Even though the big laugh from last week’s Bill Maher show was that line about “ammosexuals,”  something bothered me about his conversation with Ralph Reed.

When Maher posed the deliberately provocative question, “Why do you believe in a magic being?” the Christian conservative smugly replied with predictable answers, including something about needing a “moral compass.”

Surprisingly, Maher didn’t challenge him on that.  It’s become such a popular truism that it even blunts the response instincts of a seasoned combatant like Bill Maher.

How he should have responded was by pointing out that even atheists and agnostics have a “moral compass.” If they did not, we would live in utter chaos.

Why else would Vermont, the least religious state in the nation with the laxest gun laws, have extremely low rates of gun violence compared to other states, and at the same time, some of the most environmentally conscious and humanitarian laws in the entire country?

Sounds like we’ve got a pretty healthy “moral compass” guiding us here, with or without a belief in God.

‘Fact is, the moral compass of ethical atheists is arguably more authentic, since it draws not from some infantile concern with punishment or reward, but from a deeply seated understanding of right and wrong, justice and injustice, compassion vs. cruelty.

Of course that’s not to say that believers are all motivated solely by the threat of damnation. Most good people are simply that…good people.   Take away the threat of hellfire and brimstone and they will still be good; not because some deity has decreed that they should be, but because everything in their being tells them to be.

In contrast, one has to wonder where the moral compass has gone in the Taliban and Christian fundamentalists, whose attitudes toward women are profoundly unjust; truly “immoral” to most other civilized people.

Where was the “moral compass” in the Crusades or the Inquisition?  Where had it gone when Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants were murdering one another over territorial imperative?

Why is it that so many malevolent social movements seem to resolve themselves into cults of hate that use the bible or the Koran as weapons of control, even destruction?

What Maher should have said was this:

“My moral compass is just fine, thank you very much.  

Where is it among House Republicans who have so little love of their fellow man that they won’t allow immigration reform to move forward; or the minimum wage?  Why do they think their “moral compass” is superior to that of all women, who would like to have the right to govern their own bodies no matter which state they live in?”

”

One must logically conclude that ethics and morals have nothing whatsoever to do with theism; and if you need a supreme being to make you behave like a decent human being, your moral compass has a bent needle.

The horses are barely out of the gate and we’ve got a bit of Franklin County melodrama to mark the day.

Sitting Senator (R) Norm McAllister had a letter in the Messenger saying that one of his Democratic opponents, Bill Roberts,  told a neighbor that he was “running with” McAllister:

I was shocked to hear that Bill Roberts, a Democrat running for the Senate, was soliciting signatures and told a neighbor that he and I were running together. I don’t know the exact circumstances of the conversation, but I do know that she came away with that impression and I’d like to set the record straight.

It’s pretty easy to guess what happened.  Roberts must have said to her that he was running for the Vermont Senate, to which she might have  replied that her neighbor, McAllister, was also running for the Senate.  

Roberts probably then explained that they were both in the race, and that there were two seats up for grabs, or something like that; and she confused this with a claim to be McAllister’s “running mate.”

This is just conjecture, of course, but it would be completely absurd and pointless for Roberts to deliberately lie to the “neighbor.”  

What would be the point?  Does McAllister actually believe that his political mojo is so powerful that a Democrat might try to steal it, voter by voter?

Instead of making the obvious assumption that there had simply been some misunderstanding on his neighbor’s part, McAllister leaps into print on the very first day of the official campaign to accuse an opponent of malfeasance.

The utter pettiness of the letter is pretty stunning from a sitting senator.  He goes on to whine:

I look forward to the coming campaign, and I welcome all candidates to it, but I don’t appreciate any candidate misleading my constituents about my views and beliefs. That’s not how we do things here.

Well, “how we do things here” is an opening to remind our readers of the 2012 campaign in which somebody who had an interest in the three-candidate Republican senate primary targetted Joe Sinagra, one of the three candidates, with an attempted dirty trick.  It backfired because whoever was responsible tried to involve me and I had no interest in helping the other two Republican candidates to cull the herd.

McAllister, of course, went on to win the seat.

Now that, apparently, was

“…how we (Republicans) do things here.”

Continuing the theme of corporate tea-leaf reading begun by JV with IBM, the stock movements over at Vermont Yankee’s parent, Entergy deserve a mention as well.

American Banking News reports that  Donald W. Vinci, a Senior Vice President at Entergy just dumped 3,000 shares of the company’s stock.

Entergy (NYSE:ETR) SVP Donald W. Vinci sold 3,000 shares of Entergy stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $78.50, for a total transaction of $235,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 6,891 shares in the company, valued at approximately $540,944.

Mr. Vinci, who joined Entergy on September 1 of 2013, already sold 185 shares @ $63.05 per share on January 31 of this year.

It isn’t at all unusual for a man in his position to dump some of the stock or options he must have received on sign-up, but it might be taken as a lack of confidence in the future of Entergy that he has been on board less than two years and has already disposed of roughly half of his interest in the company.  

Perhaps someone at Entergy thought so, too, because on the same day that Mr. Vinci sold his 3,000 shares, another SVP and Chief Accounting Officer, Allison M. Mount, acquired 72 shares of company stock. A token show of confidence, on balance?

Entergy stock is variously recommended as a “sell” or a “hold” by stock analysts, and a few even say it’s a “buy.” The consensus seems to be to “hold”…for now.  So far, so good.

We want to keep a close eye on the fortunes of Entergy in the marketplace.  There is a great big question mark out there as to what happens with responsibility for decommissioning costs when an LLC (which Vermont Yankee is) goes belly up. The idea of an LLC is to “limit liability” of partners and associated businesses when the LLC files for bankruptcy.

If the price they can get for nuclear generated electricity isn’t worth the operating investment, and Entergy’s leaky creaky fleet of old reactors begins to be too much of a drag on resources, the LLC’s may begin to fall like petals from a dying rose.

I’ve got to make something right.

As you can see in the comments on my “Froth” diary,  which I wrote in haste, I’ve had time to regret in my leisure.

Relying solely on the Stowe Reporter’s account of the meeting, and my seasoned distrust for the motives of local government, I seized on the wrong take-away.

I think I owe Brian Leven a bigger apology.

What I should have been doing was celebrating Mr. Leven’s instinct to recuse himself from deliberations on the applications of his friends.

Though it was simply the proper thing to do, in actual fact, recusal under such non-statutory terms as “friendship” (which we all know can be a powerful influence) is so rare in local Vermont deliberations, that I could not find a single other instance.  

It’s quite a big deal and actually makes effective, in this single instance, the practice of self-determination that is built into most  conflict of interest codes.  Usually, the board member judges him or herself to have no conflict of interest and forgoes recusal.

That Mr. Leven is our Deputy Secretary of State may explain this heart-warming anomaly.  Or, we may have simply gotten lucky and found the “one honest man.”  

Mr. Leven has responded by e-mail to this diary, and in all fairness, since he made the effort to reasonably explain the circumstances, I think his perspective should be available to our readers.  Please read it in the comments below.  

_______________________________________________________________________

We all love our Heady Topper some; but the wildly popular brew has outgrown the Alchemist’s Waterbury digs, forcing the brewer to stop offering on-site retail sales.

The new plan is to move the retail face of the Alchemist to Stowe, and locate it on property belonging to Stoweflake Resort and Spa, where craft beer devotees, from near and far, might gather to pick up a case or two of Heady Topper then wander over to a “visitors’ center.”  Presumably, that’s where they will buy branded novelties, tacky t-shirts and other specialty items you can’t possibly find anywhere else in Stowe.

‘Problem is, the same issue that ended retail sales at the Waterbury cannery, threatens to scotch the brewers’ permit application in Stowe.  That issue is traffic, which, I am told, is a sight to behold whenever the Alchemist opens its doors to retail buyers.

Tuesday, the Stowe Develpment Review Board met at a warned meeting to consider the proposal, and a number of citizens on both sides of the argument made time in their lives to attend the meeting and express their views.

Apparently, this demonstration of public interest was insufficient to persuade board chair Brian Leven to go ahead and conduct the hearing with just five of the seven DRB members present.

According to board chair Brian Leven, the board did not have suitable numbers to discuss the topic adequately. Only five of the seven board members attended Tuesday’s hearing, and Leven is likely to recuse himself from the discussion, since he is friends with the applicants, Alchemist owners John and Jen Kimmich.

When asked if the public could at least be permitted to discuss the plan, since they had gathered for that purpose, Leven decreed that they should submit their opinions in writing and the whole matter would be taken up at a later hearing when, presumably, a fuller number of board members could be present.

Now, four board members represent a quorum, and as such, are legally qualified to vote on any business before the DRB.   A quorum is a simple majority of the total number of board members.  It is the minimum number of members who must be present in order to conduct a vote.  

As anyone who has attended DRB meetings anywhere in the state can attest, it is not all that unusual, particularly in summer, to have one or more DRB members absent at any given meeting. That is precisely the reason for the quorum rule.

But, obviously, when an applicant may experience some opposition to his/her project, the odds of a favorable outcome improve considerably if the project is reviewed by all seven members.  Then if one, two or even three members aren’t sufficiently warm to the plan, it can still be passed by the other four.

Needless to say, public attendees at the warned meeting were quite unhappy that their open participation had been quashed; and one might wonder if the manner in which this meeting was conducted satisfied that portion of the open meeting law which reads:

At an open meeting, the public shall be given reasonable opportunity to be present, to be heard and to participate regarding matters considered by the public body during a meeting, subject to rules established by the chairperson. This does not apply to quasijudicial proceedings.

Then there is the spectre of conflict of interest to consider.  Mr. Leven is “likely to recuse himself from the discussion,” but that does not change the fact that his decision as chair to postpone the hearing until a larger number of representatives is present favors his friends the Kimmichs.

If members of the public, who were told to submit their comments in writing, choose instead to make an issue of the decision, it will, at the very least represent some embarassment for Mr. Leven, the City, and even the applicants.

Bad form, Mr. Leven.

First there is a mountain; then there is no mountain; then there is…

St. Albans’ two senate seats have been transformed into musical chairs.

When 17-year veteran Democratic Senator Sara Kittell declined to run in 2012,  former Senator Don Collins returned to the fray, defeating Republican Dustin Degree to retain the seat in Democratic hands.  

Collins was ready and willing to give it another go in 2014 until just a few days ago when he announced that he would not run again, leaving Democrats with a single, untested candidate (Bill Roberts) for the two-seat district.

Two nights ago, on GMD, Democratic Rep. Mike McCarthy hinted that a new female candidate was preparing to announce for Collins’ seat.

Imagine my surprise when I stumbled out into the sunshine to walk my dog and ran into Dustin (my next door neighbor) who told me that Sara had announced in the Weekend Messenger, which was still unopened on my front porch!

Quipped DD with a grin: “Now I think I’ve changed my position on term limits…I’m for them!”

Of course term limits wouldn’t have kept Sara from returning to the Senate after a break, as she proposes to do.

Kittell will be a far more formidable contender than the unknown Mr. Roberts, who only recently identified as a Democrat.

Long the chair of the Senate Agricultural Committee, Sara is one of the best and most respected political voices for sustainable ag and environmental policies.  She remained very popular with her former constituents in Franklin County, even when her keen sense of responsibility lead her to vote less conservatively than they might have wished.

Always taking great pains to fully inform herself on the issues, Sara has a record of courage and diplomacy that makes her one of the few political figures for whom I’ve never lost respect.

Welcome back, Senator Kittell!

So Century Arms is folding up one flap of its tent in Georgia and stealing silently into the night?

What a shame.

The arms trader that was identified by PBS’ Frontline in 2011 as a big contributor to the gun problem in Mexico, abruptly laid off 41 of its Franklin County work staff today, blaming the White House for the layoffs.  

In a press release, Century said the layoffs occurred as a consequence to the White House’s denial of a large importation of vintage WWII rifles from the South Korean government. A planned, nearly $30 million transaction, the importation was blocked “unexpectedly … at the last minute” after the company had obtained necessary approvals and permits, the release said.

(‘Wonder where the company is getting its talking points these days!)

It seems that the Feds are no longer inclined to turn a blind eye to the company’s practice of circumventing the law by importing old firearms from third-world countries, retrofitting them with contemporary bells and whistles that would have been illegal to import into the U.S. if already built into the third world exports; and then reselling them to god-knows-whom.  

Century Arms  “make-overs” have been finding their way into illegal ownership in Mexico in unusually high numbers.

Over the last four years, more than 500 of the WASR-10s imported by Century Arms have been recovered in Mexico after being purchased in the U.S. That means Century’s WASR-10 accounts for more than 17 percent of the total guns recovered in Mexico since 2006 — the highest of any other recovered gun or rifle.

While we certainly don’t welcome layoffs in Franklin County, this is one situation where we might want to be cautiously cheered by the news.  Besides the remarkable efficiency Century Arms has had in getting its product to Mexican “consumers,” I have heard anecdotally that the labor conditions at CA leave something to be desired.

The New York Times may still consider us the face of drug addiction in Vermont, but at least we might be able to slip the moniker of “Gun Runner Central.”

It’s not perfect, but after a long and wrangling journey, Vermont now has a shorelands protection law (H.526.)  

A truly contemporary sign of political personhood, “Defeat H.526” even had its own Facebook page, which only got 134 “Likes.”  That kind of indicates to me that they probably got it more or less in balance.  Even naysayers must admit something had to be done to.

It was quite a bone of contention up in the St. Albans area, where some property owners chaffed at having to yield perceived property “rights” to the public good.  They’ll get over it though; and they did get some protections for those rights “grandfathered” in.  

“This law is a good step forward. It won’t undo the damage we’ve done where we’ve built too close to our lakes, it will help safeguard water quality and wildlife habitat for future generations of Vermonters. In the coming years, we’ll be very glad we took this step as a state.” – Kim Greenwood, VNRC water program director/staff scientist.

Another “timely(?)” exit from the Senate is Don Collins of Franklin County.

It was announced yesterday in the Messenger that the long-time senator from St. Albans, who returned after a previous retirement to serve one last term, apparently has had enough of Montpelier and plans instead to concentrate on local education issues.

Collins was one of a list of Democratic senators that Republicans rather grandly announced they would be “targetting” this year.

I rather hope this wasn’t the only reason he stepped aside.  Given the remarkably flabby performance of Vermont’s Republican strategists in recent years, that beast don’t got no teeth.

Be that as it may, we’re down to just one Democratic hopeful from Franklin County, Bill Roberts, who is something of a dark horse.  He only recently announced as a Democrat and, as an anesthesiologist

and part-time home redeveloper, he has the cash to stand the campaign.

His focus seems to be on addressing drug and alcohol abuse, a great way to reach the folks of St. Albans who have recently felt the awkward stare of national media around that issue.

Stay tuned.

An editorial in yesterday’s Washington Post  complained loudly about the decision by Oregon voters in two counties to ban GMO crops.   According to the writer, Oregon voters were just being silly since everyone knows that GMO technology is the “miracle” that will feed the multitude:

there is nothing reasonable about anti-GMO fundamentalism. Voters and their representatives should worry less about “Frankenfood” and more about the vast global challenges that genetically modified crops can help address.

Of course the writer failed to mention one excellent reason why voters might have taken such a drastic step.

When corporations design GMO crops their motive cannot always be counted upon to be benign.  In fact, rather than to make a food crop more nutritionally dense, the most common motives for modifying the organism is to increase the yield, make it more attractive, pest resistant, shelf-stable or easier to ship.

In fact, we know from experience that if any of these marketing advantages can only be had at the expense of nutritional value, the marketing advantage of the GMO will trump any nutritional concerns.

There is a darker side of GMO’s that has nothing to do with concerns about “mad science.”  

GMO products are programmed to succeed brilliantly; so brilliantly, in fact, that they pose a threat to the survival of heirloom varieties of the same food crops that must compete for cultivation in order to remain viable.  Without those diverse organisms in active cultivation, not only is the pleasure of choice diminished, but food security may actually be threatened.  If you wonder how that is possible, I recommend you read the chapter on rice in “Much Depends on Dinner” by Canadian cultural historian Margaret Visser.

Quite apart from the threat to food security from diminished diversity, there is an economic reason why Oregon farmers might not wish to have GMO’s in fields near their own.  Through distribution by wind and animals, those GMO’s can easily end up invading the fields of non-GMO farmers, asserting their super genes and overwhelming the heirloom varieties raised intentionally there.

Like Vermont, Oregon has a gourmet food industry that brands itself with the variety and abundance of its native products.  The economic consequences of a GMO or Monsanto hybrid invasion for a branded organic farmer could be devastating.

We have chosen in Vermont merely to require that products containing GMO’s be labelled as such.  That protects the consumers’ right to know; but if biodiversity and food security is to be protected, there will have to be some way to confine the proliferation of GMO’s in the environment.

Perhaps establishment of “GMO-free” counties is something Vermont should consider as well.