A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
It's time for this election cycle's edition of marching music for the Alaska, Hawaii, and North Dakota Democratic primaries. I should go from east to west to follow poll closing times, but I'm going the other direction because Hawaii has the better marching bands (sorry, no drum corps in these states), followed by Alaska, then North Dakota. Hey, it's my blog; I can do that.
Representing the state of Hawaii,
Na Koa Ali'i Hawai'i All-State Marching Band performing their musical selections at the 43rd Annual Pasadena Tournament of Roses Bandfest at Pasadena City College on Friday, December 29, 2023.
Representing the state of Hawaii,
Na Koa Ali'i Hawai'i All-State Marching Band performing at the 135th Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade on Monday, January 1, 2024.
Great performances! No wonder they got invited back. Here's to seeing them marching down Colorado Boulevard in 2029!
Follow over the jump for marching bands from Alaska and North Dakota along with a cameo of a band from the Aloha State.
NBC News’ projects that Democrat Mary Peltola beat Sarah Palin in Alaska’s special election for a U.S. House seat. Peltola will become the first Alaska Native elected to Congress. NBC News’ Jonathan Allen reports.
That's a result that may not have happened with party primaries and first past the post winners, although Mary Peltola still led the first round of voting before second place choices were reassigned. Still, as Jonathan Allen observed, ranked-choice voting works as well to stop someone from winning as to ensure that the genuinely more popular candidate wins. Umichvoter on Twitter created this graphic to show how that happened in the special election.
Yes, the majority of Begich (which Umichvoter misspelled, sigh) voters had Sarah Palin as their second choice, but not enough to push her ahead of Peltola. As someone who has been critical of SarahPalin for more than a decade, I'm glad they voted that way.
This is only for the remainder of the late Don Young's term. Alaska will do this all over again in November for the upcoming regular term. Stay tuned to see how that turns out.
When debris from the 2011 tsunami in Japan started washing up in North America, scientists knew they had a mystery—and a potential environmental disaster—on their hands.
In this episode of Weathered, we explore a “mass rafting event” that carried colonies of invasive species across the Pacific, revealing ominous new changes in how our oceans function.
On of my students gave a presentation on this subject years ago and showed photos of the fishing dock, motorcycle, and other debris to the class. I thought this story served as a good example of "Everything is connected to everything else," one of Commoner's Laws, as well as an unexpected consequence of the triple disaster. Radiation isn't the only threat traveling across the Pacific because of what happened 11 years ago.
Pedro Pierluisi, who has been governor of #PuertoRico since January 2021, is pushing for the Caribbean archipelago to become the 51st US state. This would put an end to its current status of unincorporated territory and give more rights to its inhabitants. But while the election of Joe #Biden seems to give hope to those who want US statehood, others would prefer Puerto Rico to become completely independent. Our regional correspondents Laurence Cuvillier and Matthieu Comin report.
As for Puerto Rico producing only 15% of its own food, that's definitely a colonial relationship with the mainland. However, statehood by itself may not improve the situation, as Hawaii also produced only 15% of its own food in 2016 despite being a major agricultural state. That's because most of its farms produced food for export to the mainland and elsewhere. Hawaii's Governor pledged to double local food production by 2020. As correspondent Laurence Cuvillier pointed out, a similar initiative for Puerto Rico shows potential for economic growth. Still, it could be worse; Alaska only produces 4% of its own food, a stat I should tell my students.
In the midst of economic, political and climate crises, Puerto Rico has lost nearly 12% of its population over the last decade, mostly to join the 6 million Puerto Rican diaspora now living in the 50 states. Tax incentives meant to lure investments have led some Puerto Ricans to fear that the island is turning into a fiscal paradise for wealthy outsiders, driving even more locals out. Many administrations have pushed for a more prosperous Puerto Rico, but they often blame the territorial status for falling short. Is statehood, independence, or something else the solution? And who gets to decide?
In addition to food, CBS News examined the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis and its effect on the economy. This looks a lot like Michigan's Emergency Financial Manager law and has the same effect on local government. I didn't like it here so I don't like it there.
CBS News has several videos expanding and promoting the documentary, but I'm wrapping up this section instead by repeating what I wrote yesterday: "I have a bad feeling that if the Republicans in Washington D.C. continue to block statehood, sentiment might switch over to free association or outright independence. That would be no be my preferred outcome, but if it's what Puerto Ricans want, then I'll support it, while still being upset at Republicans for making it happen."
The 2020 Alaska Democratic primary was scheduled to take place on Saturday, April 4, 2020, in the Democratic Party presidential primaries for the 2020 presidential election. However, in person voting was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, while mail-in voting was extended to April 10, 2020.[1] The Alaska primary is a closed party-run primary, with the state awarding 19 delegates, of which 15 are pledged delegates allocated on the basis of the results of the primary.
Since Bernie Sanders dropped out, there is little suspense left in the result, although it's possible that Sanders could win, as he did in 2016, which would be a Pyrrhic victory.
From Palmer, Alaska
Colony High School Knights Marching Band "THEE Northern Sound", performing at the 125th Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade on Wednesday, January 1st 2014.
Music213 also recorded their performance at Bandfest.
From Palmer, Alaska
Colony High School Knights Marching Band "THEE Northern Sound", performing their musical selections at the 34th Annual Pasadena Tournament of Roses Bandfest on Monday, December 30th 2013.
In addition to performing at the Rose Parade, the band peformed at the 2017 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, where the video identifies them merely as Alaska Marching Band Macys Day Parade NYC.
Enjoy the music as you're awaiting the results, even if they don't mean as much anymore. In the meantime, stay tuned for the Flashback Friday retrospective I promised yesterday.
ABC News just uploaded a video on the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that hit Anchorage. Watch Large earthquake rocks Alaska.
The earthquake was reported by the USGS.
While I'm sure that injuries and perhaps some fatalities will be reported later, that none have been reported so far is extremely fortunate. In addition, the cancellation of the tsunami warning is good news. According to Wikipedia, 124 of the 139 deaths from the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake were the result of the tsunami, which killed people in three states, Alaska, California, and Oregon. No tsunami, no death and destruction outside of the Anchorage area.
I plan on following up over the course of the weekend so that I can discuss the earthquake and its aftermath with my students next week. I'm sure we'll have lots to talk about. In the meantime, that's it for November. Stay tuned for the first post of December at midnight Eastern Standard Time.
