NOAA tornado data: 2016 ‘one of the quietest years since records began in 1954.'
Below average for 5th year in a row.
2016 also looks like being one of the quietest years for tornadoes since records began in 1954.
Only 2013 has had less tornadoes since 2005.
Flashback 2015: NOAA: Number of major tornadoes in 2015 was ‘one of the lowest on record.’
Tornadoes (in 2015) below average for 4th year in a row.
Extreme weather failing to follow 'global warming' predictions.
The U.S. has had no Category 3 or larger hurricane make landfall since 2005 – the longest spell since the Civil War.
Strong F3 or larger tornadoes have been in decline since the 1970s.
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What Can I Say?
My wife's birthday party was at a local dance studio where she goes to Zumba four times a week. The deal was this:
the dance studio was reserved for four hours;
no alcoholic beverages;
adults and their teenage children attended;
lots and lots of food;
games, like charades; and,
lots of dance instruction
This is what I did not understand: I assumed dance lessons would be Texas classics like line dancing. Not.
The instructor was an Argentina woman. This was the typical song we danced to:
Pitbull-Fireball, John Ryan
Before you ask if this song is popular, note that the YouTube song has almost 157 million hits. Almost two hours of this music and dancing to go with it.
I'm going to be really, really sore tomorrow morning.
November 19, 2016: this makes more sense. There is talk that Harold Hamm is being considered as some sort of high-level energy advisor to President Trump but not as a cabinet member. That makes all kinds of sense. Some are suggesting "energy czar" which I think is more likely. In addition, on the short list of those likely to help the new administration "repeal and replace" ObamaCare, Adam Hamm, ND Insurance Commissioner, appears on the list.
November 13, 2016: I'm completely wrong. It makes no sense for Harold Hamm to be considered for the Energy Secretary. Despite its name, the DOE is primarily responsible for the nation's nuclear sector. If one is talking on-shore oil production, then one is talking Interior Secretary. See this post. When one reads the "job description," I don't see Harold Hamm as the best choice for Interior Secretary. It makes sense for Harold Hamm to be on the Trump team as an advisor, but not as a cabinet secretary. In fact, now that I've seen the short list, assuming the NYT story is correct, I'm quite disappointed in Trump's choices. Very, very uninspired.
Original Post
I was unaware of this being "official." I guess Harold Hamm really is Donald Trump's "official" energy advisor. From Financial Times:
Obama’s oil and gas regulations face fire from Trump.
Rolling back curbs will be a priority for growth, says energy adviser Harold Hamm.
Wow.
I'll post the lede, but it doesn't matter. It's all boiler plate. The important thing here is that it's official. My thoughts:
Harold Hamm will be the next SecEnergy. I had completely missed that Harold Hamm was "officially" Trump's top energy advisor. Amazing. That's even better than having an "oilman" for President or VP. An oilman for DOE can do a lot of stuff off the radar scope.
Now, back to that boiler plate lede:
Harold Hamm, the billionaire chief executive and majority owner of
Continental Resources, the US shale oil producer, told the Financial
Times that he expected Mr Trump to prioritise tax cuts and deregulation
as ways to stimulate economic growth.
“It worked well for Ronald Reagan to lower taxes, put American people back to work, and deregulate,” he said.
“So those are the two guiding principles, I believe, that Donald Trump will go forward with.”
During
the election campaign Mr Trump promised to cut regulations on oil and
gas production, open up new areas for drilling, and scrap the Obama
administration’s Clean Power Plan, intended to curb carbon dioxide
emissions from electricity generation.
November 24, 2016: at T+15, it's official -- Trump wins Michigan by 10,704 votes. To put that into perspective, Bush II won Florida over Algore by 1,500 votes before the recounts began.
November 17, 2016: The New York Times provides a map of the "two Americas of 2016." The link is behind a paywall but if you google it, you can get to the story.
November 16, 2016: why the US will never go to direct voting for electing a president; they will be vetting these fraudulent voters for months; we will never know the "real" number of folks who voted for Trump or Hillary. That's why a spread of at least 1% is generally needed to "call" an election. Less than that, we may get a recount. At a very low spread, a recount is mandated by law. Winning by more than 1% provides a padding against fraudulent voting affecting the outcome.
November 15, 2016: Exhibit A -- why the popular vote will never decide the president of the US. From The Los Angeles Times:
At least 4 million California ballots left to be counted, likely adding to Clinton's popular vote lead.
So, how many months from now will we know the official count, noting that the Secretary of State needs to certify every voter.
November 15, 2016: I hate to beat a dead horse, maybe a dead, non-thinking Democrat, but not a dead horse, but this is important. That trope, which is now a meme, that Hillary beat Trump in the popular vote is irrelevant (it will eventually proved to be inaccurate, also).
Winning competitors use the rules of the game to their advantage. Whether or not deflated balls made a difference in the Super Bowl game (they did not) someone knew the rules: the balls were tested once before the game but never again. Someone took advantage of that rule.
Likewise, in the 2016 election, the rule was that it would be the electoral college, not the popular vote, that would be used to determine the winner. For that reason Trump wasted no money by competing in states he knew he could not/would not win. He did not compete in California (that's why he lost the popular vote in Orange County) or Illinois (where he would have won if Chicagoans were not allowed to vote twice). He also did not compete in Massachusetts or New York State. He competed in Iowa and won there.
If Americans had decided that this year the popular vote would decide the winner, Trump would still have won. He would have competed in California, New York State, Massachusetts, and Illinois. He would not have gained the plurality in any of those states, but he would have received enough votes beat his opponent when all votes were tallied at the national level. He would have spent less money and less time in the fly-over states and more time and money on the coasts.
November 15, 2016: one option if folks want to go to popular vote to elect president? It won't happen on the national level, but two states have done it at the state level: Maine, Nebraska. Interestingly enough, California will never do this. California is dark blue and all its electoral votes go to the Democratic nominee. If CA had "proportional voting" (or whatever it's called), Trump would have gotten 33% of the electoral votes, or 18 of California's 55 votes. At the national level, Trump's margin of victory would have been even bigger.
November 15, 2016: the "excellent" electoral college -- The WSJ. California alone accounts for Clinton's lead in the popular vote. Trump did not compete in California or Illinois. I was curious why he did so badly in Illinois, and even in sold-red Orange County. This explains it.
November 14, 2016: this is another reason the US will never adopt the popular vote as the way to select presidents. Secretaries of state, in each state, must certify the number of votes for all candidates. That can take upwards of six months; some times a year. The official numbers would not be known until well past inaugural day. Link here. The trope/meme that Hillary Clinton received more votes than President-elect Trump is just that a trope/meme and it will eventually be disproved. Once disproved, it will only be covered by Breitbart.
November 13, 2016: when you look at the map below, something else pops up. "Diversity and inclusiveness" is one of the things that makes America great. If a few geographic locations could decide the president of the US, it appears almost 90% of the US would feel left out. Worse, the "diversity" demonstrated by the grey area would be lost. Many of the "original 13 colonies" don't have even a speck of blue. Other states without a speck of blue: Louisiana, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana, Colorado, Idaho, West Virginia, Virginia. Some of the states with a single speck of blue is simply the state's one urban center: New Mexico, Oregon, Minnesota, Kentucky, Georgia, Utah.
Despite all the analyses of the 2016 election, I haven't seen much regarding the change in the electoral map between 2000 and 2016.
I think in hindsight, the races in 2008 and 2012 will be seen as anomalies. Regardless, compare the electoral votes per state in 2000 vs electoral votes per state in 2016. First the maps, then the comments:
Comments:
Electoral college vs popular votes: there are a gazillion reasons why the US will not move to a direct popular vote instead of the electoral college in selecting presidents, but the graph of the electoral map in 2000 provides the one over-riding argument (in green, in the map).
The electoral college means that the following states will never lose more than what they currently have (in a direct popular vote, each could lost significantly): MT, ND, SD, WY, DE, DC, VT
The following states become inconsequential or relatively inconsequential if we move to a direct popular vote:
The next census is in 2020. The Senate won't consider the electoral vote/popular vote question until seeing the 2020 census data. One can assume several "small" states will lose an electoral vote, and FL, TX, CA, WA GA will each gain at least one additional seat after the 2020 census.
Comparing 2000 with 2016:
the south is becoming much more important:
2000: NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, LA, TX --
2016: +1; +1, +3, +4, NC, -1, -1, +6 -- net gain -- 16 electoral votes (more than any one state in most of the industrial Midwest; way, way more than any one state in most of the union)
add AZ to the south and one gets a net gain of three (3) more electoral votes, bringing the south to a net gain of 20 electoral votes in 2016 vs 2000
the elite northeast is becoming less important:
2000: MA, CT, RI, NY, DE, NJ, DC, MD
2016: -2, NC, NC, -4, NC, -1, NC, NC -- net loss -- 7 electoral votes; which is about equal to any one state in the Midwest
the Pacific Coast: 2016 vs 2000 -- plus 2 (+1 in WA; +1 in CA)
California: not much change, but it did gain one electoral vote
the industrial Midwest took a big hit in 2016 compared to 2000
2000: PA, OH, IN, IL, MI, WI --
2016: -3, -3, -1, -1, -1, -1 -- net loss -- 10 electoral votes (way more than any one state in most of the states west of the Mississippi River, the Great Plains)
Broader look:
the south vs elite northeast + Pacific Coast + industrial Midwest
+16 vs -7, +2, -10 = +16 for the south vs -15 for the rest of the country (forget about fly-over country) = a swing of 31 electoral votes in 2016 compared to 2000
Note: I often make simple arithmetic errors, and I sometimes have trouble reading small print on electoral college maps. On a long note like this, there are bound to be factual and typographical errors. If this is important to you, go to the source. Bottom line:
comparing the electoral count outcome in 2016 to 2000, is comparing apples to oranges
the US will never go to a direct popular vote to select presidents
the presidential races in 2004 and 2008 were anomalies
Bottom line below the bottom line:
it is possible that additional states will award disproportionate electoral voting, or whatever it is called, like Maine and Nebraska do now, awarding electoral votes based on popular vote within the state. That, too, dilutes the "importance" of any given state, especially among small states
I sure hope Trump sets out on a tour of the US when he visits those
sites where America is already great. His first stop: the Bakken; the
DAPL; the BEPC industrial complex; the steakhouse in Watford City.
Now, bless his hear, Mark Perry over at Carpe Diem: two recommendation for president-elect Trump -- visit the NYSE and some of America's prolific oil fields next year.
President Trump should visit one of America’s prolific oil fields, like the Bakken Formation in North Dakota or one of the Texas oil fields, e.g. the Permian Basin in west Texas or the Eagle Ford Shale in south-central Texas.
A visit to one of America’s “petropreneurial nerve centers” would help demonstrate the new president’s strong commitment to pro-energy, pro-shale energy policies that will support the continuation of the Great American Energy Boom that started during (and despite) Obama’s presidency. It would also be in sharp contrast to his predecessor Obama, who has been hostile to the oil and gas industry, and has completely overlooked and ignored America’s shale revolution during his time in office.
Ironically, it was the perfectly timed energy-driven economic stimulus from America’s shale oil and gas fields that supported the US economy during the Great Recession and prevented the economic downturn from being even more severe and lasting much longer – and in the process may have played an important role in Obama’s 2012 re-election!
And Mr Obama never once mentioned that the Bakken saved the US from going into an even deepr recession, possible something some folks define as a depression.
That was just a small part of what Mark wrote about the Bakken. It's a must read.
From Reuters/John Kemp: OPEC members are making the task of oil market rebalancing harder by maximising their production ahead of a ministerial conference at the end of November, 2016.
OPEC output is actually increasing, putting downward pressure on oil prices, even while the organisation's members are in talks designed to reduce output in future, with the intention of pushing prices up.
Not for the first time, OPEC's members are engaged in a high stakes game of chicken.
Crude production rose by 240,000 barrels per day (bopd) to a record 33.64 million bpd in October.
Output is now between 640,000 bpd and 1.14 million bpd above the production ceiling of 32.5 million to 33.0 bpd ministers agreed at the end of September, 2016.
Member countries are all trying to establish the highest possible baseline for their own allocations when it comes to sharing out the production target.
In addition, Saudi Arabia is trying to back up its demand for credible production restraint from other countries by signalling that if they do not agree it is ready to flood the market and push prices lower.
Saudi Arabia has maintained production close to the record set in July even though the summer power burn season has passed.
I thought the "summer power burn season" had passed.
And when they finally release their allocation shares, they will cheat anyway.
I don't have all his albums (CDs) but I have a fairly large collection.
I had not heard of him until 2002, or thereabouts.
It takes me back to Yorkshire. Ripon Cathedral, to be specific.
I doubt one out of a 100 folks reading this have heard of him. It was only through a bit of serendipity that I learned of him. I guess that's why the Romans had a gazillion gods. Only "gods" could explain the mysteriousness of life.
It was my personal goddess of serendipity ("Sarah" for short) who introduced me to Arvo Pärt.
So, today, in the print edition of The Wall Street Journal: "The Physics of a Breakup: a spare, three-minute piano piece composed by Arvo Pärt consoles a distraught scientist."
This is a regular feature in the "Review" section of the Saturday edition of The Wall Street Journal: playlist. Each Saturday, some expert or famous personality in his/her field expounds on a piece of music he/she enjoys. Today, Carlo Rovelli, 60, an Italian theoretical physicist at Aix-Marseille University in France and a founder of the loop quantum gravity theory expounds on Arvo Pärt.
Rovelli was intrigued by Pärt's Für Alina. But today, on day T+4, Pärt's Tabula Rasa seems more appropriate. Tabula Rasa translates as "clean slate."
construction began in 2014; now past the halfway mark
location: within the sprawling industrial complex of Basin Electric Power Cooperative's Dakota Gasification Plant, northwest of Beulah in far western North Dakota
the gasification plant: home of four power plants; two lignite coal mines; and the synfuels plant
Mercer County: noted a substantial rise in taxable sales at a time when that metric plummeted across North Dakota
new Coyote Creek mine noted in the story
due to huge summer storm on July 3, 2016, the project was set back several months
now scheduled to open in early 2018
I sure hope Trump sets out on a tour of the US when he visits those sites where America is already great. His first stop: the Bakken; the DAPL; the BEPC industrial complex; the steakhouse in Watford City.
Note: a reader, who has worked at the site, sent me this note:
It is more correct to say that Mercer County is the home of four power plants: Stanton Station, Leland Olds, Coyote and Antelope Valley Station.
Antelope Valley, BEPC, is "across the fence" from the gasification plant/synthetic fuels plant (one and the same), that shares some facilities with AVS.
The GP/SF plant has several components: ~ 137.5 mmscfd natural gas, plus CO2 for EOR, NH3, and numerous other by-products (see Dakota Gas website).
I had completely forgotten this fact about the plant: the Great Plains Synfuels Plant is home to the largest CO2 capture project in the world.
********************************* The Political Page
A great weight has been lifted off my back. I feel alive once again.
My wife and I are talking again.
I am now watching MSNBC in the morning. Again. But that won't last long.
I will watch the 60 Minutes interview with Donald Trump. I haven't watched 60 Minutes in ages, not since the episode in which they checked out automobile service stations taking advantage of motorists -- that was back in the early 60's I believe.
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The Political Page
The 2016 presidential election will be studied for years -- or at least until the midterm elections, a little less than two years from now.
The number of hits to my blog site must have spiked this past week based on the number of robotic-generated spam the site was getting. That occurs occasionally and then it tends to fade away.
It's difficult to decide how much to write about the election but there is one story that has not yet been reported in the national press. It needs reporting.
I submitted my thoughts to the reporter at The Wall Street Journal who writes on fracking in the US. There will be a gazillion ways to slice and dice the reasons for Trump's win, but the bottom line is this: of the swing states / battleground states, in the end only five mattered, going into the election:
Florida turned out to be a non-contest: Trump
Virginia was probable tainted: Hillary
North Carolina somewhat of a surprise: Trump
Ohio not that much of a surprise based on previous contests: Trump
Pennsylvania: huge, huge surprise; actually flipped "during" the night, first Hillary, then not: Trump
I am pretty convinced a reader had it right: Hillary lost the national election due to losing Ohio and Pennsylvania. She might have lost Ohio regardless, but the reader suggests strongly that might not have been the case in Pennsylvania. The data is a bit hard to wade through but it's there.
Early this morning a reader sent me a story that validates that the election was lost/won in rural America. That may be, but rural America makes up most of the red states -- everything but the west and east coasts. The GOP owns those states in national elections. The question goes back to Ohio and Pennsylvania. I don't think there are enough farmers in either state that their votes alone could defeat a popular candidate favored by voters in the big cities. My hunch: there were a lot of non-farmers in rural and urban areas in Ohio and Pennsylvania that understood the importance of the Utica and the Marcellus. The farmers were incredibly upset, but they needed their urban brothers and sisters, families and friends in the big cities if they were going to win.
Hillary's pledge to ban fracking, made in Flint, MI, was her Achilles heel. Her campaign realized the mistake; the issue was never brought up again, as far as I am aware, certainly not in Ohio or Pennsylvania.
On a side note: in addition to the linked article above about rural America voting for Trump, here's another article in The Dickinson Press. But again, demographers and historians can slice this story any number of ways, but the bottom line remains:
give Pennsylvania and Ohio to Hillary, and she wins the national election
Pennsylvania flipped late in the evening when the rural votes came in
the natural gas counties in Pennsylvania went overwhelmingly against Hillary who had vowed to ban fracking
By the way, during the silly season:
Hillary: I'll ban fracking!
Trump: I'll build a wall!
What was more likely to happen? And not once did Hillary talk about making America great again.
[Be careful: it was not that Trump was wrong; the op-ed is about the pollsters being wrong.]
Many Hillary supporters are taking solace in the fact that at least they were on the "right" side. They are heartbroken, depressed, and openly weeping over their loss, but then they recover, stating, "at least, my friends all feel the same way I feel."
Before The Next Teardrop Falls, Freddy Fender
This from the linked op-ed:
There are now two concerns, however, that I need no polling to show
are real. First, we clearly have a large number of Americans who believe
they cannot be honest with pollsters. That speaks poorly for the health
of our democracy that people live in fear they cannot be honest.
Second,
without reliable data on public opinions, we risk becoming more tribal.
Anecdote will become data and anecdotes are obtained from friends,
family, and tribe. Public policy needs to be shaped by more than "my
friends like it." Without reliable data, that will happen more and more.
What caught my eye was this:
We risk becoming more tribal.
Anecdote will become data and anecdotes are obtained from friends,
family, and tribe. Public policy needs to be shaped by more than "my
friends like it."
Wow, he is so incredibly correct.
Gerhard Herm discusses the "tribe" to great extent in The Celts. The Celts were perhaps the most successful group in western Europe if measured by their influence. But they were never able to establish their own nation. The Celts were unable to organize themselves into a nation. They were a multitude of tribes. Herm suggests (and many historians agree) that Julius Caesar was the greatest military strategist in the history of the world. Caesar was the only one able to defeat the Celts, once and for all. He did it by carefully studying the Celts and realized that their Achilles heel (to use that phrase again) was the fact they could not organize under one leader. They were tribal.
It's incredibly interesting -- at least to me -- that The Dickinson Press stumbled upon this -- the US going tribal. In fact, this has been recognized for quite some time, except it was known by another name: Balkanization.
Speaking of books and reading, I've been blogging a bit about Dante's Inferno now that I am reading upon the advice of a reader. It turns out that Dante's Comedy was/is composed of three parts: the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and, the Paradiso. How long did Dante's journey take, visiting three realms of the dead? About six days -- from the night before Good Friday to the Wednesday after Easter in the spring of 1300 AD.
For most thinking Americans who were paying attention:
the inferno: from 2008 onward, possibly beginning in 2000, ending when the "silly season" began in 2015
purgatory: starting about the time the presidential campaign (the "silly season") began in earnest, early 2015
paradise: it began at 3:00 a.m. Central Time, November 9, 2016
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Energy -- It Could Be Worse
All that "frustration energy" we see in the "Love Trump Hates" protests in Portland, Dallas, Miami would have been transformed into "gloating energy" had Hillary won.
I have no trouble with the "Love Trump Hates" protests. To hear about those nocturnal protests the next day beats listening to non-stop "love" fests by the media from the beginning of the day with MSNBC morning shows to the end of the day with Colbert's gloating. I'm in bed well before the protests really get out of hand, and then I wake up to news that Trump is still the president-elect.
That "frustration energy" driving protests? It could be worse. We could have "gloating energy" driving the news cycle 24/7.
By the way, the "Love Trump Hates" protests will end when the Soros funding dries up. The funding is "seed" money to get the movement going, but the money is not infinite. If the "critical mass" does not light a sustaining movement, the movement will die. I give it two weeks.
And the proof will be in the pudding. I expect the presidential inauguration balls in January, 2016, will be must-attend balls by everyone, regardless of which party one supports. The Hollywood elite will be falling all over themselves to be photographed at any number of NYC balls; Washington, DC, balls; west Los Angeles balls. It might remind folks of the JFK inauguration. Trump won't go into this "small."
Before this is all over, there are going to be a lot of comparisons between Melania (second FLOTUS to be foreign born) and Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, French in everything but birthplace. JFK and Jackie put their children front and center before the American people. Barack and Michelle warned the media that their children were off-limits. Don and Melania have placed their three older children on the transition team.
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Back To Leonard
1. He was right up there with Bob Dylan. In fact, there is no denying that Leonard Cohen is the better poet. But that doesn't take anything away from Bob Dylan "winning" (I prefer another word; I just don't know what that other word is) the Nobel Prize for literature. But, wow, look at Cohen's discography. I always thought his best album was Ten New Songs ... but that was 15 years ago. Since then, four more albums, and all as good or better.
2. Both Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen have left us and will leave us with books and interviews and newspaper articles that will provide joy for decades. I've said this before, but The Artist Formerly Known As Prince left us with nothing in terms of conversation, interviews, books, etc.
3. I had a third point but I forgot what it was. My wife interrupted me with stories about her friends who are weeping uncontrollably over Hillary's loss.
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The Political Page
The Market
Obama's Final Tour
Headlines from Drudge:
On last foreign tour, Obama must find way to explain Trump
Europe reels from year of crises
Is Muslim from the Midwest set to take over the Democratic National Committee
Trump packs transition team with loyalists and family (this is news?)
Stocks best week since 2011
Russian warship flotilla off Syrian coast
Cher is leaving the US
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A Hint For Heloise
I have three slow cookers: an old Crock-Pot; a new Crock-Pot; and a new Black and Decker slow cooker. For small "projects" I prefer the old Crock-Pot, but I can't believe it does not have a light on it to show that it is on. The electric outlets in our kitchen have a "breaker switch" with a low threshold; it is not uncommon for the "breaker" to shut off electricity to the outlets.
I needed something to tell me if the Crock-Pot was still on.
Aftershocks continued to rumble across the US through the end of the week, with some of the aftershocks in Portland, OR; Miami, FL; and Dallas, TX. In Dallas there were reports of broken glass in a single door pane in a Hooters. (I am not making this up: that was the top story on the evening news last night coming out of Dallas -- a single pane of broken glass at a downtown Hooters).
Another rolling trembler was felt in downtown Manhattan over the following three days, manifesting itself with three consecutive all-time records being set on Wall Street.
