The Shumlin administration has hand-picked two Vermont reporters to tag along: Vermont Public Radio's Kirk Carapezza and the Burlington Free Press' Terri Hallenbeck.

Both news outlets say their participation in the trip is tentative, pending confirmation of financial arrangements with the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation — a business group that favors basing the F-35 in South Burlington and which is sponsoring the trip to Eglin Air Force Base.

"I will be curious to see and hear them," Hallenbeck says. "But I go into it knowing that I won't necessarily be able to discern which one was louder and whether that means they'll be louder every day in the same place. I go conscious that [Shumlin] is being taken by people who are for this and really, really want it — and really want to convince people that this is a good thing."

VPR news director Ross Sneyd says he believes there's news value in sending Carapezza to record the takeoff and landing of the planes — but also to provide context about what the politicians experience during the trip.

"It's like any other story we'd report. We have to have a reporter there who can give context," he says.

But the head of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, the group that's sponsoring the trip, says nobody from South Burlington, where the planes would be based, will be joining them.

"Basically everyone on the South Burlington City Council has their mind made up one way or the other," says GBIC president Frank Cioffi. "I didn't invite them because their minds are made up already. They've already staked out their position and their position is their position."

When Seven Days pointed out that Shumlin, too, has staked out a position on the matter — he's in favor of bringing the planes to Vermont — Cioffi said, "Yes he has. But he's the governor. I would say if the governor wants to go down and view them, I think it's a great opportunity for Vermont to have him go down there."

One woman who definitely didn't get an invite is South Burlington City Council Chairwoman Rosanne Greco, a retired Air Force colonel who has become a leading opponent of the Vermont Air National Guard's effort to woo the next-generation planes. Asked if she'd like to join Shumlin and the mayors, Greco said yes — but not to listen to the planes.

Savvy Burlington-area residents have long used the hashtag #BTV to consolidate local content on Twitter, from the mundane (sunset pictures and lunch updates) to the serious (emergency management during storms). But #BTV is a simple hashtag that could stand for many things, and it's come under threat before — chiefly from users talking smack about state-run TV stations in Bahrain, Botswana and other B countries. (See "Burlington Meets Bahrain: When Twitter Hashtags Collide" from 2011 for more about that.)

But today, hashtag-jacking reached new heights when Bloomberg TV barged in. This did not go over well with Burlingtonians.

The news network had tried to use #BTV before, notably to collect Hurricane Sandy photos last month. But those tweets never caught enough traction to overwhelm Burlington content — until today, when the network pledged to use #BTV-tagged tweets in its iPad app while it aired a lunch-hour interview with President Barack Obama. Unfortunately for Vermonters, Obamarama trumped the Queen City, at least for a little while.

(Quick side note if you're new to Twitter and/or hashtaggery: No one "owns" a hashtag, so it's not like Burlington residents can complain to Twitter about having their hashtag swiped. A hashtag is really little more than a search archive of the tweets that include it. That's why Burlington locals were worried that their content would be utterly overwhelmed by Bloomberg TV's 105,000+ followers.)

The only way to fight back when someone jacks your hashtag? Flood it with your own content. This inspired a lovely round of trolling from Burlington Tweeters — which, in full disclosure, was egged on by this professional Twitter jockey. Below is a Storify showing the chronology of the great #BTV hashtag war of 2012, with political tweets on one side and gratuitous Lake Champlain photos on the other.

The Scoreboard took a week off to bask in turkey and stuffing, but today it's back in full force.

Here's our list of the week's winners and losers in Vermont news and politics:

Winners:

Crepe Debate — First, a disclosure: I love me a good crepe. Also, I love getting paid! All that aside, the debate that erupted this week in social media, the blogosphere and even in the good ol' lamestream media about Skinny Pancake's exemption from Burlington's living wage ordinance has been fascinating to behold. First reported by the Burlington Free Press, #crepegate found a new home in the comments section of Green Mountain Daily, where Democratic State Auditor-elect Doug Hoffer and Skinny Pancake founder Benjamin Adler engaged in a spirited and edifying (and edible?) exchange. Good on 'em for hashing it out in public.

Ex-Candidates — Turns out losing ain't that bad. This week, defeated lieutenant governor candidate Cassandra Gekas got a gig at the Department of Vermont Health Access, while defeated state auditor candidate Vince Illuzzi seems headed for a lobbying job at the Vermont State Employees Association. Lesson: Next time you need a new job, run for statewide office.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters — Near the end of a tough year for the Waterbury java giant, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters announced impressive third quarter earnings Tuesday, prompting a serious surge in the company's stock price. Analysts cited strong growth in its K-Cup packet and brewer sales. We'll drink to that.

Losers after the break...

John D. Haywood caught a flight from North Carolina to Burlington on Wednesday to tell a judge why St. Michael's College should pay him $50 million in a libel lawsuit aimed at student journalists.

Haywood (pictured) ran for president of the United States as a Democrat in the New Hampshire primary this year and blames a profile of him written by St. Mike's students for sinking his White House dreams. (Click here for background on the case.)

Students in Professor David Mindich's "Media and American Politics" class have been profiling lesser-known presidential candidates in every election since 2004, with the goal of giving voice to all candidates. Haywood complained that students grossly misrepresented his positions in the article, published on a college website 10 days before last January's primary, and says the errors cost him the race against President Obama. Haywood received just 432 votes, meaning he lost to Obama by a ratio of 115 to 1.

"Anyone who read their profile wouldn't touch my website with a 10-foot pole," Haywood told U.S. Magistrate Judge John Conroy on Wednesday. "Things they said about my positions are so extreme, so ridiculous."

In this week's print edition of Seven Days, you'll find these bits of news:

• In Fair Game: the new cops and courts reporter at the Times Argus is a convicted sex offender — and the TA doesn't want to talk about it.
• Vermont environmentalist Bill McKibben
  and his allies are pushing divestment as the next big weapon in the fight against climate change.
• Vermont's future medical marijuana dispensaries will likely face money woes in the face of high licensing fees, few patients and federal laws that consider them illegal.
• Speaking of pot: A former New York City prosecutor, now a Vermont Law School professor, has launched a new blog to examine drug policies, and their consequences, in the United States.
• One year after the Occupy movement, activists are turning to a new trend: offering free food to the needy.
• And just for fun, find out what Seven Days writers have on their wish lists for Vermont. (Paul Heintz wins the award for least practical suggestion.)

For the last few months, Vermonters have been arguing over whether the Air Force should bring its new F-35 fighter jets to Burlington International Airport. 

Anyone following the debate should take a few minutes to read the F-35 story in this morning's New York Times ("Costliest Jet, Years in Making, Sees the Enemy: Budget Cuts") The Times does a thorough review of the F-35 project, which is facing increased scrutiny as we approach the fiscal cliff.

Why? Because each jet is now expected to cost up to $137 million to build. According to the NYT:

The jets would cost taxpayers $396 billion, including research and development, if the Pentagon sticks to its plan to build 2443 by the late 2030s. That would be nearly four times as much as any other weapons system and two-thirds of the $589 billion the United States has spent on the war in Afghanistan. The military is also desperately trying to figure out how to reduce the long-term costs of operating the planes, now projected at $1.1 trillion.

That's a chunk of change. Here's another eye-popping number: 24 million. That's how many lines of code are required to make these planes work. And they're not all "secured and tested" yet. The new general who's about to begin overseeing the project calls that "the gorilla in the room." 

A Burlington Board of Health meeting Tuesday night on the effects of basing F-35 fighter planes at the city-owned airport was bookended by often-emotional condemnations of the plane's anticipated impact and by a military officer's assurance that the jets will prove to be good neighbors.

In between, three experts offered generally critical testimony on the likely health consequences of stationing up to two dozen of the fighters at BTV.

Noise produced by the F-35 "is probably going to be quite similar to what we have with the F-16" currently based at the airport, said Vermont Air National Guard Lt. Col. Luke "Torch" Ahmann, who has piloted F-16s for the past 12 years.

Dressed in a flight suit and clicking his way through a Power Point presentation in city hall's Contois auditorium, Ahmann said the F-35 will be louder than the F-16 in some locations near the airport but quieter in others.

Skinny Pancake owner Benjamin Adler says that if he paid a "livable wage" to employees working at his airport restaurants, he'd have to charge $20 for a sandwich. "No restaurant pays their dishwasher $17.71 an hour," he tells Seven Days. "It's not sustainable."

Adler was reacting Tuesday to an avalanche of outrage prompted by a Burlington Free Press article, which reported that Burlington's mayor and board of finance had approved the Skinny Pancake's request for an unusual exemption from the city's livable wage ordinance. Burlington's ordinance requires that city employees and contractors receiving taxpayer funds pay workers a "livable" wage — presently $13.94 an hour, or $17.71 an hour if health insurance is not provided — unless they received a hardship exemption.

Adler lobbied for a hardship exemption and city officials approved one because Skinny Pancake says it would lose money on the airport venture otherwise. One reason for the special treatment: The Skinny Pancake and its sister restaurant, the Chubby Muffin, source almost all of their meat, cheese and vegetables from Vermont farmers and food producers. Adler estimates his restaurants spend $400,000 a year purchasing Vermont-grown foods — and will spend an additional $250,000 buying local food for the airport cafes.

The Free Press article also suggested — without saying explicitly — that Mayor Miro Weinberger's personal relationship with Adler and his brother, Ted, both of whom supported the mayor's campaign last spring, could have influenced the outcome.

Adler vigorously defended the exemption even as people who helped pass the livable wage ordinance back in 2001 warned that the move set a troubling precedent. Adler argues that the livable wage ordinance itself might need review. In spirit, he says he's "all for" guaranteeing a livable wage to people working on the taxpayer's dime. "But in practice, it's setting the bar so high that even a company like mine can't get near it. Is that the right bar to have set?" asks Adler, who pays himself "barely more" than livable wage standards. "Or is it too much money?"

Here's what's happening in Vermont news and politics this week. Got an event you want in next week's calendar? Email us by Friday to submit.

Monday, November 26

• Gov. Peter Shumlin will be in Burlington this afternoon. At 3 p.m., he'll deliver a box of diapers to Jason Fitzgerald, who has collected 20,000 diapers for homeless residents at COTS. At 4 p.m., he tours the Greater Burlington YMCA (and, presumably, pumps some iron). And at 5:30 p.m., he'll speak at a kick-off event for Vermont Disaster Relief Fund at EB Strong's Prime Steakhouse.
• At 7 p.m., the Burlington City Council meets. On the agenda: a public hearing on a new residential occupancy ordinance that would limit how many people can live in one house near downtown. Also, the resolution by councilors Max Tracy, Rachel Siegel, Sharon Bushor and Vince Brennan to keep a redeveloped Moran Plant publicly owned.