The [Governor’s Commission on Climate Change] report opened with a familiar invocation of Vermont’s stellar environmental reputation, stating that in its response to the challenge of climate change, “Vermont can make an enormous difference and serve as a model for the region, nation, and the world.”
So [...]
Our junior senator is attempting to put the blocks to Ben Bernanke's reappointment as head of the Federal Reserve. This puts Senator Sanders among what he might consider an uncomfortable alliance with free market fundamentalists. The Austrian school of economics is associated, in this country, [...]
Sunday’s Burlington Free Press ran a story about the gathering of House Democrats and the financial issues confronting Vermont.
"I know it is easy to look at the challenges ahead and get down,"[Speaker Shap] Smith told the gathering of Democratic lawmakers Saturday at the [...]a good deal when it sees one?
Representatives from Green Mountain Power and Central Vermont Public Service told lawmakers Friday morning that they are still negotiating with Entergy for a new power contract while also planning for an energy future without the nuclear power plant.
Still, both companies, which bring electricity to the homes and [...]
"A date which will live in infamy."
Machinist's Mate Scott was one of more than 2,400 Americans – mostly from the Navy and Marines – who were killed in the Japanese [...]
by Art Woolf
The state of Vermont helps to insure our safety by protecting us from, among other evils,
buying beer with too much alcohol
and
wine that we might like to have shipped to our home.
(look at the very bottom of the page where it lists states to which delivery is [...]
by Art Woolf
The prospect of a 25 percent increase in property taxes over the next three years is a wake-up call to any public official who still harbors doubts that Vermont is in a fiscal crisis.
Burlington Free Press editorial
That's incorrect. Suppose you own a house worth $100,000 and' [...]
On December 5, 1933 the 21st amendment was ratified, the first and only time any amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the 18th) has ever been repealed. That, of course, was the amendment that implemented Prohibition, a law that told the American people that [...]
As your humble correspondent noted on Monday, even before the "Climategate" scandal erupted a couple weeks ago, the entire "rolling-and-building global warming / climate change" meme was already in self-inflicted deep trouble - as this very frustrated article from (the decidedly Euro-leftist magazine) [...]
Last week, for my Thanksgiving contribution, I included a little story about recently (finally) finding some relatives who had somehow managed to survive the brutal, rancid, murderous communist period in Albania.
The (uncaptioned) photo at the top of that piece is a photo of enraged, "free" [...]
"I have been in this business of politics for 30 years now, I have never seen such angst that you see across the country. People are angry and they're going to take it out on incumbents.
So says Terry McAuliffe.
Well, one can always hope. Especially when there is no change.
'" [...]Public organizations supported by taxpayer dollars should be careful who does their bidding, and who paints the image they want the public to see. Two Vermont organizations, the Vermont State Employees Association [VSEA] and the Vermont-NEA, demonstrate why.
Yesterday, the Douglas Administration and the [...] Bad & Getting Worse
by
Hugh Kemper
Tax Commissioner Westman’s December 1st letter with accompanying charts to the Legislature should come as no surprise to Vermont Tiger readers. Based on available projections for the Education Fund through FY12, the bottom line is simply this- if voters [...]
Darren Allen, spokesman for the Vermont-NEA, rejected Lunderville's assessment and said the administration is ... using the bad economy as a "weapon" against public employees.
Herald
What [Secretary of Administration] Neale Lunderville said to get Allen's knickers in a twist was that yesterday's agreement by the [...]
From a press release of some importance, released a little earlier this afternoon:
Governor and Administration Secretary Announce Contract Agreement with State Employees Union
Two-year contract calls for 3% wage reduction with no automatic yearly wage adjustments or step increases
Good news only in the sense that it shows an awareness of the [...]
7 Days has a recent article regarding the empty spaces in the Winooski development project.
The empty retail space is a lot less about the specific site in Winooski than it is about the economic climate in VT. It's not just the national economic [...]
The teachers' union is not unaware of the recession. And it realizes that during these hard times, we are all in this together. While it resists – absolutely, resolutely, and to the death – pay cuts, renegotiation of contracts, salary freezes, and so forth –' [...]
about the jobs summit:
A senior White House official — perhaps the president — will give a welcome pep talk to the 130 gathered “summiteers.” He’ll ply them with thanks and stirring patriotic words.
But then he’ll urge them to not waste the day in conference fuzzy talk. Instead, the summiteers should turn [...]
by Art Woolf
I plead guilty to authoring the part of the recent Ethan Allen Institute Report on education cost and quality that dealt with school outcomes. To analyze and compare Vermont's education outcomes, the relevant comparison to make is not the U.S. as a whole, but the non-minority U.S.' [...]
Conservative Ethan Allen Institute, in report, says school choice could save state millions
headline, Time Argus, December 1.
No doubt readers of the paper appreciated that warning. We just wonder if we'll ever see a headline that reads:
Liberal Vermont Public Interest Research Group,' [...]
They say you never really know someone and evidently this is true. Three years now, Art Woolf and I have been working on this website together. We talk or exchange e-mails almost every day and sometimes talk several times during the day. I'm always' [...]
Vermont has problems. There is a shortage of money; a surplus of commitments. The gap between the two will, inevitably, be shrunk. One way or another. It would be difficult to find anyone in the state who would deny this. Even senior members of the legislature [...]
I try to be optimistic about the fiscal problems facing our state and nation. But the news continues to be bad. Last week, we learned that mortgage delinquencies continue to soar, with nearly one in ten homeowners having trouble making their monthly [...]
What percentage of your home energy comes from electricity? Take a guess.
If you’re like me, you way overestimated. A typical Vermont household gets about 16% of its energy from electricity, 53% from home heating oil, and 31% from gasoline. The estimate is based on annual use [...]
Under the category, “I can’t believe what I am reading,” this appeared on the web site of Fox News:
Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq— the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security [...]
I'll contribute something a little different, particularly this year.
My grandparents came to the United States from Albania - and mercifully, they managed to leave before Albania descended into the hell of the rancid, murderous, criminal communist regime of the red fascist dictator Enver' [...]
by Chris Campion
I would like to wish every Tiger reader out there a happy and safe Thanksgiving. This year, I’m again thankful to have a family that is supportive and forgiving. Their support has enabled me to achieve things that would have been unthinkable for me 7-8 years ago.
Happy Gobblin’!
Chris
The early years in Plymouth were hard, with 45 of the 102 settlers dying during their first winter of 1620-21. Governor Bradford realized that the settlement's organization needed to be changed from one based on what today we might call communitarianism to one' [...]
By Daniel Foty
Picking up the thread from yesterday's update, in the comments section following his Monday column, Mr. Monbiot adds the following:
"I apologise. I was too trusting of some of those who provided the evidence I championed. I would have been a better journalist if I had investigated their claims more'" [...]Two weeks ago, Sen. Bernie Sanders demanded that the Treasury Secretary identify financial giants – enterprises that were considered too big to fail -- and break them up. He proposed a bill to dismantle giant banks, insurance companies, and hedge funds that could wreck [...]
This is the game President Obama has been playing and he is using our (yours and mine) money to increase the anti.
AARP was originally against this Healthcare until they [...]
The "Climategate" scandal continues to swirl and build; for today, we'll just note an astounding admission.
George Monbiot has long been one of the fiercest "enforcers" (polemicists) in the warmenista camp. But writing in Monday's Guardian (a British newspaper of the very-left), he pens [...]
Much of what the public “knows” about the bill is inaccurate, fed by distortions, and worse, by defenders of the status quo.
So says our senior senator, speaking to the Burlington Free Press. And he may be correct in the limited sense that most people [...]
Granted, Vermont dairy farmers are in a terrible pickle. Prices for their products are way down (in part due to the tremendous reduction in international demand for milk caused by the financial crisis and economic recession) and their costs keep going up. But it's' [...]
Senator Mary Landrieu has those good Louisiana political genes. Like the Kingfish, Eddie Edwards, and her father, Moon – who served as mayor of New Orleans – Senator Landrieu gets it that politics is about making the best deal you can for your people. As for [...]
Who Can Help & How
by
Hugh Kemper
Last Thursday’s article addressed the imperative need to reduce K-12 education spending to levels consistent with providing a quality education and restoring Vermont’s financial viability. This piece addresses what voters can do to help reduce education spending by doing their [...]
Illinois Democratic Rep. Danny Davis, a member of the Congressional subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service (and, until recently, its chairman), told CBSNews.com in an interview that the agency "is between a rock and a hard place."
Ah, yes. The felicity of the phrasing could come only from a member of the [...]
Geoffrey Norman, Chris Campion, Art Woolf, Gregory J. Decker, Daniel Foty, Tom Evslin, Mike Smith
