Smelt Down

As if the threat of Uncle Sam taking over every aspect of daily life weren't bad enough, there's always more good news. It seems that Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) - the provider of much of the power in the northwestern part of the US as well as a government entity - is looking to deal dirty with my power rates. The fleecing du jour comes in the form of a contract that they are trying to sign with Alcoa and Glencore/CFAC.

The short of it is that Alcoa wants a long-term contract with BPA to acquire a gazillion watts of power for its aluminum smelters, locking in rates for 7 years total. This is good for Alcoa. They get preferential pricing on bulk power for a long period of time, allowing them to have a fixed liability to BPA for the commodity of electricity. Sounds neat. If I could lock in my power bill for 7 years I'd do it to. As you might suspect, that's where things get black for the rest of us.

What happens when (not if, but when) electricity rates rise? Well BPA has a simple plan for that: recovery of the shortfall will be passed on to BPAs other utility customers. Me, essentially. And probably you too, if you live in the northwest and your utility company buys power from BPA. Some estimates put the first round of increases at 10% across the board for customers other than Alcoa and $500 billion worth of shortfalls over the contract period. (Some people have asked where I got the figures. I work for a community power company and they got the numbers straight from the BPA.) And if something diabolical happens to spike the cost of power and its production in the next seven years (like the mother of all socialist rear-enders, "cap-and-trade", would bring into play) any and all of BPAs other customers are really going to take it up the socket.

Until 8/3/09 BPA is eliciting public comments (look under "Proposed Terms of Service for DSIs"). (Yeah, I know that's tomorrow.) You know I put my thoughts down.

BPA's proposal to provide half a billion dollars to Alcoa, Inc. and Glencore/CFAC at the expense of public power consumers is poor public policy. Really, that's an overly kind way to frame it. More accurately the whole concept of sticking any group - public or private - with a tab to subsidize any business entity is unfair, socialistic and immoral.

Alcoa et. al. can complain until the moon turns to cheese about their inability to turn a profit/continue to operate/employ however many thousands/etc., but that doesn't change the fact that I can't be expected to shoulder any portion of their power bill any more than I would be able to expect them to pay for mine. Any argument that "these businesses provide more for the surrounding communities than they take" is bollix. Half a billion dollars is a lot to take, especially in these downward-trending economic times. If they can't operate their business on a model that doesn't include perpetrating grand larceny on other energy customers, they shouldn't be in business.

The fact that BPA is even looking at this proposal with anything but distain and fits of laughter is flatly ridiculous. An increase in energy rates to anyone at this time will drive up unemployment and cause undue hardship for more than just Alcoa and Glencore. My job - as well as the jobs of my family members, friends and community - are just as important as any in Ferdale.

If Alcoa/Glencore can't pay their power bills, do the same thing to them you would do to anyone else: turn off the lights.

Most of the comments out there now are positive - primarily people who work at the smelting plants and in the surrounding communities. Frankly, I'd be saying nice things about this dark deal if I were in their position as well. The problem is that if this goes through, the only position any of the rest us will be in is over the barrel.

Blow1ng

Nicholas Cage movies can be divided into two camps: either they can be very entertaining and justify his cocksure smirk (e.g. The Rock, National Treasure) or they can drain a little of your soul away 90 minutes at a time (e.g. Face/Off, Ghost Rider). Last night Katie and I watched Know1ng and this morning I couldn't see my reflection in the mirror.

To be fair, this wasn't all Nick's doing; he was mainly the delivery boy. In actuality, he even had a few moments in Know1ng there where I believed him to be someone other than a slight variation on his character from Con Air - a rarity to be sure since he hasn't been hired to do anything but work in the "Nick Cage shout" (as Katie aptly calls it) six times per feature since Moonstruck. He's partly responsible, no doubt, since he collected a paycheck. He should at least donate to a movie-based metaphysical injury support group or something.

The real devil is Alex Proyas (The Crow; Dark City; I, Robot), the director. Don't worry if you've never heard of him. I had to look him up on IMDB just to be able to spell his name. Steven Spielberg he's not. Heck, Stephen Baldwin he's not. If you look at his resumé you'll get the idea about the direction Know1ng goes: some guy has an inexplicable string of events happen to him that leads him to a moral choice and then aliens come. And they're from the Bible. Oh, and all the little girls look like Children of the Corn.

Or something like that. By the time the credits rolled I didn't care any more and couldn't stuff the DVD in the Netflix envelope fast enough.

I suppose the worst part was that I went up on IMDB for reinforcement that the movie sucked and found it had an aggregate score north of .265 stars. Worse than that, one 10 star guy was proclaiming that Proyas is a visionary; a prophet of cinema; a genius. A genius of what? Drilling plot holes? (The main character finds a belief in heaven after he sees that angels are actually aliens who take his son?) Picking at threads that never lead anywhere? (What the &@#$ are the polished rocks supposed to mean?) Stuffing the main characters into a sausage casing and setting the oven to broil? ("Okay everybody, group hug. Hold it...hold it...now you're a Swanson dinner.") It makes me wonder who Proyas has compromising pictures of and what he's said he'll do with them if he doesn't get to break wind on celluloid and release it to 3,000 theaters on opening weekend.

How much Ritalin do they pass out in school these days that somebody gave this movie a perfect score? I guess that just proves Proyas right: there are aliens lurking among us pretending to be something they're not. In this instance, however, the aliens are not made of light, they just think they're enlightened.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

If you read my wife's blog you know that we signed our son Jimmy up for soccer. At first, it didn't appear that he was going to get into it much, unless there's a version of the game where you win by twirling in place until you're dizzy and fall down. In fairness, this behavior was not unique to him. The other two boys on Team Dolphin do the same types of things in their own flavors and the girl porpoises prefer to stand around and hug each other while the ball lazily passed them by. Within the last two game Saturdays, however, Jimmy has really come into his own.

From watching his cousin Olivia - as fearsome a barracuda as has ever been seen in eight-year-old soccer - Jimmy learned the following lesson:

Me: "Okay, buddy. What do you do when you get tired?"
Jimmy: (bending at the waist and placing a hand on one knee) "Put your hand on your knee."
Me: "Yep. And then what?"
Jimmy: "Then you suck it up."

Having that bit of wisdom in hand (thanks Livvy), he now plays with gusto, dashing up and down the field with his arms out behind him like a cape, pulling off some really good plays, and having a great time all around.

Today was one for the highlight reel: his first goal. If you watch the video below, you'll see the camera bobble after the ball passes through the cones because one proud father, who momentarily forgot he was holding the camera, is pumping his fist in the air. Eat your heart out, David Beckham.

Nice NOCARs

I had my appendix out when I was eight. I stayed in the hospital for a week - not kidding, a week - during what was then the normal post-operative recoup. The same surgery today has you in and out of the "procedure center" in less time than it takes an auctioneer to make a collect call.

Another change is the size of the hole they use to pull the appendix out. A scant couple of years after my operation, my brother and sister ended up getting appendicitis back-to-back. Not only were they home in time for supper, they had these dainty little slits in their sides. By comparison my scar looks like a saw-the-assistant-in-half cautionary tale.

The newest thing is they don't even want to make the hole in your side. A group of laparoscopic surgeons have started the Natural Orifice Consortium for Assessment and Research. These tee timers are experimenting with a concept of not making any new external holes for surgery, rather they employ the old openings you thought were for other things. (The short name for the organization is NOSCAR, but I defy anyone to find a legitimately usable "S" in there that makes the acronym not rhyme with "rocker".)

Not being female, I'm 33% deficient on usable openings. If I still had an appendix and found myself needing it removed, I'd only have two choices for this type of procedure; one of which would only make sense if I'd somehow managed to swallow my appendix.

This reality might put some guys off, but not me. Even though my entry choices would be limited, I see the real benefit with this type of surgery: I'd already be familiar with the sensation when I got the bill.

I Wonder About These Pets

Unless you are under the age of five (or live with someone who is), you may never have heard of The Wonder Pets. The abridged introduction is that the Wonder Pets are a band of schoolroom animals that Laura Croft themselves into a variety of adventures when everyone has left class for the day. The main characters are a guinea pig (Linny), a turtle (Tuck) and a duckling (Ming Ming). They work together to solve critical world issues like getting baby cows out of trees and convincing seals to share.

As adults, usually the time we spend in front of children's television shows is simply providing our offspring with an organic seat cushion. What we gain from the experience is the illusion of spending Q.T. with our young while allowing our ears to revel in the quiet and our brains to grind on subjects like how and when that stain got into the rug. For me it's good practice for my wife's upcoming family reunion: I smile and nod, laughing at the right places all the while secretly praying to God to open a wormhole connected directly to the Sunday night trip home, vainly struggling not to gouge my eye out with a fork.

The Wonder Pets is just one of the many reasons we don't leave utensils near the couch. It's not as vapid or cloying as The Teletubbies, but the two 12-minute episodes per half-hour also don't leave you with anything that lasts, either. Nothing that lasts, that is, except for a four-line theme song stuck inside your skull like a booger that just keeps switching from hand to hand with no intention of ever being flicked off. At least with Blue's Clues you end the time spent having learned some new words or new activities. Also, it's interesting to find out that paprika is made when salt and pepper get horny.

I try not to expend too much processing power on the flavor du jour of toddler television, but after some consideration, I think I kind of hate this current collection of caged critters. My problem with The Wonder Pets is not necessarily because it preaches subjects that put my fur up like extreme environmentalism (which it sometimes does) or because it's deeply entrenched in the gospel of group-cooperation-to-the-point-of-self-uselessness (which it always is). I was also quick to lower my eyebrow after the entire half an episode dedicated to songs about peeing - culminating with every major character doing doodle on some family's back lawn.

No, my problem is that The Wonder Pets are completely, thoroughly, 100-percent benign. They don't inspire any thought or conversation of merit, they don't teach anything practical, and worst of all, they don't have any real value past the reminder that Western civilization has pulled down and locked the lid of the hand basket. If there was at least a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle-like toy manufacturing engine driving the enterprise I could rest in that familiar country, but as of this writing Toys R Us has exactly nine Wonder Pets toys for sale on their website. The Power Rangers have had more product recalls than The Wonder Pets have total pieces of merchandise.

As much as I deplore The Wonder Pets' banality, though, my kid loves the little buggers in equal measure. Ming Ming is crack to a four-year-old. So we watch. I suggest other activities with some success, however, through the entire time we are doing other things my son regales me with stories of how The Wonder Pets saved the unicorns from certain extinction or how you should always congratulate yourself on a job well done by eating some celery.

Oh, well. As long as he doesn't take to peeing in the back yard.