Domestic terrorist guilty of Murder One in cold-blooded murder of medical doctor.

(Continuing the policy of promoting diaries from officeholders and officeseekers – promoted by odum)

Thanks to those of you who attended my Campaign Kickoff Party. Over 250 people at 10 different locations across the state joined me as I shared my vision to restore hope and opportunity to all Vermonters. I was in Winooski, and we were able to live-stream my kickoff speech to the other nine locations, so that everyone around the state had a chance to listen. I am committed to a real Vermont grassroots campaign, and this party was just the first step in what will be an effective field operation.

It’s really exciting for me to see this kind of interest and enthusiasm this early in the campaign. You can watch the video of my speech and see some photos from the various parties at my website: http://dougracine.com/

I’m in this race for you – for all of you – because I believe we have to stand together and make sure that each of us has health care, and each of us has a chance to get a good education, and all of our children have a chance to do better than we did. I am convinced that we can work across party lines with Progressives, Independents – and even Republicans – to find common ground and move Vermont forward.

I hope you’ll check out my website – I’ve been adding to it, including a position piece on ATVs (per your request) here: http://dougracine.com/news/dou…

You might also want to check out the “On the Road” section in the “Newsroom.” This section allows you to see what I’m up to on the campaign trail. You can also get involved in the campaign through the website – by signing up for email alerts or to volunteer. The Newsroom also has links to recent articles and some videos of recent events.

Addendum from odum: This is a very big deal. Treasurer Spaulding has allowed himself to be used as a Democratic beard by many on the right on this issue, and I have little doubt that his participation in this agreement dramatically undermines the planned anti-union and anti-public-education demogoguery (masked as budgetary pragmatism, naturally) that we were all in store for this session. This is good news.

In a news release from Vermont NEA Communications Director Darren Allen,  it was revealed today that the Vermont NEA,  Vermont Treasurer Jeb Spaulding, Senate President Pro Tem. Peter Shumlin and House Speaker Shap Smith have reached an agreement on retirement provisions for Vermont’s teaching force.

Thanking Messrs. Spaulding, Shumlin and Smith and recognizing the challenges they undertook, NEA President Martha Allen made the following statement:

We all focused on 3 interests this past month:

·That of the teachers and the state in addressing the current budget deficit

·That of the teachers and the Retirement System in making its future more secure

·That of the security and dignity of teachers after dedicating a full career to public service

What we brought to the stage was a willingness of teachers to consider working a bit longer and paying a bit more, and a firm resistance to their getting less when they retire.  What we’ve all produced is better: teachers working a bit longer, paying a bit more, but getting more when they retire.

Allen went on to say that the agreement will save the Sate of Vermont fifteen-million per year and

…taxpayers an additional huge amount – more than $80 million – regarding the cost of retiree health coverage over the next decade.While increasing the amount teachers will receive as pensions and providing health coverage for their spouses.  And, finally, we are accomplishing this without shifting the cost of the retirement system onto the backs of property taxpayers.

We’ve become accustomed over the years to Governor Douglas loudly decrying the “anti-business” climate in Vermont; so much so, that many feared his persistent negativity might eventually become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Thanks to the efforts of our friends at the Peace and Justice Center, we can finally point to evidence that the Governor is dead wrong on this characterization.

In a press release today,  P&JC reported some of the findings in the newest installment of their long running Vermont Job Gap Study:  

The first new phase since 2006, the report is the first part of a three part Phase 10 series “Toward a New Economy”, expanding upon our research on economic development in Vermont.  Titled, “Business Climate Revisited: Domestic Business Relocation and Jobs” Phase 10.1 provides critical information and data about what impacts job creation and business expansion in Vermont.

Contrary to Jim Douglas’ pessimistic characterization of the state’s business and jobs environment, the new Vermont Job Gap Study reveals that compared with the majority of other states, we are actually doing quite well in terms of job creation and job retention; and it appears that income tax has very little correlation to these factors.

Among the findings:  Vermont’s overall performance with regard to employment change has been the 17th best out of all 50 states in the nation and the best of all New England states.  With regard to job retention and creation, Vermont has performed better than 5 of the 9 states that have no income tax.  Lower performing states that have no income tax include Texas, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee and Washington.

The report also finds that Vermont’s high numbers of small business has positive effects of job expansion and contraction compared to states that rely on large business.  Vermont’s quality of life indicators and our investment in the public sector have helped to create favorable outcomes for communities that directly impact business relocation decisions.

Overall, the report found no evidence to support the assertion that Vermont is “anti-business.”  Vermont has outperformed many states with lower taxes or no income taxes at all. And, concerns about competitiveness are vastly overstated because there is very little domestic relocation.  This is not to say we should celebrate for Vermont has many challenges; only that policy should be data driven and not based on unsubstantiated assumptions.

So despite our good governor’s overtime efforts to convince the business community here and elsewhere that Vermont is a bad place to conduct their affairs,  something is working in our favor.  Could it be that limiting sprawl, protecting the environment, smaller student-to-teacher ratios and other factors that the governor values so little are actually incentives for businesses to locate and remain here?

Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.

A recent article in the New York Times highlights the critical role that agriculture will play in rebuilding Haiti in the wake of the devastating earthquake of January 2010.

Food security is not a new problem in Haiti, and development organizations such as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme, as well as nongovernmental organizations like Heifer International and Oxfam, have been forced to halt food programs in the country as these groups themselves attempt to recover from the disaster.

Before the quake, FAO alone was implementing 23 food and agriculture projects in Haiti, hoping to improve access to food in the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Prior to the disaster, an estimated 46 percent of Haiti’s population was undernourished, and chronic malnutrition affected 24 percent of children under five.

Right now the most urgent need is to get food and water to millions of people in the capital city of Port au Prince and elsewhere in Haiti. But as the country looks to the future, the need for sustainable sources of food, such as those we are learning about in sub-Saharan Africa, is more important than ever.

In the end, it wasn’t even close. Big kudos to Bernie Sanders for trying his best (including voting against cloture, which has come to be the only vote that matters on anything in the Senate).

Putting aside the ethics and wisdom of reappointing the Bush appointed Fed Chief who helped wreck the economy and who has been the chief moneyman for massive, unaccountable payouts from the wallets of a taxpayer base hobbled by economic crisis, there’s also the political stupidity factor. Bernanke is rightfully described as a “Time Bomb” waiting to happen, as Republicans may have hard evidence that he covered up Fed staff recommendations against the bailout of AIG, all of which would dovetail disturbingly cleanly with Treasury Secretary Geithner’s AIG related troubles. Cenk Uygur even speculates that the GOP may well have planned to wait until after Democrats re-appointed Bernanke before pushing their evidence, in the process hanging the whole mess directly on Obama and the Senate Dems.

I guess we’ll see if anything does come out, or if it’s just hubbub. At any rate, it’s more profound stupidity from Washington Dems (or in the case of outgoing Senator Dodd, who seems to have started auditioning for a nice K Street job ever since announcing he would not seek re-election, possibly self-interest).

But what I’d really like to hear is our senior Senator – Patrick Leahy – come here and explain exactly why he foolishly and irresponsibly voted to reconfirm this guy when he should have stood with his fellow Vermont Senator.

(Continuing the policy of promoting diaries from officeholders and officeseekers – promoted by odum)

The situation at Vermont Yankee continues to deteriorate.  Entergy Nuclear executives misled Vermonters about the existence of radioactive tritium leaks in their underground pipes, causing unknown and potentially disastrous contamination of our groundwater.  Cleanup costs are skyrocketing upwards.  Today, the New York Times picked up this damaging story.  

Enough is enough. It is time for action.

Will you join me and other Vermonters in calling for immediate, clear, and decisive action on the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant?  Can you take two minutes to call the Governor and your legislators to ask them to move quickly?

The Governor’s direct phone number is (802) 828-3333, and you can find your legislators and look up their contact information here http://www.leg.state.vt.us/leg…

Having served as a Vermont lawmaker for eleven years, I know how meaningful it is to hear from constituents on critical issues.  We can make an impact.

I held a press conference a week ago to call for immediate clarity and action from the Governor and/or the Legislature so we can start the urgent process of planning for a post-Entergy Vermont.  Over the last week, I’ve been delighted to see other candidates, particularly Deb Markowitz, and concerned citizens taking action to demand movement and progress on this issue.  http://www.greenmountaindaily…. Your calls will be a direct and forceful addition to these efforts.

Unfortunately, Montpelier remains at a standstill.  The Legislature has not voted, and Governor Douglas and Brian Dubie are simply buying time.  How long do we have to wait?  

We owe it to our business community, our electricity rate payers, and the workers at the plant to take decisive action in three ways:

(1) Make it clear that Vermont Yankee will be decommissioned as planned in 2012.

(2) Prepare to hold Entergy accountable for the clean-up and health of those who may be affected.

(3) Act now to develop in-state renewables that can create jobs, including several bio-mass plants, while planning for contracts to minimize energy disruption.

Please join us in bringing this issue to a conclusion so we can move forward to our energy future.

Matt

Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.

For half the world’s population, every meal depends on an open fire that is fueled by wood, coal, dung, and other smoke-producing combustibles. These indoor cookfires consume large amounts of fuel and emit carbon dioxide and other dangerous toxins into the air, blackening the insides of homes and leading to respiratory diseases, especially among women and children.

Biogas, however, takes advantage of what is typically considered waste, providing a cleaner and safer source of energy. Biogas units use methane from manure to produce electricity, heat, and fertilizer while emitting significantly less smoke and carbon monoxide than other sources of fuel. Access to an efficient, clean-burning stove not only saves lives-smoke inhalation-related illnesses result in 1.5 million deaths per year-it also reduces the amount of time that women spend gathering firewood, which the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) estimates is 10 hours per week for the average household in some rural areas.

The IFAD-funded Gash Barka Livestock and Agricultural Development Project (GBLADP) helped one farmer in Eritrea, Tekie Mekerka, make the most of the manure his 30 cows produce by helping to install a biogas unit on his farm (similar to the unit that Danielle saw in Rwanda with Heifer International). Now, says Mekerka, “we no longer have to go out to collect wood for cooking, the kitchen is now smoke-free, and the children can study at night because we have electricity.”Additionally, Mekerka is using the organic residue left by the biogas process as fertilizer for his family’s new vegetable garden.

In Rwanda, the government is making biogas stove units more accessible by subsidizing installation costs, and it hopes to have 15,000 households nationwide using biogas by 2012.  While visiting with Heifer Rwanda, Danielle met Madame Helen Bahikwe, who, after receiving government help to purchase her biogas unit, is now more easily cooking for her 10-person family and improving hygiene on the farm with hot water for cleaning.

In China, IFAD found that biogas saved farmers so much time collecting firewood that farm production increased. In Tanzania, the Foundation for Sustainable Rural Development (SURUDE), with funding from UNDP, found that each biogas unit used in their study reduced deforestation by 37 hectares per year. And in Nigeria, on a much larger scale, methane and carbon dioxide produced by a water purifying plant is now being used to provide more affordable gas to 5,400 families a month, thanks to one of the largest biogas installations in Africa.

To read more about how waste can be turned into a source of fuel, energy, and nutrition see: Making Fuel Out of Waste, Growing Food in Urban “Trash,” ECHOing a Need for Innovation in Agriculture, Keeping Weeds for Nutrition and Taste, and Vertical Farms: Finding Creative Ways to Grow Food in Kibera.

If you know of other ways people are making the most of their waste and would like to share it with us, we encourage you to leave a comment or fill out our agriculture innovation survey here.

The Vermont Recovery Office information website is rated among lowest in the nation. Vermont’s official recovery web site scored 13; it’s at the bottom with 11 other states. We are tied with Alaska and fall below Louisiana’s score of 16. Online news site Vtdigger tells about the study conducted by Good Jobs First,(pdf) the results of which were released by VPIRG. This updates an earlier effort to rank how effective state recovery websites are in basic transparency. Vermont scored low in that review also.  

States are judged on how well their sites convey information in these areas:

• categories of stimulus spending

• distribution of spending in different parts of the state

• details of specific projects funded by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grants and contracts incl. impact on employment  

One of Tom Evslin’s prime tasks as Vermont’s Chief Recovery Officer was to make public information available about how our money was being spent.  It was the order of the day failed. ARRA mandated that federal, state and local government organizations receiving stimulus funds report data on how and where these funds are being spent, so that citizens could monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds.  

The Burlington Free Press reports that Vermont officials now claim they wanted a no frills web page to save money. No estimate of the alleged savings is available. When asked about specific information one Vermont official said it was available by request and added

“We don’t withhold information. We have elected not to put it all on the Web. … It would take a contractor to do that.”

Frills aside, they offer no explanation why, according to this study, even the basic website fails to meet so many requirements for accountability and transparency.    

After less than one year as Chief Recovery Officer and with the state at the bottom of the pack by this assessment, Evslin moved on .He was appointed by Governor Douglas as Vermont Chief Technology Officer.In this capacity he will be in charge of reviving the stalled E-State initiative and overseeing the state’s new smart grid technology applications.

( – promoted by odum)

Yes, I know, it’s a shock. From the Times Argus website, posted late this afternoon under the rather direct headline Douglas Flip-flops on Yankee:

Gov. James Douglas today called for lawmakers and regulators to delay taking action on the future of the troubled Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in the hope that the owners of the Vernon facility can regain public trust and perhaps later win a new operating license.

Further:

“We have got to restore that confidence so we can make sure the plant” will continue to provide power, jobs and other benefits to the state, Douglas said.

He added that it seems to him “less and less likely” that a vote by lawmakers will take place this year and that the company had to change its slate of top managers.

This is a clear indication just how badly VY is doing in the court of public opinion and the halls of the State House. I can think of only one reason Douglas would call for postponement: he knows he can’t win right now or anytime soon.

After all, last year, when some Dems were talking about delaying action on VY renewal, wasn’t Douglas dead set against delay? Something about how Enexus needed to know ASAP whether they’d be able to operate past 2012, and the state couldn’t wait any longer to plan for future energy supplies? Now, it seems, delay is the best way “forward”.