Yesterday was Fancy Farm picnic in this little western Kentucky town that swells once a year. This historic event, the over 130th year in a row that it has taken place, is like a page from a history book. It has become such an integral event in Kentucky politics, that Kentucky Educational TV (KET), which is a statewide network of public television stations, not only televises live from Fancy Farm during the political speeches on Saturday afternoon, they now have their weekly Kentucky political news "talking head" show, "Comment on Kentucky," appear live from Fancy Farm the Friday before, which was the day before yesterday.

I couldn't make it to Fancy Farm this year. It would have been hot and humid, as usual. I did watch the speeches today on KET. Nothing really earthshaking. Gatewood Galbraith, the regular independent candidate for governor in Kentucky, was particular harsh toward gov. Steve Beshear, who had just been on a week trip to Iraq and Afghanistan to visit troops, focused his entire speech gushing over the troops. That's well and good, but Galbraith called him on it, and not gently. Be interesting to see how it plays. I thought it might have been too harsh, not that the substance of what he was saying didn't contain some truth. Beshear cloaked himself in the flag and the military, avoiding the state issues of the day. Maybe a good strategy, maybe not.

But this isn't a review of Fancy Farm. This is a review of the appearance of Donna Groves, long time news director of WKYX/WKYQ radio stations out of Paducah, on Comment on Kentucky. She took the place of Bill Bartleman, former political writer for the Paducah Sun, who was always the western Kentucky political journalist that appeared on the show. But Bartleman has retired, and "Comment" couldn't have a show at Fancy Farm without having a western Kentucky political journalist on the show. I think Donna Groves was a good choice, and kudos to Mr. Fellman for picking a female. That said, there isn't too many functioning mainstream political journalists in western Kentucky at the moment. I believe this is Ms. Groves first appearance on the show - a boost for her and for WKYX.

I thought that Ms. Groves did a good job. She knows the politics of far western Kentucky well. But, she did fumble when handed a discussion on the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. At first Wellman called it the Calvert City gaseous diffusion plant. Opps. Brief that guy before the show...please! But he quickly joked that the name of it is the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion plant, so he should have known. OK, we'll forgive him on that one.

Groves' fumble occurred when she was talking about how Sen. McConnell and Representative Whitfield were trying to get legislation passed that would allow the "reprocessing" of depleted uranium tails that are stored at the site. This would keep the plant operating for a number of years past it's planned shutdown next year.

Instead of probing how this legislation flies in the face of McConnell's deficit reduction position that he recently has taken, Groves, after a brief explanation of the process, presented the issue to the panel as a question - "you get rid of the stuff and make usuable product, so isn't that a win/win?"

That was a bit disappointing to me. Ms. Groves has been around here a long time - longer than me, I suspect. I am sure that she knows the answer to that. The answer to that is....that, even if you ignore all other factors, such as environmental, that such reprocessing is a big money loser. It takes so many trips through the enrichment cascades to get a small amount of uranium, and the electricity use at the cascades is so monumental and expensive, that there is no way they can make money reprocessing depleted uranium. And when you add in the fact that a substantial percent of the depleted uranium is contaminated with plutonium and other transuranics, plus technitium and other fission products, it makes that prospect much dimmer and less likely.

You think they wouldn't have been doing it if it wasn't profitable? They had over 4 decades to do whatever they wanted out there - before there was any environmental or health awareness at all - and they didn't do any reprocessing then. Why? Costs too much - plain and simple.

In fact, ironically, the government is now spending millions upon millions building a plant that is going to de-fluorinate the depleted uranium hexafluoride cylinders so that the stuff can go into some kind of safer storage than it is in now. If the government and industry thought that the stuff was really useful, why would they spending millions of taxpayers' dollars to make the material unusable? The whole reprocessing of depleted uranium tails is a classic case of a tiger chasing his tail around in a circle - and no, it doesn't end up in butter.

So the interesting fact is that what McConnell (and Rand Paul) and Whitfield, are asking for is a subsidy to keep a large federal workforce in their jurisdictions working. Of course, the nuclear industry is one of the most highly subsidized in the country, but the republicans (and some democrats) seem just fine with that. It's just one small example of what hypocrites they are. But hey, as long as their cronies are making out well (and they are), the deficit is something to be discussed elsewhere. And that is the story that Groves should have been telling.

But hey, she is surrounded by right wingers in her co-staff at WKYX, Paducah's talk radio show that plays Rush Limbaugh and the other ultra-conservative talk show folks. She has to go to work with them everyday. Maybe that's why she couched the depleted uranium issue as a question. It would come off as pretty positive toward the proposal, and she could be pretty sure that the others on the panel - Fellman, Ronnie Ellis, and Alford, the republican Associated Press reporter, wouldn't have a clue what the real answer to the question she posed was. But I do. And I had to tattle!