To be or or not to be (30 times)

One week from today is the primary for Massachusetts state/federal candidates.  It will be very interesting to see ho well the winning candidates do in the primary.  For some, it is the de facto election, for others, it will be an indication of just how much work remains for them.

The big election, the Senate race, has nor primary.  I have been thinking about that for a few weeks.  While most candidates prefer to avoid a primary, there are occasions where one might benefit from one.  In this particular election I am not sure about the benefit for the Democrats, but one can ponder that it might have helped.  

Elizabeth Warren would have been campaigning toward obtaining toward the same goal, while avoiding the bulk of the counter arguments from the real opposition.  The primary focus (election and attention) would have been on the democratic candidates, and there would have been more, much more, attention on the democrats theme in press coverage, and quite frankly less attention in the press about Senator Scott Brown, the Republican incumbent.

She would have only had to run directly against the Senator for two months.  She most probably would have avoided the pitfall of the "no negative" ads promise.  I know, we all hate negative ads, but right about now I am guessing that there are more than some scratching their heads over the corner the dems have gotten painted into.

There would have been a unified theme as to why Brown shouldn't be re-elected, with again, in my opinion anyway, that theme getting a whole lot of attention, all the while limiting the ability to counter it.  

Just a thought.

I have also be thinking about what to do about the birds and bats being killed by the turbines issue raised in the press the last few days.  I read and heard there are actual pictures, but haven't seen them.  According to the article in the Standard Times, the paper received photos showing one dead bird and two dead bats. The only other numbers I have heard or read about are in general terms, i.e. a slew of them.

Is there more evidence?  If not, the only thing this type of claim does is continue to desensitize the public.

Will there or have there been bird and bat kills as a result of the turbines?  I would have to imagine the answer would be yes.  The number of "kills" and the types would have to be known to start significant concern.

We can discuss the issue of whether one or just a few are one or a few too many.  We can, but we won't.

Call it cold heart if you want, but I think for most people, they will need to see evidence of a real "slew" of dead creatures before this becomes an issue.

A potential issue looming is the proposed additional solar farm on Alden Road.  See the Fairhaven Neighborhood News article (8/30/2012 edition, page 4) on the Selectmen's meeting.  I am not going to put words into someone's mouth, because as I noted in a prior piece I didn't quite grasp the whole conversation.

What I will say is I think from the get go we all need to be aware of whether any additional project will in fact be required to obtain Town Meeting approval, either by law or by agreement of the Selectmen. It becomes extremely significant as there seems to be the option of proceeding under one of two sets of laws.  A c. 30B contract requires a substantially different process than a c. 25A contract.

I also think the Town needs to take a hard look at just how much of a utility company we want to be, or need to be.

I haven't seen the RFP draft, but seems to me from what I heard, it was not to be a 30B, but again, I admittedly was a bit perplexed.