From Hallenbeck (emphasis added):

Douglas said there are certain businesses from which he won’t accept money, including drug and tobacco firms. However, his campaign finance report lists a $3,000 donation from Mylan Inc. PAC, the political action committee for a pharmaceutical manufacturer with plants in St. Albans and Swanton.

Casey said the situation with Mylan is different because it’s a local company. “They’re important to the economy of Franklin County,” she said.

Oh, you see its okay. He hasn’t broken his word. Apparently there was a secret, unspoken clause if it was a local company. But he couldn’t mention that cuz it was a secret.

This particular local company is based in the local Vermont town of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and was founded in West Virginia. It has a presence in 92 countries, employes 12,000 people and brings in revenues of $4.2 billion. That’s some local success story, eh?

Of course, this is the Jim Douglas definition of a local company apparently. That donation from Wal Mart? Just another good, Vermont company. And AT&T as well. Same for Anheuser Busch, or Century 21. All good, local businesses. Say, Vermont must be booming after all!

So support your community by buying local the Jim Douglas way. Be a good localvore and go buy yourself a Chicken McNuggets value meal and hop on over to a quaint, traditional Vermont institution like Wal-Mart and pick up one of those local products, like a Sanyo TV or something.

Ok, Vermont wine will never match the iconic mystique of Vermont maple syrup, but if we're talking about economic impact, we definitely have a contender here.

On a return trip from Middlebury the other day I stopped by Lincoln Peak Vineyard for a tour of the grape vines and two bottles of their finest as a gift for my new business partner and best friend.  Having just learned about the growth of vineyards in Vermont, I have been planning a campaign stop to talk about cold climate grapes as an emerging agricultural crop.  Lincoln Peak currently offers the largest crop of the Marquette variety of grape here in the State.

But alas, Jane Lindholm scooped me with a story on Vermont grapes two days ago.  That being said, there remains plenty of discussion surrounding the start-up costs for wine producers, liquor control regulations, the revenue per acre for this type of agriculture, and the potential growth of tourism.

Lincoln Peak's Cove Road is pictured above.  It's a nice dry red for only $15/bottle.  Not a bad price if you're a one, maybe two glass person,  especially considering it's locally produced. 

Nate Freeman

www.NateFreeman.com

Energy was in the air at yesterday's meting of the Vermont Democratic Committee. Both declared candidates for Lt. Gov. spoke, and they both had something to say about energy issues facing Vermont.

Tom Costello, recalling his ten years of service in the Vermont House of Representatives, talked about confronting the issue of electric industry restructuring in the 1990's. As Costello describes it (not inaccurately), restructuring was an idea of some Wall Street investors to extract more money out of the previously regulated electric industry, and Costello talks proudly of his role in blocking the restructuring effort after it passed the Senate. Incredible as it seems now, the putative “white knight”, slated to come into Vermont, buy up our retail electric companies, and put Vermont's electric industry on a stable footing was a company that started life as a natural gas trading company down in Texas. That's right: Enron.We avoided retail competetion in Vermont, even when big commercial and industrial customers, through an astroturf group called the Vermont Electric Consumers Coalition, were pushing hard for it. Thanks for helping to block that, Tom.

Nate Freeman was also talking about energy, and he briefly touched on  an idea that could make a lot of sense: a Vermont department of energy. Where does Vermont take a comprehensive look at electricity, home heating, and transportation energy uses? Freeman's idea would enable Vermont to do this. Given the future of energy costs, and the utter failure of the Douglas administration in this area, this is a welcome proposal.

After centuries of reporting temperatures based on thermometer readings in the affected location, the Vermont Department of Weather has announced a new method of reporting. Taking their lead from state regulations on radiation levels at nuclear power plants, the Weather Department is applying the same reasoning to temperatures. Instead of the outdoor temperature, temperatures will be reported based on the body temperature of a person standing at the site.

The human body usually maintains a constant temperature of 98.6 degrees regardless of the weather, he said. “When we are exposed to 80-degree temperatures, our bodies do not turn to 80 degrees. When we are exposed to 120 degrees in the desert we are not affected by that.”

Consequently, in summer weather it is misleading to report temperatures as high as 120 degrees when a person standing on the site would maintain a body temperature of 98.6 degrees.

Similarly, in the winter, the effects of human metabolism and insulated clothing allows the human body to maintain a temperature of 98.6. Thus, while in recent years Vermonters have shuddered at reports of temperatures dropping to 10 degrees, 0 degrees, or even below zero, this winter the official Vermont temperature will hover at a balmy 98.6.

Federal weather officials at NOAA have not commented on this new reporting method, but state officials believe it will have several beneficial effects. For one thing, given the expected high cost of heating oil this winter, this will make it easier for landlords to maintain apartments at the state-mandated 65 degrees. Vermont's public utilities, who are faced with restrictions on disconnections when temperatures drop to sub-freezing levels, will not lose this all-important collection mechanism. And State and local road and highway departments, who have been hard-pressed by road salt costs in recent years, can leave their salt trucks parked as long as the 98.6 degree temperatures prevail.

And what are the implications for Vermont's only nuclear power plant? “Once again, we are pleased that our leadership has been recognized by the Douglas Adminstration,” said plant spokesman Waylon Smithers.