I’ve a news flash: There are no Olympic events for ‘Stupid’ or ‘Ignorant.’ So Americans can quit trying to take that gold, though I’m confident that if there were such competitions we’d be setting new world records.

By every recent poll, Americans are split fairly evenly between John McCain and Barack Obama. By definition that says approximately half claim to be supporters of McCain. And that, again by definition, is evidence manifest that somewhere around 50% of Americans are vying for top honors (??) in the competitions I just noted are not being held this year.

It’s been more than a month since I received my “McCain — Bush’s 3d Term” bumper sticker. I haven’t put it on my car, and won’t. One, I don’t like sticking anything on my car that actually sticks. Two, the suggestion contained in the message is completely unfair . . . to George Bush! As horrific as W has been, as completely obtuse as he’s proven himself to be, as incredibly ignorant as we ever imagined a president could possibly be, George W. Bush is demonstrably so superior to John McCain for every standard, including basic integrity, that to suppose there’s equivalence between the two disparages the 43d president.

The senior senator from Arizona has proposed building “49 new nuclear power plants,” as a means to energy independence. He, along with the GOP and the aforementioned radio hosts, has long claimed that the only thing standing in the way has been the Democratic Party’s “tree-hugging” congress members.

Pure S**T! (An oxymoron, I know, but I’m using “pure” in its really smelly unadulterated sense.)

The real reasons why no nuke has been constructed in 30 years include a total lack of financial backing for projects that take 10 years and $5 billion minimum to complete, and the odds are insufficient that such a facility would ever turn a dime in profit.

And referring back to S**T, like it or not, it happens. Bridges collapse. Trains derail. Leaks spring. And the spent rods that get shipped by rail from those power plants are the kinds of 10,000 year half-life S**T you do not want blocking your commute to work. McCain has said he has “no problem” filling Nevada’s Yucca Mountain with the stuff. But an interesting problem that John has not given much attention to derives from the fact that you’ve got to move the nuclear waste from a yet-to-be-determined Point A to Yucca Mountain.

I spent three decades living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Piedmont, just above Oakland, used to be a hilly community of lush landscaping. I was in Piedmont, for three weeks earlier this summer. The hills are still there. But not so much the lush landscaping. Many, many yards have fallen brown because of a severe and protracted water shortage. (And one word of warning: Do NOT even think of washing your car in your drive!!! The situation is that serious.)

That highlights another of the reasons no nukes have been constructed. Nothing consumes water quite like a nuclear power plant. And if anyone wants to know about water, all they need do is ask anyone in the West; even a Republican. No! Especially a Republican from one of the western states.

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Everything that lands on dinner tables across America began with water. From the Columbia fisheries to the Yakima Valley to the Imperial Valley, from the Salinas Valley to the Rockies . . . we’re running low to out, and water wars are raging in our federal courts. Ranchers are screaming. Farmers are screaming. Fishermen are screaming. Residential and commercial developers are screaming. And home owners are being warned: use more than your allotted share and you face serious financial penalties, perhaps even cutoff.

From sea to shining sea, our lake levels are dropping. Lake Meade. Lake Powell. Lake Tahoe. Even Lake Superior. And no one is going to begin one plan for a project that will take 10 years to complete and require from $5 to $10 billion, if after all of that the chances are slim there will be available even one bucket of water to cool that really red-hot S**T. No plants are going to built in the West, where there isn’t today the water that would be necessary. That means, somewhere in the East. And that completes the Point A to Yucca Mountain circle of reasons.

But you know: I saw the video; John McCain telling the gathered in Michigan of “his” plans on behalf of a solution. And I saw the nods, “Yup Vern, the man’s got a ‘plan’ ahll right.” 

“And the gold medals for ‘Stupid’ and ‘Ignorant’ go to . . .”

Wait, there’s more.

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