Mary Meets Steve Jobs

February, 1984:  Big Brother is not in power but Apple’s famous Big Brother ad did run during the SuperBowl.  Also their less famous ad in which an endl More...

Irene Lesson # 1 – Smart Grid Great for Power Restoration

At 1:36PM yesterday the lights went out for 1103 members of Vermont Electric Coop (VEC) in South Hero, including us at our summer place on the Lake. No surprise; tropical storm Irene was raging up Vermont. No need to call VEC in a panic, though; I could see immediately from More...

More Natural Gas or Less?

"Geologists Sharply Cut Estimate of Shale Gas" is the headline of a New York Times story today on a report from the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

"USGS boosts amount of More...

Why Won’t Americans Take These Jobs?

We've heard the argument a million times:

Farmers: "Americans just won't take these jobs."

Proponents of stricter immigration enforcement: "It's unconscionable to allow these foreigners to take American jobs at a time of high unemployment."

More...

Jobs Rx: Make America Shovel Ready

Twenty years of major construction projects are bottled up in regulatory queues. If the time in queue were shortened to a maximum of two years, we'd have a flood of new construction AND much of the infrastructure we need to be competitive in the globalized years ahead. No subsidies from the defic More...

Will Googlerola Be Able to Fight Data Caps?

"Is Google Turning Into a Mobile Phone Company?" asks the headline in Andrew Ross Sorkin's New York Times story. Wrong question, IMHO.

But is Google doing the deal at leas More...

Energy for Jobs – Vermont Version

Program: Energy for jobs

Idea: We can make Vermont attractive to manufacturing with a combination of our great workforce and energy which is cheap (and clean) by East Coast standards. Manufacturing provides jobs for all skill levels and is an engine for economic growth in general. Low cost More...

A Good Use of Our Tax Dollars for Renewables

The solar hot water equipment being installed at the Highgate "affordable-housing" (subsidized housing) complex in Barre is a good use of our tax dollars whether looked at from an economic, environmental, or plain old good-governance point of view. According to More...

Lots of Live Discussion of the (High) Price of Solar Electricity

Is the price Vermonters pay for solar electricity too high and counter-productive? Or are the subsidies from ratepayers and taxpayers necessary to save the environment and the economy? I asserted "way too high" in a More...

What Government CAN do to Create Jobs

"It's time to go big or be sent home," says Andy Kessler writing in The Wall Street Journal. He continues with six big ideas, none of wh More...