Speaking as a father with a wife who works, we are both devoted and happy parents, but my wife did not want to give up her career and neither did I. As others have pointed out, stepping out of the workforce for even a year or two can be the kiss of death in this economy, and the reality is that a more financially stable home has value for the child. If everyone who thought like we do decided not to have kids, the whole declining population issue in 1st-world countries would magnify dramatically.

He currently goes to a daycare with which we are both quite happy. He gets exposed to more care providers who have more experience than we do, and he has two loving parents in the evenings, mornings, and on weekends. Not to mention exposure to grandparents.

That said, I think that part of the problem is that the modern economy does not support unification of child rearing and working. In a hunter-gatherer society, you can sling your child on your back and head off for the day. If I showed up at work with my 2 year old every day, I wouldn't stay employed for very long. There are tons of tradeoffs we've made as part of modern society, and this is one of them. But I don't think it's all bad.

The ghost of James Caan showed up in Pooch Cafe recently (I just checked the last 30 days and all I can find is Haley Joel Osment's ghost, but I have a distinct memory of James Caan's showing up).

Alaska Airlines is currently flying 737s on the Anchorage to Hawaii route, both to and from Honolulu and Kahului (Maui). Of course, it's not that much further from Anchorage than from, say, San Francisco. ANC-OGG is 2797 mi, whereas SFO-OGG is 2338.

One circuit I've noticed a number of airlines do (both out of Anchorage and out of California) is Mainland -> Maui -> Honolulu -> Mainland (all with the same airplane). I've always presumed that this routing had three advantages. First, it lets you provide service to both Maui and Honolulu with the same airplane and without requiring any plane changes for the passengers. Yes, it takes Honolulu passengers a little longer to get there, and Maui passengers a little longer to get to the Mainland, but it's not a big deal. Second, by avoiding an extra stop in Honolulu, you cut down on one take-off landing. Third, I don't know what the runway length is in Maui, but I presume it's shorter than Honolulu. When you land in Maui you have a lighter (less fuel) airplane, so runway length isn't as big a deal. For taking off, however, since you only need enough fuel to get to Honolulu (plus reserves), rather than enough fuel to make it to the Mainland, you don't have as heavy an airplane as if you reversed the routings. Finally, if fuel is cheaper in Honolulu than Maui, you save on fuel costs. Am I right?

--Toby Ovod-Everett

At one point yesterday afternoon, the numbers released at that time indicated that Begich had a lead over Stevens of 3 votes! Yes, 125,019 to 125,016! Shortly before that, Begich had whittled down Stevens' lead from 3,200+ to 971.

One of the reasons this is taking so long is that in the last election there was evidence of double voting (that is to say, people voting either absentee or early and then voting again on election day). In order to avoid that, they are double-checking all of the early, absentee, and questioned ballots (all 90,000+ of them) against the actual voting rosters. It is my understanding that in order to maintain anonymity, the early/absentee/questioned ballots are double-enveloped - the inner envelope is anonymous and the outer envelope has the identifying information. So they verify everything on the outer envelope (by hand) and once that ballot is accepted, they remove the outer envelope and stick the still-inner-enveloped-ballots in piles (I would presume) sorted by the voter's precinct. They have to wait for those piles to build up to a large enough size to effectively anonymize the ballots within. Only then can they go through those piles of accepted still-inner-enveloped-ballots, shuffle them, and then remove the envelope from the ballot, stack those ballots, and then run those ballots through the optical scanning machines.

In most (all?) areas of the state, voting is by optically scanned paper ballots. There is an option (as required by federal law) to use a touch-screen machine, but nobody I know uses them and I understand the use rate is very low.

I'm pretty sure the recount rules say if there is a margin of less than 0.5% or 20 votes permits either candidate or any group of 10 citizens to request a free recount. Margins greater than that require the payment of a $15,000 fee.

Blacks may have had the de jure right to vote as of 1870, but once Reconstruction ended in the South, I think one could make a very strong argument that the right did not exist de facto until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and even later.

While not the easiest quiz I've ever taken, I was able to distinguish/guess correctly in every pair. Of course, I have a home state advantage - I live in Anchorage. :-)