Two From Texas

Vermont isn't Texas.

(And may God be praised for that, chants the Green Mountain Chorus.)

Still, you do have to admire the way they can grab hold of a problem down there and take action.  For example, in Texas, where the phrase "big oil" is not an incantation to conjure up images of plunder and pollution and used by grown-ups to scare little children, one of the biggest awl men of them all has just put some tall money into ... wind. 

Boone Pickens means to get'er done.  Meanwhile, in Vermont, where we like to announce ourselves as the leader of the whole wide world in going green ... well, you know.  It's tough to get permits and there are these regulations and so on and so, drearily, forth. 

And when Texas had a problem, like a lot of jurisdictions, with a shortage of doctors, the state did the obvious thing.  It fired the lawyers and doctors are streaming into the state.  In Vermont, where health care is expensive and there is a shortage of doctors, we commission studies and then review the results and then bring in some consultants ...

There is a lot to be said for doing nothing.  And one of Vermont's most eloquent statesmen had it exactly right when he said:

If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.
      Calvin Coolidge. 

Still ... some of those problems stay on the road and you need, as in the looming energy crunch, to take action. Vermont, it seems, is content to talk about renewables and, very possibly, shut down the Yankee plant.  We doubt Coolidge would have considered this prudent.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Gordon Smith]

Yay, Texas! Things get done here!
I also see it's rainy and 55 degrees in BTV. It will eclipse 90 today in Austin - I'm wearing short sleeves, and it no longer takes me two hours to get the chill out of my 50-year-old bones. And we have the coolest thunderstorms!

[Brattleboro_conservative]

Oh the greenies in Vermont love to talk a good game about wind power till it's in their back yard messing up their sightlines. It's called Hypocrisy and the environmental fools in this state have their little nimby act down pat. I can't wait until VY shuts down and the nimby's see their electric bill after VY is gone.