Riding the rails 1,2,3..4 with Gov. Douglas.His train may have an engine at both ends .

1) Model Railroading Show March 2008  Gov. Jim Douglas cut the opening ribbon and then played with a few of the model trains at the Vermont Rails 2008 model railroad show at Champlain Valley Exposition .His wife, Dorothy looked on as Gov. Douglas tried out the remote control for the carnival train layout  

2) February 26, 2009 The Douglas administration last year proposed eliminating the Albany-to-Rutland train route and replacing it with an Amtrak-operated bus service. The budget-balancing plan sought to cut about $400,000 in Fiscal Year 2009 spending and save an additional $1.4 million in the 2010 budget.

3) March 23, 2009 Earlier this year Gov. Jim Douglas,  proposed cutting the state’s $1.4 million appropriation for operating the Ethan Allen Express.

4) Today  the Douglas train has changed tracks ………..

“The best way to develop and expand important high-speed and intercity rail systems to their greatest potential is by working in close coordination with our New England neighbors” said Vermont Governor Jim Douglas. “The health of New England’s economy and its environment is highly dependent on all states working together because of the proximity and interdependence of our major cities and towns. Establishing affordable, convenient, and well-coordinated rail connections throughout the entire northeast is a pre-requisite to ensuring our region’s future economic and environmental well being.”  

Vermont Agency of Transportation Secretary David Dill. “Much progress has already been made, and everyone is committed to keeping the momentum rolling.”

http://cvexpo.blogspot.com/200…

http://www.timesargus.com/arti…

http://www.wcax.com/global/sto…

http://www.vermontbiz.com/news…

Maybe the problems are built right in, “We decided on the name “TRAZE” for our brand of RFID products, considering that RFID is a “Track and RAce” technology; “Z” was used instead of “C” to denote ‘the spirit of Zorro’ which is the passion, energy and excitement that we have for this technology.”  Pradhyumna Venkat CEO, GEMINI TRAZE (India’s prime RFID manufacturer

Who could have predicted that RFID’s in our pockets  with hackable identifying codes could lead to privacy concerns.Vermont and Washington State are using and testing enhanced drivers ID with RFID’s for easier fast border crossing. California and Washington have passed anti RFID hacking laws .But with a $ 190.00 tag reader from EBay a man in California easily hacked passers by identifying codes.

Unlikely but perhaps Senator Lieberman’s Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will jump into action on this with a little oversight on this potential privacy problem. Is privacy still dismissed as a pre 9-11 concern or have we entered a post post pre 9-11 era?

……his scanner detected, then downloaded to his laptop, the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians’ electronic U.S. passport cards embedded with radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags. Within an hour, he’d “skimmed” the identifiers of four more of the new, microchipped PASS cards from a distance of 20 feet

Among new options are the chipped “e-passport,” and the new, electronic PASS card – credit-card sized, with the bearer’s digital photograph and a chip that can be scanned through a pocket, backpack or purse from 30 feet.

……..”enhanced” driver’s licenses embedded with RFID tags now being issued in some border states: Washington, Vermont, Michigan and New York. Texas and Arizona have entered into agreements with the federal government to offer chipped licenses, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has recommended expansion to non-border states. Kansas and Florida officials have received DHS briefings on the licenses, agency records show..

The purpose of using RFID is not to identify people, says Mary Ellen Callahan, the chief privacy officer at Homeland Security, but rather “to verify that the identification document holds valid information about you.”

http://www.latimes.com/business/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-us-chipping-america-iv,0,6091908.story

http://www.thehindubusinesslin…

 My apologies here .As GMD fact check points out I do not know my  NRG(NRG Incorporated ) from ENT(Entergy) and jumped foolishly to some very mistaken conclusions here .I intend to put much greater stock in fact checking and patience in the future ….BP

According to reports the deal making is heating up in the nuclear sector as Chicago based Exelon upped it hostile take over bid for Entergy .However Wednesday Entergy rejected the $8billion stock bid from the hostile suitor ,but also said “it is still open to any proposal that properly accounts for its fundamental value and extraordinary growth prospects.”

A hostile takeover allows a suitor to bypass a target company’s management .I didn’t even know Entergy was dating. I must read all the wrong Vermont papers to have just discovered all this by accident or maybe it just isn’t a big game changer .It certainly sounds newsworthy.

Exelon Corp  said it plans to hold a conference call on Thursday morning to discuss its hostile takeover bid for independent power producer NRG Energy Inc Exelon, the largest nuclear power company in the United States, in October offered 0.485 of one of its shares for every NRG share. It has nominated a slate of directors to stand for election at NRG’s annual meeting………..

But the bid has become the subject of much speculation as NRG’s stock price has risen above Exelon’s offer price. Analysts have suggested that this means that Exelon would have to materially raise its bid to win NRG shareholder support.

Several arbitrageurs — investors who speculate on companies involved in ongoing deals — suggested that Exelon might simply try to talk NRG’s share price down or its own share price up. But another did say that it would be unusual for the company to hold an event if it did not plan to change its bid.

Naturally this raises a ton of questions about how the deal will effect Vermont Yankee and its pending license extension. Who might get custody of poor little debt ridden potential spin-off Enexus? An Exelon Entergy mash-up would create a most formidable corporate foe for the state to deal with on the regulatory level. Another question that springs to mind is has this on-going threat of a hostile takeover already been a factor.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/…

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/…

http://www.reuters.com/article…

The George W. Bush Foundation is now assembling trophies for his presidential library. They  may include on display the 9 millimeter Glock pistol given to Bush that was taken from Saddam Hussein by soldiers that captured him in his hide out.

A professor and historian at Rice University in Texas said (emphasis added) the pistol opened a psychological window into Mr. Bush’s view of his presidency…..You think ? The pistol in a glass case for five years was often shown to visitors in the Oval Office.

My gawd it really was all about George. Even out of office Bush can cause my jaw to drop in amazement at his horrid shallowness. No regrets from George, he has his little prize.

“That was a great day,” Mr. Bush told the Pentagon Channel in December. “I’ve had a lot of beautiful days in office; some not so happy. But my best days have come when certain milestones have been reached, and I love to share those milestones and those days with the people who actually made them happen.”

Mark Langdale, the president of the George W. Bush Foundation, said the library would use items to highlight 25 of Mr. Bush’s presidential decisions. “The gun is an interesting artifact, and it tells you that the United States captured Saddam Hussein and disarmed him literally,” Mr. Langdale said. “How we fit that into the decision to go to war, we haven’t gotten to that point yet.”

Governor Douglas may have found himself a little green piece .Greenopia a glossy green website that looks to be based in California has rated  Governor Douglas in the top ten greenest governors .The announcement already found it’s way onto the Vermont State website “It’s an honor to receive this recognition,” said Governor Douglas.

from Greenopia …

As of this writing, Governor Douglas has not taken any Political Courage Test, but the Vermont Government page has a list of all of the Governor’s initiatives and interested parties can read more about these programs.

Greenopia does have a useful comment section .

http://www.greenopia.com/USA/G…

http://www.vermont.gov/portal/…

This past month almost at the same moment the media stared with awe at the capacity of twitter to cover the Iranian election protests and broadcast their cause worldwide against the wishes of the hard-line government, another story has played out nearby and to a large degree behind the scenes. In the middle of June after seven months of captivity New York Times reporter David Rohde and an a translator Tahir Ludin escaped from their Afghan Taliban kidnappers by scaling down wall and miraculously walking to safety at a checkpoint .The fact that they were kidnapped and held was kept under near total news blackout with the cooperation of most of the media as we know it. With one of their  collogues life was at stake a black-out on news regarding the event was seen as  a way to keep the situation from escalating and further endangering the reporter and his translator. “Persuading another publication or a broadcaster not to report the kidnapping usually meant just a phone call from one editor to another,” said Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times.

It is amazing yet not unexpected what the New York Times in a life or death situation can accomplish with a phone call. However the next step getting the blackout to extend to Wikipedia has set an interesting precedent in its own way. Think about the fact that with all the Google ,the inner tubes, wiki’s and the tweeters  a major news story was still successfully blacked out for over half a year .Separate out the purity of motive  for a minute and consider the  ability that a small group of people can have over information distribution in the world, even today with the media fractured in thousands of little pieces. .

To a degree this brings down to Earth some of the rhetoric about the power the internet gives to the huddled masses. Google at will can still clamp down information in China and with a call from Bill Keller the New York Times can, in a pinch easily stop and alter Wikipedia entries as it needs. Just as in Iran the U.S. State Dept requested multiple social networking and communication services to keep information flowing, it might have in another situation worked to shut them down.

The sanitizing was a team effort, led by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, along with Wikipedia administrators and people at The Times. In an interview, Mr. Wales said that Wikipedia’s cooperation was not a given.

On Nov. 13, news of the kidnapping was posted and deleted four times within four hours, before an administrator blocked any more changes for three days. On Nov. 16, it was blocked again, for two weeks.

“We didn’t want it to look unusual in some fashion that would draw speculation, so we would protect it for three days, or up to a month, which is pretty normal,” Mr. Wales said. He added, “Weeks would go by before there was a problem.”

On Feb. 10 and 11, two users added the kidnapping information several times to Mr. Rohde’s page, only to see it removed each time, and they attached some heated notes to their additions. “We can do this months,” one said.

When the news broke Saturday, the user from Florida reposted the information, with a note to administrators that said: “Is that enough proof for you [expletives]? I was right. You were WRONG.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06…

http://www.editorandpublisher….

Half of states flunk

Kind of a shame to mention this unpleasantness after the recent reassertion of legislative power here in the state but as more tough issues are tackled by the legislature, and with steadily increasing lobbying maybe the time has come .This survey study of financial disclosure doesn’t necessarily reflect on any one persons integrity, it only reflects the fact that the reporting requirements are weak, at the bottom actually, here in Vermont according the Center for Public Integrity. Also note on the executive side that Vermont is one of 4 states as of 2007 that did not require governors to file financial disclosure reports at all. Last election Douglas did and Dubie didn’t release their income tax records and of course Gaye Symington did both .

Twenty of the 50 states “failed” in a survey of financial-disclosure requirements of state legislators, according to rankings released by the Center for Public Integrity .

Since 1999, CPI has from time to time been reporting on state lawmaker-disclosure requirements, and ranking the states based on a 43-question survey that measures public access to information on legislators’ employment, investments, personal finances, property holdings, or other activities outside the legislature.

Tied for the bottom of the ranking, each with a score of zero, were Michigan, Vermont and Idaho, which require no financial disclosure at all of lawmakers.

The complete rankings here ….. http://www.publicintegrity.org…

http://www.editorandpublisher….

…..and here and here

When President Obama  unveiled the ARRA American Recovery and Reinvestment Act logo in March ,as the stimulus funds first entered the food chain he said “These emblems are symbols of our commitment to you, the American people – a commitment to investing your tax dollars wisely, to put Americans to work doing the work that needs to be done. So when you see them on projects that your tax dollars made possible, let it be a reminder that our government – your government – is doing its part to put the economy back on the road of recovery.”

The signs show that our tax dollars are at work for us. Many Republican and of course Democratic governors across the country have not been shy about putting up the ARRA signage at highway bridge and paving projects but  now with the program rolling along and with the successful completion of some of the earliest projects Sen. Judd Gregg has decided he doesn’t like the signage or the publicity they bring to the recovery projects .He seems to be pulling a full New Hampshire pennywise routine on this issue after looking so foolish earlier in the year with his back and forth on the Sec. Of  Commerce  job in the Obama administration and  newspaper reports of  personal profiting from real estate investments at the former Pease Air force base redevelopment .  

DOVER – U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg wants to ax the plaques, as in those highway signs alerting motorists to work being done thanks to the federal stimulus package.

He said the signs do nothing except let lawmakers “pat themselves on the back” about passing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The New Hampshire Republican said the legislation, which he opposed, has been a “disappointment” and costs in excess of $1 trillion.

Gregg filed legislation this week to prohibit the use of stimulus funds for signs that advertise taxpayer spending.

Senator Gregg does  have more than passing  knowledge of how to pat ones self on ones own back.

– Gregg earmarked$500,000 in federal money to Plymouth State University for the “Judd Gregg Meteorology Institute.”

– “Gregg Hall” at the University of New Hampshire was dedicated after Gregg secured $266million  in federal funds for the university.

– “The Judd Gregg Library” was dedicated after Gregg secured $150,000 for the Nasua Policy Athletic League.

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pb…

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/…

The ATV on state land issue appears to have a little important back-story. The rule change may be allowed as a result of an intentional change in transportation bill wording initiated by the Governor and passed with little notice by legislators.This brings to mind the Governor’s curious crack at the close of the session about it having been a sloppy session,or words to that effect.How straightforward was the Governor in dealing with the legislators ? The state won’t rise or fall because of this but it certainly makes one wonder what over goodies the Governor may have slid into our laws over the years .ATV versus conservationist is just such a perfect divisive issue (a distraction ?) for the man to happily crow about as the state grinds into recession .

The public comment period for this has been extended and the rule change may be considered by a legislative committee.

The transportation budget bill approved by lawmakers this year and signed into law by Gov. James Douglas deleted the phrase “on private property” from the statute that allows the state’s association of ATV riders to spend fee and penalty money on trail maintenance and enforcement. That change – unnoticed by many lawmakers at the time – set the groundwork for permitting ATV trails on public land.

..Agency Secretary Jonathan Wood said he explained to the House and Senate Transportation Committees the effect of the change.

“That was explained to them and that was passed,” he said.

But

both lawmakers involved in the ATV issue and conservation groups opposing the new rule said Monday they did not know the transportation budget included the ATV language, and that ANR had not warned them of the word change or the proposed rule during the legislative session.

http://www.timesargus.com/arti…