Tuesday, May 17, 2016

When something happens overnight with no explanation, one needs to start following the dots. The overnight event? The back-up in TSA lines. Literally, the story popped up overnight and stories coming out of the terminals suggest the TSA agents are standing around, joking, no sense of urgency. So, let's back track this:

Just in time for presidential election this November ← reports of work slowdown first surfaced in Chicago's Midway ← find cities with strong union support; home of community organizers ← TSA work to rule ← how to get TSA attention, media coverage? ← how about 4,000 more TSA agents? ← which unions, where? ← expand unions ← more voters needed, especially in swing states like Illinois ← need expanded voting blocs in time for November election

Active rigs:

	5/17/2016	05/17/2015	05/17/2014	05/17/2013	05/17/2012
Active Rigs	28	83	190	189	211

RBN Energy: Alberta's oil sands after the wildfires.

Saudi Arabia: CNBC reports an Energy Aspects analysis of Saudi Arabia's plans for increased oil production. For the archives.

US shale production: US shale output to drop for eighth consecutive month, EIA -- Reuters. U.S. shale oil output is expected to fall in June for the eighth consecutive month.

Total output is expected to fall by nearly 113,000 bpd to 4.85 million bpd, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA) drilling productivity report released on Monday.

Bakken production from North Dakota is forecast to fall 27,000 bpd, while production from the Eagle Ford formation is expected to drop 58,000 bpd. Production from the Permian Basin in West Texas is expected to drop 10,000 bpd, according to the data, representing its second consecutive monthly decline. 

Saudi Arabia not mentioned. What's up? Bloomberg/Rigzone is reporting:

Algeria will supply oil and other energy products to Jordan for the first time under a memorandum of understanding signed on Monday, as the OPEC member seeks to diversify sales after years of stagnating crude production.

Sense of energy urgency in Japan. Bloomberg/Rigzone is reporting:

Energy companies in Japan, a country almost entirely reliant on fossil fuel imports, are slashing investments by more than one-third following the collapse in commodity prices, increasing pressure on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government to supplement exploration budgets. Spending will plunge 37 percent to about 1.2 trillion yen ($11 billion) in the year to March, the country’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry forecast in a report Tuesday.

The drop, just one slice of cuts globally, adds urgency to the government’s plans to sustain investment by the country’s explorers and accelerate efforts to get 40 percent of its oil and gas from domestic firms. The world’s biggest consumer of liquefied natural gas and fourth-largest crude buyer relies on imports for 94 percent of its primary energy supply, according to the country’s Federation of Electric Power Companies.

Japan may allocate 3 trillion yen over the next five years to help develop large-scale oil and gas developments with state-run Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. investing in projects, the Nikkei newspaper reported last month.

Hoax. Most of us here in Texas knew this was a hoax when it was first reported. Glad to see The New York Times picked up the story:

The case of the chocolate cake slur, it seems, was simply a hoax.

An openly gay Texas pastor who had accused Whole Foods of defacing his cake with an anti-gay slur dropped his lawsuit against the grocery chain on Monday, issuing an apology that said he was wrong to “perpetuate this story.”

“The company did nothing wrong,” the pastor, Jordan Brown, said in a statement. “I was wrong to pursue this matter and use the media to perpetuate this story.”

He also apologized to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community “for diverting attention from real issues.”

Whole Foods had forcefully rejected the accusations by Mr. Brown, 31, who claimed that he had bought a frosted cake from a store in Austin, TX, and asked that the words “Love Wins” be written in icing on top — only to discover while driving away that a slur had been added.

Mr. Brown’s apology represented a remarkable about-face from his remarks last month, delivered at a news conference alongside his lawyer, during which he choked back tears as he told the story.

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Headlines From Today's WSJ

Maybe I will get to these later, maybe not. Doesn't matter. 

• The Canadian fire isn't over: another 8,000 oil-sands workers evacuated when wind shifted.
• Home Depot boosts guidance on strong same-store sales.
• American farmers face oversupply of cheese, meat -- pushing down prices.
• Girls beat boys in US test of technology literacy.
• Scotch whisky exports stabilize, with modest decline in 2015.
• Video: worth a watch -- world's largest cruise ship makes maiden voyage; Southampton, England, to France; the inaugural voyage to Barcelona; this thing is huge; words can't describe it
• Getting a lot of press: Warren Buffett's investment in Apple (technically it was the "heirs" that made the investment, not Warren -- $1 billion
• Tiger Woods' golf demonstration does not go as planned; hits three shots into water at Congressional. Link here.  This was a par 3 tenth hole, perhaps one of the easiest holes for pros.  This was a "trial run, a demonstration" -- not part of a tournament.

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Detroit Public Schools

From The Los Angeles Times.

Look at the numbers coming out of Detroit public school system:

• 2002 - 2003: 164,496 students
• 2015 - 2016: 47,000

K-12 students overall in Detroit: public, private, charter:

• 2002: 201,774
• 2012: 119,758

Charter schools

• publicly funded
• privately run
• scaled up rapidly in last decade

2011: Education Achievement Authority

• separate entity aimed to improve Detroit's worse schools
• now with 6,000 students

2009: Detroit public schools put under control of state-appointed manager

• manager of the state-appointed emergency manager of the Detroit public school district: the same guy who just resigned over his involvement in the Flint water crisis

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Answer To Hollywood's Sexism?

The [London] Times: Susan Sarandon thinking of directing porn.

Female directors make sex on screen more interesting, Susan Sarandon has claimed, as she sets her sights on making the pornography industry more acceptable to women.

The Oscar-winning actress said that female directors were less embarrassed about exploring the reason people have sex and “what the scene is supposed to tell you about these people”.

Sarandon was speaking at the Cannes Film Festival, which has often been overshadowed by accusations of sexism. There is annual criticism of the low number of female directors, and last year it emerged that festival organisers demanded that women attending red-carpet events had to wear.

A quick nexus search on the blog reveals some interesting dots that connect: Apple, Blu-Ray, Paglia, Mulholland Drive, Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Later, February 6, 2019: Bree Mills over at The Daily Beast. Ready to go "mainstream" with porn.  A name to watch.