Vermonter.com

This is the day that fills many with fear and trepidation. The most rugged of men have been known to hide within the confines of their homes like frightened cavemen of the stone age. When it comes to driving, no Playstation or Xbox game comes anywhere close to the challenges that “Black Friday” offers. The sun goes down on Thanksgiving day. Sometime in the midst of the night, retail employees sleepily stagger their way to work like zombies possessed. It’s 4am and the crowds appear like creatures of the night in search of fresh blood or 42″ plasma TV’s reduced 50 percent. Oh the humanity!

In Williston, Best Buy employees wait like deputies in an old west town, waiting for the lynch mob to bust through the doors. Then it suddenly happens. The key is turned, the doors are opened and Black Friday has begun. It’s too late to stop the madness and mayhem as the first words uttered are “umh, where do I find the laptops that are on sale…y’know, the ones in yesterday’s flyer?”

And slowly, some of us dare to slowly sneak out into the world on Saturday, the day after. No bodies in the streets and relatively less bloody than previous years. But as one retail employee put it best “..this is the eye of the storm, the worse is coming”.

So hey, how about those gas prices?

I came across this interesting website the other day called the Vermont Bad Business Bureau. There isn’t much there now but I could see where it could become a valuable resource if it were to catch on. Nothing is more frustrating than to move to an area and not know which plumber to call, which car mechanic to trust or the reputation of a company where you’re considering applying for a job.

There’s some good recommendations there too…perhaps worthy of a subtitle “the good, the bad and the ugly”.  Anyway, it’s definitely worth a look at http://vermontbbb.com/

Is that pot smoke or corruption we smell in the Windsor County air?

According to a recent story on WCAX, Vermont’s Attorney general is questioning why a lawyer and acting judge is getting a break for growing felony amounts of marijuana.

Attorney General Bill Sorrell is concerned that Windsor prosecutor Bobby Sand is sending the wrong signal about justice in Vermont.

The case started last month when game wardens discovered 36 pot plants and two-and-half pounds of marijuana in the home of Windsor lawyer Martha Davis, 61, according to court records. She also serves on occasion as an acting judge in the Windsor Family Court. The wardens charged her with felony marijuana possession and cultivation. Those charges carry potential penalties of 30 years in prison and a fine up to 1-million dollars.

But County Prosecutor Bobby Sand initially amended the charges to a far less serious misdemeanor and the last week agreed not to charge Davis with any crime. Instead, he permitted her to enter the Court Diversion Program. That means all record of the charges will be permanently expunged if she successfully completes community service assignments.

Vermont’s Attorney General Bill Sorrell says giving the lawyer a break like that for serious felony charges sends the wrong message.

“If all first-time marijuana possessors and cultivators in Windsor County are treated with Diversion the I guess that’s the county in which you ought to be in that business although you run the risk that federal authorities would come in or the Attorney General’s Office would come into the case,” responded Sorrell.