Of all the Election Day results, Ted Stevens’ re-election in Alaska was probably the one that surprised me most. Except now the recount’s done and it seems that Stevens has lost. It’s a pretty earth-shattering event in Alaska politics, as Stevens has been in office for almost the entirety of Alaska’s time as a state and they haven’t sent a Democrat to congress in decades.

Given the overall nature of Alaska politics it seems unlikely that Begich will be an especially reliable progressive vote. Liberals have basically no leverage in the state and natural resource extractors who tend not to take a very enlightened view of things are vital to the local economy. Still, Stevens was quite the bad actor so almost anything would be progress.

Meanwhile, SDG observes:

In “other people who played their high school basketball in Alaska, then played at Duke and were then drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers” news, Trajan Langdon is keeping tabs on Putin for Palin. (she can actually see him playing basketball from her house)

Maybe after the election, Palin can work on convincing basketball defector Becky Hammon to stop working for the Russkies.

Not that anything about the current “socialism” rhetoric is meant to be taken seriously, but isn’t the closest thing to socialism on the American policy agenda the status quo situation in . . . Sarah Palin’s Alaska? You have collective ownership of valuable natural resources that generates lots of revenue for the state, and then the government makes “spreading the wealth around” through the Permanent Fund, etc. its main priority. It’s actually, for all the flaws of Alaska politics and public policy, a pretty good system. But I think the best way to think about it is that it’s an example of a somewhat special case in which socialism is a good idea.

Of course another time where you need a dose of socialism is if, for example, there’s a financial system emergency and the government needs to partially nationalize large banks in order to recapitalize them. But that’s been brought to us by George W. Bush with the support of John McCain.

I told [the city clerk of Wasillia] I appreciated her help, since I’m sure she’s been bombarded with requests these last few weeks. The clerk’s office keeps all City Council meeting agendas, minutes, legislation, ordinances, etc. She chuckled. Then she told me that I’m the first person who has asked her office for anything.

I’ve got nothing to say to that.