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Taking Local Control of the Storm
The Health of our Water, our Property Values, and the General Fund depend on it. 
By James Ehlers

NPDES. MS4. NPS. 303(d). BMP. TMDL. CWA. 305(b). WWSRF. TSS. WWTP. NMP. EPA. The list of acronyms involved in water quality protection and enhancement is enough to send one running for cover, never mind the sometimes actual storm to which they may be related and the political storm to which they almost always are. I suppose that is what happens though when we look for a mammoth bureaucracy to address the problems that start in our own roof gutters and around gazing balls perched on our front lawn pedestals.

Saving the Planet Through Higher Taxes
By John McClaughry

"Our planet's destruction" could be the consequence of Congress's failing to pass a sweeping energy tax, carbon regulation, and subsidy cornucopia bill this session, according to Senate leader Harry Reid.

The House has already passed the Waxman-Markey bill with all these features. In May Senate Democrats unveiled their version, called Kerry-Lieberman. Both sound a shrill alarm about greenhouse gas "pollution" and the Menace of Global Warming, but that increasingly derided term has now been replaced by "climate change", after Mother Earth refused to validate the UN's bogus computer models.
     
Crisis!!!  Real, Fake or Man-Made?
By Martin Harris

One of the observeable ways in which politicians prove that they’re destined –indeed, obligated-- to govern because they’re more intelligent and clever than the rest of us (the Progressive theorem) is their ability to produce a well-turned phrase. Case in point, from the Chicago School of Politics: "never let a crisis go to waste". Its author used just seven words to describe the skillful use of events to move public opinion toward his preferred ideological position. Historically, conspiracy theorists had invented, much earlier than the Emanuellian phrase, much shorter acronyms to express the same crisis-utilization concept: LIHOP and MIHOP. You’ll recognize these from the discussions of the Pearl Harbor attack almost 70 years ago and the discussions of the Twin Towers attack almost 10 years ago. I’d add a new one: MIWOP, to describe a situation wherein a politician, in the context of an ideological argument over public policy, chooses to create a fake crisis where none exists or to seize on a real crisis and, by deliberate action or inaction, taking steps to advance it, to Make It Worse On Purpose. In terms of political intent, it falls somewhere between Letting It Happen On Purpose, which was the accusation against FDR, or Making It Happen on Purpose, which is the accusation against GWB.

Featured Video Extra
Watch Rob Roper & Bill Sayre discuss Vermont Issues.

"It is sobering to reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence." 

– Charles A. Beard

The Sinews of Modern Prosperity
By Daniel Foty, Vermont Tiger, June 25, 2010

As part of this news story, the (English language) Moscow Times apparently asked Esther Dyson to pen a short column of advice for President Medvedev about this effort - and what it will really take.

This advice is directed at Russia - but it encapsulates in more general terms what it takes to build economic growth, prosperity, and social contentment in the contemporary world.  An excerpt:

Think of the project as a garden rather than a construction site. For this garden to grow, Russia must create the following conditions:

1. No killer weeds. Entrepreneurs must be free from blackmail, expropriations and other shakedowns.

2. Healthy seeds. Russia needs to attract and reward technical talent and scientists for good ideas.

3. Nutrients in the soil. There must be a steady source of good managers, businesspeople, and marketing and sales talent.

4. Careful gardeners and consumers. There must be mentors for entrepreneurs, as well as customers who buy the products and services on the basis of quality and price rather than bribes.

5. Cross-fertilization. There must be critical mass so that people can learn from and compete with each other.

6. Sunshine. There must be maximum transparency.

Inside Election 2010
By Fox 44 News

An overview of the various political races in 2010.

An Outrageous Share
By Chris Campion, Vermont Tiger, June 25, 2010

Our esteemed Senator Sanders (S - Brooklyn) uncorks another howler - he wants to make sure that the estate tax rates increase even more on the highest earners.  All in the interests of fairness, as determined by our patriarch: 

Mr. Sanders and his co-sponsors said, "It's time for multi-millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share." 

Sanders conveniently ignores the progressive tax rate, which ensures that higher earners already paid a "fair" share on their incomes over the course of their life.  The estate tax is simply a tax on what's left over after people have already paid taxes on their income.  Leave alone that the top 1% of income earners pay 40% of all income taxes collected, the top 10% pays 71%, the top 50% of income earners pays 97% - then we have to ask the question:  How much is enough, let alone "fair"?  Our gov't has the gall to insist on taxing income you've already paid income tax on while earning it or investing it.

Bridge Construction will Bring Jobs
From Denton Publications, June 25, 2010

Help Wanted: Labors to assist in the construction of the Lake Champlain Bridge.

The $69.6 million project to reconnect New York and Vermont is expected to create at least 200 jobs for local workers, according to officials.

A Bucket Brigade, Neighbors Helping Neighbors
From the Caledonia Record, June 21, 2010

It was a heart-warming story when we learned of a woman taking the time to stop and rescue an aimless steer with its head stuck in a bucket. He couldn't see where he was going and was in danger of wandering into the road or stepping into a hole and tumbling down. Mary Batten, of Hale Road in Waterford, jumped out of her car and, after guessing what a farmer would say to get the steer and a companion to stop walking away ("Come on, boys!"), she grabbed the bucket and held on until he could pull his head out of it. She said the steer looked back at her in gratitude.

Crunching Numbers for Crunch Time
By Hugh Kemper, Vermont Tiger, June 25, 2010

Education Commissioner Vileseca has written a  memo alerting School Boards/Superintendents and others to Challenges for Change’s target for reducing FY 2012 education spending by $23.2 million or by 2%.  Putting this target in perspective – if Vermont K-12, the most staff intensive public school system in the country, were to reduce teacher/teacher aide staffing alone to levels of the second most staff intensive system, savings would approximate $86 million or 3.7 times the target reduction.

In short, this savings target is eminently achievable – a slam dunk so to speak - and should be viewed as just the beginning of an effort to put K-12 spending on a rationale and sustainable basis.

Hot off the Press
by Art Woolf, Vermont Tiger, June 29, 2010

The U.S. Census Bureau today released its annual report Public Education Finances 2008... the comparisons between Vermont and the nation are stark.

From Elsewhere

Why The G20 Won't Listen To Obama
The U.S. president's message of spending is out of step with the other members.
By Andrew B. Busch, Forbes Magazine, June 25, 2010

Therefore, the call by President Obama to keep stimulating is at best ignored and at worst scoffed at by the G-20. But it's worse than that.

The U.S. is not only calling for more spending, but it is also failing to reduce its own deficit, which will reach $1.4 trillion in 2010. Now, the question becomes when will this come back to hurt the country?

Immediately. The U.S. loses its leadership position with the G-20 when it advocates measures that would harm those countries that followed its advice. Can any European nation risk additional stimulating or even delaying action on deficit reduction without a negative repercussion from the markets?

Bork: Kagan Not Qualified for Supreme Court
By Elisabeth Meinecke, Human Events, June 23, 2010

Judge Robert Bork said Elena Kagan’s admiration of Israeli Judge Aharon Barak is "disqualifying in and of itself" for her to sit on the Supreme Court.

Bork said Barak "may be the worst judge on the planet" because of his judicial activism and that the Israeli court under Barak was the "most activist court" he’d seen. Kagan has called Barak her judicial hero.

Bork said that if people understood that a U.S. Supreme Court nominee would follow Barak’s lead, there would be misgivings and "probably a refusal to confirm."

Soft Patch or Double-Dip?
By Larry Kudlow, National Review, June 23, 2010

The latest batch of lousy economic data took a sharp turn for the worse this morning with an awful report on new home sales for the month of May. New home sales plunged a record 33 percent to a record four-decade low. In addition, the April sales number was revised lower while inventories jumped from 5.8 months in April to 8.5. This ain’t good.

Making matters worse, existing home sales surprised on the downside yesterday with a 2 percent decline. Before that, we had big drops in housing starts and retail sales, and an upward tilt to weekly jobless claims. So it’s really no surprise that there’s a growing debate over whether we’re muddling through a soft patch, or whether a double-dip recession lies ahead. ...

As for me, I remain in the slow-growth camp. No double-dip, just slow, muddied growth. I also think an overly strong dollar — neglected by many on Wall Street — is interrupting the rate of recovery.

Medicare Havoc is Here - 50 Million Medicare Claims Get Trimmed
From ABC News, June 22, 2010

It’s been five days since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said there would be "havoc" in America if Congress could not act to stop a 21 percent pay cut for Medicare doctors.

Congress failed to act. Havoc is here; the 50 million claims that Medicare has gotten since the beginning of June have started processing and somewhere a Medicare doctor is looking at his direct deposit transaction and shaking his fist at Uncle Sam.

Feds Halt Work on LA Sand Berms
By Jeannie DeAngelis, American Thinker, June 24 2010

Sand berms are an insurance policy meant to protect the Louisiana coastline from oil spill damage. The Louisiana sand berm venture involves moving "sand from a mile out in the Gulf of Mexico and pumping it closer in to shore to build manmade barrier islands."

Nevertheless, lacking a more formidable idea and one week into the project the federal government decided to shut "down the dredging that was being done to create protective sand berms in the Gulf of Mexico." 

Related Articles:

Judge halts Obama's oil-drilling ban
Giant oil skimmer makes stop in Norfolk on way to Gulf oil cleanup

If helping the poor in developing nations is made more difficult by the public policy proposals of evangelical environmentalists, then these policies would also undercut the traditional evangelical strategy of using social ministry to win a favorable hearing for the gospel. Drastic reductions of carbon dioxide emissions call for sacrifice on the part of both rich and poor nations. The rich however, are better able to absorb these changes with only marginal adjustments to their lifestyle. The global poor face the more difficult choice. To poor nations, the choice between electricity from expensive and/or unreliable carbon neutral sources and inexpensive, reliable fossil fuel burning sources is no choice at all. If required to build only carbon neutral power plants, which they cannot afford, they will not have power at all. The result will be continued exposure to a wide range of environmental hazards that lead to disease, malnutrition, and early death.

To hear a Western (i.e., rich!) evangelical environmentalist tell the poor that they must sacrifice the technologies that would improve the length and quality of life for them and their families in order to achieve a merely speculative benefit they will never see can only make the poor less likely to listen to the gospel that the evangelical brings. Such disillusionment will only deepen when it is realized that those evangelicals continue to enjoy the same lifesaving technologies they are effectively asking the poor to forego.

The U.S. Economy Needs Fewer Public School Jobs, Not More
By Andrew J. Coulson, Cato Institute

Teachers unions, the Obama administration, and most Democrats in Congress want to spend another $23 billion that we don’t have to shore up public school employment. If we don’t go along, they tell us, it’ll be a “catastrophe” for American education. With fewer teachers our kids will supposedly learn less, further crippling our already wounded economy. They couldn’t be more wrong.