This week’s winner of the “Ignoranus Award” — what the Washington Post Style Invitational once defined as “someone who is both stupid and an asshole” — goes to James Conca for his Sept. 1, 2013 Forbes piece titled, “Who Told Vermont To Be Stupid?” In it, Conca writes that:

“The Great State of Vermont threw away cheap clean energy this week out of ignorance and fear. Vermont chose to be stupid, and will hurt the environment as a sidebar.”

After paying lip service to the “official reasons” Entergy cited for closing the 41-year-old plant, Conga declared that “we all know the real reason. Nasty politics and ignorance. The latter is forgivable and rectifiable with a little homework. The former is not.”

Ugh. There’s nothing more infuriating than someone smugly calling you stupid and lazy for not doing your homework — who was too lazy to do his own. Here are some quotes from the author who claims to “cover the underlying drivers of energy, technology and society.” It appears he could use some extra time in study hall: 

Staff Writer Ken Picard is a senior staff writer at Seven Days. A Long Island, N.Y., native who moved to Vermont from Missoula, Mont., he was hired in 2002 as Seven Days’ first staff writer, to help create a news department. Ken has since won numerous regional and national awards for his features, profiles and investigative stories and had his work picked up by international news outlets. He was the first journalist to shine a light on the thousands of undocumented workers in Vermont’s dairy...

29 replies on “Forbes Calls Vermonters “Stupid” For Closing Vermont Yankee”

  1. You are perfectly within your right to dispute what I say; as am I to dispute what you say. Mr. Conca wrote an article that I felt was rife with inaccuracies, patronizing and chastised others for not doing “homework” when it was clearly apparent that he had not done so.
    You, and jcarter don’t agree with me and agree with Conca. Wonderful. I’ve argued my points (debated) and you all say I’m hate-filled. Fine. You can say whatever you want to say about me. I’m bald. I’m fat. I’m old. I’ll dispute most of those (I am kinda bald), and probably no matter what I say I’m not going to change your mind.
    What I won’t do, however, is sit back and let patently false statements stand. I will dispute, argue and debate them. I see it from you two all the time, which is why I challenge you.
    You don’t like to be challenged so you say that I’m hate-filled. I just say you’re wrong. It’s pretty simple really.

  3. If only that were true.
    And no matter what you say Bob, you don’t debate. A debate requires that both parties are capable of hearing the others points and responding appropriately. Your hate disallows you from doing so and ergo from having a debate.
    Go enjoy your retirement Bob. No need to debate anyone any more … you “won”

  4. You’re confusing hate with debating. I don’t hate Entergy; its execs or its lobbyists. You were the one who defended Conta’s words. I disputed them.
    No need to feel badly for me. I’m fine. Yes, I’m bias, opinionated and will speak out when I see someone distorting the truth as I see it. That’s the way it is.

  5. Bob, I feel sorry for you. You have so much hatred for anything Entergy it has affected your ability to critically read, think and respond to anything regarding it. Everything is about “winning”… so much so you don’t seem to realize that even though you won, you’ve actually lost.
    You retired Bob and yet you sit on this site and on the Forbes site arguing semantics and stupid shit, like to what degree Entergy was or was not aware of the lobbying effort against it, with people while presumable vacationing on the Cape. Jesus Christ Bob!! That is just sad.
    As a Vermonter I apologize that something in this state caused you to hate it so much that it has consumed your life. Enjoy your retirement Bob knowing that you “won.”

  7. Well, I’m on the Cape & don’t have access to much info down here, but I can tell you that Entergy ran a never-ending media campaign that I seem to remember ran around $1 mil. Entergy outspent all other entities combined.
    Go look up what they paid McLean, Meehan & Rice and Gerry Morse. It was a lot of money. I got paid $65; then $55/yr. Last year I worked for no compensation.
    The other folks you mentioned weren’t paid lobbyists. As usual you are comparing apples to oranges. You disagree with my words challenging Conca. OK, Entergy was aware of the magnitude of the effort against them. It’s not only misleading, but completely false to say otherwise.
    They were paying the aforementioned firm 10’s of thousands of dollars to be on top of the effort. Their lobbyist are some of the best in the business. I think they would disagree that they were oblivious to the magnitude of the effort against them.
    An herein lies the problem. I was there. I saw what was happening. I know what happened. Neither you, nor Conca, were there. Conca should have called Entergy’s lobbyist to see if they were oblivious. That would’ve been doing his homework; something he says others haven’t done.
    I’m old. I don’t time to waste on you. Go live happily ever after in your world of hating Peter Shumlin. The project I’ve worked on for 6 years I’ve won. I’m happy. You’re not. Life is good.

  8. “Like I said, to the average reader, one could be led to believe that Vermont relies heavily on this plant. As you know, we’ve not relied on the plant for over a year.”
    Actually, even after Vermont stopped buying power from VY, the state did continue to “rely heavily on this plant.” Not for purchasing electricity, but economically. Of course, by the time the disastrous economic effects of the closure of this plant, which was bullied out of existence for purely political reasons by the crass and ambitious Peter Shumlin, are truly felt, and Windham County is in a deep depression, Fast Talking Millionaire Pete will have long left the Guv’s office and will be elsewhere, and will have long forgotten about the poor folks in Windham County.

  9. Come now Bob, you are engaging in the deliberate misleading nature that you accuse Conca of.
    Conca didn’t say Entergy was unaware of the fight…. he said they were oblivious to the magnitude.
    There’s a difference there.
    There also wasn’t just you and James Moore. There was also the barrage of ads that ran during Scummy’s election bid funded by Bitterdork, not to mention the unending quotes from Arnie Gunderson that were run in the media.
    These are all certainly lobbying efforts and (perhaps more effective ones then that waged by you and Moore) especially the crap that came out of Scumlin’s campaign I would bet in fact did catch Entergy off guard.
    It would be interesting though to see the actual numbers of money spent between Entergy and that spent by opponents (including Super PACS) on lobbyists / TV ads / and Propaganda.

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