Susan Bysiewicz at the Milford DTC

Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz addressed the Milford Democratic Town Committee meeting tonight.

Pictured above (with 118th District Rep. Barbara Lambert), Susan discussed the many problems facing the state of Connecticut that aren't being effectively addressed by Gov. M. Jodi Rell. Susan's experience as our Secretary of State has proven her ability to work with members of both parties, and her successful background in the private sector has shown she can effectively manage the executive office.

Susan discussed many practical ways to successfully lead the state, and we look forward to her continuing the dialog with the people of Connecticut as she campaigns for governor. Susan's campaign website is Susan2010.com.

Seal Video

Here he is, fresh from Long Island Sound!


He seemed well-fed and contented. I would guess he'll stick around a little longer, then continue on his way.

The Harbor Seal & Me

Late this morning I saw in the online edition of the paper that a harbor seal was visiting Milford, so I drove over to Silver Sands to see if he was still there.

The li'l fella is about 5 feet long and obviously healthy. He was snoozing for the first 15 minutes after I got there, but then he started lazily rolling around, chewing on shells, and then he put his nose in the water, trying to eat snails. Every so often he'd cast a glance at the big funny animals who walked around nearby on their hind legs, but mostly he ignored us.

I shot a lot of video, so check back later today when I post it. The crowd kept back at least 20 feet or so, having been notified that the seal is a protected species and it's against the law to interact with him. Plus, he's got a mouth full of teeth that I bet would easily snap your fingers off.

I called CT Joyce and told her about him, and she almost went crazy with jealousy because she was stuck in work. She loves sea animals, so hopefully the cute fella will still be there when she gets out later today.

UPDATE: Joyce called a couple hours later and said she was able to get to the beach after lunch and she saw the little beast. She's very happy now.

The video should be online by 6PM tonight.

My Ustream channel

I've been exploring Optimum wifi recently, and today I tested a fully portable, battery-only remote streaming video setup, and it was a success.

As long as I had a good strong signal, that is. Ustream tends to really need a solid wifi connection in order to stay connected to the video server, and any time my wifi signal got less then four bars, the video stream would drop. Four or five bars seem pretty reliable. Laptop, video camera, firewire cable (a USB camera will work, too), and wifi connection is all you need to get started. I also used my external mic since the audio is PC based, so I plugged the mic into my computer.

I managed to broadcast live video from a bench right in front of City Hall for five minutes, but then I started getting cold so I left. Jesus, I don't know why I need to do this stuff in the freezing cold!

Anyway, my Ustream channel is called "CTBob" (naturally), and even though there's no content uploaded yet here's the link: http://www.ustream.tv/CTBob

Depending on which events are coming up, I may be broadcasting live video in the near future. And I'll have the ability to record and store video on the channel, for later broadcast.

An honest Republican

This guy (Gov. John Huntsman of Utah) is not going to be very popular with his party if he keeps on telling the truth like this. Quick! Somebody get him under control!

From DailyKos:

Line of the day

In a NY Times article called "Hold the Eulogies", Sen. Chris Dodd, commenting on the abundance of tributes and testimonials given to Sen. Ted Kennedy recently, had a great line this week:

“It’s the goal of every Irishman to be able to be a witness to your own eulogy,” said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut. “This is sheer heaven for him.”

Hearing Mr. Dodd’s words repeated on Friday, Mr. Kennedy let loose with a rollicking laugh.

Dodd absolutely wins "Line of the Day" for that wonderful quip. Well done, Senator!

Local Wifi in southern Connecticut

This is so cool! About a week ago we had a power outage on my street, but I saw there was power on the avenue right near our house. So I fired up the laptop to look for a working wireless router that I might be able to sneakily hook up to.

Sadly, nearly all of them had security enabled, except for the one that said "Optimum Wifi". For the hell of it I clicked on it, and it asked for my Optimum password. I didn't even know my password, so I called Cablevision.

It turns out this little box hanging from the wires above is a wifi access point, located about 100 feet from my house.

When I visited the Optimum website, I saw that they are now offering wifi service to Optimum customers in many locations throughout Fairfield and New Haven counties, along with southern NY state. By going to the website you can access an interactive Google map that shows all the APs throughout the area. The web address for the map is in the graphic below.

I checked, and they have wifi service that covers many schools and public buildings in town, so my laptop has access where my district DTC meets, along with City Hall and many other convenient locations.

The great thing about this is that for doing cool things like live streaming video or live blogging an important meeting. I even see that the marina where I keep my boat has wifi coverage! So you'll know where you can find me when the weather's nice!

I guess I'm going to bite the bullet and figure out how to live stream video, so I'll be ready to broadcast special events. Like important public meetings, or the local St. Patrick's parade, for instance.

Yay, now I got geeky things to learn today!

Screw the Seniors?

The word is clear from the Rell budget proposal -- screw the seniors. As a nurse, I am very interested in the health care proposals, and right now there are too many moving parts to really make much sense of things.

But let's start the discussion with some information about how seniors get health care. Medicare pays for hospitalization and for nursing home care -- but the nursing home is only covered for as long as the person is making daily progress / improvement. Home care -- nursing, therapy, aides to help with personal care -- are only covered by Medicare when the person is homebound (meaning their condition makes it too difficult for them to leave their home to access services) and for intermittent care that has some expectation of improvement so that the care will end at some point.

Medicare does not pay for nursing home care for folks who are not able to care for themselves at home and need to live in the nursing home. Medicaid, the state program for the poor, will pay for this residential care for seniors who spend down their assets or who don't have any assets to begin with.

It costs about $211/day to keep a person in a nursing home, or about $75,00o/year. In 2006, the most recent year for which data is available, 68% of CT's long-term care expenditures went to institutional care for 49% of the people served. The other 51% percent of poor seniors were helped at home, with 32% of expenditures. That means we can keep people in their homes for half the cost of putting them in nursing homes.

So what does Gov. Rell want to do? Reduce the funding of this home care program. These poor seniors are not going away -- and if she pulls the funding for home care, the state will be on the hook for care that costs twice as much in nursing homes.

Can someone explain to me how this makes sense?

Photos from Jim Himes's new office

U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, tonight cut the ribbon for his new district office at 211 State St. in downtown Bridgeport.

His office is on the 2nd floor of the old Court Exchange building, an historic downtown structure.

The place was packed with well-wishers and supporters.

Bpt. Mayor Bill Finch was on hand to help with the ribbon cutting ceremony.

Jim, as usual, spent a lot of time listening to his constituents.

Bridgeport's Mr. and Miss Puerto Rico were on hand to help celebrate the new Congressional office.

The ribbon cutting ceremony. I somehow managed to hold off making an insipid "running with scissors" joke. I'm so proud of myself.

OK, so the possessive form of "Himes" is "Himes's". I was never too sure about how to deal with that, but this sign looks official enough for me.

Jim's actual office is rather spartan at this point. But it has a nice view of State and Broad. And he'll eventually find artwork to add to the several framed Bridgeport scenes in his office.

The office spans the front of the building, and includes these really cool windows.

It was a fun event. Of course, if I wasn't currently on a diet, I would have stayed longer and helped demolish some of the food and beverage they had, including the big tasty cookies which almost got me. But I was a good boy and resisted, and I think there's a decent chance I'll meet my New Year's Resolution by June.

(Great, now I'm starving! I'm gonna go eat one lousy diet cookie and drink some Crystal Light!)

Ned Lamont discusses Rell, economy

(Ned Lamont in 2006)
Spazeboy is blogging again, and he examined the recent talk Ned gave at Central Connecticut State University:
--------------------------------------------------
Ned Lamont spoke about the Connecticut economy yesterday at CCSU, and he had some harsh criticism for Governor Rell and her handling of the budget:

“We’re not bankrupt, but we’ve been flat as a pancake for a generation,” he said of the state economy.

Unlike Rell, who has flat-funded education, Obama has proposed increased spending for priorities such as education and health care, he said.

“We haven’t added any new jobs and many young people are leaving,” Lamont said of Connecticut.

He called her budget — $38.3 billion over two years with cuts meant to correct predicted billion-dollar deficits — a smattering of quick fixes with little in the way of important changes.

[...]

Rell recommended that people turn out lights when leaving their offices and not travel out of state as a way of paying down the deficit. Lamont hit at her intention to borrow against the state’s rainy-day fund.

“Her plan is extraordinarily shortsighted, and you young people should be outraged because they’ve borrowed against your future,” he said to the students.

I am delighted to see Ned daring to criticize Governor Rell and her short-sighted budget. Actually, it’s not really all that daring, it only seems so because Democratic leadership in the state isn’t doing it. Then again, we’re talking about the same folks who were too scared to even censure Joe Lieberman after he stabbed them in the back, repeatedly.

In any case, Ned’s criticisms of Rell and the budget are spot on.

Education is the safest investment in town. It is critically important not to underfund or flat-fund our state’s institutions of higher education, because the Community College System and the State University System will play a vital role in helping Connecticut residents–and by extension, Connecticut itself–bounce back in the years to come.

It is downright shameful that Governor Rell is demanding these kinds of short-sighted cuts before considering any avenues for increasing revenue. By doing so, she is putting her bid for re-election before both the short and long-term welfare of the state. For an accidental governor, this lack of leadership and abundance of poor judgment could be excused but for the fact that she sought and won re-election.

In her 2006 campaign, she “stayed away from any flashy campaign promises,” according to this NY Times bio. Who would have thought that promising nothing meant we might actually end up with it?