A newspaper article heavily quoting a man that witnessed the Douglas Pie in the face Incident appears today .What if the pie had been loaded ? A man who worked for James Jeffords (it doesn’t mention what capacity )in Washington is traumatized . He maintains that “clearly the situation could have been life threatening” Later he goes on to say that Santa would the one to be dead !  The man on receiving end of the pie felt fine about attending several more parades .I believe 18 was the total number  .

A  Middlesex man , who worked for former U.S. Sen. James Jeffords from 1996-2002, witnessed the parade incident and chased down the(alleged?) pie-thrower with the help of two others, including Barre Mayor Thomas Lauzon.

“The seriousness of this I don’t think can be overstated,” he said in an interview. “We certainly live in a time when what might previously have been seen as a prank could have turned into a tragedy. He was able to put a pie in the governor’s face; that could have easily been life-threatening.”

“Obviously the governor was quite startled and upset,” Harrington said. “It went from a very congenial situation – the downtown atmosphere was one of happiness, neighborliness and joy. Then this intrusion of an individual whose motives are inexplicable to me, but clearly the circumstances could have been life-threatening.”

“I know from having been with Sen. Jeffords staff during 9/11, I frankly think if this young man had tried to do this type of thing in Washington D.C., he might be dead right now,” Harrington said.

      Doesn’t this speak more to what is wrong in Washington ?

Denise Casey said the incident has not changed the way Douglas, she or other staffers feel about public appearances. She said she’s not watching the crowd, wondering is if someone on the sidelines has a pie poised to toss.

She said Douglas was comfortable with the way the incident was handled.

http://www.timesargus.com/apps…

I put the flag out on our house early this morning, the 4th ,Independence Day .It’s the entire country’s flag after all .

It’s an understatement that there is much the country needs to put right ,but what a teacher I had years ago used to say to us students is true of this country “You all have great potential if you use it “. Although I think she loved the sarcasm too.

It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory.

 

John Adams,1776

It has been noted that mass transit ridership and fuel efficient car sales are going up as people feel the pinch of higher gas prices. Now a Pew research poll shows that some attitude shifts are also underway in regard to fuel prices. Some of this is surprising .The number of people considering conservation important declined.Conservation in practice and cost is different than conservation as concept. Those in favor of drilling in more and different places increased .A big change also in the 18-29 year old groups attitude. Maybe the American lifestyle is not negotiable when push comes to shove .Poor Jimmy Carter suffered the consequences way back when of trying to deliver an unwanted message to the country that we live in a World with limited resources that should be used wisely.Today the ever helpful Newt the Gingrich has a website with a petition to “drill here ,drill now ” …1.2 million hits .

-Nearly half (47%) now rates energy exploration as the more important priority, up from 35% in February. The proportion saying it is more important to increase energy conservation and regulation has declined by 10 points (from 55% to 45%).

-The proportion of liberals who say expanded energy exploration is the more important priority also has doubled (from 22% to 45%).

-About the same proportions of Democrats (46%)and Republicans (43%) now say expanded exploration

-the percentage of liberals who said expanding energy exploration was their most important priority doubled from 22 percent in February to 45 percent; increased by 19 points to 50 percent among independents; and by 18 points to 46 percent among women.

-Fully half of people ages 18 to 29 (51%) now say expanding energy exploration is a more important priority for energy policy than increasing energy conservation and regulation,up from about a quarter (29%)

http://people-press.org/report…

( – promoted by odum)

Here’s a leadership hot button opportunity for some State politician’s skills. The ongoing Intervale compost saga cries out for resolution. A timely issue to say the least. Burlington and the State benefit from this energy saving program it’s in the public’s day to day lives. This tangle is a micro-drama of the Statewide political landscape. It’s got Gov. Jim, Gaye Symington, Progressives, the ANR, Historic Preservation, the State Attorney General and the Chittenden Solid Waste district all on stage at once.

The nonprofit composter will continue to accept waste and sell compost for the moment, but its future is “incredibly tenuous,” a spokesman for the nonprofit Intervale Center said.

Attorney General Bill Sorrell, whose office holds one key to the short-term future of the composting operation, said he hopes for a “win-win settlement” of Intervale’s problems.

At the solid waste district, general manager Tom Moreau said his board has been increasingly skeptical that composting has even a near-term future in the Intervale.

“They are saying, we’ve put in a tremendous amount of time and resources, and maybe we should cut our losses now,” he said.

While the solid waste district is interested in taking over the operation for two years – until an alternative site can be developed – there are too many unknowns about what regulators would require during that two years, Moreau said.

“We’re not getting transparency from the Agency of Natural Resources or the Division of Historic Preservation, and what we do see appears to make the operation financially infeasible,” he said.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress…

Another useful compost operation may fail due to lack of coherent policy leadership

Vt. Compost told to halt operations(not Intervale)

Vermont Press Bureau

MONTPELIER – The Natural Resources Board has told Karl Hammer to halt operations at Vermont Compost Co., located on Main Street a few miles outside of the state’s capital city.

Hammer’s company, along with the composting operation in Burlington’s Intervale, have been used as examples of how to get food scraps out of the landfill and into people’s gardens and farms.

But both have run into trouble with state regulators and neighbors. In Hammer’s case the question at the root of the matter is whether his site in Montpelier is a farm – therefore outside the jurisdiction of the Act 250 land use rules – or a manufacturing company subject to them.

Early this year Hammer was told he needs a permit under the state’s sweeping land use regulation to run the composting facility. He appealed that “jurisdictional opinion,” but the Natural Resources Board has now declined to allow him to keep operating until that process is complete.

Gov.Douglas has put his best people to work girding .They have jumped into action.The Lt.Gov.Dubie declared a symbolic fuel emergency to publicize the oil issue ,in case anyone had failed to take notice .

Now Neil Lunderville says ‘let them cut firewood ‘.

Lunderville … The cut-your-own firewood program, he said, would see professional loggers transport felled trees from state and town forests to lots around the state. Vermonters who met certain eligibility requirements, he said, would then be able to cut and split wood at those sites.

That program, though, is largely weather dependent. A rainy summer, he conceded, would likely prevent cut wood from drying in time for winter.

Perhaps someone in the Douglas administration should suggest covering the wood and wearing a raincoat.

http://www.timesargus.com/apps…

…New York expands tech infrastructure

Brattleboro Reformer lays some blame here with Gov.Jim “Equals Jobs ” Douglas

Some perspective on plant layoffs

It’s not taxes, regulations, energy costs or attitude. New York chose to build an infrastructure for the future and the tech firms followed. Vermont — under the leadership of Gov. Douglas — has not.

Douglas spoke Tuesday about “the need to continue to further diversify our economy, encourage innovation and empower employers to create more and better paying jobs.” But these are just words. When it comes to making a real commitment toward doing these things, he and his administration have nothing to offer except tired rhetoric.

Douglas and the Vermont Republican Party can keep blaming the Democrats for the alleged anti-business climate, or they can come up with real ideas, backed by real money, to create the next big wave of creativity and innovation in Vermont. We’re betting they’d rather keep pointing fingers than come up with a plan.

http://www.reformer.com/reform…

So take a reminder look at McCain who really hasn’t wobbled from the hard right at all .He’s  just ……another right wing Republican we are told everyone in the country wants to stop and  have a beer with .Another regular guy .

‘The media love him, especially his war record. He is the GI Joe doll they played with as kids,’ says Professor Shawn Bowler, a political scientist at the University of California at Riverside.

McCain’s staff was so riddled with lobbyists that at least four have resigned because of their contacts and businesses. They included Doug Goodyear, McCain’s convention chairman, whose company was paid to improve the image of Burma’s brutal dictatorship.Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, the man leading the effort to capture the White House. Davis, too, has been a top lobbyist. His firm’s clients ranged from Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov to telecoms giants such as Comsat and Verizon.

McCain is friends with G Gordon Liddy, one of the Watergate burglars. Liddy, who once plotted to kill a left-wing journalist, has hosted a fundraiser with McCain in his own home. McCain also endorsed and campaigned for Alabama politician George Wallace Jr in 2005, despite Wallace’s links to racist groups. Wallace has praised and spoken at meetings of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white-power group that opposes inter-racial marriage and promotes white racial purity. If a moderate voter were seeking to judge a politician by the company he keeps, then McCain keeps some very odd company indeed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…

Al Jazeera broadcasts Vermont channel and Burlington Telecom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

…or aren’t there a lot of Dubies here ?The Vermont National Guard is in the process of preparing for deployment overseas perhaps to Afghanistan by 2010.

In an effort keep the capacity at levels adequate  to met an at home emergency officials are contacting retired veterans,this according the Times -Argus. Won’t some one ask the Governor about this ?

Alert orders issued by the Pentagon in April indicate that as many as 1,900 Vermont soldiers and airmen could be heading to Afghanistan sometime in 2010. The deployment, if it happens, would halve the Guard’s approximately 3,650-person membership and strain its ability to respond to in-state disasters.

“We need to be cognizant of what could happen with a flooding situation, or an ice storm, or some disaster in which the state of Vermont would need our assistance at a time when a lot of our Guard soldiers might be gone,” Maj. Gen. Michael Dubie, head of the Vermont National Guard, said Friday.

The Vermont State Guard, a military unit that operates under the auspices of state government, could assume some of those duties. And efforts are under way to recruit more retired Vermont veterans into the 900-person force.

http://www.timesargus.com/apps…

Everybody knows this type of information gathering is certainly growing in leaps and bounds.I am not ready for the tin foil hat yet but given the trends lately it’s always option .Reality Mining a new term for a system to gather ,track and make sense of the data patterns from cell phone ,GPS and personal electronic gadgets.This particular system is at present they say only tracks broad patterns not specific behavior of individuals.The business innovators originally had the idea to pay people for their data but that proved too complicated .Certain aspects of our concept of privacy are evolving quickly before everyone’s eyes.

We’re in the midst of a boom in devices that show where people are at any point in time. Global positioning systems are among the hottest consumer electronics devices ever, says Clint Wheelock, chief research officer at ABI Research, a technology market follower. And cellphones increasingly come with G.P.S. chips. All of these devices churn out data that says something about how people live. Just this month, the journal Nature published a paper that looked at cellphone data from 100,000 people in an unnamed European country over six months and found that most follow very predictable routines. Knowing those routines means that you can set probabilities for them, and track how they change.

It’s hard to make sense of such data, Sense Networks, a software analytics company in New York, earlier this month released Macrosense, a tool that aims to do just that.

The Macrosense tool lets companies engage in “reality mining,” a phrase coined by Sandy Pentland, an M.I.T. researcher who was also a co-founder of Sense and now advises it on privacy issues.Sense is not the only company engaged in reality mining. Inrix, a Microsoft spin-off, uses traffic data to predict traffic patterns. Path Intelligence of Britain monitors traffic flow in shopping centers by tracking cellphones.

Reality mining raises instant questions about privacy, especially when cellphone data is involved. In the United States, it is illegal in many cases for cellphone companies to share customers’ location data without their consent.

NY Times Business  section

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06…