You may have heard about the faux pas committed by the lawyer for Central Vermont Public Service this week. We were all over it her, pointing out the arrogance and insensitivity of this position.

By now they've issued their insincere apology, but the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say, is still out there.

First off, here are the objectionable questions:

5. Mr. Howat refers to several health and safety benefits of fewer disconnections, health consequences of disconnections, expenditure choices between medial care and utility bills, child health impacts and advantages of energy assistance programs.

Miscellaneous takes on the day's news.

 Civil unions are ten years old today. Meanwhile, the platform of the Montana Republican Party supports a legal prohibition on homosexuality. (If you follow the link you may have a hard time finding it: it's in the section on “Crime”.

Republicans' line of attack on Elena Kagan: Thurgood Marshall was a dangerous radical. Meanwhile, Kagan explains to the gentiles on the Senate Judiciary Committee what their Jewish friends are doing on Christmas.

Furthur can't play in Vermont but John Tesh can? There's something wrong with that.

GMD regular Nate Freeman has an op-ed piece for Deb Markowitz in today's Free Press.

Is this part of an anti-GMD plot?

 Finally, Chittenden Bank is changing its name to PU? Is this rebranding smart or “stinky”?.

After his disastrous performance in Congress earlier this week, British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward finally got his life back today.

How did he do it? By attending a yacht race.

I kid you not. He was watching his hired hands drive his yacht. I guess they must be some of the small people.

Even the Wall Street Journal didn't seem too crazy about it.

“Man, that ain't right,'' said Bobby Pitre, who runs a tattoo shop in Larose, La. “None of us can even go out fishing and he's at the yacht races. I wish we could get a day off from the oil too.''

Nice job, Tony.

Once again, we learn what side the Democrats are on and what side the Republicans are on.

The Democrats

That's right. $20 billion up front from British Petroleum to cover the astronomical costs of damages resulting from the oil spill. That's in comparison to a statutory $75 million cap.

The Republicans

Joe Barton: I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown. . .

Michelle Bachmann: “The president just called for creating a fund that would be administered by outsiders, which would be more of a redistribution-of-wealth fund,”

Rush Limbaugh, the intellectual head of the Republican Party: “Who's gonna get this money? Union activists? ACORN people? Who's gonna get this money. Let's keep a sharp eye on who Feinberg gives this money to. Because I'm telling you, this is just another bailout fund, called something else, and we'll see who gets it.”

The Republican Study Committee: “BP's reported willingness to go along with the White House's new fund suggests that the Obama Administration is hard at work exerting its brand of Chicago-style shakedown politics. These actions are emblematic of a politicization of our economy that has been borne out of this Administration's drive for greater power and control.”

This squarely presents the issue. The Republicans have been pretending to be some kind of little-guy populists, fighting against the entrenched power in Washington. In fact, they're in bed with the wealthiest, most reprehensible corporations in the world.

We need to keep pounding on this theme right on through November.

Oh yeah, on other thing. Later today, Joe Barton apologized for his apology to BP. In fact, he said that if anyone misconstrued his earlier statement, he apologized.

Don't worry, Joe. We didn't misconstrue anything.

 Cross posted from Rational Resistance.

That's not the word they used, but it is the inescapable conclusion of the report released yesterday on the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry.

On January 30, 1972, civil rights marchers in Derry were confronted by the English army of occupation. Without provocation the army opened fire and thirteen Irish demonstrators lay dead on the ground; another later died of his injuries.

The dead have now been utterly vindicated. A report by Mark Saville, a justice of the English Supreme Court, which took twelve years and cost nearly $300 million, concludes that the killings were unprovoked and unjustified. The report finds that the victims were unarmed, that the army targeted unarmed civilians, that the army fired without warning, and that there was no justification for the killings.

I call that murder.

 Cross posted from Rational Resistance.

I discovered last year that GMD was rated the Best of the Best by the readers of the Times Argus.

It's that time again: follow the link and vote for your favorite political blog here.

You've probably never heard me say this before, and I really don't like saying it at all, so I'm only going to say it once: Bud Selig was right.

You know what I'm talking about. It's the same thing everybody's talking about today.

Let's get a couple of things out front right away.

First, Joyce's call was wrong. No question about it. He said it, the runner said it, everybody knows it.

Second, it was a lot closer than anyone is letting on. Look at all the replays, from multiple angles, and it's clear that it was really pretty close, and the ball appears to be bouncing around in Galarraga's glove for a period, and he doesn't have control of the ball until he stops bobbling it. From Joyce's angle, in real time, I don't doubt that he looked safe.

Third, if you watch enough baseball, what you see is that the umpires are right almost all the time. It's small consolation on that one occasion when they blow a big one, but they almost always get the right answer at a very hard job under a lot of pressure.

So what should have happened? Is there some principled way that Selig could have done what almost the whole world wanted? I don't think so.

A philosophy professor I had once defined a game as an activity in which an arbitrarily selected goal is pursued by arbitrarily restricted means.

In other words, in a very real sense, the game is the rules.

From the Official Rules:

9.01
(a) The league president shall appoint one or more umpires to officiate at each league championship game. The umpires shall be responsible for the conduct of the game in accordance with these official rules and for maintaining discipline and order on the playing field during the game.

9.02 (a) Any umpire’s decision which involves judgment, such as, but not limited to, whether a batted ball is fair or foul, whether a pitch is a strike or a ball, or whether a runner is safe or out, is final.

Final. That's what the rule says, and that's what it means.

Even the most casual observer is familiar with the concept of playing a game under protest, but that doesn't offer an out here, because a somewhat less casual observer knows that a protest is not available for judgment calls:

4.19 PROTESTING GAMES. Each league shall adopt rules governing procedure for protesting a game, when a manager claims that an umpire’s decision is in violation of these rules. No protest shall ever be permitted on judgment decisions by the umpire. In all protested games, the decision of the League President shall be final.

Even if it is held that the protested decision violated the rules, no replay of the game will be ordered unless in the opinion of the League President the violation adversely affected the protesting team’s chances of winning the game.

But wait, some will say, what about the Pine Tar Incident? That was actually not at all a counterexample. The Pine Tar Incident was a routine protest of a call, in which the decision of the umpire under protest was not a judgment call (e.g. how high up the barrel of George Brett's bat the pine tar went) but what the consequence of that determination should have been.

So it's clear that a protest would have been unavailable to change the result. Is there any other basis to reverse Joyce's decision? Many commentators have referred to the “best interests clause” of baseball's Constitution as a panacea, but I think that this is misguided.

First off, it's very hard to find out what the best interests clause actually says. People who know it exists understand that it gives the commissioner broad power, but they don't really know what it says. I went to some effort to find it, and here's what it says:

Art. II, Sec. 2. The functions of the Commissioner shall include:

(b) To investigate, either upon complaint or upon the Commisioner's own initiative, any act, transaction or practice charged, alleged, or suspected to be not in the best interests of the national game of Baseball, with authrotiy to summon person and to order the production of documents, and, in case of refusal to appear or produce, to impose such penalties as are hereinafter provded.

(c) To determine, after investigation, what preventive, remedical or punitive action is appropriate in the premises, and to take such action either against Major League Clubs or individuals, as the case may be.

I haven't been able to find any instances where the commissioner has interfered with the outcome of a game or play call by an umpire using this provision, and it doesn't appear to me that such a step is contemplated by the Clause. It's ordinarily used to stop owners from doing things, like when they didn't let Charlie O. Finley from his wholesale giveaway of the Athletics. It has arguably been getting broader under Bud Lite, but I still don't see how it applies to forcing umpires to change their decisions, even an umpire who desperately wishes he could.

Any other ideas? I saw a suggestion earlier today that “In 1991, a panel headed by then-commissioner Fay Vincent took a look at the record book and decided to throw out 50 no-hitters for various reasons.”

This is true. The records have been amended for various reasons at various times. For instance, I think (it may have been part of Vincent's review) they went through all the box scores and awarded Hack Wilson two additional RBI, bringing his season record to 192.

Still, this isn't the same thing. In 1991 the Committee on Statistical Accuracy decertified a number of no-hitters based on a rule change that the pitcher must pitch at least nine complete innings to be credited with a no-hitter. That change was based on the application of a new rule to the play on the field and the decisions made by the umpires on the field.

Like it or not, the game is governed by what happens on the field. From the perspective of a lifelong fan, I think it's very important that the games be conducted according to the rules. That's why Selig was way off base when he called the All-Star game a tie a few years back, and why he was right today. Joyce could have changed the call or asked one of the other umpires to tell him what he saw, but the call was his and I think that should be the end of it.

One other thing: people have been suggesting that in a situation like this every umpire would, and should, give the pitcher the “benefit of the doubt”, by which I assume they mean they should have called the runner out even if they had some doubt, or just because it was a close play and it meant giving him a perfect game. I think this is completely wrong. Obviously he would, and should, have had a perfect game. On the other hand, the umpire's job, and obligation, is to call the game, and every play in the game, honestly. Once you say they should start shading their judgment because of how they want things to turn out you're on very shaky ground. It's exactly what the Supreme Court did in Bush v. Gore, and we saw how ugly that turned out.

The decision today, and the stoic acceptance of the decision both last night and this morning by Armando Galarraga, is a statement in favor of the Rule of Law, and I praise everyone involved in today's decision.

Even Bud Lite.

Last fall we published a diary on the carpetbagger, Jack McMulleny side of Dan Freilich, who was in Vermont for a cup of coffee in the 1990's, and then moved back to run for Senate against Pat Leahy.

 Okay. Nobody owns any seat in Congress, no matter how long he's been there. He's entitled to run, just like anyone else.

It's just that the way he's doing it is weird.

For one thing, he's been putting up these videos on YouTube. Or someone's been putting up these videos. He posted one on Tuesday that I found from his Facebook page that was all about how long Pat Leahy's been in the Senate. Something about how many Rocky movies, Presidents, and a variety of other things we've had during the time Leahy's been in office. 

And then after getting a couple of comments on the video, somebody, either Captain Dan Freilich or “Captain Dan Freilich” posted a note on FB that said 

just to claify this is not an official campaign video, it was not endorsed by doctor freilich, it is merely social commentary created by an individual (as stated in the video).

 It sure looks like a campaign site to me, and I wasn't the only one who was confused. Aki Soga, the editorial page editor of the Free Press,  asked him (again on FB) I'm not clear. Is this your YouTube channel and are these videos by you?

To which “Captain Dan” replied, this should clear things up a bit., along with a link to another video on YouTube.

And the kicker is, you follow the links to these two videos on YouTube and what you get is the message that “This video has been removed by the user.” I've seen each of them once, but apparently I'm not getting another chance.

It does make you wonder what he's trying to clear up, who is posting these videos, photos, and other campaign stuff, and what message he's trying to convey.

I think I might not be the only one wondering, either. For instance, last Saturday at the Vermont Democratic Committee meeting, Freilich was given an opportunity to speak. He did okay, although not great. During the question and answer period, though, he had to admit that he had signed the petition to nominate Paul Beaudry, a right-wing Republican and radio performer (Vermont's answer to Glenn Beck?) to run for Congress against Peter Welch.

Again, nobody owns his seat in Congress, but what the hell is someone running as a Democrat doing supporting a right-winger like Beaudry?

Is this a campaign? If he's trying to make some substantive points, he's actually making some odd choices in the effort.

You owe it to yourself to read this letter to the editor of the Times Argus.

 The letter actually addresses a serious question: the irresponsible people who don't clean up after their dogs. As someone who cannot see the benefits of dog ownership, I can definitely relate to the anger, disgust, and frustration felt by people who don't appreciate the way some dog owners act.

That said, take a look at this:

My suggestion is pretty radical, but I would suggest an ordinance that provides if we see someone who allows their dog to defecate on city or private taxpayer property, we be allowed to shoot the owner of the dog and then take the dog to the Humane Society. 

Cros posted from Rational Resistance:

Not a long one here, but it’s worth viewing the disembowelment of Rand Paul by Rachel Maddow.

The short version is that when confronted with the obvious import of his positions, which is that he thinks the government has no right to prohibit racial or other discrimination by businesses, he becomes painfully inarticulate, blathering on about “institutionalized racism” and acting as though this is merely an abstract or academic debate.

He claims that he is so pure he doesn’t agree with racism, and he would never personally discriminate. Apparently it’s just a coincidence that when that position was asserted in the United States in the 1960’s, 100% of those who were asserting it were white racists asserting the right to discriminate against black people.

That position has been almost universally rejected because it is impossible to have a free society of equal opportunity for all–not equality of outcome, which conservatives are incessantly whining about–if racial and other types of discrimination are allowed, even by private entities.

Jim Crow, and other racially discriminatory practices, were a way for the South to continue the oppression of black people even after the abolition of slavery. In all parts of the country, racial discrimination prevented black people from having access to all kinds of public and private resources, including employment, housing, and the other avenues of commerce. In the South and in the North, these practices were established and fostered by the power structure to maintain the oppression of black people.

Anyone who pretends that it is merely an abstract question, and not one that has the real effect of perpetuating racial discrimination, is being intentionally dense.

In 2010 nobody is that stupid, not even Rand Paul.