Candleblog

I’ve cut my first political campaign video. My friend, Philip Baruth, is running for Vermont State Senate. He approached me last year about doing some video work for the campaign. This four-minute piece is one of the results. We’re “premiering” it tonight at the Main Street Landing Black Box Theater at “Philipalooza,” a fundraiser for [...]

Following the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent environmental disaster, President Obama understandably enforced a moratorium on new deep water oil rigs until we can find out why this one failed and, ideally, how we can deal with the situation a little better should it ever happen again. Yesterday, federal judge Martin Feldman imposed an injunction [...]

I’m a constituent in Ward 5. I live in Ledgewood Condominiums on Austin Drive. I should also point out that I just voted for your re-election on Tuesday. I’m writing to express my strong support for the option of turning over the reins of Burlington Telecom to Tim Nulty and the “Group of 9″ so [...]

Clay Shirky breaks down Secretary Clinton’s speech on Internet freedom Thursday to it’s basic principals and commitments.
Lawrence Lessig reacts to the SCOTUS’s recent Citizens United case.
And David Rees gives us 5 Jokes About The Apparent Eagerness Of Certain Democratic Members Of Congress To Abandon Health Care Reform In Light Of Scott Brown’s Electoral Victory.

I caught this the other night and as Rachel was explaining the facts of the story (about how a US rifle scope manufacturer has apparently been printing Bible verses on scopes that are then sold to the US military and used in combat operations in the middle east), I felt myself getting angry at the [...]

[UPDATED below]
Thanksgiving Day is tomorrow and families will be coming together for dinner all over the USA to share the big meal. Football will be watched. Pie will be consumed. And inevitably, in some homes, politics will be discussed. Family members love each other, but they don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye on political issues. Political divisions [...]

So Sarah Palin wants a talk show. The coincidental timing of Lou Dobbs’ departure from CNN cannot be ignored (Dobbs no doubt driven into retirement by the knowledge that Atlantic Magazine thinks Steve Benen is more influential than he is). So it’s not too much of a stretch to suggest that maybe Palin could fill [...]

Watch this video, where former Republican Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, totally schools talk show host, atheist and Richard Dawkins Award winner, Bill Maher, on the efficacy of flu vaccines. It turns out that despite being a famous non-theist, Maher is a true believer of wacky alternative medicine claims, including the anti-vaccination nonsense that’s been [...]

…and congratulations to Steve Benen for making AtlanticWire’s list of The Atlantic 50 — the 50 “most influential commentators in the nation.” Wow. Nice job, Steve.
Here’s how they arrived at the list, on which Steve is listed as #44 — one higher than Lou Dobbs. I think Steve should consider this alone a personal and [...]

I spent all day last Monday at the Windjammer conference center in South Burlington with a TV crew recording a conference put on by the ACLU of Vermont called Thought and Expression in a Changing World. It brought together a bunch of lawyers who specialize in civil liberties case law to talk about how our [...]