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Residents along the coast preparing for Hurricane Isaac’s arrival. Credit: Kelly Smoot / CNN Hurricane Isaac threat to New Orleans has failed to spark a national debate on global warming but it will test the city's new levee system. Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast Aug. 29, 2005 devastating New Orleans and killing over 1,800 people. Now Hurricane Isaac threatens to hit the city seven years later. “It is quite ironic that we have a hurricane threatening us on the seventh anniversary of Kat

Some might say a Vermont credit union is just another kind of bank. However, the State of Vermont says it is not and that credit unions calling themselves banks could be subject to civil penalties. The Vermont Dept. of Financial Regulation decided in June that the Vermont State Employees Credit Union (VSECU) had to stop using the word “banking” to describe the activities of the credit union, even though many of those activities are identical to those performed by banks. In the eyes of Commissi

Credit: motleynews.net When Roger Pion drove a big tractor over seven cop cars on August 2, he became an instant Internet meme and ended up in jail. Although he made bail of $50,000 weeks ago, he is still being held at the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport, Vermont, where the tractor-attack took place. According to Scott Morley, the correctional facility’s chief of security, Pion remains in jail because he has not met court-imposed conditions of release, but he is likely to get o

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of only two independents in the Senate, is known for being outspoken. This reputation is only aided by a prolific presence on social media. His office regularly posts video to YouTube. One of the latest is on the topic of deficit reduction, and what he views are inflexible Republicans. He speaks unguarded, straight to the camera, with no notes. It's a good example of how technology can spread his viewpoints to his constituents and a broader public with the stroke

Is it  a good idea to put floating and underground nuclear power plants in ocean water that is already heating up, when these plants need large amounts of water for cooling? Even non-nuclear inland power plants are affected by drought and lack of usable water. During a recent heat waves, a power plant in Illinois had to shut down because it was overheating due to its cooling water intake pipe being blocked with dead fish killed by low water levels. They were delicious, by the way. And then th

While having lunch in a restaurant today, I realized that Indeed, I was having lunch with 8 co-workers, 8 normally constituted adults, 8 people with 2 functioning arms, and we were served 9 glasses of water with 9 plastics straws. Coming from a country where eating has been elevated to an art, such ungracious habit could only raise my curiosity. Indeed, in France I have not been given a drinking straw in a restaurant since I turned 10 and have been able to drink out of a glass without spilling

Credit: topics.lingospot.com Both lawyers running for Vermont Attorney General in the Democratic primary August 28, incumbent Bill Sorrell and challenger TJ Donovan, have accepted campaign donations from people who are or have been their adversaries in court.  Both say the contributions are too small to influence them.  The Vermont Bar Association has no policy that covers such apparent conflicts of interest. Then there’s the $99,000 TV ad campaign for the incumbent, paid for by an out-of-stat

Credit: Occupy Vermont Vermont is a place where the protest vote can be in the majority and Vermont protest itself is currently in full bloom across the state. Vermonters have always been independent, whether it was having their own republic (1777-1791), re-electing a Congressman while he was in jail (Matthew Lyon, 1798), or sending a Socialist to the Senate (Bernie Sanders, 1994-2012). It’s not just Occupy somewhere, of which there are several in Vermont, but a whole host of issues and actio

Credit: ctbob.blogspot.com In a fundraising email sent out on Wednesday, Aug. 8, the Republican candidate for Governor of Vermont claimed that Governor [Peter] Shumlin is making marijuana decriminalization one of his top priorities, although Republican Randy Brock doesn't cite any source for that assertion. Shumlin has long supported moving toward decriminalization of marijuana in Vermont, but there little evidence it’s one of his “top priorities,” which include providing Vermonters with unive

The homeowners and family. Credit: vpr.net Two artists who own a mountaintop home in Vermont say that a ruling allowing a power company to use eminent domain to erect a giant communications tower very close to their home will make it uninhabitable. The first time the power company sent a crew to drill on a mountaintop it coveted, the company’s heavy-duty truck flipped, rolled over twice, and ended up upside down, trapping the driver in the cab and throwing another worker clear.  This was in Oc