Friday Morning Links, News, And Views -- Part I

Active rigs: 182

RBN Energy: the fourth in a series on the economics of an oil and gas well. This article gets into NPV which is seen in almost every oil and gas corporate presentation.

• Part 1: drilling
• Part 2: drilling and completion costs
• Part 3: estimating well production
• Part 4: as linked above

WSJ Links

A banned and best-selling author. Ellen Hopkins writes in verse about issues like teen pregnancy and drug abuse. Teen readers can't get enough.

US set to pass Russia in liquid fuels. The U.S. is set to pass Russia in the production of liquid fuels such as crude and ethanol this quarter, a top energy watchdog said.

I thought we were through with this under this administration. Guess not: US in new push to find undocumented workers. Department of Homeland Security has notified about 1,000 businesses across the country they must submit employment documents in a fresh crackdown on employers suspected of hiring illegal immigrants.

If nuclear disaster strikes, steer clear of Japan's playbook.

Tokyo's slow response to Fukushima is challenging the nuclear industry's credibility.

Wow -- this is huge: states face decision day on saving trains. A number of states must decide whether to drop expensive Amtrak routes or pay for them after federal subsidies end Oct. 1, a defining moment for a mode of transportation that shaped the U.S. This only affects Amtrak's shorter routes outside the Northeast Corridor -- those under 750 miles. It does not appear to affect long-haul Amtrak, but there are some confusing aspects of the program not adequately explained in the article.

Another wow! DC mayor vetoes "living wage" bill. Washington Mayor Vincent Gray vetoed a bill that would force Wal-Mart and other large retailers to pay their employees a 'living wage' of at least $12.50 an hour. Wal-Mart had told the mayor they would leave the city rather than pay the wage.

California moves to scrap "no child left behind" testing. California lawmakers approved a bill that would scrap the state's current student-testing program, despite an Obama administration threat to pull federal dollars from the state. If the Obama administration does not pull Federal funding, look for other states to follow suit, probably all across the south, starting with Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

And yet another wow! EU factory output dives. Output from factories in the euro zone fell to the lowest level in more than three years, raising new questions about the bloc's ability to keep a modest economic recovery alive. Not one mention of the high cost of energy due to the high cost of "going green" was mentioned. Look for more articles coming out of the EU over the next year talking about the need to go back to coal.

Op-ed: Obama is lost in the Mideast bazaar.

The survival of the Syrian regime was a "red line" for the Russian ruler—a true red line. The dictatorship in Damascus had been forged four decades ago, when Soviet power was on the rise. Syrian armies and factories, the intelligence services and the architecture, were all in the Soviet mold. The sun may have set on the old Soviet empire, but on the shores of the Mediterranean, with a derelict naval base in Tartus waiting to be revived, Syria offered Russia the consolation that it could still play the game of the great powers. In the Syrian mirror, Mr. Putin sees a version of his own battle with Chechen insurgents.
Now it is dusk, and the hapless Barack Obama has lost his old swagger. He had feigned intimacy with "the East," he had thought that he was at ease with that big Islamic world. Instead, he was befuddled by what awaited him, and now he finds himself at the mercy of a Russian skilled in the ruses of the bazaar.

Grant the Russians the consistency of their position on Syria. From the outset of the civil war two years ago, Moscow insisted that it would not stand idly by and accept a repetition of what had happened in Libya. The deranged Moammar Gadhafi was a man the Russians knew and favored. By their lights, they had let him down when they let slip through the cracks of the U.N. machinery a proposal that called for the protection of Libyan civilians. The proposal gave NATO the warrant that led to the destruction of the Libyan dictatorship.

No such ambiguity this time around. Russia was determined to see its client regime in Damascus to victory. If Soviet decay and American resolve had all but banished Moscow's influence from Middle Eastern lands, Vladimir Putin was eager for a Russian return—all the more so if the restoration came on the cheap.

New York Times

Boehner seeks Democrats' help in averting a government shutdown.

Listing demands, Assad uses crisis to his advantage. The US is now negotiating Syria. LOL.

Voyager 1, launched back in 1977, is exiting the Solar System.

By today’s standards, the spacecraft’s technology is laughable: it carries an 8-track tape recorder and computers with one-240,000th the memory of a low-end iPhone. When it left Earth 36 years ago, it was designed as a four-year mission to Saturn, and everything after that was gravy. 

But Voyager 1 has become — thrillingly — the Little Spacecraft That Could. On Thursday, scientists declared that it had become the first probe to exit the solar system, a breathtaking achievement that NASA could only fantasize about back when Voyager was launched in 1977, the same year “Star Wars” was released.

“I don’t know if it’s in the same league as landing on the moon, but it’s right up there — ‘Star Trek’ stuff, for sure,” said Donald A. Gurnett, a physics professor at the University of Iowa and the co-author of a paper published Thursday in the journal Science about Voyager’s feat. “I mean, consider the distance. It’s hard even for scientists to comprehend.” 

In its heyday, Voyager 1 pumped out never-before-seen images of Jupiter and Saturn. But it stopped sending home pictures in 1990, to conserve energy and because there was no longer much to see. A companion spacecraft, Voyager 2, also launched in 1977, has stopped sending back images as well. Voyager 2 is moving in a different direction but is also expected to exit the solar system.  

To keep the project funded, I assume NASA will use Voyager 1 to look for signs of "universal warming."

  LA Times

Kerry, Russian counterpart, upbeat on Syria. Rope-a-dope.

First world problem: vegans want Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes, too.

If there ever were an actual, bona fide first world food problem, this would be it.  

In the petition, Caldwell asks Starbucks to please make a vegan Pumpkin Spice Latte. He explains that he and his girlfriend visit their local Starbucks up to four times a week and that many of the drinks can be made vegan, but not the Pumpkin Spice Latte. 

The Starbucks website lists the latte ingredients as: "Signature espresso blended with the unmistakable spices of fall -- cinnamon, nutmeg and clove -- smooth with steamed milk, topped with delectably sweetened whipped cream and pumpkin pie spices."

"There is currently no vegan option for this drink mix, which is a total bummer," wrote Caldwell in bold. 

Caldwell needs to get a life. He/she could start by visiting the refugee camps on the Lebanon border.

The Drudge Report

Obama will choose another Harvard male to replace Ben.  Having just re-read Bernard Lewis' What Went Wrong, this was predictable. Reuters is reporting that Ms Yellin will not be selected.