In the past few weeks, I’ve seen barred owls twice in very unexpected places.  The first was in our yard itself.  The second was in a downtown area in Bellows Falls, VT.  

Owls are not generally friendly with people.  They avoid us, and with good reason.  Most owls are nocturnal and have the advantage of silent flight for hunting down prey.  The Barred Owl is no exception.  Our yard is mostly away from people, though it is near a road, and we do see these magnificent birds in our area from time to time.  

But the other owl?  It was sitting on a post on a public street in Bellows Falls, VT.  

Then it flew across the street to the pine trees lining the street outside a Rite-Aid Parking Lot.

There were two specific events in common before both these sightings.  

This, by the way, is the one that hung out in our yard all day:

Generally speaking, when you see a bird out of its expected area, there’s a reason.  It might not have enough food and is therefore required to expand its range to a more unusual location.  

But sometimes there’s something else at play.  In both these cases, there was an ice storm the night before.  My theory is that these owls had roosting spots they preferred, but the ice drove them down.  For an owl to perch on a post in a populated area as this one did…

…suggests that it was either ill, injured or just needed a break.  The bird could fly.  I wish I’d had a picture, but it was too fast– it flew very gracefully directly across the street.    I’ve seen owls fly up close before.  It’s pretty incredible.  And then it just settled down in the tree.

I think the answer here is simple– the bird may be slightly malnourished– it’s been a very tough winter, but no one’s seeing these birds routinely– they only seem to show up after ice storms, which implies that they just get fed up with trying to hunt for the night, and just give up, find the first convenient spot they can and take a break.  

I might be wrong about this.  Owls sometimes get sick.  They die.  Both these owls, I think, are juveniles.  Not all juveniles survive the winter and we’ve had a particularly harsh one, and seeing a dead owl is kind of heartbreaking.  

So you do what you can.  You leave the owl be, let it get its rest, and hope it has a better night the next time.   When you take pictures, you make it brief and at a safe distance.  

And then you let it go, and just hope.

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve written before about the subprime mortgage crash and how it happened. We learned shortly after it happened that a major element was the Republicans’ insistence on the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which they snuck into the budget at the end of 2000. This act prohibits the federal and state governments from any regulation of derivatives, and this led to the creation of the credit default swaps that were the direct cause of the collapse of AIG and the other mortgage-backed bond funds. (An interesting sidelight is that the provision was inserted at the insistence of Texas senator Phil Gramm, whose wife Wendy directly benefits from this kind of trading.)

The Big Short looks at this from a different perspective.  

Author Michael Lewis, whose first book, Liar’s Poker, was a view of Salomon Brothers from the inside, set out to find out if any of the people who were claiming, after the crash, that they had seen it coming really had.

What he found was that there were a very few, literally a handful, of investment analysts and investors who had seen the crash coming, and had made major investments that took advantage of the vulnerabilities they were able to find in the mortgage bond sector. What he also found was that these mortgage bonds, which were supposedly Triple A, virtually risk-free investments, were in fact based mainly on what we now know were mortgages that were guaranteed, and even designed, to fail. And finally, all the information needed to find these vulnerabilities was in the public domain, and it was only by a combination of corruption and gross incompetence that the market swallowed up these worthless bond instruments.

This is a fascinating account of how people who supposedly know what they’re doing, and supposedly know way more about investments than you or me, conspired to cause the collapse of the American economy and throw millions of people out of their houses. As such, it is required reading for anyone who wants to understand how we got into our current economic situation.

View all my reviews

A little explanation here– when comments are particularly odious here, they can be hidden from the general public as toxic to the overall environment.  This is community moderation, not something we tend to exercise as editors of the site.

That said, since we’ve been talking about some of the personal attacks engaged in by pro-nuclear bloggers, I thought it might be worthwhile to highlight an old comment that got hidden.  This comment was posted in this piece.  In response, Howard Shaffer, who’s been going after Arnie Gunderson in public some, made his own comments here on Green Mountain Daily.

I don’t know where Mrs. Gundersen gets her info, but she may be open to a liable suit.  Meredith Angwin, with whom I collaborate, doesn’t get paid to blog. She won’t because it would hamper her independence. In fact we are both trying to get some paid work.  In the meantime we are supporting nuclear power for our grandchildren’s sake.  See our website coalitionforenergysolutions.org and Meredith’s blog Yes,Vermont Yankee.

This fairly reckless and silly attempt at intimidation also included some other personal comments directed at Maggie and Arnie Gundersen (the original comment can be found here if you’re a GMD member in good standing, but I wanted to highlight this particular comment because it says a lot about what’s being attempted here.  

For the record, by the way, as an aside, this was my response:

1. it’s my experience that threatening a lawsuit means the person making the threat doesn’t have a case.  People who have a case actually sue.  People who don’t have a case bluster;
2. as a general rule, a claim of libel requires that the statement in question be a falsehood.  I notice that you aren’t pointing to any actual lie on the part of Maggie but instead making a claim which does not contradict what you’ve said;
3. if you’re going to try to harass or intimidate someone, you should know how to spell “libel.”

We’re talking about individual people going up against a group of extremely powerful corporations with very deep pockets.  As noted recently:

How he dared even go there after Howard Shaffer’s claim to state of VT that Mr. Gundersen is not a nuclear engineer & should not be allowed to make the claim failed so miserably is curious.

Anyone who has watched the ongoing debate over continued operation of Entergy Louisiana-owned Vermont Yankee & related events unfold, has witnessed an astonishing display of disinformation. Information dispensed by those who support continued operation has been inaccurate & misleading in their description of the issue & related issues. It has been an eye opener to say the very least.

I wanted to draw these two things together to show a history here, one not visible to registered users of the site or search engines– the smear tactics we’re discussing here have been going on for a long time and though it was appropriate to hide that comment in the context of the discussion, I thought it necessary to bring it back out to the light again.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

There’s nothing in there allowing for the right to bear arms without notice or registration.  

There’s nothing in there which says you can own a gun without informing your government that you own it.  

There’s nothing in there which says that you have the right to carry a concealed weapon.

It’s really that simple.  Which is why there is nothing in here that is a problem on any level:

47302796-H-83-As-Introduced-Vermont-General-Assembly-via-MyGov365-com –

If we want our constitution to allow for the ownership of guns without any notification, information or record keeping, we are welcome to attempt to amend it, but there is every reason to track guns and have some details about who owns them, especially when it comes to the issue of guns that make their way into the hands of kids, leaving violence in their wake.  

(Jonathan writes, “Using the very real climate crisis as a fig leaf for getting in bed with Lockheed to deal with his leading political liability is beyond the pale.”  I agree. – promoted by Maggie Gundersen)

Noted environmental author and founder of 350.org Bill McKibben on Burlington’s Letter on Understanding with Lockheed:

“As someone who thinks a lot about local economies, one of the things we’re really good in Vermont at, better than Lockheed are these kind of solutions. […] We probably don’t have to go to find that outside help. I take seriously the idea that people can change, it’s harder to see how corporations as deeply enmeshed in one way of doing business and looking at the world as Lockheed is can change. […] Some of the stuff Lockheed or anyone else would advise us to do would happen automatically if we did the necessary political work at the national level that we need to do. If Lockheed was willing to pull out of the US Chamber of Commerce and say ‘they don’t speak for us, we don’t like the way they deal with climate energy,’ then that strikes me, then I’d be willing to give them a look at what they wanted to do here in Burlington. I don’t think that’s going to happen and until it does I would be disinclined to get too deeply in bed with them.”

McKibben’s 350.org just launched a new campaign ‘The US Chamber Doesn’t Speak For Me’ to “show that when it comes to climate and energy, the US 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 which illuminates the lengths the Chamber of Commerce and its corporate partners including Lockheed will go to, to block carbon reductions:

“The Chamber works to discourage ill-conceived policies and measures which could damage the economic security of the United States and instead encourages long term technological innovation and long term clean technology development. The Chamber believes that nuisance suits such as this one which seeks to impose caps and reductions on carbon dioxide emissions in piecemeal fashion on an arbitrary subset of U.S. industry are an especially ill-conceived and constitutionally illegitimate response.”

For Burlington to work with a corporation which According to William Hartung’s Prophets of War performs drone bombing in Pakistan, buys scandal plagued companies interrogating prisoners in Abu Ghraib, lobbies against nuclear weapons treaties and performs warrantless wiretapping on Americans is bad enough. Discovering Lockheed via its seat on the Chamber pushes the Supreme Court to not regulate carbon emissions on a state and Federal level begs serious questions about the Kiss administration’s commitment to addressing climate change.

In Seven Days recent cover story (“Up In Arms” 2/9/11), Mayor Kiss invokes crisis and urgency saying “There’s enough urgency to this issue of climate change that we need to look for all the partners that are out there.” So it’s deeply disappointing that according to its website Mayor Kiss hasn’t convened his Mayoral Task Force on Climate Change (E2C2) full of award winning local climate change talent since November 14, 2007.

Now that City Council has overwhelmingly passed a resolution rebuking the lack of transparency and public comment which Mayor Kiss would attach Burlington’s sterling reputation to Lockheed; now that Burlingtonians have spoken out unanimously at City Council in overwhelming number, including green engineers and sustainability leaders; now that UVM Student Government has overwhelmingly passed a similar resolution critiquing this most unlikely of bedfellows; one would hope Mayor Kiss would listen. One would hope Mayor Kiss would do the moral, just and right thing and end this corporate PR job of a deal, quickly re-convene his long dormant Mayoral Task Force on Climate Change, and find more appropriate and just ways to incentivize Burlington’s already award-winning responses climate change.

When discussing the Lockheed Letter of Understanding Mayor Kiss mentions potential Burlington Telecom financing from Lockheed. Using the very real climate crisis as a fig leaf for getting in bed with Lockheed to deal with his leading political liability is beyond the pale. When I supported Mayor Kiss on the re-election trail in 2008, he invoked in debates the words of former Burlington Mayor Bernie Sanders’: “Burlington is open for business but not for sale.” If Burlingtonians keep organizing and speaking out against the Lockheed Letter of Understanding, hopefully we can help Mayor Kiss live up to those words.

Sure as Town Meeting comes to pass every year, Marilyn Hackett gets another virtual slap in the face from her righteous neighbors in Franklin.  After ten years, this time will likely be the last, since Ms. Hackett has finally resolved to sue the municipality to have them remove a Christian invocation from the agenda of the next Town Meeting…and she will most likely win.

As anyone who read my post on the issue this time last year may recall, she hasn’t come to this decision easily or quickly.

According to the March 3 Messenger,

Alleging a violation of Vermont’s Constitution and the state’s Public Accommodations Act, the Vermont branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed suit against the Town of Franklin and moderator Tim Magnant for repeatedly opening Franklin’s town meeting with a Christian prayer.

Maintaining that the Town’s persistent disregard for Ms. Hackett’s beliefs is in violation of the Public Accommodations Act, attorneys are seeking an end to the annual prayers, recovery of damages and associated legal fees.

Each year Ms. Hackett requests that the invocation be dropped from the agenda in deference to her personal beliefs.  She doesn’t proselytize and asks only that her right to fully participate in Town Meeting without the imposition of publicly led prayer be respected.  Each year, the Town Moderator defies both Ms. Hackett and the letter of the law by opening the meeting with a Christian prayer  led by Rev. Jason McConnell.  The current Town Moderator is Tim Magnant.

A previous Moderator, Hugh Gates, addressed her complaint by  “inviting” anyone objecting to the prayer to leave the room.  This was an invitation that Ms. Hackett found considerably less than accommodating.  Once, the assembly even took a vote, by a show of hands, on whether or not to allow the prayer; but, as Ms. Hackett rightly observed, you can’t vote away another person’s rights under the law.

Ms. Hackett offered a compromise to the Town Selectboard last year before the Meeting. The assembly could open with a moment of silence or a non-sectarian invocation suggested by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns.  When asked, selectman Scott Choiniere told the Messenger that a moment of silence would indeed be observed; however, when the meeting was actually held, Rev. McConnell once again opened it with a Christian prayer. Choiniere said McConnell had refused to use the non-sectarian invocation provided by the VLCT.  What issue he might have had with the alternative “moment of silence” was never addressed.

In the wake of the lawsuit announcement, Ms. Hackett says the repercussive abuse has already begun with a hate call on Wednesday.  Last year after her explanatory letter appeared in the Messenger, Ms. Hackett was the target of several nasty letters, including one from Richford selectman Dan Newton.

Newton called her “a twisted radical bimbo,” an “unpatriotic extremist” and said she should be “given a one-way ticket to a Third World country,” Hackett recalled.

Nice.  These remarks were apparently repeated by students at Richford High School where she was employed at the time.  

Over the years, Ms. Hackett must have observed some good in her neighbors, because she is nothing if not persistent.  One could certainly understand if she simply chose to pack her bags and leave the small-minds of Franklin far behind.  

According to the New York Times, White House staff members describe a happier workplace since consolidating responsibilities and smoothing lines of communication under new chief of staff, William Daley. This follows the departure of Rahm Emanuel, the “idea-a-minute dynamo”, whom they say engineered Obama’s brilliant last minute lame duck session rescue of the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts. Thanks Rahm.

Focusing on long-term strategic goals and being less personality driven is the new order of the day for the Obama White House.

With Mr. Daley taking the lead, there is more outreach to Republicans and business groups.

Other changes include eliminating the White House health care office and moving the energy czar’s responsibilities to the Domestic Policy Council. The new strategy includes not weighing in as often on day to day news events but only “…at a moment of his choosing when the public is paying attention, it will be more influential.” as White House communication director said.

Here is what this looks like in practice

…the White House mostly has sought to stay out of the fray in Madison, Wis., and other state capitals where Republican governors are battling public employee unions and Democratic lawmakers over collective bargaining rights. When West Wing officials discovered that the Democratic National Committee had mobilized Mr. Obama’s national network to support the protests, they angrily reined in the staff at the party headquarters.

After last fall’s Election Day shellacking, an "enthusiasm gap" or "turn-out gap" was blamed for Democratic losses in the house. This gap existed most heavily in swing states that Obama needs for the 2012 election. States like Ohio, Wisconsin, and Indiana are now the frontlines in the Republican attack on organized labor. This gap may be in the process of correcting itself at the grass roots level as some polls show Republican Governor of Wisconsin Walker with a 57% disapproval rating due to his anti-labor machinations.  Ever careful Obama may not want to take risks on this issue that he sees as jeopardizing his relations with big business or stress his ongoing battle of budget cutting with the Congress. His involvement might also energize the Tea Baggers. He and his team may figure, why go out on a limb for labor if it's not "a moment of his choosing"?  

Sadly right now Obama is perceived as sitting out what might be a major pivot point in organized labor’s recent fortunes.  

No one could argue that as President he isn’t a long careful distance from this campaign pledge

“So, you %!@(!&ers don’t think I’d make a good U.S. Senator or Governor?  Well…it does sound like a lot of goddamn work.  Not to mention the abuse.  So, I’ve been reconsidering.  There is a job I know I can do.

That f’n’ State Monster Champ’s been sniping at me.  Well, how would he like it if I ran for State Monster next year?  Yeah, think about it, you(*&?/ers.  I mean, Champ’s hardly ever seen doing his job, but do you bitch about him?  So, occasionally I’m not in my office, and occasionally I’m doing weird shit that people get on video, and occasionally I don’t answer questions about issues because I don’t know the issues.  So what?

What the Hell does Champ do that I don’t.  He’s hardly ever seen, unless once in a while he gets a yen to make a video splash.  But do you <$!/?*ers make jokes about him.  Well, NOOOooooo!

So, when I decide what I’m going to do, at least you’ll see my face in the papers.  And what about that Michael Colby?  He hasn’t posted a thing on BROADSIDES since Jan.18.  He’s let that maniac Buknatski take over his blog.  Does f’n’ Champ have a blog?  If the good people of Vermont love it that Champ and Colby get away with disappearing acts, I’ll betcha I hear the voice of the people–not you people; them people.

And remember, I don’t have to put up with any of this shit.  I’ve got a good paying job til Jan., 2013, and then, hell, Sarah will probably make me Secretary Of the Treasury.  Then I’ll get you &!%$@$ers good.”

3/4/11

Waterbury, Vt.

One year after Windham County lawmakers sent this letter to the editor of the Brattleboro Reformer,making public the recognition that Entergy Louisiana’s Vermont Yankee is in violation of the state statute and public trust doctrine, the groundwater protection law passed in Vermont in 2008.

Two page letter:

http://www.allbusiness.com/gov…

Groundwater protection law:

http://www.leg.state.vt.us/doc…

PSB Docket 7600, was opened in the same time-frame the letter was published, also a year ago, in which environmental group Conservation Law Foundation & citizen advocate antinuclear group New England Coalition asked the VT PSB to take the action of ceasing Vermont Yankee operation or other ameliorative action to stop the release of radioactive releases into the environment.

http://www.rpc.windham.vt.us/e…

One year later, in mid-January of this year, the hearing turned out to be another typical display of Entergy Louisiana’s complete arrogance & utter disregard for the state of Vermont. Engineer testifying foolishly claimed that the leak was not due to the pipe(s), but the cracked concrete casing casing around the pipe(s). This interpretation of the RCA was refuted by Arnie Gundersen & contradicted by NRC’s Neil Sheehan.

http://vtdigger.org/2011/01/12…

PSB in their ruling ordered Entergy to submit bimonthly reports, interestingly in the form of legal affadavits:

http://psb.vermont.gov/sites/p…

During the hearing, no contamination results were submitted to the VT DOH by Entergy/VY. They later claimed a testing equipment failure, but reported this to no one. The fact that this went unreported for roughly 2 weeks, as well as the curious timing, appears to constitute a coverup as there is no reason to conceal this information & not request assistance if there is nothing to hide.

The glaring statewide media headlines reporting the results of the new contamination, thought to be yet another new leak, during the hearings would have been a stunning illustration of CLF’s & NECs contention & served as vivid & damning testimony to the board regarding the immediacy of the situation at hand, as well as the fact that one year after the previous leak(s), nothing has changed & leak(s) appear to be continuing, precisely the reason for opening the docket.

According to a press release published in VTDigger, Vermont Environmental Court has ruled:

“The court’s ruling supports our contention that Vermont Yankee’s continued contamination of groundwater violates the public trust,” said Elizabeth Courtney, VNRC’s Executive Director.

“The ruling also has the effect of strongly supporting[..]this…leaking plant to be shut down,” she said.

And:

“The decision is the first substantive judicial interpretation of the 2008 law (Act 199) designating Vermont’s groundwater to be a public trust resource”

http://vtdigger.org/2011/03/04…

This, along with a few other recent events seems to signal a shift in the wind surrounding Entergy Louisiana’s Vermont Yankee & the continuing debacle. It will certainly be interesting watching these events unfold.  

( – promoted by Sue Prent)

The VT Democratic Party chair has made it official. In a strongly worded statement, Judy Bevins has called for State Auditor Tom Salmon’s resignation, remarking that Salmon’s primary activity is staying in the news while serving his own interests rather than fellow Vermonters & has accomplished little else:

“It’s clear that Tom Salmon is only interested serving one Vermonter – Tom Salmon. As Auditor, his only accomplishment has been his ability to stay in the news, while accomplishing remarkably little. From his publicity-stunt party switch, to his erratic behavior in the press and now this, Tom Salmon may think he was elected to improve his own political standing”[..]

http://vtdigger.org/2011/03/04…

We do not need a politician using his office and the people he has sworn to serve as a mere stepping stone. Had his goals been made clear that he would begin campaigning upon beginning his second term, I’m unsure if he would have won his bid. It is my hope that he will do the right thing & step down for the sake of VT & residents, as the VDP chair is recommending:

“I ask Auditor Salmon to heed my words and resign from office immediately.”

Not holding my breath.

Salmon strikes again

Following a flurry of political activity, including staged media events & several op-eds delivered to VT media outlets in the space of only a few short months Auditor Salmon has been quite busy, but unfortunately as his activity shows, not necessarily in the capacity of his job as State Auditor.  

The present situation has evolved one week after yet another mangled masterpiece delivered to VT media, this time I have only seen it published in The Manchester Journal, Newport Daily Express & VTDigger. I have not seen it in any major news outlets. A commenter asked when VTDigger was going to stop supplying Salmon with free campaign ads. Perhaps the others have caught on.

True to his erratic, disjointed, hard-to-follow style, once again he quotes a famous political figure, reaching high, RFK no doubt. Oddly, using a speech which as far as I can tell fails to connect the other points he makes, if they can be called that.

Launching into an attack on the goals & objectives the majority of Vermonters as well as the Shumlin administration seem to consider of utmost importance:

“In Vermont, leaders seek a go-it-alone healthcare system, public records agenda in the name of transparency, an emotional push to shut down a safe and reliable nuclear plant”[..]

Veering in another direction, arriving here:

[..]”and continued lip service to improving student success. A February 11, 2011 editorial in a major VT newspaper asked “What do we want our schools to be?”

After totally mischaracterizing governor Shumlin’s work assistance initiative, or displaying his complete ignorance thereof & turning it into an indictment of VT education system:

“Why does the current Governor have to team up with our State Colleges to teach “Teamwork, communications, work ethic, showing up to work on time, working a full day, basic computer skills, the ability to read and gather information, and some essential math skills”?

Further blame-gaming VT education system:

“A sad day for me, as a former teacher, is to bump into a former student that at age 20 has no skills, no plan, and no confidence.”

And ending with more of his lame advice:

“Perhaps it is time to measure what we want to achieve.”

As if no one but he has thought of or is doing this.

http://vtdigger.org/2011/02/25…

And as the VDP chair notes, he once again shows himself to be woefully out of touch with Vermonters:

“The fact that Auditor Salmon would seek to oust such a leader for our state shows just how out of touch he is with Vermonters and the needs of our state.”

http://vtdigger.org/2011/03/04/vdp-salmon-puts-vermonters-on-backburner-in-bid-for-senate/