Hydraulic Fracturing

For those of you not from or familiar with Sullivan County, you may not be aware of how that county was put on the front lines of the debate over hydraulic fracturing.  How every town board meeting, editorial page and newpaper issue was dominated by the issue and its specifics for years.  It was really like living history (and to a history buff, it was kind of cool).  And you want to talk about aggravated harassment, -jesus, follow the creation, evolution and tactics of the anti-fracking movement - the whole idea was to harass public officials into submission and intimidate anyone else out of the discussion.

But I digress.

So, I'm on the beach, Miami Beach to be exact, and I open up the Sunday Business section to page 7, and the Header screams out "The Birth of an Energy Boom", and it goes on to say -

"One could argue that, except for the Internet, the most important technological advance of the last decades has been hydraulic fracturing, widely known as fracking.  Practically overnight, it seems, this drilling technique has produced so much oil and gas beneath American soil that we are that the brink of something once thought unattainable: true energy independence."

Considering the Times for years led the bandwagon of hysterical extremism against this domestic energy harvesting, it's been fascinating to watch its business pages evolve into subtle and not so subtle support for domestic gas exploration.

For me, as someone who from day one was suspect of the carpetbaggers landing in our small towns with tales of horror and catastrophe, the evolution of this grey lady's reporting has been welcome indeed.

And the fact that the whole country has adopted some measure of fracking and gas harvesting except New York says all one needs to say about this economically downtrodden, population-losing, politically paralyzed state.

At least France agrees with New York. (low blow I know).