Candleblog

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 [...]

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 [...]

John Hodgman is my copilot… See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Seven Days has released it’s annual readers’ choice awards ballot, asking Vermonters to vote on everything from their favorite restaurant to their favorite newscaster. Candleblog has been honored to receive the Best Vermont Blog (non political) “Daysie” for a few of the last several years. After winning the award last year, I predicted that my [...]

Check out this video produced by my friends Nate and Dan. It features director Bobby Farrelly (Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary) and actor William H. Macy (Fargo, The Cooler) both of whom have strong ties to Vermont… VT Film Incentive from Vermont Film and Media Coalition on Vimeo. Dan says the battle to [...]

There is an important subtle distinction to make about today’s historic override vote in the Vermont statehouse. Media are reporting that Vermont is the 4th state to legalize gay marriage, which is true (if you discount the few months that California enjoyed this equal protection under the law), but there’s a really noteworthy difference with [...]

Town Meeting Day is upon us again in Vermont. For the first election cycle in several years, VCAM and CCTV won’t be doing the Exit Voices thing. It became clear over the last few cycles that the social media void we were trying to fill with the blog/aggregator was being adequately filled in other places [...]

I just got an email from VPIRG encouraging people to recycle their TVs after they become “obsolete” following the DTV transition on June 12th. Recycling TVs is a great idea. The only problem is that no TVs will become obsolete then — they will all still work just fine. VPIRG is using a situation they [...]