“Oh, please, those dead Marines at Tarawa look sooo gross.  I’m not sharing that.”

“CatLady:  This is my dog, Blondi, with me at Berchtesgaden last year.  Isn’t she cute?  We’re standing in my NO SMOKING ZONE.”

“Boy, we wiped out most of Cologne today, except for that big bastard of a Cathedral.  Here’s pics.  We’ll get that big bastard next raid.”

“You sonsabitches who want gun control are worse than those two wimpy gun-shy faggot asswipes I had to smack around on Sicily.  I wrote you dirty bastards a poem about it:

“First they’ll take away your guns

Then they’ll take away your War

A General can’t have any fun

You goddamn bastard sonsabitchin’ anti-gun whores!”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to post pics of Paris this year.  I heard Winnie told Ike to go fuck himself about Normandy.  Damn!  War is Hell.”

“BANZAI!!!  Eleanor Eat Shit!  Here is pic of me beheading Australian Barbarian Pig on New Guinea last year.  You likey?  Send us more Malines!”

“Well, that was one Hell of a workday here.  Goddamn Teller giving me more shit about the Super.  What do you folks think?  Should we go right to the H-Bomb?  It’ll take longer.  War will have to last til ’47, maybe ’48.  Let me know.  I’m under stress here.”

“Please.  These pics are REAL!  The first one is the GAS CHAMBER.  The second one is the CREMATORIA.  I sent them to the London Times and the New York Times and they said they don’t do ‘whistle-blowing’ stories.

WTF?!  Please help us!”

“Hit LIKE if you think this war is costing too much capital.  What’s so bad about Hitler?  Guy’s fighting the Communists, and he has a dog, just like Roosevelt.  Maybe our Communist President is our Real Enemy?  Maybe FDR was born in Ruussia?  I’d like to see his birth certificate.”

“Hit LIKE if you think we should BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!  We’re holding a March and a Vigil in D.C. this Sunday.  And please click here to sign our petition about the BOMB.”

“We’ve just been torpedoed!  Abandoning ship.  Whole cargo of condoms.  And we were flying a Condom Flag!  Goddamn evil Nazis!  This is a War Crime!”

“I changed my profile pic, but please don’t share it.  The nude lady with me on the beach at Malta wearing my Eisenhower jacket is my driver Kay.  She took off her uniform to show Winnie how bad things would get in France if we didn’t do Overlord.  Glad Monty wasn’t around.”  

“Heh-heh.  Good one, Ike.  Speaking of Monty, I’m teaching Eleanor to make Montgomery martinis.  Fifteen to one, right?”

“Mr. President, on behalf of myself, the British Eighth Army, and the entire people of the British Commonwealth, I’d like to correct you.  It’s only thirteen to one.  I myself will stick with tea.”

“It’s crazy up here in the mountains.  Krauts have all the high ground.  Look at the pics.  But Clark says we’ll be in Rome soon.  That we just landed at Anzio.  Good!  Rome.  Any day now.  Yeah!”

“I think our service persons are picking up a lot of politically incorrect language overseas.  Did you see that ‘word’ in the last post?  KRAUTS?  No More K-Word!”

“Did you see that stuff from Burma?  I mean, like REALLY GROSS!!  Somebody ought to monitor this site!”

“Don’t worry, Junebug.  We are monitoring.  Meanwhile, keep posting and sharing.  And Sieg Hei…I mean, Hi.”

“Man.  That hemp farm they got me workin’ my time off at…Whoa…Those guys over there are gonna be gettin’ some primo rope…Whoa…”

“We the Peoples of the Soviet Union are still waiting for the Second Front!  Where are American energies and priorities going?!”

“Who was that asshole?”

“Don’t know.”

“Well, I just de-friended him.”

“Good for you, Junebug.  Me too.  Here.  Look at these pics of my Victory Garden.”

“WOW!  Big tomatoes!  Hey, you’re not using those genetically engineered seeds the government’s been trying to pass out, are you?”

“Hell no.  All natural and organic, Junebug.  I know all about that GE shit.”

“Yeah, it’s really bad.  In fact, I think GE is worse than this whole war, worse than Hitler and Tojo, worse than that H-Bomb Oppie was talking about, worse than that gross Gas Chamber stuff.  Even the Japanese didn’t do GE in China.  They just let the Chinese starve to death, rather than be responsible for a worldwide GE apocalypse.  And good thing too.  But like, hey, your tomatoes are really AWESOME!”

“Thanks, Junebug.  We’ve all got to do our part for the effort.  See ya.”

“People of Facebook.  I Have Returned!  By the Grace of Almighty God I can post once again on this site.  I have been so busy routing the Japanese and running the War in the Pacific.  And all on my own.  For I have had to deal with many incompetent officers, including Generals, and an entire incompetent Australian Army and Australian Government.  And our own Incompetent Government.  And now, the U.S. Navy is busting my stars.  King and Nimitz are plotting a conspiracy to bypass the Philippines.  You must not, We must not, I must not let small minds stand in the way of DESTINY!  Our destiny, your destiny, MY DESTINY!  Share this with everyone, and all of you post to Marshall and FDR that there should be one, and ONLY ONE! Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific.  And I will humbly, with God as my personal assistant, take on that burden.  A humble Old Soldier humbly thanks you.  And, hey, AWESOME tomatoes!”

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

Long ago, and not terribly far away, I worked for a company that made some pretty cool software. The software was so cool, it was appealing to certain organizations.

:: TIA ::

One of those organizations was headed by a fine, upstanding citizen named Poindexter, who was embarking on a new project that had been dubbed Total Information Awareness, TIA for short. It was run out of DARPA’s Information Awareness Office (DARPA = Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency):

When public outrage over the TIA project caused the Congress to eliminate the TIA budget, the scuttlebutt among the sales team implied that another funding source would likely be secured.  I was not privy to any information beyond generic lunch-room speculation, so cannot I say for certain what happened. I can, however, conjecture and make some educated guesses. The acronym for one of those educated guesses is RKF. More on that later.

Poindexter’s name remained in circulation, and Hicks & Associates, Booz-Allen & Hamilton, and SAIC, all contractors involved with TIA implementation, remained customers.

:: CIM ::

Before the funding cut, we were given a demo of an app by a small company that has since bought out by General Dynamics’ information systems division for a tidy $1.5 billion.

The software was called the “CIM” – Critical Intent Modeler.

Let that name sink in for a bit…

.

.

.

The CIM’s purpose in the TIA context is described as follows:

“Understanding Intent represents the capability for analysts and decision-makers to develop an understanding of the intent of an individual or set of individuals with regards to a future action based on current understanding.”

Here’s a screenshot of the UI, based on a scenario of a suspect who might choose to weaponize a biological agent – it was their standard public demo:

It’s not secret software, you can find other references online, mostly via people’s resumés and consulting company portfolio pages.

The software was originally designed to “reverse-engineer” outcomes as a means of determining their likelihood and to identify those who might play a role in making them happen: start with an outcome (such as a terrorist releasing a weaponized biological agent), then list the criteria necessary to achieve that outcome, then feed in all sorts of data to find out which, if any, criteria have been met and by whom.  If a person or group of people meets enough criteria, those people become “persons of interest.”

However, in the way TIA seemed to be planning to use it, it would probably do the opposite – start with a demographic (such as all readers of a certain book), then for each person in that demographic, gather additional circumstantial information to “prove” whether or not the person could eventually pose some sort of threat (such as other books read, the type of work they do, dietary preferences, whether or not they are a Quaker, organizations to which they belong, political affiliations, and so on). If an individual had enough “check marks” in the criteria list, it could imply that at some time in the future that individual might think of some other activity that could be considered threatening (for example, reading Molly Ivens’ book “Shrub,” being a Quaker, and talking critically of the president at a peace gathering could be a gateway to taking some kind of action against the President in the future – maybe).  Or as Orwell might have described it, the system would identify those who may be in a stage of “pre-thought” regarding a “pre-crime.” In other words: You haven’t done anything, you haven’t even thought of doing anything, but you’ve got to be monitored, because you could think of something someday.

:: RKF ::

An educated guess on my part is that this is the current moniker for TIA. Again, I have no actual proof, other than my own conjecture based on what I knew of the companies working on the project and knowing about the existence of CIM. So, take it with a grain of salt the size of Utah.

So, what is RKF? It’s “Rapid Knowledge Formation.”

Rapid Knowledge Formation is a program run by DARPA (recognize that acronym?). Its goal is to create an automated system that uses templates to filter through massive amounts of data and determine whether a particular person’s data meets enough criteria to be worthy of scrutiny.

You can see the slides, presentations and more, on the RKF project in all sorts of places on the web:

http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/…

http://www.ai.sri.com/…

http://www.ksl.stanford.edu/…

http://www.isi.edu/…

http://www.iet.webfactional.com/…

http://www.dtic.mil/…

(There are tons more, google Rapid Knowledge Formation to see a plethora.)

One of the key elements in RKF is … CIM.

In one of the earliest presentations (link to the IET RKF Kickoff slides), critical intent models are created and updated using Veridian’s CIM. The models are used as inputs for a knowledge base based. Knowledge workers (also called subject matter experts), use this knowledge base for their analysis.

Another place you’ll see CIM is in this document, the TIA Systems Description, on page 17.

In TIA, it’s used for building and updating models – coincidentally, the same thing it’s used for in RKF. Hmmm…

As with CIM, the RKF project’s public presentations focus on biological agent weaponization.

In other presentations, the model templates are referred to as “domain templates.” Biological weapons is one of the “domains” for which templates have been created. Others, exist.

Structured Argumentation represents the capability for analysts to use models, which capture expert knowledge, to reason about potential threats, intent, and the like.

CIMStructuredArgumentationImage

Here’s one for the books:

Entergy announced on Tuesday that a former supervisor, who worked at the Indian Point nuclear power plant north of New York City for twenty-nine years, had been arrested for deliberately falsifying critical safety records and lying to federal regulators last year.

The feds are charging Daniel Wilson, and, if convicted, he faces up to seven years in jail.

The falsified records concern misrepresented levels of particulate matter in diesel samples taken from the Reserve Tank; a safety concern.  When repeated measurements of those levels exceeded NRC standards,

Wilson logged into the company database under another employee’s name and fabricated test data for resample tests which were never actually taken.

Wilson’s reason for falsifying the records?  He said didn’t want the NRC to shut the facility down.

Of course butter wouldn’t melt in Entergy’s mouth over this latest example of messed-up corporate culture, but their protestations ring hollow:

While Entergy has claimed that the findings were discovered by employees at the nuclear power plant, they were really found during the period while workers were preparing for a pending NRC inspection, when they knew that federal regulators would want to look at the diesel fuel due to the 2011 findings.

Entergy should be open to a fine of $140,000 per day for operating while in violation of safety regulations; but, so far, no fine has been levied.

Safe? Clean? Reliable?

This whole “motels for the homeless” issue continues to reverberate, months after the Legislature took a (then little-noticed) meataxe to the motel budget, which then caused the Department of Children and Families to issue some extremely tight rules about who gets a free room.

Rules that, given our shortage of shelter space, were certain to leave a lot of homeless people without a place to stay.

The latest: after a tsunami of complaints from homeless advocacy groups, DCF has backtracked — substantially easing the rules. VTDigger:

The previous plan would have cut from the program 70 percent of people who previously qualified, according to the department’s estimates. The new plan would cut participation by about 20 percent, according to DCF’s estimates.

Which is nice, except that I recall DCF Commissioner David Yacavone appearing on VPR’s “Vermont Edition” on July 10, issuing a calm, measured, and slightly smug defense of the rules. Guess he changed his mind. Also, the new rules threaten to blow a hole in the DCF budget. And key lawmakers are cold to the idea of paying the extra freight. Claire Ayer, chair of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, told VTDigger that the motel “money was being spent in the wrong places.”

Yes, well, I think everybody agrees that $50-per-night motel rooms are a poor substitute for a decent shelter program, good transitional support, and an adequate supply of affordable housing. But lawmakers haven’t exactly rushed forward to fund those better alternatives; they simply whacked the motel budget.

This issue takes up a lot of real estate in this week’s “Fair Game” column in Seven Days. Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz takes a dig at legislative “lefties” who’ve ben critical of Governor Shumlin’s tightfistedness, but who are now out-toughing the Gov on the motel issue. And yes, he’s got a point, but a couple things come to mind:

After the jump: A certain Dem/Prog takes the stage, repeatedly.

— The Legislature was forced into cutting programs by Shumlin’s complete intransigence on taxes and his inclusion of some even worse choices, such as the draconian cut in the Earned Income Tax Credit.

— State spending on motels was a favorite hobbyhorse of Heintz’ own paymasters. I seem to recall at least two very large articles in Seven Days about the motel program. The second included flashy graphics detailing the “Cost to Taxpayers” of temporary stays at certain Vermont motels. The kind of thing I’d expect from WCAX-TV, or Vermont’s Worst Newspaper™, the Caledonian-Record.  

So if “lefties” are “dishing out the tough medicine,” as Heintz puts it, then Vermont’s maverick “alternative” newspaper certainly did its part to foster that particular prescription.

Now here’s a funny thing. When you go back and read Seven Days’ coverage on this issue, one name pops up over and over again: Senator Tim Ashe, Democrat/Progresssive (or is it Progressive/Democrat?). In December, 7D quoted him as saying the motel program is “skewed toward crisis management and not crisis prevention.” Which is a nice sentiment, and presumes you’re adequately funding crisis prevention.

In the January article festooned with aforementioned graphics and entitled “Leaders Question Program that Puts Vermont’s Homeless in Motels,” the following “leaders” (all Senators) are quoted as “question[ing the] program”:

Tim Ashe

Tim Ashe

Tim Ashe

Tim Ashe

Sally Fox (not quoted; simply mentioned as a co-sponsor of an Ashe bill)

Tim Ashe

Tim Ashe

Tim Ashe

Jane Kitchel

Is it just me, or does one name stick out on that list?

Oh yeah, Tim Ashe, mentioned in this week’s “Fair Game” as having “crusaded against the motel program for years.”

Tim Ashe, subject of Seven Days’ multitudinous disclaimers: “Tim Ashe is the domestic partner of Seven Days publisher and coeditor Paula Routly.”

Y’know, when Ashe ran for Mayor of Burlington, I thought Seven Days did a fine job of playing it straight. In this case, when it lavishes attention on an Ashe hobbyhorse, I have to wonder. (Maybe this is why one journalism type told me that 7D’s newly open News Editor position was “fraught, to say the least.”

Or maybe not.)

I also have to wonder what kind of game Our Leading Elected Progressive is playing. HIs argument, as quoted in his favorite weekly, is that the program is “skewed toward crisis management and not crisis prevention.”  Which is a lovely rationalization, but for three problems:

— You can never prevent all housing crises, especially in an economy where the middle class has been decimated and many of our citizens live perilously close to the poverty line. You’d better fund crisis management AND prevention.    

— If you’re going to cut funding for crisis management, you’d better concomitantly beef up the prevention side. This session, the Legislature did the easy half and left it to DCF to figure out the rest.

— Ashe has not only blasted the short-term nature of the motel fix, he’s also leveled some dog-whistle criticisms of the program. He asserted, without citing evidence, that it’s drawing homeless people from out of state. And he’s implied that the state’s being taken for a ride by profit-minded innkeepers. But, as Seven Days itself reported, the average per-night cost in Burlington was $56 in FY 2012. That’s about as cheap as you can get.

I conclude with a bit of complete speculation, which is one of our House Specials at the GMD Cafe.

This isn’t the first time Tim Ashe has tacked toward the middle. Is he aiming for a future statewide race, and hoping to position himself as “the tough, responsible Progresive”?

(Or, in supermarket terms, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Shumlin”?)

If you think that’s overly conspiratorial, then I remind you of last year’s race for Senate President Pro Tem, which resulted in John Campbell’s re-election in spite of numerous grumblings about his leadership. Ashe was one of those supporting Campbell, and his reward was the chairmanship of the powerful Finance Committee. After which he told the Vermont Press Bureau’s Peter Hirschfeld that he was “eager to help Gov. Peter Shumlin fulfill a pledge not to raise broad-based taxes.”

He seems to be “eager” for something, that’s for sure.  

As Bruce Lisman flits about the state on his lightweight imitation of Sec’y. Condos’ ongoing “transparency tour,” State Auditor Doug Hoffer continues a practical and methodical examination of state agencies, from soup to nuts.

This Monday, GMD’s favorite number cruncher released a new audit report on The Office of State Employee Workers’ Compensation and Injury Prevention.  The OSEWCIP (just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) is responsible for oversight and management of workers’ comp for 6,000 state employees.

Like all state agencies in this era of purse-tightening, it is severely understaffed with just fifteen souls to hold down the fort; but, according to Auditor Hoffer, they are losing the battle and the cost both in practical value and in dollars-and-cents to Vermonters is considerable.

“State government’s most important asset is its workers, and they deserve a safe workplace,” Hoffer said. “In addition, taxpayers have a right to expect the state to make the investments necessary to reduce workforce injuries and related costs.”

Due to understaffing, Hoffer estimates that as many as 25% of the claims filed for Workers’ Comp never get properly reviewed.

One of the problems identified in the audit is poor communications management.  

Hoffer says that while Human Resources often receives “recommendations for improvements in the workforce,”  those recommendations never make it into the hands of “shop managers” who could apply those recommendations to the work environment.

“Nearly every incident represents an opportunity to implement a safer work environment and reduce claims,” the audit found. “The results of the statistical sample indicate that (the Office of State Employee Workers’ Compensation and Injury Prevention) is missing significant opportunities to identify and recommend safety fixes.”

Hoffer’s audit identified the heaviest filers of workers’ comp claims among government agencies:

the Agency of Transportation, Department of Corrections, Vermont Veterans’ Home, Department of Buildings and General Services, Department of Public Safety and the now-closed Vermont State Hospital – accounted for more than three-quarters of the 4,825 workers’ comp incidents reported between fiscal years 2008 and 2012.

That list may hint at where Auditor Hoffer might next turn his attentions.

Okay, I try to be open to the idea that Islam is not necessarily more oppressive of women than other religions (in other words, extremely, infuriatingly oppressive of women), but this is today's version of This Absolutely Takes the Fucking Cake.

The story is that a woman in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, was raped. Unfortunately for her, she reported it to the police, so as a consequence she was prosecuted and sentenced to prison for eighteen months.

Bad enough, right? Like unimaginably bad. But it gets worse.

She doesn't have to go to prison for eighteen months. She's been released, her passport's been returned, and she gets to go home.

How is this worse? Because she gets to do all these things because she has been granted a pardon! A pardon for the crime of being raped!

Yes, that's right. A woman is raped, is discouraged from reporting it to the police, is eventually taken into custody and sentenced to prison, and the people who run the place think they can make it all better by granting her a pardon.

You commonly hear people say “There are no words,” and in this case I pretty much have to agree.

I notice in today’s Freeps that there is some discussion of why the Air Force has not staged a demo of the F-35 in Burlington. Here is the Freeps take on the reasons:

Safety is the only possible reason why the people of Chittenden county could not have the opportunity to experience the plane, first hand, before being expected to accept its deployment here…and that certainly raises its own set of questions.

____________________________________________________________

You’ve got to hand it to F-35 opponents in the Burlington area.  They’re not giving up without a fight.

I don’t live in the area, and I don’t work in the field; so I haven’t a dog in that fight.  But I do see that opponents in the affected communities are being pressured to stand down for what amount to short-term economic reasons alone; and that is always concerning.

The F-35 program is near and dear to the hearts of our governor, our DC delegation, and many in municipal government; all of whom are understandably eager to lock-in Guard related jobs in any way they can.

But short-term economic assurances at the cost of long-term health and social impacts is a bargain Vermonters just can’t afford to make.

There are still too many unknowns associated with the F-35 program, even as local politicos fall all over themselves to secure the siting.

It is not crazy to be inquiring as to the impact on children’s health and hearing.  

It is not crazy to regard the loss of up to a thousand homes as potentially devastating for the sense of community.

As always, the voices of those who challenge any development, for ANY reasons are ill-tolerated by the power elite, and flicked away repeatedly, like so many summer flies.

However, the community still hasn’t received fully satisfactory answers as to why South Burlington was identified as the “preferred” location for the siting; although, ironically, cost now appears to be the primary driver.

(Take that, you naysayers who argue that Vermont isn’t economically competitive in attracting new businesses!)

It is becoming apparent that the affected communities must make their final decision to accept or reject the siting without the benefit of experiencing the F-35 auditory “experience,” first-hand.

That seems remarkably unfair.

Is it because, in order to even receive a visit from the aircraft, major modifications must first be made to Burlington Airport?

If so, what do those modifications entail, and how might they impact  the surrounding environment.

An engineer  friend of mine with some knowledge of the field, has hinted that we may be looking at the wrong primary impact in discussing noise issues associated with the aircraft.  

He speculates that there is much more reason for concern with the radar upgrades at the airport that will undoubtedly have to be made in order to host the state-of-the-art stealth warship.

Such upgrades might well impact airborne wildlife, my friend suggests.

I have no ability to assess his concerns, but would like to know if anyone has raised this peripheral issue and if it has been successfully laid to rest.

And are we so certain that the F-35 represents the best hedge on securing the future of Vermont’s Air National Guard?

Even a brief Google search reveals that there are a great many doubts about the F-35’s performance, not to mention its escalating price-tag and production delays.

What happens if someone pulls the plug on the program after all the homes have been condemned and investments have been made in conforming infrastructure?  

Is this really the basket into which we want to put all of our eggs?

If you answered “Ten percent less than we thought,” you’d be correct. At least, Entergy Nuclear hopes so. VTDigger has the story, along with an accompanying photo of 2007’s cooling tower collapse (ah, memories):

Entergy Corp., which owns the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, is preparing to cut back its labor force in an effort to reorganize the company.

… A source inside the Vernon plant says managers are telling workers that the company could lay off 10 percent of the facility’s roughly 650 workers.

The Vermont cuts are part of a company-wide “human capital management strategic imperative,” which is how the people who have sold their souls for a corporate PR gig refer to FIRING WORKERS. That’s right, Entergy is following the IBM path to prosperity.

The move comes after a disappointing second-quarter earnings result. Entergy places most of the blame on large increases in income tax payments, due to a one-time quirk; 2012’s second quarter saw a big write-off of storm-damage cleanup costs in Louisiana, Entergy’s home state.

But you’d think, if the earnings drop was really a one-time thing, it shouldn’t cause a company-wide retraction. And you’d be right; Entergy is whistling past the graveyard.

After the jump: “Economic reality has slammed the door on nuclear power.”

Again, VTDigger:

Mark Cooper, a senior economics fellow at Vermont Law School, published a paper Wednesday titled, “Renaissance in Reverse: Competition Pushes Aging U.S. Nuclear Reactors to the Brink of Economic Abandonment.”

… “Economic reality has slammed the door on nuclear power,” Cooper concluded. “In the near-term old reactors are uneconomic because lower cost alternatives have squeezed their cash margins to the point where they no longer cover the cost of nuclear operation … In the long term new reactors are uneconomic because there are numerous low-carbon alternatives that are less costly and less risk (sic).”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Entergy is trying to find out how few Vermonters it takes to run a nuclear power plant.

Now, it’s good fun to chortle at Entergy’s dire straits, but it does beg the fundamental question, as posed in VTDigger’s comments section by one Moshe Braner:

We should get more money from Entergy into the insufficient decommissioning fund before they go “poof.”

Yeah, if Entergy was shedding crocodile tears over the need to set aside hundreds of millions when their bottom line was healthy, how eager do you think they’ll be to restock the decomm fund now that the whole company seems to be circling the drain?  

Here’s a nice little Christmas-in-July surprise: the dispute over Gov. Shumlin’s purchase of his neighbor’s property is headed to a quiet resolution.

When Jeremy Dodge’s family hired Brady Toensing to represent them, I wouldn’t have predicted a deal would come so quickly, and so completely out of public view. Toensing is the junior partner in a conservative D.C. law firm known for taking on political hot-button causes; his mother, Victoria Toensing, is a frequent conspiracy-slinger on Fox News. Given Toensing’s background, I thought sure he’d try to inflict maximum political damage on Shumlin.

Instead, we have an agreement in principle which would allow Dodge to retain ownership of his family homestead. He’d be given five years to pay back the money Shumlin had put into the deal — an estimated $30,000 — at a low but unspecified interest rate. (“The lowest allowed by the IRS,” according to Shumlin’s attorney M. Jerome Diamond.)

Assuming the deal goes through, it’s a nice moment for all parties.

Toensing will have acted in his client’s best interest instead of his own political interest; Shumlin will have realized that the Dodge deal was not worth the political embarrassment and offered good terms to undo the sale; and Dodge has a chance at a fresh start. According to Seven Days’ Paul Heintz, Dodge’s children are taking an active part in helping him pay off the debt and restore his home.

Some details remain to be worked out, but it sounds like a reasonable resolution for all concerned. And one blissfully — and unexpectedly — free of politics.