The information posted on this site really surprised me, although I guess it shouldn't have. I had assumed that PA was really on top of their Y2K problems.

The stonewalling by nuclear power plants in providing detailed information to the public is simply inexcusable. These guys should be hung for putting economic interests ahead of public safety.

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000zyE

-- lou navarro (lanny1@ix.netcom.com), June 25, 1999

Answers

YUP! Too bad so many Americans prefer air-conditioners over children. We used to have 'activists' in this country, I suppose they're either too busy reviewing their 401K plans or dealing with those substance abuse problems. A whole bunch of them showed up at the voting boothes in the last two elections though. Must have been that Fleetwood Mac campaign song.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 25, 1999.

&*%$#)@!!!???"$*&!?&^*^%$###!~~~~~~&@!>$*)(~~~$$$$$$$???????

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 25, 1999.

PAGING : nucpwr......nucpwr......please call the op-erator!!! Just one more teenie-tiny thing.....Rick Cowles REALLY needs to reconsider the "nuc-Power" issue being discussed *IN IT'S FULL INTIRETY* on his forum. Thank you

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 25, 1999.

How to find out the true agenda of a large website.

First: Back up the chain in the link you are given off of the site.

http://www.penweb.org/issues/y2k/

In this case, that takes us straight to

http://www.penweb.org/issues/

A very interesting laundry list - that seems rather oriented to environmental activism. Sounds like they have a bit of a fossilized position again nuclear power.

On up the chain, we find

http://www.penweb.org/

A couple of snips off that site: ----------------------------------------------------------

The nuclear, coal and oil industries all got their start in Pennsylvania, leaving behind a legacy of damage.

{Gee, and here I always thought the first nuclear reactor was built in Chicago by Dr. Fermi.}

Pennsylvania is the worst state in the U.S. for acid mine drainage (which is the worst polluter of water in the state). Pennsylvania has one-third of all the abandoned mine-related problems in the country. Unreclaimed coal mines are Pennsylvania's single biggest water quality problem. Environmental problems caused by past mining affect 45 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties. Pennsylvania has 250,000 acres of unreclaimed mine land. Old underground mines lay beneath more than 150,000 acres of land that may collapse. We have the 2nd highest number of miles of rivers and streams (53,000) next to Alaska and about 2,400 to 3,000 miles of them are contaminated by acid mine drainage.

{Where this isn't wrong, figures are given to make things sound as bad as possible - 150,000 acres of land that may collapse? That is about 225 square miles. I have worked at single underground mines that have undercut MORE than 75 square miles - and are still going. 225 square miles is a teeny fraction of a percent of the land area of Penn. And saying 1/3 of abandoned mine sites are in Penn tells you absolutely nothing without the size of the average site. Abandoned sites in Penn tend to be pretty small - not covering dozens of square miles like some I know of in KY.}

So we know they are an environmental site, with a strong bias. And, BTW, they support govt. intervention in everything.

SECOND: Look at the bias of the site originator or contributors.

In the case of penweb - lets see what some of their links turn up.

Oh bleeah - the very first one starts off with a thing about campus organizing for environmental action.

http://www.enviroweb.org/enviroissues/system/activism/index.html

Enough of that - politics seems to be a major thing with these people.

THIRD: Who owns the domain and what is their bias?

http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois/

Go to the above site, and you can find out who owns the domain name. In the case of penweb.org, the domain is owned by Mike Ewall. Bunch more information, but these boyos don't believe in fair use.

So lets see if Mr. Ewall has a home page. A search on Yahoo does not turn up a home page, but many interesting references to Mike Ewall do surface - he doesn't like polystyrene, nuclear reactors, large farming practices and a gob of other stuff. He also would like to can nuclear waste on site, and let it sit there forever. He seems to be a technological Luddite, who will use technology (the Internet) to spread his anti-tech views. The polystyrene committee page gives an email address for him of

Mike Ewall 862-7959 mxe115@psuvm.psu.edu (will help w/ contacts & organizing)

So I think we have tabbed his views pretty well. And discovered that he is linked to Penn State in some way - probably a student in the recent past.

=====================================================================

Just looking at a link is not enough for me. I like to know what bias the information is being presented with. And to know that, requires knowing something about the people behind the site. In this case, the site seems to mostly be related to fairly extreme environmental activism. Do you trust or are you a fellow traveler with these people? If not, why do you want to believe them about nukes and Y2K?

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), June 25, 1999.

Actually PD...when it comes to the "nuc" issue...I'll go with those who have a clear understanding of the delema and potential ramifications of acts of stupidity based upon financial gain, over the power hungry elite. Naturally, I have no college education and am not an expert. I'm not sure how old you are...but I'd guess that in the high school setting, I would have hated your puffy guts.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 25, 1999.

Will, I doubt I would have liked you either.

And BTW, years of farm work left me with a lot of muscle in my 'puffy' gut. I used to win bets off people in my young and foolish days by betting they could not hit me in the stomach hard enough to make me lose my breath, after I braced myself. No one ever did make me lose my breath, but I quit doing this after a guy sprained his wrist and had to wear a splint. (My mother had a fit - the guy was our preacher.)

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), June 25, 1999.

Paul, ROTFLMAO.......ever hear the Country Western song by Shennia Twain (sp?) "That Don't Impress Me Much" OR how about Carley Simon's "You're So Vain" Hahahahahhohohoho HehehehWhoooooooo Keep diggin' that hole Paul, you're *almost* covered.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 25, 1999.

Will,

Your lack of a college education shows through in your spelling. Get a spell check checker for goodness sake. "Interity"? ROFLMAO

-- Spell Checker's Can Be Your Friend (spellchecker@edgeumication.com), June 25, 1999.

Spell Checker,

YOUR lack of education shows up in your punctuation. "Spell Checker's"? In English, we add the letter "s" to the end of most words to make them plural. We do not use the apostrophe, EVER, my friend. The apostrophe is reserved for indicating possession, as in: "Spell Checker's ignorance," meaning that Spell Checker possesses the ignorance.

While we're at it, (climbing onto the soapbox now), the contraction "it's" means "IT IS." It is not possessive! Whenever you write the contraction "it's" in a sentence, read the sentence aloud, substituting the words "it is." If it sounds okay, you're doing great. If it sounds absurd, drop the apostrophe.

EXAMPLES:

"It's a beautiful day today." = IT IS a beautiful day today. Great. That sounds fine. The apostrophe is correct.

"The generator was cut off from it's fuel supply." Read that aloud, substituting "it is" for "it's." You would never say, "The generator was cut off from IT IS fuel supply," would you? Then drop the apostrophe.

Stepping down from the soapbox.

-- Prometheus (fire@for.man), June 25, 1999.

Prometheus: get back on for a sec.

Which is correct:

"If I was able, I'd kick that rude polly's ass," or "If I were able, I'd kick that rude polly's ass" ?

-- Lisa (lisa@work.now), June 25, 1999.

ARGUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

-- TickTock (Not@now.ugh), June 25, 1999.

Lisa,

Were is correct. Just stop reading when I become too pedantic, but here's the explanation.

Whenever one act is conditioned on something else, you describe it by using a combination of the conditional tense and the subjunctive tense.

What does this mean in real life? Well, if you have the ability (the condition that must be met first), then you will kick Polly's ass, the thing you desire to do. Basically this means that whenever you say would (the conditional tense) you need to weave were (the subjunctive tense) into the same sentence.

Would sets up the condition. In fact, the word would is the conditional tense of the verb will (as in "I will it to be so" or "Uri Geller willed the spoon to bend"), although hardly anyone understands this.

Let's fully reconstruct your original sentence like this:

"If I were able to kick Polly's ass, I would kick Polly's ass."

The word were sounds harsh here, because most of the time we hear it used to describe actions in the past: "They were drunk." But in this case, it is right. It is the verb to be expressed in the subjunctive tense. We use the subjunctive when we desire something that requires a condition to be met first, or when we are fearful or doubtful of an outcome, because the condition may not be met. In your case, you desire to kick Polly's ass, but the condition of your ability must happen first. Is this totally confusing? Sorry.

Here are some examples:

I would eat more if I weren't so full. (I desire to eat more, but the condition of emptiness hasn't happened yet.)

Were Pollyannas less common, the world would be more prepared for Y2K. ("Pollys less common" is the condition that hasn't occurred yet, "world more prepared for Y2K" is the thing I desire.)

I hope this helps, Lisa.

-- Prometheus (fire@for.man), June 25, 1999.

Spell Checker,

I'll send you a tenth ounce gold Eagle if you can spot the "agreement in number" grammatical mistake I made in the previous post. You're so educated; it should be a snap.

-- Prometheus (fire@for.man), June 25, 1999.

Hey Paul! Careful there!

Need I remind you that little trick cost Erich Weiss his life on Halloween night, 1926...

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), June 25, 1999.

Yeah, I know it killed Houdini - though he had an enflamed appendix at the time. As I said, I did that stunt in my young and foolish days, which are quite a ways behind me now.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), June 26, 1999.