I was away for a good chunk of the week, and then spent the rest catching up at work, so I’ve not been following everything as well as I might, but a few stories caught my eye.  

First, the not so stupid.  According to the Reformer, even people who support Vermont Yankee are concerned about Exenus (which I, personally, think should be called “Exodus” since it’s Entergy’s escape route).  According to the reformer:

“Decision makers are looking at (Enexus) and are less confident in what Entergy is trying to do,” said Rep. Virginia Milkey, D-Brattleboro.

Even those in favor of Yankee’s continued operation, the Enexus spin off is of major concern.

“I’m not comfortable with that yet,” said Rep. Richard Hube, R-Londonderry. “You’ve got to have the resources and the capability to fulfill your part of the contract.”

You read that right.  Even Rick Hube gets it.

The photo, by the way, is of a Broad Winged Hawk, which was just hanging out on a utility wire off rte 12 yesterday.  I pulled over, got a LOT of photos of it, kept waiting for it to fly off, and it just hang out there.  I’ll post another later.

After the jump, we get to the stupid, and there’s a whole lot of it.

Among the stupid: Vermont Tiger, on Vermont Tiger:

Early the next morning Vermonttiger.com, sent press and politicians into a frenzy when it reported that the rumor of an appointment was bogus, but Douglas was going to make a major political announcement that would change the political landscape.  Vermonttiger stopped an inch short of saying Douglas would not seek reelection, but it was clear they had the story.

See, they didn’t say it was going to happen, but it’s “clear” that in their heart of hearts, they knew it was coming.  Is there such a thing as a cranial enema?

Among the other stupid?

Per VPR, Douglas says Dubie would be most qualified Republican to succeed him.  Draw your own conclusions.

Also from VPR, a Whistleblower says FairPoint faked its readiness to take charge.  This is quite a story actually.  It looks like Fairpoint managed to fake out regulators by writing a computer program to simulate good performance.  Heckof a job, private contractors acting as regulators!

Tom Salmon sells us out.  Not a real surprise, but even so:

(Kinzel) State Auditor Tom Salmon is also weighing his options, and if he runs, he says he would bring a very different economic point of view to the Democratic race because he thinks Douglas has done a good job managing the state’s finances:

(Salmon) “The state needs to have a sound financial future and the path that he has been on regarding that has been one that needs to be instituted whether it’s a Democrat, Republican or Progressive………so I’m going to be very watchful of the debate and the candidates to ensure that that is on front dashboard so to speak.”

(Kinzel) Salmon says he’s concerned that the Democratic Party is drifting too far to the left on fiscal issues and he hopes to revitalize the moderate wing of the party.

But here’s my vote for one of the stupidest things I’ve read in a long time.  The Rutland Herald has a piece called Caledonia Fair officials fret over pigs’ health.  What’s wrong?  Are pigs in trouble?

No.

But you can probably guess where this is going:

…Officials at Vermont’s oldest fair, which runs through Sunday, have decided to take no chance, banning all swine from the Lyndonville event.

“The perception that swine flu was transmitted between pigs and human is why we did this. In reality, we know there’s no transmission between pigs and humans,” said Fair President Dick Lawrence.

Jim Tucker, president of the International Association of Fairs and Expositions, said he doesn’t know of any other fair in North America where pigs are unwelcome. He said most fairs will go on as usual, stressing personal hygiene.

Argh.

Argh.

Argh.

Okay, time to calm down with photos:

Ahh…. much better now.