Vermonter.com

On February 20 members of the Vermont House of Representatives voted 88 to 50 not to take a 5-percent pay cut. Fast forward in time and now there is a bill in the works that, if passed, will pay for a laptop for every legislator – apparently from the pockets of taxpayers.

During the debate about whether to accept a pay cut, most of those who spoke in favor of the cut insisted that in such dire times, when so many Vermonters are making sacrifices, that legislators should also make sacrifices. However, of those who voted against the cut, most of those who spoke insisted that they work far too hard for anybody to think they should be paid any less than the pay they already earn serving in legislature.

There is now a bill creeping forward, which if passed, will provide each legislator a laptop computer – apparently courtesy of Vermont taxpayers. House bill 385 is sponsored by four Democrats, all who voted against the pay cut. They are Ken Atkins of Winooski, Richard Howigan of Fairfield, Tim Jerman of Essex, and Kathy Keenan of St. Albans City. The following is the “statement of purpose” as recorded on the bill.

“This bill proposes to appropriate sufficient funds for the purchase of laptop computers for every member of the general assembly.”

If this bill comes up for debate on the House Floor it will certainly be interesting to know why the legislators promoting this bill think we all need a laptop computer at taxpayer expense when many taxpayers can’t afford their own.

To find out how your legislators voted on various “roll call” votes, votes that are recorded, go to www.leg.state.vt.us.

The author of this article, Scott Wheeler of Derby, represents Brownington, Charleston, Derby, Holland, and Morgan in the Vermont House. He serves this district along with Representative Robert Lewis of Derby.

Unbelievable. Despite a deepening recession and 100′s of people losing their jobs in Vermont, the Democrats refused a pay cut and now want Vermont taxpayers to buy them laptops. To add insult to injury, Democrats are also proposing new taxes to take money from YOUR pocket. I guess it’s ok for Vermont legislators to take your hard earned money but they certainly don’t want to part with theirs!

From the VTGOP newsletter:

Just 2 weeks ago, House Democrats voted against cutting their own pay by 5%, but now some in the Democratic caucus want you, the taxpayer, to buy them their very own laptop computer. See the text of the bill below. You just can’t make this up.

BILL AS INTRODUCED
H.385
2009
Page 1

1 H.385
2 SHORT FORM
3 Introduced by Representatives Atkins of Winooski, Howrigan of Fairfield,
4 Jerman of Essex and Keenan of St. Albans City
5 Referred to Committee on
6 Date:
7 Subject: Appropriations; legislature; laptops
8 Statement of purpose: This bill proposes to appropriate sufficient funds for the
9 purchase of laptop computers for every member of the general assembly.
10 An act relating to laptops for legislators
11 It is hereby enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont:
12 (TEXT OMITTED IN SHORT-FORM BILLS)

Please forward this to your friends and family or take the time to contact your legislator. It is up to us to show Vermonters how out of touch the Democrats in the Legislature really are.

I love fall foliage season in Vermont. It’s that short but wonderful time of year where you can drive around and just take in the scenery. If you can afford the gas. You just never know what you’ll find. Also because it’s an election year, political candidate signs are more prevalent than weeds.

Driving through the town of Monkton the other day, I happened to view these two signs placed next to each other. The name combination was vaguely familiar…”Douglas” and “Heffernan”. With that in mind, one may jokingly conclude that a fictional and portly package delivery driver from NY is up for election in the Green Mountains of Vermont.

In my search for the holy grail of broadband Internet access, I thought I’d share some of my experiences along the way. If you’re considering the tranquility of northern Vermont real estate and need high-speed Internet for your work, beware! Many rural Vermonters do not have access to broadband services, where dial-up and/or reduced speed wi-fi may be the only choice.

What about satellite Internet?
When it comes to advice, the following people may not be your best source:
1. Your real estate agent may anxiously offer this wondrous solution in order to close the sale but be careful. He may offer to put you in touch with someone he or she knows who “has satellite Internet and really loves it!”. Unless the person he recommends uses Internet services for their work and spends a lot of time working on the web, their advice isn’t worth a grain of salt. Browsing the web and checking email are a world apart from working via your Internet connection.
2. The satellite installation company. Many of these companies are very familiar with satellite TV services but not very knowledgable about the Internet, Widlblue or HughesNet (formerly Direcway) satellite Internet. While they may do a great job of installing, some know little or nothing about bandwidth, latency or most importantly, the Fair Access Policy. Ask them what the Fair Access Policy is. If they can’t tell you, call someone else.

What is the Fair Access Policy and why is it so important?
Did you know that the amount of files you upload/download via satellite Internet are restricted by usage levels? Most people don’t and neither the satellite providers or installers are anxious to let you know about it either. In other words, if you upload or download a lot of MP3′s, videos, etc. the satellite provider will slow you down to a dial-up (or less) crawl. Usually, you will not be told about this until after you sign the contract and/or discover one day that your satellite speed has slowed to the rate of molasses on a cold, winter day.

Contract? What contract?
You’ll love this. You try out the service for 30 days, purchase the equipment from anywhere between $300 to $1000, depending on which satellite provider/service level you prefer. Then, you pay anywhere between $49 to $150 per month for the wondeful opportunity to access these services. However, according to the terms of the contract, you are locked into a 12 month (Wildblue) or 15 month (HughesNet) commitment. Decide to quit and you pay the full amount anyway. Same rip-off as cell phone and other Internet access contracts. The worst part is that if you get crappy upload/download speeds below what you sign on for, you have no recourse. So BEWARE and take advantage of the 30-day trial before you end up in a less than ideal year long (or more) commitment. Also, you should know now that the 30 day FREE TRIAL is NOT!!! You will have to pay Wildblue a $79 “uninstallation” fee and HughesNet will not refund 100% of your equipment fee either.

Educate yourself before taking the plunge into satellite Internet
Do a Google search on ‘Wildblue’, ‘Wildblue complaints’, etc. and see what others have to say. Visit the satellite provider’s websites and take a look at what is posted on their support forums. You’ll be surprised at what you see. A particularly informative website is Wildblue Uncensored! at http://www.wildblue.cc/. If you live (or plan to live) in northern Vermont, go to their message board and read about the many problems with Laredo: Beam 29 outages. This is the satellite that provides service to northern Vermont. Quite an eye opener!

Vermont360.com is now up and running. This is a website that features those fancy 360 virtual tours where you can go in and literally look around someone’s house from the comfort of your mouse and keyboard. Sure beats web cams of the house cat running around!

Although 360 virtual tours are best suited to real estate home listings, they also work great for industrial locations, museums and lodging. Go take a look and spin the rooms from side to side and top to bottom. It’s fun…really. (Now you nosy neighbors can see what’s going on in that mysterious house next door).