Important meeting date for Williamstown follows below:

On town meeting day folks in Williamstown and many other communities will get a chance to weigh in on a crucial community infrastructure.

ECFiberNet (http://wwwECFiber.net) is a bottom up, ad-hoc citizens committee (sometimes) officially and (sometimes) unofficially representing towns and cities throughout Orange County and beyond. We are proposing to our communities a modern, fiber to the home communications system that will provide video, audio and data services … television, phone and internet if you will … but that may oversimplify the issue.

The upshot is many of the involved towns will be voting on a non-binding resolution giving community blessings for their select boards/city councils to enter into an interlocal agreement that will oversee design, build and management of this system.

A great analogy for the ECFiberNet project is our highways. Essentially you can use the public roadways for whatever purpose you wish: personal or business. All you need to do on our highways is pay your fair share via various taxes and fees.

ECFiberNet’s proposal is not asking for any tax dollars. The system is designed from the bottom up to be funded entirely by subscribers … and of course all service subscription is voluntary.

This fiber to home system is being designed to make itself available to literally every home and business in every participating community … no exceptions! The system will be open to any and all even if somebody is offering services that will compete with ECFiberNet’s core offerings. There is so much bandwidth (nobody knows the upper limit) that free or near free non-profit or community based television/radio broadcasting is being envisioned.

There is so much more to this project. Please visit http://www.ECFiber.net to read what the hubbub is all about.

Williamstown will be holding an informational meeting on the ECFiberNet proposal and accompanying town meeting day question this coming Wednesday, February 27th. The meeting will be in the Williamstown high school library and run from 7pm to 9pm.

If you are yourself or you know folks from Williamstown please help spread the word to them.

(I think “good work… so, when are we going to impeach?” is a sentiment many on this site share, in the face of these two bits of good news… – promoted by odum)

The Senate voted Wednesdy to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects despite President Bush’s threat to veto any measure that limits the agency’s interrogation techniques.

The prohibition was contained in a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the current year. The bill would restrict the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method that makes an interrogation subject feel he is drowning. The bill passed on a 51-45 vote.

The House had approved the measure in December, so Wednesday’s Senate vote set up a confrontation with the White House, where Bush has promised to veto any bill that restricts CIA questioning.

(Senate votes to ban CIA waterboarding, other harsh interrogations, Times Argus, 02/14/08)

Don’t stop now .. there’s more!

The House voted Thursday to hold White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before a panel investigating the firing of several United States attorneys.

Ahead of the vote, Republicans had walked out in an effort to show that they want to work on a permanent update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) rather than be part of a “partisan fishing expedition,” as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) put it.

(House finds Bolten, Miers in contempt of Congress, The Hill, 02/14/08)

The House appears to be standing firm on the issue of not giving retro-active immunity to the telecoms.

Peace & war, criminal conduct in the federal adminsitration … these are all issues worth devoting substantial and substantive time on … even at the risk of not doing other things.

But then impeachment is still off the table.

The Senate voted Wednesdy to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects despite President Bush’s threat to veto any measure that limits the agency’s interrogation techniques.

The prohibition was contained in a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the current year. The bill would restrict the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method that makes an interrogation subject feel he is drowning. The bill passed on a 51-45 vote.

The House had approved the measure in December, so Wednesday’s Senate vote set up a confrontation with the White House, where Bush has promised to veto any bill that restricts CIA questioning.

(Senate votes to ban CIA waterboarding, other harsh interrogations, Times Argus, 02/14/08)

Don’t stop now .. there’s more!

The House voted Thursday to hold White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before a panel investigating the firing of several United States attorneys.

Ahead of the vote, Republicans had walked out in an effort to show that they want to work on a permanent update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) rather than be part of a “partisan fishing expedition,” as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) put it.

(House finds Bolten, Miers in contempt of Congress, The Hill, 02/14/08)

The House appears to be standing firm on the issue of not giving retro-active immunity to the telecoms.

Peace & war, criminal conduct in the federal adminsitration … these are all issues worth devoting substantial and substantive time on … even at the risk of not doing other things.

But then impeachment is still off the table.

I’m just going to quote a bit from the Bradblog and provide the link, and I’m only doing this because I’ve watched this story unfold … as if it were encased in an invisibility cloak.

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson says the recent disclosures in the UK’s Sunday Times concerning the sale of U.S. nuclear secrets to the foreign black market, as aided by high-ranking government officials, are “stunning”…

The previously covert agent, who had worked in the agency’s counter-proliferation division for years monitoring traffic in the nuclear black market under the guise of a cover company named Brewster Jennings until being outed by Bush Administration officials, was asked about the recent series of explosive stories in the British paper during an interview this morning with Florida radio host Henry Raines of American AM.

Those disclosures include allegations that Brewster Jennings’ real identity as a CIA front company was outed to Turkish officials by then-Asst. Sec. of State for European Affairs Marc Grossman as early as 2001…

A text transcript of the interview, as well as the audio, is now posted at the end of this article.

The series of three Times stories so far has corroborated information detailed by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. Edmonds has been gagged by the Bush Administration’s Department of Justice in this country under the “State Secrets Privilege” since 2002, disallowing her from speaking about her work at the bureau. In a BRAD BLOG exclusive late last year, Edmonds announced she would disclose all of the information she’d be barred from revealing to any major U.S. broadcast media outlet that would allow her to tell the full story.

LINK HERE

A new attempt to limit the influence of money in Vermont politics cleared a House committee on Friday, but two years after the last bid to do so lost in the U.S. Supreme Court, opponents were saying the new legislation could land the state back in court.

(Campaign finance bill gets House committee’s approval, Times Argus, 02/09/08)

Apparently part of the issue is around how much financial support political parties can give to those applying for political office on a party’s ticket.

But they rebuffed the governor on another key provision: He had sought to have stripped from the bill limits on contributions by political parties – which the bill sets at $30,000 for governor down to $500 for House candidates. The House panel kept those limits in the bill.

(ibid)

In my opinion as long as public tax dollars are directly funding the activities of political parties (through primaries for example), these associations are public entities and thus subject to governmental oversight. If a given political organization doesn’t like this, they are free to not be a legally recognized political party.

If I were arguing this case in court that is the direct line I would use.

But, as I’ve written elsewhere, I would rather get the government out of partisan party politics and simply get out of the primary business entirely.

(Cross posted from VermontIRV.)

In 2006 Burlington voters elected current Mayor Bob Kiss after a two round (truly) instant runoff. After the first round the ballots were recounted and tallied for the two remaining candidates, and Burlington ended up with a majority consensus.

Vermont’s current instant runoff proposal, S.108, envisions pretty much the same outcome where more than two strong political office applicants are vying for the same position.

Here is a look back at Burlington in ’06 to see what our future in ’08 might very well look like.

Because I got the idea for this post from this Wikipedia entry, I’ll give that version first (correction of totals figure from City of Burlington):

The above is a false representation of the voting process however. The only “majority” that counts in elections is that of all the valid ballots cast. As about 10% of the ballots were exhausted after the first round (meaning no selections other than first choice were made) an accurate reflection of Burlington’s IRV runoff would look like this:

Counting the exhausted ballots in round two and onwards is equivalent to counting all the folks who didn’t participate in any other runoff after voting in the primary election. In short it simply is not relevant to elections.

What is relevant to our elections regarding the exhausted ballots, however, is this: 89.5% of those who voted in the first round actively participated in the runoff! Compare that to the runoffs you may be familiar with (I usually see runoff turnout or second voting at 10% to 20% of the original turnout).

What you see above is what we can expect from S.108. This IRV proposal will use batch elimination in the case of no majority winner in the first round to reduce the field of office applicants to the two top vote getters. The ballots will then be recounted with your vote going to the remaining political office applicant who is ranked highest on your ballot.

Simple and elegant.

(Cross posted from VermontIRV at http://www.vermontirv.net.)

Vermont’s current instant runoff voting proposal, S.108(text here), is soon to be headed to the floor of the Vermont House for a full vote. According to Representative Chris Pearson of Burlington the IRV bill will be voted out of committee within a couple weeks.

Pearson told me there were a couple extremely minor wording changes, and he assured me nothing here would in any way change the intention or substance of S.108.

Pearson also stated he expects S.108 to pass but not anywhere close to a veto proof majority. This means it is now time to begin serious and ongoing contacts with the Governor Douglas’ office to let him know Vermonters want and expect instant runoff voting.

Governor Douglas has previously stated he signed on to Burlington’s IRV enabling charter change because the voters of the Queen City had so obviously supported the change. There is no reason to believe we can’t rely on the same rationale for instant runoff voting at the federal House and Senate seats level.

(Good news for proponents of IRV – promoted by JulieWaters)

(Cross posted with minor edits from VermontIRV.)

Vermont Speaker of the House Gaye Symington says she supports instant runoff voting, is well aware of S.108 and wants to see that bill passed out of committee.

The ‘Q’s are questions I submitted to Speaker Syminton, and the ‘A’s are her responses in her own words.

Q. Are you familiar with IRV and what it does?

A. Yes.

Q. Are you familiar with S. 108 and what it does?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you support IRV?

A. I am in support of IRV. If IRV were implemented it would empower voters and save Vermonters money.

Q. Do you support sending S.108 to the floor of the house for a vote?

A. (The following has been edited to reflect what the Speaker meant. Original text: “I have asked the Democratic caucus for their support in passing this bill.”) I have asked the House for its support in passing this bill.

Q. Are you aware IRV is used by local communities and states throughout the U.S.?

A. I am certainly aware that Vermont legislators are not alone in their support for IRV. It is my understanding that jurisdictions in Maryland, Minnesota, Washington, California, Colorado and Florida have already adopted IRV.

Q. Are you aware Hendersonville, NC recently used IRV in a multimember district race?

A. I was not aware of this.

Q. Are you aware four post IRV election surveys have been done with results released to the public?

A. I am not aware of these specific surveys. However, I am certainly aware that the response in Burlington to IRV has been very positive and that Burlington voters approved a charter amendment to adopt IRV.

Q. If you favor IRV what can folks do to move IRV forward?

A. I would encourage supporters of IRV to talk to their State Representatives and urge them to vote in favor of IRV. I would also encourage IRV supporters to write letters to the editor outlining the reasons why they support IRV.

Just a couple of points from my perspective:

1) I turned it off after about ten minutes for two reasons. First I was disgusted with MSNBC going to extremes to keep Kucinich out of the debate.

2) The whole first ten minutes was about Clinton v. Obama “race baiting” and Clinton’s “emotional moment”.

These two points leave me with a question. Why didn’t the three of them walk off the stage?

If the Democratic Party and it’s leading applicants for the Presidency favor democracy and the little people so much, why didn’t they stand up for Kucinich and walk off the stage?

Why didn’t they walk off the stage as soon as the “race baiting” and “emotional moment” were brought up?

In the end this helps to illustrate why I don’t think we’re going to see any real difference between and Democratic and Republican president. The words are great and highly effective when it comes to getting votes, but the actions make a lie of those words.

It is, after all, actions that make the words honest or not.

bomb the crap outa’ them!

Side by side headlines in today’s (01/11/08) Times Argus: “Bush outlines ideas for Middle East peace” and “Massive U.S. airstrikes hit insurgents in Iraq”. That juxtaposition illustrates our federal government’s approach to foreign affairs so well.

As a nation our mouth pieces talk about peace and democracy and fairness, but the actions in our names are the direct opposite … violent and imperialistic and arbitrary.

Right now bush is in Palestine/Israel talking like he wants a fair shake with all involved, but at the same time he encourages a regional war against the Gaza Strip and their freely elected Hamas government.

Hamas is the only group to actually enforce a cease fire of it’s members regarding Israel, and they are the only Palestinian group with a proven track record of providing basic services such as food distribution, medical care and education to the Palestinian people. But Hamas refuses to be U.S./Israel sock puppets so they are evil.

(Interesting side note: Hamas was born in part out of Israeli (non)intelligence efforts to combat Arafat and his Al Fatah organization, with the support of the Israeli government.)

Of course Abbas and his Al Fatah party are the ones bush finds common ground with: Al Fatah has proven itself as an organization to be corrupt and pliable to monetary and militarization bribery.

Now … where are the broad, idealistic and much needed changes being suggested?

Because I don’t care if it’s coming from Dems or Reps or pretend indies … I’m sick of talking the talk and then bombing the crap outa’ them.