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Canyon Town, part two
Mirenza's machine was little more than a small lens in a brass frame. Small buttons and levers protruded from it here and there, like a combination of a pocketwatch and a jeweler's compound eyepiece.
My Amrat and her English have improved since I first met her, so - with some help from Karlishek - she was able to explain a little more fully exactly what the device does.
As far as I could understand it, the lens shows the past. Sometimes. Other times it doesn't. The precise working of it is immensely complicated; the one Mirenza had was the simplified portable version, and even then, her explanations of the functions of all its knobs and switches quickly rose to heights of technicality beyond even Karlishek's ability to understand. Mirenza eventually gave up and just demonstrated for us.
The first subject she tried was a heap of green glass beads lying in an empty doorway. Garnet, Karlishek, and I had to crowd closely around the lens, as it was really only designed to fit a single eye. At first, the lens simply showed the heap, as if we were looking through ordinary - if somewhat dark and distorted - glass. Mirenza gave expert flicks to a couple of switches. The lens darkened, then cleared again to show a different image, grainy and flickering, like the pictures in an antique slide projector. When viewed through the lens, the beads were now on a string. A few more flicks of switches, and the view pulled back to show a dark-haired girl - perhaps fourteen or fifteen, with the stubs of an adolescent pair of antlers on her forehead - wearing the beads around her neck. She laughed, soundlessly, and vanished through the doorway where we had found the beads. In the lens, the opening had a wooden door in it, carved with symbols. "Health and protection," Mirenza identified them in a distracted mutter.
The girl closed the door, and the image blurred into darkness. Mirenza's claws flew over the switches. The darkness gave way to a burst of scratches, which cleared to reveal a priest. (Mirenza identified him by his robes and by the Amulet of Humility* around his neck.) Above the amulet, he was wearing the same necklace. His face bore little resemblance to the girl's, but he did have a magnificent set of antlers.
We watched for what seemed like hours as Mirenza flicked through image after image, following a dizzying array of people. Some had a family resemblance to the girl; many did not. All of them wore the beads around their necks. The lens was watching the beads, in their previous form as a necklace, and their wearers simply happened to be in the picture as well. One brief glimpse showed a glassworker actually making the necklace and giving it to her husband, whose eyes were an identical shade of brilliant green. Other images - much blurrier than the rest - showed only blowing sand, or an outcropping of greenish rock, which we assumed to be the sources of the beads' material and pigment. Apparently, anything further back than that no longer resembled the beads closely enough for the lens to observe it.
Most of the people showed up many times. One heartbreaking scene showed the first girl, a few years older, grieving for the death of her young husband. We had seen the two of them courting in many of the previous images. The next one showed the two of them, decades older, eating a quiet dinner with a small boy so similar that he had to have been their grandson. They were listening, clearly fascinated, while he described something to them with many soup-flinging gesticulations of his spoon.
This was when I started to be doubtful of the accuracy of what the lens was showing us. Mirenza switched it off a moment later, returning it to an ordinary glass lens, and explained.
The lens doesn't see the past; it sees all of the pasts. The pictures in it show both what was and what could have been. Mirenza had pointed it at the remains of the necklace, and we had seen where the necklace had been - and where it might have been, had things been different.
It is an archaeologist's dream. It is an archaeologist's nightmare.
Fittingly, Mirenza's group of archaeomechanogeolinguists calls these devices "arkmasith," which translates roughly to "historians' dreams." They've been working on them ever since Hashmax Bensathrack, their biometallovitrialchemist,** found that he could see strange things through a batch of glass he'd accidentally mixed with the powdered shells of oracular crabs. The creation of more lenses has progressed slowly, as oracular crabs are quite difficult to catch. They always seem to know where you're going to look for them.
The team has managed to improve the accuracy of the lenses somewhat, using the elaborate mechanical workings around them, plus an exhausting amount of testing with objects whose pasts are well-documented enough for comparison. The small one Mirenza had was an early model, with few adjustments for accuracy, considered by most of the team to be past its usefulness. She had kept it anyway. "We are look for beginnings," she explained, with a smile at the edges of her beak. "We never should forget beginnings of our own work. Also, is shiny thing."
We wandered through the canyons for the rest of the day, taking turns looking through the lens at whatever remains of the vanished community caught our eyes. We looked back to when that streak of rust was (probably) the wheel rim of a cart pulled by goats and miniature saurians, when this rock was (possibly) at the bottom of a swift-moving canyon river full of fish and freshwater nautilus, when that doorway was (perhaps) carved by a stubborn one-armed sculptor who clenched his chisel in his teeth, when this fossil was (dubiously) a small trilobite who spent its days tracing geometrical proofs into the silt of an ocean floor, when the hollow cave-houses were (most likely) inhabited by families who lived and died and danced and prayed beneath statues that had not yet lost their sandstone faces to centuries of wind and rain and neglect.
Not one view gave us any hint as to why they had left.
* The Amulet of Humility is commonly worn by the priests of Uncertainty, who teach that true knowledge comes only through sufficiently complete observation. "Sufficiently complete" observation, in the strictest division of the faith, is possible only by omnipotent beings. The most exceptionally adventurous and introspective of mortals might, by the end of their lifetimes, come to know all there is to know about themselves. To know everything about another person is usually considered impossible. To know everything about a place, or a society, or a species - much less the rest of the world - is utterly beyond hope. True knowledge is therefore restricted to the central deity or possibly deities of the Uncertain (His/Her/Its/Their followers don't presume to know anything at all about Him/Her/It/Them, including whether or not He/She/It/They actually exist). Mortals must learn to accept that the sum of their knowledge will forever be a microscopic grain of flawed and partial observations in the vast and incomprehensible universe. Followers of Uncertainty consider it a sin to be certain and a virtue to admit to being wrong. This perhaps explains why there have always been so few of them.
** All of the terms I'm using are broad approximations made up based on Mirenza's attempts to explain the scientists' work to me, and are probably laughably inaccurate. Language barrier aside, they simply do not seem to divide the sciences into the same categories with which I'm familiar.
Labels: architecture, art, clockwork, crafts, death, emptiness, geology, Golden Desert, hidden things, history, information, inscrutability, languages, lost things, old things, transient beauty, travel


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uPVC double glazed front door and side light to reception hall.
Cloakroom with ceramic tiled floor. Built-in cloaks space and hotpress with copper cylinder and built-in shelving. Access door to WC.
With modern white suite comprising: low flush WC. Pedestal wash hand basin, chrome mixer tap. Ceramic tiled floor. Fully tiled walls. Glazed double doors to drawing room.
Cornice ceiling. Tiled fireplace, tiled hearth, mahogany trim, piped for gas. uPVC double glazed sliding patio door to rear patio and garden.
Tiled fireplace, inset and hearth, open fire, piped for gas, mahogany trim. Dual aspect windows with mature outlook over gardens and rural countryside.
Range of built-in high and low level units. Laminate work surface. Ceramic sink and a half sink unit with chrome mixer taps. Plumbed for dishwasher. Integrated four ring hob, integrated double ovens. Space for fridge freezer. Fully tiled walls. Worcester Bosch oil fired boiler. Ample dining space and mature rural outlook with dual aspect windows. Access to rear porch.
Heather Brown tiled floor and glazed access door to rear patio and courtyard.
Modern white suite comprising: vanity unit, chrome mixer taps, cabinets and drawer units below, mirrored illuminated cabinet above. Tiled panelled bath. Built-in fully tiled shower cubicle, built-in chrome Aqua Lisa thermostatically controlled shower unit. Ceramic tiled floor. Fully tiled walls. uPVC panelled ceiling, recessed spotlighting, extractor fan.
Wall to wall range of built-in robes, cupboards above.
With up and over electronic remote controlled door, light and power, plumbed for washing machine, single drainer stainless steel sink unit with chrome mixer taps, uPVC double glazed access door to rear patio and courtyard.
Sweeping tarmac driveway with ample parking to front and paving to garage. Front paved patio with southerly aspect, rear patio and courtyard and rear gardens enclosed, gardens laid in lawns with flowerbeds, mature shrubs, paved patio areas and glass summer house, uPVC soffit and fascia boards, loose pebbled areas, garden shed.
Belfast | 028 9065 3333
N.Down / Holywood | 028 9042 8888
Bangor / Ards | 028 9188 8881
Comber | 028 9187 1212

subset: commoncrawl


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Phone: (843) 762-8240
School Type: Regular
School Level: Primary School
School Status: Operational
School District: Charleston 01
County: Charleston
Location: Large Suburb (over 250,000)
Students: 506
Teachers: 32
Student-Teacher Ratio: 15.8 to 1
Lowest Grade in School: Pre-Kindergarten
Highest Grade in School: 05
Students by Grade
Pre-K: 45
Kindergarten: 65
Grade 1: 73
Grade 2: 93
Grade 3: 81
Grade 4: 73
Grade 5: 76
James Island Middle, SC
(2.4 miles NNE)
Fort Johnson Middle, SC (2.4 miles N)
James Island Charter High, SC (3.1 miles NE)
Harbor View Elementary, SC (3.6 miles N)
Murray Lasaine Elementary, SC (3.6 miles NE)
Stiles Point Elementary, SC
(3.6 miles NE)
Mt. Zion Elementary, SC (4.3 miles WSW)
Stono Park Elementary, SC (5.8 miles NNW)
Memminger Elementary, SC (5.8 miles NNE)
Haut Gap Middle, SC (6 miles W)
The O'Quinn School, SC
(3.6 miles N)
Charles Towne Montessori School, SC (5.8 miles NNW)
Charleston Sda School, SC (7.7 miles NW)
Trinity Montessori School, SC (8 miles N)
Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian Church Learning Center, SC (8.2 miles NE)
Westminster Presbyterian Preschool, SC
(8.3 miles N)
Riverpointe Christian Academy, SC (9.7 miles NNW)
Capers Preparatory Christian Academy, SC (10.5 miles NNW)
Owens Christian Academy, SC (10.8 miles N)


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It is all too easy to think of wild as something remote and unobtainable, to imagine that it exists only on some distant mountain slope, offshore island or in some hidden sunken lane. We sense that our increasing reach and untidy habits leave even the most remote of places touched by our activities, the wild tamed or tainted. While all this is true, it is easy enough to discover wildness much closer to home. Wild is the late November wind that batters the shutters, the rain that runs down the window, the dark shadow of that slips into an urban river and the plants that push up between the cracks in the town centre pavement. Wild is everywhere and however much we try to conquer it, it will always find a way.
It is not so much that the wild has been tamed but more that we have become too comfortable with our modern existence and can no longer see it. Part of the reason for this is that we rarely, if ever, have to face the dangerous wild, the wild that challenges us, scares us and has the potential to harm. No large predators stalk our countryside; we have just the one venomous snake and there are few creatures with enough bite or sting to threaten. No longer do we have to take risks. We are comfortable and secure but sense there is something missing. It is this sense of something being missing that drives some of us to seek out the more remote parts of our archipelago, to promote 'rewilding' and daydream of the return of big cats and other missing carnivores.
Of course, we do not have to go as far as reintroducing Lynx or Wolf to rediscover our missing wild. All we need to do is step outside from time to time and engage with the natural world around us. It might appear a bit 'new age' to suggest immersing yourself in a late summer hay meadow or to insinuate yourself into the middle of a blackthorn thicket, but to do so will envelop your senses with the buzzings and scratchings and sniffings of wild. Peer at the weedy looking plant emerging from the narrowest of cracks in the pavement and discover the vitality that drives it to conquer our attempt to blanket it out. Seek out the creatures that have gained access to your home, the spiders, silverfish, moths and woodlice, and delight in their persistence.
The wild should never be completely understood, and perhaps it should probably carry a hint of danger, but it needs to become a more central part of our daily lives. It is part of us and we are part of it.


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By Joaquín RuhiIn BRZ, Subaru Posted
Now, it's Subaru's turn to survey potential BRZ owners
Back in October 2011 we featured a story on Scion's microsurvey asking for transmission and exterior color preferences for its upcoming FR-S sports coupe. Now it's Subaru's turn to ask the car enthusiast community about their ideal configuration for the FR-S's fraternal-verging-on-identical twin, the BRZ. The obligatory transmission and exterior color questions are there, of […]Read More


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Structural Options : Study | Executive Package | 3rd Bath Upstairs | Covered Patio1212 Hundgate Way
Susan Young
Kristen Dawson
Sun-Mon, 12-7pm, Tues-Sat. 10am-7pm
Directions to our model home at 1026 Hoxton Lane: Devonshire is situated just off of Hwy. 80 at FM 548 in Forney. Exit US Hwy 80 toward N. McGraw St. 1.5 miles, Turn left onto FM548 N, 2.8 miles Turn left onto Devonshire Drive, Continue onto Devonshire Drive to Knoxbridge Road take a right, then Left on Canterbury Lane and a right on Hoxton Lane, the Model Home located on the left.


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Friday, November 30, 2007
An Early Christmas Wish
Do you in your all-knowingness remember the Dustin Hoffman movie, Who's Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying Those Terrible Things about Me? It was a 1971 movie, released two short years after Midnight Cowboy, so Hoffman probably had his original nose when he played the role of George Soloway. George is an intensely neurotic songwriter who believes his reputation is being destroyed by some pervert named Harry Kellerman, who calls around saying "terrible things" about George to all of the important people in George's life. It turns out, of course, that Harry is George. Deluded beyond recognition, his own words and actions are destroying him and he doesn't even know it.
Ditto for Entergy Corporation.
And I don't say that lightly, because my whole career is in their hands. And I need this job. I like the money. I like my medical benefits. I like the company cafeteria. I even like my bosses. They like me, too—I think. Or maybe they don't.
You see, I'm having a crisis of confidence because I've checked my traffic log and discovered that my bosses at Entergy have become far more frequent readers of my prayers than I'd ever imagined they'd be, as have people from Burson Marsteller, the high-priced firm that oversees the efforts of company PR guys like me. Am I being overly sensitive or is that a little disturbing? I mean, I get that they might want to read my email and interoffice memos. Bosses do that. But my prayers? I imagine my bosses and the BM-ers reading my prayers and carping to each other about what damage my private frettings to my God would do to the company's good name if I were to forget my manners and open my big mouth like that to the newspapers.
"Who does he think he is?" I imagine them shouting.
Anyway, when I think about them shouting about MY deportment I want to SHOUT AT THEM that THEIR manners have been horrible! For example: What do you call it when you assure a public board about the adequacy of a decommissioning fund that isn't, actually, adequate? BAD MANNERS! The company is ruining its own good name. Lying. Is. A. Reputation. Spoiler.
Lord, my single favorite scene in Who's Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying Those Terrible Things about Me? has George (who, I forgot to mention, routinely hallucinates) running madly through a subway tunnel, frantically trying to figure out who is ruining his life. He encounters his psychiatrist, who is dressed as Santa Claus.
Santa says, "Ho, ho, ho, Nutsy Person! What would you like for Christmas?"
Harry collects himself and reasonably states, "I would like a new start and a day without fear."
Santa says, "Too bad, Nutsy Person. You get a choo-choo train."
A laugh riot, but I guess you had to be there.
Anyway, Lord, Christmas is coming and I'm one sad elf. The "Ten Best Things about Working for Vermont Yankee" don't feel very "best" anymore. I feel disdain from my bosses. I feel sneered at by the people in my community for the creepy company I'm keeping. For the record, what I want for Christmas is a new start and a day without fear.
Come to think of it, that may be what my bosses hope most for, too.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Did the Maintenance Coordinator at Vermont Yankee Get Fired?
I think one of my friends at Vermont Yankee got fired, but we're all so tight-lipped around here, it's hard to know for sure.
I just found this job posted at http://www.nukeworker.com:
Coordinator, Maintenance
Job Category: Maintenance
Posted on: 11/27/2007 by Entergy
Job reference #: 104987
Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant - VT - US-Region I (North East)
[Etc., etc., and then ...]
Job description
Entergy Corporation, a Fortune 500 company, is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. We own and operate power plants, and are the second-largest nuclear generator in the United States. This position will be located at our Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Vernon, VT.
[More etc., etc., and then ...]
• Coordinate departmental activities including work scope evaluations, ...
• Work effectively with the Management Team setting priorities, allocating resources, ...
• Provide feedback ...
• Observe and ensure compliance with procedures and policies ....
[Still more etc., etc. and then ...]
6 years commercial or military nuclear work experience. B.S. degree in Engineering or related technical degree may be credited for up to 4 years of experience....
In addition to wondering whether a B.S. in Engineering plus 2 years experience is adequate to oversee all of Maintenance and Compliance at a nuclear power plant, you gotta ask yourself, Lord, if any firing that may have happened was related to the slap on the wrist we got from the NRC about laxity in maintenance.
Actually, I gotta ask myself, Lord, if it's also related to the bad publicity we've gotten lately for laxity in maintenance. Clearly, the maintenance standards have never been all that high, and corporate has tolerated that. So if my friend got fired, is he just a fall guy for bad corporate policy? And could I be about to find out that I'm the fall guy for bad corporate publicity?
I guess I'll know if I find my job posted at http://www.nukeworker.com in the near future, huh?
PS: OMG! The job of Coordinator of Preventive Maintenace is listed, too. For that matter, so is the job for Coordinator of Surveillance. Hey! Was there a problem in that department, as well?
Update: In a 1 hour and 15 minute period, my bosses at Entergy have read this prayer nine times. Don't they have actual jobs they should be doing?
Monday, November 26, 2007
Women Who Kill
Do you think that anti-nuclear activists should be allowed to marry?
- You preach love, Lord, and love involves tolerance.
- In 1978, the United States Supreme Court declared marriage to be "of fundamental importance to all individuals."
- There are no hard data on whether having activist parents is harmful to children, but it's certainly arguable that all that activism is distracting in some measure to the parents.
- If we curtail activists' right to marry and procreate, the next generation of plant owners may not be as hobbled as we have been by committees, commissions, agencies, and the like.
- If we focus on the marriage issue, the activists will have to protect their civil rights. They will have fewer resources to expend protesting nuclear power.
Right now, Lord, most states have passed laws that explicitly exclude same-sex couples from marrying. Interestingly, no state in the union specifically protects the rights of anti-nuclear activists to marry. Divine providence? You gotta wonder, Lord, whether this is a no-brainer.
While I'm "in the zone" on matters of civil rights and protection of the innocent, I've been meaning to ask you something, Lord. Have you read the book Women Who Kill by Ann Jones? It's old—late 90s—but I was reminded of it today when I Googled the term "Uldis Vanags" (you remember him, the nuclear engineer that isn't a nuclear engineer) and got directed to a blog called It's Getting Late and its article, "What's It Going to Take, Folks? A Meltdown?" The article had no words. It was just a series of pictures of the Vermont Yankee cooling tower collapse. The pictures coupled with the article title seemed to imply that one cannot wait for the meltdown in order to take much-needed preventive action against a meltdown.
Which is what reminded me of Women Who Kill. Many of the women that Ann Jones interviewed were serving time for murdering their romantic partners. At trial, they had pleaded self defense. They said they had been fighting for their lives. They offered evidence like long histories of Emergency Room visits or like husbands' arrest records for abuse. They got sent to jail anyway, their juries having concluded (essentially), "Yeah, he may have abused you and he may even have very nearly killed you, more than once. But he never actually killed you. So why should we believe that this time would have been any different? Guilty as charged."
Ms. Jones's point, I believe, is that the juries' reasoning was preposterous. Must one actually be murdered before it is reasonable to act precipitously against murder? Or are a few broken arms, a wielded knife, and an overwhelmingly terrifying moment, for example, sufficient evidence?
Similarly, must a core reactor actually melt down before it is reasonable to act precipitously against a meltdown? Or are a collapsed cooling tower, an automatic shutdown, a few fires, and a history of deception and insufficient maintenance, for example, evidence enough?
Thank God, God, that Women Who Kill is an old book. No one reads it anymore. And I'll bet no one ever reads the It's Getting Late blog, either.
By the way, Lord, do you think that Ann Jones should be allowed to marry?
Sunday, November 25, 2007
As Ye Sew, So Shall Ye Reap
On August 11, 2007 we here at Entergy (Vermont Yankee's corporate owner) assured the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel that "funds reserved for decommissioning the power plant would be sufficient regardless of whether that happens in 2012 or 2032." (That's quoting from a Brattleboro Reformer article that is no longer available for free online.) At that meeting, we did express a preference about decommissioning. We said that we would like to do it slowly, letting the plant sit idle for as many as 60 years before we started.
Then, in mid November, Margaret Gunderson of Fairewinds Associates, Inc. published a report showing that Entergy has not contributed to the decommissioning fund in the 5 years that it has owned the plant and, furthermore, that the fund has $26 million less than it used to have. An on-schedule decommissioning would be impossible, Mrs. Gunderson predicted. Well, she forced our hand, and by November 15, we had admitted to the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel that she was right. We couldn't actually afford to decommission in any way other than the "really, really, really long wait" one for which we had expressed a clear preference.
In the meanwhile, we here at Entergy made plans to spin Vermont Yankee and a few other plants off into a separate, tax-free entity. We did not make clear (and still haven't) whether we will use the distribution proceeds to reduce debt or to reward shareholders through a stock buyback program. At any rate, we have certainly not announced plans to earmark distribution proceeds for Vermont Yankee decommissioning.
You know, Lord, a lot of people have phobias about math. And a lot of people have phobias about dying in a nuclear holocaust—or even in a gentle nuclear leak. So there's a kind of "shut your eyes and assume a fetal position" response that is typical of members of the general public, especially when we talk about math and radiation all in one sentence. We count on that reaction. But surely someone soon is going to wake up, move their knees away from their chests, and say, "Hey! It seems to me there's some huge chunk of Entergy money soon to be lying around that they have to decide how to spend--and this at the very time when the Vermont Yankee decommissioning fund that Entergy promised was fully funded could use some help."
And if the people say that, Lord, A + B is going to start to equal C and we here at Entergy may be expected to live up to our promises.
I know, I know: "For as ye sew, so shall ye reap." You don't need to tell me. I'm the PR guy.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
I"m Sorry if I Scared the People of Vermont
Thanksgiving is over and I had many, many visits to this prayer blog by people who were looking to my prayers for guidance about their prayers. Googling terms like like "thanksgiving prayers to god" or, more to the point, "thanksgiving prayer cancer" they ended up at my Pre-Thanksgiving Prayer of Thanks...
... which, if you recall, is my expression of gratitude that the activists in Vermont have not remembered that 2007 is the five-year anniversary of the Davis-Bessie nuclear power plant near disaster, which would have wrought death, destruction, and, yes, prayers about cancer throughout Toledo.
Anyway, Lord, I find all of this creepy in some way I can't quite name. So now I'm thinking I'm gonna lighten up the mood around here. I watch reruns of "I Love Lucy." Do you, Lord? If you do, do you notice a certain similarity between the fictional character Lucy Ricardo and the real person Fake-Rob Williams? I know it's a stretch. I don't have red hair. But, like Lucy, I'm naïve, ambitious, imaginative, and I always end up apologizing for one mess or another.
Another similarity is that the "I Love Lucy" show (Lucy Ricardo's employer) and Vermont Yankee (my employer) both make products that may kill people. "I Love Lucy" was "brought to you by" Philip Morris cigarettes. Vermont Yankee may be responsible for the suspicious increase in cancer deaths in Windham County.
Anyway, I've got a game. I'll list apologies made by either me or Lucy. I'll also list scenarios from Lucy's and my lives. Your job will be to match the apology to the scenario.
Lucy hates Ricky's new mustache so she borrows a fake beard from Fred and wears it but the glue sticks and she can't get it off.
Vermont Yankee gets scolded by the NRC for lax maintenance.
When the clown in Ricky's act gets injured, Lucy tries to substitute for him and messes up the act.
Uldis Vanags, the nuclear engineer from the Vermont Public Service Department, turns out not to be a nuclear engineer at all.
Lucy finds a mink coat that Ricky rented for a dance number at the club. She believes it is her anniversary gift. Ricky can't bring himself to tell her the truth so he fakes a burglary to get it away from her.
Vermont Yankee won't have enough money to decommission the plant until 2032 even though the plant license expires in 2012.
Lucy reads a murder mystery book and decides Ricky is trying to kill her. She overreacts.
The White House suggests that distributing KI pills to people living near nuclear power plants makes them fearful of nuclear power and that the program to distribute the pills should therefore be stopped. Previously, the White House had called the pills crucial in stopping thyroid cancer in the event of radiation exposure.
Lucy gets to dance with Van Johnson.
A cooling tower collapses and about a week later a turbine stop valve failure forces an automatic shutdown.
Cousin Tennessee Ernie Ford visits Ricky and Lucy and won't leave. Lucy has to figure out how to get rid of him.
A report critical of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's relicensing process wasn't given to the public as soon as the state's Department of Public Service received it. The report was an audit of the way relicensure investigators conduct their jobs and pointed to ways in which they were falling short.
I'm sorry that the people of Vermont were upset.
Aw, honey! I'm so dopey and you're so understanding. (Then Lucy and Ricky kiss and make up.)
Aw, honey! I'm sorry I'm so snoopy! (Then Lucy and Ricky kiss and make up.)
Waaaaaa! (Then Lucy and Ricky kiss and make up.)
I'm very sorry the people of Vermont were upset and pleased to assure you all that this never impacted safety at the plant.
Aw, honey! I'm sure you would buy me a mink coat if we could afford one. I'm sorry I put you in this position. (Then Lucy and Ricky kiss and make up.)
Awwwwwww. (Then Lucy and Ricky kiss and make up.)
I'm very, very sorry that the people of Vermont were upset and and I'm pleased to assure you all that this has nothing to do with safety at the plant. That and we're going to build your elementary school a new gym.
I'm most egregiously sorry. Normally our processes are very careful. Evidently, though, there is room for improvement.
I'm flagellating myself in sorrow about having upset the people of Vermont and also in an attempt to assure you that I can stand a lot of stress, as can this aging plant.
Aw, honey! I'm sorry I tried to make you feel bad about the way you look and got the skin on my face all torn off in the process. (Then Lucy and Ricky kiss and make up.)
If you won't accept my apologies for upsetting you as well as my assurances that this incident has nothing to do with safety at the plant I am going to flagellate myself with two whips at once and then you'll really feel guilty.
Friday, November 16, 2007
No Pants, No Problem
…sometimes life is just too darn fun! I just found myself on an Intenet porn site!
Ok, ok. I exaggerate. Hazard of the PR trade. Actually, I didn't find myself on this very Internet porn site. But I was supposed to find myself on this very porn site because I did get a Google Alert that nude pictures of me were on it. (I'd asked Google to notify me daily by email of any sites, news, or blogs using the term "Fake-Rob Williams.") Look at what the Alert said:
Nude Gay Men Pictures :: N A P Nude Pictures
It's Me, Fake-Rob Williams I was thinking that, when my nude photos get "discovered," I might get. I told him to go home and have a snack and a ...
You think I made that up, God? Well here's a screenshot of the Alert.
Alas, I followed the link and found nothing about myself. Nothing! I thought I'd share my disappointment with my new friend Philip because of his professed interest in nude pictures of me.
It was when I visited his blog to get his email address that I discovered another big disappointment. Apparently, we at Vermont Yankee won't have enough money to handle plant decommissioning until 2032, even though our license expires in 2012. The full report, which is available here and was created by Margaret Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, Inc. says:
Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee [herein simply referred to as Entergy] has made a series of non-conservative assumptions concerning the decommissioning of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant and its Decommissioning Fund. Moreover, we (Fairewinds Associates, Inc) opine that Entergy's non-conservative assumptions, which are clearly delineated in their submittal to the PSB, may shift both the risk and burden of financing Vermont Yankee's actual dismantlement to the State of Vermont and future generations of Vermonters.
Whoa! Somehow lots of people thought that money was at the ready. I'm not sure, maybe even I did. I guess that's the power of good PR, for which I can take at least partial credit, which means I guess I can also take credit for confusing myself, which is kind of fun.
But there's some good news in this news cycle for Vermont Yankee. Bad News Bear Philip's story did not mention the other recent eyebrow raiser. That's the fact that the nuclear engineer with the Vermont Public Service Department turns out not to be a nuclear engineer at all. He has an undergraduate degree in Physics and a Master's Degree in Health Science. He used to work for the state of Maine and, you'll remember, Maine Yankee was shut down for safety reasons even though the NRC had declared its safety rating "adequate.". Oops. There I go again. Hazard of the trade. Actually, the NRC did mention that certain…
…weaknesses and deficiencies appear to be related to two root causes: economic pressures to contain costs and poor problem identification as a result of complacency and a lack of a questioning attitude.
OK. So even though it got a passing grade, it got a scolded, and then it ended up getting an independent safety assessment, which it failed. Then it was shut down.
Vermont Yankee has been scolded by the NRC, too. But non-engineer Uldis assures that we don't need an independent safety assessment here. "Without a doubt, if I compare Vermont Yankee to when Maine Yankee was running into trouble, there's no comparison. Vermont Yankee is not experiencing the mechanical difficulties that Maine Yankee was," he said. Or so The Rutland Herald reported.
But you gotta wonder: Who is a guy with a Masters in Health Science to assure anybody about mechanical integrity?
Anyway, Lord, I am hot on the tracks of this Google Alert mystery. Because, frankly, though it's fun to think that attention is being drawn to me (and that I might finally get a singing part in The Day The Earth Stood Still), there's no way my bosses are going to see this Internet porn false alarm as reflecting well on Vermont Yankee. And creating news that reflects well on Vermont Yankee is, after all, my job, at least until my singing career takes off.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
It's a Fake-Rob Knockoff about Indian Point!
"Are You There, God? It's Me, Fake-Jim Steets" has been launched with this comment left on my (as in, "this very") prayer blog.
The comment:
Dear Rob:Like, wow, God. What can I say? Other than...
Your humble blog has touched my heart, and I thank you for encouraging me to follow suit, to create my own prayer blog where I to can touch the hem of God's under garments.
Fake Jim Steets
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Vermont Yankee Meets National Inspirational Role Models Month
In the PR trade, we sometimes tie publicity pushes to calendar dates. There's even a really cool book of publicity-begging days, months, and weeks. It's called Chase's Calendar of Events.
I'm at the Brattleboro library and I just looked up November. Seems like there's a lot happening this month aside from Thanksgiving! Like, did you know that November is National Inspirational Role Models Month?
So I'm thinking—hey! People say Vermont Yankee is a Mickey Mouse enterprise. Let's do a Phineas T. Barnum on these people and turn that into a positive. Let's celebrate National Inspirational Role Models Month by rejoicing in the inspiration that Vermont Yankee drawx from Mickey Mouse.
Was that a groan I heard or thunder? Stay with me on this one, Lord. At least hear me out on my "Ten Shameless Ways in Which I Try to Liken a Potentially Armageddon-Producing Monstrosity Like Vermont Yankee to an Innocuous, Feel-Good Character Like Mickey Mouse."
1. Mickey Mouse is not really a mouse. Still, his success was the foundation of the entire Disney enterprise. Vermont Yankee is not really a Yankee enterprise. It's not even a Vermont one. (It is owned by a Louisiana conglomerate.) Still, its success is the foundation of a cartoonish amount of corporate profit.
2. Mickey Mouse's likeness and his smiling image can be found on tee shirts, mouse pads, sneakers, coffee mugs, hats, toys, and sheets. Vermont Yankee's corporate name can be found on the tax rolls in the small town of Vernon, Vermont, which it sued when it objected to its property tax assessment.
3. The legends about Mickey's creation vary. Was he originally named "Mortimer?" Is his character based on the character of a particularly sweet pet mouse of Walt Disney's? The legends about Vermont Yankee's creation vary. Did the legislature really approve the plant's construction only when the swing vote (married) became romantically entangled with a proponent (also married), threw her judgment to the wind, voted his way, and ran off with him leaving their families in the lurch?
4. As early as the 1930s, Mickey Mouse merchandise began irretrievably flooding the market. Vermont Yankee produces waste that will never go away—and never stop radiating.
5. Walt Disney chose a mouse as his signature character because, although many people are afraid of them, if they're drawn well, they can seem cute. Many people are afraid of Vermont Yankee, but if the PR team is aggressive enough and the PR effort is supported by gratuitous charitable donations (gratuitous by local non-profit standards; the amounts are actually insignificant to Vermont Yankee), many otherwise anti-nuke people will become mousy for fear of seeming ungrateful.
6. The very first Mickey Mouse cartoon was called "Plane Crazy." In that movie, Mickey takes Minnie up in a plane and tries to kiss her. When she resists he resorts to force. Allowing Vermont Yankee to bribe, threaten, shame, and otherwise coerce Vermonters into acquiescing to a licentious license renewal is plain crazy.
7. Mickey Mouse was so popular that, in 1929, Mickey Mouse Clubs began to form at local theatres for Saturday afternoons of cartoons and games. Nuclear power is so dangerous that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been created to protect people from its threat. However, the commission seems to spend its time with its own regulatees in fun afternoons of cartoons and games.
8. When World War II started, the Disney Studio suspended production of commercial cartoons and concentrated instead on making films that would support the military. For as long as there has been federal control of nuclear research and materials, there has been an interest in using commercial nuclear reactors as a source of materials to make military weapons.
9. Mickey has starred in many computer and video games. Some are aimed at very young children and, unfortunately, bring children into close contact with monitors, many of which are radiation emitting. Vermont Yankee radiates young children. Cancer rates in Windham County are mysteriously much higher than they are in the remainder of Vermont.
10. In a supreme moment of fun and humility that moved much of the nation to tears, while introducing his very first television show, Walt Disney said, " I hope we never lose sight of one fact -- that this was all started by a mouse." When the Vermont Yankee cooling tower collapsed we said, "Yeah, but this is not safety-related." Lots of people cried.
What do you think, Lord? Cut/print/got it?
PS: By egregiously taking advantage of the Mickey Mouse name, I am in no way implying an endorsement by Disney or Mickey Mouse of Vermont Yankee or even, heaven forbid, of my prayers to you.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
A Pre-Thanksgiving Prayer of Thanks
As the season of Thanksgiving approaches, I have something special I'd like to give thanks for. It is that here in Vermont we seem to have almost gotten through 2007 forgetting entirely to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant near disaster. You see, in late winter of 2002 that plant shut down for refueling. It was during the refueling shutdown that engineers discovered that, over the course of six years of inadequate inspections, corrosive coolant had been leaking from the core. The coolant had created a six-by-five-by-four inch cavity in the liner of the core. All that remained of the liner was a warped piece of steel a little thicker than tin foil. It and it alone contained approximately 2500 psi of highly radioactive internal environment. Had the pressure burst through the remaining lining and into the reactor containment building, it might have set in motion a core meltdown. Toledo is 21 miles away from the Davis-Besse plant.
So, yes, thanks for protecting the people of Toledo five years ago, but, also, thanks for helping us forget to celebrate that near miss here this year. You see, that plant's maintenance schedules and procedures were lax, and our plant's maintenance schedules and procedures are lax--or so the NRC suggested might be the case in a statement yesterday about two recent accidents at the plant. We don't need any parallels drawn between Vermont Yankee and the second biggest embarrassment the nuclear industry has ever had (the biggest being Three Mile Island).
For, as you know, we at Vermont Yankee are in the midst of a battle to extend the license of our aging plant and to keep it operating at 120% of capacity, to boot. In the midst of all this a cooling tower collapsed and then, 10 days later, a failure in a turbine valve caused an automatic shutdown of the plant. The NRC seems to have strayed "off message" with their statement yesterday but I do hope that you'll stay "on." Repeat the message after me, please: "The accidents are irrelevant to the Vermont Yankee relicensing application."
Amen, Lord. Thank you again. And, hey! It'll be turkey at my house this year!
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Internet Porn and the Big Bang that Wasn't
I need to talk to you about porn.
You see, on November 1, Philip Baruth of Vermont Daily Briefing said he would be posting a "bold and courageous series" of naked pictures of me. Delighted at the very idea, I called him. I suggested that we do the photo shoot at the plant today (Sunday).
I got to the plant early to chose a location. As I waited for Philip I got all kinds of vain ideas, like I would be famous some day like the actress named Vanessa from High School Musical whose naked photos were (unfortunately for her career, it seemed at first) found on the Internet but then that story had a happy ending because everyone, even Disney, rallied in her defense and now she's signed her contract for High School Musical 3. I was thinking that, when my nude photos get "discovered," I might get offered a starring role in a musical of some sort, too. I don't know why, but a singing version of The Day the Earth Stood Still struck me as a possibility. (Remember that old movie? A visitor from another planet comes to tell us that our profligate and irresponsible use of the atom means that, as a race, we are aggressive, paranoid and dangerous to ourselves—and must be "helped?" Insert scary music here. There's got to be at least a walk-on in that movie for me.)
Anyway, all caught up in my fantasizing, I drafted the obligatory, apologetic press release for when people get outraged about my photos.
Vernon, Vermont. Dateline: November 5. [See, that's Monday, 'cause as a professional spokesman I know never to try to sell a new idea on a weekend. Continuing:] These are art photos and it is unfortunate that I have been misunderstood. I'm sorry.
Eventually, Philip arrived at the plant, and he had a whole photography crew with him! They had strobe lights and cameras and they'd brought a big athletic towel for discreet draping. We called each other "Dude," which let me know that things would be on the up and up. I went behind a tree to change.
But for some reason Philip and the dudes never made it through security.
Which is actually kind of reassuring, now that I think of it.
You see, most nuclear power plants have at least two security checkpoints. And just Friday, a worker at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Station (it's near Phoenix and is the nation's biggest commercial plant) got stopped at one of his plant's checkpoints, where the guards discovered a bomb in the back of his pickup truck.
So wow, Lord. I guess it's good to know that our security systems in Arizona and Vermont work.
Anyway, "No" means "No" when the guard saying it has a semiautomatic. So the dudes and I left the plant grounds. We went over to New Hampshire and down to that fair state's banks of the Connecticut River, thinking we would take the nude photos with the Vermont Yankee plant as a backdrop. Frankly, I didn't much like this idea so I wasn't disappointed when it collapsed. I mean, it had already been done by Remy Chavalier, whose nude photos of environmental activist Isabel Vinso made the front page of the Reformer.
Bummer, though. You see, ever since this week when Philip posted a few of the Chevalier photos, every guy who owns a point-and-shoot has been down at the river, and every pretty girl in town who wants a Disney contract has been waving and shouting, "I want to be an environmental activist, too!" The river bank was crawling with them!
So that's why I want to talk to you about Internet porn. See, we couldn't get even a private square inch of river bank space, so Philip got upset and cursed, and one doesn't normally see that kind of behavior in a liberal blogger.
"I mean, how tough can it be to take a &8%$# nude picture of a PR guy?" he wailed.
Now, God, I am most definitely not gay and I have absolutely zero idea about Philip's orientation. But I do think Philip is beautiful when he cries. So what could I do? I told him to go home and have a snack and a nap and I'd email him some pictures. Then the whole darn bunch of photographers down on the bank of the river started to cry and they were beautiful, too. Then the girls started to cry. Ditto for them. The sounds of wailing were so primordial and the visions of sorrow and distress so rapturous that I told everyone I'd email them pictures. Right away, they dried their tears and put on their clothes and left. I did, too.
But when I got back to the office I realized that the crew had taken the large athletic towel with them. This meant that whatever photos I took of myself would be kind of hard-core. I'm a private guy, and that goes way beyond what I'll do for my singing career. So I thought I'd just download some shots of naked men from the Internet and use Adobe Photoshop to crop off their heads, because in shots like those it's not the person's face that matters.
And then I emailed them to Philip and all of the river guys and girls. And then security showed up. And so I'm left wondering, Lord: Why am I such a sucker for tears? Also, Lord, why can't I get the specter of yesterday's bomb, the Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Station, and the people of Maricopa County, Arizona out of my mind?
Thanks, Lord,
Friday, November 2, 2007
About That Testicular Cancer Note....
Just a clarification: Some people are reacting to "My favorite cancer is testicular," as though that's a joke and in bad taste. Good God! I don't think cancer is funny either. But in Windham County death rates for people of all ages are 10% higher than they are in the rest of the state. And as you in your all knowingness know, the younger the person, the greater the risk for health problems from radiation exposure. My favorite cancer is testicular because it's the one kind of cancer kids can't get from Vermont Yankee, though, of course, time will tell.
Thanks, Lord,
Thursday, November 1, 2007
The Seven Deadly Sins Meet the NRC's Environmental Impact Assessment
This is from the Asbury Park Press of 10/28/07. The full article is here.
"In a recent audit, the inspector general's office in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission studied 458 samples of the narrative in NRC reports on nuclear plant relicensing applications. More than 70 percent of the narrative passages on the Oyster Creek license renewal application lacked substance, the inspector general's office found.
"The [NRC's Inspector General's] audit found a similar pattern, on average, in an analysis of NRC comments on some other plant relicensing applications.
Ok, God. That's a little weird. So the NRC has not been doing due diligence. That probably explains a bit of what happened at the "Public Meeting to Discuss the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the License Renewal of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station" last January at the Latchis. Some of the slides presented by the NRC, ostensibly about Vermont Yankee, were labelled "Pilgrim Nuclear Plant." The NRC guy explained the mistake to the outraged crowed: He had presented about Pilgrim just the day before and had used many of the same slides for the Vermont Yankee presentation. The crowd had only quieted down when he made another disquieting mistake. He referred to Vermont Yankee as "Vermont Yankitee." That's pretty much the same caliber mistake as calling your wife, whose name is Linda, "Leslie"--except that if you are less than imprecise in your relationship to your wife, when she blows up she's not going to kill millions. Anyway, clearly the guy in charge of the assessment of the environmental impact of Vermont Yankee wasn't all that familiar with Vermont Yankee. And, clearly, I should have prepped him better.
God, I was embarrassed, and when I say "God" in this sentence I mean it in the expletive, expressive sense, not in the religious one. But I do know now, in my humility, that I need to be very careful about what I say next, because I'm going to mean it in the religious sense and you may not be in the mood for any more laxity on my part. Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, … (and before I continue with my iteration of the other two of the Seven Deadly Sins, may I confess that I have never understood, really, the difference between "Gluttony" and "Greed"?) … Envy, and Pride. Those are the big seven, are they not, Lord?. (By the way, I must also confess that I do not understand the prominence of "Lust" on that list. For ideas about the roots of my confusion, see my "Why I Love Vermont Yankee" prayer; specifically see Item Number 6 in that prayer.)
Anyway, Lord, forgive me if I ramble. Here's the "I have to be careful about what I say next" stuff: The judgment about sloppiness publicized in the Asbury Park Press is about Oyster Creek's relicensing application, not Vermont Yankee's. I'm off the hook! Vermont Yankee is entirely clean in this news report! So is that Pride that I'm articulating? Because that would be kind of bad, spiritually speaking. Or is it just fear--which you, in your all knowingness, surely know doesn't even have a capital letter, much less a sin number and would therefore be a much more seemly negative emotion for me to go on about?
I'm going to second-guess you and go with "fear" as the answer. More specifically, I'm talking about "fear for my job." For the NRC report says that "The [NRC's Inspector General's] audit found a similar [tons of bluster, not much substance] pattern, on average, in an analysis of NRC comments on some other plant relicensing applications." Did it find that pattern on Vermont Yankee's application???? If so, I've got a problem. The folks in Windham County are going to be ripped at me if they find out (so I'll try not to let them).
Again, just as I was when I prayed my "Why I Love Vermont Yankee" prayer, I am afraid. Dear God, please tell me that fear for my job would not be a Deadly Sin, not even if it was compounded by Wrath for the engineers who didn't do a more careful or meaningful job of inspecting our poor, aged plant! Is the NRC's Inspector General's office about to expose me? And if, pray, fear for one's job is not a sin, is allowing or supporting carelessness in an NRC relicensing application?
And is purposeful carelessness even the same thing, necessarily, as lying? I do know that lying is a sin. But is it a Deadly Sin? And if lying isn't Deadly, does that mean it's never lethal? And if it's never lethal, could I comfortably assume that it is relatively benign? What I mean to ask, Lord, if only I could get past my fear and bluster, is this: If I lie only when I'm paid to and only to people I don't care about, is it a sin?
Gotta go, Lord. Thanks for the meeting.


text:
Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja
The new Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGG), Boss Mustapha, has described the appellation "Executive Governor", commonly used in Nigeria as unconstitutional and a banana peel.
He also said he would prefer to be addressed as simply as the SGF without the prefix of "Your Excellency."
He made the omments wednesday at the handover ceremony between him and the acting SGF, Dr. Habitat Lawal.
He likened some of the nomenclatures which the Nigerian public uses to glorify office holders to banana peels that
"I will make a passionate appeal. I don't know where you people get this 'Your Excellency' from. Some of the nomenclatures are banana peels. I often hear people say 'Executive Governor,' I say look at the constitution, there is nothing like executive governor. It is Governor of a state," Mustapha said.
According to him, when political office holders begin to apply executive tag, they invariably begin to softly conceptualise the people to take absolute authority.
He said he should be addressed simply as SGF.
Mustapha promised to be fair and equitable to all the workers of the OSGF without prejudice and relate to them on the skills they can bring to the running of the office.
The former Managing Director of the National Inland Waterways (NIWA) said President Muhammadu Buhari has soft and compassion for the ordinary people of the country who have been pauperised for long, saying that it was time to end the vicious cycle that has pauperised people.
"I don't claim any superior experience or skills, other than the grace of God," he said.
Lawal who occupied the SGF post in acting capacity for six months, has reverted to her position as Permanent Secretary, Ecological Fund Office.


text:
Published : Thursday, September 7, 2017 | 6:41 PM
The former president and chief operating officer of East-West Bank, Pasadena resident Julia Gouw, was named as a member of the Ontario International Airport (OIAA) Commission, a statement from the Commission said. Gouw replaced Lucy Dunn who resigned in July.
Gouw retired from East West Bank last year after over 25 years of service with the bank where she started as controller in 1989.
Gouw was ranked among American Banker magazine's 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking five times and she twice received the Los Angeles Business Journal's Women Making a Difference award.
"We could not be happier to welcome Julia to the commission," Alan D. Wapner, OIAA president, said. "Her extensive experience in the financial services industry and deep ties to international markets, particularly in China, will be tremendous assets as we work to transform the Inland Empire's airport into a global gateway."
Before moving into the banking industry, Gouw was a senior audit manager for the financial services consulting firm KPMG.
"I am grateful for the commission's vote of confidence and I look forward to helping develop Ontario International Airport into a world-class gateway," Gouw said. "Airlines are recognizing Ontario's value in the Southern California aviation market and soon, I am confident, air carriers will see it as an important destination for international routes."
Gouw was born and raised in Surabaya, Indonesia. Following her graduation from high school, she moved to the United States and attended the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign where she earned a bachelor's degree in accounting.
The OIAA was formed in August 2012 by a Joint Powers Agreement between the City of Ontario and the County of San Bernardino, to provide overall direction for the management, operations, development and marketing of the Ontario International Airport.


text:
Spanish Holiday Beaches Becoming Destination Point For North African Migrants (Video)
Amazing moment boat carrying dozens of African migrants arrives on Spanish beach in front of shocked tourists and scatter before police arrive
- Clip shows a inflatable boat coming ashore in Cadiz, on southern Spanish coast
- Group managed to escape from the beach before police arrived at the scene
- It is believed migrants crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from Northern Africa
- Were you on the beach? Email firstname.lastname@example.com
By Alex Matthews and Sara Malm for MailOnline
A boat carrying dozens of African migrants landed on a Spanish beach in front of shocked holiday-makers.
Footage shows the migrants leaping out of a black inflatable dinghy and dashing across the sand on beaches at Cadiz in southern Spain, after crossing the Strait of Gibraltar.
The group managed to leave from the beach before the authorities arrived some time after.
Carlos Sanz, who shot the video while on vacation in Cadiz, said the group quickly vanished and police only arrived some time later.
Spanish officials couldn't immediately be reached after office hours.
The incident comes as the International Organization for Migration warned on Thursday that Spain could overtake Greece this year in the number of migrants arriving by sea, using boats and even jet-skis.
According to the IOM's latest figures, until August 6, close to 8,200 migrants had arrived in Spain so far this year.
That is more than triple the number who reached Spain at the same time last year, according to Joel Millman, a senior IOM spokesman, and already more than the total arrivals in 2016.
New arrivals: A video filmed by a witness show the dinghy pulling into shallow water at Cadiz
Embarking: Some two dozen people, reportedly African migrants, jump off the boat and run onto the beach in front of surprised sunbathers and tourists
While the figure pales in comparison with arrivals in Italy – where more than 96,400 have landed so far this year – Spain is catching up with Greece where 11,713 have arrived by sea in the same timeframe.
'It's possible that Spain will outperform Greece this year,' Millman told AFP.
'If so, that's a big change.'
He said many people taking the long route towards Italy via the Sahara and Libya were from west Africa.
But with the dangers faced, some may be deciding to go up along the coast instead.
'We assume that some of the change is due to the fact that the route is considered a safe route up to the coast through Morocco,' Millman said.
He added that the boats crossing the short but choppy sea to Spain were much smaller than those launching from Libya to Italy.
In Libya there 'appears to be a very deliberate strategy to put people out there, in overloaded boats that begin to take on water almost immediately and then it's a race to see how quickly the people on the boat can summon aid,' he said.
'Whereas in Spain, the strategy is smaller craft hoping to come in undetected, and undoubtedly some do.'
The boat came ashore in Cadiz, however it is not known from where the group had travelled
Disembarkations by migrants on Spanish beaches are not common but have happened before, especially at Spain's north African enclave cities Melilla and Ceuta, which border Morocco.
Ceuta and Melilla have the EU's only land borders with Africa, and as a result, they are entry points for people desperate to get to Europe.
Migrants regularly try to climb the high double border fences, swim along the coast or hide in vehicles crossing the frontier.
In recent days, migrants have repeatedly stormed the border with Ceuta by either attempting to cut through the wire fencing or running through the border post.
Once on Spanish soil in Ceuta, they are taken to migrant reception centres where they can apply for asylum.
But many are desperate to get to mainland Spain, believing that the process in Ceuta is slow or fearing that they will be returned to neighbouring Morocco, and try to hide in lorries boarding ferries.
On Tuesday, Spanish police found 30 Moroccan and Algerian migrants, ten of them minors, hidden in fairground vehicles in the enclave city.
The group had hidden in bumper cars and the ghost train loaded on lorries which were due to leave Ceuta for mainland Spain a after an annual festival.
Agents used heartbeat detectors and dogs to locate the migrants while the vehicles waited to board ferries to the mainland, the Guardia Civil police force said.
'They try to use attractions that are only half covered up to jump in and hide inside,' a spokesman said.
Spanish police push back 700 migrants as they attempt to storm a 20-foot border fence in Ceuta
Hundreds of migrants have attempted to storm the border between Spain's North African Ceuta territory and Morocco.
The Interior Ministry's office in the small enclave said the migrants tried to scale the 20-foot high barbed-wire fences around Ceuta after a crossing attempt at the Tarajal post failed.
All of the migrants – about 700 – were repelled by the Moroccan and Spanish authorities.
Spain and Morocco agreed yesterday to close the Tarajal post to freight traffic for a week because of recent migrant crossing attempts.
More than 180 migrants also stormed the border on Monday. Over 700 were repelled today
Footage showed migrants from Africa sprinting over the border from the Moroccan side while it was still dark on Monday
Pedestrian and passenger vehicles were still allowed.
Every year, thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants living illegally in Morocco try to scale the border fences surrounding Ceuta and Melilla, Spain's other North African enclave, in a bid to enter Europe.
On January 1 more than 1,000 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa tried to scale the fence at Ceuta during a violent assault in which one officer lost an eye.
At about 5am on Monday, 186 migrants stormed the border and reached European Union soil.
Once there, they celebrated, raising their hands in joy as they ran through the streets – with one man kneeling on the floor.
The migrants were eventually rounded up and taken to a reception centre, where they can apply for asylum in Spain.
Pictured: Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta. Hundreds of migrants attempted to storm the border today


text: The listing, Aloe vera plant, has good roots and is great for starter plants. has ended.Medium size aloe vera plant with good roots this is a good plant for starting your own aloe vera plants. Will be package carefully and soil will be added to the roots. Thank you for watching my auctions and happy bidding. Always free shipping and remember all Listia rules apply. Thanks again, Miss Linda


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On December 1, 2010, I posted exciting news about Diana's biology team experiment being chosen to go up on the last mission flight of Endeavour. I was so excited for Diana and her team! I know they have been anticipating this trip to the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral for such a long time!
Everything was in place for the launch Friday. Diana and her team arrived late Thursday with plans for a great time in Florida, watching the launch up close and personal. They would be sharing this event with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords ... not that they would meet her personally, but her husband, Mark Kelly, was commanding the shuttle on this mission! Even the President and the first family were there to see the launch! The countdown was all in place. I had the NASA channel on so that I could see the shuttle and the platform ... and await the moment it would lift off.
But then ... the mission was scrubbed. There was a possibility the Endeavour would launch Monday, and we were holding out hopes that it would because Diana and her group were going to be allowed to extend their time in Florida and still see it. But we found out today that the problem cannot be solved quickly with the "load control assembly" and so the launch has been postponed now until possibly May 9. Diana will come home, as scheduled, tonight. If I feel this disappointed, I'm thinking Diana and her group are much more ...
This is Diana (left), then the two students on her team, and on the right is their instructor.
I still say ... CONGRATULATIONS to everyone involved who worked hard on this project. It has been fun to follow your excitement and achievement. I'm sad you didn't get to see an actual launch, but I truly hope you had a great time at Cape Canaveral anyway!
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Shuttle mission scrubbed ...
Labels: Current events
1 comment:
Carol: Thanks for the great post about Diana and co-team members. I agree completely, and I feel their achievement is amazing and so much hard work. Congratulations to the whole work unit.
- May 3, 2011 at 5:24 AM
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Someday historians are going to be able to piece together what the heck happened to the Alberta government under Alison Redford — and why she failed so spectacularly just two years after such a promising start. The story will go beyond her propensity for first-class travel and her well-documented misuse of government aircraft. No doubt playing a major part in the downfall is what the auditor general famously called "the aura of power around Premier Redford and her office" where underlings did not dare stand up to the premier.
Thomson: Prentice wants to fix Alberta's damaged civil service
EDMONTON – Someday historians are going to be able to piece together what the heck happened to the Alberta government under Alison Redford — and why she failed so spectacularly just two years after such a promising start.
The story will go beyond her propensity for first-class travel and her well-documented misuse of government aircraft. No doubt playing a major part in the downfall is what the auditor general famously called "the aura of power around Premier Redford and her office" where underlings did not dare stand up to the premier.
We, of course, saw how Redford declared war on front line civil servants through her attempts to force a wage freeze on unionized members and threats to legally muzzle anyone who advocated for public sector strikes.
But now we're getting a glimpse of what life was like for senior government insiders who dealt directly with Redford.
Some of those peeks came this week in an interview with Premier Jim Prentice on his plans to "reinvigorate" the province's civil service. Prentice never overtly criticized Redford during the informal chat. In fact, he never mentioned her name but he pointed out that when he arrived in the job last September he quickly realized the senior civil service was demoralized and faced very significant problems reflected in a "shockingly high" turnover rate of staff.
"I was surprised when I stepped in as premier the extent to which it needed repair work," said Prentice, who offered an example of just how shell-shocked senior bureaucrats had become dealing with the "aura of power."
"People had been cowed," said Prentice. "I found a willingness to provide me, as premier, with an enormous amount of information, but no advice. I have something called a weekend-reading binder where I ask that all the information that I need to be aware of in the coming week is provided to me on the weekend and then I usually dedicate Sunday to read it all …. I was receiving five or six hundred pages in the weekend-reading binder of basically information and no advice. So people were fearful of providing advice to the premier."
One government insider said senior civil servants had "turned turtle" under Redford, afraid to stick their necks out for fear of having them chopped off. They either kept their mouths shut or quit, leading to that "shockingly high" attrition rate and dismal morale.
Prentice says nowadays cabinet meetings with politicians and civil servants, "are much more respectful, it's a partnership — they are treated professionally, respectfully."
Prentice said he is encouraging senior bureaucrats, the deputy ministers and their assistants, to speak truth to power: "I expect people to stand up to me and disagree with me. I've always expected in my life frank advice, honest advice. I value people that stand up to me, disagree with me and are prepared to have a frank discussion and tell me I'm wrong."
Oh, he'll have plenty of people willing to tell him that, especially the not-so-senior civil servants who make much less than the $300,000 a year earned by the top bureaucrats. These "junior" civil servants are the front-line workers, the people who are nervously watching Prentice's promised overhaul of the bureaucracy organized by Richard Dicerni — a well-respected career civil servant in the federal government who was coaxed out of retirement by Prentice to become the province's top civil servant.
Dicerni has set up a six-member blue ribbon panel called the Premier's Advisory Committee on the Alberta Public Service. It's not exactly rocketing into action. The members won't meet until sometime in February and they'll be planning changes over years, not months. You certainly get the impression this is not a quick fix and it's not about cutbacks or layoffs. According to Prentice, it's about restoring a sense of professionalism to the senior civil service that will then trickle down to front-line workers and result in better services to the public.
"We are trying to attract bright young talented leaders to the civil service."
But there is mixed message here, too. The government is not on a hiring spree. In fact, it's looking at ways to reduce the cost of the civil service.
This week, Prentice announced he and his cabinet colleagues are taking a voluntary five-per-cent salary cut.
Prentice has not said he will ask civil servants to take wage rollbacks, but he did ominously add that Albertans will be watching to see what happens next: "They expect people who work for the government, whether we are elected or whether we are people who are employees, to share part of that burden."
Prentice cannot impose wage cuts on unionized civil servants mid-contract but experience has demonstrated that Alberta premiers, such as Ralph Klein in 1994, can find ways to wrestle concessions out of public-sector unions by simply cutting ministerial budgets and threatening layoffs.
Prentice seems to be looking for a different, less confrontational way forward — a direction not taken by Redford.


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Image via WikipediaThe match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Deccan Chargers hinged upon 2 overs - one each in either innings. These 2 overs were the turning points in the match.
The 1st over was in the KKR innings - Sourav Ganguly and David Hussey were repairing the KKR innings and slowly but steadily accumulating the runs. The run-rate was still not something for DC to be alarmed about. Pragyan Ojha, the left-arm spinner, was brought on by Adam Gilchrist for his last over - very bad choice since Sourav was at the crease.
For your convenience, I have added the Cricinfo commentary below:
End of over 16 (9 runs) Kolkata Knight Riders 125/3 (RR: 7.81)The run-rate of KKR jumped by almost 1 run per over after this blast by Ganguly. Even if KKR had a good over of about 10, the score would have been 10 runs less. Thanks to Dada's trio of sixes, the run-rate became a healthy 181. The missed stumping of David Hussey also added to DC's pain.
DJ Hussey 19* (19b 1x6) SC Ganguly 70* (50b 9x4 2x6)
16.1 Ojha to Hussey, no run, another missed stumping, beaten by the turn there, landed outside leg stump, Hussey came down the track but couldn't get his bat to it as it turned away, he missed and so did Gilchrist
16.2 Ojha to Hussey, 1 leg bye, spun away after pitching on leg stump, goes for the slog-sweep, is struck on the pads as it turns away, steals a leg bye
16.3 Ojha to Ganguly, SIX, massive, turning into him and he bends low to sweep that powerfully over the deep backward square leg boundary for a big six
16.4 Ojha to Ganguly, 1 wide, full and wide, saw him coming down and fired it wide but Ganguly got back into his crease in time
16.4 Ojha to Ganguly, SIX, Ganguly has spoiled Ojha's figures here, flighted on middle and he swings it miles over deep square leg, took it from a length and punished it
16.5 Ojha to Ganguly, 1 wide, Ojha is struggling, tried to get him stumped again off a wide ball but Ganguly's not falling for it, it's called by the umpire
16.5 Ojha to Ganguly, SIX, Ganguly's on fire, full toss by Ojha and Ganguly shovels that gift ball over deep midwicket, the crowd is delirious, long time coming
16.6 Ojha to Ganguly, OUT, holes out in the deep, the shot was on, on middle and on a length, Ganguly was in position to send that into the stands but connect this as well as he had the earlier ones, found Rohit in the deep
SC Ganguly c Sharma b Ojha 88 (54b 9x4 5x6) SR: 162.96
That ends an excellent innings, giving Kolkata a great chance of posting a more than challenging score on this slow pitch
The 2nd over that sealed it for KKR was the penultimate over - of course, the target was huge - 40 runs from 2 overs but Andrew Symonds was at the crease and he was looking in good form. Shane Bond was brought into the attack by Sourav Ganguly.
Commentary from Cricinfo added below:
End of over 18 (8 runs) Deccan Chargers 142/4 (40 runs required from 12 balls, RR: 7.88, RRR: 20.00)Shane Bond bowled exceptionally with a combination of slow balls, length balls that did not allow Symonds to attack at all. Other than the first and last balls, Symonds could keep tapping every ball. Amazing. Again, if not for Bond's control, DC could have easily scored at least 10 runs more in this over. Of course, KKR played really well in the last 5 overs of DC's innings - the runs were hard to come by and Sourav shuffled his bowlers around to keep DC guessing.
A Symonds 38* (29b 4x4) TL Suman 7* (7b)
18.1 Bond to Symonds, FOUR, low full toss and he connects well, strikes it cleanly over the bowler's head wide of long-off for a one bounce four, first four since the 14th over says the TV commentator, took a while to come
18.2 Bond to Symonds, no run, trying an inswinging yorker there, moves away to steer it past point but it's fuller than he would have liked, misses
18.3 Bond to Symonds, no run, mixing it up very well, it takes some wily bowling to keep Symonds in check, the slow legcutter there, he didn't pick it and missed, another dot ball
Symonds says he can't quite see the ball, but the umpires have refused him a newer one
18.4 Bond to Symonds, no run, failing to get them away, short on middle, tries to swat that past the bowler, ends up playing it straight back to him, dot balls galore
18.5 Bond to Symonds, no run, another one, tight line, bowled on a good length on the off, strikes it back to Bond, big cheers from the crowd
18.6 Bond to Symonds, 2 runs, another superb over, finishes off with just a couple, driven wide of long-off
At the end of the day, KKR came out victors in the match by 24 runs. These 2 overs did make their mark in the match and ensured that KKR notched up another win over Deccan Chargers.


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Seeing all those plants so beautifully grown and presented at Chelsea always inspires me to press on with my own garden. It isn't that I want to copy anything in particular, though I did note down the names of a few plants I'd like to grow if I can find a suitable space, more that the day reminds me how good plants and gardens can be. The alternative reaction would be to grumble that my garden could never be remotely as good as that, and give up.
The tricky question is where to start. Planting out the little accumulated stash of recently purchased plants by the front door seemed a good plan. They have all been chosen with particular beds in mind, where I know there are gaps, and the sooner I plant them the faster they can start growing. Once a plant has filled its pot with roots, most don't honestly like sitting there for even another week. My aim is to cover the ground, so that annual weeds can't find space to germinate, and difficult to eradicate perennial weeds will be hidden.
I began with a box of low growing, drought tolerant perennials destined for the gravel in the front garden. Unfortunately the gravel has by now amassed a crop of spindly grasses and other weeds, which I had to pull out before I could plant, so progress was slow. I told myself that once the perennials spread to form a continuous mat the weeds would get much less of a look in, but by lunchtime I'd only planted out a few handfulls from a big clump of un-named, seed raised sempervivum, which I'd had in a clay pan until the pot disintegrated in the frosts. I thought that rather than repotting it as a lump, if I divided it up and used it as ground cover it would cover quite a lot of space. Still waiting to go in are the three Antennaria, the trio of alpine Phlox, and the prostrate Gypsophila, plus three more pans of houseleeks, and assorted succulents rescued from a failed experiment in creating a green roof on the pot shed.
Maybe weeding and planting is not the most urgent thing. There are mysterious patches of die-back in the prostrate juniper by the front door, a rosemary in the turning circle, and part of the ivy hedge around the long bed, while Malus x zumi 'Professor Sprenger' planted at the same end of the long bed has failed utterly. Probably I ought to remove the dead wood as my top priority. I don't know what is causing them to die. The soil in the front garden is extremely odd, and the lettuce farmer ended up fallowing the next door field for several years to try and build up its fertility, after his first crop of lettuces on it proved uncommercially erratic. He said that there were patches through the field where the crop simply refused to grow. The deaths are not all down to it being a former orchard, which as I now know are notorious spots for honey fungus, in that the rosemary and juniper are close to the house and well away from where the apple trees were, in what was already garden.
The edges in the back garden are whiskery in places. Letting the edges go undermines the whole look of the garden. Perhaps, before planting out ground cover and cutting out dead wood, I should cut all the lawn edges. Except that the goose grass is running up in places, and I should definitely remove that before it can seed, and because it looks so ostentatiously messy. And a willow tree that was trimmed with the Systems Administrator's help back in the winter has suddenly flopped branches down in front of a couple of the hydrangeas in the ditch bed. They are not getting enough light, and will grow out of shape, which is a structural problem more lasting than whiskery edges, so should I trim the willow before pulling out the goose grass?
It makes the idea of building a Chelsea show garden seem positively straightforward.


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Monday, September 3, 2007
for 13 years you have inspired me.
inspired me to . . .
love unconditionally
laugh hysterically
try new things
try again
be silly
learn how to read a map
create happiness
let it go
be honest
be compassionate
stay strong
have faith that everything will be fine
water ski
get it done
be consistent
work hard
fold the whites (not really but i'm thinking about it)
watch indy movies
be accountable
believe in myself
believe in others
love with a passion that can overwhelm
you are the best partner in my life journey and the most incredible father to our three little creations. no one can compare.
i hope that i have inspired you in some way over the past 13 years.
happy anniversary.
*photo by jordan mitas age 8
1 comment:
Just Beautiful!
Happy Anniversary my Darlings!
Mom and Tom
- September 3, 2007 at 8:40 AM
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Week 1 College Football Free Pick - LSU vs. BYU
FREE PICK: BYU +16 vs. LSU (Covers 56.4%)
Newly official head coach, Ed Orgeron, will take on BYU in the opening game at Death Valley. The Tigers are 16-point favorites, but they have a lot of question marks.
First off, the offense gets a facelift with Matt Canada taking over the reigns as coordinator. LSU will remain a relatively run-heavy offense with a few quirks. Canada does his best to create confusion up-front and stretch out the defense. Though it may look different, the approach will remain relatively the same. The biggest question mark for this LSU team won't be any coaches or coordinators though; it will be the run defense. There are a number of young players with little experience that are going to be thrown into the thick of SEC football. As many as eight starters could be new this season. Defensive coordinator, Dave Aranda, has even admitted to dumbing down the schemes a bit until the younger players get the basics.
Those youngsters will be tested right away as BYU is returning four-fifths of their offensive line, led by Tejan Koromo. In their first game against Portland State, an FCS school, BYU attempted 34 rushes compared to 27 pass attempts. They know their strengths and will stick to it. The Portland State game wasn't overly exciting for BYU, winning just 20-6, but the defense shined as we would have expected. There were nearly no defensive breakdowns as Portland State didn't land any big offensive plays. Matt Canada will need to get creative and likely throw more than he wants to coming into this matchup.
A lot will be made of the fact that BYU only managed 20 points in their first matchup against an inferior opponent, but let's not kid ourselves. The Cougars were fully aware of their upcoming matchup with LSU, and as is often the case in college football, BYU ran their vanilla offense in order to not give much away headed into this week. We don't expect BYU to light the lamp by any means, but with their defense, the Cougars shouldn't be more than two touchdown underdogs here.
According to 50,000 games played our simulation engine at PredictionMachine.com, LSU beats BYU 86.1% of the time by an average score of 30.9 to 19.4. As a 16-point underdog losing by an average margin of 11.4 points, the Cougars cover the spread 56.4% of the time, which would justify a $42 wager for an average $50 bettor.
College football gets underway this week and as we look back on previous seasons using our ResultsFinder tool, we uncover some excellent results. Our strongest ATS pick each week in college football is a whopping 69-40 (63.3%) ATS all-time. Playable college football picks last season alone were a banner 296-243 (54.9%) ATS, producing $1,178 in profits for an average $50 bettor, while "normal" or better totals are 58% all-time and have been profitable in five of the previous seven years.


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Becky Bream has won bronze at the recent British grand prix FITASC sporting clay shooting championship, held on 14th and 15th July at Hicknaham Farm in Buckinghamshire.
The 200-bird competition was held over a course designed by 19-time world champion clay shooter, George Digweed.
?This is the first time that I have ever designed a course layout so it was an extremely interesting exercise for me,? revealed George
?Hopefully I put some challenging birds over the competitors!?
Becky, who is UK brand ambassador for the Italian shotgun brand Zoli, finished the weekend with an extremely respectable score of 165.
Becky said: ?I always like to finish on the podium, and my Zoli Z-Gun teamed with Remington Premier Target cartridges definitely gave me the edge over my peers. It?s a winning combination!?


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Third Grade Choir
This choir is for third grade students and is in addition to the regular general music class, meeting for 35 minutes, twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
This district required experience helps children develop their singing potential and gives them the joy and satisfaction of performing for themselves and others.
Students will be learn beginning vocal technique and perform unison, partner, and basic two-part vocal music.
Explore "Concert Dates" to learn more about our performances!2017-2018 Third Grade ChoirEvening Concert PerformancesStudents rehearse two times each week, throughout the entire school year, preparing for the seasonal concerts. Please make every effort to mark these dates on your calendar and make sure your child attends these wonderful and memorable performances! Specific information regarding the concerts will be sent home well in advance to help you and your family prepare.Winter Holiday ConcertTuesday, December 19th7:00pm - Court Street AuditoriumStudents should be in the gymnasium by 6:30pm and doors to the auditorium will open for families.District All Choral ConcertTuesday, March 27th7:00pm - Lancaster High School Auditorium*More information will be sent home prior to the concert.Spring ConcertWednesday, May 23rd7:00pm - Court Street AuditoriumStudents should be in the gymnasium by 6:30pm and doors to the auditorium will open for families.