Saddle Right Pad

MD Harmon: North America's awash in oil and gas, so let's go get it

A cousin who lives near Williamsport took us up into the hills above her house to see a drilling platform for one of the many companies exploiting the Marcellus shale, a treasure-trove of natural gas that hides beneath eight eastern states.

The first sign of the site was a cleared right of way coming down from a hilltop, leading to the drilling pad itself: a flat structure about the size of two football fields resting in a saddle between two hills.

The pad covered a half-dozen holes that went down thousands of feet (far below the water table), awaiting activation once a pipeline was built in the right of way.

The holes, which extended horizontally for thousands of feet in all directions, would be used for "fracking" -- injecting water mixed with a small percentage of chemicals into the shale to break up the rock and force the gas to the surface.

Fracturing the rock gives fracking its name, and the process is controversial, with some claiming it pollutes groundwater and even puts enough gas into wells to cause fires in houses. But investigations have yielded no evidence of that, with anecdotal examples almost entirely shown to be due to other causes.

Interestingly enough, Pennsylvania and New York, which both overlie the Marcellus strata, provide a real contrast between Luddite environmentalism and job-creating entrepreneurship.

In New York, the Democratic Party, which holds the governorship and the state Assembly, has so far prevented drilling for gas -- and thus there are almost no new jobs.

In the Quaker State, however, solid Republican control in both executive and legislative branches has opened the door for drilling across a wide area.

One of the results I saw was a number of billboards all over Williamsport seeking people to work in the gas fields or study for skills valuable in the industry. The roads are full of trucks hauling pipes and drilling rigs, and Williamsport, perhaps coincidentally, was celebrating the opening of a Kohls store that the local paper said was "the first new downtown department store in 30 years.

Saddleright Pad For Sale

Erase an avatar? "Cryogenic? It's something that we wonder when our experience in Second Life reaches the limit. A limit: everyone knows theirs. The weariness, boredom, fatigue, the feeling of having completed a cycle. Does not exclude the mental health (without exaggeration). Everyone gets involved with the metaverse in a different way. The truth is that when we know that we are interested in an avatar that no longer exists or is paralyzed (nobody uses it, no connection) a strange feeling overcomes us. Challenges us the question of what we do here. For months I'm cryogenic, not entering Second Life. In recent days I decided to take a turn, not with the intention of returning, but only a few minutes walk. And I feel really weird.

Be Right (Romans), How to Be Right with God, Yourself, and Others

The right nation, conservative power in America

Right now, a 12-step program for defeating the Obama agenda

The Right Stuff

Getting Change Right, How Leaders Transform Organizations from the Inside Out