6.4.12 Bee-otch of the Day: the Republican Party

BECOME AN AFFILIATE OF T-SHIRT HELL AND MAKE SOME MONEY! Bee-otch of the Day honors are awarded Monday through Thursday, Bee-otch of the Week is awarded Friday on Chuck69.com. DON'T FORGET TO "LIKE" BEE-OTCH OF THE DAY ON FACEBOOK! ------------------- Name: The Republican Party Age: 158 Occupation: right-winged morons Last Seen: Washington, DC Bee-otched For: wanting to destroy the planet even more --- It was a great philosopher named Sarah Palin who coined that grateful phrase "drill baby drill!" Yep, THE Sarah Palin who messed up as a town mayor, a state governor and as a mother as well. Oh, she didn't receive brownie points as a VP candidate, either. The Republicans think that they can create jobs and boost the economy by drilling hole after hole into the ground. They think that it would reduce gas prices and lower our overall bills. Now, the Repukes and oil companies are crying the word "shale" and "fracking" since it would lower overall natural gas and heating prices. Of course, that means drilling into our water supply, not only clouding drinking water, making it undrinkable, but also turning our faucets into torches as well. I see ads for shale all the time on TV, and it's nothing more than a ploy from the Repukes and big business to brainwash us into thinking that drilling another hole into Mother Earth is the right idea to do if we want our bills to remain low. Heck, one state that's turning into a battleground in regards to drilling and mining is none other than Pennsylvania. Well, I got one word if these pricks want to drill and mine another hole into the ground: Centralia. Once upon a time, Centralia, PA was a small mining borough of 1,400 residents. It was just like any other small town in the United States: it had a few gas stations, several grocery stores, a hardware store or two and a downtown filled with stores that sold stuff you can now only get at a big boxer or a mall. But 50 years ago last Memorial Day weekend, it started to come to an end. The town council hired members of the town's volunteer fire department to burn excess trash at the town dump. So, the men came down, torched a few things and allowed it to burn for a few days. The problem was, the fire spread to a mine next door to the dump, and all hell broke loose. The problem with the mine was that it was filled with anthracite, a coal that's hard to ignite, but once it's lit, it's hard to put out. For years, people had ideas on how to stop the fire, but the best way then was to just put walls around the blaze to prevent the fire to spreading to the town. But, the walls didn't hold. The fire itself became a major issue in 1979 when the town's mayor, John Coddington, put a dipstick down a gas tank at the Mobil station he owned. When he released it, the stick was hot, so he put in a thermometer attached to a rope. He lifted it up, and it was 172 degrees. Two years later, a 12-year-old boy fell through a sinkhole created by the underground blaze while playing with his cousin. Luckily, he was saved by his cousin, or else he'd be cremated by the thousand-degree fire. Residents in Centralia started seeing the ground buckle and the toxic gases from the fire were making many sick. In 1984, Congress allocated $42 million so people could move elsewhere and in 1992, governor Bob Casey invoked eminent domain on all properties in town, business and home. Today, if you drive through Centralia, you'll see only a few houses, and its once-prosperous downtown has been long-demolished, replaced by fields and trees. Only one business remains, and it's the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church that sits on a hill overlooking town. The mine fire also claimed the life of Byrnesville, which is adjacent to Centralia. Centralia's population 50 years ago was 1,400. Now, it's just 10. As for the mine fire, it's still going on, and may continue for another 250 years. I've also read that there's several other towns that have been abandoned because of mining issues, including one in Oklahoma that once had 9,000 residents. Do we need more Centralias in America? Do we need more people getting sick over exposed toxins? I think not. Let's invest more in alternative energy, like wind turbines and solar power. We need to get big oil and the Kochs out of the way and save ourselves. We're human beings and we need to conserve so we don't have more mines popping up to destroy us in the long run. Let's show the fat cats that we don't need to get sick over coal. Plus, I don't want my faucet to turn into a stove, thank you very much. -- Got a Bee-otch to nominate? E-mail us @ chuck69dotcom@gmail.com. All suggestions (except for me) are welcome!  Bee-otch of the Day Archives can be seen on http://beeotchoftheday.blogspot.com! Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com , Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!