Thirty two House Democrats have signed a letter from House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. to the House Armed Services Committee Chairman Republican Buck McKeon. They are protesting language in Detainee Security Act bill and asking for hearings. The language, Democrats say would amount to a permanent declaration of war against the Taliban, al Qaeda and associates. The letter says in part:

"By declaring a global war against nameless individuals, organizations and nations 'associated' with the Taliban and al Qaeda, as well as those playing a supporting role in their efforts, the Detainee Security Act would appear to grant the president near unfettered authority to initiate military action around the world without further congressional approval,"

Democrats wrote. "Such authority must not be ceded to the president without careful deliberation from Congress."

The Democrats also expresses concern with provisions in the bill regarding conflicts between civilian and military terrorist prisoner trials.

The Detainee Security Act in effect requires that terrorism suspects be tried in military commissions, thereby cutting out Article III federal courts from conducting terrorism trials.

According to The Hill online Chairman Buck McKeon is not expected to consider the Democrats requests and the bill will move forward.  

Dear Lockheed Martin,

As a concerned citizen of Burlington, VT I feel obligated to let you know that the overwhelming majority of residents here seem strongly opposed to the proposed partnership between Lockheed Martin and the city of Burlington to address the impeding threat of climate change. Surprisingly, many people aren’t opposed to the idea solely because you happen to be one of the world’s largest arms manufacturers, but mainly because you don’t seem to have much of a proven track record when it comes to addressing climate change.  

You see, here in Burlington we really pride ourselves on the notable efforts we’ve already made to reduce carbon emissions and develop sustainable communities, and we’re rather reluctant to invite anyone into our town who doesn’t already have a wealth of experience doing the same, regardless of their net worth. Otherwise what’s the point, right?

Perhaps you’ve heard of climate change expert Bill McKibben. In a recent Burlington Free Press article McKibben says of Lockheed, “The fear that they could be just greenwashing is real — for instance, these guys belong to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has opposed every single good idea on energy and climate for decades; to me, that’s a sign they’re willing to make money on climate, but still work in Washington to prevent meaningful progress.” This is your big chance to prove otherwise.

McKibben’s NGO 350.org. It’s an international non-profit dedicated to stopping climate change. 350 just launched a new campaign ‘The U.S. Chamber Doesn’t Speak For Me’ to “show that when it comes to climate and energy, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce represents the interests of big polluters, not everyday American business.” According to a recent New York Times article, (“Justices Offer Receptive Ear to Business Interests” 12/18/10),”[The Chamber of Commerce] board includes executives from some of the nation’s biggest companies, including Lockheed Martin.” The Chamber of Commerce filed a brief in a Supreme Court case stating, a suit by eight states against power companies over carbon dioxide emissions, ‘has potentially disastrous implications for the U.S. business community.”

The New York Times article links to the Supreme Court brief (American Electric Power Company Inc., et al. v. State of Connecticut, et al.) which shows the lengths the Chamber of Commerce and its corporate partners, including Lockheed, will go to block carbon reductions. The brief implies that the states’ efforts to regulate C02 emissions are “ill-conceived policies and measures which could damage the economic security of the United States.” It belittles the states’ earnest litigation to address the climate crisis as an example of “nuisance suits,” which are “an especially ill-conceived and constitutionally illegitimate response.” Like Mom always said, “you’ll be judged by the company you keep.” Right?

So we have thought of a great way you could prove your commitment to addressing climate change to the citizens of Burlington so someone other than Mayor Kiss might be a little more supportive of this proposed partnership. Would you be willing quit the US Chamber of Commerce and prove to us you really are committed to addressing the climate crisis? You see, like McKibben says, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has maintained a hard-line opposition to any legislation addressing the climate issue, so it’s very hard to take anyone seriously who says that they want to address this issue while maintaining their involvement with them. You wouldn’t be the first corporation do to so either! Apple, Nike, and Johnson & Johnson have all quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for this very reason! Even utility companies such as Exelon, Pacific Gas & Electric, and PNM Resources resigned from the Chamber over its environmental policy. Won’t you be the next brave corporation to show your commitment to addressing climate change by quitting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce? It sure would help the citizens of Burlington take your proposal a little more seriously…

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Anna Guyton, Peace & Justice Center Program Manager

Joe Solomon, 350.org  

Jenna Whitson, 350.org

David Stember, 350.org

Page Atcheson 350.org

Jonathan Leavitt, Journalist and Community Organizer

Will Bennington, Farmer and Community Organizer

Laurie Essig Phd.

Liza Cowan, Director, Pine Street Art Works

Danielle Bombardier, Community Organizer

Bryan Parmelee

Arthur Hynes

Peggy Luhrs

Juliet Buck

James Vos

Jen Berger

Patrick Wood

Lewis Holmes

Alan Taplow

Colleen Deignan

Michelle Marion

Tristan Pulley

Paul Schanbel

Jennifer Martin

Skye Ellicock

Laurie Larson

Into the idea vacuum left when Republican plans to dismantle Medicare blew-up in their faces, leaps our own caped crusader, Bernie Sanders, to boldly go where DC Dems fear to tread:  Single-Payer!

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced today that he introduced legislation to provide health care for every American through a Medicare-for-all type single-payer system.

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) filed a companion bill in the House to provide better care for more patients at less cost by eliminating the middle-man role played by private insurance companies that rake off billions of dollars in profits.

The twin measures, both called the American Health Security Act of 2011, would provide federal guidelines and strong minimum standards for states to administer single-payer health care programs.

Observing the U.S.’s miserable standing as

the only major nation in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care

Senator Sanders points out that this parsimony has only served to earn us the twin distinctions of having not only one of the most costly healthcare “systems” in the world, but one that doesn’t even begin to deliver results on a par with those who spend far less.

Supporting the Sanders-McDermott act are labor voices like the AFL-CIO, National Nurses United and International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.

Citing some damning statistical evidence of our failure as a country to provide even basic care to many millions of Americans in need, the Senator had this to say:

Under the current health care system, 45,000 Americans a year die because they delay seeking care they cannot afford.  Health care eats up one-fifth of the U.S. economy, but we rank 26th among major, developed nations on life expectancy and 31st on infant mortality.

He points out that Americans pay, on average, twice as much as Canadians and Europeans for exactly the same drugs; and that much of this inflated cost is due to the drug companies own spendthrift management and compensation practices.

Sanders did not forget to mention the landmark effort by Vermont lawmakers to move our state forward toward a single-payer system, thereby providing a model for the rest of the country.

Amid the chaos and cynicism of Congressional politics, it does my heart good to read of Bernie still shooting out those arrows of lightning clarity.

Thanks to nTodd for pointing us toward this choice piece of perspective on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and it’s pas de deux with the power industry.

Tom Zeller, writing on Huffington Post draws our attention to a 1992 document entitled “Perspectives on the License Renewal Process.” Sent to the NRC by Northern States Power Company, the paper advocated an extremely lenient approach to relicensing:

In a nutshell, the document argued that the NRC examined aspects of plant operation beyond the scope of what was necessary for license renewal, and the agency therefore ran the risk of making license renewal uneconomical.

Mr. Zeller points out that three years later, in 1995, the NRC changed its rules so as to eliminate entirely the part of the relicensing process that looked at whether or not a facility was in fact, operating in full compliance with it’s current license!

Precipitating the 1992 document and subsequent change in NRC rules was a development in the 1980’s when a nuclear plant in Monticello, Minnesota that was seeking renewal was found on examination to be so grievously out of compliance that it was forced to close even before its current license had expired.

a result, Monticello’s operators — and the wider industry — went on the offensive.

Now here is where Mr. Zeller really caught my attention because he linked that last phrase to a NY Times article that used a photo of the collapsed tower at Vermont Yankee to illustrate the point that perhaps the NRC is now entirely too cozy with the industry.  While this hardly is news to us, it gives some satisfaction to see others connecting the dots.

It would appear that the NRC has effectively taken the extraordinary step of mandating that a blind eye will be turned on any issues of current use. The only remaining criteria are the plans the applicant offers for future operation!  Furthermore,  it has taken this step soley for the economic advantage it gives to the industry.

In the wake of the Fukushima disaster how can this betrayal of the public trust be tolerated?

we’re going to show you

some images now

we want you to respond

with the first thing

that comes into your head

here goes

yeah

she’s hot ain’t she?

too bad she’s so young

and so well dressed

and you’re such a loser

also she’s a Republican

next one

oh you filthy minded pig!

I mean she’s really really

young

you just told us something

we wanted to know

how about this one

well come on

spit it out

what?

you want the car?

you don’t want the woman?

good

now we’re getting somewhere

if you have the car

you can get the woman

and that’s what you’re trying

to conceal from us

we know all about you

and finally

yeah that’s a dead little girl

and you just killed her

isn’t this fun?

now we’re going to let you

write out a full confession

use the form below

no we don’t take

American Express

that’s the other people

the ones that are waiting

for you

and they’re not very nice

like us

you can put on your pants now

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, VT.

The killing of Bin Laden brings an awareness of some of the changes brought about by 9/11 that we have lived with for almost ten years .They span from the minor, we now commonly refer to the USA as our “homeland” to the major and horrifying; we torture[d] people.

Not surprisingly Dick Cheney is still worried and wants his waterboard back.

"I'm still concerned that a lot of the techniques we used to keep the country safe for seven years have been taken off the table," Cheney said. "It's not clear to me today that we have an interrogation program that we could put a high-value terrorist through."

   

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, never one to miss an opportunity to lobby for traveling the dark side* and suffering no moral qualms made an appearance on Fox News Sunday to support and promote torture or as he prefers “enhanced interrogation techniques”.

Obama’s NSA advisor says these methods are:

"not consistent with our values, not consistent and not necessary in terms of getting the kind of intelligence that we need."

 

However Cheney claims waterboarding and harsh methods of interrogating played a role in capturing Bin Laden two years since Obama banned the use of waterboarding and tens years after 9/11.

Asked whether the methods should be reinstated if the United States were to capture a new high-value target, Cheney replied: "I certainly would advocate it. I'd be a strong supporter of it."

 

The former Vice President still clings to his legal fig leaf and claim that waterboarding isn’t torture because, well I guess because he says it isn’t.

Cheney also dismissed the notion that waterboarding, or simulated drowning, amounted to torture, saying he and the rest of the Bush team had gone to great lengths to ensure what they did was legal.

*Cheney Sept. 16 2001 interviewed by NBC’s Tim Russert ,

We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world.

(Note especially the concern that the EPA is not monitoring radiation contamination from Fukushima in fish! – promoted by Sue Prent)

Fukushima Groundwater Contamination Worst in Nuclear History from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

A report from the Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission Ex-Secretariat, Dr. Saji, credits the current status of the accident to “luck”.  Gundersen discusses what could have happened if the wind had been blowing in-land

.

So the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird is in the 3-3.5″ range.  I got this photo at 500mm, without using a tripod, with an 8lb camera/lens combination.  No, I don’t know how I did it either:

This is the first hummingbird I’ve seen this year, so it was a real treat to get such a good photo of it.

A quick note before I continue: these are mostly smaller versions of the photos.  They’re all hotlinked to larger versions on my web site.   Every photo was taken with a Pentax K-7 with a Sigma 50-500mm lens.  No shots involved tripods, but a few of the heron type birds involved using either my car or a wooden fence to stabilize the photos.  

One of the major events of Spring in New England is migratory warblers.  Warblers are small birds.  They can range from 4″ – 5.5″ with a few variations slightly outside that range.  I’ve had some good luck with them in the past few weeks:

Black-and-White Warblers are not that difficult to find if you know where to look for them.  They have an easy to identify call (like a squeaky wheel) and are fairly aggressive:

Palm Warblers are also fairly prominent for this time of year, but unlike the B&W warblers, they won’t stick around for very long.  I almost never see them outside of May but at this time of year, I can get some great looks at them:

I don’t have a good read on Pine Warblers.  I see them rarely, so I don’t know their patterns well.  I almost never get great photos of them, which is why this particular shot is quite pleasing to me:

Yellow Warblers, on the other hand, are commonplace here in the Green Mountain State, all Summer long.  They nest at several of my local birding spots and I’ll be able go get much better photos than this one:

Yellow-Rumped Warblers are among the earliest and latest warblers we get– they can survive in colder climates than some warblers, due to their ability to digest certain types of berries that other warblers can’t, which allows them opportunity for food other than insects (the primary warbler diet):

Chipping Sparrows are the Summer American Tree Sparrow.  I almost never see both birds on the same day, and a true maker of the new season is when the Chipping come in as the Tree Sparrows are on their way out:

Baltimore Orioles invariably show up here within the first few days of May.  I often hear them before I get to see them, but yesterday one flew right up and landed on a feeder in front of me:

Dark-Eyed Juncos are usually gone by now; they’re primarily winter birds (though you can find them at higher elevations year-round) so I was surprised to see one pop up last week:

Evening Grosbeaks tend to show up in our yard twice a year, during migration, sticking around for as little as a few minutes and as much as a few days before continuing on their path until they come back the other way.  This afternoon, one let me get a lot closer to it than I expected:

The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, on the other hand, sticks around for us all Summer:

Northern Flickers hang out year-round, but they only do their mating displays, such as the yellow fantail, around this time of year:

Great Blue Herons will go wherever there’s enough open water for them to fish.  I caught this one flying from one spot to the other last Sunday:

Great Egrets, like herons, go where the fish are:

One thoroughly unexpected bird was this White Faced Ibis that showed up on Plum Island, MA.  I managed to get photos of it shortly before it met its untimely demise under attack by (and I am not joking) a peregrine falcon:

The American Bittern is a difficult bird to find.  It stalks its way through reeds and when senses someone around, it will stick its neck straight up and pretend to be reeds.  That’s why I felt particularly lucky to get this look at one, which started with me spotting it out of the corner of my eye driving down a road at 40mph.   I usually find them when they’re pointed straight up like this, so it was pretty neat to get to see one actually pause, notice me, and do its point straight up into the air thing:

Just a quick note here from a friend on Facebook. We don't usually cover news from Mississippi, but in this case I have to make an exception.

According to NaturalNews.com:

Workers at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Plant in Port Gibson, Miss., last Thursday released a large amount of radioactive tritium directly into the Mississippi River, according to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and experts are currently trying to sort out the situation.

What does that have to do with Vermont, you may ask?

Well, just take a wild guess what company owns Grand Gulf.

Yes, it's our friends at Entergy.

“Entergy. Meeting all your tritium needs since 1971.”