Uh-Oh

Condolences from Harry Reid

At the foundation of all of this, I suppose the bright side is that this increases my job security.

Barack Obama -- whom I voted for -- earlier this year made good on a campaign promise to kill the federal nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada where, by 2020, high-level nuclear waste from the nation's nuclear weapons program, its nuclear Navy and commercial nuclear power plants was supposed to begin to be stored, long-term.

The site -- which Les Blumenthal of McClatchy Newspapers comically points out has, for its nearest neighbor, a Nevada brothel -- cost the federal government between $12 and $13 billion over the past several years, and now will not be used, leaving the nation's nuclear waste (which, truth be told, would cover only a handful of football fields if concentrated all together) scatered at 31 locations nationwide, but mostly in Washington State, South Carolina, and my home state of Idaho.

I understand the NIMBY desires of Nevada. They haven't grown up with the nuclear industry as we have here in eastern Idaho (though you'd think they could use the underground caverns at the Nevada Test Site, where 100-megaton bombs were detonated to store waste; nothing's going to get through the 15-foot-thick shell of vitrified sand (known as glass) that surrounds those caverns like massive radioactive geodes). But back to Idaho. We've got waste here from Colorado of all places, and, in 1995, the state sudcessfully sued the feds to get it out, with the waste being shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.

But there's high-level waste here, now without a place to go. And that's part of the agreement.

So enter soon the lawyers.

That probably means I could retire out here if I wanted to, and make good with that old Steve Martin joke:

"I had something I wanted to tell you, but I forgot what it was," Steve said.

"Well, it couldn't be that important, or you wouldn't have forgotten it."

"Oh yeah," he says. "I remember. I'm radioactive. Shake?"

The reality is that with Yucca closed, the feds still have that big problem: Where to put all the waste? It's got to go somewhere. Both Idaho and Washington state have agreements with the feds to rid the states of waste, and neither state is likely to roll over on the issue. If it came down to it, would I accept the waste here? Probably. But it would have to come with guarantees. You know. Money. Amigo money. No dough, no show.

September, Finally

I know a lot of people don't like the month of September, what with school starting and all, with summer ending.

But I love it.

I love waking up in the mornings and having it cool enough that I need to wear a jacket, but knowing that before the day is over, I can go outside in shorts and a t-shirt and be comfortable, not miserable fromthe heat.

I love that the cooler temperatures mean the lawn gets just that much greener with a little bit less water.

I love that the plants in our garden are huge enough they cast weed-inhibiting shadows over what tiny little bare spots of ground there are out there.

I love that it's too late for raspberries, too early for peaches and apples and way too early for carrots and onions. Not that I don't mind doing the bottling, but it's nice to have that September hiatus.

I love that the woodpile, scrawny in May, is heaped beyond all proportions and tarped for the coming winter.

I love that the mosquitoes aren't as aggressive.

I love that the farmers are buttoning up their grain and hay fields, rolling the hay into those ginormous bales that look like they'd be very fun to push down a steep hill, perhaps with someone riding inside, properly helmeted and padded, of course.

I'd love to see ten days added to September -- taken from February, that waste of a month -- just to make the serenity last that much longer.

A Linguistic Pet Peeve

I know "appreciative" is a perfectly acceptable word. I know it's in the dictionary and such.

I hate it with a passion. And I don't know why. It's just one of those irrational hates we all have.

I never use the word. And it's painful to my ears. I'd rather say things like, "I'm grateful," than to have that multisyllabic abomination come out of my mouth. If ever a word were the poster child for Mark Twain's admonition: "If you see an adjective, kill it," appreciative would be the word.

FEMA Learning A Lesson?

A few days ago, my wife and I were discussing, among other things, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, commenting on how the reaction to the disaster and the rebuilding afterward contrasted markedly with similar reactions to hurricanes in such states as South Carolina and Florida. Now, it's true that our memories may be tained by time, but it seemed to us that after the hurricanes in South Carolina and Florida, there was some media attention, but it kind of just drifted off because -- this is our assumption -- people there were able to get on with their lives, get rebuilding, and get their lives back in order.

Not so in New Orleans. We're still hearing about this disaster four years on. I don't think it's because the amount of destruction was unprecedented -- though the same area did get smacked by Hurricane Rita that same year. I think it has to do with the expectations of those in the disaster areas. New Orleanais -- and this, too, may be a generalization -- seemed to be waiting for someone else to come in and fix things up, while those in other states didn't wait. They were survivors, not victims.

Now FEMA wants people to respond in that same way -- avoiding being victims, and concentrating on survival.

Amanda Ripley has a short piece on Craig Fugate, the new FEMA director, in the Atlantic. This is a particularly illuminating passage:

“We need to change behavior in this country,” he told about 400 emergency-management instructors at a conference in June, lambasting the “government-centric” approach to disasters. He learned a perverse lesson in Florida: the more the federal government does in routine emergencies, the greater the odds of catastrophic failure in a big disaster. “It’s like a Chinese finger trap,” he told me last spring, as a hailstorm fittingly raged outside his office. If the feds do more, the public, along with state and local officials, do less. They come to expect ice and water in 24 hours and full reimbursement for sodden carpets. But as part of a federal system, FEMA is designed to defer to state and local officials. If another Katrina hits, and the locals are overwhelmed, a full-strength federal response will inevitably take time. People who need help the most—the elderly, the disabled, and the poor—may not get it fast enough.

This is nothing new to our way of thinking. We have a fairly good disaster plan at home. We have food and water stored, along with wood for fuel. We also have a small camper well-stocked with propane we could use for cooking and even refrigeration. We lack a plan for storing automobile fuel, but that's a difficult commodity for anyone to store, but I could do better in keeping the 5-gallon can we use for the mower filled up, and I could buy a few extra cans and keep rotating that fuel through. More importantly, we're prepared to help each other. Though we weren't here at the time, Sugar City suffered a catastrophic flood in 1976 when the Teton Dam broke. (The photo included with this post shows Sugar City underwater.) Citiens here and in surrounding communities proved they could take care of themselves adequately enough without even state help, let alone waiting for FEMA to arrive. That's the way to go, to my way of thinking. It's good to hear FEMA now thinking along those same lines.

Nickel and Dim(med)

I'm having a hard time deciding what to write about Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. One the one hand, it is definitely good to see a journalist actually applying some of the rhetoric that gets thrown around the newsroom, in that she actually tried to survive on poverty wages, rather than accepting tainted, conventional wisdom on the subject, taken from left or right. On the other hand, this book practically drips with condescension towards those in the jobs she takes on (Wal-Mart sales clerk, waitress, heinemakkefrau) and bends more toward pity than empathy. What's certain is that this is a book everybody should read, and that ought to be read especially by those on the right who want to abolish social welfare and by those on the left who believe throwing more bureaucracy at the problem of poverty in America is going to fix everything.

The condescension comes particularly when Ehrenreich goes undercover working at a Wal-Mart in suburbian Minneapolis (and starts off by showing that she has no idea what the real definition of "Minnesota Nice" means). She derides the personality "survey" she takes as part of the application process, in which she imagines the company is searching for sheep:

You might expect a bit of grumbling, some signs of unrest -- graffiti on the horatory posters in the break room, muffled guffwas during our associate meetings -- but I can detect none of that. Maybe this is what you get when you weed out all the rebels with drug tests and personality "surveys" -- a uniformly servile and denatured workforce, content to dream of the distant day when they'll be vested in the company's profit-sharing plan. They even join in the "Wal-Mart cheer" when required to do so at meetings, I'm told by the evening fitting room lady, thought I am fortunate enough never to witness this final abasement.

But if it's hard work to think "out of the box," it may be almost impossible to think out of the Big Box. Wal-Mart, when you're in it, is total -- a closed system, a world unto itself.

Ehrenreich may have indeed penetrated the world of the working poor, but she demonstrates the typical journalistic and, frankly, liberal weakness in thinking that a few weeks' immersion in the society, looking through lenses more attuned to what she expects to find (sheeple, servile morons clinging to religion) she fails to understand what's really going on. She seems to think a few idle conversations with the people she works with entitles her to fill their heads with all sorts of thoughts that may or may not be their own.

Also comical is Ehrenreich's belief that, with a few rabble-rousing comments she made, which were reciprocated by a handful of her co-workers at Wal-Mart, that she could have led a revolt that would have brought one of Minneapolis' Wal-Marts to its knees. She concedes that unions in of themselves aren't a cure-all and invite a certain amount of corruption into the mix, but it is amusing to see in her what I see in myself: Delusions of grandeur when what is more appropriate are delusions of accuracy.

I'm not saying I have a perfect understanding of this world, but I'm tempted to believe I understand a few things better than she does. In 2005-06, I spent just over a year in this world, working telemarketing jobs in the afternoon and evenings and a retail job in the mornings. I didn't meet sheeple unwilling to question what was going on, but very intelligent people recognizing that, yeah, they're not in the best position of their lives at the moment, but things will get better. They're not frozen where they are. I certainly wasn't, though I felt some times that I was.

The working poor certainly exist in this nation. I was one of them, for a year. I survived and got out of it, supporting a wife and three kids all the while. So read Ehrenreich's book, but don't take it as gospel.

Grammar Nazi Remains Unphased

Grammar Nazi here. Yeah, it's been a while. Don't assume that means I haven't encountered any egregious errors; it just means I've been busy.

Today's topic is another phonetic train wreck a lot of folks get into: The difference between phased and fazed. More people get mixed up on the differences between these two words than you'd think.

Phased is the past tense of the verb to phase, which means "to schedule or order so as to be available when or as needed," or, alternately, "to put in phase," according to the American Heritage Dictionary. The word has its root in the Greek phasis, which means appearance.

Fazed is the past tense of the verb to faze, which means "to cause to be disturbed or disconcerted," and is a synonym of to daunt or to fluster. The word is an American invention, popping up in common circulation in the early 1820s.

It's almost comical how many times I see people write phased when they mean fazed. Sometimes it goes the other way, but more often than not, it's that someone is trying to phase someone out -- and it's clear in context they mean fazed. All of it just makes me want to put my "fazers" on stun. And remember, I'm a Grammar Nazi, not a bricklayer.

Something Odd in Chester

Rocky Barker over at the Idaho Statesman has a provocative article in Thursday's paper in which Boise-based American Ecology questions whether a grassroots group based in Chester, Idaho, is really a front for a rival low-level nuclear waste disposal company, EnergySolutions, based in Salt Lake City. (The Salt Lake Tribune runs a similar story here.) Barker's story is superior, but that's to be expected as he's long written about environmental issues in the state.

Given that there are denials from the group's founder, former Utah developer Steven Loosli -- whose family has long had roots in the Chester area -- and a no-nevermind denial from EnergySolutions, it's clear that the question of grassroots group or shill won't be settled any time soon. And that's just as well. There are enough odd little tics throughout the situation that will keep the speculators speculating, and for good reason.

Of course neither Loosli nor EnergySolutions are going to outright say, yup, American Ecology's got us bang to rights. Both Loosli and EnergySolutions deny any connection between the group and the company. But there's something about Citizens for a Clean Idaho's specificity in how they want to keep Idaho clean that just seems a little odd.

Basically put, Citizens for a Clean Idaho doesn't like that Westinghouse is considering moving low-level nuclear waste -- mostly slightly contaminated soil -- from a Missouri reactor site to the Idaho landfill near Grand View (near Mountain Home). They claim that since American Ecology's site isn't licensed with the Nuclear Regulatory Committee, that the waste shouldn't be shipped to Idaho.

That's fine in and of itself. But what seems odd is that to stretch from Chester to Grand View, Citizens for a Clean Idaho have to leap over the Idaho National Laboratory, home of the United States' nuclear navy, its nuclear energy research lab, and a high-level nuclear waste respository that's currently being cleaned up. The group also apparently has no quibble with French company Areva's plans to build a $3 billion uranium processing facility west of Idaho Falls, producing a lot more waste that Westinghouse wants to send to Grand View.

The group says on its website that they don't oppose the nuclear industry:

We believe that a strong, regulated nuclear industry in the U.S. (and Idaho) provides competitive, security, and economic benefits to the country. We do believe, though, that the regulations and guidelines imposed by the NRC need to be followed to the letter to ensure the public health, safety, and welfare of American citizens.

Barker gets some interesting comments from the Snake River Alliance, a group which has long been a nuclear watchdog in the state. They, too, think Citizens for a Clean Idaho's concentration on the Grand View site, while overlooking the INL and Areva's pending arrival, is odd. Now, if this group wants to concentrate on Grand View and Grand View only, that's fine. It just sounds odd to me, that's all.

Shut up, Rex

Rex Rammell just won't shut up.

Yesterday, of course, Obama tags. Today, a non-apology that makes him continue to look like, well, a moron.

You can read the whole story here. Suffice it to say, Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo asked Rammell to apologize for his comments and for the perception it makes, presumably of Idaho because folks like Rex will never apologize for the perception others get of them, and Rex replies thusly:

Anyone who understands the law knows I was just joking, because Idaho has no jurisdiction to issue hunting tags in Washington D.C.

What, Rex? What?

You know, President Obama was in Yellowstone National Park a week ago, right? That's next door. What if he had come to Idaho? What would your statement mean then, Rex?

Understanding that you were just joking has nothing to do with the law, Rex. Your statement makes no sense. Understanding that you're a clod who enjoys the taste of your own feet doesn't require the law, either.

I tried to give Rex a piece of my mind through his website, but his "Contact Me" link brings up an error message: "We're sorry this page is currently overloaded. Please try back later." Gee, I wonder why.

Idaho's Joe Biden

If Rex Rammell wants to go down in history as Mr. Political Gaffe, he's doing a fine job. If he wants to be Idaho's next governor, well, he's going to have to try harder than this.

Jared Hopkins, writing for the Twin Falls Times-News, reports that Rammell jokingly agreed with a heckler that he's buy an "Obama tag" during a discussion on the sale of wolf hunting tags in Twin Falls. Hopkins reports:

Rammell's remarks on Otter came in an interview Wednesday after the Times-News asked about comments Rammell made Tuesday night at a local Republican party event.

After an audience member shouted a question about "Obama tags" during a discussion on wolves, Rammell responded, "The Obama tags? We'd buy some of those."

Rammell, a veterinarian and former elk rancher from Idaho Falls, said his comment was a joke and he would never seriously talk about President Obama that way, although he doesn't support anything Obama's done as president.

"I was just being sarcastic. That was just a joke," Rammell said. "I would never support him being assassinated."

"She kind of caught me off guard, to be honest with you."

Caught you off guard, sir? That may well be. But I'd rather that my governor be able to think to avoid making such a gaffe, rather than simply blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. But I'm glad you did, because it adds yet more fuel to the fire that'll keep you out of Boise in 2010.

Rammell was busy criticizing current Idaho Gov. Butch Otter for now following through on a promise to buy the first wolf hunting tag when they went on sale Monday. According to Hopkins:

On Monday, Otter attended in Lewiston and spoke at the funeral of Bruce Sweeney, 10-term state legislator who served while Otter was lieutenant governor. When told this, Rammell said, "That's a lame excuse."

You're the lame excuse, Rex. Shut that mouth up and stop grabbing at any stupid little straw you think will earn you votes. Or keep grabbing at them and lose votes. Idaho will be better off without you as governor.

And as for the idiot who brought up the "Obama tag" in the first place, shame on you. That's not political opinion. That's stupidity.

Van for Sale

The good news is that the actual van -- on sale now for $4,000, OBO -- isn't actually as blurry as this photo. And we just washed it, so all the bugs we accumulated on the bumper while driving in Montana last weekend are now, euphemistically put, "Rexburg's problem," because they've gone down the storm drain and are on their way to Rexburg's wastewater treatment plant.

So, yes, the van is for sale. 129,000 miles. It runs well and looks good. No egregious stains inside, nor dents outside, though if you look at the license plate carefully, you'll see where it took a good hit from a bit of a two-by-four that flew out of the back of a truck we were following on I-15 a few years ago. Still glad it didn't come through the windshield.

As a bonus, you get FREE almost all of the Kid Debris under the back seat, including the following:

Random candy wrappers
French fries
Tiny doll shoes
Matchbox car
Half-sucked hard candy
Lego bits (these will be surrendered to the current owner upon sale)