VERMONT TO ABANDON its single-payer health care plan. Megan McArdle has much more.

When money talks, governments (sometimes) listen....

WHAT HAPPENS when an anti-police protest goes awry -- the protestors call 911.

RANDOM THOUGHTS from Thomas Sowell. Here are a few:

If anyone in the mainstream media is at a loss for what New Year's resolution to make, try this: Stop "spinning" or censoring stories about race, and try telling the plain truth, if only for the novelty of it.

Republicans complain when Democrats call them racists. But when have you ever heard a Republican counterattack? You don't win by protesting your innocence or whining about the unfairness of the charge. Yet when have you heard a Republican reply by saying, "You're a lying demagogue without a speck of evidence. Put up or shut up!"

Has anyone asked the question, "How could so many people across the country spend so much time at night marching, rioting and looting, if they had to get up and go to work the next morning?"

Read the rest.

MINIMUM WAGE LOOPHOLE written to help labor unions. Even unions understand economics 101: "When something gets more expensive, people tend to buy less of it."

Although making non-union labor more expensive seems counterintuitive to the union workers' best interest....

BEWARE! THEY'RE COMING FOR US NEXT: Ancient Martian civilization wiped out by nuclear-bomb-wielding aliens.

FINAL VOYAGE: Navy pays one cent to scrap aircraft carrier.

That's a lot of razor blades in a time when so few men (including myself) use razors.

LIFE IN THE PROGRESSIVE REPUBLIC: Gun deaths of police officers jump 56 percent in 2014. Thank President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Geese flying south cause winter.