( – promoted by odum)

Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY) spokesman David O’Brien has announced a “Name That Nuk” contest for the embattled Vernon reactor operator.

Originally incorporated in Vermont as “ENVY”, Entergy Nuclear seeks input from the public on which other Deadly Sin they would prefer. “That whole ENVY-thing isn’t working”, admitted O’Brien ruefully.

“We’ve got the whole robust gamut to choose from: pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony and sloth”, offered O’Brien. “It’s a tough call, just incredibly important, with long term implications for all Vermonters. First we thought we could get the Governor to make the decision. Then we realized that since Vermonters each have two pounds of nuclear waste stored for them in Vernon, we could instill some pride of ownership with this naming contest.”

Pat O’Donnell, R-Vernon/unGuilford, added, “We first thought “LUST” might be appropriate, since we’re located in Southern Vermont. But the good people of Vernon objected, and we decided to take the heat off by letting the public in on it.”

Allowing the public to participate is not without controversy. Some in the Douglas Administration wanted to rename the reactor “Healthy Living”, while “Vibrant Economy” and “213 Vermont Jobs” were favored by others. In the end, bowing to tradition, so beloved by traditional Vermonters, “We decided to stick with the Seven Deadly Sins”, said O’Brien.

Prizes include installation of radiant floor heating, heated driveways, and landscaping with radiant dairy cows. Or you can have the company’s mascot, Stronty the Clown with the Radiant Smile, at your children’s next birthday party.

All entries become the property of Entergy International. The final decision is final, with no backsies, broken deals, promises, fuel rods, cranes, valves, pipes or waste casks. Details on just how the public will make its will known are still to be worked out.

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary, did not pay $7,040 in taxes between 2005 and 2007. She paid the back taxes and penalty after they were identified.

(Health nominee Sebelius reveals tax troubles, LA Times, 04/01/09)

I mean … what’s up with the tax dodging and hollering?

I’m no tax prude; I’ve owed back taxes three times in my life: once due to a false filing by an ex-employer, once due to my own neglect, and once due to the Douglas administration retroactively changing tax policy without any input from the legislature.

Two out of three of those times I ended up paying some penalties and the back tax. On the last one Vermont’s General Assembly undid the Douglas administrative tax increase (happy to tell you about that one if you’re interested … very short story).

What I’m trying to say is: I know there are situations which arise without ill intent that result in owing back taxes.

And to be fair, Ms Sebelius’ tax debt is not very large, and she claims some very innocuous and possibly good reasons for her tax problems. She may be absolutely innocent of anything worse than small oversight errors.

But how many folks in public life can we go through and keep finding this kind of problem? It seems the norm rather than exception which violating law is supposed to be for the ruling elite of our nation.

On top of that we have Republicans screaming like pigs in a botched slaughter about these tax issues. The same Republicans that have helped develop tax havens and have made tax bashing a national pastime. The perfect definition of hypocrisy: working hard to destroy our nation’s finances by attacking how we raise our common money and then bemoaning the fact that people take them seriously and view taxes as a pain in the ass to be avoided rather than a valuable contribution to society that should be embraced.

Republicans hate taxes (except when they’re to pay off national debt that Republicans have helped create by siphoning our nation’s money off to their uber-wealthy friends … ‘nother story though). They should be applauding their friends from the “other side of the aisle” who have come to agree with them.

I guess what I’m trying to say is it looks like there’s nothing more than lack of attention to a very small detail involved in Sebelius’ tax problem; but if we were to view taxes as an important means to accomplish worthy goals far fewer of us would be so lackadaisical about accurate tax filings … especially when in the very public sphere of national political life.

Plus we could use a little better than this Palin style vetting of Cabinet wannabes.

Moves to Print-Only Service for Twenty-First Century

Exclusive from Editor and Publisher:

Bucking current trends in newspaper publishing, Green Mountain Daily announced that today's posts will be the final Internet edition of the decades-old publication.

GMD Editor in Chief John Odum announced the move at a packed press conference in Montpelier. “I've always had printer's ink in my veins,” Odum said. “Now, with such national publications as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Rocky Mountain Daily ceasing publication, we sense an opportunity for a change in our business model. With our daily readership approaching eight hundred, we think the best way to expand our coverage is to open things up to people who don't have an Internet machine in their house.”

Under the new arrangement, Green Mountain Daily will continue to be a daily newspaper, but will be delivered to readers' homes and sold at news stands  across Vermont and in other population centers, such as Washington, D.C., Boston, and Bratislava, where GMD readers are found.

GMD Chief Financial Officer Julie Waters explained that the new arrangement will immediately be more profitable than the outmoded online version. “The Internet has posed significant problems for our revenue stream,” Waters explained. “Although our advertising and subscription rates should theoretically be sufficient to support the operation, our revenues have never been able to keep pace with the expense of sending out technicians to disconnect the GMD service of nonpaying subscribers.”

Green Mountain Daily maintains its commitment to staying on top of the latest technology. For instance, through an innovative partnership with Western Union, the new GMD Twitter edition will now be delivered to subscribers by telegram at the standard rate of 140 characters per Tweet.

 

Governor George Aiken, pictured above, is known for having coined the term “Northeast Kingdom” but a lesser known fact is that he stole that term from Green Mountain Daily

Green Mountain Daily, one of Vermont’s most venerable institutions, has decided that it is no longer financially viable to maintain a print operation and will therefore, as of April 1, 2009, move to an online-only presence.  

Green Mountain Daily started out as a small operation and continued in that vein for its first 4 decades or so, focusing on local news stories and bovine interest material.  Seeing as how cattle outnumbered humans in the state, we thought that was the best way to get a serious market share.  We realized quickly, however, that as much as we liked writing for our bovine sisters, their interest was limited to grass forecasts and conspiracy theories about the slaughterhouses sanctuary houses.

We then switched first to fisher interest stories, but when the fishers were wiped out, we went for porcupine interest stories, briefly to beaver interest, back to fisher interest when people brought back the fishers to deal with the porcupine problem, and eventually, settled on human interest.  Everyone on staff remembers fondly the headlines on December 7th, 1941, “Local Firefighter Saves Kitten.”

But when, several weeks later, we learned that America was at War, we sprung into action and the nature of the paper changed.  With war came a new responsibility to respect our nation and promote its interests.  Thus, with the nation gripped by war, Green Mountain Daily, decades ahead of its time, instituted its own “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy and thus a new era was born.

When it came time to testify before HUAC, not only did we do our duty to name names, we went above and beyond the call of duty, naming each other, Pete Seeger, Ronald Reagan and the entire starting lineup of the Chicago Bears.

With the fifties came the rise of communism and a new enemy to fight, and Green Mountain Daily was there.  Yes, not only did Green Mountain Daily show up when subpoenaed, several of us camped out on the steps for days before, just to get the opportunity to name names before anyone else could rat us out first show us up in our patriotic duty.

With the sixties came radical change and Green Mountain Daily’s prestige and power grew over the years, becoming one of the most profitable papers in the state.   Once Jamaica, Victory and Granby joined the electric grid, we were able to finally reach the entire state through our high-tech ahead of the time phone tree system, in which we would each call seventeen people, who would call seventeen other people, and eventually find someone who had Prince Albert in a can.

Vermont’s first Democratic governor in more than a decade was elected, prompting us to change with the the times.  Green Mountain Daily paid for and constructed our own “We’re with Hoff!” bulletin board which stayed on the I-91 corridor until its decimation at the hands of a horde of angry beavers.   (A little known fact: the 1968 law against bulletin boards in Vermont was not as much a beautification plan as it was an attempt to curtail the burgeoning beaver population which was growing faster than the Vermont economy is today).

Green Mountain Daily has never before abandoned its print edition, save for a 3-day period when a cooling tower leak caused us to shut down our printing service for several days.  We learned from this mistake and eventually moved towards a non-nuclear printing press system.   We once again would like to apologize to the families of the deceased.

With the 1970’s came further change.  Public radio was introduced to the airwaves and Green Mountain Daily was there, with our hour-long variety and news show, which lasted until its tragic demise caused by a combination of poor ratings and an on-air barrage of obscenity from popular host J.D. Ryan (note: Ryan never fully recovered from the incident, and is still known to shout obscenities at passing politicians he encounters on the Burlington waterfront).

With the 1970’s also came Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (or, as we prefer to call them, the Great Chunky Monkey Satan), bell-bottomed pants (or, as we prefer to call them, the Great Denim Satan) and the movie Dog Day Afternoon, which would have cast Caoimhin Laochdha in a starring role, had not that hack Pacino slept with one of the producers.

The 1980’s made for a return to simpler times, with simpler ideas, simpler rhetoric and the one-hit wonder Simple Minds.  It also made for Green Mountain Daily’s brief but ill-fated attempt at a weekly television show, which might have survived if not for an on-air rant in favor of marijuana legalization on the part of popular host John Odum.  We’re not sure, but we think the five minutes of obscene gestures probably hurt us a little bit as well.

The nineties were a great time for Green Mountain Daily.  Intrepid followers that we were, we took our leadership from the White House, and declared the office free from all (remaining) sexual mores and restraints.  Unfortunately, however, we made the mistake of firing our legal team when they objected to this policy and the lawsuits that followed took their toll.

Green Mountain Daily members were always glad to throw on some body armor, grab a few billy clubs, and help out the local police in beating up protesters.

With the next century came a new president and a new governor and once again, where others merely led, Green Mountain Daily led in following.  We took to the streets among the protestors and successfully broke up several attempts at freedom of speech insurrection against the government.

It is a matter of extreme frustration to GMD member Euan Bear that this has been interpreted as protest.  In context, it is clear that she is just trying to negotiate a trade agreement with a heterosexual couple, which was ultimately rejected (they considered it a “distraction”).

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Other highlights of Green Mountain Daily’s History:



1928: Calvin Coolidge becomes president.  Keeps bragging about it until Ed Garcia punches him in the face.  We barely hear a word from him again.

1950: Marlboro music festival established.  GMD reports that “this newfangled music will last na’ry a week.”



1953 – S.S. Ticonderoga makes last steamboat trip on Lake Champlain before being bombed by GMD in an ill-fated attempt to start a war with Plattsburgh.



1974 – Senator Patrick Leahy elected.  GMD lead editoral: “Do the Irish have too much power?”



1995 – GMD pens editorial lamenting our lack of access to cheap plastic crap and low-paid workers.



1996 – Vermont loses status as only state in union without a Wal-Mart. GMD takes credit.

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As this decade comes to a close, financial problems have plagued the organization.  Whether as a result of poor circulation, lack of consumer interest, or the multilevel Ponzi scheme orchestrated by GMD treasurer Julie Waters which left the organization crippled and bankrupt, we can no longer afford to maintain our physical presence.   We bid fond farewell to our remaining readers (you’ve been great.  Both of you) and would like to thank our advertiser for its continuing support.  We were glad to be a proud member of the Green Mountain Urinal Cakes family and wish you continued success.

Saying “we have to act quickly before the institution fails completely,” a bipartisan group of Senators is pushing a $750 billion bill to bail out marriage after its unprecedented collapse in the wake of gay and lesbian rights victories. Starting with civil unions in Vermont, followed more recently by full-blown same-sex wedlock in Massachusetts and Connecticut, marriage has been dealt crushing blows in recent years, with little end in sight.

The collapse, predicted by many, has been devastating. Divorce rates since the implosion of the marriage system have multiplied by a factor of 10. Most marriagists blame the new universal acceptance of the “gay lifestyle” in the wake of these laws, which have caused nearly 75% of all married men to experiment sexually with other men, and up to 50% going gay completely (with that number expected to increase). “I just never thought of it as an option,” one anonymous ex-husband was quoted as saying. “Now that there’s no social stigma attached, why not decide to crave male genitalia? I only chose the straight lifestyle because I didn’t really know about penises!”

It’s even worse for women, as – according to some reports –  up to 80% of wives and prospective wives have reportedly decided to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.

The future is not looking much better for marriage, as the shockwaves of the collapse have impacted the schools. Graphic sex education is now mandatory for most kindergartners, with strict drag-dress codes being enforced in public schools from coast to coast.

The bailout bill itself will aim to keep marriage from collapsing entirely. Combined with the recent marriage stimulus bill – which targeted spending towards marriage creation, including significant spending on heterosexual infrastructure – leaders in Congress are confident that the marriage collapse can be stopped, and ultimately reversed. The bailout itself will create a “bad church” which will be able to absorb the bad marriages under other denominations – marriages that have become worthless given the collapse of the matrimonial institution. This should restore liquidity into the traditional wedding system and offset the problems caused by the same-sex oriented marriage deregulation trend of the last decade.

In light of the disappearance of the Governor (discussed below), state officials and lawmakers turned to Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie to fulfill his Constitutional role, only to realize he hadn't been seen since January. The whereabouts of Dubie temporarily eclipsed discussions of the fate of Jim Douglas in the statehouse, where mutterings of "…oh, him? Is he still around?", "oh yeahhh, that guy," and "we have a Lieutenant Governor?" were repeatedly heard.

After noting that Dubie's public appearance schedule had no events listed since March of 2007, the Sergeant-at-Arms instituted a full search for the missing officeholder before a sharp-eyed pedestrian noticed something in the Governor's spare car, which had been left in a Pavilion parking space since early January. Officials speculate that Governor Douglas used the extra car while his other was in the shop, left it locked, and simply forgot that Dubie was trapped inside.

"We tried using the slim jim, but ended up having to call a locksmith to get him out of there" a Montpelier police officer was heard to say. "He was looking pretty rough by the time we got him out of there. Fortunately, the Governor had left one of the windows open a crack so he could get some air, but as near as we can tell, he's just been living on what he can find wedged in the seats."

The officer went on to explain that other drivers parking in the lot occasionally referred to hearing some odd sounds, but had dismissed them as irrelevant. "What people – even the Governor – need to understand is that you have to take responsibility for leaving critters in the car like this. These Vermont winters are pretty rough, but thank heaven it wasn't the summertime, or we might've had a real tragedy on our hands."

Governor Douglas mysteriously disappeared yesterday, and State Police have not ruled out the possibility of foul play. While the police have released little information, questions have arisen relating to observations over the course of the day surrounding the Governor’s pants.

GMD has managed to collect photos taken at different times throughout the day prior to the Governor’s disappearance, and the photos reveal an odd – and concerning – pattern:

In addition, GMD has learned that the reports from witnesses immediately prior to the Governor’s disappearence also suggest that the gradual, yet steady rising of Mr. Douglas’s beltline over the day may be more than a simple coincidence.

Witnesses report that at approximately 4:30 PM, the Governor entered his office, complaining of fatigue. At the time, those same witnesses report that his pants had risen to a point only inches from his neck. When staffers became concerned after the Governor failed to re-emerge, they entered the office and found only the following, shown here in this leaked police photo of the scene:

State Police have taken the pants in for questioning. A formal statement is expected soon, but an official spokesman has indicated that rumors that the pants in question were heard to utter “feed me” as they were removed from the Pavilion building are without merit.

Economic stimulus money in Vermont: Vermont Edition’s guest today at noon is Vermont’s Recovery Czar.Catch him while you can because according to press reports  

“He expects that by the end of the year – once the recovery programs are running smoothly – he’ll be packing up and moving it all back to Stowe.”

from http://www.cnbc.com/id/29955639

Green Mountain Daily and Rolling Stone magazine announced at a joint press conference today that GMD founder and front-pager John Odum has signed on as the new drummer for the band Phish.

John “Breaking” Odum and groupie Ms. Snarkie Galore

Spokesbloggers for GMD said that the announcement did not come as a surprise, that they had been expecting something along these lines ever since the recent unearthing of certain photographic evidence of Odum’s passion for the drums, and the lifestyle of being a major rock drumming superstar.

“When you can sport a mullet that sweet-looking, there’s just no keeping you from your true calling.” said GMD’s GreenVTster, himself a recovering 80’s punk rocker. “We all knew it was just a matter of time once we saw how JO could roll in that environment.”

GMD scribe and former Blondie backup singer Maggie Gundersen also had an inkling about the move. “You could just tell he had the chops, even in his writing it came through.”

Caoimhin Laochdha, who migrated to GMD after a short but notable career as a body double in a series of  Violent Femmes videos, said he could always see a certain rock and roll swagger in Odum’s walk as he approached political figures with notebook or tape recorder in hand.

In adding Odum to their lineup, Phish follows the lead of bands that have used two drummers, like the Dead and the Allman Brothers. In their own Phish fashion though, the band also announced that they’ll occasionally move to a two bass player lineup, keeping Mike Gordon and adding JO. “We concluded that the rhythm section could really use more bottom, and the extra bass was just what we had in mind,” a Phish spokesman observed. “That, and more cowbell, of course.”

In a separate presser with CNBC later in the day, Odum also unveiled a major sponsorship deal with Milwaukee’s Best Beer. Stocks were up in the beverages sector on the news.

Facing declining membership and interest, the Second Vermont Republic has opted to join with the more established institution in Vermont, the Society for Creative Anachronism.

Insiders at both groups defend the decision, acknowledging that while SVR's goal of a secessionist Vermont, and the SCA's goal of re-enacting medieval settings and battles with homemade armor, weapons and costumes may seem, at first glance, to be incompatible – they actually speak to a similar psychological desire among their respective adherents.

The new combined leadership unveiled its vision for an independent, medieval-esque Vermont modeled on Renaissance Faires and jousting tournaments at a festive news conference (pictured, right), complete with lutes, mead, and the prominently displayed flag of the independent Republic of Vermont.

"I'truth, we say unto thee," a spokesperson announced to the assembled media. "By my troth, we shalt bend knee to the empire no further! Let the hard steel of the mace be our answer to those that would defy us! To the evil lords in Washington D.C., we say only; 'Have at thee, miscreants!'"

SVR/SCA spokesmen then concluded the press conference with a call to the "wenches" to bring flagons of ale to the dozen in attendence.