Per today’s Rutland Herald:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave Entergy Nuclear praise for its response to the radioactive tritium leak at the Vermont Yankee reactor earlier this year, but said the company didn’t do nearly enough to prevent such a leak according to standards set by the nuclear industry.

Read the whole piece.  The NRC (absurdly, but that’s not the point) praises the “quick” response from VY to the leak, but that’s pretty much an extremely small piece of the article.  The rest of it talks about how the NRC basically slams Yankee for having poor enough standards to have allowed the leak to take place in the first place.

But the headline does not suggest this.

What is the title for this piece?

It’s “NRC praises Entergy for tritium leak response”

The article is excellent.  The headline is just plain hackery.

Recently, we’ve seen Deb Markowitz effectively position herself as defending Vermont’s good name from Brian Dubie. With both the Vermont Seal of Quality issue and the New York Times ad, Deb has shown how to turn Republican VT-is-anti-business rhetoric against itself.

In clip two she discussed the Douglas administration’s failure to uphold the meaning of the Vermont Seal of Quality and Dubie’s subsequent flip-flop. More than any charges of flip-flopping though, I think the narrative that resonates is that Brian Dubie is ideologically predisposed to dismiss the positives that make Vermont such a unique state of mind. His failure results in an attack on our quality of life that also fundamentally misunderstands our strengths in the larger marketplace.

And here in clip three, she shares her thoughts on Challenges for Change and the Star Trek/Star Wars question.  

We shot in mid-April, but I think the Challenges for Change discussion is still timely. She has a great time explaining her astonishment over Douglas now discovering the notion of outcomes-based reform in his waning months of service.

And though she comes down clearly in the Star Trek camp, she does believe it to be the wrong question. For her, a more inclusive question, one that is not so reflective of the blogger geek guy demographic, is Harry Potter or Lord of the RIngs.

As I haven’t been much of a moviegoer this past decade, I can not knowledgeably speak to her suggestion. The suggestion does give me enough pause though to conduct a poll….

Part 1 is here

Part 2 is here

[Note: No endorsement implied. Just continuing the VTblogosphereTV tradition of showcasing the qualities of the guest.]

Deb For Vermont website

Volunteer

Contribute

 Loading ...

You owe it to yourself to read this letter to the editor of the Times Argus.

 The letter actually addresses a serious question: the irresponsible people who don't clean up after their dogs. As someone who cannot see the benefits of dog ownership, I can definitely relate to the anger, disgust, and frustration felt by people who don't appreciate the way some dog owners act.

That said, take a look at this:

My suggestion is pretty radical, but I would suggest an ordinance that provides if we see someone who allows their dog to defecate on city or private taxpayer property, we be allowed to shoot the owner of the dog and then take the dog to the Humane Society. 

Like oil, issues surrounding the Deepwater Horizon leak are flowing out into the media.  

Some details have been lying near the surface.

Taxpayers are receiving significantly less of a bang for their buck from offshore oil development—even though energy companies have access to six times as many leases as they did in the early 1980s.

Two research professors from the University of California and University of Louisiana published the results of their Federal oil leasing study last June. It can be found online in Miller-McCune magazine. A blog post here by Elizabeth McGowan revisits the issue in light of the British Petroleum oil leak.  

Statistics compiled by two researchers studying the last 30 years of leasing policy show that per-acre lease rates have plummeted almost nine-fold from shortly after the time Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency to the tail end of President George W. Bush’s second term.  

An average of $2,224 per acre for all federal leases sold between 1954 and 1982 careened to $263 per acre for federal leases sold between 1983 and 2008.

In March President Obama announced his plans to extend oil leasing, he spoke of his overall energy policy strengthening the economy, but no plans were apparent to revamp the current leasing program that was originally altered in the Reagan era and again under Clinton to favor the oil industry.    

The leasing study points out how the country could benefit from a change.  

Big picture arithmetic shows that such leasing by MMS (Minerals Management Service) is second only to the Internal Revenue Service in dollars destined for Uncle Sam.

“The 300 million-plus Americans are the ones who own this offshore oil source,” he [Professor Bill Freudenberg] continues. “It’s precious and there isn’t that much left. We could use the money to pay for schools, parklands and other necessities, instead of just saying nobody should make money off of this except for top executives of oil companies.”

Cros posted from Rational Resistance:

Not a long one here, but it’s worth viewing the disembowelment of Rand Paul by Rachel Maddow.

The short version is that when confronted with the obvious import of his positions, which is that he thinks the government has no right to prohibit racial or other discrimination by businesses, he becomes painfully inarticulate, blathering on about “institutionalized racism” and acting as though this is merely an abstract or academic debate.

He claims that he is so pure he doesn’t agree with racism, and he would never personally discriminate. Apparently it’s just a coincidence that when that position was asserted in the United States in the 1960’s, 100% of those who were asserting it were white racists asserting the right to discriminate against black people.

That position has been almost universally rejected because it is impossible to have a free society of equal opportunity for all–not equality of outcome, which conservatives are incessantly whining about–if racial and other types of discrimination are allowed, even by private entities.

Jim Crow, and other racially discriminatory practices, were a way for the South to continue the oppression of black people even after the abolition of slavery. In all parts of the country, racial discrimination prevented black people from having access to all kinds of public and private resources, including employment, housing, and the other avenues of commerce. In the South and in the North, these practices were established and fostered by the power structure to maintain the oppression of black people.

Anyone who pretends that it is merely an abstract question, and not one that has the real effect of perpetuating racial discrimination, is being intentionally dense.

In 2010 nobody is that stupid, not even Rand Paul.

(Continuing GMD policy of promoting diaries by officeholders and officeseekers. – promoted by GMD)

When you run for higher office, or any office for that matter, part of the campaign promise is, “I’ll work for better, more, green, whatever … jobs.” Well, who could be opposed to that idea?

The real question is, what will the next governor do to actually help make that promise a reality? What’s the vision or the plan to make this happen? Fair question, here’s my vision and my answer.

First, I don’t believe that government creates jobs. I believe that government can help create an environment that is supportive; making sure we have good telecommunications infrastructure, supporting job training programs and certainly helping with access to capital.

I have always believed that jobs are created locally and that for Vermont to flourish we should support our regional economic development groups and our regional planning commissions. These are the folks who know what is working in their areas, they know who needs help, and how to match the needs of local business with the available resources in the state for their part of Vermont.

That’s part one of the Bartlett administration economic development plan.

I have a new idea for how we can really grow jobs and business in Vermont. I believe that the next great opportunity for economic development for Vermont and our country is growing businesses by being good at the “processes” of innovation and intellectual property. We need to grow our strength and for years our strength has been innovation.

The first patent in the US was held by a Vermonter, Samuel Hopkins. It was in 1790 on a method of making potash as an industrial chemical for making soap, glass, fertilizers and gunpowder. Today, believe it or not, Vermont has the highest per capita number of patents in America!

Innovation and entrepreneurs have always been a part of Vermont, but so far we have failed to acknowledge them as the true job creators they could become, mainly because we have failed to see these as processes we can get good at. Just like quality processes have helped improve quality, we can grow our strengths in Innovation and Intellectual Property. Now is the time to create a culture of innovation and intellectual property that will capitalize on our strength.

Now is the time to encourage innovation in Vermont and to help our companies develop and maintain a global advantage by using intellectual property to protect those innovative ideas.

When many of us think of innovation and intellectual property, we think of high tech, very complicated ideas. The world of innovation is much more. It’s the design patents on the maple leaf shaped bottle we see so much maple syrup sold in, it’s the K-Cup plastic single-serve coffee container, and it’s the way you make that fantastic downhill sled, the Mad River Rocket.

Innovation is all around us and it should be our next great business success story. Everyone is talking about green jobs, but to create new companies or grow existing ones, it’s about getting good at innovation processes. These processes help us map out strategies, understand where the new opportunities are, figure out how to extract and capture new ideas, and it’s about the process for developing and strengthening resultant patents and trade secrets.

This will allow small Vermont companies to grow into large Vermont companies.

Patents allow tremendous leverage to a business if they are created and leveraged correctly. This leverage consists of enforcement or the fear of enforcement, giving the Vermont patent holding companies the ability to stop imitators. A small company would have a government right to stop even the largest companies from copying the creative work of Vermonters.

Patents will allow Vermont businesses to obtain licensing revenues, since most companies can’t capture the entire market itself. Small companies become much more valuable because they own their technology. This makes small companies much more attractive to investors.

Bottom line: innovation backed by intellectual property raises the value of small companies tremendously, which will create good paying Vermont jobs.

As governor I will establish a statewide office of Innovation and Intellectual Property. This would be very unique as states go and. Vermont can be a leader in this approach.

We already have many companies and experts in Vermont to help us. This office would coordinate the various pieces of our business support organizations that currently exist and identify what is working, what is needed and where it is needed. This office would educate regional economic development groups about the potential of intellectual property and would help find the correct funding instruments for Vermont companies.

The Office of Innovation and Intellectual Property would hold daylong conferences around the state to bring together companies and individuals interested in leveraging their companies further through becoming expert in innovation and intellectual property. Even basic education would be a tremendous jumpstart to Vermont companies. This would be a chance for networking, meeting sources of funding, providing consulting on obtaining patents and why it’s important. We would begin to grow the culture of innovation and intellectual property.

We need to lead our state into the new economy, where 70% of the value of most companies are in it’s intangible assets and intellectual capital and intellectual property.

The office would identify funding sources to help companies get strategic intellectual properties and use these to grow their revenues and jobs they offer. The office would coordinate connections between companies to help with cross-company innovation in fields like green energy. The office would reach outside of Vermont to bring in partners, more capital and resources.

Back in the 1950s innovation backed by technology was key to the amazing growth of Silicon Valley. I believe that the next great success will be innovation backed by intellectual property. I believe that Vermont can lead the way.

We are already funding VCET (Vermont Center of Emerging Technologies) with money for Seed Capital to help small, innovative ideas turn into success stories. We will need to develop more of these dollars through public and private cooperation to truly grow the culture of innovation.

We need to establish business incubators around the state that focus on specific areas of innovation such as medical devices, renewable energy, energy efficiency, value added foods and cleaning up the environment. The Office of Innovation and Intellectual Property would make certain that there is close collaboration between these incubators.

We have to work with our colleges to use their resources to change the business culture. Our young people need to see that Vermont can and will become the leader of new ideas and the exciting new business opportunities of tomorrow. They will help create the new jobs of the future. Our goal should be to import young people, not export our young people.

We have a wonderful opportunity to change the business culture in Vermont. We can grow our existing businesses and help Vermonters start new businesses. We can create jobs and generate prosperity. We can show our creativity through new ideas that can start new businesses, grow or reshape existing ones and engage all Vermonters to participate.

This isn’t just about high tech, it’s everything from making new soap products, marketing online, marketing infomercials, recycling trash, producing baby formulas, wind turbines, exercise equipment, ice cream and teddy bears!

We must become better at supporting innovation and intellectual property. That is the job that state government can and will help with in the Bartlett administration.

Sincerely,

Susan

Yeah, I guess they really did say that …

In its 2009 exploration plan for the Deepwater Horizon well, BP PLC states that the company could handle a spill involving as much as 12.6 million gallons of oil per day, a number 60 times higher than its current estimate of the ongoing Gulf disaster.

(BP told feds it could handle oil spill 60 times larger than Deepwater Horizon, al.com (Alabama Live), 05/19/10)

Also quoted: “the spill has stayed about the same size or even shrunk on the water as a result of our response efforts.”

According the article SkyTruth.org stated that according to satellite imagery the spill doubled in size from last Friday to Monday (follow this link for interactive map).

I just know that gosh darned Titanic is still cruising the world’s oceans.

Oh yeah … that quote in the title? (my emphasis)

A safety data sheet about the principal dispersant that [BP] has reported using during the ongoing spill says “no toxicity studies have been conducted on this product,” and labels “the potential human hazard: High.”

(BP told feds it could handle oil spill 60 times larger than Deepwater Horizon)

And lest we forget the see no evil dangers of hidden oil plumes

Danielle Nierenberg is blogging everyday from across Africa for the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet blog. She is also writing with her partner Bernard Pollack at her personal blog: BorderJumpers.

We love the energy of Maputo. It is vibrant, entrepreneurial, positive, and alive. Though Mozambique is not without its problems, its capital city is clearly on the move, transforming itself and melding some of the best parts of its rich and diverse cultures.

We spent the first day visiting a workshop organized by Prolinnova, the Spanish NGO Centro de Iniciativas para la Cooperación/Batá, and the National Farmers Union of Mozambique, UNAC. The workshop brought farmers together from across the country to share with each other the different innovations each farmer practices in her or his community. The farmers led the meeting, drove the discussion, and presented their own findings. It was really refreshing to hear from the people who know best what is working and what needs to be scaled-up across the country.

The next day we spent an awe-inspiring couple of hours with Dr. Rosa Costa at International Rural Poultry Center of the Kyeema Foundation in Mozambique. Newcastle disease, which can wipe out entire flocks of chickens and easily spread from farm to farm, is especially devastating for rural farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, however, thanks to the work of the Kyeema foundation, villages in Mozambique have access not only to vaccines, but also to locally trained community vaccinators (or para-vets) who can help spot and treat Newcastle and other poultry diseases before they spread.

We also visited with Madyo Couto who works under the Mozambique Ministry of Tourism to help manage the country’s Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs). These areas were initially established to help conserve and protect wildlife, but they’re now evolving to include other uses of land that aren’t specifically for conservation. In addition to linking the communities that live near or in conservation areas to the private sector to build lodges and other services for tourists, they’re also helping farmers establish honey projects to generate income.

Finally we met with Jessica Milgroom, an American graduate student working with farming communities living inside Limpopo National Park, in southern Mozambique. When the park was established in 2001, it was essentially “parked on top of 27,000 people,” says Jessica. Some 7,000 of the residents needed to be resettled to other areas, including within the park, which reduced their access to food and farmland. Jessica’s job is to see what can be done to improve resettlement food security. But rather than simply recommending intensified agriculture in the park to make better use of less land, Jessica worked with the local community to collect and identify local seed varieties, creating a more affordable and diverse set of crop options for local farmers.

After only five days in Maputo, we already plan to come back for another visit. Mozambique is so vast and incredible with loads of amazing projects to visit that our brief trip simply wasn’t enough time.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our diary every day we invite you to get involved:

1. Comment on our daily posts — we check for comments everyday and want to have a regular ongoing discussion with you.

2. Receive regular updates–Join the weekly BorderJumpers newsletter by clicking here.

3.Help keep our research going–If you know of any great projects or contacts in West Africa please connect us connect us by emailing, commenting or sending us a message on facebook.

(Continuing GMD policy of promoting diaries by officeholders and officeseekers. – promoted by GMD)

Yesterday, I officially launched my campaign for Lt.Governor announcing the endorsement of 34 current and former members of the Vermont Generally Assembly and Chittenden County States Attorney TJ Donovan.  Our campaign is catching on !  Vermonters want a Lt.Governor who is on their side, a Lt. Governor who is committed to building an economy in Vermont that serves all Vermonters, not just the wealthy and the powerful at the top.

After 8 years of failed economic policies by the current administration and George W. Bush,decades of greed and corruption on Wall Street, Vermonters are ready to support our campaign because as the Lt Governor they know I will stand up to the powerful interests in Montpelier who are blocking change and I will fight for reforms that will get our economy back on track and create well paying jobs.  

For nearly 20 years I have worked as a grassroots organizer, working with clients who have hired me throughout the country including; the Global AIDS Alliance, Housing Vermont,NARAL Pro-choice Vermont and The Coalition Against Bigger Trucks. I will use this experience to transform the sleepy Lt.Governor’s office into a center for grassroots action in the State House, mobilizing to support Medicare for All Vermonters, a plan that will reduce health care costs and as a result reduce the costs of doing business, reduce property taxes and close the gap in our state budgets.  I want to end our dependance on fossil fuels and nuclear power putting Vermonters back to work weatherizing, conserving and also building new sources of locally produced renewable energy. I pledge to partner with our education and business leaders to close the poverty gap in our schools that causes too many poor children to be left behind and our employers without the skilled workforce they seek.

For 12 years, as a progressive Democrat, I have represented 2 conservative Rutland County districts.  I have worked hard for working families. I was the lead sponsor of the expansion of Vermont’s family leave law, passed legislation to help the clean up of abandoned brownfields, worked with our police officers to combat crime and supported our public employees in Rutland.  

I have served for 8 years on the House Ways and Means Committee, providing me with a grasp of of Vermont’s most pressing financial challenges. I have been the Vice-Chair of the House Transportation Committee, served on the House Committees on Commerce and Institutions. I have served under 4 different Speakers of the House and I have been in a leadership capacity under 2 of those speakers.  I am the former chair of the Vermont Democratic Party where I retired a massive debt and rebuilt a crumbling party so future chairs could build upon a solid foundation.   I’m not a single issue candidate, these experiences have prepared me with a broad vision of our government and many complex public policy challenges.

The fight for a Lt.Governor who is on the side of hard working Vermonters has begun.  Join us, let’s get started.  www.stevehoward2010.com

(cross-posted from Vermont Watch blog; yet edited for posting to GMD. with apologies for what might be perceived as blog pimping)

Introducing TOTD (Thought Of The Day) as tweeted via my Vermont Watch Twitter account: @vtwatch

• Even when they do not bother to focus on them, all politicians have their own ‘issues’. (here)
• Some lawyers are said to be ‘ambulance chasers’, however most such lawyers never seem to be willing to drive one when needed. (here; also posted to a NY Times City Room blog post, here, which is the reason I tweeted it so soon after my initial TOTD and did not wait until the next day to do so; edited: deleted ‘s’ from what was originally worded ‘ambulances’)

For more of the same in either coming days or whenever I am so inspired, check out the new TOTD (Thought Of The Day) page now available on the Vermont Watch blog; which is available via the tabs – fourth tab to the right — at top of blog pages and just underneath blog header and sub-header.