Category Archives: Politics & News

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Guilty!

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“I don’t know what to do,” Kay Ace said. “I just heard our basketball coach is under investigation for sex crimes.” Ms. Ace is a county coordinator for the Vermont Teen Indoor Sports Association. “I think we have to replace him.”

We the People have gone from a presumption of innocence to the presumption of guilt.

Let’s look at three recent cases:

(1) Dean Kingston, 23, met Lorraine Seymour, also 23, at a play and later talked over the Internet and phone. The budding relationship quickly soured. Ms. Seymour complained to police that Mr. Kingston had harassed her. Police confronted Mr. Kingston, who agreed to stop contacting her. The police found evidence that Mr. Kingston continued to email and contact Ms. Seymour. At least one email threatened “im coming to get you and theres nothing you can do.”

What do you think? Is Mr. Kingston a stalker or did Ms. Seymour make up her tale?

(2) Vermont Yankee is a nuclear reactor power plant constructed in Vernon, Vermont, in 1972. The plant has applied for relicensure to continue operations past its planned 40-year shut-down date in 2012.

One cell of its three story cooling tower collapsed and led to a reactor scram in 2007. A recent report of an truck allowed inside the fence without any inspection has the state questioning security. Tritium is currently leaking into the ground from an unknown source at the plant. Vermont Yankee owner Entergy has been called irresponsible. Executives lied in recent testimony about the Tritium leaks. It is not the first time Entergy has been caught in devious doings. The Safe and Green Campaign wants Vermont Yankee shut down.

What do you think? Is Vermont Yankee the next Three Mile Island or should its license be renewed?

(3) Vermont corrections officer Ralph Witter, 40, has been accused of having inappropriate sexual activities with three female inmates. The investigation began a year ago when the first unnamed inmate alleged Mr. Witter had inappropriate contact with her. There was insufficient evidence to prosecute at that time. Two more female unnamed inmates have now reported similar incidents had occurred in the past month.

What do you think? Is Mr. Witter a predator or did the inmates make up their tales?

On the face of it, these all look like slam dunks, don’t they?

(1) Although worried about the evidence, prosecutors charged Mr. Kingston with stalking and disturbing the peace over the phone. Ms. Seymour testified that she had received the emails from Kingston and he was bound over for trial. He spent 92 days in jail awaiting trial.

(2) Although John White, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials who briefed legislators last week, said the Vernon reactor problems haven’t approached any regulatory threshold that would require the plant to be shut down, famed nuclear engineer (and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont) joined Vermont legislators in a call for the plant to shut down.

(3) Although inmates have charged more than half of all corrections officers with a laundry list of offenses, the Corrections Department suspended Mr. Witter a year ago while the state reviewed the case for criminal prosecution; he was eventually reinstated last month when the State had insufficient evidence to prosecute at that time. When the additional two unnamed inmates came forward within a month, Mr. Witter was immediately suspended again. He has also lost his volunteer position with the Vermont Teen Indoor Sports Association.

Despite the results, there are only three facts we do know about these three cases:

You have no idea whether Dean Kingston stalked anyone.
You have no idea whether Vermont Yankee is dangerous.
You have no idea whether Ralph Witter diddled anyone.

And neither do I.

Short of a confession by Mr. Kingston or a retraction by Ms. Seymour, the evidence presented here is insufficient to judge. The technical data about Vermont Yankee is not yet available so unless you, dear reader, are a nuclear engineer, neither you nor any serving legislator has the expertise to interpret it. And, short of a confession by Mr. Witter or a retraction by the unnamed inmates, the evidence presented here is insufficient to judge him.

Despite what we do not know, We the People have presumed guilt.

(1) Lorraine Seymour, convicted of fabricating evidence that put an innocent man in jail for three months, has served a prison sentence of her own. When police forensics determined that Mr. Kingston did not send the frightening emails, Ms. Seymour admitted to writing them herself. She was convicted, taken to the Northwest State Correctional Facility, and has paid Mr. Kingston $10,000 to settle his civil lawsuit.

(2) Vermont Yankee is a boiling water nuclear reactor that generates 620 megawatts of electricity, about three-quarters of the total generating capacity of the state. Senate president Peter Shumlin will hold a vote this week against any license renewal for Vermont Yankee. “I am very skeptical that you’ll ever see new nuclear power plants built in America let alone Vermont,” Mr. Shumlin told Vermont Public Radio. It is unknown if the legislature will order the power plant closed immediately. The final report on safety at Vermont Yankee is not due until next month, weeks after the scheduled vote.

[Editorial note: Vermont Greens are a little behind the times. No nukes unless Obama wants nukes! The Administration has proposed government loan guarantees for two new nuclear reactors to be built in Georgia by the Southern Company.]

(3) Vermont corrections officer Ralph Witter is now under arrest. He is now lodged at the Chittenden Correction Facility in lieu of $100,000 bail.

The words and people quoted in this piece are real. Only the names of everyone but the public figures have been changed to protect the dumbfounded.

Guest Post: Fanny calls Challenger Challenge Challenging

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The Messenger reported yesterday that Missisquoi Valley Union High School students may get “the opportunity to send probes into Jupiter’s atmosphere and look for signs of life in the water beneath the ice on Jupiter’s frozen moon Europa” if the school can get funding for a Challenger Center for Space Science Education.

That is an exceptional opportunity. I hope it can happen but we need much more to make the experience fair and equitable.

Two simulators form the heart of the center, one at NASA and one at the International Space Station. The Learning Center simulators duplicate the mission control experience to give students the same audio and visual information the NASA scientists and engineers use. Students prepare for their missions with curricula designed in conjunction with NASA.

Students also work in teams to solve mission problems such as designing space probes, analyzing data, and calculating the maneuvers and trajectories for their space ship.

The Challenger Center for Space Science Education is an international organization founded by the families of the Space Shuttle astronauts who were killed on mission STS-51-L. Their charge is to kindle an interest and joy in science in young people.There are currently 45 Challenger Learning Centers spread across the United States from Kenai, Alaska, to Hazard, Kentucky, to Wheeling, West Virginia.

A new building to house the center will cost around $3.1 million but the center might use an existing building for a total cost including the simulator office equipment, parking lot expansion, and other expenses of about $1.5 million. The simulator costs $825,000 plus another $10,000 to ship it to Vermont. Gov. Jim Douglas has included the proposal in the state application for federal Race to the Top education funds.

President Obama announced his plans to continue the Race to the Top grant program this year as a part of the Democratic Congress’ G.R.A.F.T. Act spending. Race to the Top winners will develop and showcase school reform concepts or pilot programs and “provide examples for States and local school districts throughout the country to follow … that can transform our schools for decades to come.” Overall, $4 billion will be awarded in two Phases with an estimated Range of Awards of $20 million-$700 million. Vermont is in Category 5 and is most likely to receive $20-75 million.

That is an exceptional opportunity for some 1,112 Vermont students at MVU but only one Vermont school can possibly receive this center and that limits the opportunities for the 89,739 other students. That’s bad for the kids and bad for the state.

After all, the Equal Educational Opportunity Act of 1997, known here as “Act 60,” makes “educational opportunity available to each pupil in each town on substantially equal terms, in accordance with the Vermont Constitution and the Vermont supreme court decision of February 5, 1997, Brigham v. State of Vermont.”

Kids in one school district like MVU are restricted from getting anything kids in the other district cannot have.

The State will either have to arrange for a Challenger Learning Center in every school district or forego the Center at MVU.

—Nola “Fanny” Guay

Is it even possible that Vermonters would deny a school this specialized occasion to excel, particularly in science and mathematics? See the Liberislam series for Dick’s response.

A (Baker’s) Dozen Reasons to be Left

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As Paul Dirac almost said, In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in political science, it’s the exact opposite.

“So-called ‘Liberals’ want to shove their one true enlightenment down your throat and mine,” Rufus told me.

I can’t speak for the Left so I asked my friend Fanny Guay to feed me the dozen or so most important concepts in her ideological world. I’ve known Ms. Guay for nearly 50 years. I can say that not because I’m far enough away to drop the age word safely but because she is proud of her experiential learning. She was a second generation member of Helen and Scott Nearing’s back-to-the-land movement in Vermont. The Nearings bought an old farm house and built a simple, self-sufficient lifestyle here, far from big government and rampant consumerism. Their descendants are now the power brokers and consumers of Montpelier.

“I will, as long as I can be earnest in my comments,” she said.

Sure. And I’ll be frank in my response. So here we go. Ms. Guay will supply the definitions. I’ll translate back into English as we go.

Today’s liberalism developed in large part from the progressive thinking, she wrote. We hold that the state must supply needy individuals with their most basic needs if they are unable to fend for themselves. We created the policies of government intervention in the economy, the creation of social welfare, the safeguarding of science, and protection of human rights. We teach that in the schools, implement it in the courts and in war, and guide and finance it through taxation. Some of our ideas were first incorporated in the New Deal.

Translation: American Liberals rejected the Divine Right of Kings in favor of the Divine Right of the State.

1. Mores, the law, and even the constitution are “alive.”

Translation: There are no absolute facts, only what our common agreement proclaims as truth. In other words, the end justifies the means.

2. People are inherently good but when they go astray, we can change them back by reasoning with them.

Translation: Laura Silsby, Mahmoud Imadinnerjacket, and even Glenn Beck, listen to reason and will change whenever the reasoning is liberal.

3. People are inherently good but when they go astray and reason doesn’t work, we can change them back with legislation.

Translation: If you fall from the path of true belief, we will tax you until you return. If that doesn’t work, we will regulate you back. If that doesn’t work, we will jail you.

4. The best way to help the poor is to tax those who can afford it. It counters all understanding that anyone could think otherwise.

Translation: We need to give away our financial future and our means of productivity. We will take fish from the fishermen to give to those who do not fish instead of teaching those who do not fish how to fish for themselves.

5. We need to pay more taxes to afford to lift our neighbors up by their bootstraps.

Translation. YOU don’t pay enough taxes to fund all the things I want to spend money on.

6. We value holistic education and assure that every child in school is treated well and passes every grade with his or her peers.

Translation: Today’s “educators” promote empathy over science because feelings are more important than the data that shows American schoolchildren are falling behind in every international measure.

7. Because we give everyone’s opinion equal weight, we are the most culturally advanced.

Translation: Our fellow travelers are always right because we can change our ways to accommodate their point of view; anyone who disagrees with us is at best misguided and at worst a threat to our way of life.

8. I do not believe we have enemies. We have people who do not trust us. We just need to learn everyone’s point of view to find why they do not trust us.

Translation: We could be wrong and, since they hate us they must have a reason. Perhaps we should change our ways to accommodate their point of view.

9. We must stop trying to bully the world to force everyone else to adopt our way of life.

Translation: The fact that we developed public education, built the world economy, support the world with our farms, perfected “labor saving” tools, and put a man on the moon is a bad thing and we must apologize for all of it. The Apologetic President, Mr Obama apologized to the Special Olympics, apologized to the Muslims, apologized to the Cambridge police officer, apologized to the UN, apologized to Europe, apologized to “Sin City,” all to make up for those transgressions. He apologizes in a major speech about once a month.

10. I do not trust our doctors and scientists to get important health issues like vaccinations right.

Translation: I completely trust all the doctors and scientists who match our common perception but not the ones who contradict my deeply rooted beliefs.

11. We are the world stewards. For example, we know that we have to fix Global Climate Change in our lifetime or our planet will be ruined.

Translation: Once upon a time, we called it Global Warming. Since the political scientists (the very same scientists who determined that Carbon Dioxide threatens human health and welfare and are always right) changed the name, no right-thinking Far Greenie calls it “Global Warming” anymore.

12. Our government moves fast, eliminates waste, and wipes out fraud.

Right. Translation: With our guys in charge, government will never again be so slow, wasteful, and criminal as it was with the other guys in charge. [Editorial note: There has never been a candidate who didn’t promise to root out sloth, waste, and chicanery nor a politician who didn’t see them rise on his watch.]

13. All knowledge should be free.

Translation: We must give away our country’s hard-earned intellectual property.

Ronald Reagan said, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” That and the fact that they haven’t yet been mugged by the reality that, sooner or later, Other People’s Money runs out.

Fix ‘R Right Up

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Missy and Biff spent a couple of days with us last week. They drove up from North Carolina in Missy’s prized 1993 Cadillac Allante, one of the last to roll off the world’s longest assembly line.

The Allante was Cadillac’s first try at building ultra-luxury roadsters in decades. Pininfarina designed and built the bodywork in Italy. GM loaded the completed bodies, 56 at a time, into 747s for the 3,300 mile trip to Hamtramck, Michigan, for final assembly. In the end they built only about 3,000 of the cars each year. Missy’s has the potent Northstar V8, “road sensing” suspension, and vastly better brakes. Unlike the earlier models, it handles reasonably well in addition to being easy on the eyes.

We all went honky tonking in upstate New York on what should have been their last night here. Missy and Biff had driven up so we could all attend a friend’s sixtieth birthday party across the Lake, a fund raiser for a good cause, in a Grange Hall out back of beyond. Our friend has built a life around music so there were great bands and lots of impromptu music making.

We caravanned over. Upstate New York has some towns that even Google Earth has never found. We had to drive on back roads, the Northway, more back roads, over a snowmobile bridge, and through a couple of fields to get to the Grange Hall. Plowboy Willie Lindner was there, doing the mashed potato on the dance floor, and everyone had brought a dish to share. Many of the folks who came to sing and dance are vegetarians. Many of the entrees were beans, the musical fruit.

We drove back to North Puffin after the party; Missy and Biff grabbed a motel room and expected to drive South the next day. They awoke to find a pool of green anti-freeze melting the snow around the Allante.

Triple A towed them to the Bubba Brothers’ Garage.

The Bubbarage had been an upstate institution for three generations. Started by George and Sam Bubba when they mustered out in 1946, the two-bay garage built a strong following among returning vets and hot rodders. They added two bays when George’s sons joined them. The “boys,” George Junior and Billy Paul, brought the four bay into the computer age and sent Junior’s kids to ASE classes. The youngest Bubbas, George III (known as “G”) and Bobby Sam are both ASE certified Master Techs; they learned hot rodding from Grampa George and tractor repair from the farmers down the street. Best shop upstate.

New York Assemblyman Vinnie Alonso (D-Lehman Brothers) finessed the Motor Automotive Fixed Inspection Access Retirement Fund Act of 2009 through the state legislature. The Act required that all state inspection licensees and the associated repair facilities accept state-redistributed TARP money to assure each operation had sufficient capital to maintain vehicle safety and to bring the stations up to state standards. The new law also mandated that the state take a majority position in each station or that each station be held by an approved owner as designated by the legislation. The current Bubba Brothers wanted no part of that so their family garage changed hands (to Mr. Alonso) last fall.

Here is Missy’s note about what came next.

“The tow truck guy didn’t know the garage had changed hands, so he was praising these guys to the roof. I should have known something was really wrong when a one-eyed mechanic showed us to this broken down camper-trailer he used for a waiting room.

“About three hours after we got there, Mr. Alonso came out wiping his hands on a greasy shop rag. I found out later that he used the rag the same way that woman uses flour in the Rice Krispy Treats commercial. He never actually looked at a car. Anyway, he said it surely looked like we had a cracked block and we’d have to replace the engine.

“‘I can give you a good deal on a nice Chevy engine,’ he told us. ‘Probably have it in the car and running by Thursday.’

“Biff had popped the hood at the motel. He wiggled the water pump shaft and saw that the pump housing was cracked. He told Mr. Alonso to check that first. Mr. Alonso wrung out his shop rag and disappeared for three more hours. We were looking at another night in the motel and were about to call you to come get us.”

‘I think you may be right about the water pump.’ Mr. Alonso said when he came back. ‘I’m not sure exactly what kind of car it is, ma’am, so I just don’t know how long it will take to get the parts.’

“We told him it was a Cadillac.”

‘That’s American, right? Good. I have a friend with a junkyard up the road a piece. Maybe he’ll have the parts.’

I called the Bubba household for some insight into the story. Fortunately, they still did a little shade tree work so they were able to have the AAA truck bring them the Allante. The Cadillac dealer had a pump in stock; they got Missy and Biff on the road a couple of hours later. Their total bill was less than $400 including welding the motor mount Mr. Alonso’s wife’s nephew had broken disassembling the water pump.

“That weasel Vinnie Alonso’s a politician, ya know. Doesn’t even know how to fill his own gas tank. There must be a moral in this story somewhere, doncha think?” G. Bubba asked me.

A Novel Idea!

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Hilary Clinton had apparently never heard of it before but better late to the party than to miss it all together. “We actually think it’s a novel idea to do the needs assessment first and then the planning and then the pledging,” she said during an international conference on aid to Haiti in Montreal today.

From her mouth to the U. S. Congress collective ear.

I think I’ve heard of needs assessment before.

Haiti wants $3 billion forever to rebuild their country. Congress wants $2 trillion each and every year to rebuild health care here.

Despite the “needs assessment” rhetoric, and concerned about corruption and wobbly leadership in Haiti, Ms. Clinton agreed to a 10-year plan that would “create a better capital city and will cost $3 billion” anyway. Ms. Clinton spoke out of both sides of her mouth and threw us under de bus.

We is doomed.