In a recent Press Herald Op-Ed piece William Strauss, a member of the Maine Pellet Fuels Association, made a sensible argument for utilizing one of Maine's most obvious renewable resources by advocating the use of pellet - burning wood stoves.
There is no question that Maine's forest industries have declined drastically over the past decade and that jobs would be created if efforts were made to increase the use of wood-powered heating systems for homeowners and perhaps even some commercial buyers.
After facing heating oil costs of over four dollars a gallon during the heating season of 2007-2008, I bit the bullet and made the decision to install a wood stove.
Apparently, I was not alone in this approach since nearly all of the wood-heating systems dealers that I contacted were "too busy" to come to my home and conduct an onsite audit to help determine the best product for my needs.
I did finally manage to find a dealer who sent a helpful, professional, sales rep to my home. During the audit process, I learned that the newer models of wood stoves have been designed to burn more efficiently, thereby eliminating much of the smoke and odor that could annoy the neighbors. There is also less wood ash produced and with the addition of a blower to the unit a larger space can be warmed.
Pellet burning units were not a part of my plan, since I have sufficient tree growth on my property to ensure fuel for the foreseeable future. Actually, the removable of dead and diseased trees alone should produce enough firewood to meet my needs for the first few heating seasons and I estimated that the cost of purchase and installation should be recovered over the next four years.
For those of you who have ever embarked on renovation efforts involving an older home you know full well that, "The devil is in the details".
My initial speed bump resulted from the demise of a trusted, but elderly chainsaw. The new one is better engineered and more efficient, I will admit.
Then the problem surfaced of how to move felled trees from the woodlot to a position near the house where I could work up the logs and stack the split lengths to await transport to the cellar. Fortunately, a neighbor was available with a tractor to hire out - until his three-year old machine developed an undiagnosable malady. Back to the drawing board for a plan that eventually relied on an overworked ATV and small trailer.
The process of splitting five cords of firewood with a splitting maul and wedges convinced me that my aging back would benefit from the purchase and employment of a log splitter.
And hauling logs over my old woods road has necessitated ongoing repair work.
Indeed, the past winter has bolstered the old adage, "Wood heats you several times; when you cut it, when you split it, when you haul it in and when you burn it".
Still, I reduced my use of heating oil approximately sixty per cent. Since my hot water baseboard system is linked to my oil furnace I am not completely independent of fossil fuel for heating purposes.
I am fortunate in that I have the time to harvest all of my own firewood and at this point I have no plans to change to a wood pellet system. That would be a viable option, however, for anyone without the resources to support a traditional wood stove or boiler.
Over the course of my many years of employment I have found few times when I could duplicate the satisfaction gained from reviewing my pile of well-seasoned firewood. It is a tangible reminder of challenging physical work performed out-of"doors in an environment that I love.
I also find that I now have an inordinate interest in shows about logging on the Discovery Channel, logging clothes and equipment, more powerful ATV's/Utility Vehicles (and even small tractors) and such esoteric items as log skids. "Boys and their toys", to quote my wife.
***
update: 4/24 8:50 AM
I have had 43 submissions to the contest so far; lots of you are having fun
with this one. If you live "away" I can mail the hot dog :)
*****
Now that I have written my pseudo-serious blogs about:
FairPoint's year-long failures,
the silliness regarding Obama and ASU,
whether the banks should be nationalized or marginalized,
if the Kindle 2.0 is already obsolete,
whether Steve Jobs should have admitted to himself that he was sick,
when/if AT&T 3G service will come to the rest of Maine,
how I met Harold Pinter over a pint, etc.,
I realized as I watched the grass slowly emerge from the winter moss in the side yard, that it was high time to have fun and to offer readers a chance to win two tickets to a Sea Dogs' game while saving the Republican Party from itself.
(You can enter for either reason - or both.)
With Obama's approval rating averaging 63% for the first three months of his administration, the highest rating in since 1977, members of the Republican Party have struggled very hard to find ways to successfully label Obama and his administration thereby gaining the heart and soul of the American voter.
"Socialist" was one of the earliest attempts and still lingers to this day.
Governor Palin used that epithet to describe Obama's plan to extend health care.
Obama's proposal allows people with health insurance to keep their own coverage, to buy into a plan such as one members of Congress have, or to be covered by Medicare. Medicare is currently accepted widely by Americans as a good thing and not viewed as socialist, but somehow would become socialist if offered to those Americans without insurance.
For those keeping score, according to Wikipedia, "Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating public or state ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and a society characterized by economic equality for all individuals."
Greg Pason, National Secretary of the Socialist Party USA said presciently of Obama in September 2008: "A socialist program (even a reformist one) would not be a program that props up capitalism when it fails, but one that transforms the economy."
Obama has long been described as a "Communist." Alan Keyes used the term in the 2004 Illinois US Senate race when he ran against Obama. Keyes description of Obama as a Communist and as an "Abomination" are captured in this YouTube video. RenewAmerica.com did a lengthy piece tracing Obama's Communist roots back to his days in Hawaii.
Again from Wikipedia: "Communism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general."
With two of the three non-American pillars of political theory already in play, it was inevitable that the third would soon fall into place. And so, the polar opposite of socialist and communist has been thrown into the ring to describe Obama's policies: Fasicst.
According to the New York Times, the former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, Saul Anuzis, described Obama's domestic policies as "economic fascism." But Anuzis did note that "We've so overused the word 'socialism' that it no longer has the negative connotation it had 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago" ... "Fascism - everybody still thinks that's a bad thing."
For those under 40 or for those who never understood what Fascism had to do with trains, Wikipedia states: "Fascism is a radical, authoritarian, corporatist and nationalist political ideology. Historians and political scientists disagree on a precise definition, however; some would omit one or more of the preceding themes."
So, as you can see, the problem is that the Republicans are running out of "ists." I think Anuzis would have preferred sticking with socialist but went to Fascist because "that's a bad thing."
I want you, kind reader to help the republicans out of their dilemma by either
1) Proposing a new, exciting, unused new pejorative adjective to describe President Obama so the Republicans can capture the heart and soul of the American voter, or
2) Propose a coherent new Republican answer to the economic crisis that could be written on the back of a t-shirt and could be understood by all to capture the heart and soul of the American voter.
The winner will receive two tickets to a Sea Dogs' game (hopefully the game of his or her choice), and the chance to explain their submission at a press conference I will call and invite the Press Herald, the Bangor Daily News, the Phoenix, the Media Mutt, Fox News (NY), MSNBC, a few TV stations and of course, Frank-FM.
Now, who are you people and why will this work?
I am told my blogs average 350 readers.
The most hits (over 900) came with the excitement of the AT&T 3G network finally coming to Southern Maine. My blog on the supposed nationalization of the banks had 650 readers, and the Obama - ASU blog received 500 page loads.
So, I anticipate lots of good submissions, and I hope I have enough to award TWO sets of tickets, one for the first option and one for the second option.
I might even treat the winner(s) to a hot dog or sausage at the cart across from Starbucks.
In the end, it's about returning this country to a healthy two party political system, and all are invited to enter: Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, Socialists, Communists, Fascists, non-voters, those too young to vote, and all others. If you win and are from out of state, you have to provide your own airfare to the hot dog stand where we might have the press conference.
Remember, the goal is to fit (1) on the front of a t-shirt and (2) on the back of the t-shirt.
That way, the Republicans will always be on message. We need to pull all pieces of the tribe back from its diaspora; Moses was in the desert 40 years; we cannot let the Republicans go too.
Entries can be made by clicking this link or by emailing me at blogcontest@maine.rr.com.
Please do NOT enter by posting your suggestions in the comment box below. That is an unreliable means of communication due to gremlin server issues.
And the regular contest restrictions apply; the following MAY enter but their entries will not win: members of my immediate family; people with whom I exchange email; Hannity, Olbermann, Limbaugh, Rachel Maddow, members of the paid Maine Media, and Jesse Jackson -- because he nearly ran me over while I was jogging.)
Elected local and national officials are not even allowed to enter as they should be busy doing the people's business.
I promise will not use your email address for anything other than notifying you if you are the winner. All addresses will be deleted after the contest.
To be notified immediately of new tweets from those you follow, you can use a PC program such as Mad Twitter, a Mac program such as Twitterrific, or for the iPhone/iTouch, many apps like Twitterific or a web based client such as Hahlo.
I cannot help but wonder, as I watch our new President careening around the globe making endless apologies for America's actions while expressing relief that no one is blaming him personally, passively accepting insults from tinhorn dictators, committing social gaffes with both visiting heads of state and while abroad, and ignoring nuclear challenges from the likes of Iran and North Korea, if anyone who voted for this man is perhaps having second thoughts.
Employing an "apocalyptic style", he has bombarded us with crisis after crisis (which his Chief of Staff has reminded us are opportunities that "should never be wasted"), tripled the National Debt, broken a campaign pledge to deny the appointment of lobbyists to his administration (to the tune of over two dozen "waivers"), appointed a notorious tax cheat as Secretary of the Treasury (and titular head of the IRS), apparently has problems finding any capable nominees for top government positions who are free from tax evasion issues, and has begun an unprecedented attempt to install government dominance over the free market.
Despite his eagerness to castigate his predecessor at every opportunity, he has maintained many of the prior administration's policies on issues including the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, homeland security and the economy.
Obama is still immersed in peripatetic campaigning while his lack of sagacity and experience becomes more apparent on a daily basis.
These are troubling times for America, requiring calm, ethical, intelligent leadership and the ability to perceive and implement policies designed to stabilize our economy, maintain our position as a world leader and meet the challenges of those who would hasten our decline.
Instead, we have an ideologue whose utopian visions were influenced by the radical left throughout his privileged youth and buttressed by his lack of connection with the "real economy", since he has received paychecks from either government or nonprofit entities throughout his working life.
An FDR-style statist with grand ambitions to alter the American political landscape, Obama appears more in tune with his personal agenda than with meeting the current urgent needs of this country.
It has not taken long for him to unveil his vision of an American socialism that "will mirror Europe's ennui - a landscape of bored, trapped worker bees beholden to the machinations of the almighty state, their daily concerns epitomized by the fear that someone else may unjustly and capriciously become the recipient of some tiny, incremental benefit denied themselves" (Victor Davis Hanson).
Obama is clearly enthralled with centralized executive authority, intent on providing government with the opportunity to play a major role in the direction of the economy both through the leverage created by government funding of the automotive and financial sectors and, more indirectly, through increased centralized planning of the economy in general.
He is fawningly aided and abetted by an adoring media, who is so deeply committed to his success that they have become willing foot-soldiers in the "Ministry of Truth".
Is this the information that convinced enough voters to elect Obama to the Presidency?
As both Aristophanes and Alexis deTocqueville both warned, a poorly informed, "half-educated, or not infrequently illiterate electorate at the polls, voting for instantaneous entitlement" can be a dangerous thing indeed.
The rain falls like a million tears, a cascade of water reflecting Life and Death. The Spring rain nourishes the new Life and at the same time reflects the grief and the tears for those we have lost.
Life and Death, joy and sadness, beginnings and endings are all part of one and yet reflect the other. How can this world be so much of both? How do we balance the feelings and emotions that come from just being alive?
Sunday was a lovely day, with Spring in the air and hope all around. I attended a bridal shower for my daughter's elementary school friend. The laughter and excitement of the day filled me with a sense of purpose and I watched as the threads of our lives were drawn tight in this community. Childhood relationships have blossomed into love and the World seemed at peace and right.
Later that evening another childhood friend of my daughter's lost her life in a horrific attack. She was stabbed to death in her mother's van as she drove a friend home. Now as one child watches as her parents marry, another will grow up without his mother, his love and his life. The mixture of emotions is too brilliant, too raw and too early to really even comprehend, and yet I must try.
Rachel was a special child, with energy and laughter that still rings in my ears as I think of her. How could that laughter have been silenced? Why? No details of the murder have been released as yet, so we that knew and loved her are left to wonder and speculate as we wait for the police report.
I read online the talk of drugs or random reasons, but she did not deserve to die for her personal struggles. She lived her Life as best she could and loved her son with all her might. She loved animals and always made me laugh even if I didn't feel like it. Yes, she had her own demons and struggled with depression and bad choices. So what! Who is perfect without flaws?
Be at peace Rachel and know that you were loved and you did make a difference in this crazy Life we live. We will miss you and you will be remembered.
Spring has arrived here at Windsong Woods as the bright purple and yellow Crocus push through the leaves and Winter debris. The Wild Turkeys sing their mating song and the frogs cry with joy and urgency in their little vernal pool. The blueness of the sky brings warmth to my soul as I clean up the yard and watch furtively for the annual arrival of the Black Flies.
Tax day has come and gone, though for many of the self employed, the bill remains until the season begins again. They will pay their 'Interest and Penalties' for a financial world gone mad. They are not slackers or thieves.
It was a hard Winter for those that ply their income from the sea. It was difficult to watch as these strong, competent, self-willed men and women lost their income by half over the Winter. It's one thing to loose money from a retirement plan, but when your total income is cut in half and you have worked just as hard if not harder, the word 'discouraged' takes on a whole new meaning.
At least the privatization of Social Security did not go through and we avoided that catastrophe. I have wondered for a while now why it is that the wealthy get away without paying their full share of Social Security.
Why is payment into that fund limited to only the first $100,000 or so a person earns? How much better would it be for the whole country if everyone paid the same percentage of their income? Why do the poorest of the poor carry this burden on their backs while the richest of the rich are relieved of this duty?
Someone earning $30,000 a year pays the full 12.4% to Social security and 2.9% to Medicare (at least Medicare is not now limited by earnings amount). How is this fair and equitable? To say the rich have "paid enough" doesn't seem right to me. If a person earning $30,000 a year must pay 15.3% of their income, then that is a hardship. A CEO making a million dollars or more pays the same 15.3% as someone making a $100,000 and not a penny more.
Let everyone pay their fair share and take the burden off the poor.
April 15th has come and gone. Like many others, I have ground the bullet between my teeth and sent off payments to both Federal and state governments. I suppose that I should feel a sense of civic pride, since, as Pat Moening so clearly pointed out in his most recent post, if I was to ignore my tax obligations I would be adding to the burden of my fellow taxpayers.
But I suspect that the majority of my fellow taxpayers do not enjoy paying taxes and that many, like me, feel that our current tax burden is onerous and the result of out-of-control, free-spending politicians and bureaucrats. Certainly the attendance at "tea parties" over the past couple of days might indicate a growing dissatisfaction with our burdensome system of "tax and spend" at both national and local levels.
The reckless expansion of the national budget deficit should be sufficient cause to refute the administration's rush toward a socialist utopia. President Obama's plans to frantically borrow and spend have caused the Congressional Budget Office to project a $1.85 trillion deficit for 2009, tripling the 2008 deficit of $500 billion and indicating deficits totaling $9 trillion over the next decade resulting in a tripling of the national debt.
And we are unhappy with our current tax burden?
The campaign promises of "tax relief" for 95% of the American public were nothing more than a campaign tactic and President Obama has already increased taxes (65 cents a pack for cigarettes, more than the sum total of the cumulative six previous increases, with the effect being felt the most by lower-income purchasers) and is incubating myriad plans for additional tax revenues that will mean increases in taxes for all of the public.
These plans will result in more government, still more debt and a dependent citizenry. I have previously made the projection that if we want a preview of the future and see what life under Obama and the Leftist polices espoused by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will be like, we have only to look at the current miseries bedeviling the state of Maine. Talk about a double whammy!
Can there be any question that our nation is in dire straits and that the main cause is a blatant grab for power that has escalated from the time of Franklin Roosevelt and resulted in governmental intrusion far in excess of constitutional limitations?
The framers of the Constitution never intended central government to be allocated overriding power over the States or their inhabitants. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" - Amendment X, Constitution of the United States.
Government is responsible for providing a decent measure of social and national security and a legal and regulatory framework that allows a civil society and the free market to flourish. Necessary restrictions in the form of the division of powers among the Executive Branch, Congress and the Judiciary were designed to prevent the tyranny currently prevalent and particularly noticeable in the Executive Branch and the Judiciary. Congress, the true representatives of the will of the people, has become derelict in their responsibilities and given over to preserving their own privileged status.
As a conservative, I believe in and support the politics of individual, social and fiscal responsibility. I also believe in America and the special place that it has become in the world.
Yes, I will continue to pay my taxes and grit my teeth on April 15th but I will also work to correct what I consider to be policies and practices that I feel are damaging to our citizens and to our country.
Congress may be shirking its duties, but the people of the United States (and Maine) hold the power to make our lives better - if we are willing to coalesce and exercise that power.
We, the people, can control our destiny but only if we throw off the yoke of Party politics and deny the political class their visions of self-importance, unrestrained power and privilege.
They are, after all, our servants, granted status only through being selected to represent our wishes and hopes.
I'm not sure if this relates to the FiCri as some kind of hidden indicator, but I've noticed a dramatic increase lately in the number of ads from slimy law firms offering to help people resolve their massive, unpaid IRS debt.
These advertisements make it sound as though anybody who gets in debt to the IRS is some kind of innocent victim. One especially frequent commercial depicts a sweet, grandmotherly type. In a voice choked with emotion, she recounts how the evil IRS drained the last ten dollars from her checking account.
I don't understand why more people aren't offended by these ads. Many folks seem to have the attitude that taxes are too high, and therefore it's OK not to pay them. But I'm not trying to start a discussion about whether taxes are too high or too low; or whether they favor one group over another. There are thousands of websites where those issues are endlessly picked apart. The only topic at issue in this blog post is whether or not you owe the taxes as the laws exist today.
People don't get into debt to the IRS by "accident". Taxes aren't like a catastrophic injury or illness where you incur an unexpected, large debt through no fault of your own. It's relatively easy to project what you're going to owe based on your income. Obviously, you need to reserve at least enough of your earnings each year to offset your tax debt. It's pretty hard for me to feel sorry for somebody who claims that they got mixed up on their tax liability because they made way more money than they expected to. That's the kind of problem that most people would like to have!
Here's the thing that these ads never point out: If you're in debt to the IRS, and you use one of these law firms to settle for ten cents on the dollar, that portion of government spending doesn't simply disappear from the appropriations side of the budget. In reality, every other taxpayer has to chip in to make up your portion of the unpaid bill.
Just in case I haven't made my feelings clear on this topic: If you don't pay your debt to the IRS, you are stealing money from the government at the expense of law-abiding taxpayers. You're not a victim … you're a DEADBEAT!
Edited 1:40 PM to correct factual error
Edited: 4/12/20 to include list of past recipients
An Arizona State University web site proudly announces:
"Arizona State University is pleased to announce that President Barack Obama will give the commencement address at University Commencement on Wednesday, May 13, 7 p.m. in Sun Devil Stadium. ... ASU Commencement will be broadcast live over the Internet and on ASUtv, so that everyone can watch it, particularly those family and friends who cannot attend the event in person."
As had been reported widely, and been debated by some, the President will also give the commencement address at Notre Dame University and will receive an honorary degree in Juris Prudence.
In its infinite wisdom, however, ASU has decided NOT to confer upon the President an honorary degree.
Apparently the committee which invites the speaker is not the same committee which makes the decision regarding whom will be honored with an honorary degree.
The Associated Press reports that when ASU was asked about what appears to be a dis of the President, Sharon Keeler, University Spokeswoman said: "It's our practice to recognize an individual for his body of work, somebody who's been in their position for a long time," ... "His body of work is yet to come. That's why we're not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency."
An editorial in the East Valley Tribune of Arizona notes that while ASU has conferred honorary degrees on many long term politicians over the years, ASU has conferred degrees on politicians with more meager achievements than President Obama including "Barry Goldwater ...only eight years into his three decades as a U.S. senator...Sandra Day O'Connor ... just three years in her 25 years on the U.S. Supreme Court...and Kim Campbell, the first woman to be Canadian prime minister."
So, Arizona State University awards honorary degrees for "his body of work, somebody who's been in [his] position for a long time;" an Arizona Senator by serving eight years, yes; a woman becoming the first female Canadian prime minister, yes: a woman serving three years on the US Supreme Court, yes: a man being elected in a landslide the first African-American President, no; the same President tackling, apparently successfully so far the worst financial crisis in America since the depression, no.
Of course, I am not suggesting that this decision might be a throwback to Arizona Governor Evan Mecham's rescinding of the state holiday honoring Martin Luther King. (An action defended then by John McCain.)
And of course, I am not suggesting that the decision has anything to do with the fact that Arizona is home to Senator John McCain. That would simply be too simple an answer.
The answer is that it sheer stupidity and hypocrisy.
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A couple of weeks ago my wife and I traveled to Boston to see the Boston Bruins take on the New Jersey Devils at the TD Banknorth Garden. We had great seats and watched a thoroughly enjoyable game as the "B's" trounced their Eastern Division rivals.
On infrequent previous trips to Boston we had been faced with a 2-3 hour drive and the time-consuming and expensive prospect of finding a parking space for our car. This time we decided to try the train.
The train experience was enjoyable. Buying tickets was a simple process (I do advise buying seats well in advance, particularly if one desires to travel "business class", which offers more seat space in return for a few more dollars). The train left and arrived on time, with the exception of the return trip which was delayed for approximately ten minutes to avoid conflict with another train. The ride was comfortable and the train personnel were polite and efficient. Route stops took only a few minutes each. Light meals and refreshments were conveniently available and reasonably priced.
The Downeaster arrives at North Station, which is perfect for attending Garden events and we had plenty of time and energy to take advantage of the proximity of the Aquarium and other nearby attractions before the game started. The total round-trip costs were slightly more than if we had traveled by automobile but I consider the comfort and convenience to be an acceptable tradeoff and likely will choose the train for future trips.
I can recall train trips that I took as a teenager that allowed me to depart from and arrive at the Brunswick train station and connect with nearly any other destination. In those days (the 1950's) trains were an important part of Maine's transportation system.
Part of the President's stimulus bill includes funding for Amtrak and hopefully will result in improvement in the rail system here in our state. There are those who are not in favor of "subsidizing" Amtrak, claiming that a system that cannot pay for itself should not be propped up by taxpayer funding (a somewhat specious argument, considering the "bailout funds" that are currently flowing like water through the economy).
I have lived and traveled in Europe, where a heavily-subsidized rail transportation system is utilized extensively for the movement of passengers and goods. Massive gasoline taxes encourage this form of transport. Automobiles are effectively a luxury and Europeans in general do not tend to spend a lot of time driving.
In America, thanks to an interstate highway system developed during the fifties and sixties and greatly expanded over the decades, automotive transport is most commonly used. And yet, we have great concerns these days with "carbon footprints" and other evidence of environmental damage, gasoline-powered vehicles being a major culprit.
Would it not make more sense to refurbish and renew rail transport facilities, thereby reducing wear and tear on our highway systems and employing a more efficient system to move people, goods and materials? For that matter, how about moving more goods and materials up and down the coast by barge?
I suspect that there would be objections voiced that such methods would be, "too time consuming" or not "cost-efficient".
To be sure, such a quantum shift would be met with resistance by the trucking lobby and various unions. But restoring a rail transport system would certainly provide a significant infusion of new jobs and make an impact on environmental protection standards (not to mention more recruiting opportunities for unions).
Seems to me that there are more pros than cons; for instance, for all practical purposes the Downeaster appears to be a success.
The Associated Press reports that the head of the New Hampshire Office of Consumer Affairs "was "astounded" at the size of FairPoint Communication's work order backlog.
At the beginning of April, FairPoint had a work order backlog of 13,000 across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. The Nashua Telegraph reported, "By FairPoint's own admission, some 1,300 of those people have been waiting more than 30 days." Some of the customers waiting for service in New Hampshire for telephone service or repair included "elderly people with medical needs."
The President of FairPoint, Peter Nixon, predicted that the service order backlog and the telephone customer service issues would be resolved by the end of June.
Meredith Hatfield, the Consumer Advocate of New Hampshire countered:
"What is the plan to remedy this immediately?" "There are significant defects even for common retail and wholesale transactions. What about the people who need plain old telephone service? When will these be fixed? June 30 is far too late."
A lawyer for the New Hampshire commission criticized FairPoint's plan to rectify the problems: "There is little or nothing in the plan addressing how the systems, processes and people will actually achieve their goals."
To repeat: "There is little or nothing...addressing how... the systems, processes and people will actually achieve their goals."
During the Ice Storm of 1998, CMP and Bangor Hydro brought in 1000s of power workers from across the country to bring the State back on line; even then it took nearly two weeks to finish the job. This winter, after a severe ice storm in Southern New Hampshire, crews were again came in from as far away as the midwest.
The electrical workers came because of a mutual aid agreement; in the case of a natural disaster, crews from one part of the country are dispatched to the affected area.
However, FairPoint's problems are not the result of a natural disaster; rather they are the result of a corporate disaster.
It is a disaster made by a company with just 300,000 customers in 17 states on March 31 2008 which was simply unqualified to take on an additional 1.6 million customers in Northern New England.
"I argue today, as I did a year ago, that it is my humble opinion, that neither "the PUC nor FairPoint has the management, the technical abilities or the horsepower to oversee or to make this transition from Verizon to FairPoint successful. Northern New England is already behind MA, CT and RI technologically, and we don't need FairPoint's failures to cause us to fall even further behind.""
Although the PUCs of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont hired Liberty Consulting Group of Pennsylvannia to monitor FairPoint's progress over the last year, somehow both the well paid Liberty Consulting and the Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont PUCs either did not know of FairPoint's backlog until February or failed to act on warnings they had received.
It is now time to formally admit that FairPoint has failed the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont in every aspect.
FairPoint had a year to plan for the actual transfer of the lines from Verizon, but it was not ready on January 1 2009.
It was not ready for the transfer of the email account transfers from Verizon.
It was not ready for the transfer of billing from Verizon.
In my earlier blog, I called the FairPoint failure a case of a "goldfish attempting to swallow a whale."
Just two weeks later, I realize I was being too generous.
This goldfish did not make a single serious attempt to swallow the whale; it had a year to prepare and didn't even nibble.
FairPoint's failure to serve the citizens of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont has gone beyond the point where we can give FairPoint until June 30 to admit yet another failure.
The citizens of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont deserve a working, reliable telecommunication voice and internet system; we need to have phones and internet installed and fixed in a timely basis, and we need to know that our telecommunication company can survive financially.
The Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont PUCs and Liberty Consulting of Pennsylvania bear a great deal of the blame for not seeing this massive failure coming, even from day one when tiny Fairpoint with just 300,000 customers proposed to buy Verizon's 1.6 million Northern New England voice and internet customers.
Reliable telecommunication is now a necessity.
The Governors of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont must remove this very serious failure from the purview of the state PUCs.
The PUCs are simply not up to a train wreck of this magnitude.
The Governors must guarantee the citizens of their states that we will have a working telecommication company by June 1, or the Governors must find a telecommunications company or a management company can do what FairPoint cannot.
Update 4/5
After posting this blog, I ran across this April 1 2009 postmortem report from the Liberty Consulting Group on the NH PUC site. It appears to have been prepared in response to the Maine PUC request for a response plan from FairPoint.
While the report is not detailed enough to answer my critical questions -- such as how did the work order backlog get to 24,000 without anyone anticipating the backlog -- the report concludes with several recommendations including:
"There is currently a lack of unified senior executive leadership at FairPoint to guide the planning and execution of structured, programmatic actions to expedite its return to a normal business operating environment. ….There are a number of ways to rectify this problem, ranging from using outside resources with expertise in similar situations to help FairPoint with the analysis and problem resolution up to and including permanent executive level change."
The report also indicates how inadequate Liberty's oversight of FairPoint was: "Liberty has not yet completed a root cause analysis of why the widespread problems are occurring despite FairPoint's extensive preparations and training."
Liberty was paid WELL to anticipate and warn the PUCs of the likelihood of these problems arising, not to wonder months later WHY they occurred.
This report alone supports my thesis that Liberty and the PUCs are way over their heads.
It is not time now for Liberty and the PUCs to be diagnosing how and why FairPoint failed.
It is my humble opinion that Liberty and the PUCs cannot muddle along analyzing the past any more; the state Governments, and not the backward looking PUCs and Liberty must chart a path to our telecommunications future.
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Some of the recent Legislative news from Augusta convinces me that a dearth of common sense is not limited to Washington.
First, we have the current promotion for "tax relief" trumpeted by the State's Democratic leadership, a "revenue neutral" proposal that promises a boon for Maine's income tax payees.
Let me state without reservation that I do not believe anything that this group says, particularly when they insist that the public will benefit. I base this antagonistic viewpoint upon the multitude of broken past promises that for decades have been the hallmark of the Democrat-controlled Legislature.
Their plan is to make eligible for Maine's sales tax a multitude of heretofore exempt service activities such as food, lodging, ski lifts, movies, concerts, auto repairs, hair dressers, attorneys, accountants and on and on. The emphasis is placed on new taxes for the "entertainment" sector where supposedly the burden will mostly fall upon tourists. Considering that the tourist season is active for only a part of the year and the majority of people subject to the new taxes all year long will be Maine residents, presentation is specious from its inception. An additional inherent danger is that such taxes will encourage out-of-state visitors to take their business to more tourist-friendly environments such as New Hampshire.
Supposedly the revenues from all of these new taxes will make up the difference from reducing the State Income Tax from 8.5% to 6.5%; thereby the "revenue neutral" claim. The Legislature envisions basking in the accolades generated by their implementation of "tax reform".
Can anyone really swallow this malarkey? Since when has any Legislative meddling in the tax structure ever resulted in a true "revenue neutral" result, let alone a real benefit for the tax payers?
All of the projected savings and revenues are purely speculative at this point, subject to the variances of a declining economy. The numbers can be cooked in the usual Augusta fashion to provide any results that the government needs to bolster its actions. My suspicion is that careful examination of this proposal, particular attention being paid to the large increase in the number of goods and services subject to the sales tax, will reveal that Maine residents who can least afford increases in their cost of living will be affected the most. Keep in mind that one out of every four people in our state is collecting welfare and will not benefit from any decrease in the income tax obligation.
This proposal is a poster child for the law of unintended consequences, the most harmful of which is an increase in the overall tax obligations of our citizens. "Revenue neutral" is the same old cloak that the Legislature has employed for years to cover their insatiable thirst for spending to cover their social engineering agenda. It is even more disturbing to see Legislators who should know better, such as R-Peter Mills, supporting this travesty.
Second, we have a truly mind-boggling proposal by Rep. Alfond (D-Portland) to allow non-citizens to vote in our elections under the guise of "community participation". I find the motivation behind this concept truly difficult to understand. The constitutionality of such a law is highly questionable, but the utter disregard of the value of citizenship is for me the most disturbing aspect of this asinine idea.
How can someone be part of a community if they have shown flagrant disregard for the laws of the nation that they have selected to live in? Admittedly there are those who have followed the rules and immigrated legally, but for the majority of them their goal is eventual citizenship and they work hard to obtain that benefit. Without the status of citizenship an immigrant has made no true commitment to their new country and their status is therefore temporary.
I submit that such an individual has no right to be part of the decision-making process that will affect the lives of legal residents of any community, local or national. What is to prevent any individual or group, immigrants legal or illegal, potentially or actively subversive, from undermining the rights of our American citizens?
Rep. Alfond, unfortunately, is an active participant in the movement engineered by members of the radical Left to denigrate the laws, values, mores and social structure that have built and supported America.
I doubt that his actions reflect the feelings of the majority of his constituents. They would do well to remember this intransigence come time for re-election.
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