Hey, guys:

Stop whining.

Sincerely,

jv

Postscript: I realize that political campaigns can get awfully incestuous and insidery — and that campaign coverage tends to focus on tactics rather than issues — but really, I wish the two Democrats running for Attorney General would stop complaining about each other’s campaigns.

Three reasons. First, if you’re running to be Vermont’s Two-Fisted Attorney General, you’re going to face much tougher fights than this. If you display more toughness than pettiness, it might help convince voters that you can handle the job.

Second, the alleged offenses are trivial compared to the stuff that goes on every day in politics across the country. Sorrell squawks about a “push poll” that manifestly isn’t a push poll, and one of his supporters cries foul over a mistaken absentee-ballot application (which was a mistake, to be sure, but not a scandal). Then Donovan shows the poll questions to reporters on condition that they not reveal the actual questions, which is about as silly as it gets. And today, Donovan holds a news conference to complain about a very measured, not-at-all negative ad being aired by a pro-Sorrell PAC.

And third, the voters don’t give a damn. Much as I’d love to think that negative campaigning will backfire on the attacker, it just doesn’t happen. There are ways to counterattack, but simply complaining about sucker punches or eye gouges doesn’t get you anywhere.

This mutual whinefest might make their campaign staffs feel productive, and it certainly makes the press corps happy — they get to “cover the campaign” without having to figure out the difficult stuff like issues or qualifications. But it does not help the candidates’ images or their efforts to win the primary.  

 A recent Woodshop News article reported a legal settlement between the U.S. Justice Dept. and Gibson Guitars. It’s unusual but not totally unheard of to find an article in a peaceful woodworking trade publication that easily leads back into complex environmental import regulations, musical instruments, and right wing conspiracy theories.

Gibson Guitar Corp. entered into a criminal enforcement agreement with the United States, resolving a criminal investigation into allegations that the company violated the Lacey Act by illegally purchasing and importing ebony wood from Madagascar and rosewood and ebony from India.

[…] The agreement defers prosecution for criminal violations of the Lacey Act and requires Gibson to pay a penalty amount of $300,000 and a community service payment of $50,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Gibson also relinquished any claim to the illegally obtained shipments of ebony valued at $261,844. Some supporters of the updated Lacey Act’s intent to protect endangered natural resources thought the raid might have been un-needed. But Gibson’s anti-regulation supporters blamed the imaginary hand of George Soros for instigating the legal action and federal raids that preceded the recent settlement.  

Back in the Bush administration, beginning in May 2008, under the updated Lacey Act of 1900, it became illegal to import plants and plant products (trees of course are plants and lumber is a plant product) harvested and exported in violation of the laws of another country.

Gibson Guitars purchased ebony lumber that was already sawn into “blanks” for guitar fingerboards from a supplier. The Gibson supplier had been receiving the ebony “blanks” from a Madagascar exporter after a 2006 ban and did not have authority to export this product.

In 2008, an employee from Gibson traveled to Madagascar and was told of the 2006 law and that it in fact banned ebony fingerboard “blank” exports. The Gibson employee informed his superiors yet Gibson Guitars still received four shipments of the Madagascar ebony between October 2008 and September 2009.

The Justice Department raided and seized the wood from Gibson’s Nashville facility in two separate raids. This action was quickly seized on by Republican Speaker John Boehner, who had the Gibson CEO by his side at a State of the Union speech as a walking, talking victim of alleged over-regulation. Tea Partiers howled and cried about “Government jackboots kicking down doors, etc. …”  Republican legislation was soon in the works in Congress limiting the Bush era amendments to the Lacy Act.  

Almost as rapidly, a charge blaming George Soros was in the works too. The unsupported accusation was that the Environmental Investigation Agency (a self-described independent organization committed to bringing about change that protects the natural world from environmental crime and abuse), under influence of George Soros, had exerted pressure on the Justice Department to raid Gibson because of Gibson’s Republican ties. This rumor went into heavy rotation. Everyone suddenly knew the imaginary hand of Soros was at work behind the scenes, secretly lobbying and organizing the government takeover of innocent fingerboard “blanks”.  

After the raids but prior to the settlement Gibson decided that it would partner with the Heritage Foundation and sponsor a VIP bus at a music event at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. A Justice Department official points out that as of now

"Gibson has acknowledged that it failed to act on information that the Madagascar ebony it was purchasing may have violated laws intended to limit over-harvesting and conserve valuable wood species from Madagascar, a country which has been severely impacted by deforestation."

However it appears Gibson Guitars will continue to leverage their political alliance to weaken a law they fell afoul of. This leaves hanging the question a woodworking industry blog posed: Will Gibson Guitars come away from this venture with its reputation intact?

Ya gotta wonder, is it worth the risk of alienating the many left-wing guitarists who might buy Gibsons? Will Gibson Guitars become the next Chick-fil-A?

Or is Gibson trolling for new customers to join Ted Nugent (who plays a Gibson Byrdland)?

It has been said that the U.S. Congress only gets serious about tackling a controversial issue when there is a crisis.  Whether this crisis is real or manufactured, our national representatives usually need some sort of fire to get legislation moving.

But our leaders are currently dealing with a unique situation.  If Congress fails to act and extend the Bush-era tax rates before they expire in January 2013, American taxpayers will be hit with heavy tax increases.  Yet, a realistic solution seems distant and many leaders, including our president, are perfectly fine with letting some of them expire.

Even if Congress decides to listen to President Obama and only extend the current tax rates for individuals making less than $250,000, working middle class families are certain to feel the pinch with a smaller job pool.  Under this scenario, accounting firm Ernst and Young estimates that wages would decrease and the economy would shed more than 700,000 jobs.  This is not an economic formula that works for everyone.

Failure to act comes with a heavy cost. According to a study from the American Action Forum, the failure to extend the current rates for everyone would cause a 6 percentage drop in GDP (meaning our entire economy would shrink, not grow) and an additional 2.8 million people would be unemployed, sending the unemployment rate to more than 10 percent.

To make matters worse, the failure of the congressional super committee prompted across-the-board automatic spending cuts to take effect in January 2013.  These $1.2 trillion cuts will impact federal domestic and defense discretionary spending, but they will be especially damaging to the millions of people whose employment is connected to the U.S. Department of Defense. A report by the Aerospace Industries Association found that these cuts would cost the economy 2.14 million jobs.  The U.S. military does have a considerable budget, but the recent Chinese military build-up and ongoing battle against terrorism make it precarious for us to grow weary on our defenses.

With the impending tax rate increase and the military budget cuts, the American economy is facing a loss of 4.94 million jobs in just a few months!  This is a crisis – and if Congress does not wake up, the U.S. economy will be in another recession and millions will be in a depression.

Unfortunately, President Obama and the Democratically-controlled U.S. Senate are unwilling to avert this disaster.  Our only hope is to elect leaders in November that know how jobs are created, not eliminated.

If you are looking for commercial equipment kentucky then theyardpark.com is the place to look. You can be sure that bobcat kentucky can be found too. And of course equipment rental in bowling green can also be found. Be sure to check out the web site of The Yard Park for all your needs in this area. And be sure to tell all your friends about them also. Surely you can find what you need there.

Okay, so this is completely off-topic, except that our late lamented colleague Julie Waters used to liven up this website with her excellent bird photography. My photo isn’t up to her standard, but it’s a neat story and I wanted to share.

Spouse (Evan by name) and I were flying back to Vermont from out of state. Flight delayed without explanation. (When we boarded the plane an hour and a half late, the info-screen still listed the flight as leaving “on time.”) Killed the time sitting, reading, staring into space, and consuming overpriced airport snax.

While we were sitting there, we noticed a bird or two flitting around the terminal. Little grayish-black birds, about the size of a chickadee. This itself isn’t terribly unusual; birds do get into large open indoor spaces, like big-box stores. And airport terminals.

Evan posited that the birds probably found plenty of food, although not terribly healthy — fast-food leftovers, nuts, chips, etc. But she wondered if they managed to find enough fluids to keep going.

So she took her (costly) bottled water and poured out a few teaspoons on the linoleum. Within a minute, birds were swooping down from all directions. At one point, there were ten of them. Each would drink a little water, fly away, and eventually come back down.

Evan replenished the water a couple of times. After they’d had their fill, some of the birds tried to bathe, rubbing their bellies in the shallow puddle, shaking the water around and grooming their feathers. This continued even though we were sitting less than ten feet away, and passengers were occasionally passing within a few feet of the puddle.

I managed to take a few pictures. Not terribly artistic, but great keepsakes of an unusual encounter with nature in a decidedly unnatural setting. Next time we fly, we might bring along a small plastic bowl.  

Oh, as long as we’re bagging on Vermont journalism, let’s address another common shortcoming of the contemporary news media: stenography instead of reporting.

Case in point: Vince Illuzzi’s plan to prevent timesheet fraud by state workers, and Doug Hoffer’s assertion that much of Illuzzi’s proposal is already in effect. The back-and-forth was covered by the Freeploid and VTDigger; and in each story, the reporter dutifully recorded Illuzzi’s thrust and Hoffer’s riposte.

And made absolutely no effort to determine who was right.

I don’t know if this is a matter of time (and I sympathize with anyone trying to be a reporter in these financially-restricted times) or a misguided effort to be “fair and balanced” by not taking sides. But it seems to me that this is a simple thing to check.

Instead, both stories leave it up in the air. This kind of thing is all too common in the media nowadays, and it’s a profound disservice to news consumers and the greater cause of Truth. Which is supposed to be the point, after all.  

It’s not exactly a revelation that Vermont’s newspapers are suffering. Ad revenues and print circulation continue to plunge, and the Internet (with or without paywalls) doesn’t pay nearly enough to close the gap. And when the paper is owned by a big corporation, the shareholders are first in line for whatever revenue comes through the door.

So, staff cutbacks. Do more with less. Work harder, not smarter. (Or is it the other way around?)

But you still gotta fill that news hole every day. And you’ve gotta have something on the front page that might entice the casual reader to plunk down a buck for today’s paper. Or at least convince subscribers not to cancel.

The solution: journalism on the cheap. And today we have two prime examples, one from the Freeploid and one from the Times Argus.  

Freeploid: No news is… news. The new, full-color Freeploid has gotten a lot of mileage out of two stories: Chittenden County gas prices (see postscript below) and the timesheet follies at the Vermont State Police. Today brings an update on the latter story, which says… er… nothing.

Vermont State Police are continuing to climb a mountain of paperwork as they try to sort out allegations of possible time sheet padding by a former colleague.

… “The investigation is not complete. It continues. We want to make sure that it is done properly and thoroughly,” [State’s Attorney T.J.] Donovan said.

Mmm, yep. The rest of the article is basically a recap of the case. It could be worse, I guess; the ‘Loid could be doing this every damn day.

Times Argus: Making a mountain out of a molehill. This morning’s paper greeted me with the screaming headline, “Incident raises questions of practice.” Which is just so adorably, absolutely generic, it almost looks like a place-holder headline that made the print edition by mistake. Tomorrow’s front page story: “Insert Headline Here.”

The T-A’s paywalled Web edition has a less fascinating but perhaps more inflammatory header, “Early voting: Does it have its downsides?” Which almost sounds like a TV news teaser: “Are Juice Boxes Killing Our Kids? The answer tonight, on NewsScream 7!”

The “incident,” as you might have inferred, involves the TJ Donovan campaign mistakenly requesting an absentee ballot on behalf of a Brattleboro woman who didn’t authorize the request. And who happens to be a Bill Sorrell supporter. Oopsie.  

This one incident, posits the T-A, calls into question the widespread practice by most campaigns of asking potential supporters if they’d like to vote absentee, and then facilitating the process of getting them a ballot.  

Well, it may raise process issues, and it underscores a campaign’s responsibility for due diligence. But no, a single mistake doesn’t raise fundamental questions about the practice. It does make for a nice, easy front-page filler: get quotes from the usual suspects, raise questions and bat them down again. With any luck, it’ll catch on and you will have created a Controversy — the mother’s milk of journalism. But even if it doesn’t catch on, you will have at least filled that front-page hole for one more day.

Postscript. I understand why the Freeploid tried to make chicken salad out of chickenshit on the Deeghan case. But it really makes me wonder why the ‘Loid didn’t give any space to Bernie Sanders’ Monday hearing on gas prices in northwest Vermont. It’s their biggest, juiciest story in quite a while. And since it was a scheduled event, it was the lowest of low-hanging fruit for a desperate assignment editor gazing across a nearly-empty newsroom.

I can only think of two possible explanations. First, the Freeploid figured that other media would cover it (VTDigger has a good writeup) so they wouldn’t be able to claim it as their own. Second, they were afraid to lose ad revenue from the Big Four gas station owners.  

Pictures from Curiosity’s Mars mission are a welcome relief from our earthbound travails.

It’s no wonder media outlets hyperventilate at the mere thought of such reliably happy material.

But one important aspect of the mission is routinely overlooked in news coverage; and that is the role that plutonium has played in fueling Curiosity’s race through space.   The success of this mission ensures that more will be attempted using the same method of propulsion.  Therein lies the concern.

Nasa has been at great pains to downplay the risk posed by plutonium fuel, insisting that the pelletized fuel is “unlikely,”  even in case of an accident, to be released into the human environment:

It is manufactured in a ceramic form that does not become a significant health hazard unless it becomes broken into very fine pieces or vaporized and then inhaled or swallowed. Those people who might be exposed in a Mars Science Laboratory launch accident would receive an average dose of 5-10 millirem, equal to about a week of background radiation. The average American receives 360 millirem of radiation each year from natural sources, such as radon and cosmic rays.

When examined a little more closely, this argument fails to comfort.  The “360 millirems” cited by Nasa as every American’s dose from natural sources (so-called “background radiation”) refers to external radiation, and assumes that in case of an accident, human exposures to radiation would be limited to external, and therefore finite doses.  

However, the greatest danger from plutonium is posed by its effect when taken internally.  In which case it remains in the body indefinitely, constantly  bombarding surrounding cells with enormous destructive energy.  Even the tiniest possible particle of plutonium has devastating potential for the human body.

Internal exposure can result when plutonium “dust” becomes airborne following an accident that destroys the matrix in which has been captured, thus distributing it in such a way that it can be inhaled or absorbed into the food chain.

Witness the EPA’s take on the effects of plutonium:

External exposure to plutonium poses very little health risk, since plutonium isotopes emit alpha radiation, and almost no beta or gamma radiation. In contrast, internal exposure to plutonium is an extremely serious health hazard. It generally stays in the body for decades, exposing organs and tissues to radiation, and increasing the risk of cancer. Plutonium is also a toxic metal, and may cause damage to the kidneys.

Even though the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) for the launch of Curiosity put the odds of a plutonium release from the overall mission at “one in 220,” as one concerned commenter observed:

The EIS says “overall” on the mission, the likelihood of plutonium being released is 1-in-220. It puts the odds at 1-in-420 of plutonium being released in a launch accident. This could “release material into the regional area defined…to be within…62 miles of the launch pad,” says the EIS. The most densely populated part of that area is Orlando.

When the overall record of rocket failures over the course of the race for space is considered, those odds don’t look particularly good to me.  If we are about to embark on a new era of space exploration amid the cost constraints  and privatization that is likely in the twenty-first century, there is genuine reason for concern should more and more deep space missions be fueled with plutonium rather than the solar arrays of the past.

I hate to poop on the parade, but as we celebrate the achievements of Curiosity shouldn’t we, also be wiping our brow with relief and reflecting that, this time, the worst did not happen?

It seems Republican Vince Illuzzi is having a tough time finding talking points for his run at the auditor’s office. In today’s Free Press, he takes poorly aimed pot-shots at public employees without encumbering himself with a whole lot of facts.

His Democratic opponent Doug Hoffer points out that, in framing the “three part plan” regarding overtime that he would advocate as auditor, Mr. Illuzzi seems to have failed to read the existing Human Resources Manual that pretty much has all that covered.  

According to Hoffer:

I was surprised to see Mr. Illuzzi’s suggestions today since the core elements are already part of state’s Human Resources Policy Manual (see below).

The auditor has an important role to play in ensuring compliance with policies and procedures. But any recommendations should come after conducting the necessary research, not before. In this case, Mr. Illuzzi admitted that he had “not yet had the opportunity to assess agency by agency and department current controls that may be in place.” He should have done his homework.

In fact, the third part of Illuzzi’s overtime management plan has nothing to do with overtime:

Ensuring that agency assets such as vehicles, cell phones, equipment, and other agency resources are used only for official business.

According to the Free Press, Illuzzi alleges that

supervisors are providing inadequate oversight of employee time sheets. He said also the de­tection and prevention of time sheet fraud is not a priori­ty for some departments and there is often a failure by some management to establish procedures to monitor overtime claims.

And he knows this for a fact?  Apparently not.

Hoffer, however, noted Illuzzi said he had not had the opportunity to assess agency by agency and department current controls that may be in place.

While Hoffer agrees that the overtime issue must be reviewed and any systemic failures addressed, it isn’t very productive making blanket statements about agency mismanagement without any concrete information.

Doing so only alienates the people with whom the auditor will have to establish a respectful relationship in order to do an effective job.

This raises the question of Illuzzi’s personal style and how it might hamstring the work of the auditor’s office.

Old habits die hard.  If Mr. Illuzzi cannot resist the temptation to shoot from the hip; or if he forgets himself and attempts to legislate from the auditor’s office, he could potentially be an even less effective auditor than the perennially distracted Tom Salmon.

 Breaking news…today…

Bill Sorrell said today in an ‘exclusive’ interview with The WalMart Green News & Environmental Shopper that he “doesn’t care” how much negative press he’s been getting lately because he is: “still the one all loyal Democrats will vote for once all loyal Democrats put aside the insignificance of Republicanesque attacks aimed at soiling the record of fifteen years of rock solid executive branch ‘electability’ and low key consistency as, not just Vermont’s Attorney General, but as Vermont’s Professional Attorney General.”

“You see,”  explained Sorrell to WalMart Green News reporter Karma Gibberish,  “I’m sort of like Jim Douglas.  He ran for Secretary of State unopposed and got re-elected and re-elected for about a hundred years.  Then he got elected Governor.  Why?  Name recognition.  When Dems see my name on the primary ballot this month, they’ll yawn, say ‘yeah, I know this guy’ and fill in the oval next to my name.  It’s that simple.  I don’t really have to campaign.  I’m too busy being Attorney General following and upholding the rule of law set down by the Vermont Legislature and the Federal Government.  That’s my job.  And that’s what I do.  And if sometimes that means not doing things, well that’s my job too, unless the Vermont Legislature or the Feds tell me otherwise.  

“You know,”  Sorrell continued,  “all this stuff coming out about the inmates at our correction centers being abused, and overcrowded, and working as slave labor, all this nonsense about the elderly and disabled being abused and robbed, all these unsubstantiated claims about migrant farm workers’ rights being violated, all this hysteria about missing people, unsolved cases, and Massachusetts meth gangs operating in Vermont, that’s all stuff that people who support TJ Donovan care about.  But I don’t care, because TJ Donovan is NOT Attorney General.  I am.  And will continue to be, because I can depend on the vote of Vermonters who are the silent majority; the people who can vote on this primary contest in their sleep.”

When Gibberish asked Sorrell if he were being perhaps too dismissive of issues Donovan and other sources, including the media, have brought to light, Sorrell answered:  “You know, Karma, I say Fuck ‘Em All!  I mean it.  I’m your Attorney General.  Howard Dean supports me.  Vermonters love Howard Dean.  I don’t have to kiss asses to

get votes.  The votes are already there.  As I said before, I’m your professional Attorney General.  I can do this job in my sleep.  Like I’ve done for the past fifteen years.  You might ask TJ Donovan why he brings up issues like questioning the AG’s office’s firm stand on steering legally clear of advocacy for marihuana.  It’s like Donovan is handing Randy Brock an issue.  Like the entire Democratic Party is stoned and being run by the Make Marihuana Legal Party.  I don’t think good loyal Democrats appreciate this.  I know I don’t.  It’s not my job to help Randy Brock get elected, and I will not drag the Attorney General’s office into Mr. Donovan’s attempt to give aid and comfort to the Republican Party.  That would be against the law as I see it, if there is one.  And don’t think I won’t check.”

And finally, Gibberish asked Sorrell who he thought would win in November, Obama or Romney.

“Obama’s the Democrat, right?  I’ve been so busy following and upholding state and federal laws.  But, let me say then that if Obama has been doing his job, he doesn’t need to worry.  I mean, we all have our jobs to do, and frankly I think it’s a pain in the ass when you have to spend time campaigning to keep somebody from stealing your job while you’re trying to do it.  There ought to be laws.  But that’s somebody else’s job.  So you see, Karma, it comes down to a question of job definition.  I do my job.  I assume Obama does his.  Now, Mr. Donovan comes along and starts up with stuff that changes the whole job definition thing, for myself and, I guess what Mr. Donovan also means, for the President too.  I’m your Attorney General.  I’m not the President of the United States.  What office exactly is Mr. Donovan running for?  And what kind of loyal Democrat is he?  I think Vermonters will decide that on…on August 21st…I mean August 28th…is that right?…Well, they, the loyal Vermont Democrats will decide.  And I know what they will decide.  So, I say again–why should I care?  It’s not my job to care.  That’s another department’s job.  I’ll look it up.  

“So, thank you, Karma, for letting me set the record straight.  And, just so you’ll have a scoop, I want to tell you here and now exclusively that I’m heading out to Danville to pick up a big endorsement.  The American Association of Dowsers.  Take that, TJ Donovan!  You see, I’m working all the time on unsolved crimes.  I’m a great believer in the use of modern technology for crime detection.  And with the Dowsers’ help, I’ll find more votes too.  Now, I hope to Hell I can find where I parked my car?  You WalMart folks have such big parking lots.  Aren’t you folks glad I don’t stick my office’s nose into some of your environmental crap?  If you want to make a contribution, here, make the check out to this address.  Where are those two little sticks the guy from Danville gave me?  Shit!  Don’t print that last stuff!  That’s off the record.  You know, like it’s none of the public’s business to have that kind of public access.  Some things are better left suppressed, for the greater good.  It’s not the public’s job to have a right to know everything.  I think there’s a Federal law on that.  I’ll look it up”

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, VT.