Take two thick slices of Noonie's day old bread, smear Honey Cup honey mustard
liberally over both. Cover both slices with green leaf lettuce. Then on one slice only lay smoked turkey on the lettuce,
a tomato slice on the turkey and sprinkle it with shredded carrot. Then on the lay a slice of provolone cheese over the
carrot then a green pepper ring on top of the cheese. Sprikle with sprouts. Cover with the other slice, lettuce side down.
The letuce should be stuck to the bread with honey mustard so it doesn't fall off when you turn it upside down to cover the
sandwich. Slice sandwich in half with a knife. Wrap in tightly in plastic wrap. Use too much wrap. Tape on label. Tadaaa!
Weighs one pound. Costs Four Bucks.
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your
teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed,
to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects,
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and
no warrants shall issue,
but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and
particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Ethan Allen Tower
"During the 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton
sometimes spoke of a 'twofer' (two for the price of one) presidency,
implying that Hillary would play an important role in his
administration."
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Duis ligula lorem,
consequat eget, tristique nec, auctor quis, purus. Vivamus ut sem. Fusce aliquam nunc vitae purus.
Whatever things
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Duis ligula lorem,
consequat eget, tristique nec, auctor quis, purus. Vivamus ut sem. Fusce aliquam nunc vitae purus.
Shay vs. Odum vs. Me
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Shay lashes out a little at the Dems this week, as if they may end up destroying BT with their bad attitudes, although his column doesn't address how the seventeen million might be repaid. On the other hand, Odum thinks it's the Progs who might end up destroying BT with their bad attitudes. Odum also does not discuss how BT might refinance its debt.
Shay also charges Dems "rallied" for Adam Cate last year. I don't remember it that way. It seems to me that in general, the whole council was trying to figure out what the hell was going on with Cate. I don't recall anyone really 'rallying' for anyone, except perhaps for Bob Kiss who "rallied" for Cate's right to privacy in the whole matter.
Anyhow, the sad fact is BT's death may have been a fait accompli when Nulty walked. He wanted to expand, and obviously he knew what the hell he was talking about. The simplest explanation for what might have happened was Leopold got all up in Nulty's face at some point and Nulty was like "fuck this."
Nulty is a Jedi and Leopold is a Sith. We're left with the Sith. And nobody knows where the seventeen million is coming from. It's nothing to do with bad attitudes. Most new businesses fail. Most experiments fail. Things fail. That's life.
The writing is on the wall. So bring on the finger pointing Shay and Odum and whoever else. I'm glad the city spent ten thousand dollars to run fiber up to my house, but I'm sure I'll end up paying for that myself. And to be honest, I'm not that much of a geek. I'm still running coaxial cable into my high def flat screen, and the computer I'm running is made out of balsa wood and duck tape. It doesn't know cable from fiber. Neither do I.
When I first got Burlington Telecom hooked up, the bill started out at $100 even per month. Now it's crept up to $120 somehow. If Comcast offers me a better deal, I have no compunction at all about jumping ship.
“This is a partisan witch hunt. If I wanted to hide something, why would I put it in the budget? I’m not going to be scapegoated because you can’t read a budget," Leopold added.
Yes. Yes. Exactly. Jonathan is pointing out the city council's weakness. The council does not employ its own budget analyst and it isn't necessarily made up of highly educated people. But the world isn't going to dumb it down for you, council. Time after time you get rolled by the administration, for fear of betraying just how ignorant you really are. The council needs to vote itself the resources necessary to do their job right. You are the civic counterweight to the administration. In fact, it's really the council that calls the shots. Most select boards in Vermont hire the town manager.
This is more than just about politics. It's about civics. I want to see the city council stop sucking. Double pension for Keleher to the tune of a half million dollars! Approved because the council doesn't know what it's voting on! I'm glad that they took at least this pitiful symbolic step, voting 8-6 to suspend Leopold. Although sadly, I have to agree with the mayor that that shouldn't happen. The thought of a Progressive mayor ordering a taxpayer funded paid vacation to an already very rich man makes me nauseous.
Also from Blurt, I guess the council passed this:
The board of finance shall prepare a request for proposals to engage an auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of BT's finances and operations;
The City Council president shall appoint an ad hoc committee to review BT's governance structure and recommend changes; and
The administration shall present refinancing strategies, and other financing options, for BT to pursue. They must present those to the ad hoc committee and the board of finance by no later than November 16.
I guess an audit is necessary, but unfortunately that won't be free. I suggest Tim Nulty do the audit. Bill Keogh, if you're reading- I would be happy to serve on the ad hoc committee if we would really wrap up work by November 16.
SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL MEETING CONTOIS AUDITORIUM, CITY HALL TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2009 7:00 P.M.
1. AGENDA 2. REPORT: Mayor Bob Kiss, Jonathan P.A. Leopold, Jr. CAO & Burlington Telecom General Manager Chris Burns, re: Update on Burlington Telecom (oral)
* * * * EXPECTED EXECUTIVE SESSION * * * *
3. ADJOURNMENT
SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL MEETING CONTOIS AUDITORIUM, CITY HALL THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 20097:00 P.M.
1. AGENDA 2. PUBLIC FORUM: Re: Burlington Telecom 3. ADJOURNMENT
Tonight is Marselis Parsons's last broadcast. The Free Press has a story here. Kate Duffy offers Mr. Parsons retirement advice here.
I was watching this guy just the other day and thinking "I wonder how much longer we'll be seeing him on the TV." Seriously. I was wondering that just the other day. That's the way things always work.
Thanks for the hard work and steady hand Marselis. You did a good job filling in for Gallagher. Cheers.
*****
Update 8:23pm. OK who cried when Marselis signed off tonight? Oh, nobody cried when Marselis signed off? I cried my eyes out.
It's sad because he overlapped the last quarter century of CBS television in Vermont. He was Dan Rather to Richard Gallager's Walter Chronkite. His retirement reminds us of the decline of everying. Not to mention the fact that he's certainly one of the last people in the country to get a job in his early twenties, stay with the same company for forty-some-odd years and retire at age 65. There are no more Dan Rathers and there is no more American dream. Not the way it was anyway. Remember-When- Mar-sel-is Par-sons- oooh- oooh- oooh, oooh-ohhh.
Burlington Free Press reports the entire council, except for Ed Adrian, approved going to the Public Service Board to "relax" the rule that forces Burlington Telecom to pay back money borrowed from the taxpayers within 60 days, a rule they had apparently been violating anyway.
Good on Ed Adrian for casting the one correct vote. Boo to the rest of the council for acting like sheep on this one. What's up with my supposedly 'fiscally conservative' representation from ward 7? Why do we bother electing Republicans if they are just going to vote however Jonathon Leopold wants? Anybody can wave a flag. It takes a little more than that to actually protect the taxpayers from a bad deal.
You know...It isn't as if it hadn't occurred to me to write Deb Markowitz about "Paper Ballot! Paper Trail!" before. I've hesitated to do that because I was afraid of what her answer might be.
Anyway, I finally did write to her yesterday. Her response was helpful and somewhat reassuring, but not entirely satisfying. She said it was already written in Vermont Law which she gave me:
CHAPTER 51. CONDUCT OF ELECTIONS Subchapter II. Ballots § 2478. Number of paper ballots to be printed and furnished (a) For primary elections, the secretary of state shall furnish each town with a sufficient number of printed ballots based on the history of voter turnout in the town and in consultation with the town clerk. (b) For general elections, the secretary of state shall furnish each town with a number of printed ballots approximately equal to 100 percent of the number of voters on the checklist for the primary election. (c) If necessary due to unusual growth of the checklist, a town clerk may request additional ballots from the secretary of state at least 40 days before the election. (d) For local ballots, the town clerk shall cause such number of ballots to be printed and furnished as the board of civil authority shall designate. (e)No voting shall occur in any general election which does not use printed ballots. (Added 1977, No. 269 (Adj. Sess.), § 1; amended 1979, No. 200 (Adj. Sess.), § 48; 1981, No. 239 (Adj. Sess.), § 15; amended 1985, No. 109 (Adj. Sess.); 1991, No. 127 (Adj. Sess.); 2003, No. 94 (Adj. Sess.), § [emphasis added]
That's great! Thank You to the state reps, senators and governor who made that happen- whoever the hell you happen to be! I love you.
The thing is Deborah Markowitz, I believe, is a genuinely nice person. I think because of this she tried to take an extra step to reassure me, that unfortunately had the opposite effect. She said even if we put the paper trail issue aside, she didn't believe electronic voting would make sense in Vermont because the "efficiencies" that make it "attractive" in other states are not "relevant" here because they are too expensive.
Um...ah, yeah...(I'm doing Bill Lumbergh ) See, the thing is- it doesn't matter how efficient it is or how attractive that efficiency may make it for an elections officer- paperless voting is worthless. It cannot be audited and that is a fact. Look it up- or better yet, just use your common sense. When you use a touch screen and the program inside the machine records the vote falsely, the voter does not know. Nobody knows, except perhaps the hacker responsible for the flipped vote. How can you recount that? What are you counting? Ether? Finger Prints? That vote is in there baby, and that race is over. Look at Florida-13 for crying out loud! Touch screen machines produced an election with 18,000 undervotes under highly dubious conditions. That baby is still in court and Florida is returning to paper. Hallelluya!
And get it straight. A "paper trail" is meaningless unless it consists of a "paper ballot" The vote must be recorded on something physical, AKA, real, AKA paper- and it must be verified by the voter before it cast. It is true that a touch screen voting machine will produce a printed receipt, but as they say "garbage in, garbage out." If a bug or glitch flipped a vote, that receipt would just mimic the flipped vote. It doesn't tell us squat about the intent of the voter. Nobody can verify a vote if no physical record of it exists.
So although I'm glad the Secretary of State has at least some reason to oppose the scourge of e-voting, I'd prefer it if her primary reason for opposing electronic voting had more to do with the bedrock principle of sound, verifiable elections- and less to do with some false ideas about cost and efficiency. If an election is meaningless it isn't efficient and it's a total waste of money. Not only that- it cuts at the heart of democracy.
In any event, Deb was very gracious to respond to my email so quickly and provide me with the text of the Vermont Paper Ballot Law. I like her. She didn't get more votes than Jim Douglas or Bernie Sanders for nothing.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of
the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Click Sticker to get one.
Yours free with Paypal donation of any amount.
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars,
the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury,
shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States,
than according to the rules of the common law.
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your
teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed,
to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
-Emma Lazarus, 1883
--------------------------
Church Street Energy System
--------------------------
Powered by
"The Medium is the Message."
Whatever things
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Duis ligula lorem,
consequat eget, tristique nec, auctor quis, purus. Vivamus ut sem. Fusce aliquam nunc vitae purus.
Whatever things
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Duis ligula lorem,
consequat eget, tristique nec, auctor quis, purus. Vivamus ut sem. Fusce aliquam nunc vitae purus.
Junktique's New Site
Junktique's Old Site
Jessica Sklar
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyNJbNbmUUkmfGLaBuqicz0Zvqt-1zb2AzXdfm1qMXh8AfpmG9leXo0dm_wo-26BNSQz0sc5nzPl7NU4PdQjb1wqbgKf1-A7vG2K8EsV40igIcBQahcPJFPCUfHFy3aSWN2yi8qg/s1600/henry%2527s.jpg")
