Bad Ass: I'm a Wannabe

Dear God,

Hey, did you hear? Arnie Gundersen has spent $150,000 on clothing and makeup for himself at Saks Fifth Avenue, Niemen Marcus, and other high-end stores. The entire bill has been footed by The New England Coalition.

Senator Peter Shumlin (D-Putney) appointed Gundersen to the independent oversight panel overseeing a comprehensive vertical audit of the reliability of Vermont Yankee's systems, structures and components. Which means that it's his fault as much as anyone's that Arnie has become the darling of the no-nuke movement. Still, true to form, Shumlin has questioned my motives in disclosing the whole shopping spree affair.

"With all of the important safety, economic, and legislative issues facing the Vermont Yankee debate right now, it's remarkable that Fake-Rob wants to spend time talking about pantsuits and blouses," Shumlin said. "Can't we talk about cooling tower safety? About the fact that every time Arnie predicts that something is about to go wrong at Yankee it does? About the fact that the Department of Public Service is attempting to limit the scope of the audit, has failed to share with the panel a letter from the NRC relating to the NRC's component design basis inspection recently conducted at the power plant, and is poorly managing and understaffing the audit by not hiring an additional manager to assist Uldis Vanags, the state's nuclear engineer?" Shumlin's voice was almost squeaking, he was that mad at me. "Arnie's going to give all of those clothes and other junk to important charities like Ladies Against Women anyway, when he's done using them."

Meanwhile, there's been a trickle-down effect from the revelation about Arnie's whole-hog hogging. Donations to NEC have skyrocketed, engineers at Vermont Yankee have requested clothing allowances amounting to three times their median salary, and Real-Rob has demanded to know why Arnie can't just dress and shave "like the rest of us."

In other news, everyone at the Department of Public Service is mad at Arnie for communicating with the press. Also, we've just evacuated the reactor building. I know. I'm a bad ass. Oh, well.

Amen,

Fake-Rob