Final Word from Thursday, July 24, 2008
Not long ago, Dana Kuchtová was a political joke, but she has undergone a phenomenal makeover in recent months. It's no longer absurd to imagine her as chair of the Green Party. She's level-headed and has many weighty arguments for demonstrating how Martin Bursík is moving the Greens away from their agenda. Her biggest coup could come if she can plant the seed that Bursík is actually contributing to the expansion of nuclear power. Bursík has threatened to pull his party out of the government if a decision is made to build new nuclear sources, but this threat rings empty when you consider that the prerequisite environmental impact study for Temelín won't be finished - by Bursík's own admission - until after this cabinet leaves office. Kuchtová argues that the cabinet should have nipped the impact study in the bud by exercising its control over ČEZ. It's a valid point, but it's still quite a distance from stigmatizing Bursík as a closet pro-nuker.[Czech Republic EIA assessment]
Glossary of difficult words
closet - secret, covert;
pro-nuker - a supporter of nuclear power;
joke - a person or thing that is ridiculously inadequate;
makeover - a complete transformation or remodeling of something;
level-headed - calm and sensible;
weighty - of great seriousness and importance;
to plant a seed - to establish an idea in a person's mind;
prerequisite - required as a prior condition;
to nip something in the bud - to suppress or destroy something at an early stage;
to stigmatize - to mark with a sign of disgrace.