Per the Rutland Herald:

Police officers will be able to use stun guns, marketed and sold under the brand name Taser, to defend an officer or a third person from what is believed to be an immediate threat of physical injury, Sondag said, or to prevent a suicide or serious self-inflicted injury.

But stun gun should not be used against anyone demonstrating passive resistance, she said. The device should not be used as a prod or in a punitive way, she added, or to rouse an intoxicated or unconscious or impaired person.

It’s almost like the policy is, you know, sane.  Or something.

From Vermonters for Obama:

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, co-founders of Ben and Jerry’s, publically announced their endorsement of Barack Obama for President today. Joined by U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, the former John Edwards supporters said they believe Barack Obama is the best candidate to unite America and finally tackle the challenges facing our nation.

The funny thing about this is that I recognize that vehicle.  It was the “true majority” car a couple months ago– it had the pie chart from True Majority on it where the Obama logo is now.  Ben brought this to a couple Edwards events I attended in January.

Oh, and is it just me, or is anyone else really amused by the cow in the middle of the Obama logo?

In another thread, there was a claim that saying that tasering is not torture is a defense of tasering.  

I think of this as a relatively simple concept, but I guess I need to spell it out.  Punching someone in the face, in itself, is not torture.  Tasering someone, in itself, is not torture.  Drowning someone, in itself, is not torture.

Any of those things in the context of an interrogation is torture, but there are plenty of contexts where they’re just plain old violence.

I’m sort of amazed that I even need to explain something so simple.

Per the Rutland Herald’s Consultant: Catamount needs more money to work:

When lawmakers created the Catamount Health program two years ago, they also included in the bill a goal of having 96 percent of Vermonters covered by insurance by 2010.

But the House Health Care Committee received some dour news about that prospect Wednesday.

“You’re going to have to come up with at some point, sometime, somehow, more money to do this,” said Ken Thorpe, a consultant to the Health Care Reform Commission. “To get to 96 percent, you’re going to need to use more state money. That’s the bottom line.”

Catamount’s a great idea in theory, but as implemented it’s got major flaws.  The waiting period is prohibitive to a great many people, and the costs are high.  It would save Vermont businesses a great deal of money in the long run, but it needs to be taken seriously and fully funded before it’s ready to be taken seriously.

I’d love to see us get to the point where we can actually implement a statewide health care plan that isn’t just a good plan, but actually works for Vermonters across the board.

UPDATE:

Today’s (2/15) Rutland Herald, in its article Democrats say Douglas budget has hidden costs, shows the Douglas administration to be interested in reducing health care funding, not increasing it:

Douglas’ budget reduces the money going to hospitals to offset the provider tax they pay…

[…]

Premiums for those on the state’s extended Medicaid program will be raised.

Last night, Donna Edwards not only defeated incumbent Al Wynn in Maryland’s congressional primaries, but she completely routed him.

Per Kos:

As I wrote time and time again, we don’t have the money to buy off our politicians, and the bad Democrats know we’re not about to start voting for Republicans. So the only way we can hold our caucus accountable is to send notice that we will primary them. And sure, they may survive such primaries. But sometimes they won’t.

[…]

Our caucus is once again on notice. If they continue to serve corporate interests rather than their constituents, if they insist on remaining aloof to the nation’s popular sentiment, they’ll get booted in a Democratic primary like Joe Lieberman in 2006 and Al Wynn in 2008.

Donna Edwards lost to Wynn by a slim margin in 2006.  Wynn’s corrupt party machine was too powerful and, in a non-presidential year, there wasn’t as much of an investment in the race.  That was then.  This is now.  Wynn had been in the house for more than a decade and now he’s out.  Pelosi had supported him.  

His career as a politician ended because Democrats who opposed him rose up and challenged him and came out victorious.  It ended because voters in Maryland decided that Edwards was the better Democrat and because with Obama firing up new, younger, voters, they came out in droves, supporting not just Obama, but Edwards as well.

This is a huge victory.

So I only have this to ask: how many of our own state reps and senators have failed to live up to their expectations and how many of us are willing to challenge those who have?

…I’m sort of glad I am, because it gives me advance notice of things like this:

“Sadly,” I can’t make the rally.

Just got this letter from Leahy (link points to full text):

Tuesday is a critical day in our fight to stand up for American values and preserve our freedoms while protecting our national security.

Tomorrow the Senate will vote on amendments to FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law governing the use of wiretaps and other means to conduct surveillance of foreign threats.

Unfortunately, the new FISA bill we’ll be voting on Tuesday still has many problems.  I will do everything in my power — including joining my colleague Chris Dodd in a filibuster against this legislation — to fix it.  

That’s pretty much what I was hoping to hear.

It’s renewable. It’s a great industrial product.

It grows with ease.  It’s cheap.  So why is it illegal?

I remember saying a couple years ago that I really miss the days when Republicans were just the “screw the poor and the minorities” party.  At least then, there was some perspective left in the party.  Don’t get me wrong: they were still evil but, as Mr. Smithers would put it, at some point they moved from everyday villainy to over the top super-villainy.

But, in case anyone’s concerned that they’ve forgotten their roots, there’s good news on that front.  The Republicans have, in fact, blocked the economic stimulus package.

Now, mind you, there are lots of reasons to oppose this package: it’s a waste of money.  It won’t come nearly quickly enough to benefit the economy.  It serves as a substitution for other measures that would do a lot more good.

But that’s not why the Republicans are opposing it.

They’re opposing it because the Senate version helps poor people.  Per the AP, as published in Vermont’s Rutland Herald :

The fate of $600-$1,200 rebate checks for more than 100 million Americans is in limbo after Senate Republicans blocked a bid by Democrats to add $44 billion in help for the elderly, disabled veterans, the unemployed and businesses to the House-passed economic aid package.

That’s right.  Screw the unemployed.  Screw the elderly.  Screw the veterans.

And you thought the old GOP you knew and loved was lost forever…

Per the Rutland Herald:

Lawmakers in the House Tuesday rejected a proposed repeal of last year’s bill restricting “data mining” research by companies into doctors’ prescription writing habits. Instead, they voted to tweak the law while leaving its basic structure in place.

[…]

“I don’t think it is going to accomplish much,” Rep. Tom Koch, R-Barre Town, said of the law passed last year. “You really have to look at your chances of success and what there is to be gained.”

Koch proposed an amendment essentially eliminating the data mining restriction from last year’s law. Koch’s amendment was defeated in a 42-86 roll call vote, and the underlying bill adjusting the law gained initial approval in the House by a voice vote. If the bill wins final approval today it will move on to the Senate.

Unsurprisingly, corporations which specialize in data mining oppose the law:

Companies that specialize in that prescription research have been critical of the law.

“We don’t understand why they passed this law in the first place,” Randy Frankel, vice president for external affairs for IMS Health, one of a few companies that specialize in gathering and selling prescription-writing data, said recently. “They hastily wrote a bad bill that is now a bad law.

My thoughts, after the fold

So here’s the deal: private entities have absolutely no right to this information whatsoever.  

I’m going to tie this back to Pharmacy Fishing, because it does tie in.  One of the biggest problems with collecting medical data about people and storing it in a private database is that most of these databases are not particularly secure.  This means that if someone does hack in, that data security is screwed.  

Vermont is no stranger to data loss.  In 2006, a Vermont State Colleges laptop was stolen which contained data personal data on thousands of employees and students.  I don’t remember if this was in the news reports or not, but I know from direct conversation with the VSC Chancellor’s office that this data contained bank account numbers and social security numbers.

There need to be tighter restrictions on what data can and can not be collected by agencies and to what purposes they’ll be used.   Awareness on this issue is seriously lacking across the state and unless we start addressing privacy concerns in a serious fashion in a serious way, we’re royally screwed.