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Nobody walked away happy, but everyone lived to fight another day.

That was the sentiment on all sides Thursday at the conclusion of the Vermont Senate's epic, three-day struggle over the state's role in end-of-life choices. 

A final 22-8 vote in favor of a stripped-down version of the original so-called "death with dignity" bill Thursday afternoon masked deeper divisions in a body that was essentially evenly divided on the matter. 

For the second time in as many days, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott found himself breaking a tied 15-15 vote on a crucial amendment. Again, he sided with a coalition of Republicans and Democrats who favored divorcing the state from the process of prescribing life-ending drugs to people with fewer than six months to live. Instead, the narrow majority opted simply to indemnify doctors and family members who take part in the process.

That approach was clearly unsatisfactory to those who have spent a decade fighting for a more comprehensive approach modeled on a landmark 1994 Oregon law legalizing physician-assisted suicide. But after losing another amendment fight Thursday, several such advocates voted for the underlying bill anyway, with an eye to improving it in negotiations with the Vermont House.

"I voted for the bill yesterday to make sure that it would keep going. Today I voted for it because if the bill were defeated, that would be it. It wouldn't go to the House," said Sen. Claire Ayer (D-Addison), the Health and Welfare Committee chairwoman who was among the original bill's biggest advocates. "I want the discussion to continue."

Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington), the Judiciary Committee chairman who has fought the legislation for years, expressed mixed emotions about Thursday's outcome.

"I'd have rather seen the bill die," he said. "I don't think it's a victory for anybody. But I think the system worked as it was designed. All sides were heard and, in the end, the bill passed. I would've preferred it hadn't passed, but it did."

Grab a bottle of your favorite spring water and sit down with this week's print or digital edition of Seven Days, featuring these news and politics stories...

• The most interesting race of Town Meeting Day 2013 might be in Burlington, where former Progressive council president Jane Knodell and newcomer Democrat and banker Emily Lee face off in Ward 2's city council contest.
• As automatic license plate readers see more use among the state's law enforcement officers, legislators are considering a bill to regulate the technology in response to privacy concerns.
• This week's cover story: Famously free-spirited Goddard College has had its ups and downs through the years. Can new president Barbara Vacarr stablize the school without sacrificing its quirks?
• In media news, three well-read winter sports magazines make an unlikely home in Jeffersonville.
• And in Fair Game, Vermont's "death with dignity" bill lives another day in the Statehouse, while Vermont's congressional delegation wants answers from Obama on the use of drones.

Read it all on the new Seven Days app for iPad and iPhone.

So's the Senate gonna pass a bill next week letting terminally ill Vermonters end their own lives?

That's a damn good question! 

Thankfully for you, Seven Days has been trolling the halls of the Statehouse haranguing your state senators, trying to figure out where they stand.

Our vote count right now? We think 12.75 senators are ready to back the bill — called 'death with dignity' by supporters and 'physician-assisted suicide' by opponents — and 13.25 are against it. Another four senators in the 30-member body are firmly undecided.

And then there's Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, an opponent of the bill, who would break a tie. So that means supporters need to get a solid 16 votes, while opponents need just 15 nay-sayers. With a test vote slated for next Wednesday and a final vote likely to fall on Thursday, that gives advocates on either side of the issue less than a week to lobby their hearts out.

So who are the persuadables? 

Let's start with that fraction:

Feeling in the mood for fancy pizza and fancier drink, I put on my Prada shoes and Armani jacket and drove my Porsche down to American Flatbread Burlington Hearth last night.

Just kidding.

I wore my ragged Burton parka and insufficiently-insulated jeans and walked there with snot frozen to my face. Anyway, there I found the holy grail of Vermont beer snobs and elitists, as shouted out by Gov. Peter Shumlin himself: the actual Gucci beer.

More specifically, it was the Gucci Cru, a Belgian dubbel-type ale brewed by Zero Gravity Craft Brewing. Naturally I had to order one to go with my special buffalo chicken flatbread. Like most Zero Gravity beers, it was stellar; a little fruity in the way Belgian beers should be, and nice and malty without being too sweet for my taste buds (full disclosure: I'm normally a hophead).

Best of all: A full pour of Gucci Cru did, indeed, cost $5. Right on, Jeb Spaulding.

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Opponents of basing the Air Force's next-generation fighter jet in Burlington have a new trick up their sleeves: They want the state to compensate homeowners whose property could be devalued if the F-35 comes to town.

"I mean, you can't have it both ways," Rep. George Cross (D-Winooski) said at a Statehouse press conference Thursday morning, arguing that the plane's proponents should be ready to dish out the cash to anyone harmed by the basing.

"The point is if you are a legislator — if you are a Vermonter who supports the F-35 — then you must also support the notion that if you're wrong and, in fact, it is harmful and it has grave adverse impacts on people who live in the impacted zone, then in fact they deserve to be compensated in some fashion," Cross (pictured above) said.

In a bill he plans to introduce in the House next week, Cross proposes to create an "F-35 Adverse Impacts Compensation Board" that would be charged with "awarding compensation to property owners, landowners and other persons harmed or damaged by the noise and other adverse impacts" of the planes.

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A group of eight unemployed St. Johnsbury residents sought to humanize a looming budget battle at the Statehouse Wednesday, sharing stories about the difficulty they've found trying to move from state assistance to full employment. 

Mostly single mothers, the women urged legislators to reject Gov. Peter Shumlin's proposed $6 million cut to the Reach Up welfare program, calling it an essential lifeline when they're out of work.

In his budget address last month, Shumlin called for Reach Up benefits to be capped at three consecutive — and five total — years, arguing, "Extending welfare to work benefits without interruption for a lifetime does nothing to actually encourage people to get a job."

But Martha Aguila (pictured above), an unemployed, single mother of four from St. Johnsbury, took issue with those words Wednesday.

"To us, [Shumlin] makes it sound like people are staying on Reach Up because it's easier or better than having a job," she told the House Human Services Committee.

That's hardly the case, she said. Of the $680 she receives each month through Reach Up, $550 goes straight to rent. That leaves her with $130 to cover the remaining expenses that she and her children face.

This week's Seven Days is the annual love and marriage issue. (That's the Pinterest-inspired cover over on the right.) Rest assured that despite the wedding bells, this week's news and politics stories are as contentious as ever.

• The State Police Advisory Commission exists to hold state law enforcement accountable. Critics say it's failing in its mission.
• One gun control measure in the Statehouse already sputtered out this year, but here comes a new one, tackling high-capacity ammo clips, background checks and more. Does it stand a chance of passing?
• New details have been revealed in the 2011 case of a prostitution ring for migrant farmworkers — including new customers and co-conspirators.
• In Fair Game: Gov. Peter Shumlin stands by his much-maligned plan for new childcare subsidies. Plus, more global trips for the governor, the Legislature takes on the F-35 and a former Massachusetts governor settles down in Vermont (not the one that just ran for president).

Lastly, one more reminder that if you've got an iPad or iPhone, you can get all the page-flipping satisfaction and pretty layouts of the print edition with our new app. Click here to download it.

Political gamesmanship is common at the Statehouse, but on Wednesday, legislators played games of a different kind. That afternoon, a group of local video game developers set up their iPads and gaming consoles in Room 11, and invited lawmakers to stop by and play. 

It took some convincing — more than one onlooker muttered comments along the lines of "I don't play these things but my kids and grandkids do" — but eventually some of them got in the game.

Montpelier Mayor John Hollar took a turn at Swamp Talk, a word game developed by Montpelier-based programmer Chris Hancock. Sen. Anthony Pollina (P/D-Washington) learned the finer points of Overflow from Zach Bohn of Birnam Wood Studios. And Montpelier voice-over artist Jackie Weyrauch convinced Treasurer Beth Pearce to try Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, a console game Weyrauch worked on with Insomniac Games. 

Organizers of the pop-up Statehouse arcade included members of the Vermont Video Game Developers' Association, along with students and faculty from Champlain College and representatives from the Central Vermont Economic Development Corporation. They hoped to raise the profile of the local gaming scene and convince lawmakers to support it.

The $52 billion-a-year industry presents a big economic opportunity for Vermont, these advocates claimed in a press conference in the Cedar Creek Room earlier in the day. Pollina kicked off that gathering. He told reporters that the video game industry provides "clean jobs" that appeal to young workers. He wants the state to do more to attract those workers here.

"The way we market our ski areas is the way we should be marketing our digital economy," Pollina said. 

Should kale be Vermont's official state vegetable? State Senators Anthony Pollina (P/D-Washington), Bill Doyle (R-Washington) and David Zuckerman (P/D-Chittenden) recently introduced a bill to make it so. The leafy green has gained prominence locally as a result of Bo-Muller Moore's "Eat More Kale" shirts and stickers — and subsequent trademark troubles. (No word on whether Chick-fil-A and Healthy Choice yogurt are planning to lobby against kale's selection.)

That's not the only point of emblem business this session. A group of House Reps are sponsoring a bill that would make Vermont's state reptile the painted turtle — which is odd, as the painted turtle already became the state reptile thanks to the efforts of Cornwall Elementary School students in 1994.

You might not know that Vermont has an official state soil (Tunbridge soil series), state fossil (white whale) and three state rocks (granite, marble and slate). After the jump, we've embedded a quiz to test your knowledge of 12 state symbols.

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Not enough John Dillon in your life? We know how you feel!

Never fear. If you're a Rutland Herald or Barre-Montpelier Times Argus subscriber, you can now read the Vermont Public Radio reporter's crisp copy in your morning paper as you eat your Cheerios and listen to him on "Morning Edition."

That's because the two Mitchell family-owned newspapers have struck up a new content-sharing arrangement with Vermont's statewide public radio station.

(Pictured at right: Dillon and his sweet ride)

"It's part of VPR's strategic goals to consider partnerships that would benefit the people of Vermont," says VPR senior vice president John Van Hoesen. "We look for partnerships that help to inform the audience to the highest degree that we can."

Here's how it'll work: The Herald and the T-A will run print versions of stories filed by VPR's three Statehouse reporters: Dillon, Bob Kinzel and Kirk Carapezza. In return, Herald and T-A reporter Peter Hirschfeld will contribute radio versions of his stories to VPR and appear on air, according to Rob Mitchell, state editor and heir apparent to the two newspapers.