Hanford is leaking

[AdamSmith]

Every time I look at the news I get more convinced that Chomsky et al. are right that pols, big business and the media are all in cahoots (wittingly or just lemming-like) to keep us in the dark and not disturb the status quo. Latest example is this piddle-shit new leak at the Hanford site in Washington state, where for many decades we cooked up our plutonium stocks:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/21/us/washington-hanford-leak/index.html?c=homepage-t

This report has it like this is a big new development, and that of course by this public reporting and hand-wringing the press, govt, etc. is on it and will take care of it.

What horse shit. I know some of the Bechtel people who have been long involved in cleaning up this Superfund site, and they in private are frank that it simply can't be done. There are a dozen or more enormous underground plumes of radioactive very bad stuff leaching from the reactor-waste storage tanks toward the Columbia River, and there is nothing anyone can figure out to do about them.

Except to prepare supermarket ad campaigns for two-headed fish.

[TampaYankee]

Pols and Big Business no doubt. That is the American Way. We have the best government that money can buy -- pick your party.

The media? You given them too much credit. They spend most of their time chasing phantom scandals, teaparty antics and grizzly moms, and sex or blood anywhere they can find it. All of 'em want to be Woodward or Bernstein but rather than do the tedious and painstaking gumshoe work, they spend their time trying to trick principles into making public mistakes with the 'have you stopped beating your wife' questions or trying to set them up after putting words in the principle's mouths. The few outlets that have much of a news act cannot be everywhere all of the time. And they dilute their product too chasing the crazies on parade.

Have you noticed the about-face by Fox on immigration? The movers and shakers of the Republican establishment i.e. big contributors and Chamber of Commerce let it be known to Roger Ailes that immigration reform must happen if there is to be a viable GOP in the future. He got onboard because he knows where is bread is buttered.

[RA1]

_{The media: Another example of technology run amok? One person or agency or network "sort of" "reports" something and the rest just spend their time and money agreeing or disagreeing, little real news gathering, never mind reporting. As had been said many times for many years, the news reader at 6 PM is so and so.}

_{I would prefer two tailed lobsters, thank you very much.}

_{Best regards,}

_RA1

[TampaYankee]

_{I would prefer two tailed lobsters, thank you very much.}

With drawn butter please.

[RA1]

^{Of course.}

^{Best regards,}

^RA1

[AdamSmith]

With drawn butter please.

Conjuring images of what is in those Hanford tanks!

As I noted here one time before, one of the Bechtel folk talking about the challenges of waste vitrification, etc. once chillingly remarked to me, "What's in those tanks has gone beyond the bounds of known chemistry."

[lookin]

That reminds me, I've got to clean the fridge this weekend.

[AdamSmith]

That reminds me, I've got to clean the fridge this weekend.

ROFL

TV Tropes:

It Came from the Fridge

This, boys and girls, is why you clean the blasted fridge.

Image by Jessica Lanan.

Used with permission.

There's something gross in the fridge today, It's green and growing hair.

It's been there since July!

If you can name the object in that baggie over there,

Then mister, you're a better man than I...

— "Weird Al" Yankovic, "Livin' In The Fridge"

Something hideous is lurking in the dark, eldritch depths of... your crisper drawer.

Interesting things breed in the depth of the refrigerator. Anyone who has ever had to clean one out can attest to that: foul-smelling, congealed mac 'n' cheese, shrivelled carrots and "furry" meat. The TV fridge, however, is another beast entirely. On TV, when life grows on your food, it is more than just life: it is sentient, multicellular, intelligent life. The back of your average comedy fridge is a breeding ground for all kinds of biological horrors — from oozing green slime to entire sapient races of leftover lasagna people to pasta-tentacled Eldritch Abominations. Creatures bred in the depths of an old Tupperware container make excellent Monster of the Week fodder.

Some shows may extend this trope to other flagrant displays of bad housekeeping, creating life from unwashed underwear and the dust under the bed. We honor them here as well. They obey the spirit of It Came from the Fridge, if not the letter. When the filth has conquered entire rooms or even the house itself, you have Trash of the Titans.

Subtrope of Creating Life Is Unforeseen. Not to be confused with Fridge Horror.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItCameFromTheFridge

[AdamSmith]

More Hanford hopelessness, and cluelessness...

http://m.mcclatchydc.com/dc/db_97947/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=DlUjAuwc

[Lucky]

I thought Obama had cracked down on leaks.

[AdamSmith]

I thought Obama had cracked down on leaks.

Come to think of it, you are on point: the treatment of this guy by his government-contractor employer is fully in line with current trends in government persecution of whistleblowers.