I’m sure there’s a lot of opposition in these parts to the Lowell Mountain wind farm. Sorry to say, I’m not convinced. We need to develop new sources of energy. Wind power is one of the least environmentally harmful sources, and goodness knows we’ve got plenty of wind here. And the anti-wind farm arguments strike me as melodramatic and redolent of NIMBYism.

Let’s take the characterization of the project as “the rape of Lowell Mountain.” First of all, that phrase has to be a little offensive to sexual assault survivors and their advocates. Second, we’re not talking about untouched wilderness here; a century ago, most of Vermont had been clearcut for farming and timber harvest. What is now “pristine” forest was a barren wasteland. Somehow it recovered from that; I think it can withstand the installation of some wind turbines.

Now, compare the effects of a wind farm to other kinds of energy production: deep-water drilling, widespread hydrofracking, mountaintop removal in coal country, the hazards of supertanker transport, the Alberta tar sands.

We’ve used up most of the easily extracted energy sources. Whether or not you believe in the “peak oil” theory, the remaining sources will be more difficult, costly and dangerous. Wind energy is relatively benign, especially compared to the alternatives.

Opponents have argued that we don’t need to produce more energy, we need to consume less. I agree that we need a lot more conservation. But that alone is not the answer; we will continue to need quite a bit of power, and we will need to replace hydrocarbons whenever possible with renewable energy sources.

We Vermonters have a responsibility to produce at least as much energy as we consume. Preferably more, if we have energy sources that can be used with relatively low environmental impact.  If we fail to do that, then we are preserving our environment on the backs of others — the Midwesterners who can set their tap water on fire, the fishermen of the Gulf Coast, the poor and working-class people who live downwind from refineries and power plants.

Now, if there are specific reasons that Lowell Mountain is a bad idea, I’m willing to listen. But you should be ready to propose alternatives. Are you saying there are better places for wind turbines? Fine, then build ’em there and leave Lowell Mountain alone. Are you saying that Vermont shouldn’t develop wind power at all? I have a much harder time with that.  

He can be immensely charming when he wants to.

Sometimes I am struck by the persistent oddity of our local news.

This week in St. Albans, a bank robber who escaped on bicycle is being sought by authorities; and apparently, Burlington police are so untroubled by real emergencies that they are hunting the “raccoon lady.”

The story has even captured the imagination of national news outlets like Huffington Post which seldom considers Vermont beyond Bernie Sanders.

For those of you who missed the bulletin two weeks ago, a woman marched up to the doors of Burlington’s City Hall and angrily whacked them with a dead raccoon.  The mysterious blonde perpetrator now appears to be the subject of a man-hunt, complete with blurry front page photo in the Free Press!

What I want to know is why?  

Is she sought in the murder investigation of said raccoon?  Given her brazen approach to the seat of power, it seems unlikely that she done the deed herself.

Are the police looking for her because she defaced public property?  That would represent truly screwy priorities.

All that remains as a reasonable possibility is that they are looking for her to make sure she is alright; that her issue, whatever it was, gets addressed; and that, if there are underlying health issues in her assault on City Hall, she gets the care she badly needs.  

This is what I’d like to believe is going on here, but we aren’t exactly distinguishing ourselves these days as a poster-state for mental healthcare.

I can’t help thinking that a highly public police pursuit is hardly what the doctor would have ordered for this enigmatic lady.

So in one week's time there will be both the Progressive and Democratic caucuses to nominate candidates for Burlington mayor. The Progs had originally planned their caucus for December 11th. As we know, Burlington Dems held their caucus last month and ended with a tie between Tim Ashe and Miro Weinberger after several rounds of votes. Only people who registered for the original caucus will be able to cast a ballot in the subsequent one. The Democrats then determined to hold their caucus on the same day as the Progressives and at nearly the same time.

There is still bad blood between Dems and Progs here in Burlington. Even if Ashe has done a good job representing Chittenden County in the Vermont Senate, his pursual of the mayoral nomination has raised divisions in Burlington Dems. To judge by comments on Blurt, the Seven Days blog, Dems who are supportive of Miro or other defeated Dem candidates might be ready to jump ship if Ashe wins the nomination and back Wright. This is despite the fact that both Wright and Ashe were on the Board of Finance when Burlington Telecom was going through all of its problems. Ashe is being haunted by some comments he has made in the past, while Kurt is benefitting mostly by not being a Progressive, having a high profile in the city for years and having the backing of the New North End, which turns out heavily to vote in local elections.

The fact that both caucuses are the same day rankled Progressives in Burlington and if Ashe isn't nominated, along with Progressives electing to nominate somebody would mean a 3-way race that could easily hand Wright the mayor's office. This is made even easier after IRV was repealed, as we reverted to the old system of just needing to get above 40% to win. I didn't participate in the Dem caucus and I'm not about to attend the Prog one either. I will vote for the Dem nominee, but observing all the snipping at each other will just make Wright's life a lot easier. The messy Dem caucus not ending with a winner definitely didn't help, but the subsequent caucus to be held at the same time as the Prog's was like rubbing salt in a wound, it stings.

I have some popcorn on the shelf ready to watch the spectacle, if tempers and ego boil over come December 11th.

 Newtie the Republican idea man:

“It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, in child [labor] laws, which are truly stupid,” he said.  

”I tried for years to have a very simple model,” he continued. “Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they’d have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

Who but Newt Gingrich could blame child labor laws for entrapping children in poverty and pack so many old dog whistles in such a short remark? But perhaps he was just helpfully offering evidence in support of former Sec. of Labor Robert Reich’s description of the current scrum of Republican candidates.

Reich: They're not conservatives. They're regressives. And the America they seek is the one we had in the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century.

Or, I suppose the strategy minded Gingrich as he headed to South Carolina was just blunting accusations that his recent stance on immigration was humane. I understand that is a bad thing for him in the context of the battle for the Republican nomination.

Anyhow, up in various polls and with undiminished confidence Newt the new Gilded Age regressive told ABC News last night “I’m going to be the nominee,”  

   PREOCCUPIED

(A Sinatra Torch Song for OWS)

I went to the rally

But you weren’t there

Another bad bluesy day

Preoccupied

I lit me a candle

But nobody cared

You left me here standing

Preoccupied

I’m walking down Wall Street

Wonderin’ how I got there

Thinking of you leaving me blue

And preoccupied

(chorus…or whatever you call it)

Oh though I know how it goes

I still can’t get you

Out of my mind

I carry your sign

While I’m marchin’ in line

And when the cops come along

And tell me to move

I don’t want to go

I take it real slow

Because deep down I know

I’m preoccupied

(end of chorus)

They sprayed me with pepper

I got tasered two times

Another bad blusey day

Preoccupied

They put me in prison

Now I’m doin’ time

Thinking of you

You…You…You

I’m preoccupied

I’m preoccupied

He’s preoccupied

Pre…Occu…pied

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

Columnist and reporter Shay Totten will reportedly be leaving is position at Seven Days, and has accepted a position at his previous employer, Chelsea Green Publishing, in a new Burlington office.

Like his predecessor Peter Freyne, Totten has held a unique position in the Vermont media, playing the role of both straight-up journalist and columnist in the same paper. Fellow reporter Andy Bromage, a relatively recent addition to the 7 Days staff, has filled in for Totten on his “Fair Game” column on several occasions, making him the safe bet for a full-time replacement on that widely read regular feature.

Good luck, Shay. Have fun.

Oh, here they go again with an oft-used argument against liberal policies they don’t like: said policies create “uncertainty” that stifles business growth and entrepreneurship. Now appearing on Vermont Digger, a tale of woe entitled “New federal, state rules for health care rattle business,” about a Wednesday briefing for business leaders about the impact of health care reform.

At the federal and state level, businesses have lobbied to ensure new health care laws don’t force them to bear more than their fair share of the burden for expanded insurance coverage to more Americans.

But as new federal rules are implemented for the Affordable Care Act, and the state embarks on plans for a single-payer health care system that would provide universal coverage for all Vermonters, businesses worry about restrictions that could drive up their costs for medical benefits for workers.

Businesses, don’t ya know, are precious little blossoms that must be protected from the vagaries of the real world. (Especially if they are forced to pay “more than their fair share,” which presumably means not a dime more than they’re paying now, and preferably less.)

Now, this isn’t as heinous as the use of “uncertainty” in last year’s battle over the Bush tax cuts: Republicans argued, with a straight face, that our most affluent citizens would be paralyzed by the “uncertainty” over whether their income above $250,000 would be taxed at 36% or 39%. This latest whine isn’t up to that standard, but it’s still damn annoying. Viz:

Several prominent business people who attended were apprehensive about the changes. George Malek, executive vice president of the Central Vermont Chamber of Commerce, said companies would like to be able to reasonably predict what their costs will be for the next five years. Uncertainty about health care expenditures make that impossible, he said.

I feel ya, George. I’d like that kind of certainty myself. I’d love to know what the price of gas will be next year, let alone five years from now. Hell, I’d love to know the price of propane next month so I know whether to fill my tanks now or wait. Yeah, I’d love to know how much the cost of my health insurance will be in five years, and how high the deductibles will be.

For that matter, I’d love to know if I or my wife will be downsized in the next five years. Or whether I can continue to count on Medicare and Social Security, or if I have to ponder emigration to Canada.

In other words, good businessfolk, suck it up. It’s a big, bad, uncertain world out there. You can’t predict anything with certainty. Health care reform is a relatively small item compared to, say, oil shocks or real estate bubbles or stock market collapses.

Embrace the uncertainty! Step out boldly into the void! Hey, you might just find that health care reform will actually enhance your certainty. You’ll be less vulnerable to the current health-care marketplace. You won’t have to worry about employee turnover when you have to cancel or reduce health insurance due to cost.

Addendum. One more question for George: Are you actually arguing that the potential “uncertainty” of health care reform is worse than the unfortunate certainties of the current system? Exponential rate hikes, canceled coverages, crappier and crappier policy offerings every year? If that’s the prize package in Monty Hall’s hand, I think I’d gladly go for Door Number Three.

Spam diary. Content deleted, user banned. –   kestrel9000

It’s been a while since I heard the bellicose rantings of Tom Tancredo, but the Republican presidential candidates continue to bang the drum of illegal immigration. Alleged moderate Mitt Romney wants a nearly 2,000-mile-long fence along the entirety of the US-Mexico border. Michelle Bachmann wants a double fence. Herman Cain called for an electrified fence. They all want more resources, more personnel, and more technology to keep the legions of brown people from inundating our fair land.

Well, wait. Here’s The Economist, not noted as a fount of radical socialist leftist dogma, with a little article they call “Crying Wolf: The Republicans are Fretting About a Disappearing Problem.”  

At a “processing centre” in El Paso, …there is precious little processing going on. Of the 20-odd workstations, only two are manned. The Border Patrol agents sitting at them chat idly to themselves. Just two detainees, their paperwork complete, sit timidly in the corner of an enormous holding cell.  …Asked whether anything is going on, an agent replies, “it’s really quiet today.”

It’s quiet most days in the El Paso sector, as the Border Patrol dubs this 268-mile slice of the border. Back in 1993, agents arrested 285,781 people trying to enter America illegally. In 2010, however, agents picked up only 12,251 illegal immigrants in the area-a 96% decline. Much the same is true of the border as a whole: last year’s tally, of 447,731 arrests, is barely a quarter that of the peak year, 2000, when 1,643,679 people were intercepted. This year’s figure will be under 350,000; a fifth of the peak.

Aha, you may be saying, must be that damn Obama opening the border to his Mexican/Muslim/Kenyan brothers! Gotta get that guy out of the White House, and get us a leader, not a reader!

Sorry, no. “The drop in arrests reflects not laxer enforcement, but stronger,” says The Economist. There are five times as many Border Patrol agents on the Mexican border as there were in 1993. They are better equipped. Their numbers are augmented by reconnaissance drones and three different kinds of sensors. And there may not be a fence along the entire length of the border, but…

A third of the border is fenced, and most of the rest is in areas so remote or rugged as to make fences pointless or impractical. Some parts of the fence are 17 feet high, with metal plates extending ten feet below ground to prevent tunnelling.

All that effort, over two decades, by Administrations from both parties, has paid off. There is no border crisis. One Border Patrol agent told the magazine that they would never be able to catch every suspect — but they are not very far off.

How about that. An issue that makes Republicans foam at the mouth is really not an issue at all. (Kinda like Iraqi WMD’s, no?) The border is about as secure as it can possibly be. And, as The Economist notes, that notorious softy Obama continues to pump more resources into border protection, even as he accedes to spending cuts in many other areas.

Funny. Why do I have to read about this in a British publication? Why don’t the American media point out — at least once in a while — that the Republicans’ immigrant-bashing and fearmongering has no basis whatsoever in reality?