Here’s an outstanding example of how your government, in this case the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,  puts out deliberately misleading or false news about the terrors of climate change, and how Associated Press inflated it into a scare headline.

My friend attorney Deborah Bucknam of Walden has long been a strong advocate for parental choice in education. Last week she attended a meeting of the Mendon and Chittenden school district. She reports that “ 99% of those attending wanted school choice. That included admitted leftists, public school teachers, retired public school teachers,  and some school administrators.  At least half said they moved to Mendon and Chittenden because they had school choice.” 

Citing the Delta variant, Vermont officials have extended universal masking for all K-12 students until early October (after which it applies to the unvaccinated). Though a mandate cannot be enforced absent a state of emergency, psychological and social pressures to ensure student compliance abound.

A few weeks ago, VTDigger reported that “since Irene hit Vermont Aug. 27, 2011, many have warned that climate change would make similar rain and floods more frequent, and the August storm appears to be an example of that.”

Here’s a quick peek at what the Vermont Climate Council is planning to unload on us in a month, courtesy of Matt Cota of the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association.

The Labor Department recently reported that the economy had 10.1 million job openings in June. This comes amid a booming recovery as the pandemic lockdowns ease and there were 8.7 million unemployed workers in July.

Steve Klein, Chief Fiscal Officer for the legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office, recently made a presentation to the Pension Reform Task Force. The Task Force is charged with coming up with a plan to fix the state’s public pension crisis, the result of decades of underfunding and financial mismanagement that has led to a $6 billion and rapidly growing unfunded liability. Currently, just keeping the state pension system afloat consumes over 12% of all General Fund state spending and fixing the system will take even more money. So, the Task Force asked Klein where such a pot of cash might be found. The resulting slide show was not encouraging.

Annette Smith of Vermonters for a Clean Environment has been closely following the meetings of the Climate Council, which is drafting a sweeping plan to save us from climate change.

A fellow Vermonter shared with me Sen. Patrick  Leahy’s reply to his letter expressing concern about the national debt surpassing the value of the entire US economy.

       Vermont Digger published a noteworthy story July 21 by reporter Sophia McDermott-Hughes. It’s about the largest anaerobic digester in the Northeast that has just begun full-scale production of renewable natural gas on the Goodrich Family Farm in Salisbury.