Month: April 2011

Crazy Corbett

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

I can’t tell if he’s Dr. Evil, or just stupid:

Gov. Corbett has proposed a novel solution to the higher education funding crisis: drilling for dollars.

Not a gas tax, mind you but gas rigs, right on campus.

Corbett told the Pennsylvania Association of Councils of Trustees today that schools could address revenue shortfalls by tapping into the riches of the Marcellus Shale beneath their campuses.

Corbett said six campuses in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education sit on the lucrative Marcellus shale natural gas formation, The Erie Times reported.

Corbett has proposed slicing some $550 million or fifty percent of state funding for colleges and universities in his 2011-2012 spending plan.

The governor was speaking at Edinboro University as part of a tour of the northwest to promote his budget proposal.

Nukes

~ susie

As far as we know, everything’s okay:

Severe storms and tornadoes moving through the Southeast dealt a severe blow to the Tennessee Valley Authority on Wednesday, causing three nuclear reactors in Alabama to shut and knocking out 11 high-voltage power lines, the utility and regulators said.

All three units at TVA’s 3,274-megawatt Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Alabama tripped about 5:30 EDT (2230 GMT) after losing outside power to the plant, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency said.

The NRC spokesman said early information indicated the units shut normally and the plant’s diesel generators started up to supply power for the plant’s safety system.

The government owned corporation said crews were working to restore service, but more severe weather was forecast, TVA said in a release. Most of the damage so far has occurred in the western part of TVA’s service territory in Mississippi, Alabama and western Tennessee and Kentucky.

Imagine that

~ susie

BP giving a contradictory account of emissions from one of their Texas plants:

Texas City officials—relying on air monitoring data from a BP contractor and the fire department—have said that emissions hadn’t reached harmful levels. “There was constant monitoring going on at all times and it did not reveal anything, although there’s a strong smell of hydrocarbons in the air,” Bruce Clawson, Texas City’s Homeland Security coordinator, told the Associated Press.

But that’s not what officials at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have said. According to the environmental agency, the levels of chemical emissions were at one point so high that they maxed out the monitoring equipment. “Values were outside the range our instrument can read,” an agency spokesman told the Galveston Daily News. “Maximum readings taken by TCEQ staff were in excess of the instruments measurement capability.”

Can we afford the energy industry? Maybe someone should look into that.

Fixed

~ susie

Just got back from the salon, where I got a remedial haircut to fix the one I got a few weeks ago.

My regular hairdresser (yes, I’d cheated on her and the hair goddess punished me for it) pulled my hair away from my head, frowned and said, “What did she cut this with?”

I had to think a minute. A razor, I told her.

“That’s the problem. You can’t razor-cut thick hair like this, it’s like adding split ends all over and then it all fuzzes out,” she said. (Which is exactly what my hair did.)

She muttered something about how the cutter “must have thin hair. These girls with thin hair always think everyone else’s hair is just like theirs, and it isn’t.”

The reason I like this woman is, she takes her job very, very seriously. I will go now, and sin no more.

PA residents, please call NOW

~ susie

This is really important, click here and they’ll tell you who to call:

Unless Pennsylvania lawmakers take action soon, long-term unemployed workers in Pennsylvania will lose up to 20 weeks of unemployment compensation known as Extended Benefits on June 11, 2011. Senate Bill 994 would allow Pennsylvania’s unemployed to keep these federally-funded benefits.

On June 11, 2011, an estimated 45,000 unemployed workers in Pennsylvania will be cut-off of the Extended Benefits they’ve been receiving — unless the legislature acts. Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry estimates that a total of 135,000 jobless workers could lose eligibility for these benefits this year starting on June 11th.

The federal government now covers 100% of the cost of these benefits for non-government employees. All the state needs to do to continue receiving these federally-funded benefits is to enact a technical fix to the state unemployment insurance law. Senate Bill 994 would do just that.

Republicans and Democrats in every one of Pennsylvania’s neighboring states—Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland—have all recently passed the needed Extended Benefits legislation. In total, 24 states have already acted to allow individuals to continue these benefits.

Thanks to federally-funded Extended Benefits, more than $1.5 billion additional dollars flowed into Pennsylvania since the recession started — benefiting unemployed workers and businesses alike. 200,000 of us, our friends, family members, and neighbors have counted on these benefits to put food on the table and a roof over their heads.

This small legislative change, with no cost to Pennsylvania, is the only thing that stands in the way of unemployed workers being able to secure the benefits they, and the local economy, so desperately need, and that the federal government is underwriting.

It’s time for Pennsylvania lawmakers to act.

Please send a message to Senator John Gordner, Senator Dominic Pileggi and Governor Tom Corbett now!

Click on “Participate” to send Senator Gordner, Senator Pileggi and Governor Corbett a message: Don’t Cut-off Pennsylvania’s Unemployed Workers! Pass SB 994 to Continue Extended Benefits!

Also, please call them with that message:
Sen. Gordner: 717-787-8928
Sen. Pileggi: 717-787-4712
Gov. Corbett: 717-787-2500