After the relative love-fest that Peter Shumlin’s summer meeting with the Progs turned out to be, one would have thought there was little he could do to incite a full-on challenge in the 2012 election campaign.

‘Turns out, he found exactly the right way to push Progressive buttons, and at least raise the specter of insurrection at the ballot box.  

It’s uncanny; in 2011, there’s nothing like a very public tussle with the state employees’ union (VSEA) to win Shumlin a solid with Republicans while distancing him from inconvenient old friends…old friends whom he clearly thinks he can still “handle.”

We shall see….

Just as the storm was breaking today on GMD over events at the Democratic State Committee Meeting Saturday in Barre, the November Progressive Newsletter announced that State Committee’s intention to take up a Resolution in Support of Labor at its November 19 meeting in Montpelier.

Resolution proposed for consideration at the 11/19/11 State Committee meeting:

WHEREAS; The Vermont Progressive Party appreciates the critical role that organized labor has played in advancing higher living standards, better working conditions and greater workplace democracy for all workers; and,

WHEREAS; The Vermont Progressive Party recognizes that the decline of organized labor in the United States has significantly contributed to the vastly increased income and wealth inequality deplored by the popular Occupy Wall Street Movement and by the Vermont Progressive Party; and,

WHEREAS; The Vermont Progressive Party affirms that the right to collective bargaining is a fundamental human right recognized in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and,

WHEREAS; The Vermont Progressive Party believes that working people in Vermont have a right to seek redress of contractual grievances free of any public condemnation by public officials;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the Vermont Progressive Party that:

(1) The Vermont Progressive Party supports recent and ongoing efforts by members of the Vermont State Employee Association to obtain a ruling from duly constituted authority and a clarification of the terms of its contract with the State of Vermont; and

(2) The Party urges elected and appointed public officials to desist from castigation of the efforts of working Vermonters to seek an adjudication of contractual grievances through proper and recognized means.

Game on, Governor.

Does it strike anyone else as funny that The Republican Governor’s Association is acting all bent-out-of-shape over whose PAC violations deserve more attention from the Attorney General, theirs or that of the Democratic Governor’s Association?

This is what we’ve come to.  In the surreal world where money equals free-speech, only codified and strengthened by the Citizens United decision, we must endure countless squabbles like this.

Most Americans (and I say this with well-acknowleged statistics to rely upon) barely have a pot to piss in.  If they have one, they are most likely on the lookout for the repo man.

Free-speech? If you only get what you can pay for, the majority of Americans have far less than their fair share.

So what gives with all the RGA snivelling about victimization?

(Repub. Gov.’s Assoc. lawyer, Chris) Roy said the GOP group believes it is the victim of selective prosecution by the state Attorney General’s Office on the donation issue. Both the Republican Governors Association and the Democratic Governors Association collect money nationwide the same way, but he said only the GOP group has been targeted for violating the state’s donation limit.

Assistant Attny. General Megan J. Schafritz  doesn’t think so:

“We don’t feel there is any evidence of bias or disparate treatment,” she said. She noted the Attorney General’s Office earlier in 2010 had chosen not to pursue a campaign finance complaint about the GOP group after concluding there was insufficient evident to support the claim.

And there is the small fact that the RGA outspent the DGA, more than two-to-one on that particular campaign cycle; so it’s hard to weep real tears of sympathy.  

It’s hard to weep real tears for either side.  We’re talking hundreds-of-thousands, even millions of dollars in the case of the Republican Governor’s Association, scattered to the four winds in order to exert outside influence on Vermont’s domestic elections.  

How much of a “job creator” was that expenditure, I wonder?  I’d wager, not much, considering the sectors that are suffering right now.

I suppose it could be regarded as a make-work project for the AGO, but a whole lot of social service providers would probably much rather see that money spent to relieve the suffering of their clients.

Unless we gird ourselves to eliminate private funding from election campaigns, we can look forward to a future in which our pay-to-play democracy begins to look more and more likeTerry Gilliam’s “Brazil,” and less and less like Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smth Goes to Washington.”

Even though news of the Fukushima nuclear disaster languishes in the minor columns of major newspapers these days, the drama continues to unfold toward an ever darkening and uncertain conclusion.

It came as no surprise yesterday, when Tokyo Electric Power Co. finally conceded that fission most likely continues to occur at at least one of the damaged Fukushima reactors. As our readers will recall, Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates predicted as much, months ago.  

If active monitoring suggests it is occurring in Reactor 2, there is increasing probability that it may also be occurring at one or more of the other damaged reactors at the site, where detailed measurements have yet to be undertaken.

The picture now painted by TEPCO is of a far graver situation than has been officially conceded up to now.

Junichi Matsumoto, a Tokyo Electric spokesman, acknowledged episodes of fission, telling a news conference: “There is a possibility that certain conditions came together temporarily that were conducive to re-criticality,” and that the measurements indicated a burst that occurred at a slightly higher rate than prior cases. “It’s not that we’ve had zero fission until now,” Mr. Matsumoto said. “But at this point, we do not think there is a large-scale and self-sustained re-criticality.”

The suspicion is that fissionable material has melted through the bottom of both the reactor and the containment, and is now essentially free in the environment, recombining in such a way as to intermittently initiate critical reactions without the possibility of human or mechanical intervention to stop them.

Under these circumstances, more and more radioactive byproducts will continue to be released freely into the soil and even the groundwater.   Though Arnie hypothesized that this might be happening, it was officially never even entertained as a possibility until now.

While this development  is frightening enough, what has to be even more disturbing is the fact that every semblance of official certainty has been dropped and it is now generally being acknowledged that there is no way of knowing exactly what is happening, how serious the situation will become; and when and how it will all end.

Hiroaki Koide, assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute, was quoted by the New York Times as saying:

If episodes of fission at Fukushima were confirmed… “our entire understanding of nuclear safety would be turned on its head.”

Meanwhile…back to the human side of the story, there is new evidence that “hot particles” from the Fukushima accident(s) have been far more widely dispersed than originally admitted.  

A new Fairewinds video discusses data from  a study by Scientist Marco Kaltofan that looked at the distribution of those particles  in various regions of  Japan; and even as far away as Seattle and Boston.  In Japan, that distribution of hot particles followed unanticipated patterns, spreading contamination far and wide.  

The clean-up protocols in use throughout Japan are spotty, and less than effective.  Furthermore,  Mr. Kaltofan’s paper demonstrates conclusively how inadequate the current evacuation zones are that currently govern emergency response, both here and in Japan.

Scientist Marco Kaltofen Presents Data Confirming Hot Particles from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

In the spirit of the new GMD Oddsmaker, it’s time to visit that “other hand.”

We always gave Governor Douglas a hard time when he bad-mouthed Vermont’s business climate to anyone who would listen in the world-at-large.

Reasonably enough, we think one of the governor’s jobs should be to put a positive face on the state to attract the tourism, trade and investment upon which Vermont’s future is heavily dependent.

So it was with some dismay that I read an e-mail that is apparently in wide circulation, from Chris Kimball of “Cook’s Illustrated” and “America’s Test Kitchen” fame.  

Just to set this one up for those who wouldn’t know a butter knife from a bundt form:  Mr. Kimball, a denizen of Boston and the CEO of a food publishing and TV empire, has a house in Rupert, Vermont.  He was recently filming episodes of “Cook’s Country” there while the surrounding communities were dealing with the after-effects of Irene.  Wrote Kimball:

The flood waters have long abated but many bridges are still out, roads partially washed away, and barns and basements full of fine silt. Our governor was standing in a riverbed watching neighbors repair the damage using backhoes and bulldozers. A local zoning administrator came up and complained that the workers did not have permits to work in a streambed, an area protected by environmental regulations. The governor turned to her and said, “Well, it would probably be best if you spent the next couple of weeks inside.” She asked why and the governor responded, “Well, we’ll be doing a lot of things you don’t like and there is nothing you can do about it!” That’s how Vermonters deal with disaster relief.

A quick Google-search of the above quote yielded evidence that, owing to Mr. Kimball’s e-mailed comments, Governor Shumlin is enjoying an unprecedented popularity among right-wing bloggers!  That’s right; at least temporarily, Peter Shumlin is a darling of the anti-regulation crowd.

I don’t think this is the kind of press Vermont needs to reinforce its green brand, and to assure potential visitors and investors that the environmental priorities for which we are respected remain intact.

I agree with Sec. Markowitz who said in an October 8 editorial:

Work in Vermont’s streams and rivers must be done with the knowledge that doing the work incorrectly is just money down the hole.

This is the message of custodial responsibility with which we want Vermont’s global image to be associated.

It’s back.  That favorite bugaboo of the floundering Right:

“The U.N.’s gonna git yer guns and Obama’s gonna let ’em do it.”

I got the call this morning and waited through the Spiel, the Question (“Do you think its right that Obama’s gonna let the UN take away yer guns?”), and the Pause, before a hapless human voice permitted me to unload an earful of outrage.

What is it about this particular subject that is like the “ding” to Pavlov’s dog?   Abortion rights, gay rights, income tax, evolution…nothing gets ’em to their feet like threatening the potential to empty hot-lead into the unfortunate carcass of a fellow American.

This, despite the fact that the topic is so off-the-table that to even speak about it is verboten!

Frankly, I’m perplexed.  I’m an American since birth, but I’ve lived in other countries where democracy and gun control coexist peacefully.  

In Canada, all guns are registered; a total of  roughly 1.8-million guns (mostly hunting rifles) is shared amongst a population of about 35-million souls.  Yet, nothing seems to threaten their democracy, unless it is the roughly 200-million largely undocumented firearms, mostly handguns, in private ownership just south of their international border:

“Hide yer women and yer water!  The ‘Mericans are coming, the ‘Mericans are coming!”

Is it any wonder the U.N. has more than a passing interest in engaging the sovereign state that is responsible for exporting most of the undocumented handguns and automatic weapons that find their way to killers across the world…and is it so surprising that President Obama, as the nominal “leader of the free world,” recognizes his obligation to hear them out?

I think the next time the NRA gives me a jingle, I’m going to remind the caller that, thanks to their relentless efforts, “comes the revolution,” the 99% will have a ready arsenal at hand with which to take a steely bead on that privileged 1% whose water the NRA has been so eager to carry in recent years.

On October 7, Vermont’s own nuclear watchdog, Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, together with other petitioners, presented arguments before the Petition Review Board of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, concerning the continued operation of GE Mark 1 BWR reactors across the U.S.

It is Arnie’s belief that, with a long history of fundamental design failures and poor bandaid fixes; and in consideration of lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, all  twenty-three GE Mark 1 BWR nuclear reactors in the United States (notably including Vermont Yankee) should be immediately shut-down.  

In the following video clip of Arnie’s comments to the NRC, he reiterates the four principle issues he has repeatedly raised over the years.

Perhaps the most disturbing piece of all this is the staggering volume of unsecured nuclear waste that these reactors have come to store in over-crowded pools where they are most vulnerable to accident.

It’s a brief but very compelling testimony that was joined by other expert voices.  Judging from past history, the urgency of their combined petition seems unlikely to offset the tremendous pull of the industry in maintaining their bottom-line as an NRC priority; but we can hope.

Post Fukushima: All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men… from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Hundreds of defense contractors that defrauded the U.S. military received more than $1.1 trillion in Pentagon contracts during the past decade, according to a Department of Defense report prepared for Sen. Bernie Sanders.

It’s a funny thing, you know; despite the fact that it’s been anecdotal knowledge since the Viet Nam era that the Dept. of Defense is routinely taken to the cleaners by its contractors, no one in Congress has done much to end the culture of abuse.  That could be because our corrupt campaign finance rules allow lobbyists to pretty much govern the agenda up on the Hill.

The perpetrators continue to be rewarded with more and bigger contracts.  Witness:

…Lockheed Martin in 2008 paid $10.5 million to settle charges that it defrauded the government by submitting false invoices on a multi-billion dollar contract connected to the Titan IV space launch vehicle program… the Defense Department (then) gave Lockheed $30.2 billion in contracts in fiscal year 2009…

Northrop Grumman paid $62 million in 2005 to settle charges that it “engaged in a fraud scheme by routinely submitting false contract proposals,” and “concealed basic problems in its handling of inventory, scrap and attrition…Northrop Grumman received $12.9 billion in contracts the next year, 16 percent more than the year before.

Lavishly courted by lobbyists themselves, the Department of Defense insisted last January:

‘the department believes that existing remedies with respect to contractor wrongdoing are sufficient.”

But now, in response to the report from Sen. Sanders they change their tune:

“It is not clear, however, that these remedies are sufficient … to deter and punish fraud when it is detected.”

It may not be clear to the DOD, but it certainly is to Senator Sanders who proposes increased scrutiny of defense contracts, compilation of a fraud database, and much stiffer penalties for offenders.

Said Sanders: “It is clear that DOD’s current approach is not working and we need far more vigorous enforcement to protect taxpayers from massive fraud.”

One has to wonder why the same swift justice has not been applied to DOD contractors who engage in systemic fraud, that was applied to ACORN following a single biased and unprofessional set-up.

Just another example of the double standard of justice served up to the 1% versus the 99%.

It will take more than a single Senator’s earnest efforts to bring about change, but when has there been a better opportunity to place Pentagon waste due to fraud under scrutiny, than right now, as we are seeing our trusted social safety nets under attack from the right?  

Effectively penalizing those who have defrauded taxpayers through the Pentagon sounds most attractive as one alternative.

10-21-11 Another Occupy Walmart demonstration; this time, in DC.

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This is a story that is just beginning to unfold.  Check this out!

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Well, it was inevitable.  The Occupy Wall Street movement has found its logical extension in a new “Occupy Walmart” wave that has hit the internet with its own Facebook page; and even “Don’t Occupy Walmart,” which takes the same position, arguing only the name.

Go ahead…Google it.   You know you want to.

Lots of folks seem to have had the same idea. Consumers must take the “Occupy Wall Street” movement to the well that feeds Wall Street; and what better place to start with than Walmart?

Walmart virtually defined the economic race to the bottom in America.  Now that the retail predator has strip-mined American consumers to the breaking point and pock-marked the rural countryside with its behemoth supercenters, it finds its market here leveling off somewhat, and has turned its attention elsewhere.

Like a cancer that depends for its perpetuation on unlimited growth, the economic model that Walmart’s practices have engendered in American business has finally metastasized to the brink of killing the host.

“Occupy Walmart” or “Don’t Occupy Walmart,” the message is the same.  We have it within our power as consumers to stop enabling Wall Street greed machines by denying our business to the worst offenders, among which Walmart is still #1.

Are U.S. nuclear plants prepared to withstand natural disasters equivalent to that of the Fukushima tsunami?

That is the question Arnie Gundersen answers with a resounding “no” in the latest video release from Fairewinds Communications.

We’re well aware of the chaos and delays that followed the Japanese accident, compounding an already grave situation; but what Arnie brings to light is the fact that the Japanese had somewhat better protocols in place for dealing with such a disaster, than we currently have here in the United States.  

The “design basis” in engineering U.S. nuclear plants is founded on a mathematically flawed assumption that the occurrence of natural events of extraordinary magnitude is highly unlikely over the 60-year predicted life-span of any one facility.  As Arnie points out there have recently been four natural events (two earthquakes and two flood events) occurring worldwide in the space of just six months that have each exceeded the “thousand-year event” prediction in terms of magnitude.

Among other fascinating glimpses into the inadequacy of U.S. disaster preparedness, Arnie discusses the computer program, “MACCS 2”, employed by the NRC to predict the impact of natural disasters on a cost/benefit basis. “Cost/benefit” is another way of saying that they are weighing the value of loss in terms of human lives against the monetary cost to the industry of engineering adequate safeguards to withstand maximal force.

For the purpose of this analysis, the NRC has established the value of a human life at three-million dollars, whereas other federal agencies place that value anywhere from five-million to nine-million dollars.

Although the MACC2 program has since been disavowed by its creator, the NRC continues to rely on it to establish regulations for the industry.  As a consequence, the NRC’s disaster planning allows for  human exposures one-hundred times greater than what the EPA recognizes as the limit!  

The NRC has allowed power plants to create “limited liability” corporations, isolating each plant’s liability and limiting it to $10 billion.  In Japan, where Tokyo Electric did not have the protection of limited liability, the cost of the Fukushima disaster alone is estimated at $250. billion and will bankrupt Tokyo Electric, still leaving a massive amount of the cost to be born by Japanese taxpayers.

Those of us who have sustained an interest in Fukushima find it disturbing that clean-up of the contaminated surroundings is predicted to take another several years and will likely have to be repeated periodically for many years after that.   But at least Japan is engaging in some sort of long-term environmental clean-up.  

Using the cost/benefit based computer program, NRC’s  projection for environmental clean-up following such a disaster assumes it would be largely dealt with through one-time burial and simple abandonment.

If you want to add some scary to your Halloween pre-season, have a listen to this chilling video discussion:

Are Regulators And The Nuclear Industry Applying The Valuable Lessons Learned From Fukushima? from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

This is just to announce to the indifferent ether that we are still paying attention to the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan.

Today marks the seven-month anniversary of the tsunami, and of the subsequent accident which occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

I thought it might be an appropriate moment to check in on how things are going over there, but what I found on Google regarding the actual progress of stabellization at this late date was…nada.  

There was this piece from the Guardian in September, that recounts how Tokyo Electric actually considered abandoning the plant following the disaster!

In interviews given recently to Japanese news sources,  departing Prime Minister Naoto Kan revealed a near total breakdown in responsibility at Tepco:

“Withdrawing from the plant was out of the question,” he said. “If that had happened, Tokyo would be deserted by now. It was a critical moment for Japan’s survival. It could have led to leaks of dozens of times more radiation than Chernobyl.”

and

Kan demanded an explanation from Tepco’s then president, Masataka Shimizu, but “he never told me anything clearly”

In light of that revelation, and given Vermont Yankee’s own track record of compromised credibility, one can’t but reflect on whether Entergy would cut and run under similar circumstances.

Then, a couple of days ago we learned that thyroid testing of children in Fukushima prefecture has begun.

Despite official insistence that there is no cause for alarm,  many are saying it is too little, too late.  

A 16-year-old girl who took the test had lived in Iitate near the crippled plant, and said she has been worried whether she will be able to give birth to a child in the future.    She expressed displeasure at what she sees as the slow reaction of authorities to residents’ fear of radiation, saying, “I wanted them to do an examination much earlier.”  

While it is not unusual for a celebrity murder to occupy public attention and the news cycle for months on end, there seems to be no equivalent sustained interest in reporting on what is arguably the most catastrophic industrial accident of all time, despite the fact that the story is still unfolding.