A close call

This might be an odd thing to fess up to, but I kind of like the smell of skunk--from the right distance--say when driving along a country road or when wafts of the scent are carried along by a breeze. But when it's point blank contact, that's a different story. It's totally different from what you get at a distance and causes burning around the eyes.

We used to have a boxer who could not resist ponking any such creature with his rather square face, this being his prime mode of investigating the world. He got the point blank treatment twice and both times required considerable bathing in tomato juice and other concoctions in an effort to remove the odor, although you could still smell a bit of it on him for a long time afterward, especially when he got wet.

We had a close call this weekend, as skunk odor started drifting through an open window. Our first thought was that Arpad, our (kind of) Great Pyrenees had a skunk encounter of the third kind. Arpad goes on major farm security patrol at night and has been known to take out possums in the twinkling of an eye. Had he had is first skunk skirmish?

This would have been a much bigger deal than a sprayed boxer, since Arpad weighs in at around 150 pounds and his long hair is growing back from his summer buzz cut. De-skunkifying him would be a task on the order of building a small to medium sized pyramid.

It turns out we dodged the bullet this time around. But I have a feeling that his day is coming.

DEMAND SIDE ECONOMICS. Paul Krugman takes aim at excuses for inaction on unemployment.

FOLLOW THE MONEY. The Koch brothers, oil billionaires funding right wing political causes, have sprinkled some cash in West Virginia, including the economics department at WVU.

CHECK THE NUMBERS. It's becomea media meme that health care reform is unpopular. But an AP poll shows that many Americans wanted it to go farther than it did.

DO YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT? Plenty of Americans do.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED