greeted with the message "this account has been suspended". The Alaska Standard is considered the premier conservative opinion website in Alaska.
Fortunately, I found out about this before the daily broadcast of the Dan Fagan Show on KFQD 750 AM from 2:00 - 5:00 P.M. So I tuned in to find out if Fagan, who is also the website's webmaster, would explain the problem. And Fagan did not disappoint. At approximately 35 minutes into the first hour of the show, he began to explain the problem, although it took about eight minutes for him to get to the point.
When Dan Fagan constructed one of his posts several weeks ago, he found a couple of photos published on a local progressive's blog, and cross-posted them to The Alaska Standard website. The photos were not copyrighted. This local progressive, who Fagan did not name, is a chronic critic of Fagan and appears to have a real political hardon for him. But the progressive blogger did not take the high road and contact Fagan directly like a man to resolve the problem. Instead, he contacted The Alaska Standard's host, Bluehost, and lodged a complaint. Bluehost promptly took The Alaska Standard offline.
Dan Fagan then called Bluehost and learned of the situation. He immediately offered to remove the photos. Fagan now reports that Bluehost will restore the site as early as 5:00 P.M. on October 7th. Fagan does not want to release the identity of the progressive blogger because he does not want to drive traffic to his site. Update: The progressive Mudflats blog has also addressed this issue. However, Fagan clearly identified the blogger dogging him as a "he"; the editor of the Mudflats blog is a "she", so it is unlikely that Mudflats is behind this.
This clearly demonstrates the perfidy of the progressive community. Just as they used the ethics complaint system to wage political warfare against Sarah Palin, so they're using fair use rules to wage political warfare against ideological opponents in general. Progressives define free speech merely as your right to agree with them; they seek to censor and repress contrasting opinion. Thus the progressive community poses a greater long-term danger to America than even al-Qaeda. At least al-Qaeda doesn't pretend; they openly admit they want to destroy America.
But they didn't succeed for long; The Alaska Standard will be back online before the close of business today. Update: Took a bit longer, but the site now back up as of early on October 8th.
Fortunately, I found out about this before the daily broadcast of the Dan Fagan Show on KFQD 750 AM from 2:00 - 5:00 P.M. So I tuned in to find out if Fagan, who is also the website's webmaster, would explain the problem. And Fagan did not disappoint. At approximately 35 minutes into the first hour of the show, he began to explain the problem, although it took about eight minutes for him to get to the point.
When Dan Fagan constructed one of his posts several weeks ago, he found a couple of photos published on a local progressive's blog, and cross-posted them to The Alaska Standard website. The photos were not copyrighted. This local progressive, who Fagan did not name, is a chronic critic of Fagan and appears to have a real political hardon for him. But the progressive blogger did not take the high road and contact Fagan directly like a man to resolve the problem. Instead, he contacted The Alaska Standard's host, Bluehost, and lodged a complaint. Bluehost promptly took The Alaska Standard offline.
Dan Fagan then called Bluehost and learned of the situation. He immediately offered to remove the photos. Fagan now reports that Bluehost will restore the site as early as 5:00 P.M. on October 7th. Fagan does not want to release the identity of the progressive blogger because he does not want to drive traffic to his site. Update: The progressive Mudflats blog has also addressed this issue. However, Fagan clearly identified the blogger dogging him as a "he"; the editor of the Mudflats blog is a "she", so it is unlikely that Mudflats is behind this.
This clearly demonstrates the perfidy of the progressive community. Just as they used the ethics complaint system to wage political warfare against Sarah Palin, so they're using fair use rules to wage political warfare against ideological opponents in general. Progressives define free speech merely as your right to agree with them; they seek to censor and repress contrasting opinion. Thus the progressive community poses a greater long-term danger to America than even al-Qaeda. At least al-Qaeda doesn't pretend; they openly admit they want to destroy America.
But they didn't succeed for long; The Alaska Standard will be back online before the close of business today. Update: Took a bit longer, but the site now back up as of early on October 8th.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Should We Replace Comprehensive Health Insurance With A Combination Of Catastrophic Health Insurance And Health Savings Accounts?
David Goldhill, a media and technology executive, recently experienced the death of his father through botched hospital care. What should have been relatively simple treatment for pneumonia despite his age (83) became complicated by several hospital-borne infections which led to his demise. The experience provoked much thought on Goldhill's part, and he decided to share his thoughts with the public in a seven-page article published by Atlantic.
In the article, entitled "How American Health Care Killed My Father", Goldhill suggests that the biggest problem with American health care is the existence of comprehensive health insurance. First originated by some companies as a form of alternate compensation during wage freezes, it became an almost universal standard for many companies. As a result, many consumers no longer pay for much of their care, so they overreact to medical anomalies and over-medicate. Fueled by motivational advertisements from Big Pharma, they rush off to the doctor for the latest designer drugs that never "cure" you because your "condition" never goes away. Or an overprotective mother will bundle her child off to the ER or the doctor at the very first sniffle. The same people who wouldn't dream of using their auto insurance card to buy gas or repair services for their vehicle think nothing of using their health insurance card to get aspirin or cough medicine.
Thus there is no market incentive to decrease price and increase efficiency.
But unlike Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress, David Goldhill doesn't propose to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. Instead, he wants a brand new boat. He proposes to replace comprehensive health insurance with two measures; catastrophic health insurance, and health savings accounts. He also proposes to make participation mandatory for all Americans; he cites a projected ballpark cost to the average American of $2,000 per year for catastrophic health insurance, and a mandatory contribution of at least $3,000 per year to a health savings account by a typical American. He implies these numbers could slide up or down depending upon income.
In the article, entitled "How American Health Care Killed My Father", Goldhill suggests that the biggest problem with American health care is the existence of comprehensive health insurance. First originated by some companies as a form of alternate compensation during wage freezes, it became an almost universal standard for many companies. As a result, many consumers no longer pay for much of their care, so they overreact to medical anomalies and over-medicate. Fueled by motivational advertisements from Big Pharma, they rush off to the doctor for the latest designer drugs that never "cure" you because your "condition" never goes away. Or an overprotective mother will bundle her child off to the ER or the doctor at the very first sniffle. The same people who wouldn't dream of using their auto insurance card to buy gas or repair services for their vehicle think nothing of using their health insurance card to get aspirin or cough medicine.
Thus there is no market incentive to decrease price and increase efficiency.
But unlike Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress, David Goldhill doesn't propose to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. Instead, he wants a brand new boat. He proposes to replace comprehensive health insurance with two measures; catastrophic health insurance, and health savings accounts. He also proposes to make participation mandatory for all Americans; he cites a projected ballpark cost to the average American of $2,000 per year for catastrophic health insurance, and a mandatory contribution of at least $3,000 per year to a health savings account by a typical American. He implies these numbers could slide up or down depending upon income.
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