Its big-time trade off time in the Gulf. The question is: will the cure be worse than or equal to the disease? BP, British Petroleum, is using dispersants to “break-up” the oil now leaking from the damaged well a mile below the surface.

The trouble or potential problem is that no one knows what these dispersants contain. Their chemical makeup is a proprietary trade secret.  

This is the same wall of corporate proprietary secrecy that environmentalists run up against when trying to find out what natural gas companies are using in the defracting process that releases natural gas from shale.

Even if the materials, called dispersants, are effective, BP has already bought up more than a third of the world’s supply. If the leak from 5,000 feet beneath the surface continues for weeks, or months, that stockpile could run out.  The exact makeup of the dispersants is kept secret under competitive trade laws, but a worker safety sheet for one product, called Corexit, says it includes 2-butoxyethanol, a compound associated with headaches, vomiting and reproductive problems at high doses.

“There is a chemical toxicity to the dispersant compound that in many ways is worse than oil,” said Richard Charter, a foremost expert on marine biology and oil spills who is a senior policy advisor for Marine Programs for Defenders of Wildlife and is chairman of the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council.

“It’s a trade off – you’re damned if you do damned if you don’t — of trying to minimize the damage coming to shore, but in so doing you may be more seriously damaging the ecosystem offshore.”

   For those still seeking the first sighting of the elusive Spring Dubie replete in all its campaign plumage, Facebook only provides an unsatisfying glimpse:    

Favorite Movies: The Omega Man  

Favorite Books: Seek the Fair Land  

Favorite TV Shows: Gunsmoke  

Favorite Quotations: Press On    

Well press on and one can find word that he will be headlining a symposium at the end of next month.  The promo for the Vermont Tiger May event notes that “He [Dubie] has long been interested in new ideas and innovative policies to promote economic growth in Vermont and was a panelist at last year's ‘Compete or Retreat’ symposium.”     Compete or Retreat indeed.    

During the recent budget debate, Dubie was absent and didn’t preside over the State Senate for two days. That Dubie actually missed a chance this week to practice governing and deal with the very problems under discussion at the symposium is worthy of notice.    

He also canceled a scheduled candidate debate appearance for April 28, featuring middle-schooler’s questions. The debate had already been re-scheduled once to accommodate him before he finally ducked it.  

If it is true, as the overworked saying goes, that 80% of life is just showing up, how should we rate Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie’s campaign?    

But the man who would be Waldo in the current Vermont gubernatorial campaign will ride a friendly Vermont Tiger on May 25th.    

The symposium promises to be mostly free from the probing questions of 7th and 8th graders as it will cost $95.00 per person to attend.   Dubie will deliver the morning address at the symposium called Crunch Time, which will deal with the “very serious and immediate economic challenges facing the state and discuss reforms and routes to prosperity”.      

Judge not?  

Sharing the bill with our Lt. Governor will be Fox News personality and former Judge Andrew Napolitano. The judge is a familiar face on Fox’s O’Rielly Factor and has substitute-hosted for Glenn Beck on occasion. Judge Napolitano led a Sept. 2009 Forth Worth rally in support of Glenn Beck’s 912 Project. A rally press release described the event:

The 912 March and Rally is a non-partisan event connecting friends and neighbors who are fed up with the direction this country is headed, want to preserve the U.S. Constitution and limit the government to the powers granted therein.

We encourage everyone to bring signs for the March with words showing their frustrations with the policies and direction this country is headed.

Will tea bags be part of Dubie’s campaign plumage this year?  

  After saying he would attend, he has now ducked another one. To date, in this campaign cycle it was his closest shave yet with actually having to attend a debate.

Dubie campaign manager Corry Bliss said it was a tough decision, but Dubie canceled his anticipated appearance at a forum put on by Barre town seventh- and eighth-graders. Dubie promised his daughter he would visit colleges with her.

He will be absent from the Senate that day as well, Bliss said.

 

Many voters were looking forward to Brian Dubie courageously engaging in the hurly-burly of the gubernatorial campaign and taking questions from seventh and eighth grade students at the up coming candidate debate in Barre.  But sadly the event will be held sans Dubie, leaving the Democratic candidates and students to fend for themselves.  

Family comes first of course, but this coupled with his past record of ducking debates could feed the image of a less than engaged co-pilot campaigner.

‘Take the controls Brian!  Eh Brian…Brian?  

Huh, he was here a moment ago!’  

A new study (here and here) highlights the extent to which life and health insurance companies are invested in the fast food industry. Even as the recent health care bill increases, by mandates the number of people covered by private health care,U.S.,Canadian and European-based insurance firms own nearly $2 billion in fast food stocks. The study points out that fast food can be consumed responsibly but that consumption is linked to obesity, cardiovascular disease and some childhood health issues.  

These are for profit companies so what would you expect? It’s sort of a life insurance profitability hedge fund perhaps.

The researchers, affiliated with Physicians for a National Health Program say this highlights the conflicts that may exist between maximizing profit and the expanding public health role of private health insurers. They state: “If insurers are to play a greater part in the health care delivery system they ought to be held to a higher standard of corporate responsibility."

U.S.-based Northwestern Mutual and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company both offer life insurance as well as disability and long-term care insurance. Northwestern Mutual owns $422.2 million of fast-food stock, with $318.1 million of McDonald's. Mass Mutual owns $366.5 million of fast-food stock, including $267.2 in McDonald's.

New Jersey-based Prudential Financial Inc. sells life insurance and long-term disability coverage. With total fast-food holdings of $355.5 million, Prudential Financial owns $197.2 of stock in McDonald's and also has significant stakes in Burger King, Jack-in-the-Box, and Yum! Brands (owner of Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell) stock.

   The Times Argus online poll asks: Do you understand Challenges for Change? Yes or No, this troubled me.

Like Challenges for Change itself the poll limited its possible responses . As of yesterday the poll results show, perhaps not surprisingly that  only about a quarter of  300+ respondents say, yes they actually understand C for C.  

Could roughly 75  people that said ‘yes’ all work for Public Strategies Group or are some in the legislature?  

Although sick of the race to the bottom aspect of the C for C  I checked out the 47 page  C for C pdf Progress Report. The report details seven “First Wave” charter units, think of them as the shock troops for the CforC program.

What follows are some notes on the robust alternative planning .  

Among three Challenge Outcomes and Proposed Measures for all “First Wave “ departments are nuggets of managerial guidance and brilliance such as: Increase employees’ engagement in their work. After years of layoffs and threatened layoffs by the governor this could be a stand alone challenge for change.    

Some specifics worth highlighting by dept. include:

Department of Liquor Control Additional revenue for the general fund through increased sales.

And a gift card program generating $50,000 in new revenue the first year of sales.

Dept of Fish and Wildlife initiatives include these goals: Generate additional revenues by promoting the sale of Department merchandise such as t-shirts, mugs, hats, books, posters, patches and stamps

And finally this, also for Fish and Wildlife, (which boggles the governmental entrepreneurial imagination):

if feasible, collaborate with VT Lottery Commission to develop new mutually beneficial products.

So during a major National recession, high unemployment and personal financial insecurity part of Vermont’s “First Wave “  plan for its “Better Deal” is actually increased liquor and gift card sales, and fish themed lottery tickets.  

S.117 becomes law with Gubernatorial Whining Statement

Governor Douglas allowed S.117, an act changing the date of Vermont’s Primary Election to become law yesterday without his signature. This new law which moves the primary to August 24th brings Vermont into compliance with a Federal requirement regarding a minimum of 45 days for overseas voters (mostly service members) to return their absentee ballots.  

Other states that faced this issue include Minnesota which made similar changes months ago.  Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty signed it with Minnesota National guard troops present at the ceremony.  

However Governor Douglas opposed the change, and until today’s acquiescence had been coy about whether he would veto the bill.  

Characteristically he did not miss the opportunity to restate his well known objections including his concern that “Vermonters often enjoy their hard-earned vacations and surely are not focused on an election…”

Accompanying his press release with his own petulant version of a presidential signing statement, Douglas offered up a sort of gubernatorial whining statement that lamented ;

“But now, in the guise of assuring that the votes of our brave men and women in the military are counted, as of course they should be, the Legislature has passed S. 117, which in all likelihood will discourage voter participation.

Jobs tour completed, candidate Brian Dubie recently opted out of a televised union-sponsored debate in Barre that might have proved a useful venue to discuss his insights on the state job situation. His absence and low key campaign style gives added significance to all the appearances he does make and utterances he does utter.  

Years ago, Vermont joined thirteen other states in court to tighten standards for new car fuel emissions. Now those standards have been adapted by the Obama administration. Certainly there were generous cheers and credit was shared liberally at the ceremony in Montpelier.

At the event, gubernatorial hopeful Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie readily weighed in, happily recalling a special evening on a rooftop in Baghdad and also curiously declaring that “Green really is green,” while brandishing a dollar bill.  

Dubie reflected on a conversation he had with a U.S. military general on a Baghdad roof in Iraq last year. That general, looking over an evening skyline in the war-torn country, pressed for the need to move off of foreign oil coming from "dangerous parts of the world."  He said clean energy and reducing car emissions are essential to the country's environmental and economic health and safety.  "Green really is green," Dubie said, holding up a dollar bill he took from his pocket.

Times Argus  

Last year in Iraq?

Unless this is a regular occurrence in the life of Brian, he seems confused about when he shared a memorable evening on a rooftop in Baghdad with a U.S. military general.  

From an article Dubie wrote for Aerospace States Association

October, 2007 On a mid-September evening in 2006, I stood on a rooftop overlooking the city of Baghdad with a U.S. Air Force Commanding General. I was deployed to Iraq as an Air Force reservist and member of an Air Force field assessment team.

The city was beautiful at night, but it was not peaceful. The General turned to me and said, “Brian, America has to find ways to use less oil — especially oil that comes from dangerous parts of the world.”

   The Burlington Daily Mentioner’s business correspondent Wichita Garrett wraps up his eight year series on Vermont’s long suffering Republican captains of industry. I quote at length below:  

“Homegrown Vermont Widget manufacturer E.J.Fudd is in the news once again. He announced today that after 42 years he was closing his manufacturing facility in Vermont.  Fudd’s Vermont Widget Co. will be shifting its production to the small Balkan country of Symkaria where he claims it’s cheaper to do business. Fudd started the widget business in his garage in 1968 and rapidly expanded as the Vermont widget caught on nationwide in the mid 1970s.  

Commenting on the reasons for the move, Mr. Fudd said.

‘It makes the most economic sense to pwoduce all of ouw high-end widgets in Symkawia.’ Fudd added “But simpwy put, it costs us significantwy more to pwoduce a widget in Vewmont than we are capabwe of selwing it for, and sadwy, this is not sustainabwe in the cuwwent economy

Vermont Widget’s closing in June will leave 53 workers without jobs. Fudd’s departure will leave approximately 200 design jobs at its Burlington world headquarters, enabling them maintain the Vermont Widget cache.

When asked for a reaction, Governor Douglas said  ‘It’s a sad chapter in the ever-changing global marketplace,’ he predictably added that Vermont has “some costs that are particularly troubling to manufacturers, including taxes and health care”.”

The good Governor and The Daily Mentioner fail to note that the small socialist country of Symkaria has state-provided universal health care. The Symkarianis also enjoy high speed broadband throughout the nation and unlike Vermont’s crumbling roads and bridges they maintain a modern transportation infrastructure.    

The Mentioner’s Garrett continues:  

“The wealthy Elmer J. Fudd, no stranger to tax related controversy, made news last year when he and his wife changed their residency from Vermont to Florida due to what he claimed were inordinately high upper bracket taxes. He published a long emotional and rambling letter at the time:  

‘My wife, Mawrie and I have abandoned Vewmont. Dewe is no more painfuw decision for two 6th genewation native Vermontews than to give up wesidency in the state where we waised ouw famiwy and gwown a successfuw business.  

The wegiswature has stolwen Vewmont fwom the peopwe who wive hewe and then compwetewy destwoyed it. If Vewmont continues with its curwent tax powicy, thewe will soon come a time when the wealthy awe gone. In my opinion, we awe awweady  halfway there and the wecent proposed wegiswation onwy acelewates the fwight of the wealthy.  That’s why my wife and I are sadwy weaving our former home state that now seems intent destwoying itself.’ ”  

As Vermont Yankee Vice President of Operations Mark Savoff was having a press conference this week pledging new "openness and transparency,” another effort was afoot in the opposite direction. The Vermont PSB had been notified on Wednesday of Entergy’s request for a protective order for their recent internal report into the miscommunication (AKA lies) about the underground/buried pipes. All of it hits the Rutland Herald news quietly on a Saturday. Nicely done.    

Entergy Nuclear attorney John Marshall, and three other attorneys from Downs Rachlin Martin, requested the protective order from the board Wednesday, a day before Entergy Nuclear executive Mark Savoff reiterated a pledge Thursday during a press conference for openness and full communication.  

Entergy specifically is seeking to seal the report from its internal investigation conducted by its law firm, Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP, into whether Entergy Nuclear Vermont executives lied to state regulators, state consultants and legislators over the existence of buried underground pipes at Vermont Yankee.

The Vermont Tiger is simply aghast that Joe Biden may have misquoted the poet Virgil at the White House health care bill signing ceremony. Biden’s offending quote the “greatest wealth is health.”

The problem they sniff is … the quote is one of those that cannot be traced to the putative author. (I was never even aware Virgil authored The Putatives).

The Tiger is sadly confused and unfocused. The actual story as I see it is that Joe Biden later misquoted a more recent public figure. Biden quite obviously caught up in the gravity of the event happily uttered “This is a big F’king deal.”

Vice President Biden just awkwardly paraphrased an infamous comment made by the ever erudite and concise Dick Cheney years ago.

Let me see, what exactly were Cheney’s three words?