A real view of Vermont Yankee?

At the top is Entergy's Vermont Yankee nuclear plant on the banks of the Connecticut river and the Greenpeace blimp.

Below is the Nebraska's Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in what is officially referred to as an "unusual event" by the NRC.

As the NRC quote in the previous post said ,and Vermonters hope it's true:

"It’s all designed to stay one step ahead of the rising floodwaters."

"It’s all designed to stay one step ahead of the rising floodwaters"

"It’s all designed to stay one step ahead of the rising floodwaters."

That reassuring statement made June 22nd is from the NRC public-blog .

Fast forward to June 27th

The inflatable berm that had been providing extra flood protection for the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant was punctured and deflated "due to onsite activities" early Sunday morning,Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) said in a statement.

The collapse of the berm allowed floodwaters to surround the main electrical transformers. Operators transferred power from offsite sources to the emergency diesel generators as a precautionary measure due to water leakage around the concrete berm surrounding the main transformers.

The NRC says no danger to the public, the plant is still being cooled and “The nuclear reactor was not affected by the flood waters said company and government officials.”
To the un-trained eye it kind of looks as if it was affected.

TeeVee vampire power hogs

The U. S. has one set-top cable box for every two people with and average box using more electricity in a year than an energy efficient 21 cubic foot refrigerator. U.S. cable companies say their priorities when purchasing equipment is functionality and price and efficient systems which reboot would be slow and more expensive. However experts in energy efficiency say technical solutions are possible, some at little expense. In Europe low energy systems reboot from deep sleep faster than some people do, in one to two minutes. One scientist said this about attitudes in U.S. industry, "I don’t want to use the word ‘lazy,’ but they have had different priorities, and saving energy is not one of them."

There are 160 million so-called set-top boxes in the United States, one for every two people, and that number is rising. Many homes now have one or more basic cable boxes as well as add-on DVRs, or digital video recorders, which use 40 percent more power than the set-top box.

These set-top boxes are energy hogs mostly because their drives, tuners and other components are generally running full tilt, or nearly so, 24 hours a day, even when not in active use. The recent study, by the Natural Resources Defense Council(NRDC), concluded that the boxes consumed $3 billion in electricity per year in the United States — and that 66 percent of that power is wasted when no one is watching and shows are not being recorded. That is more power than the state of Maryland uses over 12 months

from the NRDC and New York Times

While riding from tee to tee in Vermont…

Golf is in the headlines and in the deep thoughts of one Vermont Tiger.

On what should have been a carefree charity golf tournament at the local country club one golf playing Vermont Tiger-blogger was suddenly seized by fear of a tax. It seems that “while riding from tee to tee,” he noticed that 16 of the 19 event sponsors were financial firms. Storm clouds of worry over burdensome regulations and related horrors rapidly formed.Troubling imaginary scenarios soon followed.

This begs the question: If these firms, and their owners, are the ones that continue to step forward to support their communities, even in a truly lousy economy, why would Vermont work so aggressively to penalize their success through onerous taxation, burdensome regulation, and constant muckraking?
More importantly, to what extent does every additional dollar of taxation, or page of regulation reduce their ability to make important community donations? How many actual cents of that taxation comes back directly to our communities after it has worked its way through the Vermont government bureaucracy?

Tournament of terrors! Poor man, a good ride from tee to tee spoiled. Can this type of whining perhaps reach a peak? Or maybe the thinning golf caddy is making some uneasy.

None other than Former Bush speechwriter David Frum went so far recently as to chide Wall Streeters whining and this week The Washington Post writes that mega level executive pay has reached unexpected places.
Frum said this:

By the numbers, you may wonder what the rich have to complain about. Corporate profits are up, and the S&P 500 has surpassed 2008 levels. President Obama has signed a renewal of the Bush tax cuts. …Millions of Americans have lost jobs, homes, and savings in a financial crisis and recession caused by the recklessness and incompetence of some of this country’s most eminent and best-compensated financiers.

Maybe awareness of the growing gap between the very wealthy and the unwealthy is at last drawing some needed attention. One indicator of economic inequality puts the US behind Cameroon and Ivory Coast and just ahead of Uganda and Jamaica. The Washington Post says that as the income gap widens it isn’t just executives in Wall Street firms that are getting rich but lesser ones from companies in even relatively mundane fields such as the milk business.

Over the period from the ’70s until today, while pay for Dean Foods chief executives was rising 10 times over, wages for the unionized workers actually declined slightly. The hourly wage rate for the people who process, pasteurize and package the milk at the company’s dairies declined by 9 percent in real terms, according to union contract records.

Quick Bring me Howard Dean’s brain

New DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) made remarks today at the Netroots Nation gathering praising Howard Dean’s tenure as DNC Chairman.

“Over the past few years, we’ve maintained a strong democratic organization staffed in all 50 states thanks to the 50-state strategy put in place by Howard Dean,” Wasserman Schultz said. “And I can tell you that I am looking forward to sitting down with Chairman Dean next week so I can pick his brains clean on what he thinks that we should be doing to continue the fight to make sure that we can elect progressives all across the country.”

I would bet Howard’s brain, if requested has been available for picking for the past two years or more. Wonder if this isn’t an effort at getting all the ducks in a row. I understand there is an election coming up.

Vermont's Rashomon Republicans

OR:
Parts of the same elephant?
The room Vermont’s top Republicans recently met in might not have been filled with smoke but it invites that image. A “handful” of Vermont Republicans gathered in a closed door meeting to chart strategy for the 2012 state elections. The handful of eight included chairwoman Pat McDonald ,executive director Tayt Brooks , State Sen. Randy Brock , Auditor Tom Salmon, Barre Mayor Thom Lauzon, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott , Mark Snelling and by phone former Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie.
There seemed according to different reports to be two tracks of interpretations coming from the meeting. One shared by Chairwoman McDonald who said afterward

“No one claimed a particular race. McDonald said the goal was to get these high-profile candidates to discuss their own plans, and use their star power to recruit additional candidates” and “A primary in some cases is a good thing,” and similarly Sen. Randy Brock felt “…it was essentially a meeting to talk about 2012, but no decisions were reached”

Do they realize Tom penciled in his dance card?
Auditor Tom Salmon has a unique view. According to Fair Game,Salmon felt the meeting was what he expected and this included what he called “Filling the dance card in light pencil.” This sounds suspiciously like he has claimed a particular dance eh, race, if only in “light pencil” or maybe it’s some kind of personal style instant runoff voting for all the offices in his mind.

Regarding a primary, Salmon wrote assuredly on his Facebook page recently

Prediction: There will not be 5 ambitious politicians tripping over each other to "be Governor." This state is way out of balance and restoring it is our first priority.

Recently on VPR retired professor Eric Davis offered the view that Salmon was the one to watch because. Once Salmon makes up his mind then other Republicans who have statewide ambitions they can decide if they're going to run for any statewide offices themselves. Waiting for Salmon; an interesting twist for the post Douglas / Dubie Vermont Republican party.

Sarah Palin and "He who warned,uh the British..."

Comic book versus Sarah Palin

"He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed." Sarah Palin

Godzilla, Gamera and everything in between

Another tasty Hyper Kitchen movie morsel served up with characteristic flare. I recommend a trip to the Hyper Kitchen blog’s latest entry which covers Japanese monsters movie Godzilla, Gamera and everything in between

On one side stands Godzilla, the Kaiju world's Coca-Cola. Ubiquitous and influential, Godzilla was the one that really got the ball rolling. On the other side stands Gamera, the Pepsi-esqe rival that quickly evolved from mere imitator into a enduring pop-culture presence in its own right. In the between the two are scores and scores of lesser known creatures, equally adept at smashing skyscrapers and crunching tanks beneath their giant feet, but unable to reach the fame that the aforementioned reptiles have achieved. These are the Shastas and the RC Colas and the Faygos; basically as fun but often overlooked.