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Posted Yesterday at 1:31 PM
Tonight in Chatham, the Pittsylvania county seat, there will be a hearing at the high school at 6 pm about the future of the huge uranium deposits near there. A company, Virginia Uranium Inc., has been formed to look into mining the ore. A subcommittee of the Virginia Commission on Coal and Energy is asking citizens for input about what issues need to be addressed when a study is conducted on the impact of mining the ore in the area. Already, it seems to be turning into another one of those environmental versus economic issues. Hope not. Stay tuned. I'll have updates soon.
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Posted Yesterday at 3:43 AM
I guess I was as surprised as everyone else by the selection of former Congressman and Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta by President-elect Obama to serve as CIA Director. He does not have a lot of experience with intelligence and the agency, but as Crooks and Liars suggests, perhaps Obama is trying not to politicize the position; rather, let the professionals do their work. That would be a change at the CIA. I'm sure there will be more to come on this.
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Posted Yesterday at 2:39 AM
Frank Rich of the New York Times comes through again with his January 3rd Op-Ed about Bush’s last days. Lest we forget or wish to give Bush the benefit of the doubt (who would?), he reminds us that “[e]ven the banality of evil is too grandiose a concept for 43.… He is smaller than life.” It is important for us to confront this fact: The things Bush and his minions did really are evil and too many people are willing to overlook those facts. As Bush tries to rewrite history, it is important that we not forget or forgive. He is not asking for our forgiveness because he truly is the Emperor Without Clothes, and he is not aware enough to have any shame. Rich writes the following that is on-point about Bush. Read his entire piece. But the brazenness of Bush’s alternative-reality history is itself revelatory. The audacity of its hype helps clear up the mystery of how someone so slight could inflict so much damage. So do his many print and television exit interviews. The man who emerges is a narcissist with no self-awareness whatsoever. It’s that arrogance that allowed him to tune out even the most calamitous of realities, freeing him to compound them without missing a step. The president who famously couldn’t name a single mistake of his presidency at a press conference in 2004 still can’t.
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Posted Monday at 9:54 PM
Snark alert--Two Palin updates today: - The Alaska State Troopers Union and an investigator say that someone delayed their warrent for drug charges against Sherry Johnston, Levi's mom, until after the presidential election was over. Of course, if the investigation had become public during the campaign, Republicans would have howled that Sarah was getting bad publicity. I don't think this is a big issue, but it makes good snarky news.
- Levi is up on the North Slope supposedly working as an electrical apprentice when a) you are supposed to have a high school diploma to be eligible for the apprenticeship, and b) there is a long waiting list for this particular kind of job, and it appears that Levi got to skip to the front of the line with no waiting. I do think this is an issue, if true, because of the lack of fairness to other youngsters who are playing by the rules.
Must be nice to be "almost" related to the Gov. In that vein, Sarah should just go ahead and pardon Sherry in the interest of family harmony and save Alaskans from being the butt of another drawn out joke.
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Posted Monday at 6:15 PM
"He's good enough, he's smart enough, and, gosh darn it, he's a U.S. senator?" asks the Washington Post. The Minnesota Board of Elections finally declared Al Franken its newest senator today. The recount is over, and Norm Coleman lost--by 225 votes. Of course, he will challenge--Boo Hoo. He's a crybaby just like Virgil Goode, but in the end, I don't think this latest lawsuit (he's famous for filing suits) will prevail. I must watch Bill O'Reilly to see what he has to say about Stuart. I'll probably just catch it on the net, but if his head explodes on live TV and I miss it, I'll probably never forgive myself. And...Rush Limbaugh is back on his Oxy. Seriously, I'm not just being partisan. I really do not think Norm Coleman has been a good senator, and I hear that he might have his own legal problems. JUST IN: Norm Coleman has been locked out of his senate office since his term has expired. Neither Coleman nor his staff can conduct any senate business.
For all those out there who are not part of the Franken fan club, in the interest of fairness, I leave you with this clip posted on TPM.
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Posted Monday at 4:40 PM
In an East Texas town of 5100, everyone is worried because the lifeblood of the community has filed for bankruptcy. The headquarters of Pilgrim’s Pride, the chicken growing and processing business, is located there and the popular elderly CEO who built the business from scratch beginning in the 1940s is a fixture in the place. Many residents work there. Pilgrim Bank, law enforcement, the school system, virtually everything is supported either directly or indirectly by the company. Corporate taxes support services for Pittsburg, the one-industry town. A combination of higher chicken food prices (the demand for ethanol for fuel raised corn prices) along with a marketplace with a surplus of chicken products keeping chicken prices low plus the untimely purchase of a competitor left the company with too much debt and too little cash. (McClatchy News and the Ft. Worth star-telegram.com.) This is an example not only of the effects of the economic downturn, but also of boosterism by lobbyists from all those who would benefit from ethanol production and the impulsive support of ethanol as fuel by the Bush administration and Congress. How many times did we see George Bush on TV lauding ethanol as our fuel saving grace? However, many were warning that ethanol was not the most efficient fuel source and that its production would cause a scarcity of corn and raise prices for other corn-based products. That, of course, is just what happened. These stories about companies that might close and towns that will be devastated are relegated to the back pages of newspapers, but the losses are real to all the people who are suffering. It did not have to happen--not with thoughtful planning. But no, we haven’t had that for a long while.
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Posted Monday at 3:06 AM
Whether he was pushed or he jumped, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has withdrawn his name for consideration to become Commerce Secretary in Barack Obama's administration. The new president does not want any embarrassment or controversary in his first days, and that could happen with Richardson because there is a grand jury investigation about how one of his political donors received a transportation contract in New Mexico.
I think it is good that Obama is not afraid to cut loose a friend or colleague if it should look like there is improprierty or if it would give Republicans an opportunity to rain on his parade. If he is going to be the "change president, " he cannot afford to look like Bush in the beginning of his presidency. We, as a country, need to again be able to respect our leaders as honest and above board.
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Posted Monday at 2:40 AM
Courtesy of the L.A. Times
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that President-elect Obama has asked Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to become the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Gov. Kaine, who until recently, had said that he was not interested in the job, has agreed to do it part-time until his tenure as Virginia's Governor is completed. He will be the face of the Democratic Party in charge of fund raising, planning partisan strategies, and serving as the spokesman.
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Posted Monday at 2:21 AM
Three days before Christmas, the retention pond that burst at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA’s) Kingston Fossil Plant spread 5.4 million cubic yards of fly ash, a coal burning waste. Unfortunately, the plant is on the Emory River and the contamination of the water may be a bigger problem than the 12 houses that were ruined. As bad as this sludge spill was, it has happened before with even more disastrous results. The West Virginia Division of Culture and History website has information about a 1972 spill in Buffalo Creek Hollow that did considerably more damage and still affects lives today. Click the link above for the entire story, a few excerpts from which are reprinted here: In the days preceding February 26, 1972, rain fell almost continuously, although experts later claimed this was typical for late winter weather in the area….Although a Pittston official in the area was alerted to the increasing danger, the residents of the hollow were not informed. The company sent away two deputy sheriffs, who had been dispatched to assist with potential evacuations….At 8:05 a.m., the dam collapsed. The water obliterated the other two impoundments and approximately 132 million gallons of black waste water rushed through the narrow Buffalo Creek hollow. In a matter of minutes, 125 were dead, 1,100 injured, and over 4,000 left homeless. One thousand cars and trucks were destroyed. The flood demolished 502 houses and 44 mobiles homes and damaged 943 houses and mobile homes. Property damage was estimated at $50 million. The problem in Eastern Tennessee just as what happened in West Virginia in 1972 is that the objectives of the company and the state and federal government may be at odds with the interests of the people who live near the spill. The New York Times reports on the results of toxins in water samples by a group from Appalachian Voices that are at much higher levels than those reported by TVA, the EPA, and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation: An environmental advocacy group’s tests of river water and ash near the site of a huge coal ash spill in East Tennessee showed levels of arsenic, lead, chromium and other metals at 2 to 300 times higher than drinking water standards, the group said Thursday. Appalachian Voices sampled water from three locations — near the spill site, about half a mile downstream and about two miles downstream — and found eight metals that exceeded drinking water limits. At the two-mile point, arsenic was at a level 35 times the drinking water limit. The group also expressed concern that standards for fish and aquatic life, which are stricter than drinking water standards, in part because heavy metals accumulate in animal tissue over time, had been exceeded. Even though no one was injured or killed in the Tennessee spill and the property damage has been less, at least to date, no one knows the ultimate environmental damage to the water and air and the effects on the residents’ health and their property values. The TVA has, since President Roosevelt’s time, been the provider of electricity to this area of the country, and this has meant burning coal. There seems to be a love-hate relationship between the company and residents just as there is among others where coal plants are located including the new one in Wise County, Virginia. One the one hand, coal provides cheap electricity and jobs; on the other hand, mountain tops are removed, streams and the air are polluted, and occasionally, accidents like the one in Tennessee occur. Use the links below to watch videos, audio, and other articles about this environmental disaster. TVA Coal Ash Disaster from I Love Mountains TVA Coal Ash Sampling Trip Living on Earth Another Dirty Side of Coal
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