Act 62 is pre-K funding (http://education.vermont.gov/new/html/pgm_earlyed/prekindergarten.html).

Shumlin: supports it and wants to go further and redirect money to the system from other areas.  Good answer focusing on money and funding; for every dollar spent on early childhood care, we save $10+ down the line.  

Dunne: when you do early childhood education, you save money in the next 2-3 years on special ed.  Is getting into specifics about how it can happen, talking about freeing up resources.  Dunne is talking about foundations and is talking about how small the number of children in early childcare ages really is and how easy it would be to find the resources to fund them all well.

Racine: “when one of is Governor, the cap will come off”  “Where does the money come from?  That’s a tough question in this economy.  I’d love to promise you that next year we’ll have a perfect system.  It’s not going to work that way.  But I can tell you that it can be a priority.”  (that may not be a perfect quote).  Racine knows his stuff on this question and is less willing to make a promise than the other candidates, but is talking in ways I really respect– it takes all of us, not just a governor who supports it.  Job #1 is to improve the economy and then we can make early childhood a priority.

The event begins @1:30 with six candidates for governor.  Only major candidates missing are Dubie and Markowitz.  I’ll be live blogging as best I can though I can’t find a power outlet so I can’t promise I can stay online for the whole session.  

This is not an attempt at journalism.  I have direct connections with the organization hosting this event, both personal and professional.  I make no claims at being objective about these issues or any candidate.  If you feel as though I am not doing you, your issues, or the candidate you support justice, you are welcome to attempt your own live blog.  

Rather than updating this entry as it goes on, I will conduct the live blog in the comments.

Last year, I talked about the way that VY was gaming its numbers by comparing two different measuring techniques and treating them as the same.  Apparently that’s not the only numbers problem with VY.

First, from the Department of Health’s Website:

Vermont Yankee officials also updated the situation regarding soils removed during well drilling operations and site excavations. Approximately 310,000 pounds of soil and other solid waste from the groundwater contamination investigation have been packed into 10 tractor-trailer like containers for shipment to a licensed radioactive waste disposal facility.

Then from the Brattleboro Reformer:

…When the leak of tritiated water was discovered, the public was told by Entergy, which owns and operates Yankee, it would need to dispose of 240 cubic feet of earth from the excavation around what was determined to be the source of the leak.

If a cubic foot of dirt weighs on average 40 pounds, that’s only 9,600 pounds. So where did the other 300,400 pounds come from?

Now, far be it from me to accuse anyone of anything here.  I’m not sure whether that 310,000 figure is due to a… “miscommunication” or simply a lie.  If, however, I were asked directly, I’d suggest that it’s more likely just the nature of the sloppiness with which VY and the Department of Health have handled this whole situation: not paying close attention to figures and information, making statements without fact-checking.  Honestly, I don’t know who to blame for this particular mistake, but at this point I don’t much care.  The administration has coddled VY and VY, at least until this year, seemed to think they could get away with pretty much anything.  

This is what I call the Mike Tyson syndrome: you tell someone for years that they can get away with pretty much anything: you cover for them.  You clean up after their mistakes (after all, they’re your bread and butter).  And then suddenly they bite someone’s ear off.  It’s hard to separate culpability at this point, between the administration and VY, because it’s been mutually assured deception all along.  

Full press release from UPV after the fold.

I’ll be live blogging this event, as best I can (live blogging is not an easy process).  

A few things to note: all the Democratic candidates have shown an interest in early childhood education by attending, but one key player has declined.  Rarely seen, and even more rarely heard, candidate Brian Dubie will not be in attendance.  

Also– a piece of personal disclosure: I have, on occasion worked with UPV in both paid and non-paid capacities entirely independent of my blogging here or anywhere else.  

Update: Deb Markowitz will not be attending

…Patricia Moulton Powden is leaving the department of labor.

Powden’s come up a a few times in the past here, for suggesting that the unemployed should just keep calling when they can’t get through the phone lines (“Think of it as a radio contest“).

But the best part of this is where she’s headed.

Anyone willing to hazard a guess?

Per The Boston Globe (I might have missed it but I didn’t see this in any Vermont paper):

Labor Commissioner Patricia Moulton Powden has announced she is stepping down to become vice president of public affairs at the Vermont Chamber of Commerce.

That somehow just… fits.

UPDATE: Margolis reports at vtdigger that the VDP has relented and will allow press at the event after all. -JO

As of Tuesday evening, though only the 60-to-100 Vermont Democrats who pay their $50 (or more) to attend the event will have the foggiest idea what Frank says Sunday, or what Vermont’s own Rep. Peter Welch says, either.

“We’re not making the event open to the press,” said Robert Dempsey, the party’s executive director.

Why? Because the party is “trying to raise money,” Dempsey said. “It’s not necessarily a matter of policy to make all our events open to the press.”

So… we have a genuine east coast political celebrity on our hands to use for a fundraiser and we’re sequestering him from anything that gives the event attention?

Strategically, I don’t get this other than being worried that if someone says something off-color it will create a media narrative they dislike.  But it’s Barney Frank we’re dealing with here, not Lady GaGa.  Frank is witty, charming and not afraid to say what he thinks, but I’ve seen him speak at Pride events where off-color language is almost expected of speakers, his speech was completely work-safe.

From my POV, this classifies as major FAIL.  Not only do they make the party look paranoid and petty, they reveal a major failure of initiative.  Having someone as well known as Frank come to a fundraiser shouldn’t be sequestered and private.  It should be live streamed and broadcast on youTube.  

We can be better than this.  We should be better than this.

So… to the party: I want to support you and I want to see you succeed.  But if you do something as obviously boneheaded as this, I’m certainly not going to refrain from telling you so.  As Margolis points out, you have a short window in which to change your mind about this.  

Do the right thing.  

Do the smart thing.

Please.  

So apparently when officials working in Nuclear Power Plants lie to government officials, it’s just fine as long as  they don’t lie to your government officials:

The NRC had launched an investigation… into statements dating back five years made by… key Entergy Nuclear officials… Entergy Nuclear acknowledged those officials had misled Vermont regulators in 2008 and 2009…

[…]

“The NRC was concerned because some of these individuals had responsibilities that involved decision-making communications that were material to the NRC and/or involved NRC-regulated activities,” the NRC wrote.

[…]

The NRC said it had no authority over the issue of what Entergy officials said to Vermont regulators….

So let’s get this clear: Entergy provided false testimony to a legitimate government body about the existence of pipes, but as far as the NRC is concerned, that’s just fine.  Why is it just fine?  Because it wasn’t their government body?

What is it, exactly, that the NRC does?

I am not optimistic right now.

I’ve been thinking about how to put this into words for some months now.  I’m not sure I’m there yet, but it’s important enough to try.

Ever since the Democratic members of our legislature started embracing “Challenges for Change,” I’ve had a kind of sinking feeling about where this state is headed.  I’ve been hoping to be proven wrong, but nothing’s happened yet to suggest I am, and I’m honestly sickened by the cynicism behind this and the speed with which we’ve been willing to sell out the poor and disadvantaged in the name of fiscal responsibility.

I’ve mentioned this before, but it was awhile ago so I’ll bring it up again.  I’m pleased with the outcome of the vote on Vermont Yankee, but I keep coming back to wondering why it took place specifically when it did and why it was so urgent to do the vote that specific week.

And no matter what else I come up with, I’m led back to one thing: we were being played.  They knew they’d be taking up Challenges for Change that week and that the VY vote would be such big news that it would provide great cover for the support for Challenges.  

I just don’t see another reason for this and I don’t see it as anything but a ploy.

And the thing is, it basically worked.  Even though I believe Shumlin was behind this, I’d still vote for him in November if he’s the nominee.  Even though I believe most of the candidates were complicit in it, I’d vote for any one of them over Dubie.  

But there’s a dramatic difference between having my vote and having my support, and I don’t know who I can support any longer.  I hear these assurances that they’ll make sure the Challenges legislation doesn’t have too much of a negative impact.  But both Shumlin and Racine voted for legislation connected with Challenges for Change, and they basically handed a lot of power to the Governor for no reason that I can see.

I don’t know what the solution is, but it feels like this particular “solution” started with a back door deal that was done in such a fashion as to avoid responsibility and accountability.  And it was done on the backs of the poor.  It was done on the backs of child care providers and working mothers.  It was done on the backs of the homeless and mentally ill.  It was done on the backs of the most vulnerable among us.

I don’t often blog angry.  But I’m angry about this and when I wait until I’m calmer or more settled on the topic, it doesn’t come.  I just stay angry.  

And I honestly have no idea what to do about this, because I don’t see us overturning this legislation, even with a different governor.  

So I try looking ahead and I keep coming back to one thing: we’re just pretty much screwed.

I got nuthin’.  How about you?

Take a look at this image:

It’s something I just designed for my web site, to replace the old version of the site which I just thought looked nice, but outdated.

The thing is, it’s not a single image.  It’s 11 images, created on the fly from the web server based on random factors involving about 50 different images.  In fact, if you go to the website, you’ll see a different version of it every time you upload.

How did I do this?  I’ll explain, after the fold.

PHP is a great language for web building.  It works at the server side, which means it’s browser independent and you can even use it to create websites on the fly, having it write code based on a variety of factors.  Building images in PHP is not exactly EASY but it’s kind of fun.

So let’s start with the idea.  The base of the image is located here.  It’s just that circle in the background.

Then the script gets fun– I add each of the individual images for each category.  But those aren’t a single image.  They’re each one image pulled from a random list.  The music, menu, for example, is located here.  Every time you reload that image, it picks one at random from the list.  It does the same with several other directories– five of them specifically.  The advantage of this is that if I want to add or remove some of the random image choices, it’s easy to just go in and do that without changing the code further.

Then the title files: same concept: find the right place to put the files involved; those are simple xy coordinates.  Sometimes it takes tweaking.  You can even add random elements if you like.  I.e, choosing a range of 5 pixels in each direction that a piece of text or an image can be positioned if that’s the effect you’re going for.  I didn’t do that in this case, but toy with it sometimes.  

Then overlay the text images, such as this one.

Here’s the original source code that I use to build this.  You have my full permission to copy it and play with it, just be sure to use your own images and not mine.

There’s a real benefit to this approach: I could have created a single text map image in photoshop and make it look nice, but now if I want to change just one small element of the image, I don’t need to worry about going into photoshop and working backwards.  I can just make the tweak to the one image.  I can also use this to play with many variations of the same image while investigating how they work in combination with one another.  It stretches my mind a bit and gives me the chance to look at everything differently.

So– a couple tips: first, make sure you use all transparent png files as your base files if you want images to overlap one another.  Otherwise, there will be a square image overlaying your other images.

Second: go with the highest quality images to start with that you can find.  You can always output reduced quality images if you choose, but it’s better to start with the high quality and go down because you can’t go in the other direction.

Third: output to png can be a little tricky– if you make a small tweak to something you can create errors very easily without realizing what you’ve done.  

Oh, btw– I’ve been making some major changes to sites I’ve designed lately; feel free to give feedback on the sites and if you’re looking to have someone build you one, feel free to contact me.