Previously on “The Secret History of Vermont”
Chapter 3: Corn, Taxes, and Maple Syrup
Vermont is unique among the states in that it has two completely independent State governments. The first, known as the Vermont State Government, has no bureaucrats, has levied no taxes, and is of the opinion that it isn’t the government’s place to go around telling people what to do. It has the highest approval ratings of any governmental organization in the observed universe. The other is known as the Montpelier Legislature whose motto is, “Pass six unenforceable regulations before breakfast.” Perhaps a few examples will help illustrate how the Montpelier Legislature operates:
- Every year the Montpelier Legislature looks at the State’s demographics and says, “Wow! Look at all these poor people! We must raise their taxes so we can give them more public assistance!” and every year the citizens revise their books so that their tax bill is about the same, or a little less. After 200 years of this Vermont now boasts the highest tax rates and lowest tax income of any state of the Union.
- Because it is a major cause of pain and suffering the Montpelier Legislature occasionally proposes a bill outlawing Death and is puzzled each time when the idea is solidly rejected by the citizens. This is because the citizens have seen that Death is practically the only way a member of the Montpelier Legislature can be persuaded to give up his or her seat
During the right time of year a visitor to Vermont cannot help but to be astonished at the amount of acreage devoted to growing corn. A simple calculation shows that during its 15 day growing season Vermont grows enough corn to feed all of Asia and Africa for several years. Where does all this corn go?
Some of it is fed to cows. Cows are no longer legal tender but cows give milk that can be made into Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream which is legal tender in most parts of the world. Some of the corn is converted into whisky most of which is discretely exported to foreign places like Kentucky and Tennessee. A very small amount of the corn is sold to tourists in quaint little roadside concessions usually consisting of a card table and a cardboard sign that says, “SWEET CORN $1/doz”. This is done only to make people overlook the primary use of the corn, which is making corn syrup.
When the Montpelier Legislature, during a travel junket outside of Montpelier, saw Vermont corn fields for the first time its reaction was, “Wow! Look at all this corn! We must tax it so we can create a Department of Corn Management!” Incredibly, instead of storing corn over the winter for VDCM inspectors to find and add to the State Corn List, Vermont farmers figured out a way to hide it instead. What they do is render it down into corn syrup, which is mostly sugar; pump it into maple trees in the fall, pump it out again in the spring, all nicely maple flavored; and boil it down into maple syrup, which isn’t taxed and used to be legal tender.
The idea that maple trees somehow make sugar water inside themselves is an ancient fiction created for the occasional Montpelier Legislature member who, during a travel junket outside of Montpelier, wonders where maple syrup comes from.
Pirate corn = buck an ear
Fun stuff, Richard
*polite applause*
Hah!
Nicely done Richard! I knew maple syrup was a Big Ag scam!
Another nice installment. The illustration is great.
Somewhere I have a disk with larger images that my cousin gave me but it would take an archeological excavation to find it. I also have printouts that would take a different archeological excavation to find. I’m kinda annoyed about it.
Don’t have the funding to mount two archeological expeditions?
I’m actually in the process of moving my office which means one excavation has commenced. If I find the disk I’ll re-post the illustrations. I think the printouts are in my shed.
Sugar water trees!
Vermont is special
I looked it up. Vermont has dropped to 4th place in the Great Tax Swindle! Time for Montpelier to step up their game.
Vermont passed a Single Payer law but when the Montpelier Legislature looked to see what’s inside the necessary 40% tax rate proved to be a showstopper. The governor of the time decided not to run again because of it. There’s still a committee trying to make it work but BCBS said they’re no longer going to participate.
You have too many forms of legal tender.
1 form per person seems right to me, so probably not enough.
Sorry, that should say “Up to 1 form…”, I am a libertarian, I aint going to force you to create one.
I am disappoint.
I was expecting “Nobody needs twenty-seven forms of legal tender”
That is what at least one Vermontistani* thinks. But I aint him.
*not sure of proper term.
We call them either Vermonsters or Meese.
Vermonticon.
Vermin [plural].
After 200 years of this Vermont now boasts the highest tax rates and lowest tax income of any state of the Union.
Muh loopholez!
Fair shares hardest hit.
CNN wants to know
Student loan borrowers: What are you doing with the money saved while payments are paused?Student loan borrowers: What are you doing with the money saved while payments are paused?
Investing it in low risk vehicles in order to have it available for repayment when the time comes, I bet.
Either that or pissing it away on frivolous bullshit.
And the real answer in most cases is “What? I don’t understand the question.” Even though you repeated it…
So what you’re saying is Vermont is weird.
Well, it’s on the Miskatonic watershed.
As Providence would have it.
My personal experience with Richard’s Maple Syrup is that their sweet corn must be the top of the line and little will be exported to the outside world. Maple flavored sweet corn is a winner.
Thanks, Richard, for another history lesson. So much to learn, so little time…
We’re having a stretch of good sap running weather (below freezing at night, above freezing during the day), sap tanker trucks are going to and fro, and there’s smoke and steam in the hills from the boiling. It’s supposed to get cold again but the sap will flow again when it warms up again. Traditionally sugaring starts Town Meeting Day which is March 7th this year but modern producers take advantage of every sap flow they can.
Some of the corn is converted into whisky most of which is discretely exported to foreign places like Kentucky and Tennessee – wait I thought all US whisky was made in Indiana
Hell, they make that crap all over the place, even shitholes like New York.
A neighbor’s Uncle is a long time moonshiner. I had some of his “Apple Pie” shine once, flavored with apples and cinnamon. I couldn’t taste any alcohol.
just like in Justified!
Montpelier sounds excessively french to me. I don’t like it. Almost as bad as Pierre
We pronounce it “mont peel eer” which annoys the Quebecois to no end.
Pierre is pronounced peer.
And Versailles, KY would cause a heart attack in Paris.
If the French could spell, these misunderstandings wouldn’t happen.
Not wrong.
Ha! Ohio has correct pronunciations covered!
Bellefontaine (Bell Fountain)
Versailles (Ver-sales)
Lima (Lye-ma)
Rio Grande (Ry-oh Gran-day)
Russia (Rooshee)
I’m sure there’s more.
You hit the main ones, except Toledo – Tuh-LEE-doh, as opposed to Toe-LAY-doh).
Also Eldorado (El-dor-AY-do – NW Preble Co.)
I suppose Seville (Suh-ville) vs. Seville (Se-vee-ah) But I think even in Spain some pronounce it the former.
You mean like East Palestine? Akron, Mentor, Ashtabula, Ravenna, and Cuyahoga are all shibboleths up here.
The main street in my home town is Higuera.
Pronounced High-gAra.
Buena Vista Township, New Jersey
BYUU NUH Vista
Same pronounciation as Buena Vista, GA, then. We also have a Martinez, pronounced “Martin – ezz”.
Vermont ‘Maple Syrup’ in its true unadulterated form.
That’s just wrong.
That shade of food coloring is for blueberry syrup.
Foodist! If maple syrup wishes to identify as trans-syrup and dye itself blue you should be supportive!
Mrs. Butterworth’s Blood!
I can’t imagine why we have an obesity problem in this country.
That’s fucking nasty.
C’mon, weren’t you ever a kid? Pour that stuff over the candy coated sugar bombs for a real treat.
*hurk*
That’s what they make Romulan ale out of.
So Lazlo just won $150 in scratcher tickets, a $500 gift card to a luxury spa and hotel, and a $100 gift card to my favorite restaurant (La Bodega) (had dinner with OMWC and SP there).
🙂
Dr. Lazlo?
Lazlo Hollyfeld, aka my husband.
Thats the Lazlo I was thinking of.
That movie is so fucking great.
Really, seriously great.
Just searched, none of the “major” youtube reactors have reacted to Real Genius.
“A girl’s gotta have her standards.”
Another movie that couldn’t be made today
Opposing the state’s secret super weapon of death would be unpatriotic.
All the way! Failure is not an option! Victory is self-explanatory.
Meanwhile, for Landsbergis, the failure to not just clearly define Western partners’ war aims but even debate them in earnest has been a crucial omission. And this failure to discuss outcomes and objectives is leaving room for those who waver to waver even more.
“My main question is why haven’t we ever had a conversation about the end goal? The only discussions or ideas that get floated around are about negotiations and peace processes — and all that makes a lot of people in my part of Europe quite nervous. Okay, so we talk about victory, and we talk about standing with Ukraine to the very end — but let’s also talk about this.”
All the way to Moscow, Shirley.
Jesus.
https://twitter.com/NikkiHaley/status/1628080625545621513
Just go away, Nikki.
RACIST!!!!!!!!
And misogynist!
We’re done here.
She’s the ideal candidate for 2008.
Well put.
Only good coming out of this is exposing both sides of this are terrible human beings. Not that it will move the entrenched I guess.
Lord have mercy, she’s almost as lame as Romney.
Truth.
Either that’s a very sticky wall or that phone is haunted.
Or its a tacky 70s tablecloth, but I am going with haunted
That was designed to be wall mounted, why is it on a flat surface? I only see one cable coming out of the base and it looks like the handset cable. That phone isn’t even connected.
I’m sure this will make things go much smoother.
Biden EPA to take over cleanup of toxic Ohio derailment disaster
OTH, plenty of corporations haven’t exactly been forthcoming or generous with people they have wronged.
A couple of public hangings of CEOs could provide some encouragement for the others.
+3 or more so Wells Fargo Congressional hearings from its revolving door of CEOs.
The water is fine, citizens of Flint!
/Obama EPA
“Rather than clean up the toxic wreck voluntarily, as it has done so far, Norfolk Southern will be required to do so under a plan approved by the EPA”
So, cleanup is going to come to a screeching halt while paperwork is shuffled.
My first thought too.
Although never underestimate a large corporation’s PR department to claim the company is doing the moral thing while it’s legal department stonewalls.
These contracts take time..
its an out of cycle request
The Environmental Protection Agency will take control of the response to the Ohio train derailment disaster and order rail company Norfolk Southern to clean up the contamination, the agency said Tuesday, the Biden administration’s strongest response yet to the crisis.
They’re going to dig up the town and ship it to India?
I hear Bhopal has space.
Just blow-up or burn down everything that’s contaminated.
Nuclear fire should cleanse it.
Nuland is working on the solution right now.
Cleveland Browns Thankful To No Longer Be Largest Disaster In Ohio
So you intend to prove their point.
Meghan Markle is reportedly not too happy with how she’s been portrayed on Wednesday night’s episode of the adult comedy show “South Park” titled “The Worldwide Privacy Tour.”
A source told The Spectator that Markle has been “upset and overwhelmed” by the episode’s release and is “annoyed by South Park but refuses to watch it all.”
Though the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were not directly named in the episode, it featured characters described as Canadian royalty and dubbed “the prince and his wife,” which clearly parodied the couple. In the parody, the young royal couple beg for privacy while drawing attention to themselves in a spoof-like way.
Also a double spook on all the gym rat ratting
*spoof* sigh
That was a tame parody by South Park standards. Remember the Barbara Streisand parody? I assume that since legal action has been threatened, the South Park Boys will crank it up to 11 and savage those ex-royal twats next time.
Glorious. I can’t wait!
The current episode is posted in full here:
https://southpark.cc.com/episodes/3ne660/south-park-the-worldwide-privacy-tour-season-26-ep-2
I mentioned I have restarted the series, as I only pick in choose episodes I wanna watch at the moment. However, I wanted to capture what I saw when I was 17. Like the Bee today, they have their finger on the pulse of the underlying culture. Like Queer Guy for the Straight Guy episode or how they captured America’s warboner and counter protests during the Bush years.
How they captured the Uni-party with Obama’s election, etc.
They are amazing. To be able to deliver the goods after so many years is really impressive.
LOL. What a pair of twats.
Ain’t no lawyer stupid enough to take that lawsuit.
Upset and overwhelmed by something she hasn’t seen?
I do like that the name of Unnamed Inbred Brit Second Son’s autobiography is Waaaagh!
I do like that the name of Unnamed Inbred
BritCanadian’s Second Son’s autobiography is Waaaagh!He’s an Ork?
BritCanadian’sCommon welsher.Does South Park still have their “viewer advisory” message?
“Blah blah blah should not be viewed by anybody” should cover it.
Yep and ‘any impressions are poorly done’ blah blah too.
The Bee is rolling:
https://babylonbee.com/news/man-whos-suitcase-exceeds-45-lb-airplane-weight-limit-worried-he-might-be-gay
Ilhan Omar Withdraws Support For East Palestine After Learning It’s In America
Savage.
Hunter Asks Dad To Pick Up His Paycheck As Long As He’s In Kyiv
I knew it. SF works at the Bee.
Can we get ChatGPT to fill in when we are short of articles?
Vanderbilt University uses ChatGPT to address MSU shooting: ‘Sick’
Perhaps in DAN mode.
Couple it with Grammerly and the wokeness will be complete.
Use it to generate OKCupid profiles.
It did.
Tail end
It’s Godzirra!
A suspicious object resembling an “iron ball about 1.5 m in diameter” was found on Enshuhama Beach in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture
Japanese 🇯🇵 police have declared a 200-meter area off-limits due to the possibility of an explosion.
Blue Oyster Cult – Godzilla (Live at The Capitol Center, 1978)
SEA SMITH LOSE ANAL BEAD HIM USE ON JAPANESE TRAWLERS. WANT BACK.
Speaking of – fair winds and following seas.
Wreck of WWII Submarine USS Albacore Discovered off Japan
Excellent reply.
“Looks surprisingly like the floats used at the top of anchor points for ships in harbors. But then I can’t say for sure since I’m not a biologist.”
Thanks Richard for the Vermont tales
Yes. I enjoy them also! Didn’t get a chance to say so earlier in the post.
You’re welcome! There are a few more to go.
So Richard, are there any good online sources for real, authentic Vermont maple flavored sugar water.
These are some neighbors of mine:
https://www.facebook.com/hemondssugarshack/
Another local outfit:
https://www.hivuemaples.com/
thanks