Leave it to our friends at the Review-Journal to uncover the one story nobody else was really talking about: The unemployment caused by the killing of Yucca Mountain. On Saturday, we were treated to the sad tale of John and Christina Pfabe, who blamed the legislative skills of our own U.S. Sen. Harry Reid for the end of John’s employment at Yucca Mountain, where he worked as an engineer.

Some quotes:

“I just want people to know that 500 people are losing their jobs, not because of the economy, but because of politics.” — Christina Pfabe

“He [Reid] wants to cancel the project by any means, whether or not he speaks the truth. For whatever vendetta, for whatever reason why he’s bitter, I don’t know.” — John Pfabe

“It’s not as though he’s [Reid] fighting some Goliath. He is the Goliath and he is the bitter man at the same time.” — John Pfabe

“How can just a few people change national policy? Congress mandated this years ago, and he’s [Reid] effectively stopping that and denying it and not through the courts and not through any valid safety concerns, but strangling it by budget.” — John Pfabe

Reid’s office replied kindly and not at all bitterly that while the senator hates to see jobs lost, the Yucca Mountain project was a threat to public health and safety, which is what you’d expect a lawmaker in his position to say.

Us? Well, we had a somewhat different reaction to this story. It was more along these lines:

“Hey, John: FUCK YOU! Your job was to facilitate the transportation to Nevada of potentially lethal spent nuclear fuel, which you wanted to bury in a leaky volcano through which water flows, just 90 miles from where two million people live! You losing your job is a GOOD THING for Las Vegas, and we should all band together to buy Harry Reid a fruit basket for doing it!

“P.S. Have a nice day.”

UPDATE: Oh, for those of you wondering what Reid has ever done for Nevada, we’d say bringing Yucca Mountain down is a good choice for Item No. 1.