Senator Shumlin was on the radio today calling the Governor’s mysterious, unspecified, heretofore only alluded-to-at-the-11th-hour, $100 million stimulus package a “fairy tale” in the face of the concurrent $25 million budget hole… but there are those who believe a real $100 million dollars worth of economic stimulus is suddenly availible in this budget, lurking just unseen, as per this report from CBS news…

From Godzilla and King Kong to Mike and Scully, monsters have always loomed large in the popular imagination. But what if one of these beasts actually existed – not just on some far away continent or in a film writer’s head, but in your own backyard?

Dennis Hall claims just that. Twenty years ago, he looked out onto the vastness of Lake Champlain near his home in Vergennes, Vt., and after seeing what he saw, he’s never looked back. Hall has made the quest for [the Governor’s $100 million stimulus package] the focus of his life.

He isn’t the only one who believes a [a $100 million stimulus package] lurks in those waters, reports Saturday Early Show Co-Anchor Russ Mitchell. Sighting sheets from last summer carry entries by people ranging from kids to full-grown adults. And then there are videos.

Sightings of [a $100 million stimulus package] are nothing new. There are even cave drawings of something that looks a lot like [a $100 million stimulus package] dating back to the 1700s. These days, there are scores of sightings each year. And on the streets of Burlington, Vt., you are likely to get a first-person account.

Whether [it] actually exists or not, the legend of [the Governor’s $100 million stimulus package] is certainly a real part of local life Mascots, car washes, commerce, even politicians celebrate the beast.

Of course, not everyone from the [area] is convinced.

“I don’t honestly believe there’s something that big out there,” says Ellen Marsden, a professor who has been studying the [area] for more than five years. “We need something mysterious … that we don’t understand yet. I think it fills a human need. But– if you’re going to start subjecting it to the scrutiny of science, it’s not as easy to explain.”

But Dennis Hall says those who don’t believe in [the Governor’s $100 million stimulus package] are missing out on something.

“Well, they’re missing out on the possibilities that there’s a little more in this world than what meets the eye,” he says.

The crew from The Saturday Early Show looked and looked, but they didn’t see [the Governor’s $100 million stimulus package].

A few edits for content of course, just for clarification.

UPDATE: Some more down-to-earth, er… “detail”… via the Dems:

I’m not sure what to make of this, but I damn sure want to find out.

Yesterday’s Times Argus editorial was another milquetoast affair, blandly dancing around the notion that tasers seem like a good idea in cases where an individual (either law enforcement or civilian) life may be threatened  – but refusing to firmly or authoritatively address where the restrictions on use should be drawn, what punishments should greet those officers that deviate from them, and whether we should spend any time considering the clear infractions that have already occurred. Instead, we were greeted to what amounts to yet another easy restatement of cookie-cutter common sense, all in the vague defense of Attorney General Sorrell’s perpetual refusal to hold any police officer anywhere in the state accountable for any excesses, ever.

Except for one truly astonishing line which the TA drops as casually as they might drop a byline:

Critics of Taser use say Tasers have caused fatalities or serious injuries, but Sorrell said that just last year there were hundreds of instances of Taser use in Vermont with only one minor injury.

Say what?!?! Hundreds???

Lets take that value at its most minimal, and assume “hundreds” only means around two “hundreds.” That’s approximately 4 tasings in Vermont every week. And “one minor injury?” Says who? Who is defining “minor?” What was the injury? In fact, what is this “Sorrell says…” business? What is the source of this figure?? As definitive as its presented, it had better be more meaningfully sourced than Sorrell’s so-vague-as-to-be-meaningless line from his press conference from the other day (you know, the one where he contradictorily insisted we couldn’t have statewide standards for taser use, but went on to define which current tasings reported in the media could be considered appropriate, and to what degree? Please.).

Now consider two things.

ONE: Tasers are a use of force – something supposed to be a “last resort.” When someone is in danger of life or limb. According to the Attorney General and the Times Argus, this condition is now being met at least 4 times a week in Vermont? What massive cultural shift has occurred in the state of Vermont to so dramatically change things from the era before tasers (last decade) to now, to create such an apocalyptic transormation in our public safety? Should I be letting my kid play outside under such circumstances?

TWO: Which is more disturbing, that the AG apparently felt no compunction about cranking this sorely-in-need-of-sourcing (it happens “hundreds of times”) rationalization out for public consumption, or that the Times Argus – our beloved fourth estate – didn’t even stop to think about the actual implications of what they were uncritically regurgitating?

Late lunch today. Thought I’d offer a quick recipe to passing IRV in Vermont once and for all given that, a) Jim Douglas will always veto it, and b) any deviation from the straight-up, traditional “check one” ballot will always peel off enough legislative votes to keep passage under the veto override theshold, even though most of those legislators will agree that the current system is unsatisfactory.

The solution, therefore:

1. Pass a traditional runoff law (or would that take a Constitutional amendment? Maybe not actually so simple…). If nobody breaks 50%, the top two have a runoff election a month later. Maybe we can get really daring and suspend the rules so we can pass this at the upcoming veto override session this year.

2. Douglas, naturally, vetoes this law too.

3. Enough legislators who were leery of IRV are more comfortable with a traditional runoff to be swayed. Veto is overridden.

4. In next election, nobody breaks 50%. A month later, there is a runoff. Douglas loses.

5. Next session, Legislature passes IRV and repeals traditional runoff election law. New Governor signs. Deed is done.

A big argument against a traditional runoff from IRV supporters is often the cost to taxpayers. I submit that the cost of a single runoff election (resulting in Douglas’s defeat) as compared to repeated unsuccessful veto override sessions year after year makes for a hefty savings.

On a day where fossil fuels broke two new records – oil trading above $112 dollars a barrel and gasoline selling at an average of $3.34 a gallon – Peter Welch joined fellow Representatives Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill) and Edward Markey (D-Mass) in calling for the President to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and begin releasing some of the oil in the reserve (currently at 96%) into the market. At current prices, the administration is spending nearly $8 million a day to add to a reserve that is practically at capacity already.

And it’s more than the supply/demand equation that Welch and company expect could be impacted by releasing oil. They’re also working against increased speculating which the current economy and the dynamic oil market has encouraged, and which has then driven the prices up even further in a vicious commercial cycle. Investments in commodities are unquestionably up across the board, but its hard to say with any certainty how big an effect they are having – but no one one argues that they aren’t having an effect. Altering the US’s role as buyer and supplier against this market the way Welch & company would like will definitely impact supply/demand and speculation. What it won’t impact is that part of the problem that is due to the current puniness of the dollar.

“The public is being ripped off and yet President Bush continues the misguided policy of topping off a reserve that is nearly full,” said Rep. Welch. “The President is simply out of touch, turning a blind eye to the pain consumers are feeling at the pump.”

It’s the little things…

Dissed! Today marks Shay Totten’s debut as Peter Freyne’s replacement in Seven Days. In his first segment, Totten does a great job fleshing out more details in the still-developing Compostgate story, providing background in what looks more and more like a political jihad from the Douglas administration to shut down the Intervale composting operation (something we’ll discuss in detail soon). It woulda been nice to have received a tip of the hat, as it was GMD that lit the fuse on the story, which was then picked up by John Dillon at VPR, but no biggie. What was more of a biggie was Totten’s second segment, in which he announces (with prominent pull quote) that “Seven Days has learned” Shumlin plans to run for Lite Guv. Scroll down a bit to remember where you’ve heard that before. On Monday. Before 7 Days’ Tuesday print deadline. In fact, the day after we posted that, the St. Albans Messenger referred to Shummy’s plans in their editorial column, which Vermont Tiger reprinted. Tacky, tacky, tacky Shay, Pamela and Paula – and an unfortunate introduction of Mr. Totten’s column to the blogosphere (smack ’em for us, Cathy).

Curtis Awards! I called last elections Democratic Lt Governor primary point spread on the nose, as I called Vermont’s Presidential primary point spread (if not the actual vote count), but I was only 1 for 3 on my call for the Curtis Awards recipients (the CAs being the big annual VT Dem awards and associated fundraising event). This year, there are only two awardees; Dottie Deans and Senator (and former Lieutenant Governor) Doug Racine. Congratulations to both! Wish I could say I’ll see you there, but at $60 a pop, this year, I’m officially priced out. Bummer.

Legislative retirement update. Here’s the list of retirements I’ve heard about thusfar in the legislature: Rep. Gervais (D-Fra 4), Rep. Valliere (R-Was 3-1), Rep. Pillsbury (I-Windham 3-2), Rep. Larrabee (R-Cal-Was 1), Rep. Howrigan (D-Fra 2), Rep. Fitzgerald (D-Fra 3), Rep. LaVoie (R-Fra 5), Rep. Branagan (R-Fra 1) (I stand corrected), Rep. Perry (D Fra 6), Sen. Coppenrath (R- Caledonia). Anybody got anymore, add ’em in the comments.

Philip’s already mentioned it, but the 3rd Annual VDB/GMD BBQ is slated for Sunday Saturday June 28th, again at North Beach in Burlington. Stay tuned for details. Needless to say, it’s a perennial big scene, so mark yer calendars.

Speaking of being “slated,” William Saletan likes GMD.

There’s a rumor out there that the Republicans in Lamoille County have offered to fund a Progressive to run against Democratic Representative Linda Martin (Lam-2), in the hopes of splitting the vote to allow for a GOP pickup. Just a rumor? Seems a little far-fetched, doesn’t it? (Apparently it’s not – check the comments…) On the other hand, GOP head Rob Roper – a Lamoille County resident – does feel strongly that the County should be Republican territory (which also inevitably means yet another quixotic, resource-heavy run against Sen. Susan Bartlett, no doubt).

Speaking of quixotic, Barlow reports at his blog that supporters of perennial “legalize marijuana” gubernatorial candidate Cris Ericson are sabotaging Senator Bill Doyle’s (R-Washington) Wikipedia entry. Apparently they’re angry because Ron Paul was left off the Doyle poll. I guess their strategy is to take the long way to marijuana legalization.

What goes around truly comes around, I suppose, as after months of frustration, hand-wringing and head-scratching, we seem to be coming right back around to where many would have expected we would’ve started at this time last year, as Senate President Pro Tem Pete Shumlin is reportedly close to a decision to run for Lieutenant Governor (guess we know now why Sen Jim Condos, who had been actively considering a run behind the scenes himself, had been holding back, eh?).

Now I should say I usually like to wait until I hear a rumor from three sources before going up with it (assuming I don’t hear it straight from the source, which I haven’t). In this case, it’s from one source (and only one back up) – but it’s an exceptionally solid source, so I’m throwing caution to the wind and putting it out there for public consumption.

What this will mean is a few things. Getting going this late in the game, we’ll have a media-heavy campaign for the 1 & 2 spots, although the state party with help from the DNC has invested prodigious time and resources into building a field and information infrastructure. It also means – obviously – that the Dem candidates will most certainly not be running against the legislature, as some had hoped a candidate might do (in addition to running against the Governor, duh). They will be running as the legislature – a legislature sick of not being able to get things accomplished in the face of “Governor No.”

But perhaps most exciting for political geeks like us is that it means leadership of both the House and the Senate will be wide open next year… and that means fun! Expect Campbell to be first in line for the Senate top spot, but I’d be surprised if he gets it unopposed. On the House side… Nease? Klein? Obviously it’s ungodly early – and neither potential candidate has announced yet, but – c’mon – how can you not start thinking about this stuff??

There are three reasons that Madeleine Kunin’s continuing insistence in the news media and in her new book that opposition to Hillary Clinton’s candidacy equates to sexism does a dreadful disservice to any who give it audience. First it’s just doofy. Kunin’s willful blindness to the possibility that any might oppose Clinton on ideological grounds flies in the face of her own opposition to the candidacy of General Martha Rainville against Peter Welch. When Kunin supported Welch, she drew an implicit line of ideology that ultimately trumped gender. In Clinton’s case, Kunin now refuses to allow for others’ own similar, subjective, ideological lines (or is she somehow pretending she hasn’t done that herself?).

Second, it’s just insulting. Never mind the war vote. Never mind historical pandering to the right on issues like school prayer and flag burning. Never mind her association with the insider class and the anti-union likes of Mark Penn – you’re just some sort of misogynist if you oppose her candidacy – even if you’re a woman, apparently.

But the third reason is, if not the most infuriating, certainly the most damaging. Engaging in the kind of name-calling that Kunin is doing through every medium available to her makes it difficult to engage in a meaningful conversation about the very real knee-jerk sexism and misogyny that does come flowing out when a woman seeks elected office. It’s a conversation that needs to be held, but Kunin has provided another potential shorthand way for sexism deniers to dismiss any such discussions by tarring them all with her ridiculous charges and rejecting them outright in the process. And if you think crude sexist drivel isn’t alive and well, here’s a sample of the comments over at the Freeps blog here and here in response to a potential gubernatorial run by House Speaker Gaye Symington:

How much of a dowery[sic] did Gayes old man have to put up to get her a husband…or is Chuck visually impaired?

Will she break down and cry and throw one of her typical [hissy]-fits the first time that things don’t her way?

Gargoyle for Governor!!! Hoo-rah.

Now sure, the comments at vtbuzz are consistently the least pleasant reading in the entire Vermont blogosphere, bar none – but these comments didn’t arise from a vacuum. As her plans develop, expect to hear more criticism of Symington targeting her appearance and, what amounts to her “girliness.” The kind of crap that has nothing to do with her qualifications for office, that you’d never hear lobbed at men, and that is no different than schoolyard taunts from the worst kind of bullies.

We must confront this knuckle-dragging hate-talk head-on in the coming months. Kunin will do all of us a favor by not making the fight more difficult with frivolous, reckless charges. Her hyperbole may keep her book in the headlines, but it doesn’t help her cause.

Since February, the world’s largest database on reproductive health (including information on STDs, birth control and the like) has been programmed to ignore the word “abortion” in database searches. “Popline” is administered by Johns Hopkins University and if you’re scratching your head, scratch no more – it’s federally funded. The US Agency for International Development expressed concern after finding what a spokesman called “two articles on abortion advocacy.” University officials seem to be up in arms (the dean of the Public Health School has called for the term to be reinstated), and NARAL wants to know who is responsible.

The United States Agency for International Development doles out the federal government’s “non-military” foreign assistance, and as such is an arm of the foreign policy mechanism under the Department of State. It’s administrator is Henrietta Fore, (a former Director of the US Mint, where she was a political player associated with Ohio GOP rare-coin scandalmeister Tom Noe) and was only confirmed by the Senate to the position after her appointment by Condoleezza Rice on November 14th of last year. Even before questions on her proximity to Noe, Fore was no stranger to controversy, having stepped down from Wellsley College’s Board of Trustees after making some ugly racial remarks. From Raw Story:

The Times reported that Fore, then known by her maiden name of Henrietta Holsman and owner at the time of a manufacturing facility in Los Angeles, remarked in a lecture that “she had trouble keeping black assembly-line workers from going ‘back to the street to earn more money’ selling drugs.”

Furthermore, the Times reported that Fore had also said “she had found Hispanic workers to be lazy, white workers resentful of having to work with machines, and Asians, while very productive, likely to move on to professional or management jobs.”

Strangely, though, she doesn’t seem to be among the virulently anti-choice crowd, as she has contributed to an organization that supports pro-choice GOP candidates. In any event, although we’re all familiar with Congress’s reticence to exercise any meaningful oversight, this does seem to be a cause for hearings and a little sunlight.

The action (that NARAL is calling censorship) was caught by a librarian at the UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion, and the matter became public when emails were posted on a UVM Medical listserv here. Excerpts from the email below the fold.

From: Won, Gloria [mailto:[log in to unmask]]

Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 3:51 PM

To: Dickson, Debbie L.

Subject: RE: Popline retrieval discrepancy

Hello Debbie:

I left a message on your voice mail today regarding POPLINE, but

didn’t explain the problem I’m encountering, so here is an email

follow-up.

When I ran this strategy on Jan 18, 2008, POPLINE retrieved 1684 refs;

when I re-ran the same strategy today, POPLINE retrieved fewer refs, ie,

1478 refs.  Usually, when a search is re-run at a later date, the total

number of references retrieved is more, not less.    Has POPLINE

undergone some major change in the past few months that might explain

the decreased retrieval?    What can account for this discrepancy?

(strategy removed)

I also tested a second strategy that was developed in Jan 2008 and had

similar results, ie, fewer refs retrieved this time than previous.  

Puzzling?!?

Appreciate a prompt response —

Thank you, Gloria

Gloria Won, MLIS

H.M. Fishbon Memorial Library

UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion

From: Dickson, Debbie L. [mailto:[log in to unmask]]

Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 7:26 AM

To: Won, Gloria

Subject: RE: Popline retrieval discrepancy

Hi Gloria,

Yes we did make a change in POPLINE.  We recently made all abortion

terms stop words.  As a federally funded project, we decided this was

best for now.  In addition to the terms you’re already using, you

could try using ‘Fertility Control, Postconception’.  This is the

broader term to our ‘Abortion’ terms and most records have both in

the keyword fields.  Also, adding ‘unwanted w2 pregnancy’ in place

of aborti*.  We have a keyword Pregnancy, Unwanted and there are 2517

records with aborti* & unwanted w2 pregnancy

I hope this helps.

Debbie

From: “Gloria Won”

Cc:  “San Francisco Biomedical Library Network”

(NOTE: headers edited for space – odum)

Sent: Wednesday, April 2, 2008 12:48:09 PM (GMT-0800)

America/Los_Angeles

Subject: POPLINE – ‘abortion’ is now a stopword

To:  Debra L. Dickson

POPLINE Database Manager/Administrator

INFO Project

111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore, MD 21202

[log in to unmask]

Tel: 410-659-6300 / Fax: 410-659-6266

Hi Debbie –

Thank you for your quick response to my e-mail.  I have forwarded your

e-mail to researchers with whom I am working; I suspect they will be as

puzzled as I about the decision to make “all abortion terms stop

words” in the government funded, publically available “POPLINE”

database.  Even more troubling is the implications for the average user

– eliminating this term essentially blocks access to the reports in

the database and ultimately to information about abortion.  “Unwanted

w2 pregnancy” is not a synonym for abortion.

My colleague, Gail Sorrough and I are also forwarding this e-mail to

several organizations whose members are primarily medical librarians.

We suspect they will also be puzzled by the notion that a perfectly good

noun such as “abortion” should for no apparent reason be classified

as a “stop word” and equated with “a”, “an”, “the”.

A better explanation is deserved – the explanation should also be

posted on the website for all users to know, e.g.,  “The POPLINE

database producers have decided to ignore “abortion” as a searchable

to term because ……. ?

We look forward to a better explanation for why this term has been

eliminated; all of the users of POPLINE deserve to know.

Regards,

Gail Sorrough, Director of Medical Library Services and Gloria Won,

Librarian

H.M. Fishbon Memorial Library

UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion

Start the Douglas veto count for the inevitable override session at 2; the campaign finance bill (so he can be sure to keep getting those last minute, six figure infusions of campaign cash from National Republicans) and Instant Runoff Voting, cuz as far as Jim is concerned, the system aint broke, so why fix it? The action, of course, comes on Friday, so it’ll only pop up in the papers on Saturday, which is the lowest readership day and the traditional timing when you’re gonna do something you don’t want to draw unnecessary attention to. Of course, that trick hasn’t always worked for Douglas, as we saw in his attempt to manage the fallout from his Climate Change Commission’s report.

So far, there don’t seem to be any official statements or any background. If anybody has some inside info, by all means write it up, but there probably isn’t much more to add. We knew he was likely to veto both these bills, and now he has. Time for the next steps.