Socialist Gasbag From Vermont Blathers On For 8.5 Hours

Yes, this is the kind of thing that qualifies as a smash hit on C-SPAN.

Don't worry, I won't post the video.

WASHINGTON — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders fought President Barack Obama's proposed tax cut compromise with a lengthy speech in the Senate.

He started at 10:24 a.m. ET and ended at 7 p.m.

Sanders, 69, an independent who usually sides with Democrats, said it was unconscionable to increase the national debt "by giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires who don't need it."

Sanders noted he'd been repetitious in making his points.

Cross-posted.

At Last! Ben and Jerry's Introduces Gay Ice Cream

How clever. Chubby Hubby becomes Hubby Hubby.

Same great taste but with twice the nuts!

Vermont, home to maple syrup and birthplace of that other magic elixir, Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, ignored the "who will change his name" debate, and just went ahead and did it. The artist (ice cream so good it's art) formerly known as the flavor "Chubby Hubby" has a new married name: "Hubby Hubby," in support of all the newly married couples.

Don't expect to see pints in your grocer's freezer today: like all change, sometimes it's slow in coming (labels will take up to 18 months to reflect the shift.

As Mark Steyn suggested today, perhaps David Brooks can share a pint with Barack Obama.

Here's some video.

Quackery In Vermont: Protesters Demand To Pay More Taxes; Update: Democrats Agree, Increase Taxes on Tax Day!

What do you expect from a state that sends a kook like socialist Bernie Sanders to the Senate? While taxpayers across the nation attend tea parties today protesting onerous taxation and creeping socialism, some nutcases in Vermont came out to call for higher taxes.

Protesters nationwide demanded lower taxes on Wednesday. A group in Vermont can't get enough of them.

Calling itself S.O.S., or Save Our State, the group held a small pro-tax protest in Montpelier, the national income tax-filing deadline, to drive home that taxes pay for needed programs and state employees perform necessary duties.

About two dozen people crowded [two dozen people is a crowd? --ed.] around the state Tax Department's help window while organizers turned in single-signature petitions, designed to look like a tax form, that organizers called SOS-EZ forms.

They list 17 state programs that could be kept whole with what organizers say would be a modest tax increase.

"It's not just a day to worry about taxes; we value our institutions and the programs the state offers," said S.O.S. organizer Chris Curtis, an attorney with Vermont Legal Aid. "We can't pave our own roads. We can't keep our own courthouse doors open. It's frustrating that some days of the week the courts are closed."

The protest came as thousands of demonstrators gathered nationwide for anti-tax rallies modeled on the original Boston Tea Party.

Dennise Casey, a spokeswoman for Republican Gov. Jim Douglas, said he remained steadfast in his opposition to new taxes, but that taxpayers have the option to give the state more than legally required.

"I am assuming that all of these individuals who are advocating for paying more taxes have led by example by paying more taxes today," Casey said. "As for struggling Vermont families, the governor is opposed to higher taxes."

No, they don't want to pay more. They want the rest of us to.

Just watch. Some networks tonight will probably give this crowd of two dozen people as much airtime as the hundreds of thousands that turned out for tea parties.

Ace links. Thanks!

Update: Here's a local angle. Believe it or not they chose today to increase taxes.

"We're not suggesting that we willy-nilly raise taxes but to do it in smart way that spreads out the burden," said Lindsey Hescock of Middlebury.

"We need to have taxes to have the services and the infrastructure important to all of us," said Shelia Reed, of Voices for Vt. Children.

Democratic lawmakers agree, and on Tax Day they supported a $24 million income tax hike.

"I don't think anybody likes to pay taxes, I'm not wild about paying taxes, but I understand it's an obligation of citizenship and I get a lot for the taxes I pay," said Rep. Janet Ancel, D-Calais.

Unreal.

BDS on Steroids: Brattleboro Boobs to Vote on Arresting Bush and Cheney, Requisite Hitler Analogy Added for Good Measure

Kurt Daims, evidence that liberalism indeed is a mental disorder

We mentioned these crackpots last month, and apparently the public ridicule has done nothing to dissuade them from their futile mission.

It's sad to watch hatred consume people to such an extent, but considering the closet case Che Guevara wannabes we're dealing with, we'll eschew sympathy in lieu of some light snickering.

Brattleboro residents will vote at town meeting on whether President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should be indicted and arrested for war crimes, perjury or obstruction of justice if they ever step foot in Vermont.

The Brattleboro Select Board voted 3-2 Friday to put the controversial item on the Town Meeting Day warning.

According to Town Clerk Annette Cappy, organizers of the Bush-Cheney issue gathered enough signatures, and it was up to the Select Board whether Brattleboro voters would consider the issue in March.

Cappy said residents will get to vote on the matter by paper balloting March 4.

Kurt Daims, 54, of Brattleboro, the organizer of the petition drive, said Friday the debate to get the issue on the ballot was a good one. Opposition to the vote focused on whether the town had any power to endorse the matter.

"It is an advisory thing," said Daims, a retired prototype machinist and stay-at-home dad of three daughters.

So far, Vermont is the only state Bush hasn't visited since he became president in 2001.

Daims said the most grievous crime committed by Bush and Cheney was perjury — lying to Congress and U.S. citizens about the basis of a war in Iraq.

He said the latest count showed a total of 600,000 people have died in the war.

Daims apparently hasn't gotten the memo on George Soros Lancet study long ago having been discredited.

Guess he's not reading the right blogs.

Anyway, Daims continued on his psychotic rant and naturally drew the tired comparison to Hitler.

Daims had no compunction in comparing Bush and Cheney with one of the most notorious people in history.

"If Hitler were still alive and walked through Brattleboro, I think the local police would arrest him for war crimes," Daims said.

Dude's got to freshen up his material.

Global Warming Ruining Fall Foliage: Leaf Peepers Fret

It's come to this.

Some folks are just perpetually miserable.

EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. — Every fall, Marilyn Krom tries to make a trip to Vermont to see its famously beautiful fall foliage.

This year, she noticed something different about the autumn leaves.

"They're duller, not as sparkly, if you know what I mean," Krom, 62, a registered nurse from Eastford, Conn., said during a recent visit. "They're less vivid."

Other "leaf peepers" are noticing, too, and some believe climate change could be global warming.

Forested hillsides usually riotous with reds, oranges and yellows have shown their colors only grudgingly in recent years, with many trees going straight from the dull green of late summer to the rust-brown of late fall with barely a stop at a brighter hue.

"It's nothing like it used to be," said University of Vermont plant biologist Tom Vogelmann, a Vermont native.

He says autumn has become too warm to elicit New England's richest colors.

According to the National Weather Service, temperatures in Burlington have run above the 30-year averages in every September and October for the past four years, save for October 2004, when they were 0.2 degrees below average.

How, pray tell, is this affecting the peepers?

"Leaf peeping" is big business in Vermont, with some 3.4 million visitors spending nearly $364 million in the fall of 2005, according to state estimates.

State tourism officials reject the notion that nature's palette is getting blander. Erica Housekeeper, spokeswoman for the state Department of Tourism and Marketing, said she had heard nothing but positive reports from foresters and visitors alike this year.

This nitwit suggests we should have listened to The Goracle.

But of course.

Which brings us to Al Gore, a guy who nearly became president (and we would have had a hawk for a vice president either way). He goes a little far making his point about global warming in "An Inconvenient Truth" because NO ONE WAS LISTENING.

I think proof of that might be 25 years of wars for oil, SUVs the size of houses and almost no federal support of conservation or alternative energy.

But then Big Boring Al, who arguably shook that label with this film, won the Nobel Peace Prize. And yet the forces of partisanship can't agree on an honor for the town-crier Democrat.