Last Note For The Night -- November 30, 2019

After being gone for a week, Sophia is back in town. She and I have a play date tomorrow.

She wants to go to McDonald's. LOL.

According to her older sister and her dad, Sophia has a new "best restaurant": the Waffle House.

I kid you not. We have two Waffle House restaurants nearby. I can't wait to take her.

Off the net until tomorrow.

Permian Doldrums? -- November 30, 2019

Hey, how about Auburn? Killed #5 Alabama's hope of any bowl games. Go Auburn! 

By the way, Texas high school football: regional playoffs. As good as anything the NFL has to offer. LOL.

Don't believe the hype: Texas wildcatters "scoff" at growth predictions. From Bloomberg.

Texas wildcatters, after years eye-rolling at shale skeptics, are now saying global analysts are underestimating just how severe the industry’s slowdown is.

What’s ticking folks off these days is how the International Energy Agency in Paris and the Energy Information Administration in Washington still predict robust U.S.production growth next year, despite the dire reality on the ground. The IEA expects an increase of 900,000 barrels a day, while the EIA forecasts 1 million, which would mean practically replicating this year’s expansion.

Those projections don’t jibe with the vibe in Texas, home to about half of U.S. crude output. Capital-hungry producers are being starved of funding, stocks have plunged and there’s been zero appetite for public offerings, making the downturn potentially more enduring than previous price-related busts.

“All I know is, after 47 years, they’re usually wrong.” Frank Lodzinski, an industry veteran of almost five decades who’s chief executive officer at shale explorer Earthstone Energy Inc., said of the forecasts. “I can’t remember another time when oil was $55 and the industry was in such shambles.”

A drag: the Permian Basin is dragging down jobs in Texas -- Dallas Fed.

The world’s biggest shale patch is now officially a drag on jobs creation in the Lone Star state.

Employment in the Permian Basin of West Texas has fallen by 400 jobs through the first 10 months of the year, a massive change from the 16,700 jobs added through the same period last year, according to a report Wednesday from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

“Permian Basin job growth has been sluggish this year,” according to the report. “This marks the first time since 2016 that Permian Basin employment has lagged Texas job growth.”

Two comments:

• Hey! That's the nature of oil booms, cycles; and,
• I still agree with Lynn Helms: the Bakken is still the best play in North America. But then, at least one of us is very biased. LOL.

Global Warming -- Notes From All Over, Part 1 -- November 30, 2019

From Minnesota, an article that "no one" will read but an article that says it all.

The sad story of Minnesota’s green energy failure is one that no doubt is being replicated around the country. And one of the ironies of green energy is that it is terrible for the environment. Both wind and solar energy require enormous amounts of land compared with conventional, reliable energy sources. Minnesota has scarred its landscape with endless acres of giant windmills and, to a lesser degree, solar panels. When those windmills begin to rust and fall still, the environmental damage will be even greater. And the green cronies who are now making millions through their political connections will be long gone.

Bay area freezes. San Francisco ties cold record.

Wind power: incredibly impossible.

Using wind power to replace the 3.9 billion megawatt-hours that Americans consumed in 2018, coal and gas-fired backup power plants, natural gas for home heating, coal and gas for factories, and gasoline for vehicles – while generating enough extra electricity every windy day to charge batteries for just seven straight windless days – would require some 14 million 1.8-MW wind turbines.

Those turbines would sprawl across three-fourths of the Lower 48 US states – and require 15 billion tons of steel, concrete and other raw materials. They would wipe out eagles, hawks, bats and other species.

I don't care for karaoke, but the accordion brought me here:

OMG! Amazon Owns Two, And Will Have A Third, Whole Foods Stores In Baltimore, MD -- November 30, 2019

Amazon.  Link here.

Amazon owns two Whole Foods grocery stores in Baltimore and is opening a third, and recently began free delivery to Prime members without a fee. In a dozen convenience stores, it operates Amazon Lockers, where customers can pick up purchases. It has enlisted Kohl’s stores to handle returns. Its trucks and vans are everywhere.

Its trucks and vans are everywhere. Time to break up Amazon.

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. 

Suncor: Barron's -- 

• a pipeline of cash
• virtually unlimited reserves
• "ample" dividend
• P/E: 14
• pays 4%
• record data: December 3, 2019; pay date: Christmas Eve
• and, the US needs heavy oil

Theme from Young Lovers, The Tornados

A Reporter Affected With TDS Is Fired -- November 30, 2019

I really don't care what her side of the story is.

Later: another reporter pays the price for TDS.

It turns out Newsweek was not amused. The reporter, Jessica Kwong, has been fired. She tells her side of the story:

Kwong told the Washington Examiner that she was assigned to write a story about what the president was doing on Thanksgiving a week in advance and filed it to her editors on Wednesday. Then, she explained that she sent a message to the editor on duty with the president’s latest actions and the editor published the piece. That editor decided to have a reporter write a new story on Trump’s surprise trip to Afghanistan, and neglected to update Kwong’s original piece in a timely manner.

The root of the problem, of course, is that Newsweek, like pretty much all news outlets, is interested in bringing down President Trump, not in reporting the news.

This is why we see such mistakes in the press, over and over, and always in the same direction.

The original post (previously posted):

*********************************

Snopes To Fact Check?

I thought this was a joke -- that Newsweek was going to publish a story reporting that President Trump would be golfing over Thanksgiving.

But, according to talk radio here in Texas, Newsweek had the story all written -- that President Trump had spent the Thanksgiving holiday golfing in Mar-a-Lago, holding the story until the "facts, dates, specifics" were filled in.

Apparently the "news" outlet had to scramble to write the "real" story once it was learned that he was in Afghanistan -- the first trip he has ever made to Afghanistan.