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This column makes it official — all is fair game now. I want to thank Seven Days for welcoming me aboard. And thanks in advance to the many well wishers — and probably not-so-well wishers — whom I hope will read this column closely each week.

Some of you know me from my various stints in journalism. I’ve covered Vermont politics and its people since high school, when I was a sports stringer for The Barton Chronicle. More recently, I founded and ran The Vermont Guardian, a statewide print weekly and online daily.... Read more

MONTPELIER — The terms “nuclear power” and “limited liability corporation” make strange bedfellows, and the idea of marrying the two doesn’t lie, er, sit, well with many Vermont lawmakers.... Read more

VERMONT — Two influential state senators from Windham County have introduced legislation that would require the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon to undergo an “independent safety assessment” before it could be re-licensed in 2012. A second bill from the senators calls on the state to explore other possible sites around Vermont for storing Vermont Yankee’s spent radioactive fuel in lieu of its current location along the Connecticut River.... Read more

In the world of industrial-scale electricity generation, some structures are so large and powerful that the sight of them takes your breath away. Their massive, spinning turbines can generate millions of kilowatt-hours of cheap and reliable energy for years at a time, while contributing virtually nothing to global warming.... Read more

VERMONT - Anti-nuke activists have talked a lot of talk about the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor since 1972. Now they're taking it to the streets. On March 24, concerned citizens left Greenfield, Massachusetts, for a Gandhi-style march to Burlington - as in, on foot - in opposition to the relicensing of the Vernon facility. The 35-year-old reactor's operating license will expire in 2012.... Read more

Cancer isn't just a virulent growth that afflicts the human body -- it's also a dangerous weapon that can infect the body politic. Mere mention of the word "cancer" in a headline can be enough to blacklist a geographic region or bankrupt a company. So when an independent group of scientists from New York claimed recently that there may be a link between elevated cancer rates in Windham County and the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, the contention further inflamed an already incendiary issue.... Read more

It was cold and harsh in Montpelier last week for representatives of Entergy Nuclear, owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, but the Arctic-like conditions outside were the least of their concerns. Inside the hearing room of the Public Service Board, board members sounded rather chilly towards Entergy, which is seeking permission to boost the plant's power output by 20 percent.... Read more

Just as Howard Dean's campaign for the Democratic nomination appears a sure thing, the campaign of the once great Sen. John Kerry unravels.

The man with the longest, saddest face in American politics fired his campaign manager, Jim Jordan, this week. Long John quickly replaced him with a female political operative who few realize cut her political teeth right here in Vermont, the land of Dean!... Read more

Arnie Gundersen knows a thing or two about failure. In fact, he's an expert on it. Gundersen is a licensed nuclear reactor operator. For 20 years he worked in the atomic energy industry assessing the safety and reliability of nuclear reactors, measuring the wear and tear on components and calculating their risk of failure. These days, when he's not teaching math and physics at Burlington High School, Gundersen testifies as an expert witness on nuke-related issues, about 40 percent of the time on behalf of the nuclear industry.... Read more