To my many friends who think I’m a miserable luddite and a crack-pot for refusing to join the Facebook generation,  I would like to submit the following:

Facebook on Thursday began asking certain popular users to upload photos of their government issued identification cards to help the social network test a new accounts verification service.

Now, I would not dream of suggesting that the fathers of social media could be up to no good; but think about the trajectory of gradual reveals we have been subjected to over the past few years.  

We’ve learned of identity theft, data mining, accidental data sharing and access denial.  And now this.

After each unpleasant surprise, we get ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again, with “version X.0” which, we are assured, “will fix all previous issues.”

It’s all good; because, to hear people talk, Facebook and it’s truncated step-child Twitter, have become absolutely essential components of twenty-first century living.  

Apparently, no one can run a business, have a career, or enjoy any decent relationships  without an active virtual presence in social media.  

Of course, Facebook claims that once the user’s identity is verified through a screen-shot of a government issued ID, the virtual record will be deleted, but that requires an inordinate amount of trust on the part of the user; and how many times have we been told that nothing is ever completely expunged from the internet.  

In fact the whole argument for the scheme sounds rather less than convincing.

“This update makes it even easier for subscribers to find and keep up with journalists, celebrities and other public figures they want to connect to,” Facebook said in its statement to TPM, although it is unclear exactly how verifying accounts will do this, unless Facebook posts a “Verified” badge or other mark on their accounts, a la Twitter and Google Plus.

But Facebook has not given any indication it intends to do this, raising the question of what good “verifying” an account will do for subscribers

It’s unlikely that anyone will put up much of a fuss as this experimental “feature” gradually morphs into a basic requirement for all users. In 2012, most users couldn’t bear to be parted from their virtual selves.

But how would our 1990 selves have regarded a future in which, like sheep, everyone would be herded into one big virtual corral and conditioned to surrender their trust to the whims of an anonymous controller?  

I think I actually saw that episode of the Twilight Zone and it didn’t have a happy ending.

The Republican War on Women is now official.  

Apparently the desire by an overwhelming majority of American women (and probably the majority of American men) to have affordable birth control universally available is less important to the Republican Party than the views of a handful of Catholic bishops.

Yes, Catholic bishops, who for decades turned a blind-eye to systemic child abuse, and even now express outrage at attempts by the victims to receive compensation….Catholic bishops who continue to reinforce an official disdain for women that approaches that of the Taliban, albeit without the physical repression…these same Catholic bishops will now dictate the Republican agenda.

Not content to deny birth control coverage to female employees of Catholic institutions, Republican’s have decided it’s a good idea to let any employer deny coverage just because he or she feels like it.

Who couldn’t have seen this one coming?

Under the false colors of religious freedom, Republicans will do their level best to undermine every other intimate choice we care to make.

Way to further narrow your base, Guys!

As if there aren’t already enough compelling reasons to immediately retire BWR Mark 1 reactors like the ones at Fukushima and at Vermont Yankee, Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates has just identified a doozy of a containment flaw that had previously escaped detection!

Analyzing data from the first day of the Fukushima accident, after the tsunami but before the explosions; and comparing those numbers to data collected during a test forty years earlier at the Brunswick facility in North Carolina, Arnie noticed a striking similarity which suggests an entirely unanticpated explanation for how those explosions came to pass.

In the scenario proposed by Fairewinds, as cooling failed at Fukushima, there was an accompanying build-up of contaminated hydrogen gas in the containment vessel. After about eight hours, the pressure build-up in the vessel so far exceeded it’s designed capacity that it actually stretched retaining bolts on the vessel “lid,” creating a space through which  volatile gas escaped into the reactor.  A single spark was all it took to set off a blast, ripping through the reactor and rocketing contaminated debris and gases into the atmosphere.

When the possibility of a hydrogen explosion in the Mark 1 was finally recognized in the 1980’s, a design modification involving a vent was made to all containments for that generation of reactors. This modification has come to be widely accepted as a permanent fix for the problem.  

It turns out that, even though the vent appears to have  functioned properly at Fukushima,  it never could have prevented the exact problem that precipitated the explosions that occurred there!

The potential for a similar chain of events linked to that single design flaw still exists in all Mark 1BWR reactors that remain online today.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has long maintained its official position that the original design flaw in this generation of reactors was resolved through the vent modification, and that the containment vessel could not be breached.

This new evidence suggests otherwise.

Have a look at the brief and very straightforward explanation that Arnie Gundersen provides for this phenomenon:

New Containment Flaw Identified in the BWR Mark 1 from Fairewinds Energy Education on Vimeo.

We’re just about a month out from the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that precipitated nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi.  

It bears mentioning again that, while any effort to apply lessons learned  to current nuclear operations seems to be advancing without appreciable urgency, there is plenty of evidence that industry and government agents in Japan and here at home hastily circled the wagons even before the affected population had been warned to evacuate.  

The grisly truth is that, in the aftermath of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history, protecting economic interests has been given a far higher priority than human health and safety.

In a February 2 interview conducted by CCTV host Margaret Harrington, Maggie Gundersen of Fairewinds Assoc. points out that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission…that’s our guys…knew how serious the situation at Fukushima was, fully nine days before residents were ordered to evacuate!

So effective has the effort been to deflect negative messaging from Fukushima that, if one does not go well out of one’s way to find information about radiation impacts, or even the progress of stabilization efforts at the devastated facility, one is unlikely to know anything at all.

We are dependent on the efforts of independent investigators, like Fairewinds Associates, who, facing a desperate information void, have seized the initiative to do the thankless work of analysis and public education that so-called “regulatory” agencies and governments have completely abdicated.

Shining the Light on the Triple Meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi from Fairewinds Energy Education on Vimeo.

Those in the capacity of decision makers would much rather present a benign picture in the short term so that as much economic “hay” can be made on the nuclear nickel as possible.  They will leave it to a later brain-trust to confront whatever legacy of disease and devastation lies ahead, once it is no longer deniable.

On January 7, none other than the Economist carried this observation about the first government commissioned report concerning Fukushima, and how unlikely it is that the nuclear energy cabal will embrace any of its lessons:

Such reports are, after all, confidence-building exercises. They are meant to reassure the public that, by exposing failures, they will help to prevent them from being repeated. In the case of Fukushima Dai-ichi there is still plenty to be nervous about. Although the government declared on December 16th that the plant had reached a state of “cold shutdown”, much of the cooling system is jerry-rigged and probably still not earthquake-proof. On January 1st a quake temporarily caused water levels to plunge in a pool containing highly radioactive spent-fuel rods…Until somebody in power seizes on the report as a call to action, its findings, especially those that reveal sheer ineptitude, suggest that the public has every reason to remain as scared as hell.

                            ______________________________

While we’re on the subject, I wanted to share an interesting website that a friend passed along to me.  Together with a roster of articles on current technical issues at nuclear plants all over the world, it includes this live, rather chilling video window on the wreckage of Fukushima Daiichi.  Notice how the only sound is the whistling wind and the whitecaps breaking against the nuclear shoreline.  Brrr!

It appears that the Susan G. Komen For the Cure (foundation) has had reason to change its collective mind about de-funding Planned Parenthood.

That says a lot about the power of the women’s lobby to affect change.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Former Vermont Governor, Howard Dean, is speaking out against the decision by the Susan G. Komen Foundation to cave in to right-wing pressure and pull funding for breast cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood.

The Governor, who has served on the Board of Planned Parenthood, has also distinguished himself as Democratic Party chair during the historic period that brought Barack Obama to the presidency.

Could this be evidence that the Democratic message machine is readying itself to reclaim the party’s role as the unapologetic champion of social justice?

In his time, Howard Dean has been one of the best “messaging” men in the Democratic Party.  If this signals a new resolve by the Democrats to go toe-to-toe with Republicans, redefining and reclaiming the moral high-ground, we could still witness a great resurgence of grassroots enthusiasm of the sort that brought record numbers of young people to the polls in 2008.  

#Occupy Wall Street has demonstrated that there is a political will for social justice on the rise in this country that could yet be mobilized before the November election.

Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich is loudly proclaiming that President Obama is waging “a war on religion,” because he won’t allow Catholic institutions to discriminate against their non-Catholic employees who wish to exercise the universal right to obtain birth control through their employee health insurance policies.

Despite evidence that Americans’ support for a woman’s “Right to Choose” is growing, that message just doesn’t carry the hyperbolic clout of wording like “Right to Life,”  which we have ceded to the other side with barely a whimper of protest.  

Why haven’t  we appropriated that power word, “life,” for our own purposes?  Why don’t we women demand for ourselves and our children the “Right to a Livable Life?” which covers the right of choice as well as a whole roster of social justice issues.

Liberal causes are constantly made victims of their own rationality.  We are loathe to employ the gross over-statement of the right, believing we are better than this.

For too many years now, despite an astonishing record of individual acts of hypocrisy, Republicans have succeeded in branding themselves with a holier-than-thou image of moral superiority.  This is purely a marketing strategy; which is, after all, the natural strength of Republicans, since they are as thick with Shinola salesmen as they are with Wall Street confidence men.

But social justice and tolerance represent the ultimate, unassailable high-ground.

It’s time to aggressively re-brand the Republican party with waging an immoral war on women, children, minorities and the poor.

VTdigger is carrying a retraction today that bears some discussion.  This is not to pile blame on ‘Digger for its mistake in posting a press release that was later found to have come from a known hate group, but to consider how easy it is to perpetuate lies and distortions in this era of instant news coverage.  

Publisher Anne Galloway explains that the release, which concerned the purported results of a “survey” on attitudes toward undocumented workers, came to VTdigger from what has usually been a ‘reliable source.’  

The information was distributed by PRNewswire, a commonly used mainstream media information source, and it was also published in The Sacramento Bee.

We received an email from Brendan O’Neill, an activist with Migrant Justice, within minutes of posting the FAIR press release. O’Neill who is an advocate for Mexican migrant workers in Vermont pointed out that FAIR has a dubious reputation. The organization is described as a “hate” group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization, based in Montgomery, Ala.

At least Galloway had the good sense and dignity to promptly remove the scurrilous press release and issue a heartfelt apology.

VTdigger is, after all, of somewhat limited resources, and mistakes can happen; but I was curious to see just how many distinct times this “survey” was referenced on Google by different venues.

The answer is: plenty.  I gave up counting at forty.  

How many times must a lie be repeated before it assumes a mantle of “truthiness” that no amount of daylight can dissolve?

We’ve focused recently on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s historic conflict of interest.  Although the name and peculiar autonomy the Commission enjoys would both suggest that it is a scrupulous servant of the public good, whose sole function is to ensure that all aspects of nuclear energy production in this country are held to the highest standard of safety; it has long been apparent that the NRC is primarily a servant of the industry it is charged with regulating.

In another example of a regulatory agency that seems to be corrupted by its intimacy with the industry it monitors, we are learning that the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) spied on the personal e-mail of a group of six of its scientists and doctors who raised concerns to Congress about medical devices approved by the FDA, that might cause injury to patients.  

All six of the spying victims have experienced harassment or dismissal since their whistleblower status was discovered through the e-mail surveillance.

This revelation, that the FDA mistreated whistleblowers at the possible behest of industry, comes just as a petition is circulating online to once again demand that the President withdraw his appointment (made in 2009) of a former VP and lobbyist for Monsanto, Michael Taylor, to serve as Food Safety “czar” to the FDA.  

It was Mr. Taylor’s lobbying efforts that were central to allowing Bovine Growth Hormone (rGBH) to enter our milk supply.

With industry so deeply embedded in our federal regulatory agencies, it begs the question: how far can we actually be from the regulation-free landscape that Republicans have been clamoring for for years?

Jim Condos is rapidly becoming my all-time favorite elected official.

Last year he toured the state, patiently explaining in town after village, the purpose and process of open meetings.  Having attended one of those tutorials in the Town of St. Albans I can tell you that he was nothing if not thorough.

The purview of the Secretary of State may not be very sexy, having to do, primarily, with the minutia of law; but as I have learned through painful experience, corruption of the local process is at the very heart of many of the problems we later spend years (and fortunes) trying to sort out.

The  excessively liberal use of Executive Session has long been a debatable issue here in Franklin County. Minutes from meetings are typically punctuated with cryptic moves to Executive Session, citing only the statute under which the presumptive move is being made.

Little attempt is made to identify what is the actual business of the Executive Session beyond what is revealed in a resulting decision.

I recently obtained the minutes of a City Council meeting which immediately commenced with one of those broadly-based statutory motions into Executive Session. Return to open session was soon followed with a second Executive Session; so that the reader was at a complete loss as to the rationale or responsibility for decisions that emerged from the meeting.

Exactly whose interests are those obfuscations protecting?  Certainly not those of the citizens.

Finally, it seems that the culture of opacity in our local decision-making process has gone too far .

Secy. Condos has called-out the School Board for BFA-St. Albans and the Northwest Technical Center on their failure to keep a proper record of events that transpired at a January 3 meeting, when a high-profile incident of rules violations was under consideration for disciplinary action.  

Responding to a Free Press query:

Condos… wrote (that) the district had failed to give a true indication of what happened at a Jan. 3 meeting and a motion to go into secret session that night was worded improperly.

The Free Press inquiry was based on lacking minutes when the board was considering discipline against a teacher and a student for a deer hunting incident on school time.

I have absolutely no connection to the school or to anyone involved, and wouldn’t even speculate on whether the decision the Board reached was appropriate; but I will certainly bear in mind the School Board’s lack of transparency the next time I step up to the ballot box.

No doubt Secretary Condos’ name will frequently be taken in vain this weekend here and there around St. Albans, where boards and councils rarely face challenges when they do things ‘their way.’

This is just to say that there remain many St. Albans residents who congratulate you, Secretary Condos, for a job well-done.

Did you get a robo-call yesterday from schoolchoiceweek.com?  

I did; and as innocuous as the approach was, the underlying dog whistle was ear-splitting.

So I took a little stroll around the web, first visiting the touted website which offered little more than honey-covered affirmations of how concerned we all are that our kids should have the best possible opportunities to learn.

I didn’t choose to immediately jump down one of the rabbit holes that capture data from the innocent, but instead returned to my Google search where I learned that the site was directly linked to another site belonging to “Students for Liberty” which was seeking student bloggers to write about School Choice Week.  

That site was considerably more revealing, as it included video clips of  Dr. Eward Hughes of “The Atlas Society for Objectivism” and Michael Strong of “FLOW,” both devoted to themes of libertarianism and capitalism; and it made the following call to college students:

The philosophy of liberty is in jeopardy today. The older generations have let us down, and there seem to be few short-term solutions. Our hope for a free society lies in the future. The best investment one can make to promote liberty today is in the youth, particularly in students…The problem is significant, but the solution is clear: There is a need for an organization to counter the climate of authoritarianism on campus by directly supporting students dedicated to liberty.

A little more digging and I came up with the usual suspects: the Koch Brothers, of course.  It seems that promotion of the second annual School Choice Week is being funded by the now familiar Americans for Prosperity.  

The Arkansas Times blog reports that

Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-financed lobby group, is pushing a national school choice week and the opening event will be simulcast in Arkansas, with the devoted gathering tonight at Lt. Gov. Mark Darr’s pizza joint in Rogers…

There will be much railing about the nasty unions – though only three of the 200 or so Arkansas districts have negotiating agreements with unions. It’s all about “choice” – the focus-group tested phrase by which the Kochs are pushing for school vouchers in the United States.

“School choice,” “neighborhood schools,” both are stealth messages that encode an agenda of segregation and defunding for public education.  

And gutting public education would also effectively hamstring th teacher’s unions, a major source of support for the Democratic Pary and progressive policy in general.

What do the Koch Brothers have in mind for education in America?  The voucher system they favor would quickly move a privileged segment of the population out of public schools, further eroding the quality of public education by undermining its funding strategy.

With educational failure thus ensured for most poorer Americans who, even with vouchers, would be unable to afford private education in an environment of rising prices, an ample low-wage workforce and captive consumer-class would be ensured  to the the Koch Brothers constituents.  

Public school failure would further curtail the number of poorer Americans who could access higher education; and an uneducated majority is extremely pliant when it comes to the political agendas of the right.

Through donations with strings attached, the Koch’s have already made some inroads toward control of higher education:

Last May, the St. Petersburg Times reported that the Koch Foundation had pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University’s economics department. “In return,” wrote Times reporter Kris Hundley, Koch representatives “get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting ‘political economy and free enterprise.'” In total, FSU received a pledge of $6.5 million over the course of six years from the Koch Foundation.

Shapes of things to come?

When I first moved to Vermont in 1987, I was told in no uncertain terms that I should give up any idea of growing rhododendrons or roses at my new home.  The winters were simply too cold.

Just shy of thirty years later, rhododendrons and roses grow in abundance here in St. Albans,  and a 2008 article in USA Today complained that the growing zone map issued by the USDA was no longer a reliable source:

The map doesn’t show, for example, that the Southern magnolia, once limited largely to growing zones ranging from Florida to Virginia, now can thrive as far north as Pennsylvania. Or that kiwis, long hardy only as far north as Oklahoma, now might give fruit in St. Louis.

Magnolias in Pennsylvania and kiwis in St. Louis? Who’d have thought…?

While the current crop of Republican presidential hopefuls may be in full climate science denial, a brand new USDA zone map confirms that a general warm-up has indeed been in progress for some years now.

So that we might better appreciate the significance of the changes, the Arbor Day Foundation provides their own handy interactive map on which we are invited to track  the northward shift of climate zones clear across America.

And, anticipating release of the new USDA map, forestry writer Cristina Santiestevan wrote in 2010 that

The type of climate we have for plants now is what we had 20 years ago, but roughly 200 miles to the south,” explains Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University who develops models to predict future climate impacts around the country. In other words, the hardiness zones on the old map are now off, in some cases by as much as 200 miles.

She included her own mapped projections of forest impacts due to climate change over the next 90 years and concluded:

Ultimately, climate change will draw new lines between species and ecosystems. Some changes may be subtle and hard to notice, such as the gradual decline of coastal redwood forests over the coming centuries. Other changes will be hard to miss, such as the absence of blazing sugar maple trees in much of New England’s autumn landscape.

And, if her projections prove correct, long before the sugar maples disappear entirely, their economic value to Vermont will shrivel and disappear.  What happens then to the “Vermont Brand?”

Every year, as the color fades and the syrup dwindles, we will be painfully reminded not of nature’s renewable miracles,  but of her ultimate fragility at the hands of a reckless and insatiable species.