Yes, We Have None

Dear God,

Bad news.

Financially:

• On February 2, Jefferies & Co. downgraded Entergy stock to "Hold" from "Buy."
  
  
• Market Watch reports that "Entergy Corp.'s 2008 fourth-quarter net income fell 12%." (That's way bigger than the 8% drop that Entergy itself had forecast.)
  
  
• All of this is happening in the very midst of our efforts to convince the Vermont legislature that we have the financial resources to handle decommissioning without topping off the decommissioning fund, which is currently about half a billion dollars short.
  

Politically:

• We're eating crow. In the hopes of keeping alive Vermont Yankee's chances of getting permission from the state legislature to operate past the expiration of its current license, Entergy has apologized to lawmakers for the two recent leaks of radioactive water. They have also replaced the site vice-president, general manager, and operations manager, blaming them (it seems) for the entire culture of lax management and maintenance. As if.
  
  
• A non-aligned consulting group hired by the legislature has advised the legislature that, despite Entergy's assurance that high-level radioactive waste need not stay in Vermont long-term, high-level radioactive waste will most probably stay in Vermont long term. Period.
  

But there's good news, too! For example:

• I've learned to polish my shoes with a banana peel. And you can, too.
  
  
  
  
• Japanese researchers are reporting that reading poetry can help people use less toilet paper.
  

And so I, Fake-Rob Williams, the Vermont Yankee PR guy, will be single-handedly turning this whole emerging financial catastrophe/environmental disaster picture of Vermont Yankee around immediately. I will arrange for us to forever be known not as the Nuclear Power Plant that Couldn't, but as the Nuclear Power Plant that Used Less Toilet Paper and had shiny shoes, to boot. And that's great PR.

It's all in the ...

LIMERICKS FOR OUR TOILET STALLS

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, 'It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all forgotten to perform routine maintenance, which doesn't bode well for the people of Vermont and its neighboring states because they are all employees of Vermont Yankee. Furthermore, regardless of their consistent inability to do a good job, VY has been given permission by the NRC to reduce the number of times we conduct tests on control rods, a key safety system. Note to self: Arrange for a large donation to a popular community organization, and inform the Reformer.

There once was a fellow McSweeny
Who spilled some gin on his—work is progressing at Vermont Yankee. Did you see that headline? "Work Progresses at Vermont Yankee." It's in the Burlington Free Press. That's a real newspaper. So we're getting some good press about the fact that we hired contractors to seal a leak through a valve gasket and to clear ice from a ventilation system on a back-up generator.
Just to be couth
He added vermouth
Then slipped his girlfriend a martini

There once was a man named J. Wayne
Whose banana was wonderfully named
When Forbes named him a top dog
He petted dear lap dog
And said, "Rover, you are one useful tool. What nasty maintenance scandals and financial disasters can we polish away together today? Who needs cash around here? The Brattleboro Museum and Arts Center again? The Chamber of Commerce?"

Amen,

Fake-Rob