(Heh. – promoted by odum)
I was at the Crosby / Nash show at the Flynn on Wednesday. Between songs they spoke about a variety of issues and one was Vermont Yankee. I had my little mp3 player with me and pushed the record button.
I know some people are bothered when celebrities make political comments but personally I appreciate it when people use the bully pulpit and speak their mind.
Here’s the audio:
Several days ago the AP reported as if the all clear had been sounded, nuclear power could dust itself off and get back to work.
Initial fears that erupted in the wake of the crisis, threatening to derail the nuclear renaissance of the last several years, have largely subsided.
Emergency. There's an emergency going on. It's still going on. …
Full meltdown.TEPCO has been able to explore the damaged plant and they discovered
…that No. 1's containment vessel has been leaking water and today discovered a sizeable hole they believe was created by fallen fuel pellets.The water leakage not only indicates that the clean up efforts will take longer than originally expected but also that the worst case scenario was already underway when TEPCO said it had been avoided.
In addition to this and everything else Japanese authorities are also dealing with what is left in the expansion of the 20 kilometer exclusion area to a zone of no entry. In scenes likely as eerie as a disaster movie, farm livestock and dogs left in the no-go zone have been filmed scavenging for food. Many animals died in their cages from starvation.
Farmers living inside the evacuation zone had no choice but to abandon their pigs, chickens, beef cattle and dairy cows when they were ordered out by the government. Recent footage taken inside the no-go zone shows cows running in herds across empty roads and dogs left behind by their owners prowling for food.
The area is estimated to have about 3,400 cows, 31,500 pigs and 630,000 chickens. Of these, officials guess 1,300 cows and 200 pigs remain alive. Authorities have been killing livestock for health reasons and will start to cull the thousands of remaining animals but need the farmers consent.
Fukushima – One Step Forward and Four Steps Back as Each Unit Challenged by New Problems from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
Arnie Gundersen, and GMD’s own Maggie Gundersen, both of Fairewinds Assoc., have served above-and-beyond the call, since the three-fold disaster of March 11 hit Japan and the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Yes, it was three whole months ago, and the slowly spreading environmental catastrophe just goes on and on.
Fairewinds intelligent and clear analysis of the underlying science, provided in small digestible video “lessons,” has been invaluable for anyone attempting to keep up with the complex situation over there. It’s nice to see them get some of the credit they so richy deserve for excellence in analysis. Maintaining the ongoing series of video links depends on contributions from visitors to their site, as the Gundersens are working without a financial “net” to provide this as a free information service.
Now Huffington Post has identified Fairewinds Associates as the “best site” for Fukushima analysis, observing that Gundersen
“analyzes the information … in a calm and scientific way”.
The overarching point of the Huffpo piece, penned by Vivian Norris, is to comment on the remarkable lack of information being provided officially from Japan and the equally remarkable lack of initiative on the part of the press to ask questions and demand answers.
Why is this not on the front page of every single newspaper in the world? Why are official agencies not measuring from many places around the world and reporting on what is going on in terms of contamination every single day since this disaster happened?
We couldn’t agree more.
Despite the bitter circumstances, congratulations are long overdue for Arnie and Maggie Gundersen!
The successful raid on Osama bin Laden has handed President Obama a major opportunity to advance his foreign and domestic policy goals, please his liberal base, and make a major dent in the budget deficit.
The only question is whether he will have the political wisdom to build on this latest success.
Talking Points Memo reports this week that our congressman, Peter Welch, is one of the leaders of a bipartisan group calling on Obama to use the death of bin Laden as an opportunity to redirect the effort in Afghanistan from nation-building, and the quagmire of fighting a war against an indigenous force on behalf of a corrupt government (gee, sound familiar?) to what the war was intended to do: roll up and destroy the remaining al Qaeda forces in the country.
Whether Obama will capitalize on his success in Abbottabad remains to be seen, and in part it depends on secret developments based on the intelligence collected in the raid. Nevertheless, for someone who seemed like a smart political operative,, Obama has seemed strangely unable to develop and follow through on strategies, building on success in ways that not only advance his strategic goals but also enhance his political support.
This month Obama is riding a wave of increased support based on the bin Laden raid, but polling still suggests severe weaknesses. Redirecting the Afghanistan effort can address these weaknesses in a number of ways:
==>It can stop an unwinnable effort, the aforementioned quagmire, and redirect those energies to something that makes sense to people.
==>It will cost less than the war in Afghanistan. To a degree, Obama is a victim of his own honesty, because unlike Bush he has actually put the wars in the budget. A smaller, more targeted Afghanistan mission will be less costly than the current open-ended and inconclusive mission.
==>It can energize his base. Almost every day we hear from young or progressive activists, the people who walked the streets and worked the phone banks and the interwebs for Obama, saying that they will not lift a finger for him next year. A concrete move away from the failed Bush policy in Afghanistan can help get back those activists whose work will be needed to win in 2012.
As I said at the beginning, President Obama deserves the credit for getting bin Laden. Peter Welch has shown him the way to use that success to extract the United States from our Twenty-First Century Vietnamand keep his presidency moving forward.
Let's hope he has the wisdom to follow that lead.
By way of blogads, of all places, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, in quoting former carpetbaggerreporter and current Washington Monthly megablogger Steve Benen (he of Essex, Vermont), labeled him “The Smartest Politics Blogger in the Country” to her national viewership.
Way cool. This should be an excuse for me to repost the embarrassing rock-and-roll-guy picture from his past that I found on his Facebook page, but I’ll spare him. Instead we’ll show the more respectable one to the right (it’s respectable because he’s standing next to a gen-yoo-ine Vermont state Senator).
(Couldn’t resist–PB)
Dear Journal Of Mine,
It’s lonely being a terrorist. I miss those long walks in Mecca with Ari. I miss those wonderful nights at the Sheik’s palace, counting money and listening to Bob Dylan. Sometimes, we got to behead an agent from the IDF. Those were the days. I miss my camel and my Rolls.
You know, sometimes I wonder what it’s all about. I’ve been having these Deep Thoughts lately. If I were an American, I’d probably be rich and famous like Mitt Romney or Donald Trump. Hanging out with sexy actresses like Jennifer Aniston and Sarah Jessica Parker. Throw out the first bomb…I mean, baseball on Opening Day at Yankee Stadium. Do a rap song with Common. See Blue Man Group in Vegas. Ahhhh…I don’t know. I feel like I’ve wasted my life. I could have been somebody, a contender, instead of just a terrorist, which is what I am. The Sheik, he should have looked out for me.
But no, here I sit again with my Journal. I feel like Emily Dickinson. I can’t even go on Facebook. Or blog something on BROADSIDES or COUNTERPUNCH. Even under the handle I made for myself: progressive-in-vt. Shit. I’ve always wanted to go there. Eat Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and hang out in Montpelier with Bernie Sanders. Go to Charlie Os and be a pool shark like Paul Newman in The Hustler. Take a horse-drawn sleigh ride in Stowe, and stiff Michael Colby on the tip. But here I sit, waiting for the Sheik’s orders. And he doesn’t contact me. Not even a lousy Christmas Card. Last one I got was almost 3 years ago, and all it said was: “Happy Holidays, Binster! Hang in there. This is me and Bathi in our Matching Christmas Sweaters we got at Wal-Mart when Bush had us over to watch the elections in D.C.. Cool hanh? Listen, don’t bomb D.C.. We may be invited back. And don’t bomb anything in Alaska either. Keep chilled, dude. I’ll be in touch.” And that’s it. So I’m stuck knocking around all day in this mansion thinking about the meaning of life. I’ve read all the self-help books and now I’m reading Kerouac and Bukowski. I’m bummed.
I wonder if Allah is dead? I wonder if you explode a bomb in the forest and nobody’s there to hear it, does it make a big ka-Booom? Why is every explosion different, like snowflakes? Is my glass half empty or half full? And why don’t people care anymore? How can I make somebody care?
“Dear Sarah,
I’ll bet you never expected to hear from me again, but I can’t take it anymore. Lately, I’ve been thinking about 72 virgins. I want to hold your hand and go shopping for clothes with you. Just the simple things in life. A little house or cabin in the woods outside Hardwick, Vermont. Our own organic vegetable garden. Maple syrup and fiddleheads on a properly slaughtered goat. Running for the School Board. Shoveling snow and bitching about the town Selectmen. Talking to the Jehovah’s Witnesses on Saturday morning. Going to yard sales. And filling out the Doyle Poll.” Ahhhh…
She won’t care either. All right. It’s time for the Quran. But it’s so boooorrring! Hey, I know! I should do an updated version–Sex And The City And The Koran! Something hip and now. With a lot of pictures of Jennifer Aniston half-naked. Make Muhammad a stud. Hell, I’ll have half the men in America alone converting and beheading the other half. And I’ll make a fortune! Movie deals and TV. I’ll be on Jon Stewart with Bernie Sanders. And Julia Roberts. And Dolly Parton–Yeah, what a pair of hooters! Do you suppose Dolly would let me…hmmm? Shit man! And T-shirts and ballcaps and a micro-brew named after me–binBrewski, Laden Lager. 10 bucks a pint at the Three Penny Taproom! And those sleigh rides in Stowe, listening to Colby rave about liberal fucks and revolution. Beheading Ralph Nader! Hell, I’m going to get right to work on this…
“What’s that, Achmed?”
“No, I wasn’t expecting company. Oh hell, let them in. They look like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They’ve come at last! Allah Be Praised……………………………….
Peter Buknatski
Montpelier, Vt.
(Thank you, Salman Rushdie!)
Since when are Republicans in favor of ‘small government’?
Since when do Republicans give a crap about religious people?
These are all convenient lies that they tell their constituents in order to gain more power over the minimal opposition they face in politics.
The sole point of the GOP is to gain total political power for their corporate owners. Exploiting dumb religious nuts, or idiot ‘libertarians’ is just one tool of many that the GOP uses regularly to gain absolute power. That’s all they care about. And no one is trying to stop them.
Watch what the GOP actually does, don’t believe one word of what they say.
The governor of Michigan is eliminating local government, installing a state-wide dictatorship under the direct control of the Governor. Republican politicians don’t give one crap about local control, they only care about absolute authority.
When – not if, but when – the GOP does to the Democratic Party what they did to the Communists in the 1950s (which Rush Limbaugh has said is a goal of the GOP) the idea of ‘Small Government’ will be thrown out. Christian churches will be regulated just as they are now doing with Muslims. Women will no longer have any rights, they will revert to being property. No one is trying to stop them.
Just look at where the GOP ideology ends up: slavery for 95% of the country, working for their corporate owners for life, men women and children. That is what they want. America as a third-world nation, with no rights, total poverty, a Syrian style police state that ruthlessly murders everyone that dares dream of a better life. That is what the Republican Leadership is actively creating in America. Who will stop them?
And who is going to stop them? The fake Democrats that are all moderate Republicans to begin with? Ignorant Americans that revel in their own stupidity? Fox ‘News’ watchers that ardently believe every single lie they are told through that propaganda outlet? Rush Limbaugh listeners that will never believe anything if Rush didn’t say it?
The Republicans are already ignoring the Rule of Law. The State AG in Wisconsin brazenly ignored a court order. Think about that one for a second: the state’s highest legal authority openly defied an order from the judicial branch because he lost the decision! But then, who was going to stop him?
There is a group of folks out there (just go read Free Republic) that believe that several state governors should stage a coup against the democratically elected president of the United States simply because that President is from the Democratic Party. They believe that 5 governors should find five US Marshals and simply go arrest the President right now because they don’t like the results of the election.
Any society function because the people agree to abide by the rules. When segments of society openly defy those rules and continually get away with it, society collapses. The Republican Party has been openly defying the Rule of Law for decades, and they now have 24 hour-a-day propaganda outlets on TV and radio that constantly call for defiance of civilization. No one dares stop them.
In 2012, when the GOP loses to Obama yet again, will the GOP abide by the election results? Or will they hold a swearing-in of their One True Republican President and set up a second Patriotic government to issue decrees against the Democratic Party? Who would stop them?
I am pretty sure that America is doomed to the Republican Party’s vision of the future: a feudal society where the King’s word is the only law. A society where the legal authority of the King is not controlled by the Catholic Church, but by the Captains of Industry. The far-right has already won, it’s only a matter of time.
Because no one stopped them.
I wrote a book several years ago with two coauthors on the law as it affects mental health professionals. It's a comprehensive review of Vermont law on the broad range of legal issues that mental health professionals may have to deal with, from licensure and business issues to domestic relations, criminal law, mental health law, and other topics.
We were at a bit of a loss in deciding how to address some of the legal concepts and language, such as the statutory grounds for annulment of a marriage, which now provides for annulment based on the “idiocy” or “lunacy” of the parties. Offensive as it is, this is actually how official Vermont viewed some of our fellow citizens when the law was enacted.
Today, thanks to legislation introduced by Washington Senator Anthony Pollina and signed into law yesterday by Governor Shumlin, offensive terms such as this will soon be a thing of the past.
The new law establishes a commission to study Vermont statutes and report to the Legislature by November 1–warp speed in the world of legislative commissions– on proposed changes to the law that will “reflect positive views of people with disabilities”.
As someone who represents people labeled as mentally ill, I congratulate and thank Senator Pollina, Governor Shumlin, and the legislators and advocates who saw this bill through to enactment.
Don’t you love the way Republicans pretend to be committed to small government?
For years they’ve decided that there is one small segment of society who isn’t entitled to privacy: women.
Things have gotten worse in recent years. We have seen an unprecedented wave of anti-choice, anti-woman legislative proposals.
According to USA Today:
Along with bills prohibiting abortion outright, or in certain circumstances, they’re also pushing bills that go to the heart of the doctor-patient relationship, limiting where abortions can be performed, telling doctors what they have to say to their patients, and the like.
I think it’s important to keep straight in our minds what these bills are. To say they are anti-abortion bills oversimplifies it, and it really plays into the other side’s hands because abortion is more controversial among the general public than other choice related topics.
The Supreme Court has recognized in its precedents that the questions of choice, contraception, and procreation are decidedly based on our constitutional right to privacy.
You would think that a political party that pretends to a commitment to individual autonomy and limited government would be against these laws that restrict the doctor-patient relationship, wouldn’t you? After all, not only do they impinge on the personal autonomy of the person, the interfere with what is, at least in part, an economic transaction between the doctor (vendor) and patient (customer).
But no.
Here’s the latest. I don’t ordinarily link to Fox News, but they’re kind of the source for this stuff.
With a stroke of the governor’s pen, Florida is positioned to become the first state in the nation to prohibit physicians from asking patients if they have guns in their homes, a move some doctors say will interfere with health care.
That’s right, a coalition of gun nuts and small government Republicans have decided that those private conversations between doctors and patients are just a little, well, too private, and the way to fix that is for the government to reach its hand into every doctor’s office in the state, and tell those doctors what they are and are not allowed to talk to their patients about.
So let me get this straight. We need to have small government because it’s un-American to have government interfering with people’s private lives and individual economic transactions.
Except that if protecting privacy rights means protecting women’s rights, well, then, privacy rights go out the window and so does small government.
Or if privacy rights interfere with someone’s paranoid fantasies of big, scary government, well, there again, we can’t stand up to those paranoid fantasies so the privacy rights get chucked aside.
Thanks, Republicans. Stay consistent.
Where are all the women in government here in Franklin County? You certainly see enough of them behind desks, working for a wage, maintaining the functional underpinnings of every day life in our towns and villages.
How often have we heard: “things would fall apart around here without her?”
But where are the women in elected and appointed government positions? Though they represent half of the county’s population, you can count the number of women in those positions on a single hand. The bigger the town, the more conspicuous the absence of female participation.
The City of St. Albans has an all-male city council, and an all-male planning commission. Yet, at a recent council meeting we heard how invaluable and versatile has been the thirty-year service of, Jane Kiser, the paid Community Development Manager.
“Things would fall apart around here without her.”
The Town of St. Albans has an all-male selectboard, an all male development review board, and with the notable exception of Chairwoman Cheryl Teague, an all-male planning commission. Cheryl is something of a marvel IMHO, for her unwavering intellect, patience and tact.
The story is very much the same in Swanton. Women occasionally crop-up among officials in some of the smaller towns of Franklin County, but they remain a dismal few. They serve on development review boards, which are, for the most part, charged with enforcing the decisions made by higher officials.
Of the 46 representatives appointed by communities to the Northwest Regional Planning Commission, only nine are women. Without exception, the female representatives are from the smallest towns and villages in the county. One has to wonder if the only way a woman is chosen by her community to serve is if there are simply no men available!
How can this be acceptable in the most progressive state in the Union? And at what cost to the vitality of our towns and villages has this status-quo been maintained? There is no doubt that we lack ethnic diversity in the demographics of our state, but surely we can do better in representing gender diversity among our decision-makers! There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that, when communities disproportionately represent only the ideas and agendas of male decision-makers, society suffers as a whole. We need the creativity and dexterity of female minds in the mix so that we may benefit from fresh perspectives on age-old civic problems.
This is my call to the women of our county to step-up and challenge that status-quo for the good of us all! By and large, women are the majority of active voters in America. Surely we can do better than this right here in our own back-yard! I am offering my time and energy to credible female candidates for office in St. Albans City, so that together we can bring about a truly revitalized and forward-looking community.
Come on, gals… Let’s get uppity!