{"id":11676,"date":"2014-12-30T22:11:02","date_gmt":"2014-12-31T03:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=11676"},"modified":"2014-12-30T22:11:02","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T03:11:02","slug":"whos-1-biggest-horsecrap-stories-of-2014-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/12\/30\/whos-1-biggest-horsecrap-stories-of-2014-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Who’s #1? – Biggest Horsecrap Stories Of 2014 (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone can do a countdown of the year’s biggest stories. Only SouthsideCentral can get away with counting down the year’s biggest horsecrap stories. We went from #6 to #4 in Part One<\/a>, so let’s find out Who’s #1!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And now, on with the countdown…<\/p>\n

#3:<\/em> Selling Danville Utilities<\/strong> – This one is going to drag into 2015 as the consultant study won’t be ready until the 1st quarter. The Utilities Steering Committee continues to meet and learn more about what Danville Utilities is all about. By the way, we’ll have the next committee meeting LIVE! on Monday. Anyway… let’s talk about it. Danville Utilities contributes $9,000,000+ to the city’s general fund every year. Danville needs that income stream to avoid a massive increase in property taxes. If you assume a 3% annual rate of interest income, that means Danville would have to get $300,000,000 in a proposed sale. (There would be cost savings if the utility and the employees were sold off to whoever buys it, but let’s keep it simple). The book value of Danville Utilities is less than $200 million. Investor-owned utilities like AEP & Dominion aren’t going to pay $100,000,000+ over the book value of what Danville’s got to sell. These Utilities Steering Committee meetings have been great for people to learn the inside workings of Danville Utilities, but the end result is already written. The consultant’s report will say “You’ve got nothing to sell worth $300,000,000”. The idea of selling Danville Utilities sounds great, but it’s horsecrap.<\/p>\n

#2<\/em>: The “Purge” Rumors<\/strong> – “We can never be too careful.” Yes, you can. You have to think rationally and realize that George Washington High School will never become an apocalyptic battleground that resembles a bad movie.<\/p>\n

“But it could happen!” A meteor could smash into GWHS but we haven’t built Giant Force Shields to deflect one yet.<\/p>\n

“I got a recorded phone call from the GWHS principal saying that a gun was found on campus!” No, you didn’t. You’re lying.<\/p>\n

“Somebody told me that they heard that somebody said that somebody saw…” Oh for the love of God. Stop spreading rumors.<\/p>\n

Yep. the terrorists won that round. School was completely disrupted that day because a few bad students figured out a way to play on the hysteria of stupid people who spread rumors. If you haven’t figured it out by now, absolutely nothing bad happened. “The Purge” was total horsecrap.<\/p>\n

All righty… we’ve made our way to the Number One Horsecrap Story Of The Year. Drumroll, please.<\/p>\n

#1:<\/em> The Coal Ash Spill<\/strong> – The Coal Ash Spill was an environmental disaster with millions of tons of coal ash leaked into the Dan River. Duke Energy blew it, and they’re paying the price to clean it up and make amends. But let’s be real here. None of the doom and gloom scenarios painted by environmental groups ever came anywhere close to being true. Danville’s water supply remained perfectly safe thanks to the processes that were already in place for situations like this. Remember the claims of mass turtle kills along the Dan River? Not true. Remember the reports of dead mollusks? That turned out to be a annual happening of Asian clams over-reproducing and was perfectly normal. Remember the predictions that the Dan River would be unsafe to swim in (like anybody was swimming in it before)? False. Swim away, people. Remember the arsenic blisters that people were getting after exposure to the water? Totally false. That’s why all of those environmental groups got really quiet and moved on to their next crisis. That’s so they could scare the hell out of other people.<\/p>\n

The short-term environmental effects of the coal ash spill turned out to be diddlysquat. The medium-term effects are beginning to come in and they are showing no damage. I’m not stupid. We still have to monitor the river’s health and that’s being done continuously. But all of the horror-filled predictions of how the Dan River and Danville would be irreparably harmed? They turned out to be horsecrap.<\/p>\n

\n

And there you have it. Six giant piles of 2014 horsecrap. Will we learn anything from these lessons? Of course not. I’m pretty sure that SouthsideCentral will have another edition of this in December 2015.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone can do a countdown of the year’s biggest stories. Only SouthsideCentral can get away with counting down the year’s biggest horsecrap stories. We went from #6 to #4 in Part One, so let’s find out Who’s #1!<\/p>\n

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