Tuesday Morning Links, News, And Views

Active rigs: 188 (steady)

The results of the only well that came off the confidential list today have been posted. 

RBN Energy: can Houston refineries handle all that Permian oil?

Carpe Diem has really had some great posts the past couple of days. 

WSJ Links

Sperm crisis? Fracking? Tighties? Yes, that was the lead story in the Personal Journal in the WSJ today. It must be "sexuality" day at the Journal. Also in this section, new treatment options for drug-resistant gonorrhea.

Researchers have identified three new antibiotic regimens to treat gonorrhea, offering options for a serious and common infectious disease that has become all but untreatable.
The sexually transmitted disease often called "the clap" infects an estimated 800,000 people a year in the U.S. It can have serious consequences, such as infertility and ectopic pregnancy, and it can increase the risk of infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Worse, the bacteria that cause gonorrhea have become resistant to all but one class of antibiotics, and they are gradually outsmarting even that one. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says only one antibiotic may now safely be used on a regular basis, and it has to be injected. That makes treatment difficult, because many doctors don't stock the injection, meaning patients have to come back for treatment. And many patients prefer pills to shots. 

The new treatment options do not sound particularly pleasant, not particularly effective. I could write quite a bit about the subject based on 30 years in the military but maybe later.

This may be the best article of the day: why some folks get more mosquito bites than others. My wife has major problems with mosquitoes; me, not so much.  Unfortunately, nothing new in the article for those of us who grew up in North Dakota.

In the Front Section: fossil proves T. rex wasn't just a scavenger. The fossil was found in South Dakota. Didn't North Dakotans already know that, or am I missing something. But those short arms.

A fossil from a failed kill 65 million years ago offers the first direct evidence that Tyrannosaurus rex did indeed hunt its prey, putting to rest recent arguments that the massive dinosaur may have been a scavenger, scientists said Monday.

In the sandstone of South Dakota, researchers discovered the distinctive crown of a Tyrannosaurus tooth, serrated like a steak knife, wedged in the spine of a 4-ton plant-eater called a hadrosaurus that once roamed the American West. The backbone, moreover, had grown over the tooth, indicating the animal had healed and likely lived for years after the encounter, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While visiting southern California we are avid users of the fire pits along the beach. The new "restrictive" guidelines affecting fire pits from San Francisco to San Diego are minimally restrictive and won't interfere with those who like to grill on the beach.

Senate on path to partisan meltdown?  I guess it had to come to this.

Asiana pilots face criminal charges. I hope the press gets their names right.

The Mexican navy captured the alleged leader of the country's most violent drug-trafficking organization, Miguel Angel Treviño, the head of the Zetas cartel. No link; story everywhere, I'm sure. And I'm too lazy to go get the link.

Mixed results in O'Bama Health Scare pilot plan. Patient care was improved (subjective) but costs were worse (objective).

The boring Palestinians -- if this was TV drama, it would be 'The X-Files' in its 46th season. Hey, som e of us liked the first season of the 'X-Files.'

I agree completely with Mort: a jobless recovery is a phony recovery.

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The fact that the Zimmerman story was a front-page story is very, very interesting. There is a story line that the mainstream media is missing. How many stories of dogs biting postmen were on the front page yesterday in the mainstream media?
Correct: none.

That is because the story of dogs biting postmen is so common that it is no longer a front page story; in fact, except for local news perhaps, it's not even worth a newspaper story.

Sixteen thousand homicides in the US last year (2012). Homicides not involving family members were predominantly black-on-black, or black-on-white. How do I know that? I don't. But the fact there were NO front page stories that I can recall of a black man killed by a black man last year, and NO front page stories that I can recall of a white man killed by a black last year, tells me that the majority of homicides were just that. In fact, it appears that the only black man killed by a white man in the past 18 months was Mr Martin.

The 100-city protest that Al is planning, promoting, and coordinating, helps the black community avoid that fact: ALL non-family-related homicides in the past 18 months were black-on-black or black-on-white. (Ironically, the last big story of a black-on-white homicide involved a USC football star long past his prime.)

Let's see what google has to say on this matter: "white man kills black man" -- there were fourteen (14) stories in all. Fourteen! I'm more right than I thought I was. Of the fourteen stories the only story that fit the criteria happened back on August 9, 2011, a truckload of white teens kills a black man in Mississippi. The other stories for the most part were editorials about the tragedy of black-on-black crime.

Yes, 16,000 homicides in 2012. None found on google for 2012 in which a white man killed a black man. I don't even want to google "black man kills white man" or "black man kills black man."

Oh, Mr Zimmerman is about as white as the Rev Al Sharpton. Mr Zimmerman is Hispanic.