Frack-a-delic

"Externalities" is an economics term that is often forgotten by worshipers of the market god. An externality is a kind of market failure, an example of a situation in which markets aren't efficient. The most troubling kind is a negative externality, which occurs when the costs of a particular kind of business aren't borne by either the buyer or seller and don't show up on the bottom line. Instead, they are passed on to someone else, often the public, which typically has to clean up the mess if it is going to be cleaned up at all.

I kept thinking about negative externalities while driving around Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling in northern WV. One example are the roads that are chewed up by heaving trucks hauling equipment in and out. Then there is the carbon emitted from the wells and drilling and transport process. Then there are all the nasty chemicals that show up in air, water, and solid waste. Then there is the noise pollution and diminished quality of life for people who live near the operations. Then, what kind of health effects are going to show up down the road? Etc.

People--lots of people--who didn't benefit from the market transaction are going to be paying for this for a long time to come. I know this drilling is going to be done, but I don't think we've gone far enough in regulating it and I don't think anyone yet has any idea what the long term consequences are going to be.


WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? Support for the war in Afghanistan is at an all time low.


A PARADIGM SHIFT in global economic thinking? Maybe, but it hasn't hit here yet.

IN POLITICS, who needs facts?

WHAT ABOUT GOLIATH? An archaeological dig in Israel may shed like on biblical King David's time.

I WANT ONE. Scientists have discovered fossils of a "mini-mammoth" that stood about three feet high.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Another proof

Some people are convinced of the generosity of the universe. They believe that everything was pretty much put there for their convenience. As a pretty strict Darwinian, I have my doubts.

But there is someone on Goat Rope Farm who has no doubts whatsoever. That would be Arpad, our (sort of) Great Pyrenees and general security chief. Arpad is about as close as you can get to a canine incarnation of the Dude on The Big Lebowski.


He abides.

And he is utterly convinced that the universe set things up just for him. In his mind, further proof, if any were needed, came in the form of yet another  partial deer skeleton he he found in the woods which appeared at the proper time.

I really wish he was right about this.

FIGS. Here's the latest edition of the Rev. Jim Lewis' Notes from Under the Fig Tree.

JUST SOS YOU KNOW. More Americans believe in witchcraft than agree with the Supreme Joke's...I mean Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.

BUT WHAT DID IT LOOK LIKE? An amateur paleontologist in Ohio found a weird sea beast.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Mandatory jokes

There are certain jokes, not particularly funny, which have become mandatory in and around Goat Rope Farm. Many though not all have their origin in movies. Over time, these have acquired an almost ritualistic significance and are triggered by certain conversational cues.

I am passing them on in case people out there are running short of ways of messing with and otherwise irritating the people they encounter.

Here's a sample:

*When someone comes up with a steaming pot and says "Coffee?," the obligatory reply is "Yes, I know." (Source: Airplane and the Naked Gun movies)

*When someone says "Can I ask you a question?," the obligatory reply is "You just did."

*When someone says "I'm going to go change," the obligatory reply is "Don't you go changing."

*Finally, anytime someone asks what to do with something or where to put it, the obligatory response (from Five Easy Pieces) is "Hold it between your knees."

TAXING FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS sounds like a winner, but it faces an uphill climb in the US.

MORE ON THAT ONE PERCENT THING here.

URGENT CANNIBAL ANIMAL UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

How it's done

Arpad has been known to formally boast all night.

The Goat Rope Beowulf jag continues. I've been amusing myself lately with something that occurs more than once in that Anglo-Saxon poem, to wit, formal boasting. Click on the last two days for background and how-to.

Before any self-respecting monster slayer gets down to business, he or she should make such a boast in the form of a public announcement in a mead hall (a beer joint may do in a pinch). A good formal boast should have information about the boaster and his family, all the badass stuff he or she as done, and exactly what mayhem he plans on inflicting upon whom.

There is more than one in the poem, but here's a pretty good example from Seamus Heaney's translation. This one comes when Beowulf first arrives in the kingdom of the Spear-Danes and announces his plan to kill the man-eating monster Grendel.

First an intro:

...I am Hygelac's kinsman,
one of his hall-troop. When I was younger,
I had great triumphs.

Then the business:

...Then news of Grendel,
hard to ignore, reached me at home:
sailors brought stories of the plight you suffer
in this legendary hall, how it lies deserted,
empty and useless once the evening light
hides itself under heaven's dome.

Then why he's the man for the job:

So every elder and experienced councilman
among my people supported my resolve
to come her to you, King Hrothgar,
because all knew of my awesome strength.
They had seen me boltered in the blood of enemies
when I battled and bound five bests,
raided a troll-nest and in the night-sea
slaughtered sea-brutes. I have suffered extremes
and avenged the Geats (their enemies brought it
upon themselves, I devastated them).

Then the plan:

Now I mean to be a match for Grendel,
settle the outcome in single combat.

And, just to make it interesting, he boast that he will do it unarmed:

...I have hard moreover that the monster scorns
in his reckless way to use weapons;
therefore, to heighten Hygelac's fame
and gladden his heart, I hearby renounce
sword and shelter of the broad shield...
...hand to hand is how it will be, a life-and-death
fight with the fiend. Whichever one death fells
must deem it a just judgement by God.

He seals the deal with a few references to blood and gore but you get the idea. Next time you plan on laying into a monster, make sure you set it up with a good boast like that.

CUTTING INVESTMENTS in the federal budget is a bad idea, according to over 300 economists.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, a number of progressive Christians are asking "What would Jesus cut?"

WISCONSIN. Has a certain governor overplayed his hand?

THEN THERE'S Ohio.

MORE MASSEY INDICTMENTS TO COME? Maybe.

HOW ABOUT A WALKING CACTUS? Here's an article about a weird ancient animal that once lived in China.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A Freudian slip

I love Freud. I don't really care whether his theories were right or not (although some of them seem to fit pretty good some of the time)--at least they are entertaining.

One aspect of his thought that seems pretty solid is the one developed in the book The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. This is where he develops the idea that apparently meaningless and accidental things that slips of the tongue (or what some of my friends call "mouthographical errors") or in writing, mistaken actions, losing or forgetting things and such express unconscious thoughts and ideas.

These are the Freudian slips, in other words, where the cat gets out of the bag whether the holder wants it to or not. It can happen to the best of us. It happened to me yesterday.

Right here.

After being up late watching election returns and then getting up early, I banged out a red-eyed post-election analysis, starting with Senator-elect Joe Manchin's race. I meant to write that Manchin handily defeated his Republican challenger John Raese, but this is what came out:

"Governor Joe Manchin handily defeated Republican challenger Joe Manchin for the late Robert C. Byrd's senate seat."

This is what happens when you don't get enough sleep. I corrected it almost as soon as I posted it but some people saw the not-ready-for-prime-time version. A friend who saw it even thought it was clever.

The unconscious is pretty clever. In this case, it really was a classical Freudian slip in that it expressed something I probably really thinking about the whole thing.

A GOOD QUESTION. Given all the talk about taking back America, a retired rabbi who served in the Charleston asks a good question: which American are we talking about?

HEALTH CARE. The former director of the OMB calls for saving health care reform here.

URGENT SCARY LOOKING ANCIENT SHRIMP UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED