Notes From All Over, Part 6 -- October 28, 2019

AYKM: Miami (0-6) vs Pittsburgh Steelers (2-4) tonight? MNF?  

Abu Bakr Baghdadi: this is simply another win for the president.

For a disorganized, chaotic White House, it is amazing all the things the president has accomplished, and all agree this is the most harassed president in modern times. LBJ and Jimmy Carter were driven from office, but I don't think anyone would say they were more harassed than Trump. I'm also impressed that there were no leaks. Other dots to connect make this whole Baghdadi operation even more interesting. So much could be written but we will leave it there. By the way: quick! Name the six general officers and four civilian bureaucrats taking credit for this operation. To be truthful, I can't even name the SecDef, much less the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And now that John Bolton is gone, I can't even name the national security advisor. Special Ops commander? Who was piloting the lead helicopter? What was the name of the injured dog? Why did the president mention the "dog" and not the "canine"?

Geico Rock Award: Regular readers know that I announce an annual Geico Rock Award. I do not have a similar award for those financial analysts or writers whose assessments are affected by Trump Derangement Syndrome (see Brian Sozzi below). I don't plan on adding a new award category but it sure is tempting. 

For newbies: I've just linked this August 3, 2019, post at the sidebar at the right as a highlight post. Right, wrong, or indifferent, it's a great post. Even if I say so myself. LOL.

Market: huge day. S&P 500 hit an intra-day all-time record; closes aat an all-time record.

For the first time ever, companies missing EPS are surging by the most on record -- zerohedge. It's called "easy money." I've talked about this often. Yahoo!Finance business writer, Brian Sozzi, still doesn't get it; also, suffers from TDS; Brian needs to read this CNBC note to get back up to speed; strong earnings, progress on trade deals; Fed meeting tomorrow; for the market, it's all timing, timing, timing; for the real estate market, it's all location, location, location.

After-hours, did they hold?

• AAPL; holds; up 9 cents
• EW: doesn't hold; up 4% at the close; down 1.4% after hours;
• T: up 4.3% at the close; flat after the close
• AMZN: up $16 today (about a percent); down less than $2 after hours;
• FB: up during the day; up after hours
• GOOG: up $25 during the day; down $15 after hours
• NFLIX: up $5 at the close; down 30 cents after hours

Boeing: increasing doubts that 737 MAX will ever fly. Right now, it seems, analysts only focused on cost to Boeing of delayed re-introduction. At some point, the lawsuits from airlines begin. Can Boeing declare a force majeure? 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

Must-read article: electricity, coal, natural gas, and the internet. A must-read. I would like to see the amount of "internet-electricity" compared with "bitcoin-electricity." Bitcoin mining uses huge amount of electricity.

Clearing out my in-box:

• JP Morgan prepares for next recession by shifting jobs from NYC to Texas; link here; comments later;
• Permian pipeline -- EPIC Crude Oil Pipeline -- launches another open season -- Rigzone -- dated October 28, 2019 -- I don't know if this is old news / previously reported / new news; things happening so fast; will come back to it later; 
• Another pipeline -- Enterprise -- EPD -- third Midland-to-ECHO oil expansion by 3Q20; again, can't keep up; old news / previously reported / new news? I don't know; I will come back to this later;
• Christmas stocking stuffer: $249 Apple AirPods Pro; can you imagine the margins on these? earlier I said I would not be getting a pair; re-thinking this;
• the Khashoggi overhang; The WSJ; 

EIA's driling productivity report: link here. Portions previously posted.

• DUCs:

• New well oil production:

• Bakken: 1,500 bopd
• Permian: 800 bopd

Reason #1 Why I Love To Blog -- Feedback From Readers -- Wow! -- October 28, 2019

Updates

October 29, 2019:

• David Gelernter's article in Claremont Review of Books, "Giving Up Darwin."
• Interestingly, all three men in the panel below were mentioned in the article above.  

Original Post

 I never expected this; I never would have found this on my own. But a reader, in response to my inarticulate rambling on evolution earlier this morning sent me this link.


The video lasts an hour so it will be awhile for me to get through it but I expect it to be good:

• it was produced July 22, 2019 (or thereabouts), so it is very, very current; and, 
• the panel included "Gelernter" in the interview, a deep thinker who has "flipped"

We'll see.

Later: I have only watched the first ten minutes of the video; enjoying it very much. Watching it slowly to absorb all of it. I'm disappointed in the interviewer. Seems to be out of his depth.

David Gelernter. I've talked about him before. It was purely happenstance I saw the Gelernter article last month.

I'll come back to this later, but I want to get this posted right away. More later.

[I can't listen to this and blog at the same time so I will have to listen to it later when I can give it my full attention.]

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Later

The three men in the panel above, except David Gelernter who I happened to come across only recently, were completely unknown to me until today. I knew enough of Gelernter  to not spend more time on his bio at this time, but I wanted to learn more about the other two.

The man on the far left is Stephen Meyer, Director of the Center for Science and Culture, at the Discovery Institute:

David Meyer, March, 2019
The gentleman in the middle: David Berlinski, philosopher, mathematician, wiki entry here. This is also the first time I've "met" him. He is also associated with the Center for Science and Culture, Dallas, TX.

Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.

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Comments

I was surprised by the time frame of the Cambrian explosion. Original estimates: Cambrian explosion lasted 70 million years. Apparently that is being shrunk to 10 million years. The "meme" remains, 70 million years, or perhaps more commonly, 50 - 60 million years, but I am able to find sources suggesting ten million years. The definitions are important here. It's possible the geologic seam is 70 million years thick but the actual explosion within that geologic time frame could have been 10 million years. Like most things in biology, the "explosion" could have been an S-shaped curve.See See abstract at this link.

An explosive episode of biological diversification occurred near the beginning of the Cambrian period. Evolutionary rates in the Cambrian have been difficult to quantify accurately because of a lack of high-precision ages.

Currently, uranium-lead zircon geochronology is the most powerful method for dating rocks of Cambrian age. Uranium-lead zircon data from lower Cambrian rocks located in northeast Siberia indicate that the Cambrian period began ∼544 million years ago and that its oldest (Manykaian) stage lasted no less than 10 million years.

Other data indicate that the Tommotian and Atdabanian stages together lasted only 5 to 10 million years. The resulting compression of Early Cambrian time accentuates the rapidity of both the faunal diversification and subsequent Cambrian turnover.

Back Up To 59 Active Rigs; WPX With Three New Permits -- October 28, 2019

Active rigs;

$55.82	10/28/2019	10/28/2018	10/28/2017	10/28/2016	10/28/2015
Active Rigs	59	67	53	34	69

Three new permits, #37133 - #37135, inclusive:

• Operator: WPX
• Field: Squaw Creek (McKenzie)
• Comments: 
• Hess has permits for a 3-well Nokota pad in Squaw Creek, lot 10, section 1-149-95

Eleven producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 36019, 1,616, WPX, Bison 27-34HX, Squaw Creek, t10/19; cum --; (#24163)
  
• 36017, 2,413, WPX, Bison 27-34HW, Squaw Creek, t10/19; cum --;
• 36016, 2,951, WPX, Bison 27-34HEL, Squaw Creek, t10/19; cum --;
• 36018, 2,952, WPX,  27-34HA, Squaw Creek, t10/19; cum --;
• 23937, 759, XTO, FBIR Yellowwolf 21X-20F, Heart Butte, t8/19; cum --;
• 23941, 516, XTO, FBIR Ironwoman 21X-10A, Heart Butte, t9/19; cum --;
• 34886, 497, XTO, FBIR Ironwoman 21X-10XAD, Heart Butte, t9/19; cum --;
• 34885, 508,  XTO, FBIR Ironwomen 21X-10B, Heart Butte, t9/19; cum --;
• 23939, 371, XTO,  FBIR Ironwoman 21X-10E, Heart Butte, t9/19; cum --;
• 23940, 244, XTO,  FBIR Ironwoman 21X-10F, Heart Butte, t9/19; cum --;
• 23938, 583, XTO,  FBIR Ironwoman 21X-10A, Heart Butte, t8/19; cum --;

Notes From All Over, Part 5 -- October 28, 2019

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

Notes From All Over, Part 4 -- October 28, 2019

Note: there is nothing in this post about the Bakken. If interested in new Bakken material, of which there is much, scroll down and/or check out the sidebar at the right. 

Travel: If I did not have 24/7 driving responsibilities for the three granddaughters, high on my list of travel sites would be south Florida. I would love to fly in to Miami, rent a car, and drive to Naples, FL, and then backtrack to Key West. It's the "shoulder season" for travel, and coming to the end of
hurricane season, or is it, "him-acane" season?

I have no idea the veracity of this story but if it's even half true, I would love to visit a Brooks Burgers restaurant. Some people make a lifelong commitment to visit every Starbucks; my quest would be somewhat more doable: to visit every Brooks Burgers restaurant.

Today, Todd Brooks is a success. He’s the owner of Brooks Gourmet Burgers & Dogs, a restaurant that brings in millions and is ranked the No. 2 burger joint in America by TripAdvisor.

From 2018, the top ten burger joints as surveyed by TripAdvisor:

1. Al's Burger Shack, Chapel Hill, NC
2. Brooks Gourmet Burgers & Dogs, Naples, FL
3. Honest Abe's Burgers & Freedom, Lincoln, NE
4. Grumps Burgers, Granbury, TX
5. Slabtown Café and Burgers, Traverse City, MI
6. Burger Republic, Nashville, TN
7. Pearl's Deluxe Burgers, San Francisco, CA
8. Back Door Grill, Steamboat Springs, CO
9. MacPhail's Burgers: Jackson, WY
10. The Burger Dive, Billings, MT

From the last one, the one in Billings, MT:

• with no prior restaurant experience, avid griller and self-taught chef Brad Halsten opened The Burger Dive in 2010
• today, the restaurant continues to pay homage to the classic drive-ins and diners, while simultaneously delivering innovative, high-quality burgers
• signature burger: "I'm Your Huckleberry" 1/3 pound Angus burger covered with Huckleberry Hatch chili barbecue sauce, bacon, goat cheese, roasted red pepper mayo, arugula and served on a Grains of Montana bun 
• What TripAdvisor diners say: "Let's just say these burgers are mouthwatering goodness. Such amazing seasoning flavors, very juicy and they offer so many yummy toppings!" 

Granbury, TX?

By the way, according to Yelp! the best restaurant for pie in our immediate area, is in Hico, TX. Arianna and I have eaten there, on our way home from a water polo tournament in San Antonio, TX.  Yelp! link here. Koffee Kup link here. It appears we could have a hamburger in Granbury and then dessert in Hico.

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Science

In the most recent issue of the weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal, John Horgan had a nice essay and review of two recent books on multiple universes, or the "multiverse" theory. 

The penultimate paragraph:

But I'm less entertained by multiverse theories than I once was, for a couple of reasons. 

First, science is in a slump, for reasons both internal and external. Science is ill-served when prominent thinkers tout ideas that can never be tested and hence are, sorry, unscientific. 

Moreover, at a time when our world, the real world, faces serious problems, dwelling on multiverses strikes me as escapism -- akin to billionaires fantasizing about colonizing Mars. Shouldn't scientists do something more productive with their time?

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OBIT Headlines -- The Washington Post -- Twitter

Just some of the many; list will grow longer. Three of the following were my contributions:

• Adolph Hitler, dedicated art enthusiast, animal rights activist, and talented orator, dies at 56. 
• Nathuram Godse, eloquent defender of majority rights, passes away in suspended animation at 39. 
• Osama bin Laden, proud father of 23 kids and husband of 5, peace activist inspired by Gandhi, staunch climate activist, innocent child who had Tom & Jerry and cute cat videos on his laptop, dies at 54.
• Lee Harvey Oswald, hunting accident, dead at 24. 
• Jack Ruby, Dallas, TX, man-about-town, dead at 55.
• Leon Czolgosz, farmer and iron mill worker; quiet scholar, dies at age 28.
• Jeffrey Dahmer, connoisseur of exotica and locally sourced meats, dies at 34. 
• Hannibal Lecter, well-known forensic psychiatrist and food connoisseur dead at 81 .
• World-renowned foodie and chicken curry lover Raman Raghav dies at 66. 
• Gabbar Singh: Robin Hood for the poor, rifle shooting champion in 600-meter and moving-target events, roast meat and dance enthusiast, loved the colourful festival of Holi, died of severe arm injuries at age 48.
• Osama Bin Laden, a noted civil engineer, public administrator, psychiatrist who mastered the art of brainwashing and also worked as an air traffic controller who tried his best to prevent 9/11; dies at 54. 
• Jeffrey Epstein, mentor to young girls, hosted gatherings on private tropical island, dead at 66.
• Jeffry Dahmer, eccentric gourmand, dead at 34. 
• Pablo Escobar, pharmaceutical sales rep, local politician, and loving father and husband, dead at 44. 
• Wile E. Coyote, entrepreneur, gravitational addict, avid bird, dies episodically.
• Charles Manson, charismatic life coach, passes away after long illness.
• Ted Bundy, noted ladies' man and women's rights activist, found dead in chair. 
• Robert Johnson, lost soul, disappeared at age 27.