If the total carbon output of Vermont’s miniscule population disappeared tomorrow, it would have virtually no scientifically registerable impact on climate change. In exchange the only thing we’d accomplish would be to drive a substantial portion of our population into financial distress.
Vermont finally undertook to shore up its underfunded, overpromising pensions system in Act 114. Unfortunately, vulnerabilities have exposed the pensions system to a profound blow in the recent stock market slide — the Act 114 “fix” will not come close to fixing this problem.
So I say to current legislators, for the benefit of the institution of a citizen legislature, please accept the temporary financial discomfort, serve your time honorably, and then go back to gainful employment as thousands of legislators past and present have done.
Farewell to Scary Mary. As Thomas Jefferson sagely said, “error of opinion can be tolerated where reason is free to combat it.”
During the 2021 legislative session, a group of Vermont senators, all Democrats, introduced bill S.63, which would “prohibit Vermont schools from contracting for the services of school resource officers (SRO).” What is wrong with these people?
What we’re seeing now is not so much a search for effective solutions but a political campaign by Democrats to make people believe that those awful Republicans are blocking a solution — without explaining just what solution holds any promise at all of preventing the next shooting.
As an independent, one who has at least some knowledge of firearms, here is my offering to the policy conversation. Hopefully we can expand the framing of the debate to create some middle ground to actually move both parties into.
France, Finland and Norway all have much smaller populations than the U.S.: 65 million for France and about 5 million each for Finland and Norway. As it happens, each had fewer mass shootings to batter the nation’s psyche, but on a per capita scale, the results were more sobering.
Those 29 examples raise the question: When should stare decisis justify continuing a ruling in force, and when should a questionable case be overturned in light of changing facts, arguments and consequences?
It is not the peasants with sheep who are nibbling down societal resources to naught — it is the runaway government. The fox is rapaciously feeding in the government henhouse, both locally and nationally. And the Achilles Heel of the economy is monetary supply.
Among other things, the model (I suggested the town of Arlington) would consider timing to weatherize homes and businesses, the dollars it would take to complete, and where the labor would come from to do the work.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation released a report this week evaluating the possibility of blackouts, saying that there is a “high risk of energy emergencies during peak summer conditions” in many parts of the country.