I’d planned to post an interview with Speaker Shap Smith today, but I guess that needs to wait, given the photojournalism du jour.

Hm. Let’s make a list, eh wot?

1. Okay, here’s the way the “lovable rogue” thing works. First of all, it doesn’t work as well in Vermont as, say, Louisiana. To the (somewhat uncharted) degree it does, it requires distance. It doesn’t play well at the time a pol is lovably rogueing, but if it’s a part of somebody’s past, it can take on a cutesy folkiness (or is that folky cutesiness?) In other words, this picture will be long forgotten by the time it could do any political damage, beyond being a footnote in the Shummy mystique, such as it is.

2. We can knock the media for covering it, but come on – a political opponent grabbed it to make hay, and what the media does is cover hay. Obviously the more hostile-to-Shumlin sources like WCAX are going to pick it up first. Might as well shake your fist at the storm on that one. You better believe we put up goofy pictures of Jim Douglas (of course, we don’t pretend not to have an agenda, but I digress…)

3. My favorite liberal philosopher famously lives by the progressive mantra “with great power comes great responsibility.” The people who run our state government obviously have special responsibility.

On the day the historic Health Care Reform bill is to be signed into law, this picture needlessly handed right-wing opponent Darcie Johnston of Vermonters for Health Care Freedom (by which, of course, Johnston means the freedom to die from untreated ailments in abject poverty) a way to do exactly what the sleazy right lives to do – avoid an important topic at all costs and distract the public through media outlets friendly to their agenda (and forcing the rest of the media to follow suit). At the end of the day, it’s all the right has, after all.

Slapping up a picture on Facebook that feeds into the persistent murmurs and complaints about the new Governor was an abdication of the unique responsibility of leadership. Governor Shumlin is doing a lot of good things – good things for us, as he’s all set. He’s a wealthy guy, after all. Frivolously handing opponents political weapons at inopportune times affects him insomuch it could eventually create blowback on his political ambitions, sure – but the ones it really stands to hurt are us Vermonters. We need the energy efficiency bill. We need health care reform. We need the climate change task force. We need the integrity of the water table beneath Vermont Yankee protected. These are a few of the things this administration and the Democratic legislature are doing for us.

It’s not that public officials can’t have fun – but part of the responsibility that comes with the power is, frankly, that they get to have less. And they have to be more cognizant of when and how they have fun. Shumlin needs to remember how many challenges he created for himself when he was the impulsive Senator, as compared to the remarkably disciplined Gubernatorial candidate. The latter was his path to success, and it still is.

But also problematic in the pics is Secretary of Civil and Military Affairs Alex MacLean – a talented staffer (and a powerful asset for the Governor) who will find herself taken decidedly less seriously after the release of this picture.

Permanent damage? Of course not. But the honeymoon is over. Everybody knows public figures have certain responsibilities when they’re in public, whether they like it or not. If those responsibilities are not taken seriously, it feeds the notion that the public roles they play aren’t taken seriously – which then feeds the feeling that they don’t take the public seriously. That’s just the way it is.

Come on, team. We need you. We need you to succeed. Pleeeeeeeez be more careful.

At the very least, let’s be smart about the Facebook accounts, OK?  That’s already a 21st Century cliche, after all.

 After the 2001 terrorist attacks I was among those who thought that we had no choice but to go into Afghanistan and strike back, hopefully definitively, at those who had attacked us. I still think this was correct, regardless of the feckless and dishonest actions of the Bush administration that followed.

 In the ensuing years, though, it has become obvious that our presence in Afghanistan was doing nothing to make us safer. What we have learned from the Abbottabad raid makes this clear beyond any misunderstanding.

 Bin Laden did not need to be in Afghanistan to direct his operations, and we did not need to be in Afghanistan to get him.

Now it's long past time to get out.

Peter Welch's legislative push to get us out of Afghanistan is attracting nationwide headlines as he continues to fulfill his promise to work to get us out of Afghanistan. The latest report from the AP has been picked up by Forbes magazine, among others.

WASHINGTON — Now that Osama bin Laden is dead, it's time to end the war in Afghanistan and bring U.S. troops home, several House Republicans and Democrats demanded on Wednesday. President Barack Obama will begin drawing down some of the 100,000 troops in Afghanistan in July, with all combat forces due out by 2014. But that timetable is unacceptable to a growing number of war-weary lawmakers, who argue that the death of the al-Qaida leader is an opportunity for the United States to recalibrate its strategy

 I am glad that we have a Representative who has been solid on the war and his campaign promises from the beginning.

There goes a potential Vermont Yankee customer. From VPR:

Vermont’s second largest electric utility has reached a deal to buy a fifth of its power from the owner of the Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire.

Green Mountain Power says the contract with NextEra Energy Resources will begin next year.

GMP is casting this as a green decision, citing the lack of carbon emissions from nuclear plants (it should be noted that the absolute carbon footprint of a nuclear plant is not zero, but it is markedly less than fossil fuel burning plants). Of course, the issue of waste and concerns over safety are not part of the pitch.

So GMP brings us nuclear power, but not power from the old, deteriorating VT Yankee whose leaks and “incidents” threaten Vermont communities. Seabrook also is followed by safety issues that mirror those around Yankee: reports of fires, tritium leaks, and storage concerns – although to this point, none seem to have escalated to the degree and frequency of those associated with Yankee. Nor have they been accompanied by the overtly appalling behavior of corporate execs that we witnessed in Entergy’s testimony in Montpelier.

But it’s still disappointing. Rep. Tony Klein calls it “hypocrisy,” and in a policy sense it is. But in the commercial sense, it’s just another business following the path of least resistance, and letting many of their customers find a way to have their cake and eat it too – and that will placate many customers indeed.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

This one goes under the heading “better late than never.”  Tepco is now admitting that the containment buildings may very likely be leaking.  No kidding.

____________________________________________________________

We are fortunate to have a new video analysis from Arnie Gundersen  examining the implications of the Fukushima crisis for reactors located in the U.S.;  and another excellent informational video in which our own Maggie Gundersen, president and founder of Fairewinds Associates, interviews Marco Kaltofen, of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester Mass.

Mr. Kaltofen is an expert in radiation chemistry and monitoring. He answers some of the questions Fairewinds has been receiving about the nature and pathways of radiation as it spreads, and how exposure can be minimized.

++

The Implications of the Fukushima Accident on the World’s Operating Reactors from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Where is all that Fukushima radiation going, and why does it matter? from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Some key points that Arnie raises:



1) Hot water reactors such as those at Fukushima and at Vermont Yankee were not designed to have vents. The vents represent a “bandaid” that was applied later in an attempt to address original design flaws.

2)Those vent systems have been tested in the reactors three times now, courtesy of Fukushima; and three times they failed.  That is a 100% failure rate and strongly suggests those failures can happen here in the U.S. in similar reactors.

3) The NRC admits that despite their insistence that there is no chance of containment failure here in the U.S.,  they don’t have the capacity to effectively evaluate that capacity and have simply abandoned the effort to do so.

4) Failures at Fukushima 1 and the cracked fuel pool at Unit 4 were the result of the earthquake, not the tsunami.  Those systems should have been able to withstand that level of seismic activity. Similarly, in the U.S. nuclear plants are not adequately designed to withstand major seismic loads, and there is no capability to even analyze such capacity.



5) The affected area that has been assumed for emergency planning in the U.S. has now been demonstrated, also courtesy of Fukushima, to be wholly inadequate.  If an accident continues for weeks at a time as at Fukushima, a “meandering” plume of radiation will go on for many, many miles.

Current preparedness is only for a 10-mile radius, the experience at Fukushima suggests that radius should be expanded to 50 miles, which has some serious implications for major metropolises such as Chicago and New York which have huge populations in effective range of reactors that could fail.

6) Clustering nuclear reactors as at Fukushima and at some U.S. locations increases the danger from an accident because such an accident can impede operators’ ability to resolve problems arising at other units.

7)The insurance coverage employed by the industry, the Price Anderson Insurance Program is woefully inadequate.  With an event ceiling of just $10 million in coverage,  the cost of the Fukushima accident alone will come to $200 billion!!

In conclusion, says Arnie, the information coming from the industry, upon which we all have been relying, simply has not been true.

If you can still sleep after watching the first video, I strongly suggest you listen to Maggie’s interview with Mr. Kaltofen.

  About two short months after winning re-election as auditor last November Tom Salmon thanked his team, said it was an honor to serve with them and announced he would not seek re-election.  

He had appeared to have zeroed in on a run for the US Senate( he purchased  salmonforussenate.com domain name )

On  Politico.com he was quoted about the prospects of  a U S Senate run against Bernie Sanders, he said:

"Right now, I am 65 percent in. When I hit 75 percent it will commence exploratory.

Slate.com took notice of this and what they called his incomprehensible quote and declare our man Salmon’s senate quest likely to be The most doomed campaign of 2012

All that could be water over the dam for Salmon. Now just a few months later and obviously no longer “65% in”; he offhandedly changes course.  The Vermont Press Bureau reports:

Salmon said there’s a 30-percent chance he takes on Sanders and a 20-percent chance he challenges Shumlin.Also under consideration for the Bellows Falls native: defending his incumbency in the auditor’s office (“If someone from the Progressive Party masquerading as a Democrat runs for the auditor’s office and looks like a favorite, I can’t let that happen to my office”); or some kind of nonpolitical endeavor.

Warblers are small, fast moving birds, which can be very hard to identify, but when you are lucky with them, it’s pretty awesome.

This weekend I coined the term “Occam’s Warbler” which is a reference to the tendency of birdwatchers to look for the extraordinary and bizarre when the more obvious might be the case.  Sometimes this works, but sometimes it can get in your way.  One bird below is way out of its territory.  

And this bird, for example:

is one I thought was a warbler until I looked at the photograph.  I saw something vaguely warbler-shaped, with the general color and wing bars of pine warbler and thought “nice!  I don’t often get to photograph those” so I snapped a few photos.

Then, later, I realized what I had: distinct pale around the eye, slight hook at the end of the beak.  This wasn’t just a white-eyed vireo.  For me, it’s the white-eyed vireo, the only one I’ve ever found.  

So below– I want to say that almost every bird below is typical for New England, save one (I’ll let you guys try to figure out which one that is).  There are routine reports of them, pretty much every year, and I’ve managed to photograph most of these birds in more than one year, and I have never taken a photo of a warbler outside of New England.  

But there is this tendency birders have to go for the fantastical: we’re not satisfied with the extraordinary that exists in the every day, so we want something more exceptional.  We try to find something bizarre and unusual in the normal to make it more exciting, but the truth of the matter is, most of what you see when birding is “normal.”  

It is, however, also wonderful, beautiful, magnificent and surprising.  Savannah Sparrows, with their shocking yellow, where you expect to find a song sparrow.  A lone canada warbler mixed in with a flock of magnolias.  Sometimes it’s something completely out of the ordinary, but sometimes it’s just a weird variation, such as this bird which I’m certain is a purple finch…

…despite its odd coloring.  Everything about this bird screams purple finch to me, except that it’s a deep red at points.  So what’s more likely: a bird that’s nothing like any bird anywhere in my literature?  Something unheard of?  Or a purple finch that’s using red cedar scraps as parts of its nesting material?  I’m not saying it’s impossible that it’s something else (after all, my white-eyed vireo was kind of a surprise).  I’m saying that when you have a simple and clear cut explanation, it’s sometimes better to just go with that.

So… Occam’s Warbler.  

Below is a warbler quiz– I’ve included a lot of photos of warblers.  In every case, you can click on the image to get the information about the bird.  It also gets you to a larger version, but see if you can ID some of the birds without looking.  Some are trickier than others.  Some are duplicated under other bird #s, but generally with a different form of plumage.

I’ll start with an easy one, because it looks a lot like its name:

Bird #1.

Bird #2:

Bird #3:

Bird #4 (this one also looks a lot like its name):

Bird #5:

Bird #6:

Bird #7:

Bird #8: One that often confuses me:

Bird #9:

Bird #10:

Bird #11 (not a great shot but enough to ID it):

Bird #12:

Bird #13 (fall form– very hard):

Bird #14: (also advanced / fall form):

Bird #15:

Bird #16:

Bird #17:

Bird #17 is easy to confuse with bird #18, but there are a few tell tale differences: eye ring vs white around/near the eye and a simple necklace rather than streaks down the chest are the marks I use.  Here’s bird #18:

Bird #19:

Bird #20: this is a fall form of one you’ve seen earlier:

Bird #21:

Bird #22:

Bird #23: you’ve seen this one earlier, too:

Bird #24: this is the female version of one from earlier:

Bird #25: we see these all Summer long in Vermont:

Bird #26: This is one that’s appeared elsewhere:

Bird #27: this is not the most obvious form, but it’s the only one I’ve ever photographed:

Bird #28: these guys sometimes nest in Vermont:

Bird #29:

Bird #30 (you’ve seen the male version of this bird earlier):

As usual, treat this as an open birds & birding thread.

Thanks everyone.  Good birding!

 I have no special plans today but at least it’s not supposed to rain. Heard something or other about the rapture happening today so I found a partial list here with a sampling of 23 times the world was supposed to end but as we know didn’t.

Surprisingly four are predictions from the same group, The Millerites in the early 1800’s kept reworking and fine tuning the date, however perhaps to their disappointment or even relief the end failed to happen. They ultimately disbanded many becoming Seventh Day Adventists.    

In Czarist Russia 1900 one horribly aggressive group, The Brothers and Sisters of the Red Death believing the end was near had 100 members sacrifice themselves before authorities intervened. This group also forbade marriage but allowed intercourse if the sinners immediately suffocated themselves with a large red cushion.  

Here is one more recent example that apparently had no serious consequences or did it?  

OCTOBER 23, 1976—GEORGE KING One day in 1954, taxi driver George King was drying dishes in his Maida Vale flat in London when he suddenly received a message from Mars that the world would end twenty-two years hence.

Fortunately, King and his followers, organized as the Aetherius Society, were able to avert the catastrophe by concentrating 700 hours of prayer energy into a prayer book and releasing it in forty-eight minutes on the appointed day.

What: Montpelier Taser Committee Meeting

When: Monday, May 23rd at 6:15 PM

Where: City Managers Conference Room, Montpelier City Hall

View archived video clip of May 11th Montpelier City Council proceedings concerning the appointment of the Taser Committee, here.

View related documents, here.

Excerpted recruitment notice:

“The  City Council would like the committee to specifically consider and make recommendations about the following: assessment of need, appropriate policy and standards, training requirements and public accountability for use or  display. Additionally, the Council would like the  committee to recommend a public engagement process  for both the committee and for the City Council after receiving the committee’s report. The Council is interested in all perspectives but would like to hear, particularly, from the mental health community, law enforcement,  schools, the medical community and the legal community.” The City Council expects to receive the committee’s report by Friday, September 30th for discussion at the October 12th City Council Meeting. Volunteers should understand that this  committee will meet during the summer in order to  meet the deadline. …

Any city resident who shows up to the initial Taser committee meeting on Monday, May 23rd and, wants to serve on committee, has an opportunity to do so (however anyone serving on the committee will need to be around during the Summer in order to do so).

The Taser committee meetings will be open to the public, including non-residents of course.

View an updated Informational Presentation on Montpelier, Vermont and Tasers, here.

a bloody hamburger

smoke from the grills

the game on channel 3

beer cans in the road

a politician grins

children scream

traffic piles up

radios go ballistic

stores have sales

the three day party

yes I remember you

seen your face before

belly-up at Betio

numbed out in the Nam

blown to little pieces

over the decades

so all Americans equally

could have this day off

there’s these parades

the kids love them

some one is selling flags

an ambush in Afghanistan

we hope it won’t rain

you hope it won’t hurt

when they take off your leg

ship you home on crutches

thanks for everything dudes

we honor and salute you

it was worth dying for

just look at all that food

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

The long delayed/discussed/debated circumferential highway may finally have met it’s end.

Despite the fact that the plan for a Burlington beltway was obsolete from a planning perspective virtually as soon as the ink was dry, it’s supporters have pushed onward. Originally a bipartisan plan with support from Rs and Ds (such as Howard Dean and Patrick Leahy), in recent years the D support has been seen to whither. Pushback from the EPA on environmental issues, half-assed impact studies, and the reality that the dynamics of planning in general (and Chittenden County in particular) have changed caused many supporters to reconsider their support.

None of this ever never mattered to it’s hardcore backers, such as Governor Jim Douglas and IBM’s John O’Kane, who largely transformed the issue into a partisan one, while non-Republicans seemed more willing to consider the changing dynamics. For folks like Douglas and O’Kane, it became a sort of ideological crusade against all reason.

Gov. Peter Shumlin has now stepped into the process as the grownup – and will likely take the project back to formula, from his remarks. With the news that the Federal Highway Administration approved of the project, but the Environmental Protection Agency did not, Shumlin not only indicated it was (finally) time for a more thoughtful approach to solving Chittenden County’s significant transportation issues, he got representatives from IBM and the environmental community to stand with him when he did. Impressive.

Shumlin officially buried the Douglas ideological (or was it just petulant?) dogma with an effective epitaph, indicating it was time to finally discuss “cost effective and modern solutions” (emphasis added).

Shumlin: “The Circ, as originally conceived, has become a white elephant that is getting in the way of our ability to actually get something done.  Our focus on a project that is not going to happen as it was originally conceived has led to inaction on transportation projects throughout the region.”

Bullseye.