Legalectric

Party faithful were met with a startling scenario at the Northfield Caucus — NO LARGE GROUP MEETING! No rousing, insprational showing of DFL strength, no introduction of all the candidates to the cheers of loyal DFLers, no opportunities for candidates to show what they’re made of, nothing, nada… just shuffle everyone off into their little precinct rooms. Whatever were they thinking? What’s worse is that they got away with it! Lucky for them, I was in Red Wing, sharing a table with Steve Murphy and his manager and others.

Hero of the Day – Charlie Kyte is one who
took the bullshit by the horns…
maybe he should be running…

If four, FOUR, House and Senate candidates cannot work together, sieze the opportunity, commandeer the situation, gather the crowd, and STAND UP…

Come on over to the Cow and meet Sharon Marko

Monday, March 6 @ 7 p.m.
Contented Cow in Northfield – before Nordic Jam!
302 Division St. So. (down the stairs toward the river)
Northfield, MN

State Sen. Sharon Marko is running for Congress in the Second Congressional District — the seat that covers both of my ‘homes’ in southern Minnesota. Yes, she’s against the war in Iraq, without a doubt, but it’s the “more” that sold me! I’m supporting her in this race because she’s got extensive policy experience from her terms in the state House and Senate. I want my Representative to know about a broad range of policy issues, and though it’s impossible for any candidate to have the breadth of knowledge on energy issues that I demand (but her father was a nuclear research physicist!), she’s got a solid history in education and local government, transportation and taxation.

From her site at www.markoforcongress.com:

A veteran of the Minnesota Legislature, Sharon has represented families in Dakota and Washington counties since 1995 and is a leader on education and transportation issues. Sharon sits on the important Senate committees including the K-12 Education Finance Division serving as vice chair, and the Transportation Budget and Policy Committee.

And from the Northfield News article “Marko seeks DFL endorsement” this quote:

Marko, who visited Northfield Tuesday during a campaign swing, said her No. 1 reason for running was the nation’s mounting national debt.

“When the programs are finished, the debt service continues on,” she said. “… My children and grandchildren in the future will be paying our debt down the road. … The net interest on the debt … makes the budget priorities of education, homeland security and veterans pale in comparison. This is something we should all be concerned about.”

Marko was elected to the state Senate in 2002 after having served eight years in the Minnesota House. According to her campaign, she “supports making health care more affordable, investing in education to keep America competitive and ending the culture of corruption that has gripped Congress.”

Marko describes herself as a a “fiscal conservative” and says she would seek Medicare reform including ending the current law prohibiting the federal government from negotiating for the lowest price with drug companies. She also has criticized the No Child Left Behind Act, and its “failure to meet the needs of public school studentsin Minnesota.”

Stop by the Cow and say hello and let her know what you think about those burning issues and find out what she’s all about!

For sure I’ll be taking advantage of the opportunity to twist her arm and bend her ear about that stadium…

….sigh… I should be getting used to it by now, the Mesaba related Wabash River Technical Report isn’t there anymore, nor is the MISO study that says Mesaba electricity isn’t deliverable. (Thanks to Charlotte Neigh, who did a lot of digging and found the new location of that Wabash River Technical Report!) I’ve been chained to the computer researching the issues to address storage of nuclear for 200 years, beyond the 20 year license period. And I did manage to find the documents I was looking for, buried in the references for the Yucca Mountain EIS. GREAT! So go to the EIS References, download, and off they go to Judge Mihalchick… WRONG!

Here’s the first one:

101910 Poe, W.L., Jr. 1998. Long-Term Degradation of Concrete Facilities Presently Used for Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Waste. Revision 1. Las Vegas, Nevada: Jason Technologies. TIC: 244048.

Click on the “101910” and whaddya get?

SECURITY NOTICE
OCRWM recently removed technical information and documents from its Internet site. This decision reflected an awareness of the need to protect the public following the September 11th terrorist attacks and the need to inform the public through an open process. Although the information was not accessible on the Internet, it remained available to the public upon request. We are working diligently to incrementally repost information on the Internet. If specific documents in which you are interested are not yet re-posted, call our toll-free information line at 1-(800) 225-6972 for information on receiving them.

Oh, please, give me a break. Concrete degradation study is taken down, why, so that terrorists don’t know how long they have to wait until the concrete outer containers or bunkers fall apart? Or because then people like me might know that they’ll fall apart. This is SO absurd.

From the Transnuclear site

For Monticello, they’re planning on using “NUHOMS” casks (that is SO smarmy), which is a cask that’s put into a concrete bunker. As we all know from driving around Minnesota, concrete doesn’t last too long. So is this a good idea? And how do we evaluate it if the one study on the subject in dry cask storage is “disappeared?” I requested all four of the documents I need, but I imagine the black helicoptors will land out in the street and haul me off. Ain’t freedom grand…