Steve Cotler Steve Cotler

Irrepressibly True Tales

One man's squint at the metaphorical signposts, songbirds, soapboxes, street musicians, and hot dog stands of life. Criticism, lyricism, polemics, performance, and making change…all with mustard.

Go Sue Yourself!

— 10:12 am · One comment

Perhaps based upon a well-known, anatomically difficult, consensual act, Wells Fargo has sued itself in a Florida foreclosure case reported by Business Insider earlier this month:

“Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium….As holder of the first, Wells Fargo is suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is itself.”

Nice move, Wells Fargo. But I had that self-abusive idea first.

In 1989, while working for Montgomery Securities in San Francisco, I zapped a friend by hacking into our pre-internet business wire and generating this official-looking “news story.”

The hard-to-read original text in the sidebar is:

BROKER SUES SELF FOR CHURNING

San Francisco, Ca, April 5/PRNewswire/ — In an unprecedented legal maneuver, Montgomery Continue reading “Go Sue Yourself!” →

Enhanced Geothermal Energy and Man-Made Earthquakes (Part 2)

— 9:30 am · View all 2 comments

As described in a previous post, Sausalito-based AltaRock Energy is drilling a Lake County test well aimed at producing energy by utilizing a technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). AltaRock’s project is on federal land leased by the Northern California Power Agency (NCPA) on a ridge just above the community of Anderson Springs, CA. According to an article published July 15 in the Lake County News, however, “concerns about the technology AltaRock is using has caused the Bureau of Land Management [BLM] and the Department of Energy [DOE] to decide to conduct further study before the work moves forward.”

In light of the earthquake activity caused by a similar EGS project in Basel, Switzerland in 2006, the question to be studied is: might EGS engender serious earthquakes here in California?

Continue reading “Enhanced Geothermal Energy and Man-Made Earthquakes (Part 2)” →

“Keynesian” Capitalism Bumper Sticker De-Attributed

— 5:31 am · View all 3 comments

During the research for my previous post, I came across a bumper sticker that attributed the quotation in question to John Maynard Keynes. When I informed the purveyor that the quotation was not from Keynes’s oeuvre, they replied:

Well, that is sad. It seems that making things up has been a major accomplishment of the electronic age. We will probably keep the saying but remove the attribution. This seems to be happening a lot more than it used to. Thanks.

Here’s their updated bumper sticker.

A small victory for truth, justice, and scholarship.

*     *     *     *     *

Update 8/13/09: One month later, the bumper sticker is still being sold online with the attribution.

Update 8/20/20: The bumper sticker is no longer available, but several other items with the same quote are: a tee-shirt, a poster, another tee-shirt, a button, and…then I gave up searching for more.

John Maynard Keynes: Capitalism and the “Nastiest/Wickedest of Men”

— 1:28 am · View all 28 comments

Of course you know that not everything on the web is accurate, but what if you find thousands of hits for a quotation, including citations in Wikiquote,  the Washington Post, and the Howard Law Journal (which, in its Vol 48 Issue 1 Fall 2004 issue, blithely quoted the Washington Post article referenced at the end of this post)?

“Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.”

You can find this statement, attributed to economist John Maynard Keynes all over the web. It also appears, somewhat more frequently, in this form:

“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.“

In no case, (even in Moving Forward, a book about capitalism) is the quotation accompanied by a citation Continue reading “John Maynard Keynes: Capitalism and the “Nastiest/Wickedest of Men”” →

Enhanced Geothermal Energy and Man-Made Earthquakes

— 11:29 pm · View all 5 comments

Drill down just a few miles into the earth’s crust, and the temperature will rise substantially. This heat comes from three sources: emissions from radioactive minerals, the compressive force of gravity, and to a lesser extent, solar energy absorbed at the earth’s surface. Although such energy is not truly renewable (radioactive elements do eventually decay to energy-flat states), within any reasonable estimate of mankind’s tenancy on this planet, geothermal power is essentially limitless.

There are several techniques for transducing this energy from underground heat to in-the-grid electricity. One of these, a technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), is currently being tested by Sausalito-based AltaRock Energy only 12 beeline miles from my home in Northern California. Continue reading “Enhanced Geothermal Energy and Man-Made Earthquakes” →

The Prime Minister and the Supreme Court

— 9:39 pm · One comment

Tonight’s true story.

An intelligent, worldly woman is leaning over her laptop late at night, paying almost no attention to the conversations behind her. She is startled out of her browsing by her sister’s voice.

“Is there any news about Golda Meir?”

She spins away from her laptop and demands, “What’s going on with Golda Meir?”

Three adults stare at her as if she’s grown a second head. Meir’s been dead for 31 years.

She persists, “Golda Meir. What’s the news?”

After several whats and huhs, she finally learns that her sister, bored with the non-stop, pan-media banality of Michael Jackson’s death reportage, had inquired about the latest Supreme Court nominee.

You read it here first: (Sonia) SOTO MAYOR will be the next prime minister of Israel.

Steve with students at an author event

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