The Katie Ledecky Page -- June 30, 2017 -- More Records -- Coming In Threes; Lowers World's Fastest Time In 200 Meter Freestyle

From the Phillips 66 National Championships, June 27 - July 1, 2017, Indianapolis, IN:

Katie Ledecky won her THIRD title of the meet Friday in the women’s 400m freestyle, turning in a time of 3:58.44, a U.S. Open and meet record.

It was the THIRD-fastest performance of all time in this event. The win marks the THIRD event in which she’s qualified for the 2017 FINA World Championships, to be held June 23-30 (sic) in Budapest, Hungary. It will be her THIRD career World Championships.

The dates for the Budapest meet have to be a typographical error; I wonder if the dates aren't July 14 - 30, 2017?

Her earlier titles in the Phillips 66 meet:

• women's 800m freestyle, 8:11.50 (second place came in at 8:20.46)
• women's 200m freestyle, 1:54.84 (second place came in at 1:56.68)

From SwimmingWorldMagazine.com:

19-year-old Katie Ledecky won another national title in the 200 free on Wednesday night at the 2017 Phillips 66 USA Swimming National Championships.

Ledecky already had the number one time in the world after what she did at Santa Clara earlier this month. Ledecky lowered that time with a 1:54.84 to move further ahead of Sweden’s Michelle Coleman (1:55.64).

Twenty-Five Tanker Cars Derail In Plainfield, IL -- Crude Oil Spill -- NOT The Highly Flammable Bakken Oil

Updates

July 1, 2017: except for the carrier and the local community, this has quickly morphed into a non-story. Maybe as much as 45,000 gallons leaked from two cars, possibly a third; most of the crude oil ran into trenches being dug for a natural gas pipeline. No oil got into any river and authorities said, again, there was no risk to anyone. The clean-up will take a few days.

Original Post

From CBS Local, so far:

• no injuries
• derailed on 143rd Street east of Van Dyke Road just after 6:30 p.m. Friday
• 40,000 gallons (again, so far)
• Canadian National Railroad
• 25 cars derailed
• oil leaking from three cars
• oil has not reached the DuPage River
• strong oil smell; "almost sickening"
• Plainfield, IL: about 40 miles southwest of downtown Chicago
• Plainfield, IL: about 50 miles northwest of Kankakee, Illinois

City of New Orleans, Arlo Guthrie
No one says "Kankakee" better than Arlo Guthrie. 

Wow, I love this country.

Week 26: June 25, 2017 -- July 1, 2017

General
This may be the big story of the week, perhaps even the big story of the month: CBR is back!
 Oil continued to claw its way back to $45 this past week.
 "They" mis-underestimated the frackers. Despite OPEC production cut (wink, wink), US crude oil inventories actually rose slightly.
We might be seeing the first effects of the OPEC (Saudi Arabia) production cuts.

Operations
Enerplus with some interesting in-fill plans
Windridge Operating: a new operator in the Bakken?
July, 2017, hearing dockets posted
Huge Newfield Jorgenson Three Forks well shut-in? 
Random update of an old Gadeco well
Rath Federal pad activity?

Pipelines
Oil companies are said to no longer want the Keystone XL
Another pipeline connection to the DAPL; near Watford City

Natural gas
MDU with three natural gas projects
Harold Hamm expands NG deal with South Korea

Seven States Whose Residents Must Just Love Their Representatives -- States Where Gasoline Taxes Jump On July 4th Weekend -- June 30, 2017

The seven states:

• California: a trivial jump in state income tax, at 1.9 cents/bbl -- rate calculated based on a formula that ties the rate to the price of gas; but get this: on November 1, 2017, the gasoline tax will increase by 12 cents and diesel will increase by 20 cents
• Montana: jumps 4.5 cents/gallon; rising first time in 23 years
• Tennessee: jumps 4 cents/gallon; first assessment since 1989
• West Virginia: 3.5 cents
• South Carolina: 2 cents; first of six annual hikes of the same size; first increase since 1989
• Maryland: 0.3 cents/gallon based on an inflation formula

But get this: two states will lower their gasoline taxes --

• Iowa: the gasoline tax will drop 0.2 cents/gallon (trivial) but the tax on blended ethanol that accounts for most of the market will remain unchanged
• Nebraska: dropping 0.3 cents/gallon now, but will jump 1.5 cent(s) on January 1, 2018

Hey, what happened to New Jersey? I thought New Jersey raised their state gasoline tax. The state did ... but it was last year, November 1, 2016 -- state gasoline tax jumped 23 cents/gallon in New Jersey --  New Jersey drivers no longer pay the second-lowest state gas taxes in the U.S., a rare exception in an otherwise high-tax state ... corresponding sales, estate and income tax cuts will be phased in over years.

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Line Dancing -- Liverpool, 1962

Wow, this is really quite amazing: line dancing in Liverpool during the era of the "British invasion." At the video below skip ahead 25:15 to see some great line-dancing, specifically, the Memphis.

John O'Hara And His Playboys, 1965   Wiki suggests line dancing began in the disco era of the 1970. Clearly, line dancing began long before the '70s.

And this is how they do it in Texas:

Boot Scottin' Boogie, Brooks and Dunn

Latest GDP Forecast - Down To 2.7% -- June 30, 2017

GDP Now link here. Latest forecast: 2.7 percent — June 30, 2017.

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2017 is 2.7 percent on June 30, down from 2.9 percent on June 26.

The forecast of the contribution of net exports to second-quarter real GDP growth fell from –0.34 percentage points to –0.51 percentage points after Wednesday's advance release on inventories and international trade in goods from the U.S. Census Bureau.

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Rich States, Poor States

My favorite bedtime reading: rich states, poor states, 10th edition. At the link, click on the "report icon" for a PDF to download. Why would folks be fleeing Illinois? Look at estate taxes: Illinois is ranked dead last, #50, among the US states when it comes to estate taxes. Others tied at #50: New York, Delaware, Connecticut, Oregon. This surprised me: (sort of) no estate taxes in California; ranked #1 (along with others, of course, including North Dakota).

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Camelot

What presidents do best: foreign travel.

President Trump apparently will visit Paris this summer and now it appears he has accepted South Korea's invitation to visit their country.

I love to see President Trump traveling. Gets him out of the swamp.

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140 Characters

The other day President Trump tweeted that Amazon did not charge sales tax. Of course, he was wrong, and he was taken to task for that. But he was not entirely wrong: remember, unlike an Obama speech in which there are 25,634 words to explain something, President Trump uses less than 140 characters to make a point. If shipped from Amazon, taxes are due, because Amazon has a footprint in most states. However, if something is sold through a third party (something Target, Wal-Mart, others tend not to do), then taxes may not be due if the third party does not have a physical presence in any particular state. Here is an excellent example:

(You may have to click on the graphic to better see what the "arrow" is pointing at.)

Right, wrong, or indifferent, all things being equal, I would rather read a 140-character tweet from President Trump than listen to a 25,634-word speech by President Obama.

By the way, this product sells for $119 at Lego but is temporarily out of stock. Lego will eventually be selling it again. Meanwhile, if you can't wait that long, you can spend twice that amount ($198 + $20 shipping) to get the item now.