Today was an interesting day. I wanted to get away from all the pandering pols, fatcats and speeches and check out Civic Center Park, where there was quite a bit of stuff going on from Recreate 68 as well as some other groups. I also toured the Colorado statehouse, which is like the Vermont Statehouse on steroids.

The protest scene in the park was quite diverse, with many groups: Code Pink, 9-11 Truth, No War in Iran, and many others. Public Enemy was rumored to give a free show that day, but unfortunately, it didn’t happen.  Tensions got heated every now and then but there wasn’t any violence on the part of the cops or the protesters.

There was one demonstration that got a bit violent yesterday. The Denver Daily News has the scoop on that here.

I put together a slideshow for you all here. Be sure to view in fullscreen and turn on the info, too.

UPDATE: For my 10 minute video recap, as well as my taco experience that would be a vegetarian’s worst nightmare, pop over to Five Before Chaos.

The other day, as odum and I were planning what what we would do, I ambitiously thought there’d be a whole lotta posting going on. Then those pesky logistics get in the way – bus rides that should take 10 minutes take 45… the line at the Pepsi center takes 45 minutes just to get through security. Or, when you finally make it to the convention floor, the computer situation is not what you wanted.

But, nevertheless, it was a spectacle. I’ll have more on that aspect over at Five Before Chaos hopefully soon. It did kind of feel like I was at a rockshow. I camE in just as Ted Kennedy was ending his speech. Claire McCaskill’s speech that folowed sounded like one of those political speeches you buy in a box, that had just about every tired cliche you cold possibly imagine, followed by some (inexplicable) heavy metal music for when she left the stage.

Michelle Obama’s brother introduced her with thoughtful words. Her speech, although way to heavy on the sentimentality angle for my tastes, did seem to move many people in the crowd. Regardless of the politics of it, she is a very thoughtful and well-spoken woman (which is probably why she gets so much scorn from the right-wing).  You could tell that some of the words were carefully crafted to counter some of the right-wing nonsense (full text of speech here). All in all, I was a sort of detached observer to the whole thing. It was a surreal experience being in the thick of it all regardless of the politics of it all.  I’ll have some vids hopefully soon, but I threw together a sideshow for your enjoyment. I’m unfortunately not using the best photo equipment but it’s not bad, either. The flickr thing put them out of order, unfortunately.

I saw this over at HuffPo today. Obama's not looking so good, perhaps he should rest up before the convention.

…and Vermont is number 2. A study that appeared in the Times Argus yesterday by the Center for Women in Government & Civil Society revealed that the amount of women participating in state governmental roles is on the rise, and is actually getting closer to represent the proportions of women in the population. The top five states were (in this order) Montana, Vermont, Connecticut, Washington, and Alaska, a rather diverse bunch of states. The bottom  consists of South Dakota, Louisiana, Wyoming and Idaho. Vermont scored 48.6,% with a female population of 51%, pretty darn close to parity.

Some other interesting facts from the study:

The university study found that agencies in areas where women have traditionally been better represented — including health, human rights and education — still have the highest number of women in leadership.

At the same time, it found a growing number of women breaking into areas traditionally dominated by men, including administration and budget. For example, Laura Anglin is New York's budget director.

The study found governors across the country have appointed 15 women to head departments of administration, and 10 to lead management and budget agencies.

 They aslso talk to fromer Gov. Madeline Kunin in the piece, have a read.

I've been pleased as far as Obama's opposition to offshore drilling; it does nothing to alleviate gas prices, there's plenty of untapped oil leases already in possession by the oil companies, there are serious environmental risks, and most importantly, it's not helping to get that petroleum needle out of the nation's arm.

The GOP has done the typical – take advantage of the low-information voter unaware of the above things (and of course, the many on the right who know but could care less about those issues), as well has have their current obstructionist hissy fit in D.C. So I've been pleased how Obama wasn't playing that game. Until now. Sweet Jee-zus McGee, this is getting old:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that's what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.

Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.

Uh, Senator, when the GOP oil-company stooges are sitting on their hands, sometimes gridlock is better than what they have in store. When are you going to figure that out? 

The real silliness to all of this, is like the recent FISA rollover, it simply doesn't need to happen. Here, you have the GOP firmly in the pocket of Big Oil, presenting a “solution” that does nothing to allevieate current problems, but now Obama needs to “compromise”? Bullshit.Here's why:

Polls indicate these attacks have helped McCain gain ground on Obama.

Ok, Barack, so you're running against a guy who can barely hold a coherent thought, has resorted to using Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in an attack ad (showing once again how out of touch McCain is, as they are soooo 2007), and is about as popular and charismatic as a litterbox in a 3 cat household that hasn't been changed in two weeks. So instead of standing up for principle on something you could truly take the lead on, you're caving. Again. And you don't have to.

Is it that “abused spouse syndrome” (or whatever they call it) that has plagued the Dems for so long still gnawing at Obama's spine? These things are not helping. Stoller:

I'm sure the Republicans are going to praise Obama for his flexible stance now that he's decided to push a compromise with their oh so practical agenda.  There's no way they will use this to push the idea that he's unprincipled.  They wouldn't dare set up a web site called http://www.bothwaysbarack.com/

Awesome.  And awesome position that he's put Pelosi in, who has refused to allow a vote on driling in the House.

Of course, these things often incur the “that does it, I'm staying home/voting for Nader/LaRouche/my neighbor's dog” commentary.With three more months to go, my guess is there'll be a few more moments like this. 

Hell with it, I'm voting for Jack McCullough, and I don't care if he's not even running. We need a president with a beard again, it's been too long.

I just have to laugh at the incessant whining from the McCain campaign, about how "the media loves Obama". Is Obama getting more minutes on the news? I don't doubt that, as what he's doing lately does make for a more newsworthy story, regardless of the political persuasion (first major presidential candidate of color repeatedly bucking the odds, and generating lots of enthusiasm, most lately on his Middle East trip vs. stodgy old fart with flappy cheeks who's one minute away from crapping his drawers, getting everything wrong so often you can't keep score anymore).

Plus, with all that extra media coverage of Obama, don't forget how many non-story/inflated b.s. sensationalist stuff was in that coverage… Rev. Wright, Bittergate, a bad bowler who just can't relate to the hicks in Appalachia, etc.

The press, with all of McCain's whining, is still his "base", and as he continuously goes more and more off the deep end into some factually-challenged twilight zone, we're seeing them actually cover up for him. This makes the press coverage of Bush in 2000 that downplayed he had the intelligence of a fourth grader look like nothing, by comparison. How perverted is it getting?  McCain completely screwed up his facts regarding the timelines of the surge and events surrounding it. CBS actually went ahead and cut out his horribly mangled answer and inserted the answer to a different question. Yeah, you just can't make this stuff up, I tells ya.Your liberal media at work:

Time to add another one to the list…

As the Douglas administration's escalated rhetoric regarding what to do about protecting Vermont's children reaches new, shameless heights in both pandering and finger pointing, with draconian legislative proposals that really don't solve the problem but throw red meat to the base, and even disingenuous push polling, there is yet another failure of the Douglas administration in that regard worth bringing attention to. Although Vermont hasn't led a military attack on New Hampshire yet under false pretenses, Douglas' damage to our fine state is reaching Bush-like levels of neglect and incompetency.

The state's Child Development Division is the agency responsible for ensuring that the state's child care providers are following the necessary procedures and safety standards, often dealing with simple matters such as numbers of fire extinguishers, property and facility inspection and such. The inspections are necessary to the initial licensing process, but unannounced inspections are also conducted to make sure regulations are being complied to.

That is all well and good, but there's a big problem here. Most of the child care providers are not being inspected, and the budget for the agency is getting cut. More below the jump.

It's certainly not for a lack of effort. The problem lies in that there are over 2,000 child care providers in the state, and only seven, yes, you heard right, seven licensors responsible for the above mentioned inspections. That's something like 286 sites per licensor, meaning they'd have to each inspect more than one a day in a typical work week. Although that may not seem like much, it doesn't leave any time to perform any of the other important duties involved with the job: follow-ups, weekly meetings, paperwork, court appearances, electronic transcription of the endless amount of notes taken, answering the phone, etc. The licensors also aren't allowed to conduct inspections in their own towns, which means they must cover each other's towns, which can add a substantial amount of travel time, especially if the inspectors live in a remote area to begin with. 

Yet somehow bringing back the death penalty will address the problem. Huh?

Let me be clear: this is no fault of the inspectors. It's just that the way the system is set up, it's impossible to do their jobs the way they are supposed to. To top it off, my source tells me that home providers (people working out of their homes as opposed to licensed centers) are getting little, if any visits, as the division prioritizes the licensed facilities. There was a situation in Tennessee, of all places, that was similar to Vermont's… until there were four deaths over a six year period,due to neglect. Due to the lack of funding to get a sufficient number of inspectors in place, one has to wonder how long before a similar occurrence happens in Vermont.

A leaked internal memo that I've obtained shows that in the 2009 budget, the Douglas administration is are cutting two positions in the the agency, and possibly one or two more in the near future, as well as targeting supplies, travel expenses, and just about everything else needed to have the agency function even somewhat effectively.

So the question for Douglas (which, sadly, can be applied to just about every problem he complains about and proposes the wrong solution) is why is the budget being cut for one of the primary agencies responsible for ensuring our children are being cared for in the safest, healthiest environment possible? Don't hold your breath waiting for an answer (and by “answer” I don't mean anything Douglas' spinmeister boy Jason Gibbs feeds us). It's not chemical castration, that's for sure.

From today's Argus:

Gov. James Douglas said Thursday that the state should consider all the options in reforming its sex offender laws, including chemical castration and reinstating the death penalty.

Douglas, a Republican up for reelection this year, said he would immediately call for a special legislative session if he believed lawmakers would seriously consider a package of possible reforms in how Vermont prosecutes and retains sex offenders…

Douglas suggested several options that he thought should be considered, including Jessica's Law, civil commitment, strengthening the state's sex offender registry, the return of the death penalty to Vermont and chemically castrating sex offenders.

“I think all of those ideas should be on the table,” Douglas said. “We need to look at all the options.”

Undoubtedly, this is a reaction to the Brooke Bennett tragedy.As the discussions on odum's recent post on the death penalty illustrated,  most GMD'ers are vehemently against the death penalty in all circumstances. As one of the few dissenters on that matter, I still think this is a bad idea, because regardless of the moral issues at stake here, this gesture from Douglas is reactionary, as well as has a bit of the whiff of election year politics. Allan Gilbert of the VT ACLU says as much:

“I'm not surprised that people are stuck on feelings of vengeance toward a person accused of a horrible crime,” Gilbert said. “But these seem to be political responses to vexing problems.”

As usual, Douglas is blaming the legislature, when the problem apparently lies within the Dept of Corrections, at least in regards to the Bennett matter. There is no doubt in my mind, however, that the sex offender laws in this state need to be toughened, but if Douglas is going to try to accomplish that by putting unreasonable demands and package deals, and then blaming it all on the legislature, we will get nowhere, and ultimately, it is the children of Vermont who will pay the price.

Like many of you, I'm still steaming over the Dem rollover on FISA. Now, none of our delegation is supporting it (nor, might I add, doing anything bold to throw a wrench in the works), but there's something in Sen. Leahy's statement that's really infuriating (emphasis mine):

“With respect to the surveillance authorities, I believe the bill represents an improvement over the flawed legislation passed the Senate earlier this year. I applaud Representative Hoyer and Senator Rockefeller for their diligent work in negotiating this package. They added protections to the surveillance authorities that bring it closer to the bill the Senate Judiciary Committee reported last year. If the bill passes, I will work with the next administration to make additional improvements.

“I will continue to work to protect all Americans from the Bush-Cheney administration’s roll back of civil liberties of Americans and disregard for the rule of law. As the Supreme Court noted last week, ‘security subsists, too, in fidelity to freedom’s first principles.’ We can protect our security while honoring American values and respecting our freedoms.”

Two things:  the only “diligent work” Hoyer and Rockefeller have done is to”diligently work” to do the bidding of the telcoms, especially Rockefeller. Second, if Leahy is serious about “protecting our civil liberties”, why isn't he doing more anything to stop this? 

This bill simply did not need to happen. FISA is fine without the telcom immunity, and they owe this president,who is less liked than a thawing dog turd on a warm Vermont March morning –  nothing. Nada. And for those still inexplicably afraid of being labeled “soft on terror”… grow a spine. The public doesn't want telcom immunity, and you have nothing to lose opposing it, except, perhaps that yummy telcom money.

Very disappointing, Senator. Would it be that hard to go the extra mile and take a bold stance? What ever happened to “terrifying” Bush?

Let him know about it: (802) 863-2525