Saturday night, the President took a poke at an easy, populist target: Wall Street.
"I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street," Mr Obama said. "They're still puzzled why it is that people are mad at the'" [...]
After Governor Douglas’ press conference last week, there was the usual scrum of reporters and administration officials in the hallway of the fifth floor of the Pavilion Building in Montpelier. The Governor had just said that Vermont cannot and must not sit around waiting for another Stimulus Bill [...]
If you've been wondering what kind of "adjustments" could have been made by "climate scientists" to conjure up "warming," read this very nice piece by Willis Eschenbach. Mr. Eschenbach presents a very lucid reconstruction of how the raw data from the airport in' [...]
... even though there are 10,000 fewer students in Vermont today than there were in 2000, school spending is projected to increase at about 2 percent a year for the next three years ...
* * *
... Vermonters will likely have to pay much more for an education system whose [...]
Like the continual drip from the faucet, we keep being reminded that Vermont’s labor force is the nation’s oldest, that our school age population continues its rapid decline, that our birth rate is among the nation’s lowest, that our taxes are high, and [...]
I've been assuming that the state's General Fund will have a baseline budget deficit of $88 million for FY11. That's based on data from August posted on the Legislature's Joint Fiscal Office website. A month ago, Senator Shumlin said that the [...]
We hear a lot about how Vermont should "lead the way" on this or that. How we should show the nation how to do single-payer health care and the world how to soften its carbon footprint. Big dreams for a small state. And not likely to [...]
Several readers have alerted us to this column by Mark Steyn. Mr. Steyn, of course, has a gift for the language and writes with uncommon wit. We tend to think that those who comment on large, important issues should be serious and, then, equate being serious [...]
To: Vermont Tiger readers
From: Geoffrey Norman
re: where the hell you been
This morning's storm took out two very old, very tall pines and they took power, cable, and telephone with them. Will get back to business as soon as all of those are restored.
My apologies for the inconvenience though I' [...]
The Environmental Protection Agency Monday said greenhouse gases are a danger to the public’s health, next week more than 100 world leaders will meet in Copenhagen to gather commitments to limit these emissions, and in Vermont all five of the Democrats running for [...]
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' [...]
Staff Sergeant Philip Crosby exhibited extraordinary leadership and courage during his deployment from November 2007 to October 2008 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Crosby, assigned to 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, was serving as the assistant effects advisor for Military Transition Team 133, Multinational Force West.
His Military Transition [...]
President Obama has at this point conceded a number of policy issues to his predessor. He has maintained the so-called "domestic wiretap" program in place. He has used the "state secrets" defense. He has continued the practice of rendition.
And although he famously made a pledge to [...]
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 [...]
When President Obama gives his address to the nation tomorrow night on how he plans to go forward in Afghanistan, I want to hear him say that either he is all in or he's folding. I do not want him to say anything that resembles something halfway between the two.
I' [...]
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 [...]
You can find me at Shatter Nicely or All Things Hold Together (a craft blog).
Thanks for reading She’s Right!
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