- Hopefully you haven’t been drinking from the Connecticut River, people of Vernon, Vermont. I say that because consuming water laced with radioactive tritium is probably not good for your health. I’m not technically a doctor, but I feel fairly confident in saying that. Vermont Health Commissioner Dr. Wendy Davis also appears to agree with me, even if she’s not coming right out and saying it. Davis admitted that it's "reasonable to assume" that radioactive tritium leaking from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon is now leaching into the Connecticut River and worse yet, a Vermont Yankee spokesman said the plant agrees with that assessment. Even if Davis insists that ongoing river testing has not detected the radioactive isotope, it’s only a matter of time. There is even a feasible explanation for why the radioactive isotope hasn’t shown up in tests: rapid dilution given the volume of water in the river. However, there are numerous test wells between the reactor and the river and they show the presence of a large plume of tritium in groundwater, and the water table in that area flows toward the river. Davis also admits to speaking regularly with health officials in New Hampshire and Massachusetts about the situation and also to updating health commissioners from around New England on the situation on a weekly basis. But for some odd reason, this woman continues to believe that this problem has not yet reached the level of a public health emergency. What, just because you haven’t found any tritium in public drinking water supplies, nor measurable levels in river samples, you think this isn’t an emergency? I beg to differ, Ms. Health Commissioner. The levels of contamination in new wells nearest the reactor at the Vermont Yankee plant would suggest otherwise and like any good (fake) scientist, I tend to believe the evidence. I also have the backing of Vermont's radiological health chief, Bill Irwin. Irwin postulated that there could prove to be more than one leaking underground pipe at the site, which would be a huge environmental “Uh-oh!" Don’t believe me? Just ask Irwin himself. “That's why it's important for the investigation to continue to investigate any pipe of similar age," Irwin explained. Oh, and I also have support from my peeps at the New England Coalition, which is a leading critic of Yankee's continued operation. On Tuesday afternoon, the NEC called on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to order a "cold shutdown" at Yankee to prevent further contamination. Well said, NEC, well said…………
- That following situation proves one of two equally horrific things: 1) We finally have proof that prolonged exposure to stupidity can kill brain cells and dull your capacity for higher thought or 2) We have confirmation that even the pain from the most horrifically scarring of experiences can fade with time. Neither hypothesis is one I want to see proven true, but we are where we are. And who better to thrust us right back into a crisis than the former Ass-Hat-in-Chief to led this country into so many of them during two painful terms in office? Yes, I am referring to the ass hat of all ass hats, W. He recently popped up on a Minnesota billboard funded by some of the many closed-minded tools who are dissatisfied with the current state of our government and were even before that government spent a single day in power. Nothing says “open-minded” like lighting torches and wielding pitchforks before the confetti from Inauguration Day is done, but I wouldn’t expect any less in this country. But I digress……these fools have put up a giant picture of W. on a billboard on Wyoming, Minnesota, tagged with a caption reading "Miss me yet?" To answer that question…..no. For oh, so many reasons, no. For everything President Obama has done that you can criticize, he has yet to start a single indefensible war using falsified or misinterpreted intelligence data. But local Republicans appear to be very happy with the billboard, almost as if they are just too clever and have realized something before everyone else. "It's really got people's attention. It's making them think," said Wyoming Mayor Sheldon Anderson. "I think it's time government stayed out of the pockets of the people and is this billboard getting that message across? I don't know but it certainly isn't hurting.” No, Mr. Mayor, that is not the message the billboard is communicating. Its message is, “Hey, we’re a bunch of malcontented morons who are openly saluting the single worst president in the history of this nation and we’re so closed-minded in our views that we’re willing to do this just because this terrible leader happens to belong to the same political party as us.” Backing me up on this is Roger Elmore, an independent and the lone non-Republican on the Wyoming City Council. "When you look at the message, 'do you miss me?' I certainly don't miss him," Elmore said. Agreed and agreed, councilman. What makes this little display of discontent worse is that the tools who funded the billboard are a bunch of cowards who insist on remaining anonymous. According to Schubert & Hoey Outdoor Advertising in Minneapolis, which owns the billboard itself, the W. display was funded by a group of small business owners and people from the Twin Cities area who want to remain anonymous. That, my friends, is pure bullsh*t. If you are going to make an asinine statement like that, you have damn well better put your name behind it. Granted, your name won't be worth a crap once it’s associated with that message, but that’s your problem, not mine. For those in the great (and frigid) state of Minnesota who would like to see this debacle for themselves, it overlooks a busy stretch of I-35 in Wyoming and is scheduled to stay up until at least the end of February. As for the two hypotheses I threw out at the beginning of this story……I’m going with option No. 1 after careful consideration…………
- The words robbery and Starbucks definitely belong in the same sentence, I just don’t know that I’ve heard them used in quite this fashion before. A Houston man was arrested in a coffee-shop raid by an FBI bank robbery Tuesday at the Starbucks at Westheimer Road in Houston shortly after 11:30 a.m. William Cole Hall was busted by the task force as he prepared to enter the coffee shop, forced to the ground and handcuffed as startled patrons looked on and momentarily forgot that they were paying three to four times too much for an average cup of coffee. "All of a sudden we see cops just bombard this one gentleman with guns out. I had just moved to Houston and I've never seen anything like this before," witness Matt Hart said. "It was a pretty crazy experience. They had him down on the ground for a while.” So what was serious enough to nab my man W.C. Hall before he could buy his $8.50 super-grande mocha latte with triple foam, whipped cream and nutmeg? Apparently he is a parolee who is suspected of robbing the Wachovia Bank on San Felipe Road in Houston on Friday. His crucial error seems to be his choice of stationery used for his robbery note: the parole instruction form that was given to him by his parole officer. Probably not the best move, but also probably a good indication of why he is a former (and future) prison inmate in the first place. Having said all of that, it is nice to see robbery tied to Starbucks for once and not have it tied directly to something that happened inside one of its omnipresent coffee shops……………
- Kudos on your very insightful findings, officials at Binghamton University and in the State Universities of New York systems. After four months of painstaking research into the BU athletic department that has seen its men’s basketball program turn into easily the nation’s most felonious squad, those running the investigation have released a 99-page report citing school officials for failing to act when problems arose, including dubious enrollments and lax enforcement of academic standards for athletes. Gee, who would have guessed that would be what they found After all, the BU men’s basketball team only had six players kicked off its roster prior to this season, including Emanuel "Tiki" Mayben, who found himself a gig as a crack dealer to make ends meet. Mayben was in September in his hometown of Troy, N.Y. and charged with selling cocaine when police found 3.4 grams of cocaine on him. The arrest came as part of a three-month undercover probe of cocaine sales in Troy. With that sort of strict discipline, it’s hard to see why coach Kevin Broadus was suspended with pay and half the roster was dismissed. Furthermore, why would anyone want to investigate such a fine, upstanding, rule-abiding program? Yet the state hired its former chief judge to conduct this investigation, which rang up a bill of more than $900,000. The report advocates hiring an "athletic oversight officer" for the entire State University of New York system, reporting to the chancellor and Board of Trustees on admissions, the academic progress and behavior of student-athletes, and rules compliance. What’s ridiculous is that nearly a million dollars were spent to “inform” us of something that I could have explained for about $10 (a gallon of apple juice, some chewy granola bars and a box of Cap ‘N’ Crunch). Thanks for nothing, SUNY system……….
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