Hopping in late, but need a place to get my thoughts down

6:26 – Everyone’s gone out strong to start, Rev. Roland Smith was the first to really take the bigotry to the next level.  The con side has decided to put all the religious community out first.

6:28 – For the record, Senator Sears changed the speaking limit from three minutes to two, so a lot of people are racing through.  Currently the crowd is getting another lecture.  We’re only four con speakers in, and already we now are all aware of how the world began.

6:39 – A man says that if a homosexual couple breaks up, will they go after our children.  Whole room boos.

“No[t] sure what was more offensive: Saying gay men were pedophiles or that they would rape others if they got divorced.” – Beck Holt, BFP

6:50 – The one striking thing about the debate so far has been the two approaches the sides have taken.  The pro-marriage crowd has done an excellent job of smiling, joking, and presenting a highly diverse front.  The opposition on the other hand, has been a bunch of old people or reverends, reminding us either how the world began, or to get off their lawn.

7:08 – Was waiting for something new to kind of develop, but we’ve been in basically a holding pattern for the past 20 minutes.  A lot of angry people complaining about things we’ve already legally allowed.  A lot of happy faces providing their unique reasons for supporting the legislation.

7:37 – A lot of screams on the con side of the aisle this evening, not the best way to present…

7:54 – The debate has settled quite a great deal, with speakers much more composed and level headed.  I’ve been waiting all night to hear the argument from the opposition that moves past just a religious barrier.  Still nowhere to be seen.

Paul Millman, a self-identified new breed of entrepreneur who said he was the answer to ‘problems’ in the Vermont Democratic Party, has now withdrawn from the race.

Hello again,

Prior to the letter I sent introducing myself I spoke with a member of the state committee with whom I was already acquainted. We spoke about what was, at the time, a possible candidacy for the Chair. At the time I was unsure that it was a good idea. I began thinking seriously about this effort when the position was vacant and before Judy Bevans announced that she would seek the position. By the time I consulted with your committee colleague I was ambivalent because I spoke with Judy and knew of her plans to seek the Chair.

During our discussion he told me that while he wasn’t convinced that he should vote for me, he believed that I raised issues that needed to be addressed. It was then that I decided that the effort had legitimacy even if I didn’t win. I saw, and still see, serious issues that the state committee needs to address if it is to organize to beat Jim Douglas in 2010. I was encouraged that I could spark that discussion. I don’t think this happened. I did have great discussion with people on and off the state committee. I had less than great discussions with others.

Today I am withdrawing from consideration for the position of Chair. It’s obvious that I have no chance of winning. It also seems unlikely that the time is ripe for the discussion I seek to promote. On the other hand I still think I have something to offer and I’m egocentric enough to I think that you might find it worthwhile. While it’s true that I haven’t been intimately involved in the Party organization, my years of marketing experience and driving a successful business taught me something.

More on the flip.

Continuing Millman’s letter (with his six-point ‘prescription’ for the party omitted):

[…]

I’m going back to work. There are things at Chroma that need addressing. Windham County has three excellent representatives on the state committee. Perhaps I will consider such a position if one of them decides not to run next time. In the mean time I am happy to take on work for the state committee that fits my skills.

I wish you well ,

Paul

Paul Millman

Chroma Technology Corp.

He has apparently never attended a state committee meeting, nor has he volunteered to fundraise or to do actual campaign work in any capacity. He would have been beaten badly, likely garnering just a few votes, primarily from the labor folks (because his business is employee-owned?) who put him up to it in the first place. He could be just what is needed … if …

If he’s sincere about wanting to “help” the party and not just make it over in his own image, he’ll be at the Curtis dinner March 28, having sponsored a company table or two (for $1000 or $2000 per, plus $360 for the six dinner seats not included in the sponsorship price). Perhaps we’ll see him working the phones to raise money for a gubernatorial candidate or to help pay rent on the statewide campaign office next year, or talking to Rotary clubs and Chambers of Commerce dinners about how it’s the Democrats who are the entrepreneurs’ best friend.

A few state committee members I’ve talked to sincerely believe that will happen. If it does, good. If not (and he left himself an out in the phrase, “take on work for the state committee that fits my skills”), there’s a measure of the man and his commitment.

(Thanks for writing this up. – promoted by JulieWaters)

Matching fund requirements (strings) not attached to the federal recovery funds may be applied by the state to towns and cities .Under normal circumstances towns and cities are required to provide matching funds .Transportation Secretary Dill says it may impose a matching fund requirement on towns receiving federal stimulus money despite this different situation with the recovery money. “I think it is fairest to be consistent,” Dill said. “It gives you more money to do more projects.”

It certainly does give you more money if you burden the already strapped towns and cities with a charge .A charge of 10% match is what the state could require from towns and cities. The Governor is levying a 10% surcharge (tax) on the federal recovery funds when he hands them along.

No mention of the role of the new Vermont Federal Recovery Office on this. In Feb. Speaker Smith called for a panel made up of one person each from the Vt. House, Vt. Senate and the governor’s office .This seems like the ideal situation in which this could be considered rather than just  by the Governor’s team.

It could matter for many communities. Among the possible projects that may be funded with the first piece of the transportation stimulus money – at least $45 million – include a bridge project in Barre, a portion of the Bennington Bypass (up to $20 million worth), a bridge in East Montpelier, paving in Fair Haven and Rockingham and others.

Some towns – primarily those in line for stimulus funding – object to the idea of a local match for the money. Those who have paid, or will pay, the local match to receive other federal funds frequently support it.

Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, said it is striking that state officials advocated for suspending the state match requirement by the feds, but is considering imposing it on the towns.

“Why would we ask the federal government to excuse the state match, but require it of the local municipalities,” he said.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/a…

Recovery Officer Tom Evslin today responding to WCAX report on two towns surprise at matching fund requirement(20%) the state is insisting on

“There’s still confusion because people hear there’s a flood of money,” said Tom Evslin, of the Economic Stimulus and Recovery Office.Evslin oversees applications for the federal funds in Vermont.

He says the 20 percent match is nothing new.“The whole highway program is being done through existing rules and regulations,” Evslin explained. “We are administering it that way becauseit wouldn’t be fair to the towns that paid the match before and in the future to say suddenly say a couple of towns in there are going to get no match.”

http://www.wcax.com/Global/sto…

Pursuant to the subpoena issued by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the American International Group (AIG) has released a list of the bonuses issued by its Financial Products division. While seventy-three employees received bonuses of at least $1,000,000.00, some of the bonuses were paid to people who didn't even work for AIG.

Among the workers deemed by AIG to be deserving of special recognition for outstanding job performance were:

Captain Joe Hazelwood, Exxon-Mobil Corporation. AIG President and CEO Edward M. Liddy observed, “It is true that there was one incident in which Capt. Hazelwood performed at less than his peak, but people overlook the many voyages in which Capt. Hazelwood neither ran aground and caused a massive oil spill, nor operated his ship under the influence of alcohol. On balance, Hazelwood was entitled to a bonus of $800,000 because it is in the interests of Exxon-Mobil to retain the best and the brightest.”

Homer J. Simpson, Fork and Spoon Operator, Sector 7-G. Absenteeism, gluttony, sleeping on the job, and generalized incompetence. $1,200,000.00. According to AIG's Liddy, “If AIG owned a nuclear power plant, he would be our safety officer.”

George L. Costanza. $3,800,000.00 for performance above and beyond the call of duty for multiple employers. Pendant Publishing: fired for having sex with cleaning woman on his desk. Play Now Corporation: defrauded corporation by posing as a handicapped employee.  New York Yankees: placed team in shrinkable cotton uniforms, causing painful rout, chafing; traded to Tyler Chicken for fermented chicken products. Krueger Industrial Smoothing: defrauded corporation out of $10,000 for contribution to “The Human Fund”, a nonexistent charity. AIG CEO Liddy's comment, “Are you sure he never worked for AIG/FP? He may not be Penske material, but we like the cut of his jib!”

Remember this?

HIGHGATE, VT – Small mushy lagoons hold the odoriferous byproduct of numerous dairy farms in this speck of a town near the Canadian border. Diesel fumes spew out of rumbling grain trucks. A dead skunk lies on a lonely two-lane highway. But what really smells, some residents say, is something new to these parts: a huge egg farm that is home to 100,000 chickens. The birds generate two million pounds of manure each year, and nearby dairy farmers say the chickens pollute the air and attract armies of flies. The egg farm operators say cows are worse. But for now, the dairy farmers appear to have the upper hand -drawing the interest of state lawmakers and regulators looking askance at the egg farm’s planned expansion.

(Chicken Farm Is Raising a Big Stink In Tiny Highgate, VT, Wall Street Journal, 11/13/97)

There certainly were a lot of fly problems reported in this …

Besides water quality problems, another environmental problem has been flies. The source of many citizen complaints has been the 100,000-hen facility, Vermont Egg Farms, Inc. (VEF), owned by a Canadian agribusiness that has also attempted to open hog operations in Maine.18 Virtually every farm within a one-mile radius of VEF has reported unprecedented problems with flies, according to a July 1998 survey by the family farm group, Rural Vermont. Farmers report that the flies are spreading mastitis, an udder infection, among their cows as well as increasing stress for the animals, leading to reduced milk production and economic losses.19

VEF’s closest neighbor, a dairy farmer a half mile away, has filed a nuisance suit for economic losses and put his farm up for sale.20 The state Agriculture Department has measured as many as 3,000 flies in a single calf hutch on that farm, reports Ellen Taggart, Executive Director of Rural Vermont, who has visited the farm. Upon entering the cow barn, Taggart says, the flies were so thick that they looked “like a cloud of dust moving up from your feet. Cows were constantly stomping their feet and moving around trying to get rid of the flies.” The cows, whose tails have been removed, were “shooting their feed onto their backs to shoo the flies,” Taggart recalls. “This farmer said he was losing thousands of dollars each week in feed.”

(Natural Resources Defense Council)

Now Reuters is reporting

Flies, already blamed for spreading disease, may help spread drug-resistant superbugs from chicken droppings, researchers reported on Monday.

They matched antibiotic-resistant enterococci and staphylococci bacteria from houseflies and the litter found in intensive poultry-farming barns in the Delmarva Peninsula region of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

. . .

“Our study found similarities in the antibiotic-resistant bacteria in both the flies and poultry litter we sampled. The evidence is another example of the risks associated with the inadequate treatment of animal wastes,” Graham said in a statement.

(Flies plus chicken droppings spread “superbugs”, Reuters, 03/16/09)

There is a low level caveat at the end of that last story in that the researchers didn’t “quantify the contribution of flies to human exposure”. Makes me wonder about my own little farm yard though.

An excerpt from blogger Jenna Lowenstein at 365gay.com

During the debate on ENDA [the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act] last summer, Congressman Rush Holt [D-NJ] gave a floor speech in which he quoted Congressman John Lewis quoting Martin Luther King:

“Mr. Speaker, our distinguished colleague John Lewis often reminds us of the words of Dr. King, “The time is always right to do the right thing.” Dr. King warned us against the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. I am concerned that when we break apart legislation, some pieces fall on the floor to get swept into the dustbin of history or to be considered only years later. We should not do this to members of our society who need and deserve the same protections as all other Americans.”

I think Holt’s and Lewis’ and King’s point is spot on. We can compromise on taxes and on infrastructure funding and on health care costs. But we cannot — we must not — sell out the fundamental right to equality.

And if that ain’t good enough, there’s always the money angle (also reported by 365gay.com):

[A]n impact study released this week suggests there is a link between the economy and gay marriage. The study, by the Williams Institute at UCLA, found that approval of gay marriage in Vermont could generate $31 million in new spending and $3.3 million in state taxes over three years.

Meanwhile, over in Maine, a marriage equality bill had 60 legislators lined up as cosponsors, both Republicans and Democrats, some of whom might also have been considering the economy, as well as the higher calling of equality.

Last month, Maine’s tourism industry said legalizing same-sex marriage in the state could save them from disaster as the state’s economy continues to turn sour.

Do the right thing, legislators. Vote old fashioned Vermont values: Equality and fairness.

(Saves me the trouble of writing this up. – promoted by JulieWaters)

The Oversight Panel Report for the Vermont Yankee Reliability Assessment shows Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee is not safe, clean or reliable. VY has a higher level of worker injury, is dirtier than other reactors, and is facing expensive, time consuming repairs.

Originally, the Comprehensive Vertical Audit as passed by the Legislature was expected to take 15,000 to 20,000 work hours. Instead, as managed by the Dept of Public Service, only about 6,000 hours were expended in the inspection. Significant problem areas, such as Main Steam Isolation Valve leakage and flow accelerated corrosion of piping and components, were not examined.

Even this abbreviated inspection found that Entergy Nuclear should not extend its license and cannot run reliably after 2012 without spending significant time, effort and money. There is no evidence to date that Entergy has the commitment necessary for this undertaking.

Contrary to Entergy’s repeated claim that the company employs a superior workforce, the Report questioned Entergy’s high employee turnover, high level of inexperienced staff, high level of vacancies in critical departments, and impending retirement of remaining experienced staff.

This is especially problematical because ENVY’s work process procedures “do not meet industry standards“.

P 29

Procedure Quality – The NSA team found that the composition, presentation, and formatting of the majority of VY’s procedures do not meet industry standards

.

The report also cited ENVY for a “high worker accident or injury level in comparison to other plants” and “lower than desirable plant cleanliness practices”.



The degraded condition of the transformer, cooling towers, condenser and demineralizers-all high cost equipment expenditures with significant replacement downtime-compromise the reliability of electric production from Entergy Nuclear. Indeed,

P31

Condenser – Documents reviewed by NSA indicate that the condenser is near the end of its useful life and might not be able to operate reliably through 2012 without some remedial actions.

If Vermont Yankee can limp along until its shutdown date in 2012, that should be the end of it. From the reports, we’ll be lucky if they can make it that long without further compromising public safety.

In the media and in online forums, he’s vigorously defended his calling of the police and tasking them to stand ready to throw out Democratic City Councilors over 5 minutes of procedural kerfuffles (seen here:

“I had no choice but to have a police presence there in case this behavior continued–otherwise those two Councilors could have literally shut down the meeting.”

…and here:

“The Police were only going to be used if the two Councilors literally would not allow us to conduct the meeting. No matter how you feel on the particular issue in question, the minority should not be able to thwart the will of the Majority.”

). He’s found defenders aplenty from Republican and Progressive circles.

But apparently the spin war hasn’t gone so well, as this email was sent from outgoing Burlington City Council President Kurt Wright to council members and at least one member of the media (emphasis added):

ReplyTo: vinewright@burlingtontelecom.net

Subject: The last coucil meeting

Sent: Mar 16, 2009 4:59 PM

Dear City Council members,

Like all other Council members, I much regret that our otherwise constructive year of dealing collectively with important issues was compromised during the last two meetings. When I became your President, I committed to being fair to each of you personally though our interests were likely to differ on matters of policy.  With but one regular meeting of this Council’s term remaining, I am most hopeful that we can restore the approach that served us so well.

I know that some members take exception to my request for a police presence at our last meeting.  This decision on my part was not intended to intimidate members or influence the outcome of debate in the slightest, but merely to prevent the meeting from deteriorating into a completely chaotic state.  I did and do see my primary obligation as President to facilitate meetings so that the public’s business can be accomplisehed.

With 20/20 hindsight, I can appreciate the views being expressed by those who assert I made the request I did, unnecessarily and prematurely.  I regret any misundertanding that may have arisen as a result

of that decision, a decision that I made with pure motives, but that on reflection may have been premature.  I recognize that it is never a decision that should be made to casually or too soon.

I commit to my fellow City Councilors that I will use every effort as your President to conduct our last meeting in a fully constructive manner.  I ask each and every one of you to commit to achieving the same result.  I believe the legacy of this session will be as positive as possible if this goal is achieved.

I thank you all for your co-operation and service to our City.  To paraphrase Councilor Shannon at the end of the last meeting “lets all admit mistakes were made on all sides” and move on.  I think that advice was very wise

and I hope we can all abide by it and move forward–in the best interests of our city, because to continue with this would not be in the best interests of our city.  Thanks,

Kurt Wright

Okay. Given that he defended his decision loudly and publicly, will he submit his mea culpas equally publicly?