In case it hasn’t been obvious, I’ve been in a serious slump in the whole writing/blogging thing. And its a bad kind of slump, too. Everyday I find things I really want to write up, but then I get to the computer and I just go flat. Big drag.

So today, after reading all the Vermont Yankee discussions in the paper, I was struck by an increasingly bizarre irrationality on the part of Yankee proponents. As though all the arguments and concerns that have piled up have become too much, and supporters are just covering their eyes and ears.

It almost seems like a pathology at this point. Yankee Dementia Disease.

You hear Peg Flory on the radio or in hearings so clearly furious at Yankee opponents, angrily (and futilely) throwing out “gotcha” points that she has to know are easily countered by whatever bits of information she has chosen to withhold in order to play Entergy cheerleader (and thankfully, there’s always someone standing right next to her to call her out on her deceptively selective informational tidbits.)

Back to today’s paper, there’s the piece by former Governor Salmon, but this problem isn’t really anything new with him, as his irrationality is – as usual – worn on his sleeve. He offers little more than a truly ironic rant about the “shrill voices of ideologues”, along with the bizarre statement that it “strikes (him) as odd, if not downright unexplainable” why “anti-nuclear activists” would time their shut-down efforts during a recession.

“Timing” their efforts during a recession? Seriously?

I mean, its hard to know how to respond to that, except to wonder if Governor Salmon’s tether to reality hasn’t come loose. I suppose the upcoming relicensing, a potential new power contract, tritium leaks into the groundwater, the bustling low-cost energy market, the recent cooling tower collapse, security breach, and the lies from Entergy execs to the state of Vermont – they’re all part of a delicately balanced, meticulously planned plot by the all-powerful Greenpeace, and those damn dirty hippies didn’t have the decency to wait another year to have all their well-placed corporate stooges and saboteurs commence with their master plan.

Seriously. This is apparently what he is saying. I’m not sure how anyone who could make such an argument could even be taken seriously. In fact, the only response that comes to mind are the immortal words of Buzz Lightyear.

But Salmon and Flory are too easy. What really got my attention, and that I thought was worth a long, carefully considered response was the piece by Richard Mallary, who calls for a “rational assessment,” and then – with great deliberation – completely avoids even mentioning (let alone “assessing”) the most damning rational arguments against relicensing. And the few almost meaninglessly broad approaches to the anti-VY argument he does take, he quickly dispenses with by casting them generally into a trust-the-Nuclear-Regulatory-Commission catch-all (as if there isn’t a “rational risk assessment” associated with that right there).

So that’s what I was gonna write. Except now I guess I just did, sans the meticulous point-by-point dissection of Mallary’s piece. This stream of consciousness blogging is weird. Guess I have to go back and fill in the links now. Grumble.

What I was going to suggest, rather than write an actual post, was to have a little fun. And I suppose I still can. This morning, I was following one link after another – as one does on the web – and ended up with this oddly inspirational combination of text and google advertising at the bottom of a passing page:

Now that was inspiring. A Yankee haiku. There’s a worthy topic for a Sunday post.

I’ll start:

VY forever!

Leaks, Lies, Collapses, Breaches

It’s only business.

Tritium fine, they say.

Cobalt, Zinc-65, just

to cleanse the palate.

Woo-hoo! I could do this all day!

Next?