WEDNESDAY'S HUM (01-24-07)

SHUCKS ! NO MERGER !
Maybe Lyndonville and Essex Junction can merge. Inside stuff.
We were planning sizable coverage on the merger but we're sick of it like everyone else and will not mention it EVER again.


COFFEE SURVEY CONTINUES
Hey! Tell us where the great LOCAL coffee is!
Lots of comments! Lots of fun!


DIS - LOYAL
Burlington Republican Progressive Green Goatee party candidate Loyal Ploof will run for the Republican city council seat - wait! - no, he won't - wait! yes, no, yes, no...

Anyway, for the inside scoop and best story, see Charity at She's Right.



TIMES-ARGUS, BILL O'REILLY SOUNDING LIKE ROSIE AND TRUMP
They've called each other dishonest and O'Reilly has called the Times-Argus part of the corrupt Vermont media. Now the Times-Argus has blasted back, calling O'Reilly "irrelevant" and a "blowhard." At least they didn't accuse him of having a comb-over.

Here's a reaction posted on a Times-Argus forum:

donna shelley
Posted: 01/21/07 06:39:00 PM
Normal user
Posts: 1
Registered: 1/19 2006

Bill O'Reilly

---

You and the author of this are complete lunitics.Bill O'Reilly is a person,not unlike you and who wrote this story,who is trying to wake Americans up so that child rapist get the maximum amount of time in prison for thier crime.So the guy get probation and now him and alot of other pediphilles will go rape kids 4 years and under because in Vermont they wouldn't get jail time. Bill might not always get it right but he is at least trying. This so called newspaper should listen to what he has to say. Do you have kids. If you did you wouldn't dare write a bad thing about Bill O'Reilly. He cares and it shows. I was a victim of child molestation not once but many times and I thank God for people like Bill O'Reilly. The judges and prosecuters in Vermont are very much for the offender. It tells people with children not to move to Vermont because the law does not protect the children. Shame and you for defending the offenders.

HALL NO LONGER MONITORED ?
Speaking of the Times-Argus, Darren Hall, master of the well-received TA political blog, Hall Monitor, has left the building. He will be communications dude for the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources. Read his send-off from the editors here.


FIVE CORNERS UPDATE
Got to the Essex Junction Five Corners and had to break up a fistfight between a merger proponent and a merger opponent. It was a bloody mess, not unlike the whole merger proceedings. (Read this BFP My Turn piece from Hugh Sweeney.)
Whoops! We said earlier we weren't going to talk about the merger EVER again, and besides, the light changed and we headed to Winooski. No merger there. Just a roundabout.