From the “You Can’t Make This Up” file:
Patriot Coal Corporation today announced that it received three Mountaineer Guardian Safety Awards from the West Virginia Coal Association. The following operations received the award in their respective categories:
Coal Clean preparation plant at the Panther mining complex;
Fanco preparation plant and loadout at the Logan County mining complex; and
Samples surface mine at the Paint Creek mining complex.Mountaineer Guardian Safety Awards are presented each year by the West Virginia Coal Association to mining operations that demonstrate a strong commitment to safety. Inspectors for the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety & Training nominate facilities based on numerous safety-related criteria, including below average injury incidence rates and effective safety programs.
That was four days ago. Sadly, the Eagle operation was not an award winner, which I guess gives humorists everywhere a mild reprieve.
(via)
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
I’m pretty sure poisoning the local waterways is just business as usual, and therefore not monitored under the umbrella of safety.
Baud
I want to form a company called Jesus, Inc. just to see how much I can get with before somebody says something.
BlueCanadian
@Baud: You’re heyzoos ink ass would be deported so fast.
PsiFighter37
No offense, John, but I bet the response of you fellow West Virginians will be to blame Obama and then subsequently vote out the narrowing Democratic majority at the state level. Not that they’re worth much more given that the vast majority of them are conservative Democrats, but I would bet a pretty penny that most Mountaineers are going to blame the EPA and the black Kenyan Marxist for this, not Patriot Coal or any of the parties who are, you know, actually responsible.
Poopyman
These industry awards are just grownup versions of gold stars in kindergarten. Everybody gets one.
And a company called Jesus will be assumed by the local bigots to be pronounce Hay-zeus and will be boycotted as bein’ messican.
max
it received three Mountaineer Guardian Safety Awards from the West Virginia Coal Association.
“West Virginia! If you liked the free cancer, you’ll LOVE the free poison!”
max
[‘Maybe they should just close the state and turn it into a park.’]
Gin & Tonic
Just a cynical hunch, but I’ll bet the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety & Training isn’t filled with Earth First! types. Regulatory Capture for $800, Alex.
Baud
To be fair, it sounds like these awards are given for worker safety, not the quality of chemical hazard containment. There’s probably a whole separate award for lowest amount of contaminants released into the environment.
geg6
Bwahahahahaha! Jeebus but it’s great to live in a state that, no matter how bad it gets around here (thanks Tom Corbett!), looks good next to one of our closest neighbors. It’s not all that easy to do when New York and Maryland are also close neighbors but we can always point to WV and say, hey! At least we’re not WV!
Garbo
OT: CNN.com is down. Dare we hope they have closed shop in shame?
JoyfulA
@geg6: And don’t forget New Jersey! At least Corbett doesn’t scream much.
Belafon
@Baud: Which will be very hard to win unless companies regularly release some chemicals. The Patriot is just starting the trend.
MomSense
@Baud:
It has to be the 8 lb 6 oz baby Jesus.
MikeJ
@Garbo: Not for me. You can always check with http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/cnn.com
boatboy_srq
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Shades of Greater Tuna and the Agent Orange sketch…
raven
@Garbo: The internet in Georgia has been spotty all day.
gbear
This New York Times story is Onion worthy too.Suicide Bomb Trainer in Iraq Accidentally Blows Up His Class
Baud
@gbear:
Probably a charter school.
hildebrand
@PsiFighter37: Bingo. No way that the real culprits will be blamed. Far easier to blame the (non)resident scapegoat.
Roger Moore
Irony is dead, and the wingnuts are desecrating the corpse.
srv
@BlueCanadian: How about Holy Spirit Petrochemicals?
gbear
@Baud: The real pisser is that they were all up-to-date with their lunch payments. Good luck getting a refund on that money.
Poopyman
There’s a Newsmax headline over there:
OK, number one is sudden death. Do we really need a number 2? Not clicking to find out.
gbear
@srv: Divine International.
Poopyman
@Poopyman: Also too:
This is the second time I’ve seen them reference “Ruddy”. Are they talking about Giuliani?
Poopyman
@srv: Mmmm, too Catholicky.
Baud
@srv:
Trinity Amalgamated Chemical Company
srv
@Poopyman: Calvary Chemicals?
Drat!
http://www.calvaryindustries.com/home/mission-statement/?view=mobile
NotMax
@Baud
Hallelujah Fracking
Fuzzy
I’m waiting for a fracking pump to be built like a crucifix with a guy in a hardhat nailed to it.
Poopyman
@srv: Hmmm. A metals treatment company. Plants in Southern Ohio and Louisiana. Given the way the Jesusy plants in WV are doing I think I’d be selling my Calvary stock if I had any. I think Jesus is annoyed.
jl
@Baud:
” Trinity Amalgamated Chemical Company”
Dude, that could be something ATOMIC! You see that run, especially if they start setting up towers.
SiubhanDuinne
@Garbo:
It’s back up now, and the headline is
which I think would make a fine rotating tag for this blog.
NotMax
@gbear
Too drag queeny.
(Still an example of bitter irony that he died just on the cusp of achieving broad popular audience notice, having been cast to play Peg Bundy’s mother.)
Toast (fka kc)
Pardon me while I try this . . .
Toast (fka kc)
@Toast (fka kc):
Could someone please un-moderate me?
I’m unable to comment AT ALL with my usual nym. I don’t know what the hell is going on.
JPL
@raven: One of my sons is working at the weather channel. He left work at six and has to be back at eleven. You could have more ice than I do or at least it’s wishful thinking on my part. My house has those fake gas logs which do nothing for heat but I have blankets so all is good.
shelly
If only. Just saw Kristol’s smarmy mug (please, not at dinner-time). Saying that Christie’s problems are just Democrats so desperate to distract from the disaster of Obamacare and….yadda..yadda…
Toast (fka kc)
@Toast (fka kc):
Thank you! Now pardon me while I try it on a different browser . . .
Baud
Clarence Thomas: America Has Gotten Too ‘Sensitive’ About Race
The story is as bad as it sounds.
Origuy
@Poopyman:
I’m goin’ in. Cover me.
Ok, that’s Christopher Ruddy, “Editor-in-Chief”.
dexwood
@Fuzzy: That’d be a great life size statement sculpture.
MomSense
I think I’m having my own water emergency right now. Just heard 10 year old yell from the kitchen “mom the sink is doing something really weird”.
Litlebritdiftrnt
@JPL:
We got a good two inches of freezing rain and then two inches of snow on top of that. I do not think that the storm was as bad as the one last week but I do not think I will be going to work tomorrow.
Roger Moore
@srv:
“Holy Spirit” seems like a better name for a distillery.
sherparick
I am wondering if the West Virginia political climate has shifted a bit, or do they think all chemical spills and coal ash overflows is “God’s Judgement” on the gays getting married. I do think the biggest reason for West Virginia’s retrograde movement the last 30 years is the decline of the big industrial unions which use to dominate the steel mills along the Ohio and the chemical plants along the Kanawha. I do hope that these Environmental catastrophes is slowing the descent into full Tea Partyism.
gogol's wife
Okay, this seems to have turned into an open thread, so — Here’s Shirley singing Robert Young and Arthur Treacher to sleep in Stowaway with the beautiful Mack Gordon – Harry Revel song “Goodnight, my love” (recorded later by Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4FOpSQKP_E
Rest in peace, dear Shirley.
max
A brief interlude:
The top four headlines on Rawstory right now:
Ann Coulter: Obama acts like he’s from Kenya — and weed is a ‘legal retard pill’
‘Loud music’ shooter cries about puppy on stand, says he ordered pizza after killing
Idaho cop shoots disabled man’s service dog at son’s 9th birthday party
Ex-Navy chaplain: Sin forces gay soldiers to wear diapers in combat
Some people are just ideologically committed to being assholes.
Back in the day, you could talk to one of those hard core committed American Stalinists (there were a few – not many, but a few) and they all talked like crazy people too. And they’d tell you that they were ideologically committed to murderous totalitarians on account that was the only way to purify the world.
Well. OOOOhhhhhhhhhh-KKKKKaaaayyyyy, dude.
max
[‘Zampolitan,/em>, purge thyself.’]
JPL
@Litlebritdiftrnt: uhoh.. That’s the first wave. Tomorrow is suppose to be the real storm. My sil lives in North Georgia on a higher elevation than I, and had 4 inches of snow. The danger for her is power outages because she is all electric. At least I have a gas stove.
the Conster
The Boston skaters just killed it – Black Magic Woman was an interesting choice.
schrodinger's cat
Speaking of crazy people, my post about Lori Gottlieb’s article in the NYT magazine. It also has a cute kitteh, who is not feeling amorous tonight.
Citizen_X
Well, they were talking about Paint Creek. Why should you expect any water in it?
raven
@JPL: Yea, we’re 100 yards from a Georgia Power substation so we’re counting on that. I have a full tank of LP for the gas weber and plenty of chow. FIDO.
Suffern ACE
@shelly: It is going to be all Obamacare all the time, no matter what the event is, until the election. It is 2014’s version of “Obamacare” without the garbage bags of beheaded people found in the Arizona deserts.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Ten times a month, huh? The data in the study came from this:
Wave II of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) (Sweet and Bumpass 1996). Sweet and Bumpass? Really?
Villago Delenda Est
PR stunt and a total joke.
Suffern ACE
@Omnes Omnibus: Dude, kids can be cruel. Do you know how much crap Mary Bumpass took in highschool, and here you go bringing up those memories again on this blog.
Baud
@Suffern ACE:
Are we sure Bumpass isn’t her married name? Maybe it’s her husband who had the miserable childhood.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: If one’s name is Bumpass and one is an academic, must one do sex research?
Villago Delenda Est
@Poopyman:
No, it’s an idiot “journalist” who was one of the people jumping up and down and screaming about Whitewater and Mena back in the 90’s.
He’s a sack of rancid pigshit. Fuck him.
Yes, I’m intolerant of rancid sacks of pigshit. Why do you ask?
Poopyman
@Origuy: Ah. OK. Thanks for taking one for the team!
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Only if one partners with Sweet. Then they can formulate the Sweet-Bumpass Theory of Human Sexuality.
raven
@Baud: Or if she hooks up with Louie Bullfrog she could be Mrs Bullfrog Doesn’t Bupmass when she hops!
Baud
@MomSense:
You still around? I want to hear what happened with the sink.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Gottlieb has built a house of cards on a thin premise. Her claim to fame is a book she wrote advising women to settle for Mr. Good Enough instead of waiting for Mr. Right. AFAIK she has never been married herself.
Poopyman
@max: And in other “Headlines We Didn’t Need to See”:
Billy Ray Cyrus Releases Hip-Hop Sequel to ‘Achy Breaky Heart’
Gex
@srv: Dominion Dumping, Inc.
@Baud: Says the guy who claims he was high tech lynched. Sure, why not.
? Martin
The coal industry is just trying to save you from commonly found toxins. Has anyone ever died from drinking coal ash? I didn’t think so.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat:
So does that mean more that 10 or less than 8.5 times a month?
Baud
@Gex:
Version infinity of “Liberals are the real racists.”
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Who knows? She thinks she is edgy and provocative but how is her advice any different than advice of someone from the Victorian era?
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat:
It was typed on a computer instead of written longhand?
raven
@schrodinger’s cat:
Mrs Claypool, Mr. Gottlieb;
Mr Gottlieb, Mrs Claypool;
Mrs Claypool, Mr Gottlieb;
Mr Gottlieb, Mrs Claypool!
If you four people want to play bridge, don’t mind me, go right ahead.
raven
dupea
Baud
Via Guardian.
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: Well, maintaining an empire is an exhausting business.
Litlebritdiftrnt
@JPL:
Thank the FSM that I have a wood burning fireplace, and a gas powered generator should things get really bad. We no longer have central heating and air since I decided it was a waste of money, but thanks to my fireplace the house is completely and utterly toasty warm tonight. In fact I am seriously thinking about shedding some clothes seeing as it is so warm in here.
raven
@Baud: Take Down the Union Jack
Suffern ACE
@Baud: Have we had a year off since, I don’t know – Panama? lebanon? Did we manage to not send the Marines in for a coup for a few years under Carter?
Litlebritdiftrnt
@raven:
A really pathetic song sung by a pathetic singer.
Poopyman
@Baud: Someone alert the French! They can fix this.
Jeffro
OT but tell me this guy isn’t going to go far in the Tea Party primaries circa early 2016:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ted-cruz-60-vote-threshold-clean-debt-ceiling
raven
@Litlebritdiftrnt: Awright!
I liked him with Michael and Natalie singing “Hello in There” at Glastonbury.
Baud
@Suffern ACE:
We have to beat the British record! Exceptionalism.
pseudonymous in nc
America, Fuck Yeah! Industries announces a five-year contract to pipe coal sludge directly into school canteen water supplies, a move that will provide West Virginia with one job.
Gin & Tonic
@Litlebritdiftrnt: Pics or it didn’t happen.
MomSense
@Baud:
Some bulky things were shoved into the garbage disposal causing rumbling, vibrations, and loud noises. This was followed by a sort of volcano of food waste and a panicked attempt to hide the evidence with exuberant use of the sprayer. Oh and then mopping!
KS in MA
@MomSense: Deepest sympathy. Glad it wasn’t worse.
seaboogie
I’m going with God Co. Can do anything I want, and get all of the credit and none of the blame – omnipotent and untouchable – suwhhhhhhhheeeeeeetttt!
(Though if billing a conservative Jewish client, spelling will be G-d Co.)
Cervantes
@schrodinger’s cat: And it exhausts the empire rather than the home office.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
On “settling”: When I was single, I told people I was holding out for a straight man who liked Sense and Sensibility (the Ang Lee movie, not the novel). People told me I was nuts.
And yet here we are, almost 14 years later. Sure, he would drop me in a heartbeat if Emma Thompson ever showed up on our doorstep and offered to run away with him to the Casbah, but what are the odds of that happening?
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes — Jim and Larry, respectively.
Missouri Buckeye
I resolve to never do business with any company in the future that has “Patriot” or “Freedom” in their name.
It’s just like not trusting any business that prominently displays a Jesus fish.