Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Yes, I Just Checked .... Uh, Oh: The Federal Site Is Down; Oregon's Site Won't Work With Safari, Google, Firefox; It Only Works With Some Version Of IE; Amateur Hour


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By the way, if you are an Oregon resident, you are out of luck if you want to apply on-line using anything other than Internet Explorer (I cannot make this stuff up). From the Cover Oregon site:
1) Use the correct browser
This online application is built and tested for use with Internet Explorer. Using other browsers may cause the form to not work properly.

Important: The "submit" button does not work when used with the Macintosh Safari or Google Chrome browsers. Please do not use Macintosh Safari or Google Chrome browsers with this application. We are also not able to support the use of this form on Ipads or mobile devices at this time.
This is amateur hour. Can you imagine if Amazon or Apple or eBay worked only on one browser. This is absolutely crazy. And the website should be the easy part. And they have had years to work on this. I am incredulous.

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This video uploaded after I received the first comment below:

The Telephone Pole, Green Acres

Another Incredible Story On Crude Oil Pricing; LSS Devastated By Shale Oil

This was predicted by some analysts quite some time ago:
A slew of analysts, who long-ago predicted that the LLS price would slip to well below the North Sea benchmark crude, are likely breathing a sigh of relief as they utter “I told you so.”
LSS often sold at a premium to Brent and WTI but due to tsunami of shale oil from the Bakken, the Eagle Ford, and the Permian, LSS is slumping ... badly. The tsunami:
Last week, the Energy Information Administration said in a report that Eagle Ford production is expected to rise just in the next month by 33,000 b/d to 1.28 million b/d. That production has grown substantially, and is now surpassing growth in the Bakken. Meanwhile, oil output there in the North Dakota sesson is expected to to increase by 26,000 b/d to 1 million b/d next month. At the same time, Permian Basin production is expected to remain flat next month at about 1.34 million b/d. Most of this production is expected to compete with or be blended into LLS.
They may actually ship the oil to the northeast United States by ship.
But it may have been harder to predict the rumored logistical side-effects of relatively weak LLS prices. Market participants said late last week that shippers are considering sending the relatively cheap crude on vessels from St. James, Louisiana, to the Canadian and US East coasts.
Remember three dots:
  • Soros takes position in Delta
  • Delta buys refinery in the northeast
  • refinery buying less expensive Bakken oil 
Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.

Seventeen (17) New Permits -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA; Newfield With A Nice Well; MRO With A Nice Well

Active rigs: 185

Seventeen (17) new permits --
  • Operators: Whiting (4), SHD (4), EOG (3), Corinthian (2), HRC, Mountain Divide, Continental, Denbury
  • Fields: Clarks Creek (McKenzie), Parshall (Mountrail), Eagle Nest (Dunn), Sanish (Mountrail), East Fork (Williams), Pleasant Hill (McKenzie), North Souris (Bottineau), Cedar Hills (Bowman), and Beaver Creek (Golden Valley)
  • Comments: SHD has three permits for wells in Clarks Creek; Mountain Divide has a permit for a wildcat in Divide County
Wells coming off the confidential list were posted earlier; see sidebar at the right.

Several name changes; two changed from middle Bakken to Three Forks target.

Hess canceled three TI-Blestrud wells and one TI-Hilleren well.

Petro-Hunt completed one producing well, but no IP provided.

Wells coming off the confidential list Thursday:
25271, 1,435, Newfield, Holm 150-99-13-24-2H, Siverston, t8/13; cum 32K 9/13;
25474, drl, XTO, Kerbaugh 31X-4C, Beaver Lodge, no production data,
25486, 1,687, MRO, Mildred 44-11TFH, Reunion Bay, t10/13; cum --

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25271, see above, Newfield, Holm 150-99-13-24-2H, Siverston:

DateOil RunsMCF Sold
9-20131203415591
8-20131943613030

Feds: 100 Million Policies Likely To Be Canceled; Floridians Signed Up: 2: "Uh-oh."

Fox News is reporting:
Under the health care law, businesses with fewer than 50 workers do not have to provide health coverage. But if they do, the policies will still have to meet the benefit standards set by ObamaCare. 
An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, shows the administration anticipates half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predict up to 100 million small and large business policies could be cancelled next year. 
Uh-oh.

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Speaking of "uh-oh":
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius visited South Florida on Tuesday to meet with navigators tasked with assisting Floridians with signing up for Obamacare, Miami’s CBS affiliate reported.  
As the HHS Secretary made the rounds of North Shore Hospital in Miami, she took the time to watch a woman, Carmen Salerno, sign up for health insurance via the online marketplace at healthcare.gov.
But as Sebelius looked on, the system crashed, as has become the norm for the glitch-filled website.
“The screen says I’m sorry but the system is temporarily down,” Brian Andrews, a reporter with CBS4 who was reporting on Sebelius’ visit, noted as he leaned over her shoulder.
The HHS Secretary tried to gracefully brush off the notice, simply saying, “Uh oh,” and Salerno attempted to come to her aide.
The good news, from the same article:
At a news conference held later in the day, Sebelius reported a whopping two more South Floridians had successfully signed up to receive coverage through healthcare.gov in the hours during her visit. She went on to say she recognized the frustration many were feeling because of the malfunctions with healthcare.gov.
I don't think the federal government could have screwed up the health care insurance industry any more had they tried. This is truly incredibly, being excited/relieved/happy over "onesies" and "twosies" successfully signing up. [And, of course, the two lucky folks who signed up can now worry about their identity being stolen by hackers.]

The web site, as you all know, will be considered "working smoothly" if 80% of folks are able to access it. I know in Nigeria, they consider the commercial airline industry "working smoothly" if 80% of airplanes land safely. 

The Number Of North Dakotans Reporting Income Greater Than $1 Million/Year Jumps By 22 Percent; If A Really, Really Good Farm Bill Is Passed, Things Could Be Even Better In 2014; Fargo And Grand Forks In Top Five Fastest Growing US Metro Areas, 2013

 The Bismarck Tribune is reporting:
The number of people reporting seven-figure incomes in oil-rich North Dakota nearly doubled last year and residents' average incomes rose 22 percent to an all-time high, boosted by the state's booming oil economy, state tax officials said. 
"It was a really strong 2012, not only in oil but agriculture across the entire state," Deputy Tax Commissioner Ryan Rauschenberger said Wednesday.
Tax Department figures released to The Associated Press show a record 1,126 people reported incomes of more than $1 million on their 2012 individual tax returns, up from 634 in 2011. Only 339 so-called income millionaires reported incomes of more than $1 million in 2006, at the dawn of North Dakota's unprecedented oil boom.
Tax Department records show the average adjusted gross income in the state increased from $60,947 to $74,221 last year. The average adjusted gross income on 2006 returns was about $43,300.
Rauschenberger said North Dakota has jumped from 38th in the nation in per capita personal income in 2006 to 6th highest in 2012.
The first Bakken well in this boom was drilled in 2007, I believe (again, I'm forgetting all the facts I once knew about the Bakken; stuff is moving too quickly).

On another note, if a really, really good farm bill is passed, things might be even better in 2014. Politico is reporting:
The potato industry and lawmakers have another card up their sleeve in their effort to protect the starchy spuds from those who seek to remove them from federal nutrition programs: a study inserted in the House’s version of the farm bill that could be used to promote their healthful qualities.
The single paragraph is easy to miss in the 701-page House farm bill, tucked away in Section 4051 on Page 388. It would require the Department of Agriculture to “conduct a review of the economic and public health benefits of white potatoes on low-income families who are determined to be at nutritional risk” and report the findings to both the House and Senate Agriculture committees no less than one year after the date of the law’s enactment.
To the untrained eye, Section 4051, referred to simply as the “Review of Public Health Benefits of White Potatoes,” is just another potentially legislatively mandated study. But it’s much more important than that to the National Potato Council, which says it is needed to fight against nutritionists who’ve been using outdated science in an effort to exclude potatoes and potato products from USDA programs intended to feed needy school kids as well as pregnant women, infants and children.
The little I know about nutrition: potatoes are a gazillion times healthier than white rice.  And, I believe healthier than corn. On the latter I could be wrong; on the former I know I am correct.

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Meanwhile, CarpeDiem is reporting:
Looking forward, energy will continue to fuel economic gains this year, and the metro areas of Texas will again top the list of fastest growers; this year they will be joined by Fargo and Bismarck, ND both of which are benefiting from booming growth around the Bakken Shale play. The top five fastest growing metro areas for 2013 are expected to be: Midland (7.3%), Odessa (6.4%), Pascagoula MS (6.3%), Fargo (5.7%) and Bismarck (5.4%). Amazingly, four of the top five metro areas for economic growth this year are directly benefiting from the shale areas fueling the Great American Energy Boom: Midland and Odessa in Texas, and Fargo and Bismarck in North Dakota.
One wonders how many Minnesotans living along the North Dakota state line are simply moving across the river into a low-tax state.

Tesla And Those Battery-Related Fires

Yahoo!Finance is reporting:
There are nearly 90,000 Nissan Leaf electrics on the road, for example, and not one vehicle fire has been reported. General Motors has sold about 50,000 Chevy Volts, and the only known fire occurred three weeks after NHTSA crash-tested one, as battery chemicals unleashed during the test leaked and eventually began smoldering. Altogether, there are nearly 140,000 Leafs and Volts on the road, without a single on-road fire between them. Suddenly, three fires among 19,000 cars doesn't seem so impressive.
This is a very, very interesting article, better than one would expect. For those interested in Tesla, this is one story not to miss.

Increased Drilling In The Parshall

Over at The Bakken Shale Discussion Group, a reader has noted that there seems to be increased driling over in the Parshall ("south of Parshall" to be specific).

I've noticed the same things.

For the past two years, it has been rewarding to compare the development of the Sanish oil field ("owned" by Whiting) and the Parshall oil field ("owned" by EOG). Generally, there has been about seven rigs in the Sanish, and only one rig in the Parshall.

It appears that (and I've blogged about this often):
  • Whiting was using the Sanish as a cash cow to cover costs elsewhere
  • EOG was early to "hold by production" the entire Parshall, and then moved to explore the Eagle Ford
  • now with the Eagle Ford development underway, and new completion techniques in the Bakken resutling in 100% return rate, EOG is ramping up in the Parshall
  • telegraphed in EOG's 3Q13 earnings call
Today:
  • five rigs in the Sanish
  • six rigs in the Parshall (the six rig is right on the edge, and drilling into the Van Hook)
So, yes, EOG is ramping up in the Parshall oil field. The activity is on the western half of the Parshall oil field; the town of Parshall is on the far east side of the field. Three rigs in the Parshall are in the north half; three rigs are in the south, and all six are pretty much along the western edge.

See more at EOG

Halcon Is Up Over 3% In Pre-Market Trading

You don't see this often.

Halcon (HK) is trading pre-market.

And it's up over 3% in pre-market trading.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or what you think you may have read here.

It took forever to load, but elsewhere the headline says HK's COO bought "another" 20,000 shares I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the report.

SandRidge is also up in pre-market trading. Again, one does not expect to see these smaller caps active in pre-market trading. Interesting. 

Another Monster Well Goes Inactive

This well was taken off-line, July, 2013:
  • 7447, 932/IA, Whiting, Big Stick (Madison) Unit 3002, t10/80 cum 1.08 million 7/13;
I bring this up because Whiting just reported another completion in the Big Stick oil field in southwest North Dakota. For newbies, here are few examples of some monster wells in this area:
  • 7123, 450, Whiting, Big Stick (Madison) Unit 9550, t4/80; cum 1.81 million 9/13;
  • 7274, 1,100/PA, Whiting, Big Stick (Madison) Unit 2502, t5/80; cum 2.05 million 11/94
  • 7447, 932/IA, Whiting, Big Stick (Madison) Unit 3002, t10/80 cum 1.08 million 7/13;
  • 7485, 702, Whiting, Big Stick (Madison) Unit 1302, t5/81; cum 2.23 million 9/13;
  • 7495, 368, Sequel Energy, Flat Top Butte 15-24, Madison, t8/80; cum 750K 3/13
  • 11059, 377, SM Energy, Anderson 10 32, Camp, t9/84; cum 694K 3/13; 1,000 bbls/month
  • 12487, 272, Petro-Hunt, Texaco Otto Boss 18-1, Stockyard Creek, Madison; t9/88; cum 662K 8/13;
Note #7274, a vertical well produced more than 2 million bbls in less than 15 years. It's not just the Bakken.

Quick Metric

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or what you think you may have read here.  See expanded "disclaimer" here. The notes below are not accurate in any sense of the word "accuracy" and should not be used by anyone to make decisions or opinions about anything. It was simply a quick look for my use only. I assume the numbers are quite inaccurate.

Operator: Market cap: Net acres: Ratio
  • American Eagle (AMZG):$198 million: 35,000: $5,657/acre
  • Emerald (EOX): $508 million: 48,800: $10,409/acre
  • Halcon (HK): $1.85 billion: 150,000: $12,333/acre
  • Kodiak (KOG): $3.04 billion: 195,000: $15,590/acre
  • Northern (NOG): $966 million: 180,000: $5,367/acre
  • Oasis (OAS): $4.48 billion: 492,000: $9,106/acre
  • Triangle Petroleum (TPLM): $829 million: 144,350: $5,743/acre
Comments:
  • American Eagle: Divide County, Three Forks, northwest North Dakota
  • HK: generally Williams, McKenzie
  • KOG: Dunn, McKenzie; many of the sweet spots of the Bakken
  • Northern: throughout the Bakken
  • Oasis: Williams, Mountrail, McKenzie
  • Triangle: in one of the newer sweet spots in the Bakken

Wednesday, Continued; GOP Will Let The Trainwreck Dominate The Headlines; No Government Shutdown; Jobs Reports Disappointing -- Bernanke

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.

Breaking News

" ... at least two more South Floridians had successfully signed up for the ObamaCare."  I can't make this stuff up. They are counting new enrollees one by one over at MiamiCBSLocal

Fox News more than doubles CNN and MSNBC's combined prime time viewers Monday:
As TVNewser reported, FNC averaged 2.3 million viewers Monday compared to MSNBC's 688K and CNN's 373K.
In the all important demographic of folks aged 25 to 54, FNC averaged 391k prime time viewers, MSNBC 189K, and CNN 111K.
Fox also dominated in the total day viewers nearly doubling the combined average of MSNBC and CNN.
FNC averaged 1.5 million, MSNBC 456K and CNN 340K.

Business News
  • Nine companies announce increased dividends/distributions, including Wells Fargo preferred from 22 to 37 cents.
  • Retailers (Lowe's, Staples, others, reporting mixed results) Lowe's profits surge 26%. Deere posts higher Q4 profits, huge quarter. Volvo reports October truck deliveries increased 13% year-over-year to 20,897 vehicles.
  • Futures -- oil is holding steady at around $93. 
Keep on stimulating, no "tapering." CNN Money is reporting:
Forget that strong October jobs report. It wasn't strong enough to convince Ben Bernanke to slow the Federal Reserve's stimulus program.
The latest data show the economy added an average of 200,000 jobs each of the last three months -- marking a sudden breakout for the labor market after months of weaker reports.
Immediately after the October report was released, Fed watchers started speculating that it may just be the good news the Fed has been waiting for: Would the Fed start winding down its stimulus program at its next meeting in December?
Now, it doesn't sound like it.
Political News

The Hill is reporting:
President Obama’s relationship with congressional Democrats has worsened to an unprecedented low, Democratic aides say.
They are letting it be known that House and Senate Democrats are increasingly frustrated, bitter and angry with the White House over ObamaCare’s botched rollout, and that the president’s mea culpa in a news conference last week failed to soothe any ill will.
Sources who attended a meeting of House chiefs of staff on Monday say the room was seething with anger over the immense damage being done to the Democratic Party and talk was of scrapping rollout events for the Affordable Care Act. 
“Here we are, we’re supposed to be selling this to people, and it’s all screwed up,” one chief of staff ranted. “This either gets fixed or this could be the demise of the Democratic Party.
“It’s probably the worst I’ve ever seen it,” the aide said of the recent mood on Capitol Hill. “It’s bad. It’s really bad.”
I think this is what bothers them a tad:
ObamaCare enrollment site: a) 40% still needs to "built." And there was a surge to "fix" it when it failed in early October. This means that this site was in much more trouble than was initially reported: b) it was known throughout the administration that the site did not have the "pay" module up and running when it went live. Apparently Congress did not know; and, c) hackers can access the "cloud" where personal information transits; Consumer Reports is on record advising folks to "avoid" the ObamaCare webite. But despite that, the President told his supporters, from prepared noted, that more than 100 million Americans have successfully enrolled. The President was enjoying the success of the ObamaCare roll out so much he shelved plans to attend the 150th anniversary of Gettysburg, perhaps the most important battlefield engagement on US soil. 
The Hill, with a headline, "Ryan Caves, No Budget Cuts, No Threat of Another Government Shutdown," reports:
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Tuesday that the country doesn’t need to worry about another government shutdown in January when the current stopgap spending bill runs out.
The government shutdown lasted for 16 days in October after Republicans demanded that President Obama defund his signature healthcare law.
To avoid another shutdown, Ryan said either he and Senate Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) would strike a budget deal or Congress would pass a stopgap keeping existing spending levels.
Smartest move ever. Budget cuts don't amount to a hill of beans, and the ObamaCare story would be diluted. GOP just needs to step aside and let the trainwreck occur.

A Huge Update On The Permian -- The Wall Street Journal

A huge update on the Permian:
 One of Texas' oldest oil fields, in decline for decades, has become one of the hottest places in the country to drill for crude, as energy companies create clusters of wells with layers of horizontal branches. The Permian Basin—86,000 square miles centered on Midland, Texas—has been pumping oil since the 1920s, though production peaked at about 2 million barrels a day in the early 1970s. For decades, geologists have known that oil could be found in different layers of rock piled up like a stack of geologic pancakes.
  • Occidental Petroleum Inc., the largest producer in the Permian, said it plans to spend $500 million there in 2014 and has created a new "exploitation team" to identify more drilling locations. 
  • Concho Resources Inc., one of dozens of smaller producers focusing on the Permian, is accelerating its growth plans over the next three years to double oil output by 2016. 
  • And Apache Corp., the second-largest producer in the region, said its daily oil production in the Permian grew 18% to hit a record; it plans to increase its investments there following the recent sale of operations in Canada and Egypt.

Wednesday: Something Big Was Going To Happen Today But I Forget -- Oh, Yes, AMZG Will Begin Trading On NYSE; Devon To Buy GeoSouthern Energy, Largest Oil And Gas Deal This Year; Supreme Court Upholds Texas Abortion Law; CBS -- Obama Support Slumps To 37%

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or anything you think you may have read here.

Shale play: Devon Energy is nearing a deal to buy GeoSouthern Energy for approximately $6 billion, which would be the largest U.S. oil and gas transaction of the year. -- WSJ
  • Devon was the first to drill horizontally and frack; quickly fell behind competitors
  • GeoSouthern: privately held; almost all acreage in the Eagle Ford; not public information, its acreage
The deal could mark a turning point in the shale sector. Private-equity firms started entering the market in a large way in 2008 and 2009, and many are looking for a way to sell their investments.
International oil companies, which in the past snapped up shale assets, have lost some of their appetite for such deals, especially in the wake of Royal Dutch Shell's decision earlier this year to write down the value of its U.S. shale stakes by $2 billion.
It has also been a weak year for oil and gas acquisition activity. Only 390 oil and gas deals have been announced in the U.S. this year, valued at a total of $71.6 billion, according to Dealogic. At this point last year, 520 deals had been announced for $96.2 billion.
Several public oil and gas explorers have hung for-sale signs in the past year without finding buyers, including Whiting Petroleum Corp. and Kodiak Oil & Gas Corp. KOG, both of which are focused on drilling North Dakota's Williston Basin.
"If you are private right now and you can sell yourself, you do," says David Tameron, an energy analyst at Wells Fargo. "If I'm a buyer and there are a lot of people who want out the door, it's a good time to be buying."
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Active rigs: 184

RBN Energy: Marathon's plans for the Ohio Utica.
Finding a home for growing condensate range material being produced in the Ohio Utica shale play involves local refinery deliveries as well as new transport routes to markets outside the region as far away as Canada. Midstream companies are busy developing infrastructure plans to gather both wellhead condensate and output from natural gas processing plants in the region. Today we detail MPLX and its sponsor Marathon Petroleum Corporation’s (MPC) recently announced Utica shale plans.
Some Catching Up To Do

Regular readers might remember Washington, DC, community activists trying to stop Wal-Mart from moving in. Wal-Mart won that battle and is now open for business. It is harder to get a job at Wal-Mart than get admitted to Harvard University according to this story. For the 600 Wal-Mart jobs, there were 23,000 applications (most of which were successfully done on-line, I imagine): that's an acceptance rate of 2.6%. On the other hand, almost three times that many (on a percent basis) are accepted to Harvard, 6.1%. The minimum wage is $8.50. One wonders how many more applicants there would have been had the starting wage been $10.00?

ObamaCare enrollment site:
a) 40% still needs to "built." And there was a surge to "fix" it when it failed in early October. This means that this site was in much more trouble than was initially reported:
b) it was known throughout the administration that the site did not have the "pay" module up and running when it went live. Apparently Congress did not know; and,
c) hackers can access the "cloud" where personal information transits; Consumer Reports is on record advising folks to "avoid" the ObamaCare webite. 
But despite that, the President told his supporters, from prepared noted, that more than 100 million Americans across 57 states have successfully enrolled. The President was enjoying the success of the ObamaCare roll out so much he shelved plans to attend the 150th anniversary of Gettysburg, perhaps the most important battlefield engagement on US soil.

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This may all account for Obama's approval rating slumping to 37%. I thought by definition, his approval rating could not drop below 47%, much less 40%.

The biggest Bakken story of the year might have been announced yesterday: ONEOK is going to invest close to $1 billion to gather, process, and transport natural gas. I might be going out on a limb here, but this suggests to me that ONEOK thinks the Bakken is going to be around for another year or so. The plant will be located where the following operators are working: XTO, Triangle Petroleum, KOG, Slawson, and Zenergy. I assume CLR is in the area as well as many others.

The Wall Street Journal

After his ObamaCare debacle, President Obama agrees to piecemeal immigration overhaul. Anything to get his mind, and our minds, off the health care trainwreck.

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For those of you who want to know how bad the ObamaCare website really is, front page, front section, "New Tech Worries Loom for Health Law."
One particular challenge that remains is building a payment system to transfer those subsidies to insurance companies. Mr. Chao said those "financial management" parts of the system aren't needed right away, but officials acknowledged that they must be running by January, when insurers will be expecting the subsidies to start flowing in.
Kevin Lucia, a senior research fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Health Insurance Reforms, said that "if HealthCare.gov is functional on the front end, the next critical question is whether the back end functions are working, too. Are issuers getting paid? Are they getting enrollment info from HealthCare.gov? Is it accurate?"
Mr. Obama, speaking Tuesday at The Wall Street Journal CEO Council, said of the website, "By the end of this month it will be functioning for the majority of people who are using it." Some insurers are worried that the website's troubles may be turning off healthy customers while older or sicker ones may persist to sign up for policies, since insurers no longer can turn away people with existing health issues.
And then this:
Joseph Swedish, chief executive of WellPoint Inc., said the insurer, the nation's second-largest, is backing away from advertising its new offerings that it makes via the federal marketplace. "We have pulled back from marketing, not knowing how to get people enrolled at the moment," he said on the sidelines of the Journal's gathering.
One big trainwreck.
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This will be a stand-alone later: a huge update on the Permian:
 One of Texas' oldest oil fields, in decline for decades, has become one of the hottest places in the country to drill for crude, as energy companies create clusters of wells with layers of horizontal branches. The Permian Basin—86,000 square miles centered on Midland, Texas—has been pumping oil since the 1920s, though production peaked at about 2 million barrels a day in the early 1970s. For decades, geologists have known that oil could be found in different layers of rock piled up like a stack of geologic pancakes.
Because of the Permian's many thick layers—Wolfcamp, Cline and Spraberry are the names of just a few—a group of wells on one site can potentially tap into several different oil reservoirs, each wellbore going down just far enough to reach its targeted layer and then turning sideways.
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The Los Angeles Times

Wow, wow, wow -- the US Supreme Court upholds Texas abortion law.
The Supreme Court, by a 5-4 decision, rejects a Planned Parenthood appeal to block a Texas law that places restrictions on clinics that perform abortions.The measure, adopted by Texas lawmakers in July, requires that abortion providers have a doctor on their staffs who has admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic. By rejecting the request, the justices signaled they do not think the Texas law puts an unconstitutional barrier before women seeking an abortion. The Planned Parenthood Federation said the law had forced 12 of the state's 36 licensed abortion providers to stop offering abortions.
In my mind, the portion of the law seems like common sense, but I never thought the judges would have that much common sense. It's just not politically correct to put mother's safety ahead of an elective procedure. Very, very elective.

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So, did they or didn't they? Did Desert Hot Springs vote to declare bankruptcy or not? I can't find it in the LA Times, but the Miami Herald has the news:
This financially troubled city declared a fiscal emergency Tuesday in an effort to avert a second federal bankruptcy filing.
The City Council voted unanimously to declare the emergency as the city grapples with a $6 million gap between revenues and spending.
Interim City Manager Bob Adams has said declaring a fiscal emergency would enable the city to negotiate with contractors and labor groups to cut expenses.
If no action is taken, the city of 27,000 people near Palm Springs will run out of money by March, officials said.
The city previously filed for bankruptcy in 2001 after a legal judgment.
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The New York Times

Top story in today's NYT: the "gold plan" for our elected leaders in Washington, DC
While millions of Americans have been left to fend for themselves and go through the frustrating experience of trying to navigate the federal exchange, members of Congress and their aides have all sorts of assistance to help them sort through their options and enroll.
Lawmakers and the employees who work in their “official offices” will receive coverage next year through the small-business marketplace of the local insurance exchange, known as D.C. Health Link, which has staff members close at hand for guidance.
“D.C. Health Link set up shop right here in Congress,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the delegate to the House from the nation’s capital.
Insurers routinely offer “member services” to enrollees. But on Capitol Hill, the phrase has special meaning, indicating concierge-type services for members of Congress.
If lawmakers have questions about Aetna plan benefits and provider networks, they can call a special phone number that provides “member services for members of Congress and staff.”