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Another Middle-Class Exodus?
by Martin Harris

Here’s an easy one: what do Wake County NC (Raleigh is the big city there) and Chittenden County VT (Burlington is the not-quite-so-big city here) have in common? Answer: both have school districts eager to assault the next beachhead in the diversity wars; having defeated racial segregation (sort of) in public education, the next objective is economic segregation. The new catch-phrase is Socio-Economic Status, or SES. The new idea is that it’s society’s duty to make sure that rich kids and not-rich kids are suitably mixed in the classroom and on the playground.

Spearhead: Reflections on the Special Session
By Vermont State Representative Patti Komline

It frustrates me that Sen. Shumlin singled out a single business to pay for an undefined government bureaucracy. Sen. Shumlin's political machine was cranking out the propaganda — demonizing our state's business leaders and promising a new government program to evangelize the importance of weatherizing our homes.

A Convenient Crisis
By Peter Behr

Clearly if they really thought carbon emissions were the source of global warming, they would not enact a new tax on energy that emits no carbon. Levying more taxes, creating more government, increasing the cost of energy generation from Vermont’s most stable source of carbon-free energy, and undermining the business environment by reneging on previous agreements continues the trend toward making Vermont too expensive for working people to live. Here was H.520 in a nutshell: Vermonters give up more earnings to taxes and energy, while our better paying jobs go elsewhere, forcing people to work multiple jobs.

Beware of “Fairness”

Keep up the good, and needed, work. The Vermont left will no doubt soon try to legislate you out of business - in the name of fairness. That's when we all will know for sure that you are another one of the messengers that's impossible for them to debate.

Gary Richardson, Perkinsville

"Before we panic about 'global warming,' we should take a look at six-day
weather forecasts and see how much they change during those six days --- quite aside from how much they differ from what the weather actually turns out to be." ---Thomas Sowell, Random Thoughts.

As Maine Goes, So Goes Vermont
Caledonian Record Editorial, July 17, 2007

Forbes magazine just published its "Best States to do Business," rankings and, lamentably once again, as Maine goes, so goes Vermont. While Maine comes off even worse than Vermont, both fare miserably in a magazine read by virtually everyone in business in the U.S.

High Tech in Low Gear
From Vermont Tiger, July 19, 2007

U.S. high-tech goods exports increased by 10 percent from $199 billion to $220 billion ... Thirty-eight cyberstates saw tech export growth between 2005 and 2006. But according to a report released by the American Electronics Association today, Vermont doesn’t seem to be riding the wave. The largest decrease in tech exports occurred in Vermont, declining by $533 million in 2006.

Omya Moving Headquarters to Ohio
By Bruce Edwards, Rutland Herald, July 18, 2007

Omya Industries Inc. announced Tuesday it is relocating its corporate headquarters to Cincinnati, a move that will mean the loss of 50 high-paying jobs, representing nearly 17 percent of the company's Vermont workforce.

If You Don't Build It, They Won't Come
By Art Woolf, Vermont Tiger, July 18, 2007

"The owner of the 5-acre creamery property is on board," Hampton said of Scott Ingalls. "It doesn't have to become another sub-development. When all's said and done, this is going to be something that everyone loves, that all of Richmond needs." I'm not sure what a sub-development is, but let's assume that it's what most of us would Multiply Richmond's actions by every other town in Vermont and you get why housing in Vermont is overly expensive.

A Political Pajama Party
Caledonia Record Editorial Friday July 20, 2007

What it all amounted to was a sideshow that made the Democrats look like adolescents in a pout. They don't have the votes to pass any of their irresponsible proposals to desert our troops in Iraq. They don't have the votes to pass cloture of the Republican filibuster. They were simply throwing a public tantrum. We expect and deserve more maturity from our national policy makers.

Related: How Democrats 'Support The Troops'

Land Use Change Axes Vermont Town's Development Plans
By Jacob L. Grant, Caledonian Record, July 19, 2007

A community development project in Bradford recently screeched to a halt after the commercially developable land it was planned for was deemed commercially undevelopable. ... At a Bradford Planning Commission meeting Tuesday night, some board members were more than confused, nearly outraged, at what they called a "fishy situation."

From Elsewhere

Al Gore And NBC: Birds Of A Feather
From Investor's Business Daily, July 10, 2007

Was what Al Gore called "the largest global entertainment event in all of human history" also the largest in-kind political contribution? And where's the Fairness Doctrine when you need it?

Socialized Medicine Cult Undeterred by Sicko's Sputtering Box Office
By Peter Barry Chowka, American Thinker, July 16, 2007

In the 1993-'94 attempt by the Clintons and the Democrats to pass universal health care, the arrogance and condescension of President Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton turned off a lot of people, and set the stage for their party losing control of both houses of Congress in 1994 for the first time in almost half a century. Today, for some reason (historical amnesia is another unfortunate modern American trait), the Clintons' reputations have been miraculously restored, in Bill Clinton's case to "rock star" status, while the popularity of President George W. Bush and the Republican Party-less inclined as they are to support totally government-run health care-is at a very low point.

Related: Michael Moore vs. CNN

On Religion, Hitchens is Not so Great
By James Lewis, The American Thinker, July 15, 2007

Religion is a great many things, including many decent and noble things, and deflating them all into a soggy rubber balloon for the sake of Leftist analysis is much like trying to reduce all of human sexuality to physical friction between genital organs. Hitch could easily write a book called  "Sex is not great." Well, it is and it isn't. What kind of sex? Practiced by whom? To what end?

Africa: Al Gore's Live Earth Vs Africa
The Namibian (Windhoek), 13 July 2007

In Africa, we have much more serious things to worry about than climate change. Indeed, if they achieve their objective, the concerts will have done harm to the people of Africa.

Belabor the Point
By John Fund, Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2007

Democrats find one government office they want to cut back. It's the one that exposes union corruption. The new Democratic Congress has finally found a government agency whose budget It wants to cut: an obscure Labor Department office that monitors the compliance of unions with federal law.

Medicaid's Soaring Cost: Time to Step on the Brakes
by Jagadeesh Gokhale, Cato Institute, Policy Analysis no. 597, July 19, 2007

If current policies and trends are maintained, federal Medicaid outlays will take up 36 percent of lifetime federal general revenue taxes for males born in 2025 and 69 percent for females born in that year. For females born after 2050, almost all of their lifetime federal nonpayroll taxes will be consumed by their lifetime Medicaid benefits.

The Left's 'Inequality' Obsession
By Arthur C. Brooks, The Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2007

To focus our policies on inequality, instead of opportunity, is to make a serious error -- one that will worsen the very problem we seek to solve and make us generally unhappier.