A little explanation here– when comments are particularly odious here, they can be hidden from the general public as toxic to the overall environment.  This is community moderation, not something we tend to exercise as editors of the site.

That said, since we’ve been talking about some of the personal attacks engaged in by pro-nuclear bloggers, I thought it might be worthwhile to highlight an old comment that got hidden.  This comment was posted in this piece.  In response, Howard Shaffer, who’s been going after Arnie Gunderson in public some, made his own comments here on Green Mountain Daily.

I don’t know where Mrs. Gundersen gets her info, but she may be open to a liable suit.  Meredith Angwin, with whom I collaborate, doesn’t get paid to blog. She won’t because it would hamper her independence. In fact we are both trying to get some paid work.  In the meantime we are supporting nuclear power for our grandchildren’s sake.  See our website coalitionforenergysolutions.org and Meredith’s blog Yes,Vermont Yankee.

This fairly reckless and silly attempt at intimidation also included some other personal comments directed at Maggie and Arnie Gundersen (the original comment can be found here if you’re a GMD member in good standing, but I wanted to highlight this particular comment because it says a lot about what’s being attempted here.  

For the record, by the way, as an aside, this was my response:

1. it’s my experience that threatening a lawsuit means the person making the threat doesn’t have a case.  People who have a case actually sue.  People who don’t have a case bluster;
2. as a general rule, a claim of libel requires that the statement in question be a falsehood.  I notice that you aren’t pointing to any actual lie on the part of Maggie but instead making a claim which does not contradict what you’ve said;
3. if you’re going to try to harass or intimidate someone, you should know how to spell “libel.”

We’re talking about individual people going up against a group of extremely powerful corporations with very deep pockets.  As noted recently:

How he dared even go there after Howard Shaffer’s claim to state of VT that Mr. Gundersen is not a nuclear engineer & should not be allowed to make the claim failed so miserably is curious.

Anyone who has watched the ongoing debate over continued operation of Entergy Louisiana-owned Vermont Yankee & related events unfold, has witnessed an astonishing display of disinformation. Information dispensed by those who support continued operation has been inaccurate & misleading in their description of the issue & related issues. It has been an eye opener to say the very least.

I wanted to draw these two things together to show a history here, one not visible to registered users of the site or search engines– the smear tactics we’re discussing here have been going on for a long time and though it was appropriate to hide that comment in the context of the discussion, I thought it necessary to bring it back out to the light again.