Sneigwh blogs's End of the Year food issue: The Hamburger Helpers

Or : What’s your beef?

Beef Products Inc.uses contaminant susceptible beef fat trimmings, which in the past had been used for pet food or cooking, oil to manufacture hamburger sold to the majority of burger-doodles and many schools.
The stuff that was formerly only safe for pet food is run through a process with ammonia and magically its food. The process so thorough it isn’t even subject to routine inspection!
Well...wash it with ammonia and call it inspected

Officials at the United States Department of Agriculture endorsed the company’s ammonia treatment, and have said it destroys E. coli “to an undetectable level.” They decided it was so effective that in 2007, when the department began routine testing of meat used in hamburger sold to the general public, they exempted Beef Products.
But government and industry records obtained by
The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims by the company and the U.S.D.A. about the effectiveness of the treatment. Since 2005, E. coli has been found 3 times and salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated

The company says its processed beef, a mashlike substance frozen into blocks or chips, is used in a majority of the hamburger sold nationwide. But it has remained little known outside industry and government circles. Federal officials agreed to the company’s request that the ammonia be classified as a “processing agent” and not an ingredient that would be listed on labels.

Climate change legislation cools in the Senate

It is shaping up like another stall, delay and lobby free for all in the U.S. Senate.Looks like the Worlds Greatest Deliberative Body [TM] may courageously kick vital legislation down the road. Who could have predicted?

Center for Public Integrity reports…the 60 or so venture and investment firm lobbyists together with the 170 alternative energy lobbyists and 160 environmental lobbyists, and they are still outnumbered 5-to-1 by the approximately 2,000 representatives of major sectors that are looking for a slow-down or hand-out - traditional manufacturers, power companies, oil and gas, transportation, and agriculture.
The total number of climate lobbyists working for all those interest groups, new and old, stands at about 2,780 - five for every member of Congress. That's 400 percent more than when lawmakers first considered a nationwide greenhouse gas emissions reduction program six years ago.

Three Senatorial profiles in courage------

Senator Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota) said that winning passage of climate change legislation in an election year had “very poor prospects”

Senator Ben Nelson (D- Nebraska) said that he would “just as soon see [climate change] set aside until we work through the economy”.

Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Ct.)"I don't think the Senate has an appetite for another such epic, polarized legislative war this session,"

"Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people once a year."

"Santa Claus has the right idea.
Visit people once a year"

Børge Rosenbaum,January 3, 1909 – December 23, 2000 Danish comedian, conductor and pianist

The Washington Post:“Death Panel”assertion,a controversy

Zombie Death Panel lie lives The Death Panels were and are simply lies and the Washington Post today fails to mention that fact and instead refers to them only as controversial. The Pulitzer Prize winning non-partisan Politifact.com Truth-O-Meter run by the St. Petersburg Times awarded Sarah Palin’s death panel assertion

It’s online biggest political lie of the year. Of all the falsehoods and distortions in the political discourse this year, one stood out from the rest.

But some prominent Republicans didn't reject the death panel claim. The Post’s Shailagh Murray reports today on the Senate passage of the Health care bill. The bill passed 60-39 early this morning and not one Republican voted in favor. In her summary of why no Republican supported the bill Murray says

One of the toughest critics, as the debate drew to a close, was Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who last summer had spent months trying to craft a bipartisan reform package with Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (Mont.).
Grassley abandoned the quest after the "death panel" controversy erupted in August and the debate took a sharply ideological turn. The Iowa Republican said Wednesday that he concluded that Democrats were ceding too much authority over health care to the federal government, while failing to aggressively contain costs.

Friday Cat Blogging with a rocking chair

Hell, I'm an old man. I'm 70 years old. I'm supposed to be sitting on a rocking chair watching the sunset.

M.Emmet Walsh

The actor M. Emmet Walsh appeared in Blade Runner, Little Big Man,and Slap shot (Also TeeVee's Starsky and Hutch !)

Health care reform ?

Here is Robert Reich’s assessment of health care legislation as it stands .

The political reality right now is that Harry Reid will do anything to get sixty votes -- which means Lieberman, Nelson, and even Olympia Snowe are able to use extortion on behalf of Big Insurance, Big Pharma, the AMA, and abortion foes. The President, meanwhile, remains eerily above the fray. Having closed deals months ago with Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and the AMA -- in order to get their support in exchange for guaranteeing them big profits -- his only apparent interest is keeping the deals going while helping Reid corral sixty votes for just about anything.(The deals have caused some awkwardness for the White House. Drug importation would have cost Big Pharma far more than the $80 billion price tag it agreed to, forcing the White House to oppose importation even though the President had publicly supported it during his presidential campaign last year, and even though John McCain supported yesterday's amendment.)

I was only thinking about health care legislation, not really giving a thought to the fact that it also applies to the climate change talks, as I hauled out the following bit from Thomas Pynchon (second time this year!).

"There is no real direction here, neither lines of power nor cooperation. Decisions are never really made – at best they manage to emerge, from a chaos of peeves, whims, hallucinations and all around assholery. "

Gravity's Rainbow

Kerry, Graham, Lieberman and the Copenhagen “crime scene”

Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham held a news conference last week and announced their bare bones Framework for Climate Action and Energy Independence.

Obviously the event was timed to have an impact in Copenhagen.Both Kerry and Lieberman said explicitly that their intent was to send a message to countries hashing out a climate treaty: the U.S. Senate is on the job.

The document, referred to as “a starting point, inviting our colleagues’ constructive input” is short on specifics. They do state a near term pollution reduction target in the range of 17 percent below 2005 emissions levels by 2020. On Friday, in Copenhagen, a draft text released by conference chairman asked wealthy countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions 25 to 45 percent below 1999 levels by 2020. The Senate framework cuts amounts to about a 4 percent cut below 1990 levels. However, it does call for nuclear power as an “essential component” of the climate strategy along with federal incentives to boost US production of land, offshore oil and natural gas drilling.
Independent Senator Lieberman (who recently torpedoed Senate health care legislation) said “there are well over 60 votes in play in the Senate, not that we have 60 votes yet.” by way of noting the changeable nature of this framework.
Perhaps last week’s announcement only had an effect on a domestic audience because about half way into the Copenhagen talks most of the World, is apparently unmoved by news that US Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham are on the job, if they noticed at all.

Marcelo Furtado, Executive Director, Greenpeace Brazil, said on Monday morning that negotiators had done so poorly last week that they left a “crime scene” for the arriving heads of states, and that developed countries had clearly “failed to do their homework.” Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the current drafts from the developed world on the table would deliver an increase in emissions.

With President Obama scheduled to arrive later this week and after a brief protest walk out by “underdeveloped nations” the prospects are described in stark terms at Earth2tech blog

.....It remains to be seen what the heads of state can actually do upon their arrival this week. But to reach any kind of agreement there will have to be significant shifts in their statements and emissions reductions targets. A few are starting to inch forward —India has offered to adopt the guidelines under the UNFCCC, and report to Parliament on its domestic goals. But China and the U.S., as expected, will be the ones that will need to move closer.

ACORN video altered

What would you believe,video or your own recollection?
Without supporting video pumping up a media fury how far would the recent attack on ACORN have gone? Congress quickly caved and cut funding on the basis of a shock wave of pressure based on an altered video.
This past week a federal judge blocked U.S. officials from enforcing a funding ban on Acorn.
Questionable video evidence and a concerted right wing attack worked wonders. However after the dust settled and with some investigation; From a report commissioned by ACORN and conducted by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger

The videos that have been released appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O'Keefe's and Ms. Giles's comments, which makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison of the publicly available transcripts to the released videos confirms that large portions of the original video have been omitted from the released versions.

The power of video on memory
Researchers in England have found that faked video can alter a person’s perception of events that they were witnessed to and took part in. An amazing 50% of people shown footage of an event they participated in believed the altered video version rather than their own recollection of events. Participant took part in a computerized gambling task. The exercise involved a shared pile of money and prizes.

After the session, the video footage was doctored to make it look as if the member of the research team sat next to the subject was cheating by not putting money back into the bank.
One third of the subjects were told that the person sat next to them was suspected of cheating. Another third were told the person had been caught on camera cheating, and the remaining group was actually shown the fake video footage. All subjects were then asked to sign a statement only if they had seen the cheating take place.
Nearly 40% of the participants who had seen the doctored video complied. Another 10% of the group signed when asked a second time by the researchers. Only 10% of those who were told the incident had been caught on film but were not shown the video agreed to sign, and about 5% of the control group who were just told about the cheating signed the statement.

IRS auctions 20% of Crow Creek Sioux tribal land

Land taken for disputed back taxes
The IRS is formidable but many people might have thought taking Native American’s lands was frowned upon. Apparently not.
The IRS just auctioned off 7,100acres of land (twenty percent of the tribes land) owned by the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. The dispute is about employment taxes owed since 2003.The tribe council has filed suit to attempt to stop the sale claiming that the Bureau of Indian Affairs(BIA) had advised them that a tribal nation was not liable for these taxes.

The land, located within the tribe’s ancestral territory, included a swath being readied for a potential wind farm project that tribal leaders were negotiating. Although valued at $4.6 million, the 7,100 acres was sold for less than $2.6 million to an undisclosed buyer.

More about it here AllGov.com

Twittering DARPA's balloons for big bucks

UPDATE NEWS Flash ........Congratulations Massachusetts Institute of Technology WINS !

A team led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spread the wealth far and wide to locate 10 red balloons in undisclosed locations across the country on Saturday and win a $40,000 cash prize from the Pentagon's think tank.
DARPA said the balloons were raised in Atlanta; Charlottesville, Va.; Christiana, Del.; Katy, Texas; Memphis, Tenn.; Miami; Portland, Ore.; San Francisco and Santa Barbara, Calif.; and Scottsdale, Ariz.

Well they must be all right,as I understand it; they did invent the internet 40 years ago. "Zoom ahead 40 years,and you can hardly find anyone who hasn't been touched by, and whose life hasn't been improved by the Internet.” says Peter Lee, director of Darpa’s transformational convergence technology office
DARPA, the US Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is sponsoring a $40,000 prize for the first person or team that can locate all 10 of the eight foot wide balloons that are located at ten fixed locations in the continental United States. Balloons will be in readily accessible locations and visible from nearby roadways...
DARPA says it is studying how social networks can be used by foreign enemies to gain information. And also how fast-breaking information can be organized on a battlefield.

Darpa’s transformational convergence technology office Red Balloon test focuses on tech and social trends that by give participants an incentive, like the prize money, the contest tests how people organize themselves and how they validate information. “Relatively little is known about how those networks respond when trust is a factor,”Lee said.

Its all about informational flow patterns and control. The one that controls the flow controls the battlefield.
In the meantime find those balloons.

Mountain high valley low,global warming

Mount Everest will be the sight of a meeting of Nepalese lawmakers on December 4th. Nepal officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal,is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia and the world's youngest republic.
It’s at the opposite extreme from the Maldives which held an underwater cabinet meeting to highlight the dangers of global warming.Now to boost awareness and not to be outdone Nepal lawmakers are headed to the 17,192ft. high base camp on Mount Everest. The summit is 29,035 ft.above sea level.
This meeting ,to be held before the Copenhagen climate conference, aims to highlight Himalayan glacier melt. With ice in the region melting at a rapid rate, lakes have been formed which could flood nearby villages. Melted ice and snow also makes mountaineering routes more hazardous.
Doctors will make a final health assessment before a helicopter takes the cabinet to base camp, at the foot of Everest. Once there they will hold a brief outdoor meeting.

Vermont’s $40,000 Taser payout

Ever so quietly in a Thanksgiving Day news story Vermont State gives notice of an out of court settlement and payout in a taser related incident from 2006.The $40,000 settlement is called “frankly ,a business decision” to avoid risk of trial .
The Vermont Attorney General’s Office has paid $40,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a man who claims he was Tasered in 2006 by state police as he was having a seizure that was mistaken as an attempt to resist arrest.
State police deny wrongdoing, state assistant attorney general J.J. Tyzbir told the Valley News. He said he agreed to the settlement to avoid the risk of trial, where a jury could have awarded more money.

“We still believe Mr. Fairbrother was not actually in the throes of a seizure,” Tyzbir said. “We believe Mr. Fairbrother was actually trying to evade the officers and was resisting them and was noncompliant. But whenever you go to trial, you risk not getting a favorable outcome. This was, frankly, a business decision.”

A wise business decision might include continued review of the Taser policy as local police continue to equip themselves with the Tasers.
This October the Taser Company issued a training bulletin warning that 50,000 volt tasering could cause an “adverse cardiac event” when shot in the chest. Avoiding the chest, face and neck is now strongly advised .Suggested shot placements currently include back abdomen and thighs.
A Vermont State Attorney General Taser policy report of 2008 in its conclusion suggests room for further review of their safety.

There remain questions about the safety of the taser’s use in certain
situations and on certain categories of subjects. These
questions are particularly important in situations when
multiple tases or extended continuous tasings of a subject
are inflicted and when subjects are manifesting a condition
called “excited delirium”. Continued study of the safety and
health effects of tasers is warranted.

also posted on Green Mountain Daily

De kat op de kast is boos! Black Friday cat blogging

Remember........Saturday November 28th is Buy nothing Day

Thanksgiving interests

The 2009 cost of a Thanksgiving meal for ten according to the American Farm Bureau agribusiness trade group is $42.91. This is down slightly from last years average $44.61.
Maybe that tells only part of the cost as lobbyists in Thanksgiving related industries work hard all year to ensure there’s a butterball on every American’s table .We should be thankful for the clear eyed and heroic efforts lobbyists put in on behalf of our Thanksgiving.

"We don't want to even create an appearance that we're mixing our members' government affairs business with the business of making sure Americans enjoy their holiday."

said Joel Brandenberger, president of the National Turkey Federation.
Should we be thankful for the clear eyed and heroic efforts these lobbyists put in on behalf of our Thanksgiving? Where would we be without armies of industry lobbyists?
The National Turkey Federation spent $240,000 in lobbying this year .Keeping an eye on agriculture appropriations bills, avian influenza and climate change legislation.
There must have been little pending legislation that could have affected potatoes this year as the National Potato Council only forked over $30,000 in lobbying this year.
2008 was the United Nations International Year of the Potato so a quiet year may have been in the cards .

The cranberry lobby proved more active than potato interests in 2009 .The Cape Cod Cranberry Association and the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association managed to gain $1.25 million in federal research funds in an agricultural bill. The powerful Ocean Spray company spent $300,000 lobbying free trade and federal dietary guidelines that mention the benefits of cranberry juice.

Three Mile Island & 53 new nukes worldwide

At Three Mile Island this past weekend it seems Exelon was too busy for five hours to notify the state about a radiation leak and Gov.Ed Rendell is making some appropriate noises in the form of a strongly worded letter.
Amid renewed criticism from Gov. Rendell for a five-hour delay in telling emergency officials of a weekend radiation incident.

Ventilation fans probably caused the release of a small amount of radiation inside one building on Saturday afternoon, Exelon officials said. They said that the ventilation system had since been modified and that the 150 workers stationed in the building had all returned to work.
"Things are back to normal," site vice president Bill Noll said yesterday.

Indeed-------No reason this all won’t work out for the best, right ?
Meanwhile The Washington Post explores the new positive attitude environmentalists worldwide have toward new nukes as part of a well rounded clean energy strategy. Obama is prepared to prop-up a whole new generation of nuclear power plants with new tax dollars and incentives.

The Obama administration and leading Democrats, in an effort to win greater support for climate change legislation, are eyeing federal tax incentives and loan guarantees to fund a new crop of nuclear power plants across the United States that could eventually help drive down carbon emissions.
From China to Brazil, 53 plants are now under construction worldwide, with Poland, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia seeking to build their first reactors, according to global watchdog groups and industry associations. The number of plants being built is double the total of just five years ago.

An industry expert does not see the lack of long term storage as a problem and claims traditional business factors will determine nuclear industry plans . Says Steven Kraft the Nuclear Energy Institute group’s senior director for used fuel management in an interview this past Fall “Whether or not you build new nuclear plants in this country will be determined by traditional business factors,” he says. “We have to have a plan to deal with spent fuel, but we do not see it as an impediment.”

Smart meter slowed by lawsuit

My electric co-op meter reader had not heard of smart grid and the smart meters coming to Vermont. That he was amazed to hear about it may illustrate a point. As the electric system in Vermont quickly changes,are the utilities, the State and even the media doing enough to educate the public about what changes to expect? A recent article in the Burlington Free Press titled 'Listen up, bonehead:' Smart grid prepares to talk back may be an indication of the quality of an educational effort underway already.
California already is getting some experience with the smart grid and some of it isn’t going too well. A class-action lawsuit against PG&E alleges that the utility falsely advertised its smart metering program and is benefiting from unfair competition (namely, that it has none, giving consumers no choice in the matter).An original plaintiff filed suit after his bill tripled from $200 to $600 a month right after smart meter installation.
As a result of the suit PG&E has slowed distribution of smart meters in its system.
One energy technology reporter and expert suggests those promoting all this have their task cut out for them. Heavily regulated utilities with long histories of viewing their customers only as “rate payers” or “loads” will have to change attitudes and view them differently.
……The PG&E Bakersfield hullabaloo is just the beginning of the backlash against smart meters and smart grid technology, which will only grow as smart meters continue to be installed throughout the country. The public concern reminds me of when digital voting booths were introduced, or when consumers first started to online bank. There’s some real concerns about keeping digital information private and secure in these systems, but ultimately it’s the responsibility of the organization that’s leading the switch to the digital two-way system to keep the line of communication open


What are the lessons to be learned from Pacific Gas & Electric's unfortunate experience with customers who blame their new smart meters for jacking up their power bills?

Too much Salmon or arrested development?

Republican Vermont State Auditor Tom Salmon has called a Friday press conference according to The Rutland Herald reporter's blog Vermont View .
After his recent interview on VPR's Vermont Edition with Jane Lindeholm and airing his "fiddler's fart" comment perhaps he hopes to strike another note at this press opportunity,or just clear the air.

His press release notes that he "respectfully invites all perfect and imperfect people" to the presser.
No note on what the presser is about, but a wild guess is that it might involve Salmon's DUI arrest last week.

In the spirt of the invitation here are two helpful quotes from my favorite self help writer
The easiest way to save face is to keep the lower half shut.

Even a fish wouldn't get into trouble if he kept his mouth shut. ~Author Unknown

Also posted at Green Mountain Daily

Rebutted :Graff’s 10 Reasons Brian Dubie could be Vermont’s next Gov

An election analysis appeared this week with ten reasons Vermont’s Lt.Gov.Dubie might win election to governor .Most of the ten are not based on Dubie’s strengths but on waiting for weakness in the Democratic candidates. Others rely on lame duck Gov. Jim Douglas pulling well hidden magic out of his bag of tricks .If Douglas had any magic left I maintain he would be using it for his own re-election . Dubie a weak but supposedly likable candidate laying low attempting to run below the fray perhaps even tapping his Adjutant General brother’s connections for help is hardly an image of strength that voters are looking for .Waiting for Democratic disarray although perhaps the best bet is a very passive strategy.

1. Democratic disarray: With five Democrats lined up and ready to battle for the gubernatorial battle – and I mean battle – attention will be focused on the Democrats for much of the next year and their arguments with each other. Dubie will be able to remain above the fray. The Democratic primary means there will be no head-to-head debates featuring Dubie until after the primary. In 2002 the gubernatorial candidates debated 36 times, with many coming during the summer. That won’t happen this time.

Democrats in disarray this is #1 ? Dubie above the fray strategy,a Vermont Rose Garden candidate? Out of the fray and avoiding getting into it appears weak. As a candidate for LT.Gov ducked debates and made repeated claims of schedule conflicts to avoid appearances. The fray is unavoidable this time.
There is an array of Democratic candidates .Early on all five are running a respectful primary. This past legislative session and two veto overrides presents a competent image for Democrats statewide. Waiting for disarray in your opponents isn’t the hallmark of a strong candidate.

2. Dubie’s personality: Brian Dubie is hard to pigeonhole. He takes some pragmatic stands – cows to Cuba – that show he is not your traditional conservative. He also comes across as a nice guy. And in the end personality matters more than party affiliation in choosing a governor. Vermonters want to feel comfortable with their governor, more so than in whom they might elect to the US House or the US Senate.

Dubie’s pragmatic personality: His conservative social views are out of step with many Vermonters. His 2006 visit with Bill O’Reilly is an example.
Was Vermont ever strongly anti-Castro? The cows to Cuba gambit; his Nixon to China moment, quirky but it won’t win him the election. The nice guy role may not play that well given the tough range of problems ahead for the state. Nice guy image, even quirky perhaps but is he up to the challenge?

3. Sense of balance: With the Democrats holding such a dominant position in the Legislature – strong majorities in both chambers, most all of the committee chairmanships and all of the top leadership positions – Vermonters may want to inject some balance into the political equation by having a Republican chief executive. Governor Jim Douglas has worked hard to promote his belief that only he stands between the Democrats and financial ruin for the state. That argument may work as well for Dubie.

Dubie as balance to Dems: Does he have enough gravitas to be seen as a balance. No doubt he will try this line of argument which supposedly worked for Douglas. But he is not Douglas and voters know that. Douglas could lay claim to having been the responsible sec. of state for many years .Dubie has little to no government management background to support this claim.

4. The state of the economy: In tough times some surveys have shown that voters feel more comfortable with a fiscal conservative in the governor’s office. In the 2008 election Douglas won 51 percent of the vote of those who said they were worried about economic conditions.

This is basically # 3 again What worked for the Douglas will not work for the Dubie .Co-pilots do not generate the same comfort level as pilot. In tough times surveys show voters want experienced leaders.

5. The election calendar: The 2010 primary is the latest possible date – September 14 – while the general election is the earliest possible date – November 2 – which means the Democrats will have the shortest possible time to rally around their nominee and focus their fight and their money on Dubie.

This may be reasonable .But it again takes primary disarray as a given.Just hoping for an opponent’s disarray is not a winning strategy.

6. The Douglas factor: If Jim Douglas had run in 2010 the odds were that he would have won. It would have been messy and expensive – and close, but he probably would have won. Dubie doesn’t have Douglas’ stature, and has miles to go before he has Douglas’ command of the issues and knowledge of the state, but he will be helped if Douglas is out there campaigning for him.

In 2010 Douglas might have just squeaked in had he chosen to run. The stature of the man that could barely win cannot be magically transferred to Dubie.

7. Energy issues: I think a case can be made that the state is not as liberal as the Democrats in the Senate and not as conservative as Douglas. Vermont has a very strong and vocal progressive streak, but there is a wide band of moderate Vermonters who make the difference in key elections. In the 2008 election 44 percent of voters self-identified as moderates and when asked party identification, 40 percent said they were independents. Nationally, by comparison, only 29 percent say they are independent. Several of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates have been outspoken on issues like the shutdown of Vermont Yankee and time will tell if those positions are shared by independent and moderate Vermonters.

Shutting down of Vermont Yankee is not the radical step it may have once been .It isn’t just for dirty hippies anymore .Entergy’s record of the past year has soured many former supporters .Gov. Douglas even compared the management of the plant to The Simpson’s cartoon. The decommissioning fund and cleanup costs that may fall on the state are clear to many .Dubie’s support of wind power is hardly an energy platform.

8. The Dubie network: Each of the Democratic candidates has a map to victory, building on networks that have been years in the making. Deb Markowitz, for example, is counting on backing from the local officials she has worked with as secretary of state. Dubie has developed his own network as lieutenant governor, but he also has the potential of benefiting from the connections of his brother Mike, the state’s adjutant general.

Injecting the Adjutant General’s connections and by extension the National Guard into a gubernatorial race might strike many as a bad move .Remember the Adjutant General is elected by the legislature ,currently controlled by Democrats .

9. The political line-up: Neither US Senator Patrick Leahy nor US Representative Peter Welch appears likely to face any opposition of significance, which means that neither will be doing the level of fundraising or building the get-out-the-vote operation they would if they did. That means Democratic turnout will not be at the fever pitch it would if Leahy and Welch faced contested races.

Low turnout is a potential danger for both sides. Dubie hardly sets the Republicans on fire. The winner of a well fought primary may hit the general election with a fired up base

10. The Progressive factor: And then there is the question of a whether a Progressive candidate will get into the race. If one does, the odds of a Dubie victory go up significantly. A Democratic-Progressive split is what allowed him to win office in 2002 with just 41 percent of the vote. Peter Shumlin received 32 percent and Anthony Pollina received 24 percent.

Always a danger, but several high profiles P’s have made noises about entering Democratic primaries and running as P/D’s. The signs are good the D/P split may not materialize this election .It is actually Dubie’s best bet.

Somewhere in America a can of chocolate soup is opened

Right now, someone in America
is pushing an electric squeezer...

...down a garbage disposal
and saying it's busted.
Someone else is opening
a can of chocolate-flavored soup...

...because the car wouldn't start to eat out.

They really wanted a cheeseburger.

We eat when we're not hungry,
drink when we're not thirsty.
We buy what we don't need
and throw away everything that's useful.

Why sell a man what he wants?
Sell him what he doesn't need.
Pretend he has eight legs,
two stomachs and money to burn.

It's wrong. Wrong! Wrong!

A wonderful rant by Allie Fox the main character from Mosquito Coast Good book and a reasonable movie .
It's a rainy gray,November Saturday a fine day for a hearty rant.
Note it is borrowed from a major motion picture.
Coming soon...irony rant.

My grand parents always called it Armistice Day

Tomorrow is Veterans’ Day, my grand parents always called it Armistice Day, "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as 'Armistice Day'."
I have never taken the time to list the number of family members that have been in the military but now having done so I am surprised at how long and varied a list it is.
My father and late father in-law, a disabled vet served in the Army in the Philippines during WW2. Four of my uncles and one aunt were in the Air Force, Navy and Army in WW2.One of the uncles, a chief petty officer was in the navy from 1932 to 1968.My sister’s late husband joined the Navy and was sent to Vietnam in 1968. Two cousins are Air force Colonels.

From the Guardian UK a Remembrance Day editorial this past weekend lamenting the erosion of the original purpose behind the Cenotaph war monument.

But it is also a corruption of the original intention of those who commissioned the first, temporary, Cenotaph and put it in the heart of Whitehall.
Their ambitious purpose was to impose on the very centre of imperial power the memory of the millions who had died in order to end war. It was to be a daily warning to the politicians who sent them to fight of the awful cost of war, an ambition whose futility was exposed in 1939. Instead, the dead were recast as soldiers in a just war, defenders of a free world.

A letter from the war to end all wars…………
What follows is part of a 92 year old letter I found in some family papers .
This letter was written in reply to my English great grandfather living in the USA from his brother Amos, fighting with the British Expeditionary Force in France March, 1917.
One final winter still remained in the war to end all wars.
I am hoping that this terrible war will soon cease and & I can settle down again, I think the news are looking fairly well soon [sic] & I sincerely hope this summer will see the close ,for I’m sure I don’t want to spend another winter out here ,the people here say it is the worst winter they have witnessed for many years & I can tell you what with the hard weather & the conditions we have had to put up with has been terrible, but still we must keep smiling & hope ,we long to come out victorious.

Dear Brother you ask me if there are any small comforts you could send me? It seems almost impossible for you to send me anything out here seeing that I was more than 5 weeks getting this letter, but I thank you very much for your offer as anything we receive out here from relatives are a luxury. I am pleased to tell you I get a box from home every fortnight which help me out considerably.
…… but I guess there is scarcely a family in England not represented here, but I do hope we shall see a speedy& victorious conclusion………

I think I must now close for this time with fondest love & best wishes from your loving brother, Amos

Coca-Cola ? Ask your AAFP family Doctor Or the Underground buskers! Updated below

This past May the Senate considered a possible tax on soda.President Obama was quoted as saying "It's an idea that we should be exploring.There's no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda. And every study that's been done about obesity shows that there is as high a correlation between increased soda consumption and obesity as just about anything else."
Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said at the time .

"Soda is clearly one of the most harmful products in the food supply, and it's something government should discourage the consumption of,"

The American Beverage Association the lobby group representing Coca-Cola ,Pepsi ,Kraft foods and other companies claimed the tax might hit lower-income people would be unfairly hit and would fail to change behavior.

In October the Coca-Cola company made a large six figure donation to the the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) .To provide the development of “consumer education content on beverages and sweeteners,” The AAFP nationwide membership is 94,614. Vermont has 240 active physicians 84 student members.

The Huffington Post reports

Dr. Douglas Henley, executive vice president and CEO of the American Academy of Family Physicians, returned my call to contend, "We don't believe this consumer alliance impugns our integrity.Dr. Henley insisted that Coke's high six-figure grant will "enhance the content," that "Coke has nothing to do with writing the material" and that the AAFP has set up a "firewall" to prevent any conflict of interest. "...The development of content is evidence-based and not influenced by the funder [Coke]," he insisted.
.........."It's a disturbing trend throughout medicine... when medical organizations and researchers accept support from a [company] with a vested financial interest... in a product [such as Coke], drug or device," Dr. Blackburn, a University of Minnesota public health specialist and epidemiology professor, said in a phone interview. This means, he added, that "it's unlikely" that the academy will speak out against soda."

Live positively:Coca-Cola

"Our partnership [with AAFP and FamilyDoctor.org] will help provide Americans with credible information on beverages and enable consumers to make informed decisions about what they drink based on individual need.”

-- Dr. Rhona Applebaum
Vice President & Chief Scientific and Regulatory Officer
The Coca-Cola Company

If you can by a family doctors trade group certainly you can buy London's Underground buskers
A deal was struck withLondon underground to brand 33 busking pitches at Tube stations from November 30 to the New Year.
The Coca-Cola Great Britain spokeswoman said: "We are in discussions with London Underground about incentivising buskers and giving them the option to include festive songs in their repertoire during their set, which could include the 'Holidays Are Coming' tune from the Coca-Cola Christmas ad.
Currently, around 240 buskers perform at 21 central London Tube stations.

Udall’s nuclear “silver buckshot”

Colorado Senator Mark Udall and other lawmakers this week introduced a bill that would authorize research and development of small-scale, modular nuclear power plants to help meet energy needs. Unlike coal and gas power plants, nuclear plants don't emit greenhouse gases.
The Colorado School of Mines could be well-positioned to receive new federal research funds, Udall said.

Still with out a national plan accepted for long-term storage the nuclear power industry is slipping back into vogue on little modular sized feet.A sleeping uranium industry in Colorado may be awakened by a Senator’s “silver buckshot” approach to energy resourcing. Claiming that we need nuclear power included for the widest possible range of energy solutions to meet our needs Senator Mark Udall says of his bill “In other words there is no silver bullet that can solve all of our energy challenges; we are going to need silver buckshot.”
This silver buckshot may be aimed more to wooing votes as he also says political reality dictates that energy legislation capping carbon emissions "will not pass" unless it also includes strong provisions for nuclear power .

“The first wave of nuclear power plants will go a long way towards telling us whether new plants can be built on budget and on schedule in the United States,” Udall said.
He suggests “working out the costs" of electricity from small scale modular nuclear plants while studying how to store the waste long term is a practical approach.
He does acknowledge though that the National Academy of Sciences puts the cost of electricity from new nuclear plants at between 8 to 13 cents per kilowatt-hour, a big range given the average national price of electricity from all types of energy was 10.42 cents in July of 2009, according to the DOE Energy Information Administration.

Currently there is 60,000 metric tons of spent fuel awaiting permanent disposal, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry association, and the nation’s power plants produce 2,000 tons more each year. According to csmonitor.com even if work on Yucca Mountain had continued, it wouldn’t have solved the problem: By the early 2020s, when it would have been completed, the nation’s nuclear waste would have already exceeded the repository’s 70,000-ton capacity.
“If you don’t have a credible endpoint for spent fuel that deals with the long-term safety and security issues, you really have to wonder if nuclear power is a reasonable choice,” says physicist Edwin Lyman, a senior staff scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in Washington.
also posted at Green Mountain Daily

Do YOU know what the hell is happening ?

Wal-Mart,caskets,urns and Enoughism

Well ,what don’t they sell ?
Wal-Mart to sell caskets and burial urns.

Wal-Mart's Web site lists 14 caskets that start at $895. All are less than $2,000 except for the Sienna Bronze Casket which lists for $2,899.
The company also offers a variety of styles of cremation urns. A child or infant urn lists for $99.99, while the Web site advertises dozens of adult-sized urns ranging from $140 to $242. Wal-Mart also sells several styles of pet urns that range from about $59 to $79.

A Canadian business reporter tells of other efforts the retail giant is making.

Under pressure from Wall Street, Wal-Mart suddenly is taking on the world — igniting price wars with Toys R Us, pharmacy giant Walgreen and consumer electronics colossus Best Buy (owner of Future Shop in Canada). It seeks to replicate the growing prowess of Amazon.com Inc. as an online general merchandiser – a discipline that Amazon itself hasn't yet mastered – while going after niche operators like Michael's Stores, the top U.S. vendor of arts-and-crafts supplies……………..
Over a three-year period ending in fiscal 2011, Wal-Mart will have spent about $40 billion to add a staggering 186 million square feet of new selling space.

World: There’s only one Wal-Mart .How do you account for that?

People: It knows what it wants .Don't you Wal-Mart?

Wal-Mart: Sure

People: What's that?

Wal-Mart: Well, I want umm, more ...more yeah that's it I want MORE!

World: Will you ever get enough?

Wal-Mart: No, I guess I won’t.

imagined conversation adapted fromKey Largo Johnny Rocco (Edward G.Robinson) and Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart)and James Temple (Lionel Barrymore)

Exclusive ! A Sneigwhblog Halloween Costume Preview

President Obama and Vice President Biden happily show off their costumes for the cameras.Early Friday the White House released images of Obama and Biden in their light hearted Halloween garb.

image courtesy of The Hyper Kitchen
Admiralty Collection

Grid smarts in Vermont smart grid

Ready or not it looks like the way electricity is delivered to Vermont homes is about to go through some big changes.
The U S Department of Energy has just awarded Vermont utility companies $69 million in funds to be matched by the utilities for the speedy upgrade for smart grid technology .The total investment including the industries funds will be $138 million.

In Vermont and nationwide smart grid changes will shape the industry in ways that even insiders are struggling to get ahead of. Smart grids start with smart meters to pass information about usage to and from power users and suppliers. This flow of information will increase coordination between the suppliers and the supplied.Said Vermont’s Chief Recovery Officer Tom Evslin. “This grant makes it possible for Vermont utilities to do in three years what would have taken at least eight without the federal funding. Vermonters will get the cost and environmental benefits of a Smart Grid five years before we would have otherwise.”

Real time for best results
Consumers will access in real time (see ditching “batch processing” now)information about when power may cost less (off peak) and which of their appliances use more or less energy. The power supplier becomes more aware of consumer demand habits and needs. This monitoring system when connected to the internet will generate information about consumers and their energy based needs. The state of Vermont says one of three areas of the funding focus will be customer systems, such as in-home displays that provide real-time feedback and information about home energy usage and pricing will be deployed within Vermont to fundamentally change how customers manage their electricity

In a pilot project in Rutland in 2011, CVPS will offer some customers sophisticated in-home displays showing their power use and the demand on the grid. Others will see a light indicating load is heavy. Some might receive text messages or e-mails about peak demand.

It also opens up the potential for entirely new services or improvements on existing ones, such as fire monitoring and alarms that can shut off power, make phone calls to emergency services and etc.

One home energy monitoring service industry executive says

“The underlying premise of the smart grid is that it not only delivers power, but information. And, once this information becomes available, it has unlimited potential to enrich utility and consumer experience. We envision a world where goods, services, and incentives can be offered directly to the consumer based on their very individual needs."

Experts worry more control for large and small consumers ,lower demand may squeeze profits at time when costly improvements are underway.Some in the industry compare the uncertain future to the telecom upheaval of the past 10 years.

There’s another similarity between the two industries: their business models are under threat. Wireless companies, for example, are seeing a huge influx in data use that requires expensive network buildouts, but are still figuring out how to get people to pay more per megabyte to support those network buildouts and existing profit margins.

A clean energy summit in Texas debated the potential paths the smart grid might take debating whether the industry should focus on

…value-added services on top of the power network (like phone companies have rushed to do on their data networks) or if utilities should remain content to provide the basic energy pipes…………….

Along with the positive reduction in energy usage come uncertainties of an expanded information capacity for the power companies and how to design this capacity into an existing industry manage it and profit from it smoothly.

Wingnut Fall tableau in Vermont

This Fall scenery might shatter the lefty Vermont stereotype for leaf-peepers as they pass by on Interstate 91 near Vt. Rt. 25 in the Eastern part of the state.
Someone expresses fear of healthcare, communism, economics and all things Obama with a large hand made sign on a derelict forage wagon.

Vt. declares emergency over bridge closing,Gov. Douglas leaves country

A lame duck takes flight series

As the costs of budget cuts and deferred maintenance on local infrastructure are driven home by the emergency closure of the Champlain Bridge between New york and Vermont , Vermont Gov. Douglas,other state officials and executives from Vermont businesses left the country (as far as we know).
As part of a previously planned trip they have flown to Asia in an effort to attract foreign business investors to the state. How will the news of the areas crumbling infrastructure impress potential foreign investors?
While the governor is gone state officials from New York and Vermont are left to deal with the declared emergency surrounding the Champlain Bridge closure
The Champlain Bridge was known to be in bad repair, studies were in progress and the bridge had been shut down to one lane within the last year .It seems though that few contingency plans had been made about what to do about 4,000 people that pass over the bridge daily if the bridge needed to shut down completely as is now the case. Business owners and workers on both sides of the lake are worried about the financial effect of the closure. One local hospital has patients and employees on both sides of the lake in need of transportation.
Before leaving Governor Douglas took the time to share his expert reading of the situation “Detours are time consuming and costly. This is not just about convenience; this is an economic burden as well as a safety issue,”

Extra ferries have been added and are running longer hours but winter is swooping in quickly. Hopes for a temporary bridge were put to rest by the VT Agency of Transportation spokesman John Zicconi who said

What the state isn't likely to do, he said, is put in a temporary bridge. He said the lake is an international waterway and such a bridge would block it, something the federal government is unlikely to approve. He also said there were safety concerns with such bridges on the lake.

No safety concerns were cited about possible problems with increased ferry traffic.

At a public hearing in Addison on Oct. 8, residents had ridiculed the idea of substituting ferry service for the ailing bridge. Vermont Transportation Secretary David Dill made no suggestion that ferries would be anything but a short-term alternative to people driving 100 miles to work in another state.

The initial estimate was that a new ferry would require a round-trip ticket price of $131, Dill said. But it might be possible to get a federal subsidy for the additional ferry route, thus reducing that price, he said — but not compensating affected individuals or companies directly for their expenses during the declared transportation emergency, he said.
Also posted at Green Mountain Daily

A theory of 'inattentional blindness' to clowns & unicycles

I don’t own a cell phone because Vermont service is spotty to non-existent in many parts of the state. This despite Governor Douglas’ much vaunted but yet to be realized E-State Initiative. But I digress. ……anyway I can’t comment from personal experience regarding cell phones.
I would like to think though that I’d notice a clown on a unicycle more often than not even if speaking on a cell phone. One thing that speaks well of this study is that they actually found a way to employ clowns on unicycles in a scientific endeavor.
The study(excerpted here )documented real-world examples of people who were so distracted by their cell phone use that they failed to see the bizarre occurrence of a unicycling clown passing them on the street. The journal, Applied Cognitive Psychology published the results of studying effects of divided attention during walking .They claim to have proven what may be obvious to anyone, namely cell phone use can be distracting. Various types of distractions were tested on individuals walking including MP3 players, talking on cell phone, walking without electronics and walking alone.

In the first study, it was found that cell phone users walked more slowly, changed directions more frequently, and were less likely to acknowledge other people than individuals in the other conditions. In the second study cell phone users were less likely to notice an unusual activity along their walking route (a unicycling clown). Cell phone usage may cause inattentional blindness even during a simple activity that should require few cognitive resources.
Compared with individuals walking alone, in pairs, or listening to their ipod, cell phone users were the group most prone to oblivious behavior: only twenty-five percent of them noticed the unicycling clown. The walkers not using a cell phone noticed the clown over fifty-percent of the time.
Dr Ira E. Hyman, Jr. at Western Washington University, head researcher of the study, says, 'If people experience so much difficulty performing the task of walking when on a cell phone just think of what this means when put into the context of driving safety.

Cat blogging with Chevy panel truck

Some Mondays are strangely more suited than others for a white cat and a Chevy panel truck. Today is one such day. For those who need more here is an observation on contemporary America from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders

"The top 1 percent owns more wealth then the bottom 90 percent. CEOs of large corporations earn 400 times what their workers make. That is not what America is supposed to be about."

Senator Sanders Unfiltered

Maldives under water for cabinet meeting

There may be no Maldives at all if climate change is not addressed.The UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change prediction of rising sea level of 58 centimeters(almost two feet) by 2100 would put the Maldives in underwater jeopardy.

The Republic of Maldives, in the Indian Ocean consists of a double chain of twenty six atolls. So being one of the most vulnerable places on earth the Maldives held an underwater cabinet meeting to publicize their plight.
Mohamed Nasheed, Maldives President and fellow cabinet members were holding the world's first underwater cabinet meeting in the shallow seas surrounding the Maldives Islands. They conducted the meeting in full scuba gear using hand signals and slates.
They signed an SOS message at their underwater desks to let the rest of the world know just how precarious their and other low lying countries' situations are.

Mohamed Nasheed, Maldives President:

"We are actually trying to send out a message. Let the world know what is happening. And what might, what will happen to the Maldives if climate change is not checked. This is a challenging situation. And we want to see that everyone else is also occupied as much as we are. And would like to see that people actually do something about it."

And he said it wasn't just the Maldives that the world needed to worry about.

Dole Foods drops “Bananas” suit

Good news for a Swedish film maker whose documentary about a crusading lawyer and his attempts to represent Nicaraguan plantation workers.
According to the Guardian UK the original case around which the film documentary was made revolved around the spraying of DBCP, or dibromochloropropane, a worm-killing pesticide, on banana plantations in five Central American countries in the 1970s. Laborers say it damaged their health and, in the case of men, left them sterile. Dole denied causing any harm.
After initial victories for the workers in Nicaraguan and American courts US courts overturned part of the verdicts opening the doors for the dole suit for defamation. In their lawsuit Dole Foods had requested that the movie be banned and that Gertten the filmmaker be prohibited from commenting on the company.

The International Federation of Journalists had condemned the legal action as “unforgivable censorship” but little was made of this in the major US media.

“Hometown support” Swedish MP’s had signed a petition in support of the movie maker and free speech .Also Swedish grocers demanded talks regarding the suit and a large Swedish restaurant chain had started a boycott of Dole products .
Boycott and pressure worked .The Dole Foods announcement dropping the suit said Dole believed it had a strong case; it chose to dismiss the suit because of “the free speech concerns being expressed in Sweden”.

Maybe it was a good time to get out from under some bad PR at a key moment?
The dropping of the lawsuit comes in the midst the company’s launch of their initial public stock offering .Which is expected to raise $500 million to pay down Dole’s debt.

Not taxing their cleverness

Did the Vermont Public Service board just propose eliminating the sales tax on the sale of 4,310 appliances?

“Funds for fridges”
The State of Vermont has submitted for US Department of Energy approval a plan which would offer rebates on the purchase of new energy efficient appliances including washers refrigerators, air conditioners and also certain gas furnaces and water heaters .Documentation that the old appliance was properly recycled would need to be provided.
The Burlington Free Press reports ,

The proposal calls for rebates, ranging from $75 to $150, on efficient clothes washers, refrigerators and air conditioners. ……The state's plan allows for 4,310 such appliances to be sold through the rebate plan.

So far so good .Trade up to an energy efficient appliance with the aid of a government run program. However they hope to piggyback the program on Vermont state's one day sales tax holiday. Perhaps cleverly generating publicity but also losing any revenue the state might have garnered from the increased sales of new efficient appliances over the course of the program.

If approved by the Energy Department the rebates would be offered in a one-day event on Vermont's next "sales tax holiday," slated for March 10, piggybacking on the attention paid to the day free of sales taxes, the filing says. Efficiency Vermont would develop lists of the eligible products Jan. 1, the documents state

Also posted at Green Mountain Daily

Chamber of Commerce climate of pressure(updates below)

The US Chamber of Commerce is rated the top spending lobbying group in the country according to watchdog group Open Secrets. Almost double the spending of the second place AMA.Their website ‘take action’ page urges opposition to proposed Congressional climate change policies, a Financial Protection Agency a shareholder bill of rights and the Employment Free choice Act (EFCA).
Chamber in the past?
The chambers ‘about us’ web-page may lagging or just feeling nostalgic for friendlier days when they even today state “Over the past year, the chamber hosted more than 2,500 programs, meetings, seminars, and forums with various participants, including President George W. Bush and his Cabinet, members of Congress, and dozens of international leaders.”
All is not unity for the members with the position on pending climate change legislation. Rep. Markey of Massachusetts says of the chamber’s attitude "Unfortunately, while the chamber says they are for everything the Waxman-Markey bill addresses, they are just not for the bill itself; the chamber should listen to the companies who would rather leave the group than wait for it to back up their talk with action."
Five major companies have left the organization over its opposition to aspects of climate change efforts .Excelon corp. PNM Resources Inc.,PG&E Corp. ,Apple Inc. and Nike Inc. One business observer noted that the divide did not fall along traditional players versus technology players but was across the board suggesting a deeper rift. US Energy Secretary Chu and Greenpeace have praised the companies that took the leap from the chamber. This is on the heels of an earlier call by one chamber official for a new "Scopes Monkey Trial" to examine the EPA's role and look at whether human activities are actually causing global warming and the damage attributed to them.
Recently Obama has restated his desire to move on climate legislation after he and Sen. Majority Leader Reid warned that it would most likely not happen until next year and certainly not before the Copenhagen conference. Some shakeup of position in the chamber crowd may help save this legislation from the delay that health care has suffered from but it is only a glimmer in a long battle.
Whoever owns the shoe
October 14 the chamber will launch the Campaign for Free Enterprise a $100 million dollar effort in what is being called a war on Democrats. When Chairman Thomas Donahue was asked about this said “First of all, it's not a declaration of war against anyone. The issue is very, very clear. This is going to be very positive program”
Shortly after accentuating the positive this telling exchange took place

Q)Much of it does seem to focused on wanting to limit regulation, limit government, limit taxation at a time when there is obviously a lot of discussion in Washington about whether more reforms or regulations are needed to prevent many of the excesses we've seen in the last year.

A)“Well, if the shoe fits, whoever owns the shoe ought to wear it.”

(UPDATE)Its,...more on the Chamber at
Digby's Hullabaloo
which has details(scroll down to post titled Gag)on the Chambers anti-government-run-heath care legislation efforts and at AlterNet Matt Stoller
has even more interesting stuff along these lines

The Chamber of Commerce, run by corrupt lobbyist Tom Donahue, has turned into a pay-to-play vehicle for right-wing causes and corporate dishonesty.

FairPoint Comminications a well oiled machine

FairPoint CEO David Hauser said recently that,a year from now FairPoint will be a "well-oiled machine."A year may be too a short time for the company to achieve well oiled machine status.
Locally the Burlington Vermont Free Press reports that a cell tower project was abruptly put on hold and a scheduled visit to the location by the PSB postponed .A dispute with the landowner over the original proposed height and the changed height of the tower is the issue .The landowner agreed to a 80 ft. tower and the plans now call for a 110ft. structure.
Last Thursday the company in the midst of restructuring its debt and on the brink of bankruptcy released a regulatory filing that confirmed it had missed interest payments on its loans and bonds. FairPoint stock traded at 41 cents per share down 88% year to date.

FairPoint warned earlier this week that the talks to restructure its debt could lead to a bankruptcy filing. It also earlier this week said lenders that collectively hold more than 50% of loans and commitment under the company's bank credit facility have agreed to wait until Oct. 30 before taking action such as accelerating maturity dates.
An analyst at KDP Investment Advisors said Thursday's news did not come as a surprise, "considering the company's weak liquidity and the disfunction of its billing and ordering systems."

A suitor in kind?
A rumor over the last few days says that Windstream Communications may be looking into bidding on the near bankrupt FairPoint. Headquartered in Little Rock, Ark., Windstream Communications according to their webpage offers phone, broadband and digital TV services, and has a long and proud history. In addition to their long and proud history they have 3 million access lines in 16 states, 1 million high-speed Internet customers, $3.2 billion in annual revenues and 7,300 employees.
How does the old joke go?........You can put to drunks together but they still can’t walk straight
Windstream Corp. last week said it would cut 350 jobs, or 5 percent of its work force, this year. Roughly 5% of their workforce (350 out of 7,100 jobs) in order to "offset revenue pressure in the residential voice business." In other words Windstream, like larger teleco Verizon is making cuts to help counter the continuing death of the copper landline.