Tuesday, November 24, 2009

I am madly in love with Stanley...

Please visit the American Anti-Vivisection Society and consider donating your time and/or funds to enrich animal lives and stop the usage of our fellow animals as laboratory experiments.

Monday, November 23, 2009

URGENT: Action Alert at Coal River Mountain

"We need you to stand with us to save Coal River Mountain.

Join us on Dec. 7 at 2pm at the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection headquarters in Charleston, WV for a rally and protest to save Coal River Mountain.

Massey Energy is actively blasting and mining on Coal River Mountain in southern West Virginia. The blasting is taking place only a few hundred feet away from the Brushy Fork impoundment dam, which holds over 9 billion gallons of toxic coal sludge above the Coal River Valley. If the dam bursts, it is estimated that almost 1000 people who live, work and go to school would lose their lives."

"America's Favorite Animal Shelter"

Fauquier SPCA is the shelter that I voted for in Care2 & Adopt-a-Pet's "America's Favorite Animal Shelter" contest. Please consider doing the same, or go vote for your own favorite!

Sunday, November 22, 2009

We do NOT need more nuclear plants: "Three Mile Island radiation leak investigated"

From CNN: " Authorities at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant were investigating what caused a weekend radiation leak that resulted in 150 workers being sent home, officials said Sunday.

An airborne radiological contamination alarm sounded about 4 p.m. Saturday in the Unit 1 containment building, according to a statement from Exelon Nuclear, which operates the Three Mile Island plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania. The unit had been shut down since October 26 for refueling, maintenance and steam generator replacement, the company said.

"A monitor at the temporary opening cut into the containment building wall to allow the new steam generators to be moved inside showed a slight increase in a reading and then returned to normal," the company said. "Two other monitors displayed normal readings."

Three Mile Island was the scene of the worst U.S. nuclear accident, a partial meltdown in 1979 that resulted in the plant's second reactor being shut down permanently.

Tests showed the contamination in Saturday's incident was confined to the building itself, and none was found outside, Exelon said. There was no threat to public health and safety, but the workers were sent home because they could not continue until the area was cleaned, Bill Noll, Exelon vice president, said in the Saturday statement.

One worker was found to have received 16 millirem of exposure, and others received lower levels of contamination. The annual occupational dose limit for workers at Exelon plants is 2,000 millirem, the statement said.

Radiation exposure from a chest X-ray is about 6 millirem, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Although Noll said it was hoped work would resume at Unit 1 on Sunday, Exelon spokeswoman Beth Archer told CNN on Sunday it had not resumed, as the cause of the leak was still under investigation.

Two radiation specialists from the NRC were scheduled to investigate Sunday. "Numerous work activities were going on in the building at the time the alarm sounded, and Exelon engineers are working to determine the cause of the incident," the statement said." read the full article here...

Virginia Wine & Canadian Cheese extended weekend...


I have been giving wine & cheese tastings at work all weekend. Will continue to do so Monday & Tuesday as well. Tastings of five Kluge Estate wines, and five complementing cheeses (Canadian imports). It has been very interesting and a lot of fun. I have sold three and a half cases of wine so far. Much, MUCH more than the main office thought that I would sell. They predicted that I would sell 7 bottles. Total. I have sold out of three of the wines! Had we received an adequate amount of wines in our shipment, I could have sold much more. I have had to tell many of my customers to return on Monday. So, the frustration has been that I could give my customers a taste of something that I could not actually SELL them because I had to wait until Monday to get more back in stock. Then today it came to not even having any left in the sample bottles for two of the wines. I could only tell my customers about the wine, and implore them to return Monday. But back to the people; there have only been two "spitters". I only had one "wine snob". There have been quite a few who said that they only liked sweet wine, who found out that they liked the dry wines. Then again there was the one young lady who said that she only liked wine if it "tasted like a 'Slurpee'", but she was a fun customer. There were some people who would ask me questions about the wine & the cheese; the SAME questions, four or five times in a row. And, happily,there were many people who were delighted at what I was sharing with them, and we had fabulous conversations about wine & life.

What I sampled out: Blanc de Blanc (2005), Sauvignon Blanc (2008), Simply Red (2004), Kluge Estate New World Red (2005), and Cru.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Beautiful Grey


It is an absolutely gorgeous grey misty rainy day. While taking a walk with Rhiannon earlier, Jesse Colin Young's song "Grey Day" (part of the "California Suite" on the "Light Shine" album from 1974) kept playing in my mind.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Beer And A Book...

I was enamored of Stone Brewing Company's IPA all Summer long. Now, I have found a beer of their making, just as exciting, to quaff all Winter long: "Smoked Porter". Oh, the taste buds rejoice! Peat-smoked malt!

Stephen King's latest book is a delight. In the upper echelon of his output. Huge book, 1075 pages. Another plus, as far as I am concerned. I read it in four days, it never bogged down.
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Poke Sky

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Saturday, November 14, 2009

Lenah


there is snoring coming from behind the woodstove in the key of G

Great news for wolves!

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and environmentalists have reached an agreement Friday that scraps a controversial rule the agency had used to kill or permanently remove any wolf that killed three heads of livestock in a year.

Fish and Wildlife spokesman Tom Buckley says the rule "will no longer stand."

He says the agency has ways to deal with livestock kills "and remains committed to assisting the local livestock operators in any negative impacts they may have related to wolves."

Environmentalists complained the three-strikes rule favored the ranching industry and was a major roadblock to the effort to recover the species in the wild. Ranchers responded the policy targets wolves that grow accustomed to preying on cattle.

Several environmental groups sued in May 2008, asking the U.S. District Court in Arizona to stop the removal policy." The Associated Press, November 14, 2009

"Evolve Happy" Update...

My friend Roberto over at "Evolve Happy" has decided to be the sole contributor. He sent out an e-mail to David & I telling us of this decision last week. So no more Monday morning Doom & Gloom from me, or "Audio Treat of the Week" from DB. Please, however, continue to support EH.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Beer and a Book

Magic Hat Brewery in Burlington, Vermont has created an amazing Winter Lager in its new offering called "Howl". The brew is dark and dusky and I love it.
After having this book on my library shelves since my "Crown Books" days, the 1980's, I have finally read 'Just Above My Head' by James Baldwin, which was published in 1979. And I am very glad that I did. His writing was so very deep, emotional and insightful, that I have been inspired to seek out more books by him. He died of stomach cancer in 1987.
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